Shardik

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A story about a man and a bear that might be God. Written by Richard Adams.

Tropes used in Shardik include:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Deliberately invoked. Whether Shardik is God or just a giant bear is up to the reader, but either way he only seems to hurt the bad guys.
• Broken Bird: Melathys.
• Children Are Innocent: Partly the reason Kelderek hangs out with them.
• Epilogue Letter
• Everything's Worse with Bears: Shardik, despite being God and all, is not a tame bear. Whenever he inevitably ends up destroying massive amounts of property and mauling people it's interpreted as God's judgment by the Ortelgans.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Good. Lord.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Kelderek and Elleroth's son, Radu.
• Foreshadowing: Elleroth does this several times.

"This man Crendik, he'll end in Zeray - you mark my words."

• Friend to All Children: Kelderek
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Bel-ka-Trazet is horribly disfigured by a number of scars. He had received them from a bear mauling before the start of the book.
• God In Bear Form: In the main religion depicted in Shardik, the giant bear is known as the Hand of God, aka his physical power and avatar, and is only one aspect of what the Ortelgans believe to be God.
• Good Is Not Nice: Bel-ka-Trazet, Elleroth, and arguably Kelderek.
• Grey and Grey Morality
• Hero Antagonist: Elleroth.
• Hero of Another Story: Also Elleroth
• Heel Realization: Kelderek, during his time with Genshed.
• Heroic Sacrifice: One of the women is killed drugging Shardik.
• Karmic Death: Several at the hands of Shardik, but most prominently Genshed.
• Legacy Character: The chief priestess of Shardik's cult, the Tuginda, is something of this, as no one outside the cult knows who she used to be, how the successor is chosen, or even if the woman visiting this year is the same Tuginda as last year.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane
• Mind Rape: Genshed enacts a mundane form of this on the slaves in his possession.
• Oh Crap: Shardik tends to cause these - perhaps most notably on the plains of Gelt, and later with Genshed.
• Papa Wolf: Elleroth.
• Rape as Drama
• Reincarnation: Shardik is believed to be immortal because of this.
• Survival Mantra: Children in the possession of slave-dealer Genshed tell each other they'll be "home soon. Underground, all the way".