History Literature / TheSharingKnife

** In ''Passage'', Barr is forced to admit he used his Lakewalker abilities to [[CharmPerson "persuade"]] a farmer girl to [[UnusualEuphemism "go behind the woodpile"]] with him. Come the epilogue of ''Horizon'', [[spoiler:we find out that that girl bore a daughter from that encounter and wants nothing to do with Barr going forward.]]

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Early in ''Passage'', Barr pranks the river people by convincing them they can protect themselves from Lakewalker powers by wearing iron helmets, resulting in a lot of cooking pots being worn on heads. More than one authority figure has to stifle a laugh before scolding him for it.

* CoolOldLady: Aunt Nattie. Mari as well, though she ''looks'' too young to count.

* DarkIsNotEvil: The rumors about Lakewalker necromancy are overblown, but their [[strike:primary]] [[KryptoniteFactor only effective]] blight-bogle slaying weapons ''are'' carved from the bones of their dead and empowered by [[BloodMagic the lives of sacrifices]].

* MoodyMount: Dag's "evil" horse Copperhead.

** Neither Alder nor Fawn are beguiled into following their respective Lakewalkers around, though Alder tries to convince people that he has, and Fawn has some difficulty convincing people that she ''hasn't''.

* RomanceNovel: The first book is essentially a bodice-ripper "in disguise." The fantastic elements are there, but primarily as a vehicle for Dag and Fawn's budding relationship. The sequels shift the focus to the actual fantasy, although with the love story still as the central role.

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* BadWithTheBone: Sharing knives are carved from respectfully-donated human bones, usually femurs. They are ''only'' to be used against malices; the amount of sacrifice bound up in them, both literally and emotionally, makes anything else a huge taboo in Lakewalker culture.

-->'''Tavia:''' *''relaxes in relief*''

* ChekhovsGun: The primed sharing knife from ''Passage'' and Whit's crossbow in ''Horizon''.

** In ''Passage'', Barr is forced to admit he used his Lakewalker abilities to [[CharmPerson "persuade"]] a farmer girl to [[UnusualEuphemism "go behind the woodpile"]] with him. Come the epilogue of ''Horizon'', [[spoiler: we find out that that girl bore a daughter from that encounter and wants nothing to do with Barr going forward.]]

* TheEmpath: Just about everyone with Groundsense is this to some degree. Being in large crowds of [[{{Muggles}} farmers]] can get uncomfortable or even painful.

* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Dag's camp has a case where a Lakewalker couple couldn't have children and their families were pressuring them to break up, so they brought a second husband into the relationship instead. The husbands are married to each other as well. This is not standard Lakewalker custom, but it's not forbidden, and it resulted in children being produced so everyone just went with it.

* FamedInStory: Between the number of malices he has slain and the famous Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag is a near-legend among many Lakewalkers. But few Lakewalkers connect the scruffy, one-handed old patroller with the latter legend. We, the audience find out that Dag is even more famous under his married name of Dag Wolverine (and Dag is even more annoyed by that).

* HalfBreedDiscrimination: Discussed with Calla and Indigo in ''Horizon''. In farmer society, half bloods face fears of being witches and are not trusted. Lakewalkers do not accept them at all unless they can demonstrate they can use their groundsense.
* HandicappedBadass: Even before his ghost hand shows up, Dag uses the BeeBeeGun on a gang of harassers with one hand missing and his other arm ''broken''.

* IdealizedSex: Averted, Fawn's first time was ''not'' enjoyable, and the complications are gone into. But also played straight in a realistic manner: Sex with Dag is mind-blowing from the get-go, but he puts quite a bit of experienced care and attention into making it so.

* IKEAErotica: Averted. Attention anyone contemplating writing a sex scene: Please read the first book for multiple examples of how to do it correctly.

* ImAHumanitarian: No, Lakewalkers are not. But glimpses of their secretive funeral rites (during which femurs are harvested for conversion to sharing knives) started longstanding rumors to that effect.

* LightingBug: In ''Beguilement'' Fawn and Dag are on the road and are camping for the night when Dag uses his groundsense powers to coax several hundred--or perhaps even several ''thousand''--fireflies into a tree (and then briefly also into Fawn's hair). The light from the insects soon illuminates a love-making session.
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: In ''Horizon'', Fawn is the last to know about [[spoiler: her second pregnancy]] because Lakewalker custom is to stay silent about the telltale change in ground until the woman, herself, brings it up. Dag brings her up to speed in due time.

