Line #70 Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thepillarsoftheearth.jpg]]
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3	An epic novel, published in 1989 and set in 12th century England, ''The Pillars of the Earth'' is the chronicle of a man, his family, their enemies and the extraordinary dream that consumes them all. It is by far the [[BlackSheepHit most popular]] story that Creator/KenFollett, [[CreatorsOddball mainly an author of thrillers and various spy novels]], has ever written.
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5	Tom Builder is a poor stonemason who dreams of building something that will be his legacy and which will sustain his family for the rest of their lives. Philip, the Prior of Kingsbridge, fights to build a cathedral there, against the wishes of his Bishop, his Lord and all manner of political enemies.
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7	The Gothic Cathedral at Kingsbridge, it turns out, becomes more important than anyone imagines. Woven throughout this deeply personal drama are the civil wars between [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy King Stephen and Queen Maud]], and later the machinations of [[UsefulNotes/HenryTheSecond King Henry II]] and the priest Thomas Becket.
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9	He followed it up with two sequels and one prequel many years later: ''Literature/WorldWithoutEnd'', which picks up with the characters' descendants in the same village in 1327, ''Literature/AColumnOfFire'', beginning in 1558, and ''Literature/TheEveningAndTheMorning'', set in the tenth century. Also adapted, along with ''Literature/WorldWithoutEnd'', into a popular {{Euro\|Game}} BoardGame, and a VideoGame developed by [[Creator/DaedalicEntertainment Daedalic Entertainment]] and were released in 3 parts.
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11	[[Series/ThePillarsOfTheEarth A miniseries]] starring Creator/IanMcShane, Creator/RufusSewell, Creator/MatthewMacfadyen, David Oakes, Creator/SamClaflin, Creator/EddieRedmayne as Jack and Creator/HayleyAtwell as Aliena ran on the Starz network in July and August 2010.
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13	----
14	!!The original novel contains examples of:
15	* AgonyOfTheFeet: William tortures an enemy knight into confessing treason by hanging him from a tree limb and setting a fire under his bare feet.
16	* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Richard has the tendency to be a ball and chain to his big sis Aliena. He gets better as he gets older.
17	* AristocratsAreEvil: William is a depraved, war-mongering monster.
18	* ArrangedMarriage: William and Aliena would have become this (it ended very badly), but it was to be William and Elizabeth twenty years later.
19	* TheAtoner:
20	** Brother Johnny, a former outlaw who became a monk after rescuing Jonathan when he was a baby.
21	** Later [[spoiler:Brother Remigius]] repents from his bad deeds throughout the story and accepts the role of a humble monk with no special authority.
22	* AuthorAvatar: In-universe example — Jack makes up an epic story to tell his love interest, Aliena. The story's protagonist is a young squire who is not strong in battle but is courageous and determined all the same, [[GuileHero using cunning or luck to barely escape from dangerous situations]], and is madly in love with the beautiful princess.
23	%%* AxCrazy: William, to put it mildly.
24	* {{Backstory}}:
25	** Jack's parentage.
26	** Philip's story about how he became a monk.
27	* BeenThereShapedHistory: William was one of the assassins who killed [[TurbulentPriest Thomas Becket]], and it was Philip's idea to make a saint of him.
28	* BerserkButton
29	** Don't ''ever'' laugh at William. He'll murder you.
30	** King Henry II does not like his underlings' cheap talk.
31	** Philip does ''not'' take kindly to people faking miracles.
32	** Anyone physically harming Aliena will send Richard into a mindless rage.
33	* BigBadDuumvirate: Waleran Bigod and the Hamleighs, particularly William. Their schemes are the main source of problems that the people of Kingsbridge have to contend with.
34	* BigBadWannabe: Alfred Builder and Brother Remigius loathe protagonists Jack Jackson and Prior Philip, devoting their entire lives to ruining them. Though they do their part, they're but small pieces in the schemes of the story's true villains, Waleran Bigod and William Hamleigh. Ultimately, their efforts amount to little and they are both dismissed when they are of no further use. Later, [[spoiler:Alfred is killed unceremoniously by Richard when the former tries to rape Aliena while Remigius pulls a HeelFaceTurn and later saves Philip from disgrace]].
35	* BigBrotherInstinct: Richard is younger than Aliena by a few years, but will unfailingly step forward to defend his sister from physical harm (even if it ends up with him being beaten or mutilated). Aliena recognizes that, for all his faults, Richard has always been exceptionally brave and has always attempted to protect her from physical threats.
