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1[[quoteright:306:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/redemption_of_althalus_2354.jpg]]
2''The Redemption of Althalus'' is a [[Creator/DavidEddings stand-alone fantasy novel by David and Leigh Eddings]] about... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Redemption of Althalus]].
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4In his early adult life, Althalus was a thief. Since he was neither strong enough to rob people by force nor small and fast enough to steal via stealth, he aspired to become successful by outwitting his targets. He did, and he managed to gain a reputation as the best thief in the northern wilds of the world. After hearing of the wealth available in the cities to the south, he decided to try his luck there. When things didn't go well, he returned home and accepted a job to steal a Book from the House at the End of the World.
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6Upon reaching the house, Althalus met the goddess Dweia and became her disciple, spending multiple centuries preparing for the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil, before embarking on a journey with her to find those needed to unite and destroy the evil that threatened the world.
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8----
9!!This book provides examples of:
10%%* AdiposeRex: Gosti [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Big Belly]] is just a clan chief, but otherwise fits the bill.%%Does not explain the trope. How or why does Gosti fit the bill?
11%%* TheAlcoholic: Twengor [[spoiler: until Althalus cures him.]]%%Does not explain the trope
12%%* TheAtoner: [[spoiler: Bheid, eventually]].%%Does not explain the trope
13* BabiesEverAfter: At the very end of the story, [[spoiler:Dweia reveals to Althalus that [[DivineParentage she's pregnant]]. In this case, it literally is ''ever'' after, since the parents and, presumably, [[SemiDivine the child]] are immortal.]]
14%%* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Lampshaded: Each good character has an evil counterpart, and they are the only ones who are allowed to confront them, despite Althalus preferring to get things over with quickly.%%Does not explain the trope
15%%* BigBad: Daeva%%Does not explain the trope
16%%* BigBrotherInstinct: Deiwos threatens Althalus with divine retribution if he doesn't treat Dweia right. Althalus gets the IfYouEverDoAnythingToHurtHer speech from God.%%Does not explain the trope. There's no mention of any brother in the example
17%%* BigEater: Eliar (though he grows out of it), and Gosti.%%Does not explain the trope
18%%* BigGood: Dweia%%Does not explain the trope
19%%* BloodKnight: Gelta%%Does not explain the trope
20* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The last section of the book is Althalus going back in time to revisit his adventure in Gosti's hall and his meeting with Ghend, and making it play out differently this time.]]
21%%* BrokenBird: Leitha%%Does not explain the trope
22* BeautyEqualsGoodness: All the heroes are beautiful, strong, wise or great. All the villains are deformed, ugly, scarred and smell bad. Without exception, if a character is described in negative adjectives, they are minions of Daeva.
23%%* BurnTheWitch: Nearly happens to Leitha, before Althalus and crew save her.%%Does not explain the trope
24* ChekhovsGunman: Ghend, who first shows up to recruit Althalus for the job of stealing the Book and then, chapters later, turns out to the be TheDragon (although when a character is described as reflecting fire in his eyes even when the real fire has gone out and carries around a book whose writing makes even someone who can't read uncomfortable, it's pretty obvious there's something more at work). [[spoiler:A subtler example is the mad eremite in Kaghwer who talks to God and points Althalus towards the Edge of the World. When he is met again in the re-run at the end of the book, it turns out he was talking to ''[[GodWasMyCoPilot himself]]''.]]
25%%* CrystalBall: The windows of the House.%%Does not explain the trope
26* DeathSeeker: Yakhag. The only emotion he has left is a faint desire to die.
27* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: One of Ghend's plans to destabilise the lowlands is to forment a peasant revolt, by sending out a group of [[DirtyCommies priests in red robes to preach about the oppression of the underclass, equality and redistribution of wealth.]]
28%%* DivineDate: Althalus and [[spoiler: Dweia]]%%Does not explain the trope
29* EmbarrassingStatue: The city of Maghu has a temple to the goddess Dweia, with a statue of her based on (traditional interpretations of) the Greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis#Ephesian_Artemis Artemis of Ephesus]]. While Dweia is, as befits the goddess of (among others) fertility and love, the WorldsMostBeautifulWoman, she is most assuredly '''not''' "[[MultiBoobage equipped to suckle hundreds of babies at the same time]]", and she considers the statue a grotesque abomination, and actually prefers to stay as far away from the temple as she can.
