Line #43 Literature/TheBaroqueCycle


1	''The Baroque Cycle'' is an epic by Creator/NealStephenson about the birth of the modern world set during TheCavalierYears, in the same universe as ''Cryptonomicon''. Through the volumes ''Quicksilver'', ''The Confusion'', and ''The System of the World'', the cycle follow the intertwining stories of natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse FRS, vagabond 'Half-Cocked' Jack Shaftoe, his soldier brother Bob and harem girl-cum-capitalist Eliza of Qwghlm, who's also the love of Jack's life. Spanning decades and the globe, the novels chart the rise and eventual triumph of the scientific method and modern capitalism. Collectively, the story might best be described as historical science-fiction with fantastic elements.
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3	Basically, it's the result of what happens when you take one part tall tale, one part science, one part modern history, one part alchemy, a dictionary, a dash of macroeconomics, and a whole lot of guts. Add Isaac Newton, cryptography, The Sun King, puritans, the Royal Society, capitalism, Blackbeard, illegitimate children, and Solomonic gold.
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5	'''The protagonists:'''
6	* Daniel Waterhouse: ScienceHero and son of a WellIntentionedExtremist, he's eschewed his father's extremist Puritanism in favor of an interest in [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist natural philosophy]]. In his old age, he's TheProfessor, but is often seen as a MadScientist.
7	* "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe: ActionHero, LovableRogue, and unwilling CelibateHero ("Half-Cocked" has more than one meaning...) with a thirst for adventure who lives his life as one IndyPloy after another and is an example of IHaveManyNames, such as: 'Half-Cocked' Jack, [[BilingualBonus L'Emmerdeur]], the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak, Quicksilver, Sword of Divine Fire, and Jack the Coiner.
8	* Eliza: An ex-slave rescued by Jack who soon discovers a talent for both finance and manipulation. Her brilliance, financial acumen, skill at espionage, penchant for planning and ability to manipulate people (including pretty much the entire French nobility) make her one hell of a GuileHero.
9	* Bob Shaftoe: Jack's somewhat more level-headed brother and thus the [[RedOniBlueOni Blue Oni to Jack's Red Oni]]. Spends much of the cycle trying to rescue a DistressedDamsel from a villain, working with Daniel and Eliza from time to time.
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11	'''RealLife natural philosophers featured heavily in the story:'''
12	* UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton: CloudCuckoolander extraordinaire and AmbiguouslyGay [[LonersAreFreaks freakish loner]] who happens to be one of the most brilliant people who have ever lived.
13	* Gottfried Leibniz: A [[UsefulNotes/DichterAndDenker German natural philosopher]] just a brilliant as Newton but without the personality flaws and with a ''very'' [[HarmonyVersusDiscipline different worldview]]. Indeed, the book's main focus is the difference between Newton and Leibniz's worldviews.
14	* John Wilkins: TheProfessor who effectively founded the Royal Society. TheMentor to Daniel. Has an interest in how language can both obfuscate and clarify meaning.
15	* Robert Hooke: Deformed OmnidisciplinaryScientist and JerkWithAHeartOfGold. He's [[ForScience obsessed enough with his work]] that he can veer off into MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate at times, but he's not completely amoral.
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17	'''Jack's Cabal, organized in ''The Confusion'':'''
18	* Moseh de la Cruz: Spanish crypto-Jew and TheSmartGuy who organized the Cabal and came up with their Plan. BadassBookworm.
19	* Otto van Hoek: seaman who ''really'' hates pirates. Becomes TheCaptain when the Cabal gets their CoolBoat.
20	* Dappa: African linguist, BadassBookworm, and just as much TheSmartGuy as Moseh. Hates slavery just as much as Van Hoek hates pirates. Completely averts ScaryBlackMan, as he's one of the most calm, collected, and intellectual members of the Cabal.
21	* Jeronimo: DashingHispanic with HollywoodTourettes.
22	* Gabriel Goto: UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian {{Ronin}} who demonstrates KatanasAreJustBetter. Born after his father was exiled from Japan and wants to go home for the first time in his life. As a Jesuit priest, he's also well-educated, and very much a GeniusBruiser.
