| 1 | [[quoteright:295:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elemental_masters.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | The novels in the ''Elemental Masters'' series, by Creator/MercedesLackey, are a mix of historical fiction and fantasy, with a big scoop of fairy tales stirred in. Most of them are set in the late 1800s-early 1900s. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | The books “officially” in this series are: |
| 6 | [[index]] |
| 7 | * ''Literature/TheSerpentsShadow'' (Literature/SnowWhite)[[/index]] |
| 8 | * ''The Gates of Sleep'' (Literature/SleepingBeauty) |
| 9 | * ''Phoenix and Ashes'' (Literature/{{Cinderella}}) |
| 10 | * ''The Wizard of London'' (Literature/TheSnowQueen) |
| 11 | * ''Reserved for the Cat'' (Literature/PussInBoots) |
| 12 | * ''Unnatural Issue'' (Literature/{{Donkeyskin}}) |
| 13 | * ''Home from the Sea'' (Literature/TamLin) |
| 14 | * ''Elemental Magic'' - An anthology of short stories about Elemental Masters and Magicians. |
| 15 | * ''Steadfast'' (Literature/TheSteadfastTinSoldier) |
| 16 | * ''Elementary'' - Another anthology |
| 17 | * ''Blood Red'' (Literature/RedRidingHood) |
| 18 | * ''From a High Tower'' (Literature/{{Rapunzel}}) |
| 19 | * ''A Study In Sable'' ([[Literature/ChildBallads The Twa Sisters]]) |
| 20 | * ''A Scandal in Battersea'' (Literature/ThePiedPiperOfHamelin) |
| 21 | * ''The Bartered Brides'' (Literature/{{Bluebeard}}) |
| 22 | * ''The Case of the Spellbound Child'' (Literature/HanselAndGretel) |
| 23 | * ''Jolene'' (The Queen of the Copper Mountain) |
| 24 | * ''The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley'' - to be published January 2022. From the amazon.com description, this will be at least partly a companion piece or even sequel to ''From a High Tower''. Possibly inspired by ''Theatre/AnnieGetYourGun''. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | ''The Fire Rose'' (Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast) uses the same pattern and tropes as the official books (though with minor differences, including a slightly different magic system and being set in America instead of Britain/Europe[[note]] Essentially making it somewhat like a prototype [[/note]]), but was published by a different company so isn’t normally included in a list of the series. However, it will be included on this page. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | ----- |
| 29 | !! This series provides examples of: |
| 30 | |
| 31 | * AccidentalMurder: All Giselle and her Air Elementals planned to do was cut off the breath of the officer accusing her of DraftDodging (or raping her once he determined that she really was pulling a SweetPollyOliver in order to win sharpshooting contests) until he passed out. Despite the local Earth Mage confirming that the officer had been teetering on the edge of a stroke for years and wasn't liked by those that knew him, Giselle is still plagued by guilt throughout the book. |
| 32 | * AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Reggie has developed a resistance to opiates, thanks to the large doses he's been taking in order to get any sleep. When Alison tries sedating him near the end of the novel, it wears off much sooner than she'd expected. |
| 33 | * ActionGirl: |
| 34 | ** In their "Warriors of the Light" aspects, both Isabelle Harton and Nan can pull this off. Ninette Dupond manages this as well, and then immediately lies about it because NoGuyWantsAnAmazon. |
| 35 | ** Rosamund von Schwarzwald is the real champion of this though. She goes out and kills blood mages for a living. Then in ''From a High Tower'' she mentors Giselle through the last stages of her CharacterDevelopment from ActionSurvivor to full-fledged Action Girl. |
| 36 | ** Several of the women in the series are this. Most of the rest fit under ActionSurvivor instead. |
| 37 | * AlchemicElementals: Sylphs, Gnomes, Undines, and Salamanders all show up. They will serve those who have a talent for their respective elements, and cooperate with mages with a complementary element, but dislike and avoid those with opposing elemental affinity. |
| 38 | * AlcoholicParent: |
| 39 | ** Nan's mother spends what money she manages to earn as a street walker or Nan can get by begging on gin (and sometimes other drugs). |
| 40 | ** In ''The Fire Rose'', Jason Cameron's father became an alcoholic as a result of losing his wife and home to the Great Chicago Fire. He eventually abandons his son when Jason falls ill with typhoid, tying him to a house gate to keep him from following. |
| 41 | * AlliterativeName: From ''The Fire Rose'': Rosalind's CreepyUncle Ingmar Ivorsson, who's insane and not to be trusted with women even before his insanity. |
| 42 | * AllTrollsAreDifferent: |
| 43 | ** Alison drains the life energy from her daughters and solicitor to summon one to kill her stepdaughter Eleanor and Reggie Fenyx in ''Phoenix and Ashes''. |
| 44 | ** The troll in ''Reserved for the Cat'' is an evil earth elemental with the ability to shapeshift into many different forms, including humans. |
| 45 | ** Trolls also show up briefly in ''Unnatural Issue'', serving under {{necromancer}} Richard Whitestone. |
| 46 | ** The standard fairy tale type of troll (made of rock, turns to stone when exposed to sunlight, guards bridges, and eats goats) appear in ''From a High Tower''. One, named Pieter, was apparently taught to be good, as he helps out the Bruderschaft. |
| 47 | * AnimalJingoism: Thomas may have been human-born, but he takes pride in being a cat and, at one point, is disgusted when the media portrays his saving Ninette as a TimmyInAWell situation. |
| 48 | * ArbitrarySkepticism: After having the existence of PsychicPowers proven to him, Sherlock Holmes very deliberately avoids finding evidence of ElementalPowers, and wants nothing to do with it. This is doubly funny because, while both kinds of magic run on MagicAIsMagicA and can be scientifically verified and studied, Holmes still sees one as scientific and the other...not so much. |
| 49 | * ArrangedMarriage: |
| 50 | ** Arranged marriages are common in the series among upper-class mages. The reasoning is that it's best to marry someone you won't have to hide your Elemental magic from, and if you get along well with him/her that's a bonus. |
| 51 | ** A pair of stories in the two anthologies shows how this can still have severe drawbacks, focusing on a pair of girl-boy twins that are the product of such an arrangement. The twist is that their mother is not only a MuggleBornOfMages but is utterly ignorant of magic; her fire Master father didn't think she could be trusted with the knowledge (he's right). He arranged her marriage to another Master because he was [[LamarckWasRight certain that her children would be mages]] and they needed at least one parent who could raise and teach them. [[spoiler:One story focuses on TheUnfavorite, neglected by the father because no one figured out the boy had water magic where everyone else in the family has fire; the other focuses on the girl, who was raised as a boy, and upon being told what's expected of her in life being a girl and disgusted with all the available examples of conventional womanhood, nearly kills herself trying to give herself a hysterectomy.]] |
| 52 | ** The generations-long pact between the Protheros and the Selch in ''Home from the Sea'' makes each Prothero part of an arranged marriage. |
| 53 | ** Played with after Mari chooses her Selch husband. Since she ''has'' to have a marriage license if she's not going to be treated like a whore by the village, Dafydd Prothero pretends he's forcing Mari into an arranged marriage with a cousin (the Selch fiance) to ensure that she'll be able to keep their cottage after Dafydd eventually dies. The villagers think that it's a forced marriage, which is why they absolutely have to close ranks behind Dafydd. They may not want to arrange their children's marriages, but the principle that an arrangement is a direct command from God has to be protected. |
| 54 | * AscendedExtra: Alexandre Harcourt, one of the two villains in ''A Scandal in Battersea'', is first mentioned in ''A Study in Sable'' by both Mary Watson and Beatrice Leek. He's described as "vicious, sadistic, dangerous, and thrives on revenge", and Mary warns Beatrice to be wary of him. |
| 55 | * BackstabbingTheAlphaBitch: In ''The Bartered Brides'', Xi'er is the only bride to have been killed willingly, and thus has much stronger spiritual power than the others. She lords this over them, naming herself Chief Wife and terrorizing the other ghosts, as well as taking two other brides as her personal servants. In the climax, however, [[spoiler:when she tries to escape being sent to the afterlife with the other brides, her servants immediately grab her chains and pull her through the Door.]] |
| 56 | * BarefootPoverty: A sign of the Joneses' poverty is that Anna has never owned a pair of shoes in her life. In winter, she just wrapped her feet in rags and never went out. The only exception was to attend the church Christmas party, at which point Anna wore her mother's old shoes and her mother wore her father's shoes. |
| 57 | * BeastAndBeauty: ''The Fire Rose'' is based on "Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast", and features a pretty female scholar hired by a magician who has been shifted into a half-wolf form. |
| 58 | * BedlamHouse: |
| 59 | ** In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', [[WickedStepmother Allison]] intends to have her orphaned step-daughter [[Literature/{{Cinderella}} Eleanor]] locked up in an asylum like this in order to [[GoldDigger get control of her fortune]]. |
| 60 | ** Defied and Invoked in ''The Gates of Sleep''. Physician and Earth Master Andrew Pike tries to help the both the charity cases and the upper-class paying patients[[note]]mainly women burned out on social obligations, but he keeps a close eye out for worse issues[[/note]] he milks for operating funds to the best of his knowledge and [[PostModernMagik power]] at the sanitarium he set up, but when summoned to the bedside of half-trained Water Mage Marina Rosewood in a [[Literature/SleepingBeauty magical coma]] by her [[EvilUncle suspiciously unconcerned aunt]] he pretends he never met her[[note]]she had been helping him with a breakthrough in treating lead poisoning[[/note]] and plays a vaguely sociopathic experimenter stereotype to the hilt in order to get her out of there without arousing suspicion. |
| 61 | ** Zig-zagged in ''A Scandal in Battersea''. The sanitarium is of the "fancy place for rich patients", and is mostly well-run and benevolent - although it ''does'' confine people against their will at the behest of their families (as this was legal at the time), the patients are all treated very well and given the best of whatever care they do need. However, on the other hand, the plot kicks off because the head doctor ends up with a self-committed clairvoyant patient. Instead of immediately calling for someone who might be able to help her, he gives her drugs to strengthen her already uncontrollably strong power without getting her consent. He's hoping she can help him game the stock market; instead he accidentally traps her in a vision of the BigBad hunting people. |
| 62 | ** completely averted in ''The Case of the Spellbound Child''; when asked to look into the case of a girl who's apparently gone mad, John Watson, Mary Watson, Nan, Sarah, Suki and Caro/[[spoiler:Peter]] go to a hospital that, to their astonishment, is completely the opposite of this. |
| 63 | * BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler was a blood mage of such intense notoriety that Rosamund mentions the hunt for him was one of the greatest hunts the Brüderschaft had ever undertaken. Markos also mentions [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory Countess Bathory]] using her servants for BlackMagic. |
| 64 | * BehindEveryGreatMan: At one point, Rose thinks back to a fellow student who stole her research while courting her. She had wondered at the time if it would really be so bad to have her work published under her husband's name. In the event, he was only courting her for her family's money; when a scammer drove her father to bankruptcy, the student dumped Rose. |
| 65 | * BenevolentBoss: The closest thing Alexandre Harcourt has to a redeeming feature is his generosity and mutual respect towards his valet. |
| 66 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Nigel Barrett is stated to treat all his employees in the theater well, paying them fair wages, not overworking them or demanding a share of tips, and regularly putting things in the way of those that need them. This fair treatment leads to his employees having UndyingLoyalty to him to the point that it's described as "there was not a man or woman in that theater who would not have stood between Master Nigel and a runaway elephant." |
| 67 | ** Charles Mayhew, the owner of the music hall in ''Steadfast'', is also stated to be this. It's mentioned that he is fair in his pay and hours, fair in how he ran his hall, and people like working for him. Hence why just about everyone working in the music hall was worried when the "Russian ballerina" he had hired canceled her contract, since if Charlie went under, whomever that took the venue would probably not be nearly so nice (and why they all came together to help him come up with a substitute ballerina.) |
| 68 | ** Most good Elemental Masters that are wealthy are this towards their servants/household staff. The Kerridges in ''Unnatural Issue'', while still acknowledging the difference in station, are fairly egalitarian towards their servants. The Graf in ''Blood Red'' is the same, and would rather a room go undusted than find the maid was too tired from her duties to help with magical protection in case of an emergency. It probably helps that all the staff in those two households have some elemental magic, or at least knows about its existence. |
| 69 | * BigScrewedUpFamily: The Transylvanian [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent shifter]] clan in ''Blood Red''. All of them are the children of a sorcerer/shifter and [[ParentalIncest his daughters]]. The resulting genetic damage is more obvious than you would normally see with one or two inbred generations; Rosamund suspects the alpha's use of Blood Magic to ensure fertility is speeding up matters. |
| 70 | * BitchAlert: Alison, Carolyn, and Lauralee throw enough bitchiness to fill a kennel in the very first chapter of ''Phoenix and Ashes''. |
| 71 | * BlackMagic: The majority of villains are using some form of this. We don't see a systematic treatment of the subject, as (obviously) no protagonists practice the black arts, but we get some hints. It can be used by those without magical power of their own through BloodMagic (though full magicians can use that more easily), it can allow any mage to compel spirits regardless of their element, and also allows dealing with elementals of the Dark, such as ice elementals and trolls. Most (but not all) {{Necromancy}} is done through BlackMagic, with Richard Whitestone (a fallen Earth Master) being the standout example, able to raise the dead on an industrial scale. |
