History YMMV / TheRiftwarCycle

** ''The Riftwar Saga'': [[TheHeavy Murmandamus]] is the Big Bad of ''Silverthorn'' and ''A Darkness at Sethanon''. A Pantathian [[SnakePeople serpent-priest]] who plans to bring the [[SealedEvilInACan long-banished]] [[AbusivePrecursors Valheru]] back into the world, Murmandamus disguises himself as the reincarnation of the moredhel's (dark elves) greatest leader, uniting the mountain, forest, and hill clans in a campaign of genocide against their human and eledhel enemies. He sends assassins after the Prince of Krondor, which gets numerous people caught in the crossfire. He steals the souls of his human servants in a ritual that involves [[HumanSacrifice sacrificing]] a [[WouldHurtAChild nine-year-old girl]]. He creates the Black Slayers, soulless moredhel, bound in service to him forevermore. He murders a seer who gave him the information he wanted, and massacres hundreds of slaves when he realizes that his campaign isn't going to start when he wants it to. In ''A Darkness at Sethanon'', he destroys the cities of Armengar and Sethanon, lines his headquarters at Sar-Sargoth with a thousand [[DecapitationPresentation human heads on pikes]], [[BadBoss kills hundreds of his own men in a fit of rage]], tramples his right-hand serpent-priest, Cathos, to death, consumes the souls of all those who have died aiding him, and in the end, tries to activate the Lifestone, an ArtifactOfDoom that will [[OmnicidalManiac slay all life]] on Midkemia from bacteria to humanity, in order to loose the Valheru. Believing that he will attain demigodhood when the Valheru return, Murmandamus dies laughing about how "[[CardCarryingVillain I am a thing of death, Lord of the West. I am ever the servant of Darkness]]."

* IdiotPlot: A last-minute plan change in ''Shadow of a Dark Queen'' arises when Roo remarks that the Emerald Queen will need to build a new armada before she can send an army halfway around the world, and Calis and company decide to try destroying Novindus' biggest shipyard to put her back several years. Until Roo spoke up, ''nobody'' thought to ask where she would get ships of the size and number she would need to carry out her inevitable invasion.
** To be fair, everyone was so focused on not dying that they didn't have much time until then to stop and think.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Avoided, as ''Betrayal at Krondor'' received critical acclaim and Feist liked it enough to novelize it personally. He even transported some of the game characters into his later books.
* TheScrappy: Prince Patrick. He's an arrogant spoilt brat who rules over the Western Realm and is clearly unfit for the position to the point that no one really seems to like working for him and Pug can barely tolerate him.

* UnfortunateImplications: In ''The Kings Buccaneer'', it is revealed that Pug and several other priests attempted to use healing magic to fix the club foot of Nicholas conDoin while he was a child but it never worked. Pug theorizes this was because Nicholas' status as "the deformed child" gave him an excuse for his failures in life and made him subconsciously resist the healing magic as being cured would rob him of his excuse. While this was meant to establish a dramatic speech about how fear can be a seductive thing that drives men to seek comfort and prevent them from striving to be better, it still sounds somewhat ableist out of context to present a protagonist who cannot be cured of his disability until he wants to be normal bad enough.

* MarySueTopia: The eledhel in Elvandar. They are all morally upstanding, all beautiful, all skilled. Their very home is a work of art, the mere sight of it sure to drive the most grizzled veteran to tears. They harbor no resentment for anyone, regardless of reason. Any elves who don't live as they do are considered unfortunate deviations from the ideal (as the term "The Returning" implies), but are generally happy to abandon their whole life's worth of teachings and values (and, in the case of the moredhel, family and friends too) and go live with the eledhel as soon as they realise how awesome they are. The glamredhel literally skip off to Elvandar as soon as they learn it exists. And of course, moredhel can go "good" and become eledhel, but no eledhel ever goes bad. Ever.

** There is ONE character in all the books who's been to Elvandar and has anything negative to say about it: Calis, Tomas and Aglaranna's son. He considers its static, unchanging ways to be "boring" and vastly prefers human company.

* MagnificentBastard: Duke James/Jimmy The Hand, in either sense of the word.

