History Characters / TortallUniverse

* SweetTooth: She apparently has a fondness for sticky candies. Bad for the teeth under normal circumstances, but they rip pearls right out.

* HealingHands: He was taught to heal during his time at the Imperial University.

* MartialPacifist: As Arram he actually ''hates'' violence, particularly the wasteful GladiatorGames that he attended as a student in Carthak. That doesn't mean that he won't defend himself when needed. By ''The Immortals'' he's much faster to attack threats too.

* AscendedExtra: Appears alongside her siblings in ''The Immortals Quartet'' but after her first scene or so, is just mentioned by other characters, including older brother Thom who gets to hang out with Daine. Come ''Daughter of the Lioness'' and she's the main character.

* MartialPacifist: He actually ''hates'' violence. He despised the GladiatorGames that he attended as a student in Carthak. That doesn't mean that he won't defend himself when needed.

* MundaneUtility: There are many mages in this setting who can use their magic for such means as lighting candles but most of the time Numair isn't one of them. He has to actually blow it out because his magic would blow it ''up''. If he's exhausted most of his power he can do small things.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: In ''Wolf-speaker'', to lull the conspirators into a false sense of security. They knew him when he was much more of a book-absorbed scholar and had no idea of the depth of practical knowledge he'd picked up in the years since.

* RememberTheNewGuy: He's nowhere to be seen in ''Song of the Lioness'', but three chapters into the first ''Immortals'' book Alanna says he's one of her best friends. There's actually a gap of ''ten years'' between the quartets, but since they don't start the book saying it's been a decade since Alanna was knighted, or talk at all about what happened in that time, it takes either a comparison of dates or meeting the children of the ''Song of the Lioness'' cast to realize that enough time has passed for Numair to have reasonably become as important to Tortall and Alanna as he is.

* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Kitten is always discovering new things she's able to do, such as magically forcing locks in book 2 or commanding lesser dragonkin in book 4. This is primarily a result of Kitten's status as an infant, since she's slowly mastering her natural dragon magic.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Although we do know her real name, 90% of the time everyone calls her Kitten--or even Kit.

* PetBabyWildAnimal: A wild dragon who becomes Daine's charge.

* FriendToAllChildren: It's hard for Stormwings to bear children, so they tend to be fond and protective of any they come across, regardless of race or species. Particularly children who are abused or neglected, like Lady Maura - Rikash befriends her in particular, and takes her flying in a rope sling. When Maura runs away he tries to convince her to return by reminding her that the cook and the nurse are frantic about her disappearance.

* CharacterDevelopment: He has no problem with slavery to begin with, though this changes with exposure to Daine.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: He's lived for all his life in Carthak, where slavery is commonplace, and as a result, he has a casual disregard for slaves and their lives that shocks Daine, who had found him so nice before. This changes with CharacterDevelopment.

* OddFriendship: Imperial Prince of blood royal, on both sides, and northern peasant (who, admittedly, happens to be SemiDivine). Not two people you think would get on, but they do, famously. It gets to the point where Numair suspects that he might be interested in the very pretty Daine and gives him [[IfYouEverDoAnythingToHurtHer a speech to make clear the potential consequences]], though Kaddar isn't interested and just shrugs it off as Numair looking out for her.

* MugglePower: Tristan is by no means on Numair's level as a mage, but he has lots of the black opals being mined from Fief Dunlath to boost his power. Unfortunately for Tristan, he's ''still'' not on Numair's level.

* AmicableExes: With Jonathan. They both marry other people, but remain extremely close.

* AnimalTalk: With Faithful.

** She fiddles with her emberstone pendant when she's worried.

* CoolHorse: Moonlight, then later Darkmoon.
* CosmicPlaything: For the Mother Goddess. She doesn't mind as the missions are for Tortall's good.

* SheCleansUpNicely: In ''Lioness Rampant''. Jon doesn't recognize her in a dress, and she is described as being at least very cute, if not conventionally beautiful.

* HatesSmallTalk: He finds every excuse possible to avoid official functions and formal occassions. This is partly due to the fact that he is prey to "matchmaking mothers" who want the Commander of the King's Own to join their family, but he also hates the song-and-dance of courtly etiquette.
* HonoraryUncle: To Alanna and George's kids, because he is a great andlong-time friend to their parents.

* BoisterousBruiser: big, bluff and friendly, a man who likes a fight and, as a young man, a drink too.

* SquishyWizard: He was glad to not have to learn how to be a knight as he'd be completely unfit for it.

* KavorkaMan: he's not bad looking, but he's certainly not as classically good looking as Jon. He does, however, have bucket loads of charm and self-confidence.

