History Literature / ThePrinceOfThorns

[[redirect:Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy

[[redirect:Literature/TheBrokenEmpireTrilogy]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/king_of_thorns2_2998.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"A dark time comes. My time. If it offends you. Stop me."]]

->''"The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who’ve fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all."''
-->-- '''Jorg'''

We first meet our hero, Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath, when he's a lad of thirteen years, burning a peasant village, slaughtering the farmers and raping their daughters. It only gets worse from there. Jorg may be nothing but the leader of a murderous band of outlaws now, but his ultimate goal is to win the war that has torn the land asunder for centuries and crown himself emperor over a hundred squabbling kingdoms. There's nothing he won't do and nobody he won't sacrifice to get there.

''The Broken Empire Trilogy'' consists of

* Prince of Thorns
* King of Thorns
* Emperor of Thorns

Additionally, [[TheRedQueensWar other works]] of the author are set in the same world but at different times and in different places.

----
!!These books provide examples of:
* {{Abusive Parents}}: Jorg's father is a cold, cruel, callous, calculating bastard, who uses his son for his own ends.
** After you read about Justice in ''King Of Thorns'', you will lose what little sympathy you may or may not have had for Jorg's father. [[spoiler: Justice was Jorg and William's pet dog. As a punishment to Jorg for breaking a snowglobe, his father made Jorg take a hammer and break three of his dog's legs. When Jorg refused to break the fourth, his father had the dog burned alive. Jorg was six years old.]]
* AdvancedAncientHumans: See AfterTheEnd below for more details.
* {{After the End}}: At first the world appears to be a classic medieval fantasy setting, although with fantasy elements like undeath thrown in. Soon enough we learn that it's our world when Jorg starts talking about Plutarch and Plato. As the story goes on it becomes apparent that it's set in the far future. Our civilization reached new heights in the past before it destroyed itself, leaving behind a changed world of little technology, powerful magic and remnants of the 'builders'. Jorg's house took the ruins of a skyscraper for their castle, among other things.
* AffablyEvil | FauxAffablyEvil: Jorg zigzags between the two.
* {{And I Must Scream}}: Jorg being stuck in the thorns of a hook briar patch and forced to witness the slaughter of his family counts as one of the most mundane examples of this trope.
* {{And Man Grew Proud}}: What has led to the modern culture's downfall and the creation of the neo-medieval world in which the novel is set.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Frequently averted throughout the book, as Jorg and other characters are fully aware of lives they take throughout the book. At one point, Jorg describes an unnamed soldier's corpse as "something that lived and laughed only hours ago."
* AntiHero: Jorg and his band are {{Nominal Hero}}es at best and [[VillainProtagonist Villain Protagonists]] at their worst.
* {{Anyone Can Die}}: Including quite a few brothers and [[spoiler: Jorg himself.]]
* ArrangedMarriage: The marriage of Jorg and Miana. Before the wedding day, they only saw each other through their locket pictures. Thus, she's unaware he has half of his face's burnt off (but quickly gets over it), while he doesn't know she's only ''twelve''.
* {{Artifact of Doom}}: [[spoiler: The still functional nuclear bomb, which Jorg uses to great effect.]]
** The copper box in ''King Of Thorns''.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: Averted in the traditional sense, as the Roma Church has gathered all the Bibles for its priests and refuses to give them to anyone else, much like the real Catholic Church did at one point.
** However, Jorg at one point goes and says something he just made up and says he’s read it in the book. When asked on the book he replies "It's in the great Jorg’s book of [[PrecisionFStrike Go Fuck Yourself]]."
* AssholeVictim: Any sympathy you might have felt for [[spoiler: Brother Row]] should disappear once you find out that he was into girls ''[[{{Squick}} younger than twelve]]'' whilst alive.
* AssimilationBackfire: Jorg and his band come to Fire-sworn Ferrakind in the hope he can cure Gog of his condition or help him master his powers. Ferrakind attempts to assimilate him instead. [[spoiler: Jorg, prepared for this, got Gog to channel Ferrakind's flames to the frozen lake above them until it melts and extinguishes Terrakind. However, Gog dies as well.]]
** Happens at the end of the book as well. [[spoiler: as Jorg gets tainted with both necromancy and pyromancy, Ferrakind and Dead King attempt to claim him for themselves, fighting against each other within his body. In the end, they end up neutralising each other's presence and cleansing Jorg from all magic.]]
* AwesomeButImpractical: Jorg considers the medieval siege engines in this way in the ''King of Thorns'', because of how difficult it is to transport and supply them.
