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* TwentyOneGunSalute: This shows up frequently in the series; fitting, as the tradition originated with the navy in the 17th century and this is a naval series set in the 19th. A captain gets a certain number of guns, an admiral a certain number more. After a particularly well fought battle in the first book, a number of ships fire off their guns as a salute to the HMS Sophie and her crew.
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* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally ([[ShownTheirWork as to be expected]]), usually when one of the ship's clocks has some kind of breakdown and makes navigation very difficult. Watches and clocks are rightly shown as being extremely important for any maritime venture, [[ClockKing though not only for navigation.]]
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* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally ([[ShownTheirWork as to be expected]]), expected]] in a book with its setting), usually when one of the ship's clocks has some kind of breakdown and makes navigation very difficult. Watches and clocks are rightly shown as being extremely important for any maritime venture, [[ClockKing though not only for navigation.]]
* LongRunningBookSeries
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
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* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally, as would be expected in a book with its setting, usually when the ship's chronometers run into problems.
* LongRunningBookSeries
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
* LongRunningBookSeries
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
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* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally ([[ShownTheirWork as to be expected]]), usually when one of the ship's clocks has some kind of breakdown and makes navigation very difficult. Watches and clocks are rightly shown as being extremely important for any maritime venture, [[ClockKing though not only for navigation.]]
** It was to the point that no ship carried only one chronometer onboard; mention is made of Jack consulting three to get the average.
** It was to the point that no ship carried only one chronometer onboard; mention is made of Jack consulting three to get the average.
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'''For film examples, go to ''MasterAndCommanderTheFarSideOfTheWorld.'''''
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!!This series provides examples of:
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Removed hyphen so that the character page link at the end of the summary would go to the character page instead of the disambiguation page.
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Now has its own [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Aubrey-Maturin character page]].
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Now has its own [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Aubrey-Maturin php/Characters/AubreyMaturin character page]].
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--> [[WhatHaveIDone "Oh, my God. Seven hundred men."]]
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--> [[WhatHaveIDone "Oh, my God. Seven Six hundred men."]]
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* TheKlutz: Stephen somehow contrives to get into accident after accident at sea, ranging from falling out of the boat to somehow turning a complete somersault in a particularly violent sea. As a result, the seamen around him look upon with real affection and considerable respect for his medical prowess--and stand wary in case he manages to take yet another improbable tumble at every possible opportunity.
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* KangarooCourt: Jack Aubrey suffers through one of these — framed for financial crimes, he is given a sadistically long show trial whose judge is his father's political nemesis.
* TheKlutz: Stephen somehow contrives to get into accident after accident at sea, ranging from falling out of the boat to somehow turning a complete somersault in a particularly violent sea. As a result, the seamen around him look upon with real affection and considerable respect for his medical prowess--and stand wary in case he manages to take yet another improbable tumble at every possible opportunity.
* TheKlutz: Stephen somehow contrives to get into accident after accident at sea, ranging from falling out of the boat to somehow turning a complete somersault in a particularly violent sea. As a result, the seamen around him look upon with real affection and considerable respect for his medical prowess--and stand wary in case he manages to take yet another improbable tumble at every possible opportunity.
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Deleted line(s) 162 (click to see context) :
* IncrediblyLamePun: This is one of Jack's most beloved forms of humour ... though he takes such honest, innocent joy in his wretched jokes that readers are usually more inclined to laugh with him than groan.
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* {{Pun}}: This is one of Jack's most beloved forms of humour ... though he takes such honest, innocent joy in his wretched jokes that readers are usually more inclined to laugh with him than groan.
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* NavalBlockade: The British blockade of France during the NapoleonicWars and North America during the WarOf1812 are shown, unusually, from the perspective of the blockaders. As the weather is terrible, the ships spend a long time at sea without any interesting port calls, there's little chance for loot and glory, and the hygiene and comfort of a sailing ship are what we would expect from WoodenShipsAndIronMen, the duty is understandably highly unpopular among both officers and crew.
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color. White wedding dresses did not become standard issue for brides in the Western world until [[VictorianBritain TheVictorianEra]].
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color. White wedding dresses did not become standard issue for brides in the Western world until [[VictorianBritain TheVictorianEra]].The Victorian Era]].
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color. White wedding dresses did not become standard issue for brides in the Western world until TheVictorianEra.
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color. White wedding dresses did not become standard issue for brides in the Western world until TheVictorianEra.[[VictorianBritain TheVictorianEra]].
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color.
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** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color. White wedding dresses did not become standard issue for brides in the Western world until TheVictorianEra.
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** In this period, Royal Navy sailors were issued a twice-daily alcohol ration, usually grog (rum mixed in the ratio of half a pint to one quart of water, with citrus juice - typically lemon or lime - added originally to improve the taste of the water, later to prevent scurvy). The mixing and serving of the grog is a high point of the daily routine at sea, observed with great attentiveness and solemnity by the crew.
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** In this period, Royal Navy sailors were issued a twice-daily alcohol ration, usually grog (rum mixed in the ratio of half a pint to one quart of water, with citrus juice - typically lemon or lime - added originally to improve the taste of the water, later to prevent scurvy). The mixing and serving of the grog is a high point of the daily routine at sea, observed with great attentiveness and solemnity by the crew. The standard ratio of rum to water in grog is 1:4, and cutting the amount of rum in a sailor's grog is a standard punishment for minor offenses.
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** In this period, Royal Navy sailors were issued a twice-daily alcohol ration, usually grog (rum mixed in the ratio of half a pint to one quart of water, with citrus juice - typically lemon or lime - added originally to improve the taste of the water, later to prevent scurvy). The mixing and serving of the grog is a high point of the daily routine at sea, observed with great attentiveness and solemnity by the crew.
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* GoodIsBoring: Famously averted--several critics have pointed to O'Brian as one of the few major authors (along with Jane Austen) to make human virtue consistently ''interesting.''
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* GoodIsBoring: Famously averted--several critics have pointed to O'Brian as one of the few major authors (along with Jane Austen) to make human virtue not merely admirable, but consistently ''interesting.''
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* GoodIsBoring: Famously averted--several critics have pointed to O'Brian as one of the few major authors (along with Jane Austen) to make human virtue consistently ''interesting.''
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** As an adolescent, he also spends "a long time" locked in a prison cell with a convicted rapist. I'm just saying.
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Hottip Cleanup
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Novice readers are sometimes advised to start with the third book, ''H.M.S. Surprise'', to acclimate themselves to the relatively laborious, jargon-laden prose style with a more action-y plot before they attempt to read the two earlier volumes. Even ''experienced'' readers are advised to acquire a copy of Dean King's ''Sea of Words'', the 500+ page handbook and lexicon companion to the series.[[hottip:*:Reading on a Kindle (or similar device) can also be very helpful; it saves a lot of time to be able to hold your finger down on, say, "solomongundy", and see a definition. Paper books don't have this feature yet.]] King's ''Harbors and High Seas'' can also be useful to the reader, as it includes all the necessary maps to keep track of where events happened during the series, as well as the state of the world at the time. It is important to note that it is entirely possible to read the series without these aids; they are useful, but as one of the two main characters' jobs in the series is to have the essential naval matters explained to him, even if the reader does not know exactly what a "waister" is, the action of the book will still make sense.
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Novice readers are sometimes advised to start with the third book, ''H.M.S. Surprise'', to acclimate themselves to the relatively laborious, jargon-laden prose style with a more action-y plot before they attempt to read the two earlier volumes. Even ''experienced'' readers are advised to acquire a copy of Dean King's ''Sea of Words'', the 500+ page handbook and lexicon companion to the series.[[hottip:*:Reading [[note]]Reading on a Kindle (or similar device) can also be very helpful; it saves a lot of time to be able to hold your finger down on, say, "solomongundy", and see a definition. Paper books don't have this feature yet.]] [[/note]] King's ''Harbors and High Seas'' can also be useful to the reader, as it includes all the necessary maps to keep track of where events happened during the series, as well as the state of the world at the time. It is important to note that it is entirely possible to read the series without these aids; they are useful, but as one of the two main characters' jobs in the series is to have the essential naval matters explained to him, even if the reader does not know exactly what a "waister" is, the action of the book will still make sense.
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** Babbington is this trope on steroids. When the ship is in port, expect him to find a woman. At one point Jack dresses him down in public for contriving to get himself a ship full of Lesbians[[hottip:*:Actual Lesbians. Women from the isle of Lesbos. He rescued them from North African slavers. It was perfectly legitimate. For once.]]
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** Babbington is this trope on steroids. When the ship is in port, expect him to find a woman. At one point Jack dresses him down in public for contriving to get himself a ship full of Lesbians[[hottip:*:Actual Lesbians[[note]]Actual Lesbians. Women from the isle of Lesbos. He rescued them from North African slavers. It was perfectly legitimate. For once.]][[/note]]
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** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
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** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "Jack, literature)[[note]]"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"]], sloth!"[[/note]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
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* CorruptPolitician: Politicians don't feature too commonly, but corruption [[TruthInTelevision was the norm]] for the day. Aubrey's father, General Aubrey, is an MP from a pocket district[[hottip:**:(basically, a very small constituency, none of whom can afford to piss off the landlord)]] that Aubrey later inherits. Aubrey's father wasn't too scrupulous, managing to get his son convicted of the 19th century of insider trading by not keeping a secret. Aubrey also has some unscrupulous political enemies.
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* CorruptPolitician: Politicians don't feature too commonly, but corruption [[TruthInTelevision was the norm]] for the day. Aubrey's father, General Aubrey, is an MP from a pocket district[[hottip:**:(basically, district[[note]](basically, a very small constituency, none of whom can afford to piss off the landlord)]] landlord)[[/note]] that Aubrey later inherits. Aubrey's father wasn't too scrupulous, managing to get his son convicted of the 19th century of insider trading by not keeping a secret. Aubrey also has some unscrupulous political enemies.
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* DavidVersusGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
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* DavidVersusGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The [[note]]The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] [[/note]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
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* NostalgiaFilter: A number of older captains and admirals (and, increasingly, Jack and Stephen) remember the past quite fondly. A number of references are made to the 80s and 90s. The ''seventeen''-eighties and -nineties. One spends a significant amount of time at dinner instructin a midshipman on proper behavior, specially pointing out with approval Jack's rather old-fashioned behavior and appearance[[hottip:*:Only with regard to his habit of wearing his hat 'athwartship' rather than 'amidship' in admiration of Admiral Nelson. Otherwise Jack was always cautiously modern, liking flintlocks, but keeping slowmatch on hand just in case, for example.]]
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* NostalgiaFilter: A number of older captains and admirals (and, increasingly, Jack and Stephen) remember the past quite fondly. A number of references are made to the 80s and 90s. The ''seventeen''-eighties and -nineties. One spends a significant amount of time at dinner instructin a midshipman on proper behavior, specially pointing out with approval Jack's rather old-fashioned behavior and appearance[[hottip:*:Only appearance[[note]]Only with regard to his habit of wearing his hat 'athwartship' rather than 'amidship' in admiration of Admiral Nelson. Otherwise Jack was always cautiously modern, liking flintlocks, but keeping slowmatch on hand just in case, for example.]][[/note]]
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** ''The Reverse of the Medal'' kicks off Jack's stint as a privateer[[hottip:*:only don't call him that; he prefers [[InsistentTerminology "private man of war"]]]], which culminates in an epic circumnavigation spanning three different commands (''Diane'', ''Nutmeg of Consolation'', and ''Surprise'') and five books, from ''The Letter of Marque'' (nearly the entirety of which deals with preparations for the journey) to ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
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** ''The Reverse of the Medal'' kicks off Jack's stint as a privateer[[hottip:*:only privateer[[note]]only don't call him that; he prefers [[InsistentTerminology "private man of war"]]]], war"]][[/note]], which culminates in an epic circumnavigation spanning three different commands (''Diane'', ''Nutmeg of Consolation'', and ''Surprise'') and five books, from ''The Letter of Marque'' (nearly the entirety of which deals with preparations for the journey) to ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
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* DavidVsGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
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* DavidVsGoliath: DavidVersusGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
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*** RusselCrowe had to put on some weight for the movie, but he's not portly. "The Captain has an uncommon genteel figgar"
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*** RusselCrowe RussellCrowe had to put on some weight for the movie, but he's not portly. "The Captain has an uncommon genteel figgar"
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* CloudCuckoolander: Dr. Maturin, frequently. The whole world could be blowing up around his ears, and he'd be prancing about the ship with a rare snake or a pair of mating insects or somesuch. Of course, that assumes he didn't cause the explosion in question, in which case see CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
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* CloudCuckoolander: {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Dr. Maturin, frequently. The whole world could be blowing up around his ears, and he'd be prancing about the ship with a rare snake or a pair of mating insects or somesuch. Of course, that assumes he didn't cause the explosion in question, in which case see CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
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** LastNameBasis saves Stephen's fortune on at least one occasion: [[spoiler:Before leaving on his circumnavigation recounted in the arc beginning with ''The Thirteen Gun Salute'', Stephen writes a power-of-attorney letter authorizing Sir Joseph Blaine to move his money from his current bank, which is providing highly unsatisfactory service, to a different one recommended by Jack. However, Stephen is writing a note to Diana at the same time, and in true CloudCuckooLander fashion, signs that note with the formal "S. Maturin" signature that he uses for business letters and signs the power-of-attorney as "Stephen". This turns out to be very fortunate, however, as the bank Stephen had intended to shift his fortune to unexpectedly goes bust during the voyage. and because Sir Joseph can't move the funds with the incorrectly signed power-of-attorney, the money is safe in the "highly unsatisfactory" bank. Another happy result is that, from that point on, Stephen and Sir Joseph, already close friends, enjoy the liberty to address each other by unadorned first names.]]
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** LastNameBasis saves Stephen's fortune on at least one occasion: [[spoiler:Before leaving on his circumnavigation recounted in the arc beginning with ''The Thirteen Gun Salute'', Stephen writes a power-of-attorney letter authorizing Sir Joseph Blaine to move his money from his current bank, which is providing highly unsatisfactory service, to a different one recommended by Jack. However, Stephen is writing a note to Diana at the same time, and in true CloudCuckooLander {{Cloudcuckoolander}} fashion, signs that note with the formal "S. Maturin" signature that he uses for business letters and signs the power-of-attorney as "Stephen". This turns out to be very fortunate, however, as the bank Stephen had intended to shift his fortune to unexpectedly goes bust during the voyage. and because Sir Joseph can't move the funds with the incorrectly signed power-of-attorney, the money is safe in the "highly unsatisfactory" bank. Another happy result is that, from that point on, Stephen and Sir Joseph, already close friends, enjoy the liberty to address each other by unadorned first names.]]
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*** Perhaps more that he is [[CloudCuckoolander utterly uninterested in the subject]], but it's still pretty hilarious.
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*** Perhaps more that he is [[CloudCuckoolander [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} utterly uninterested in the subject]], but it's still pretty hilarious.
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wording fix re Dil and the silver bracelets
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** Tragic example with [[spoiler:Dil, the Indian girl whom Stephen befriends in ''HMS Surprise''. He finally buys her the silver bangles that she always wanted--and finds her dead, having been robbed and murdered for them.]]
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** Tragic example with [[spoiler:Dil, the Indian girl whom Stephen befriends in ''HMS Surprise''. He finally buys her the silver bangles that she had always wanted--and later finds her dead, having been robbed and murdered for them.]]
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grammar fix and further elaboration on the Sophie\'s (lack of) gunnery.
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** Also slightly subverted in book one, as the ''Sophie'' is very much the Age of Sail equivalent of a rustbucket. She's called a ship-sloop, a three-masted unrated ship, but is actually a brig, which is two-masted. (Yay for Royal Navy social promotion - a brig is only a lieutenant's command, so any ship given to a commander automatically becomes a sloop, regardless of what it actually is.) Worse, she's dead slow, under-sailed, under-manned and under-gunned. Through clever naval and (ahem) social engineering, Aubrey manages to turn her into a top-notch commerce raider anyway. He tried to mount a nine pounder chase cannon, but the ship's carpenter stopped Jack from a second test shot because of the stress it put on the knees,
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** Also slightly subverted in book one, as the ''Sophie'' is very much the Age of Sail equivalent of a rustbucket. She's called a ship-sloop, a three-masted unrated ship, but is actually a brig, which is two-masted. (Yay for Royal Navy social promotion - a brig is only a lieutenant's command, so any ship given to a commander automatically becomes a sloop, regardless of what it actually is.) Worse, she's dead slow, under-sailed, under-manned and under-gunned. Through clever naval and (ahem) social engineering, Aubrey manages to turn her into a top-notch commerce raider anyway. Jack's biggest concern with the Sophie is the undersized 4 pounders that make up her broadside. Unfortunately those are all the ship can bear. He once tried to mount a nine pounder chase bow-chaser cannon, but the ship's carpenter stopped Jack from a second test shot because of the stress it put on the knees,knees threatened to rip the ship apart.
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** Stephen is outraged by Pullings's predatory onshore zeal in pressing landsmen into naval service: "His lust for men is inhuman!"
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corrected `best line in literature` which is far funnier accurate.
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** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "He has debauched my sloth,"]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
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** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "He has "Jack, you have debauched my sloth,"]], sloth!"]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
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* IncrediblyLamePun: This is one of Jack's most beloved forms of humour ... though he takes such honest, innocent joy in his wretched jokes that readers are usually more inclined to laugh with him than groan.
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The first novel, ''Master and Commander'', was adapted for [[Film/MasterAndCommander film]] in 2003.
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I think the namespace makes that clear (and Main.Master And Commander is now a disambiguation)
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''This is about [[Main/MasterAndCommander the series]] of novels. For [[Film/MasterAndCommander the film]], consult said page.''
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[[caption-width-right:342:Yes, in the first published edition, Jack Aubrey was played by a young Clint Eastwood.]]
->''"It is all one," said Stephen. "They speak in tropes at sea."''\\
--'''HMS Surprise (Book 3)'''
''This is about [[Main/MasterAndCommander the series]] of novels. For [[Film/MasterAndCommander the film]], consult said page.''
Twenty-book series written by [[FakeIrish pseudo-Irish]] author Patrick O'Brian (born Richard Patrick Russ). The series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, following the adventures of an English naval captain, Jack Aubrey, and his surgeon and particular friend, Stephen Maturin, who also works for Naval Intelligence. O'Brian also wrote the first couple of chapters of a 21st book before his death, which have since been published, along with his notes about what happened afterward.
