History Fanfic / BeyondTheWindingRoad

* AmbiguousDisorder: Played with, in-universe. Lewis' parents took him to many psychologists and psychiatrists as a child, trying to figure out exactly what was going on with him. WordOfGod says they concluded he had [[http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder]], but his mother Beatrix eventually realized that there was more to it. His 'episodes' (lapses in identity) turn out to be a symptom of his reemerging past memories.

* SurpriseCreepy: Oz's eyes in Advance 15 are described as two physics-breaking red orbs whose reflections do not bend with the rest of his image in the water. Gilbert notes that he's used to seeing the effect because his brother.

** Of particular note is that the story uses this to give the nobility actual, functional titles linked to political locations over which they had power. The royal family is the House of Sibylle, implied to be the old name of their country; Oscar is the Duke of Flambeau, with Flambeau being one of the four "quadrants" dividing the country's land; Oz, as the heir, was the Marquis de Loupe, with Loupe being an important marche of the Vessalius family; Jack, once recognized by his father's family, became ''le Vicomte de Jouet''--the Viscount of the Vessalius' ancestral village, Jouet, which, before the Tragedy of Sablier, was all the "third-rate" noble family really controlled. The other "quadrants" are patroned by the other Dukedoms, from which their titles also originate; the Eastern quadrant, for example, is Paondronte, the Dukedom of the Barmas, which is why Rufus Barma is called the Duke of Paondronte.

* TheKingdom: Sable. It did once have an enemy in TheEmpire of Lucya, but interestingly, it’s a neighboring (former) fellow kingdom that’s given Sable the most trouble in the modern era.

* MeaningfulName: All of the names come from scrapped names for characters from the series, famous children's books, and other GeniusBonus-type references. Sometimes twice over: Both Edith Lyman's and Lewis Tale's names are references to multiple children's books. ''[[UpToEleven Simultaneously.]]'' [[labelnote:*]]"Edith" is a reference both to the girl who comes after Alice in ''All in the Golden Afternoon'' and to another penname Lyman Frank Baum, author of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,'' once wrote under: Edith van Dyne (with Dyne being repurposed as the name of Edith's home town). "Lewis" is the first name of Lewis Carroll, author of ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,'' and the surname of the author of the ''Chronicles of Narnia'' series, C.S. Lewis (which, as WordOfGod notes, ''also'' features a magical dimension that warps time and space and is later revealed to have connections with the afterlife). Lewis' surname, "Tale," comes from a scrapped preliminary name for Oz's character listed in Mochizuki Jun's notes.[[/labelnote]]

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Xai Vessalius made an '''enemy''' when he blocked a petition by major political rival Colin Snow from reaching the king. Snow proceeded to drag every misstep and flaw he could credibly attribute to Xai into the public eye. This eventually included Xai's terrible treatment of his family, with Snow framing Xai as a furiously jealous man bitter that he'd been passed over for inheritance of the family's title and that his own son had been made his brother's heir, not him. Snow would eventually go on to be the first to publically accuse Zai of being behind the disappearance of his own son, Oz Vessalius, the Marquis de Loupe, and use this disappearance to push speculation that Zai was plotting an attempt on his brother, the Duke. Following the suspicious death of Oscar Vessalius and Xai and Rufus Barma releasing the false execution warrant for Oz Vessalius, the fire that Snow had slowly stoked became a blaze, fed into the mentality behind the anti-Dukian Revolution, and cemented Xai's place as one of the era's villains, not helped by the fact that, owing to circumstantial evidence, even historians trying to put propaganda aside still consider Xai ''the'' major suspect in his son's disappearance. Xai wasn't a good person, but the political propaganda against him combined with his flaws, cruel behavior, and the known circumstances surrounding those behaviors led to the general public seeing him as a nuance-less CompleteMonster, a concensus that is hard to escape even for historians trying to be objective.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Xai Vessalius made an '''enemy''' when he blocked a petition by major political rival Colin Snow from reaching the king. Snow proceeded to drag every misstep and flaw he could credibly attribute to Xai into the public eye. This eventually included Xai's terrible treatment of his family, with Snow framing Xai as a furiously jealous man bitter that he'd been passed over for inheritance of the family's title and that his own son had been made his brother's heir, not him. Snow would eventually go on to be the first to publically accuse Zai of being behind the disappearance of his own son, Oz Vessalius, the Marquis de Loupe, and use this disappearance to push speculation that Zai was plotting an attempt on his brother, the Duke. Following the suspicious death of Oscar Vessalius and Xai and Rufus Barma releasing the false execution warrant for Oz Vessalius, the fire that Snow had slowly stoked became a blaze, fed into the mentality behind the anti-Dukian Revolution, and cemented Xai's place as one of the era's villains, not helped by the fact that, owing to circumstantial evidence, even historians trying to put propaganda aside still consider Xai ''the'' major suspect in his son's disappearance. Xai wasn't a good person, but his flaws, cruel behavior, and the circumstances around those behaviors led to the general public seeing him as a monster, a concensus that is hard to escape even for historians trying to be objective.
** This even more villainous Xai appears to have been adapted into an in-universe historical fiction musical ''1901.'' WordOfGod describes the musical mockingly as "like 1776, if 1776 was sadder, less non-violent, and one of the guys in Congress kept having flashbacks about a guy having flashbacks about the son he murdered ten years before." It's heavily implied the musical is about what happened directly after the finale of ''Pandora Hearts''--that is, the Revolution and fall of the Dukedoms. Xai's character in the musical is further implied to be its GreaterScopeVillain, since he's already dead in the musical's chronological setting but still has his own VillainSong, and is characterized as the jealous culprit behind his family's bloody downfall yet still haunted by the memory of murdering his own son. From what we hear of it, it seems that ''1901'' on some level blames Xai for the downfall of the Dukedoms.

