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1[[quoteright:309:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jewel_web.png]]
2A "dark" fantasy [[strike:trilogy]] series by Creator/AnneBishop, involving high amounts of rape, torture, and other abuse. If you're sensitive to these subjects, steer clear. Largely notable for trying to invert a number of standard fantasy setting tropes - power is matriarchal, black is the most powerful color, the demons are the good(ish) guys, and so on.
3
4The individual books are:
5
6Original Trilogy:
7* ''Daughter of the Blood'' (1998)
8* ''Heir to the Shadows'' (1999)
9* ''Queen of the Darkness'' (2000)
10
11Additional Works:
12* ''The Invisible Ring'' (2000)
13* ''Dreams Made Flesh'' (2005) (two short stories and two novellas)
14* ''Tangled Webs'' (2008)
15* ''The Shadow Queen'' (2009)
16* ''Shalador's Lady'' (2010)
17* ''Twilight's Dawn'' (2011) (four novellas)
18* ''The Queen's Bargain'' (2020)
19* ''The Queen's Weapons'' (2021)
20* ''The Queen's Price'' (2023)
21
22----
23!!This series provides examples of:
24%%* Action Girl:
25%%** Surreal, who is also a bit of a Knife Nut.
26%%** Jaenelle in the later books.
27%%** Titian.
28* AerithAndBob: Names range from blatant DarknessVonGothickname (Daemon, Lucivar, Hekatah) to the relatively mundane (Alexandra, Marian, Cassidy).
29* AlphaBitch: Kermilla, in ''Shalador's Lady''.
30* AmbiguouslyBrown: All three of the long-lived races are stated to have "golden brown" or "brown" skin, along with gold eyes and straight black hair. Because the major racial tensions in most of the series are along different lines, it's hard to gauge their race against that of POC in real life.
31* ApocalypseHow: In ''Dreams Made Flesh'' it is revealed that in his living days Saetan [[spoiler:snapped and executed a regional/metaphysical annihilation on an entire island city-state, leaving memories but not a single scrap of evidence that it existed]]. This scared everyone, including him, so much that it is used to justify both his insistence on following the laws and the fact that his name is used to scare children fifty thousand years later.
32* ArcWords:
33** "Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood." Explained to the reader, not to the victims of said pretty poison.
34** "Everything has a price." Typically said whenever an action or event occurs that deeply affects the plot or the relationships between the characters.
35** "Freely Given, Freely Taken". Often used with the Demons (Who need to drink blood to keep their strength up) but occasionally with other gifts to imply a complete lack of obligation on either side.
36* AristocratsAreEvil: Played straight for pretty much every aristocratic character who isn't part of the [=SaDiablo=] Family or a friend of Jaenelle.
37* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Particularly in Kaeleer and Hell.
38* BadassAdorable: Wee!Jaenelle. On the surface she's a shy, sweet girl with mega helpings of power. Then Briarwood "teaches her to hate" and she almost kills a stranger for ''approaching'' her handicapped Papa and develops a habit of splattering enemies all over the walls.
39* BadassFamily: The [=SaDiablos=]. And they're in the habit of more or less adopting and teaching the new members to be badass, like Lucivar teaching all the females to use Eyrien weapons in book three.
40* BadassInANiceSuit:
41** Daemon.
42** Saetan.
43* BastardBastard: Philip Alexander zigzags this trope; he has his decent moments and is a good person at heart, but also has several moral failings, especially where Jaenelle is concerned.
44* BerserkButton:
45** When Saetan finds out that it was Greer who [[spoiler:raped Jaenelle]], he almost destroys/kills everything in sight (and farther).
46** When they accuse Saetan of [[spoiler:sexually assaulting her]] Jaenelle rips apart a room--only a room merely because Saetan is trying his best to contain her--trying to tear apart Council Members. Jaenelle is a sweet girl, but definitively cracked; after her childhood, it takes her a long time to bury [[BerserkButton buttons]] easily triggered by even the hint of threat to anyone she cares about or anything that evokes memories of her [[spoiler:childhood sexual abuse]]. Given that she's [[PersonOfMassDestruction way past demigod]] on levels of power, her instability could get quite dangerous.