The books start with Jack first meeting Stephen and getting his first command, and go on with no particular overriding plot, though there are several arcs carried through multiple books. Their beginning, middle and end points are also arbitrary; they read something like one very big novel.
!!Titles in the Series (Year of First Edition)
# ''Master and Commander'' (1969)
# ''Post Captain'' (1972)
# ''HMS Surprise'' (1973)
# ''The Mauritius Command'' (1977)
# ''Desolation Island'' (1978)
# ''The Fortune of War'' (1979)
# ''The Surgeon's Mate'' (1980)
# ''The Ionian Mission'' (1981)
# ''Treason's Harbour'' (1983)
# ''The Far Side of the World'' (1984)
# ''The Reverse of the Medal'' (1986)
# ''The Letter of Marque'' (1988)
# ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' (1989)
# ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'' (1991)
# ''Clarissa Oakes'' (1992) (''The Truelove'' in the USA)
# ''The Wine-Dark Sea'' (1993)
# ''The Commodore'' (1994)
# ''The Yellow Admiral'' (1996)
# ''The Hundred Days'' (1998)
# ''Blue at the Mizzen'' (1999)
# ''The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey'' (2004, unfinished and published posthumously)
The series was adapted into a 2003 film starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, ''[[Film/MasterAndCommander Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World]]'', which was intended to become the first installment in [[StillbornFranchise a series of films]]. Several books, among them ''Master and Commander'' and ''The Far Side of the World'', were used as inspiration for the film.
Novice readers are sometimes advised to start with the third book, ''H.M.S. Surprise'', to acclimate themselves to the relatively laborious, jargon-laden prose style with a more action-y plot before they attempt to read the two earlier volumes. Even ''experienced'' readers are advised to acquire a copy of Dean King's ''Sea of Words'', the 500+ page handbook and lexicon companion to the series.[[hottip:*:Reading on a Kindle (or similar device) can also be very helpful; it saves a lot of time to be able to hold your finger down on, say, "solomongundy", and see a definition. Paper books don't have this feature yet.]] King's ''Harbors and High Seas'' can also be useful to the reader, as it includes all the necessary maps to keep track of where events happened during the series, as well as the state of the world at the time. It is important to note that it is entirely possible to read the series without these aids; they are useful, but as one of the two main characters' jobs in the series is to have the essential naval matters explained to him, even if the reader does not know exactly what a "waister" is, the action of the book will still make sense.
''Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organization, 1793-1815'' by Brian Lavery is also an excellent companion to the series, but rather pricey. And for the culinary-minded, there's ''Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels'' by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas.
A newer online companion, currently in progress, is the [[http://www.cannonade.net/index.php Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project]], which uses Google Maps to trace, with surprising accuracy, the various comings and goings of both Aubrey and Maturin; it is about halfway done at last count, and progressing quite nicely.
Compare with: HoratioHornblower.
'''For film examples, go to ''MasterAndCommanderTheFarSideOfTheWorld.'''''
Now has its own [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Aubrey-Maturin character page]].
----
!!This series provides examples of:
* AFatherToHisMen: Jack Aubrey, who looks after his personal followers (the midshipmen and lieutenants who serve under him) as well as he can throughout their careers. The midshipmen in particular, as they usually come to him as 11-14 year old children, and he takes a personal hand in their educations and moral well-being. He also has his foremast TrueCompanions in his bargemen, common seamen who follow him from ship to ship and are the ones protecting his back when he leads a boarding action.
** Part of the reason Jack always feels terrible after a battle is that he has to write letters home explaining which of his friends died and how.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Jack Aubrey is often "pierced with his own sword", as a delirious Stephen once puts it, because he never will learn how to say no.
** Babbington is this trope on steroids. When the ship is in port, expect him to find a woman. At one point Jack dresses him down in public for contriving to get himself a ship full of Lesbians[[hottip:*:Actual Lesbians. Women from the isle of Lesbos. He rescued them from North African slavers. It was perfectly legitimate. For once.]]
* AddictionDisplacement: Dr. Maturin, over the course of many novels, develops a powerful addiction to the (opium-based) tincture of laudanum. After successfully kicking the habit, he finds a perfectly healthy substitute, one he knows to be non-addictive... the coca leaves chewed by the natives of Peru. And when Maturin's supply of ''that'' drug is accidentally consumed by the ship's rats (HilarityEnsues), Maturin takes to smoking cigars much more frequently.
* [[TheAllegedCar The Alleged Ship]]:
** "The horrible old ''Leopard''." Jack tries gamely to defend the fifty-gun ship as "the finest fourth-rate in the service," though at the time it was [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative a class of two]], with the other, ''Grampus'', being even more self-evidently horrible a ship.
** The "scientifically designed" ''Polychrest'', aka "The Carpenter's Mistake." Built to carry an abandoned SecretWeapon, then used as a conventional ship-sloop, with sharp ends at both bow and stern. Not only did ''Polychrest'' miss stays on her maiden attempt to leave port, she also sailed ''backwards'' in the process.
** '''HMS Worcester'', one of the "Forty Thieves", a class of 74-gun third rates that came from notoriously corrupt and dishonest shipyards. Her sailing qualities are unremarkable, but what distinguishes her is that she nearly falls apart in a heavy sea and has to abandon pursuit of a fleet-action, returning to Malta yard wrapped up like a chrysalis in a cocoon of twelve-inch line to prevent her from disintegrating. (Consequently she is condemned and taken out of service; Aubrey is returned to command in his trademark frigate, the ''Surprise''.)
** The ancient tub of a merchantman that carries Sam Panda from Jamaica to Brazil, where he is to begin his ministry, in ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute''. Her barely-trained crew and her terrible sailing qualities lead to her barely weathering the Kingston headland and avoiding capsize only by what is generally agreed to be DivineIntervention, and while Jack prays for a guardian angel to look over Sam, he does wish that it wouldn't require watch after watch of them just to get him to Brazil.
* AllThereInTheManual: Can't make heads or tails of the nautical jargon and historical references? There's a 500+ page lexicon and handbook to go along with the series.
* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Aubrey's crews can sometimes seem like PoliticallyCorrectHistory, but it was commonplace at the time for the Royal Navy to recruit any able seamen they could find, be they white, black, Chinese or even ''French''. Early in his command, to get his point across to a couple of pressed American sailors, Jack promotes a black sailor to bosun's mate.
* AmazonBrigade: The crew of the pahi that rescues Jack and Stephen in ''The Far Side of the World''.
* AnimalsHateHim:
** Nathaniel Martin is almost as dedicated a naturalist as Stephen Maturin, but unlike Stephen, is almost invariably bitten or otherwise abused by the animals he studies. He has one eye... not [[EyepatchOfPower]] due to battle or dueling, but due to an unfortunate encounter with an owl. (On the other hand, ''Maturin'' is the one who contrives to get poisoned by a platypus in Australia.)
** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "He has debauched my sloth,"]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
* AnyoneCanDie: Beginning with ''The Hundred Days'' and the series' nearing the end of the wars, some ''very'' major characters are killed off in essentially random and undramatic fashion.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: "A slaughtered crew, a sunken ship, and my collections destroyed..."
** Not to compare it with the loss of life, but it WAS a unique and irreplacable collection personally gathered from all over the world as he traveled with the British Navy.
* AudienceSurrogate: Neatly averted using the FishOutOfWater nature of the characters of both Aubrey and Maturin--on land and at sea respectively. When the narrative needs something about Napoleonic-era shipboard life explained to the audience, it has the ignorant Stephen ask it of Jack, and when the narrative needs something about Napoleonic-era science or politics explained to the audience it has the ignorant Jack ask it of Stephen.
* AutoErotica: Stephen arranges a rendezvous for Jack and Sophie in a carriage on a moor at midnight.
* AutopsySnackTime: Stephen and a fellow naturalist move immediately from dissection to dinner, using the same knife.
* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: in ''The Letter of Marque'' Stephen finally resolves to make a clean break of his up-until-then ambiguous relationship with Diana, but after talking with her--and discovering Wray's interception of his letters--he definitively changes his mind. After that there's really no doubt.
* BadassBookworm: Stephen Maturin is a 5'6", gaunt, clumsy, "small, indefinably odd and even ill-looking" man as well as a doctor, polyglot, natural philosopher and all-round intellectual. He is also Britain's greatest spy. Over the course of the books he is seen shooting the pips out of playing cards, winning several duels, operating on himself, and dispatching his enemies in very badass ways. And then dissecting them.
* BadBoss: Captain Harte, all-around {{jerkass}}. Hates Aubrey with a passion, and is responsible for preventing his promotion to Post Captain after the capture of the ''Cacafuego'' based on a legal technicality (for which Aubrey's crew came up with a very unflattering sea shanty penned in Harte's [dis]honor).
* BasedOnATrueStory: The first book, ''Master and Commander'', is closely based on the adventures of Thomas Cochrane and the sloop ''Speedy'', down to the capturing of a Spanish ship twice her size with a mixture of cunning and bravery. The other books mix and match bits from many different captains and battles in the period, but Aubrey is clearly based on Cochrane (who encountered similar troubles with AllDevouringBlackHoleLoanSharks, and also inspired at least one other fictional Royal Navy captain, HoratioHornblower).
* BattleInTheRain: ''Leopard'' vs. ''Waakzeimheid'' was carried out in a huge South Atlantic storm; the first ship to momentarily lose control due to battle damage would broach and be swamped.
--> [[WhatHaveIDone "Oh, my God. Seven hundred men."]]
* BenevolentBoss: Jack believes in running a tightly-disciplined, taut, but ''happy'' ship. His sailors love him and would follow him to hell and back for it.
* BerserkButton: it's always dangerous to disparage the Irish and the Catholics around Stephen, who is both. He doesn't mind when Jack occasionally puts his foot in his mouth with anti-Catholic sentiment, though, since he knows Jack never does it intentionally, and he always apologizes for it.
* BloodKnight: James Dillon in the first book lives for combat, and at least once expresses to Maturin that he understands but does not share in Aubrey's lust for prizes. [[spoiler:When he dies in battle against the ''Cacafuego'' his mates all say that they had never seem him so alive.]]
* BrainsAndBrawn: Jack and Stephen come across as this at first, but it is quickly established that Stephen is at least as lethal in a fight as Jack, and that Jack is extremely gifted when it comes to scientific disciplines with immediate application, such as astronomy, oceanography and geometry. They're more "BadassBookworm and GeniusBruiser" than Brains and Brawn ''per se''.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: One bachelor character's residence is described as well appointed, with a nice fireplace, comfortable chairs, good looking wood paneling and cabinetwork, as well as tasteful pornographic paintings on the walls. It's casually enough mentioned that it tempts the reader to double-take.
* BrokenBird: Clarissa Oakes.
* CampFollower: Where sailors are, whores will be.
* TheCaptain: Jack is the example ''par excellance'', but the series explores in close detail how the authority of a captain can bring negative character traits to the fore; as a result, there are plenty of successful captains, and plenty of unsuccessful ones.
* CatchPhrase:
** Aubrey's amused "What a fellow you are, Stephen," when Maturin persistently misunderstands naval life.
** Stephen has his various Irish/Catholic sayings: "the Dear knows", "God between us and evil", and the like.
** Adopted by both Stephen and Jack, as a reflection of the Navy's insistence on strict timekeeping: "there is not a moment to be lost!"
* TheChainsOfCommanding: Jack has to write letters home to the parents of the officers and the midshipmen killed under his command. Additionally, the authority of the position means that it's nearly impossible for a captain and his officers to really become friends, a kind of social burden that falls on Jack quite often.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In ''The Truelove'', Jack, searching for a suitable material for Clarissa Harvill's wedding dress, lends her some of a bolt of high-quality scarlet silk that he bought in Batavia for Sophie. [[spoiler:This causes problems for Jack's marriage several installments later, in ''The Commodore'', when Clarissa shows up for dinner with Jack and Sophie wearing the dress, only to find that Sophie is wearing a gown made from the same bolt of silk!]]
** Too many to count show up in the context of single books. For instance, while outfitting the ''Sophie'', Jack scounges up a couple buckets of yellow paint at the start of ''Master and Commander''; half the book later, after meeting a very similar-looking Danish brig whose only real difference is that they're painted with a yellow stripe instead of the Nelson chequer, that paint comes in handy for a disguise.
* ChekhovsGunman: Or in this case, Chekhov's Gunwoman. At the beginning of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', Jack, irritated and upset because he has apparently received no mail from Sophie during his imprisonment in Boston, has a brief fling with a young woman in Halifax, whom he meets at a ball celebrating the ''Shannon'''s victory over the ''Chesapeake''. [[spoiler:It turns out that the mail, several packets' worth, had been set aside especially for Jack, but nobody had thought to inform the post office clerk. This indiscretion comes back to almost wreck his marriage in ''The Yellow Admiral'', when Sophie is shown old letters that the young lady has written to Jack that he has unwisely kept. She throws him out of the house - or would have thrown him out of the house, except that he's already at sea - but Stephen, with the help of Diana and Clarissa Oakes, manages to save the situation.]]
** Another good example: In ''Desolation Island'', Stephen, while visiting Jack, accompanies the latter to his local club, where Jack participates in a regular card game. While watching, Stephen observes that one of the other players seems to be cheating, and informs Jack. Jack later tells Stephen that he called the other fellow on it. [[spoiler:The cardsharp in question is Andrew Wray, who pops up over the next half-a-dozen-so books to trouble Jack and Stephen, nearly wrecking the former's career and the latter's marriage.]]
* CloudCuckoolander: Dr. Maturin, frequently. The whole world could be blowing up around his ears, and he'd be prancing about the ship with a rare snake or a pair of mating insects or somesuch. Of course, that assumes he didn't cause the explosion in question, in which case see CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* CluelessChickMagnet: Jagiello, the handsome Lithuanian nobleman and a close friend to Jack and Stephen. He speaks passionately of the day that he'd meet a woman who can see him as an equal--considerably harder than it looks considering all the pretty ladies who throw themselves at him.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Happens to Maturin early in the series, much to Aubrey's horror, and afterwards is a danger very much on his mind whenever he's at risk of being found out as a secret agent.
* ColdSniper: We don't learn the exact details of the encounter, but Stephen apparently kills two villains with a rifle at long range... and then almost immediately brings them to a colleague's house, where the two of them calmly ''dissect'' the bodies.
* ColourfulThemeNaming: Aubrey and his friend and fellow post-captain Heneage Dundas discuss the captain of ''HMS Iris'', who not only wants to dress his bargemen in the colors of the rainbow (due to the connotation of his ships name), but specifically seeks out sailors ''named'' for said colors: e.g., with surnames like "Scarlett," "White," or "Green." He offered Dundas a brass "chaser" cannon in exchange for one of his sailors whose name was Blew. (Dundas declined, sharing with Aubrey a dislike for "costumed" bargemen. Also, bargemen are a select group, following the captain especially from ship to ship, and are the first behind him in combat. Trading one for a cannon...)
* CombatMedic: Dr. Maturin.
* ComeToGawk: The pillory is shown in ''The Reverse of the Medal''. And then it turns into a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming hundred of sailors Jack has known over the years come and guard Jack while he's there, even dismissing the hired help Stephen has brought.
* ComicBookTime: O'Brian moved the series into this after a few books when he realized he was quickly running out of Napoleonic War years. O'Brian somehow manages to squeeze what would properly be at least five, perhaps even ten years' worth of action into a period of less than 6 months, roughly spanning June 1813 (the end of ''The Fortune of War'') to November 1813 (the beginning of ''The Commodore''). Time resumes its normal sequence with ''The Yellow Admiral''; the last completed book in the series, ''Blue at the Mizzen", presumably ends in early 1816.
* CompanionCube: Jack's violin. He's had it since he was a boy and is very distraught when it breaks.
* CompletelyMissingThePoint: Jack thinks ''Hamlet'' is an utterly hilarious play. See CrosscastRole below.
* CoolBoat: The ''Sophie'' in book one. The ''Surprise'' in most of the series. The ''Polychrest'' was probably intended to be this by her architect, but ends up useless and bizarre. Jack, being made of awesome, nevertheless manages to get some good use out of her.
** Also slightly subverted in book one, as the ''Sophie'' is very much the Age of Sail equivalent of a rustbucket. She's called a ship-sloop, a three-masted unrated ship, but is actually a brig, which is two-masted. (Yay for Royal Navy social promotion - a brig is only a lieutenant's command, so any ship given to a commander automatically becomes a sloop, regardless of what it actually is.) Worse, she's dead slow, under-sailed, under-manned and under-gunned. Through clever naval and (ahem) social engineering, Aubrey manages to turn her into a top-notch commerce raider anyway. He tried to mount a nine pounder chase cannon, but the ship's carpenter stopped Jack from a second test shot because of the stress it put on the knees,
*** Even the ''Surprise'' is outdated and undergunned compared to Frigates of the time (being 28 gun at a time when new Frigates had 36 or 38 guns, and 44 gun Frigates were starting to appear), but does have the advantage of being fast, especially into the wind. Even when built, the French classed her as a Corvette (a type of fast, light Frigate).
*** And the ''Surprise'' would have been even more outclassed if she hadn't been heavily rebuilt quietly off-page somewhere. The real ''Surprise'' (credited with the same recapture of the ''Hermione'') carried 24 8pdr long guns, or a bunch of carronades. Aubrey's ''Surprise'', however, seems to end up with 28 main-deck 12pdrs, which are about twice the size. In real life, she would be massively overgunned for her hull, which would have broken her back, and she is still outclassed.\\
It is mentioned that ''Surprise'' had to be reinforced structurally at several points, and that her timbers could not stand a simultaneous broadside of all her guns. By ''Blue at the Mizzen'', ''Surprise'' comes in for a near-total rebuild, including newly-designed diagonal bracings--presumably so she could better stand the recoil of her own guns, among other factors.
* CorruptPolitician: Politicians don't feature too commonly, but corruption [[TruthInTelevision was the norm]] for the day. Aubrey's father, General Aubrey, is an MP from a pocket district[[hottip:**:(basically, a very small constituency, none of whom can afford to piss off the landlord)]] that Aubrey later inherits. Aubrey's father wasn't too scrupulous, managing to get his son convicted of the 19th century of insider trading by not keeping a secret. Aubrey also has some unscrupulous political enemies.
