Literature / Brig Scarlet Flamingo

Brig Scarlet Flamingo is a fantasy web novel (with fifteen side-stories) written in Russian by AutumnLeaves.

The titular ship is a corsair brig that gets dragged into a mess of civil conflict and political intrigue, with the crew dealing with various sorts of drama of their own all the while.

The main characters are Amelia Marr, a sixteen-year-old (in the beginning) from a coastal village who disguises herself as the Flamingo’s captain in the hopes of getting enough money to treat her sick mother, and Joseph Avery, the Flamingo’s first mate, who is happy to be at sea again but not happy about some boy ordering him around.

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Tropes present in the work:

#-E

• Absurdly Elderly Mother: Frank’s parents had him when they were well into their forties, and he was their only child. It was one of the factors that led to them spoiling him terribly.
• Accidental Adultery: Norbert Cotewell’s first wife Polly believed him to be dead and married another man. As Norbert wasn’t keen to stay married to her anyway, it didn’t trouble him much and he quietly made arrangements to get divorced from Polly.
• Accidental Truth: While planning their elopement, Walter suggests to Amelia they claim she is pregnant, to persuade the notary in Jarison Haven to officiate the marriage quickly. When she does get to Jarison Haven, she is indeed pregnant.
• Adjective Animal Alehouse: The Limp Cow is a well-known tavern in Jarison Haven (the first floor is a cheap snack bar, the second floor is a classy restaurant).
• Affably Evil: The corsairs of the Flamingo are quite a pleasant, cheerful lot overall and a good team. They also plunder ships from Courbarte and Amlonia.
• After-Action Healing Drama: After Anthony fights with Joseph and deserts to the Amlonians, Dr. Lerby rushes to treat Amelia's wounded hip. The wound is severe enough, though the bullet has thankfully missed the artery, and Dr. Lerby has a hard time treating it.
• Age-Gap Romance:
  • Several examples that do work out (such as the Ernscotts with their May–December Romance or Louis and Marceline Julie de Geriese with a twenty-year gap).
  • The Archduke and Archduchess of Jennsen (the husband is older than either of his wife’s parents) remain practically strangers to each other after many years of living together, since the reasons for the marriage were purely political and neither of the spouses has ever had a spark of feeling about it.
  • Anthony is twenty-nine and Veronique is about sixteen. They get on well, thanks to Veronique being a kind and gentle girl and Anthony being charming, but it ends tragically, thanks to Veronique being extremely naive and Anthony being callous and irresponsible.
• Aloof Leader, Affable Subordinate: Zig-Zagged with the crew of the Red Drake. For the pirates themselves, their captain Old Arnie is friendly and easy-going, in contrast with his first mate Joseph who has a much worse temper. For everyone else, though, Arnie is the guy who is okay with taking and holding hostages, while Joseph is firmly against such a practice and avoids harming people when not in an honest battle.
• Amicable Exes: Gerry Ernscott and Letty Spencer used to date at school but broke up, and later Letty married their mutual friend Rick. Letty has remained one of Gerry's closest friends since and is on excellent terms with his wife Izzy as well.
• Appropriated Appellation: Joseph nicknames Gerry's parrot Krak, short for Kraken, for the parrot's unruly temper. The bird loves the name and takes to repeating it all the time.
• Awful Wedded Life: Most married couples are portrayed as happy or at least content, but there are some notable exceptions.
  • Baron Simon Canter and Lady Yolande FitzHerbert. He bullies her mercilessly to the point she is frightened to say a word.
  • Princess Katherine and Yorick FitzHerbert. He is a social-climbing minor lord who only married her because she was the king's cousin. By all accounts, the marriage was terrible, and the couple separated (though never got formally divorced) after about eight years.
  • Downplayed in the case of Archduke Ferdinand and Princess Mary. Neither of them is a bad person, they are simply two strangers forced to live together and feeling desperately lonely. This has led to the following painful equilibrium: he is a good father to his children but continues his longtime extramarital affair, while Mary is a faithful wife but a distant, bordering on abusive, mother.
  • In the backstory, Izzy and three of her sisters were basically sold off to Meal Ticket husbands. Izzy was lucky enough to find herself in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage and another sister, Susie, is, in Izzy's words, "more or less happy". The two other sisters are not even that.
• Baby's First Words: A Breather Episode in Part 4, Chapter 13 is about little Melly Ernscott saying her first word ("Mommy"). Even Amelia, who has a lot on her mind at the moment, is moved to tears.
• Badass in Distress: Chapter 82 ends with the crews of the Scarlet Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves captured and tied up by mysterious Miridian magicians.
• Beauty Is Bad:
  • Queen Carolina in the backstory was a stunning-looking woman and a manipulative, power-hungry Soft-Spoken Sadist.
  • Anthony Jamble, the Flamingo’s third mate, is a handsome young baritone who charms every woman he meets. Unfortunately, he is selfish, ruthless and a traitor several times over.
• Benevolent Boss:
  • The Ernscotts are extremely generous and caring with their staff.
  • Simon Canter also treats his servants exceptionally well, that is, if they aren't privy to his plans.
  • For all that Princess Mary is an angry and embittered woman, she is a generous mistress to her ladies-in-waiting.
• Betty and Veronica: Currently, Yvonne is unaware of it, but there are her romantic fiancé Jerome, who was forced to dump her thanks to the government pulling I Have Your Wife on him, and roguish Walsian corsair Joseph who fell In Love with the Mark – both devotedly pining for her for almost a year.
• Big Fancy House:
  • Ernscott House is a beautiful villa made of yellow marble, with columns and sculpted paintings. However, Izzy reveals that underneath the thin marble layer, it has the same stone that the rest of Jarison Haven is made of.
  • The Azure Palace is an elegant palace made of granite of various shades of blue and lavishly decorated not just inside but outside as well. Amelia thinks it makes Ernscott House look ascetic.
  • Frankson Manor is also referred to as very fancy, but there are few details given about it so far, except that it has little pointed towers and a ballroom with columns.
• Birds of a Feather: Gerald and Izzy Ernscott have much more in common than it would seem at first glance. They both grew up quite poor (his parents owned a tiny fish store and she came from an Impoverished Patrician family), they both have been intelligent and willful since childhood and wanted something beyond the life they were supposedly destined for, according to their parents (the life of a barely literate shopkeeper and a bland Stepford wife, respectively). It led to a good deal of Parental Issues for both of them (though Izzy had it worse, as her parents are plain abusive). On a happier note, they both enjoy classical music and their work in finance.
• Bit Character: Many. For example, the ships featured in the story have hundreds of people in total on board, and even those who get names often are an example of the trope. Among the Flamingo’s crew alone there are Herbert Winter and Oscar Blenk (good artillerists), Jervis Dolan (skilled enough to get promoted to third mate), Iain Aurmidge (goes on some missions every now and then) etc.
• Blackmail Backfire: Walter blackmails Amelia with her Sweet Polly Oliver secret, asking for a promotion. Later, as he falls in love with her, he forgets about it.
• Blood from the Mouth:
  • When she sees Walter coughing up blood after a lung wound, it’s the first sign for Amelia that he is past help, considering the rudimentary medical equipment the ship has to offer.
  • Before Anthony decides to take Leon and Mireille under his wing, first of all he watches Mireille’s cough and is relieved to see she isn’t coughing up blood.
• Boarding Party: The usual method of close combat of the crew of the Flamingo. Usually they stay on the other ship's deck, but, for example, during the brig's battle with the Winged Horse, Joseph and the Ilbir captain cornered each other in the one of the Horse's corridors.
• Brainy Brunette: Badger, black-haired, is a very shrewd leader of the thieves of Port de la Reine.
• Breakout Character: Gerald and Izzy Ernscott began as supporting characters in one of the stories' many arcs. The reviewers liked them and wanted to read more about them, and now there are several side-stories written with the Ernscotts as the main characters.
