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[[File:mooncalled-mercythompson1_3928.jpg|frame|[[Contemptible Cover|Mercy would probably hit the artist with a wrench if she saw this.]]]]
A series of fantasy novels by Patricia Briggs set in the Tri-Cities in Washington State. In the universe of Mercy Thompson, fantasy creatures like werewolves, vampires, and faeries have been in hiding for centuries, and are only recently emerging. The first three books each focus on a different kind of preternatural creature. ''Moon Called'' focuses on werewolves, ''Blood Bound'' deals with vampires, and ''Iron Kissed'' focuses on fae. The series is set to have at least ten books. All the novels are narrated by Mercy.
Mercy Thompson herself is a mechanic by day, but she is also a walker - a Native American shapeshifter who can turn into a coyote at will. She was raised by werewolves, and has strong connections with the werewolf community. She also has links with vampires and fae - she fixes cars for the local vampire seethe, and her mentor is a gremlin (or calls himself one, at any rate).
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# ''Bone Crossed''
# ''Silver Borne''
# ''River Marked''
=== ''Alpha and Omega'' series ===
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----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: Excalibur and Carnwennen from ''Hunting Grounds'' are shown to be this. Then again, it’s ''Excalibur.''
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*** {{spoiler|Actually, Patty once said that it was actually Sam that was the Sir Marrok}}
** Sir Lancelot, however, is pure fiction.
* [[
* [[Altar the Speed]]: Played with. In ''River Marked'', {{spoiler|Adam and Mercy's wedding is expedited because Mercy doesn't want to deal with her mother...who's been been playing the crazy wedding planner because she has a bet on with Bran to see how long it will take Mercy to crack. The answer: not long.}}
* [[Animal Eyes]]
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* [[Berserk Button]]: Mercy is one for a lot of people - Adam, Samuel, Bran, Zee, even ''Stefan''. Hurt her and you might as well slit your own throat. It'll be a lot cleaner than what the aforementioned people will do to you.
** In ''River Marked'', Uncle Mike decides to report the death of five minor fae (who made the mistake of trying to kill Mercy in front of Adam) as “suicide by werewolf.”
** Hurting/threatening Anna around Charles gets similar results.
* [[Blessed with Suck]]: Being a werewolf, to a large degree. Yeah, you’re nearly indestructible, functionally immortal, and capable of changing into an uber-wolf at will. However, you’re going to outlive every vanilla human you love, the change is agonizing and can take up to a quarter of an hour, and you’ll spend the rest of your life struggling to control the bestial personality sharing space inside your head. Oh, and you can’t swim.
* [[Brainless Beauty]]: Subverted: Honey, one of Adam’s pack members, seems like this—blond, busty, and not too bright—right up until the point that she clues Mercy into some important points of werewolf politics that had slipped her notice. To boot, Mercy remarks that if she were allowed to hold her own rank in the pack (rather than inheriting her mate’s as all female werewolves do), Honey would be in the top tier.
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* [[Clingy MacGuffin]]: The fairy walking stick that Mercy picks up is one of these for quite a while, {{spoiler|until she gives it away to Coyote in ''River Marked''.}}
* [[Cock Fight]]: Adam and Samuel attempt a couple of these in the early books. Quickly turns into a [[Crowning Moment of Funny|CMoF]] when Mercy breaks one up by throwing orange juice on them both.
* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: All of the werewolves, for the most part, but Mercy also. In ''Moon Called'' it takes the werewolf member of a trio of trained mercenaries to restrain her completely.
* [[Contemptible Cover]]: Reading these in public can be uncomfortable.
** The UK covers are not nearly as bad.
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* [[Determinator]]: Mercy. Especially at the climax of ''River Marked.'' By the end, the only thing keeping her upright (and not screaming) is willpower.
** Mentioned but not shown is a girl who became a werewolf at age ten. Girls rarely survive the Change to begin with-- Mercy, Honey and even Bran note that a ''ten-year-old'' girl surviving must have willpower to spare.
* [[
** Anna often ends up in this position as well, though like Mercy, she’s hardly defenseless.
* [[Does Not Like Women]]: Ben, though he's been getting better over time. Mercy still wouldn’t allow him to be alone with her sisters, though.
* [[Domino Revelation]]: First we learn that werewolves, walkers and vampires exist. Then came sorcerers, demons, and fairies.
