The Riftwar Cycle: Difference between revisions

* [[Ancient Tomb]]: The conDoin bury the royal family in one.

* [[Another Dimension]]: Many of the threats Feist's protagonists deal with come from this.

** Also, Duke Kaspar, who is quite an honorable and likeable villain before {{spoiler|reforming and having a [[Heel Face Turn]] in ''Exiles Return''}}

* [[The Artful Dodger]]: Young Jimmy the Hand is very much this at the time he runs into Prince Arutha and helps him evade the people trying to capture him.

** In the Author's Preferred Edition of ''Prince Of The Blood'', when the Empress of Kesh makes reference to the unfailing loyalty of her assassins, Earl James makes a dry remark regarding an adventure where he fought a corrupt group of said assassins, referring to the events of ''Krondor: The Assassins''.

** A brief reference is made to a tavern called "Captain Trenchard's" - apparently named in honor reformed pirate captain Amos Trask.

** Also, Boldar Blood is a character from [http://www.tonews.com/thread/1078207/alt/books/raymondfeist/what_ever_happend_to_boldar_blood.html Feist's first ever short story.]

* [[Capital City]]: Krondor, in the Western Realm. Rillanon, in the Eastern Realm. And Kesh in... Kesh.

** It's suggested by one character that there may be an infinite number of such planes stacked above and below, but mortals don't know of them because it's impossible for beings of any given universe to perceive or interact with anything more than seven levels removed.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Nakor The Blue Rider. Who is still Nakor The Blue Rider when he is wearing orange and doesn't have a horse.

* [[Colony Drop]]: Pug finishes the Dark War by {{spoiler|dropping a moon on the [[Big Bad]].}}

** And Nakor The Blue Rider. Even if he defies codification. And claims not to be a wizard.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Heaps upon heaps, as befits such a wide-spanning series.

** One edition of ''A Darkness At Sethanon'' spoke of "the evil necromancer Macros the Black unleashing his undead hordes". Never mind that Macros The Black is a Merlin-style good guy, not a necromancer and that while there are some undead in the story, there aren't HORDES of them.

** Feist himself noted that one reviewer described ''Magician'' as "a typical fantasy novel where a boy saves the kingdom from an army of trolls". The main protagonists, while starting the books as boys in their early teens, are adults (at least by the standards of their kingdom) for most of the book. Also, there are also only two trolls in the whole book - hardly an army.

** And by "fairly powerful", we mean "one of the top ten most powerful magicians in [[The Multiverse]]."

* [[Crystal Ball]]: Pug accidentally triggers one as a preteen, prompting him to be taken as an apprentice by the local court magician.

* [[Death By Falling Over]]: After all the adventures and battles, {{spoiler|Arutha}} dies by breaking his hip falling off his horse.

* [[Death From Above]]: Pug's method of destroying an arena where gladiatorial combats are held in ''Magician''. Also how he fights the [[Big Bad]] in ''Wrath of a Mad God''.

* [[Defector From Decadence]]: The Bloodwitches and the White, secret societies among the Dasati who don't like where their civilization is headed at all (though they're still pretty ruthless by our standards).

** The moredhel chieftain Gorath allies himself with humans because it's the only way to stop his [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|savage]] people from destroying themselves.

** So was ''Krondor: Tear of the Gods''. In both the computer game and the novelization.

* [[Find the Cure]]: The main plot of ''Silverthorn'' was a [[Fetch Quest]] for a poison cure.

** Tomas becomes a friend to both the Elvish and Dwarven races because of his skill in battle.

** [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] Bobby De Longville is a mean SOB to new recruits. Become a soldier to his satisfaction, however, and he's your brother for life.

** Well, for a given value of innocent. The servants know damn well what they are doing (and do it damn well) but since Keshian nobility doesn't the same taboos regarding public nudity and pre-marital sex that the Kingdom of the Isles nobility do, the innocence comes more from their not understanding why anyone would object to having a dozen nude women (or men) waiting in an honored guest's quarters to help them bathe and ... ahem... ''relax'' before dinner.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Human/Valheru hybrid Tomas and elf queen Aglaranna.

** The end of ''The Serpentwar Saga'' is notable for killing off most of Feist's more popular protagonists and {{spoiler|destroying a major city where many of the books' were set.}}

** Feist may have topped himself when, in ''The Darkwar Saga'', {{spoiler|he destroyed the entire planet of Kelewan.}}

* [[Long Bus Trip]]: Given that the cycle spans over two centuries by now, it's expected for characters to be [[Put On the Bus]] now and then, and occasionally [[Bus Crash|die off-screen]] as time goes on. But the most extreme example is Owyn Belefote, who is introduced as a central ''[[Betrayal At Krondor]]'' character, accepted as part of the canon in the novelisation, and then disappears, with barely even a mention in the two sequels to the novelisation. Despite becoming a magician of some power at the end of the ''Betrayal'', he allegedly abandoned the path of magic, went home, reconciled with his father and lived a normal life.

