Darth Wiki / Cadenza

Cadenza is a work-in-progress musical cartoon created by Lily The Litten.

The show follows Brio, an orphan who travels to the country of Talchera to enroll in the Elpharium Institute's Music Magic Track, hoping to follow in his late mother's footsteps. Unfortunately for Brio, he very quickly learns that music magic and its practitioners are the No Respect Guys of the magical world; indeed, most of his classmates wanted to be in different courses, but lacked the test scores to get in.

Undeterred, Brio sets out to have a good time regardless, a goal helped by both the class's Cool Teacher, Aria Canticum, and his own unbreakable cheer. As the year goes on, Brio's enthusiasm proves contagious, and his classmates start getting into music magic—with the notable exception of the snobbish Ambrose de Auguriel. But unbeknownst to anyone, dark forces are at work behind the Institute's walls, and their schemes could change Wreyune forever...

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From the Source of Tropes:

• Aerith and Bob: Done deliberately; in general, anyone with a relatively "normal" name comes from Wreyune, while all the Aeriths are from the Aurora Archipelago.
• Alliterative Family: Professor Aria Canticum and her parents, Alto and Athyll. Melodia bucks the trend.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Whoever fathered Eshann's children is never revealed.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Seven Treasures of the Silver Emperor.
• An Arm and a Leg: Noted to be a possible risk of overchanneling, and one that both Eluneus (in the show's backstory) and Ambrose (in the Season 3 finale) fall victim to.
• Animal Motif: Eluneus has butterflies. He wears a butterfly clip in his hair, refers to his Elite Four as the Chrysalis, and the Transcendence ritual as a whole is likened to a caterpillar's metamorphosis into a butterfly. Hell, his One-Winged Angel form is a butterfly-like Humanoid Abomination, complete with wings.
• Babies Ever After: The Distant Finale reveals that Sebastian and Galen adopted a daughter.
• Beta Couple: Hyacinth and Orchid, Sebastian and Galen, and Freya and Rychell.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The Iron Knight is under complex mind magic that, among other things, prevents him from disobeying Eshann's orders and forces him to always act to Transcendence's benefit.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Brio. Bubbly, energetic, and mildly annoying...and also a phenomenal singer and musician, as well as a skilled music mage, a good teacher, and eventually the Cadenza itself.
  • Amusingly, Eluneus himself is one. A complete Cloudcuckoolander, rather crazy from all the rituals and overchanneling...and frighteningly powerful, able to match the Savants in magical combat.
• Cerebus Syndrome: While it did have several Chekhov's Guns that would reappear in later seasons, Season 1 is definitely the most light-hearted, consisting largely of episodic misadventures. Season 2, meanwhile, explores the cast's various issues, goes into more detail about the Silver Emperor and Transcendence, and ends with a Drunk on the Dark Side Ambrose de Auguriel blowing the Diamánti Ball to hell and fleeing the school.
• Chekhov's Gun: A somewhat gruesome example; Professor Tidrin explains to Ambrose that overchanneling can cause anything from passing out to Explosive Overclocking, and a not-insignificant amount of people have lost limbs due to too much energy. Come the Season 3 finale, and Ambrose himself overchannels and blows his hand off.
• Chess Motifs: The rankings of Transcendence's hierarchy are all named after chess pieces.
  • To start with, there's the Bronze King, the Number Two to Silver Emperor Eluneus. In this era, the Bronze King is Eshann Altorn.
  • Next is the Chrysalis, who answer to the King (and sometimes the Emperor) directly and are the primary leaders of the Pawns. They consist of Qizyni the Ruby Queen, Norielle the Emerald Bishop, Stehagan the Sapphire Rook, and the Iron Knight.
  • After them are the Heterodox, named after the heterodox chess pieces (with the exception of the Empress, for obvious reasons). They're largely middle-managers, and tend to be a cesspit of power-grabbing and backstabbing. They consist of Lezith the Minister, Vratha the Elephant, Nyrex the Camel, Rhihone the Amazon, and Vemari de Serphent (or, to use her maiden name, Vemari Altorn) the Princess.
  • Finally, there are the Pawns, the lowly initiates and members of Transcendence without anything special.
• Cool Teacher: Professor Aria Canticum of the Music Magic Track. Though in a twist, she's not actually that good at teaching—she got the job because the last teacher quit, and sticks with it because it helps further her own agenda. Brio, despite being her student, is much better at actually teaching, and has taken over for her in the Distant Finale.
• Demoted to Dragon: Eshann Altorn, the Bronze King of Transcendence, is the Big Bad of Seasons 3 and 4^note While Lezith and Ambrose are the ones directly menacing the heroes in Season 3, Eshann's clearly the one in charge. After successfully completing the ritual to unseal Eluneus, she settles into simple Dragonhood quite quickly. Note that this doesn't make her any less dangerous.
• Distant Finale: Downplayed. The Dénouement Episode takes place five years after the final battle.
• Elite Four: The Chrysalis of Transcendence, comprised of Qizyni, Norielle, Stehagan, and the Iron Knight. While the former three occupy leadership roles (albeit all subservient to Eshann) the Knight is effectively her personal attack dog, holding the position solely due to his combat capabilities.
• Evil Matriarch: It's revealed in Season 3 that Eshann Altorn is Vemari de Serphent's mother and Orchid's grandmother. Her other child, Ilius, is both the Iron Knight and Brio's father.
• Evil Mentor: Irvut Tidrin, who takes Ambrose on as his personal apprentice, is secretly a member of Transcendence.
• Family Theme Naming: The Canticum family are all named after musical terms. There's Harmonia, her descendant Alto, and his daughter Aria. Aria's sister Melodia and her son Brio count as well. The Odd Names Out^note Cedric, Athyll, Ilius, and Ambrose all married into the family.
• Famous Ancestor: Quite a few.