23	* Vrej Esphahnian: ManipulativeBastard and old "friend" of Jack.
24	* Yevgeny the Raskolnik: TheBigGuy. As TheBigGuy he, of course, uses a hammer after [[spoiler:he loses his arm at the battle of Khan el-Khalili it is replaced with a cannonball on an iron rod at on point and a massive flail at another point]]
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26	'''And tying everyone together:'''
27	* Enoch Root, also known as [[ColorCodedWizardry Enoch the Red]]: [[{{Immortality}} Immortal]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Alchemy}} alchemist]] and the only character from ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'' to personally appear in ''Literature/TheBaroqueCycle''. Straddles the line between DeusExMachina and DeusExitMachina: he often [[MrExposition tips off the protagonists to vital information]] they couldn't have known otherwise (but he doesn't tell them ''too'' much), and he quickly makes himself scarce so the protagonists can act on that information by themselves.
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29	----
30	!!This novel series provides examples of:
31	* AncestralName:
32	** A prominent character in ''Cryptonomicon'' was Bobby Shaftoe, who had an uncle named Jack. Here, we meet their ancestor of two centuries earlier, Jack Shaftoe, and his brother Bob.
33	** Likewise, Randy Waterhouse's father Godfrey is revealed here to share the name of an ancestor, specifically the son of Daniel Waterhouse (who named him after Gottfried Leibniz).
34	* AntiHero: Jack and Eliza
35	* ArrangedMarriage: As per history, most of the nobility. Notably the German princesses Eleanor and Caroline.
36	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Stevenson swaps out some of the real historical figures (King Charles II's CABAL, Newton's real Cambridge roommate John Wickins) and adds some mysterious personages (Enoch Root, Solomon Kohan). It also depicts UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} as an active pirate, and the captain of ''Queen Anne's Revenge'', in 1713. While the details of Edward Teach's early pirate career are sketchy, in real life he didn't become a pirate captain until 1716, and acquired the ship he rechristened ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' the following year. (Incidentally, this also means that he named the ship after a still-living monarch, rather than as a tribute to a deceased one as in real life.)
37	* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Daniel and Isaac. Maybe Édouard de Gex, but it's kept ambiguous, even ''against the man himself''.]]
38	* BadassBoast with a distinct flavor of IHaveManyNames
39	-->'''Jack''': "In fact I have let you live, but for one purpose only: so that you can [[BringNewsBack make your way to Paris and tell them the following]]: that the deed you are about to witness was done for a woman, whose name I will not say, for she knows who she is; and that it was done by [[IHaveManyNames 'Half-Cocked' Jack Shaftoe]], ''[[IHaveManyNames L'Emmerdeur]]'', [[IHaveManyNames the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver]]!"
40	* BadassBookworm: Bonaventure Rossignol is a brilliant cryptanalyst who enjoys reading people's mail (encrypted or not) to find out if they're heading into danger just so he can run off to be a [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Hero]].
41	* TheBaroness: D'Oyonnax.
42	* BatmanGambit:
43	** [[spoiler:Jack's]] daring escape in the finale, performed by deliberately subverting a ThanatosGambit (see that trope's entry on this page for details).
44	** [[spoiler:Vrej Esphahnian's]] plan for getting revenge on Jack involves much manipulation of several people just to get aboard the same ship, several ''years'' pretending to be loyal to Jack, and eventually taking advantage of Jack's love for Eliza to lure ''Minerva'' into a trap.
45	* BerserkButton: Eliza does not like slavery. It's enough to get her to [[spoiler: attempt to kill Jack with a harpoon for getting involved with it.]]
46	* BigBeautifulWoman: Kottakkal, the Pirate Queen of Malabar. She's [[StatuesqueStunner six feet tall]], weighs 300 pounds (she's described as having a "marvelous round belly"), and is desired by just about every man she meets.
47	* BigDamnHeroes: Eliza and Fatio's rescue of William of Orange.
48	* BizarreTasteInFood: The man who enslaved Eliza and her mother, [[spoiler:Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d'Arcachon]], subsists on a diet of rotten fish. Not fermented, ''rotten''. One cook who nicked his hand whilst preparing [[spoiler:the Duc]]'s dinner suffered a fatal blood sepsis as a result.