36	* BookEnds: The executions in the first scene and the last. The scenes even have the same opening sentence.
37	* BreakTheCutie:
38	** From a modern perspective, young Aliena is a feisty and fetching noblewoman who wisely rejects the advances of a creep. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance She suffers very, very horribly for it.]]
39	** Played straight with Elizabeth, quite literally on her wedding night, when William sates his violent lusts on her.
40	* BreakTheHaughty:
41	** From the [[DeliberateValuesDissonance perspective of contemporary medieval characters]], young Aliena is a spoiled brat who reacts rudely to William's awkward attempts at wooing her. [[BreakTheCutie She suffers very, very horribly for it.]]
42	** Waleran shrugs off most of the defeats tossed at him, but [[spoiler:losing political favor by suggesting Beckett's assassination]] finally does him in, as least as far as Jonathan and Jack can see.
43	* BringMyBrownPants: William wets himself [[spoiler:on the way to the gallows]].
44	* BuryYourGays: The effeminate Matthew is killed by William quite early in the story.
45	* ButtMonkey:
46	** Deconstructed with William. In the beginning, he is just an idiot who is mocked by almost everyone. However, when he finally snaps, he becomes a nightmare: [[spoiler:raping the woman who despised him, burning Kingsbridge to ashes, [[RapePillageAndBurn generally raping and pillaging all over the place]] because it's ''fun'']].
47	%% ** Also PlayedForDrama with Aliena.
48	* CelibateHero: Prior Philip is not sexually deviant in any way. In the novel, he talks about his sexual lusts mercifully fading away over time. WordOfGod states that Philip was deliberately created to be a "cheerfully celibate" character, as Follett was sick of the [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny outwardly-chaste but inwardly-smouldering-with-lust monk trope]]. [[invoked]]
49	* CharacterWitness: Remigius, whose gossiping gets Ellen banished from the village. Later on, after he is disgraced and [[spoiler:Philip decides to give him a second chance, he and Ellen save Philip from being accused of fathering Jonathan out of wedlock and confirm Ellen's tale that the previous Prior James and Waleran had condemned an innocent man for political benefit]].
50	%% * TheChessmaster: Bishop Waleran Bigod.
51	* ChristianityIsCatholic: {{Justified\|Trope}}, not surprisingly, as the Reformation was still centuries away.
52	* CivilWar: Takes place during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy The Anarchy]] and this provides a number of crucial plot points.
53	* CorruptChurch: Played straight with Ministers like Waleran who are raised to the top of the hierarchy; averted with Philip, Jonathan and other monks who strive to be {{Good Shepherd}} and dislike corrupt ministers.
54	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Waleran Bigod, William Hamleigh, and Bishop Henry all have severe cases of this.
55	* ComeToGawk: Remigius asks this to Philip when he's wandering the streets as a beggar. Philip, being the pious man he is, offers to take him back as a novice instead. [[spoiler:This would save him a lot of problems later.]]
56	* CruelMercy: Jack decides that [[spoiler:forgiving Waleran and pitying him is the worst kind of punishment he can bring on the priest for engineering his father's execution]].
57	* DamselOutOfDistress: Aliena is often in danger, but she's still quite intelligent and resourceful.
58	* DeadGuyJunior: [[spoiler:Tommy, the son of Jack and Aliena. Named after the deceased Tom Builder, whom William killed and had tormented in life. Fittingly, after he becomes the new earl, he dispatches William for killing Bishop Beckett on charges of sacrilege and sentences him to the gallows.]]
59	* DeathByChildbirth: Agnes, Tom's first wife, dies after giving birth to Jonathan in the woods.
60	* DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler:Tom Builder, who dies about halfway through the book. Swapping protagonists in some fashion was probably unavoidable, since building churches was a generational undertaking, but Tom dies fairly young and suddenly.]]
61	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Deconstructed, as Follet repeatedly illustrates a moral norm alien to modern values and then shows that plenty of contemporaries also rejected those norms and sought ways around them, reminding the audience that past societies are not [[PlanetOfHats monocultures]].
62	** Prior Philip, although a benevolent figure for his community, and more compassionate than most of his peers, still has the views of a 12th-century monk on subjects like extra-marital sex or the respect due to his own authority. Other people think it's absurd that he insists that Aliena and Jack not cohabit due to Aliena being technically married to someone else, even though Aliena and Jack have a child together. When they finally get married Aliena is suprised the village is making such a big deal of it, as the townspeople generally considered Jack and Aliena to be more or less married already.