* {{Ax Crazy}}: Jorg, who says this gem:
-->You got responsibilities when you're a leader. You got a responsibility not to kill too many of your men. Or who're you going to lead?
** During combat, he also reminiscences about the ''seven shades of fluid'' you can draw from a man, and finds the sound of sword cutting through flesh ''sweeter than the best flute''.
* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: Prince Orrin is a very likeable AntiVillain bordering on HeroAntagonist, a good and compassionate leader and a far better man than Jorg. (And even Jorg ends up agreeing with that idea.) [[spoiler:However, Jorg won't have to kill this IdealHero, as he is betrayed by his brother Egan before they can meet again.]]
* {{Bash Brothers}}: Jorg's band of 'Road Brothers', of which Price and Rike are are actual biological brothers.
* {{Blood Knight}}: Jorg himself at times and several of the Brothers from his band. However, Egan of Arrow outdoes them both.
* BrainUploading: Some builders have survived this way. [[spoiler: Also happens to Jorg at the end of 'Emperor of Thorns'.]]
* {{The Brute}}: Brother Rike.
* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler:Egan is Cain and Orrin is Abel]], although it's heavily implied that Sageous manipulated [[spoiler:Egan]] and played a big role in his betrayal.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Happens with many modern things throughout the book, as their true names have been forgotten after the technological collapse.
** The [[spoiler: nuclear bomb]] Jorg uses in the first book's climax is known as Builder's Sun in the book's world. Things like concrete, asphalt and transparent plastic are also known as builder-stone and builder-glass.
** This also happens with natural things that got renamed after the collapse. For instance, the so-called ''clove-spice'' is strongly implied to be raw heroin.
** Significantly downplayed with DNA. Genetically engineered creatures like Gorgoth refer to it as dena.
* CallASmeerpARabbit: Many castles in the book are not true medieval structures but abandoned modern-day ones restructured to fit the purpose. The Tall Castle in particular is actually a derelict skyscraper.
* CharacterDevelopment: Jorg's character starts out as an almost 100% pure TheUnfettered dedicated only to the goals of becoming Emperor and taking vengeance on Count Renar and [[spoiler: his father for not avenging his mother's death.]] After time passes, and [[spoiler: he throws off the control of the Count Renar's wizard,]] he begins to develop a conscience, and he does begin feeling bad as his Brothers die.
* ChildMage: Gog, who is capable of channelling torrents of flame in spite of being only eight.
* ChildMarriageVeto: Averted: Miana consents to marry Jorg in spite of only being twelve. He, on the other hand, is none too happy about it and makes it clear to her it's only a formality.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Averted with Jorg, who is already rather selfish and cold at six years old. Similarly, Miana, his twelve-year-old bride, if fully aware of how dire their situation is and even recites their armies' body count as a kill-to-death ratio, something which even creeps ''Jorg'' out.
* ChristianityIsCatholic: The only Christianity mentioned in the series is the Roma church, which is a direct descendant of the Catholic Church, and maintains many of its traditions, like having a Pope in Vatican and burning people for witchcraft. The latter ''is'' justified sometimes, but usually it's the heretics and those attempting to rebuild technology who get burnt.
* ClarkesThirdLaw: Discussed by a hologram, who says that the current era's magic stems from botched quantum experiments.
* {{Combat Pragmatist}}: Jorg, Makin and their entire band of brothers. They keep catching others by surprise by how dirty they're willing to fight. Even Necromancers.
* ConvectionShmonvection: Averted in the King of Thorns: Jorg gets half of his face burnt off by radiated heat. Before that, he nearly passes out [[RealityEnsues because all oxygen has been consumed by the fire]].
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Bishop Murillo, a corrupt clergyman in the Prince of Thorns, gets killed by Jorg by ''having nails hammered into his head''. Jorg later complains that it wasn’t ''slow'' enough for him.
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Prince Orrin]] turns out to be this in all ''Wedding Day'' chapters (i.e. present moment, as opposed to "four years earlier" flashbacks), as he was betrayed earlier [[spoiler: by Egan]].
* DeadpanSnarker: Jorg, frequently.
* {{Determinator}}: Besides his savage cunning and amorality, this is the other key feature of Jorg. The guy will not quit, starting from childhood when he survived impalement on the hook briar patch and the later surgeries that removed them from his body and later surviving a long trek through a radioactive desert that no else has ever survived. His younger brother makes Jorg looks soft: [[spoiler: his will is so strong that after death he breaks the control that the necromancers had on him and makes them his puppet, when he was 3.]]