• Bright Is Not Good:
  • The Scarlet Flamingo is painted coral pink (as the characters describe it), gets golden, silvery, reddish yellow and sparkly white sails at one point, and is a corsair brig. Its predecessor the Red Drake was painted bright red and attacked even Walsian ships.
  • The Azure Palace, owned and designed by arc villain Simon Canter, boasts various shades of bright blue and a colourful sea-themed design inside, and Canter’s carriage is heavily gilded and with leaf patterns.
  • Subverted with the yellow, red and white flag of Courbarte: it belongs to the Flamingo’s enemies, but the story quickly reveals there are plenty of good people on that side as well. Played completely straight with the flag's yellow, red, white and brown modification flown by Joel de Goirré.
  • The Ram’s Horn, an inn used for the meetings of Port de la Reine’s bandit gang, is decorated with a large sculpture of a ram’s head painted, as Anthony describes it, "poison yellow".
  • Meanwhile, grey and pale yellow are the colours of the buildings belonging to the Ernscott family, the benevolent authority figures of Jarison Haven.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Stoic and more cynical Gerald and tender-hearted idealistic Isabel. As time goes by, the contrast between them becomes blurred, with Gerald opening up and Izzy getting savvier.
• Bullying a Dragon: Sometimes, Simon Canter gets overconfident enough to grab this particular Idiot Ball.
  • He attacks and battles the Scarlet Flamingo, a brig already famous for its crew's prowess. Amelia nearly kills him and would like to try again, given the chance.
  • Sure, Simon, threatening to poison little Melinda is completely safe. She is only the beloved daughter of the most influential people in Jarison Haven. In the beginning, the Ernscotts don't like Canter but are okay with working with him, but the moment they learn he is a danger to Melinda, they begin scheming against him.
• Burial at Sea: The corsairs of the Flamingo who die in battle are always buried at sea. Justified, since the brig is sailing in tropical waters and it would be very inconvenient to have the bodies on board for long. The one time when the battle takes place close to Walsian land (Jarison Haven), Joseph still decides to bury the killed crewmen at sea, since Simon Canter, with whom they have just fought, is in Jarison Haven now and wouldn't like the corsairs coming ashore for the funeral.
• But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Amelia insists on it, since she and her lover took precautions. However, the precautions weren't thorough enough.
• The Cabin Boy: The Flamingo has three of them, all in their early to mid-teens – Peter, Dick and James. They are usually enthusiastic if naive and reckless and refrain from taking sides in the crew's squabbles. Peter is the most plucky and energetic one and eventually gets promoted to ordinary seaman after saving Joseph's life in battle.
• Chilly Reception: In the Howerton orphanage, every newbie becomes a target of bullying (especially if he isn't an orphan but rather someone whose parents can't afford to look after him). Joseph was the victim of it and quickly decided that fistfights are the only option, and Eric was the victim of it until Joseph (unwittingly) came to his rescue.
• Chocolate of Romance: The Ernscotts enjoy some hot chocolate together to celebrate their first day spent at Ernscott House as husband and wife.
• Chubby Chef: Jessie on the Flamingo and Flora in the Azure Palace are both Big Fun cooks. Amelia even lampshades the resemblance.
• Classified Information: There is some strange yellow dust that many people seem to be after. Its actual name and properties are carefully kept a secret, implied to be a state secret.
• Climb, Slip, Hang, Climb: Amelia climbs up the side of the ship, while the latter is afloat. She only manages not to slip off for good because she has a knife and the ship’s wood is of a rather bad quality.
• Confound Them with Kindness: When Amelia comes to Evil Uncle Simon in her “Anne Jones” disguise, Simon welcomes her heartily, agrees to hire her as a kitchen help, and even berates his cook for overtaxing her. Amelia is dumbfounded and realises that "disarming politeness" isn't a metaphor. However, Albertina soon quietly explains to her that Simon is not someone whose path one should cross.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: In the novel-length entries of the series, Brig Scarlet Flamingo and its prequel The School Years. Amelia is an impulsive Action Girl who disguises herself as a pirate captain to get the money she needs for her mother's treatment. Gerry is a level-headed boy who makes long-term plans on what to do with his life and wants to rise in society to change the economy of Jarison Haven.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: Or prequel setting, in this case. Brig Scarlet Flamingo is set on an entire variety of locations, with the eponymous ship being a brightly-painted vessel. The School Years is set almost exclusively in Jarison Haven, a town dominated by the color grey.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Just when Joseph almost overpowers Joel in yet another fight with the anarchists, Louis shoots him in the arm and attacks him from behind. And then, when now it's Joseph who seems to be losing, Peter attacks Louis from behind and the latter is forced to back off.
• Cool Old Lady: Jessie, the Flamingo’s new cook. Even Joseph is impressed when she remains calm and cheers up everyone, be it after battle, after a long difficult winter or whenever.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Discussed. Mabel is afraid that's what would happen to The Ingenue Izzy thanks to the influence of her husband who is a lot more morally gray.
• Create Your Own Hero: Simon Canter could have refrained from hunting down William Gattern, and Amelia would have lived a quiet life on the seashore and never learned that Canter existed. But he just had to get that share of the inheritance...
• Differing Priorities Breakup: Norbert Cotewell and his first wife Polly. After King Eugene started to revive the Walsian fleet, Norbert jumped at the chance to make a name for himself in the Navy, which involved going to a conflict zone in the tropics. Polly wanted a quiet and stable family life in her hometown, so she followed Norbert initially but came back to Walsia after less than two years. Eventually, believing him to be dead, she married another, and when Norbert found out, he wasn’t very sad about it and quickly arranged a peaceful divorce.
• Disappeared Dad: Little George Marr’s father is killed before George is born.
• Divided into Disaster: When the Miridians capture the crews of the Scarlet Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves, they don't have enough cells for everyone in the prison and have to put separate people in each cell, so they invoke this trope to avoid escape plots. In particular, cell number fifteen holds Arch Enemies Joseph and Joel (captains of the two ships) and the useless drunkard Gambe. Subverted, as the Miridians don't know that Gambe isn't as useless as he seems and Joseph and Joel are ready to put their fights aside to face a common enemy.
• The Dog Bites Back: On a massive scale. The Miridians are so tired of being the laughing-stock of the continent that they start a magic war.
• Doorstopper: An In-Universe sentimental novel called The Enticing and Moralizing History of Young Miss Martine Emmett is nine hundred pages long.
• Down to the Last Play: An academic variation in The School Years. The winner of a paid trip to Walbere is to be determined by the sum of the end-of-term exam grades, and Susan Deanham just barely beats Gerry Ernscott by half a point. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that Gerry invokes Deliberate Under-Performance to let Susan win (but can’t do too badly lest he gets expelled or the teachers see through his plan).
• Dramatic Irony: In the prequels.
  • When Gerry Ernscott and Rick Frankson are at school, they quietly agree that Mongevale County and its capital Greenhurst aren’t important enough to be studied in Geography. Not only does the county grow amazingly prosperous after King Eugene ascends the throne, but Greenhurst is the hometown of Izzy, Gerry’s eventual wife.
  • Aboard the Red Drake, several years before the start of the main plot, Joseph casually boasts of the occasion when the Drake's crew plundered the Suzette, a ship belonging to "some wealthy Courbartian called de Julien or de Gelese". He has no idea he has robbed his future Love Interest of some of the money she will so desperately need after the revolution begins.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: In-Universe. In a novel Amelia once reads, the heroine spends more than two hundred pages angsting over her upcoming wedding with a man she doesn’t love. Then her fiancé suddenly dies of some terrible disease, and the author doesn’t even give any details about it. Amelia mentally snarks that the guy must have probably committed suicide just to avoid marrying the heroine.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Josephine, one of Izzy Ernscott's elder sisters, has turned to drink to cope with her unhappy marriage.