| 72 | * BlackWidow: Alison – Eleanor's father and the father of the stepsisters were merely the bookends of a long career of using and killing men. |
| 73 | * BlindWithoutEm: Rosalind Hawkins from ''The Fire Rose'' has to wear glasses. She isn't shown as ever losing them. However, she is required to take them off for a ritual to Summon (or rather cajole) a {{Unicorn}} (an Elemental of Spirit), and is annoyed that she can't see much of anything. (The Unicorn looks like a white, blurry shape when it appears.) |
| 74 | * BlowYouAway: Air Masters/mages such as Nigel Barrett (''Reserved for the Cat''), Reginald Fenyx (''Phoenix and Ashes''), Rosalind Hawkins (''The Fire Rose''), Lionel Hawkins (''Steadfast''), and Giselle Schnittel (''From a High Tower''). Wind mages, unless they are ''very'' powerful, aren't much good in combat, but they can feed energy to fire mages, who are ''excellent'' at it. They are, however, excellent for spying and surveillance. Furthermore, Giselle learns that Air [[MageMarksman can help make gunfire more accurate]]. |
| 75 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: Several characters - all stated to be something more than human. The most prominent being Puck (yes, [[Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream that Puck]]), and the title character of ''Jolene''. |
| 76 | * BookcasePassage: Richard Whitestone's secret library and Work Room are concealed this way. |
| 77 | * BookOnTheHead: In ''The Gates of Sleep'', Arachne's maid was told to make Marina walk with a book on her head. She doesn't, because Marina already has excellent posture. |
| 78 | * CandlelitRitual: In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', Alison uses modern (for 1918) flashlights to set up a ritual and to clean up afterwards, but during the ritual itself the only light comes from candles. |
| 79 | * CannibalismSuperPower: The Troll in ''Reserved for the Cat'' can and has eaten many people, which then allows her to take on the form of the person and access their knowledge. She can also take on the forms of animals, though it isn't stated if she had to eat them as well. |
| 80 | * CanonWelding: Mercedes Lackey wrote several short stories and novellas about Sarah, Grey, Nan and Neville before she came up with the Elemental Masters series; at least two of these stories make up a large portion of ''The Wizard of London''. |
| 81 | * {{Catchphrase}}: When other people comment on the fact that raven Neville or parrot Grey can talk, they always respond with , "I can talk. Can you fly?" |
| 82 | * CatsAreSnarkers: Thomas the cat in ''Reserved for the Cat''. He's a victim of {{animorphism}}, not a native feline, but there seems to be a certain psychological MorphicResonance. |
| 83 | * CharmPerson: Ninette has a touch of this ability. So does the BigBad of ''Jolene'', showing just how dangerous a bad person with this ability can be. |
| 84 | * ChessmasterSidekick: Thomas the cat in the "Puss in Boots" retelling ''Reserved for the Cat''. |
| 85 | * ChildProdigy: A minor character in ''The Gates of Sleep'' is a child chess prodigy who was driven into a mental breakdown by his father (who was [[FinancialAbuse living off the fees he charged for the kid's exhibition games]]). |
| 86 | * CinderellaPlot: Eleanor in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' is magically bound to the house so her stepmother can treat her as a slave and use her family fortune. |
| 87 | * ColorCodedElements: In the Western (Greco-Roman) tradition, Fire is red, Air is blue, Earth is yellow, and Water is green. |
| 88 | * CombatParkour: Nina from ''Reserved for the Cat''; she's a trained ballerina, and knows that jumps, spins, and kicks can be useful both in dancing and fighting. |
| 89 | * CombatPragmatist: Rosamund von Schwarzwald ''in spades''. When helping a Water Mage fleeing an Air Master who went to the bad, she gets them out of the way of innocents to lure the Air Master out. While the Air Master sneers at the Water Mage for having to hide behind a woman's skirts, Rosamund [[spoiler: kills the Air Master with a well-aimed throwing knife and calmly lectures the gawking Water Mage about the efficacy of physical, mundane attacks on magic-users.]] |
| 90 | * CompanyTown: In ''Jolene'', main character Anna May Jones lives in one for the coal mine that her father is employed in, called Soddy. Another example is Ducktown (for a copper mine), which is the closest town to where Anna's Aunt Jinny lives. Both are very clearly shown to be miserable places, destroying both the environment and the health of the people who work in or even just live there. |
| 91 | * ConvenientSlowDance: In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', when Reggie and Eleanor step onto the dance floor, the band not only switches to a slow waltz, but wraps up the music as soon as Reggie needs to take a break from dancing. Probably justified; Reggie is still recovering from a leg injury, and ''can't'' dance fast dances or for very long. If he didn't warn the band ahead of time, his godmother (who hired them) most likely would have. |
| 92 | * CountryMouse: Rosamund comes across as this early in ''Blood Red'', being a forester from the Schwarzvald. Her patron the Graf enjoys this about her, but makes sure to give her a bit of an education in being a classy lady too, because her skills have earned her a continent-spanning reputation and she needs to be able to deal with White Lodges from Paris to Belgrade. |
| 93 | * CrazyPrepared: |
| 94 | ** Ninette's maid Ailse. Originally hired as someone who wouldn't freak out at elementals running around, it turns out she carries a revolver loaded with Cold Iron, Silver, and Blessed Lead bullets. At all times. |
| 95 | ** Whenever Rosamund goes on an extended journey, she takes along a large trunk for her silver-lined armor, swords, knives, axes, mace, crossbows, morning-star, pistols, shotgun, [[SilverBullet ammo]].... |
| 96 | * CreepyGood: Spirit Mages and mediums, whose powers specialize in dealing with ghosts, but who focus on constructive activities like dealing with haunts and helping restless spirits find closure. |
| 97 | * CropCircles: In one of the books in the series, it's mentioned that while a non-mage can't see any of the Elementals, they can see the effects, among which are crop circles. |
| 98 | * CrossoverCosmology: All religions have some truth to them; both the Christian afterlife and the Druidic Summer Country are shown to exist, for example, though the Christian version isn't as all-encompassing as it claims to be. Also, the divine magic of the Hindu pantheon plays a significant part in ''Literature/TheSerpentsShadow''. |
| 99 | * CulturedBadass: |
| 100 | ** Lord Peter Almsley, a young gentleman and scholar, proves that he's this when he comes up against the (much larger) town bully in ''Unnatural Issue''. The bully gets pulped, Peter's only injury is sore knuckles from hitting the bully so many times. |
| 101 | ** Nan likes Kipling's work and is a voracious reader. She's also an ex StreetUrchin who is, despite her age, capable of (temporarily) assuming her Warrior of Light aspect. And that's when she's a [[LittleMissBadass kid]]. Heaven help you if you anger her when she's an adult... |
| 102 | * CutLexLuthorACheck: Jason Cameron from ''The Fire Rose'' is contemptuous of his apprentice's use of magic to cheat at gambling games (in the specific mentioned incident, a cockfight). A genuine Fire Master (which Paul theoretically could become if he actually put some work in) could make a fortune in a few years through completely legal means like Jason did. |
| 103 | * DamnedByFaintPraise: In ''Reserved for the Cat'', other than the review from ''La Figaro'', the matinee reports focus on the star ballerina's injury and Ninette's performance rated only, "''Sujet'' Ninette Dupond was called upon to replace the ''etoile'' and managed a creditable, if sometimes naïve, interpretation." One of the other ''sujets'' (soloists) laughs at this and says, "You are damned with faint praise, Ninette." |
| 104 | * DamselOutOfDistress: A recurring trope, as the books are fairy tales retold with a more feminist view. While the fairy tale beats usually require the heroine to become a DamselInDistress as in the original tale, the climax will often be rewritten so she saves herself and usually others. |
| 105 | * DanceBattler: In ''Reserved for the Cat'', the heroine, a trained ballerina, is being given some lessons in basic self-defense. Her strength and flexibility make her better than her teachers think she'd be, and in addition she is able to all on her own develop a self-defense application to at least one of her dance moves. |
| 106 | * DealWithTheDevil: In ''The Gates of Sleep'', Reginald Chamberten made a formal pact with His Infernal Majesty sometime in his backstory. |
| 107 | * DeathByChildbirth: ''Unnatural Issue'' begins with Richard Whitestone returning home mere hours after his wife Rebecca succumbs to this. He does ''not'' take it well. |
| 108 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: ''Jolene'' has an authour's note reminding the readers that 1890's Tennessee wasn't very enlightened in outlook, and to read with caution if you're sensitive to certain things. |
| 109 | * DepletedPhlebotinumShells: |
| 110 | ** Ailse's aforementioned special bullets. |
| 111 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', the heroine carries a revolver loaded with two ColdIron bullets, two {{Silver Bullet}}s, and two Blessed Lead bullets, plus extra ammo of all three types. It's anyone's guess which type offed the mystical BigBad at the end of the novel. |
| 112 | ** In ''Unnatural Issue'', the Kerridge family have similar bullets for their shotguns, and they along with their friend Peter and his valet Garrick also have shotgun shells filled with [[SaltSolution blessed salt to take down the undead]]. |
| 113 | * DevourTheDragon: In the climax to ''Phoenix and Ashes'', [[spoiler:the wicked stepmother drains her lawyer/sidekick/future son-in-law completely of life, and drains her two daughters until they are aged, withered, senile husks of their former selves]]. |
| 114 | * DidTheEarthMoveForYouToo: The back-cover blurb for ''The Fire Rose'' ends with the statement that the female lead comes to love the male lead, "And -- the earth moves..." Of course, this ''is'' 1906 in California, so along with any pleasure the two may take in one another, the earth is moving because of the big San Francisco quake. |
| 115 | * DishingOutDirt: Earth Masters, though a few use their powers more for healing than for combat. |
| 116 | * DomesticAbuse: In ''Steadfast'', Katie Langford runs away from the circus she works at to escape her abusive and brutish husband Dick, the circus strongman. |
| 117 | * DoubleMeaningTitle: |
| 118 | ** ''Reserved for the Cat''; as lampshaded by Thomas in the ending scene, 'Reserved for the Cat' is actually a theatrical in-joke/double entendre: back when theatres had actual 'reserved for...' signs on the expensive private boxes, the phrase 'reserved for the cat' was used for people so important (often royalty) that they couldn't be openly identified. The novel's main location is a theatre/music hall, and it's a retelling of ''Puss in Boots''! |
| 119 | ** ''A Study in Sable'' and ''A Scandal in Battersea'' are slightly-adjusted versions of the titles of two of the most well-known Sherlock Holmes stories; these books both feature Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and Mary Morstan Watson. |
| 120 | * DraftDodging: Warrick Locke's servant/bodyguard Robbie (''Phoenix and Ashes'') uses his ability to dislocate his shoulders at will to avoid the draft. |
| 121 | * DudeNotFunny: In ''The Serpent's Shadow'', Maya has to deal with catcalling UpperClassTwit observers when trying to remove [[RupturedAppendix an inflamed appendix]] on a pregnant Irishwoman without excising the uterus, respecting [[GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion her beliefs]] on the matter. However, when Simon Parkening says that "one less Irish bitch pumping out litters of whelps" won't matter anyway, the catcalls and mockery die down and one of his fellows calls him out of order. |
| 122 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''The Fire Rose'' is the only book set in America, includes a Unicorn as a spirit elemental (and includes spirit as an element, for that matter, instead of having psychics), mentions only satyrs, undines, salamanders, and sylphs instead of the multiple kinds of elementals for all four elements, and doesn't distinguish between Light and Dark elementals. The magic system is slightly different--the main character must pass a "test" by summoning and making a pact with an elemental to begin her magical training, and during this the sylph she summons tries to trick her into madness, when in later books no one begins by calling an elemental and sylphs are wholly benevolent unless provoked. It also spells magic as magick, which never happens again. Which brings into question whether it truly counts as part of the series, or is more like a prototype. |
| 123 | * TheEdwardianEra: The time period for most of the novels. |
| 124 | * EldritchAbomination: One plays a major role in ''A Scandal in Battersea''. What else do you call a people-eating OutsideContextProblem made of darkness and tentacles from AnotherDimension? |
| 125 | * ElementalEmbodiment: Several. Those with a touch of magic can see them; masters of the corresponding element can command them. |
| 126 | * ElementNumberFive: The element of "Spirit" is mentioned in ''The Fire Rose'' and later in ''Blood Red'' (and briefly in ''The Serpent's Shadow'', albeit from the perspective of a non-Elemental Indian mage). There aren't specifically any Spirit Mages, though there are [[PsychicPowers psychics]] that seem to be related to the element, and the Unicorn (a Spirit Elemental) is implied to be an [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angel]]. There are heavy implications that the element is linked to the Abrahamic {{God}} and to {{Heaven}}. |
| 127 | ** A Spirit Master finally appears in ''A Study In Sable'' and they seem to be necromancers in the more traditional fashion - that is, those who speak and communicate with ghosts, as well as empower them and do limited magic to do with ghosts. The exact abilities - and what makes them different from mediums, aside from not being able to open "gates" to the after life - are later explained in ''The Bartered Brides'' as having all sorts of spirits, including those of the other four elements, become willing aides. Spirit mages are as rare to magicians as magicians are to the general population, and when one of them turns to darkness it creates a necromancer of terrifying power. [[spoiler:It's also revealed that Nan and Sarah are a Spirit Magician and a Spirit Master respectively.]] |