47** A short story in ''Dreams made Flesh'' explains why Saetan never made more of an effort to get Daemon and Lucivar returned after they were taken as children. [[spoiler:It's because when he lost a child earlier in life, he let himself get so angry at the presumed killers that he wiped out an entire ''country''. Anything and everything that could possibly lay a claim to being a part of that culture was eradicated. The people, the artifacts, the documents, the ''island.'' The only sign that it ever existed is others' memory of it.]]
48** Do ''not'' try to harm anyone or anything Jaenelle Angelline cares for, or you ''will'' regret it.
49*** Same goes for Saetan, Daemon, Lucivar and Surreal
50* BewareTheNiceOnes: Jaenelle seems like a nice, polite, adventurous girl...[[UnstoppableRage until you try to hurt the people she cares about]].
51* BigBrotherInstinct:
52** Lucivar can only be considered the younger brother by maybe a few months tops. But Daemon will ''end you'' if you even ''think'' about hurting him.
53** Lucivar considers himself to be this to Jaenelle pretty much from the moment they meet. By extension, he also serves in this role to most of the First Circle, the way Saetan is an honorary uncle.
54** Rainier in ''Tangled Webs'' seems to have this for Surreal.
55** Jaenelle, despite being the younger sister, shows this for Wilhelmina, who even acknowledges this in the third book.
56* BigDamnHeroes:
57** [[HotBlooded Lucivar]] attempts this at the smallest provocation, much to the annoyance of the women he serves.
58** Jaenelle hands out rings to her nearest and dearest whose purpose is to call in the cavalry.
59* BlackAndGreyMorality: The antagonists are unmitigated evil. The protagonists rack up remarkable body counts, indulge in some interesting torture against enemies, and the heroine commits [[spoiler:partial genocide]] to save the world.
60** Sometimes, the morality of the Black Jewels 'verse verges on {{Blue and Orange Morality}}. The ruthless, violent actions of the protagonists are accepted as justified, if not always right, within the moral framework of the story. However, the main characters, even though most of them are described as having an appearance similar to normal human beings, are not human. They have very different instincts, whether due to biology, their magic, or both, and this means that their morals sometimes differ from normal, real life people. However, [[DownplayedTrope they still do share some morals with the real world.]] For example, while murder is sometimes considered justified - to the point it is mentioned several times there is no law against murder and the most you have to fear from killing someone is another person doing the same to you - rape is both a {{berserk button}} and [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil a special kind of evil]] to most of the protagonists.
61* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: “Oooooh, that’s a harsh word. But I won’t quibble about it.”
62* BlessedWithSuck: Jaenelle can do things no member of the Blood had ever dreamed of... and it makes her life hell. It alienates her entire family, causes her to be sent to an asylum periodically where she's [[spoiler:sexually assaulted and tortured]], her entire family as a child believes she's insane and more than halfway convince her of it, and it renders her completely incapable of a variety of basic tasks.
63%%* BreakTheCutie:
64%%** Jaenelle.
65%%** Della.
66%%%%** Wilhelmina.
67%%** Surreal.
68%%%%** Every girl who went to Briarwood.
69%%** Lucivar.
70%%** Daemon.
71* BroughtDownToNormal:
72** Jaenelle's [[spoiler:attack against the BigBad leaves the Blood of Terreille]] either destroyed, untouched, or reduced to their most basic abilities. It also [[spoiler:reduces her to the normal levels of power within the blood; she's the one that makes this happen. Recently they revealed that her power could potentially be restored by breaking the spell she put in place to restrict it, but since they had to rebuild her body it's doubtful she would survive being its vessel again.]]
73** On a smaller scale, other releases of dark power do this to various people, reducing them from their adult strength to their birthright powers.
74* {{Calvinball}}: The game [[CapitalLettersAreMagic Cradle]]. All we know about it is that it is played with a game board, colored stones, bone discs, a deck of cards, and sadistic ingenuity. We also know it has 27 variations, all but the last of which are totally incomprehensible to males; the last variation is totally incomprehensible to females and was devised (of course) by Daemon.
