History Literature / TheBelgariad

* TerminalTransformation: Referenced when the protagonist learns VoluntaryShapeshifting. He's warned to form a perfectly clear mental image of the new form, because if he forgets to include a heart, he probably won't have time to correct the mistake.

* MenUseViolenceWomenUseCommunication: Since it's a medieval fantasy world with very traditional gender roles, this trope is evoked often. It's not just society's expectations, however; some of the special powers of the main characters conform to this trope. The male characters do the fighting and even have their [[WeaponOfChoice weapons of choice]], while Polgara can [[SpeaksFluentAnimal converse with birds]] and Ce'Nedra [[TalkingToPlants can understand trees]]. The latter even [[spoiler:gathers an army]] using [[RousingSpeech the power of speech]]. However, it should be noted that Polgara ''does'' use violence on a fairly frequent basis (and even ''smashes her way into Salmissra's palace and stares down a god'' to get Belgarion back), it just tends to be non-lethal... [[CruelMercy which tends to be somehow worse]] (except for what she did to Salmissra - turning her into a giant snake actually left everyone a great deal happier). Or she just cuts straight to a very effective form of MindRape.

* EasilyElected: Deconstructed. Sendaria's attempts to create a democracy got off to a rough start, as they allowed anyone to run for the throne, and everyone was given one vote. The first election took seven years to tally all the results, and ultimately resulted in a turnip farmer becoming the first King.

* BalefulPolymorph
** Polgara transforms Salmissra into a snake after she threatens to usurp Garion's role in the prophecy. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted in that,]] once she gets used to it, Salmissra actually likes it a good deal better that way and so do her advisers. That, and she's a ''venomous'' snake, which means she's plenty deadly.
** This is pretty much a standard threat issued by sorcerers throughout the novels. A fun game is to count the times Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin, and Garion threaten to turn people into toads or radishes. The funny part is that the idea didn't originate with the sorcerers themselves. They got it from (terrified, superstitious) people talking about their powers. As such, only once does any of them actually do it (Polgara briefly turns a Cherek king into a toad... without altering his size).
** Beldin also subverts this once with a casual mention that he wouldn't turn someone into a frog, because they breed like crazy. He'd rather have "one annoying person than a million aggravating frogs."

** Inverted in the case of Salmissra, Queen of Nyissa and consort of the slumbering snake god Issa. She takes a potion to maintain her outer youth but she's really a mortal woman like all of her predecessors, chosen for their resemblance to the original Salmissra, who died ages ago. Polgara [[BalefulPolymorph "remedies"]] the situation by turning her into an immortal giant serpent. More deconstructed than averted, because part of Polgara's rationalization for what she does to Salmissra is that Issa forgot to make the original Salmissra immortal in the first place.

* TheLostWoods
** The Wood of the Dryads. Home to a race of {{Nature Spirit}}s[=/=]{{Plant Pe|rson}}ople. Cutting down trees is strictly forbidden, and punishment will be dealt out by the inhabitants. The Dryads and the nearby Borune family have a long standing [[InterspeciesRomance treaty]] that no logging will take place in their land, or else all the wives, mothers and daughters of the Borune family will pack up and return to the Wood of the Dryads, since they're all [[HalfHumanHybrid Dryads]].
** The Great Southern Forest is a {{Shadowland}} variant.

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: "Coincidence" (a sequence of events that ''although accidental'' seems to have been planned or arranged): all through the two prequel books, ''Belgarath the Sorcerer'' and ''Polgara the Sorceress'', Eddings keeps referring to things as "coincidence" that are no such thing, usually with the main character narrators snarking about how the Prophecy is "obviously" leading them around by the nose. However, books are telling the backstory of ''The Belgariad''. Present-day characters are ''deliberately'' named after historical figures, yet Belgarath treats the names of the historical figures as "coincidence". One teeth-grindingly bad instance occurs in Belgarath's tale, at the Battle of Vo Mimbre. We're introduced to the original Korodullin and Mayaserena, who are wedded to keep the country of Arendia together. In the present day of ''The Belgariad'', we're told that all Arend monarchs are deliberately named after those two, to keep Arendia unified, yet Belgarath calls it a "coincidence" that the original pair had those names.

** Mandorallen is considered, even InUniverse, to be ''excessive'' at this. Since he's pretty much an UpToEleven example of the Mimbrates, this is perhaps not entirely surprising.