* CrazyPrepared: Babbington is prepared to perform a wedding on two minute's notice, as Jack taught him to be ready for anything.
* CrosscastRole: Jack played one-third of Ophelia as a midshipman. Yes. One-third.
* {{Cult}}: Several benign versions turn up among the Shelmerston sailors. Shelmerston is described as having a bewildering variety of obscure Christian (and even a few Judaic) sects. Many of the sailors are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethians Sethians]], who especially venerate Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. Knipperdollings and Thraskites are also mentioned, among others.
** The Sethians' practices cause some difficulty at one point when they paint the name of their revered patriarch on the side of the ''Surprise''. In a neat exercise of diplomacy, Jack persuades his Sethian crewmen to cover the painting up, explaining that it's not fitting for impious eyes to see such a holy name.
* CulturedWarrior : Aubrey and Maturin met during a musical performance, and play violin and cello (respectively) together. They're both enthusiastic amateurs.
** Maturin is cruelly tortured by French agents at one point early on in the series, losing a significant portion of the more delicate abilities of his hands, so [[spoiler:Aubrey deliberately plays worse than he is actually capable of so as not to show up his friend.]]
** Dr. Maturin is a natural philosopher first and foremost, a physician second, a spy third, and wraps it all up by being quite good at armed combat.
*** In ''The Letter of Marque'', he takes part in the assault on St. Martin to "cut out" (seize) the French frigate ''Diane'' with pistol and cutlass, shooting down the captain of the French warship during the proceedings.
** In later installments of the series, Aubrey is noted as being a member of the Royal Society (as is Maturin), specializing in astronomy and mathematics, having submitted several well-received papers and presentations to the body on various astronomical topics. He is a friend of the sister of the famous British astronomer William Herschel; the sister tutored him in the art of building telescopes, and Aubrey constructs his own observatory (which we first see in 'The Mauritius Command' and later in 'The Commodore'). Jack is a friend and correspondent of Alexander Humboldt, and in the novel arc from ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' through ''The Wine-Dark Sea'', is described taking extensive measurements of air and sea conditions in various regions on behalf of the latter, having been provided with a complete set of state-of-the art instruments for the purpose. In the last completed book of the series, ''Blue at the Mizzen'', Jack and Stephen are seen convivially fraternizing with the members of a Royal Society expedition.
** Again in ''Blue at the Mizzen'', this trope is seen when Jack and Stephen examine the illegitimate son of the Duke of Clarence (eventually to become William IV) to determine his fitness to ship aboard the ''Surprise''. The examination is very much a tag team affair, as Jack quizzes the lad on astronomy, mathematics and navigation, while Stephen tests his knowledge of language and other liberal arts. [[spoiler:Notwithstanding Jack's initial concerns that an aristocrat might be a spoiled brat ill-prepared for life at sea, young Horatio Hanson turns out to be an outstanding officer who saves Jack's life at one point.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Stephen is [[HeroicBastard illegitimate]] and an [[ParentalAbandonment orphan]], fostered in the back and beyond, sent from uncaring relative to relative, spends time in several prisons in Spain and Portugal, a Catholic who goes to a Protestant university in his mid-teens, survives the Terror, flees to Ireland, survives the 1798 rebellion, loses Mona, loses Lord Edward Fitzgerald, becomes a fugitive, and ends up penniless. All before the first page of the first book.
** As an adolescent, he also spends "a long time" locked in a prison cell with a convicted rapist. I'm just saying.
* DarkerAndEdgier: While HoratioHornblower is what most people thing of when they think of WoodenShipsAndIronMen, this is a close second. At no point in the Hornblower series does anyone say "fucking", for starters, nor are issues like homosexuality, pederasty, bestiality, or porn mentioned much, if at all. Keep in mind ''Hornblower'' regularly has people [[LudicrousGibs hit by cannon-balls]], and its remarkable that someone could get much darker, but O'Brien managed it.
** Which is what Lord St. Vincent says to Jack when the latter has the temerity to ask him for a ship in ''Post Captain''. Also a bit of a PrecisionFStrike when it does show up (there's one from Thomas Pullings as well).
** It needs to be taken into account that C.S. Forester was writing in the early part of the 20th century, a much more straitlaced era for mainstream literature; O'Brian, who wrote the series over a period spanning the late 1960's to his death in 2000, had much more freedom to write about the topics mentioned above.
** Jack and Stephen are much more joyful than Horatio and suffer through much less tragedy (though they have their share of troubles, by all means). Jack also believes in the Royal Navy much more than Hornblower.
** The series takes its own DarkerAndEdgier turn following the death of O'Brian's wife in RealLife.
* DavidVsGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
* DeathByMaterialism:
** French agent Duhamel, after helping Maturin and the British and being given passage to Québec for his troubles, dies in BlackComedy fashion. Having converted his entire fortune to gold (though out of what seems more prudence than materialism) and carrying it concealed around his waist, the poor gentleman then manages to fall in the gap between boat and ship (as Dr. Maturin often does) and sink to his doom, pulled down by the weight of the gold.
** Tragic example with [[spoiler:Dil, the Indian girl whom Stephen befriends in ''HMS Surprise''. He finally buys her the silver bangles that she always wanted--and finds her dead, having been robbed and murdered for them.]]
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Babbington finally meets a girl he is willing to settle down with, Fanny Harte. Unfortunately, Fanny is the daughter of the hated Admiral Harte, who is perfectly willing to spite Babbington as one of Aubrey's apprentices; furthermore, Fanny gets married to Andrew Wray, who hates her and marries only her for her massive inheritance. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Harte contrives to get blown up in a shocking defeat that Wray, as TheMole for the French, was responsible for; several books later, Wray gets unmasked, exiled, and shot by Stephen, leaving the way clear for Babbington.]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: French InterserviceRivalry--literally deadly serious--finally gets too much for the ConsummateProfessional Duhamel, who defects over to the British side and reveals Wray as the mole.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Common. The heroes are generally quite acceptable to modern readers, Stephen being incredibly progressive and Jack being too good-natured to really believe anything hurtful, but racism, sexism, and classism still pervade the setting, just as it did in the real 19th-century world. PoliticallyCorrectHistory is ''not'' in effect.
* DestinationDefenestration: [[NoodleIncident alluded to]] in Aubrey's dealings with [[LoanShark Kimber]]'s lawyers. Also a reason why he was impatient to put out to sea until it all blew over--Aubrey might be Lucky Jack on the ocean, but he does have a tendency to get in sticky situations on shore.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Diana, though she's an unusually ''skillful'' example of the trope. Jagiello tries but fails, since in Lithuania the peasants are expected to get out of the way when the noblemen come hurtling through--[[HilarityEnsues which is decidedly not the case in England]]. The sailors' driving fails to qualify only due to their slowness, since they're used to hauling on the reins with a force more appropriate for the rigging of a small boat, though upsets are common.
* TheDrunkenSailor: Prevalent. The amounts of alcohol routinely consumed by the characters are astonishing by modern standards. Sometimes a character (e.g., frequently, Killick when ashore) will be referred to as drunk "even by naval standards."
* DuetBonding
* TheDungAges: Often upheld on land, but ''strongly'' subverted in anything having to do with the Royal Navy, especially the ships. Much is made of the Navy's fanatical attention to neatness and cleanliness, to the extent that there are several funny moments where Stephen hears his shipmates remark disapprovingly on the slovenly/filthy state of a certain ship, but himself can't see much of anything wrong. On a more serious note, Stephen remarks several times that the Navy's devotion to cleanliness translates into a significantly lower rate of infection and disease aboard ship than on shore. (Note that on the one occasion where a plague stalks the ship's--in this instance the ''Leopard's'' crew, in ''Desolation Island''--the disease was brought aboard by a group of convicts that the ''Leopard'' was conveying to Botany Bay.)
** Jack keeps sailors as servants when ashore, which leads to his home being almost frighteningly clean, especially for a bachelor: it is perfectly natural behavior for the sailors to dismantle, mop, dry, and reassemble the house before breakfast every morning, and it gets a fresh coat of paint about once a week.
* EekAMouse: Well, [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes a Snake.]] Jack Aubrey has a serious fear of snakes, and at one point in ''Master and Commander'' jumps up onto a chair when one crawls into the room, not coming down until Stephen removes it. Stephen doesn't help matters any by being a DeadpanSnarker about it, pulling Jack's leg about the (nonpoisonous) snake being a deadly and aggressive viper.
* [[EveryoneHasStandards Even French Intelligence Services Have Standards]]: Wray and Ledward murdering their own agents to safeguard their own fortunes is the main reason behind Duhamel's defection.
* EvilMatriarch: Mrs. Williams is overbearing, badgering, and apparently loves to make Jack and Sophie's lives hell. For all that, though, she ''is'' a decent manager of money, though she is not above running illegal schemes to make it.
* FishOutOfWater: a straight example when it comes to landsmen on water, and almost literally when it comes to sailors on land. Jack, for instance, manages to endanger most of his fortune when it comes to falling for various {{Get Rich Quick Scheme}}s, while mention is made of Mowett getting entangled in the schemes of dishonest booksellers when he tries to publish his poetry.
* FixingTheGame: It's strongly implied that the reason Jack loses many pounds at whist in book 2 is because his interlocutors are cheating. That Jack accuses them of this loudly and in public is the driving force behind a SmugSnake picking up the VillainBall.
* Foreshadowing: In one of the later books there is a section describing a transit on a post-chaise which includes a quite narrow and tricky bridge coming at the bottom of a hill. A couple of books later [[spoiler:Diana, who was said to be somewhat overly aggressive as a driver and dismissed concerns about that specific bridge, is revealed to have been killed in an accident on that very bridge.]]
* FromBadToWorse: A few examples, but the end of ''Desolation Island'' springs to mind.
* FrozenInTime: Around book 7, O'Brian realized he was running out of Napoleonic War in which the story could take place, so he put the year 1813 on constant loop for the next 10 books). Fans like to characterize certain actions as taking place in 1812 or 1812a.
* GeniusBruiser: Jack Aubrey. He is a tall, burly, heavily scarred war hero and immensely successful naval commander. He is also, along with his good friend Dr. Maturin, a Fellow of the Royal Society (Britain's most prestigious academic society). He has written a number of well-received papers on astronomy and geometry, and built his own observatory and telescopes.
* GentleGiant: Padeen is a very large, strong man whose compassionate nature makes him an excellent nurse. [[spoiler:Also, his patience and friendliness eventually coaxes Stephen's autistic daughter, Brigid, out of her shell.]]
* GilliganCut: Patrick O'Brian occasionally uses them to jump over sections, not for comedy but as an interesting way to maintain pacing. For instance, O'Brian often describes a battle to the vital turning point, and then jumps forward to port and have Jack or Stephen narrate details from the aftermath.
* HookHand: after [[PluckyMiddie William Reade]] gets his hand blown off, he has it replaced with a hook.
* HeterosexualLifePartners
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: both the French captain Christy-Palliere and the British Heneage Dundas really existed. Interestingly, ''Master and Commander'' in particular was heavily based on the real-life exploits of Captain Cochrane (particularly the [[InUniverse Sophie-vs-Cacafuego]][=/=][[RealLife Speedy-vs-Gama]] duel, accurate down to the number of guns and the number of crew), who really was captured by Christy-Palliere in the same way that Jack Aubrey was captured--and the real-life Christy-Palliere was so impressed by Cochrane's exploits that he refused to accept his sword in surrender, the same as Aubrey.
* HoneyTrap: French agents try to compromise Stephen in Malta with Mrs. Fielding, the wife of a captured British officer, in combination with implied blackmail (Lt. Fielding's death sentence would be continually delayed so long as she cooperated). It doesn't work; Laura Fielding is too nervous, and Stephen too perceptive that something is up. He manages to get Laura to tell him the truth, and then works out a plan to protect her from French intelligence by pretending to be her lover.
* ImAHumanitarian: several of the Pacific Island tribes they meet do eat humans, though it's treated as in very matter-of-fact way. One tribal queen whom Aubrey is assigned to help out realizes the disparity in customs very amusedly and waves it off with "so many taboos!"
* INeverGotAnyLetters: after the HoneyTrap situation described above, which quite naturally leads to rumors, Stephen writes a (partial) explanation of the matter to Diana, basically asking her to trust him. Unfortunately, he left the letter to Wray, and so Diana does not receive it. This leads to a misunderstanding between the two that persists from ''Treason's Harbour'' to ''The Letter of Marque'', when Stephen finally tries to break with Diana for good--only to finally piece together the truth and reconcile with her.
* InformedSelfDiagnosis: Stephen is generally quite good at this, with the notable exception of failing to diagnose his own addiction to the alcoholic tincture of laudanum.
* InnocentInnuendo: by the end of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', when Stephen and Diana are finally reunited onboard the ''Oedipus'', Jack strides out onto the quarterdeck and complains disgustedly that "they're going at it hammer and tongs, like they've been married this past twelvemonth and more." He was actually referencing their [[spoiler:[[LikeAnOldMarriedCouple arguing.]]]]
* InSeriesNickname: Aubrey is referred to as "Goldilocks" by the crew (though never to his face, of course), for his blonde hair. In the wider world, he's well known as "Lucky Jack Aubrey" for his good fortune in capturing prizes.
* InstantLeechJustFallInWater: * In ''Blue at the Mizzen'', Stephen Maturin and Christine Wood fall into brackish West African mud. Afterwards, each is covered with "astonishingly numerous and avid leeches." They use salt (brought by Christine for this purpose) to remove the leeches.
* ItsPersonal: implied for the captain of the ''Waakzeimheid''; after the first few exchanges of fire, he is seen wearing a black coat, and chasing ''Leopard'' despite suicidal weather for battle. Jack wonders if his son had died in their skirmishing.
* [[JokeCharacter Joke Ship]]: The ''Polychrest.''
* TheKlutz: Stephen somehow contrives to get into accident after accident at sea, ranging from falling out of the boat to somehow turning a complete somersault in a particularly violent sea. As a result, the seamen around him look upon with real affection and considerable respect for his medical prowess--and stand wary in case he manages to take yet another improbable tumble at every possible opportunity.
* JustFriends:
** Stephen and Diana, for much of the series. (TheyDo, in ''The Surgeon's Mate.'')
** Padeen seems to be stuck in one of these in regards to Clarissa.
** In the later books, [[spoiler: Stephen and Christine Wood]].
* LastNameBasis: Used [[TruthInTelevision accurately]], as during that period only the very most intimate friends or lovers would address one another by unadorned first name. Except for Jack, all of Stephen's old comrades/shipmates - and by the end of the series he has amassed a very wide circle of naval friends - address him by his professional title, and even Jack addresses him as "Doctor" during, so to speak, business hours. Diana Villiers, Stephen's great love throughout most of the series, most frequently calls him "Maturin" before their marriage (and even occasionally after), and Stephen reciprocates by calling her "Villiers". In fact, Jack, Jack's wife Sophie, Diana, [[spoiler:and later on in the series, Sir Joseph Blaine and Christine Wood]] are the only people who are entitled, by the intimacy of their relationship, to address Stephen by his first name. (It should be emphasized that LastNameBasis does ''not'' imply coldness or distance in the relationship; for instance, Tom Pullings, who has been a close friend of Stephen's ever since their first commission together in the ''Sophie'', invariably addresses him as "Doctor". Stephen, however, does customarily address Pullings as "Tom" in informal conversation. Stephen and Diana, during their long courtship, are another obvious example.)
** Jack's very old shipmates, especially those who follow him from commission to commission - his "followers" - invariably address him as "Captain" out of their deep respect for him, no matter how close their relationship is. Jack will customarily address old friends/subordinates such as Pullings, James Mowett, William Babbington (and later on in the series, William Reade) by their first name in informal conversation; when naval business is being done, he will call them "Mr. (insert surname here)" or address them by rank.
** LastNameBasis saves Stephen's fortune on at least one occasion: [[spoiler:Before leaving on his circumnavigation recounted in the arc beginning with ''The Thirteen Gun Salute'', Stephen writes a power-of-attorney letter authorizing Sir Joseph Blaine to move his money from his current bank, which is providing highly unsatisfactory service, to a different one recommended by Jack. However, Stephen is writing a note to Diana at the same time, and in true CloudCuckooLander fashion, signs that note with the formal "S. Maturin" signature that he uses for business letters and signs the power-of-attorney as "Stephen". This turns out to be very fortunate, however, as the bank Stephen had intended to shift his fortune to unexpectedly goes bust during the voyage. and because Sir Joseph can't move the funds with the incorrectly signed power-of-attorney, the money is safe in the "highly unsatisfactory" bank. Another happy result is that, from that point on, Stephen and Sir Joseph, already close friends, enjoy the liberty to address each other by unadorned first names.]]
* UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar
** There are numerous scenes, usually in passing, where Jack will read the Articles of War to the crew in lieu of a sermon on Sunday.
*** The emphasis with which Jack reads these regulations, with their hair-curling repetition of "shall be punished by death", varies according to his mood and the situation on board ship. When all is well, he'll skim through the Articles so as to let the men get on with the important business of having their Sunday dinner; but when he's angry about something (as at the beginning of ''The Truelove''), he'll read the Articles in a most impressively menacing fashion.
** Also discussed repeatedly in contexts such as when, early on in the series, Stephen quizzes one of the officers about the custom of showing "false flags" to trick a potential enemy. The officer explains that this practice is quite legal as tactical deception in pre-battle maneuvering, but that the ship's genuine national colors are ''always'' raised before battle is joined. This is quite important because if it's not done, the ship can legally be treated as a pirate vessel!
** It causes a few problems sometimes: one character, Dutourd, in ''The Wine-Dark Sea'' takes it as an absolute affront that his possessions and money are claimed after it's been legally established that no, he had no letter of marque or anything similar - the closest thing he could produce was a well-wishing letter from the French Minister of Marine - and was thus being treated as a pirate, saying that he was robbed. He goes on to cause trouble for Stephen later.
*** To be more precise, Dutourd's ''personal'' possessions and money were left alone (no doubt, of course, they would have been seized by the crews of privateers less well-disciplined than the ''Surprise's'' man-of-war's men); it was the expedition's treasury that was confiscated and then shared out among the crew. Also, his situation was more anomalous than the previous paragraph might imply. He himself didn't have the requisite letter of marque, but his American sailing-master, who was killed in the action in which the ''Surprise'' captured the ''Franklin'', did, so Jack decided to stretch a point. As things turned out, that might not have been the wisest thing to do.
