The Darkangel Trilogy

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Speculative Fiction trilogy written by Meridith Ann Pierce in the 1980s.

Titles in the trilogy:

• The Darkangel
• A Gathering of Gargoyles
• The Pearl of the Soul of the World

Tropes used in The Darkangel Trilogy include:

• Arc Number: 7 and to a lesser extent, 14.^[context?]
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Depending on origin, people can be white (not pale beige), black (not dark brown), copper, amber, blue, green, teal, or purple (possibly two different shades of that last, no less) skin. They were almost certainly deliberately engineered for it.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife^[context?]
• Ambiguous Innocence: The titular Darkangel still has very much the attitudes of a child, despite being chronologically about thirty. Given his maker, this is somewhat justified.
• Bad Dreams: The titular Darkangel is stricken with these as a result of Aeriel's stories. They continue to haunt him as Irrylath.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played with. Irrylath is beautiful (albeit in an eerie, colorless, too-perfect way) as a darkangel, but it's later revealed that that's because he's still got some fragment of his humanity remaining; most darkangels are flat-out creepy and not pretty at all. The gargoyles are bony, awkwardly proportioned, scabby-looking, and initially unfriendly; once Aeriel befriends them, they're good even before the Baleful Polymorph effect concealing their idealized animal Nature Spirit true forms is removed. While most of the Lorelei's pets and flunkies are hideous (the mudlick, and implied to be the case of the trolls) or at least scary (the weaselhounds, jackals, and rhuks), Oriencor herself is beautiful (albeit, once again, in a way that's disturbing and clearly inhuman).
• Bedouin Rescue Service: The Pendarlon leaves Aeriel in the care of a clan of desert-dwellers after rescuing her when she escapes the Darkangel.
• Big Bad: The Lorelei.^[context?]
• Blue Eyes: Irrylath, type two.^[context?]
• Dead Little Sister: Eoduin to Aeriel; what kicks the story off is darkangel!Irrylath abducting and making a wraith out of her.
• Diabolus Ex Machina^[context?]
• Downer Ending: The ending of the last book. Aeriel is set apart from everyone except Erin Because Destiny Says So.
• Empty Shell: Icari's brides, known as wraiths, are the hollow, bloodless, nearly mindless remnants left of women whose souls have been stolen.
• Evil Matriarch^[context?]
• Green Eyes: Aeriel's eyes are originally described as "fig-green," later as "peridot."
• Hair of Gold: Aeriel has platinum-blond hair.
• Hammerspace: Aeriel's velvet bag from the first book.
• How Do You Like Them Apples?: Apricoks, produced by a tree on the Bern shore of the Sea-of-Dust.
• Literal Change of Heart: Aeriel gives up her heart to save Irrylath.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Irrylath^[context?]
• Love Martyr: Aeriel starts out as one.
• Love Redeems / Redemption Equals Life: Why it was possible to convert Irrylath from a Darkangel back into a human.
• Our Dragons Are Different^[context?]
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Well, except for turning to stone in sunlight. And the fact that it's spelled "duarough."
• Our Souls Are Different^[context?]
• Our Vampires Are Different^[context?]
• Parental Incest: The Lorelei and her "sons".
• Phantasy Spelling: Almost every plot-related noun is spelled "uniquely".
• Planetary Romance^[context?]
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time^[context?]
• Sand Is Water: Played incredibly straight with the Sea-of-Dust.
• Shiny Midnight Black: Averted by the wings of Darkangels, which seem to absorb light.
• Shotacon: The Lorelei raises potential Darkangels as her lovers.
• Stockholm Syndrome^[context?]
• Taken for Granite: Duarough are vulnerable to sunlight.
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Eoduin^[context?]
• Troubled but Cute: Irrylath. Big time.^[context?]
• Walking Wasteland: Full Darkangels.^[context?]
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Irrylath in his Darkangel form.
• Winged Humanoid: The eponymous Darkangels, with their dozen black wings.
• Woman in White: The Lorelei.^[context?]