| 128 | * ElementalPowers: Most magic in this series is based on the four Western elements. |
| 129 | * ElementalRockPaperScissors: It's more complicated than a simple rock-paper-scissors arrangement, but present. In particular, Earth and Air, and Fire and Water, are opposed - normally, a magician of one Element can't do anything with the opposing Element, but can work with the ones to the side to a limited degree. Rosamund von Schwarzvald is an exceptional case; she's an Earth Master, but Air elementals (even greater elementals) talk to her and work with her freely, and she can and does teach a fledgling Air Master. |
| 130 | * ElementalTiers: This is alluded to in ''The Wizard of London'' when Lady Cordelia is working on her plan to GrandTheftMe David; she thinks that after stealing David's body and powers, "instead of the weak Power of Air [Cordelia's element] behind the Power of Ice, she would have the immense strength of Fire [David's element]." |
| 131 | * TheEmpath: Ninette (''Reserved For The Cat'') turns out to have this power. A very useful power for a ballet dancer; she can "feed" the audience and they "feed" her back. It also means, that if anyone has ill intent on her, she knows. [[spoiler: And the events that lead up to the climax suggest that if she knows someone enough her power can warn her when they are in danger.]] |
| 132 | * EvenTheGirlsWantHer: In ''From a High Tower'', Rosamund mentions that she had to deal with another girl who'd "gotten a pash" on her. |
| 133 | * EvilUncle: |
| 134 | ** Maya's aunt Shivani. |
| 135 | ** Marina's aunt Arachne in ''The Gates of Sleep''. |
| 136 | * EvilDiva: Magdelena in ''A Study In Sable''. |
| 137 | * EvilIsDeathlyCold: The ice elementals in ''The Wizard of London''. ''From a High Tower'' establishes that all forms of cold elemental are AlwaysChaoticEvil in a way that even ''trolls'' aren't. |
| 138 | * EvilIsEasy: Paul [=duMond=] in ''The Fire Rose'' is convinced there's a shortcut to magical power, and turns to the novel's villain when Jason refuses to teach him that "shortcut". |
| 139 | * ExactWords: The magic Book the villain in ''A Scandal in Battersea'' uses to gain power says that if the servant (ie the magician) serves the Master well enough, they will become the Master. It doesn't mention how. [[spoiler: Given that the "master" wants to assimilate all things into itself, "becoming the Master" means it eats your soul.]] |
| 140 | * {{Expy}}: Lord Peter Almsley for Literature/LordPeterWimsey. Early fan speculation was swiftly confirmed by WordOfGod. |
| 141 | * FairyTale: The plots of all the novels are based off different fairy tales: |
| 142 | ** ''The Fire Rose''= "Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast" |
| 143 | ** ''Serpent's Shadow'' = "Literature/SnowWhite" |
| 144 | ** ''Gates of Sleep'' = "Literature/SleepingBeauty" |
| 145 | ** ''Phoenix and Ashes'' = "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" |
| 146 | ** ''Wizard of London'' = "Literature/TheSnowQueen" |
| 147 | ** ''Reserved for the Cat'' = "Literature/PussInBoots" |
| 148 | ** ''Unnatural Issue'' = "Literature/{{Donkeyskin}}" |
| 149 | ** ''Home from the Sea'' = "Literature/TamLin" and "The Selkie of Skule Skerry" |
| 150 | ** One of the stories from ''Elemental Magic'' is based on "Literature/{{Rapunzel}}". |
| 151 | *** Another example from ''Elemental Magic'': "The Glass Coffin". |
| 152 | ** ''Steadfast'' = "Literature/TheSteadfastTinSoldier" |
| 153 | ** ''Blood Red'' = "Literature/LittleRedRidingHood" |
| 154 | ** In ''Elementary'', one story is based on "Literature/HanselAndGretel" (but in a good way), another on "Literature/SnowWhiteAndRoseRed", and a third on "Literature/LittleRedRidingHood" - this last is noteworthy as it has now become the first chapter of ''Blood Red''. |
| 155 | ** ''From a High Tower'' features a retelling of '"Literature/{{Rapunzel}}"'s not-so-happily-ever-after ending. Also, at one point, Giselle and Rosa have to stop a "Literature/HanselAndGretel" story. |
| 156 | ** ''A Study In Sable'' is [[Literature/ChildBallads The Twa Sisters]]. |
| 157 | ** ''A Scandal in Battersea'' is loosely based on "Literature/ThePiedPiperOfHamelin". |
| 158 | ** ''The Bartered Brides'' is based on "Literature/{{Bluebeard}}". |
| 159 | ** ''The Case of the Spellbound Child'' is based on "Literature/HanselAndGretel" |
| 160 | ** ''Jolene'' is based on Russian fairy tale "The Queen of the Copper Mountain". |
| 161 | * TheFairFolk: Robin Goodfellow is a very benevolent example, but he's still a mercurial being who operates on BlueAndOrangeMorality. |
| 162 | * FairWeatherMentor: Jason Cameron is a downplayed example to Paul du Mond. He knows that this is because Paul simply isn't willing to put in the effort to actually master Fire, but he is meanwhile just taking advantage of Paul's services as a secretary while withholding lessons that Paul wouldn't be able to master anyway; he's completely honest with Paul about this, but he also knows that Paul won't believe the truth. Paul sees him as a full-blown case of this, of course, and turns to another master for lessons; one who is far less scrupulous than Jason. |
| 163 | * FallenHero: Richard Whitestone, the White Lodge's foremost necromancer-hunter, lost his mind after his wife's DeathByChildbirth and turned his interests to BlackMagic. |
| 164 | * {{Familiar}}: |
| 165 | ** Nan and Sarah from ''The Wizard of London'',''Home from the Sea'',''Study in Sable'', ''Scandal in Battersea'' and ''The Bartered Brides'' have familiars, Neville the raven and Grey the parrot, respectively. They appear on the covers of the last three. |
| 166 | ** ''Reserved For The Cat'''s Ninette has Thomas, though that's a bit more complex since [[spoiler:he's not an elemental creature but her own father under ForcedTransformation.]] |
| 167 | * FateWorseThanDeath: Jonathon Hightower warns Ninette that she may be facing this, "and I do not mean mere rape". |
| 168 | ** In ''From a High Tower'', it's implied that the fate the antagonists had planned for Giselle is actually what Jonathon was referring to. |
| 169 | * FauxFlame: Part of Jonathon's magic act. Sometimes he doesn't bother to tell his assistants the flames aren't real. Ninette was ''not'' amused. |
| 170 | * FeministFantasy: They're retellings of popular fairy tales where the female characters have powerful magic and far more agency than the original tales, and the Edwardian / Victorian setting means that the heroines have to routinely confront and overcome sexism in order to succeed. |
| 171 | * FightsLikeANormal: This is Rosamund's favored tactic against evil wizards. As she explains, they're expecting to defend against magic, and a flying tackle followed by a dagger stab is not something they'll have a ward against. |
| 172 | * FinancialAbuse: |
| 173 | ** [[spoiler:When Katie's husband Dick finally catches up to her, he lives off of the good salary she gets from her job at the music hall and keeps close track of the money she spends so that she can't hide any away.]] |
| 174 | ** Alison forgot to make Eleanor's father change his will before she got him killed. She pockets the regular allowance Eleanor gets from the estate, and forces Eleanor to write regular letters to the law firm in charge of the estate asking for additional money for extra expenses. |
| 175 | ** A minor character in ''The Gates of Sleep'' was a child chess prodigy whose father forced him to play exhibition games for money until the kid had a nervous breakdown. (After Dr. Pike brings the boy out of it, he teaches the boy how to pretend his breakdown removed his chess skills -- meaning the boy won't be abused this way again.) |
| 176 | ** In ''Jolene'', it's clearly shown how the CompanyTown abuses it's workers financially, firstly by only paying in Company scrip instead of actual money, which secondly forces them to shop at the Company store which has horribly inflated prices. Part of the urgency of the climax involves protagonist Anna May, the only child of a miner and his wife who died deeply in debt to the Company [[spoiler: escaping indentured servitude i.e. legal slavery by the skin of her teeth. The BigBad already had two women as 'servants' who are deduced to be indentured, and subsequently have no legal recourse against the man who abuses them mentally, physically and sexually.]] |
| 177 | * FireKeepsItDead: In ''Unnatural Issue'', when a Hunting Party finds that Richard Whitestone has killed and reanimated all his servants, the Fire mages in the group chase everyone else outside and summon salamanders to cremate the bodies. |
| 178 | * FlorenceNightingaleEffect: |
| 179 | ** Doctor Pike has enough female patients falling for him during psychotherapy that he routinely uses his magic to make them fall out of love (or infatuation, at least). |
| 180 | ** Classic example with [[BetaCouple Doctor Amelia and Paul Jenner]]. |
| 181 | ** Susanne Whitestone hopes to invoke this on her crush, Charles, when she finds him in the London hospital she's volunteering at; unfortunately he turns out to already be engaged. Actually, it's ''fortunately'', because it turns out Charles isn't nearly as compatible with Suzanne as she previously thought, due to her CharacterGrowth from her frontline nursing duties in WWI. |
| 182 | * FoodPorn: Every meal the characters eat is described in period-accurate, mouthwatering detail, whether it's a full course or simply a quick snack. Lemonade, anyone? |
| 183 | * FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Helen and Simon Byerly in ''The Case of the Spellbound Child''. While both children do prefer being out on the moor, Helen is the more responsible one and does what her mother asks of her. Simon, on the other hand, is described as being a monkey of mischief and would rather pretend to be highwayman Dick Turpin (with the broom acting as a hobbyhorse) than sweep the floor as told. |
| 184 | * ForcedTransformation: |
| 185 | ** In ''Reserved For The Cat'' it turns out that [[spoiler: the titular cat, Thomas, is actually Ninette's cursed Earth Master father. He only tells Jonathon as a matter of trust and necessity and does not wish Ninette to know the truth.]] |
| 186 | ** Wolfgang would probably count himself here as well, though he’s more of a changed-species {{Reincarnation}}. |
| 187 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: A couple of examples in ''Jolene'': When Anna May's POV remarks that the chronic illness that keeps her home-bound showed up around puberty, [[GenreSavvy readers of the previous novels]] will easily guess that Anna May is an Earth mage and is being affected by the environmental abuse of the mine. Later, Anna May reads in her great-grandfather's diary that Jolene released him from her service after he and her great-grandmother passed a SecretTestOfCharacter to prove their love; [[spoiler: in the climax, the same thing happens to Anna May and Josh.]] |
| 188 | * FourthDateMarriage: Maya, Marina, Mari, and Katie fall in love and are engaged within a few months of meeting their love interests, while Charles falls in love and is engaged to an old childhood friend the day after meeting her again at a party. Justified in that they are all Elemental Masters and Mages, which means that they can tell really quickly if someone is right for them or not. Lionel in ''Steadfast'' even thinks to himself that he's heard of Mages/Masters meeting for the first time and then eloping the next week in Gretna Green, not having the patience to get a license and post banns first. |
| 189 | ** To be fair, in Marina's case, her groom-to-be insists that she be introduced to society and have a proper Season in London, where she could have the chance to make another match (given their social differences). She ends up having two Seasons - and comes back to marry him anyways. |
| 190 | ** In ''Jolene'', protagonist Anna May and her beloved Josh agree to 'start courting' after meeting all of twice. In this case, Anna May's Aunt Jinny (backed by Josh's parents) insists that since Anna May is only sixteen and Josh is literally the first man to show mutual interest in her, they have to wait until Anna May's eighteen to marry. [[spoiler: Anna May and Josh marry just a few months later, but it's part of a ploy to keep Anna May from being indentured.]] |
| 191 | * FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider: The Cherokee spirit Grandmother Spider in ''Jolene''. |
| 192 | * GenderReveal: An atypical one in [[spoiler:Caro]] of ''The Bartered Brides, who's revealed to be a trans man near the very end of the book. [[spoiler:Caro takes a man's body to keep Moriarty from passing into it and winds up stuck in it, then decides that he wants to stay as he finally feels comfortable in his own skin. There was plenty of subtle foreshadowing, with Caro mentioning time spent in sanatoriums without specifying what he was in for, wearing masculine clothing, and his spirit body becoming more masculine as he gains more control over it.]] |
| 193 | * GenreSavvy: Zig-zagged with Alexandre Harcourt in ''A Scandal in Battersea''. He initially thinks of pulling out of his DealWithTheDevil and asking the White Lodge for help, because he knows that usually the devil in question gets all the perks ''and'' horribly murders the erstwhile mortal. Unfortunately (for him and everyone else), the power-hungry sadistic side of him overrules the smart part, and he goes through with it. [[spoiler: And, indeed, he does get horribly murdered.]] |
| 194 | * GentlemanWizard: Pretty much everyone. |
| 195 | * GirlsWithMoustaches: Katie lives at a theatrical boarding house for ladies that is run by a bearded lady named Mrs. Baird, who was a former performer. |
| 196 | * TheGirlWhoFitsThisSlipper: Eleanor’s pinky finger gets chopped off by her WickedStepmother in the first chapter as part of a binding spell, so when she leaves her gloves behind at the masquerade ball, there's no question about who they belong to. Doesn't stop her stepsister Lauralee from trying, though, and coming out to the hero to claim her gloves still loopy from the painkillers. |
| 197 | * TheGlassesGottaGo: Averted in ''The Fire Rose'' -- when one of Jason's Salamanders comments that Rosalind is nice-looking despite her glasses, Jason immediately declares that glasses are just another accessory. |
| 198 | ** Inverted as well--without her glasses, Rosalind says that Jason merely looks like a man with a remarkable beard. |
| 199 | * GodzillaThreshold: |
| 200 | ** The climax of ''A Scandal In Battersea'', with TheWildHunt in the "Godzilla" role. |
| 201 | ** Twice over in ''Unnatural Issue''. TheFairFolk do not intervene in human affairs and focus on attending the land only, and they do not go into cities due to the abundance of ColdIron sickening them. [[spoiler:In the climax, however, they do both to help Susanne take down her father, as his necromantic power was growing rapidly from the death, pain, and misery of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and if left unchecked he'd have eventually turned all of England into a blighted empire of corpses.]] |