63	** Philip is nearly [[LaserGuidedKarma hoist with his own petard]] as a false accusation of fornication against him gets him put on trial and nearly ruins his career. People think it absurd that such a good man could be ruined by such a frivolous accusation and even one of his enemies, Ellen, speaks up in his defense.
64	** Aliena [[ButtMonkey ends up on the horrific side of this several times]] (see BreakTheCutie and BreakTheHaughty above), but the crowning moment has to be [[spoiler:when her brother actually tries to defend her from what modern-day readers would rightfully call DomesticAbuse]]; [[spoiler:Richard killing Alfred is considered murder, since Aliena is Alfred's wife, [[MaritalRapeLicense making her consent a non-issue]]. A protracted debate ensues, at high legal levels, as to whether Aliena really counted as married at the time.]]
65	** William indulges in his rights as husband and lord, [[MaritalRapeLicense raping his teenaged wife regularly]] and doing violence to his serfs when they violate his prerogatives and fail to pay what they owe him. Even his own steward is dismayed by his behavior, even the legally justified parts, and his wife is eventually rescued and returned to her family. When William insists on exercising DroitDuSeigneur his steward [[LampshadeHanging points out]] that [[TheThemeParkVersion that isn't even a real thing]].
66	** William's first attack on the quarry fails because while murdering laypeople is tolerable, murdering the monks present at the quarry would be crossing a MoralEventHorizon in the cultural norms of the time.
67	%% * DefrostingIceQueen: Aliena.
68	* DidntThinkThisThrough: King Henry unintentionally sending William as an assassin for Thomas Beckett, a well-loved Archbishop who's remained in good standing with the Catholic Church. The backlash following this leaves Henry at the mercy of the Church and God, and [[spoiler:William at the gallows on the charges of sacrilege]].
69	* DirtyCoward: Alfred Builder, who [[spoiler:torments Jack mercilessly since childhood, then comes crawling back for a job, only to use it to backstab Jack]].
70	* TheDogBitesBack: When William's abused wife helps Richard and his army to infiltrate and take over his castle and depose him as earl. Lampshaded by Waleran in the miniseries, saying, "If you kick a dog, it may someday bite you."
71	* DomesticAbuse: Alfred beats Aliena because he is impotent. And then there's William's brutal treatment of any female he's even mildly attracted to...
72	* {{Doorstopper}}: 973 pages.
73	* DumbassHasAPoint: For such a clod-headed oaf, William is quite cunning on a number of occasions.
74	* DumbMuscle: Richard is a good soldier, but is not really good at anything else. It becomes especially obvious [[spoiler:when he becomes the Earl]].
75	%%* EarnYourHappyEnding: Phillip, Aliena, Jack.
76	* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: William's one good act is to [[spoiler:build a church in his mother's memory, to rescue her soul from Hell, and he's even offended when Waleran takes advantage of it for his own plans. Granted, it's strongly indicated this is more over his fear for his own soul than love for his mother, given he had pretty much no love for her previously and had watched her die]].
77	%%* EvilMatriarch: Lady Regan Hamleigh.
78	* ExplicitContent: Per usual for Follett, the sex scenes are detailed, and lovingly so for the OfficialCouple.
79	%%* FallenPrincess: Aliena.
80	%%* FeudalOverlord: William embodies this trope, especially after becoming Earl of Shiring.
81	* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: The main reason Maud does not succeed Henry I despite previously being named Henry's heir.
82	%%* GoodShepherd: Prior Philip and Archbishop Thomas Becket. When Henry II has William murder Becket, the entire country is outraged.
83	* HaveYouComeToGloat: Remigius asks this to Philip when he finds him begging. Instead of that, Philip invites him back to Kingsbridge.
84	* TheHeavy: Waleran Bigod's position and intellect technically make him the BigBad, but it is William who remains the most immediate threat to the people of Kingsbridge. While Waleran schemes from the shadows, William is the one who is always active on the scene. His actions are what effectively drive the story.
85	* HeKnowsTooMuch: The reason Jack's father was hanged. Jacques was the only survivor of the ''White Ship'' disaster, which claimed the life of Prince William, the heir to Henry I of England. The conspirators behind the ship's destruction had him imprisoned. At first they were going to leave him there, but after he began to get a grasp of English they realized they had to have him killed, so they framed him for theft and hanged him.
86	%%* HeelFaceTurn: The monk [[spoiler:Remigius]].
87	%%* HenpeckedHusband: Lord Percy Hamleigh.
