History Literature / TheUnderlandChronicles

* WouldntHurtAChild: In ''''Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane'', Gregor can't kill the Bane because he's only a baby. Nerissa later interprets the property as saying this.

* {{Fandom}}: A rather small one, considering, but the [[FanFic fanfiction]] for the series has a few exemplary pieces that rival the original works.

** The KillEmAll ending leaves Gregor in a state of emotional distress about many characters, many of whom were absolute {{jerkass}}es toward him. Particularly in ''Gregor and the Code of Claw'', when faced with [[spoiler:the Prophecy of Time that foretells his own death]].

* ShoutOut: Gregor's name is probably a Shout-Out to [[Literature/TheMetamorphosis Franz Kafka]].

** We only meet four named cockroaches (Tick, Temp, Pend, and Min), but all of them have names relating to time.[[note]]Tick is self-explanatory, '''Temp'''oral, '''Pend'''ing, and '''Min'''ute.[[/note]]

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[spoiler:Solovet ordered the creation of the plague in the third book.]] In ''Gregor and the Code of Claw'', we learn that all the other races call humans "killers", and not without reason: [[spoiler:one of their first acts in the Underland was poisoning the water supply of the Diggers to take their land]].

* ShellShockedVeteran: Gregor by the end of the series. [[KidHero At twelve]]. Ripred is an older version of this.

* TakeCareoftheKids: Hamnet's greatest fear is that his son will grow up to be a soldier and [[spoiler: an UnwittingPawn for Solovet]]. Before [[spoiler: he dies]] he makes Luxa promise to keep Hazard safe.

* AdultFear:
** First your husband disappears and you wait for him for years on end. Then your oldest and youngest child follow suit, and vanish. Twice. The first time they come back with their father, who is still sick, but you become ProperlyParanoid about losing everyone again. No wonder Gregor's mom refuses to let him go down a third time, and has to be "persuaded" by rats to do so.
** For Gregor, when [[spoiler: his mom]] catches the plague.
** Vikus admits he doesn't know how he and Solovet get along, considering Solovet is a WellIntentionedExtremist and [[spoiler: tortured their son Hamnet until he agreed to flood the Garden of Hesperides]].
** Hamnet's greatest fear is that his son will grow up to be a soldier and [[spoiler: an UnwittingPawn for Solovet]]. Before [[spoiler: he dies]] he makes Luxa promise to keep Hazard safe.

** The bats, humans, and mice are allies with each other and hate the rats, who hate just about everyone, but especially the humans and mice. The insects, especially the ants, pretty much hate all the mammals, although the spiders are willing to play both sides, and the cockroaches are considered stupid by just about everyone.
** Luxa getting over her tendency to hate rats and look down on/dismiss other species is part of her CharacterDevelopment.

* BrokenPedestal: Gregor loses what little respect he had left for Bartholomew of Sandwich after learning he [[spoiler:posioned the Diggers' water supply to steal their land]]. At the end of the book he [[spoiler:[[WreckedWeapon breaks Sandwich's sword]] to symbolically "kill the Warrior"]].

** Nerissa has her moments, especially [[spoiler: as Queen of the Underland temporarily]]

** "Two Over, two Under, of royal descent, two Crawlers, two Fliers, two Spinners ascent. One Gnawer beside, one lost up ahead, and eight will be left when we count up the dead" from the Prophecy Of Grey in ''Gregor the Overlander''.
** "Die the Baby, die his heart, die his most important part" from the Prophecy Of Bane in ''Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane''.

* TentacledTerror: Besides the {{sea serpent}}s, the Waterway also has giant squid that attack ships.

** On a smaller scale, the TrueCompanions have a very confused, not-quite-stunned reaction to the death of Tick in ''Gregor the Overlander''.

** All spiders have names ending in "x".

** Gregor gives one of these to the entire Underland at the end of ''Code of Claw'', as Luxa was about to banish the rats to the most inhospitable part of the Underland as punishment for the war. Ripred, the new leader, objects to this, and everyone is ready to go to war again, ''right then and there'', over it. Gregor calls out Luxa for how ungrateful she was for Ripred's help, calls out Ripred for immediately resorting to violence again, and says it all needs to stop. Luxa stops it in the only way she can: bonding with Ripred.

* NotSoDifferent: In ''Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods'', Gregor meets Lapblood, who he at first antagonizes, but later realizes is just trying to protect her pups. He notes that they're two sides of the same coin: she's a mother trying to save her children, while he's a child trying to save his mother.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Underland has GiantSpiders, cockroaches, ants, scorpions, fireflies, and probably other species we don't see.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[spoiler:Solovet ordered the creation of the plague in the third book.]] In ''Gregor and the Code of Claw'', we learn that all the other races call humans "killers", and not without reason: one of their first acts in the Underland was poisoning the water supply of the Diggers to take their land.

* BondCreatures: The Underlander humans and the bats are the only species with this. [[spoiler:Until ''Gregor and the Code of Claw'']].

* ChildProdigy: Lizzie, who helps [[spoiler:crack secret codes]] at ''eight'', and Jedidiah, who is the same age and can tell you how all kinds of things work.

** Even though the crawlers/cockroaches, gnawers/rats, spinners/spiders, fliers/bats, etc. that coexist with humans in the Underland are not human, they are sentient and treated as full characters on the same level as humans. Prejudices held among human characters towards these species are even treated as equal to any intrahuman bigotry.

* GoodWithNumbers: The mice, judging by their ThemeNaming, and [[ChekhovsGunman Lizzie]] in ''Gregor and the Claw of Code''.

* InelegantBlubbering: [[spoiler:Luxa shortly breaks down into this towards the end of ''The Marks of Secret'' after witnessing a big pack of mice -- several of her friends included -- perish due to toxic gas emitted by a volcano.]]

** A [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace place version]]: The Arch of Tantalus.

* RodentsOfUnusualSize: The series has these as main characters--not to mention the giant insect and bats...

* ShoutOut: Gregor's name is probably a Shout-Out to [[Literature/TheMetamorphosis Franz Kafka]]

** All of the bats have names taken from Greek mythology.
** Luxa's mother is named Judith, Judith's twin is named Hamnet, and their sister is named Susannah. William Shakespeare had a daughter named Susannah and twins named Judith and Hamnet.

** The rats demonstrate this quality in their first appearance by accurately calculating what Gragor and Boots ate for dinner hours earlier, right down to the tiny bowl of greens. They also are shown to be able to estimate human emotions and navigate and fight in complete darkness.

* SadisticChoice: ''Gregor and the Code of Claw'' has one when they find out that Solovet's route home to Regalia will cause her to fly into a rat ambush. To let her go would mean her death, to keep her from going would cause the rats to realize that the humans have cracked their code and make the humans give up their greatest advantage.

** Hamnet deserves a tranquil DisappointedInYou to Luxa, when [[spoiler: she nearly lets Gregor, Ripred and Lapblood drown in quicksand]] all because she sees Gregor in company with rats and leaps to conclusions.

* EvilAlbino: The Bane. This could also apply to some of the humans in the series, but every single Underland human is a violet-eyed albino and a majority of them aren't that despicable.

* EvilAlbino: The Bane. This could also apply to some of the humans in the series, but every single Underland human is a [[PurpleEyes violet-eyed]] albino and a majority of them aren't that despicable.

* PurpleEyes: A trait of any and every Underland human, as an albino and all that.

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Ripred [[spoiler:and eventually Gregor]] spin during fights. It is implied that all [[spoiler:ragers]] can.

* AnyoneCanDie: Even characters that have been part of the story for multiple books, like Solovet.