• Due to the Dead: Even Anthony is ashamed as he realizes that he was so busy smooching with Lidia he almost forgot about Veronique's funeral. Later, when he manages to make it to the funeral in time, he places a couple of rowan twigs in Veronique's hands, feeling sorry there are no flowers available at this time of year.
• Dwindling Party: Discussed. Joseph gets seriously worried that the Flamingo keeps losing its crewmen in battles, even in the victorious ones.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first part, firearms are used considerably less frequently and steel considerably more so, with even weapons such as crossbows and spears popping up. Later, the situation becomes more similar to the actual early 19th century, while the use of old-fashioned weapons is turned into a weapons quirk for particular characters (Frank likes the crossbow and Gambe likes the darts).
• Embarrassing Rescue: Several months before Old Arnie's death. Joseph saved his longtime rival Frank from drowning when the latter decided to look for a sea serpent underwater. However, Joseph was going to do the exact same thing and admitted to himself that he'd have also kept looking until he ran out of air. Neither Joseph nor Frank ever speaks of that rescue aloud.
• Empathic Environment: Depressed and alone in the windy, stony fields of Jarison Haven, Amelia recalls the blissful days she spent in the sunny tropical paradise of Las Estrellas. She shuts herself up, feeling these thoughts aren’t very patriotic (Jarison Haven is Walsian territory and Las Estrellas is Amlonian).
• Enemy Mine:
  • When krakens attack the Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves, the crews, who have just been fighting each other, immediately forget about it and team up against the beasts.
  • After finding out that Mr. Cole's incompetence could have led to catastrophic consequences, Mr. Ernscott teams up with Simon Canter, whom he loathes, to bring Cole down. Cruel he might be, but Canter is at least intelligent.
  • When the Courbartian navy attacked Monge Point, the town's mayor turned a blind eye to wanted criminals and rogues such as Joseph being on the defense lines.
  • When the crews of the Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves are captured by the Miridians, Joseph and Gambe have to team up with their old enemy Joel de Goirré to think up an escape plan.
• Enemy Rising Behind: At one point, krakens rise from the sea while Amelia's corsairs are too busy battling Joel's crew, so for a long time, nobody even notices them. This, in fact, is krakens' preferred mode of attack: they only target a ship where everybody has their backs turned to the sea.
• Engineered Heroics: Downplayed. Anthony pays the local bandits to attack Marquis Megrelle, who is reluctant to hire Anthony as a guard. However, the attack is pretty genuine (except for only one of the bandits having a gun), so Anthony, the Marquis himself and the coach driver barely manage to win. But Anthony is only too glad about it, as he was ready to prove himself for real.
• Epic Ship-on-Ship Action:
  • The Flamingo vs. the Elmire in the Cariche Strait. Both ships shoot at each other in the midst of a strait which is already difficult to sail through, with lots of rocks and cliffs and shallow waters, and there's a Courbartian fortress nearby. The Flamingo gets away after a lucky cannon shot fired by Amelia.
  • The Flamingo vs. Simon Canter's flotilla. It's one ship against five, though Simon's goal is to kill Billy Gattern rather than actually to destroy the Flamingo, so his men stop fighting when Amelia is believed to be killed.
  • The Lord of the Waves vs. the Princess Vivian. The Princess with four cannons manages to defeat the Lord with twenty.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Justified at Jarison Haven's First Royal School. Forty years before the main plot started, the subject was taught by a very Stern Teacher who made even Gerry Ernscott nervous, even though Gerry was good at maths.
• Everyone Went to School Together: In the Jarison Haven arc. The prequels reveal that at least six people who appear there or are at least referred to had attended the same school in the same year: Gerald Ernscott, Richard and Alethea Frankson, Edgar Cole, Charles Perry and Nelly the tailor.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Zig-zagged cheerfully by Izzy at her first ball in Jarison Haven. She wears loads and loads of sparkly jewels, but everyone sees it just makes her look ridiculous. And then her private thoughts reveal that this is exactly the point: she has planned to appear ridiculous, so that people would underestimate her.
• Extreme Doormat:
  • Simon's sister Albertina and his wife Yolande are bullied to the point they are afraid to say a word without his approval.
  • Defied by the Ernscotts. Izzy was trained to become one but refuses to conform to such expectations, and Gerald outright encourages her to voice her opinions and argue with him if necessary.

F-L

• Fake Relationship: Greg and Mabel pretend to be a married couple when they escape Jarison Haven.
• Famous Ancestor: The chapter comments reveal that the little girl who singlehandedly rallied Araqueste to fight the corsairs is the descendant of strong-willed Emilie de la Martal, who briefly used to be the queen of Courbarte.
• Fantastic Slurs: The people of Walbere call the people of Jarison Haven "jares".
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Walsia for Great Britain, Courbarte for France, Amlonia for Spain, Miridia for Italy, Ilbir for India and Jarison Haven for the US; in terms of time period, roughly corresponding to the late 18th-early 19th century.
• "Far Side" Island: Downplayed with Arnie's Island, discovered by the Red Drake's crew on its last voyage. It is only large enough for a small palm grove, a lake and a beach. However, the pirates are glad to have found it nonetheless, since they're at that point running out of freshwater.
• Field Promotion:
  • After the battle with Simon Canter that leaves almost a third of the crew dead, Joseph is forced to promote several people on the spot. Bald Gambe gets promoted from second to first mate, Gerry Mount becomes second mate and Jervis Dolan third mate.
  • A more lighthearted example with Peter. Joseph is so impressed by the boy's bravery during the battle with Joel de Goirré near Mulfa that he promotes him right away.
• Fiery Redhead: Inverted. Joseph and Walter are the only main characters mentioned to be redheads, and they are the most calm and composed ones of the crew. Likewise, red-haired Thomas, captain of the Margaret, is a dreamy lad planning to devote his life to academia.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Norbert and Marjorie Cotewell have a tendency to do this when they are discussing ships and shipbuilding.
• Floral Theme Naming: Mentioned in passing are Conjoined Twins Rose and Honeysuckle.
• Foil: Joseph and Frank. Joseph is (relatively) level-headed and careful, is better at both tactical and strategic planning, and at the same time has a noticeable sentimental and dreamy side to his character. Frank is a rash, fearless man of action who can make decisions very quickly, but said decisions are often very wrong; he also is pretty down-to-earth compared to Joseph. They also invert the Force and Finesse trope: Joseph is the heavily-muscled one who prefers Good Old Fisticuffs while Frank is the lithe and wiry one who prefers shooting. The prequels reveal that even their backgrounds are contrasting: Joseph was a poor orphan, neglected by adults and bullied by peers until his escape to the Red Drake at the age of seven and reunion with his brother, and Frank was the spoiled only child of a well-to-do couple and turned to piracy in his twenties simply because he felt he wasn’t getting good enough missions in the Navy.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: Midway through the second part, the story becomes this. We have the Scarlet Flamingo’s voyage, Amelia's revenge attempts and pregnancy, the spy network in Port de la Reine, the voyage of the Lord of the Waves, and some behind-the-scenes political drama in Jinelita and in Miridia.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Walter tells Amelia he'll marry her. At that point, they've known each other for a month (and he's known Amelia is female for twenty days). If their plan had succeeded, they would have gotten married about twenty days later. However, Walter gets killed before they can go through with the elopement.
• Friend or Foe?: During the battle with the Lord of the Waves near Ghyriales, Amelia is completely confused between the two crews and almost attacks Anthony.
• Frontline General: Rear Admiral Kenneth Sentville becomes this after his Princess Vivian is attacked by the Lord of the Waves. His ship was supposed to be escorted by another one, more suited for battle, but the other one got lost during a storm. Despite barely having any weaponry, though, he manages to emerge victorious.
• From Stray to Pet: Mireille persuades Anthony and Leon to let her adopt a stray Cute Kitten. It grows up to be a good mouser and always remains especially fond of her.