30%%* EmptyShell: Yakhag again.%%Does not explain the trope
31* EternalEnglish: When Althalus emerges from the House after two thousand years, he has no trouble understanding anybody, this may be part of his training.
32%%* EvilCounterpart: Everybody has one (Ghend for Althalus, Argan for Bheid, Koman for Leitha, Khnom for Gher, Gelta for Andine, Pekhal for Eliar and Daeva for Dweia).%%Does not explain the trope
33* FateWorseThanDeath: How Gelta is dealt with, by sending her to a room in The House. "It's a fairly ''nice'' room, it just doesn't have any doors or windows."
34%%** Given his reactions to it, Yakhag's life is this.%%Does not explain the trope
35%%** Koman's reaction to [[spoiler: Leitha disconnecting his ability to read minds]] certainly suggests this is how he viewed it.%%Does not explain the trope
36* Fiction500: Dweia leads Althalus to the location of an enormous storehouse of gold that he uses to hire all the Arum clans as mercenary armies.
37%%* FireAndBrimstoneHell: Daeva's headquarters Nahgharash apparently looks like this.%%Does not explain the trope
38* TheGodsMustBeLazy: Deiwos made the universe, but he has not interfered further with it.
39* GoKartingWithBowser: Althalus returns to the past and becomes thieving partners with Ghend.
40%%* HeelFaceTurn: Andine, who spends the first part of the book trying to kill Eliar.%%Does not explain the trope
41%%* HeroicBSOD: Bheid has this after [[spoiler:he kills Yakhag]].%%Does not explain the trope
42%%* HighFantasy%%Does not explain the trope
43%%* IfYouEverDoAnythingToHurtHer: [[spoiler:Deiwos]] to Althalus.%%Does not explain the trope
44* IHaveManyNames: There are dozens of gods in the world, known by names like Kherdhos and Apwos. Turns out that there's only three gods- Deiwos, Daeva and Dweia. Apwos, Kherdhos and all the others are just other names for Deiwos- cultures looked at what was most important to them, like lakes or herds, and turned that into the names of their god- Apwos means 'water god' and Kherdhos means 'herd god'.
45* ImAHumanitarian: [[TheBrute Pekhal]] likes eating human flesh.
46%%* ImmortalImmaturity:%%Does not explain the trope
47* InvincibleHero: The Villains are, to a T, incredible stupid and incompetent compared to the heroes and in the over Five different war fronts, they never, ever so much as put a dent into the heroes plans [[spoiler:the closest was when Perka nearly killed Eliar, cutting the heroes from the doors, and yet their armies were slaughtered over and over and over again with barely an effort]]. Justified, as many of the villains are people who weren't recruited for competence, and include a cannibal from the stone-age, a merchant who was caught selling adulterated goods, and a pariah and lumberjack of an ancient stone-age village. They weren't brought on because they were good at anything, but because they had useful qualities and were willing to sell out the entirety of mankind in exchange for a seat at the table.
48%%* LanguageOfMagic: Proto-Indo-European fulfils this role.%%Does not explain the trope
49%%* TheLegionsOfHell%%Does not explain the trope
50* LoopholeAbuse: Althalus occasionally uses very loose definitions of words to make magic work. Although it's pointed out that the Book wants to help them, it's Dweia who insists on exact terms.
51* LoveGoddess: Dweia is the goddess of love and fertility.
52* MedievalStasis: Averted, the story starts in the Bronze Age and ends in the Iron Age, and some characters are from the Stone Age.
53%%* MerlinAndNimue: Dweia and Althalus, minus the betrayal.%%Does not explain the trope
54%%* AMindIsATerribleThingToRead: Leitha thinks so anyway.%%Does not explain the trope
55%%* {{Mordor}}: Nekweros.%%Does not explain the trope
56%%* MultinationalTeam%%Does not explain the trope
57* NegativeContinuity: With Dweia appearance. The first time she was described as otherworldly beautiful, a level of perfection that left all the heroes speechless and was obviously beyond mortal ken. All her other encounters with mortals (Arums mostly), her beauty is unremarked by anybody or treated as any other woman in her real form. This is never explained in anyway.
58* OffstageVillainy: Despite the numerous comments made by Dweia, as well as Argan and Koman, suggesting that the depths of Yakhag's evil is too horrible to discuss, and Gelta's obvious terror of him, the most villainous thing he's portrayed or discussed doing is killing a relatively minor character in a fairly straightforward manner.
59* OmnicidalManiac: Daeva is the [[DestroyerDeity god of destruction]], and the job he does is important -- it's when he decides to destroy ''everything'' that things get out of hand.