49	** Given that [[spoiler:the Lavardac family]] is noted as having strong relations with the ''Compangie Du Nord'', this might be Stephenson depicting highly fermented fish like surstromming to people who have no idea what it is.
50	* BoisterousBruiser:
51	** "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe, "''L'Emmerdeur'', the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver."
52	** Jack's sons, Jimmy and Danny, also inherited this trait.
53	** Peter the Great also counts.
54	* BunnyEarsLawyer: William of Orange is GenreSavvy enough to understand that the most competent people have the weirdest quirks. Thus, he goes out of his way to hire quirky people, and he distrusts those without quirks.
55	* ButForMeItWasTuesday: As Jack is preparing to kill [[spoiler:the duc d'Arcachon]], he informs him that it is for a mother and daughter he abducted, [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil disgraced]], and sold into {{slavery\|IsASpecialKindOfEvil}}. [[spoiler:The Duc]] looks bewildered for a moment and asks: "Which ones?"
56	* TheCaptain: Captain Otto van Hoek, member of the Cabal and captain of ''Minerva''. Yes, he has a HookHand.
57	* CaptainErsatz: Stephenson substituted some RealLife figures with these to make his story flow better: all members of Charles II's CABAL are these, Roger Comstock's life is almost identical to that of Charles Montagu (the narration even [[{{Lampshaded}} lampshades]] it by referring to Roger as "a Capulet or a Montague"), and in college, Daniel took the role of Isaac's RealLife roommate.
58	* CelibateHero:
59	** Jack, but not by choice - the nickname ''Half-Cocked'' refers both to his mental state and the result of an operation to cure venereal disease gone horribly wrong.
60	** Also Isaac Newton, as per history.
61	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}
62	** Hooke, anyone?
63	** Newton is off in his own world much of the time. Newton was this in real life. During his entire stint in Parliament, his only recorded words were a request to open a window. Subverted when Newton became Master of the Mint in the story and in real life; he singlehandedly wiped out counterfeiting in Britain and was awarded his knighthood for his services in this role rather than his contributions to science.
64	* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Daniel is this to Isaac when they are students.
65	* CoolBoat: ''Minerva''.
66	* CoolSword: Jack's Janissary sword; it's made out of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel wootz]], which is for all intents and purposes, {{unobtanium}} that exists in RealLife. He acquires it while saving Eliza and it stays with him through his many adventures.
67	* CunningLinguist: Dappa is this by trade, knowing various national and {{Common Tongue}}s, so he could work as a translator in a slave-trading outpost. This comes handy for the Cabal. He also appears to be either naturally gifted with languages or having worked out an efficient system of learning new ones, as he picks another three along the events of the book.
68	* DeadpanSnarker: The older Daniel gets, the snarkier he gets.
69	* DoorStopper: Three books, written by Creator/NealStephenson. They're broken into ''eight'' more manageable, but still enormous, novels in some markets. The manuscript (on display at the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle), is a handwritten stack of paper that is taller than the author. The audio version is one hundred and thirteen hours long.
70	* DoubleMeaningTitle ''Quicksilver'' and ''The Confusion''.
71	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Used InUniverse when Bob Shaftoe notes how the greatest MasterSwordsman of the era was defeated by an Irishmen with a log.
72	* DuelToTheDeath: With cannons.
73	* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Seeing that his friends are in danger, Jeronimo launches a one-man cavalry charge on the Duc's musketeers. He gets shot through the chest, but goes right on fighting, loudly declaring that the sixty seconds he has left to live are time enough to [[TakingYouWithMe kill a dozen of them]], and has already taken out at least five by the time the others swarm him with bayonets.
74	* TheDungAges: It seems that Stephenson can't go more than a dozen pages without making some reference to some form of feces, and just how many open sewers ran through 17th and 18th century European cities (especially London.)
75	* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: Daniel Waterhouse and Isaac Newton, as well as Upnor, Monmouth, and Jeffreys, were all at Cambridge at the same time.
