History Literature / Timeline

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade / HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In-universe, English leader Lord Oliver is regarded by modern historians as "almost a saint," while French leader Arnaut is remembered as TheCaligula. In truth the two's personalities are somewhat reversed: Oliver is a massive {{Jerkass}} and Arnaut, while being indeed as ugly as history remembers him and capable of great cruelty, is a far more ReasonableAuthorityFigure.

* HistoricakHeroUpgrade / HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In-universe, English leader Lord Oliver is regarded by modern historians as "almost a saint," while French leader Arnaut is remembered as TheCaligula. In truth the two's personalities are somewhat reversed: Oliver is a massive {{Jerkass}} and Arnaut, while being indeed as ugly as history remembers him and capable of great cruelty, is a far more ReasonableAuthorityFigure.

* DungAges: Subverted and mocked. The protagonist walks around, expecting horribly disgusting conditions, but is surprised to learn everyone is reasonably well kept.

* ParrotExposition: While [[{{Jerkass}} Robert Doniger]] is having his one-on-one rants with ITC's vice president Diane Kramer, Diane often repeats small snippets of Doniger's speech back to him. Diane does this because she knows Doniger is really only talking to himself, and Doniger hearing his own words helps him to sort out his thoughts while he and his company are facing problems.

* GrandfatherParadox: When one of the travelers asks this exact question, Doninger explains that one person couldn't make the Mets beat the Yankees: i.e. you can't change the course of history that much. But when the questioner presses the point, we get a HandWave.

* UniversalTranslator: How the travelers can understand Old English and French. It doesn't translate ''for'' them, though - and they quickly begin picking up words by themselves.

** Justified: the reason the protagonists are sent to the past is that they are experts on exactly that time period.

A film adaptation was released in 2003, starring Paul Walker, Creator/GerardButler, Frances O'Connor, Creator/BillyConnolly and David Thewlis among others. The resulting movie was a critical and box office failure.

* TheBigDamnKiss: In the film, Andre Marek and Lady Claire, when Marek [[spoiler:[[IChooseToStay chooses to stay in the past]]]] at the Battle of Laroque.

* BlackWidow: Lady Claire, in the novel. This aspect is entirely stripped out in the film; some fans even say that's to the film's credit.

** BloodKnight.
* BlackWidow: Lady Claire

* CloningBlues: How "time travel" works is by disintegrating a person in one universe and essentially making the target universe replicate that body down to the subatomic level - you're no longer you, the person in the "past" isn't you, and the person who come back isn't you, technically. Any error in the system will cause trauma to the body or head, which [[spoiler:is why Robert de Kere is such a murderer.]]

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Averted, the first character to be killed is female [[spoiler: and also an [[BlackDudeDiesFirst ethnic minority]]...]]

* SleepLearning: How ITC prepares its travelers to speak the proper dialects and such.
** It doesn't work too well. Apart from picking up a few words and phrases while they're there, only André and the Professor can really communicate properly, since they already knew the basics. Chris manages to scrape by with a bit of Latin.

* UnreliableExpositor: The explanation for how time travel works (it's an alternate universe functionally identical to that time, not earlier in the same timeline) turns out to be simply wrong.

** Justified in that the expositors in question, when pressed on several issues, admit that they ''don't really understand'' how the technology works...just that it does.

* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler: Lord Oliver forces François to translate "I am a spy" from French into English to prove that he is an interpreter and not a spy. If he refuses or translates it wrongly, he'll be declared a spy and executed. If he complies... it'll be considered a confession and he will be executed.]]

A film adaptation was released in 2003, starring Paul Walker, Creator/GerardButler, Frances O'Connor, BillyConnolly and David Thewlis among others. The resulting movie was a critical and box office failure.

* WouldHurtAChild: It's explained that knights and soldiers kill ''everyone'' when a castle falls - even if it means tearing babies out of

* ForTheEvulz: Robert de Kere.

A film adaptation was released in 2003, starring Paul Walker, GerardButler, Frances O'Connor, BillyConnolly and David Thewlis among others. The resulting movie was a critical and box office failure.

A film adaptation was released in 2003, starring PaulWalker, GerardButler, Frances O'Connor, BillyConnolly and DavidThewlis among others. The resulting movie was a critical and box office failure.

** LadyClaire also cross-dresses around the countryside.

* EvilGenius: Doniger is this, in a BillGates vein.

* CutLexLuthorACheck / ReedRichardsIsUseless: A lot of the technologies that had to be developed to make they system work, like quantum computers that ran millions of calculations in parallel and down-to-the-atom body scanners, would have probably made more money than the actual plan ever could if they had just sold those.

* TooDumbToLive: Taking François back with them. Did no-one understand that taking a ''Frenchman'' back in time to a period where the English and French were at ''war'' would be an incredibly bad idea? [[spoiler:Sure enough, shortly after arriving, he is forced to translate the phrase "''Je suis un espion''" into English ("''I am a Spy''") and gets himself run through.]]

!Tropes within the novel include:

* LawOfConservationOfDetail: Heavily averted, as several pages are devoted to explaining the concepts of quantum mechanics and parallel universes, even though they really are not central to the plot.

* CutLexLuthorACheck / ReedRichardsIsUseless: A lot of the technologies that had to be developed to make they system work, like quantum computers that ran millions in parallel and down-to-the-atom body scanners, would have probably made more money than the actual plan ever could if they had just sold those.

* ThrownOutTheAirlock: Adapted, effectively, on [[spoiler:Doniger]]. In the book, he is tossed into the time machine and sent back a year after the rest, when the Black Death arrives in Europe.

* TooDumbToLive: Taking François back with them. Did no-one understand that of taking a ''Frenchman'' back in time to a period where the English and French were at ''war'' would be an incredibly bad idea? [[spoiler:Sure enough, shortly after arriving, he is forced to translate the phrase "''Je suis un espion''" into English ("''I am a Spy''") and gets himself run through.]]