** The status of the ''Surprise'' herself, during the great circumnavigation that takes up much of the second half of the series, is worth looking at in some more detail. As of ''The Reverse of the Medal'', the ship (which, for all its manifold virtues, is nonetheless obsolete by the technical standards of the day) has been taken out of service and put up for auction. When Jack is framed for stock market fraud, stripped of his rank and stricken from the list, Stephen (with the help of Tom Pullings) buys the ''Surprise'', obtains "letters of marque" - documents issued by the British Government which authorize Stephen, as owner of the ship, to carry out military operations against Britain's enemies - has the ship moved to Shelmerston (where top-notch sailors and naval stores are readily to be found), and hires Jack as the ''Surprise's'' captain, making it clear all along that he is essentially holding the ship in trust until Jack - whom everyone acknowledges to be the rightful owner of the ship - can acquire enough wherewithal to purchase it again from Stephen. At this point, and going on until early into ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'', the ''Surprise'' is operating as a classic privateer, though Jack, being sensitive about the term (which has fallen into more than a little disrepute by the time of the Napoleonic Wars), prefers to refer to her as a private man-of-war. When Jack is cleared and reinstated in ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' and given command of the ''Diane'', the ''Surprise'' takes on a new status, as HMHV (His Majesty's Hired Vessel) ''Surprise'', and sails eastward, under the command of Tom Pullings, to rendezvous with the ''Diane'' once Jack has completed his mission. As it happens, the ''Diane'' is shipwrecked in a typhoon at the end of ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'', and Jack manages to obtain another ship in Batavia, which he names ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'', or ''Nutmeg'' for short, and it is in this ship that he finally rendezvouses with ''Surprise''. He transfers to ''Surprise'' and takes command again, with Pullings as his first officer, and from then on, the ''Surprise'', though continuing to be a private vessel (Jack, who by this time is flush with cash from all the prizes he's captured, has bought her back again from Stephen at cost), operates, for all intents and purposes, as a Royal Navy vessel, under Admiralty orders, until her return to Great Britain.
** The citizenship of sailors is also addressed in ''Desolation Island''. In particular, US citizens Michael Herapath and Louisa Wogan are "encouraged" by Maturin to escape to an American whaler, because once they set foot on a US vessel, they could not be pursued for any crime. The crew of the American whaler, while Maturin is treating them for scurvy in exchange for the use of their forge, is revealed to be at least 1/3 British citizens and Royal Navy deserters. Aubrey ''would'' have been well within his rights and the law to press the British crewmen, or hang them for desertion, with no legal recourse for either the whaler's captain or the US. However, Maturin "neglects" to tell Aubrey.
* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Sophie may have been brought up to follow this trope, despite Jack's best efforts to encourage her to enjoy their marital relations. While Jack loves Sophie deeply, he's less than totally satisfied with Sophie's passive attitude toward sex (which is undoubtedly a factor in his extramarital adventures). During ''The Yellow Admiral'', when their marriage is experiencing serious difficulties, Diana and Clarissa Oakes do their best to coax Sophie out of her indifference about sexual relations, with some success.
** It does not help that Jack's idea of foreplay is getting drunk at dinner and he approaches sex with the same briskly aggressive attitude he otherwise reserves for ''boarding actions in combat''.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Stephen and Sophie have this dynamic.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: Often averted since promotion is a plot point in nearly every book, and provides the title for five of the novels, but by the end of the series O'Brian had to go to increasingly absurd lengths to keep that much seniority in a small frigate like the [[CoolShip HMS Surprise]].
* LivingLegend: Captain Jack Aubrey, globe-trotting badass much caressed by the Admiralty, astronomer and geometer, member of the Royal Society. Stephen Maturin, world renowned naturalist, physician, and the James Bond of the Napoleonic Wars also much caressed by the Admiralty. Beloved by all of Britain, feared by her enemies, these two are highly improbable.
* LoanShark: Driving most of the plot of book two.
* LocalReference: Patrick O'Brian's Irish ancestry and his move to a Catalan town in his youth both show up in the character of Stephen Maturin.
* LovingAShadow: Stephen himself is afraid that his own feelings toward Diana were false after he runs into her again in Boston, and discovers that he no longer loves her, leading to endless self-questioning if his earlier passion were based on reality. Even their marriage was acknowledged by both as an act of convenience, in order to regain Diana's lost British citizenship so that she couldn't be deported to America. Despite their close friendship, it isn't until ''The Letter of Marque'' when it is finally established, without a doubt, that Diana and Stephen truly love each other.
* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally, as would be expected in a book with its setting, usually when the ship's chronometers run into problems.
* LongRunningBookSeries
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
* MarriedAtSea: Stephen and Diana at the end of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', possibly also Jack and Sophie at the end of ''The Mauritius Command'' (though in-text it's implied that Sophie prefers a proper church wedding ashore.) Stephen had wanted to marry Diana aboard the H.M.S. ''Shannon'' in ''The Fortune of War'', and the captain was preparing to do it (he even had the proper passages marked in the Book of Common Prayer) when he was interrupted by the ship-to-ship duel with the U.S.S. ''Chesapeake''.
** The Catholic Church didn't recognize the (civil, Anglican) ceremony as canonical, though, so Stephen and Diana were, by Catholic standards, "living in sin" until they got "properly" married in a NoodleIncident between ''The Letter of Marque'' and ''The Thirteen Gun Salute''.
* MDEnvy: Few naval surgeons are actual physicians, and even fewer are as learned and skilled as Dr. Maturin.
* MinoredInAssKicking: Has Stephen Maturin ever lost a duel? Justified in that dueling skill is described as nearly mandatory for survival at Maturin's Irish university, where DuelsDecideEverything. On one unfortunate occasion, he did kill a man that he had intended to only wound lightly, due to the fact that his hands, badly damaged from torture, couldn't aim the pistol with the degree of accuracy required. There was also the slight problem that Maturin's opponent had already planted a pistol ball in his chest, a 'misfire' that would have gotten him killed by officiant in any case.
* MixedMetaphor: Jack uses these ''all the time''. Stephen [[DeadpanSnarker likes to poke fun]].
--> '''Aubrey:''' They have chosen their cake, and must lie in it.\\
'''Maturin:''' You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.\\
'''Aubrey:''' No, no, it is not quite that, neither. I mean? I wish you would not confuse my mind, Stephen.
** An extensive list of these and other such "Aubreyisms" can be found [[http://www.hmssurprise.org/Resources/Aubreyisms.html here]].
* MotorMouth: Stephen has been known to go on and on about exotic birds. He knows this and uses it deliberately; while he's babbling on about the feathers of an albatross [[ObfuscatingStupidity no one would expect him to be a spy.]]
--> '''Maturin:''' When I return, my dear, I shall publish such papers on cryptogams that no one shall ever again lay the charge of intelligence upon my head.\\
* TheMovie: "[[LongTitle Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World]]." Based mostly on the tenth book, but it includes elements and lines from much of the series.
* MuggingTheMonster: an unlucky footpad jumps a pensive Jack Aubrey in ''Post Captain'', only to get the stuffing beaten out of him. In hindsight, it turned out to be the right move: Aubrey, afraid that he'd killed the man, took him home for Stephen to treat. The poor guy turns out to be completely incompetent at robbery, but makes an adequate assistant for Stephen (though still terrified of Aubrey).
* MustHaveCaffeine:
** Mention is made of hands resorting to soaking burnt bread or roasting and brewing barley when they're out of coffee as a poor replacement. Killick also improves in his coffee-brewing throughout the series.
** This is especially applicable to Jack and Stephen; there are several funny scenes where the duo tries to secure coffee from other ships where it turns out that the captain either doesn't like coffee or objects to it on medical or religious grounds.
* NauticalFolklore: All over the place, particularly among the foremast hands, but Maturin is often dismayed by how much of it Aubrey seems to take seriously.
* NationalStereotypes: Professor Graham appears to play straight the "dour, humorless Scotsman" stereotype, until the subversion appears: [[spoiler:Graham turns out to be a fellow intelligence agent, and his close cooperation with Stephen turns out to be vital for the Mediterranean story arc covered by ''The Ionian Mission'' and ''Treason's Harbour''.]]
* NoodleIncident: Several passing references are made in various books to cruises and missions undertaken by Jack and Stephen (mainly in the ''Surprise''). Much of what happens on shore between books, or while the main characters are at sea, falls into the same category.
* NostalgiaFilter: A number of older captains and admirals (and, increasingly, Jack and Stephen) remember the past quite fondly. A number of references are made to the 80s and 90s. The ''seventeen''-eighties and -nineties. One spends a significant amount of time at dinner instructin a midshipman on proper behavior, specially pointing out with approval Jack's rather old-fashioned behavior and appearance[[hottip:*:Only with regard to his habit of wearing his hat 'athwartship' rather than 'amidship' in admiration of Admiral Nelson. Otherwise Jack was always cautiously modern, liking flintlocks, but keeping slowmatch on hand just in case, for example.]]
* NumberTwo: Tom Pullings, the first of Jack's midshipmen to pass for lieutenant, is often found as Jack's first lieutenant aboard his many commands--indeed, when Jack is temporarily struck off the Navy list, Pullings offers to temporarily volunteer himself as part of his command of a letter of marque. After Jack's reinstatement and assignment to the commodore of a squadron, he makes it a point to ask for now-Captain Pullings to be the captain of his flagship, ''HMS Bellona''.
* OutOfGenreExperience: The books are Napoleonic-era historical novels, but chapters here and there turn into a [[SpyDrama espionage drama]]. ''The Reverse of the Medal'' takes place almost entirely on land, centering as it does around political intrigues to oust Jack from the Navy and the desperate struggle to pinpoint TheMole.
** Or period romance fit to compete with the likes of PrideAndPrejudice.
* PetTheDog: Harte, Aubrey's hated admiral, shows a moment or two of decency in ''Treason's Harbor'', mentioning that it is his habit to try to buy the liberty of Algerine slaves whenever possible. [[spoiler:This comes mere pages before he and Aubrey sails into an ambush; Harte's ship is blown up with no survivors, and Aubrey escapes by the skin of his teeth.]]
* PerpetualPoverty: Jack's seamanship and amazing fortunes at sea earns him huge amounts of money from captured prizes. His equally amazing misfortunes on land often mean that at the start of every new book, his fortune is either lost or is in danger of being lost, with him hunting for a source of revenue that would clear his debts.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Midshipman (later lieutenant, later captain) Babbington. It's implied that his love of the ladies gave him the pox so often it stunted his growth. In fact, he never grew into the clothes his mother sent him to sea with in the first book and he's always been small. He also kicks a great deal of ass, following the illustrious footsteps of Lucky Jack.
* {{Pirate}}: Encountered occasionally, always as Type 1. Mostly in the less developed parts of the world, and sailing smaller craft, though Aubrey does engage ''Alastor'', a French four-masted pirate ship, in ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
** Mention also goes to the Chinese and Malay members of the ''Lively'''s crew, who were mostly "recruited" from empty junks and praus. They show up in ''HMS Surprise'', when Jack leads a boarding-party of them to take a gunboat. Instead of [[BoisterousBruiser charging in with cheers]], European-style, the former pirates take out their targets with garrotes and knives in total silence, leaving Jack and the European sailors stunned. [[spoiler:Then comes the Port Mahon raid to free Stephen, where the capability for stealth and silent killing becomes paramount, and Jack makes a specific point of asking for them.]]
* PluckyMiddie: lots and lots of them. Pullings, Babbington, and Mowett form the first generation of Jack's midshipmen, risen to commanders and post-captains themselves. Reade and Hanson belong to the "second generation"; by the end of the book series, Reade is a lieutenant in charge of the tender ''Ringle'', while Hanson is on track for promotion to Lieutenant.
* PottyEmergency: normally, arrival at a secret prison run by one of the dreaded intelligence agencies is an imposing affair, which makes things [[FunnyMoments all the funnier]] in ''The Surgeon's Mate'' when--as a result of having eaten some rather dubious crayfish--Jack, Jagiello, and their captor, the ConsummateProfessional Duhamel, all make a mad dash through the prison in search of a restroom upon arrival. (Stephen had medicated himself, so he's the one whom the astonished prison officers turn to for an explanation.)
* {{Privateer}}: Encountered often. Jack even becomes a privateer captain himself at one point.
* ProperLady: Sophie, contrasted with her SpiritedYoungLady cousin Diana. Although she's quite spirited herself at times.
--> '''Stephen:''' If any man so far forgot himself as to make a licentious suggestion to Sophie, she would not understand him for a week, and then she would instantly lay him dead with [Jack's] double-barreled fowling piece.
* [[PutOnABus Put on a Ship]]: Reverend Martin, Dr. Maturin's frequent companion on naturalist expeditions, is sent home to England for medical reasons.
* RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun: despite the huge, huge list of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome crowning moments of awesome]] that Aubrey pulls off as a captain, the one that comes up most often in-universe is his first: ''Sophie'' versus ''Cacafuego''.
* RenaissanceMan : Natural philosophers of the age embraced this trope, but BadassBookworm Dr. Maturin especially does so. See the CulturedWarrior entry above.
** Jack Aubrey, astronomer/telescope builder/mathematician/Member of Parliament/musician, also fits well with this trope.
** RuleOfFunny : There's no real reason a keenly observant, organized mind like Maturin's should be so completely inept at remembering basic nautical facts, especially ones explained to him repeatedly.
*** Perhaps more that he is [[CloudCuckoolander utterly uninterested in the subject]], but it's still pretty hilarious.
*** Actually, he takes pride in his "not inconsiderable maritime knowledge," often using nautical expressions on land. At one point Jack has to reassure him when he's feeling a little low about this (the phrase "Thou wilt never shit a seaman's turd" is mentioned). RuleOfFunny in full force.
* RightForTheWrongReasons: patients of Stephen's surgery have an amazingly high chance of survival, even given his skill and his dedication to cleanliness. Midway through the series, he is shown pouring alcohol onto a patient's skin before surgery, explaining that the sudden coldness of its evaporation numbs the patient and lessens the pain. Since this was decades before the widespread acceptance of germ theory, Stephen could not have known that he was disinfecting his patients and lessening the chance of post-surgery infection.
* RunningGag: Stephen Maturin's signature ability to fall out of any boat or ship. Eventually he gets better at this, but by that time it's too late: due to his reputation for such he is usually assisted aboard, much to his indignation. (On the other hand the officers have [[GenreSavvy learned to cope]]; for a while it was standard practice to have a jar of oil ready--just in case Stephen's pocketwatch gets a dunking when he's trying to board, and needs to be cleaned of water.)
** Conversely, the sailors are usually much more used to small craft than they are to horse-drawn carriages. Several minor incidents ensue.
** Young Midshipman Babbington's obsession with prostitutes. On one visit to Plymouth, Aubrey had to empty his pockets beforehand as the only way of keeping him "passably chaste"; on other occasions he's usually the first to the sickbay after shore leave due to VD, and in his later appearances his growth appears to have been permanently stunted due to pox. (Not that it stops him from being an excellent lieutenant.)
* SecretWeapon:
** ''Polychrest'' was originally designed to carry one -- a large rocket delivery system. Unfortunately, once it killed its inventor, the Navy was left with a ship that wasn't going to be firing off giant rockets... and wasn't much good for anything else, unless you count [[AwesomeButImpractical sailing backwards.]]
** The French were convinced that ''Worcester'' carried one due to its [[TechnicolorFire amazing technicolor muzzle flashes]], and ran like hell after the first broadside. Turned out to be the surplus firework gunpowder that Jack had brought for gunnery practice.
* ServileSnarker: Killick. Well, less "snarking", more "shrewish nagging." Jack and Stephen put up with him all the same.
* ShownTheirWork: Is absolutely littered with historical details about the workings of a British navy ship.
** Except for the one time O'Brian skimped on research - Book 6 (''The Fortune of War''), with the aforementioned Frenchies running around a Boston where they wouldn't be welcome (because, in the War of 1812, Boston, and New England in general, was the center of anti-war feeling and pro-British, or more accurately, pro-free-trade-with-Britain, sentiment). Another character makes a horse-driven round trip from Boston to Salem in a mere two hours.
*** Also the aforementioned problem of the "marthambles", though in that case it was more a question of O'Brian not going deep enough into the contemporary materials.
* ShutUpHannibal: when Stephen ''finally'' has enough of Mrs. Williams' badgering of Jack Aubrey and his family, he coldly informs her that unless she stops he would inform the authorities about her illegal gambling racket. It's just one of his many AwesomeMoments.
* SlashedThroat: How Stephen deals with a French intelligence agent during a particularly harrowing day. When he coolly relates the fact to a fellow in British Naval intelligence, the other is quietly shocked and terrified.
* SlutShaming: In keeping with the tone of the era, sex is dirty and shameful and everyone does it, but only women are punished for it. Men may be called "the very merest rakes", and it might hinder promotion prospects, but they're not poverty-stricken outcasts for it.
* SmartPeopleKnowLatin: Maturin will often use Latin around patients both to keep them from knowing what he is saying (when he is talking to another physician or an assistant who also speaks Latin) and because patients are reassured by the fact that their doctor is learned enough to speak Latin. The crews of the ships he serves on often brag that their ship has a real physician that speaks Latin and Greek.
* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Even accounting for the FrozenInTime aspect of the series, the child characters age more rapidly than one would expect. General Aubrey's last-born son (and Jack's half-brother) gets the full SORAS treatment, apparently being a teenager by the end of the series, though the other children in the series seem to still be in their pre-teen years.
* SpiritedYoungLady: Diana is an extreme example, contrasted with her ProperLady cousin Sophie.
* SpotOfTea: Subverted. Aubrey and Maturin are inveterate coffee drinkers, and Maturin once refers to tea as "that insipid wash."
* SpyDrama (very much Stale Beer-or should we say Stale Grog-Flavored)
** Interestingly, with a few exceptions such as his activities in Boston Maturin's spy work is [[RealityEnsues often basically paperwork]]. Deadly, deadly paperwork. We hear repeated references to his allowing particular pieces of information to be 'captured' which lead to the deaths of numerous enemy agents and, in one case, the collapse of a French intelligence department. Maturin with a prepared notebook is a dangerous thing.
