History Literature / Inversions

** Averted when Vossil is called to a patient who is suffering a lingering fatal disease. Vossil notes that her wife is suffering injuries from systematic abuse and [[KickTheSonOfABitch tells her that there's nothing she can do for her husband.]] Oelph's mentor Adlain catches the same disease and so Oelph mercy kills him, [[spoiler:despite Adlain confessing that he murdered Oelph's parents and adopted him out of guilt.]]

** A downplayed example when [[spoilerPerrund can't look [=UrLeyn=] in the eye when she kills him, despite having spent years planning her revenge.]]

* InLoveWithTheMark: Both the doctor and the bodyguard, implied to be Culture agents, fall in love with one of the locals [[spoiler: though only the bodyguard has his feelings returned.]] Oelph also falls for the doctor, whom he is spying on.

* MercyKill: Vossil is called to keep alive a victim of the chief torturer, she administers a potion and the victim quickly dies. She is accused of having killed him, but she denies it and ingests the potion herself to show it's harmless. However, it's implied that it was actually poison, but she used The Culture's people capacity to bypass anything they ingest. When Oelph goes to try some, she quickly stops him.

* BittersweetEnding: To both main characters. Dr Vossil triumphs in the sense that [[spoiler:she is able to be a reforming influence on King Quience, even though his plot to assasinate [=UrLeyn=] succeeds.]] But [=DeWar=] is the one that [[spoiler: has his feelings returned and lives happily ever after.]]

* BrainlessBeauty: Kings Quience's choice of women. Vossil drops a hint of her affections for him, but he either doesn't notice or [[BreakHerHeartToSaveHer pretends not to.]]

* DeathbedConfession: The killer of Oelph's parents confesses to it when he is less than an hour from death.

* TheNapoleon: Protector [=UrLeyn=] is short, but described to have such a presence as to make other feel smaller still. He also gets more aggresive than necessary in his war tactics when disraught about, not to mention [[spoiler: he raped Perrund and killed her family.]]
* RapeAsBackstory: Lady Perrund, during the war of succession.
* {{Revenge}}: A character's main motivation for becoming an assasin and a spy.

* InLoveWithTheMark: Both the doctor and the bodyguard, implied to be Culture agents, fall in love with one of the locals [[spoiler: only the bodyguard has his feelings returned.]] Oelph also falls for the doctor, whom he is spying on.

* ColonyDrop: Given that we know of Special Circumstances, it's implied that the meteorite shower might not have been an accident, as the disaster forced massive changes to society.

* BrainlessBeauty: Kings Quience's choice of women.

The novel provides examples of the following tropes:

* AfterTheEnd: Very downplayed. Years before the story begins there was a falling of meteorites that killed millions and devastated crops, destroying the empire. However, the land recovered fairly quickly and the conflict is driven more by the political turmoil follwing the fall of the empire.
* AlienSky: The planet in the novel has two suns and three moons

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Subverted. Perrund is not as young as many of the other concubines and as a result of protecting [=UrLeyn=] from an assasination attempt, her left arm is completely atrophied, but she's described as being still very beautiful.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Turns out to be the case twice in the bodyguard story, it turns out that the assasin is [[spoiler: Perrund]], but only because [[spoiler: [=UrLeyn=] was one of the men who raped her and killed her family]].

* ColdBloodedTorture: A veritable instituion in Quience's court, Vossil is adamantly against it and in the end succeeds in convincing the king to stop it for good.

* ContinuityLockout: The Culture, its customs, political uses and advantages both biological and technological that its citizens hace are never mentioned, so a lot of what Vossil and [[=DeWar=]] do and say doesn't make sense unless you've read at least some of the other books in the series.

* GoingNative: One of the people from The Culture stays in the planet, marries and has children.

* KarmaHoudini: Subverted, an assasin triumphs and succesfully escapes and leads a happy life, but it's a very sympathetic character with understandable motives.
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: The doctor leaves with several of the conspirators who tried to have her tortured to death remaining unpunished. However, they all die from misterious diseases soon after.

* WouldntHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Guard commander Adlain]] killed Oelphs parents, but was unable to kill the child.

* ColonyDrop: Given that we know of Special Circumstances, it's implied that the meteorite shower might not have been an accident, given that the disaster forced massive changes to society.

* AllLoveIsUnrequited: In the doctor's story, she falls for the king, who much prefers a BrainlessBeauty or a politically advantageous marriage. Oelph falls for her and is also rejected.

* BestServedCold: [[spoiler: Perrund]] waited many years to take revenge on those who wronged them, but utterly succeeds.

* BodyguardCrush: People in court joke that [=DeWar=]'s loyalty extends to being in love wuth [=UrLeyn=], and wished he was a woman so he could attend him in the harem too.

* WouldHurtAChild: [=DeWar=] suspects that Lattens' worsening condition is due to poison from a spy [[spoiler: he turns out to be right.]]

* RightHandVersusLeftHand: Although neither side are aware of the others involvement. [=DeWar=] is bodyguarding [=UrLeyn=], a Cromwellian figure who is ushering in a nascent democracy. Vossil is the personal doctor of King Quience, who represents the old feudal order. [=DeWar=] seeks to keep [=UrLeyn=] alive while he forces changes to their society, while Vossil hopes to influence Quience and change society via more peaceful means. [[spoiler:Unknown to her, Quience is aiming to have [=UrLeyn=] assassinated while also bringing about a return to the feudal system.]]

** Two thugs try to rape Vossil while she's bathing, and end up unconscious with their knife blades mysteriously bent backwards.

* GoodRepublicEvilEmpire:

** Averted when Vossil is called to a patient who is suffering a lingering fatal disease. Vossil notes that her wife is suffering injuries from systematic abuse and [[KickTheSonOfABitch tells her that there's nothing she can do for her husband.]] Oelph's mentor Adlain catches the same disease and so he mercy kills him, [[spoiler:despite him confessing that he murdered Oelph's parents and adopted him out of guilt.]]
* MuggingTheMonster: The nobles from the DeadlyDecadentCourt thought Vossil was just a woman who on her own wouldn't be particularly hard to rape and torture. Their thugs are violently disposed by Culture technology so fast that she has to convince Oelph that his almost blink was actually a long blackout.

* AllLoveIsUnrequited: In the doctor's story, she falls for the king, who much prefers a BrainlessBeauty, Oelph falls for her and is also rejected.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Subverted. Perrund is not as young as many of the other concubines and as a result of protectig [=UrLeyn=] from an assasination attempt, her left arm is completely atrophied, but she's described as being still very beautiful.

* BittersweetEnding: To both main characters. The doctor triumphs in the sense that [[spoiler: King Quience's plot to assasinate [=UrLeyn=] succeds.]] But [=DeWar=] is the one that [[spoiler: has his feelings returned and lives happily ever after.]]

* MercyKill: Vossil is called to keep alive a victim of the chief torturer, she administers a potion and the victim quickly dies. She is accused of having killed him, but she denies it and ingests the potion herself to show it's harmless. However, it's implied that it was actually poison, but she used The Culture's people capacity to bypass anything they ingest.
* MuggingTheMonster: The nobles from de DeadlyDecadentCourt thought Vossil was just a woman who on her own wouldn't be particularly hard to rape and torture. Their thugs are violently disposed by Culture technology so fast that she has to convince Oelph that his almost blink was actually a long blackout.

* WouldntHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Guard commander Adlain]] killed Oelphs parent's, but was unable to kill the child.

Inversions is a novel by Iain M. Banks set in the universe of Literature/TheCulture. Banks has said that "Inversions was an attempt to write a Culture novel that wasn't." While citizens of The Culture do appear and have influence in the story, they are never explicily recognized as such.