| 202 | * GoodIsNotNice: Rosamund is a reasonably friendly woman when she's off the clock, but she's not off the clock very often. She is (at first) [[NobleBigot prejudiced against werewolves]] for understandable reasons, and even after that, she takes a fair amount of ''joy'', as well as pride, in killing bad magicians. She also doesn't ask permission before getting involved in things, such as attaching herself to Cody's travelling show on the off chance that it ends up kicking a hornet's nest (though in her defense, it's the ''Black Forest'' and not a place for an untrained magician to be travelling unescorted). |
| 203 | * GrandTheftMe: |
| 204 | ** Lady Cordelia's plan for David Alderscroft. Her primary aim is to gain the political power she can't claim in a female body, but it's indicated that she will also use this technique to become immortal (by moving into new bodies on a regular basis). |
| 205 | ** An interesting variant in ''Unnatural Issue'': Richard Whitestone intends to summon his wife's soul from beyond death, and install it into their daughter's body... Grand Theft Her, maybe? |
| 206 | ** The climax of ''A Study in Sable'' is a borderline example. [[spoiler:Johanna's ghost seizing her sister Magdalena's body upon helping send the murderess to her reward was clearly not planned ahead of time and surprised everyone, but it is unclear whether it was a complete accident or a 'might not work but what do I have left to lose' impulse.]] |
| 207 | ** In ''The Bartered Brides'', Moriarty intends to cheat death this way. [[spoiler:His magician succeeds in tearing out the soul, but Caro jumps into the body before he can, and his SoulJar being shattered means that he's not getting a second chance at it.]] |
| 208 | * HadToBeSharp: "Gunther von Weber's" cover story. A young man who travels Germany's shooting competitions, "he" explains his phenomenal skill as coming from taking care of his mother, having to protect their animals and put game in the pot; "don't hit, don't eat." She reuses this backstory later as "Rio Ellie" in Captain Cody's cowboy show. Actually, Gisette is...embroidering the truth a bit; her skill is largely from being a MageMarksman. |
| 209 | * HalfBreedDiscrimination: |
| 210 | ** Maya Witherspoon's mother ran away from her wealthy Brahmin family to wed an English doctor and army officer, so she gets it from both sides. |
| 211 | ** Katie is half [[UsefulNotes/IrishTravellers Traveller]], her mother being a Traveller that was cast out from her clan when she fell in love and eloped with Katie's father, a non-Traveller acrobat that she met at a fair. |
| 212 | * HateSink: |
| 213 | ** Simon Parkening in ''The Serpent's Shadow'' is [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racist, misogynistic]], an [[BadBoss abusive employer]], and [[EvilIsPetty spiteful to an extreme]]. While he has the rank and privilege to make life difficult for the good guys, he's also a TooDumbToLive SmugSnake who insults his (female, Indian) occult adviser when he ''knows'' that magic is real and that she's better at it than he is. |
| 214 | ** Reggie's grandfather in ''Phoenix And Ashes'', due to his extremely abrasive personality (with no HiddenHeartOfGold in evidence) and complete lack of sympathy for Reggie's PTSD. |
| 215 | ** The bullying constable Ewynnog in ''Home From the Sea'', who seems to function as this in-universe as well. Nobody respects him but he has too much authority for people to be able to dismiss him entirely. |
| 216 | ** [[MeaningfulName Dick]] Langford, Katie's [[DomesticAbuse abusive]], [[TheAlcoholic drunkard]] [[LowerClassLout lout]] of a husband. |
| 217 | * HealItWithFire: Eleanor uses a fire spell meant to purify whatever it's cast on to "purify" her bloodstream of morphine. |
| 218 | * {{Heaven}}: |
| 219 | ** [[spoiler: Exists, but isn't described; the one time it's seen, it's just a glorious light through a gateway. Sarah finds two [[ChildrenAreInnocent ghost children]], who believed that they were destined for Hell for being bad kids, and opens the road to Heaven for them.]] |
| 220 | ** The pagan Summerland also serves this function. It's primarily for the dead who followed the old Druidic religion, but in some situations where a Christian ghost can't make it to Heaven but doesn't deserve Hell, the Puck arranges for them to go to Summerland as well. |
| 221 | * HeManWomanHater: |
| 222 | ** Richard Whitestone is absolutely convinced that women are mentally inferior to men. |
| 223 | ** Maya Witherspoon, being a doctor in an era when women were seldom encouraged to aspire to anything apart from marrying well and keeping a household, gets a lot of this as well. |
| 224 | ** In fact, it's a recurring theme in the entire series; appropriate considering the eras (Victorian, Edwardian, World War I). But never considered a good thing in the narrative. |
| 225 | * HermeticMagic: Several Masters, most notably Fire-aligned Jason, Jonathon and Eleanor, use drawn circles and runes, either to actively work magic or as a means of mental focus. |
| 226 | * HermitGuru: In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', Eleanor's teacher is an Elemental spirit who takes the form of a hermit (specifically, The Hermit from the Rider-Waite Tarot) for purposes of dream-instruction. |
| 227 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: |
| 228 | ** Peter Almsley gets a lot of elements of this in ''The Serpent's Shadow'', with his work off-the-page on Maya and Peter's part, and the epilogue consists of a letter from him to his Grandmother. Becomes literally true in ''Unnatural Issue''. |
| 229 | ** In fact, Peter Almsley is a clear pastiche of Literature/LordPeterWimsey. He looks the same, has the same mannerisms, is a Duke's son who has a stupid brother, and the like. In fact, the final letters in ''Serpent's Shadow'' are almost exact duplicates of the letters which begin ''Busman's Honeymoon''. |
| 230 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: Nan and Sarah, who are practically inseparable both personally and professionally. In ''A Study in Sable'' they're even [[PlatonicCoParenting raising their orphan protégé together]]. |
| 231 | * HighClassCallGirl: Becoming a courtesan is a viable career path for a poor girl like Ninette. Her mother even enrolls her in ballet so she can catch the eye of a wealthy patron. When it seems to fall through, she braces herself for work as a lowly StreetWalker, but Thomas the cat intervenes. |
| 232 | * HistoricalDomainCharacter: |
| 233 | ** Creator/AleisterCrowley is a disgraced Magician turned con man. The Elemental Masters positively loathe him, but consider him to be a useful idiot for keeping up TheMasquerade; as long as people associate Magick with him and his crowd of drug addicts, they'll be less likely to see it as real. |
| 234 | ** William F Cody, AKA Creator/BuffaloBill, is mentioned several times in ''From a High Tower''; his 'Buffalo Bill Wild West Show' (which really did tour Germany during the time frame of the novel) is referenced by Captain Cody Lee's show (as a reason why they aren't going to the same places that Buffalo Bill did, because when they did in France, it turned out to be a financial disaster). |
| 235 | ** Creator/KarlMay and his ''{{Literature/Winnetou}}'' series are also mentioned several times in ''From a High Tower'', as many Germans are fans of him and his books. |
| 236 | ** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_de_Sarasate Pablo de Sarasate]], who Doyle occasionally mentions as one of Sherlock Holmes's favorite performers, shows up in ''A Study in Sable'' as an Elemental Master of Spirit and [[spoiler:the deceased Johanna von Dietersdorf's greatest ally in her quest for vengeance against her murderous sister.]] |
| 237 | * HistoricalInJoke: Constantly. One of the funniest is an offhand remark about "that incident at Loch Ness" which may give the lake a certain notoriety. |
| 238 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: Alison's earth giant turns on her when she runs out of power. |
| 239 | * HomeschooledKids: The backstories of several characters in the series include being taught at home by tutors who were themselves Elemental magicians. Considering the time period, this is normal, since many wealthy families hired tutors for their children if they weren't being sent to Eton or some other boarding school. |
| 240 | * HookedUpAfterwards: Suggested for Jonathon and Ninette. |
| 241 | * HopelessSuitor: Susanne spends most of ''Unnatural Issue'' carrying an intense torch for Charles Kerridge, until she finally has to acknowledge that a) he's in love with someone else and b) he has absolutely no interest in her. |
| 242 | * HorrorHunger: The Troll in ''Reserved for the Cat''. |
| 243 | * AnIcePerson: In ''The Wizard of London'', after her pact with the Ice Dragon, Lady Cordelia is basically a mage version of this. David is well on his way to becoming one as well. |
| 244 | * IncompletelyTrained: In ''Unnatural Issue'', Susanne begins as this. She's actually received very ''good'' training in her specialty (Robin Goodfellow is no slouch), but it's very ''focused'' training; she's learned spells to guard and maintain the land, as well as some kitchen-focused UtilityMagic. She hasn't learned the more combative Earth Magic or how to properly defend against a {{Necromancer}}, which puts her at a severe disadvantage against her father. |
| 245 | * IndustrializedEvil: Arachne's potteries are "Satanic mills" in the most literal sense, poisoning their workers as a form of HumanSacrifice. |
| 246 | * InterspeciesRomance: ''The Fire Rose'' deals with the romance between a human and an [[spoiler:involuntarily transformed sorcerer]] anthro [[WolfMan wolf]]. |
| 247 | * IntoxicationEnsues: The fake medium in ''The Wizard of London'' uses hashish-laced incense during her seances. The unknowingly-drugged clients are much easier for her to fool. |
| 248 | * InvisibleToNormals: Only those with at least a touch of magic can see the Elementals (though normal people can see the effects of them). |
| 249 | * ItsACostumePartyISwear: In ''Reserved for the Cat'', one of the dreams that the troll gives Terrence is of being given an invitation that states "fancy dress", only to show up at the party to find everyone else is in evening dress. |
| 250 | * IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: ''The Fire Rose'' features a double-barreled example in the same chapter when Jason Cameron and Rosalind Hawkins both realize that they have fallen for each other, decide that the other at best regards them as a respected friend, conclude that once Jason is restored to humanity they will be a millstone interfering with the lives that the other has earned and honestly enjoys (Railroad Tycoon and Scholar, respectively), and thus resolve to put on a brave face when they go their separate ways. |
| 251 | * JabbaTableManners: One of the side effects of Jason's transformation in ''The Fire Rose''. Rosalind eventually gets him to use a knife and fork. |
| 252 | * KickChick: Ninette from ''Reserved for the Cat'' borders on this when she kicks an attacker into a wall. Justifiable because ballet requires both strong legs and precise movements with them. |
| 253 | * KickTheSonOfABitch: Shivani is an [[EvilSorcerer Evil Sorceress]] of the first magnitude, but any reader can cheer for her when [[spoiler: she gruesomely sacrifices Simon Parkening, both for laying hands on her niece, and for being an all-around ass]]. |
| 254 | * LadykillerInLove: In his debut in ''The Serpent's Shadow'', Peter Almsley is shown to be quite contented with hired courtesans and not at all interested in love or marriage. Cue ''Unnatural Issue'', and this is quietly forgotten, because Susanne Whitestone needs a husband and Charles is a RomanticFalseLead. |
| 255 | * LifeDrain: Alison does it to her solicitor in order to increase her magical power, also to her two daughters. Possibly Shivani, since Peter Scott notes that she looks too young for her twin sister to have a twenty five year old daughter and there are only so many ways to preserve youth. |
| 256 | * LightFeminineAndDarkFeminine: |
| 257 | ** The twin sisters in ''The Serpent's Shadow''. Surya was gentle, loving and maternal (light). Shivani is vicious, vindictive and cruel. Maya as well is light, being a doctor and healer. |
| 258 | ** Marina and Madame Arachne in ''The Gates of Sleep''. Marina is kind and friendly, if somewhat stubborn and "positively lawyer-like" in her ability to stymie rules or orders she doesn't care for. Her notable exercises of Water Mastery are to seek out poison and eradicate it. She has to be forced into wearing mourning black - by virtue of having her wardrobe completely replaced. In contrast, Madame Arachne is cold, manipulative, and cruel but seductive and alluring. The base of her power is in poisoning - the environment, people, souls. Her entire wardrobe is expensive, impractical, and very, very black. |
| 259 | * LittleRedFightingHood: Rosamund "[[RedBaron Red Cloak]]" von Schwarzvald. A [[WhoYouGonnaCall Hunt Master]], ActionGirl, MagicKnight and [[CrazyPrepared walking armory]], she's practically TheDreaded to the werewolves (and other monsters) of the German forests, and the hooded cloak she once wore to her grandma's house has since become her [[IconicOutfit trademark]]. |
| 260 | * LostWillAndTestament: ''The Gates of Sleep'' has a variation -- Madame Arachne doesn't destroy the will to keep Marina from inheriting from her parents, she destroys it because it assigned Marina's guardianship to her godparents. She then claims Marina's guardianship as the newly-orphaned girl's sole remaining relative. |
| 261 | * LoveAtFirstSight: Completely unremarkable in this series; it's repeatedly stated that magicians often recognize their True Love on sight and are married shortly after without so much as posting banns. |
| 262 | * LovecraftLite: ''A Scandal in Battersea'' adds CosmicHorror trappings to the existing FantasyKitchenSink, but the heroes manage to hold their own, albeit with considerable difficulty. |
| 263 | * LovePotion: Love spells are mentioned but rarely employed, and never by the heroes for [[DoubleStandardRapeSciFi obvious reasons]]. The most notable is the villain of ''A Study in Sable'', who uses her siren blood to make everyone fall in love with her, and in an inversion, Andrew has a spell to make his patients fall ''out'' of love with him. |
| 264 | * LovelyAssistant: |
| 265 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Ninette acts as assistant in some of Jonathan's magic act. |
| 266 | ** In ''Steadfast'', Katie gets a job as the assistant in Lionel's magic act, replacing his previous assistant Suzie, who was QuittingToGetMarried. |
| 267 | * LowerDeckEpisode: ''Steadfast'' is about lower-level Mages in the seaside city of Brighton, with no Master in sight (though Lord Alderscroft and Lord Peter Almsley are mentioned) until ''after'' the whole problem is cleaned up.. |
