Sparhawk

• Anti-Hero
• Bad Ass
• Black Knight: Looks like one: grim looking, black armor, black cape, nasty horse... and yet, is the hero.
• Catch Phrase: "Neighbor".
• Church Militant: As a Church Knight, he's this, though he's not excessively religious.
• Cool Sword: The ancient sword of the Sparhawk clan, which was given to them by the King of Elenia.
  • Blade on a Stick: For some time he wields the Spear of Aldreas (which was his ancestor's weapon) in the second book. Is actually because there's one of the Bhelliom's rings inside, giving it magical powers.
• Gag Nose: His crooked nose.
• Happily Married: With Ehlana.
• Immune To Fate: As Anakha, he has no destiny.
• Knight in Sour Armor
• Magic Knight: A powerful swordsman and an accompliced spellcaster. Vanion even admitted that Sparwhawk is probably the most iconic example of Pandion Knight.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In the Tamuli trilogy.
• Tranquil Fury: When Ehlana is kidnapped by Scarpa.

Kurik

• The Ace: A very practical person, can do almost everything, and do it well to boot.
• Bad Ass
  • Badass Beard
• Epic Flail: His weapon.
• Expy: Of Durnik.
• Gonk: He's described as not being handsome.
• Killed Off for Real: Killed by Adus in Zemoch, he does reappear briefly when the Bhelliom is hidden and recovered.
• Sacrificial Lion
• The Lancer

Kalten

• Big Eater: To the point that, in the Tamuli, Vanion becomes worried when Kalten leaves a whole dish of mutton intact.
• Boisterous Bruiser
• Chivalrous Pervert: Often tries to hit on maids, especially if beautiful.
• Dumb Muscle: While not being a complete moron, he's not the smartest crayon in the box. Subverted in the last book, where while undercover he manages to deliver a message to the imprisoned Ehlana in a few sentences.
• Hidden Depths: He's shown to be quite sensitive and good-hearted after all.
• It's Personal: Seems to be obsessed with killing Adus. Ultimately subverted, as Adus is murdered by Talen and Sparhawk.
• Ladykiller In Love: With Alean.
• The Lancer
• Love Makes You Dumb: When he believes that Alean is actually in love with Berit, he reacts quite immaturely for a while.

Sephrenia

• Armor-Piercing Slap: She ended up learning these after all those years of training knights.
• Berserk Button: Delphae and Delphae literature in the Tamuli. A mere mention will turn her from a quite Proper Lady to a rabid, sharp-tongued woman.
• The Chick: With traits of The Smart Guy.
• Fantastic Racism: Absolutely hates Delphae, because she believes that they were responsible for the death of her family. After learning the truth, she gets over it.
• The Heart: She's this for the whole Pandion order. That's why they call her "Little Mother". To the point that, in the Tamuli, tons of tough-as-nails knights (including Kalten) openly cry with joy when they meet her again.
• Heroic BSOD: After learning of Zalasta's betrayal.
• May-December Romance: Eventually confirmed with Vanion.
• Never Learned To Read: Apparently, she can't read. Subverted when we find out that she never learned to read... in Elenic, but she can read in Styric.
• Odd Friendship: With Xanetia, once they get over the racism.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Her whole behaviour in Delphaeus.
• Really 700 Years Old: She often teases Sparhawk about her real age.
• Squishy Wizard: She's one of the most powerful mages in the world, but she hasn't much stamina. This actually becomes a plot point in the first trilogy, as the spell she used on Ehlana will slowly take a toll on her body as the wraith of the deceased knights give their swords to her.

Vanion

Talen

• The Artful Dodger: He's more this than Street Urchin, though he sometimes plays up his urchinly qualities for sympathy so he can make a killing at begging.
• Bratty Half-Pint: He gets character development later on and eventually upgrades to Mouthy Kid.
• Heroic Bastard: He's Kurik's illegitimate son. It's also not held against him.
• Impossible Thief: Often it seems like a character just has to stand within ten feet of Talen and he'll have everything they own within seconds. Eventually Sparhawk just starts telling him to empty his pockets pre-emptively.
• Refuge in Audacity: At one point the party faces down a band of aggressive and heavily-armed Peloi led by Kring, who makes the mistake of indulging in a belly-laugh and challenging Talen to steal what he can. He's too late: Talen got everything he owns while he was laughing. He then proceeds to take inventory of it, right down to appraising a fake gem on one of his bits of jewelry.
• Satisfied Street Rat: Is well on his way to this in the Tamuli, where he's a Church Knight trainee and liable to be shipped with Aphrael.
• Well Done Son Guy: Has overtones of this with Kurik.
• You Killed My Father: With a little help from Sparhawk, he slowly pushes a sword into a dying Adus, who had killed Kurik moments before.

Berit

Bevier

• Ax Crazy: A bit of an odd case because he's this only when he's on solid theological ground. He'll go out of his way to give someone every chance to see things his way, and if they don't, he tends to chop off their head without batting an eyelash.
• The Comically Serious: Bevier is this to the main cast. Plenty of humour is had at his expense, especially when it comes to his love life.
• Cultured Badass: Bevier is extremely well-read and something of an actor.
• Knight in Shining Armor: This is his hat to a T, with a dose of Incorruptible Pure Pureness thrown in for good measure. He even wears literal shining armour: His armour is burnished to practically a mirror shine. Various characters are constantly trying to compromise his virtues.
• Large Ham: He's one of these during the Tamuli, when the knights go undercover in the enemy base at Natayos. Bevier passes himself off as a lochaber-wielding mercenary, but hams it up so much he comes off as an Ax Crazy lunatic and has everyone in the camp terrified of him.
• The Paladin: Almost to the letter. Lampshaded in that the other characters find him a little naive and constantly try to corrupt him, mostly by getting him laid.
• Prince Charming: Bevier's a bit of a spin on the classic trope here.
• Stupid Good: Strays into this now and then. It only gets worse during the party's trip to Ghasek, but that's the hate plague talking.

