Characters / The Belgariad Garion And His Companions

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Warning: Spoilers are not marked in folder titles or character descriptions!

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As a whole

• Badass Crew: It really says something when even the most mundane Badass Normals amongst them are capable of feats like killing a lion bare-handed and the sole girl is still a savvy, charismatic politician who stole her father's army with a single speech.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • The ladies of the team form this in the second series, as the redheaded Ce'Nedra and the raven-haired Polgara are joined by the blondes Velvet, Cyradis, and Poledra.
  • The blondes themselves qualify, in a sense—Velvet is honey blonde, Cyradis is dark blonde, and Poledra has a tawny (reddish) shade.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: It's a Running Gag that most of the heroes will, at one point or another, borrow Garion's "Why me?"
• Fire-Forged Friends: The lengthy nature of Garion's quests gives them plenty of time to find danger and trouble in all the locations they stop at along the way. The shenanigans that ensue just help all the vastly different members come together.
• One True Love: Several of the romantic pairings—Garion/Ce'Nedra, Durnik/Polgara, Relg/Taiba, and 'Zakath/Cyradis—are explicitly stated to be preordained for each other. It's the Prophecy of Light's way of both encouraging and rewarding them for their service.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Only in this company will you find, at various points, The Chosen One, three legendary sorcerers/sorceresses, the not-spirit of one of those sorcerer's presumed long-dead wife, a Dryad princess, two of the top spies of Drasnian Intelligence, a fantasy-Viking capable of turning into a bear, a legendary and literal Knight in Shining Armor, a ditzy rebel archer, a Serial Killer who talks to horses, a religious zealot who can walk through stone, the last survivor of a genocide, an Empath who is also an Amnesiac God, a eunuch drug-dealer and Master Poisoner, the king of the South, The Emperor of the East, a blindfolded Seer who is another Chosen One, her Gentle Giant bodyguard, and a simple blacksmith from Sendar.
• Team Pet: Zith, Sadi's pet snake. At first Garion and co. (save Velvet) are considerably frightened of her, but by the latter half of The Malloreon have come to view her as just another member of the team. Garion even notes with some surprise that nobody reacts to Zith's or her babies' morning feedings anymore.
• True Companions: Well, naturally. Even former antagonists Sadi and 'Zakath are wholely embraced as part of the team and lifelong friends after spending enough time getting in and out of trouble.

Joined in The Belgariad

Garion (Belgarion)

"Why me?"

Grandson of Belgarath and nephew of Polgara, Garion was raised as a scullery boy on a farm in Sendaria, completely ignorant of his family's near-divine status, or his role in the Prophecy. When Zedar the Apostate steals the Orb of Aldur, Garion's aunt and grandfather drag him on a cross-country journey, during which he learns that he is a sorcerer, the long-lost King of Riva, and the Child of Light of which the Prophecy speaks.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Garion succeeds in bringing a horse back to life, simply because he doesn't know that it's supposed to be impossible. That said, a good deal of that had to do with the fact that Horse was a moderately important part of future events, so the Necessity probably gave him a helping hand.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Ce'Nedra, from her introduction in Book 2, until long after they're married.
• Benevolent Mage Ruler: He becomes the nigh-immortal, mystically empowered, godslaying King of Riva and Overlord of the West.
• The Berserker: Only under severe stress/magical manipulation, but sometimes. Since he's an adult by the time it really happens, a fully trained Master Swordsman and a powerfully built man who's over six feet tall, he becomes a One-Man Army even without using his powers.
• BFS: Justified, as the Orb of Aldur lightens its weight, but the Sword of the Rivan King was forged for Riva Iron-Grip, a man who could palm a medicine ball. When Garion takes the Orb off of it at one point, he collapses to the floor and has to fight to get out from under it.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • He eventually regards Errand as a surrogate younger brother, owing to how they were both raised by Polgara, and is protective of him.
  • He also has a degree of this towards Lelldorin — while they're about the same age (if anything, Lelldorin's a couple of years older), Lelldorin has absolutely no common sense whatsoever, meaning that a lot of their conversations involve Garion pointing out why Lelldorin's latest grand scheme is a very bad idea.
• Blood Knight: Garion's generally a fairly mild-mannered person, and as Zakath notes, remarkably gentle. However, this trope is an Alorn characteristic and while Garion was raised a Sendar, he is an Alorn. ^note  To be exact, he's his mother was an Algar, and his father was essentially Aloria-In-A-Blender thanks to his ancestors' traveling the Alorn kingdoms under Polgara's protection, though the Rivan part is most prominent. In short, it's In the Blood, and it's apparent that even from a young age he enjoys fights for their own sake. He even indignantly complains when someone else kills his Murgo, to the amusement of Silk, Barak and Hettar, with Silk lightly remarking, "He's turning savage on us." However, after he ends up burning Chamdar alive, which he regrets for some time (since Chamdar was an Asshole Victim, it was the method that horrified him), this trope becomes less apparent.
• Blue Is Heroic: He prefers wearing blue if he has any choice in the matter, and is one of the most straightforwardly heroic characters in the series.
• Catchphrase: "Why me?"
• Character Tics: He over-focuses on his surroundings during times of stress, explaining why his narration will sometimes go in detail about other characters' appearances or the environment in emotionally-charged situations.
• Childhood Brain Damage: Played for Laughs at one point, when Garion comments that maybe his tendency to charge into dangerous situations without thinking about the danger is because his Aunt Pol dropped him on his head as a baby. Belgarath counters that Polgara is very careful "with babies and other breakable things".
• The Chosen One: By the Prophecy.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: In the first book, Garion was well on his way to accidentally seducing his childhood friend and in Cherek he caught the fancy of another girl in their first meeting. Midway through the series, Garion's descent from Belgarath is common knowledge, but his identity as the Rivan King and therefore betrothal to Ce'Nedra is still a secret (even to him). Since Belgarath's family is the most noble in the world basically by default (it doesn't hurt that Polgara has acquired titles from more or less everywhere, and spent a few centuries ruling a moderately powerful duchy — which eventually became Sendaria — thanks to doing the Duke of Vo Wacune a very big favor), this briefly makes Garion the most eligible bachelor in the West, a fact he was neither aware of nor prepared for.
• Combat Pragmatist: Having been mentored by the likes of Silk and Belgarath, Garion has never met a fair fight that he liked or didn't try to avoid.
• Cool Horse: He gets one in Demon Lord of Karanda, courtesy of Emperor Zakath — a big dark gray stallion named Chretienne.
  Zakath: A King needs a kingly horse, and I think you'll find that Chretienne can lend himself to any occasion that requires ceremony.
• Cool Sword: The Sword of the Rivan King. It's taller than he is and has a divine artifact in the hilt that makes it light enough to wield (and will set anyone who's not supposed to touch it on fire).
• Deadpan Snarker: Develops into this from The Comically Serious over time (exposure to Silk, Belgarath, Polgara's increased snark in her father's presence, and the Light Prophecy probably contributed to this), to the point where Beldin complains in the second series that he liked Garion much better before he developed such a smart mouth.
• Farmboy: Garion is one, but only technically. He lived on a farm, but aside from other tasks, he usually worked in his aunt's kitchen... as a dishwasher.
• Fights Like a Normal: For most of the first series, partly because he's initially ignorant of his powers (by design), then because he rejects them due to going through a moral crisis after what he did to Asharak/Chamdar, so he gets trained in normal combat instead. This continues for the majority of the second series — his instinct is to use his sorcery to aid his more conventional prowess in battle rather than use it as a weapon outright.
• Flaming Sword: The Orb causes the Sword of the Rivan King to burst into blue flame.
• The Heart: He tends to be, with the exception of Eriond (and possibly Durnik), the kindest and gentlest at heart of the heroes, with Zakath noting that he's a remarkably gentle person. However, this does not preclude an occasional habit of quite literally going berserk and, as also noted by Zakath, a capacity for being extraordinarily cold-blooded.
• The Hero: Of the entire series.
• Heroic Lineage: It becomes common knowledge by the second book that he's the descendant of Belgarath and ward of Polgara, and then that he's closely related to a high-ranking Algar clan through his mother, but the true extent of it — that he's the heir to the Rivan Throne — is hidden until the end of the fourth book.
• Hidden Depths: He's much smarter and more perceptive than most, including him, realise. As Belgarath observes, he has a knack for condensing very large, very complex ideas into very simple and easy to manage forms, and as a result, he's one of the few people who Beldin expresses an interest in discussing philosophy with — the others all being geniuses, or Durnik, who played no small part in raising Garion, and practically redefines this trope in his own right. He's also the first person outside of Belgarath and Polgara (who both knew straight off) that the spoilt Tolnedran noble lady tagging along with them in the first series is Princess Ce'Nedra, when even Silk didn't realise it. Moreover, he's the first person full-stop, including Belgarath and Polgara to work out that the female wolf who's travelling with them in The Malloreon is, in fact, Poledra.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's somewhere over six feet tall. His wife... isn't.
• Hypocrite: Played for Laughs, when having cracked up laughing at Lelldorin's thoroughly bizarre (and admittedly hilarious) romance related adventures, he complains only a couple of chapters later when everyone else finds his prospective problems with Ce'Nedra hilarious, practically quoting Lelldorin's reproachful "a friend wouldn't laugh at me."
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Garion's Catchphrase is "Why me?" He gets over it... but he isn't above occasionally repeating it to the Prophecy just to wind it up.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Lelldorin is the only one of his closest friends who is near him in age; the others are Durnik (who was like a father to him and marries his adoptive mother), Silk (roughly twenty years his senior), and 'Zakath (ditto).
• Kidanova: Garion had a quite a way with the ladies as a teenager, though it was entirely accidental, and mostly (but not exclusively) related to his being related to Belgarath and Polgara, and thus an extremely eligible bachelor; ironically Ce'Nedra was the first girl he met who wasn't instantly smitten with him.
• Kill the God: He's supposed to kill Torak. By the second series one of his nicknames is "Godslayer".
• Large and in Charge: It's not brought up very often, but after a growth spurt towards the end of the first series, and in between then and the second series, Garion towers up to well past six feet tall, and is powerfully built with it.
• Locked Out of the Loop: To varying degrees until late in Book 4.
• Magic Knight: Garion becomes frighteningly proficient with both weaponry and sorcery, though more so with the former — he's trained by Hettar and Mandorallen, arguably the two greatest master swordsmen in the series, challenged only by Cho-Hag (who's Hettar's adoptive father and fencing teacher).
• Moses in the Bulrushes: How his father saved his life, more or less, when their house was burning down around them, using stone-cutting tools to hack open a small hole and shove baby Garion out. At first, Asharak/Chamdar, the man who set the house on fire in the first place grabbed him... before very sensibly throwing him at a homicidal Belgarath and running like hell.
• My God, What Have I Done?: His killing Chamdar/Asharak by burning him alive, though poetic justice, horrifies him — and understandably so, considering that he's only 15. It lingers with him and makes him extremely unwilling to accept that he's now a sorcerer.
• Noiseless Walker: It's briefly handwaved that he learns the trick of walking soundlessly through a forest full of twigs and leaf litter by watching Silk.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Frequently plays the country simpleton to great effect.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Normally Garion uses the Sword of the Rivan King with two hands, but he can do this if the situation calls for it.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: As long as the Orb is attached.
• Panicky Expectant Father: His brain completely shuts down when Ce'Nedra is giving birth to Geran, reducing him to one syllable words and mindlessly chopping wood.
• Papa Wolf: Do not touch his children. Seriously. He's not as coldly vicious as Polgara and Belgarath are capable of being, but he's a six foot plus borderline Physical God (being definitively the most powerful sorcerer on the planet), a Master Swordsman with the Alorn tendency to go berserk under sufficient stress, as well as a giant sword and what amounts to a pet Reality Warper on the hilt of said sword, which is very fond of his family in its own right. That, plus an oft underestimated intelligence and a capacity for cold-blooded pragmatism that astonishes Zakath of all people, make him the last person you want to cross.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Graduates to this towards the end of the Belgariad, and starts tipping into the Physical God category — even without the Orb of Aldur — in the Malloreon.
• Power Glows: The Sword of the Rivan King glows bright blue.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers a brutal one to Torak in the first series, and to the Dark Prophecy in the second.
• Refusal of the Call: Refuses his destiny as a sorcerer after killing Chamdar/Asharak -- specifically, how he did it, something which sticks with him even into the second series - due to a mixture of a moral crisis and not wanting to accept that he's no longer the simple farmboy he once was. He eventually comes round when he realises that he has to learn how to use it.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In spades.
• Ruling Couple: He breaks with Rivan tradition to invoke this, accepting Ce'Nedra's marriage proposal with the declaration that they will rule jointly with equal authority. The gesture of respect lays the foundation for a happy marriage.
• Strong, but Unskilled: He's the most powerful Sorcerer in the series, even without using the Orb, but he has by far the weakest understanding of his powers. This justified by the fact that most of the sorcerers in the series have decades to centuries of experience and study on him, and save Zandramas (who was the Child of Dark), all the really powerful ones have millennia on him. Plus, initially Polgara and Belgarath are dedicated to keeping his talents hidden, and their full manifestation (killing Chamdar) leaves him horrified and initially deeply unwilling to use them again. After that, he's mostly occupied by his position as King of Riva.
  • However, he's also noted to have an intuitive skill for sorcery — when taught/shown something, he picks it up fast — and he has a habit of casually doing the impossible (or at least, deeply improbable).
• Super Drowning Skills: Has acquired this skill ever since he hit a log on a pond while showing off.
• There Was a Door: A few times. The most impressive case of this is the disintegration of a city gate... and a lot of the wall around it. Bits of which landed about five miles away. The degree to which the gate ceased to be was caused by the Orb deciding to help.
• Thunderbolt Iron: The Sword of the Rivan King was forged from a fallen meteor.
• Took a Level in Badass: He goes from an ordinary farmboy to the most powerful mortal (for a given value of mortal) on the planet.
• Unbreakable Weapons: Nothing can shatter the blade of the Rivan King.
• Uneven Hybrid: Had a sorcerer grandfather and a wolf grandmother (technically, they're both many, many times grandparents, but the "greats" are removed for the sake of simplicity).
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Invoked by Polgara; she deliberately raises Garion as a farmboy to give him a solid moral foundation for when he ends up having to save the world. Additionally, many of his ancestors did know, and in one or two cases, it went to their heads (usually temporarily and with a nudge or two from Chamdar), and made them stick out at exactly the wrong moment. More to the point, he can't accidentally reveal something he doesn't know. However, the downsides of this — such as his not being able to read until Ce'Nedra teaches him — are also pointed out, usually by Belgarath.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Especially in the first series, where he lacks finesse and experience, but has enough raw power to terrify the Grolim Hierarchs (though, notably, not the likes of Ctuchik). This isn't really rectified either — it's just that by the second series his raw power is so significant that his relative lack of precision doesn't matter.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: His relationship with Ce'Nedra (in the first series, and the early part of Guardians of the West) summed up in four words. Marriage and time mellow them both out somewhat.

Polgara

Daughter of Belgarath, and twin sister of Beldaran of Riva. Following in the footsteps of her mother, Polgara was the second female disciple of Aldur, and is the long-time guardian of the Rivan King's line. Haughty and regal, Polgara is a deeply affectionate woman at her core, and Garion's safety and security is her foremost concern.