75* CapitalLettersAreMagic: The series is chock full of it. The Blood, the Craft, the Jewels, the Winds, and so on and so forth.
76* CloudCuckooLander: Tersa, due to being broken, has a....''unique'' way of seeing the world that most people take a while to understand.
77* ConstructedWorld: Terreille (the Realm of Light), Kaeleer (the Shadow Realm), and Hell (the Dark Realm) seem to bear no relation to our world, and the human races may not be human as we understand it.
78* CoolHouse: The Hall and its subsidiary estates. Which include but are not limited to: The Hall in Kaeleer, The Hall in Hell, the other three estates in Dhemlan, Jaenelle's cottage, Jaenelle's summer home in Scelt, the family's townhouse in Amdarh, and others mentioned only in passing. In some of the prequels this may also include the Hall in Tereille kinda sorta.
79* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers featuring Jaenelle usually show her wearing gowns or dresses, which is out of character as she [[RealWomenDontWearDresses dislikes them]].
80* CrapsackWorld: Tereille.
81* CulturedBadass:
82** Saetan.
83** Daemon.
84* CurbStompBattle: Albeit not physical fights. It's just that the villains are pretty ineffectual at achieving anything but traumatizing the protagonists. Their various evil plots tend to get introduced in one chapter and foiled within the next 20 pages...
85* DarkIsNotEvil: Darkness is associated with positive thing like comfort, warmth, and rich loam. It is also the color of the most powerful jewels in the series.
86* DespairEventHorizon: Several characters get forcibly thrown across it.
87* DirtyBusiness:
88** Saetan executes people and feels terribly about it, not least because their evil stench gets in his clothes and hair.
89** Daemon, while playing the Sadist one last time in a gambit to rescue his father and brother, admits that even he can't keep his lunch down.
90* DiscardAndDraw: [[spoiler:Happens to Jaenelle]] at the end of the trilogy.
91* DiscussedTrope: ''Tangled Webs'' has a couple of examples, mainly because the villain is a hack author. Two characters who had been making fun of the author's cliché-ridden writing are trapped in a house that's trying to kill them while the author watches from inside the walls and records it all as fodder for his next book. At one point, the characters comment that in a horror story, this is exactly when one of them would be stupid enough to go into the cellar. As they're saying this, the cellar door slams shut of its own accord -- if they had gone down the stairs, they would have been trapped. Later in the book, the (gay) male main character remarks to the female main character that this is the point in the story where they're supposed to have sex. They look at each other for a moment, and then the woman says, "So what do you want to do in the five minutes that would have taken?"
92* DisproportionateRetribution: In ''Twilight's Dawn'', Lucivar reveals that if he were to die in battle or be killed, it would trigger a spell of Saetan's that would ''wipe out the entire Eyrien race'', save for Lucivar's own wife and descendants. Originally, the spell would activate if he died ''at all'' but Jaenelle modified it so that if he died peacefully, her spell would cancel out Saetan's, saving the Eyrien race.
93* DragonInChief: Dorothea, despite being High Priestess of Hayll and the known root of Terreille's corruption, is subservient to Hekatah and her rise to power was part of Hekatah's own plans of controlling the three Realms. Dorothea, however, doesn't see it that way and is waiting for her chance to be rid of Hekatah forever.
94* DyingDeclarationOfLove: [[spoiler: Luthvian]] makes a dying declaration of maternal love to [[spoiler: Lucivar]].
95* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Averted for the main villains of the original trilogy. Dorothea had no qualms about raping her own son and then abandoning him when he was no longer useful. Hekatah married Saetan only for his power and never loved him or her sons; in fact, she was willing to allow their third son to be killed just to get back at Saetan and outright says at one point that children are only good for securing alliances and basically used her sons to keep Saetan under her thrall.
96* EvenEvilHasStandards: Dorothea, despite being, by her own admission, an incredibly cruel and vicious person, is shaken by [[spoiler: the way Daemon seemingly murders Marian and Daemonar]].
97* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Daemon.
98* EveryoneIsRelated: Not ''quite'' everyone, but a ridiculous proportion of the characters in the original trilogy are connected to the [=SaDiablo=] family through blood, marriage, or adoption.