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* [[Good Is Not Nice]]: Many of the werewolves showcase—and openly understand—this trope. Bran and Charles Cornick in particular are very aware of the nasty, brutal things they sometimes have to do, to keep the peace and keep people safe.
* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: Mercy's foster father loved this: "Cheeses crusty, got all musty, got damp on the stone of a peach." {{spoiler|Which translates as “Jesus Christ, God Almighty, God damn the sonovabitch."}}
** A lot of the werewolves do this, because many come from an era where cursing was quite the faux pas.
* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Mercy herself, being the daughter of a vanilla human {{spoiler|and Coyote in human form.}} There are also half-breed fae.
* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]]: While it isn't exactly that lame to start with, [[I See Dead People|seeing ghosts]], most of whom just do the same thing over and over, doesn't seem that useful compared to walkers' other powers of shapeshifting and [[Anti-Magic|magic resistance]]. However, it turns out {{spoiler|it's one of the main reasons the vampires tried to exterminate them: vampire lairs tend to have a lot of violent deaths around them, so someone who can see ghosts can locate them easily}}.
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* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Several, often with nastier consequences for werewolves than humans. For example…
** Mercy gets a massive one after {{spoiler|being raped by Tim in ''Iron Kissed.''}}
** It takes Samuel most of ''Silver Borne'' to get out of an age-induced one.
* [[Hide Your Gays]]: Subverted. Warren, Adam's third, is gay, and is a [[Badass]] even by Werewolf standards because he's had to fight off werewolves who think him unfit to be part of any pack because of his orientation. It's strongly implied that if he wasn't gay, he'd be Adam's second, above Darryl.
* [[I See Dead People]]: Mercy can see and talk to ghosts. She thinks it's part and parcel of being a walker {{spoiler|until ''River Marked''}}.
* [[Innocent Fanservice Girl]]: Averted. (Except for [[Contemptible Cover|those covers]]. Seriously, standing around in a lacy black bra holding a wrench? What the hell?) As a long-time shape-shifter, Mercy doesn't mind being seen nude by those who are familiar with shapechangers, but makes a conscious effort to keep herself covered in front of those who might misinterpret her casual nudity as casual sexuality.
* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Few female werewolves exist, so most males have human mates. Mercy herself has never actually met another walker {{spoiler|before ''River Marked''}}, so her love interests have all been this trope.
** Fae/human romances also exist.
** {{spoiler|Sam (werewolf)/Ariana (fae)}}
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Ben is this, full stop. He’s an accused rapist (though Adam says he didn’t do it) and an open misogynist. He also literally puts his life on the line for Mercy at one point, putting himself between an enraged Adam and Mercy to make a point. When someone points out in the second book that he only ever refers to women using slang terms for female genitalia, he makes a concentrated effort to stop.
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* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: [[Complete Monster|The Beast of Gevaudan.]] The Marrok. [[Eldritch Abomination|The River Devil.]] [[The Fair Folk|La Belle Dame Sans Merci.]]
* [[Older Than They Look]] / [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]: Werewolves and vampires don’t age. Among the wolves, notable examples are Bran and his eldest son Samuel, who are both several centuries old (mention goes to Bran for looking like he hasn’t reached the mid-twenties yet). Among the vampires, Wulfe is noted as looking the youngest, but being actually one of the oldest ones alive.
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: Werewolves can change shape more or less at will, but are forced to do so under a full moon. They’re also immune to disease, old age, and poisons. Silver is poisonous to them, and more unusually, they can't swim, or only very badly. (They’ve got so much raw muscle mass, they become too dense to float.) The change is agonizing, and changing from wolf to human takes several minutes. They also have minor [[Weirdness Censor]] powers that encourage [[Muggle|Muggles]] to mistake them for dogs, even though they're larger than wolves. It won't fool someone who already knows about werewolves and expects to see one, and an actual angry werewolf is too different and dangerous to fool anyone, but a werewolf that's stuck in wolf form but otherwise in control of himself can blend in just having someone put a collar on him. Last but not least, a single bite won’t Change you--only being savaged to the point where you become a werewolf (and gain super healing) or die.