* NoOntologicalInertia: When a malice is killed, its mud-men slaves revert to their animal minds, and the spell is lifted from any mind-controlled humans who have been enslaved by it, though they may or may not be able to go back to their old selves; though the Ontological Inertia is present in the case of the mud-men/animals, who die slowly, trapped in bodies they do not know how to use.
* NotBrainwashed: Neither Alder nor Fawn are beguiled into following their respective Lakewalkers around, though Alder tries to convince people that he has and Fawn has some difficulty convincing people that she ''hasn't''.

* TheNotSecret: A farmer girl gets pregnant by a passing Lakewalker ([[spoiler:Barr Foxbrush]]) and marries a farmer boy soon afterwards. She spends the next fifteen years hiding the fact that the baby is not his. [[spoiler: At the end of ''Knife Children'', it turns out that her husband has known since the baby was born. The narration points out that he can count to nine.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: Setting aside the [[BurnTheWitch repeated incidents]] rooted in rumor caused by quarter-understood glimpses of Lakewalker customs, it is clear that malices emerging under a Farmer town, where no one would recognize the signs of them even if they believed such creatures existed, is in many ways the most dangerous scenario possible. Such a calamity nearly comes to pass in ''Legacy'' precisely because the Farmers and Lakewalkers in the area refused to communicate with each other -- the Lakewalkers only find out about it when the malice goes after one of their camps.

* PowerPerversionPotential: Used benignly, Lakewalker ground manipulation can ''greatly'' enhance sexual encounters. Used unethically, it can "persuade" a reluctant partner into consenting. It's believed by many farmers that seduction by a Lakewalker effectively [[MindRape mind rapes]] the seductee into obsession with the Lakewalker for the rest of his or her life.[[note]]Dag is horrified to hear of several Farmers in the south whom this happened to, actually meeting one of the. Fortunately, he and Arkady are able to suss out the cause and reverse it[[/note]] One of the reasons Dag's clan opposes his marriage is that they think he did this to Fawn.

* SeekingTheMissingFindingTheDead: Berry is well aware that this is a likely outcome of her quest to find her missing father, brother, and fiancé, explaining it's why she named her boat the ''Fetch'' rather than the ''Finder''. [[spoiler:The trope ends up applying two thirds of the way -- her fiancé is alive and well, but ''joined'' the river bandits who killed the others.]]

* ShownTheirWork: The ''Passage'' riverboats, details about low tech farming. The river bandits in ''Passage'' also have their roots in fact, probably inspired by the Cave-in-Rock pirates of the Ohio River in the 19th century.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: In ''Horizon'', Dag risks his place in a southern Lakewalker camp -- one with a medicine maker mentor who has the same abilities as Dag and can teach Dag more than he ever dreamed of -- to save a farmer boy from lockjaw. In the end, it's the camp patrol captain, not the mentor, that decides Dag's fate. [[spoiler: He bans Dag from New Moon Cutoff when Dag pushes back on his refusal to deal with farmers -- not helped by Dag pointing out where New Moon Cutoff falls far short of traditional Lakewalker doctrine. Dag's mentor ultimately chooses to follow him instead of staying in camp.]]

* WalkingWasteland: A sufficiently large malice can kill every animal and plant in a region and leach the life from the soil for a millenium.

* MissConception: Sunny tells Fawn she can't get pregnant her first time. She doesn't know if he was lying to get in her pants or if he actually believed it, but either way it's a costly mistake (and one she really shouldn't have made, considering she grew up on a farm).

* NotBrainwashed: Alder, Fawn.

* PowerPerversionPotential: Used benignly, Lakewalker ground manipulation can ''greatly'' enhance sexual encounters. Used unethically, it can "persuade" a reluctant partner into consenting. It's believed by many farmers that seduction by a Lakewalker effectively [[MindRape mind rapes]] the seductee into obsession with the Lakewalker for the rest of his or her life. One of the reasons Dag's clan opposes his marriage is that they think he did this to Fawn.

* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Fawn, Whit, and Berry]] in ''Horizon'', though [[OnlyMostlyDead they at least]] ''[[OnlyMostlyDead appear]]'' [[OnlyMostlyDead dead]] at the time.

* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Fawn]] in ''Horizon'', though [[OnlyMostlyDead they at least]] ''[[OnlyMostlyDead appear]]'' [[OnlyMostlyDead dead]] at the time.
* ButWeUsedACondom: The rhythm method is far more reliable when one party can literally see when his partner is most fertile. Unless that party gets caught up in the moment, as Dag was in ''Horizon''.