* EliteZombie: If a person is buried in the ground up to their neck and left to starve, their corpse becomes a fast zombie with glowing eyes. The book also briefly mentions corpses that spent so long in the swamp without rotting due to lack of oxygen, that they became as tough as tanned leather.
* {{Establishing Character Moment}}: Jorg is introduced letting his band of bandits massacre a village, and having just raped the daughters of a farmer, who he has killed in cold blood. He's thirteen. Later, he kills one of his fellow companions out of annoyance.
** The last part was later subverted in ''King Of Thorns'', when [[spoiler: it's revealed that said "companion" was a dog torturing sadist whom Jorg had punished earlier that day. Said torture reminded Jorg of the Justice incident mentioned above. Jorg knew that said "companion" was planning to try to kill him, so Jorg killed him before he had the chance.]]
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Jorg ends up caring to some degree for his friends, his family and his wife. He also loves [[spoiler:his son]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Jorg would not hurt a child. Nor, for that matter, a dog, and neither should you in front of him.
* EvilGloating: Sageous seemingly can’t get enough of them in the King of Thorns. Jorg takes them as good sign, though, because it means more subtle manipulation has failed.
* {{Evil Uncle}}: [[spoiler: Count Renar.]]
* EvilVersusEvil: Jorg is by no mean a good person, but his opponents (with the notable exception of Orrin) are just as bad, often even worse than him.
* EyeScream: A fortman in the ''King of Thorns'' gets an arrow stuck through his eye.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Subverted in the book. Many kingdoms have obvious medieval counterparts, like Arrow in medieval England or Maladon in Viking Scandinavia. However, these cultures ''aren't'' fantasy: they're the same medieval cultures reborn after the collapse of the modern world a thousand years earlier.
* FantasyGunControl: True to form, the cool, twin-firing crossbow Nuban has [[spoiler: and which is eventually taken by Jorg for himself]] is about as advanced as ''functional'' ranged weapons (as opposed to rusting, millennia-old rifles nobody has any idea how to use) get in this world. The only exception is [[spoiler: a Colt revolver that Fexler Brews killed himself with and which is taken by Jorg.]]
** At one point, Jorg specifically asks the Fexler Brews hologram to teach him how to create guns. He firmly refuses, believing that they're not advanced enough to handle the power. [[spoiler: although he does let him take the single Colt revolver for himself.]]
* {{Fat Bastard}}: Burlow.
* ForgottenFallenFriend: Averted with [[spoiler: Hanna]]. Katherine grieves for her and frequently mentions her in her diaries after [[spoiler: she's strangled by Jorg when attempting to protect her]]. Downplayed with Jorg, who in ''King of Thorns'' recalls a few times his Brothers killed in the first book.
* FreudianExcuse: Jorg [[ForcedToWatch watched]] his brother being murdered and his mother being raped then murdered when he was still a child, while he was stranded in a hook briar patch and lacerated by the thorns. His father was also an [[AbusiveParents Abusive Parent]].
* GeniusBruiser: Jorg is this compared to his road brothers, thanks to his royal upbringing.
* GenreSavvy: Once Jorg and his band realise that they're fighting the magical undead, they cut off the head and limbs from every corpse they encounter.
* GlowingEyelightsOfUndeath: The zombies of people who were left to starve to death possess these, to signify their increased power and ability to move at a normal speed instead of shambling.
** GodivaHair: Chella manages to make her rotting body look attractive though the combination of magic, strategically placed ''slime'' and this.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted with Katherine Ap Scorron, who is one of the most positive characters in the book.
** [[spoiler: Eventually subverted as it turns out she never really was pregnant in the first place, and the "abortion" was application of poisons that made her sterile.]]
* GroinAttack: [[spoiler: Friar Glen]] is stabbed in the groin before he's left to choke on a gag made from his own bedsheet.
* HeroAntagonist: Prince Orrin in the second book is this. He wants to unite the Hundred broken kingdoms into the original empire in order to bring peace to the people, not for sake of power or challenge like Jorg.
* HopeSpot: There are plenty of these in the books, often when Jorg decides to do something evil, considers against it, then does it anyway.
** In the ''King of Thorns'', he returns to the circus that helped his band earlier. Before leaving, he notices a starved lion in the cage, and is eventually left alone with it. He considers the livelihoods of the circusfolk and the carnage a starved lion will wreak, then opens the cage anyway.
* {{Homage}}: Jorg was partially inspired by Alex from {{Clockwork Orange}}; however, he is far from being a {{Captain Ersatz}} or an {{Expy}}.