• Genre Roulette: Part one and approximately half of part two have a fairly simple action/adventure storyline with the Flamingo’s crew going from one location to another and beating up enemy ships and malevolent fantasy creatures on the way (with some Affectionate Parody of pirate story clichés thrown in). However, starting from part two, the story morphs into a spy/political thriller with action playing a secondary role. And then in part four, the action returns and the fantasy element increases, while half of the POV characters are still in the spy thriller storyline.
• Getting the Baby to Sleep: Little George can only be lulled to sleep by the Pirate Song "The Free Knight of Walsia" or military marches. After he is taken on board the Marianna, it is revealed that the stronger the wind, the better George sleeps.
• Gilligan Cut: Frank’s mother lectures him on not taking any unnecessary risks, and Frank tells her he perfectly understands. Literally the next phrase is about him climbing to a fourth-story window on a dare.
• Gloomy Gray: Amelia feels that the gray stone mostly used as building material in Jarison Haven perfectly fits her depressed mood when she arrives on the island.
• Going Down with the Ship: The captain of the Margaret stays on the ship when it sinks and is the last one to be rescued.
• Going Native:
  • The Walsian settlers on the numerous islands in the south of the Morent Ocean had long merged with the local population, so that now the only signs that show the islands are Walsian at all is that the rulers (mostly nominally) answer to the Duke of Saleton, and the people have Walsian names and use the language for ceremonial occasions.
  • Many Walsian immigrants, in particular, Isabel Ernscott, have gladly embraced the less restrictive culture of Jarison Haven.
• Gold Digger: Apart from his good looks, Eustace’s wealth also attracts many of his numerous paramours. It helps that he is very generous and happy to give out money to any woman who asks. However, his son Simon isn't happy about it all and is ready to kill or blackmail his half-siblings to get the money back.
• Good All Along:
  • For a given value of "good", but Eustace Canter is revealed as just a weak-willed womaniser, lucky with money and lacking in common sense, but not the merciless murderer Amelia and several other characters believed him to be.
  • Jerome de Barnec, after being implied to be shallow and uncaring for several dozen chapters, is revealed to be a responsible man and a loving fiancé who only dumps Yvonne due to being blackmailed by the Republican Council that holds his parents and sister hostage.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: There are all sorts of shades in the conflicts featured in the story. There’s white (for example, the friendly and kind de Geriese family), light grey (Mr. Ernscott, good-hearted but pragmatic and occasionally self-centred), very grey (the Lovable Rogue Scarlet Flamingo corsair crew), and dark grey to black (Simon Canter or the Lord of the Waves crew). And that’s not counting the characters whose true allegiance is so far uncertain, such as Eua-le.
• The Good Chancellor: Prince Golomb Malinski wields a lot of power and has a strong influence over the young ruling couple of Dugoslovia, but his top priority is always the good of the country; Grand Princess Laura has seen him agree to terms that were bad for his own career but beneficial to Dugoslovia.
• Good Parents: Despite being paralyzed from the waist down, Georgina Marr has never been anything but a kind, cheerful and supportive mother to Amelia.
• Good Stepmother:
  • Zelda Foster dotes on her stepson Eric. She was so frightened of ending up as an Old Maid that she is delighted with becoming a wife and a mother at once.
  • Downplayed with Princess Mary. Her husband's daughter Selma is illegitimate and serves as Mary’s lady-in-waiting, but Mary treats her quite well. Since she never loved her husband and doesn’t really care for marriage at all, she doesn’t feel bitter about him having affairs.
• Gossip Evolution: The Flamingo attacks a ship from Ilbir but neither side can win the battle, so the captains ultimately decide that the Ilbir ship will surrender part of its cargo in exchange for the Flamingo’s sails. Then the vessels part ways peacefully. A few days later, the story goes that the corsairs burnt down an entire fleet from Ilbir, took five hundred men captive, and Joseph Avery captured and married the niece of the Shah.
• Gossipy Hens: The servants at Ernscott House are thrilled to discuss any topic that seems exciting enough to them, from Amelia's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Simon Canter to their employers' love life.
• Green Aesop: One of the prequels is about King Eugene placing restrictions on whaling after everyone realises many whale species are dying out.
• Grim Up North: Brosingham is a county in the north of Walsia, pretty poor and with harsh climate.
• A Handful for an Eye: When he, Gambe and Joel are imprisoned by the Miridians and start planning an escape, Joseph suggests collecting breadcrumbs to throw their pursuers in the eyes.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Limpleg is Jeanne and Lidia’s agent in the bandit gang of Port de la Reine. One of his legs is noticeably shorter than the other, forcing him to use a crutch, but he is badass enough to become one of Badger’s most trusted lieutenants and helps Anthony defeat Badger. Notably, though Badger is very shrewd, he doesn’t figure out which side Limpleg is really on. And after Badger’s death, Limpleg succeeds him as Port de la Reine’s crime boss.
  • Prequel-only character Commodore Hucksley. He loses both his legs in fighting and is forced to retire from the Navy, so he becomes a fisherman. One day some robber decides to steal his fish, thinking it would be an easy trophy. Instead, Hucksley beats him so badly it takes months for the robber to recover.
• Happy Ending Override: Downplayed with The School Years, since its outright happy ending becomes a Bittersweet Ending when one takes the main timeline into consideration. The six friends have happily graduated, their friendship is secure and they are ready and eager to begin their adult lives... but by the time of Brig Scarlet Flamingo, Edgar Cole has gone through a Face–Heel Turn and is now despised by his former friends, Charlie Perry has become a captain and is away at sea most of the time, and Nelly Haley, now a tailor like her mother, mostly views Gerry, Rick and Letty as her clientele, so, though she's still friendly with them, the close bond they had at school is gone.
• Hate at First Sight: Joseph and Frank hated each other the minute they met. Joseph actually begged Old Arnie not to let Frank join the crew, and Frank was soon mentally calling him "that redhead show-off".
• He Knows Too Much: Amelia and Mabel have to leave Jarison Haven as quickly as possible because they are way too familiar with what Simon Canter is really like.
• Heinousness Retcon: In the earlier version, the crew of the eponymous ship, whilst always charming Corsairs, suddenly becomes a lot more moral at the end of the first part. In particular: in the first chapters, their captain has to stand guard over the female passengers of plundered ships, but starting from around chapter fourteen, the whole crew suddenly completely agrees that Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil. Especially noticeable is the case of Joseph: in chapter eight, he laments that he couldn't get his hands on a pretty girl like Yvonne, and in a prequel, written later but taking place weeks earlier, he admires her friendly, gentle personality as much as her looks and ceases all thoughts of even flirting with her when he finds out she is happily engaged. Word of God admits their plans for the story were altered mid-writing and they opted to write new chapters rather than revise the existing ones.
• Hero-Worshipper: Thomas, a young captain of an emigre ship, is completely starstruck when he realises he has been rescued from the ship's sinking by Joseph Avery himself. He says he dreamed to run away from home and join the Red Drake's crew when he was ten.
• Heroic Dolphin: Amelia, Walter and Peter are rescued from drowning by a school of dolphins.
• High-Class Call Girl: The Golden Sun is an exclusive brothel on Las Estrellas, with beautiful and sophisticated courtesans. Eua-le first appears as one of them.
• Hired Help as Family: Mabel, employed as a nanny by the Ernscotts, is treated as practically one of the family, even attending formal dinners with them. It helps that she was briefly a Parental Substitute for Izzy when she was a maid at her family's household ten years previously.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Many examples, but, in particular, there are many slurs mentioning krakens. "Bald krakens", "to the krakens", and "kraken's arm" are especially popular.
• Honor Among Thieves:
  • Yes, the crewmen of the Flamingo are at varying levels of anti-heroic, but there are some things they agree upon: 1) Only fight your opponent face-to-face, it's low to use poisons or hire assassins or pick pockets; 2) Never start a fight again after your opponent has given up or asked for peaceful negotiations.
  • The bandit gang in Port de la Reine consists of all sorts of people, but all of them keep their word. If they promised you have six months to pay your debt, then six months it is.
