Codex Alera: Difference between revisions

* [[Ax Crazy]]:

** Odiana.

** The "cutter" Navaris; she has a three-figure body count behind her, and that only counts the legal duels and "self-defense." Add in all of the suspected killings and the like and the number is in the four-figures range. Plus anyone with the slightest watercrafting ability (or eyes) can see that she's really not right in the head, especially where violence is concerned.

* [[Babies Ever After]]

* [[Badass Army]]: The First Aleran, particularly the Battlecrows. They started out as a bunch of half-trained recruits and "veterans" no one wanted in their army, eventually becoming the single most competent Legion in Alera (excepting ''maybe'' the Antillan and Phrygian Legions).

* [[Badass Boast]]:

"Of course you are," Gaius said, "and should be." }}

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Ehren, and to a degree Tavi.

* [[Captain Ersatz]]: High Lady Placida bears a striking resemblance, personally and physically, to one [[Vorkosigan Saga|Cordelia Vorkosigan.]] [[Word of God]] says that this (as well as High Lord Placida's similar resemblance to Aral Vorkosigan) is deliberate.

* [[Captain Obvious]]:

"I can't tell you how glad I am that you're here to tell me that." }}

** This gem in ''First Lord's Fury'':

'''Lord Phrygius:''' Brilliant last words, that. We'll put them on your tombstone. Right next to, "He died stating the obvious." }}

* [[Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough]]: When Tavi and Maximus are sent to join the First Aleran Legion, Max knocks out two ''legionares'' who are disrespectful to Tavi, who is there undercover as an officer. When Tavi points out to Max that he could have handled them himself, Max explains that that is not the point; an officer ''wouldn't'' dispense corporal punishment, regardless of his capabilities, since that is the job of the Centurions.

* [[Cool Versus Awesome]]: SO. MUCH.

* [[Crazy Enough to Work]]: Almost every plan of Tavi's relies on this. So much so that Kitai finds the [[Final Battle]] by going to the place only a lunatic would enter.

* [[Crazy Prepared]]:

** Comes up pretty often given the number of Chessmasters in play, but the precedent is set early in the first book when Amara realizes that Gaius Sextus had designed his own son's tomb as a shelter against enemy furies, weapons stockpile, and site for healing. Hidden in plain sight!

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: {{spoiler|Fade}}.

* [[Cry for the Devil]]: You will probably wind up feeling sorry against your will for {{spoiler|Invidia and the Vord Queen}} in the last book, even though they are, respectively, a [[Complete Monster]] and the [[Big Bad]].

* [[Cue the Sun]]: Happens literally (and awesomely) in Book 3. {{spoiler|Tavi commands his windcrafters to part the clouds and reveal the sun at high noon in order to focus the sun's rays into a [[Death Ray]] which roasts the Canim.}}

* [[Curse Cut Short]]: In ''Cursor's Fury''.

'''Tavi:''' "Assault formation!" }}

* [[Cute Monster Girl]]: The final form of {{spoiler|the Vord Queen}}.

* [[Distressed Damsel]]: Isana is generally the character to be rescued, as she is held hostage or attacked by (in order) {{spoiler|Kord, Kalarus, Navaris, and the Vord Queen}}.

* [[Don't Explain the Joke]]:

'''Phrygius''': I think we all understood what you meant at the end of your first sentence, dolt. }}

* [[The Dragon]]

* [[The Empath]]

** Any sufficiently power watercrafter can feel the emotions of surrounding people. One compares a visit to any sufficiently-sized city as the following:

** The Icemen, who can communicate amongst themselves with no speech at all. {{spoiler|Their intense enmity for the Alerans comes largely from the mix of their water-based empathy with the minor firecrafting that Alerans use to stay warm in the cold northern regions. When fire and water are mixed it creates feelings of anxiety and anger, so just by ''being'' next to each other the two sides were feeding their hatred.}}

* [[Enemy Civil War]]: Between {{spoiler|the primary Vord Queen and her daughters}}. It is the main reason {{spoiler|why the world was not consumed by the Vord}}.

* [["Failure to Save" Murder]]: The source of many characters' resentment towards Gaius Sextus, whose son, Gaius Septimus, was killed by the Marat approximately fifteen years before the start of the series.

* [[Famed in Story]]: Aldrick ex Gladius often serves as [[The Dragon]] for whichever character is currently in control, and not as a clear antagonist on his own, but he is legendary throughout Alera for his famed skill with the sword. His duel with Araris Valerian, ''also'' legendary because of his skill, is still being talked about ''fifteen years later''. To hear Araris tell it:

* [[Family Relationship Switcheroo]]: {{spoiler|Tavi's "aunt" Isana is really his mother.}}

* [[Fantastic Caste System]]

* [[Fantastic Nuke]]: Many smaller versions, but {{spoiler|Gaius wiping out Kalare by unleashing a volcanic Great Fury and then slowing the Vord by destroying the remnants of Alera Imperia with another volcano}} probably take the cake.

* [[Farm Boy]]: Tavi. Even when he is {{spoiler|recognized as the Princeps of Alera}} and on a secret mission behind enemy lines, he still stops to admire the efficiency of a livestock pen.

'''Max:''' "Don't tell anyone, but {{spoiler|our Princeps}} was brought up on a steadholt. Herding sheep, if you can believe that." }}

* [[Feel No Pain]]: An aspect of metalcrafting.

* [[I Never Told You My Name|I Never Told You My Job]]: Beritte, who fancies herself as something of a seductress, accidentally gives away that she was eavesdropping when she refers to Fidelias as a gem merchant, which was the cover story he had just relayed to Bernard.

