History Literature / ThePowderMageTrilogy

* MadeOfIron: Neither Adamat nor Tamas is a spring chicken, and both suffer grievous injuries ''after'' already needing stitches earlier in the novel. Somewhat justified for Tamas in that he can use a powder trance to ignore pain, though he has to heal like a normal human.

* HypercompetentAssistant: Fell. Her finishing school's whole deal is to produce hypercompetent agents at extreme expense.

* MonumentOfHumiliationAndDefeat: The King's Garden is renamed Election Square after the coup. There are no actual elections noted in the text, but the square is where the king and upper nobility were put to the guillotine.

** Taniel, in a stricter sense. He's well-loved by the Adran military, but considers himself little more than a brute only good for killing. He goes on a self-destructive street at the start of ''The Crimson Campaign'' that takes him nearly to DeathSeeker levels.
** Privileged Borbador is generally amiable and competent. He also tortures and kills people without pause, casually enough in one case that it makes Adamat nervous to be around him. In his defense, Bo is quick and emphatic to tell anyone who mentions him in a heroic light that he's a Cabal Privileged, and they don't let good people into a Royal Cabal.

** Gunpowder is unique in that it has no aura in the Else, meaning Privileged can't manipulate it. In fact, they're allergic to it.

** Gunpowder is unique in that it has no aura in the Else, meaning Privileged can't manipulate it.

* FromNobodyToNightmare: Ka-Poel goes from a mute savage child to [[spoiler: holding a god in check]] in under two years.

* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: Two entire ''brigades'' in ''The Crimson Campaign''.

* AntiMutiny: [[spoiler:General Ket's mutiny in between books two and three]] is actually an anti-mutiny, as General [[spoiler:Hilanska]] is a traitor.

* FourStarBadass: Actually he ranks ''above'' a four-star general, but Field Marshal Tamas fits the trope to a T. Being a mage who can ingest black powder to give himself superhuman endurance and strength helps.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Vlora cheating on Taniel once, under pretty understandable circumstances[[note]]She for sincere and understandable reasons thought he was cheating on her first, and had left her alone while off fighting a war for almost two years. And then a dandy was deliberately hired to seduce her.[[/note]] is widely regarded as having completely wrecked their relationship, abandoned their engagement, and ruined her life. While Taniel breaking up with her is understandable, everyone else who knows about it also seems to regard it as being entirely her fault. Tamas regards it as a betrayal as much as Taniel does, and notes that's when he stopped treating her like a daughter.
** Taniel travels around with a "savage" girl he picked up in a foreign as a companion and servant. While nobody minds this in and of itself, most assume he's sleeping with her simply because she's "his savage" and think it a little uncouth. While she's never actually referred to as a slave and slavery is explicitly illegal, almost everyone in the setting regard her in possessive terms ("Taniel's savage") rather than as an individual. She's also subjected to a fair amount of racism.