• Hostage Situation:
  • Old Arnie once captured an entire galleon of wealthy Amlonian hostages. The ransom didn’t only include money: one young Amlonian lady turned out to be a jeweler’s daughter, and Arnie let her go unharmed after her father made him a statuette of his pet drake.
  • Joseph thinks taking hostages is extremely low (it used to be one of the few points of disagreement between him and Old Arnie). The one time he is forced to take a hostage, it is Louis Carran from the Lord of the Waves rather than a civilian, and even then Joseph feels conflicted.
• Hot Guy, Ugly Wife:
  • Simon Canter is good-looking and charismatic and Yolande FitzHerbert is described as very ugly. Simon doesn't care, since he only married her because of her Royal Blood. Although it should be noted that Simon's even more handsome father planned to marry Yolande too, and he seemed genuinely in love (in his Serial Romeo way, but still).
  • Norbert Cotewell is very handsome and Marjorie so ugly that she was afraid he wouldn’t marry her even with her dowry and connections. The opposite happened, as he really fell in love with her. She gradually stopped having a complex about her looks.
• How We Got Here: The School Years, describing Gerry Ernscott’s time at school, opens with Gerry, Rick and Letty celebrating their graduation.
• Hypocrite:
  • Joseph thinks Little Billy’s worst fault is sentimentality. It's the same Joseph who cherishes the toy that belonged to Old Arnie and talks with it and who falls in Love at First Sight and waxes lyrical about his crush.
  • Joseph and the rest of the corsairs are livid when Anthony nearly kills Little Billy. Even though some chapters and, in-universe, less than a month ago the entire crew organized a mutiny and surrendered the captain to Baron Canter’s officers (which didn’t become a death sentence only thanks to Amelia’s quick thinking).
  • Simon Canter is envious of Mr. and Mrs. Ernscott's wonderful relationship and laments that his wife Yolande and sister Albertina are too meek to help him in business. He sort of forgets that they are too meek thanks to him mentally abusing them.
  • Anthony. Whatever he does (seducing and abandoning girls, betraying everyone he meets, nearly killing his captain) is just him living the cool life of a Thrill Seeker. The moment anyone does anything against him, he is furious and plots revenge.
  • The corsairs of the Flamingo are outraged when they learn Simon’s Walsian flotilla has raised Miridian flags to get them distracted and consider it one of his lowest acts. They conveniently forget that just a couple of months ago they bought time to attack Fort Montbleu by masquerading as an Amlonian ship. When called out on this, Joseph handwaves it, vaguely saying that "any trick must have its limits".
• Icy Blue Eyes: The undine who almost drowns Amelia has eyes that look like two pieces of blue ice.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Jerome thinks that Greg is cheating on Mabel with Amelia and Mabel is brokenhearted. In fact, there is no romance between any of the three parties, and Mabel is distressed and angry because of having to leave her employment.
• Insistent Terminology: The crew of the Flamingo are corsairs. Never mind that they don’t have the papers and all, they are corsairs.
• Interclass Friendship:
  • Joel de Goirré, a minor nobleman, and commoner Louis Carran have been best friends since school. They often quarrel but make a good team together.
  • Fisherman's daughter Amelia and baron's daughter Izzy become good friends during the time when Amelia stays at Izzy's house. There are some misunderstandings due to the differences in upbringing, but they get along very well.
  • One of the prequels reveals that children from Old Money families Rick and Letty were good friends with Edgar from a middle-class family and working-class kids Charlie, Nelly and Gerry. Sadly, the friendship didn’t survive in its entirety: Edgar later Took a Level in Jerkass so that everyone else grew to hate him and Charlie just drifted away from the group due to becoming a busy captain. As Gerry is now immensely wealthy, Nelly's friendship with him, Rick and Letty is the only remaining example of the trope.
  • Blue Blood lady Yvonne becomes a good friend of Eua-le, prostitute, nurse, secret agent and who knows who else. Since Yvonne's lost most of her money, Eua-le acts as mentor and protector to her.
• Interclass Romance:
  • Joseph, a greengrocer’s son and now a pirate, falls in Love at First Sight with highborn Yvonne de Geriese, though she hasn’t found it out yet (due to the simple fact that they are currently thousands of miles away from each other).
  • Gerry Ernscott has had it with both his love interests: with Letty, where he was the poor one of the couple and she one of the wealthiest girls on the island, and much later with Izzy, now with him being the rich one and her a penniless Impoverished Patrician. He had reservations about marrying Izzy precisely because he had been in an interclass romance already and it ended up failing (and with Izzy, there are the extra difficulties of an age difference and Culture Clash).
• Interquel: Several of the side-stories are set within the timeline of the main one. Several drabbles from Royal Stories show what the ruling class has been up to during the Flamingo's adventures, Preparations for the Inspection shows how Edgar Cole's idiocy prevents Amelia from leaving Jarison Haven (Amelia was only told of it in the main novel), and Dismissing out to Sea and Human Weaknesses explore Mr. and Mrs. Ernscott's relationship (in an acknowledged author's saving throw, to show that Isabel, who is always smiling and agreeable on-page in the main story, is not a Stepford Smiler and Gerald definitely doesn't want her to be one).
• Jealous Romantic Witness: After Joseph has his Love at First Sight moment with Yvonne, he is forced to watch her talking tenderly and kissing with her fiance Jerome. Since he immediately realises she is rich and he at that point is a vagabond who thinks his Glory Days are gone, he doesn't harbour any resentment towards it and, in fact, the sight of the couple prompts him to return Yvonne's engagement ring which he had previously stolen from her in a crowd before actually seeing the girl face to face.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Krakens, gigantic cephalopods with a high level of intelligence, are the most feared sea creatures. When they attack the Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves, the two crews instantly forget their fight and battle the krakens, but even this way the latter manage to gruesomely eat several crewmen.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Marjorie Cotewell is tall, big-boned, with rough facial features and a loud deep voice. She used to be very anxious about it, since she was shunned by society, but now she is, if anything, proud of her looks.
• Last-Minute Baby Naming: Amelia has mixed feelings on her pregnancy and so only thinks of how to name the child after he is born. She picks the name George.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Neither Walter nor Amelia plan to have a baby before getting married and returning to either Amelia’s village or Archerport. In fact, it doesn’t take long before Amelia gets pregnant.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: The Idle Rich residents of Araqueste snap and decide to fight the attacking pirates, after initially timidly handing over their treasures. The tide of the battle turns very quickly.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to the late 18th-early 19th century Earth it is based on. Women have a lot more opportunities for independence (in Jarison Haven, for example, women running their own businesses are the norm), racism is almost non-existent (Mabel is the only character who shows any signs of it, and she is an Innocent Bigot) and interracial marriages are common and fully accepted (there is even one in the royal family of Walsia), and even ecology gets much more attention than it did in real life – one of the prequels deals with the problem of whaling, and a huge number of people speak in favor of severely restricting it, which King Eugene does.
• Little Miss Badass: The corsairs’ raid of Araqueste fails because of a nine-year-old girl standing in their way and rallying everyone else to fight with a Rousing Speech.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Due to the 19th-century-ish level of development, news doesn't exactly travel fast, and the trope applies to more than a few characters. In particular:
  • Amelia hears about the Flamingo's battle with a Courbartian flotilla at Labyrinth Island, but the rumor states that the brig was sunk and the crew killed. For a long time, Amelia believes it to be the truth, unaware that the Flamingo has been repaired and most of the crew are alive and well and having adventures in the Morent Ocean.
  • The POV characters, apart from Anthony himself, have no idea about Anthony's spy subplot at Port de la Reine. For that matter, nobody outside Port de la Reine is aware that Yvonne de Geriese is in fact alive.
  • Until part five, nobody knows about the Miridians' preparations for war except for the Walsian high command.