99* EyeColorChange: Jaenelle Angelline's eyes turn from "summer-sky" blue to "sapphire" when she's in Witch mode.
100* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Brutally faked by Daemon]] at the end of ''Queen of the Darkness''.
101* FamedInStory:
102** The [[ShroudedInMyth High Lord of Hell]] (aka Saetan)
103** The Demon Prince (aka Andulvar).
104** Daemon "[[RedBaron The Sadist]]" Sadi.
105** Lucivar Yaslana.
106** Jaenelle herself, as of ''Queen of the Darkness''.
107* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: [[spoiler: Philip Alexander is really Jaenelle and Wilhelmina's father, but their legal father is Robert Benedict, who is Philip's older brother]]
108* FanDisservice: Most of the sex scenes are ugly rapes.
109* FantasyGunControl: There are no weapons more advanced than crossbows. This is because every member of the society can shield, making them everything proof, not to mention the ability to kill people with a thought.
110* FateWorseThanDeath: Jaenelle casts a spell that causes the "uncles" who visited Briarwood to suffer [[spoiler:[[LaserGuidedKarma all the rapes and tortures they inflicted on the little girls]]]] there--and makes sure it doesn't kill them; death would be too easy.
111* FreudianExcuse: Kartane [=SaDiablo=] is an evil misogynist and rapist/pedophile because he was [[{{Squick}} raped by his mother]]. Among other, mostly female-related reasons. In a flashback, it's shown that he wasn't actually that bad as a kid. He's a total bastard later, though. And he still gets an extremely KarmicDeath.
112* FriendToAllLivingThings: Since Jaenelle is the incarnation of both human and Kindred dreams and is therefore part Kindred herself, she is the catalyst to the reconciliation of the humans and Kindred races.
113* FryingPanOfDoom: Marian was trained to use one as a weapon by Lucivar, who was not happy until she could ''throw'' one accurately and ''break bones''.
114* GargleBlaster: Gravediggers. The Blood have very high metabolisms, especially when their power is deep; this makes it difficult for some characters to get drunk without making use of a Gargle Blaster concoction. Or two. Or seven. On the other hand, if a more mid-powered Blood gets any in them, HilarityEnsues.
115* GenderBlenderName: Jaenelle's mother, Leland, whose name is usually a male one. Ladvarian is this by Eyrien standrads, since Eyrien women's names always end in -ian
116* GenreSavvy: Surreal and Rainier in ''Tangled Webs''. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since the [[HauntedHouse spooky house]] they're trapped in was explicitly made in-universe after all the classics elements of horror stories, and the characters are well-read.
117* GiftShake: In "Winsol Gifts", Saetan anticipates this and actually has prepared some obvious, attractive presents that rattle nicely, filled with junk, to save the more delicate gifts.
118* GoldDigger: Hekatah, during her marriage to Saetan.
119* GoodIsNotSoft: One of the major themes of the series, taken to {{Anvilicious}} level.
120* GullibleLemmings: Dorothea tries to pass off a lifetime of unrestrained evil as her having been the victim of manipulation by the High Lord of Hell... and people are willing to believe it.
121* HadToBeSharp: Daemon and Lucivar's backstories.
122* HalfBreedDescrimination: Lucivar, who is half-Hayllian, half-Eyrien, which led to him being hated as a "half-breed bastard" by his fellow Eyriens at training camp.
123* {{Hammerspace}}: The Blood can explicitly 'vanish' and 'call in' items from a private pocket dimension. The amount one can carry seems to depend on the character's power level -- the black-jeweled Saetan doesn't have any trouble 'vanishing' an entire houseload of furniture and carpets, while less powerful characters can have trouble with a few large or heavy items.
124* HauntedHouse: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] as the setting of ''Tangled Webs'': the book's villain specifically created one to trap the [=SaDiablo=] family in.
125* HeroicBastard: Daemon, Lucivar and Surreal
126** [[spoiler: Jaenelle and Wilhelmina]] are both this, technically, since their uncle is their real father, but this is not public knowledge.