* IdiotBall: For all of his usual cleverness, it takes quite a while for Jorg to realise that a deathly pale family living inside a village ''in the middle of a swamp'' with no roads leading to them aren't alive.
* ILoveNuclearPower: Many of the fantastic creatures encountered were originally created by the fallout from the Builders' Suns (e. g. a nuclear war).
* ImAHumanitarian: The trolls in ''King of Thorns'' don't know what human flesh is like, but are rather willing to try.
* IncestIsRelative: Mianna is Jorg's wife and mother of his son. She's also blood related to him, she's his 1st cousin by his mother's side (their mothers are sisters). Justified as this wasn't too uncommon of a practice among the nobility and it was an opportunity for Jorg to shore up support from his relatives for the imperial election.
* IndyPloy: Many of Jorg's themes are this, conjured in the last moment. Sometimes, they're created beforehand, but hidden away in a memory box until needed, to protect from telepathic witches in the enemy's employ.
* InfantImmortality: Frequently averted throughout the book.
* InTheBack: How Prince Egan kills [[spoiler: his brother Orrin.]]
* InSpiteOfANail: Jorg plans to deal with some of the Arrow’s army assaulting them by having the avalanche triggered over them, but he gives the signal to start it several minutes too late and the army catches up with them. However, it (barely) works anyway because one of the fires was flawed and burnt out too soon.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Jorg is typically in that territory. Whenever he does something remotely good, he quickly reveals his selfish reasons for it in his thoughts.
* JustAFleshWound: Averted, as all wounds will get infected and kill the person without prompt treatment. When [[spoiler: Coddin]] is shot in the stomach, Jorg knows he won't make and will die sooner or later.
* KickTheSonOfABitch: Between other bandits, cruel aristocrats and perverted and/or corrupted religious figures, some of Jorg's victims tend to be just as noxious as he is.
* TheLancer: Sir Makin.
* LongLostRelative: In ''Emperor of Thorns'', [[spoiler: the Dead King turns out to be Jorg's little brother, William.]]
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The ''King of Thorns'' briefly mentions Cennat shield dancers, who wield their man's height shields so well they can practically twirl them.
* LustObject: Katherine becomes this for Jorg after their first meeting. Although he acknowledges that she probably hates him, he spends the coming years frequently fantasizing about her.
* MasterSwordsman: Many in this book, even amongst the Brotherhood who are better known for being combat pragmatists - Jorg and Makin are true masters of the sword and will show that a blade in their hands become little more than a blur when fighting dirty would be inappropriate.
* TheManBehindTheMan: All seers aspire to become this, but Sageous is the master of this trope.
* MercyKill: Jorg does with [[spoiler: a dying infant girl with sedative drugs to ease her pain.]]
** Later, he kills [[spoiler: Lesha]] before a group of torturing bandits can take her. He also kills a little girl living with them and calls it helping her, because now she won't be able to grow up like he did.
** Averted with [[spoiler: Coddin]], whom he refuses to kill in spite of him getting an arrow through the stomach, something that usually results in slow and painful death. He does it because he still needs his advice, and it works: in ''Emperor of Thorns'', Coddin is still alive, though unable to move and has to have his wound regularly washed and bandaged.
* {{Mind Rape}}: [[spoiler: A favorite tactic of several sorcerers, including Sageous, Corion and Katherine.]]
* MoralityPet: The Nuban, Gog and (to some extent) Makin are this to Jorg.
* MundaneUtility: Gog's flame-based powers are often used by Jorg to light campfires or provide lightning when it's dark.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: '''Jorg the Red''' sounds bad enough ''before'' you learn that he earned it by single-handedly slaughtering a fourteen-men-strong fort garrison.
* NeckSnap: What Chella does to [[spoiler: Young Sim]] after she catches him.
* [[spoiler: NeverBringAGunToAKnifeFight]]: Averted: Jorg bypasses what would have been a virtually hopeless duel by using [[spoiler: a Colt. 45 revolver he is given by the Fexler Brews hologram.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHerod: Subverted/averted, depending on the villain. when Jorg [[spoiler: infiltrates the Tall Castle in ''The King of Thorns'', he considers killing his baby brother Degran, holds him in his arms and decides against it, but he's already killed by the necromancy touch.]] This leaves him with so much guilt that he has to have the memory removed from him and it takes him four years to look at it again and come to terms with it. However, [[spoiler: this was partially engineered by Sageous in an attempt to break Jorg mentally and he almost succeeds at that.]]