** ''The Riftwar Legacy'': [[PsychoForHire Bear]], the BigBad of ''Krondor: Tear of the Gods'', is a vicious mercenary pirate initially employed as [[TheHeavy muscle]] by the sorcerer Leso Varen, aka Sidi, to gain the Tear of the Gods, quickly becoming something far more uncontrollable and ambitious. With the power of a dark amulet making him impervious to all forms of harm, Bear forces a pirate crew led by Knute to join him under the threat of death--making good on his threats by tortuously murdering two men for slights--and massacres the Ishapian ship carrying the Tear. Once he loses the Tear and is further betrayed by Knute, Bear resurfaces and comes down on Krondor in a vicious fury. Bear slaughters his way into a tavern, [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil pleasuring himself]] with Sir William's fiancée before murdering her, kills his way into the city jail and vengefully cuts Knute apart, and indiscriminately murders his way out of Krondor and through the sewers, lining dozens of bodies behind him and setting a populated orphanage on fire purely as a diversion. Once he's finally tracked down by William and a score of Krondorian soldiers, Bear gleefully [[BadBoss tosses his own men to die]] in his stead even despite his own invulnerability before single-handedly ripping apart the Krondorian guard and attempting to slay all those who stand before him and the Tear, proclaiming he'll be nothing more than a god. A barbarian too much even for the sinister Leso Varen, Bear is little more than animalistic wrath and savage fury on legs.

** Mara, in The Empire Trilogy. To elaborate, the first book begins with her learning the deaths of her father and her brother, before being forced to become the ruling lady of a weakened House while one of the most powerful noble families in the Empire wants her dead. During the Trilogy, she has to struggle to keep herself and the House Acoma alive, while the attempts of her enemies hurt and kill the ones she loves. In the first book, she starts off with no resource, is nearly murdered before she could even mourn her father and brother, has to marry an abusive husband [[spoiler:and to plan his death after he gave her a son]] (which deeply scars her) and loses [[spoiler:Papewaio]] (one of her ParentalSubstitute). In the second book, her [[spoiler:surrogate mother Nacoya dies to protect her son against an assassin]] and she has to send [[spoiler:her lover Kevin back in his world]]. In the third book, she has to challenge the Great Ones themselves. Her [[spoiler:first son Ayaki]] dies in the first chapter because of an assassin and she loses [[spoiler:her second baby]] because of a poisoning attempt. She also becomes sterile after her third birth and, because of that, ultimately chooses in the end of the book to [[spoiler:divorce with her loving second husband Hokanu in order to let him have a male heir for his own noble House]]. Then, in the end, the Great Ones' wrath causes the deaths of some of her closest servants and friends (including her [[spoiler:last remaining ParentalSubstitute Keyoke]]). During all this time, after each breakdown, she forces herself to keep the impassive face expected from a Tsurani woman. God! Talk about [[EarnYourHappyEnding earning your happy ending]]...

* IronWoobie: Mara, in The Empire Trilogy. To elaborate, the first book begins with her learning the deaths of her father and her brother, before being forced to become the ruling lady of a weakened House while one of the most powerful noble families in the Empire wants her dead. During the Trilogy, she has to struggle to keep herself and the House Acoma alive, while the attempts of her enemies hurt and kill the ones she loves. In the first book, she starts off with no resource, is nearly murdered before she could even mourn her father and brother, has to marry an abusive husband [[spoiler:and to plan his death after he gave her a son]] (which deeply scars her) and loses [[spoiler:Papewaio]] (one of her ParentalSubstitute). In the second book, her [[spoiler:surrogate mother Nacoya dies to protect her son against an assassin]] and she has to send [[spoiler:her lover Kevin back in his world]]. In the third book, she has to challenge the Great Ones themselves. Her [[spoiler:first son Ayaki]] dies in the first chapter because of an assassin and she loses [[spoiler:her second baby]] because of a poisoning attempt. She also becomes sterile after her third birth and, because of that, ultimately chooses in the end of the book to [[spoiler:divorce with her loving second husband Hokanu in order to let him have a male heir for his own noble House]]. Then, in the end, the Great Ones' wrath causes the deaths of some of her closest servants and friends (including her [[spoiler:last remaining ParentalSubstitute Keyoke]]). During all this time, after each breakdown, she forces herself to keep the impassive face expected from a Tsurani woman. God! Talk about [[EarnYourHappyEnding earning your happy ending]]...

** [=James Jamison/Jimmy the Hand=] is an IronWoobie. He grew up on the streets after watching a drunken sailor kill his mother and once he becomes Arutha's squire, he goes through alot of physical abuse throughout his life and sees alot of death and horrible things and nearly dies a few times. Not once does he complain beyond snarky comments here and there. Luckily his determination pays off as he meets Gamina and they have a long and happy life together until their deaths.