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• Absurdly Elderly Mother: In chronological, but not biological, age, since Sorcerers stop ageing at an age that "feels" right to them. As a result, Polgara remains youthful (general estimates of her apparent age settle on "early thirties, at most") for 3000 years and is able to have twins at the end of the Malloreon sequel series. Belgarath observes that this probably has a lot to do with the fact that society regards elderly men as venerable, but classes elderly women as crones.
• The Ageless: She hasn't aged since she hit her thirties, 3000 years ago.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Polgara was very close to her sister and outlived her thanks to being a sorcerer.
  Belgarath: To this very day, if you're impolite enough to ask Polgara how old she is, she'll probably say something like "We're about three thousand or so." Beldaran's been gone for a long time, but she still looms very large in Polgara's conception of the world.
• Belated Love Epiphany: She doesn't realize how desperately she loves Durnik until he's killed by Zedar — but that awareness gives her the strength to hold fast against Torak. Fortunately, Destiny really wants her to be happy — and has plans for Durnik — so the Gods (with some help from Garion and the Orb) bring him back to life so she can marry him.
• Brainy Brunette: Their mother magically altered both twins in the womb to prepare them for their roles in life, including making Polgara this as opposed to Beldaran's blonde hair.
• Combat Medic: She's spent literal centuries studying the healing arts and is probably the best healer in the world, but she not only won't hesitate to defend herself or her loved ones if necessary, but can probably level a small country if she put her mind to it.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: When she decides to transform Salmissra into a giant snake, thus freeing her from all her human nature and all the drugs her body was suffering from.
• The Dreaded: To Grolims in particular. This is because due to Torak's interest, they're not entirely sure how to behave towards her — on the one hand, she's their implacable enemy, and the daughter of Belgarath, who's the closest thing the Angarak faith has to the Devil. On the other, she's also the chosen bride of their god, whose displeasure they really don't want to incur.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Her mortal lover died during the fall of Vo Wacune. She eventually came back stronger, but it was a long road.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Technically, her mother was a shape-shifting wolf (though she was human when pregnant with Polgara and Beldaran), and while she is very much human, it is occasionally mentioned that she has a somewhat wolfish sense of family loyalty.
• Honorary Aunt: Technically there's about a hundred "great-"s at the start of it, but to Garion she's simply "Aunt Pol". Ce'Nedra picks up the habit near the end of The Mallorean, as well. (Silk wonders what would happen if he said it. Beldin opines that he'd probably make an interesting-looking radish.)
• Hot Witch: She's an ageless sorceress and repeatedly stated to be the World's Most Beautiful Woman.
• Immortal Ruler: In her prequel she was the benevolent ruler of the Duchy of Erat for over half a millennium, but after her first mortal lover's death she set up a constitutional government and abdicated.
• Living Mood Ring: Her eyes change color depending on her mood, like when her eyes turn agate gray when she's angry.
• Magical Nanny: Polgara plays this role as caretaker of the Rivan line for two thousand years, with varying degrees of closeness (sometimes, she's more detached, other times, like with Garion, she's a full on Parental Substitute). And her cooking... divine!
• Mama Bear: Dear gods, yes. To take, but one example, Salmissra has a fifteen year old Garion kidnapped and subjected to Go-Go Enslavement. Polgara responds by ripping apart Salmissra's entire palace, staring down the spirit of a god, Issa, and makes an example of Salmissra by transforming her from a woman into a giant snake, all to get Garion back and demonstrate her extreme displeasure.
• Meaningful Appearance: Her trademark, and a plot point in the back-story — namely, it makes her stick out when she wants to be overlooked.
• Merlin and Nimue: She is mentored by her father in magic, and through the centuries they often team up together. Their blood relationship eliminates the romantic elements of the trope, however, and they never betray each other.
• Mind Rape: She can cast illusions which are guaranteed to make her victims beg her to stop — her self-narrated prequel explains that each illusion is tailored to the subject, and is created by reaching into the depths of their mind and finding what they fear the most. She's very prone to doing this as part of interrogations, and it's usually extremely effective — though Sadi became the one person in both series and both prequels to No-Sell it by the simple expedient of ensuring that he was stoned out of his mind first (he thought her illusion was "pretty").
• My Beloved Smother: She veers into this from time to time, to Garion's displeasure, which Belgarath points out. However, she very frequently has excellent reason for her attitude, as she points out in her prologue: namely, the utter disregard for their own safety displayed by Irongrip's heirs, and the fact that she spent 600 years acting as a Parental Substitute to Arendia to prevent it from going up in flames every five minutes. Where Garion specifically is concerned, it might have a lot to do with guilt over not being there to stop Chamdar from killing Garion's parents.
• The Not-So-Harmless Punishment: She gives a Smug Snake seer (who was making inconveniently timed proclamations of Garion's true identity and refusing to stop) her sight back, preventing her from having visions anymore, something which utterly breaks the seer in question.
• Parental Substitute: To Garion, and later Errand. In return, both of them, excepting a couple of teenage rocky periods on Garion's part (which mostly have to do with his being Locked Out of the Loop and her occasional My Beloved Smother tendencies), absolutely adore her.
• The Power of Love: The power of Durnik's love for her, and hers for him, quite literally saves the universe.
• Psychic Powers: One of her particular specialities, which she uses for illusions, extremely subtle mental manipulation, and sometimes outright Mind Rape.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: She and Barak tear Salmissra's palace to pieces trying to rescue Garion in Queen of Sorcery, and in the process, she stares down Issa (a God), and gives Salmissra the immortality she wanted by turning her into a giant snake — though, ironically, she does actually turn out to be happier with it than she was before, as are her subordinates.
• Second Love: She lost the first man she ever truly loved — her Champion, Count Ontrose — in the battle that doomed Vo Wacune. Millennia later, she meets and falls in love with Durnik, and eventually marries him.
• Sexually Transmitted Superpowers:
  • The immortal sorceress Polgara falls in love with the mundane smith, Durnik... and coinciding with their marriage is the reveal that a mostly-unrelated event has turned him into a sorcerer as well, thus neatly avoiding the impending Mayfly–December Romance. (In this setting, simply being a sorcerer automatically bestows you with immortality.)
  • A darkly amusing detail appeared in the Polgara The Sorceress prequel-novel, which reveals that - several hundred years ago - she fell in love with a Knight in Shining Armor type, and seriously planned to settle down with him. When her father sarcastically asked what she intended to do when he grew old and weak while she stayed forever young, she just shrugged and said, "Maybe if we marry, he'll become immortal too." Needless to say, it wasn't meant to be, but that was still remarkably acute of her.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Was once a ragged tomboy with a disregard for her appearance that made her father's habitual smelly tramp disguise look positively fastidious. Is now quite picky about bathing whenever she can, and regarded as the most beautiful woman on the planet.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Both times she truly falls in love. Her first love, Count Ontrose, is a consummate gentleman and the paramount knight of all Arendia, devoted to duty and to Polgara (unfortunately for her, in that order). Durnik, the man she ultimately marries, is (at least initially) a simple Sendarian blacksmith, but he's also kind, pure-hearted, courageous, and just plain good — Polgara calls him the "best and bravest" man she's ever known.
• Silk Hiding Steel: After she decides to clean herself up in her prequel, she becomes an extremely well-mannered and well-dressed lady, who's frequently described as being the most beautiful woman in the world. She's also extremely powerful and even more cold-blooded than her father at times, if a bit less vicious, and when she's properly angry, she terrifies the Kings of the West in ways that even Belgarath doesn't.
• Tantrum Throwing: While she's usually calm and dignified, when really pushed, she does this at least twice. The results are noted in the series to be quite spectacular, not to mention severely dangerous, given that she could level a small country if so inclined.
• True Blue Femininity: When not in her earth-tone coloured traveling clothes, she wears blue dresses reserved for special occasions, and blue is her signature colour.
• Uptown Girl: To Durnik. This doesn't stop her from figuring out she returns his feelings... eventually.
• Verbal Tic: She unconsciously calls all young people 'dear'.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Frequently described as such.

Belgarath

Garion's ultimate grandfather and the most renowned sorcerer in the world, Belgarath is Aldur's senior disciple, a position that sees him treated as royalty by the Alorn kings, and a bogeyman by the Angaraks. Dedicated to the fulfillment of the Prophecy, Belgarath has spent 7000 years fighting to keep the universe from spinning off its course.

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• The Ageless: Stopped ageing at about seventy or so — and even that is more of an aesthetic choice than anything else, considering, broadly fitting the Wizard Classic stereotype (or at least, the age category).
• The Alcoholic: Spent over two years getting legendarily drunk in Camaar after Poledra's apparent death, sufficient that it took literal divine intervention to sober him up. Thereafter, while Beldin dismisses his fears of relapse as not being something that happens to them (as he was drinking for a reason), Belgarath is considerably warier and notes that he's spent much more time with a tankard in hand than actually drinking it.
• Anti-Hero: He's prone to drinking, lying, wenching, and thieving — in the latter case, he bluntly admits that he was a thief from early childhood, and mostly seems to do it for the fun of it. As Polgara observes in her prequel when he clobbers a fleeing Grolim with a lead-encased fist in a tactic right out of a bar-room brawl, "Ancient Belgarath" has a rather colourful history. He's totally ruthless and utterly cold-blooded when the mood takes him, candidly admitting in his prequel that while it's not usually his first choice, he's murdered quite a few people for the sake of Necessity. That's before you account for the several centuries he spent traipsing around Sendaria, leading Chamdar around by the nose in his search for Polgara by suddenly murdering half a dozen Murgos in any given location to make it seem like they were getting close. And none of that accounts for what he did to Zedar... (though he does seem to regret that one).
• Badass Bookworm: He may not seem like the scholarly type, but he usually spends the intervening centuries between adventures reading in his tower — in his self-narrated prequel, it actually gets to the point where Beldin complains that he hardly ever looks up from his books.
• Cool Old Guy: He's mischievous, charismatic, an excellent story-teller and one of the most powerful men in the world, all traits that make him very popular with his many grandsons and Eriond (on all of whom he is a bad influence), much to Polgara's exasperation.
• Deadpan Snarker: A premier example in the series — really, you can see where Polgara and eventually Garion get it from.
• Dirty Old Man: While he's always had a streak of Chivalrous Pervert in him, he becomes this after Poledra's apparent death, spending several years living it up in Maragor in an attempt to drown his sorrows (alcohol having failed in this regard). Even afterwards, he's noted as having an eye for the ladies, and more than a few have an eye for him, even without knowing who he really is.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Belgarath's mother died when he was a child, and he doesn't know who his father was.
  • He was one himself for a while when he abandoned Polgara and Beldaran after they were born and didn't come home until years later — having gone mad with grief had a lot to do with this.
• Doomed Hometown: Though he hadn't lived there for centuries, Belgarath is upset when he discovers that his home village of Gara (his original name, Garath, meant "of the town of Gara") was destroyed in the Torak cataclysm.
• Eccentric Mentor: Belgarath has several bad habits; the habitual stealing, drinking, and all that business in Maragor after Poledra's death, and he generally looks like a tramp (though that's actually by design, and none of his clothes are actually half as shabby as they appear), but he is still Aldur's first disciple, "possibly the best teacher in the history of the world" when he puts his mind to it, as Polgara admits, and quite capable of demonstrating why all the Grolims are terrified of him.
• Elderly Immortal: Appears appropriately old, at least on his face.
• Emissary from the Divine: As the first disciple of Aldur, he was sometimes dispatched to tend to his god's interests in the world, and he's been tweaking the course of history to advance the Light Prophecy for thousands of years.
• Interspecies Romance: His beloved wife was originally a wolf he encountered in wolf form while travelling, and became his companion, and eventually his lover when she learned how to shapeshift from him.
• It's Personal:
  • Holds a significant grudge against Zedar, who not only betrayed him, but a) organised the assassination of the Rivan royal family, Belgarath's descendants, b) might have been responsible for the suicide of at least one of his fellow disciples — a theory Belgarath brings up in his prequel, with the notation that if he ever gets confirmation of it, he's going to get Zedar (who's currently sealed in rock, alive) and put him somewhere "much less comfortable".
  • Also decides that this applies first to the Bear-Cult (who were involved in the kidnapping of Garion's son), then Zandramas (who orchestrated it), spending a large chunk of The Malloreon in a state of Tranquil Fury, stating his intention to tear apart the world to get his grandson back.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • He plays up the image of the grumpy and often ruthless old man, who's cold and entirely emotionally detached from humanity, and does so effectively enough that it actually fools Polgara for most of her youth... until she turns into a snowy owl like her mother and to her utter astonishment, he breaks down in tears on the spot. His heart of gold mainly manifests in a keen sense of family, sharing a Vitriolic Best Buds type relationship with Polgara and his brothers, deep grief for his two deceased brothers, his other daughter, and his wife, even thousands of years after their deaths ( apparent death, in the case of Poledra), and a deep fondness for his various grandsons, especially Garion. He even shows real wistful regret for how Zedar turned out, revealing that he regrets what he did to him (though he also notes that if he gets confirmation of a theory of his, he'll do considerably worse). And then there's the spectacular Papa Wolf tendencies.
  • He's also kind to Vordai, which Garion picks up on, and he admits in his prequel that he felt sorry for her, and to two of the Salmissras, after they show minds of their own: one he gives political advice on how to get rid of the eunuchs who were planning to kill and replace her after it became apparent she wasn't just a puppet, and the other, Illessa, the Salmissra who was manipulated into killing the Rivan royal family by Zedar, whom he had every reason to hate, he comforted on her deathbed with the knowledge that Zedar's scheme had failed.
• Lady Killer In Love: Being charming, charismatic, and something of a Silver Fox, he's always been quite successful with the ladies. However, this is only before Poledra turns up and after her apparent death, being otherwise completely devoted to her.
• Large Ham: He is a professional story teller and he uses it whenever he can. In her prequel, Polgara frequently notes, and occasionally laments, his dramatic streak.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: As Polgara observes, while he's normally deeply lazy, insouciant, and generally nothing like what you'd expect a legendary sorcerer to be, he can throw that off in the blink of an eye, function for weeks with minimal sleep and food, and pull off feats that should be impossible.
• Lost Lenore: Poledra, his wife. Even thousands of years later, he's still grieving for her, to the point where her appearance as a spirit leaves him near catatonic for several days.
• Magical Homeless Person: He is usually found Walking the Earth incognito with nothing but the shoddy, mismatched clothes on his back, despite his age, power, and influence. He plays The Tramp to avoid notice, and he can create any material goods he needs at will anyway.
• The Mentor: To Garion, Polgara, and most of Aldur's other disciples, particularly Zedar and Beldin. Polgara grudgingly notes that he's actually a very good teacher — if not the best in the history of the world, to use her exact words.
• Mr. Vice Guy: As Garion sums it up, affectionately, "that is a very bad old man." He's chronically lazy, given the opportunity, and prone to "drunkenness, lying, thieving, and wenching" — though the latter vanished when Poledra was around. When 'Zakath muses in The Malloreon that if he let Belgarath run his bureaucracy, he'd have the most efficient government in the world, Garion, amused, points out that Belgarath is a) likely to live forever, b) more corrupt than Silk (an example of this trope and a master spy in his own right) and Sadi (a Master Poisoner and drug-dealer extraordinaire) put together. None of this makes him any less heroic, however.
• Mundane Utility: Most of the sorcerers in the world do everything the normal way unless they have a good reason to use magic, Belgarath uses magic for everything unless he's trying to hide (which, since he's hiding for most of the series, isn't immediately apparent). He conjures his meals out of thin air, he levitates books off the shelf into his hand, he lights the fire in the evening with a snap of his fingers, etc. One of the end results of this, combined with his age, is that while he's not the smartest sorcerer (that's Beldin), the most subtle (that's Polgara), or the most powerful (that's Garion), he is the most practised.
• Mysterious Past: Regarding his precise origins. While his history is extensively documented in his prequel, he barely remembers anything of his mother, nothing of his father, and isn't entirely sure if "Garath" is actually his original name, or just given to him as an orphan since it meant "of the village of Gara". Given that being Aldur's disciple left him with a close resemblance to the God in question, this means that while everyone assumes he's an Alorn, he and Beldin are actually the only characters in the series whose racial background is completely uncertain — which is mildly significant, since every God shaped a race in their image bar Aldur. In fact, the only thing he does know is that is that the God of his village wasn't either Belar or Torak.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Belgarath has elevated this to an art form. He looks and acts like a disreputable, drunken, dirty-minded tramp (per Ce'Nedra, "frequently a public nuisance"). On the more than one occasion, after someone realises who he is, one of his companions will remark that he really doesn't look the part. However, most of it is by design; his clothes, for instance, only look shabby in order to blend in, and he notes that after Camaar, he's spent rather more time holding tankards than drinking from them. Additionally, as his daughter grudgingly notes, this does not in any way change the fact that he is the first disciple of Aldur and could probably stop the sun in the sky if he was ever so inclined. As Poledra notes, he once got irritated with a hammer after accidentally hitting his thumb with it, and threw it away in a fit of anger — not away as in "across the room", away as in "up into the sky". That was several thousand years ago, and apparently, it's still going. And that isn't even getting into the fact that he's spent the last several millennia pragmatically arranging and manipulating the various Western kingdoms to his and the Necessity's satisfaction, maintaining several families — which Polgara notes, as she had enough trouble with just one (though that "one" had a perpetual target on its back).
  • However, some of it is just who he is, played up for dramatic effect, with the more serious parts of him hidden away: he is frequently found with a drink in hand (at one point Garion fondly thinks that Belgarath could probably find a cask of ale in a coal mine), he prefers passing as a tramp, and he is spectacularly dirty-minded.
• Papa Wolf:
  • To the world. Torak was not going to succed in taking it over on his watch.
  • Less so to Polgara, since she can generally more than take care of herself, being an incredibly powerful sorceress.
  • Less to Garion after he becomes able to take care of himself after his powers emerged. (It's notable that the one time Chamdar faced him directly, just after murdering Garion's parents, the only thing that saved him was the fact that he threw Garion at the homicidally enraged Belgarath and ran like hell).
  • However, he is definitely this to the rest of his family — after the Rivan royal family (his descendants via Beldaran) are murdered in the back-story, he organises an epic Roaring Rampage of Revenge that more or less flattens Nyissa (though he ends up being kind to the Salmissra who nominally ordered it, as she was a Tragic Villain and as much of a victim of Zedar's scheme as the Rivan royal family).
  • Speaking of Zedar, his being condemned to a Fate Worse than Death was the result of killing Durnik, Belgarath's future son-in-law, and while Belgarath expresses genuine regret for it in his prequel, he also adds that if his suspicions surrounding the suicide of Belmakor, one of his fellow disciples (namely, that Zedar caused it) are ever confirmed, he'll go back there and put him "somewhere a lot less pleasant."
  • He also spends a large chunk of The Malloreon in a state of Tranquil Fury after Geran is kidnapped by Zandramas, deciding It's Personal and, again, leading the expedition that destroys the Bear-Cult (who were partly involved), and then with Garion and company, going after Zandramas herself, making clear that he'll tear the world apart to get his grandson back.
• Physical God: He's not on par with the actual gods, but barring Garion, he's the next best thing. Polgara, generally not prone to exaggerating, remarks both that the other disciples of Aldur (most of whom are Living Legends in their own right) tend to defer to him as if he's a kind of demigod, and that if he wanted to, he could probably stop the sun in the sky. Poledra, her mother, also not prone to exaggerating, remarks that in a fit of irritation, he once threw a hammer into space.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Invoked — he paid handsomely for bespoke clothes that look ragged, mismatched, and extensively mended, but are actually durable and comfortable.
• Silver Fox: He's the oldest person in the world short of the gods and looks appropriately venerable for an aged sorcerer, albeit in the sense of someone who's aged well, yet gets his fair share of attention. When he strips to his briefs in The Malloreon to dive into a lake, he shows off his impressive physique in the process, getting quite a reaction from Velvet, and makes her — a master spy good enough to keep Silk off-balance — blush with a mere wink.
• Terror Hero:
  • Let's put it this way: In the Angarak faith, he holds the roughly same position as Satan does in the Abrahamic religions. All Angaraks are utterly terrified of him, and Polgara plainly states when it looks like he might have lost his powers that fear of him is pretty much the one thing holding them back.
  • He also sometimes veers into this when dealing with the Bear-Cult and the Nyissans. He's organised the suppression of the former on multiple occasions, and he once flattened Nyissa in response to their assassination of the Rivan royal family (at the behest of Zedar).
• Time Abyss: Easily the oldest living human at 7,000 years old. Only the gods, the Necessities, and a certain tree have any time on him.
• The Tramp: Wanders the world dressed as a vagabond. As it happens, his clothes are all finely tailored, and their shabby appearance is just to allow him to blend in.
• Underdressed for the Occasion: Greets kings while dressed as a tramp — and usually verbally flips them off if they've interrupted him from doing something important — and has to be forced (usually by Polgara) into formal wear. He hates it. The first time it happens, he ominously states, "someone's going to pay for this."
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Beldin, and his daughter, Polgara.
• You Can't Go Home Again: He was born in the now long forgotten village of Gara, and was orphaned as a child (hence his name, Garath, which means "of the town of Gara" — he's not strictly sure if it's his original name, but went with it). He ran away in his teens after getting a beating from a farmer whose daughter he got caught necking with, and ended up in Aldur's valley. When Torak split the world centuries later, Gara was destroyed, severing the last link to his past.
• Wandering Wizard: Belgarath has spent eons wandering the world, usually making sure that events play out the way they're supposed to.
• Weaponized Stench: In his prequel novel, Belgarath admits that he once ran off a Hound of Torak without blowing his cover by shapeshifting into a civet cat and spraying it in the face.
• Wizard Beard: A short, clipped version.
• Wizard Classic: In apparent age, definitely, though his beard is usually clipped short. He can put on the dress and the attitude when he wants to, though he usually has to be forced into the former by Polgara.
• Wizard Workshop: Belgarath's tower is cluttered with seven thousand years' worth of scrolls, specimens, experimental equipment, and cobwebs. His greatest scholarly project is the Prophecy; he designed the other gear for projects to improve his understanding of the world, as sorcery is purely a Thought-Controlled Power.

