Tortall Universe/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complete Monster: Most of the villains in this series have the potential for this (Pierce isn't exactly a fan of complex antagonists), but the following fiends are especially despicable:
    • Roger, post-resurrection, with Word of God explaining that while he'd never been a nice guy, 8 months buried alive drove him "apocalyptically crazy."
      • Even before then, he was a selfish bastard who tried to murder his uncle, aunt and nephew for power and treated everyone as a disposable pawn. Pierce even stated that the reason he's so bad is due to his inability to confront the evil of his actions.
    • Blayce the Gallan from Protector Of The Small is even worse, given that he's using the souls of children to power his machines. When he tries to defend himself by stating that he didn't choose to be a natural necromancer, Keladry calls him out on his bullshit, knowing that he enjoys the act. The men under him also probably qualify (although Stenman at least gets a unique perspective, telling Kel that the children will likely die anyway and at least Blayce treats them well before murdering them).
    • Vinson pretty much becomes this by Squire, having secretly molested several women without remorse (this after attacking Lalasa previously. If there's any doubt, consider how the Chamber of the Ordeal torments him from that point on, driving him to a Villainous Breakdown and confession which leads to his immediate arrest.
    • Pearl Skinner from 'Bloodhound' certainly has this air.
  • Continuity Lock Out: Averted, when outside of each series itself. Obviously you can't read any quartet from book 3, but each series can stand alone easily.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Duke Roger, full-stop. Delia of Eldorne tries to be this but usually fails thanks to her bitchiness and petulance.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Mastiff. The whole Corus crew disappearing? Tunstall going traitor? Beka not ending up with Rosto? It never happened!
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Averted with Alanna's childhood friend George Cooper, who Pierce decided was better for Alanna after she sunk the ship of Alanna/Jonathan in The Woman Who Rides Like A Man.
    • Played straight with Beka and Rosto, as she ends up marrying Farmer, who didn't appear in the first two books.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Why didn't Duke Roger's image magic work as well on Alanna as it did on everyone else (even before her Ordeal)? Because it was made in the image of Alan the boy, not the girl that Alanna actually was.
    • Extra dose of Fridge Brilliance, since this probably also explains why he flipped out when her true gender was revealed in their duel. He realized that was why she had always suspected him/been semi-immune to his magic and it pissed him off.
  • Magnificent Bitch: Aly spends much of the series lying to everyone about everything. Still a good guy, though.
    • Ozorne. In Emperor Mage he tells Daine, cool as you please, that he plans to have her teacher executed while she's succumbing to the drug he slipped into her drink so he can abduct her and use her disappearance to set off a war. And after she'd been nice enough to take care of his birds!
    • Joren is another. And in Lady Knight, Kel is disappointed when Blayce turns out not to be this, but rather a scrawny, inept, vulgar little man.
  • Mary Sue: Can be and has been argued for Alanna, Daine, and Aly, with their exceptional talents, strong magical capabilities, closeness with gods, and the many men who love them. However, proving that Tropes Are Not Bad, it's mostly justified in the name of plot and character development and there are notable subversions, such as Alanna's moderate-not-stunning looks and infamous temper and Daine's absolute refusal to be a Purity Sue. And Kel averts it every which way.
  • Squick: Aly and Nawat, for some people. Daine and Numair, for others. 14 year age gap and relative social status is often quoted as the reason.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Beka and Farmer are a Type 3, and possibly a Type 2 as well, depending on one's interpretation. About 400 pages of no romantic hints... and then suddenly she notices what broad shoulders he has. And then they're declaring their love for each other and promising marriage while they're in a jail cell, after being tortured, and at a time when Beka still doesn't know for sure who the group traitor is.
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • The fact that Lalasa is a lesbian and was previously abused comes off as Rape and Switch to some fans.
    • The fact that Alexander of Tirragen is noted to be the only one of Jonathan's clique who is dark-skinned (specifically, Arabic-looking), and he later goes on to become The Dragon to Duke Roger is...interesting.
    • Word of God says that Duke Rodger and Thom were originally meant to be gay lovers. It's problematic that the only gay/bi characters in the Alanna books are the main villain and his eventual sidekick
    • White-skinned Aly being the only one able to catalyze the resistance movement of the dark-skinned raka smacks of Mighty Whitey. And for that matter, so does her mother and King Jonathan being the only ones able to defeat the Ysandir after centuries of them bothering the black-skinned Bazhir.
  • You Say Girl Like a Bad Thing: Alanna starts out hating her femininity and wishing she was a boy, and one of the major themes is her coming to accept said femininity. She still remains a more-than-competent Action Girl. IIRC, Pierce actually used the line "You say I'm a girl like it's a bad thing" in one of her books, but the exact place escapes me.
    • Song of the Lioness, I believe, in a conversation with Liam.
    • From The Woman Who Rides Like a Man:

Bazhir: You ride as a man, fight as a man, think as a man,-
Alanna: I think as a human being! Men don't think any differently from women, they just make more noise about being able to do so!

    • In In the Hand of the Goddess, when she's talking about her dislike of spiders.

Alanna: What do they know about girls anyway?...Maids at the palace handle snakes and kill spiders without acting silly. Why do boys say someone acts like a girl as if it were an insult?

    • Kel protests that she likes being a girl after her prejudiced but increasingly impressed training master Lord Wyldon fervently wishes that she could have been a boy instead.
      • Kel also makes it a point to wear dresses when she has casual-clothing time at the beginning of her page training, to remind the boys that she's a girl and she's not going to be ashamed of it.
    • Lampshaded after Alanna and Jonathan return from the Black City:

That was before she had shown the Ysandir that a girl was the worst enemy they could ever face.


Duke Roger of Conté

Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri

Rikash Moonsword

Keladry of Mindelan

  • Fan-Preferred Couple - With Neal
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships - One fansite recently had a month-long competition between Kel pairings. Being the only girl in what is essentially an all boys school and one of few women in a male dominated profession will do that.

Joren of Stone Mountain

The Rittevons

  • Moral Event Horizon - Imajane and Rubinyan cross it when they have the five-year-old king and his age-mate cousin (and heir) killed in a magical storm.
    • That was them?! I thought it was Kyprioth making room for Sarai and Dove!
    • Eh, Kyprioth might have 'nudged' them, but they're the ones who succumbed to temptation.

Tekalimy'

  • Real Women Never Wear Veils: When Fadal complains about women of her Islam Expy religion wearing veils, she gives a speech about how she likes wearing them, since it means she isn't judged on her looks.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Tortall_Universe/YMMV?oldid=1070460"