| 268 | * MageMarksman: Giselle, the heroine of ''From a High Tower'', is a skilled markswoman to start with and when she uses her [[BlowYouAway air magic]] to 'help' the shots she manages range from phenomenal (BoomHeadshot at nearly a mile) to near-impossible (slicing a playing card in two edgewise). |
| 269 | * MagicAIsMagicA: ElementalPowers, PsychicPowers, TheFairFolk, and Indian divine magic, among others. |
| 270 | * MagicalNativeAmerican: Downplayed in ''From a High Tower''. Medicine Chief (and former U. S. Army Scout) Leading Fox being an Air Master is totally justified by magicians occurring in just about every nationality; however the only other members of Captain Cody's Wild West Show aside from Cody himself (a low-level Fire Mage and longtime friend of Leading Fox) and their current announcer[=/=]manager (an Austrian who has relatives in the Brotherhood of the Black Forest) who knows anything about magic are the other Pawnee with the show. |
| 271 | * TheMagicGoesAway: At least, it's suffering. A recurring theme is that the increasing industrialization and urbanization (and subsequent spreading of ColdIron and pollution) is driving out Elementals and has already driven out many of the Old Ones, and it's mentioned that if Puck left the magic of England would leave with him. Mari in ''Home from the Sea'' has to end her family's oath with the Selch, as the world has changed too much to keep it, and notes that they'll probably be leaving permanently for the other world soon. On the other hand, this seems to be specific to European magic, as Indian and Native American magicians have no problem with their magic. |
| 272 | * MagiciansAreWizards: |
| 273 | ** Jonathon Hightower, an Elemental Master of Fire, is also a skilled stage magician. Most of his stagework is sleight of hand, but he enjoys using "real magic" at least once in each show. |
| 274 | ** Lionel Hawkins in ''Steadfast'', is an Air Magician and has sylphs that help him with his magic acts. |
| 275 | * MagicKnight: Hunt Master Rosamund von Schwartzwald from ''Blood Red'' switches between her considerable Earth Magic and [[SilverBullet weapons of varying mundaness]] in her battles with various monsters and[=/=]or rogue wizards. |
| 276 | * MagicMusic: One method of summoning. |
| 277 | * MakingASplash: Water Masters/mages, the main ones being Peter Scott (''The Serpent's Shadow''), Lord Peter Almsley (''Unnatural Issue'' and ''The Serpent's Shadow''), Marina Roeswood (''The Gates of Sleep'') and Mari Prothero (''Home from the Sea''). |
| 278 | * MaliciousMisnaming: After Alison magically binds Eleanor into slavery, she always refers to her stepdaughter as "Ellie". Eleanor definitely takes the new name as this trope; whether Alison meant it this way or was trying to emphasize "Ellie's" new status [[note]]or just didn't want to risk confusion with the "stepdaughter at Oxford" pretense[[/note]] is left up to the reader. |
| 279 | * MalignedMixedMarriage: |
| 280 | ** Maya's parents. Maya and her mother were looked down as inferior by the British ex-Pats in India and barred from pretty much all of the social institutions. And for all that, the British were still more accepting of the marriage than Surya's family was... |
| 281 | ** Bias against mixed-class marriages is brought up in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' -- when Reggie tells his godmother that he loves Eleanor, her first reaction is that Reggie's mother won't approve because Eleanor is "common". |
| 282 | * TheMasquerade: To various degrees. England, the setting of the majority of the novels, has a full Masquerade in place with magicians keeping quiet for fear of a BurnTheWitch situation, although Lord Alderscroft eventually convinces his peers to let the highest echelons of government know since they'll probably find out eventually and it's better to get started off on the right foot. Germany and Eastern Europe is a bit more complicated since monsters are roaming its forests and therefore the Hunt Masters and local witches can usually pass muster, but it's not mainstream. The Pawnee are the only group confirmed to not have a Masquerade of any sort (although they still hide their magic from other cultures, for obvious reasons), while the traditions of African, Indian, and Romani magicians and psychics are only glimpsed. Shivani's thoughts indicate that in India, magic is known of but feared, and people stay away from it unless they have no other choice. |
| 283 | * MasqueradeBall: There is a masquerade ball towards the end of ''Phoenix and Ashes''. Eleanor attends costumed as a fairy princess. Her stepsisters are dressed up as historical personages Empress Josephine and Madame de Pompadour, while her stepmother is the Queen of the Night from ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute''. |
| 284 | * MasterOfIllusion: Jonathon. Later Lionel as well. |
| 285 | * MaternalDeathBlameTheChild: In the prologue of ''Unnatural Issue'', Richard Whitestone returns home to find that his wife succumbed to DeathByChildbirth a few hours earlier. He blames the baby, Susanne, for the death. |
| 286 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 287 | ** Marina in ''The Gates of Sleep'' is a Water Master. |
| 288 | ** Mari is the Welsh form of Mary, which can mean 'beloved' and 'rebellious'. Mari Prothero certainly rebelled against the pact of ArrangedMarriage between her family and the Selch and only agreed to it with conditions, and is beloved to her father and husband. Mary has also been translated as meaning "of the sea", which fits Mari. |
| 289 | ** Also Maya's name means 'illusion' and she is very adept with spells to avert notice. Peter means stone and Peter Scott [[spoiler: marries Maya, an Earth Master]]. The other Peter [[spoiler: follows him in ''Unnatural Issue'', with his love interest being also an Earth Master]]. |
| 290 | ** Eleanor's nickname Ellie is quite similar to Ella for Cinderella, and Reggie's surname Fenyx evokes ThePhoenix. |
| 291 | * MentorMascot: Thomas the cat in ''Reserved for the Cat''. |
| 292 | * TheMourningAfter: Richard Whitestone does not take his wife's DeathByChildbirth well, refuses to set eyes on his daughter, and turns to necromancy. |
| 293 | * MuggleBornOfMages: In ''The Gates of Sleep'', Arachne Chamberten was born without Elemental magic, to parents who were both Elemental mages (and implied to be from long lines of mages). Unfortunately for her parents and mage-born brother, she found out that you don't ''need'' inborn mage-talents to use BlackMagic. |
| 294 | * MuggleFosterParents: |
| 295 | ** Inverted with Marina Roeswood – the three godparents who raise her (and the fourth who is brought in to help teach her) are all Elemental Masters. |
| 296 | ** Both played straight and inverted with Susanne Whitestone: she's raised collectively by the servants of the Whitestone manor house, but her magical tutor and metaphorical fairy godfather is ''Robin Goodfellow''. |
| 297 | * MundaneUtility: Mercedes Lackey is in love with this trope: |
| 298 | ** Earth mages not only use their healing powers to become doctors or farmers (they prefer rural life since the soil is polluted in cities), but use Earth Magic to handle household tasks such as making cheese. They can also apply their talents to geology. |
| 299 | ** Water Masters make their fortune in shipping, sailing, or navigation. They also tend to show up as physical (rather than performing) artists and priests - (at least more than the other types. |
| 300 | ** Air Mages/Masters tend to be entertainers. This is a major plot point in ''Reserved for the Cat'' and ''Steadfast.'' In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Air Master Nigel is the impresario of a music hall and Air Magician Arthur composes and directs the orchestra (with help from Wolfgang). In ''Steadfast'', Lionel is an Air Magician who uses Air Magic to enhance his illusions as a stage magician. |
| 301 | ** Fire Masters have some ability to sense the movement of energy, which means they can do well in the commodity market. They can burn off foreign substances, as Eleanor did to overcome a dose of opiates, so they also provide quite a few doctors. They also tend towards entertainers (possibly from an inborn flamboyance??) in ''From a High Tower'', Captain Cody Lee, who owns and is a star act in a Wild West Show, turns out to also be a Fire Magician, and in ''Reserved for the Cat'' the star performer at Nigel's music hall is a stage magician who is also a Fire Mage. The heroine of ''Steadfast'' is an acrobat and dancer, who finds out she is a Fire Master. And of course, they never have to eat burned food. |
| 302 | * MysticalPlague: Alison calls up a disease elemental at one point, and basically tells it to go nuts infecting people. Mercedes Lackey doesn't come out and ''say'' [[BeenThereShapedHistory Alison just created the 1918 pandemic]], but it's certainly implied. |
| 303 | * {{Necromancer}}: Richard Whitestone turns to necromancy following his wife Rebecca's DeathByChildbirth. |
| 304 | * NeuralImplanting: Magical instead of psionic, but still applies. Elementals can give magicians information as they sleep in exchange for offerings, which is most often used for quickly learning the language of the place the Elemental comes from. |
| 305 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: After a close call involving her psychotic necromancer father, [[spoiler: Susanne Whitestone was bundled off to safety by the White Lodge. To be precise, she was evacuated to a country estate in the Ardennes department of France... in late [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI June]] [[OhCrap 1914]].]] |
| 306 | * NiceToTheWaiter: When Ninette is masquerading as Nina, she copies the behavior of La Augustine (the etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet) except when it comes to interactions with those lower in station to her. Ninette is friendly and nice to her maid Ailse, and treats the stagehands well (to the point that she's spent time and money distributing little favors among them). It's noted that while some acts have come through the theatre acting like they were royalty, she ''doesn't'' act like that, but is instead polite and fair to everyone. |
| 307 | * NinjaMaid: No kung-fu, but Ailse [=McKensie=] takes on a magical assassin with an iron cookpot. |
| 308 | * NobleBigot: Lord David Alderscroft can never quite override his biases against those of lower social classes. He gets manipulated like a puppet by a commoner (and Dark Magician) who did the [[Theatre/MyFairLady Henry Higgins]] thing and took elocution lessons to speak like an upper-class lady. He also tends to treat "women with brains" as rare creatures, as noted in ''Home From the Sea'' by Nan. Most of the time he dismisses them and it took a lot to shake him up in that regard to allow ladies into the Lodge. |
| 309 | * NobleSavage: Discussed by the Pawnee in ''From a High Tower''. After Captain Cody changes the show to better accommodate German audiences familiar with the ''{{Literature/Winnetou}}'' series, they find the stereotypes and inaccuracies in the books amusing, but find it much more enjoyable to play this trope than the [[TheSavageIndian Savage Indian]] tropes they were forced to pander to in America. |
| 310 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Old Don in ''The Bartered Brides'' is clearly an {{Expy}} of Donald Trump, down to wearing an ill-fitting suit spotted in grease stains, a tie in school colors that he has no right to wear, doing his remaining hair in a bizarre pompadour to hide his baldness, and having orange skin and undersized hands. |
| 311 | * NoGuyWantsAnAmazon: The heroine of ''Reserved for the Cat'' is a ballerina who wins two fights, one with WaifFu and another with magical firearms. In both cases she downplays her involvement for fear of scaring off potential suitors. |
| 312 | * NoodleIncident: So what happened during Nan and Sarah's trip to Africa just prior to ''Home from the Sea''? More importantly, how exactly did they acquire their foster daughter between then and ''A Study in Sable''? |
| 313 | * NotEvilJustMisunderstood: Twice over in ''A Study In Sable''. The fearsome man engaging in blood sacrifice who infuriates Nan's past self just by seeing him is actually a priest of Tyr using willing and already dying subjects to tend to the land. [[spoiler:Likewise, the man with the violin who steals a woman's arm bone and makes it into a harp, then summons spirits to torment an opera singer with it, is actually completely benevolent. The woman's spirit gave him permission to use her bones, and the opera singer is the real villain who murdered her.]] |
| 314 | * NoWomansLand: England in TheEdwardianEra is like this. An unmarried woman is just a second-class citizen without the right to vote and threatened by harassment, and who can be moved around like a game piece by her relatives, but a married woman is about one step up from a slave, and her husband has virtually the power of life and death over her. Women with magic can normally avert this, however, as they can normally support themselves without marrying and choose husbands who will be good for them. The only protagonist who faces the full force of this trope is Kate from ''Steadfast'', when her husband finds her; she's married to an [[DomesticAbuse abusive]] {{Jerkass}} and her mentors are [[ThouShaltNotKill unusually reticent to let her simply kill him herself]]. |
| 315 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: Lord Peter Almsley acts like an UpperClassTwit most of the time, but is actually [[CulturedBadass anything but]]. The pose is a useful way to ensure that most of the people he meets will underestimate him. |
| 316 | * OfCorsetHurts: In ''The Gates of Sleep'', after Madame Arachne carries off Marina, her maid forces Marina into tight lacing with the comment "You've never been properly corseted". (Marina eventually figures out how to tense her abdominal muscles to keep her corset from being laced too tightly.) Maya in ''The Serpent's Shadow'' and Rose in ''The Fire Rose'' also show dislike for wearing corsets, and never laces theirs as tightly as fashion would dictate. |
| 317 | * OfCorsetsSexy : In ''Jolene'', Anna longs for a corset (along with hairpins to put up her hair) as a sign of being a grown woman, but her family is too poor to even afford a homemade one. When she goes to live with her Aunt Jinny, her aunt buys her a corset and Anna is thrilled to finally have one (though she's also feels a bit guilty about the cost). |
| 318 | * OneManArmy: Rosamund is TheMinionMaster version of this trope. [[spoiler: She capably employs elemental summoning, superior tactical ability and a fair amount of [[TheCombatPragmatist cheating]] to eliminate the majority of a clan of 43 werewolves single-handedly.]] |