Durnik

Garion's oldest and most loyal friend, Durnik was the smith at Faldor's farm and accompanied him and Polgara when Zedar stole the Orb. A deeply practical man with an enormous crush on Polgara, Durnik's bravery and common sense serve the company well on their trek across the world.

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• Back from the Dead: At the end of The Belgariad. One of only two exceptions in history to All Deaths Final — and it's debatable whether Poledra was ever really dead to begin with.
• Badass Normal: Is an ordinary blacksmith with little formal battle training travelling among professional warriors and sorcerers. Still kicks ferocious amounts of ass. It helps that all that smithy work has made him ridiculously strong.
• The Blacksmith: His primary trade.
• Boring, but Practical: Durnik's ideas are rarely exciting or terribly complex, but they inevitably work.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: Especially in The Malloreon, where he really gets to shine.
• Declaration of Protection: He originally goes on the quest specifically to protect Polgara, with whom he has been hopelessly in love for years. He has no idea that his presence, and his love for her, will save not only her sanity but the entire universe.
• Dissonant Serenity: Utterly calm despite the chaos that swirls around him during his battle with Nahaz.
• Empowered Badass Normal: After he comes Back from the Dead, the gods grant him the power of sorcery.
• Everyone Can See It: Everyone knows how he feels about Polgara.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He immediately understands what the Drasnian engineers are doing to hoist ships up a cliff, and was able to invent and arrange the construction of a cradle to help with moving the ships over land in about a day.
• Hidden Depths: As mentioned under Garion's tab, he practically redefines the trope. Not only is he an excellent blacksmith, he's an adept woodworker, builder, woodsman, and good at more or less everything that can be done with his hands (unless it's too fiddly, like goldsmithing), as well as having talents as a Gadgeteer Genius. He's also got a remarkable knack for negotiation thanks to horse-trading experience, as revealed in The Malloreon, when he smoothly steers a touchy docker into being extremely helpful in a way that deeply impresses both Silk and Velvet, and he's an accomplished lutanist.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Garion. He's old enough to be the boy's father, being an established — if young — smith at a prosperous farm when Garion's a newborn baby (and ends up marrying Polgara, the nearest thing Garion has ever had to a mother), yet their relationship is very much that of two good friends.
  • Played with or possibly even subverted in that as Durnik becomes a sorcerer and presumably stops aging, more likely at his younger age (to match Polgara), meaning Garion by the end of the Mallorean has essentially caught up with him.
• The Lancer: To Garion.
• Magic Knight: He's a huge, physical bruiser who becomes proficient in magic and gains a mystic hammer.
• Nice Guy: The bedrock of his character — he's just a good person. He's kind, steadfast, supportive, compassionate, and morally upright — more so than any other character in the series, save possibly Eriond.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Recently ascended to disciplehood and granted a mystic hammer and a power boost from Aldur, Durnik delivers a brutal one to the Demon Lord Nahaz at the conclusion of Sorceress of Darshiva.
• Not So Stoic: Durnik almost never visibly loses his composure, but when he does, it's almost invariably because Polgara is hurt or in danger. On a far funnier note, when one royal meal the heroes attend contains a rice dish that appears to be seasoned with the local equivalent of ghost peppers, the main sign of how hot it is comes when Durnik starts swearing for the first and only time in the series.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: At the beginning Durnik is just a Sendarian blacksmith in the company of a master spy/thief, a politically astute Cherek warrior who occasionally transforms into a giant bear, two incredibly powerful sorcerers, and a boy who happens to be The Chosen One. He becomes more and more prominent as the story goes along, though.
• Power Glows: His hammer in the second series.
• Precision F-Strike: Played for Laughs. The one time he curses in the series is when he eats a ridiculously-spicy meal, causing him to shout, "Belar, Mara, and Nedra!" (This is roughly akin to a devout Christian yelling "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!")
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Polgara is something of a whirlwind, whereas he is rock-steady and unflappable. Even before they get together, he proves able to settle her down better than anyone else, and in The Malloreon he's clearly her bedrock.
• Second Love: To Polgara, who lost her first love in the sack of Vo Wacune.
• Sexually Transmitted Superpowers: The immortal sorceress Polgara falls in love with the mundane smith, Durnik... and coinciding with their marriage is the reveal that a mostly-unrelated event has turned him into a sorcerer as well, thus neatly avoiding the impending Mayfly–December Romance. (In this setting, simply being a sorcerer automatically bestows you with immortality.)
• Technical Pacifist: He will avoid killing someone as best he can. He is such that he breaks down and weeps the first time he kills someone on purpose with an axe. After that he deliberately starts using a far less lethal wooden club in melee combat. He does not, however, have any qualms about leading someone to their own death, such as leading an enemy into a quicksand pit.
• Took a Level in Badass: Repeatedly, including two assists from the gods.
• Unskilled, but Strong: One of the reasons for his success as a fighter in the first series. Durnik may not be a warrior, but he's a big man and as a smith he possesses formidable upper body strength. He gains more talent (and Talent) as the story progresses.
• Uptown Girl: Polgara is an ancient, powerful, gorgeous sorceress with titles from more or less every kingdom in the West, who has shaped the fates of nations for three thousand years, and is the daughter of the most powerful man in the world. Durnik is... a simple Sendarian blacksmith. She is way out of his league and he knows it — but that doesn't stop her from falling in love with him. Their love winds up saving the universe, and he gets a serious level-up from the Gods because Destiny really wants Polgara to be happy.

Barak

The Earl of Trellheim, and cousin to King Anheg of Cherek, Barak is a boisterous warrior who hides a dark secret—he is suffering under a curse that regularly transforms him into a beast. Unhappily married, and terrified of what he is becoming, Barak buries his fears under an uncaring facade, and devotes himself to the protection of Garion.

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• Beard of Barbarism: All Chereks are Vikings at the end of the day, and Barak has a particularly bushy red beard.
• Bears Are Bad News: He's called "The Dreadful Bear" for a reason - namely, that when Garion is in danger, he transforms into a rampaging bear.
• The Berserker: Barak's an unwilling heroic example. Apparently this kind of thing is common in Cherek warriors, even the ones who don't turn into bears.
• The Big Guy: He fulfils this role in Pawn of Prophecy. In the later books he's the Only Sane Man of The Big Guy Band, doing his best to keep the likes of Hettar, Mandorallen, Lelldorin, and Relg in line.
• Cursed with Awesome: Barak's "curse" is to turn into a bear when Garion heir to the long-empty throne of Riva and Overlord of the West by treaty is threatened (at least, until he can look after himself). A rampaging, unstoppable bear. At first he thinks it's just a progressive ailment and threatens suicide, but once he gets filled in on the trigger conditions (i.e. his family are now the hereditary protectors of Garion's family), he starts contemplating tasteful ways to work it into his coat of arms. Who wouldn't want to advertise that?
• Dual Wielding: With a sword in one hand and a battleaxe in the other.
• Fiery Redhead: A male version, though relatively restrained - he's got a temper and he enjoys a good fight, but he's the Only Sane Man of the Big Guy Band.
• Genius Bruiser: A very good man in a fight, he's also very politically savvy, good at reading peoples' intentions, and has a philosophical way of looking at things. He also notices that Garion is part Rivan before Silk does.
• In the Blood: His "curse" is inherited. His son, Unrak, turns into a bear when Garion's son, Geran is threatened.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: Barak's hereditary "curse" is to turn into a bear when Garion is threatened.
• Odd Friendship: With Silk. Aside from a shared fondness for strong drink, they don't have all that much in common. They also get on like gangbusters.
• Only Sane Man: As far as the Big Guy band is concerned — Hettar's a Blood Knight entirely focused on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Murgos (until he gets married), Relg is a heroic version of The Fundamentalist having mellowed somewhat, Lelldorin is a master archer and Robin Hood archetype with very few brains and even less common sense, and Mandorallen is a Knight In Shining Armour who entirely seriously suggests that the lot of them take on the entire Mallorean army. Barak's entirely understandable response to the latter suggestion is to put his head down on the table and cry.
• Protectorate: Garion's family is this to Barak's family.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: This is his literal purpose in life. If Garion is in danger, Barak turns into a bear and shreds anyone in his path until he can reach Garion.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Cousin to King Anheg of Cherek, Earl of Trellheim, Clan-Chief, and all around useful badass.

Kheldar (Silk)

"Trust me."