127* HeroicBSOD: Falling into the Twisted Kingdom is a magical form of this, but characters have the normal type as well. Tersa, herself a permanent denizen of the Twisted Kingdom, disappears for weeks at a time. [[spoiler:Daemon's]] BSOD lasts for eight years. Both characters have to be corralled for their own protection, but have a knack for slipping away.
128* HeroicRROD: Jaenelle, when trapped in the landen village with Lucivar, the villagers and insufficient supplies. Her power begins to consume her body as it is used. Then one of her [[BerserkButton friends dies...]] After she [[spoiler:kills the attacking jhinka]], she can't even walk under her own power.
129* HeroicSacrifice: Pretty much every character at least tries to. [[spoiler:All of the demon-dead]] do this at the end to assist Jaenelle's final release of dark power.
130* HeroicWillpower: What Daemon and Lucivar use to fight the Rings of Obedience.
131* HotBlooded: The Blood can politely be described as emotionally intense people, and this tendency seems to be most marked in the most powerful members. In-universe, Protocol exists as a means to keep a society full of emotionally volatile high-powered magic users from irritating each other into UnstoppableRage on a regular basis.
132* HumiliationConga: What happens to Theran, when he tries to convince the other Warlord Princes to make Kermilla the Queen of Dena Nehele.
133* HyperspaceArsenal: The more combat-oriented characters like Lucivar and the assassin Surreal explicitly use the Blood's {{Hammerspace}} ability to stash a supply of weapons, healing and food supplies, etc.... [[CrazyPrepared just in case]].
134* IHaveNoSon: Dorothea about Kartane in the third book, after he tries to barter information about her to the [=SaDiablo=] family in order to see a skilled healer about his mysterious illness.
135* INeedAFreakingDrink: Male characters are frequently driven to this by the antics of female characters. Female characters also--as evidenced by Marian after trying to teach Jaenelle (whose excessive power has odd effects on this particular mundane task) to boil eggs.
136* InLoveWithYourCarnage: Hekatah is reeeally happy with the Sadist.
137* KarmicDeath: Villain deaths tend to be very messy. (Given the amount of MoralEventHorizon crossing, this is also pretty necessary.) YourHeadASplode is used in the sense of "Splortch means No!" by Daemon and then later Jaenelle, who are both plagued by violations of their respective sexual boundaries.
138* KillMeNowOrForeverStayYourHand: Daemon and Lucivar in the third book.
139* LadyLand: Terreille is the bad kind, Kaeleer is a more enlightened kind.
140* LaserGuidedKarma: In ''Shalador's Lady'', both Theran and Kermilla. Theran gets the powerful and dazzling Queen he wanted, but [[spoiler:she's a Green-jeweled [[TalkingAnimal Sceltie Queen]] who happens to be Vae's aunt]], while the narcissistic Kermilla [[spoiler:is allowed to survive, but is trapped for over a year in the illusion of a decidedly ugly woman]].
141* TheLifestream: The Darkness is the [[DarkIsNotEvil benevolent]] source from which the Blood draw their powers, as well as where their souls go when they die and come from when they are born. It is occasionally appealed to similarly to a deity, but without any anthropomorphic representation. Interestingly, the series never addresses whether the non-Blood [[{{Muggle}} landen]] come from the Darkness, or somewhere else.
142* LighterAndSofter: The Cassidy books, in comparison to the main trilogy. The world has already been saved, so the stakes are a lot lower, all the soul-searing abuse and trauma took place in the past and off-screen, and the main villainess is a SpoiledBrat.
143* LimitedWardrobe: Daemon wears a black suit and white silk shirts for apparently most of his 1,700 year lifespan. {{Lampshaded}} by his valet, under duress, to Daemon's dismay.
144* LongBusTrip: Cassandra disappeared, only to be mentioned in the finale as [[spoiler:dying with the rest of the demon-dead]].
145* TheMagocracy: The Blood are powerful magic-users who effectively rule over the world, including the non-Blood (called landens). The Territory Queens, supported by their Courts (mostly male), control kingdom-sized areas, with the smaller areas (provinces, cities, villages, etc.) being controlled by less powerful Queens who answer to the Territory Queens. The quality of governance ranges from enlightened to vile corruption.
