History Literature / TheDaggerAndTheCoin

* DrowningMySorrows: This is Cithrin's response to losing out on a deal to [[spoiler:Qahuar Em]]: she attempts to drink herself into oblivion.

* LastOfHisKind: [[spoiler: Inys, the last dragon]].

* LivingRelic: Inys is very upset to awaken to realize that he is the last [[spoiler:dragon]] and that thousands of years have passed while he slumbered.

* TriggerPhrase: While Spider Priests are very persuasive in general, when they really want to brainwash someone, they will preface a command with, "Listen to my voice", and will repeat it as necessary.

* FiveManBand:
** Heroes or Villains depending on how you view their leader's motives:
*** TheHero: Dawson Kalliam
*** TheLancer: Canl Daskalin
*** TheBigGuy: Vincen Coe
*** TheSmartGuy: Clara Kalliam
*** TheChick: Jorey Kalliam
*** TheSixthRanger: [[spoiler:Geder Palliako]]
** Villains:
*** GreaterScopeVillain/ TheManBehindTheMan: Asterilhold
*** TheHero[[note]]Issandrian, although allied with Maas, is unaware of Maas' true intentions, and is not evil or villainous at all.[[/note]]: Curtin Issandrian
*** DragonWithAnAgenda: Feldin Maas
*** TheBrute: Alan Klin
*** TheDarkChick: Phelia Maas
* FromNobodyToNightmare: [[spoiler: ''Geder'']]

* DecoyProtagonist: Decoy Protagonist. Dawson is one of the core four [=POVs=] introduced in the first book, and is shaping up to be a major player. [[spoiler: Then in the second book he goes against Geder and is rather messily executed for his trouble- so far, the ''only'' POV character to die]].

* BookEnds: ''The Dragon's Path'' opens and closes with scenes from the POV of The Apostate.

* FiveBadBand:
** GreaterScopeVillain/ TheManBehindTheMan: Asterilhold
** TheHero[[note]]Issandrian, although allied with Maas, is unaware of Maas' true intentions, and is not evil or villainous at all.[[/note]]: Curtin Issandrian
** DragonWithAnAgenda: Feldin Maas
** TheBrute: Alan Klin
** TheDarkChick: Phelia Maas
* FiveManBand, or another FiveBadBand depending on how you view their leader's motives:
** TheHero: Dawson Kalliam
** TheLancer: Canl Daskalin
** TheBigGuy: Vincen Coe
** TheSmartGuy: Clara Kalliam
** TheChick: Jorey Kalliam
** TheSixthRanger: [[spoiler:Geder Palliako]]

* TheLancer: Yardem.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Spider Cult that that takes over Antea has as its banner a red flag with a white circle with an "eight-fold" symbol (implied to look like an eight-barred asterisk), which would look a lot like a Nazi flag. The cult engages in a massive propaganda campaign to the effect that there is a massive conspiracy by the entire Timzinae race against Antea—a conspiracy that is entirely imaginary. The cult uses this propaganda to manipulate Antea into launching a war of world conquest, with one of Antea's objectives being the wholesale elimination of the Timzinae. Oh, and the leader of the cult wears a black cape everywhere. WordOfGod is that Dawson was [[http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/116284-dagger-and-coin-ii-spoilers-through-widows-house/page-4 based on a German aristocrat who was an extreme reactionary but opposed the Nazis because he considered them low class]]. By extension, this means that [[spoiler: Geder]] is basically Hitler.

* BadassLongcoat: Geder gets one.

* BodyHorror: The spider priests' powers are fueled by actual spiders that ''live inside their bodies.''
** LovecraftianSuperpower

* TheChessmaster: As befits a [[DeadlyDecadentCourt deadly decadent court]], most of the Antean nobles are this to one degree or another. Cithrin also gets her day as one when she becomes Magistera Bel Sacrour.

* DecoyProtagonist: Decoy Protagonist. Dawson is one of the core four POVs introduced in the first book, and is shaping up to be a major player. [[spoiler: Then in the second book he goes against Geder and is rather messily executed for his trouble- so far, the ''only'' POV character to die]].