60%%* TheOnlyOne%%Does not explain the trope
61%%* OrcusOnHisThrone: Daeva%%Does not explain the trope
62* PaintingTheMedium: The scenes where the villains [[spoiler:and Dweia]] try to change history or the future are printed in a different font than the rest of the narrative.
63%%* PapaWolf: Althalus.%%Does not explain the trope
64* ParentalSubstitute: Althalus and Dweia take the roles of surrogate parents to the rest of the group.
65%%* PhysicalGod%%Does not explain the trope
66%%* PlaceBeyondTime%%Does not explain the trope
67%%* PortalNetwork: both the House and Nahgharash.%%Does not explain the trope
68%%* PortalToThePast%%Does not explain the trope
69* ThePowerOfFriendship: Good wins because their evil counterparts only care about themselves.
70%%* PsychicLink%%Does not explain the trope
71* PurpleProse : The "hey-let's-change-history" parts (in a [[PaintingTheMedium different font]], no less) are not as purple as most fanfiction, but more purple than the rest of the text. Lampshaded by the characters.
72%%* TheQuest%%Does not explain the trope
73%%* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld%%Does not explain the trope
74%%* RevengeMyopia: Andine to Eliar over her father's death. She gets over it eventually.%%Does not explain the trope
75%%* RewritingReality%%Does not explain the trope
76%%* RippleEffectProofMemory%%Does not explain the trope
77* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: The witch-hunter who tries to burn Leitha. According to her, he specifically targets women he finds attractive.
78%%* SinisterMinister: Argan%%Does not explain the trope
79* SlapSlapKiss: [[spoiler:Andine's relationship with Eliar starts out with her wanting to brutally and slowly kill him for the death of her father]], and ends with them getting HappilyMarried.
80* SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Averted. While Althalus would prefer to die and the mines are considered the ultimate form of evil, most of the characters are indifferent to slaves or are quite ready to profit from it with war prisioners (Ghebel and Kalor).
81* TheStarscream: Argan would kill Ghend and take his place in a heartbeat if he could.
82%%* StepfordSmiler: Leitha%%Does not explain the trope
83%%* TheStrategist: Khalor%%Does not explain the trope
84* SufferTheSlings: The shepards can kill a charging warhorse with a well-aimed shot; they soon become very popular among the mercenary army.
85* SweetPollyOliver: Althalus gets Leitha onto a battlefield by pretending that she is a male ballista specialist. This leads to an officer hearing her distract Koman with [[WeaksauceWeakness random numbers]] and assuming that she is doing calculations.
86%%* ThereAreNoTherapists: Andine and Leitha.%%Does not explain the trope
87* TragicVillain: Dweia laments at one point that Daevos was not always the villain he currently is. His duty of destroying things that had reached the end of their existence left him painfully lonely, so he reached out to find companionship. Unfortunately those he surrounded himself with were the worst possible influence, and set him on his current path.
88%%* {{Tsundere}}: Andine.%%Does not explain the trope
89* UnsexySadist: Gelta is sexually aroused by blood and death, and is also described as very ugly, overweight and masculine-looking.
90* VowOfCelibacy: Celibacy is either required or recommended for at least some religious organisations. When the main clergy sets up a new order to counter the damage caused by the [[DirtyCommies Red Robes scheme]], they discussed making the Grey Robes take the same VowOfCelibacy as the other orders... but then decided against it, realizing that Dweia (Goddess of Fertility, remember) would Not Be Pleased.
91* WeaksauceWeakness: The telepaths, Leitha and Koman, are vulnerable to people thinking lists of numbers and fractions- specifically, ''out of order'' numbers and fractions.
92%%* WeddingsForEveryone%%Does not explain the trope
93* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After the good guys rescue Leitha from being burned at the stake, they leave without doing anything permanent about the priest. The man had killed countless other girls for alleged witchcraft, and would very likely continue to do so unless stopped, but once the heroes save the one girl they need, they don't care anymore.
94* WorthlessYellowRocks: Althalus robs somebody but doesn't take anything because he doesn't understand what paper money is.
95* YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe: Dweia and Daeva are fond of this when they're making [[spoiler:and breaking]] prophecies. Althalus tends to make fun of it.
96%%* YearInsideHourOutside: played straight and inverted.%%Does not explain the trope
97* YouKilledMyFather: The reason that Andine wants to kill Eliar, though the good guys convince her to let it go.
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