76	* EvilJesuit: Édouard de Gex. However, him being a Jesuit is just coincidental with the fact that he's a scary religious fanatic. He joined the order simply because it was ClosestThingWeGot to his own beliefs, leaving him disappointed at how "timid" other Jesuits are. And then there is of course Gabriel Gato, who, while being a Jesuit, is a walking saint, especially when compared with de Gex.
77	* EyeScream: Both in-story and for the reader: Daniel inadvertenly walking in on Isaac experimenting by sticking a needle into his own eye socket. [[note]]While Daniel Waterhouse is entirely fictional, Isaac Newton [[http://www.edinformatics.com/great_thinkers/newton.htm really did put a blunted needle into his eye socket]] while at Cambridge, in order to manipulate his eye in an effort to better understand light. [[/note]]
78	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Vrej Esphahnian]]. ''Twice''.
79	* FedToTheBeast: According to Eliza, Qwghlm once had a hereditary aristocracy, but in the 8th century the Scots sealed them in a cave with some bears.
80	* FunetikAksent: Lord Gy speaks in an almost impenetrable Scottish accent. Other characters insist that he's not actually speaking English. In the afterword, Stephenson assures anyone who might be offended by the accent that his ancestors are surely already spinning in their graves.
81	* GambitRoulette Eliza's incredibly [[IncrediblyLamePun baroque]] plan for getting revenge on Lothar.
82	* GenerationXerox: Various characters are examples for their descendants, who appear in ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}''.
83	** Daniel Waterhouse: The ancestor of Lawrence and Randy Waterhouse, he is an extremely intelligent technophile who makes contributions to the realm of computing, but lives in the shadow of his more brilliant friends
84	** Jack Shaftoe and his sons are irreverent badasses. Bob Shaftoe is a soldier. Both are the ancestors of Bobby and Amy Shaftoe.
85	** Gabriel Goto is a tough and level-headed side-character. He is the ancestor of the unflinching, level-headed Goto Dengo.
86	* GeniusBruiser:
87	** Fr. Gabriel Goto, SJ. A devout Jesuit and man so good with swordfighting, many people he faces would rather try to bribe him to join their side than face him in battle.
88	** Peter "Saturn" Hoxton, a big, burly brute of a man who happens to be a skilled clockmaker and [[spoiler:bomb maker]].
89	* HarmonyVersusDiscipline: Leibniz is Harmony, Newton is Discipline. The ''real'' reason why they hate each other.
90	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Lothar]], when he comes to feel affection for little [[spoiler:Jean-Jacques/Johann]].
91	* TheHighQueen: Sophie of Hanover.
92	* HiredToHuntYourself: [[spoiler:Isaac, Daniel and their associates hire Sean Partry, the most famous of all living [[BountyHunter thief-takers]], to help them track down Jack Shaftoe. As it turns out, Sean ''is'' Jack, having taken the time to set up this alternate identity against such an eventuality. This is actually {{foreshadow\|ing}}ed earlier when Mr. Threader observes that thief-takers, by necessity, are all professional criminals themselves; it's the only way they can get anything done.]]
93	* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: Peter the Great. In reality he was extremely tall, but also very thin and prone to muscle spasms. In the series, he's a giant with immense strength who [[spoiler:single-handedly duels and kills the enormous badass Yevgeny]].
94	* HollywoodTourettes: Jeronimo. There's even an amusing reference to the (fictional) St. Etienne de la Tourette.
95	* UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover: The first two Georges make their appearances, but have rings run around them by Sophie and Caroline.
96	* UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart: Beginning with the beheading of Charles I, Daniel Waterhouse gets to witness more than he ever wanted about the lives of the Stuart successors.
97	* {{Immortality}}: The goal of the Alchemists, and apparent state of [[spoiler: Enoch Root]]
98	* IndyPloy: Jack loves these and whenever things starts to go down, he's already in the process of improvising a solution.
99	* InnocentBigot: Daniel's great-nephew Walter, aka "Peer", is apparently unable to comprehend that the African Dappa -- a highly intelligent and well-educated man who can speak twelve languages -- is an actual human being and not some sort of well-trained performing ape, to the point where he ''has a conversation with Dappa'' and '''still''' doesn't grasp that he is actually talking and not just parroting noises. There is no malice in his racism; he's just unbelievably stupid.