* [[Insult Backfire]]: The knights in the First Legion invoke this in Captain's Fury. The previously inexperienced division of Knights had gotten the nickname Knights Pisces, based on the naming convention for the knight divisions by craft ([[Gratuitous Latin|Knights Ferrous, Knights Flora, and so on]]) and the tradition of calling new recruits fish.<ref>Because their flailing around is less like a ''legionaire'' and more like a landed fish.</ref> After their exceptional performance in dire circumstances, they make themselves insignia of [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|a shark]] as a [[Badass Boast]] because of Tavi's little trick with the cattle blood in the river.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Tavi, a human, and Kitai, a Marat. Of course, the Marat are pretty much humans that are taller, have higher body heat and are less "civilized," so it is easy to overlook. They can also {{spoiler|interbreed with humans}}, though mutual longstanding hostility between them means no one knows this is possible.

* [[I Shall Taunt You]]:

* [[Jackie Robinson Story]]: {{spoiler|Isana}} becomes the first female steadholder at the end of ''Furies of Calderon.'' Tavi becomes the first non-crafter to be, well, everything.

* [[Kansas City Shuffle]]: Tavi figures out that the best way of combating an enemy who can read minds is to make sure nobody but him knows all of what is going on, so he uses plans that rely on complicated sets of sealed orders issued to many different people. {{spoiler|And in return, they do not tell him about the fact that they are sending backup.}}

* [[Karmic Death]]: {{spoiler|Invidia}} died by being stabbed in the back.

* [[Kick the Dog]]

** Canim pups are the most adorable things ever. They can also bite your hand off at the wrist.

** Gram, one of the more powerful firecrafters around, uses a fury that takes the shape of a [[Badass Adorable|hummingbird]] named [[Fluffy the Terrible|Phyllis]].

* [[Kill It with Fire]]: The generally preferred method for dealing with the Vord.

* [[Knife Nut]]: Ehren hides such an extravagant number of knives on his person that it becomes a [[Running Gag]], and at least one person deduces that he is a Cursor based solely on how many he has.

* [[Locked Into Strangeness]]: Gaius Sextus's hair goes solid white after his collapse during the second book. He still looks 40-something otherwise.

* [[Luxury Prison Suite]]: The Grey Tower, which is the most escape-proof prison in Alera. The cell on the top floor is the ''entire'' floor and includes dining areas, luxury furniture and plenty of books. Max points out that anybody who ends up in ''that'' cell is there for politics, and the bars are simply for show.

'''Killian:''' Mmmm. Gaius Secundus had a prison suite installed when he arrested the wife of Lord Rhodes, eight hundred years ago. She was charged with treason, but never tried or convicted, despite interrogation sessions with the First Lord, three times a week for fifteen years. }}

* [[Lysistrata Gambit]]

* [[Magical Defibrillator]]: Veradis, the daughter of High Lord Ceres, can do this through a combination of watercrafting and windcrafting to channel electricity.

* [[Magitek]]: In daily life, most Alerans use technology roughly equivalent to medieval Europe, which is about what one would expect considering the origin of Alera. However, different aspects of furycrafting stand out as modern conveniences: furylamps, which function exactly like lightbulbs, coldstones, which provide refrigeration, watersending, which provides communication across thousands of miles, and air-coaches, which stand in for airplanes. Combined with the healing of watercrafting and the ability of woodcrafting to stimulate the growth of food crops, Alera has a life-expectancy and quality of life equal to the modern day.

* [[Puppeteer Parasite]]: The Vord's most potent weapon are the Takers, insects the size of a mouse that [[Orifice Invasion|crawl in through your mouth]] and take over your body. The Taken bodies are impervious to pain, have strength far beyond their normal capability, and are used to sow dissent and fear amongst the populace. When the Taken is an Aleran, they can even use furycrafting, provided that a non-Taken furycrafts first to "activate" the furies.

* [[Quip to Black]]: Tavi pulls a mild one in ''Captain's Fury'' after surviving an assassination attempt at the end of a chapter. The text even includes a perfect moment for a [[Glasses Pull]]:

''"Then someone," Tavi replied, "is going to be very disappointed."'' }}

* [[Rags to Royalty]]: {{spoiler|Tavi (Sleeping Beauty-style) and Isana (Cinderella/Goose Girl-style)}}

* [[Too Kinky to Torture]]

** A small humorous example.

'''Kitai:''' That could prove interesting. }}

** In ''Cursor's Fury'', Odiana actually implies that she ''wants'' to have a discipline collar put on her by Aldrick, but ''only'' Aldrick. This is played for tragedy, not humor; in the first book she reveals that she used to be a slave, used for sex, and her watercrafter abilities let her feel the emotions of her attackers, which is what broke her. Notably, [[Even Evil Has Standards|Aldrick will not do it,]] possibly because, in the final book, we learn that he was one of the men who ''saved'' her from said slaver.

* [[You Need to Get Laid]]: Max to Tavi during much of ''Cursor's Fury'' and at the beginning of ''First Lord's Fury''.

* [[You Remind Me of X]]: When Phrygius Cyricus threatens to kill Varg if he harms any of the citizens of Phrygia, Varg asks Tavi in Canish if Cyricus reminds him of anybody. Tavi, understanding what Varg is referring to, comments that he was holding a knife to Varg's throat at the time.

* [[You Shall Not Pass]]: The latter half of the ''Cursor's Fury'' and ''all'' of ''Princep's Fury'', culminating in {{spoiler|Gaius Sextus drawing almost all of the Vord army onto Alera Imperia and detonating a volcano underneath the city to wipe them out and buy the country critical months to fight the invaders.}}

* [[Zerg Rush]]: A surprisingly non-[[Hollywood Tactics]] version. What makes the Vord so scary is that they use [[Zerg Rush]] and [[We Have Reserves]] tactics intelligently, to devastating effect.