Tynian

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Lampshaded by Sparhawk when Tynian is introduced. He's got a big dumb grin and pranks Kalten straight up, but Sparhawk doesn't miss that the guy's built like a brick shithouse.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: With Ulath, big time.
• Made of Iron: Largely thanks to having the biggest, heaviest suit of armour on the team. On the occasions he is hurt, it's implied to be all the more serious because anything that can get through Deiran armour has got to be nasty.
• Mighty Glacier: Implied to be this thanks to the sheer mass of his armour. It's so heavy he collapsed the first time he put it on - and he's built like a tank.
• Plucky Comic Relief

Ulath

• An Axe to Grind: His weapon of choice.
• Armor Is Useless: Played with. Unlike the other knightly orders, the Genidians wear chainmail and not plate armour. When called on this, Ulath points out there are a lot of rivers in Thalesia and it's hard to pull off platemail if you fall in - which they demonstrated to a preceptor who demanded they wear plate by throwing him in a river in his armour. He never came back up. The armour matter was quickly dropped.
• Catch Phrase: Anyone else: "Whose turn is it to do the cooking?" Ulath: "Yours."
  • Also, "I hate sieges."
• Deadpan Snarker: The man may as well have his picture on the trope page.
• Genius Bruiser: He's introduced as a stoic, barbaric-looking giant of a man. And then it turns out he speaks Troll, knows Troll magic and happens to be the funniest of the main characters.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: With Tynian.
• Russian Humour: Did he ever tell you the one about the singing Ogress?

Ehlana

• The High Queen

Annias

• Dirty Old Monk: It's revealed that Lycheas is his bastard. With Princess Arissa.
• Hijacked by Ganon: He starts off as the apparent Big Bad in Elenia but actually the plot derives from the returning Azash, who wants another crack at Bhelliom.
• Sinister Minister
• Smug Snake: Oh yes.

Martel

• Alas, Poor Villain: As he's dying after being run through by Sparhawk, he mends fences with Sephrenia and confesses he's going out surrounded by the only people he's ever loved.
• Best Served Cold: Even years after being stripped of his knighthood and exiled, Martel is still motivated by a desire for revenge, namely against Sparhawk.
• Catch Phrase: "...old boy."
• The Dark Arts: His dabbling in these in the backstory got him thrown out of the Pandion Order and set the stage for his grudge against Sparhawk.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Martel is much, much more dangerous than Annias, the apparent ringleader of the plot against Ehlana. He's effectively this for Otha and Azash, too.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: When Martel and Sparhawk finally duke it out, they're evenly matched. The deciding factor? Martel came in wearing a huge suit of gilded armour - and it's so heavy it exhausts him and slows him down just enough for Sparhawk to land the killing blow. When Sparhawk points this out, Martel invokes the trope on his deathbed.
• Knight in Sour Armor
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: The final duel between he and Sparhawk.
• The Rival: To Sparhawk.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy
• Worthy Opponent: Martel can do everything Sparhawk can do and then some. It's repeatedly pointed out that no knight could really equal Sparhawk - except Martel.

Krager

• The Alcoholic: Takes this Up to Eleven.
• The Man Behind the Man: Revealed to be this to Martel in the Tamuli.
• Playing Drunk: It's implied he does this sometimes.

Adus

• Hoist by His Own Petard: He kills Kurik during a battle in Otha's castle. This serves only to piss off Sparhawk and Talen, who team up to kill him by slowly pushing a sword into his guts while he screams and bleeds on the floor.

Lycheas

Arissa

The Seeker

Ghwerig

Otha

Azash

Flute/Aphrael

• Cute Mute: For the first half of the Elenium, because she didn't feel like letting the knights know she could talk.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Her favorite form, because she can get people (and other gods) to kiss her that way.
• Physical God
• Trickster God: Steals the rings that let Ghwerig control Bhelliom well, that's what he thinks right off the Troll's fingers. It's implied that this wasn't the first time Aphrael played thief.

Platime

Stragen

Dolmant

Emban

Ortzel

Kring

Bergstern

Mirtai

Ulesim

Sorgi

The Troll Gods

Khalad

• Badass Beard: One of the only characters with a full beard, which he says is a common trait in his family. He comments that somehow the trait has missed Talen, who goes days (if not weeks) between shaves.
• Generation Xerox: While distinct from his father in many ways, he has enough similarities that the knights comment on it.
• Those Two Guys: Becomes half of this during his travels with Berit.

Melidere

Alean

Oscagne

Emperor Sarabian

Zalasta

Xanetia

The Bhelliom

Saber

Scarpa

Ogerajin

Elron

Styric Renegades

Cyrgon

Klæl

Engessa

Tikume

Elysoun

• Our Nudity Is Different: Spends most of the trilogy topless, because that's just how women from her kingdom dress. (At least until their first pregnancy — in her last appearance, her gown covers her breasts, because she's now pregnant to Sarabian.)

Queen Betuana

Edaemus

Bhlowk