• Lonely Funeral: Nobody except Anthony attends the funeral of Veronique. Partly justified, since the deceased is buried at the cemetery belonging to the local field hospital, so the elderly Madame Zeré and the children aren't allowed to attend so that they wouldn't get infected or infect the patients with anything, and even Anthony is let in grudgingly.

M-P

• Maid and Maiden: In the third part, Amelia (seventeen years old) is taken under the wing of Mabel (thirty-two), who protects her, tries to restrain her Revenge Before Reason impulses and helps her deliver her baby. Mabel does it all in return for Amelia helping her after sinking the Rosamund.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Discussed in the prequel Concerning a Lady's Maid, featuring the Ernscotts' wedding. Izzy has been taught to expect the trope and is flabbergasted when Gerry says he wants to leave the city right after the reception so that they would be able to board their ship early in the morning, thus delaying their wedding night for twenty-four hours.
• May–December Romance: Gerald Ernscott is thirty-five years his wife's senior. Nevertheless, they have been quite happy since the first days of marriage.
• Message in a Bottle: Subverted. The crew of the Flamingo sees a bottle in the sea, and Peter insists it has a message in it. Joseph jokingly thinks that, now that they have a treasure map, they might have a letter in a bottle as well. However, the bottle is completely empty. It does, though, provide a clue that the Lord of the Waves is still at sea and close to the Flamingo, as the bottle's label belongs to a compote brand that could only be found aboard the Lord.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Jerome thinks Amelia and Greg are in a relationship, seeing how the latter never leaves Amelia's side – but he is wrong, Greg is simply protecting Amelia.
  • In The School Years, Rick teases Gerry and Nelly about their supposed Puppy Love when he sees them walking together from school. However, they are just really good friends and neither even thinks of seeing the other as a potential love interest.
• Mock Millionaire: Izzy's parents are desperate to hide their Impoverished Patrician situation, even forbidding Izzy to reveal anything about it to Mr. Ernscott before the wedding, afraid that he would lose interest. However, their real financial situation is an Open Secret in Walsia and Mr. Ernscott knew about it before he met them in person anyway.
• Mood Whiplash: Anthony is almost killed by Badger but manages to escape yet again. It’s followed by a lighthearted scene of him coming home and greeting Veronique. And then he realizes Veronique is holding his gloved hand, which is still smeared with deadly poison...
• More Experienced Chases the Innocent:
  • Walter, who has had many lovers during his years as a sailor and later a pirate, seduces Amelia, whose experience of any sort of relationship is limited to drunken men pinching her in taverns. Amelia, who is also lonely, is smitten very quickly, but their relationship is cut short when Walter is killed.
  • Downplayed with Gerald and Isabel Ernscott. Theirs is a May–December Romance, and several side-stories featuring them make it seem that Gerald is the experienced partner in contrast to naive Isabel. However, other side-stories, published later, reveal that Gerald briefly dated one girl at school, it was very chaste and fizzled out quickly, and then he stayed a Chaste Hero until meeting Isabel, which makes him just barely more experienced than her.
• Mugging the Monster: Some thief attempts to mug Anthony (one of the best fighters out there who once comes close to defeating Joseph). Anthony gives him a twisted arm and a broken nose before he can blink.
• The Mutiny:
  • Joseph starts a plot to overthrow Amelia, unwilling to accept a boy as his captain. After Amelia manages to sink a corvette all by herself, he begins to respect her.
  • Joel's crew rebels against him, fed up with his refusal to let them take the plunder and to maintain a good relationship with Courbarte.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Amelia names her little son George after her mother Georgina.
• The Needs of the Many: Scrawny Greg conjures a waterfall that nearly gets three people killed, rather than risk anyone from the crew tampering with the Water Amulet and causing maybe a continent-wide catastrophe.
• Never My Fault: By the time Izzy reaches marriageable age, her parents' Gold Digger reputation and the fact they constantly nag their in-laws for more money have scared off all the potential suitors in continental Walsia. However, her parents aren't willing to admit it and put the blame fully on Izzy's shoulders, saying that she alienates men with her Spirited Young Lady attitude.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Izzy's abusive and gold-digging parents arranged her betrothal to Mr. Ernscott. While the latter is no paragon of morality, he treats Izzy wonderfully, and they become a formidable power couple in Jarison Haven.
• Noble Fugitive: Leon and Mireille are highborn children who managed to escape when the revolutionaries plundered their house. They have lived as commoners ever since.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Albert is a master of the trope, pretending to be a useless drunk to fish out all sorts of secrets.
  • Anthony thinks Marie, the shop assistant at Jeanne Verjois's bakery, is a silly naive girl. He realizes his mistake when she poisons him.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Alexander Rene confronts Amelia and Greg, they think he is an agent of Canter's about to expose and attack them. Meanwhile, he simply thinks they are actually lovers and wants to chivalrously defend Mabel, who is posing as Greg's wife.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted (Gerry Mount and Gerald Ernscott, Prince Peter, Pete the guard and Peter the cabin boy, William Gattern and William Graves). However, no namesakes have crossed paths, at least yet.
• Open Secret:
  • Bald Gambe can't read or write. It is well-known to the crew, despite his attempts to hide it (though they pretend they believe him).
  • Joseph's crush on Yvonne de Geriese is painfully obvious to everyone on board the Flamingo (except for Amelia).
  • Everyone who can think (as Mr. Ernscott puts it) knows that Simon Canter killed his father.
  • In the Archduchy of Jennsen, everyone is aware that Hans and Selma Edelherr are the Archduke's illegitimate children. However, out of propriety people have to pretend to have no idea about it.
• Origins Episode: Several of the prequels focus on the characters' childhood.
  • The Cabin Boy’s Little Brother is the story of Joseph's early life and him joining the pirates.
  • Roberts and Roberts is about the life of Walter Roberts until his mid-teens, detailing, in particular, his worsening relationship with his family that culminates in him leaving home for good.
  • The School Years is about the teenage years of Gerald Ernscott and his relationship with his classmates at Jarison Haven's First (and only) Royal School.
• Orphanage of Fear: Downplayed with the orphanage where Joseph is placed after his mother dies. The staff are nice enough, and the food and lodgings are a great improvement over the poverty where Joseph used to live. However, bullying and fighting are encouraged, and Joseph gets used to starting fistfights at the slightest provocation. It says a lot that his behavior improves after he is adopted by pirates.
• Orwellian Retcon: The first part underwent a rewrite when the story itself was on the first chapters of part five. Several cases of Early-Installment Weirdness (in particular, Joseph’s callous and cruel attitude that seriously clashed with his personality from part two onwards) got removed.
• Out of Character Is Serious Business: When Joseph and Frank suddenly stop bickering, you can tell that either they are plotting some important scheme or the ship is in hot water.
• The Outsider Befriends the Best:
  • In the prequel The School Years, Gerry Ernscott, a Starving Student who manages to get accepted to a prestigious school, eventually becomes best friends with Rick Frankson and Letty Spencer, both of whom are among the richest and highest-born students of the school.
  • In the main timeline, Gerry and his wife Izzy are now themselves the wealthiest people on Jarison Haven. Amelia, a Sweet Polly Oliver commoner who gets stranded on the island after a sea battle, befriends Izzy after their mutual friend Mabel introduces Amelia to the Ernscotts.
• Party Scattering: Scrawny Greg is separated from the main cast after giving himself up to the Amlonians, Anthony splits off from everyone after deserting, Amelia is separated from the Flamingo's crew after getting stranded on Jarison Haven, and Frank is separated from the rest when he runs away on Mulfa when everyone else is captured.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
  • Admiral Norbert Cotewell and his second wife Marjorie. He started to court her because of her huge dowry, but they fell in love very quickly.
  • Gerald and Lady Isabel Ernscott. They got engaged because of Nobility Marries Money and because Gerald wanted a wife who was skilled in mathematics. Now they are deeply in love.
  • In the backstory, King Alexandre and Queen Carolina got betrothed in accordance with a treaty between Courbarte and Amlonia. It led to happy and loving Unholy Matrimony.