100	* ItWillNeverCatchOn:
101	** Eliza thinks Jack's mispronunciation of the German word ''thaler'' as ''dollar'' is a stupid name for money.
102	** Enoch Root's friend thinks tea is too outlandish to ever catch on in England.
103	** Eliza's two banker friends thought the informal financial system used in Lyons will never work, the system is essentially the same as the modern credit-based economy.
104	** A variant: Moseh, espousing the Cabbalistic belief that gold and silver are formed by the sun's and moon's rays striking the Earth, expresses approval for the Spanish policy of establishing colonies along the equator, and confidently predicts that gold will never be found in, say, California or Alaska.
105	* UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian: Gabriel Goto. Born to Japanese refugees from Manila, his only life goal is to die for his faith while trying to convert his homeland.
106	* KarmicDeath: Bob suggests this as an epitaph for [[spoiler:the Earl of Upnor]]: "finest swordsman in England, beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman", which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly how he died]].
107	* KilledOffForReal: Quite a lot of people. Of course, when you're writing HistoricalFiction, {{Historical Domain Character}}s [[JustifiedTrope have to die when they're supposed to]].
108	* KingOfThieves:
109	** Jack Shaftoe is known as "King of the Vagabonds".
110	** Kottakkal is known as the Pirate Queen of Malabar (and is treated as an actual queen, as well as being, well, a pirate).
111	* LampshadeHanging: When Bob gets himself in over his head, Teague asks him, "What d'you think y'are, a ''character'' in a friggin' ''novel'', Bob?" He's accusing him of believing that he has PlotArmor.
112	* LargeAndInCharge: Peter of Russia: effect underlined by the fact that he apparently surrounds himself with midgets.
113	* LittleMissBadass: Johann von Hackleheber is a male example. [[spoiler:At the age of five, he shoots a man attempting to harpoon his adopted father--in the eye--with a toy bow and arrow. Doing so saved his father's life.]] He only grew from there.
114	* UsefulNotes/TheLongitudeProblem: It's unsolved. This causes problems. The problem is brought up a number of times, with the English government offering a cash prize if the problem can be solved. A number of natural philosophers take up the challenge, but the problem remains unsolved by the end of the series.
115	* LostInTranslation: Edmund de Ath is a PunnyName in English. And only in English. The majority of translations didn't even bother with finding any sort of replacement.
116	* LostTechnology: Wootz steel. Well, not the steel itself, but the furnaces to produce it. While in India, [[spoiler: Enoch Root]] notes that while the steel-making industry is booming, all the furnaces are old and well beyond point of badly needed repairs. Which nobody seems to perform, just like building new forges.
117	* LovingAShadow: Gets an interesting twist in Eliza's relationship with Bob. She references the trope, but notes that since Bob is healthy and level-headed, and Jack is a crazy syphilitic, Jack, the original love, is the one who looks more like a shadow.
118	* MadeOfIron: Yevgeny is extremely tough and stoically endures even the most grievous injuries.
119	* MagneticHero: Jack is one. It's outright stated in the books that the people that Jack finds himself around would in any other situation be leaders and good ones - as van Hoek shows. But they all look towards Jack to take action.
120	* ManBitesMan: Charles White, Lord Bolingbroke's {{sadist}}ic [[TheDragon Dragon]], has a nasty habit of biting Whigs' ears off. He [[CreepySouvenir keeps them]] to show off to his friends.
121	* MasterSwordsman: The Earl of Upnor is said to be the most skilled swordsman in England. During a duel, he even manages to convey sarcasm through the movements of his sword.
122	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Édouard de Gex is [[spoiler: brought BackFromTheDead. Maybe. Probably]]. The people that did this deliberately and intentionally keep it vague to de Gex himself, just to [[{{Troll}} mess]] with his religious fanaticism and [[spoiler: keep him paranoid about black magic being used on him]].
123	* MeaningfulName: Moseh de la Cruz, meaning "Moses of the Cross." Being a crypto-Jew in a hostile society, Moseh didn't mess about when choosing his gentile name; "Suffice it to say that the Iberian peninsula is a complicated place to be Jewish."