** Antea starts out as a fairly generic [[TheEmpire militaristic empire,]] but evolves into a much more obvious Nazi Germany once the Spider Priests takes over. See ANaziByAnyOtherName ''supra''.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName/ PuttingOnTheReich: The Spider Cult that that takes over Antea has as its banner a red flag with a white circle with an "eight-fold" symbol (implied to look like an eight-barred asterisk), which would look a lot like a Nazi flag. The cult engages in a massive propaganda campaign to the effect that there is a massive conspiracy by the entire Timzinae race against Antea—a conspiracy that is entirely imaginary. The cult uses this propaganda to manipulate Antea into launching a war of world conquest, with one of Antea's objectives being the wholesale elimination of the Timzinae. Oh, and the leader of the cult wears a black cape everywhere. WordOfGod is that Dawson was [[http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/116284-dagger-and-coin-ii-spoilers-through-widows-house/page-4 based on a German aristocrat who was an extreme reactionary but opposed the Nazis because he considered them low class]]. By extension, this means that [[spoiler: Geder]] is basically Hitler.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Geder proves himself to be ''much'' nastier than he initially appeared with the burning of Vanai, but doesn't go full-on heel until he meets Basrahip near the end of the first book]].
** [[spoiler:Opal]]

** Antea is very clearly Germany. See ANaziByAnyOtherName/PuttingOnTheReich ''supra''.
** Asterilhold is, by extension, Austria.

** Hallskar seems to be Scandinavia generally.

** Lyoneia is north Africa geographically, but what little we see of its culture has no obvious real-world counterpart.

* CycleOfRevenge: Preventing this is a big part of the plot of ''The Spider's War'', the last book of ''Literature/TheDaggerAndTheCoin'' series. The tide of the war had actually begun to turn against Antea in the previous book, and the armies of Elassae and Sarakal are closing in during most of the fifth book, but even though the Anteans had committed horrible atrocities against the innocent people of those two countries, and even though the spider priests were not entirely to blame for everything the Anteans had done, Cithrin and the other heroes spend much of the book trying to figure out a way to get the Elassans and Sarakalese to forswear revenge, precisely to prevent it from leading to another war down the line. The funny part is that Cithrin, Marcus, Kit, Clara, and the others had spent most of the previous couple of volumes working to bring about the defeat of Antea, and now, at the end, they are trying to save it.

* ArmorPiercingResponse: * At the end, the heroes are trying, and failing, to negotiate a peaceful end to the war between Antea and Elassae, believing that, although Antea had committed terrible crimes against the Elassans, letting the Elassans take revenge would just start a CycleOfRevenge. The Elassan commander, however, is having none of it, and understandably wants revenge, and doesn't see why the war should end just because the Anteans are now losing. Finally, however, the young Antean king, Aster, who was innocent of his country's crimes (the regent and the spider priests were the real culprits, and Aster did not have any actual power), speaks up and takes full responsibility, saying that it was his fault because he was not strong enough to stop it. He concludes by saying "If the [Elassans] feel[] that there has to be more blood, say so. You can kill as many of us as you need to make it right. Give me a number, and I'll bring them to you. I only ask that you start with me....I'm sorry that I wasn't strong enough to stop this sooner." At this, the Elassan commander can only bring himself to say "Well...shit." And that was the end of the war.

* ArcWords: "Bound is not broken."
** "Would that be enough?"
** "The Righteous Servant."

* JustTheFirstCitizen: Cithrin is ostensibly just a banker, and a rather junior banker within the Medean bank at that. As more countries start joining Cithrin's paper money and central reserve banking scheme, however, Komme Medean, the head of the bank, calls her "the secret queen of the world." At the end, when she announces her plan to found a branch of the bank in Camnipol, the capital of Antea, and bring Antea into her financial scheme, Yardem compares, not entirely in jest to a goddess.[[note]]To understand how much power Cithrin has at the end, think about how much power the Federal Reserve has in the United States. Now imagine that there was one central reserve bank for the entire world, controlling the money supply for each country, and the exchange rates between them all. Now imagine that control of that bank was increasingly in the hands of a single iron-willed visionary genius, who was also close friend and adviser to the king of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Then you will understand how powerful Cithrin has become at the end of the series.[[/note]]