A Prince of the Drasnian royal house, and one of his nation's finest intelligence agents, Silk is a bad little man with an innumerable amount of disagreeable habits — not least of which is his loose understanding of the finer points of property ownership. A thief, a gambler, and a drunk, Silk is nonetheless one of the most valued members of the party from Sendaria, and one of Garion's closest friends after Durnik.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Silk is the most talented spy that Drasnia has ever produced, but as he admits, he's also idiosyncratic to a fault. It's why he's never appointed "Hunter" (the top agent of Drasnian Intelligence) or given an administrative role. His fellow Drasnian spies describe him as "brilliant but erratic".
• Blood Knight: Though normally not afflicted by any Alorn tendencies towards this, he becomes positively giddy at the thought of testing his kung fu against a senior Dagashi (a cult of Murgo assassins). He not only wins, he effectively kung-fus the man off of a cliff.
• Character Tics: His nose twitches violently whenever he gets excited (usually about a scheme, money, or both). He shares it with his half-brother.
• Claustrophobia: After Relg helped him escape a pit by walking through rock walls. He shows signs of mild claustrophobia in the initial trip through the caves of Ulgo. His experience with Relg later made it worse.
• Combat Pragmatist: Like Belgarath, Silk never met a fair fight he liked, a trait that both of them pass on to Garion.
• Deconfirmed Bachelor: In The Belgariad, Silk is a staunch bachelor who is determined to remain single; even when his friends are succumbing to marriage all around him, he informs Garion that if he ever loses his senses and the worst comes to the worst, he still knows how to run. Cue The Malloreon, where he is finally snared by his fellow spy, the relentlessly determined Velvet. In the end, while he moodily admits to Garion that he's finally been caught in his "dotage", he decides to take the bull by the horns and announce their engagement... before asking her to marry him. Her revenge consists of making sure the wedding is set for a date in which every single friend she and Silk have ever had can make it to see her victory over Aloria's most infamous bachelor.
• Fiction 500: At one point in the Malloreon, Zakath is wondering if Silk's holdings in the empire should be shut down. One of his advisers points out that if they did, the empire's economy would collapse.
• Gentleman Thief: He mostly steals for the fun of it, an attitude he extends to his at least nominally legitimate dealings as a businessman.
• Go-to Alias: He apparently has several, but his favourites are the down-on-his-luck spice merchant Ambar of Kotu, and the far more successful wholesaler Radek of Boktor.
  • Technically, Silk is one too, since having his real identity (that he is Prince Kheldar, the nephew and heir of the king of Drasnia) public knowledge would be bad.
  • This takes on extra layer in Mallorea, when he uses "Prince Kheldar" as, effectively, a persona in its own right on the grounds that no one takes you seriously in Melcene unless you have a title. When Garion asks where the real Silk fits into all of this, Silk sadly muses that sometimes he thinks he lost him years ago.
• Guile Hero: Silk is excellent at reading people, predicting people, telling lies, spying, and using his enemies' own vices (e.g. greed) against them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: If he likes you, he's sarcastic. If he doesn't like you, he's sarcastic. If he's worried, he's sarcastic. If he's feeling fine, he's sarcastic. Only a few things ever break through his shell of smartassery.
• Lethal Chef: He's an absolutely terrible cook.
• Lost in Character: When Garion enquires where the 'real' Silk fits in with all his aliases and personas, after seeing that even 'Prince Kheldar' is one in Mallorea, Silk, for once entirely serious, sadly muses that he sometimes thinks he lost him years ago.
• Loveable Rogue: He's charming, funny, and cheerfully acknowledges that he's a morally terrible person — it helps that he does have some standards. As Belgarath observes in his prequel, it's perfectly okay to like Silk... it's just an absolutely terrible idea to trust him.
• Manipulative Bastard: Silk's fast-talk and ability to manipulate others are his main assets. His wife turns out to be just as good at it as he is.
• Master of Disguise: He's so good at it that he can make himself unrecognizable to his own friends just by manipulating his facial muscles.
• May–December Romance: He's about twenty years older than Liselle.
• Merchant Prince: After the events of The Belgariad, Silk forms a partnership with Yarblek and by The Malloreon is one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.
• The Navigator: His epithet in the Prophecy is "the Guide". As he frequently tell Belgarath, "I know a back way out of every place."
• Non-Idle Rich: Professional spy, occasional assassin, and one of the richest men in the world through extremely successful and sometimes legally questionable merchant venturing.
• Professional Killer: He's one of Drasnia's go-to men when assassination is required.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: At one point during The Malloreon, certain parties conspire to have one of Silk's fellow spies killed. The woman in question is an old friend (also enemy, but only professionally), and someone Silk had immense respect for. His response to their conspiracy eventually causes a mass exodus of all the most powerful people related to the plot, surrounded by guards, and many of them simply do not make it out. It becomes a bit more stark when you realize the progression of his revenge. The first two nights he tries to make it look like natural or accidental deaths by smothering them with their pillows or tossing them out third story windows. The third night, Silk abandons all pretexts and takes it up a notch by just knifing each of his targets.
• Sad Clown: Mixes it with Stepford Snarker, as he tacitly admits to Durnik in The Malloreon after the latter had got tired of his endless quips. While he cracks jokes every other line, prior to the first series, his life is pretty miserable. His mother, formerly one of the most beautiful women in Drasnia, was horribly scarred and blinded by a plague some years before the series and doesn't know that she's been scarred, and he spends the first series hopelessly in love with his uncle's much younger second wife, Porenn — who is very fond of him, but nothing more, and furthermore, his uncle is one of the very few people he respects enough to never try anything with Porenn, even if she were interested.
• Sarcastic Devotee: One of his less popular features. At one point, when he has to take charge, Garion notes that he understands now why Belgarath was so consistently irritated at Silk throughout the entire series — leadership is hard enough without someone standing behind you providing a sarcastic running commentary.
• Spare to the Throne: His uncle is the King of Drasnia, and for the longest time, Silk was his heir. The day that his cousin Crown Prince Kheva was born, Drasnia and Silk both breathed a deep sigh of relief.
• Unrequited Love: For his aunt-by-marriage, Queen Porenn, who is genuinely very fond of him and aware of his feelings, but as is made explicit, does not share them, being very Happily Married. And even if she did, her husband is one of the very few people he respects enough not to try anything on. He gets over her, and marries Liselle instead.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: A self-aware one. Silk is well aware that he would be a terrible king, and wants nothing less than to take his beloved uncle's throne. When his cousin, Kheva, is born, both he and Drasnia breathe a significant sigh of relief.

Hettar

A silent Algarian horseman, Hettar is the adoptive son of Clan-Chief Cho-Hag. Born with the ability to speak to horses, Hettar was left a bitter, damaged man when a band of Murgo raiders murdered his parents and left him for dead when he was seven years old.

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• Anti-Hero: Hettar's habit of killing every Murgo he comes across is bad enough in the first series, but pushes him firmly into antihero territory once the Murgos become more fleshed out in the sequel. In mitigation, it should be said that the Murgos he would have encountered would have been spies, raiders, or Grolims/Agents of Torak and his disciples, with the Murgo civilians being generally well behind enemy lines.
  • At the time of the Belgariad, Murgo society was completely dominated by the immortal Ctuchik, and in the normal course of things he didn't want the Murgo race 'contaminated' by cultural contact or interbreeding with other races. Any Murgo who was in the West before Ctuchik's death was sent there for nefarious purpose. Afterwards, the Murgos start figuring themselves out and get on a path of self-determination and co-existence with the rest of the world, and this coincides with Hettar himself mellowing out his homicidal urges.
• The Beastmaster: As a Sha-Dar, he speaks to and effectively controls horses.
• The Big Guy: A member of The Big Five-Man Band; he plays Lancer to Barak.
• Blood Knight: Where Murgos are concerned, his day is incomplete if he doesn't kill at least a few, something that is mostly Played for Laughs during The Belgariad — though it is pointed to as an irrational compulsion that risks derailing their mission, and by Hettar's own account, his adoptive father Cho-Hag took him on a counter-raid hoping that once he killed a Murgo or two he'd get the obsession out of his system (needless to say, it didn't work).He's softened up some in The Malloreon as part of his Character Development, while the Murgos get more development in their own right, and in Belgarath's prequel and her own, Polgara flat out states that as a child, he's on the verge of becoming a proper monster.
• The Dreaded: He's a nightmare figure among the Murgos.
• Fights Like a Normal: The ability to talk to horses is pretty useful, but won't help much in a fight.
• Freudian Excuse: His hate of the Murgos stems from the fact that a band of Murgo raiders murdered his parents while he was still a kid and forced him to watch.
• Happily Adopted: By Cho-Hag and Silar. His parents were murdered, and he is very fond of his adoptive parents.
• Happily Married: In the sequel, to Adara. This is initially met with some astonishment, as Hettar's interests had previously been summed up as 1. Horses and 2. Killing Murgos, and while he's well-liked, even the good-natured Garion has to admit that he's not particularly loveable.
• The Quiet One: He doesn't speak much.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: It should be noted that a good chunk of the Murgos he killed are indeed working for Torak, and none of them are civilians.
• Revenge: Seeks to depopulate Cthol Murgos singlehandedly in vengeance for a Murgo raid that killed his parents. He has to be physically restrained by his friends to prevent him killing Murgos at inopportune times. Character Development has it that by the end of The Malloreon he has gotten over this and can walk into a city filled with Murgos without any homicidal urges. His wife probably helped a lot there. When informed that Hettar has a message for him from Urgit, the Murgo king:
  Cho-Hag: You met the Murgo king? And we are not at war?
• Serial Killer: How the Murgos view him, and they're not entirely wrong — as Polgara notes in both prequels, as a boy he's on the verge of becoming an outright monster.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Speaks Fluent Horse, to be exact, via a form of telepathy.
• The Stoic: He tends to be the straight man as a result.
• Terror Hero: What Belgarath is to the Murgos from the supernatural side of things, Hettar is from the more mundane end.
  • When he is introduced to Urgit, King of the Murgos, at the end of The Mallorean even the hardened seneschal visibly pales, and Urgit says
  King: Forgive me, Lord Hettar. We were told you were twenty feet tall and wear a necklace of Murgo skulls.
  Hettar: I'm on vacation.
• Warrior Prince: The adopted son of Cho-Hag, King of Algaria.

Ce'Nedra

The opinionated, pushy, and at times downright insufferable daughter of Tolnedran Emperor Ran Borune, Ce'Nedra is Garion's destined fiancee — a fact that both of them are unaware of when they first meet. Arrogant and hotheaded, Ce'Nedra spends an inordinate amount of time fighting with Garion, or jockeying for position within the company. Her political skills are, however, second-to-none, and when she has to, Ce'Nedra can easily live up to her Prophetic nickname of "The Queen of the World".

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• A-Cup Angst: Her height isn't the only thing about her that's below average. When she has a suit of armor made for her, she practically begs the armourer to exaggerate her bust size (he is not particularly sympathetic). Polgara explicitly refuses to intervene, stating that she'll have to expand them the traditional way - by having children. (Which Polgara knows Ce'Nedra is slated to do a lot of.)
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Ce'Nedra initially does not believe in sorcery, despite having the ability to talk to trees as a result of her Dryad heritage. Her Tolnedran upbringing has a lot to do with this.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Garion to a truly hysterical degree. It continues long after they're married.
• Bling of War: Wears golden armour to impress the troops. It's justified as the armour isn't meant to protect her and she's not going to do any fighting. It's solely for its appearance. The armor is also polished brazen alloy and not actual gold, because the armorer drew the line at that point.
• Brainwashed and Crazy, In The Malloreon, due to Zandramas' sorcery. And Harakan's. She's kind of a magnet for this stuff — probably because she's the only member of the party without some kind of mental defences.
• Break the Haughty: Throughout Queen of Sorcery and Magician's Gambit.
• Chainmail Bikini: Justified, believe it or not. Ce'Nedra intends to speak to an army, and it's very important that she look like a queen and not a little girl (or boy). Problem is, she's very flat. So she has an armourer solve her problem (after a very long debate).
• Character Development: She becomes much less bratty and self-centered in the sequel, in part due to the events of the first series and in part because she's now in her mid-twenties instead of her mid-teens.
• The Charmer: She can wrap more or less everybody who isn't Polgara around her little finger when she wants to. Garion is wise to it by the sequel, but doesn't mind all that much.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: She comes up with a darkly hilarious example in The Malloreon when a Corporal who she interceded for after he got demoted (and owing to the hierarchies of Mal Zeth, evicted) for drinking on duty gets drunk again. He's brought in, stone-fucking drunk, and she's solicited for her opinion by 'Zakath. Absently examining her nails, she dismissively says, "oh, hang him", before going back to complaining about how she's split a nail. Cue the Corporal immediately sobering up and begging for his life. Afterwards, she suggests to a stunned 'Zakath that he be spared and sent back to his wife, but a gallows should be built outside his house and left there so he'll have a reminder any time he feels thirsty.
  Zakath: You married this woman?
  Garion: It was arranged by our families, really.
  Ce'Nedra: Be nice, Garion.
• Damsel in Distress: Garion does rescue her a couple of times, which is unsurprising, considering that she's often In Harm's Way because of circumstances, physically very petite (at one point, she bluntly asks if there's a warrior in the entire world small enough for her to fight), and untrained in combat. However, she makes up for it near the end of the first series by deciding that since he needs a distraction, she'll provide one: by raising an absolutely enormous multinational army.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: She raises an international army just to provide cover for Garion sneaking off to fight Torak.
• Fiery Redhead: Both the hair color and the attitude run in her maternal lineage.
• Gender Equals Breed: Every Borune woman and any daughters she has are Dryads, but their sons are completely human — though on the smaller side, like their Dryad relatives. Because magic.
• Generation Xerox: Ce'Nedra is virtually identical in appearance, voice and personality to every Borune woman since the Dryads entered the family line. This is suggested to be related to the fact that they're technically full-blood Dryads.
• Girl Posse: A non-villainous example — Ce'Nedra is able to establish a clique of friends among the local women wherever she goes.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She enjoys dressing herself or the other women up, jewellery, and flowers, alongside a vested interest in politics (which is considered unfeminine in some of the more misogynistic cultures).
• Good Parents: Becomes this, along with Garion, going out of her way to cut off any Royal Brat tendencies before they get going. For context, a seven year old Geran once, unwisely, suggested that as a Prince, cleaning his room was beneath his dignity and a servant should do it. This apparently got him a truly memorable bollocking.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Her mother was a Dryad. Technically, there's no "half" — female children of Dryads are always Dryads.
• Happily Married: To Garion in the finale of The Belgariad and throughout The Malloreon.
• Hidden Depths: Beneath her self-centred façade and occasional immaturity lies a consummate manipulator, an accomplished politician charismatic enough to raise an international army, a surprisingly resilient personality (she puts up with traipsing all over the world in a way that Garion explicitly notes that Zubrette, a farm girl, couldn't) and, of course, a Master Actor to hide it all. It takes some time for Garion to realise that there's more to her than a Royal Brat.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The women of her family line are infamously short. It's suggested she's under five feet. When she has armor forged for her for appearance's sake, she responds to a complaint that it will be too thin to protect her by pointing out there's no one in the world she could win a fight against anyway.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Dryad names always have an X in them, but hers seems to break the rule. In The Malloreon it's explained that it's supposed to be spelled "X'Nedra", but that Tolnedran speech patterns soften the pronunciation of the "X" to "Ce". Her mother, Xvanne, was called Cevanne by Ran Borune. After a moment of trying to pronounce it, Garion decides to keep calling her Ce'Nedra. At the end of The Malloreon, Garion also muses that he's pretty sure she's privately added an "X" someplace in their daughter Beldaran's name.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Polgara tells her she shouldn't cry in public; she hasn't got the right coloring for it.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: For a given value of "innocent". Tolnedra is an equatorial country and much warmer than the Alorn kingdoms, and Dryads often dress very minimally, so Ce'Nedra often wears skimpy clothing and has a tendency towards casual nudity — the "innocent" part is in doubt because she's completely aware of the effect this has on Garion and does it to tease him. This behaviour led to the elderly Sendarian ambassador resigning his post after walking in on her in lingerie — which she casually modelled for him, asking his opinion on each piece. His next dispatch home contained a plaintive appeal to be allowed to retire.
• It's All About Me: She has a really bad case of this for most of the first series. She eventually grows out of it.
• Jerkass: For most of the first series, shading into Jerk with a Heart of Gold following her Break the Haughty experiences and the resultant Character Development.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Throughout The Malloreon. While she's still haughty, the hints of compassion she displayed in the first series have blossomed due to her mellowing out and becoming an experienced queen.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: In Guardians Of The West, the stability of half the world rests on her ability to get pregnant, and it eventually takes magical intervention from the Queen of the Dryads herself to make it happen. However, this is implied to be simply a matter of getting the ball rolling, as after the main plot of the Malloreon comes to an end, it's implied that with their respective lifespans, she and Belgarion will have a lot of children.
• Lethal Chef: Ce'Nedra's cooking is only edible by a very loose definition of the term. Garion dutifully, if somewhat reluctantly, eats it anyway.
• Locked Out of the Loop: In order to avoid her splitting and running before the wedding can take place, the rest of the party don't let her know about the "you're traveling with your destined fiance" business. She... doesn't take it too well at first when she finally finds out.
• Mama Bear: After Geran is kidnapped, she is entirely willing to raise an army, again. The only thing stopping her is she doesn't know who to target.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Goads her own father into a fit at one point, just to get what she wants, something that startles even Polgara (who's entirely capable of this trope herself). Since she knew that it would simply incapacitate him for about an hour, without doing permanent damage, and thus give her the chance to go behind his back and steal his entire army (which she needed to back up Garion), it's not as bad as it immediately sounds, and her father later looks back on the incident with genuine pride, wistfully remarking on what an Emperor she would have made if she'd been born a boy.
  • In the sequel series, she's the only one who gets anything out of the inhabitants of Kell, by going into full inane babble mode.
• Motor Mouth: She can talk. A lot. And she's been known to weaponise it.
• Money Fetish: She's Tolnedran, after all. At one point in Guardians of the West, she discovers Garion's been shoving gems and money in a safe without keeping track of their total value and just about drools as she gets down to count them. He privately thinks she's adorable as she does. It should be noted that she initially entered Garion's chambers to ask for some money so she can go shopping, but as soon as she sees the money drawer, she instead spends the entire day sorting it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She has a reputation as a vapid pretty princess, but she's much smarter than she looks, and she's not above using her image to her advantage.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Shortly after her first appearance she tries to get out of going to Riva by sneaking out of Tol Honeth with dyed hair and an increasingly unconvincing false identity. It doesn't work, and even if it had, she almost immediately runs into the protagonists, who take her to Riva anyway. Because Destiny Says So.
• Plant Person: Dryads have an intimate relationship with trees, and live as long as their oak does.
• Rebellious Princess: Initially, though while her father puts up with it, Polgara absolutely doesn't.
• Rousing Speech: She's damn good at this. In fact it's why she was born in the first place. However, doing so takes a toll on her, one that builds up over time.
• Royal Brat: Hoo boy. She joins the party by tricking her tutor into stealing her away, uncaring of all the political trouble it could cause back home, just so she can get out of a trip to Riva. She matures out of this in time, and her seven year old son's POV section in one of the prequels (set after they have received the story) reveals that she's going out of her way to prevent it in her children, too.
• Ruling Couple: Garion breaks with Rivan tradition to name her his equal co-ruler as Queen.
• Standard Hero Reward: She is literally described as Garion's "reward" for defeating Torak at their wedding. By the presiding priest. In almost those exact words. Considering that Garion went to some trouble to ensure her status as his co-ruler and equal, ensuring that she's not just considered an ornament, she doesn't mind too much.
• Tantrum Throwing: She's thrown some impressive ones. Amusingly, for her a tantrum is almost like a performance art. Often when she's incensed she will calmly examine her location to assess how well it can be used for her self-expression, and if there aren't enough things to throw and/or break, or the room is otherwise unsatisfactory, she will hold her fire in until she finds a more suitable stage for her performance.
• Tsundere: Ce'Nedra makes most anime Tsunderes look amateurish. A good capsule description of her is "Asuka, only having traded in all of her self-esteem issues for even more self-centeredness." Some parts of the books are told from her point of view. It's truly fascinating to read her inner monologue, she can literally go from adoring Garion to hating him like the plague in the subsequent sentence, and vice versa. It dies down after they get married and the two of them mellow somewhat.