* ConvenientMiscarriage: Averted. Fawn's miscarriage did ''not'' return her to the status quo, but rather brought on a whole new set of problems, physical, ''meta''physical and philosophical.

* CruelMercy: In ''Passage'', Dag agrees to help the villain transfer his life to a sharing knife, rather than letting his death be wasted (the greatest of shames to a Lakewalker.) He then makes the private, intimate ceremony a public spectacle for the gawking Muggles.

* DrJerk: Medicine-maker Arkady Waterbirch is... abrasive. Fortunately he's also a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.

* EvilTowerOfOminousness: ''Legacy'' establishes that once a malice becomes powerful enough, it develops a compulsion to start building towers to rule from; Dag is horrified to see that the Raintree malice has advanced this far. It hasn't had very long to work on its tower, however, so the one we see is only twenty feet of rough-cut logs.

* FunctionalMagic: Combination of Force Magic and Nature Magic.

* GutFeeling In ''Horizon'', Dag can't shake the feeling that there was something wrong with their encounter with a malice that close to molting (that was traveling out in the open, no less). [[spoiler: He realizes too late that the first malice was fleeing from a second, more powerful malice.]]
* HalfBreedDiscrimination: Discussed with Calla and Indigo in ''Horizon''. In farmer society, half bloods face fears of being witches and are not trusted. Lakewalkers do not accept them at all, unless they can demonstrate they can use their groundsense.

* HonorBeforeReason: The reason the Lakewalkers don't take on Farmers to handle tasks in their camps that don't require groundsense to accomplish. They don't want to become defacto lords over Farmers, so won't even entertain scenarios that could theoretically lead to Lakewalker Rule.

* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Lakewalkers tend to be tall by [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]] standards, Dag is taller than average for his people, and Fawn is a genuine runt among hers. When added up the differences prove striking; her head barely reaches his chest.

* ImAHumanitarian: No, Lakewalkers are not. But glimpses of their secretive funeral rites (during which femurs are harvested for conversion to knives) started longstanding rumors to that effect.

* LethalHarmlessPowers: Throughout ''Passage'' Dag experiments with absorbing the [[LifeEnergy ground]] from things, and it seems like a harmless way for him to further his magic ForScience. Then [[spoiler:he ground-rips a cross-sectional slice from the spinal cord of a man holding Fawn at knifepoint]] and it becomes a ''lot'' less harmless.

* LoveableRogue: Barr -- who is genuinely charming, when he isn't trying too hard.
* LovingAShadow: In ''Horizon'', one of the young patrollers becomes infatuated with Dag. Or rather "Dag Wolverine" (the hero of Wolf Ridge). not "Dag Bluefield, nee Redwing" (The veteran patroller, turned married medicine maker apprentice).

* MalignedMixedMarriage: [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]][=/=][[MageSpecies Lakewalker]] pairings are looked at askance more often than not by just about everyone, but the latter tend to be rather more dogmatic about the matter. Unlike most cases, [[JustifiedTrope there are objective reasons]]: Lakewalkers need to keep their groundsense (and hence, bloodlines) strong since TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed, and having sex with {{Muggles}} tends to inadvertently MindRape them.

* MayDecemberRomance: [[spoiler: Arkady and Sumac.]]

* MercyKill: Sharing can be this, as is slaying mud-men after the malice is killed.

* {{Muggles}}: Lakewalkers call them all "farmers", regardless of their occupation or where they live,

* MurderTheHypotenuse: In ''Horizon'', [[spoiler: Neeta]] allows the party to bury [[spoiler:Fawn]] despite being able to tell she's not dead. The story is deliberately ambiguous as to whether or not this was intentional or subconscious, though it is made clear she ''should have'' known.

* NoOntologicalInertia: When a malice is killed, its mud-men slaves revert to their animal minds--and then die, trapped in the wrong bodies--and the spell is lifted from any mind-controlled humans who have been enslaved by it, though they may or may not be able to go back to their old selves; though the Ontological Inertia is present in the case of the mud-men/animals, who die slowly, trapped in bodies they do not know how to use.

* {{Polyamory}}: A rare example of a woman married to two husbands. It's not really accepted practice among Lakewalkers, but they have no actual law against it, and the three are happy together and have produced children, so the rest of the clan just kind of adjusted to it.
** It's also quite clear that the husbands are also married to each other.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Setting aside the [[BurnTheWitch repeated incidents]] rooted in rumor caused by quarter-understood glimpses of Lakewalker customs, it is clear that malices emerging under a farmer town, where no one would recognize the signs of them even if they believed such creatures existed, is in many ways the most dangerous scenario possible.