* SecretKeeper: When he becomes Alanna's knight-master, he helps her to maintain the masquerade.
* SorcererKing: He's a very powerful mage in his own right, and eventually gains the Dominion Jewel, giving him the power to rouse the land itself to Tortall's defense (albeit at a cost). As Wyldon puts it in a training lecture, if you tried attacking the palace via the Royal Forest, between Jonathan rousing the land and Daine recruiting the animals, you'd never make it out of the woods alive.

* KavorkaMan: not particularly good looking, but well built and self-confident. He also has considerable sexual charisma.

* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: To hear him say it Alanna didn't quite ''kill'' him but put him into a "Sorceror's Sleep". Still close enough to death that he was BuriedAlive until Thom revived him, which did not help his sanity.]]

* {{Pride}}: Alex does not like it that people might be better than him at things.

* RivalTurnedEvil: He and Alanna are the top sword-fighters at the palace, and he comes to see her as a personal rival. It's hinted that this is at least partially due to Roger's influence.

* MoralityPet: his sister is just about the only one he consistently acts decently towards, and the consistently part fades as time goes by. He's not evil, but he is incredibly self-centered.

* PrinceCharming: He's remarkably charismatic and charmed Alanna, initially, though they end up as friends. The fact that his charm doesn't affect her later on is something he cites as why he needs her around - if only to deflate his ego, which she does gleefully. It has the same effect on almost every other female, as Daine finds, being rather flustered in his presence and being told "yeah, he has that effect on everyone". Thayet is the only woman who wasn't swept off her feet and she became his wife.

* TookALevelInJerkass; During the third ''Lioness'' book he's very imperious towards Alanna, acting like his proposal of marriage is a foregone conclusion, refusing to understand that it's an even bigger deal than a regular proposal because she would have to be ''queen'' for the rest of her life on top of the whole "lifelong commitment to another person" thing. When she refuses, he flips out and insults her for being unfeminine before taking up with Josiane of the Copper Isles mostly to spite her. Life whacks him in the gut between then and the next book (including his father's [[spoiler: suicide]]), returning him to normal.

* AbsentMindedProfessor: He can begin a lesson on the behaviour of hurrocks and end up getting distracted talking about the tides.

* AwesomeButImpractical: According to him, most of the magic he had to learn in order to earn his black robe was of this nature, with the more useful magic being stuff he actually picked up later.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: The most powerful mage in Tortall is also the most ''vain'' mage in Tortall, and kinda lazy.
** He's very easily distracted when he isn't focused on anything important.

* TallDarkAndHandsome: How some people describe him. WordOfGod says he's based on Jeff Goldblum.[[invoked]]
** A picture of Numair is shown in ''Tortall: A Spy's Guide''. He is indeed fairly attractive.

* JerkAss: While Numair's vanity is endearing, this guy is a creep.
** He was a dick even in his university days. He frequently insulted Arram, then claimed that it was a joke when he was called out on it.

* ItsAllAboutMe: What other mindset would force his subjects to worship him instead of genuine gods that can manifest themselves before mortals and get shirty about blasphemy? Also, he's given three omens - lightning striking statues of him, a statue of the first emperor pointing at him and crying "Woe! The gods are angry!", and rats exploding out of a palace-shaped cake. The lesson he takes from this is not that he should change his ways but that the gods are angry with ''Numair''.
** According to the afterword in ''Emperor Mage'', Ozorne legitimately doesn't understand why he can't just do whatever he wants. He doesn't get why he shouldn't be allowed to keep Daine to look after his birds, or get revenge on Numair for leaving him.

* LackOfEmpathy: To a varying degree. Arram can't stand the sight of gladiators killing each other and ''hates'' the arena. Varice is sympathetic to her friend's tender sensibilities and sits with him to distract him when he's forced to attend a game, but they are arena slaves forced to fight for the amusement of the crowd. She doesn't care at all about their lives and deaths and thinks watching them is great fun. This is deliberate - she advises Arram that it's not good to care personally about the gladiators.

* PoliticallyMotivatedTeacher: He seems to spend half his time making sure the entire class knows his opinion on female knights and being forced to train Kel, and constantly works insults into her training. [[spoiler:Because Wyldon's so focused on her, [[DeconstructedTrope he neglects his other students]], letting Joren and Vinson get worse until they fail the Chamber of the Ordeal. Once he realizes this, he's deeply ashamed and resigns.]]

* ParentalAbandonment: Her mother died giving birth to her and her father went into a deep depression as a result, neglecting his children until he sent them away when they were ten.

* CharacterTics: She fiddles with her emberstone pendant when she's worried.