History Literature / TheHalfbloodChronicles

The heroine of the first and second books is Shana ([[Literature/ShakuganNoShana no relation to a certain Flame Haze]]), a girl born from a human concubine and an elven lord, a combination that is considered extremely dangerous since such a cross can access both human and elven magics in equal measure. Her mother escaped the death sentence such a pregnancy carries by escaping into the desert, but ultimately died there giving birth to her. Shana was adopted by Alara, a dragon shaman.

* {{Bishonen}}: All elf males to some degree, but especially Valyn.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Each Elvenlord holds their position because they have enough magic to take and keep it.

* SheIsTheKing: One female elf holds the title of Elvenlord. The title's traditionally masculine, and elf women are not supposed to be Lords because they're not supposed to know the greater magics of elven men. The exception is able to call herself Lord because AsskickingEqualsAuthority, which trumps all other concerns.

The heroine of the first and second books is Shana ([[LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana no relation to a certain Flame Haze]]), a girl born from a human concubine and an elven lord, a combination that is considered extremely dangerous since such a cross can access both human and elven magics in equal measure. Her mother escaped the death sentence such a pregnancy carries by escaping into the desert, but ultimately died there giving birth to her. Shana was adopted by Alara, a dragon shaman.

* TheMole: [[spoiler: ''General'' Kyrtian V'dyll Lord Prastaran by the end of ''Elvenborn''.]]

* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: [[spoiler: A wizard decides that the rebellion against the elven overlords is doomed to failure and attempts to buy his survival by offering his services and his knowledge of the rebels' secrets to an elvenlord. The elvenlord smiles encouragingly, listens to him carefully... then [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique tortures him to be sure he wasn't lying]] and finally reduces the man to ashes when he's done.]]

* InverseLawOfUtilityAndLethality: Male elves usually have ''far'' more magical power than females, but as it turns out, weak females have a lot more ''control'', allowing them to do a wide variety of useful things by using very little magic to alter their surroundings, like plants (food/shelter), animals (taming/control), minds (rewriting memories), themselves (minor shapeshifting), and enemies (stopping hearts). Not as flashy as giant illusions, fireballs, earthquakes, and so forth, but it gets the job done.

* ActionGirl: Shana.

* ShapeshiftingHealsWounds: In ''Elvenbane'', Keman figures out that the reason older dragons don't stay injured long is they use their shapeshifting to shift the wounded tissue from injured to intact. When he tries it, it finds it works, but hurts like hell, since he's suffering the healing pain over several minutes instead of over several days.

* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Even the dragons don't all know who made up the Elvenbane prophecy, possibly of whole cloth. The elves' paranoia leads them to hunt down and slaughter all halfbloods on sight (or before sight, if they can get them ''en utero''), which in turns causes the halfbloods to hate and eventually go to war with them.
** Alara reflects on this early in ''Elvenbane'', mentally snarking that, 'there's nothing like a life of luxury to make thoughts of revolution melt like snow in the sun.'

* LamarckWasRight: Kind of weirdly implied-then-averted-maybe. In the third book, Kyrtian states that the current dichotomy between powerful and non-powerful elves is due to the current powerful holding back in the major teamwork magic used to escape their original CrapsackWorld. This occurred several hundred years ago, and the same dynamics are still in place, leading one to think that LamarckWasRight -- then you remember that, depending on which particular house is being referred to, the current ruling generation of elves is in many cases [[TheAgeless the same one that came through the portal]].
** Kyrtian is quite specific that no one who came through the portal is still alive, and that it was the great-grandparents of currently-very-old elves who made the Crossing.

* HisNameReallyIsBarkeeep: Keman literally named Shana the word "Orphan" in the Elvish language. While this worked perfectly well as a name while she was living with dragons and mostly speaking their language, it really should have caused a few awkward conversations once she left the dragons and spent most of her time speaking elvish.

* ReverseMole: [[spoiler: ''General'' Kyrtian V'dyll Lord Prastaran by the end of ''Elvenborn''.]]

* ShapeshifterBaggage: {{Averted}}, the dragon shift their excess mass to another dimension they call the Out. They cannot assume a form larger than themselves and they can only shift so much mass depending on individual ability.

* AntagonisticOffspring: Myre for Alara. Alara is one of the kindest dragons in the setting, adopting the half-human, half-elf baby Lashana and eventually helping with Lashana's rebellion against the elven lords. Mya is lazy, vain, and a bully who views all non-dragons (and even many other dragons) as nothing more than playthings.