Sir Mandorallen, Baron of Vo Mandor

"I pray thee, be moderate in thine address. Even I might experience some difficulty in facing the massed legions of all Tolnedra."

The greatest knight in all of Arendia, by both his own, and everybody else's, admittance. Totally convinced of his invincibility Mandorallen is, in truth, very nearly as good as he thinks he is, and despite his towering egotism, is perhaps the ultimate example of a Knight In Shining Armour.

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• Badass Normal: All the crazy stuff we mention in this entry? He does it with no powers or supernatural aid of any kind.
• The Big Guy: The most archetypal example. In the Big Five-Man Band he's Big Squared. Oddly, though, he's described as not being much taller than average, or particularly bulky.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Mandorallen is always spoiling for a chance to demonstrate his prowess.
• Casual Danger Dialog: Just see his quote line — and note that he's not being sarcastic; he still fancies his chances. Note also that Tolnedra has the largest standing army of any western kingdom, and all of it was on the battlefield at that time.
• The Champion: Ce'Nedra's. He got the position after he saved her from a lion by killing it with his bare hands.
• Deadpan Snarker: Possibly. It's quite hard to tell, thanks to his utter sincerity, but there's one or two moments. For instance, shortly after he first appears, one knight insults him and Mandorallen explains that he can't "chastise" the man as he'd like to because he's a distant relative and it'd be bad form to do violence to kinsman — which the knight exploits to build up a reputation for courage.
  Barak: Stupid custom. Chereks kill relatives with more enthusiasm than strangers.
  Mandorallen: Alas, this is not Cherek.
• The Dreaded: He's the most feared man in Arendia. Even Lelldorin and the other Asturians grudgingly respect his reputation. By the sequel series, it gets to the point where he's world famous.
• Dumb Muscle: And rather proud of it — though under the Boisterous Bruiser attitude, he's much sharper than expected.
• Flowery Insults: Mandorallen far exceeds all others when it comes to this, particularly in the closing chapters of The Malloreon where he spends nearly two full pages insulting a young hot-headed baron.
• Happily Married: The first book of The Malloreon sees Garion, finally irritated to the breaking point by how ridiculous Mandorallen's Star-Crossed Lovers story has gotten, break up an impending civil war that it's led to and order him to marry his newly-widowed beloved... practically at swordpoint. Needless to say, they get along fabulously.
• Heroic Bastard: He is "The Bastard of Vo Mandor" due to some irregularities surrounding his birth, and people remarking on the need to get that ironed out becomes a Running Gag.
• Hidden Depths: Mandorallen isn't overly burdened with common sense, but he's still got plenty of depth beneath his Knight In Shining Armour exterior. He's reasonably politically astute, a highly competent strategist when he actually stops to think, and is far more socially intuitive than many members of the group — see Manipulative Bastard.
• Honor Before Reason: In the first book of The Malloreon, Mandorallen, Relg, Barak, Hettar and Lelldorin were forbidden to accompany Garion and the others on the quest to retrieve Garion's son. Later on, they are told by Queen Porenn that Emperor Zakath intends to send the bulk of his Imperial Army in pursuit of Garion and his crew. Mandorallen, in all seriousness, stands up and proposes that their Big Five-Man Band go to Mallorea and take on the entire Mallorean army in order to keep them off Garion's back. Barak, in response to this, just puts his head down on the table and cries.
• Hot-Blooded: He'll ride into a fight at the drop of a hat.
• Invincible Hero: On a mundane level. If it's even theoretically possible to kill by force of arms, Mandorallen can kill it — with his bare hands, if need be, as demonstrated in the lion example, and not only is he not joking in his folder quote, it's not entirely impossible that he could do it.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Mandorallen is the archetype, if it somehow gained a life of its own.
• Large Ham: To lovingly parodic extents.
• Love Triangle: His love is married to an older man she respects far too much to cheat on. For that matter Mandorallen respects them both too much to ask her to — especially since the older man helped raise him. Plus the husband, well aware of the situation, also respects both of them so much he would never think of putting an end to it or doubting their loyalty — and also starts taking up dangerous hobbies to try and get himself out of the way. In-Universe, "a whole generation of Arendish virgins has cried themselves to sleep" over their tragic tale. Eventually settled when her husband dies and Garion orders the two to get married in order to settle all this crap. And they do, ending a war in the process.
• Manipulative Bastard: Astonishingly, he's actually very capable of this, when he plays on Lelldorin's rigid devotion to duty to save his life. Lelldorin had been seriously wounded and was insisting on coming with the heroes, despite the fact it would probably kill him to do so. Mandorallen bluntly and harshly pointed out that in his condition, he would slow them down when they couldn't afford to waste time. Lelldorin, humiliated, stops resisting and miserably submits to treatment. When Garion angrily confronts him, Mandorallen calmly explains his reasoning, and that this was the one argument that would actually get through Lelldorin's stubbornness and thereby save his life. Garion promptly apologises.
  • It might be In the Blood — his distant maternal ancestress, Countess Asrana, appears in Polgara's prequel as a close friend of Polgara's while she's in Arendia, and proves to be a very accomplished manipulator under a pretty and harmless exterior.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: The scene below under One-Man Army gets cut short by Chamdar using magic to make him drop his sword.
• Odd Friendship: With Lelldorin. They go from hereditary enemies to Bash Brothers — as in, in The Malloreon, when Lelldorin hears that Mandorallen has got involved in a war with another local Baron, he goes to back him up. So far, so expected. The special part is that he brings an army with him. Conversely, at the end of the series, a young Mimbrate Baron insults Lelldorin, who's about to take this personally. Mandorallen promptly steps in, insisting that since they're in Mimbre, it's his responsibility to address this insult. He promptly gives a detailed "Reason You Suck" Speech to the young upstart, before throwing down his gauntlet and "missing" the floor. He then proceeds to beat the crap out of said Baron with surgical precision, being described as "peeling" him out of his armour, before openly challenging everyone in the court who shares his prejudices to step up and get it out of the way. Ironically, this turns out to be In the Blood, or at the very least, another incident of things repeating themselves — their ancestors around the time of the Battle of Vo Mimbre, five centuries before, became similarly close.
• One-Man Army: He is basically unstoppable. At one point, he points out to a minor villain that his plans to reach the crown by killing Ce'Nedra made the small mistake of placing himself, surrounded by a century of light-armored legionaries, within reach of a fully armoured, mounted Mandorallen: "Thy soldiers will be as blades of grass before me", he said, and was NOT bluffing. It becomes a Negated Moment of Awesome, since said villain is backed up by Chamdar, a perfectly capable sorcerer, but he still qualifies.
• Parody Sue: Mandorallen is an Affectionate Parody of the knights from medieval fairy tales and Arthurian lore- virtually invincible, brave, noble beyond reproach and respected by his peers. Nonetheless, he is absolutely devoid of common sense, he constantly throws himself into avoidable danger, he lacks the emotional maturity to handle fear (he's never actually felt it before), and that same Honor Before Reason attitude that makes him so heroic is also the cause of many problems in his life.
• Wrestler of Beasts: Mandorallen faces a young adult lion in hand-to-paw combat. This would normally be suicidal but Mandorallen is in full plate armour and is able to bear hug the lion to death while it futilely tries to claw and bite its way through his solid steel armour plates.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Played with in that Mandorallen skips the "butcherede" part by using it correctly and fluently, oh so very fluently. He does not write flowery one-page monologues in that style, the reaction to which of other Arendish courtiers is to spend whole nights frantically writing answers to be able to compete with him; he improvises them.
  Mandorallen: (bowing to the throne) Lord King, gladly do I greet thee and the members of thy court, and dare to call ye all kinsmen. I presume to bear thee warmest greetings from their Majesties, King Korodullin and Queen Mayaserana, monarchs of well-loved Arendia, for, doubtless, as soon as I return to Vo Mimbre and reveal that those who were once lost are now joyfully found again, their Majesties' eyes will fill to overflowing with tears of thanksgiving, and they shall embrace thee from afar, if needs be, as a brother, and, as great Chaldan gives me strength, shall I presently return to thy magnificent city with missives top-filled with their regard and affection which shall, methinks, presage a soon-to-be accomplished reunion (may I dare even hope, a reunification) of the dissevered branches of the holy blood of sacred Arendia.
  Zakath: (murmuring to Garion with some awe) He managed to say all that in one sentence?
  Garion: (murmuring back) Two, I think.

Relg

"Don't touch me."

An Ulgo religious fanatic with a horror of being touched and an obsessive need to maintain his own purity, Relg is staggeringly judgemental—of both himself and of others. Needed by the company for his ability to walk through solid rock, Relg slowly loosens up, especially once the Prophecy starts throwing the Marag woman Taiba at him.

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• Badass Preacher: He may be The Fundamentalist and spend all his time Wangsting about sin (until the final book of the first series), but he's also an incredibly strong knife nut who can submerge you inside solid rock without breaking a sweat.
• Blindfolded Vision: Relg has to wear a blindfold when above ground, since his eyes are hypersensitive to light. The Prophecy refers to him as "The Blind Man", a play on both this, and his inability to see past his own problems.
• The Big Guy: Big Smart, becoming a respected spiritual leader, squashing a suggested madcap plan by the Big Guy Band in the second series on theological grounds (related to the Prophecy) with nary a whisper of protest.
• Break the Haughty: In a very brisk conversation with Ul, who sets him straight regarding his It's All About Me tendencies.
  Ul: I will bend thee to my purpose, or I will break thee.
• Character Development: One of the biggest examples in the series, going from haughty It's All About Me fundamentalist, to fundamentalist who's prone to Wangst over sin (tied to his previous ego trip, following a very blunt conversation with Ul) and sexuality in particular, to well-balanced, happily married and well respected spiritual leader. His authority in the latter respect is sufficient that when the Big Guy Band are scheming over ways to get around the Prophecy and its restrictions on their involvement in The Malloreon, he squashes their first suggestion and doesn't get a murmur of protest, and the second plan (which is a bit more reasonable — still ridiculous, but doesn't risk the Prophecy) only goes ahead with his say so.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Hence the blindfold.
• First Time in the Sun: Relg had never been above the ground before Belgarath hauled him along on his quest. The sun hurt his eyes, and the seemingly empty sky terrifies him. By the second series, he's got used to it and isn't bothered by normal sunlight.
• The Fundamentalist: He starts out insistent on hours of daily prayer and ritual cleansing from sin. He later mellows into a much more sensible, but still genuinely devout, version of this trope. This gets him a great deal more respect from the rest of the cast, as shown in the sequel.
• Happily Married: After a long period of unlearning his fundamentalist objection to sex, he marries Taiba, which turns out to be his destiny all along (the next Ulgo leader he was destined to find turned out to be his firstborn son).
• He-Man Woman Hater: He believes that All Women Are Lustful and resents them for supposedly trying to tempt him into sin at every turn. Garion's internal monologue, since he's unwillingly The Confidant to Relg, notes many of the inconsistencies in this approach. He gets over it eventually, marrying Taiba.
• Intangible Man: Relg can pass through rock like water and take people with him, or leave them in there.
• It's All About Me: His problem at first. UL forcibly sets him straight.
• The Leader: Of the Big Guy Band in The Malloreon, to an extent — mainly because the only other member with sanity and/or brains, Barak, thinks it's all a horrible idea.
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Relg can use his ability to move through solid rock for combat purposes, by pushing enemies into the rock and leaving them to suffocate.
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Although in his case it's more like "Being In The General Vicinity Of A Woman Is Evil, And I Have A Normal Sex Drive". He gets over it, much to everyone's relief.
• Tunnel King: Relg moves through solid rock with ease.
• Unknowingly in Love: Takes quite a while to figure out that he's actually in love with Taiba, even though he's instinctively drawn to her company right from the start.

Lelldorin

(Lelldorin gives a detailed account of how he stole Baron Oltorain's sister, married her without his consent, broke his leg, assaulted several of his people — and a priest (who "had it coming"), run his cousin Torasin through the leg — "just a little bit", and was "sort of" been declared an outlaw in Arendia.)

Garion: "You managed to get into that much trouble in just a week?"

An Asturian patriot with more eagerness than brains, Lelldorin becomes fast friends with Garion after briefly joining up with the company. Constantly in trouble due to his inability to think things through, Lelldorin means well, and usually manages to do more good than harm.