| 319 | * OneRiotOneRanger: The Brüderschaft employ the realistic version. Their usual methodology is to send a single Hunt Master to a region to handle a developing situation, and then that Hunt Master organizes the local help into a Hunting Party if they need backup. At one point, this gets Rosamund and her two local allies in ''way'' over their head, because the arse end of Transylvania is without any magicians stronger than a kitchen-witch. |
| 320 | * OneSteveLimit: Lampshaded aversion. Peter Scott and Peter Almsley share the name, Water Mastery, and temperament, and they're thick as thieves, jokingly referring to each other as "twins" because of the shared name and mastery. |
| 321 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: Ninette's entire motivation, at least at first. Played sympathetically as a matter of survival, not greed. |
| 322 | * OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Rosalind Hawkins usually goes by Rose, Katherine Langford only goes by Katie and sometimes Kate, Rosamund goes by Rosa, Helen Byerly is exclusively called Ellie except when her mother invokes FullNameUltimatum, and Anna's aunt Virginia Alscot goes by Jinny. |
| 323 | * OopNorth: Most of ''Unnatural Issue'' is set in Yorkshire. |
| 324 | * OpiumDen: Opium dens are depicted in all their squalor in ''The Fire Rose''. |
| 325 | * OurAngelsAreDifferent: In ''The Fire Rose'', [[spoiler: the Unicorn]] is strongly implied to be this. At the very least, it's a spirit of something other than the four elements, it cannot be coerced by any kind of magic, and it's apparently speaking and acting on behalf of some kind of higher authority. |
| 326 | * OurGodsAreDifferent: The pagan gods of Europe are essentially very powerful and humanlike Greater Elementals. Thunderbird, from America, is also a Great Air Elemental. Meanwhile, the Hindu deities seen in ''The Serpent's Shadow'' are ''not'' elementals, and appear to be linked to the Spirit element, and share more characteristics with the Christian {{God}}. God Himself hasn't personally shown up yet, though beings implied to be angels have, and holy Christian objects are [[HolyHandGrenade extremely lethal against evil beings]]. |
| 327 | * OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: ''Blood Red'' has two different types of werewolf show up, and refers to two others. All of them are apparently vulnerable to silver and wolfsbane. |
| 328 | ** Sorcerers can use BloodMagic and a wolfskin belt to become werewolves. They have superhuman strength and a hybrid man-wolf form, plus enhanced healing. They have to cast the shifter spell each time they take wolf form, but apparently can return to human form without another HumanSacrifice. |
| 329 | ** Members of the werewolf bloodlines gain the ability to turn into wolves after they're weaned. They retain the same body mass whether wolf or human (youngsters turn into wolf cubs), their human intellect, and normal strength. If they spend too long in wolf form, they can lose themselves in the wolf's instincts. Their change is completely voluntary, and can take place at any time as long as the werewolf isn't in sunlight. They have supernatural healing (which includes healing diseases), but only when in wolf form. Their bite does ''not'' create other werewolves. |
| 330 | ** It's possible for someone to be either infected or cursed with lycanthropy. We don't see an example of either on-page, but it's implied that they almost always "go bad" as the human mind loses itself in the wolf instincts as the shift occurs. |
| 331 | * ParasolOfPain: Custom made umbrellas with sharpened tips, reinforced shafts comparable to crowbars, and hidden compartments in the handle are mentioned in more than one book as discreetly martial accessories for ladies. |
| 332 | * ParentalAbandonment: |
| 333 | ** In ''The Serpent's Shadow'', the death of the protagonist's magician mother quickly led to the death of her father (since she had concealed him from a common enemy who objected to their marriage). The story opens after the protagonist has relocated to VictorianLondon in the hopes of escaping her family's enemy. |
| 334 | ** ''The Gates of Sleep'' starts with Marina's parents agreeing to let Marina be raised by three of her godparents in secret. |
| 335 | ** ''Phoenix and Ashes'' opens when the now-orphaned protagonist learns of the death of her father, who was set up by her stepmother. |
| 336 | ** In ''The Wizard of London'', Nan doesn't know who her father is, and her neglectful mother eventually tries to sell her for drugs or alcohol. Luckily, Nan gets rescued by the boarding school that is giving her their leftover food. |
| 337 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Ninette's father disappeared when she was a baby, and her mother dies shortly before the novel starts. (Subverted when we learn [[spoiler:Thomas the cat is Ninette's father, transformed when he lost a magic duel. He did what he could for his wife and child, but there just isn't that much a cat can do]].) |
| 338 | ** In ''Unnatural Issue'', Susanne's mother succumbs to DeathByChildbirth and her father immediately pulls a [[IHaveNoSon I Have No Daughter]] upon finding out the news, leaving her to be raised by the servants. |
| 339 | ** In ''Steadfast'', Katie's parents die when their caravan somehow catches fire. In the ensuing grief, Katie is easily convinced by the owner of the circus her family worked for to marry the circus strongman, who turns out to be abusive. |
| 340 | ** In ''From a High Tower'', Giselle's father trades her to the Earth Master next door for a garden of vegetables to feed his large family. Later on, Giselle's kindly adoptive mother dies, and she has to go out into the world in order to earn money to live on. |
| 341 | * ParentalIncest: ''Unnatural Issue'' is based on the fairy tale "The King Who Wished To Marry His Daughter", and had a more disturbing version. [[spoiler:He wishes to use his daughter's body as a vessel for her dead mother's spirit, and marry her all over again, even making plans to dismiss all the servants who knew about the girl and return with his new 'young bride'. In a particularly creepy scene, the heroine overhears her father ruminating on the things he's going to do to her (well, her body anyway) and is as horrified as you might expect.]] |
| 342 | * PassFail: |
| 343 | ** Suki, a mixed race girl [[note]]so mixed that not even ''Sherlock Holmes'' can trace her origins![[/note]], is passed off as an Italian girl by Nan and Sarah to avoid prejudice. |
| 344 | ** Leading Fox's tribe of Pawnee are intending to do this en masse, living as white people and passing as Italians so they can maintain their traditions in secret rather than face the fate of other Native American tribes of the era. |
| 345 | * PayEvilUntoEvil: Robin Goodfellow states it: "Evil to him who evil does, I say!" |
| 346 | * PervertDad: In ''Unnatural Issue'', the father, a necromancer, intends to call back the spirit of his dead wife, place it in the body of his grown-up daughter, and... he gets his comeuppance at the end, though. |
| 347 | * PhonyPsychic: In ''The Wizard of London'', one appears in it as a medium, pretending to help wealthy people connect with their dead loved ones. The main characters unmask her as the fraud she is when one of her clients tells her friend that she is seeing a medium for her lost son and the friend is suspicious. |
| 348 | * PoorCommunicationKills: Or at least impoverishes. If Giselle's mother had thought to tell her [[spoiler: exactly what she was doing with Giselle's offcut hair, Giselle wouldn't have had to SweetPollyOliver in shooting contests to support herself... but then, if Giselle '''had''' known that, ''From a High Tower'' would have ended at about chapter 5.]] |
| 349 | * PostModernMagik: |
| 350 | ** Dr Witherspoon's arcane talents and senses are invaluable in determining what new[[note]]for Edwardian values thereof[[/note]] medical theories actually ''work'', while her knowledge of anatomy and the process of the disease enables her application of HealingHands to properly cure a case of Tuberculosis. |
| 351 | ** Arachne's method of HumanSacrifice is to take innocent young girls and [[IndustrializedEvil employ them in an Edwardian pottery/brothel]], causing them to slowly waste away from lead poisoning while their minds and souls are degraded from the sex work. |
| 352 | ** Lead from a church roof is used to make [[ReligionIsMagic holy bullets]]. |
| 353 | * PublicDomainCharacter: |
| 354 | ** Susanne Whitestone gets magic lessons from no less than [[Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream Robin Goodfellow]]. Robin also makes appearances in ''The Wizard of London'', ''Home from the Sea'' and ''A Study in Sable''. |
| 355 | ** Nan and Sarah work with John Watson and others members of the Franchise/SherlockHolmes cast in ''A Study in Sable'', ''A Scandal in Battersea'', ''The Bartered Brides'' and ''Case of the Spellbound Child'' (Grey and Neville appear on the covers of all). |
| 356 | * QuittingToGetMarried: This is the reason why Lionel had difficulty keeping a permanent LovelyAssistant for his magic act. All of them, with the exception of an Elemental Mage that got called away by Lord Alderscroft, end up marrying men not in the theatre/entertainment business and leaving to be housewives. Suzie is the latest in a line of them, which leads to Katie being hired. |
| 357 | * RagsToRoyalty: Rose Hawkins of ''The Fire Rose'', Eleanor Robinson of ''Phoenix and Ashes'', and Ninette Dupond of ''Reserved for the Cat'' are commoners who marry into royalty (or at least nobility and immense wealth); Marina of ''The Gates of Sleep'' has a noble heritage she's raised in ignorance of; and Maya Witherspoon of ''The Serpent's Shadow'' and ''Phoenix and Ashes'' has a noble heritage that she has to give up and go into hiding. |
| 358 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: |
| 359 | ** Paul du Mond from ''The Fire Rose'' is a bad man, and one of the ways that this is made abundantly clear is that he essentially works as a professional rapist[[note]]He's still paying for the use of the women, but he gets a discount[[/note]], turning poor Mexican and East Coast girls into properly-broken San Francisco prostitutes. |
| 360 | ** The first sign that the man Giselle meets early on is a truly awful man is how he attempts to rape her and nearly succeeds. There are [[HumanSacrifice worse]] implications in what he wanted to do to her as well. |
| 361 | * RealEventFictionalCause: |
| 362 | ** In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', an evil Earth Master engineers and sends out the flu strain of 1918 in order to prolong the War. |
| 363 | ** Then there was backlash after that earthquake when the Fire Master was killed in California in ''The Fire Rose''... |
| 364 | * RealNameAsAnAlias: When Peter Almsley goes undercover as a gamekeeper in order to befriend Susanne, with his friend and valet Garrick pretending to be his scholarly half-brother, Peter uses his middle name Devlin as his last name, while Garrick uses his middle name Clive as his first. |
| 365 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: |
| 366 | ** When forced to be, Lord Alderscroft is this, being the stern patriarch of the Exeter Club and the one man who's most responsible for keeping rogue mages from running wild in England and maintaining good relations with the local elementals. However, while he can be trusted to do the right thing in the end, [[ObstructiveBureaucrat until then, he's often not much help]]. |
| 367 | ** ''Unnatural Issue'' explains that this is in a gamekeeper's job description. Theoretically, a gamekeeper is supposed to prevent ''all'' illegal poaching on his lord's land, but actually enforcing this just leads to a messy, covert war that benefits nobody. Both Robin Goodfellow and Peter Almsley, when they take on the job, instead confine themselves to ensuring that nobody overhunts the land they're responsible for. (Of course, in Robin's case, it helps that he couldn't care less about game laws, only about the good of the land.) |
| 368 | ** ''Jolene'' has a brief appearance by the Ducktown sheriff; while having to escort the two Company representatives [[spoiler: who are looking to make Anna May an indentured servant to pay her parent's debts - slavery by another legal name - when Anna May comes up with the money to pay it, he's more than happy to go along with and even add to Jinny's ideas to make sure the debt is actually cleared and the Company reps can't steal the money.]] |
| 369 | ** Interestingly, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Jolene herself]]; [[spoiler: yes, she steals away Josh to be one of her 'chosen', and manipulated matters so that Anna May would end up in the clutches of the BigBad. But when Anna May braves the mine to look for him and plead with Jolene, Jolene sends one of her own lizard familiars as a guide. When Anna May reaches her, Jolene allows her to plead her case, and takes her allegations about [=McDaran=] seriously, even though they'd been allies of a sort previously. Once Anna May and Josh [[SecretTestOfCharacter prove their genuine devotion]] to each other, Jolene wishes them well, and even gives them a minor magical gift, which saves Anna May in the above situation with the Company reps.]] |
| 370 | * ReligionIsMagic: |
| 371 | ** The Hindu gods are very active in ''The Serpent's Shadow''. Furthermore, Christian holy relics (such as lead from a church roof) are effective against dark magic. The pagan gods of England and elsewhere are also quite active, but they're seen as another variety of [[TheFairFolk Fair Folk]] or Elemental spirit, rather than something truly different. |
| 372 | ** Subverted in one instance in ''Blood Red''. When Rosamund teaches a village elder to use a seeking spell, she instructs him to use blessed salt. The blessing is unnecessary, but it doesn't ''hurt'' anything and makes the magic seem more benign to her superstitious student. |
| 373 | * RevenantZombie: ''Phoenix and Ashes'' offers incorporeal revenants, distinct from true ghosts in that they are so obsessed with revenge that they cannot think rationally. |
| 374 | * RewatchBonus: in ''The Case of the Spellbound Child''; if you read Ellie's early POV carefully, you find out after the father lost his hand to an industrial mill, the family has only avoided homelessness by a stroke of luck, and might be on the verge of slowly starving to death - when your supper (for four people) is half a bowl of goat's milk and a loaf of bread, it's no wonder that Ellie and Simon's mother knows every inch of the garden and won't let the kids snack on it. And with that kind of stress, it's no wonder the mother loses her shit when their fighting indoors spills the milk, and orders them to get out on the moors and not come back until they've foraged enough food to make up for what their misbehaviour has cost. |
| 375 | ** And then? ''They don't come back''. |