• Photographic Memory: A trait of the de Geriese family. In particular, Yvonne recognizes Anthony two and a half months after seeing him only briefly (as one of the pirates who plundered her yacht).
• Pirate Parrot: Gerry Mount has dreamed of a parrot since childhood and finally buys one on Randelia. Joseph, captain at the time, is more annoyed about it than anything else and names the parrot Krak (short for Kraken).
• Pirate Song: The Free Knight of Walsia, Joseph and Amelia's favorite song and George's favorite lullaby. Every verse is about the sea itself helping "the free knight of Walsia" to get away every time.
• Platonic Prostitution: Joseph visits The Golden Sun to take his mind off things and spends his time there simply talking with Eua-le.
• Pregnancy Faint: Amelia faints right before she is supposed to board the Albatross. It is the first time when it is definitely shown she is pregnant.
• Privateer: The crew of the Flamingo are this, allegedly. Thanks to their squabbles with Simon Canter, they still haven't gotten around to obtaining any legal documents. Moreover, some of them, such as Frank the Marten, would very much prefer independence. They do maintain friendly relations with their own country and never plunder Walsian ships, and that's as far as it gets. They are "free corsairs", as Amelia puts it.
• Prequel in the Lost Age: Carolina the Soft-Hearted takes place several hundred years before the main plot begins.
• Puppet King: In the backstory, King Jean of Courbarte was a weak-willed, rather stupid man easily manipulated by his mother and his second wife.
• Purity Sue: Discussed In-Universe. There is a sentimental novel about a girl called Martine Emmett. Its author presents her as a wonderfully virtuous, gentle and patient lady, while Amelia, reading the novel, sees a lazy, whiny, entitled brat.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Flamingo vs. Simon Canter's flotilla near Jarison Haven. The Flamingo wins, however, almost a third of the crew (including the captain, as everybody thinks, and the third mate) are killed. Joseph immediately realizes they can’t afford another battle like this.

R-Y

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Joseph gives one to Joel after yet another battle between the Flamingo and the Lord of the Waves. He points out that Joel has only brought starvation, poverty and exhaustion on his crew, and when Joel attempts to argue that the Walsians only care for food and money, Joseph says that no, he has standards of his own and is ready to make sacrifices, say, for the sake of his crew or his native land, while Joel makes sacrifices for... sinking ships without even allowing the crew to take the plunder, all in the hopes of somehow achieving anarchy?
  • Eua-le gives one to Anthony after Veronique’s death, telling him that the girl worked like a slave to help Anthony while he wasn’t even aware of it.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Joel de Goirré, hot-tempered and impulsive, and his first mate and lifelong friend Louis Carran, calm, collected and pedantic.
  • Downplayed with Frank the Marten and Joseph Avery. Frank is often rash and Joseph is more level-headed.
  • Gerry Ernscott's wife and eventual love interest (...In That Order) Izzy is easygoing, cheerful and mild-tempered, a huge contrast to his First Love, snarky, Sugar-and-Ice Personality Letty.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The entire Flamingo becomes subject to that trope at one point. A battle with a Courbartian military flotilla leaves it badly damaged, and rumours start spreading that it has sunk. Only in the course of the following weeks does it get confirmed that the brig is repaired and at sea again.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised: King Etienne is a horrid king, but the revolutionary government isn’t much better, cruelly hunting down not just the aristocracy but anyone who prospered under the monarchy.
• Riches to Rags: As the civil war breaks out in Courbarte, many wealthy nobles, such as the de Geriese family, are plummeted into poverty.
• Sacrificial Lion:
  • Walter is killed in the first chapter of part three, after spending part one as one of the prominent supporting characters and part two as Amelia's lover. This character is also the first non-Red Shirt casualty (apart from William Gattern who had the Plot-Triggering Death). An attempted rampage of revenge after his death ultimately leads Amelia to get stranded in Jarison Haven, pregnant with Walter's baby.
  • Veronique is accidentally killed in the end of part four. Shaken by her death, Anthony finally begins to show some signs of Heel Realization.
• Secret-Keeper: Walter becomes one for Amelia after realizing she is a girl. Later, Dr. Lerby finds it out and keeps the secret too, along with covering for Walter and Amelia after learning of their affair.
• Secret Relationship: Walter and Amelia, since he is one of the crew and she doesn’t want anyone to know she is a woman. In fact, they are not doing a very good job hiding it, so some people (in particular, Joseph, Gambe and Anthony) suspect there is something going on between the two, and since they don't realize Little Billy is a woman, it leads to Mistaken for Gay. The full truth is found out by Dr. Lerby when he treats Amelia's wound, then by Mabel when she realizes Amelia is pregnant, and then Amelia is forced to tell her story to Greg and the Ernscotts.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Even making eyes at Mrs. Izzy Ernscott is futile. She is passionately in love with her husband.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Downplayed but still definitely there with Joseph and Frank. Joseph, though a badass fighter through and through, has a dreamy and sentimental side, cherishing Old Arnie's talisman, having very lyrical musings about the sea, and having a fondness for singing – not to mention that he falls in Love at First Sight. Frank is even more of a fighter and bruiser, always willing to rush into battle, and is pretty down-to-earth.
• Sexiled: On one occasion. Gerald and Izzy Ernscott usually act extremely prim, distant and polite when not alone with each other, so the mere fact that Gerald hugs Izzy is already enough for Mabel to get a clue, and after a single meaningful glance from him Mabel takes little Melly out of her cradle and hurries out of the room. Followed by a time skip of forty minutes.
• Shady Lady of the Night: Two best brothels on Las Estrellas double as rivaling secret agent bases. Two of their best prostitutes and agents, Eua-le and Lidia, eventually leave the brothels altogether to continue with their spying and sabotaging jobs in the war-torn country of Courbarte.
• Shout-Out: Several are acknowledged in the footnotes and chapter comments.
  • Joseph Avery’s name is a reference to Henry Every (or Avery), a 17th-century English pirate. The story of the Ilbir ship where Joseph (according to the gossips) finds the Shah’s niece and marries her is also an allusion to Every’s plunder of a ship belonging to the Grand Moghul where Every (according to the gossips) found the Moghul’s daughter or granddaughter and married her.
  • The first part’s third chapter is called The Dead Man’s Chest.
  • The Princess Vivian’s battle with the Lord of the Waves is written to resemble the battle of the Mercury, a 19th-century Russian brig, with two Turkish ships.
  • The Enticing and Moralizing History of Young Miss Martine Emmett, an In-Universe sentimental novel that Amelia reads when pregnant, is a reference to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded.
  • One of the prequels features Edgar Cole reducing the number of lifeboats on Jarison Haven ships so that the decks would be more spacious.
• Show Within a Show:
  • The Enticing and Moralizing History of Young Miss Martine Emmett by a Mr. Llewellyn is a sentimental novel that Izzy used to love at school but Amelia finds sappy and tedious.
  • Several characters mention a composer called Mellydale. The Ernscotts love his music, while Princess Amalia and her husband Count Brosingham think it terribly boring.
• Single Sex Offspring:
  • Izzy's parents have six daughters (whom they tell they must produce an heir for their husbands).
  • Rick and Letty Frankson have four sons.
• Sinister Suffocation: Eua-le almost throttles Anthony when she suspects he is grooming seven-year-old Mireille. He manages to croak he has no such designs (for once, he’s telling the truth), so she releases him just in time.
• Sink the Lifeboats: Joel suggests to do it after sinking the Princess Vivian to make sure they Leave No Witnesses. Louis is appalled at such cruelty, and Joel finally decides it would be the last straw for his friend and promises not to kill the survivors. As the Princess Vivian defeats them, it never comes to putting either plan into action.
• Sinking Ship Scenario: Downplayed. One of the chapters involves the sinking of the Margaret, an old and worn ship with an inexperienced captain. However, it sinks in summer in subtropical waters and the rescue in the shape of the Flamingo arrives promptly enough, so there are no casualties or serious injuries.