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• Affectionate Parody: Of Robin Hood and the swashbuckling hero archetype.
• Altar the Speed: Lelldorin smacks a priest around until he agrees to marry he and Arianna, which was done to prevent her from being shamed by travelling with a man who is not her husband. Hilarity Ensues, to a degree that the one line so descriptive of Lelldorin as to be his page quote (see above) is not said by him, but to him.
• Bash Brothers: With Mandorallen, eventually, to the point where they become Those Two Guys, much to Garion's private despair. Both are extremely brave, extremely noble, and extremely devoid of any common sense whatsoever.
• The Big Guy: Big Chick.
• Brainless Beauty: Male version. He's described as very good looking, and utterly devoid of brains.
• Brains and Brawn: Generally serves as the Brawn to Garion's Brains — or rather, Garion usually points out the flaws in whatever insane scheme Lelldorin's got himself caught up in this time.
• Crippling Overspecialisation: Best archer of his generation who has Improbable Aiming Skills and can identify his own arrows among thousands in the dark, pretty good fencer, skilled dancer, competent actor, and total idiot at every other aspect of life.
• The Ditz: He has no brains, at all. As Ce'Nedra's internal monologue notes when she first meets him, in his eyes she can see both a vast sincerity and absolutely no intelligence whatsoever.
• Dumb Muscle: Like Mandorallen, and devoid of pretty much all of Mandorallen's Hidden Depths. This makes him both useful and endearing (if, to Garion, sometimes exasperating).
• Flynning: When Lelldorin first met Garion, Garion had just pulled him off his horse and attacked him with a sword. As they fight, Garion quickly realises that Lelldorin (who is a much better fencer at that time), is deliberately using inefficient and flashy moves, and avoiding actually hitting him because he's enjoying the duel so much and wants to prolong it as much as possible.
• Good Is Dumb: Very, very good, and very, very stupid.
• Happily Married: To Ariana. They adore each other. Most characters hope that she'll temper his lack of brains and sense. Unfortunately, while she's much smarter than he is, she also adores him so much that their shared glances are repeatedly described as being completely devoid of any kind of sense whatsoever.
• Hidden Depths: He's actually a decent actor, being able to play the part of a collaborating Asturian very well, when required. He can dance. When he's in a low moment, he can be surprisingly self-aware of his flaws, but that doesn't stop them from being a problem again when his equilibrium is restored. That's about as far as it goes.
• Honor Before Reason: He's as bad as Mandorallen — worse, in fact, since while Mandorallen has a few brains, genuine Hidden Depths, and a surprising degree of social intelligence, Lelldorin has none whatsoever of any of the above.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He's an extraordinarily skilled archer.
• Let's You and Him Fight: His first encounter with Garion was the latter attacking him unprovoked and trying to run him through with his sword. Not that Lelldorin minded, he enjoys a good scrap.
• Love Makes You Stupid: Although to be fair, he wasn't exactly winning any Nobel Prizes to begin with. It's more dramatic with Ariana, who is genuinely very intelligent, leading to Garion hoping that she'll mitigate his more ridiculous tendencies... before he very quickly realises that these hopes are in vain, as all her common sense goes out the window when he's around.
• Odd Friendship: With Mandorallen. They're hereditary enemies, but quickly find they're similar and develop into Bash Brothers, to the point that in the sequel series, Mandorallen gets into trouble and Lelldorin responds by raising an army. Also in the sequel series, a Mimbrate Baron insults Lelldorin to his face, and Mandorallen responds by throwing down his gauntlet and "missing" the floor, instead hitting the Baron in the face, before beating the crap out of him with surgical precision, then challenging anyone else who shares such views to step on up.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He's Garion's comedy sidekick. Things usually take a turn for the hilarious when he's around, and get darker when he's not, and vice versa. For instance, Garion arrives in Riva after the very tense latter half of the quest to retrieve the Orb, which very nearly killed Belgarath and was feared to have destroyed or severely reduced his powers, and runs into Lelldorin. Lelldorin immediately regales him with the increasingly ridiculous story of how he ended up having eloped with his nurse, Ariana, (who was also his host's sister, and a Mimbrate, and thus an ancestral enemy), accidentally broke the leg of said host while trying to escape, beat up the priest who initially refused to marry them (at least nominally to protect Ariana's reputation), got into a duel with his prejudiced cousin for what he said about Ariana and running him through the leg ("just a little bit"), ending up being declared an outlaw in Arendia... all in the space of a single week. Unsurprisingly, Garion is left helpless with laughter.
• Those Two Guys: Develops into this with Mandorallen, to Garion's despair, since neither of them has even the slightest bit of common sense.
• Undying Loyalty: To Garion, Mandorallen (eventually) and anyone else he considers a friend. It's both his best quality and greatest weakness — one of his first actions in the series is to insist on Garion knowing every detail of a plot to rebel against the crown that he is part of, since Garion is his friend and he trusts him totally. Despite the fact that he literally met Garion that day. It also makes him — in Garion's view — the best person to help him search for the would-be Rivan assassin, since he'll keep it quiet simply because Garion asks him too.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: To a certain extent. He acts as if he lives in a universe that runs on fantasy tropes, which he does, but he thinks he's the noble rebel outlaw, when in fact he's the comedy sidekick in Garion's story. However, once he finds out that Garion is The Hero, he happily accepts his supporting role.

The Orb of Aldur (Cthrag Yaska)

A mystic stone that Aldur recovered from a river, the Orb is intimately connected to the Prophecy, and has the power to reshape the entire world at a whim. It can only be used by members of the Rivan King's family, around whom it tends to act like an overly helpful dog.

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• Arch-Enemy: The Sardion. The two are in many ways the focal points for the power of the two Necessities, and far more elemental in their attitudes - while the two Necessities can discuss things with civility, the Orb blows up a museum case just because the Sardion was in it... five hundred years ago. The two can communicate and when they get into close proximity, they're on the verge of lashing out at each other.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Blue = Good. It also goes pink when embarrassed and bright red when it's angry.
• Companion Cube: It's sentient, if a bit limited — it's generally described as having the understanding of a small child, meaning that while it's usually helpful (to the chosen wielders), it's also a bit over-enthusiastic. Also, it happily serves as Geran's toy and when taken away from him, it sulks.
• Covert Pervert: When it blushes, Belgarath realises that it was looking in on Garion and Ce'Nedra on their wedding night.
• Empathic Weapon: In general, but especially when attached to the Sword of Riva.
• Immortal Breaker: As a conduit for the power of the Light Prophecy, a force that's Above the Gods, it's one of the few things capable of injuring or killing a God.
• Kill It with Fire: Magical blue fire, to be precise. It's one of its go-to tactics.
• Living MacGuffin: It's alive, sentient, and while it doesn't exactly talk, it is somewhat empathic — meaning that it has discernible emotions and it can communicate after a fashion. This is most hilariously demonstrated right at the end of the series when Garion decides to keep his son out of trouble by giving him the Orb to play with. He then ends up taking it back, and the Orb spends the rest of the day muttering complaints in his ear.
• Mineral MacGuffin: It's a rock. A sentient rock, but still a rock.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: As Torak was very painfully shown, the Orb will respond viciously to any use of its power it does not consent to. When Torak sundered the world with it, it responded by crippling Torak and causing him to burn for eternity.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Subverted. In Belgarath the Sorcerer, it's revealed to have been a useful half-truth that Belgarath spread to keep people away from the Orb. It is, however, a self-aware manifestation of a Sentient Cosmic Force of Prophecy, and is violently intolerant of being held by people it doesn't trust to serve that Prophecy.
• Power Glows: Usually blue, sometimes pink (when embarrassed), and bright red (when it's angry).
• Reality Warper: Implied — when Belgarion is explaining the Orb to Zakath he jokingly suggests that he could use it to literally spell his name out in the stars in the night sky only to have to immediately admonish the Orb that that was an example, not a suggestion, implying that the Orb could literally move dozens of stars around the galaxy to spell out "Belgarion" across the sky from their perspective.
• Wrong Context Magic: The Orb can maim Gods, raise the dead, cast out demons, and basically do anything that a sorcerer can't (except unmake something).

Adara

Garion's maternal first cousin, part of a major Algar clan, and a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Silar of Algaria. She adores Garion, and is pining after Hettar, of all people.

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• Babies Ever After: With Hettar, and they have a lot, to the point where it's a mild Running Gag in the sequel series - Hettar at one point grumbles that they can't keep up with Relg and Taiba because they keep having multiples (heavily implied to be Mara's influence).
• Best Friend:
  • To Ce'Nedra, after she realises that Adara is emphatically not a romantic rival, and it endures even after they're separated by most of a continent - the first thing Ce'Nedra does after finding out that Adara's had a baby is to be delighted and work on sending a gift. They also end up as a form of Best Friends-in-Law, as Ce'Nedra is by this point her cousin by marriage and Adara is practically Garion's sister.
  • She's also positioned as Garion's best female friend, vying with Velvet, as he loves them both dearly (and platonically). She's one of his main confidants, and they pour their hearts out to each other.
• Happily Married: Eventually with Hettar, after her Love Confession when she thought she was dying. This attraction initially leads to general bemusement as Hettar is a good friend but also pretty grim and never imagined as especially loveable. However, after he thinks it over, he realises the attraction is mutual (as he puts it, she gives him a life to think about beyond killing Murgos) and they are very happy together.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Garion, to whom she becomes "all the older sisters and younger aunts" that he never had. They have an instant connection between the two even before they're informed of the relationship, and love each other dearly, enough that Ce'Nedra initially mistakes their affection for romance (until she's told exactly who Adara is to Garion).
• Nice Girl: She's absolutely lovely, earning Garion's immediate adoration, patiently enduring Ce'Nedra's turbulent emotions, and is generally widely beloved.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She's dark-haired and pale-skinned, and noted to be beautiful in passing by Garion, who's trying to figure out why there's something vaguely familiar about her, and by Ce'Nedra, who immediately assumes based on their affection that they're a couple, and tries to find a flaw before unhappily admitting that Adara is drop-dead gorgeous.

Errand (Eriond)

"Errand?"

A totally innocent boy who was raised by Zedar, Eriond is the only person other than Garion who can actually touch the Orb of Aldur.

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• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: Does so at the end of the Malloreon. Subverted in that he doesn't actually go anywhere - he stays in Angarak under Zakath's supervision, as Zakath's job for the rest of his life is to get the world to worship Eriond (who isn't really strong-willed enough to do it himself).
• A Boy and His X: He has a special bond with the Horse that Garion revived.
• Children Are Innocent: Zedar's thinking in picking him up, but there was more to it than that...
• Creepy Child: He's totally innocent but he has this vibe, since he knows things he shouldn't be able to, doesn't speak very much, and has no sense of personal danger.
• The Empath: He gains the ability to know people's inner thoughts and feelings during the Mallorean.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The Orb of Aldur will not strike down an innocent (it's a bit more complicated than that, but innocent in the sense of 'devoid of ambition' works fine), so Zedar raised Eriond to be a "pure innocent" who is seemingly immune to corruption of any kind.
• Never Learned to Talk: Is initially capable of only saying the word "Errand", which is why the party takes to calling him that. It's explained that when Zedar found him, all he said was "I have an errand for you, boy"; Errand repeated the one word and followed him. Over the next two books, he learns more words, but he can only say one-word sentences. After the Time Skip between the Belgariad and the Malloreon, he learns how to speak properly, though at points he reverts to one-word sentences. In the Malloreon his real name is revealed to be Eriond; he explains that he picked up the word 'Errand' from Zedar because it sounded familiar to him.
• Parental Substitute: Polgara almost instantly becomes his surrogate mother and later Durnik becomes his father figure.
• Phosphor-Essence: At the end of the Malloreon, he develops a distinct glow whenever he doesn't think to suppress it. Given that he's ascended to godhood, this is unsurprising.
• Purity Personified: What he was raised to be, and what he manages to become. This doesn't stop him from being a little sly at points and his lack of cynicism is occasionally an impediment to his understanding. He also ends up picking up some of Silk's ability to bargain with a twist which he uses at the end of The Malloreon to protect Poledra from UL with the Orb of Aldur... under the Silk-esque reasoning that he can get away with defying UL's will because no-one's told him what UL's will is yet. This amuses UL because the entire thing was a Secret Test of Character to encourage Eriond to begin asserting himself, something his pure soul leaves him very unsuited for.
• Reality Warper: A mostly unconscious, small-scale one, being able to do some profoundly odd things. Belgarath in particularly keeps meaning to investigate, but he keeps getting diverted...
• Shrinking Violet: When he's not needed, he tends to prefer staying in the background. Zakath's destiny after the series ends is to essentially be Eriond's hype man, as Eriond doesn't have the force of personality needed to promote himself as the new god.
• Verbal Tic Name: Is originally called "Errand" because it's the only word he seems to know.

Taiba

The only survivor of the Marag race, Taiba is rescued from the dungeons of Rak Cthol by Garion and his companions.

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• Babies Ever After: And after. And after. It's actually her purpose — she and Relg together make the new Marags (and the next Gorim). Her designation in the Prophecy is "The Mother of the Race that Died".
• Beautiful Slave Girl: She's described as being very beautiful.
• Explosive Breeder: Played for Laughs in The Malloreon. Hettar grouches that Adara can't keep up with Taiba, who is having children in "twos and threes"—almost certainly due to Mara.
• Genocide Survivor: Taiba is the last surviving Marag. Her ancestors were almost completely wiped out when the greedy Tolnedrans invaded their realm hundreds of years earlier in an ill-conceived search for gold, and her fellow slaves were killed after Belgarath and Ctuchik's duel blew up Rak Cthol.
• Happily Married: To Relg.
• I Owe You My Life: "Owe" is a stretch, but after Relg saves her life, she finds herself fascinated by him, due in some part to her gratitude for his saving her life (the other part is probably the Prophecy's meddling).
• Irony: When she was first rescued, she despised religion and honoured no god. As of The Malloreon, she and Relg are living in Maragor, under the eye of Mara.
• Last of His Kind: She's the last living Marag, descended from those who were imprisoned and carried out of Maragor to be slaves. There were actually more Marags in the slave pens under Rak Cthol, but after the city was destroyed, she was the last one left.
• Outliving One's Offspring: She had twin baby girls before Garion and co found her, but they were sacrificed by Ctuchik. This, above all, was the catalyst that drove her to escape, steal a knife and look for Ctuchik so she could kill him. As it turned out, she got lost, which is when Garion and co found her.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Relg is outraged by her nakedness when they first meet, even when Taiba points out that she doesn't have any other clothes — and that she's not ashamed of her body, so she really has no reason to want more clothes.
• Rape as Backstory: Sadly, though it never comes up in great detail.
• Satellite Character: Taiba's whole reason for existing is to marry Relg and give birth to the Marags. That's it. She's rarely seen without Relg, and she isn't seen at all after the Belgariad concludes.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Her relationship with Relg started this way — both of them were attracted to each other, but Relg kept denouncing her sinful life, while she kept challenging him about his religion and some of his more illogical extremes.
• Unknowingly in Love: Takes quite a while to figure out that she's actually in love with Relg, even though she's instinctively drawn to his company right from the start.

Joined in The Malloreon

Liselle (Velvet)

A new prodigy in the Drasnian intelligence service, Liselle has a long-standing crush on Silk. Referred to as "The Huntress" in the Prophecy, she joins the group in Tolnedra.

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• Action Girl: She's probably the most physically capable female in the series.
• Choice of Two Weapons: She carries a dirk and a long silken strangling cord.
• Code Name: Aside from Velvet, she is also Hunter.
• Combat Pragmatist: Fair fights are not something Drasnian intel prepares you for.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: If one counts Liselle's espionage and combat skills as graceful, she often wears lavender dresses on special occasions. Ce'Nedra laments that she couldn't wear lavender because of her red hair and golden complexion.
• Guile Heroine: She's a match for Silk in this regard.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Played for Laughs. Her response to Garion blowing up 'Zakath's wall? A mild, understated "my goodness".
• May–December Romance: She's about twenty years younger than Silk.
• Nightmare Fetishist: When Sadi shows his pet snake Zith to the group, all of them recoil in fear... except for Velvet, who coos that she's adorable. She quickly takes to sneaking Zith away from Zadi and carrying her in her bodice, and her friendship with Sadi mainly comes from the fact they both adore Zith.
• Odd Friendship: Less odd than some, given that they're both affably unscrupulous, but she gets on particularly well with Sadi, largely because she adores Sadi's pet snake, Zith. She later observes that she might get a snake herself, as they make good pets, to which Sadi affectionately says, "we'll make a Nyissan of you yet, Liselle."
• Precocious Crush: When Silk was an up-and-coming star of the Intelligence Service, he'd often play dolls with the boss's niece, Liselle, who was approximately twenty years younger than him. As an adult, she pursued him and caught him.
• Professional Killer: Like Silk, she does double duty as an assassin for her uncle.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Velvet claims to be this in The Malloreon, but any woman who has graduated from the Drasnian spy academy probably doesn't qualify for Proper Lady status even if she is a Margravine. That said, she definitely has the sweet demeanor and steel spine.
• Single-Target Sexuality: She's been in love with Silk since she was a child, and pursues him with an efficient single-mindedness now that she's an adult.
• She Is All Grown Up: As Silk notices, and her uncle wryly lampshades.
• Spy Catsuit: Subverted in the Malloreon. Velvet frequently dresses in tight-fitting leather, but it is described as looking masculine, workman-like, bleak, and completely uninteresting.

Toth

A mute giant who is Cyradis's lifelong bodyguard. She entrusts him to Garion at the end of Guardians of the West to aid him in his quest.

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• Bodyguarding a Badass: He's with Cyradis more to physically guide her around than to protect her—the sole time she fights in Seeress of Kell, she easily fills the heads of the Grolims attacking her with visions so horrifying, they throw themselves off cliffs to escape.
• Cute Mute: Strange as it may be to say that about a giant man who only wears a kilt, yes. He's mute, but adorable with his shy smiles and gentle demeanor.
• Exposed to the Elements: He wears a loincloth-like kilt and nothing else. Impressively, he doesn't change into anything warmer even while travelling through mountains.
• Gentle Giant: He's a massive bear of a man, but is kind, patient, and loves to fish.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Cyradis. They love each other dearly and miss each other dearly, but they have no romantic interest in each other.
• Psychic Powers: He's a telepath of some power, initially disguising it with the hand gestures he makes to communicate with Durnik.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He's apparently an excellent cook, as Cyradis mentions loving the meals he would make out of his catches.
• Sacrificial Lion: He was literally born with the sole purpose of being slain in the final battle.
• Satellite Character: Most of his character revolves around his friendships with Cyradis and Durnik, not helped by the fact he's a mute and only they can understand him.
• The Voiceless: Toth was born mute, as are all guardians of the Seeresses of Kell. He communicates through a series of odd hand gestures that only Durnik understands. He's actually telepathic, but keeps this a secret - he's connected to the Hive Mind that connects all of Kell.
• Undying Loyalty: To Cyradis; the only reason he joins the group is because she told him to.