* TheSpymaster: Sir Joseph Blaine, amateur entomologist, learned scholar, Stephen's close friend, and head of the British intelligence service, who often assigns missions for Stephen and who uses his influence to protect Jack.
* StoutStrength: Captain Jack Aubrey himself. He weighs about 18 stone (~250 pounds), and Dr. Maturin often frets about his weight and tries to get him to eat less. But he's still fit enough to lead his crew into hand-to-hand battles and scramble up the ship's ropes like an ape. If you have ever tried to climb up a sailing ship's rigging, you will grasp that he is, even by modern standards, quite physically fit.
** Jack is quite tall (his exact height isn't recorded, but is probably at least 6 feet, in a period where most men were under that; Napoleon is always depicted as being short but was probably actually of average or slightly less-than-average height for the time). His 18 stone probably doesn't hang on him in such an unseemly manner as might be supposed by modern readers.
*** RusselCrowe had to put on some weight for the movie, but he's not portly. "The Captain has an uncommon genteel figgar"
** In ''The Ionian Mission'', Jack narrowly loses a race in the ship's rigging to a sixty-something admiral. (Actually, it's strongly implied Jack intentionally slows himself on the way down so that he loses by a hair.)
* StoryArc: though the first three books are largely standalone, later books are grouped into larger story arcs, with even larger story arcs weaving in and out in-between. A fair rule of thumb is that once Aubrey makes it back to Britain, an arc has ended and another will begin soon. For instance:
** ''Desolation Island'' to ''The Surgeon's Mate'' has Aubrey and Maturin getting caught up in the War of 1812, being captured by and then escaping the Americans (and dealing with French intelligence services along the way).
** ''The Ionian Mission'' and ''Treason's Harbour'' deal with Jack Aubrey's return to the Mediterranean and his various diplomatic endeavours there. This arc is more or less wrapped up in ''The Far Side of the World''.
** ''The Reverse of the Medal'' kicks off Jack's stint as a privateer[[hottip:*:only don't call him that; he prefers [[InsistentTerminology "private man of war"]]]], which culminates in an epic circumnavigation spanning three different commands (''Diane'', ''Nutmeg of Consolation'', and ''Surprise'') and five books, from ''The Letter of Marque'' (nearly the entirety of which deals with preparations for the journey) to ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
** ''The Commodore'', ''The Yellow Admiral, ''The Hundred Days'', and ''Blue at the Mizzen'' are more closely stand-alone novels, though they form a loose "flag rank" story arc that deals with Jack's promotion to an admiral and his command of a squadron spanning the end of and the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
* SugarAndIcePersonality: Stephen.
* SweetieGraffiti: Jack carving his name into the ''Surprise''.
* TenMinuteRetirement: Sir Joseph Blaine is temporarily forced into retirement as a result of Wray's efforts. From his position, however, he still wields immense influence behind the scenes, and leads the hunt for the spy; eventually, after Wray and Ledward are unmasked, he gets his position back.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Mowett and Rowan, two hands from the gunroom who endlessly compete in poetry afloat and drinking ashore.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Stephen is short (one source gives his height as 5'6"), dark, variously described as "scrawny" or "squat", pale, sloppily dressed (he has an unfortunate habit of smearing ink or grease on such nice items of clothing as he is able to obtain), his only remarkable feature being his pale eyes. Nonetheless, after many trials, he's able to win the hand of the dazzling beauty Diana Villiers.
** Jack is big, strongly built (and rather stout, though probably not obese by modern standards), ruddy, blond, with twinkling blue eyes, and '''absolutely''' covered with scars from numerous battles, including a mostly-missing right ear. He's a good deal better-looking than his friend Stephen, but he's no Adonis either. ''His'' wife is the lovely blonde EnglishRose Sophie Williams.
*** Once pointed out by a female prisoner, who happens to see him swimming naked. Maturin replies 'Perhaps he is a bit cut about. But you will notice that his scars are all received honorably from the front, except those that are from the rear."
* UnreliableNarrator
** Early on the aphorism "Today's wardroom joint is tomorrow's messdeck stew" is introduced. Meaning that anything officers discuss today will be hazily retold by the crew tomorrow.
** Usually O'Brien gives both reliable and unreliable versions of events to contrast them, but occasionally only the crew's version will be told, leaving the reader guessing as to what actually happened.
*** In ''The Commodore'', Preserved Killick, Jack's steward, tells Barret Bonden, the Captain's coxswain, about domestic unrest in the Aubrey household. This is in fact something of an aversion of the trope, as Killick, who has served under the Captain since the beginning of the series, is as well-acquainted as anyone else alive with what makes his master tick; and he's talking to another very old shipmate and friend, Bonden, who knows Jack just as well as Killick does.
** Jack himself is an unreliable narrator to his wife, deliberately describing naval actions as loud, exciting, and generally bloodless as opposed to the harrowing and gruesome events they are. A classic example is describing a boarding action, in which impressed former pirates take an enemy vessel and systematically kill everyone on board, then calmly loot the bodies while the decks run with blood, with a 'we carried the day'.
** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: O'Brian uses a number of fictitious places in the course of the series, with varying degrees of geographical specificity. The semi-piratical English [[TheWestCountry West Country]] port of Shelmerston and the fictional Polynesian island of Moahu are two particularly noteworthy examples.
* WoodenShipsAndIronMen: A particularly pure version of this trope.
* WorthyOpponent: Many, ''many'' examples throughout the series, from ''Master and Commander'' onwards. Jack, for instance, is in the habit of having a defeated enemy captain keep his sword (which the vanquished is traditionally supposed to give to the victor as token of surrender) if his antagonist has fought with particular gallantry.
** Jack and his officers will sometimes correct others if those people make slighting remarks about the opposition; for instance, in ''H.M.S. Surprise'', a passenger aboard the ''Surprise'' speculates that the French must be acting in a cowardly fashion during a certain sea battle. Jack (or one of his officers) quickly demurs, praising the French for their gallantry and pointing out that the French commander is actually waiting to gain a tactical advantage.
** In ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'', Jack is displeased when Stephen tells him that he's arranged to have the gunpowder resupply of a French frigate (which Jack very much desires to engage and, if possible, capture) cut off. This is because Jack feels that it wouldn't be a fair fight to take on a ship that can't shoot back. [[spoiler:However, the Frenchmen encounter a Dutch merchantman and confiscate her store of gunpowder, thus ensuring that they'll have enough for the battle.]]
** In ''The Surgeon's Mate'', the American commander Lawrence of the U.S.S. ''Chesapeake'', mortally wounded in battle with the H.M.S. ''Shannon'' at the end of ''The Fortune of War'', is buried in Halifax with full military honors, the funeral being attended by every senior British naval officer on hand including Jack (who is still recovering from serious wounds sustained in the capture of H.M.S. ''Java'' by the ''Chesapeake'' in the previous book).
** And as for ''The Fortune of War'', the climactic ship-to-ship battle between the ''Shannon'' and ''Chesapeake'' is organized in a punctiliously formal way that shows beyond a doubt that both captains regard each other as worthy opponents.
** Throughout the entire series, there are many, many incidents which show a strong feeling of professional kinship among the men who sail the seas and serve their respective countries in their navies. This is closely related to TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar (see entry above); there is a strong sense of what is "done" and "not done" in naval warfare and an equally strong code of honor and respect between professional naval officers, which becomes a plot point on more than a few occasions.
* YankTheDogsChain: If everything's going well by the end of one book, expect it to have changed by the start of the next.
* YouDontWantToCatchThis: Maturin uses the plague this way in the first book.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: alluded to in ''The Letter of Marque'', after Jack is framed for stock fraud. Mrs. Williams doesn't think for a moment that he's innocent, but she thoroughly approves of what she thinks he did (i.e., defraud the stock market of potentially thousands of pounds).
----
[[caption-width-right:342:Yes, in the first published edition, Jack Aubrey was played by a young Clint Eastwood.]]
->''"It is all one," said Stephen. "They speak in tropes at sea."''\\
--'''HMS Surprise (Book 3)'''
''This is about [[Main/MasterAndCommander the series]] of novels. For [[Film/MasterAndCommander the film]], consult said page.''
Twenty-book series written by [[FakeIrish pseudo-Irish]] author Patrick O'Brian (born Richard Patrick Russ). The series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, following the adventures of an English naval captain, Jack Aubrey, and his surgeon and particular friend, Stephen Maturin, who also works for Naval Intelligence. O'Brian also wrote the first couple of chapters of a 21st book before his death, which have since been published, along with his notes about what happened afterward.
The books start with Jack first meeting Stephen and getting his first command, and go on with no particular overriding plot, though there are several arcs carried through multiple books. Their beginning, middle and end points are also arbitrary; they read something like one very big novel.
!!Titles in the Series (Year of First Edition)
# ''Master and Commander'' (1969)
# ''Post Captain'' (1972)
# ''HMS Surprise'' (1973)
# ''The Mauritius Command'' (1977)
# ''Desolation Island'' (1978)
# ''The Fortune of War'' (1979)
# ''The Surgeon's Mate'' (1980)
# ''The Ionian Mission'' (1981)
# ''Treason's Harbour'' (1983)
# ''The Far Side of the World'' (1984)
# ''The Reverse of the Medal'' (1986)
# ''The Letter of Marque'' (1988)
# ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' (1989)
# ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'' (1991)
# ''Clarissa Oakes'' (1992) (''The Truelove'' in the USA)
# ''The Wine-Dark Sea'' (1993)
# ''The Commodore'' (1994)
# ''The Yellow Admiral'' (1996)
# ''The Hundred Days'' (1998)
# ''Blue at the Mizzen'' (1999)
# ''The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey'' (2004, unfinished and published posthumously)
The series was adapted into a 2003 film starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, ''[[Film/MasterAndCommander Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World]]'', which was intended to become the first installment in [[StillbornFranchise a series of films]]. Several books, among them ''Master and Commander'' and ''The Far Side of the World'', were used as inspiration for the film.
Novice readers are sometimes advised to start with the third book, ''H.M.S. Surprise'', to acclimate themselves to the relatively laborious, jargon-laden prose style with a more action-y plot before they attempt to read the two earlier volumes. Even ''experienced'' readers are advised to acquire a copy of Dean King's ''Sea of Words'', the 500+ page handbook and lexicon companion to the series.[[hottip:*:Reading on a Kindle (or similar device) can also be very helpful; it saves a lot of time to be able to hold your finger down on, say, "solomongundy", and see a definition. Paper books don't have this feature yet.]] King's ''Harbors and High Seas'' can also be useful to the reader, as it includes all the necessary maps to keep track of where events happened during the series, as well as the state of the world at the time. It is important to note that it is entirely possible to read the series without these aids; they are useful, but as one of the two main characters' jobs in the series is to have the essential naval matters explained to him, even if the reader does not know exactly what a "waister" is, the action of the book will still make sense.
''Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organization, 1793-1815'' by Brian Lavery is also an excellent companion to the series, but rather pricey. And for the culinary-minded, there's ''Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels'' by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas.
A newer online companion, currently in progress, is the [[http://www.cannonade.net/index.php Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project]], which uses Google Maps to trace, with surprising accuracy, the various comings and goings of both Aubrey and Maturin; it is about halfway done at last count, and progressing quite nicely.
Compare with: HoratioHornblower.
'''For film examples, go to ''MasterAndCommanderTheFarSideOfTheWorld.'''''
Now has its own [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Aubrey-Maturin character page]].
----
!!This series provides examples of:
* AFatherToHisMen: Jack Aubrey, who looks after his personal followers (the midshipmen and lieutenants who serve under him) as well as he can throughout their careers. The midshipmen in particular, as they usually come to him as 11-14 year old children, and he takes a personal hand in their educations and moral well-being. He also has his foremast TrueCompanions in his bargemen, common seamen who follow him from ship to ship and are the ones protecting his back when he leads a boarding action.
** Part of the reason Jack always feels terrible after a battle is that he has to write letters home explaining which of his friends died and how.
* AManIsAlwaysEager: Jack Aubrey is often "pierced with his own sword", as a delirious Stephen once puts it, because he never will learn how to say no.
** Babbington is this trope on steroids. When the ship is in port, expect him to find a woman. At one point Jack dresses him down in public for contriving to get himself a ship full of Lesbians[[hottip:*:Actual Lesbians. Women from the isle of Lesbos. He rescued them from North African slavers. It was perfectly legitimate. For once.]]
* AddictionDisplacement: Dr. Maturin, over the course of many novels, develops a powerful addiction to the (opium-based) tincture of laudanum. After successfully kicking the habit, he finds a perfectly healthy substitute, one he knows to be non-addictive... the coca leaves chewed by the natives of Peru. And when Maturin's supply of ''that'' drug is accidentally consumed by the ship's rats (HilarityEnsues), Maturin takes to smoking cigars much more frequently.
* [[TheAllegedCar The Alleged Ship]]:
** "The horrible old ''Leopard''." Jack tries gamely to defend the fifty-gun ship as "the finest fourth-rate in the service," though at the time it was [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative a class of two]], with the other, ''Grampus'', being even more self-evidently horrible a ship.
** The "scientifically designed" ''Polychrest'', aka "The Carpenter's Mistake." Built to carry an abandoned SecretWeapon, then used as a conventional ship-sloop, with sharp ends at both bow and stern. Not only did ''Polychrest'' miss stays on her maiden attempt to leave port, she also sailed ''backwards'' in the process.
** '''HMS Worcester'', one of the "Forty Thieves", a class of 74-gun third rates that came from notoriously corrupt and dishonest shipyards. Her sailing qualities are unremarkable, but what distinguishes her is that she nearly falls apart in a heavy sea and has to abandon pursuit of a fleet-action, returning to Malta yard wrapped up like a chrysalis in a cocoon of twelve-inch line to prevent her from disintegrating. (Consequently she is condemned and taken out of service; Aubrey is returned to command in his trademark frigate, the ''Surprise''.)
** The ancient tub of a merchantman that carries Sam Panda from Jamaica to Brazil, where he is to begin his ministry, in ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute''. Her barely-trained crew and her terrible sailing qualities lead to her barely weathering the Kingston headland and avoiding capsize only by what is generally agreed to be DivineIntervention, and while Jack prays for a guardian angel to look over Sam, he does wish that it wouldn't require watch after watch of them just to get him to Brazil.
* AllThereInTheManual: Can't make heads or tails of the nautical jargon and historical references? There's a 500+ page lexicon and handbook to go along with the series.
* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Aubrey's crews can sometimes seem like PoliticallyCorrectHistory, but it was commonplace at the time for the Royal Navy to recruit any able seamen they could find, be they white, black, Chinese or even ''French''. Early in his command, to get his point across to a couple of pressed American sailors, Jack promotes a black sailor to bosun's mate.
* AmazonBrigade: The crew of the pahi that rescues Jack and Stephen in ''The Far Side of the World''.
* AnimalsHateHim:
** Nathaniel Martin is almost as dedicated a naturalist as Stephen Maturin, but unlike Stephen, is almost invariably bitten or otherwise abused by the animals he studies. He has one eye... not [[EyepatchOfPower]] due to battle or dueling, but due to an unfortunate encounter with an owl. (On the other hand, ''Maturin'' is the one who contrives to get poisoned by a platypus in Australia.)
** To a lesser extent, Jack Aubrey himself. Little luck with horses, even less with the menagerie of animals that Stephen brings aboard throughout his journeys. Special mention goes to the three-toed sloth that burst into tears when it saw him and had to be won over with alcohol (leading to one of the best lines in all of literature)[[hottip:*: "He has debauched my sloth,"]], and the wombat that chewed up his best hat, gold lace and all.
* AnyoneCanDie: Beginning with ''The Hundred Days'' and the series' nearing the end of the wars, some ''very'' major characters are killed off in essentially random and undramatic fashion.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: "A slaughtered crew, a sunken ship, and my collections destroyed..."
** Not to compare it with the loss of life, but it WAS a unique and irreplacable collection personally gathered from all over the world as he traveled with the British Navy.
* AudienceSurrogate: Neatly averted using the FishOutOfWater nature of the characters of both Aubrey and Maturin--on land and at sea respectively. When the narrative needs something about Napoleonic-era shipboard life explained to the audience, it has the ignorant Stephen ask it of Jack, and when the narrative needs something about Napoleonic-era science or politics explained to the audience it has the ignorant Jack ask it of Stephen.
* AutoErotica: Stephen arranges a rendezvous for Jack and Sophie in a carriage on a moor at midnight.
* AutopsySnackTime: Stephen and a fellow naturalist move immediately from dissection to dinner, using the same knife.
* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: in ''The Letter of Marque'' Stephen finally resolves to make a clean break of his up-until-then ambiguous relationship with Diana, but after talking with her--and discovering Wray's interception of his letters--he definitively changes his mind. After that there's really no doubt.
* BadassBookworm: Stephen Maturin is a 5'6", gaunt, clumsy, "small, indefinably odd and even ill-looking" man as well as a doctor, polyglot, natural philosopher and all-round intellectual. He is also Britain's greatest spy. Over the course of the books he is seen shooting the pips out of playing cards, winning several duels, operating on himself, and dispatching his enemies in very badass ways. And then dissecting them.
* BadBoss: Captain Harte, all-around {{jerkass}}. Hates Aubrey with a passion, and is responsible for preventing his promotion to Post Captain after the capture of the ''Cacafuego'' based on a legal technicality (for which Aubrey's crew came up with a very unflattering sea shanty penned in Harte's [dis]honor).
* BasedOnATrueStory: The first book, ''Master and Commander'', is closely based on the adventures of Thomas Cochrane and the sloop ''Speedy'', down to the capturing of a Spanish ship twice her size with a mixture of cunning and bravery. The other books mix and match bits from many different captains and battles in the period, but Aubrey is clearly based on Cochrane (who encountered similar troubles with AllDevouringBlackHoleLoanSharks, and also inspired at least one other fictional Royal Navy captain, HoratioHornblower).
* BattleInTheRain: ''Leopard'' vs. ''Waakzeimheid'' was carried out in a huge South Atlantic storm; the first ship to momentarily lose control due to battle damage would broach and be swamped.
--> [[WhatHaveIDone "Oh, my God. Seven hundred men."]]