88	%%* HeroicBastard: Jack.
89	* HistoricalFiction[=/=]HistoricalDomainCharacter: [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy Queen Maud]], Kings [[UsefulNotes/HenryTheSecond Henry II]] and Stephen, and Thomas Becket play significant roles in the book. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lincoln_%281141%29 Battle of Lincoln]] is a key plot point. King Henry I appears in the television miniseries. Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, also appears in the book, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, drives much of the early plot by his actions.
90	%%* HolierThanThou:
91	%%** Waleran Bigod.
92	%%** Peter of Wareham.
93	* HonorBeforeReason:
94	** Aliena's father in the novel, much to Aliena's dismay. In the book, she resents her father for making her swear to restore the family's lordship. Averted in the miniseries, where she's the one with the idea.
95	%% ** Philip is this most of the time, even if he is considered a very practical man for a monk.
96	* HopeSpringsEternal: However the villains try to stop the construction of the cathedral, they fail. [[spoiler:Even burning the whole town down doesn't help.]] There is one point in the story when Philip gives up all hope, but it only lasts until Jack returns from France and decides to build the cathedral in Gothic style.
97	* HopelessSuitor: William. Aliena suffers awfully for this.
98	* HotWitch: Ellen definitely has some kind of supernatural power and is a very fit and attractive woman, so she counts.
99	* HumiliationConga: Waleran Bigod is put through this at the end of the book. [[spoiler:He ends up a powerless monk.]]
100	* IdenticalGrandson: Jack looks so similar to the father he never knew that he is mistaken for him by several people.
101	* ImpoverishedPatrician: Aliena and her brother Richard.
102	%%* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: William v. Aliena
103	%%* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: William appears to be one at first, but we soon learn otherwise.
104	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: When Jack works in Toledo, his employer's daughter Aisa falls in love with him, and her father also wants to marry her to Jack. After he leaves, Aliena arrives, and Aisa is the only one who is nice with her and tells her to go after him because she realized that Aliena loves him.
105	%%* {{Jerkass}}: Alfred, Tom's son.
106	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:William receives one courtesy of Tommy, Jack and Aliena's son, the new Earl of Shiring. William got Jack's stepfather unemployed twice, killed him in a raid on Kingsbridge, and has been tormenting his family, including Aliena. As the earl, Tommy exercises the right to arrest William on charges of sacrilege after the latter assassinates Thomas Beckett in a church.]]
107	* KarmaHoudini:
108	** William spends ''years'' getting away with murder, rape, pillaging, and sabotage because Waleran is the only priest who will absolve him.
109	** Waleran's role in [[spoiler:framing Jack's father]] doesn't do a thing to his reputation in the Kingsbridge priory, apart from disproving his accusations. He merely walks away when Jack demands answers from him. It takes [[spoiler:a political scandal which involves King Henry, William, and Philip to deliver the punishment of humility]].
110	** As a child, Jack burns the original cathedral to the ground and is never punished.
111	* KickTheDog: William does everything except kicking an actual dog to remind you that yes, he is the villain.
112	* KneelBeforeZod: Lady Regan forces Aliena's father to kneel before her in front of his people, at threat of Aliena getting her ears cut off, and tosses off [[EvilGloating a triumphant rant]] to the crowd warning them that this is what happens to people who disrespect the Hamleighs.
113	* KnightInShiningArmour: Jack was raised on Chivalric Romances by his mother, a former Norman noblewoman, so he tries to live up to this image. Its part of why he's such a WideEyedIdealist. Averted with a vengeance by William and his men, despite being actual knights.
114	* TheLadette: Ellen, raised by a widowed father among his men; she learns all sorts of masculine habits, until her father decides it's time she become more of a lady and sends her to live in a convent. It doesn't work out as he would have hoped.
115	* LoveAtFirstSight: Jack towards Aliena; he can't stop thinking about her from their very first meeting, at which time he's twelve and she's seventeen.
116	* MamaBear: Ellen leaves Tom when he won't do a thing about Alfred bullying Jack, in addition to being forced to stay away for a year.
117	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Every curse of Ellen's comes true. Scary, isn't it?
118	* MissionFromGod: Philip considers his work to raise a cathedral to be this.
119	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Remigius is a secret spy to Waleran.]]
120	* MosesInTheBulrushes: Tom Builder's son, Jonathan. He was abandoned as a newborn and left to die. He was found by monks and raised as Philip's son.
121	* MurderersAreRapists: William. He was a murderer, many times over. He also raped Aliena and many other women and girls.