* SecondLove: Both Dag and Fawn for each other, Dag coming after Fawn's (disastrous) infatuation with Sunny Sawman and Fawn coming after Dag's twenty-years-deceased wife Kauneo.
* SeekingTheMissingFindingTheDead: Berry is well aware that this is a likely outcome of her quest to find her missing father, brother and fiancé, explaining it's why she named her boat the ''Fetch'' rather than the ''Finder''. [[spoiler:The trope ends up applying two thirds of the way -- her fiancé is alive and well, but ''joined'' the river bandits who killed the others.]]
* SettlingTheFrontier: The farmers are trying to reclaim and settle new land, even when the Lakewalkers deem it unsafe.

* SlidingScaleOfDivineIntervention: Somewhere between a 0 ("Gods Don't Really Exist") and a 1 ("The Gods Have Left the Building"). One of Dag's favorite swears is "Absent gods!" Lakewalkers in general do evidently believe their world is a 1 on the scale; as Dag explains in ''Beguilement'', "Lakewalker legends say the gods abandoned the world when the first malice came". It's a little ambiguous if Dag himself believes this or not. ("Do you [believe in gods]?" "I believe they are not here, yes. It's a faith of sorts.") For all that it appears to be magic to farmers, ground works in a basically naturalistic way, without any hint of divine intervention (albeit essentially granting those who can manipulate ground psychic and even telekinetic powers). The stories of the pre-catastrophe civilization of the Lake League speak of "gods popping in and out of people's lives in a way that I would find downright unnerving", but whether this is completely true, or a legendary or even totally mythologized understanding of a much more [[{{Magitek}} (magi-)technologically advanced civilization]] is outside the scope of the series. For all that the series is clearly fantasy rather than science fiction, whether this world is a 0 or a 1 is therefore a conclusion that is fundamentally left to the reader.
* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In book four, it turns out that Dag is not the first [[spoiler:Groundsetter]]. Every Lakewalker in the south seems to know about this specialty, strangely Dag doesn't even though he once spent a year patrolling in the south.

* SwissArmyAppendage: Dag, played fairly realistically in that the attachments take time to switch, are often inferior to regular tools, and cause a lot of physical wear and tear to Dag.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: In ''Horizon'', Dag risks his place in a southern Lakewalker camp -- one with a medicine maker mentor who has the same abilities as Dag and can teach Dag more than he ever dreamed of -- to save a farmer boy from lockjaw. In the end, it's the camp patrol captain, not the mentor, that decides Dag's fate. [[spoiler: He bans Dag from New Moon Cutoff when Dag pushes back on his refusal to deal with farmers -- not helped by Dag pointing out where New Moon Cutoff falls far short of traditional Lakewalker doctrine.]]
* TookTheWifesName: Lakewalkers use a matrilineal system of naming and inheritance (husband normally takes wife's 'tent' name, and households are passed to the eldest daughter), while [[{{Muggles}} farmers]] use a patrilinal one. As Dag Bluefield (née Redwing) earned himself a spot in multiple ballads under his ''prior'' married name (Dag Wolverine of Leech Lake Camp), this leads to a degree of confusion.

* WizardsLiveLonger: But only about twice as long as "farmers".

* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Fawn]] in ''Horizon.''

* DeathSeeker: The true reason why Dag has killed more malices than any other Lakewalker.

* DisabilitySuperpower: Dag's injured hand is apparently part of what stimulated his magic to grow stronger.

* EmpathicHealer: Ground-based healing is stressful stuff. If the patient dies and the healer is in deep it can kill them as well.

* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Has a case where a Lakewalker couple couldn't have children, their families were pressuring them to break up, instead they brought a second husband into the relationship. The husbands are married to each other as well. This is not standard Lakewalker custom but it's not forbidden and it resulted in children being produced so everyone just went with it.

* GutFeeling In ''Horizon'', Dag can't shake the feeling that there was something wrong with their encounter with a malice that close to molting. [[spoiler: He realizes too late that the first malice was fleeing from a second, more powerful malice]]

* HumanoidAbomination: Advanced malices become either this or [[AnimalisticAbomination Animalistic Abominations]] depending on whether they ground-rip more humans or animals.

* LethalHarmlessPowers: Throughout ''Passage'' Dag experiments with absorbing the [[LifeEnergy ground]] from things, and it seems like a harmless way for him to further his magic ForScience. Then [[spoiler: he ground-rips a cross-sectional slice from the spinal cord of a man holding Fawn at knifepoint]] and it becomes a lot less harmless.

* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: The Lakewalkers were ''much'' more advanced societally and technologically in the distant past. Nobody's quite sure what happened, but the legends say that one of their kings tried to achieve {{Immortality}} and turned into the first malice, which when killed [[AsteroidsMonster exploded and rained down other malices across the land]].

* MagneticHero: Not the actual heroine, Fawn, who only attracts two characters. Rather, it's Dag who attracts twenty-one more through a combination of [[FamedInStory martial fame]], magical ineptitude, and a disregard for tradition.

* MalignedMixedMarriage: [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]][=/=][[MageSpecies Lakewalker]] pairings are looked at askance more often than not by just about everyone, but the latter tend to be rather more dogmatic about the matter. Unlike most cases, [[JustifiedTrope there are objective reasons]], Lakewalkers need to keep their groundsense (and hence, bloodlines) strong since TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed, and having sex with {{Muggles}} tends to inadvertently MindRape them.
* MarionetteMaster: Both malices and Lakewalkers gone bad.
* MayDecemberRomance: [[spoiler: Arkady and Sumac]]

* MissConception: Sunny tells Fawn she can't get pregnant her first time. She doesn't know if he was lying to get in her pants or if he actually believed it, but either way it's a costly mistake.

* MundaneUtility: When they're not busy killing malices, Lakewalkers use ground manipulation for all sorts of everyday tasks, to include chasing flies off your horse, or luring fish right into your boat.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: In ''Horizon'' [[spoiler: Neeta]] allows the party to bury [[spoiler:Fawn]] despite being able to tell she's not dead. The story is deliberately ambiguous as to whether or not this was intentional or subconscious. Though it is made clear she ''should have'' known.
* MyGreatestFailure: Twenty years ago, in what became known as the Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag lost all but three of his command, his left hand, and ''his wife'' in the space of an hour. It does not help that more than one epic poem[=/=]song has been composed about it, and he tends to make himself scarce when one some pup decides to sing one at a celebration.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Dag in the later books.

* OnlyMostlyDead: In ''Horizon'' [[spoiler: Fawn, Whit and Berry]] appear to be all but dead, thanks to [[spoiler: Dag's ground shields ground locking them, in response to the bat-malice's attack]] They all revive fully once the shield necklaces are removed.
* PoorCommunicationKills: Setting aside the [[BurnTheWitch repeated incidents]] rooted in rumor caused by quarter-understood glimpses of Lakewalker customs; it is clear that malices emerging under a farmer town, where no one would recognize the signs of them even if they believed such creatures existed, is in many ways the most dangerous scenario possible.

* PsychicRadar Groundsense can be used for this. It's more literally lifeforcesense; allowing a practitioner to detect and sense lifeforce around them, from other humans to animals and even the malices.

* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In book four it turns out that Dag is not the first [[spoiler:Groundsetter]]. Every Lakewalker in the south seems to know about this specialty, strangely Dag doesn't even though he once spent a year patrolling in the south.
* [[SuicideByCop Suicide By]] EldritchAbomination: Attempted in Dag's backstory. After Dag's first wife died, he passed the DespairEventHorizon and essentially tried to commit suicide by repeatedly going for the kill on every malice he faced. He ended up killing over twenty five, when the most experienced Lakewalker commanders normally rack up maybe five or so in their lifetimes. Many Lakewalkers almost consider him a PhysicalGod by now..

* TookTheWifesName: Lakewalkers use a matrilineal system of naming and inheritance (husband normally takes wife's 'tent' name, and households are passed to the eldest daughter), while [[{{Muggles}} farmers]] use a patrilinal one. As Dag Bluefield (ne Redwing) earned himself a spot in multiple ballads under his ''prior'' married name (Dag Wolverine of Leech Lake Camp) this leads to a degree of confusion.

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: If Dag calls Fawn anything other than "Spark" or "Bright Spark", something's very very wrong.
* YouWillBeAssimilated: Any living thing a malice doesn't [[CharmPerson "beguile,"]] it "ground-rips," powderizing it and gaining its strength, knowledge, and to a certain degree abilities. A malice that eats lots of humans can plan tactics, a malice that eats bats can fly, and so on. This incidentally justifies the BishonenLine, as a malice that's eaten many, many animals and has grown to tremendous size is often less dangerous than one that has eaten enough humans to [[ItCanThink think]].

'''''The Sharing Knife''''' is a four novel fantasy/romance/western series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, especially the expanding frontier. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting a ForeverWar against [[EldritchAbomination malices]], and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who tend to think the malices are less dangerous and abundant than they are, and believe (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]], though there is some truth in those beliefs.