** Interestingly, that is the exact opposite of what Owyn does in the game. In the game he is rewarded for his service to the crown with a full scholarship to Stardock (Which incidentally ensures that he will be spending the next several years around Pug so that he can ensure that the boy doesn't accidentally mention the Lifestone). He is not seen or mentioned in the next game. So basically he got put on a different bus.

* [[Long Running Book Series]]

* [[Loveable Rogue]]: Jimmy The Hand is pretty much the embodiment.

* [[Mythopoeia]]: Feist's universe is one of the most complex in all of [[High Fantasy]].

* [[Nice Hat]]: By the time of the Serpentwar, Amos Trask's hat is known throughout the Bitter Sea. Prince Nicholas wears it as part of his admiral's uniform, and to paraphrase the books, ''nobody'' made sport of that hat.

** There is also Nakor The Blue Rider, who is without a horse and is clad in an orange robe when we first encounter him. At the end of ''Prince of the Blood'', the only reward he asks for his part in averting a war between the two most powerful nations in the world is for a blue robe to wear and a black horse to ride, so that he can again be Nakor The Blue Rider.

* [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You]]: Prince Arutha faces off against the [[Big Bad]] in ''A Darkness at Sethanon'', due to a prophecy that says the Lord of the West must be defeated before said [[Big Bad]] can lead his people to victory.

* [[Our Elves Are Better]]: Feist's elves are one race which break down into separate "types". Chief among these are the eldehel (Wood Elves), moredhel (Dark Elves), eldar (High Elves) and most recently, the star elves from another planet - yes, Space Elves. there is also the warlike and almost annihilated Glamredhel (Wild Elves) eventually being assimilated in Elvandar, and the Ocedhel (Lost Elves) of Novindus, who've long since become scattered and absorbed into the human societies there.

* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: The Black Slayers - near unstoppable undead warriors, created when one kills an assassin who is sworn to the service of The Guild of Death.

* [[Pepper Sneeze]]: Used in ''The King's Buccaneer'' to take down a soul-drinking sorceress. A face full of pepper makes it very hard to focus on spell casting.

* [[Perfectly Arranged Marriage]]: Arutha and Anita, to everyone's mutual happiness.

* [[Simultaneous Arcs]]: Most of the books have these, usually alternating between the mortal protagonists and whatever Pug is doing at the time.

* [[Small Annoying Creature]]: Fantus the Firedrake.

* [[Son of a Whore]]: Jimmy the Hand is one.

** As is Billy Goodwin in ''Shadow of a Dark Queen''. Bringing it up is like jamming your thumb on his [[Berserk Button]]. Corporal Foster does it on purpose.

* [[Trilogy Creep]]: ''The Riftwar Saga'' was written as a trilogy, but the sheer size of ''Magician'' caused the publisher to break it down into two books.

** Likewise, ''The Serpentwar Saga'' was originally planned as a trilogy, but Feist's desire to spend more time and detail describing one character's journey from [[Loveable Rogue]] to Master Trader, resulted in ''Rise of a Merchant Prince'' being added into the series.

* [[Twilight of the Gods]]: The immensely powerful, universe-conquering, godlike Valheru who originally ruled Midkemia were defeated in a major battle, leaving the remaining races behind to carve out an existence without their powers.

* [[Unexpected Successor]]: Several examples.

** To a degree, Macros himself seems to be similarly cursed.

* [[Warrior Poet]]: Fits the moredhel chieftain Gorath perfectly - he's striving to save his people from self-destruction - which, since it implies being less hostile to their neighbours, is something they're generally not happy to hear.

* [[Whatevermancy]]: Makes mention of geomancy (manipulation of earth and rock) and necromancy.

* [[Where It All Began]]: ''A Darkness At Sethanon'' has two groups of heroes racing the villains to the place where {{spoiler|the original Final Battle between The Gods and The Valheru occured.}} This location is used as the setting of the climax again and again in later books, such as the story of ''Krondor: The Betrayal'' and the ''Serpentwar Saga''.

* [[The Wise Prince]]: Prince Arutha of Krondor.

** A darker and grittier version is the moredhel chieftain Gorath, whose chosen purpose in life is to protect his people and who flinches at nothing to save them from those seeking to manipulate them as well as from themselves and their own murderous self-destructive ways.