| 376 | * RitualMagic: Madame Arachne (''The Gates of Sleep'') is a MuggleBornOfMages, but discovered that she ''could'' use BlackMagic by following the instructions precisely. It's specifically noted that unlike her son, she doesn't believe in any of the devils those instructions invoke. |
| 377 | * RoguishPoacher: Several of the minor characters in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' poach the Fenix woods with the tacit permission of Reggie Fenix -- it's a source of protein that isn't affected by rationing. |
| 378 | * ARoundOfDrinksForTheHouse: |
| 379 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Jonathan pretends to be someone who just won a lot of money and is buying rounds to celebrate as a way to keep a reporter occupied while Thomas and Wolf search the reporter's apartment. |
| 380 | ** In ''Phoenix and Ashes'', Reginald routinely offers to buy rounds at the local pub. He's loaded and knows that the guys he befriended there [[INeedAFreakingDrink could use a drink]] since many of them (like him) were sent home after being injured in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. |
| 381 | ** In ''Unnatural Issue'', when Lord Peter Almsley is masquerading as a gameskeeper, it is mentioned that he endeared himself to the regulars at the local pub in the proper manner by buying the house a round. |
| 382 | * SaintlyChurch: Whenever Christian churches or churchgoers are presented in the books, they nearly always are good people devoted to helping others (though HolierThanThou types do get an occasional mention), and the power and actions of {{God}} are nearly universally a good thing in the world. There is even some holy power invested in churches and Christian objects. Subverted in ''From a High Tower'', when the group comes across an abandoned convent that used to be a Magdalene asylum, and find the angry ghosts of women who were worked to death in it. |
| 383 | * SaltSolution: Salt and shotgun shells filled with salt are used to deal with Richard Whitestone's necromantic servants and revenants. [[WalkingArmory Rosamund]] carries both with her on her missions, and blesses it just to make sure. |
| 384 | * SapientCetaceans: ''The Fire Rose'' mentions that whale and dolphin Water Masters are known to exist. |
| 385 | * SchoolPlay: The Harton School puts on a production of ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' in ''The Wizard of London''. |
| 386 | * SelkiesAndWereseals: |
| 387 | ** In ''Home from the Sea''. [[spoiler:The main character has to marry a Selkie to fulfill a bargain her family made centuries ago.]] |
| 388 | ** The Selkies of Sule Skerry get a mention in ''The Serpent's Shadow''. With their way of life endangered by social and technological progress, things were looking bleak for them; then Peter Scott helped ten young Selkie men acquire brides (by [[NoodleIncident somehow finding]] ten [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold honest, clean-hearted girls]] among the streetwalkers of London), as well as acting as an intermediary to build houses for the girls and ensure they're well-provided-for in mortal coin. In return, the Selkies provide Peter with concentrated magical power upon request. |
| 389 | * {{Satan}}: May or may not exist. At least two villains use Satanic and blasphemous trappings to tap into dark magic, but Arachne openly scorns the idea that he exists, seeing the rituals as powerful in their own right. He might have shown up in ''The Gates Of Sleep''....or it might have been a powerful elemental masquerading as Satan. |
| 390 | * SeriesContinuityError: |
| 391 | ** ''The Serpent's Shadow'' cannot make up its mind about the name of Maya's father. He is mentioned by name twice. The first time his name is Nigel, the second time his name is Roger. |
| 392 | ** In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Ninette's mother is named Marie or Maria almost interchangeably. |
| 393 | *** Though perhaps a typo or author error, [[TruthInTelevision many people didn't use consistent spellings for their names]] until at least 1930, and Marie/Maria were in period interchangeable. |
| 394 | ** In ''Unnatural Issue'', Susanna makes a charm bundle and uses it to create a doppleganger of herself so she can sneak off to practice magic. When she runs away from home she's specifically described as burning the bundle and scattering the ashes, as it could be used against her if it got into her evil father's hands. Yet towards the end of the novel it's said that the bundle could ''not'' be destroyed by mere burning as it was a magical object and Susanna still had it with her--conveniently, as the good guys could then use it in their plan to draw out dear old dad. |
| 395 | * SexIsEvil: Not generally the case, but [[ExploitedTrope exploited]] by Arachne's IndustrializedEvil. As the prostitutes working in her paint shops start to think of themselves as "fallen women," they stop trying to avoid vanity, unhealthy and degrading sex acts and spiritual decay. Some of the women avert this - because they never believed that SexIsEvil in the first place, they're able to maintain a healthy sexuality and [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold their prostitution causes them no spiritual harm]]. |
| 396 | * ShapeshifterBaggage: Mentioned. The Troll can avert it, but she has to use an obscene amount of power and [[RealityWarper bend the laws of physics to do so]] and just seeing it happen makes Thomas and Ninette [[BrownNote feel sick]]. |
| 397 | * ShapeshifterShowdown: |
| 398 | ** Marina and Arachne throw down in the climax of ''The Gates of Sleep''. |
| 399 | ** Alluded to in ''Reserved for the Cat''. [[spoiler:Thomas lost.]] |
| 400 | * ShapeshiftingHealsWounds: In ''Blood Red'', Markos and his clan can heal darn near anything with a single shift of form, including diseases. About the only time they would need a Healer or doctor is for an injury inflicted by silver. |
| 401 | * SheCleansUpNicely: Eleanor Robinson, not surprising considering that ''Phoenix and Ashes'' is a "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" reworking. |
| 402 | * ShellShockedVeteran: |
| 403 | ** Reggie Fenyx and his fellows in ''Phoenix and Ashes''. |
| 404 | ** Jack from ''Steadfast'' has PTSD from his experiences in the Boer War. |
| 405 | ** Charles gains a particularly bad case in ''Unnatural Issue''. Luckily, his parents manage to get him discharged. |
| 406 | * ShoutOut: |
| 407 | ** Lord Peter Almsley is what Literature/LordPeterWimsey would be like if Dorothy Sayers had given him magical powers. |
| 408 | ** In ''Home from the Sea'', when Nan and Sarah are telling their former teacher about their trip in Africa, they mention that they were helped in Egypt by a lady who is known as "Sitt Hakim" and from the rest of her description is clearly Literature/AmeliaPeabody. |
| 409 | ** Lackey obviously took note of the happy coincidence of all the descriptions of the Queen of the Copper Mountain matching the title character of Music/DollyParton's song 'Jolene'; not only is Jolene the Queen's current human alias, [[spoiler: the major climax is all but a fictionalisation of the song.]] |
| 410 | ** also in ''Jolene''; early in the book, Anna May spends an evening being read to from a book of German folktales. Two of them are clearly [[Literature/ChildBallads The Twa Sisters]] and Literature/HanselAndGretel; these stories were the inspiration for two earlier Elemental Masters books. |
| 411 | * ShrineToTheFallen: Alluded to in ''Phoenix and Ashes''. When Reggie Fenyx comes home on medical leave, he finds that his mother preserved his room as it was when he left for World War I (though at least it got cleaned regularly). He muses that had he died in France, the room would have become his memorial. |
| 412 | * TheShutIn: In the backstory of ''Unnatural Issue'', Richard Whitestone spends the bulk of his widowerhood in his chambers and library on the second floor of his country manor. |
| 413 | * SilverBullet: |
| 414 | ** Ninette's maid Ailse carries with her at all times a revolver loaded with Cold Iron, silver, and Blessed Lead bullets. Ninette later gets a revolver of her own with those bullets and learns how to shoot it. |
| 415 | ** Rosamund (''Blood Red'') keeps an assortment of silver, cold iron, blessed salt and so forth in ammunition form for her pistols and shotgun. |
| 416 | * SkepticNoLonger: Sherlock Holmes proves a downplayed example in ''A Study in Sable''. While he remains a stubborn disbeliever in things he cannot directly perceive[[note]](to the ongoing irritation of Water Master John Watson)[[/note]], Nan Killian convinced him of her PsychicPowers by the expedient of securing an interview and providing a running commentary as she summarily mind-probed him. |
| 417 | * SkinnyDipping: In ''The Gates of Sleep'', Marina goes skinny-dipping with undines once that we see, but it's clearly a common occurrence whenever the weather's warm enough. |
| 418 | * SmokyGentlemensClub: The Exeter Club passes itself off as one of these (going so far as to hire pensioned-off male servants to sit in the padded leather chairs and read the newspaper or nap) as a cover. |
| 419 | * TheSoulsaver: Part of Sarah's job as a medium is to help ghosts, who are shown to exist in a gray, dreary limbo, move on to {{Heaven}} or the Summer Country (depending on their religion). |
| 420 | * SparedByTheAdaptation: In the original stories, Mary Watson died between "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House". Here, it's explained that she faked her death to help catch a necromancer. |
| 421 | * SpookySeance: One is featured in ''The Wizard of London'', with Nan, Sarah, and Mem'sahib revealing the medium conducting the seance as the PhonyPsychic. The actual ghost (a young boy) that they were looking to contact appears at the end of it all and using Sarah as the vehicle, assures his mother that it's all right and to please stop crying as it's scaring his younger sister before having to leave for good. |
| 422 | * SpotlightStealingSquad: Sarah and Nan were originally just one pair of protagonists among many; while they show up again in ''Home from the Sea'', it's as supporting cast. However, since ''A Study in Sable'', they've become the protagonists of each book. |
| 423 | * SpotMonkey: After Ninette's performance in ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sylphide La Sylphide]]'' at the beginning of ''Reserved for the Cat'', one reviewer compliments her for avoiding this trope and making the Sylph's death scene brief. The injured ballerina Ninette was filling in for was notorious for dragging the death out so long the orchestra had to start repeating measures. |
| 424 | * StageMom: A minor character in ''The Gates of Sleep'' is a child chess prodigy whose father drove him into a breakdown by pushing the kid into more and more public exhibition games. |
| 425 | * StaircaseTumble: In his backstory, [[spoiler: Thomas killed the Elemental Master who trapped him in a cat's body]] by tripping her at the top of a steep marble staircase. |
| 426 | * StigmaticPregnancyEuphemism: |
| 427 | ** Alluded to in ''The Gates of Sleep''. Doctor Pike does not treat cases of "nerves" that result in childbirth a few months later. |
| 428 | ** Played with in ''Reserved for the Cat''. The BigBad cannot become pregnant [[spoiler:since it's not human]], but intends to let people ''think'' she was off giving birth during the time she was trying to kill Ninette. |
| 429 | * StraightToThePointe: Alluded to in ''Reserved for the Cat'' -- after ballet lessons for little girls becomes the latest fad in Blackpool, the local ballet master specifically does not teach the children pointe dancing, but demi-pointe. |
| 430 | * StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Reggie goes through this when he returns to the family manor in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' after being in the front lines of World War I. |
| 431 | %%* StreetUrchin: Nan in ''The Wizard of London''. |
| 432 | * {{Streetwalker}}: |
| 433 | ** When Ninette is fired from the Paris Opera Ballet and unable to find employment, she is faced with the prospect that she will have to become one to pay the bills. Luckily Thomas steps in and prevents that from happening. |
| 434 | ** In ''The Wizard of London'', the last that Nan has heard of her mother is that she has hit the bottom rung of a woman in Whitechapel by becoming this, roaming the streets with nothing but the clothes on her back and soliciting men to further her alcoholism and addiction to drugs. |
| 435 | * StrongFamilyResemblance: Susanne Whitestone looks almost exactly like her mother... which unfortunately attracts the ''[[ParentalIncest wrong]]'' kind of attention from her father. |
| 436 | * SuicideNotAccident: He doesn't go through with it, but Reggie Fenyx strongly considers an "accidental" high speed car crash as a way of dealing with his shellshock in ''Phoenix and Ashes''. |
| 437 | * TheSvengali: Jason Cameron is a mild example of this to Paul du Mond. He's using Paul as an agent while theoretically teaching him Fire Magic, but he knows damn well that his teaching isn't doing Paul any good because the man won't apply himself. While he doesn't lie to Paul, he's happy to let him lie to himself, and he's planning to [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness discard]] Paul the first chance he gets. |
| 438 | * SweetPollyOliver: Giselle disguises herself as a man named Gunther von Weber so she can enter sharpshooting contests and win money to provide a living for herself. Nan and Sarah, thanks to tutelage in disguise from Sherlock Holmes, have male guises for the times it is easier or safer for them to investigate things as young men. Suki also has a boy guise for when she runs about with the Irregulars. After Mary Watson has to fake her death, she sometimes goes about in male guise. |
| 439 | * SwornBrothers: In ''Jolene'', Anna finds out that her great-grandfather Pavel became blood brothers a Cherokee Elemental Master named Eagle Sight after settling in Tennessee (via reading his journal and talking with her aunt.) |
| 440 | * TallDarkAndSnarky: Jonathon Hightower in ''Reserved for the Cat''. He loses some of the arrogance but keeps the snark. |
| 441 | * TalkingAnimal: Wolfgang, Maya’s seven "pets" [[spoiler:when possessed by the Hindu gods they’re associated with]], Neville and Grey. Thomas doesn’t qualify, as he can only speak [[{{Telepathy}} mind-to-mind]], and only to those with some degree of magical ability. |
| 442 | * TarotMotifs: Eleanor's magical instruction in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' occurs in a dream world where she encounters special beings that masquerade as the tarot cards. |
| 443 | * TeacherStudentRomance: In ''Home from the Sea''. [[spoiler:Mari ends up falling in love with the Selkie sent to be her magic teacher, instead of the Selkies sent to court her.]] |
| 444 | * TimmyInAWell: Thomas the cat alerts Nigel and Arthur that his mistress Ninette is in trouble. The sensational account makes the papers, with the story changed so that the cat runs for help, finds the two men, and leads them to her, as per the trope. (Thomas is disgusted to be portrayed so doggishly.) |