** Though there is a single instance, in ''Iron Kissed,'' of a werewolf changing into something like Crinos form from [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. It's implied that to get that form, the wolf and the human have to be absolutely united in one purpose and one emotion. {{spoiler|In this case, it's Adam, enraged over Tim's brutalization and rape of Mercy.}}
* [[Papa Wolf]]: ''Adam'', quite literally. Also, Bran Cornick, the Marrok.
* [[Part-Time Hero]]: No matter what is going on around her, Mercy keeps up her day job as a mechanic. If things get REALLY bad, she'll call Zee and ask him to run her shop.
* [[Post-Modern Magik]]: Any holy symbol can affect a vampire, so long as the wielder believes in it. Mercy uses a lamb (as in "The Lamb of God") due to a distaste for crosses (her first encounter with one as a child was an upclose and personal with a full sized crucifix, complete with dying savior). Otherwise, mostly averted.
* [[Rape as Drama]]: A villain with mind-control magic is not a good thing. Thankfully, treated with the utmost tact and realism.
** Anna was also passed around to the males in her first pack, to try and break her.
** Honey mentions that unmated females belong to their alphas, and many are happy to take advantage of this. It's all but stated outright that she's been used in the past.
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* [[Silk Hiding Steel]]: Since Mercy can't directly confront stronger male wolves, she works indirectly by smiling and nodding and misdirecting. (Though it might be a ''bit'' of a stretch to call her a “proper lady.”)
** Anna Cornick too. Her silk is made of [[The Empath|empathy.]] Her steel is made of backbone and {{spoiler|the ability to call on Charles’ not-inconsequential power.}}
* [[Sunglasses
** Moira wears them -- and rightfully so, given that {{spoiler|she used up both of them doing magic. They're not pretty.}}
** Some of the werewolves will also do this to hide the shift in eye color that signals one's wolf-side coming to the fore.
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** Technically, the werewolves themselves, who look almost perfectly human when not Changed.
** Also, fae when they’re glamoured.
* [[Title Drop]]: Shows up as the name of a particular object in ''Silver Borne''. Also, in the third book, gremlins like Zee are referred to as “the iron kissed,” and Mercy is said to have been “river marked” by the villain of the same book.
* [[True Companions]]: Werewolf packs, which also include any human mates or children.
* [[The Undead]]: several types.
** Besides vampires, ''Bone Crossed'' has at least one ensorcelled, mostly-aware, decaying body. [[Our Zombies Are Different|Zombies]], perfectly preserved and undying bodies are mentioned but haven't been shown.
* [[The Unmasqued World]]: Mostly. Faeries came out about 20 years before the start of the story, making it sort of an [[Alternate History]], although they are being far from open with the general public about exactly how much their magic can do. Werewolves come out during the events of the series, and they too are working hard on public relations and spin control. Vampires are still considered to be a myth, but a lot of [[Muggle]] characters have found out or are starting to suspect, and some characters are wondering how and whether vampires could come out.
* [[Unstoppable Rage]]: All werewolves are susceptible to this, but don’t mess with Mercy around Adam, or Anna around Charles. Unstoppable rage will sound pleasant compared to [[Curb Stomp Battle|what happens next.]]
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* [[Wild Wilderness]]: Mostly avoided in Mercy Thompson books, but in the ''Alpha & Omega'' series Charles and Anna have several adventures in the Montana wilderness.
* [[Wrench Wench]]: '[[Never Heard That One Before|Mercedes the VW Mechanic]]', her day job.
* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: by the Grey Lords of the fae in the backstory. Faeries' coming out was an accident as far as the general public knows, but faeries and other supernatural characters are aware that it was ordered (or at least, manipulated into happening) by extremely powerful faerie lords. Coming out resulted in [[Fantastic Racism]] and getting forced into reservations, so it seems like a very bad thing for faeries as a whole, but over the course of the series, characters have discovered that {{spoiler|the Grey Lords wanted to have high population densities of faeries living together because that would give them access to Underhill again, a [[Magical Land]] which the power of faeries is tied to.}}
** In short, the breaking of masquerade would, one way or another, accomplish the Grey Lords’ mission.
* [[Your Mom]]: Zee tends to get creative when he's cussing out recalcitrant cars: ''"Deine Mutter war ein Cola-Automat!"'' {{spoiler|Translation: "Your mother was a soda machine!"}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Mercy Thompson]]▼
[[Category:Literature]]
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