Merry Gentry/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Badass Decay: Probably some of the fastest decay in the history of literature. Most of Merry's harem are supposed to be eons old warrior gods and some of them even had pretty cool introduction scenes. In the first book, Doyle shows up and goes One-Man Army on a bunch of slaugh and then has a duel with Sholto. Frost started off as a Knife Nut who had the balls to defy the crazy, torture-happy queen by not wearing the crappy clothes she told him to wear. Then they had sex with Merry and turned into whiny emo boy toys. Fuck.
    • Just for an example of how bad this is, at least one of her harem of badass warrior gods occasionally bustles around the house wearing an apron and offering cookies.
  • Broken Base: Averted. Laurell K. Hamilton never made any pretensions that the series was not meant to be erotica first and foremost.
  • Complete Monster: Most believe that every member of the Unseelie Court is one of these. Merry Gentry tries her best to break the stereotype. Cousin Cel and Taranis, though he's King of the Seelie Court actually fit this trope to a tee.
  • God Mode Sue: Merry Gentry is the living vessel for the Fairy Mother Goddess.
  • Ho Yay: Surprisingly averted. There's little guy love between the Ravens.
    • And not-so-averted as of the end of Swallowing Darkness and Divine Misdemeanors: Doyle loves Frost so much that he's willing to give up the kingship to bring him back to life. After he does so, it's acknowledged that they love each other just as much as they love Merry. Still no guy-on-guy sex, though.
    • Barinthus' change is explained in Divine Misdemeanors because of his unrequited love for Prince Essus, Merry's father. Apparently it's a case of love makes you a Jerkass.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Taranis gets one of these when he attempts to rape his own niece. Or possibly before the events of the first novel, when Taranis realized he was infertile, and condemned his court to die out with him. After slow genocide on your own people what's a little incestuous rape among family members?