* DramaticIrony: This is primarily what makes the Bonus Podcast Specials most interesting: the reader has far more context and information about the events the podcast hosts are speaking about then the podcast hosts themselves, but the hosts have knowledge about context surrounding those events that we never saw in-series. It enters FridgeBrilliance territory when this enables the reader to not only learn what the public knows and thinks about the events of ''Pandora Hearts,'' but also often make connections between the new information the hosts provide and the truths we learn in the manga, which the narrators are typically unable to.
** It can also be inverted: occasionally the narrators will screw up and make a CallForward to something they plan to mention later in the podcast, which is usually a piece of information not included in the manga and therefore something the characters know that the reader doesn’t. In the case of the second podcast, ''A Jack, A Glen, and the Tragedy of Sablier,'' this also enables the reader to make further horrifying conclusions: the public’s certainty that the Baskervilles are evil and to blame, which is present even within the time of the manga, is revealed to have come from the HeelRealization of other horrible things the Baskervilles did at the height of their power, which are implied in the manga but not usually focused on besides the sacrificing of the Children of Misfortune. It’s hard to argue with the “evil” label when people found human sacrifice chambers on their properties, with some of the human remains still in them.

* LaResistance: Twice. First, when King Brennan was deposed in 1901 and replaced with King Xibu, a foreigner with a very weak claim to the throne who was raised in and backed by Lucya, an [[TheEmpire Empire]] then trying to invade, and again when Idvitz invaded in the 1940s and intended to essentially annex Sable. The resistance won both times, but that hasn’t cooled tensions with Idvitz.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: One of Edith's favorite podcasts, ''Things You Overlooked in History Class,'' is a barely-veiled fictional incarnation of real-world podcast ''Stuff You Missed In History Class.'' While there are some clear differences, the hosts of ''Things You Overlooked'' are equally reminiscent of the real-world hosts, down to similar verbal tics.

** Of particular note is that the story uses this to give the nobility actual, functional titles linked to real places over which they had power. The royal family is the House of Sibylle, implied to be the old name of their country; Oscar is the Duke of Flambeau, with Flambeau being one of the four "quadrants" dividing the country's land; Oz, as the heir, was the Marquis de Loupe, with Loupe being an important marche of the Vessalius family; Jack, once recognized by his father's family, became ''le Vicomte de Jouet''--the Viscount of the Vessalius' ancestral village, Jouet, which, before the Tragedy of Sablier, was all the "third-rate" noble family really controlled. The other "quadrants" are patroned by the other Dukedoms, from which their titles also originate; the Eastern quadrant, for example, is Paondronte, the Dukedom of the Barmas, which is why Rufus Barma is called the Duke of Paondronte.

** Of particular note is that the story uses this to give the nobility actual, functional titles linked to real places over which they had power. The royal family is the House of Sibylle, implied to be the old name of their country; Oscar is the Duke of Flambeau, with Flambeau being one of the four "quadrants" dividing the country's land; Oz, as the heir, was the Marquis de Loupe, with Loupe being an important marche of the Vessalius family; Jack, once recognized by his father's family, became ''le Vicomte de Jouet''--the Viscount of the Vessalius' ancestral village, Jouet, which, before the Tragedy of Sablier, was all the "third-rate" noble family really controlled. The other "quadrants" are patroned by the other Dukedoms; West is Camomille, the Dukedom of the Rainsworths, North is Nuitkaiser, the Dukedom of the Nightrays, and East is Paondronte, the Dukedom of the Barmas.