* BenevolentBoss: Jack believes in running a tightly-disciplined, taut, but ''happy'' ship. His sailors love him and would follow him to hell and back for it.
* BerserkButton: it's always dangerous to disparage the Irish and the Catholics around Stephen, who is both. He doesn't mind when Jack occasionally puts his foot in his mouth with anti-Catholic sentiment, though, since he knows Jack never does it intentionally, and he always apologizes for it.
* BloodKnight: James Dillon in the first book lives for combat, and at least once expresses to Maturin that he understands but does not share in Aubrey's lust for prizes. [[spoiler:When he dies in battle against the ''Cacafuego'' his mates all say that they had never seem him so alive.]]
* BrainsAndBrawn: Jack and Stephen come across as this at first, but it is quickly established that Stephen is at least as lethal in a fight as Jack, and that Jack is extremely gifted when it comes to scientific disciplines with immediate application, such as astronomy, oceanography and geometry. They're more "BadassBookworm and GeniusBruiser" than Brains and Brawn ''per se''.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: One bachelor character's residence is described as well appointed, with a nice fireplace, comfortable chairs, good looking wood paneling and cabinetwork, as well as tasteful pornographic paintings on the walls. It's casually enough mentioned that it tempts the reader to double-take.
* BrokenBird: Clarissa Oakes.
* CampFollower: Where sailors are, whores will be.
* TheCaptain: Jack is the example ''par excellance'', but the series explores in close detail how the authority of a captain can bring negative character traits to the fore; as a result, there are plenty of successful captains, and plenty of unsuccessful ones.
* CatchPhrase:
** Aubrey's amused "What a fellow you are, Stephen," when Maturin persistently misunderstands naval life.
** Stephen has his various Irish/Catholic sayings: "the Dear knows", "God between us and evil", and the like.
** Adopted by both Stephen and Jack, as a reflection of the Navy's insistence on strict timekeeping: "there is not a moment to be lost!"
* TheChainsOfCommanding: Jack has to write letters home to the parents of the officers and the midshipmen killed under his command. Additionally, the authority of the position means that it's nearly impossible for a captain and his officers to really become friends, a kind of social burden that falls on Jack quite often.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In ''The Truelove'', Jack, searching for a suitable material for Clarissa Harvill's wedding dress, lends her some of a bolt of high-quality scarlet silk that he bought in Batavia for Sophie. [[spoiler:This causes problems for Jack's marriage several installments later, in ''The Commodore'', when Clarissa shows up for dinner with Jack and Sophie wearing the dress, only to find that Sophie is wearing a gown made from the same bolt of silk!]]
** Too many to count show up in the context of single books. For instance, while outfitting the ''Sophie'', Jack scounges up a couple buckets of yellow paint at the start of ''Master and Commander''; half the book later, after meeting a very similar-looking Danish brig whose only real difference is that they're painted with a yellow stripe instead of the Nelson chequer, that paint comes in handy for a disguise.
* ChekhovsGunman: Or in this case, Chekhov's Gunwoman. At the beginning of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', Jack, irritated and upset because he has apparently received no mail from Sophie during his imprisonment in Boston, has a brief fling with a young woman in Halifax, whom he meets at a ball celebrating the ''Shannon'''s victory over the ''Chesapeake''. [[spoiler:It turns out that the mail, several packets' worth, had been set aside especially for Jack, but nobody had thought to inform the post office clerk. This indiscretion comes back to almost wreck his marriage in ''The Yellow Admiral'', when Sophie is shown old letters that the young lady has written to Jack that he has unwisely kept. She throws him out of the house - or would have thrown him out of the house, except that he's already at sea - but Stephen, with the help of Diana and Clarissa Oakes, manages to save the situation.]]
** Another good example: In ''Desolation Island'', Stephen, while visiting Jack, accompanies the latter to his local club, where Jack participates in a regular card game. While watching, Stephen observes that one of the other players seems to be cheating, and informs Jack. Jack later tells Stephen that he called the other fellow on it. [[spoiler:The cardsharp in question is Andrew Wray, who pops up over the next half-a-dozen-so books to trouble Jack and Stephen, nearly wrecking the former's career and the latter's marriage.]]
* CloudCuckoolander: Dr. Maturin, frequently. The whole world could be blowing up around his ears, and he'd be prancing about the ship with a rare snake or a pair of mating insects or somesuch. Of course, that assumes he didn't cause the explosion in question, in which case see CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* CluelessChickMagnet: Jagiello, the handsome Lithuanian nobleman and a close friend to Jack and Stephen. He speaks passionately of the day that he'd meet a woman who can see him as an equal--considerably harder than it looks considering all the pretty ladies who throw themselves at him.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Happens to Maturin early in the series, much to Aubrey's horror, and afterwards is a danger very much on his mind whenever he's at risk of being found out as a secret agent.
* ColdSniper: We don't learn the exact details of the encounter, but Stephen apparently kills two villains with a rifle at long range... and then almost immediately brings them to a colleague's house, where the two of them calmly ''dissect'' the bodies.
* ColourfulThemeNaming: Aubrey and his friend and fellow post-captain Heneage Dundas discuss the captain of ''HMS Iris'', who not only wants to dress his bargemen in the colors of the rainbow (due to the connotation of his ships name), but specifically seeks out sailors ''named'' for said colors: e.g., with surnames like "Scarlett," "White," or "Green." He offered Dundas a brass "chaser" cannon in exchange for one of his sailors whose name was Blew. (Dundas declined, sharing with Aubrey a dislike for "costumed" bargemen. Also, bargemen are a select group, following the captain especially from ship to ship, and are the first behind him in combat. Trading one for a cannon...)
* CombatMedic: Dr. Maturin.
* ComeToGawk: The pillory is shown in ''The Reverse of the Medal''. And then it turns into a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming hundred of sailors Jack has known over the years come and guard Jack while he's there, even dismissing the hired help Stephen has brought.
* ComicBookTime: O'Brian moved the series into this after a few books when he realized he was quickly running out of Napoleonic War years. O'Brian somehow manages to squeeze what would properly be at least five, perhaps even ten years' worth of action into a period of less than 6 months, roughly spanning June 1813 (the end of ''The Fortune of War'') to November 1813 (the beginning of ''The Commodore''). Time resumes its normal sequence with ''The Yellow Admiral''; the last completed book in the series, ''Blue at the Mizzen", presumably ends in early 1816.
* CompanionCube: Jack's violin. He's had it since he was a boy and is very distraught when it breaks.
* CompletelyMissingThePoint: Jack thinks ''Hamlet'' is an utterly hilarious play. See CrosscastRole below.
* CoolBoat: The ''Sophie'' in book one. The ''Surprise'' in most of the series. The ''Polychrest'' was probably intended to be this by her architect, but ends up useless and bizarre. Jack, being made of awesome, nevertheless manages to get some good use out of her.
** Also slightly subverted in book one, as the ''Sophie'' is very much the Age of Sail equivalent of a rustbucket. She's called a ship-sloop, a three-masted unrated ship, but is actually a brig, which is two-masted. (Yay for Royal Navy social promotion - a brig is only a lieutenant's command, so any ship given to a commander automatically becomes a sloop, regardless of what it actually is.) Worse, she's dead slow, under-sailed, under-manned and under-gunned. Through clever naval and (ahem) social engineering, Aubrey manages to turn her into a top-notch commerce raider anyway. He tried to mount a nine pounder chase cannon, but the ship's carpenter stopped Jack from a second test shot because of the stress it put on the knees,
*** Even the ''Surprise'' is outdated and undergunned compared to Frigates of the time (being 28 gun at a time when new Frigates had 36 or 38 guns, and 44 gun Frigates were starting to appear), but does have the advantage of being fast, especially into the wind. Even when built, the French classed her as a Corvette (a type of fast, light Frigate).
*** And the ''Surprise'' would have been even more outclassed if she hadn't been heavily rebuilt quietly off-page somewhere. The real ''Surprise'' (credited with the same recapture of the ''Hermione'') carried 24 8pdr long guns, or a bunch of carronades. Aubrey's ''Surprise'', however, seems to end up with 28 main-deck 12pdrs, which are about twice the size. In real life, she would be massively overgunned for her hull, which would have broken her back, and she is still outclassed.\\
It is mentioned that ''Surprise'' had to be reinforced structurally at several points, and that her timbers could not stand a simultaneous broadside of all her guns. By ''Blue at the Mizzen'', ''Surprise'' comes in for a near-total rebuild, including newly-designed diagonal bracings--presumably so she could better stand the recoil of her own guns, among other factors.
* CorruptPolitician: Politicians don't feature too commonly, but corruption [[TruthInTelevision was the norm]] for the day. Aubrey's father, General Aubrey, is an MP from a pocket district[[hottip:**:(basically, a very small constituency, none of whom can afford to piss off the landlord)]] that Aubrey later inherits. Aubrey's father wasn't too scrupulous, managing to get his son convicted of the 19th century of insider trading by not keeping a secret. Aubrey also has some unscrupulous political enemies.
* CrazyPrepared: Babbington is prepared to perform a wedding on two minute's notice, as Jack taught him to be ready for anything.
* CrosscastRole: Jack played one-third of Ophelia as a midshipman. Yes. One-third.
* {{Cult}}: Several benign versions turn up among the Shelmerston sailors. Shelmerston is described as having a bewildering variety of obscure Christian (and even a few Judaic) sects. Many of the sailors are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethians Sethians]], who especially venerate Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. Knipperdollings and Thraskites are also mentioned, among others.
** The Sethians' practices cause some difficulty at one point when they paint the name of their revered patriarch on the side of the ''Surprise''. In a neat exercise of diplomacy, Jack persuades his Sethian crewmen to cover the painting up, explaining that it's not fitting for impious eyes to see such a holy name.
* CulturedWarrior : Aubrey and Maturin met during a musical performance, and play violin and cello (respectively) together. They're both enthusiastic amateurs.
** Maturin is cruelly tortured by French agents at one point early on in the series, losing a significant portion of the more delicate abilities of his hands, so [[spoiler:Aubrey deliberately plays worse than he is actually capable of so as not to show up his friend.]]
** Dr. Maturin is a natural philosopher first and foremost, a physician second, a spy third, and wraps it all up by being quite good at armed combat.
*** In ''The Letter of Marque'', he takes part in the assault on St. Martin to "cut out" (seize) the French frigate ''Diane'' with pistol and cutlass, shooting down the captain of the French warship during the proceedings.
** In later installments of the series, Aubrey is noted as being a member of the Royal Society (as is Maturin), specializing in astronomy and mathematics, having submitted several well-received papers and presentations to the body on various astronomical topics. He is a friend of the sister of the famous British astronomer William Herschel; the sister tutored him in the art of building telescopes, and Aubrey constructs his own observatory (which we first see in 'The Mauritius Command' and later in 'The Commodore'). Jack is a friend and correspondent of Alexander Humboldt, and in the novel arc from ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' through ''The Wine-Dark Sea'', is described taking extensive measurements of air and sea conditions in various regions on behalf of the latter, having been provided with a complete set of state-of-the art instruments for the purpose. In the last completed book of the series, ''Blue at the Mizzen'', Jack and Stephen are seen convivially fraternizing with the members of a Royal Society expedition.
** Again in ''Blue at the Mizzen'', this trope is seen when Jack and Stephen examine the illegitimate son of the Duke of Clarence (eventually to become William IV) to determine his fitness to ship aboard the ''Surprise''. The examination is very much a tag team affair, as Jack quizzes the lad on astronomy, mathematics and navigation, while Stephen tests his knowledge of language and other liberal arts. [[spoiler:Notwithstanding Jack's initial concerns that an aristocrat might be a spoiled brat ill-prepared for life at sea, young Horatio Hanson turns out to be an outstanding officer who saves Jack's life at one point.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Stephen is [[HeroicBastard illegitimate]] and an [[ParentalAbandonment orphan]], fostered in the back and beyond, sent from uncaring relative to relative, spends time in several prisons in Spain and Portugal, a Catholic who goes to a Protestant university in his mid-teens, survives the Terror, flees to Ireland, survives the 1798 rebellion, loses Mona, loses Lord Edward Fitzgerald, becomes a fugitive, and ends up penniless. All before the first page of the first book.
** As an adolescent, he also spends "a long time" locked in a prison cell with a convicted rapist. I'm just saying.
* DarkerAndEdgier: While HoratioHornblower is what most people thing of when they think of WoodenShipsAndIronMen, this is a close second. At no point in the Hornblower series does anyone say "fucking", for starters, nor are issues like homosexuality, pederasty, bestiality, or porn mentioned much, if at all. Keep in mind ''Hornblower'' regularly has people [[LudicrousGibs hit by cannon-balls]], and its remarkable that someone could get much darker, but O'Brien managed it.
** Which is what Lord St. Vincent says to Jack when the latter has the temerity to ask him for a ship in ''Post Captain''. Also a bit of a PrecisionFStrike when it does show up (there's one from Thomas Pullings as well).
** It needs to be taken into account that C.S. Forester was writing in the early part of the 20th century, a much more straitlaced era for mainstream literature; O'Brian, who wrote the series over a period spanning the late 1960's to his death in 2000, had much more freedom to write about the topics mentioned above.
** Jack and Stephen are much more joyful than Horatio and suffer through much less tragedy (though they have their share of troubles, by all means). Jack also believes in the Royal Navy much more than Hornblower.
** The series takes its own DarkerAndEdgier turn following the death of O'Brian's wife in RealLife.
* DavidVsGoliath: Aubrey's many awesome achievements are often a result of taking a small, undergunned ship against a superior opponent, and winning. In ''Sophie'' of 14 guns and 54 men, he closes beneath the guns of the 32-gun, 319-man ''Cacafuego'', blasts her from point-range, and takes her; in ''Surprise'' of 28 guns, he slugs it out in heavy seas against Admiral Linois' 74-gun flagship, giving nearly as good as he got until the convoy of Indiamen manages to swarm in close and force Linois to break off.[[hottip:**:The heavy seas were why ''Surprise'' managed to survive: engaging from leeward the big 74 could not open the ports of its lowest gundeck, which housed her heaviest guns. It was touch-and-go, however, and ''Surprise'' was within one broadside of being sent to the bottom before the East Indiamen arrived and threatened to overwhelm Linois through weight of numbers.]] And in ''Leopard'', of 50 guns and extremely dubious repute (whereas both ''Sophie'' and ''Surprise'' were quick and nimble), he manages to sink a Dutch 74, though that came down to a [[SingleStrokeBattle single lucky shot]] in a very heavy storm: the first ship to lose control would broach-to and be swamped, and ''Leopard'' managed to snap ''Waakzeimheid'''s foremast with a shot from her stern chaser.
* DeathByMaterialism:
** French agent Duhamel, after helping Maturin and the British and being given passage to Québec for his troubles, dies in BlackComedy fashion. Having converted his entire fortune to gold (though out of what seems more prudence than materialism) and carrying it concealed around his waist, the poor gentleman then manages to fall in the gap between boat and ship (as Dr. Maturin often does) and sink to his doom, pulled down by the weight of the gold.
** Tragic example with [[spoiler:Dil, the Indian girl whom Stephen befriends in ''HMS Surprise''. He finally buys her the silver bangles that she always wanted--and finds her dead, having been robbed and murdered for them.]]
* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Babbington finally meets a girl he is willing to settle down with, Fanny Harte. Unfortunately, Fanny is the daughter of the hated Admiral Harte, who is perfectly willing to spite Babbington as one of Aubrey's apprentices; furthermore, Fanny gets married to Andrew Wray, who hates her and marries only her for her massive inheritance. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Harte contrives to get blown up in a shocking defeat that Wray, as TheMole for the French, was responsible for; several books later, Wray gets unmasked, exiled, and shot by Stephen, leaving the way clear for Babbington.]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: French InterserviceRivalry--literally deadly serious--finally gets too much for the ConsummateProfessional Duhamel, who defects over to the British side and reveals Wray as the mole.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Common. The heroes are generally quite acceptable to modern readers, Stephen being incredibly progressive and Jack being too good-natured to really believe anything hurtful, but racism, sexism, and classism still pervade the setting, just as it did in the real 19th-century world. PoliticallyCorrectHistory is ''not'' in effect.
* DestinationDefenestration: [[NoodleIncident alluded to]] in Aubrey's dealings with [[LoanShark Kimber]]'s lawyers. Also a reason why he was impatient to put out to sea until it all blew over--Aubrey might be Lucky Jack on the ocean, but he does have a tendency to get in sticky situations on shore.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: Diana, though she's an unusually ''skillful'' example of the trope. Jagiello tries but fails, since in Lithuania the peasants are expected to get out of the way when the noblemen come hurtling through--[[HilarityEnsues which is decidedly not the case in England]]. The sailors' driving fails to qualify only due to their slowness, since they're used to hauling on the reins with a force more appropriate for the rigging of a small boat, though upsets are common.
* TheDrunkenSailor: Prevalent. The amounts of alcohol routinely consumed by the characters are astonishing by modern standards. Sometimes a character (e.g., frequently, Killick when ashore) will be referred to as drunk "even by naval standards."
* DuetBonding
* TheDungAges: Often upheld on land, but ''strongly'' subverted in anything having to do with the Royal Navy, especially the ships. Much is made of the Navy's fanatical attention to neatness and cleanliness, to the extent that there are several funny moments where Stephen hears his shipmates remark disapprovingly on the slovenly/filthy state of a certain ship, but himself can't see much of anything wrong. On a more serious note, Stephen remarks several times that the Navy's devotion to cleanliness translates into a significantly lower rate of infection and disease aboard ship than on shore. (Note that on the one occasion where a plague stalks the ship's--in this instance the ''Leopard's'' crew, in ''Desolation Island''--the disease was brought aboard by a group of convicts that the ''Leopard'' was conveying to Botany Bay.)
** Jack keeps sailors as servants when ashore, which leads to his home being almost frighteningly clean, especially for a bachelor: it is perfectly natural behavior for the sailors to dismantle, mop, dry, and reassemble the house before breakfast every morning, and it gets a fresh coat of paint about once a week.
* EekAMouse: Well, [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes a Snake.]] Jack Aubrey has a serious fear of snakes, and at one point in ''Master and Commander'' jumps up onto a chair when one crawls into the room, not coming down until Stephen removes it. Stephen doesn't help matters any by being a DeadpanSnarker about it, pulling Jack's leg about the (nonpoisonous) snake being a deadly and aggressive viper.