| 445 | * TitleDrop: |
| 446 | ** The last four words of ''Reserved for the Cat''. |
| 447 | ** ''Home from the Sea'' does the same thing. |
| 448 | * ThouShaltNotKill: Good magicians and masters normally avoid using their Elementals to do harm, though this appears to be either a personal choice or dictated by their teachers' tradition. Evil ones practically revel in it, and make generous use of Dark Elementals that enjoy causing pain and death. |
| 449 | ** This doesn't apply in ''The Fire Rose''. Both Jason Cameron (who is morally somewhat ambiguous) and Rosalind (who isn't) are willing to call Elementals for battle. America's magical society is far more violent than Europe's, however. |
| 450 | ** Katie's teachers impress this rule on her to keep her from solving the problem of her [[DomesticAbuse abusive husband]] by [[KillItWithFire just burning him down]], because it would destroy the innocence of her Elementals and possibly [[MurderMakesYouCrazy lead her down the dark path]]. |
| 451 | *** This could also be because one of her mentors [[spoiler: and eventual husband]] Jack, is suffering from either PTSD or serious depression from soldiering in the Boer War, due to participating (under orders) in a massacre of a native tribe. As for Lionel... Katie is a very new magician, and she's coming to it very late (most Elemental magicians start training either as a child, or early puberty); it's possible that murder by elemental could set a dangerous precedent as well, and her age means it will be very difficult to train out of her magic. |
| 452 | ** There's also an implication that while some of the "Dark" Elementals are always that way by nature, some of them were corrupted by doing things like killing for Dark magicians. |
| 453 | ** Giselle, after reliving her accidental first kill, resolves never to ask her playful, friendly air elementals to harm anyone for her again. She doesn't apply this to herself, however, and by the end of her book is almost as formidable a warrior as Rosamund herself. |
| 454 | ** Rosamund doesn't obey this rule, and freely asks Elementals' aid in battle and even for assassination. It helps that, given the nature of her duties, she has a couple of pagan gods of war and the hunt on speed-dial. |
| 455 | ** It's implied that knowing how to not only recruit Elementals, but knowing when it's appropriate to ask them for help, and what kind of help you can ask them for without tainting them or your own magic is part of the Brüderschaft's training for Hunt Masters (and you can't be one without having enough power to do so). If you cover the above examples, Katie is a civilian, Giselle is a military recruit in training, the Brüderschaft is army and Rosamund is SAS. |
| 456 | * TrainingTheGiftOfMagic: Marina specifically points out in ''The Gates of Sleep'' that while she may have the ''potential'' to be an Elemental Master, she doesn't have the training to claim that title. |
| 457 | * TransTribulations: While it's kept to subtext, it eventually becomes clear that [[spoiler:Caro]] is a trans man. This being the Victorian Era, not even the sympathetic characters fully understand him, but he's pretty clear on what he wants and rejoices when he's given the body of a man. |
| 458 | * TrickingTheShapeshifter: In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Thomas attempts to trick the shapeshifting villain into becoming something small and harmless, like the ogre in "Puss in Boots". The villain is more on the ball than that ogre, however, and shifts again to catch the cat by the throat when he pounces. |
| 459 | * {{Uberwald}}: Eastern Europe in ''Blood Red''. To a lesser extent, the Schwarzvald in ''From a High Tower''; while we see it from the perspective of a cheery Wild West show travelling through, we also see a couple glimpses of just how magically dangerous the place can get (such as stumbling over a haunted [[BedlamHouse Magdalene convent]] and waking up the ghosts of tormented girls). |
| 460 | * UnclePennybags: Lord Peter Almsley, who [[EstablishingCharacterMoment casually hands Dr. Maya Witherspoon enough money to fund the Fleet charity clinic for a month without a care.]] Apparently this is one of his hobbies. |
| 461 | * UnholyGround: Madame Arachne's office in ''The Gates of Sleep'' connects to the defiled chapel where she and her son celebrate Black Masses. |
| 462 | * {{Unicorn}}: In ''The Fire Rose'', Unicorns are Elementals of Spirit, and the physical embodiment of Knowledge, Purity, and Wisdom. When they choose to answer a summons ([[UnicornsPreferVirgins which requires a virgin to carry out the request]]), they can take on various forms, such as how medieval artists depicted them, as a young boy or girl in white robes, as a burning bush, or as a white bird. The heroine has to summon one, and unfortunately all she sees is a white, blurry shape, since she can't wear her glasses during the ritual and she's BlindWithoutEm. The voice is described as "bell-clear, sweet, silvery, and sexless". |
| 463 | * UnicornsPreferVirgins: In ''The Fire Rose'', the ritual to summon a unicorn must include a virgin in order to work. |
| 464 | * UnscrupulousHero: Jason Cameron's worldview in ''The Fire Rose'', inherited from his own Master. He's not exactly a good person, but he believes in being a good shepherd to the lower classes because well-fed poor work better and don't start riots. It's essentially PragmaticVillainy taken to the point where he doesn't need to be a villain. |
| 465 | * VainSorceress: Subverted with Lady Cordelia. She does all in her power to keep herself pretty and stop herself from aging (not even smiling because it'll wrinkle faster), but only because she doesn't want to lose the social power she has as a beautiful woman, and is quite annoyed by it. She's ecstatic when she gets the idea to steal a man's body so she can age without worries. |
| 466 | * TheVamp: |
| 467 | ** Alison Robinson got where she is by using and destroying men. Her daughters try, but they lack her experience and are nowhere near as effective. |
| 468 | ** Aunt Arachne has also used and destroyed several men on her way to power. Unlike Alison, she resents it and would much rather have power in her own right than have to use a man to get it. |
| 469 | * VictorianLondon: The setting/period for ''The Wizard of London'', chronologically (though not in publication order) the earliest of the novels. The rest of the Nan and Sarah books are late Victorian era. |
| 470 | * VirginSacrifice: |
| 471 | ** The rarity of male virgin sacrifices is mentioned in ''The Fire Rose''. The villain needs a virgin sacrifice, and remarks that while the gender doesn't matter, it's so much easier to verify a woman's virginity than a man's. |
| 472 | ** The BigBad in [[spoiler:''A Scandal in Battersea'' requires virgin sacrifices in order to fully break into our world. It doesn't care if they're male or female, only that they have to be given in pairs, with one taken as a sacrifice and other (who has to be of high enough station to get sent by their family to a mental institution) removed of their souls and left alive for its own purposes.]] |
| 473 | * VomitingCop: In ''Unnatural Issue'', a squad from the White Lodge in London is sent to investigate the Yorkshire Manor of a reclusive former member that has [[FaceHeelTurn gone around the bend]]. When they find that he had killed all the household servants a couple of days ago (in high summer) Dr. Maya Scott (physician and Earth Master) bolts outside to become violently ill; which is understandable given that the victims were still [[OurZombiesAreDifferent going about their jobs]], she could tell that their souls were [[AndIMustScream locked into their rotting bodies]], and the perversion of Earth Magic the [[{{Necromancer}} renegade Whitestone]] had gone in for would sicken even a (sane) Earth Master inured to the filth and pain of London's slums. The Air Master in the squad follows her a minute later to do the same. |
| 474 | * WaifFu: Ninette. She's a ballerina, but, as she herself points out, ballet builds muscle. |
| 475 | * WainscotSociety: |
| 476 | ** Magical society in London and America is generally hidden from the {{muggles}}, mostly because most supposed magicians are fakes like Aleister Crowley. There's no {{Masquerade}} in place, but magicians generally don't advertise themselves as magical to avoid standing out. Out in rural areas (and in India, according to Shivani), however, there's not so much separation between magical and nonmagical; most of the locals in Yorkshire practice the May Day rites and leave milk out for the brownies, and Charles Kerridge's manor openly uses Earth Magic in their cottage industry. Also, during World War I, there's secret collaboration between the mundane government and the White Lodge. |
| 477 | ** In rural Germany and Eastern Europe, most magicians don't interact much with each other, but every magician knows a few others and the location of the local Brüderschaft lodge: {{Uberwald}} is too dangerous for a Magician to go completely solo. The Brüderschaft itself is a loose collection of lodges who [[WhoYouGonnaCall deal with monsters and Dark Magicians]]; the usual practice is to send out a Hunt Master and have them gather the local talent to help with the Hunts. |
| 478 | * WarIsHell: This is a major theme in ''Phoenix and Ashes'' and ''Unnatural Issue''. WWI has severe negative effects on the characters who are soldiers, as well as those on the home front. Jack in ''Steadfast'' suffers from having gone through the UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar and having a massive guilt complex from the massacres that went on during that. |
| 479 | * WartimeWedding: There's a villainous twist to this in ''Phoenix and Ashes''. Alison intends to bespell Reggie into a Wartime Wedding to one of her daughters, magically ensure that an heir is conceived, then [[UriahGambit get Reggie back to the front to be killed]], leaving Alison controlling the Fenyx estate and its wealth through her daughter. |
| 480 | * WeirdHistoricalWar: ''Phoenix and Ashes'' and ''Unnatural Issue'' both refer to magic being used by spies on both sides of World War I. The latter also has a necromantic summoning in No Man's Land, which goes as well as you'd expect with all that raw material around. |
| 481 | * TheWestern: In ''From a High Tower'', Giselle, plus many other Germans, are fans of the ''{{Literature/Winnetou}}'' series by German writer Creator/KarlMay. After Giselle explains the books to Captain Cody, he immediately changes up his Wild West Show so that it will be more in line with the books and therefore appeal to German audiences. |
| 482 | * WhatTheHellHero: Ninette calls out Jonathan for a rather nasty prank involving [[FauxFlame illusionary fire]], and kicks him a few times in the shin. She then tells him should he ever pull such a prank again, [[GroinAttack she'll aim higher.]] He takes her seriously. |
| 483 | * WhileYouWereInDiapers: In ''Reserved for the Cat'', Thomas loses patience with Jonathon's snarking. |
| 484 | -->Do not mock me, Jemmie Hightower. And keep a civil tongue in your head. I knew your uncle, and I knew you when you were still in [[UsefulNotes/BritishEnglish nappies]]. |
| 485 | ** [[spoiler:It also reveals to Jonathan that he knew Thomas when Thomas was human.]] |
| 486 | * WhyDontYouJustShootHim: In ''Steadfast'', this becomes an issue for the heroes, because Kate could ''easily'' kill her [[DomesticAbuse abusive husband]] by just asking her Fire Elementals. Fortunately for the story, and unfortunately for Kate, the local mages believe in ThouShaltNotKill because it might damage the innocence of Kate's Elementals. |
| 487 | * TheWickedStage: In the series, particularly ''The Serpent's Shadow'' and ''Reserved for the Cat'', ballet dancing (and to a lesser extent other forms of acting) are seen as essentially vehicles for prostitution or stripping. Ballerinas are paid like crap but have opportunities to acquire male patrons, who pay very well indeed for their services; meanwhile, a can-can dancer lives off of tips from showing her legs. In an aversion, the viewpoint characters ''don't'' see this as dishonorable, but society as a whole finds the business rather skeevy (as well as the BackAlleyDoctor helping these women). |
| 488 | * WickedStepmother: Alison Robinson to her stepdaughter Eleanor, full stop. She even has two spoiled, cruel daughters to complete the picture. |
| 489 | * WidowsWeeds: |
| 490 | ** Maya is introduced wearing mourning for her recently deceased parents, and plans to prolong the year of mourning as long as possible, since even a brute would hesitate to insult a woman of mixed race if she's in mourning. |
| 491 | ** Marina is provided with an all-black wardrobe by her aunt, Madam Arachne, and thinks to herself that she would end up looking like Queen Victoria or a would-be Gothic poetess by the time her period of mourning ends. Technically, as a young unmarried woman, she could wear mauve, lavender, or violet during mourning without offending anyone, but her aunt obviously thinks otherwise. |
| 492 | * TheWildHunt: Puck calls for it to take an evil ghost in ''The Wizard of London''. It's never properly described, but some characters refer to becoming its prisoner as [[FateWorseThanDeath worse than going to Hell]]. |
| 493 | * WindsOfDestinyChange: It's mentioned in ''Steadfast'' that enough magicians working together tends to bend luck in their direction, whether by manipulating fate itself or because their Elementals pull some strings to help. Best shown in the climax, [[spoiler:when, not long after Katie got the blessing of a great dragon, her abusive husband is accidentally burned alive right before he can kill her.]] |
| 494 | * WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks: Elemental magicians see nothing wrong with using their power for personal gain or to make their lives easier, and most do. Jason Cameron's the standout example, as he uses Fire to scry out changes in the stock market, but most of the major characters use their talents for some kind of MundaneUtility. |
| 495 | * WouldHurtAChild: |
| 496 | ** Lady Cordelia doesn't settle for simply ''hurting'' orphans and street children--that would be far too crude. She ''kills'' them, then ''enslaves their souls''. |
| 497 | ** The Troll in ''Reserved for the Cat'' sets up magical distractions powered by the misery of opium dens and orphanages, and toys with the idea of opening (or sponsoring) a few orphanages itself to exploit later. |
| 498 | ** The Dark One in ''Case of the Spellbound Child'' keeps a group of children prisoner, in order to feed off their nascent magical abilities. The child it chooses as it's servant has a little finger cut off and kept in order to bind them to the Dark One's cottage and garden. |
| 499 |
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