History Characters / TheVow

* KickTheSonOfABitch: He kills Haun in a sadistic way for kidnapping and hurting Lianne.

!!The [[Fanfic/TheVow Fanfic]]

* GadgeteerGenius: Shen himself has designed his modified [[BladeOnAStick Guan Dao]] and the [[WolverineClaws Iron Claws]] protecting his feet. He also invents firework shooters to ensure safe launches, and from those he creates his cannons. He's also the one who's hired to invent the restraint that keeps Tai Lung immobilized for twenty years.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: She rules Gongmen City competently, even if she's privately unhappy. Inter alie, she pauses for years her passion for painting.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: After his father -- the previous alpha -- died when he was fifteen, Zhan fought off all challengers for the leadership position quickly.

* KnifeNut: As much as in canon.

* IllGirl: She first appears when she's gravely ill [[spoiler:and she dies off in the next chapter]].

* MixedAncestry: Her father is a white swan from China, and her mother is a black swan from a western empire.

* CourtMage: The court [[{{Seer}} Soothsayer]], to be more precise.

* NotSoDifferent: Though Chang and Shen are at each other's throats right from the beginning, they both are rather prideful, determined and extreme individuals who want to mark themselves in the world. After witnessing Shen's actions during her time as his prisoner, Lianne eventually says to him that [[YouAreWhatYouHate he's becoming exactly like her father]], much to his outrage. When Chang reveals his JerkWithAHeartOfGold status [[spoiler:in his deathbed]], one particular aspect connects him to Shen; he [[spoiler:won Amelia's love by giving her the chance of not having to choose either him or Hong]], while Shen [[spoiler:released Lianne out of love before she could say her part of the marriage vows and no longer attempted to force her, leading her to marry him anyway]].

* {{Adorkable}}: Due to being more used to [[FantasticRacism prejudices]] and formalities, he becomes awkward when he's related to in a friendly manner by Lianne and Jade.

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: She's actually a noble rather than a royal, but still counts. She's even called princess during her rule over Gongmen City.

* HeroicAlbino: He starts out as something of an AntiHero, but then he does a FaceHeelTurn and becomes the EvilAlbino canon portrays him as. [[spoiler:In the epilogue, he gives up evil and resigns himself to live imprisoned in the Shan Palace with his wife Lianne and their son Zian.]]

* GreenEyes: Her green eyes fit both her name and cleverness.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He shares a lot of similarities with Zeng, Master Shifu's messenger goose.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: This is implied when Lianne speaks to Haun defiantly. When she says sarcastically that his mother would be proud of what he has become, he turns noticeably angrier.

* LaserGuidedKarma: His actions of kidnapping and hurting Lianne lead his arrest and execution.

* ParentalNeglect: He was too busy molding Lianne into a carrier of his legacy to have much - if any - bonding with her.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: In his angry grief over [[spoiler:Lady Amelia's death]], Lord Chang yells at Shen that he's living in his parents' shadow and that history shall never remember him for great achievements. Haunted by those words, Shen ends up accidentally inventing black powder and modifying his rocket launchers into cannons. [[ForegoneConclusion We know how it goes from there]].

* AltarDiplomacy: She was offered to Chang by her homelands' king in order to finalize a peace treaty.

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Inverted. When she sees Shen for the first time, she says with approval in her eyes that he's taller than she expected him to be.
* {{Good Parent|s}}: Toward her daughter.

* IncurableCoughOfDeath: [[spoiler:She deliberately hides her bloodied-from-coughing handkerchief from Lianne, though Shen spots it. She dies in the next chapter.]]

* LikeADaughterToMe: Chang reveals Lianne that when Hong first held her in his hands, his look indicated that he wished for her [[spoiler:- the daughter of the woman he loved -]] to be his child. [[spoiler:He also regards Lianne's son Zian like his grandchild.]]
* LoveAtFirstSight: He was smitten with [[spoiler:Lady Amelia]] from the moment he first saw her.

* BearerOfBadNews: He witnesses unnoticed how Shen and his wolves [[spoiler:slaughter]] the inhabitants of the [[spoiler:panda]] village he's spending time in. He hurriedly flies back to Gongmen City and reveals Shen's crime while interrupting the wedding between the peacock Lord and Lianne. Thirty years later he has to inform the Kung Fu warriors of the Jade Palace of Shen's return.

* EasilyForgiven: Even though he reveals Shen's crime and the act leads to Lianne's heart being broken for the following years, she still regards him as a friend.

A dhole spy who comes to Gongmen City to help stopping Shen.

* FantasticFoxes: She's actually a dhole, but she can easily be mistaken for a fox. She has the cunningness associated with foxes, and Zhan calls her a vixen at one point.
* GreenEyes: Her eyes fit both her name and cleverness.