* EvilCounterpart: Cithrin is, in some ways, the ''[[InvertedTrope Good Counterpart]] of the [[spoiler:non-existent]] spider goddess. While the spider goddess was created to plunge the world into eternal chaos and war, Cithrin works tirelessly to end war forever. The power of the spider priests lies in their ability to make anyone, including themselves, believe whatever they say. Cithrin saves the world by persuading enough people to believe the story she tells about paper money; that is, her power comes from her ability to get people to believe what, to a society where money has always meant gold or silver coins, is a seemingly bizarre fiction. But because people believe it, it has power. When Cithrin unveils her scheme for paper money and central reserve banking, Komme Medean, the head of the Medean bank, informs her that Narinisle, Herez, and Cabral want to join the scheme also, and tells her that she has now conquered as many countries as Geder had conquered by force of arms, and calls her the "secret queen of the world." At the end, when Cithrin announces her plan to found a branch of the bank in Camnipol, capital of Antea, and to bring Antea into her new financial scheme, Yardem says "A temple in every city she conquers", which had of course been the promise that Geder had made to the spider goddess and her priests; it is not at all clear that Yardem was joking.

* JustTheFirstCitizen: Cithrin is ostensibly just a banker, and a rather junior banker within the Medean bank at that. As more countries start joining Cithrin's paper money and central reserve banking scheme, however, Komme Medean, the head of the bank, calls her "the secret queen of the world." At the end, when she announces her plan to found a branch of the bank in Camnipol, the capital of Antea, and bring Antea into her financial scheme, Yardem compares, not entirely in jest to a goddess.[[note]]To understand how much power Cithrin has at the end, think about how much power the Federal Reserve has in the United States. Now imagine that there was one central reserve bank for the entire world, controlling the money supply for each country, and the exchange rates between them all. Now imagine that control of that bank was increasingly in the hands of a single iron-willed visionary genius, who was also close friend and adviser to the king of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Then you will understand how powerful Cithrin has become at the end of the series.[[/note]]

* CompellingVoice: A power of the Spider Priests; as the flip-side of their LivingLieDetector abilities, they can also make anyone who talks to them long enough believe that what they say is true.

* DoubleThink: It's discussed in the second novel how Spider Priest abilities can make a person believe something is true despite it being false, so long as the person convincing them of it [[BelievingTheirOwnLies sincerely believes it to be true]]. While asserting a desire to spread truth and uncover lies (and probably actually believing it), a Spider Priest more or less tells Dawson that [[TautologicalTemplar the truth is whatever they say it is]].

* HumansByAnotherName: All of the thirteen races are of human stock and are considered human; baseline humans are termed "Firstblood" to separate themselves out.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent

* BerserkButton: Geder is, generally, an oddly awkward and affable man for [[spoiler: an all-powerful despot]], but... don't laugh at him. [[DisproportionateRetribution just]]... ''[[EvilIsPetty don't]].''

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Geder is a genuinely pleasant, well-meaning, if socially awkward, man. If he feels backed into a corner, though, ''watch out''. He's capable of some really horrible things if he feels driven to it.
* BigBad: The Spider Goddess is shaping up to be this. [[spoiler: Except she may not actually exist- the physical goddess at the temple in the Keshet was just an elaborate statue, though ''something'' powers the spider-priests' abilities. If she's not real at all, that probably makes Basrahip the BigBad]].

* EvilChancellor: Basrahip, though at this point its unclear if he's really a WellIntentionedExtremist or not.
* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler:Geder]] ends up ordering the invasion of the country [[spoiler:Cithrin]] was living in because she did not reciprocate his affections.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Geder]]

** BiggerBad / TheManBehindTheMan: Asterilhold

* HighPriest: Basrahip.

* LargeAndInCharge: Basrahip.

* OmnicidalManiac: According to The Apostate this is the Spider Goddess's true nature.

* VillainProtagonist: [[spoiler: Geder]] starts out a ClassicalAntiHero but gradually morphs into one of these across ''The Dragon's Path''. He becomes one full time in subsequent books.