* NiceJobFixingItVillain: If [[spoiler: Friar Glen's]] ghost didn't stab a zombie in his path, or if a ghostly dog's skull didn't bite Jorg, he wouldn't have realised that ghosts are unable to hurt the living but can kill the undead.
* NotDistractedByTheSexy: Jorg barely manages to move his gaze away from Chella's naked form, which somehow manages to be seductive in spite her being dead, etc.
* NoManOfWomanBorn: All of the seers believe that the Prince of Arrow will win the battle for the throne and become emperor, and so advise Jorg to surrender. [[spoiler: Ultimately, he himself becomes the Prince of Arrow.]]
* NoodleImplements: ''There are quite a few uses for a dead rat, which is a matter I will go into some other time.''
* NotMeThisTime: Jorg might not be exceptionally evil when compared to his fellow kings and princes, but he's still a very evil character by today's standards. However, he didn't [[spoiler: rape Katherine Ap Scorron: that was Friar Glen, who found her unconscious.]]
** Similarly, when in disguise at the castle of his grandfather, he is accused of poisoning guards' food. [[spoiler: this was actually Qualasadi, their Moor advisor.]]
* NotSoDifferent: Prince Egan literally says this to Jorg before their final fight:
--> '''Egan''': [[spoiler: ''"We’re both fratricides, you and I. Not so different after all."'']]
* NotUsingTheZWord: Played with. In universe the zombies are simply referred to as the undead, but Fexler Brews, a hologram from the modern world, calls them zombies, surprising Jorg.
* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler: Sageous]] gets his head literally torn off his neck.
* OhCrap: The look on Sageous’s face when he finally realizes that [[spoiler: Katherine has countered his dream-walking powers and he’s now standing in person in front of Jorg.]]
* PlayingWithFire: The powers used by Gog, an eight-year-old mutant child, as well as Ferrakind, an ancient fire-sworn. Subverted in that neither actually create any new fire but instead combine and transport the existing ones to whenever they're needed. They're also capable of seeing from one fire into another anywhere in the world. As Gog puts it at one point, "there's really only one fire in the world."
* PowerAtAPrice: The fire powers of Gog and Ferrakind slowly convert their bodies and mind into flame until they get completely consumed. [[spoiler: Both die before that happens, however.]]
* PsychicLink: Gorgoth, being a genetically engineered creature, can communicate with other such creatures, like trolls, though mind link alone.
* {{Psycho For Hire}}: Jorg's band, especially Jorg himself.
* PsychopathicManchild: Jorg, especially at thirteen and fourteen, frequently does horrific things that result in people's deaths just because he wants to do them. He lets [[spoiler: Jane]] die under a rock-fall because he couldn't be bothered saving her, he lets a starved lion loose in a circus ''fully aware of the consequences'' and finds an old woman getting a fatal heart attack at the sight of his pet monster ''hilarious''.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Averted. Jorg himself is a rapist and doesn't consider it much more evil than his other actions. Similarly, Katherine hates him more for killing her elderly servant than for molesting her [[spoiler:though he's MisBlamed for the last one.]]
* RapePillageAndBurn: Jorg's band's favorite pastime in the ''Prince of Thorns''. Much of his ''King of Thorns'' arc involves him letting go of these habits.
* TheReveal: In ''Emperor of Thorns'' - though the reader knows it before Jorg does - [[spoiler: the Dead King is his dead little brother, William.]]
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Fexler Brews, the hologram. Justified, since he was deliberately copied by the real Flexter Brews, monitoring every moment of his life.
* RocksFallEveryoneDies: Jorg manages to kill several thousand soldiers in the Arrow’s army by initiating a rock fall over them. [[spoiler: Twice.]]
* SadisticChoice: Jorg is confronted with one when he's just six. [[spoiler: either he breaks his dog's Justice leg, or it gets burnt to death]]. Ultimately, the choice didn't matter.
* {{Scary Black Man}}: Played with the Nuban. While he can be intimidating, he is feared and despised out of racism. Otherwise, he also acts as a limited conscience for Jorg, so he is also a very {{downplayed}} {{Magical Negro}}.
* ShapedLikeItself: At one point, Jorg mentions a fish with red fins called … redfin.
* [[SheIsTheKing She Is The Pope]]: Yup. What, you were expecting a man?
* SmugSnake: Sageous is very much this.
* SweetPollyOliver: Revealed in the book Prince of Fools, pretty boy Brother Emmer isn't so much a boy.
* TheEasyWayOrTheHardWay: Jorg's father presents him with a very sadistic version of the dilemma when he was just six: [[spoiler: either he breaks his dog's leg for stealing from the treasury, or the dog is burned to death. When he complies, he is asked to break all others before dog is killed anyway.]] Since then, Jorg always purposely seeks the hard way in any situation he faces. His advisor, Coddin, has to say "the clever way" instead in order to even get him to consider the alternative.
* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies]]: Well, if you want to call Jorg a hero...
* TheUnfettered: There is no lengths to which Jorg will not go to attain his goals, especially in the beginning. As the story goes on, he begins to become a little less this, as his past actions begin to catch up with him and [[spoiler: he throws off the control that a wizard secretly had over him.]]
* {{Tainted Veins}}: Jorg gets these after [[spoiler: his father stabs him]], and they signify the awakening of his necromancy powers. [[spoiler: They disappear once he gets rid of necromancy at the end of King of Thorns.]]
* TokenGoodTeamMate: The Nuban seems to be this [[spoiler: and then he gets shot with his own crossbow.]]
* TokenMinority: Nuban, again, being practically the only non-white person after Sageous (who is Arabic) and the only black person in the series. This is strange, given that the book is set after the end of modern civilisation and there should have been many more descendants of today's Asian, Arabic and African immigrants present.
* TooDumbToLive: The fourteen fortmen in the ''King of Thorns''. Letting a guy in the fort to return an arrow ''they shot at him'' and after having killed his companion?
* TookALevelInKindness: Jorg starts as a VillainProtagonist, whose EstablishingCharacterMoment has him slaughtering a village and raping two girls. He eventually becomes an AntiHero who, while often using murder to get what he wants, cares to some degree for the people working for him and for his wife, [[spoiler:and loves his son]]. He also tends to fight people just as evil as he is.
* {{Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth}}: Nearly at the start of the novel, a ghost tries to haunt Jorg; instead of fleeing, Jorg allows the spectre to see into his mind... and the ghost runs away, since our protagonist can offer worse thoughts than the ghost itself.
** Later subverted when it is discovered that [[spoiler: the ghost wasn't running from Jorg, but the wizard that had its hands in him.]]
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Referenced several times with regards to Prince Orrin. The man is an ideal hero, who is every bit as good as they say he is. Even Jorg liked and admired him in a fashion. [[spoiler: But while he stood a very real chance of winning the Imperial throne, it was doubtful that Orrin had the iron fist to hold it and he would later be murdered by his own brother, a man who's far more similar to Jorg.]]
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Sageous presents himself as this, justifying all his manipulation with the goal of peace and eventual recovery of lost technology. To him, this justifies things like [[spoiler: tricking Jorg into killing his baby brother and making Katherine think she was pregnant and arranging fake abortion for her that leaves her infertile.]] Ultimately, he wants power more than anything else, proven when [[spoiler: he arranges Orrin's murder when he would have brought the peace needed.]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fates of [[spoiler: Chella and Count Renar]] are left unresolved, although in the case of the first it's a pretty safe bet to assume death ([[spoiler: since she killed Jorg while surrounded by his allies, and magic stopped working just after]]), and one would hope the same for the second.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Jorg thinks along these lines when he considers the existence of the Fexler Brews hologram. Subverted in that the hologram itself is fine with its existence and doesn't want to die.
* WideEyedIdealist: Sir Makin considers Orrin of Arrow to be this and doesn't believe he will survive the conflict, which is why he still serves Jorg in spite of him being the worse person. [[spoiler: Ultimately, he's right.]]
* TheWisePrince: Prince Orrin. [[spoiler: It does not end well for him.]]
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Ferrakind, who is the most powerful fire mage in the world and uses that power to devastate his land with volcano eruptions.
** Jorg also does many bad things just because he can get away with them as a king and a skilled fighter.
* WorthyOpponent: Jorg thinks of Prince Orrin as this, knowing that he genuinely cares about his subjects and would make a better emperor if he won.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Jorg is cruel and calculating, yet he not only does not kill children, but neither he can stand their suffering. [[spoiler: Even if this means he has to euthanize them with sedative drugs.]]
* WretchedHive: The Banlieu of Crath City is as wretched as you would expect from its name.
* {{X meets Y}}: {{Clockwork Orange}} meets Literature/TheBlackCompany.
* {{Yandere}}: Chella in the ''King of Thorns.'' Reborn as a lich, she is determined to make Jorg embrace his necromancy and marry her as another lich.
* YouCantFightFate: Every mystic is sure that Jorg's rival will end up as the Emperor. However, it is also defied, because Jorg fights fate mainly because others say he can't.
----

