Darth Wiki / House of Cards

House of Cards is Regiment's 2009 NaNoWriMo-winning novel. It may seek publishing in the future.

Character sheet and some kind of actual blurb possibly forthcoming.

This troper work provides examples of:

• Angst? What Angst? (Messus had a terrible childhood, but pointedly doesn't complain about it)

• Arc (three of them; a cut fourth is mentioned in the afterword)
• Ascended Extra (In original drafts, Cyrus Requiam was a very minor character)
• Author Appeal (All the characters have interesting swords, and the unambiguously evil villain lies)

• Batman Gambit (Nocens is a mediocre planner, but he's adaptive)
• Bavarian Fire Drill (How Nocens always gets what he wants)
• Berserk Button (Don't hurt Nocens)
• Beware the Nice Ones (Nocens pushes Messus a little too far)
• Bilingual Bonus (Several minor characters who are killed by Nocens have last names that translate to "expendable" in various languages. Also, about half of the cast anyway, including Samuel Nocens and Messus Lache)
• Bittersweet Ending (The Instructor and Edward are killed, but Messus's life, at least, looks like it could turn out all right)
• Bond One-Liner (Nocens, when he feels like it, but most noticeably when he kills Edward)
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday (Nocens doesn't remember Edward's first teacher at all until the end, when he uses it to distract Edward)
• Chandler's Law (when the story starts to slow down, Nocens will usually get the plot moving in his own distinctive way)
• Chaotic Evil (Nocens, made very clear in his Motive Rant)
• Coincidence Magnet (Edward's teacher is killed by a lunatic, and he ends up living with a new teacher who's marked for death by the same lunatic, so he's sent off to live with a man that works for the same lunatic)
• Conveniently an Orphan (Edward)
• Cool Old Guy (Auras Haimon, although he's probably not all that old)
• Cool Sword (Everyone)
• Moment of Awesome (for the author, anyway- the existence of this book)
• Crystal Dragon Jesus (Barely mentioned, but Regiment- yes, this one)
• Defiant to the End (The Instructor, who goes out with a Precision F-Strike)
• Drill Sergeant Nasty (The Instructor, through and through)
• Driven to Suicide (Beatrice is so disapproving of her sister's marriage that she drives her brother- in- law away, leading to her sister's suicide. After pawning Messus off on the Instructor, Beatrice kills herself.)
• Earn Your Happy Ending (All of Messus's friends except Auras die, but Messus might be all right)
• End of an Age (maybe, since most of the Khalmise die, and Messus's life, at least, is greatly changed)
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" (the Instructor, who insists on being called that even once the other characters learn his real name)
  • Parodied with Beatrice Warthensol, who insists on calling him "Mr. The Instructor".
• Evil Matriarch (Beatrice Warthensol, Messus's aunt, who broke up his parents's marriage, drove off his father, and unintentionally drove his mother to suicide)
• Family-Unfriendly Death (Nocens gets angry at Tarah and cuts her to ribbons. Also Nocens's death, which involves a rapier getting broken off in his brain)
  • Averted with Edward, who is killed instantly- see Final Speech below
• Faux Affably Evil (Nocens is clearly having a lot of fun killing people)
• Final Speech (Averted with Edward, who is killed instantly)

• Four-Temperament Ensemble
  • Edward is a cynical Choleric
  • Messus is an upbeat Melancholic
  • The Instructor is an angry Sanguine
  • Auras is the Phlegmatic voice of reason
• Grammar Nazi (Edward)
• The Hero Dies (The ending)
• I Call It "Vera" (Everyone. Parodied with Messus, who calls his sword Crystal Edge, even when Edward points out that it's trimmed with ivory, not crystal)
• Informed Ability (The Khalmise are supposed to be the greatest fighters in the world, among other things; despite this, two are killed and a third defeated and made into The Mole before the first chapter, Ille Haido Lorian is killed in her sleep, The Light and The Instructor are surprisingly easily defeated, and Masod Chamnisborgh dies of old age. Perhaps somewhat justified in that the Khalmise are explicitly not only the best fighters- Masod Chamnisborgh and Cyrus Requiam are Khalmise because they're smart, and Iono Milias got in because he kept pestering them)
  • Also the Instructor, somewhat, since he only gets into one actual fight throughout the book, and he loses and dies.
• Insistent Terminology (Their names are Edward and the Instructor, not Ed and Adrian James)
  • And for a while, after the Instructor loses his temper and stops speaking to his friend Auras, Auras calls him a "pompous, self- important jackass". A lot.
• Insult Backfire (Edward calls Nocens insane. Nocens already knows this)
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold (The Instructor, despite his constant demeaning and criticism, is willing to take in people with nowhere else to go)

• Karmic Death (Dorian, Edward, and Nocens- basically everyone who dies)
• The Lancer (Messus is cheery and naive, while Edward is increasingly cynical and world- weary)
• Light Is Not Good (In the last act)

• Madness Mantra (Very briefly: "Lost")
• The Mole (Dorian Sloasar)
• Motive Rant (Nocens is building a house of cards)
• Nakama (Edward and Messus seem to hate the Instructor, and he appears to hate them, but it's obvious they support each other)
• NaNoWriMo (Written during NaNoWriMo 2009)
• No Hugging, No Kissing (The author claims that all the characters are too mental for any kind of romantic relationship, and he quotes Yahtzee's complaint about shoehorned love stories in the epigraph)
• No Name Given (The Instructor, originally, although his name (Adrian James) is revealed fairly early on)
• Old Master (The Instructor, naturally. Arguably Auras as well, although his age is unclear)
• Orphaned Punchline ("The spiders don't wear red", the punchline from a joke about "the spider and the nuns". In the afterword, the author threatens to smack silly anyone who makes an actual joke with that as the punchline)
• Overly Long Gag (Everyone calling the Instructor a "pompous self-important jackass", and the references to the Light's school by its full title)
• Precision F-Strike (The Instructor's last words, and a concept embraced and explained in the afterword)
• Pretentious French Motto (The Light's school has one that translates to "for the eyes of magnificent men".)

• Red Right Hand (inverted, in that it's Edward whose right hand is broken and deformed eventually)
• Rule of Three (Edward is hurt by Nocens three times before Nocens kills him)
• Scars Are Forever (Edward's broken right hand and, later, his right shoulder, both of which are never expected to heal properly; also, the Light's scar across his face which he got during his Face–Heel Turn)
  • Of course, both men are killed before their scars could even begin to heal
• Shout-Out (to everything from BioShock to Dimmu Borgir)
• Shut Up, Kirk! (Nocens to Edward)

• Sdrawkcab Name (Cyrus Requiam's original name in early drafts was very close to this)
• Talk to the Fist (Messus, of all people, to Nocens. With a sword.)
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You (Edward's personal vendetta against Nocens. Subverted when his zealousy gets him killed, and Messus finishes off Nocens)
• Title Drop (part of Nocens's Motive Rant)
• Two Lines, No Waiting (Edward and Messus's journeys, and Samuel Nocens's murder spree)
• Verbal Tic (Nocens uses people's names almost every sentence. He also shortens everyone's name to a single syllable)
• Waif-Fu (Pointedly averted; the only female character to get into a fight punches her opponent (Nocens) in the face. Bad idea)
• The Woobie (Messus, possibly)
• You're Insane! (Edward tells Nocens this after his Motive Rant. Nocens agrees, and says he's fine with that)

---