  • Aurelia and Ariadne de Auguriel. The former transformed Wreyune into a livable place and established the Celestrum Court, and the latter founded the Elpharium Institute and took on dozens of apprentices. Every Auguriel feels the pressure to live up to them.
  • Harmonia Canticum, the first Cadenza and the one who defeated the Silver Emperor. In the present-day, her descendant Aria teaches music magic at the Elpharium Institute. Her other descendant, Brio, also ends up defeating Eluneus and becoming the Cadenza.
  • Rigel Altorn is a less heroic example. Eluneus's Number Two and lifelong companion, Rigel dedicated himself to figuring out a way to release him from his can, an objective his descendants have dutifully followed. Eshann ultimately succeeds, though her own children reject the goal entirely.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Class of 16—eight boys, eight girls.
• Happily Married: Safe to say every married couple was this. Key word there is was.
  • Harmonia and Cedric, Alto and Athyll, Melodia and Ilius, Brio and Ambrose...if anything runs in the Canticum family besides a love for music, it's this trope.
• Hereditary Twinhood: Downplayed—Aurelia and Ariadne de Auguriel were twins, as are their descendants Cassandra and Calypso, but outside of a brief joke from the latter, nothing implies it's anything more than a coincidence.
• High-School Dance: The Season 2 Diamánti Ball has all the hallmarks of one, though with a much fancier aesthetic. A running subplot throughout the second half of the season is the cast's romantic plans for the ball.
• Kill and Replace: It's eventually revealed that "Tidrin" is actually a Doppelgänger, who killed the real Irvut Tidrin and took his place in the Institute.
• Knight of Cerebus: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Iron Knight. Much of Season 1 had been episodic hijinks up to that point; the moment he arrives is the moment the series as a whole darkens considerably.
• Locked into Strangeness: Every Savant has a single lock of Mystical White Hair, showing off their connection to the Sources. Eluneus and Ambrose take it a step further and have entirely white hair—the former as a side effect from his failed ritual, and the latter due to putting on the Eventide Amulet.
• Love Triangle: Season 1 has a rather light-hearted and comical one between Sebastian Chevalier, Cassia Nox, and Galen Ryne.
• Love Redeems: Love for their spouses and children turned Ilius and Vemari away from their mother and Transcendence.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: A two-for-one example. Not only is the Iron Knight Brio's father, his mother is Eshann Altorn.
• Master of One Magic: The Savants. They can channel a ridiculous amount of energy from whichever Source blessed them, allowing them to perform fates most mages could only dream of. In return, however, they're unable to channel from any other Sources, so all of their magic must be of the Source that blessed them.
• Musical Theme Naming: In addition to the Family Theme Naming mentioned above, the word "canticum" is Latin for "song".
• Mystical White Hair: One of the more benign consequences of overchanneling. The Silver Emperor possessed this, as does Ambrose.
• Non-Heteronormative Society: Wreyune as a whole is largely free of homophobia and transphobia. There are several same-gender couples, even among the higher echelons of society, and one of the lords of the Celestrum Court is non-binary and gets no grief for it.
• Official Couple: Brio and Ambrose.
• Only One Name: Brio lacks a last name. At first, anyway. He eventually takes on his maternal family's surname.
  • Everyone from the Aurora Archipelago has only one name.
• Phlebotinum Overload: Overchanneling, the term for channeling too much energy from the Sources. It's explicitly noted that the body can only handle so much energy going through it; at best, you'll pass out, and at worst, you'll suffer a spectacular case of Explosive Overclocking (and that's not even getting into the mental effects...)
• Polar Opposite Twins: Kalliope and Vivian Grove; older twin Kalliope is brash, confident, and loud, while younger twin Vivian is quiet, reserved, and shy.
• Putting the Band Back Together: The first half of Season 3 revolves around tracking down the Music Magic students after the destruction of the Institute scattered them to the winds.
• Red Baron: All Savants are more commonly known by a nickname that tends to be this. Aria, for instance, is the titular Cadenza.
  • Eluneus is better known as the Silver Emperor.
• The Starscream: As Season 3 goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Ambrose is unwilling to share power with Lezith. After Brio and Hyacinth defeat the latter, Ambrose decides that he's no longer of use to him and kills him.
• Tangled Family Tree: The more we find out about Brio's family, the more obvious it is that he's apart of one of these. Let's see...Brio's mother is Melodia Canticum, meaning Aria is his aunt and Alto is his maternal grandfather. His father is Ilius Altorn, meaning Eshann Altorn is his paternal grandmother. But that's not all! Orchid's mother Vemari is Eshann's daughter, making her Brio's other aunt and her daughter his cousin.
• Tom the Dark Lord: Eluneus's real name, Gabriel Cross, is...not one you'd associate with someone like him. Justified, as he changed his name so as to distance himself from the "fragile weakling" he used to be.
• Tragic Keepsake: Brio's lute originally belonged to his mother, who died to illness years before the events of the series.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Ambrose has white hair after being Locked into Strangeness, and spends all of Season 3 Drunk on the Dark Side. He recovers, thankfully.
  • Eluneus, meanwhile, plays it straight to the very end.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: It's explicitly noted that overchanneling does bad things to one's mental state. The Transcendence Ritual is a shining example of this: an incomplete version suffused Gabriel Cross with severe megalomania. The complete version gives him a god complex.
• Wizarding School: The Elpharium Institute is the most prestigious in Wreyune, and has a course for every type of magic.^note Most of them, anyway—the Ritual Magic Track got phased out due to lack of interest, and it's implied that the Music Magic Track is heading the same way.