Emperor Kal Zakath

The Emperor of Boundless Mallorea, 'Zakath is Overking of Angarak and the most powerful man in the world. He's also completely dead inside as a result of having ordered the execution of the love of his life when her family was implicated in a Taur Urgas-directed plot against him. He strikes up a tenuous friendship with Garion, and begins the long, slow trek back to humanity after joining up with the Rivan King's companions.

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• Affably Evil: When Polegra, Durnik, and Ce'Nedra are captured and brought to him in Enchanter's Endgame, he speaks to them politely and respectfully, makes accommodations for the ladies, and then, in almost the same breath, turns around and casually orders a crucifixion - then a flogging when it turns out that there isn't any spare timber. His manners are so polished that even after seeing this, Ce'Nedra can't help but call him a gentleman, and overall he's a rather courteous host whenever he captures Garion and co.
• Ambition Is Evil: His ambition to rule the Angaraks, then the world, is pretty much what makes him evil in the first series and the early part of the second. Garion privately thinks the real reason for his evil ambition is a secret desire to find someone who is strong enough to kill him and end the torture he believes his life to be.
• Arch-Enemy: He made no secret of the fact that he would kill Taur Urgas and exterminate the Murgos down to the last child if he could.
• Ascended Extra: A minor villain in the first series, and a major player in the second.
• BFS: Justified. Garion has the Orb make an enormous greatsword as light as a rapier, enabling 'Zakath to fence with it.
• Too Broken to Break: He keeps interfering with the heroes' quest even after he learns what they're really up to, is forced to accept the truth that he can no longer pursue revenge against the Murgos, and has been threatened with sorcery. He's so broken by the trauma Taur Urgas inflicted upon him when he was nineteen that he's an Empty Shell who pursues world domination while awaiting death. At their wits end, they petition the Seeress of Kell to intervene because they've noticed he'll listen to her even when he heeds no other. Even she struggles because he's not bothered by the revelation he'll die by winter if he doesn't stop hindering Destiny. Since threatening his own life fails, she makes him responsible for hers by insisting they become each other's hostage. It's the inappropriateness, and his inability to refuse it, that finally leaves him shaken to his core. It's a secret The Power of Love gambit by Cyradis, as she already knows that she is his future wife even though he and the heroes don't.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Being tricked by Taur Urgas into killing the woman he loved, thinking that she was a traitor out to murder him. Before, he was kind, intelligent and cultured young man. After, he was a stone cold psychopath who amused himself by periodically sending Taur Urgas bits of his relatives in ornate jars, with highly insulting notes attached.
• Death Seeker: Very heavily implied. He reacts to the news that he was poisoned with a peculiar kind of satisfaction, and Garion later directly accuses him of not seeing any value in his own life and purposefully throwing himself into situations that could end it. He doesn't deny this. This makes things very frustrating for Cyradis, who repeatedly warns him to help Garion's group because destiny demands it; even when she point-blank tells him that the sole reason he was born was to help Garion's quest and he'll therefore die before winter if he keeps refusing, he remains unmoved — dying doesn't bother him; it's living that he has issues with. However, he overcomes this throughout Seeress of Kell.
• Deconfirmed Bachelor: In The Belgariad, Zakath makes it clear to Ce'Nedra that he has no faith in marriage, and cynically expects her and Garion to end up unhappy. In The Malloreon, it's revealed his attitude — and his determination to destroy the Murgos and take over the world — is driven by Taur Urgas framing the love of his life in an assassination plot that forced Zakath to execute her before he found out the truth. Even after he starts helping Garion's group and recovering from the trauma and guilt he's been living with, he still remains convinced that his chance has passed and that marriage is not for him. Destiny, however, has other ideas, so he ends up falling in love and happily married despite himself to Cyradis — it helps that the second God of Angarak takes Cyradis' side, not only giving Zakath a kick up the backside to propose, but officiating the wedding before anything can get in the way to prevent it from coming to pass.
• Defeat Means Friendship: 'Zakath is one of the rare pre-emptive examples of this trope, in that after finally figuring out just how thoroughly the odds are against him (when Garion casually mentions that the Orb could rearrange the stars in the sky to spell out his name, and then tells it off when it's about to do just that), he decides to just skip the "defeat" and finalize the "friendship".
  "You know something, Garion? I've always believed that someday you and I would go to war with each other. Would you be terribly disappointed if I decided not to show up?"
• Defrosting Ice Queen: During The Malloreon, thanks to his friendship with Garion.
• Despair Event Horizon: Hit in the backstory, after one of Taur Urgas' plots against him resulted in the death of his girlfriend at his own hands, believing that she was going to kill him on the wedding night. Garion's companions are a little disconcerted to discover that the fate of the world rests on their ability to somehow help him find his way back from that despair and relearn how to enjoy living again. As usual, Garion finds the group mostly leaves it up to him to try and figure out and Cyradis, after the group realises she has a "peculiar effect" on Zaketh.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: When we meet 'Zakath all he cares about is becoming Overking of Angarak, and eventually, ruler of the world.
• Drunk with Power: 'Zakath's initial motivation is basically just power for power's sake. In an unusual twist 'Zakath is well aware that he's totally corrupted by power and simply doesn't care. He warns Ce'Nedra that inevitably, Garion will be the same way.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: He's described as having dead eyes. They come back to life after he joins the heroes.
• Dye or Die: Zakath grows a beard after joining the heroes in The Malloreon to avoid being recognized as Emperor.
• Empty Shell: The prophecy outright refers to him as "The Empty One". Throughout The Belgariad and for a good portion of The Malloreon, he speaks with a dead voice, has matching dead eyes, and is apathetic to all life save his Revenge. And his cat.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He's horrified to hear about baby Geran being kidnapped and genuinely lets Garion know he has his sympathies. While this is what Garion's group had been hoping for, it backfires slightly when it also increases Zakath's mistrust of their true motives. As he says, if he was the father of a kidnapped son, there is absolutely nothing that he wouldn't do to get him back.
  • Also, even he's nauseated when he hears about Zedar's fate.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: 'Zakath planned to become Overking of Angarak and then ruler of the world. He assumed that Garion was going to forge the nations of the West into an empire and then wage war on him until there was only one man standing. He was genuinely surprised to learn that Garion had no plans for world domination at all.
• Evil Counterpart: Starts out as Garion's.
• Evil Overlord: Of Mallorea, at first — though he seems to actually be a reasonably good, if iron-fisted, ruler.
• God-Emperor: His title "Kal" (abbreviated to an apostrophe) literally means "God and King," and used to be Torak's title when he ruled the Angaraks directly. 'Zakath himself is an ordinary human, however.
• Good Is Not Soft: Settles into this post-Heel–Face Turn. He's adopted Garion and Ce'Nedra's more merciful governing policies, such as demoting instead of executing and showing mercy—while making it clear that he is still perfectly willing to put the boot down on those who get too vocal about their disagreements with his reign.
  "I've changed, but not that much."
• Happily Married: He marries Cyradis in the epilogue of The Malloreon. According to his letter, it's made him genuinely the happiest he's ever been in his life.
• Karma Houdini: 'Zakath did some pretty awful things that he's never punished for — though it's indicated that spreading Eriond's gospel, a task that will take him the rest of his life, is fate's way of getting him to make up for what he's done.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: His fondness for his cat in the first series is the main indicator that he's not merely a soulless monster, a trait retained in the sequel series.
• Licked by the Dog: Zakath's pet Cute Kittens peg him as a Kind Hearted Cat Lover, an early indication that he's not the monster he's rumored to be — or at least, that that isn't all there is to him.
• May–December Romance: He's about thirty years older than Cyradis.
• Modest Royalty: Early in the second series, before really embracing it later on, to the point that his subjects don't recognize him when he rides past. He doesn't mind, but it's not a deliberate case of King Incognito either — as he points out, to them, the Emperor is the man who's decked out in robes, jewels, regalia, and massive carriages, not a man in white linen who's riding with some friends.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: 'Zakath may well be the only fencer in the world to use a BFS instead of say, a rapier.
• Power Fist: Belgarath tells them not to kill anybody during the one battle. 'Zakath puts on a cestus and proceeds to smash it into the face of every man he rides past.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In the Belgariad, as he's mostly just driven to act by obligation as an Angarak to Torak, who he's no more fond of than anyone else is. Well, that and the opportunity to get his revenge on Taur Urgas.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Even at his worst, he tends to being a just and hard working ruler. It's one of the early signs that 'Zakath has redeemable qualities and can get better.
• Redemption Earns Life: Cyradis and Garion practically spell it out word-for-word to him: if he doesn't turn around and redeem himself, he'll die, and if he does, he'll live and find happiness (albeit while having to atone for the rest of his life). Since he's a Death Seeker, it actually takes him a while to pick the latter.
• Revenge by Proxy: Plans to exterminate every single member of the Urga family—and possibly all of Cthol Murgos—because of what Taur Urgas made him do. Results in a breakdown when he finds out that he's too late and his war was for nothing — the Urga line had been broken already by Taur Urgas' death, as Urgit, Taur Urgas' successor, turns out to be a result of infidelity on the part of one of Taur Urgas' wives with a Drasnian representative — Silk's father, to be precise.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His entire campaign against Cthol Murgos can be seen as this.
• Royal Rapier: Played with. 'Zakath is a trained fencer, and all his sword-fighting experience is with a rapier. Than Garion comes along and makes his BFS as light as one...
• Take Over the World: At the start of the series, his driving goal is to take over the planet; Garion suspects he's not so much interested in ruling the world as finding someone who is strong enough to kill him. Even he admits that the only reason he's interested is because no-one's ever done it before. However, developing a friendship with Garion and healing from his trauma helps him move away from the mentality for this. When he realises just how much power Garion wields, and that Garion is far too humble to ever use it, he gives up the desire completely.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's introduced as a dark-haired man of pleasant appearance whose features do not reveal his age. Even though he's in his late fourties in the Mallorean', he still looks like a younger man and there's no hint of grey in his hair.
• Took a Level in Badass: More like regained a level in badass. 'Zakath was once a capable fencer, but let those skills go rusty during his time as The Emperor. He regains them over the course of The Malloreon.
• Uptown Girl: To Cyradis, being The Emperor of the entire eastern continent while she's a politically-unimportant Seer from a remote province. He marries her anyway and mentions that his subjects are wisely keeping their displeasure to themselves.
• Vengeance Denied: For much of his life, his eyes were bent on vengance against Taur Urgas. Those plans were thwarted twice. The first by King Cho-Hag of Algaria killing Taur Urgas at Thull Mardu, and the second by prophetic intervention of the revelation that Urgit was not the son of Taur Urgas and that Zakath must return to Mallorea due to his empire being infested by demons.
• Worth Living For: He rediscovers the humanity, friendship, and love that make life good while traveling with the heroes.

Sadi

Chief Eunuch in Salmissra's palace, Sadi was forced to go on the run after some less-than-legal dealings on his part were exposed. He joins up with Garion in order to get out of the country, and in doing so, finds himself just another of the Prophecy's tools. Perhaps the greatest living expert on poisons and drugs, Sadi is a useful, if underhanded member of the party, and a great asset in the political and criminal arenas.

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• Affably Evil: Even when he is evil, we don't really see him take anything personally (well, not towards any of the main cast), and he's polite and courteous.
• Ascended Extra: A minor antagonist, and later neutral character, in the first series; a major player in the second.
• Almighty Janitor: Technically the Chief Eunuch is only supposed to run Salmissra's household for her, but since Salmissra just plain doesn't care about running her country, this gives Sadi roughly the same level as authority as the Prime Minister of a modern constitutional monarchy.
• Bald of Evil: In The Belgariad, in the Punch-Clock Villain sense - he's not overly evil, he's just doing his job. Becomes a good guy during The Malloreon
• Combat Pragmatist: Poisoned knives, powdered drugs, and occasional use of his pet snake — all are fair tactics in Sadi's book. He and Garion have a discussion about this about a Grolim they take at one point. The man is wounded and unable to resist, but had truly tried to kill them through sorcerous means. Sadi's all for just sticking him with a poisoned dagger and riding on, and gets overruled by the group. He's unhappy about it, and shortly after tells Garion that it strikes him as very imprudent to leave the man alive; Garion concedes Sadi's opinion being motivated out of genuine concern for safety than viciousness and tells Sadi to keep a close eye on their captive and "do whatever seems appropriate" if the man tries anything suspicious. Sadi's response is approval and "we'll teach you the rudiments of practical politics yet.]]
• Clean Food, Poisoned Fork: He bumps off an annoying minor villain by poisoning the spoon he's going to use at a banquet.
• Drugs Are Bad: Downplayed. Sadi's drug-dealing and abuse is portrayed as a bad thing, but isn't treated as being much worse than Silk's thievery or other characters' bouts of drinking.
  • Leads to a bit of in-universe Values Dissonance when he asks why Alorns, who have no problem with chopping people in half, are so upset by drugs and poisons. All they can do is shrug their shoulders and say "It's a cultural thing" - though it's implied that the degree of control drugs can grant is something they find unsettling.
  • It does also help that most of the onscreen uses of his drugs are for healing purposes, against enemies and for Rule of Funny purposes.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Played straight in the first series, in the Punch-Clock Villain sense, and subverted in the second. The Prophecy refers to him as "The Man Who Is No Man" — as he notes with a wince, that's rather brutally direct.
• Evil Genius: Plays this role after joining up with the heroes in the second series, sharing the position with Liselle and Silk.
• Formerly Fat: Subverted. At the beginning, Sadi has been in a very sedentary job for years. He's very thin despite the pudginess most eunuchs develop but he's also described as "soft" and even, because of his lack of muscle tone, "flabby". However, spending months travelling across two continents, with regular camp chores and minimal amounts of drugs leaves him Lean and Mean.
• Guile Hero: In The Malloreon, rotating with Silk and Velvet.
• Manipulative Bastard: It comes as standard for being a high-ranking official in Salmissra's court.
• Master Poisoner: He's got a knowledge of pharmacology that rivals Polgara's 3000 years plus of experience, and as Garion puts it, "Sadi could poison one person at a banquet with a thousand guests." This is demonstrated at one point. He poisoned the spoon, not the soup.
• Parental Substitute: In a very loose and weird sense, could almost be considered Salmissra's father figure.
• Pet the Dog: While Sadi is generally amoral, he's not without compassion. On several occasions he uses his drugs to ease the suffering of innocent bystanders and passers by. And he won't poison a dog — even a Hound. When Silk expresses surprise at the former, suggesting that it's not very in character, Sadi retorts that he is not without compassion and perhaps Silk doesn't know him as well as he thinks he does.
• Poisoned Weapons: All of his knives are coated in poison, and he's been known to toss his concoctions straight into his enemies' faces when all else fails.
• Sissy Villain: Starts out as soft, effete, and accustomed to the comforts of a royal palace, but loses these traits after months on the road.
• Smug Snake: Nyissans have Smug Snake as their hat and Sadi initially appears to be no exception. It doesn't take long, however, for this impression to fade, as it becomes apparent that, under the façade of arrogance that's needed to survive at Salmissra's court, Sadi is ruthlessly competent.
• Street Urchin: His family was homeless; his parents had him castrated as an infant so that he would have the chance to serve in Salmissra's court and thus have a better life than they could possibly give him.
• Unscrupulous Hero: In the second series, suggesting that Murder Is the Best Solution. The others don't always agree, though Garion does listen to him and at one point tells Sadi to stay close to the person they're interrogating and (if necessary) take steps.
• Token Evil Teammate: Sadi's alliance with the protagonists doesn't mean he's given up his personal corruption. While he likes them all by the end, and has certainly become a braver, more well-rounded individual, he remains an unapologetic scoundrel, a drug-dealer, a poisoner, and a criminal without the slightest bit of shame. Since Silk isn't much less of a scoundrel, excepting only the drug-dealing and poisoning (the latter because he generally prefers other methods of murder), he doesn't really stand out.
• Took a Level in Badass: Sadi starts out as a typically prissy Sissy Villain and Smug Snake (if a very high-functioning example). By the end he's every bit as dangerous as Garion's other companions, as a result of months on the road.
• Unaffected by Spice: He's spent his career inuring himself to substances much more potent than mere pepper. At a Fancy Dinner in Demon Lord of Karanda, he calmly finishes off a dish that has the others literally weeping, and explains why.
• Vetinari Job Security: Towards the beginning of The Malloreon he was stripped of his rank and banished from the court for violating several of the guidelines Salmissra had set in place to keep the infighting in her palace within reasonable limits. And he later admits that he really was guilty. Despite that, at the end of the series he gets reinstated because the queen a) likes him, b) couldn't find anyone else qualified to do his job, c) had a convenient excuse to do so, allowing them to both pretend that he'd arranged his own downfall to serve the country elsewhere.