124	* MistakenForSpecialGuest: Jack Shaftoe, [=AKA=] "King of the Vagabonds," accidentally crashes a masquerade party that King Louis of France is expected to attend dressed as...King of the Vagabonds.
125	* {{Motifs}}
126	** The recurrent image in the first novel is quicksilver, a constant ingredient used in science, alchemy and finance. Mercury symbolizes the fluid scientific and economic forces that ruled the Age of Enlightenment.
127	** The second novel adds the concept of the confusion (or con-fusion), the mixing and destruction of the old to create the new.
128	* MotiveRant: [[SinisterMinister Edouard de Gex]] drops a massive one near the end after capturing Eliza, declaring that he despises money, considering it a form of pagan idolatry, and worse still, it enables commoners like her to ascend to the nobility. He describes his dream of a great ''auto-da-fé'' in which everyone he considers heretical -- Protestants, Jews, capitalists, whatever -- would be burned at the stake, with her, the "rich [[SlutShaming whore]]" who represents everything that in his view has gone wrong in the world, given pride of place among them.
129	* MusicalAssassin: Sort off, Eliza finally kills [[spoiler:de Gex]] (with some help from Handel) by tossing a cello across an orchestra pit and skewering him with the instrument's end pin.
130	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast:
131	** Édouard de Gex's alias, Edmund '''de Ath'''.
132	** [[HangingJudge Jeffreys]]' hired assassins, Bob Carver and Dick Gripp.
133	* NeverFoundTheBody:
134	** [[spoiler:Yevgeny]], during the battle at Cairo. He turns up later.
135	** [[spoiler:Jack, for Isaac Newton. Newton can only assume that his dead body was carried away and buried, but in reality Jack wasn't quite dead]].
136	* NoodleIncident:
137	** Daniel Waterhouse may or may not have precipitated the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
138	** ''Something'' happened in 1677, involving Daniel, fire, and some of Newton's papers. The incident is referred to several times before we find out just what ''did'' happen.
139	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Daniel Waterhouse pretends to be suffering from senile dementia in order to root out the spy in Sophie of Hanover's court.
140	* OccidentalOtaku: Inverted with father Gabriel Goto. He ''is'' Japanese, but born and rised in Manila in a family of religious refugees. Despite never being in Japan, he strictly adheres to what his parents drilled into him about local customs and culture, but in the same time he's an extremely devout Catholic, eager to go back to Japan and die for his religion. [[spoiler: Given he's [[Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}} Goto Dengo]] ancestor, he must have survived and apparently ended up denouncing his faith]].
141	* OfferedTheCrown: Mr. Foot leaves the Cabal when the people of Queena-Kootah (which will later be known as Kinakuta) choose him to occupy their island's vacant throne, making him the first of the "White Sultans" mentioned in ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}''.
142	* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler: Jack finds and beheads the man who sold Eliza and her mother into sexual slavery, and sends her his head on a silver platter. Literally]].
143	* OutWithABang: [[spoiler:Roger dies rogering Newton's sexy niece.]]
144	* PennyShaving: The literal version is a running theme in the series, with buyers always dutifully inspecting the coinage they received and only accepting partial value on any that show excessive shaving or clipping. This ties into the plot importance of Newton, who personally cracked down on coin tampering.
145	* PhantasySpelling: Many words are spelled in the archaic fashion, such as phanatiques, technologickal, clew, and phant'sy. Other words are spelled with their root words hyphenated to show that the terms are new and have yet to become compound words.
146	* ThePlan:
147	** The Cabal's Plan to steal the Viceroy of Vera Cruz's silver.
148	** The assault on the [[spoiler:Tower of London]].
149	* RedOniBlueOni: Jack and Bob.
150	* ReallyGetsAround: To an extent Eliza, although some of this is an UrbanLegendLoveLife as part of ObfuscatingStupidity
151	* RealPersonFic: About the {{Original Character}}s Jack, Eliza, and Daniel in the middle of the Baroque era.
152	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Louis XIV, William of Orange, Peter the Great, and the females of the House of Hanover. Notably, the King Charles II personally led a squad of firemen to deal with the Fire of London, and killed Daniel's father when he got in the way.