* {{And Man Grew Proud}}: What has led to the modern culture's downfall and the creation of neo-medieval world in which the novel is set.

* ArrangedMarriage: The marriage of Jorg and Miana. Before the wedding day, they only saw each other through their locket pictures. Thus, she's unaware he has half of his face's burnt off (but quickly get over it), while he doesn't know she's only ''twelve''.

* EliteZombie: If a person if buried in the ground up to their neck and left to starve, their corpse becomes a fast zombie with glowing eyes. The book also briefly mentions corpses that spent so long in the swamp without rotting due to lack of oxygen, that they became as tough as tanned leather.

* EvilVersusEvil: Jorg is by no mean a good person, but his opponents (with the notable exception of Orrin) are just as bad, often even worst than him.

** In the ''King of Thorns'' , he returns to the circus that helped his band earlier. Before leaving, he notices a starved lion in the cage, and is eventually left alone with it. He considers the livelihoods of the circusfolk and the carnage a starved lion will wreak, then opens the cage anyway.
* {{Homage}}: Jorg was partially inspired by Alex from {{Clockwork Orange}}, however, he is far from being a {{Captain Ersatz}} or an {{Expy}}.

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The ''King of Thorns'' briefly mentions Cennat shield dancers, who wield their man's height shields so well they can practically twirl them.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Averted. Jorg himself is a rapist and doesn't consider it much more evil than his other actions. Similarly, Katherine hates him more for killing her elderly servant than for molesting her [[spoiler: though he's MisBlamed for the last one.]]

* {{Scary Black Man}}: played with the Nuban. While he can be intimidating, he is feared and despised out of racism. Otherwise, he also acts as a limited conscience for Jorg, so he is also a very {{downplayed}} {{Magical Negro}}.

* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies]]: Well, if you want to call Jorg a hero ...

* {{Tainted Veins}}: Jorg gets these after [[spoiler: his father stabs him.]], and they signify the awakening of his necromancy powers. [[spoiler: They disappear once he gets rid of necromancy at the end of King of Thorns.]]

* {{Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth}}: nearly at the start of the novel, a ghost tries to haunt Jorg; instead of fleeing, Jorg allows the spectre to see into his mind... and the ghost runs away, since our protagonist can offer worse thoughts, than the ghost itself.
** Later subverted when it is discovered that [[spoiler: the ghost wasn't running from Jorg, but the wizard that had it's hands in him.]]

* AdvancedAncientHumans: See {{AfterTheEnd}} below for more details.

** Later subverted in ''King Of Thorns'', when [[spoiler: it's revealed that said "companion" was a dog torturing sadist whom Jorg had punished earlier that day. Said torture reminded Jorg of the Justice incident mentioned above. Jorg knew that said "companion" was planning to try to kill him, so Jorg killed him before he had the chance.]]

* FreudianExcuse: Jorg [[ForcedToWatch watched]] his brother being murdered and his mother being raped then murdered when he was still a child, while he was stranded in a hook briar patch and lacerated by the thorns.

* {{The Lancer}}: Sir Makin.

* ForgottenFallenFriend: Averted with [[spoiler: Hanna]]. Katherine grieves for her and frequently mentions her in her diaries after [[spoiler: she's strangled by Jorg when attempting to protect her]].

* MoralityPet: The Nuban to Jorg.

* AntiHero: Jorg and his band are {{Nominal Hero}}es at best.

* {{X meets Y}}: {{Clockwork Orange}} meets {{The Black Company}}.

Additionally, other works of the author are set in the same world but at different times and in different places.

* ILoveNuclearPower: Many of the fantastic creatures encountered were originally created by the fallout from the Builders Suns (e. g. a nuclear war).

** Averted with [[spoiler: Coddin]], whom he refuses to kill in spite of him getting an arrow through the stomach, something that usually results in slow and painful death. He does it because he still needs his advice, and it works: in the ''Emperor of Thorns'', he is still alive, though unable to move and has to have his wound regularly washed and bandaged.

* MoralityPet: The Nuban to Jorg

* WretchedHive: The Banlieu of the Crath City is as wretched as you would expect from its name.

* AntiHero: Jorg and his band are {{NominalHero}}es at best.

* AntiHero: Jorg and his band are [[NominalHero]]s at best.

* ILoveNuclearPower: Many of the fantastic creatures encountered were originally created by the fallout from destroyed nuclear power stations.

* TearJerker: On the last few pages of ''Emperor of Thorns'', Jorg of all people subjects us to one when [[spoiler: he's become a data ghost, thus no longer able to touch or openly interact with his family, and tells his small son, Will, that he's only an echo of Wills real father: "I feel only an echo of the love he would have had for you. But it's a very loud echo."]]

!!This book provides examples of:

** After you read about Justice in ''The King Of Thorns'', you will lose what little sympathy you may or may not have had for Jorg's father. [[spoiler: Justice was Jorg and William's pet dog. As a punishment to Jorg for breaking a snowglobe, his father made Jorg take a hammer and break three of his dog's legs. When Jorg refused to break the fourth, his father had the dog burned alive. Jorg was six years old.]]

* AffablyEvil | FauxAffablyEvil: Jorg zigzags between the two

* {{And Man Grew Proud}} - What has led to the modern culture's downfall and the creation of neo-medieval world in which the novel is set.

* AntiHero: Jorg and his band are NominalHero at best

** The Copper Cube in the ''King Of Thorns''.

** Later subverted in ''The King Of Thorns'', when [[spoiler: it's revealed that said "companion" was a dog torturing sadist whom Jorg had punished earlier that day. Said torture reminded Jorg of the Justice incident mentioned above. Jorg knew that said "companion" was planning to try to kill him, so Jorg killed him before he had the chance.]]

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Subverted in the book. Many kingdoms have obvious medieval counterparts, like Arrow in medieval England or Maladon in the Viking Scandinavia. However, these cultures ''aren't'' fantasy: they're the same medieval cultures reborn after the collapse of the modern world thousand years earlier.