* [[EveryoneHasStandards Even French Intelligence Services Have Standards]]: Wray and Ledward murdering their own agents to safeguard their own fortunes is the main reason behind Duhamel's defection.
* EvilMatriarch: Mrs. Williams is overbearing, badgering, and apparently loves to make Jack and Sophie's lives hell. For all that, though, she ''is'' a decent manager of money, though she is not above running illegal schemes to make it.
* FishOutOfWater: a straight example when it comes to landsmen on water, and almost literally when it comes to sailors on land. Jack, for instance, manages to endanger most of his fortune when it comes to falling for various {{Get Rich Quick Scheme}}s, while mention is made of Mowett getting entangled in the schemes of dishonest booksellers when he tries to publish his poetry.
* FixingTheGame: It's strongly implied that the reason Jack loses many pounds at whist in book 2 is because his interlocutors are cheating. That Jack accuses them of this loudly and in public is the driving force behind a SmugSnake picking up the VillainBall.
* Foreshadowing: In one of the later books there is a section describing a transit on a post-chaise which includes a quite narrow and tricky bridge coming at the bottom of a hill. A couple of books later [[spoiler:Diana, who was said to be somewhat overly aggressive as a driver and dismissed concerns about that specific bridge, is revealed to have been killed in an accident on that very bridge.]]
* FromBadToWorse: A few examples, but the end of ''Desolation Island'' springs to mind.
* FrozenInTime: Around book 7, O'Brian realized he was running out of Napoleonic War in which the story could take place, so he put the year 1813 on constant loop for the next 10 books). Fans like to characterize certain actions as taking place in 1812 or 1812a.
* GeniusBruiser: Jack Aubrey. He is a tall, burly, heavily scarred war hero and immensely successful naval commander. He is also, along with his good friend Dr. Maturin, a Fellow of the Royal Society (Britain's most prestigious academic society). He has written a number of well-received papers on astronomy and geometry, and built his own observatory and telescopes.
* GentleGiant: Padeen is a very large, strong man whose compassionate nature makes him an excellent nurse. [[spoiler:Also, his patience and friendliness eventually coaxes Stephen's autistic daughter, Brigid, out of her shell.]]
* GilliganCut: Patrick O'Brian occasionally uses them to jump over sections, not for comedy but as an interesting way to maintain pacing. For instance, O'Brian often describes a battle to the vital turning point, and then jumps forward to port and have Jack or Stephen narrate details from the aftermath.
* HookHand: after [[PluckyMiddie William Reade]] gets his hand blown off, he has it replaced with a hook.
* HeterosexualLifePartners
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: both the French captain Christy-Palliere and the British Heneage Dundas really existed. Interestingly, ''Master and Commander'' in particular was heavily based on the real-life exploits of Captain Cochrane (particularly the [[InUniverse Sophie-vs-Cacafuego]][=/=][[RealLife Speedy-vs-Gama]] duel, accurate down to the number of guns and the number of crew), who really was captured by Christy-Palliere in the same way that Jack Aubrey was captured--and the real-life Christy-Palliere was so impressed by Cochrane's exploits that he refused to accept his sword in surrender, the same as Aubrey.
* HoneyTrap: French agents try to compromise Stephen in Malta with Mrs. Fielding, the wife of a captured British officer, in combination with implied blackmail (Lt. Fielding's death sentence would be continually delayed so long as she cooperated). It doesn't work; Laura Fielding is too nervous, and Stephen too perceptive that something is up. He manages to get Laura to tell him the truth, and then works out a plan to protect her from French intelligence by pretending to be her lover.
* ImAHumanitarian: several of the Pacific Island tribes they meet do eat humans, though it's treated as in very matter-of-fact way. One tribal queen whom Aubrey is assigned to help out realizes the disparity in customs very amusedly and waves it off with "so many taboos!"
* INeverGotAnyLetters: after the HoneyTrap situation described above, which quite naturally leads to rumors, Stephen writes a (partial) explanation of the matter to Diana, basically asking her to trust him. Unfortunately, he left the letter to Wray, and so Diana does not receive it. This leads to a misunderstanding between the two that persists from ''Treason's Harbour'' to ''The Letter of Marque'', when Stephen finally tries to break with Diana for good--only to finally piece together the truth and reconcile with her.
* InformedSelfDiagnosis: Stephen is generally quite good at this, with the notable exception of failing to diagnose his own addiction to the alcoholic tincture of laudanum.
* InnocentInnuendo: by the end of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', when Stephen and Diana are finally reunited onboard the ''Oedipus'', Jack strides out onto the quarterdeck and complains disgustedly that "they're going at it hammer and tongs, like they've been married this past twelvemonth and more." He was actually referencing their [[spoiler:[[LikeAnOldMarriedCouple arguing.]]]]
* InSeriesNickname: Aubrey is referred to as "Goldilocks" by the crew (though never to his face, of course), for his blonde hair. In the wider world, he's well known as "Lucky Jack Aubrey" for his good fortune in capturing prizes.
* InstantLeechJustFallInWater: * In ''Blue at the Mizzen'', Stephen Maturin and Christine Wood fall into brackish West African mud. Afterwards, each is covered with "astonishingly numerous and avid leeches." They use salt (brought by Christine for this purpose) to remove the leeches.
* ItsPersonal: implied for the captain of the ''Waakzeimheid''; after the first few exchanges of fire, he is seen wearing a black coat, and chasing ''Leopard'' despite suicidal weather for battle. Jack wonders if his son had died in their skirmishing.
* [[JokeCharacter Joke Ship]]: The ''Polychrest.''
* TheKlutz: Stephen somehow contrives to get into accident after accident at sea, ranging from falling out of the boat to somehow turning a complete somersault in a particularly violent sea. As a result, the seamen around him look upon with real affection and considerable respect for his medical prowess--and stand wary in case he manages to take yet another improbable tumble at every possible opportunity.
* JustFriends:
** Stephen and Diana, for much of the series. (TheyDo, in ''The Surgeon's Mate.'')
** Padeen seems to be stuck in one of these in regards to Clarissa.
** In the later books, [[spoiler: Stephen and Christine Wood]].
* LastNameBasis: Used [[TruthInTelevision accurately]], as during that period only the very most intimate friends or lovers would address one another by unadorned first name. Except for Jack, all of Stephen's old comrades/shipmates - and by the end of the series he has amassed a very wide circle of naval friends - address him by his professional title, and even Jack addresses him as "Doctor" during, so to speak, business hours. Diana Villiers, Stephen's great love throughout most of the series, most frequently calls him "Maturin" before their marriage (and even occasionally after), and Stephen reciprocates by calling her "Villiers". In fact, Jack, Jack's wife Sophie, Diana, [[spoiler:and later on in the series, Sir Joseph Blaine and Christine Wood]] are the only people who are entitled, by the intimacy of their relationship, to address Stephen by his first name. (It should be emphasized that LastNameBasis does ''not'' imply coldness or distance in the relationship; for instance, Tom Pullings, who has been a close friend of Stephen's ever since their first commission together in the ''Sophie'', invariably addresses him as "Doctor". Stephen, however, does customarily address Pullings as "Tom" in informal conversation. Stephen and Diana, during their long courtship, are another obvious example.)
** Jack's very old shipmates, especially those who follow him from commission to commission - his "followers" - invariably address him as "Captain" out of their deep respect for him, no matter how close their relationship is. Jack will customarily address old friends/subordinates such as Pullings, James Mowett, William Babbington (and later on in the series, William Reade) by their first name in informal conversation; when naval business is being done, he will call them "Mr. (insert surname here)" or address them by rank.
** LastNameBasis saves Stephen's fortune on at least one occasion: [[spoiler:Before leaving on his circumnavigation recounted in the arc beginning with ''The Thirteen Gun Salute'', Stephen writes a power-of-attorney letter authorizing Sir Joseph Blaine to move his money from his current bank, which is providing highly unsatisfactory service, to a different one recommended by Jack. However, Stephen is writing a note to Diana at the same time, and in true CloudCuckooLander fashion, signs that note with the formal "S. Maturin" signature that he uses for business letters and signs the power-of-attorney as "Stephen". This turns out to be very fortunate, however, as the bank Stephen had intended to shift his fortune to unexpectedly goes bust during the voyage. and because Sir Joseph can't move the funds with the incorrectly signed power-of-attorney, the money is safe in the "highly unsatisfactory" bank. Another happy result is that, from that point on, Stephen and Sir Joseph, already close friends, enjoy the liberty to address each other by unadorned first names.]]
* UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar
** There are numerous scenes, usually in passing, where Jack will read the Articles of War to the crew in lieu of a sermon on Sunday.
*** The emphasis with which Jack reads these regulations, with their hair-curling repetition of "shall be punished by death", varies according to his mood and the situation on board ship. When all is well, he'll skim through the Articles so as to let the men get on with the important business of having their Sunday dinner; but when he's angry about something (as at the beginning of ''The Truelove''), he'll read the Articles in a most impressively menacing fashion.
** Also discussed repeatedly in contexts such as when, early on in the series, Stephen quizzes one of the officers about the custom of showing "false flags" to trick a potential enemy. The officer explains that this practice is quite legal as tactical deception in pre-battle maneuvering, but that the ship's genuine national colors are ''always'' raised before battle is joined. This is quite important because if it's not done, the ship can legally be treated as a pirate vessel!
** It causes a few problems sometimes: one character, Dutourd, in ''The Wine-Dark Sea'' takes it as an absolute affront that his possessions and money are claimed after it's been legally established that no, he had no letter of marque or anything similar - the closest thing he could produce was a well-wishing letter from the French Minister of Marine - and was thus being treated as a pirate, saying that he was robbed. He goes on to cause trouble for Stephen later.
*** To be more precise, Dutourd's ''personal'' possessions and money were left alone (no doubt, of course, they would have been seized by the crews of privateers less well-disciplined than the ''Surprise's'' man-of-war's men); it was the expedition's treasury that was confiscated and then shared out among the crew. Also, his situation was more anomalous than the previous paragraph might imply. He himself didn't have the requisite letter of marque, but his American sailing-master, who was killed in the action in which the ''Surprise'' captured the ''Franklin'', did, so Jack decided to stretch a point. As things turned out, that might not have been the wisest thing to do.
** The status of the ''Surprise'' herself, during the great circumnavigation that takes up much of the second half of the series, is worth looking at in some more detail. As of ''The Reverse of the Medal'', the ship (which, for all its manifold virtues, is nonetheless obsolete by the technical standards of the day) has been taken out of service and put up for auction. When Jack is framed for stock market fraud, stripped of his rank and stricken from the list, Stephen (with the help of Tom Pullings) buys the ''Surprise'', obtains "letters of marque" - documents issued by the British Government which authorize Stephen, as owner of the ship, to carry out military operations against Britain's enemies - has the ship moved to Shelmerston (where top-notch sailors and naval stores are readily to be found), and hires Jack as the ''Surprise's'' captain, making it clear all along that he is essentially holding the ship in trust until Jack - whom everyone acknowledges to be the rightful owner of the ship - can acquire enough wherewithal to purchase it again from Stephen. At this point, and going on until early into ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'', the ''Surprise'' is operating as a classic privateer, though Jack, being sensitive about the term (which has fallen into more than a little disrepute by the time of the Napoleonic Wars), prefers to refer to her as a private man-of-war. When Jack is cleared and reinstated in ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'' and given command of the ''Diane'', the ''Surprise'' takes on a new status, as HMHV (His Majesty's Hired Vessel) ''Surprise'', and sails eastward, under the command of Tom Pullings, to rendezvous with the ''Diane'' once Jack has completed his mission. As it happens, the ''Diane'' is shipwrecked in a typhoon at the end of ''The Thirteen-Gun Salute'', and Jack manages to obtain another ship in Batavia, which he names ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'', or ''Nutmeg'' for short, and it is in this ship that he finally rendezvouses with ''Surprise''. He transfers to ''Surprise'' and takes command again, with Pullings as his first officer, and from then on, the ''Surprise'', though continuing to be a private vessel (Jack, who by this time is flush with cash from all the prizes he's captured, has bought her back again from Stephen at cost), operates, for all intents and purposes, as a Royal Navy vessel, under Admiralty orders, until her return to Great Britain.
** The citizenship of sailors is also addressed in ''Desolation Island''. In particular, US citizens Michael Herapath and Louisa Wogan are "encouraged" by Maturin to escape to an American whaler, because once they set foot on a US vessel, they could not be pursued for any crime. The crew of the American whaler, while Maturin is treating them for scurvy in exchange for the use of their forge, is revealed to be at least 1/3 British citizens and Royal Navy deserters. Aubrey ''would'' have been well within his rights and the law to press the British crewmen, or hang them for desertion, with no legal recourse for either the whaler's captain or the US. However, Maturin "neglects" to tell Aubrey.
* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Sophie may have been brought up to follow this trope, despite Jack's best efforts to encourage her to enjoy their marital relations. While Jack loves Sophie deeply, he's less than totally satisfied with Sophie's passive attitude toward sex (which is undoubtedly a factor in his extramarital adventures). During ''The Yellow Admiral'', when their marriage is experiencing serious difficulties, Diana and Clarissa Oakes do their best to coax Sophie out of her indifference about sexual relations, with some success.
** It does not help that Jack's idea of foreplay is getting drunk at dinner and he approaches sex with the same briskly aggressive attitude he otherwise reserves for ''boarding actions in combat''.
* LikeBrotherAndSister: Stephen and Sophie have this dynamic.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: Often averted since promotion is a plot point in nearly every book, and provides the title for five of the novels, but by the end of the series O'Brian had to go to increasingly absurd lengths to keep that much seniority in a small frigate like the [[CoolShip HMS Surprise]].
* LivingLegend: Captain Jack Aubrey, globe-trotting badass much caressed by the Admiralty, astronomer and geometer, member of the Royal Society. Stephen Maturin, world renowned naturalist, physician, and the James Bond of the Napoleonic Wars also much caressed by the Admiralty. Beloved by all of Britain, feared by her enemies, these two are highly improbable.
* LoanShark: Driving most of the plot of book two.
* LocalReference: Patrick O'Brian's Irish ancestry and his move to a Catalan town in his youth both show up in the character of Stephen Maturin.
* LovingAShadow: Stephen himself is afraid that his own feelings toward Diana were false after he runs into her again in Boston, and discovers that he no longer loves her, leading to endless self-questioning if his earlier passion were based on reality. Even their marriage was acknowledged by both as an act of convenience, in order to regain Diana's lost British citizenship so that she couldn't be deported to America. Despite their close friendship, it isn't until ''The Letter of Marque'' when it is finally established, without a doubt, that Diana and Stephen truly love each other.
* TheLongitudeProblem: Shows up occasionally, as would be expected in a book with its setting, usually when the ship's chronometers run into problems.
* LongRunningBookSeries
* LostAtSea: A not-uncommon trope throughout the series.
* MarriedAtSea: Stephen and Diana at the end of ''The Surgeon's Mate'', possibly also Jack and Sophie at the end of ''The Mauritius Command'' (though in-text it's implied that Sophie prefers a proper church wedding ashore.) Stephen had wanted to marry Diana aboard the H.M.S. ''Shannon'' in ''The Fortune of War'', and the captain was preparing to do it (he even had the proper passages marked in the Book of Common Prayer) when he was interrupted by the ship-to-ship duel with the U.S.S. ''Chesapeake''.
** The Catholic Church didn't recognize the (civil, Anglican) ceremony as canonical, though, so Stephen and Diana were, by Catholic standards, "living in sin" until they got "properly" married in a NoodleIncident between ''The Letter of Marque'' and ''The Thirteen Gun Salute''.
* MDEnvy: Few naval surgeons are actual physicians, and even fewer are as learned and skilled as Dr. Maturin.
* MinoredInAssKicking: Has Stephen Maturin ever lost a duel? Justified in that dueling skill is described as nearly mandatory for survival at Maturin's Irish university, where DuelsDecideEverything. On one unfortunate occasion, he did kill a man that he had intended to only wound lightly, due to the fact that his hands, badly damaged from torture, couldn't aim the pistol with the degree of accuracy required. There was also the slight problem that Maturin's opponent had already planted a pistol ball in his chest, a 'misfire' that would have gotten him killed by officiant in any case.
* MixedMetaphor: Jack uses these ''all the time''. Stephen [[DeadpanSnarker likes to poke fun]].
--> '''Aubrey:''' They have chosen their cake, and must lie in it.\\
'''Maturin:''' You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.\\
'''Aubrey:''' No, no, it is not quite that, neither. I mean? I wish you would not confuse my mind, Stephen.
** An extensive list of these and other such "Aubreyisms" can be found [[http://www.hmssurprise.org/Resources/Aubreyisms.html here]].
* MotorMouth: Stephen has been known to go on and on about exotic birds. He knows this and uses it deliberately; while he's babbling on about the feathers of an albatross [[ObfuscatingStupidity no one would expect him to be a spy.]]
--> '''Maturin:''' When I return, my dear, I shall publish such papers on cryptogams that no one shall ever again lay the charge of intelligence upon my head.\\
* TheMovie: "[[LongTitle Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World]]." Based mostly on the tenth book, but it includes elements and lines from much of the series.
* MuggingTheMonster: an unlucky footpad jumps a pensive Jack Aubrey in ''Post Captain'', only to get the stuffing beaten out of him. In hindsight, it turned out to be the right move: Aubrey, afraid that he'd killed the man, took him home for Stephen to treat. The poor guy turns out to be completely incompetent at robbery, but makes an adequate assistant for Stephen (though still terrified of Aubrey).
* MustHaveCaffeine:
** Mention is made of hands resorting to soaking burnt bread or roasting and brewing barley when they're out of coffee as a poor replacement. Killick also improves in his coffee-brewing throughout the series.
** This is especially applicable to Jack and Stephen; there are several funny scenes where the duo tries to secure coffee from other ships where it turns out that the captain either doesn't like coffee or objects to it on medical or religious grounds.
* NauticalFolklore: All over the place, particularly among the foremast hands, but Maturin is often dismayed by how much of it Aubrey seems to take seriously.
* NationalStereotypes: Professor Graham appears to play straight the "dour, humorless Scotsman" stereotype, until the subversion appears: [[spoiler:Graham turns out to be a fellow intelligence agent, and his close cooperation with Stephen turns out to be vital for the Mediterranean story arc covered by ''The Ionian Mission'' and ''Treason's Harbour''.]]