The leader of Gongmen City's royal wolf guard and Shen's body guard and friend.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: After his father - the previous alpha - died when he was fifteen, Zhan fought off all challengers for the leadership quickly.
* ButNowIMustGo: [[spoiler:Zhan leaves China with his pack and Jade in the epilogue in order to find a new life for them.]]

* AChildShallLeadThem: Zhan quickly put his pack in line in a few hours after his father died and the leadership position was fought for. He was a teenager by that time.

** Just before Shen releases Ah-Ma, she lets him finally know that Lianne didn't abandon him 30 years earlier but begged him to be banished instead of executed.

* EmptyShell: After their only child becomes a [[spoiler:mass murderer]] and is subsequently banished by them, both Goa and Jing become shadows of their former selves. While they still keep Gongmen prosperous, they no longer have much drive to live. After there are no more news telling them of Shen being alive, they completely fade away.
* GoodParents: Before Shen's [[spoiler:mass murder of pandas]], there was no bad blood between him and his parents. His unusual coloring didn't prevent them from loving him, and apparently they had Ah-Ma take care of him mostly when they were too busy with their duties. They comply with Lianne's plea to banish him instead of executing him to be as merciful as possible, and their love for Shen never dies.

--> "I have no son... No son of mine would disgrace me as you have done."
* KingOnHisDeathbed: Lord Goa's last act before his death is naming Lianne as the inheritor of Gongmen City's stewardship with her and the councilors upon his deathbed, refusing to take no for an answer.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: While otherwise decent people, they share the common people's [[FantasticRacism prejudices]] against the wolves (though thankfully it isn't shown much).
* ReasonableAuthorityFigures: When Lang arrives to interrupt Shen and Lianne's wedding to inform of the [[spoiler:panda massacre]], Goa and Jing agree to hear him out.

* IWantGrandkids: More specifically, [[HeirClubForMen a grandson to be named as his heir]]. [[spoiler:When Lianne tells him of her pregnancy, he's happy enough for her to care about the child's gender or its father's identity and lets himself to finally pass away.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: He reasons to Lianne his obsession to found a dynasty as a means to avoid their family [[RichesToRags suddenly becoming impoverished]] (which is something that has happened to many rich families in real life), saying that it's easy to fall from grace.

* MisplacedRetribution: When he's banished, he takes Lianne's seemingly cold response to it to mean that she has cast him aside as an inconvenience and believes that for the next 30 years, not knowing of [[PleaseSpareHimMyLiege her true role in preventing his execution]]. When Shen returns to Gongmen, he takes Lianne prisoner, treats her scornfully and announces his intention to [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe wed her in order to make her suffer]]. When he's finally told what she did to save him, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he feels disgusted with himself]].

* NotQuiteDead: After Master Oogway tells him of an abandoned mine rich in metals in the northern mountains in exchange for designing a restraint for Tai Lung, Shen goes into hiding for two decades to prepare for his conquest and is believed by most of China's people to have died, until he takes back Gongmen City. [[spoiler:Later he apparently dies in his final confrontation with Po, but he reaches Lianne weeks later. His survival is afterwards kept a secret from anyone outside the Shan Palace (though Zhan and Jade discover it before they leave China).]]

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: He's one of the two main characters, and this story starts before his StartOfDarkness.

* SymbolicMutilation: [[spoiler:Shen spends most of the story as a swift warrior who cannot be dissuaded from finding a way against the odds and is falsely labelled as a sickly albino by his enemies. By the time of the epilogue, he's left with bone injuries that can never fully heal and limit his fighting capacity, damaging his pride. This comes with the fact that he has to live confined in his wife's home, unable to enter the world again.]]

* TragicKeepsake: [[TheLadysFavour The Dragon-Phoenix Blade given by Lianne as a wedding gift]].

* WhatHaveIBecome: During his VillainousBSOD, he wonders what a younger Shen would think about the man he'd become in 30 years.
* WeWillMeetAgain: He promises this to his loved ones when he's banished.

The only child of the swan rulers of the Shēnghuó Province. She is sent to live with Shen's family for a year with the hopes of engagement. While they're initially hostile to each other, she forms an unlikely bond with Shen and they're eventually engaged, but after Shen is banished, she becomes Gongmen City's ruler. After Shen takes over the city, Lianne struggles both to stop his plans and save him from himself.

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Ah-Ma even lampshades this trope when she first meets Lianne.

* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: The Gentle Girl to Shen's Brooding Boy. She understands his reluctance to try and win the people's favor after facing rejection for all his life, and so she makes gentle attempts to encourage him.
* CallingTheOldManOut:

* CelibateHeroine: She remains unmarried after Shen's banishment for 30 years and starts looking for a husband only because of the duty to produce heirs while she still can. [[spoiler:She sleeps with Shen after he forgives her unfounded betrayal, and she finalizes their marriage out of her own will.]]