122	* MySecretPregnancy: Aliena hides her pregnancy until the day of birth. Not surprising since she never had sex with her husband.
123	* NaughtyNuns: Ellen had shades of this when she was a novice, {{justified}} by the fact she was forced by her father to join the nunnery and she hadn't any religious vocation. After having met Jack's father, she leaves the monastery with him.
124	* NobleTongue: Norman French is often spoken by members of the nobility and clergy in England; at one point, when a senior clergyman speaks Norman French with an odd intonation, someone else realizes that he's a non-native speaker and one of the relative handful of English-speaking clergy to have risen through the ranks of the Norman-dominated church.
125	* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Robert]] gets his head taken off cleanly. For Archbishop Beckett, it doesn't happen so cleanly.
126	* ParentalAbandonment: Played heavily throughout the book. Tom abandoning his baby son so he could provide for his other two kids instead just shows how hard people had it during these times.
127	* ParentalFavoritism: Tom ignores Alfred's selfishness and sometimes malicious "teasing" towards Martha and Jack.
128	* PayEvilUntoEvil: this is William Hamleigh's rationalization for most of his violent acts, although [[DeliberateValuesDissonance the audience would not be expected to agree]], whether he is seizing a man's castle (and later raping his daughter) because the latter dishonored his family by spurning his marriage proposal; burning a neighboring town because it infringed on his economic rights as lord; or raping and killing his own serfs for failing to pay their debts to him.
129	* PluckyGirl: Aliena, who goes from spoiled noblewoman to resourceful wool merchant in order to avenge her family. Ellen also counts.
130	* PutOnABus: After he joins the Crusade, we hear talking about Richard again only when he dies without heirs.
131	* RagsToRiches: Aliena goes from being homeless to one of the wealthiest wool traders in England.
132	* RapeAsDrama: Happens to almost every woman in William's path.
133	%% * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: William and [[spoiler:Alfred]].
134	* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Averted. [[spoiler:Both Remigius and Waleran end their time with the book as humble monks]] rather than die.
135	* RedRightHand: Lady Regan has boils covering her face.
136	* ReplacementGoldfish: Aliena is freaked out noticing how William's young wife Elizabeth looks like her.
137	* RichesToRags: Happens to Aliena twice. She first goes from pampered noblewoman to being homeless. She then becomes a wealthy wool trader but loses everything in a fire thanks to William, falling from a position of wealth and social prominence to needing financial support (including an ArrangedMarriage to Alfred) to survive.
138	* RomancingTheWidow: Ellen was doing this to Tom, although they had met when his wife still lived.
139	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Both King Stephen and Prince Henry (the future Henry II) lead men in battle. See also WarriorPrince.
140	* RoyalWe: Queen Maud. "We are betrayed!"
141	* SacrificialLamb: In-universe example in the story Jack tells Aliena (see the AuthorAvatar entry above) — the story initially focuses on the traditional brave, strong, virtuous knight, but he is abruptly killed off very early in the story, revealing the squire as its actual protagonist.
142	* {{Sadist}}: William is sexually impotent unless he is violently assaulting his victims - consent inhibits him. When he is given the order to cut Aliena's ears off in front of her defeated father and his retainers, he discovers the command sexually arouses him. William comes to understand this quality gradually in himself; while he is [[AgonyOfTheFeet holding an enemy's feet in a fire]] to make him confess treason William discovers that torturing a man gives him the same feeling as raping a girl, but later, dissatisfied, he decides that torturing a man without killing him is like stripping a girl without raping her.
143	* SadisticChoice:
144	** Once the Hamleighs have captured Aliena's castle her stiff-necked father refuses to [[KneelBeforeZod kneel in submission]], so Lady Regan orders that Aliena's ears be cut off if he does not submit.
145	** William gives Aliena a choice between [[spoiler:lying still as he rapes her and watching her brother's ear get cut off]].
146	* SecondLove: Ellen and Tom are this to each other.
147	* SerialRapist: William, by far the vilest of the characters of the book, is sexually impotent with willing women, and can only get aroused through sexual brutality, either by beating up prostitutes first or by raping people.
148	* ShownTheirWork: Ken Follett wants you to know all about cathedral architecture.
149	* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Essentially what drew Ellen to Jacques, and eventually to Tom Builder.
150	%% * SinisterMinister: Waleran Bigod.