153	* {{Ruritania}}: The fictional island of Qwghlm is presented as a backward place, with almost no resources except a lot of bird crap. The main livelihood of its residence is acting as Wreckers of English ships.
154	* SelfDeprecation: Enoch The Red mentions having acquired some copies of a book called ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}''. Waterhouse's young son describes it as "A very queer old book, dreadfully thick, and full of nonsense," noting that his father uses it as a {{doorstopper}}.
155	* ShoutOut
156	** In ''The Confusion'', Enoch the Red provides an interesting twist on ClarkesThirdLaw: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo". Later Jack mentions that his "vagabond shoes are longing to stray".
157	** ''The System of the World'' references two Creator/MontyPython jokes (involving UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition and a shrubbery). There's also a brief mention of a book titled ''Python Explain'd'', though knowing the author's pet subjects, that may well be a cheeky anachronistic reference to the programming language, which was in turn named after the comedy troupe.
158	* SingleTargetSexuality: Jack for Eliza, since Eliza is literally the only person who is able to sexually satisfy Jack (it has to do with Jack's [[UnusualEuphemism disability]] and the things Eliza learned from "books of India" while in slavery.)
159	* SituationalSexuality: In ''Quicksilver'', Eliza states that while in the harem, she had intimate relationships with other women since no other men were around.
160	* SlaveGalley: Monsieur Arlanc, and [[spoiler: Jack, as well as everyone else in the Cabal]] served in one.
161	* UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition: The members of the Cabal get an up-close-and-personal look at the Inquisiton when they arrive in Mexico in ''The Confusion''. And, yes, there was a Creator/MontyPython reference in ''The System of the World''.
162	* SpannerInTheWorks: One of Jack's nicknames, "L'Emmerdeur [[note]]French for "he who covers everything in shit" - literally "the enshittener"[[/note]]," specifically references his tendency to be this.
163	* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Daniel [[DiscussedTrope discusses this trope]] when he notes that some people can easily be replaced by {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s (e.g. Thomas More Anglesey replacing John Comstock), while others aren't so easily replaceable.
164	* ThanatosGambit: {{Subverted}}. [[spoiler:Jack receives golden finery to bribe the executioner for a quick death. Instead, Jack distributes the riches to the crowd, pissing off the executioner and endearing him to the mob. When the executioner starts to hang Jack slowly as revenge, the mob storms the gallows and carries him to safety]].
165	* ThatOldTimePrescription: Jack's syphilis is cured when he contracts English sweating sickness. Treating syphilis by inducing a high fever was a real medical practice that sometimes did work.
166	* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Three, actually: Daniel, Jack, and Eliza. And those are just the major ones...
167	* {{Unobtanium}}: The Solomonic gold [[spoiler: Jack ends up with possibly the known world's supply, some of which is used in a life potion brewed up by Root]].
168	** Also, wootz steel [[spoiler: which also involves Jack and Root]]
169	* TheUnpronounceable: The written language of Qwghlm employs runes. Transcribing words into letters makes them utterly unpronounceable because there are no vowels.
170	* UpperClassTwit: Peer, who so embodies this trope that his name isn't even given in the text.
171	* TheWatson: Daniel Waterhouse for Isaac Newton, Gottfreid Leibniz, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Christiaan Huygens, Henry Oldenberg, ''et al.'' Waterhouse's CharacterArc can be described as a journey to the point where he finally stops being the Watson and requires his own Watsons to explain things to.
172	* WellIntentionedExtremist: All of the Puritans, though the ones that get the most focus are Drake Waterhouse and the Bolstroods. The Raskolniks, too, including Yevgeny.
173	* WinterRoyalLady: Much is made of the legacy of the original one; Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen.
174	* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Daniel tells this to Hooke, who is insecure about being [[OvershadowedByAwesome overshadowed]] by Newton. The distinction he makes between Hooke and Newton is similar to the distinction that Randy Waterhouse makes in ''Cryptonomicon'' between "dwarves" and "elves."
175	* YoungFutureFamousPeople: There is an entire slew of real-life characters that make cameos as pre-teen children, some of them [[ViewersAreGeniuses without even explaining who they will grow into]]. A few others are in the process of ascending to positions of power.

Context Literature / TheBaroqueCycle