* {{Worldbuilding}}: Arguably the fanfic's strongest suit is its detailed construction of the environment and the world, which was left mostly untouched in the source material. Entire wars, countries, nationalities, multimedia, and culture conflicts are created as simple background color, and the events in the manga are placed into historical context among them. One of the bonus materials is even a fictitious history podcast discussing how outsiders saw and explained the events of the manga and how this effects their world in modern times.

** Xai Vessalius also has been adapted into in-universe fiction, as the apparent main villain of the musical ''1901.'' WordOfGod describes the musical mockingly as "like 1776, if 1776 was sadder, less non-violent, and one of the guys in Congress kept having flashbacks about a guy having flashbacks about the son he murdered ten years before." It's heavily implied the musical is about what happened directly after the finale of ''Pandora Hearts''--that is, the Revolution and fall of the Dukedoms. Xai's character in the musical is further implied to be a GreaterScopeVillain, since he's already dead in the musical's chronological setting but still has his own VillainSong, and is (or was?) characterized as the jealous culprit behind his family's bloody downfall as well as haunted by the memory of murdering his own son. From what we hear of it, it seems that ''1901'' on some level frames Xai as the villain behind the downfall of the Dukedoms.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: In-universe example. In the series, the thing most mentioned about Jack is that he’s the “Hero of Sablier,” and even when this is proven false, most characters’ impressions still revolve around this label or the falsity of it. Here, one hundred years later, Jack’s still known by that moniker, but the historians and general populace consider him more important and heroic for what he did ''after'' the Tragedy: forming the Great Dukedoms, which helped restabilize the government and kept the country from plunging into anarchy. In the series, Jack’s role in the formation of the Dukedoms was justifiably kind of a post-it note next to his actions during the Tragedy, largely because the entire plot revolved around them. Here, it’s his actions during the tragedy that are the post-it note.

** Their foil is the Lymans, Edith's grandparents, who evidently ''were'' very strict but are now more hands-off with Elaine--and not in a good way. Unlike the Tales, the Lymans provided zero emotional support and have kept Elaine at a distance in the hopes that she'd sort herself out on her own, all while making it clear that they will consider her an embarrassment until she's dobe so and they don't want to be publically associated with her. Unfortunately, Elaine's clearly a mental wreck, and without guidance, direction, or an understanding of how to ask for help and from whom, her mental health seems to have only gotten worse under these conditions, as the hands-off method has brutally highlighted Elaine's current inability to function on her own and subsequently plummeted her self-esteem to subterranean depths, and it's outright stated she turned to alcohol at that point and implied she may have also turned to drugs.

*** Vil's name is German, and pronouncing it the German way makes the V sound like a W, leaving us with a white-haired girl Oz calls "Will."

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Oz (and to a lesser extent, Edith) to Gilbert. Despite initially trying to lead his own life and become involved in other things, he became more and more emotionally dependent on the hope of Oz and Alice's return as everyone else he knew died before him.

* BerserkButton: Played for drama. Beatrix is ''furious'' with Mr. and Mrs. Lyman's treatment of their daughter and granddaughter, switching between angrily stabbing pots and breaking down crying at random moments in Advance XIII. This turns out to be because the Lymans made cold-hearted and uncaring decisions which helped send their daughter down a path of self-destruction, something Beatrix feared doing to her own children more than anything else.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: In-universe example, naturally evolving out of the cast’s FamedInStory ShroudedInMyth ConspiracyTheory-attracting nature. So far, there’s Ghost Wizards, about the Tragedy of Reveille really having been a ZombieApocalypse (maybe?) and The Nightingale’s Lover, which apparently runs with the idea that all of the PH cast were secretly vampires (among other, funnier things). A not-yet-canon example is the animated Disney-esque film about Oz Vessalius that’s a lot like the film ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}},'' though that appears to only exist as a running joke in the author's comments.

* AntimagicalFaction: The “Mismages” mentioned in the second podcast possibly could have been one—either that, or “mismage” is just a descriptive word for someone who simply hates magic, not a unified faction of them. Regardless, according to the second podcast transcript, they opposed the use of magic and apparently became very vocal after the Tragedy of Sablier and the reveal of a likely connection between the Baskervilles and what evidence suggests was a very evil type of magic. They were opposed by Magiphiles, who believed the Mismages had set up false evidence to link magic with the famous murderers and defame magic practitioners by association.