* DefiantCaptive: During her time as Haun's - and years later as Shen's - prisoner, she strives to retain her dignity.
* DefrostingIceQueen: She dons an unemotional mask when she first arrives in Gongmen City, but becomes warmer when her respect is earned.

* {{Expy}}: Her appearance is on purpose based on that of [[WesternAnimation/TheSwanPrincess Odette in her swan form]]. She quotes several times Odette and is even called "The Swan Princess" during her rule.

* LightIsGood: A contrast to Shen's LightIsNotGood theme.

* MeaningfulName: Her name means "Downy grace" in Latin.

* TraumaCongaLine: Lianne's entire life seems to become one. While she has a very close relationship with her mother and uncle, she's unable to find common ground with her father. After her womanly beauty blossoms, Chang pressures her to pick up a husband and give him a grandson as an heir. When she calls him out after one of the suitors turns out to be too lewd, she's punished by being sent to live with strangers for a year. While in Gongmen City, she's kidnapped by a bandit group, though she's rescued fairly quickly. When she gets a word that her mother has fallen ill, she rushes home where her father intends to continue pressuring her into marriage. Then [[spoiler:Lady Amelia dies]] and Lianne is grief-stricken, but then she becomes engaged with Shen and is in seventh heaven. However, the wedding is interrupted with the revelation that the man Lianne is about to marry has committed [[spoiler:mass murder]]. Shen is banished from Gongmen, leaving Lianne to miss him for thirty years and believe him to be dead for two decades. Suddenly Shen returns, takes over Gongmen City and imprisons Lianne (killing a friend of hers along the way), intending to conquer China and forcibly make her his queen. For the following weeks, Lianne struggles with having to see the depths the man she loves has fallen into and trying both to stop him and make him come to his senses. After [[spoiler:she marries Shen out of her own will yet is driven away by him]], she returns to her birth home and makes peace with her estranged father [[spoiler:just before he dies]]. Right after that, Lianne hears that [[spoiler:her husband has apparently died]]. After getting a final confirmation of it, she's ready to die and only [[spoiler:her pregnancy]] prevents her from doing that. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Shen returns to Lianne and they manage to live together with their son.]]

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: She rules Gongmen City competently, even if she's privately unhappy. She pauses for years her passion for painting inter alie.

The white-colored heir of Gongmen City's noble peacocks who's suddenly asked to court Lady Lianne. As he slowly falls in love with her, his [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2 canon]] story starts taking place.

* AnonymousBenefactor: [[spoiler:After being forced to live in the secrecy of the Shan Palace, Shen uses occasionally his genius from the shadows for the benefit of his wife's province.]]

-->'''Lianne:''' Why aren't you using a practise weapon?!\\
'''Shen:''' I know how to use a weapon, so therefore I have no need of it.

* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: The Brooding Boy to Lianne's Gentle Girl. He's not willing to socialize more than necessary because of being rejected by most people no matter what he did. Lianne empathizes that and attempts to gently encourage him to show people his noble side.

** Had it been up to him, Tai Lung's restraint would have been included with paralyzing venom in case the snow leopard escaped by any chances.

* {{Determinator}}: Being born with poor health didn't stop him from living. [[spoiler:His desire to see Lianne one last time makes him walk with an injured leg for weeks.]]

** Even if Shen harbors hatred toward Lianne for 30 years, he never stops loving her. He allows his love to resurface fully again when he forgives her unfounded betrayal [[spoiler:and then he sets her free]]. It's his love for her that [[spoiler:prevents him from dying]].
** Neither has he been able to completely forget his love toward his parents and Ah-Ma.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: He honestly expects his parents to downplay his crime of [[spoiler:mass murder]] and to be proud of him for preventing his prophesied downfall, making their shock and his following banishment a complete bolt from the blue for him.

* GadgeteerGenius: Shen has designed himself his modified [[BladeOnAStick Guan Dao]] and the [[WolverineClaws Iron Claws]] protecting his feet. He also invents firework shooters to ensure safe launches, and from those he creates his cannons. He's also the one who's hired to invent the restraint that keeps Tai Lung immobilized for twenty years.

* ICallItVera: He prefers calling his cannons "the Weapons", finding that name to be simple yet ambiguous and threatening.

* InterspeciesRomance: With Lianne.

* LightIsNotGood: Even before his FaceHeelTurn, Shen's arrogant and short-tempered. This is [[FreudianExcuse partly because of the alienation he's faced due to his coloring symbolizing death in Chinese culture]].