* LustObject: Katherine becomes this for Jorge after their first meeting. Although he acknowledges that she probably hates him, he spends the coming years frequently fantasizing about her.

* [[spoiler: NeverBringAGunToAKnifeFight]]: Averted: Jorg bypasses what would have been a virtually hopeless duel by using [[spoiler: A Colt. 45 revolver he is given by the Fexler Brews hologram.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fates of [[spoiler: Chella and Count Renar]] are left unresolved, although in the case of the first it's a pretty safe bet to assume death ([[spoiler: since she killed Jorg while surrounded by his allies, and magic stopped worked just after]]), and one would hope the same for the second.

* WideEyedIdealist: Sir Makin considers Orrin of Arrow to be this and doesn't believe he will survive the conflict, which is why he still serves Jorg in spite of him being the worse person. [[spoiler: Ultimately, he's right]]

* WorthyOpponent: Jorg thinks of Prince Orren as this, knowing that he genuinely cares about his subjects and would make a better emperor if he won.

* {{Fat Bastard}}: Burlow

* {{Tainted Veins}}: Jorg gets these after [[spoiler: his father stabs him.]] , and they signify the awakening of his necromancy powers. [[spoiler: they disappear once he gets rid of necromancy at the end of King of Thorns.]]

* PowerAtAPrice: The fire powers of Gog and Ferrakind slowly convert their bodies and mind into flame until they get completely consumed. [[spoiler: both die before that happens, however.]]

* Yandere: Chella in the ''King of Thorns.'' Reborn as a necromancer, she is determined to make Jorg embrace his necromancy and marry her as another lich.

* {{After the End}}: At first the world appears to be a classic medieval fantasy setting, although with fantasy elements like undeath thrown in. Soon enough we learn that it's our world when Jorg starts talking about Plutarch and Plato. As the story goes on it becomes apparent that it's set in the far future. Our civilization reached new heights in the past before it destroyed itself, leaving behind a changed world of little technology, powerful magic and remnants of the 'builders'. Jorg's house took the ruins of a scyscraper for their castle, among other things.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Frequently averted throughout the book, as Jorg and other characters are fully aware of lives they take throughout the book. At one point, Jorg describes an unnamed soldier's corpse as "something that lived and laughed only hours ago.

* {{Determinator}}: Besides his savage cunning and amorality, this is the other key feature of Jorg. The guy will not quit, starting from childhood when he survived impalement on the hook briar patch and the later surgeries that removed them from his body and later surviving a long trek through a radioactive desert that no else has ever survived. His younger brother makes Jorg looks soft [[spoiler: his will is so strong that after death he breaks the control that the necromancers had on him and makes them his puppet, when he was 3.]]

* JustAFleshWound: Averted, as all wounds will get infected and kill the person without prompt treatment. When [[spoiler: Caddin]] is shot in the stomach, Jorg knows he won't make and will die sooner or later.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Averted. Jorg himself is a rapist and doesn't consider it much more evil than his other actions. Similarly, Katherine hates him more for killing her elderly servant than for molesting her [[spoiler: though is MisBlamed for the last one.]]

* {{Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth}}: nearly at the start of the novel, a ghost tries to haunt Jorg; in stead of fleeing, Jorg allows the spectre to see into his mind... and the ghost runs away, since our protagonist can offer worse thoughts, than the ghost itself.

* CallASmeerpARabbit: Many castles in the book are not true medieval structures but abandoned modern-day ones restructured to fit the purpose. The Tall Castle in particular is actually a derelict scyscraper.
** Similarly, the trolls in the book are actually genetically engineered creatures left behind after the collapse.

** After you read about Justice in the book The King Of Thorns, you will lose what little sympathy you may or may not have had for Jorg's father. [[spoiler: Justice was Jorg and William's pet dog. As a punishment to Jorg for breaking a snowglobe, his father made Jorg take a hammer and break three of his dog's legs. When Jorg refused to break the fourth, his father had the dog burned alive. Jorg was six years old.]]

** In the ''King of Thorns'' , he returns to the circus that helped his band earlier. Before leaving, he notices a starved lion in the cage, and is eventually left alone with it. He considers the livelyhoods of the circuspeople and the carnage a starved lion will wreak, then opens the cage anyway.

* * At one point, Jorg specifically asks the Fexler Brews hologram to teach him how to create guns. He firmly refuses, believing that they're not advanced enough to handle the power. [[spoiler: although he does let him take the single Colt revolver for himself.]]

* * GodivaHair: Chella manages to make her rotting body look attractive though the combination of magic, strategically placed ''slime'' and this.

* At one point, Jorg specifically asks the Fexler Brews hologram to teach him how to create guns. He firmly refuses, believing that they're not advanced enough to handle the power. [[spoiler: although he does let him take the single Colt revolver for himself.]]