146* {{Matriarchy}}: The traditional society of the Blood is supposed to be the Enlightened version of this, where Queens rule and males serve, but there are enough rights given to men and nuances between the genders that they remain more or less equal. which it is in Kaeleer. In Terreille, thanks to Dorothea's corruption, it's become a Straw Matriarchy in some places, where females rule harshly and forcibly control all powerful males, who in turn terrorize weaker females or destroy the potential of those who could become strong later, and a Matriarchy in Name Only in other places, where the Queens are basically figureheads controlled by powerful males. Dena Nehele was the sole exception in Terreille but even that fell eventually.
147* MayflyDecemberRomance: Daemon and Jaenelle. Daemon was about 1700 years old when Jaenelle was born, and can expect to live as long again, while Jaenelle [[spoiler: dies in her nineties]].
148* MegaNeko: Kaelas, the Arcerian cat. Described as "[[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements eight hundred pounds]] of feline fury".
149* TheMentor: Hekatah was this to Dorothea
150** Saetan was this to Jaenelle and the entire First Circle.
151** Cassandra ''wanted'' to be this to Jaenelle, but she preferred Saetan
152** Andulvar and Prothvar were this to Lucivar in his childhood
153* MillsAndBoonProse: Parodied in ''Tangled Webs'', where Jaenelle is reading a bad romance novel and shows her husband a particularly purple passage. He responds, "Sweetheart, if my penis ever does that, you'll be the first to know. Not as my wife, but as a Healer."
154* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: This is pretty explicitly part of the worldbuilding. The culture is matriarchal, with males serving females as guardians and protectors; but females generally have more powerful (or at least more deadly) magic, and one character even says outright that the reason males serve is because "you're deadlier when you're angry" and at least if they go down first the males won't have to deal with them when their tempers are roused.
155* MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: In ''Dreams Made Flesh'', Daemon wants to impress Jaenelle by telling her how much she means to him in the old tongue. He plans to say this one phrase he has taught himself in a very intimate situation, but during a faked public argument, he utters it as it's the only one he knows that their listeners won't be able to understand. Lucky for him he did that then, as what he was really saying was: [[spoiler:"I eat cow brains."]]
156* NoBadassToHisValet: The relationship between the [=SaDiablo=] family and the Hall's servants is this. They prefer it this way.
157* NomDeMom: Jaenelle uses her mother's maiden name because Witch follows the matriarchal ways [[spoiler: and because her legal father is actually not her father]].
158* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted in that a female's moontime is a big deal. While witches don't lose their powers while menstrating, they can't use their powers without excruciating and debilitating pain. This leaves the females dangerously vulnerable to hostile males because males can detect the scent of moon's blood and know when a witch is unable to protect herself. So when a female is having her moontime, her male relatives become fiercely protective. There are extensive Protocol (social rules) for dealing with such situations, especially when Warlord Princes are involved because Warlord Princes, already extremely aggressive and protective, manage to became even '''''more''''' aggressive and protective at these times -- i.e., strangers and non-family members run a very serious risk of being killed for merely being ''in the same room'' as a female in her moontime.
159* NotAMorningPerson: Jaenelle Angelline is ''not'' a delightful person before her first cup of coffee.
160* ObviouslyEvil:
161** Dorothea.
162** Hekatah.
163** Kartane.
164** Greer.
165* OccultBlueEyes: Jaenelle, whose intense blue eyes change to a darker shade when she becomes Witch.
166* OneManArmy: Lucivar.
167* OurZombiesAreDifferent: The demon dead are a cross between this and OurVampiresAreDifferent; there's no biting involved, no healing, no super powers, they're just dead that reanimate when enough psychic power remains in the corpse, but they do drink blood, and sunlight drains them.
168* PantheraAwesome: The "kitties", Kaelas and Jaal.
169* PapaWolf: Saetan is fiercly protective of Jaenelle.
170* PersonOfMassDestruction:
171** Jaenelle. Initially she can't figure out how to lend her power to fighting the war because if unleashed she'd [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wipe out everything.]]
172** Saetan, Daemon, and to a lesser extent Lucivar, not only have extremely potent power, but also have seriously lethal tempers and protective male aggression up the wazoo hardwired into their psyches.