* NoodleIncident: Several passing references are made in various books to cruises and missions undertaken by Jack and Stephen (mainly in the ''Surprise''). Much of what happens on shore between books, or while the main characters are at sea, falls into the same category.
* NostalgiaFilter: A number of older captains and admirals (and, increasingly, Jack and Stephen) remember the past quite fondly. A number of references are made to the 80s and 90s. The ''seventeen''-eighties and -nineties. One spends a significant amount of time at dinner instructin a midshipman on proper behavior, specially pointing out with approval Jack's rather old-fashioned behavior and appearance[[hottip:*:Only with regard to his habit of wearing his hat 'athwartship' rather than 'amidship' in admiration of Admiral Nelson. Otherwise Jack was always cautiously modern, liking flintlocks, but keeping slowmatch on hand just in case, for example.]]
* NumberTwo: Tom Pullings, the first of Jack's midshipmen to pass for lieutenant, is often found as Jack's first lieutenant aboard his many commands--indeed, when Jack is temporarily struck off the Navy list, Pullings offers to temporarily volunteer himself as part of his command of a letter of marque. After Jack's reinstatement and assignment to the commodore of a squadron, he makes it a point to ask for now-Captain Pullings to be the captain of his flagship, ''HMS Bellona''.
* OutOfGenreExperience: The books are Napoleonic-era historical novels, but chapters here and there turn into a [[SpyDrama espionage drama]]. ''The Reverse of the Medal'' takes place almost entirely on land, centering as it does around political intrigues to oust Jack from the Navy and the desperate struggle to pinpoint TheMole.
** Or period romance fit to compete with the likes of PrideAndPrejudice.
* PetTheDog: Harte, Aubrey's hated admiral, shows a moment or two of decency in ''Treason's Harbor'', mentioning that it is his habit to try to buy the liberty of Algerine slaves whenever possible. [[spoiler:This comes mere pages before he and Aubrey sails into an ambush; Harte's ship is blown up with no survivors, and Aubrey escapes by the skin of his teeth.]]
* PerpetualPoverty: Jack's seamanship and amazing fortunes at sea earns him huge amounts of money from captured prizes. His equally amazing misfortunes on land often mean that at the start of every new book, his fortune is either lost or is in danger of being lost, with him hunting for a source of revenue that would clear his debts.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Midshipman (later lieutenant, later captain) Babbington. It's implied that his love of the ladies gave him the pox so often it stunted his growth. In fact, he never grew into the clothes his mother sent him to sea with in the first book and he's always been small. He also kicks a great deal of ass, following the illustrious footsteps of Lucky Jack.
* {{Pirate}}: Encountered occasionally, always as Type 1. Mostly in the less developed parts of the world, and sailing smaller craft, though Aubrey does engage ''Alastor'', a French four-masted pirate ship, in ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
** Mention also goes to the Chinese and Malay members of the ''Lively'''s crew, who were mostly "recruited" from empty junks and praus. They show up in ''HMS Surprise'', when Jack leads a boarding-party of them to take a gunboat. Instead of [[BoisterousBruiser charging in with cheers]], European-style, the former pirates take out their targets with garrotes and knives in total silence, leaving Jack and the European sailors stunned. [[spoiler:Then comes the Port Mahon raid to free Stephen, where the capability for stealth and silent killing becomes paramount, and Jack makes a specific point of asking for them.]]
* PluckyMiddie: lots and lots of them. Pullings, Babbington, and Mowett form the first generation of Jack's midshipmen, risen to commanders and post-captains themselves. Reade and Hanson belong to the "second generation"; by the end of the book series, Reade is a lieutenant in charge of the tender ''Ringle'', while Hanson is on track for promotion to Lieutenant.
* PottyEmergency: normally, arrival at a secret prison run by one of the dreaded intelligence agencies is an imposing affair, which makes things [[FunnyMoments all the funnier]] in ''The Surgeon's Mate'' when--as a result of having eaten some rather dubious crayfish--Jack, Jagiello, and their captor, the ConsummateProfessional Duhamel, all make a mad dash through the prison in search of a restroom upon arrival. (Stephen had medicated himself, so he's the one whom the astonished prison officers turn to for an explanation.)
* {{Privateer}}: Encountered often. Jack even becomes a privateer captain himself at one point.
* ProperLady: Sophie, contrasted with her SpiritedYoungLady cousin Diana. Although she's quite spirited herself at times.
--> '''Stephen:''' If any man so far forgot himself as to make a licentious suggestion to Sophie, she would not understand him for a week, and then she would instantly lay him dead with [Jack's] double-barreled fowling piece.
* [[PutOnABus Put on a Ship]]: Reverend Martin, Dr. Maturin's frequent companion on naturalist expeditions, is sent home to England for medical reasons.
* RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun: despite the huge, huge list of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome crowning moments of awesome]] that Aubrey pulls off as a captain, the one that comes up most often in-universe is his first: ''Sophie'' versus ''Cacafuego''.
* RenaissanceMan : Natural philosophers of the age embraced this trope, but BadassBookworm Dr. Maturin especially does so. See the CulturedWarrior entry above.
** Jack Aubrey, astronomer/telescope builder/mathematician/Member of Parliament/musician, also fits well with this trope.
** RuleOfFunny : There's no real reason a keenly observant, organized mind like Maturin's should be so completely inept at remembering basic nautical facts, especially ones explained to him repeatedly.
*** Perhaps more that he is [[CloudCuckoolander utterly uninterested in the subject]], but it's still pretty hilarious.
*** Actually, he takes pride in his "not inconsiderable maritime knowledge," often using nautical expressions on land. At one point Jack has to reassure him when he's feeling a little low about this (the phrase "Thou wilt never shit a seaman's turd" is mentioned). RuleOfFunny in full force.
* RightForTheWrongReasons: patients of Stephen's surgery have an amazingly high chance of survival, even given his skill and his dedication to cleanliness. Midway through the series, he is shown pouring alcohol onto a patient's skin before surgery, explaining that the sudden coldness of its evaporation numbs the patient and lessens the pain. Since this was decades before the widespread acceptance of germ theory, Stephen could not have known that he was disinfecting his patients and lessening the chance of post-surgery infection.
* RunningGag: Stephen Maturin's signature ability to fall out of any boat or ship. Eventually he gets better at this, but by that time it's too late: due to his reputation for such he is usually assisted aboard, much to his indignation. (On the other hand the officers have [[GenreSavvy learned to cope]]; for a while it was standard practice to have a jar of oil ready--just in case Stephen's pocketwatch gets a dunking when he's trying to board, and needs to be cleaned of water.)
** Conversely, the sailors are usually much more used to small craft than they are to horse-drawn carriages. Several minor incidents ensue.
** Young Midshipman Babbington's obsession with prostitutes. On one visit to Plymouth, Aubrey had to empty his pockets beforehand as the only way of keeping him "passably chaste"; on other occasions he's usually the first to the sickbay after shore leave due to VD, and in his later appearances his growth appears to have been permanently stunted due to pox. (Not that it stops him from being an excellent lieutenant.)
* SecretWeapon:
** ''Polychrest'' was originally designed to carry one -- a large rocket delivery system. Unfortunately, once it killed its inventor, the Navy was left with a ship that wasn't going to be firing off giant rockets... and wasn't much good for anything else, unless you count [[AwesomeButImpractical sailing backwards.]]
** The French were convinced that ''Worcester'' carried one due to its [[TechnicolorFire amazing technicolor muzzle flashes]], and ran like hell after the first broadside. Turned out to be the surplus firework gunpowder that Jack had brought for gunnery practice.
* ServileSnarker: Killick. Well, less "snarking", more "shrewish nagging." Jack and Stephen put up with him all the same.
* ShownTheirWork: Is absolutely littered with historical details about the workings of a British navy ship.
** Except for the one time O'Brian skimped on research - Book 6 (''The Fortune of War''), with the aforementioned Frenchies running around a Boston where they wouldn't be welcome (because, in the War of 1812, Boston, and New England in general, was the center of anti-war feeling and pro-British, or more accurately, pro-free-trade-with-Britain, sentiment). Another character makes a horse-driven round trip from Boston to Salem in a mere two hours.
*** Also the aforementioned problem of the "marthambles", though in that case it was more a question of O'Brian not going deep enough into the contemporary materials.
* ShutUpHannibal: when Stephen ''finally'' has enough of Mrs. Williams' badgering of Jack Aubrey and his family, he coldly informs her that unless she stops he would inform the authorities about her illegal gambling racket. It's just one of his many AwesomeMoments.
* SlashedThroat: How Stephen deals with a French intelligence agent during a particularly harrowing day. When he coolly relates the fact to a fellow in British Naval intelligence, the other is quietly shocked and terrified.
* SlutShaming: In keeping with the tone of the era, sex is dirty and shameful and everyone does it, but only women are punished for it. Men may be called "the very merest rakes", and it might hinder promotion prospects, but they're not poverty-stricken outcasts for it.
* SmartPeopleKnowLatin: Maturin will often use Latin around patients both to keep them from knowing what he is saying (when he is talking to another physician or an assistant who also speaks Latin) and because patients are reassured by the fact that their doctor is learned enough to speak Latin. The crews of the ships he serves on often brag that their ship has a real physician that speaks Latin and Greek.
* SoapOperaRapidAgingSyndrome: Even accounting for the FrozenInTime aspect of the series, the child characters age more rapidly than one would expect. General Aubrey's last-born son (and Jack's half-brother) gets the full SORAS treatment, apparently being a teenager by the end of the series, though the other children in the series seem to still be in their pre-teen years.
* SpiritedYoungLady: Diana is an extreme example, contrasted with her ProperLady cousin Sophie.
* SpotOfTea: Subverted. Aubrey and Maturin are inveterate coffee drinkers, and Maturin once refers to tea as "that insipid wash."
* SpyDrama (very much Stale Beer-or should we say Stale Grog-Flavored)
** Interestingly, with a few exceptions such as his activities in Boston Maturin's spy work is [[RealityEnsues often basically paperwork]]. Deadly, deadly paperwork. We hear repeated references to his allowing particular pieces of information to be 'captured' which lead to the deaths of numerous enemy agents and, in one case, the collapse of a French intelligence department. Maturin with a prepared notebook is a dangerous thing.
* TheSpymaster: Sir Joseph Blaine, amateur entomologist, learned scholar, Stephen's close friend, and head of the British intelligence service, who often assigns missions for Stephen and who uses his influence to protect Jack.
* StoutStrength: Captain Jack Aubrey himself. He weighs about 18 stone (~250 pounds), and Dr. Maturin often frets about his weight and tries to get him to eat less. But he's still fit enough to lead his crew into hand-to-hand battles and scramble up the ship's ropes like an ape. If you have ever tried to climb up a sailing ship's rigging, you will grasp that he is, even by modern standards, quite physically fit.
** Jack is quite tall (his exact height isn't recorded, but is probably at least 6 feet, in a period where most men were under that; Napoleon is always depicted as being short but was probably actually of average or slightly less-than-average height for the time). His 18 stone probably doesn't hang on him in such an unseemly manner as might be supposed by modern readers.
*** RusselCrowe had to put on some weight for the movie, but he's not portly. "The Captain has an uncommon genteel figgar"
** In ''The Ionian Mission'', Jack narrowly loses a race in the ship's rigging to a sixty-something admiral. (Actually, it's strongly implied Jack intentionally slows himself on the way down so that he loses by a hair.)
* StoryArc: though the first three books are largely standalone, later books are grouped into larger story arcs, with even larger story arcs weaving in and out in-between. A fair rule of thumb is that once Aubrey makes it back to Britain, an arc has ended and another will begin soon. For instance:
** ''Desolation Island'' to ''The Surgeon's Mate'' has Aubrey and Maturin getting caught up in the War of 1812, being captured by and then escaping the Americans (and dealing with French intelligence services along the way).
** ''The Ionian Mission'' and ''Treason's Harbour'' deal with Jack Aubrey's return to the Mediterranean and his various diplomatic endeavours there. This arc is more or less wrapped up in ''The Far Side of the World''.
** ''The Reverse of the Medal'' kicks off Jack's stint as a privateer[[hottip:*:only don't call him that; he prefers [[InsistentTerminology "private man of war"]]]], which culminates in an epic circumnavigation spanning three different commands (''Diane'', ''Nutmeg of Consolation'', and ''Surprise'') and five books, from ''The Letter of Marque'' (nearly the entirety of which deals with preparations for the journey) to ''The Wine-Dark Sea''.
** ''The Commodore'', ''The Yellow Admiral, ''The Hundred Days'', and ''Blue at the Mizzen'' are more closely stand-alone novels, though they form a loose "flag rank" story arc that deals with Jack's promotion to an admiral and his command of a squadron spanning the end of and the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
* SugarAndIcePersonality: Stephen.
* SweetieGraffiti: Jack carving his name into the ''Surprise''.
* TenMinuteRetirement: Sir Joseph Blaine is temporarily forced into retirement as a result of Wray's efforts. From his position, however, he still wields immense influence behind the scenes, and leads the hunt for the spy; eventually, after Wray and Ledward are unmasked, he gets his position back.
* ThoseTwoGuys: Mowett and Rowan, two hands from the gunroom who endlessly compete in poetry afloat and drinking ashore.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Stephen is short (one source gives his height as 5'6"), dark, variously described as "scrawny" or "squat", pale, sloppily dressed (he has an unfortunate habit of smearing ink or grease on such nice items of clothing as he is able to obtain), his only remarkable feature being his pale eyes. Nonetheless, after many trials, he's able to win the hand of the dazzling beauty Diana Villiers.
** Jack is big, strongly built (and rather stout, though probably not obese by modern standards), ruddy, blond, with twinkling blue eyes, and '''absolutely''' covered with scars from numerous battles, including a mostly-missing right ear. He's a good deal better-looking than his friend Stephen, but he's no Adonis either. ''His'' wife is the lovely blonde EnglishRose Sophie Williams.
*** Once pointed out by a female prisoner, who happens to see him swimming naked. Maturin replies 'Perhaps he is a bit cut about. But you will notice that his scars are all received honorably from the front, except those that are from the rear."
* UnreliableNarrator
** Early on the aphorism "Today's wardroom joint is tomorrow's messdeck stew" is introduced. Meaning that anything officers discuss today will be hazily retold by the crew tomorrow.
** Usually O'Brien gives both reliable and unreliable versions of events to contrast them, but occasionally only the crew's version will be told, leaving the reader guessing as to what actually happened.
*** In ''The Commodore'', Preserved Killick, Jack's steward, tells Barret Bonden, the Captain's coxswain, about domestic unrest in the Aubrey household. This is in fact something of an aversion of the trope, as Killick, who has served under the Captain since the beginning of the series, is as well-acquainted as anyone else alive with what makes his master tick; and he's talking to another very old shipmate and friend, Bonden, who knows Jack just as well as Killick does.
** Jack himself is an unreliable narrator to his wife, deliberately describing naval actions as loud, exciting, and generally bloodless as opposed to the harrowing and gruesome events they are. A classic example is describing a boarding action, in which impressed former pirates take an enemy vessel and systematically kill everyone on board, then calmly loot the bodies while the decks run with blood, with a 'we carried the day'.
** In ''The Truelove'', a red silk wedding dress is striking and symbolic of trouble to the reader, while being unremarkable to the characters, since white wedding dresses were uncommon at best at the time - a wedding dress would just be the nicest dress the lady owned or could afford, regardless of color.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: O'Brian uses a number of fictitious places in the course of the series, with varying degrees of geographical specificity. The semi-piratical English [[TheWestCountry West Country]] port of Shelmerston and the fictional Polynesian island of Moahu are two particularly noteworthy examples.
* WoodenShipsAndIronMen: A particularly pure version of this trope.
* WorthyOpponent: Many, ''many'' examples throughout the series, from ''Master and Commander'' onwards. Jack, for instance, is in the habit of having a defeated enemy captain keep his sword (which the vanquished is traditionally supposed to give to the victor as token of surrender) if his antagonist has fought with particular gallantry.
** Jack and his officers will sometimes correct others if those people make slighting remarks about the opposition; for instance, in ''H.M.S. Surprise'', a passenger aboard the ''Surprise'' speculates that the French must be acting in a cowardly fashion during a certain sea battle. Jack (or one of his officers) quickly demurs, praising the French for their gallantry and pointing out that the French commander is actually waiting to gain a tactical advantage.
** In ''The Nutmeg of Consolation'', Jack is displeased when Stephen tells him that he's arranged to have the gunpowder resupply of a French frigate (which Jack very much desires to engage and, if possible, capture) cut off. This is because Jack feels that it wouldn't be a fair fight to take on a ship that can't shoot back. [[spoiler:However, the Frenchmen encounter a Dutch merchantman and confiscate her store of gunpowder, thus ensuring that they'll have enough for the battle.]]
** In ''The Surgeon's Mate'', the American commander Lawrence of the U.S.S. ''Chesapeake'', mortally wounded in battle with the H.M.S. ''Shannon'' at the end of ''The Fortune of War'', is buried in Halifax with full military honors, the funeral being attended by every senior British naval officer on hand including Jack (who is still recovering from serious wounds sustained in the capture of H.M.S. ''Java'' by the ''Chesapeake'' in the previous book).
** And as for ''The Fortune of War'', the climactic ship-to-ship battle between the ''Shannon'' and ''Chesapeake'' is organized in a punctiliously formal way that shows beyond a doubt that both captains regard each other as worthy opponents.
** Throughout the entire series, there are many, many incidents which show a strong feeling of professional kinship among the men who sail the seas and serve their respective countries in their navies. This is closely related to TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar (see entry above); there is a strong sense of what is "done" and "not done" in naval warfare and an equally strong code of honor and respect between professional naval officers, which becomes a plot point on more than a few occasions.
* YankTheDogsChain: If everything's going well by the end of one book, expect it to have changed by the start of the next.
* YouDontWantToCatchThis: Maturin uses the plague this way in the first book.
* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: alluded to in ''The Letter of Marque'', after Jack is framed for stock fraud. Mrs. Williams doesn't think for a moment that he's innocent, but she thoroughly approves of what she thinks he did (i.e., defraud the stock market of potentially thousands of pounds).
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