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: The Orb's basically infinite power is sometimes forgotten when Garion and/or other members of the party need to do something strenuous with sorcery, causing them to tire themselves out when it's not really necessary. On the other hand, it's possible they've conditioned themselves to think that way, given the Orb's tendency to [[UpToEleven greatly overpower things]] in an effort to be helpful. It's one thing to cause a rockslide, quite another to slice off a quarter of the mountain - and it takes an idle thought like, say, how to undo the breaking of the world or how to write 'Belgarion' in stars and immediately starts showing the bearer how to do it. Most of the time, though, the main reason seems to be that it's ''incredibly'' noisy.

** In the backstory, the Accords of Val Alorn say "...but Aloria shall maintain Riva and keep it whole." When the accords were signed, Aloria hadn't existed as a nation for centuries; it was now Riva, Cherekh, Drasnia, and Algaria. When a Emperor's attempt to force Riva to trade ends in disaster, he calls for an invasion -- and discovers that while Aloria isn't ''officially'' a single nation anymore, but it ''is'' an unofficial confederation. When the Rivan King is assassinated, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge it's made clear that, yes, Aloria does exist.]]

** The author eventually {{Lampshaded}} this by categorizing the original books as the stories told about the events depicted where thing were changed by the storyteller for dramatic reasons and the prequels as personal memoirs subject to the personal biases and the distortions and omissions that human memory is by definition subject to, hence the same events being reported differently in different books.

* MakeGamesNotWar: The kingdom of Dal Perivor in ''The Malloreon'' settles arguments between nobles by holding tournaments. It's not unheard of for two nobles to decide they want to have a tournament and colluding to come up with a "disagreement" to justify it.

** Used in a stroke of brilliance in the Malloreon: The heroes are being chased by all manner of people, and they're pursued into mountains into which someone summoned a powerful demon. The Orb can drive demons away, but makes a spectacular amount of noise and would give away their location when they used it. Eriond has the idea of telling the Orb to ''be louder'' and make the noise and light general through the region--the demon goes away, everyone 'listening' gets their teeth rattled by the noise, and they don't learn anything they didn't know already--that Belgarion was somewhere in a few thousand square miles of mountain range.

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Errand/[[spoiler:Eriond]]. Justified in that Zedar raised him like that so that he would have a pure enough heart to take the Stone. This is also the reason why Garion ultimately chooses him to [[spoiler:becomes a god.]]

* TwinsAreSpecial: SingleMindedTwins Belkira and Beltira are the only sorcerers capable of decoding the [[TomesOfProphecyAndFate Mrin and Darine Codexes]] due to their TwinTelepathy, as the codexes only make sense when read in conjunction. The regular {{Telepathy}} that all other sorcerers possess doesn't appear to be up to the task.

** [[KnightInShiningArmour Mandorallen]], [[ArcherArchetype Lell]][[ImprobableAimingSkills dorin]], [[KnifeNut Silk]], [[ActionGirl Liselle]], [[PoisonedWeapons Sadi]] and [[TheBlacksmith Durnik]] [[spoiler:pre-resurrection]] are among the few characters who aren't using magic, turning into bears, talking to horses, or at least making use of magically enhanced weaponry.

** The Nadrak custom of women technically being owned by men is regarded as this InUniverse, with most who aren't familiar with it being somewhere between bemused by and horrified at it. The reactions are at least partially ameliorated by the crucial part, which is that the woman retains the rights to their person, meaning that any man who is so unwise as to touch a Nadrak woman without her express consent, even if he is her nominal owner, [[KnifeNut is very quickly going to regret it]]. Said skills mean that a woman can always 'persuade' an owner to sell her if she doesn't like him, regardless of her treatment. There's also the part where every time a Nadrak woman is sold, she gets to keep half the money. So not only are Nadrak women better at haggling and sales pitches, they tend to have a [[HypercompetentSidekick wider variety of skills]] to up their sale prices. It's implied that among the 'elderly' Nadraks, the women are generally much, much wealthier than the men. And added to all that, as Polgara observes in her prequel, for the most part Nadrak women actually have more actual freedom and independence than most 'free' women elsewhere in the world.

* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Vella and Yarblek, PlayedForLaughs, and [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by Nadrak culture, in which all women are property of a man, but own the rights to their ''person'', and are free to [[KnifeNut cut up]] any man who tries to take advantage.

* KnifeNut: Silk, Relg, Liselle, Sadi and at times, Beldin. All Nadrak women.

** Sadi is a straight example, developing from an EvilChancellor and SissyVillain into a capable combatant with his own [[KnifeNut unique]] [[PoisonedWeapons style]], becoming one of the few badass Eunuchs in fiction.

** ''Belgarath the Sorcerer'' (a prequel by Belgarath's perspective) (1995)
** ''Polgara the Sorceress'' (another prequel by Polgara's perspective) (1997)