173*** Part of the reason Daemon and Lucivar are so infamous in Terreille is because they've both destroyed entire courts single-handedly, despite being bound by the Ring of Obedience.
174* PolitenessJudo: The easiest way to redirect any male, but especially an upset/angry one, is to ask them for help, as one [[{{Muggle}} landen]] girl proves. The setting's rules of protocol in general are designed to keep them all from killing each other as much as possible.
175* PortalNetwork: The Gates between the Realms, as well as the dark Winds. One of Jaenelle's rule-breaking abilities is to traverse the spaces between the ordinary Winds, jump back and forth between the Realms, and build a theoretically impossible bridge into Hell.
176* PresentPeeking: In the extended story "Winsol Gifts", adult offspring try to do this with their Winsol presents, as well as youngsters. Saetan anticipated this attempt and used magic to make it impossible for even his more powerful son to open his present early.
177* PrincessesRule: Averted in the case of females; all women of the ruling caste are called Queens. Gender-Inverted for males, who are either called Prince or Warlord Prince even if they rule a territory.
178* ProudWarriorRaceGuy:
179** Lucivar, as an [[ProudWarriorRace Eyrien]].
180** Andulvar, for the same reason.
181* RapeAsDrama: Just about every single scene featuring the villains (especially in the first book) involves either this or torture.
182* RapeLeadsToInsanity: Witches who are "broken", that is, raped before they can lose their virginity the normal way, gradually lose their sanity, as well as most of their power.
183* RealWomenDontWearDresses: Jaenelle and all her friends prefer comfortable clothing and pants and hate wearing dresses and therefore only do it when they absolutely must, much to Saetan's chagrin.
184** In fact, this is more or less a good marker on whether a female character in the series is good or evil; if she prefers sensible clothing to fancy clothing, she's probably good. If she adores being dressy or is fashion-obsessed, she's probably a villain.
185* RedBaron: Daemon is also known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Sadist"]].
186* TheSacredDarkness: The Darkness is the source of power, the CreatorDeity, and representative of the Blood's most positive values.
187* SchizoTech: The trilogy has cigarettes, cameras and bathrooms with running water, but no weapons more advanced than crossbows. This is because every member of the society can shield, making them everything proof, not to mention the ability to kill people with a thought.
188* SerialRapist: Kartane [=SaDiablo=]. Growing up in an evil matriarchal DecadentCourt gave him some major issues around women, power, and sexuality, and he reacts to this by preying on adolescent girls from lower social classes.
189* ShroudedInMyth:
190** The High Lord of Hell.
191** Cassandra.
192* SociopathicHero: Dear god, the entire main cast. For example, Saetan fantasizing about snapping the bones of a "slutty" teenage girl, an incredibly inappropriate response to a mild transgression. Or Daemon in general. The only reason none of the "heroes" are portrayed in a negative light is because the villains are worse. In any other series, Jaenelle and her cronies wouldn't be the heroes.
193** To be fair, Daemon's reactions are usually justified, considering the people on the other end of them are usually horribly corrupt if not outright evil. Saetan's reaction to Roxy was less about her being "slutty", so much as seeing in her the potential of become another Dorothea or Hekatah.
194* {{Sssssnaketalk}}: Draca and Lorn.
195* StepServant: Marian's situation before meeting the other main characters. She was the least favored daughter of her family and had to do all the housework.
196* SupernaturalGoldEyes: A trait of the long-lived races.
197* TakeOurWordForIt: We never do find out what Daemon does to Cornelia. Most likely, it's better if we don't know.
198* [[strike:[[TalkingAnimal Talking]]]] [[TalkingAnimal Telepathic Animals]]: The kindred.
199* TooDumbToLive: Vulchera, in ''The Shadow Queen'', for being foolish enough to try playing sexual power games with Daemon Sadi, a Black-jeweled Warlord Prince notoriously known for centuries as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Sadist"]].
200* TheStarScream: Dorothea is technically Hekatah's second-in-command and wants to be rid of her so she can rule without having to deal with her.