Beldin

One of Belgarath's fellow disciples of Aldur, Beldin is an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed hunchback with a mean streak miles wide.

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• The Ageless: As with other powerful sorcerers. He's only about a thousand years younger than Belgarath.
• Animal Motifs: A blue-banded hawk. Notably, blue-banded hawks don't actually exist in the setting; he made them up just to give himself something to turn into.
• Archenemy: He and Urvon loathe one another with an unholy passion — though in Urvon's case, it's mainly driven by terror of what Beldin will do to him if he ever gets the chance. Urvon has wanted posters with Beldin's face on them posted for twenty leagues in every direction from Mal Yaska.
• Ascended Extra: In the first series he's only one of Aldur's Disciples, and makes a few scattered appearances. In the second series he's a major player in Books 3-5. This may be an In-Universe example of an Ascended Extra, as he doesn't have a prophetic title, unlike the other party members. It's mentioned at one point that the Prophecy was allowed to add him to the group to counter the other side's summoning of demons.
• Chubby Chaser: Claims that he "likes [his] women fat and hot-blooded". Of course, since he's flipping off the slim, serpentine, and cold-blooded Salmissra at the time, and remarks wistfully afterwards that it might have been interesting to take her up on her offer, it's not entirely clear whether he meant it.
• Depraved Dwarf: Plays up this image, but he really isn't one.
• Elderly Immortal: Type A. Beldin looks like a twisted, deformed old man, but he can throw Durnik singlehandedly.
• Genius Bruiser: Beldin is perfectly capable of giving deep lectures on a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, theology, philosophy and science, as well as beating the crap out of anyone who doesn't pay attention.
• The Grotesque: A hideously deformed hunchback.
• Handicapped Badass: His dwarfism and hunched back don't stop him from beating the snot out of people who are three feet taller and a couple of millennia younger. And that's without throwing his immense magical ability and ferocious intellect at the problem.
• Hidden Depths: Beldin is hideously deformed and has disgusting personal habits, but is a Genius Bruiser who is probably the most intelligent and well-read man in the world, as well as being perfectly capable of breaking people who don't pay attention to his lectures in half. He's also a highly skilled actor and acrobat, as well as something of an aesthete with a keen appreciation for, and impeccable taste in, art.
• Honorary Uncle: To Polgara (and Beldaran) by "official" title. See Promotion to Parent. Garion later absorbs the tendency to refer to him as such, and Beldin doesn't object.
• Hooks and Crooks: He favours a hook in close combat. White hot, for preference. He really, really wants to plant one in Urvon's guts.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Acts like a bastard because people expect it. He holds it up to the point that he dumps food on the ground and eats it instead of eating it from plates.
• The Lancer: To Belgarath, who he respects far more than he's willing to admit.
• Long-Lived: He's nearly as old as Belgarath (well, a millennium younger, but that still makes him 6000 years old), and in hand to hand combat, he's actually a better fighter.
• Magi Babble: Beldin is the philosopher in the group, and his explanations tend towards the overly complex.
• Obfuscating Disability/Obfuscating Stupidity: An odd case; Beldin never actually tries to exploit his appearance, but as he puts it, "[Most people] can't see past the hump on my back." He's perfectly willing to use this to hide just how powerful and intelligent he is until it's too late to stop him.
• The Pigpen: Beldin almost never bathes, or indeed does anything for his personal hygiene. As such, he smells and looks horrible.
• Promotion to Parent: in Polgara the Sorceress. When he finds out about Poldra's death, Belgarath spends about five years chained to his bed and raving in his grief, and another ten years after that trying to drown it with either booze or sex. During that time, it's Beldin (with a lot of help from the Beltira and Belkira) who raises Polgara and Beldaran.
• Servile Snarker: Towards Belgarath again.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Not that they're ever written, but he's noted to have hideous language.
• The Smart Guy: Belgarath is pretty smart, and as Polgara grudgingly admits, extremely knowledgeable. Beldin, though, is on another level — as Garion puts it to Zakath, after an extended description, "and he's much, much smarter than Belgarath."
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Ultimately ends up winning the heart of Vella, which given her personality is quite the accomplishment.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The way he talks with Belgarath would make one think they're mortal enemies, but the two are closer than most blood siblings and would die for each other.

Poledra

Belgarath's wife, Polgara and Beldaran's mother, and Garion's grandmother, Poledra was a wolf who learned to transform into a woman in an effort to win over Belgarath. She is the "Woman Who Watches" mentioned by the Prophecy.

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• The Ageless: Still appears to be a beautiful woman in her thirties or so, despite being thousands of years old.
• Animal Motifs: A wolf. Though from her perspective she's a wolf whose animal motif is human. She also spent a couple of centuries as a snowy owl (no guesses why Polgara likes it so much), before deciding it wasn't enough to get Belgarath's attention, and decided to try being a human instead.
• Archenemy: She and Zandramas loathe one another to the point where it trumps the usual Child of Light/Child of Dark rivalry. It's not entirely clear why, though on Poledra's side, it might have something to do with Zandramas stealing her great-grandson and on Zandramas', Poledra's tendency to thwart her plans.
• Behemoth Battle: Against Zandramas in Sorceress of Darshiva. Zandramas takes on her draconian form, while Poledra becomes a fifty foot tall wolf.
• Canis Major: Grows to gargantuan size to confront Zandramas' draconic form in Sorceress of Darshiva.
• Catchphrase: "How remarkable". Her use of this phrase while in disguise clues several characters (and the reader) in to her identity.
• Dissonant Serenity: Having originally been a wolf, not much phases her. She even witnessed the cracking of the world, an event which floored even Belgarath, and all she had to say was "how remarkable".
• Intellectual Animal: She was an unusually curious wolf who learned magic and became human.
• Interspecies Romance: With Belgarath, though it only kicked in after she permanently shifted to human.
• Noble Wolf: She hits most of the stereotypes... with the exception of the fact that she's an extremely accomplished liar, in a setting where wolves are supposedly not able to do that. The amount of time she's spent as a human might have something to do with it.
• Noodle Incident: The reason why she absolutely despises Zedar, to the point where she actively tries to murder him while merged with Polgara at Vo Mimbre, despite almost certainly knowing that she couldn't at that point, is unclear. No one is exactly sure why, for all that they didn't get off to the best start - though his betrayal probably rankled significantly.
• Power Glows: She's surrounded by a blue nimbus, much the same as that on the Orb of Aldur or Durnik's hammer.
• Time Abyss: She's almost as old as Belgarath himself, with only Zedar for a rival.

Urgit

The intelligent, civilised, but high-strung King of Cthol Murgos after the death of Taur Urgas in The Belgariad, Urgit spent his early reign under the thumb of his generals and the Grolim High Priest, Agachak. Initially, he spends most of his time looking forward to succumbing his hereditary insanity until Garion is able to help teach him how to actually be a king, whereupon he grows a spine and becomes a surprisingly effective ruler.

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• Abusive Parents: Taur Urgas explicitly encouraged his older and younger half-siblings to try and kill Urgit, especially after he became heir apparent. His mother on the other hand, Princess Tamazin, is a very good parent, and was on the receiving end of some nasty Domestic Abuse.
• The Cameo: He's mentioned in passing as Taur Urgas' successor in the first series.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In an oblique way — Urgit killing off his brothers in self defense became what convinced Zakath that his war was pointless, as his vendetta against the Urga dynasty had ended with the last of the Urga heirs being killed on Urgit's order. In the end, he is also able to negotiate a peaceful future with both the Western nations and Mallorea.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He pretends to be weak and easily pushed around so that no one sees him as a threat, and while it's noted as probably always going to be a bit of a coward, it's worth noting that even prior to his taking a level in badass, he stole the key to the royal treasury at a young age and used it to buy the support and minions needed to protect himself and wipe out his competitors (on the grounds that if he didn't get them, they would get him — which was absolutely correct).
• Deadpan Snarker: As much as Silk, of all people (which is fitting, since they're half-brothers), and going by his mother — who's no slouch in her own right — it's In the Blood (on both sides). However, while Silk casually snarks at absolutely everyone (especially Belgarath), Urgit growing up constantly afraid of confrontation means that he's much more careful about it. Once he grows a spine, he's much freer with the sardonic remarks.
• Dishonored Dead: Urgit inflicts this on his father after his death at the battle of Thull Mardu, slitting his throat, driving a stake through his heart, and burying him 17 feet deep in an unmarked grave, upside down, "just to make sure." Then he stampedes cattle across the grave just to make absolutely sure no one ever figures out where Urgas is buried.
• The Good King: Eventually, to almost everyone's surprise, not least his own. The only ones who saw it coming were his seneschal, Oskatat, and his mother, both of whom knew that he wasn't Taur Urgas' son and thus wouldn't go mad. As it is, he had all the ingredients: he's good-natured, but capable of ruthlessness when necessary (even before he Took a Level in Badass, he stole the key to the treasury to buy protection/arrange for the disposal of his rivals for the throne), as well as being extremely intelligent and capable of concealing it if needs be, and has a latent sense of courage and duty — even if he is always a bit of a coward at heart. All he really needed was a few lessons on kingship from Garion, and to grow a bit of a spine.
• Hidden Depths: He's much sharper than he appears to be, which is how he's survived for so long, and he's got the makings of a good king from the start (he has all the attributes, he just needs to grow a spine and get a few lessons in kingship from Garion). In fact, he's every bit as smart as his older half-brother Silk, who's one of the smartest characters in the series, and successfully bamboozles Javelin, Drasnia's chief spymaster.
• It Runs in the Family: Urgit seems resigned to the Urga family insanity, even making jokes about it. He ends up inheriting his real paternal line's love of, and talent for, negotiation and deal-making instead. Also, the vaguely rat-like nose that twitches when he gets excited.
• Lovable Coward: Not exclusively, but he's very lovable, and as others note, he'll probably always be a bit of a coward at heart.
• Mama's Boy: has always adored his mother, Princess Tamazin (for good reason).
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: To Prala, the princess of one of the other great houses. Though she does tend to be a bit bossy about things. In the last book, he decides that given how well his is working out, he really should instigate one of these between his mother, and Oskatat, who's loved her (and supported Urgit) since they were very young.
• Sketchy Successor: Urgit is seen as this by his generals, who run roughshod over him until the below-mentioned level in badass.
• Took a Level in Badass: Between finding out that he was not going to suffer the hereditary madness of the Urga dynasty and Garion pulling him out of his self-pity/giving him some much-needed advice, Urgit finally starts to be an effective king.
• The Unfavorite: Considering he was the runt of the litter from one of Urgas's lesser wives, it was only his access to the treasury and his brains that kept him from being murdered by one of his brothers or even Urgas himself.

Cyradis

The Seeress of Kell destined to make the CHOICE that determines which Prophecy is fulfilled, a role she has been groomed for since infancy. She often appears to offer cryptic hints and guidance to the heroes, but states that she must do the same for Zandramas, as part of the "rules" of the Prophecies. Due to the gravity of the CHOICE, her main interest is in making sure all the necessary events for it actually come to pass, and grows steadily irritated by Zandramas's attempts to cheat and thwart fate. She is instrumental in persuading 'Zakath to join the heroes, and in Seeress of Kell joins the party to travel to The Place Which Is No More.

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• Astral Projection: How she keeps in contact with Garion and co. before her physical arrival in Seeress of Kell. It's mentioned to be exhausting for her.
• Character Tics: She wrings her hands when worried or stressed.
• The Chosen One: The Prophecy of Light outright refers to her as one of the most important people ever due to her responsibility to choose which propechy will remain valid, and in doing so reunite the universe.
• Dissonant Serenity: When charged at by a bunch of Grolims, she doesn't react at all except to slightly bow her head before driving them to madness with visions.
• The Gadfly: When Belgarath grouches about her secrecy, she tells him that part of the reason she does it is because it makes the people she's guiding work and think harder than they would if she spelled everything out... and because she knows how irritating it is.
• Happily Married: To 'Zakath in the epilogue.
• Heroic BSoD: Experiences two in short order throughout the climax of Seeress of Kell. The first comes when Toth is killed, which she openly, uncontrollably weeps over. She then tries to compose herself in preparation for the CHOICE, but has another breakdown from the pressure.
• Hidden Depths: She briefly worries whether her hair looks bad while attending a party in Dal Pervivor and is mentioned to enjoy adorning herself in flowers, indicating that she has a hidden girly side. It's also noted that, like Ce'Nedra or Velvet, she can rather skilfully wrap her man around her finger.
• May–December Romance: With 'Zakath, who is about thirty years older than her.
• Mind Rape: She gets in a fight exactly once, and it ends with her filling the Grolims' heads with visions that drive them to throw themselves off cliffs.
• Modest Royalty: 'Zakath mentions in his letter that the simple flowers she wears as Empress have driven the jewellers of Mal Zeth to despair, as the other ladies of the court are trying to imitate her.
• Not So Stoic: A major part of her character is that, for all she tries to be unflappable, she is still a young lady with an enormous amount of pressure on her. The moments where she slips up are all the more powerful for their rarity.
  • The first time her tranquil demeanor breaks is when 'Zakath is poisoned in Demon Lord of Karanada, and his recovery is the first time we see her smile.
  • She breaks down in despondent weeping when Toth is killed in Seeress of Kell, which is so alarming that Garion keeps repeating "Cyradis was crying" to himself over and over.
  • The moment of the CHOICE sends her into a panic.
  • Played for Laughs in the epilogue, where 'Zakath relates how she rejected his initial "sensible" proposal and then went on a passionate rant about what she thought of "sensible", complete with archaic and unflattering words, until he fell to his knees and delivered "a fatuous and embarrassingly gushy proposal".
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Toth, who has bodyguarded her since she put on her blindfold.
• Psychic Powers: There's seeing the future, obviously, but like Polgara, she has some skill with mental enchantment and illusions, which she uses to easily dispatch a group of Grolims.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Let's put it this way—she told Emperor 'Zakath to his face to essentially Quit Your Whining, accept his destiny, and join Garion already. Without raising her voice. And he listened.
• The Stoic: She seems to be, and for the most part is, a calm young lady who never raises her voice and whose expression rarely changes from serenity. However, her emotions still pour out from time to time, as she is ultimately human.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: She tells 'Zakath she is "wroth" with him for sneaking off to fight a dragon with Garion with nary a change in expression or tone.
• Uptown Girl: She is a revered Seeress among her people, but from a province most of Mallorea consider backwater and has few worldy possessions. Meanwhile, 'Zakath is The Emperor of Mallorea. They fall in love and marry anyway, as neither really gives a whit about the social class difference. It's implied that some people do, but are very sensibly keeping their mouths shut. As Zakath puts it, "I've changed, but I haven't changed that much."
• When She Smiles: It's described as lighting up her face.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: This is one of the reasons 'Zakath admits he trusts her to verify Garion's story in Demon Lord of Karanda: he knows the Seers of Kell are never wrong in their predictions and never lie about them. Of course, this doesn't stop Cyradis from withholding information, but ultimately everyone knows and agrees they can trust the information she does give.