151	* StalkerWithACrush: [[spoiler:After William Hamleigh seizes the Shiring Earldom]], he is aware that Aliena, Richard, and their servant Matthew are still living in the castle. He stalks and watches over Aliena with freakish fascination, still obsessed with her even after she disgustedly rejected him twice. As soon as he gets the chance, [[spoiler:[[MoralEventHorizon he rapes her]]]].
152	* StandardFemaleGrabArea: Used against Aliena [[spoiler:during Alfred's attempted rape. Also attempted by William when he raped Aliena, but it fails there; instead, William threatens her brother to force compliance]].
153	* StandardHeroReward: William believes that his heroic capture of the treasonous Earl Bartholomew and his castle will be rewarded with the opportunity to rape Aliena and then forcibly marry her. His mother disabuses him of the notion, as Aliena's new social status as the daughter of a traitor renders her unworthy. William is eventually [[spoiler:temporarily]] given Bartholomew's earldom.
154	* StormingTheCastle:
155	** {{Averted\|Trope}} when Aliena wants to attack William in Shiring Castle, but Richard patiently explains that storming a castle never works. They manage to trick their way in instead.
156	** The Hamleighs seize Bartholemew's fortress home through a clever infiltration strategy.
157	* SuccessionCrisis: TruthInTelevision as this is set against the political backdrop of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy The Anarchy]].
158	* SupernaturalGoldEyes: Ellen, who [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be]] a witch.
159	* SwitchingPOV: The story is told from the POV of 5 characters.
160	* TellMeAboutMyFather: One sideplot revolves around Jack wanting to know who his father was, who killed him, and why.
161	* TimeSkip: Happens between every part.
162	* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:Thomas Becket doesn't run from his attackers, but lets himself be killed (in a church no less) to become a martyr. This results in exactly the opposite effect from what the antagonists expected.]]
163	* TheHighMiddleAges: The novel is set in this era.
164	* TookALevelInBadass: Richard. Goes from being little more than a puppet for Aliena to being a fairly kickass knight.
165	* TookALevelInDumbass: Don't expect Richard to be competent at anything that doesn't involve hitting someone with a sharpened stick. [[spoiler:He's better off fighting and dying in the Crusades than being Earl of Shiring.]]
166	* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Jack burns the orginal Kingsbridge cathedral as a child so Tom will be able to feed the family by working on the building of its replacement.
167	* TurbulentPriest: Thomas Becket, the {{Trope Namer\|s}} himself, of course.
168	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Philip telling Waleran about Bartholomew of Shiring's plans to overthrow King Stephen, in an attempt to protect the Church and bestow the responsibility on someone higher in Church standing, starts a chain of events that leads to William's father becoming the new earl, William raping Bartholomew's daughter Aliena as revenge for her declining his proposal and insulting him, and Tom the Builder losing his first income in ages as well as [[spoiler:his life]] in good time. [[HeelRealization Philip seems to realize this]], since he buys Aliena's wool when no other merchant will buy from a woman and she needs the money.
169	* TheUpperCrass: William Hamleigh is a noble, yet interested in little other than sex, hunting, and fighting. This is why Aliena rejects William's marriage proposal.
170	* VillainousCrush: William has a ''very'' creepy obsession with Aliena.
171	* VillainsNeverLie: Generally Waleran can't be trusted, and the only thing that can be is his promise to make sure the Kingsbridge Cathedral is never built. [[spoiler:By the end of the book, Prior Jonathan and a reluctant Jack believe that he has truly been broken by the Beckett scandal and thus can be trusted to live at the monastery as a humble monk.]]
172	* WeddingDeadline: Jack tries to stop the wedding between Aliena and Alfred, but for this, he needs to escape the monastery. He ultimately fails, and while his mother actually goes there and curses the marriage, she doesn't stop it.
173	* WhamEpisode: William and his gang of soldiers attack Kingsbridge, nearly burning it to the ground and killing hundreds, including [[spoiler:Tom Builder]].
174	* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: For all that he fails to act like it most of the time, the very mention of Hell is usually enough to make William shake with fear.
175	%% * WomanScorned: Ellen is an unusual example.
176	* WorthyOpponent: Minor example, but Richard and Robert of Gloucester have a degree of respect for each other.
177	* WouldHurtAChild: While on a punitive visit to one of his villages William discovers a young couple who have married without paying a fine en lieu of submitting to DroitDuSeigneur, and decides he wants to rape the woman. To distract her father from interfering William grabs her newborn baby by the ankles and hurls it in the air as high as he can, attacking the woman as her father scrambles to catch his grandchild.

Context Literature / ThePillarsOfTheEarth