201* TookALevelInDumbass: Theran Grayhaven, epically in ''Shalador's Lady''. He's stubbornly obsessed with getting a glamorous Queen because that's what he believes his land (not to mention, what HE, the last Grayhaven) deserves, which leads Theran to trivialize all of the unglamorous Cassidy's hard work and accomplishments because she doesn't fit his image of a 'proper' Queen. Instead, Theran falls for the [[AlphaBitch vivaciously beautiful, but spoiled Kermilla]], and ends up constantly making excuses for or trying to rationalize away Kermilla's blatantly selfish and inconsiderate behavior as he tries to make her Queen of Dena Nehele. Partially justified by his reaction to Kermilla. All Warlord Princes have an instinct to "belong to" and submit to a particular Queen. Unfortunately, Theran is drawn to the selfish and vain Kermilla. According to his new Queen, "Theran is not a bad human. He is just male and foolish. And confused."
202* TookALevelInJerkass: Falonar. In ''Queen of the Darkness'', Falonar is depicted as a proud but loyal Eryien. But two years later, in the novella ''Shades of Honor'', Falanor is revealed as a nasty, scheming, power-hungry class-obsessed StrawMisogynist and [[FantasticRacism hardcore Eryien bigot]] who uses treachery and drugs in his attempts to manipulate and eliminate his much more powerful rival, Lucivar. This is all explained as Falonar hiding his true nature from everyone (including Witch, somehow) when he first came to Kaeleer.
203* TranquilFury: If someone's tangible psychic manifestation of power should happen to "go cold", you may as well not even bother to run.
204* TrapIsTheOnlyOption: Lucivar's [[IHaveYourWife wife and kid]] get captured. Lucivar deliberately walks into the trap. Saetan receives word that his son has been captured. Saetan deliberately walks into the trap. Surreal hears that these people have been captured and gets ready to deliberately walk into the trap, but is thankfully intercepted by Daemon, who makes ''plans'' before he [[OhCrap saunters]] into the trap.
205* TraumaCongaLine: Most of the protagonists have this inflicted on them. It sometimes takes the form of DeusAngstMachina wrought by the villains.
206* TrueCompanions:
207** Jaenelle's powerful but eclectic band of friends.
208** Saetan and Andulvar, with ''fifty thousand years'' of shared experience behind them.
209* UncannyValley: In-universe example. Jaenelle, being not quite human, disturbs some people when they see her as Witch. The darkness of her power also makes her relatives uneasy, even before one of them sees her true form. As a child, her eeriness is attributed to a disturbed mind, and her grandmother later thinks that she must go beyond that and into complete insanity.
210* UnstoppableRage: The anger of male Blood (and Jaenelle) is a tangible psychic manifestation of power. Some unleash it more readily than others. Other witches as well, but they rise to the killing edge less easily and are much more merciless when they do, so the males make sure to take care of it. Jaenelle just has a [[BerserkButton whooole lot of triggers]] so she shows what happens when a witch gets that pissed off.
211* UsedToBeASweetKid: Daemon and Kartane both until Dorothea got to them.
212* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend:
213** Jaenelle.
214** Also, to a lesser degree, Marian.
215* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Jaenelle's biological family completely disappears after the third book; we're not even told of what happened to them after [[spoiler: Jaenelle cleanses the Blood]]. Even Wilhelmina, the only member of the family who cares for Jaenelle and who settles in Kaeleer, never appears again.
216
217Wilhelmina gets a passing mention in one of the later books, having lived in Janenelle's cottage until moving out, presumably to her own house and her own life as she is mentioned to have her living costs covered by the SaDiablo family.
218* WhatMeasureIsANonhuman:
219** The Kindred.
220** Invoked by Lucivar in ''Heir to the Shadows'', in regards to his wings: "What am I, High Lord? By the Council's reckoning of who is human and who is not, What am I?"
221* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Jaenelle Angelline is neglected all through her childhood because her role as Witch, the Chosen One, means she's not entirely human and her family, unable to reconcile their fear/horror of her with her relatively innocuous outside, decide she's insane.
222* YouMeanXmas: Winsol (presumably meaning "winter solstice") is an obvious stand-in for Christmas, complete with tree and gifts. (It lasts for thirteen days, rather than twelve.)

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