• Sleeping Single: Mr. Ernscott is implied to have considered the possibility before marrying, because nominally, he and his wife have two separate bedrooms. Actually, though, the second one is never used.
• Slipping a Mickey: Marie slips a poison into Anthony's fish pie; it's not lethal but causes a huge attack of nausea.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Two neighboring Walsian colonies, Walbere and Jarison Haven. Walbere is a lot poorer but boasts beautiful and plentiful fields and forests and cheap shops, while Jarison Haven is much richer but is mostly barren land, and living there is a lot more expensive. Though there is no intense rivalry, there is a certain level of disdain between the two.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Almost every conversation between Joseph and Frank.
  Frank: Just the fact that you were Old Arnie's favorite doesn't mean anything if you make a lousy captain.
  Joseph: While you can't even boast of that, and as captain, believe me, you'll be further from the ideal than myself. Well, except that, perhaps, you are better than me at cards. I admit it humbly.
  Frank: Oh, Joseph, you've got early dementia if you have understood nothing else during all the weeks we've been sailing.
  Joseph: Maybe. And you are still stuck in the golden age of infancy.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Amelia finds out she is pregnant a few days after her lover is killed.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Acknowledged in the chapter comments to be a Lighter and Softer answer to A Song of Ice and Fire. There are similarities in world-building (a Low Fantasy setting with High Fantasy elements gradually growing plot-relevant), narrative structure (Sympathetic POVs of various characters) and naming conventions (the two major continents are called Evennort and Saudania), but the story leans much more towards idealism.
• Stern Teacher: Mr. Winsham, who taught maths at Jarison Haven’s First Royal School at the time when Mr. Ernscott was a pupil there, was an extremely strict and no-nonsense teacher. But in The School Years it’s made clear he genuinely cared for the children (when a storm begins, he rushes out to bring the several kids playing outdoors to the shelter, and he is also shown anxious about little Gerry Ernscott overtaxing himself with the workload).
• Stout Strength: Jessie is very fat and strong (when the hunters of Randelia sell dodos to the crew, she carries them on deck easily).
• Strong Family Resemblance: All members of the Canter family have dark hair and a light brown complexion (Baron Eustace’s mother was black). It stands out in continental Walsia, not so much in Jarison Haven where interracial marriage is already pretty common.
• Succession Crisis: Discussed. Though the royal family of Walsia is enormous, the country will have an example of the trope, thanks to their complicated succession laws, should the current heiress Princess Vivian die childless. The next in line is her aunt Margaret, who is a) Queen of Miridia b) hugely incompetent, so people will probably root for Vivian's great-uncle Peter (who indeed is a much better candidate). To avoid this, Vivian is set to marry her second cousin, Peter's grandson: if she does die childless, Peter's line will at least have valid claim to the throne.
• Suddenly Sober: The corsairs are having a merry party aboard the Flamingo... and then their old enemies, the anarchists headed by Joel de Goirré, show up. The crew sobers up amazingly fast.
• Switching P.O.V.: Each part has four rotating POV characters (except the first one, which has two, and the interludes, which have third-person omniscient). So far, there have been the POVs of Amelia, Joseph, Walter, Anthony, Mabel, Joel and Frank.
• Taking You with Me: After Badger is poisoned and realizes he has minutes to live, he decides to smear the tactile poison over his killer’s hand as well. But the killer wears protective gloves, and while Badger is pulling off one of these, he himself escapes unscathed.
• Team Switzerland: Dr. Lerby stays out both of the conflict of Walsia and Courbarte (his mother was Walsian and his father was Courbartian) and of the squabbles between Joseph and Frank.
• Terse Talker: Kenneth Sentville speaks in short and to-the-point phrases. Whenever he tries to string more than ten words together, he veers straight into Malaproper.
• Theme Naming: The two plot-relevant Walsian corsair ships, on both of which Joseph Avery has served as first mate, are called the Red Drake and the Scarlet Flamingo. Lampshaded by Robert Helemme, second mate of the Lord of the Waves, when he nicknames the Walsians "poultry farmers".
• This Is the Part Where...: Spoofed by Joseph. When Peter says he doesn’t know who his father was but the neighbors said it was a pirate, Joseph quips that this would be the perfect moment for a reveal that Peter is Old Arnie’s son. As it is, though, the boy’s mother came from a town very far away from the sea that Arnie never visited, so it is highly unlikely.
• Time Skip: The interlude takes part five months after the end of the first part, and another three months pass between the interlude and part four (or, in the case of Anthony’s arc, between parts four and five).
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: A couple of friendly duos fit the trope.
  • Amelia, a corsair captain with Boyish Short Hair, and Izzy, a financier who loves music, poetry and romantic novels.
  • Eua-le, a skilled fighter and secret agent at the age of eighteen, and Yvonne, timid, naive and pampered Daddy's Girl (even though Yvonne toughens up thanks to Eua-le’s advice).
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Veronique is gentle, noble and self-sacrificing, and dies the most preventable death ever, accidentally killed by the man she loves, when she is about eighteen.
• Too Proud for Lowly Work:
  • In one of his A Day in the Limelight prequels, Frank serves in the Navy but gets constantly reprimanded for gambling and lack of discipline. Being a Spoiled Brat, he thinks it's his superiors' fault for not letting him serve where he wants. The final straw comes when he's reassigned from a convoy escort ship to a minor coast guard vessel (the port's captain explains it's the last chance he'll be given). Frank is outraged at what he views as a demeaning job and deserts the Navy to join the pirates.
  • Yvonne, coming from an Impoverished Patrician family, is reluctant to start working as a nurse — though the full conversation concerning it happens off-page, her friend Eua-le is shown advising her to "leave her aristocratic quirks behind". After the first two days at the hospital, she is disgusted and wants to quit, but Eua-le points out that in a country torn by wars, in a region controlled by revolutionaries, a noblewoman in hiding can't exactly hope for a "refined" job.
• Treasure Map: Amelia's crew find a treasure map left by a pirate who lived half a century earlier. So far, nobody has managed to decode it.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Several.
  • After defecting to the Amlonians, Anthony learns that both of the High-Class Call Girl brothels on Las Estrellas double as secret agent bases. Additionally, he finds out that a disheveled drunk that he encountered in the streets is a spy as well.
  • Scrawny Greg is revealed to be a member of the Secret Service of Walsia when he visits the Ernscotts in Amelia's presence.
• Unknown Rival: Joseph Avery and Jerome de Barnec have no idea they are each other's rivals for Yvonne's affection. Nobody except the Flamingo's crew and Eua-le is aware of Joseph's crush on the girl, and almost everyone is sure Jerome doesn't care a straw for Yvonne since he apparently dropped her like a hot potato after she lost her money; in fact, he was blackmailed to do so.
• Unluckily Lucky: There is mention of a Courbartian lieutenant nicknamed Lucky Ferrier who constantly gets wounded in knife fights and always needs just a couple of days to get better. There are even rumours he gets himself wounded on purpose to be treated by Eua-le.
• Unnecessarily Large Vessel:
  • The Prosperity is so enormous that crewmen are allowed to take their families on board just to fill the space. Its owner wanted to break the record in shipbuilding and doesn't even hide the fact. The Prosperity's size make it very difficult for it to pass through the narrow Cariche Strait, and very easy for then-seven-year-old Joseph to leave the ship and get to one of the rocks.
  • The Fast-Winged is huge enough to be mistaken for a galleon. However, it's extremely ancient, and it clearly doesn't have enough crew and weapons to properly do battle.
• Unwanted Assistance: In The School Years, when Susan Deanham falls sick, her classmates assemble a huge box of gifts, most of them candy and pastries. Only later does Gerry Ernscott find out that candy and spices such as vanilla are forbidden to Susan, since they can provoke an allergy attack and worsen her cough.
• Upper-Class Equestrian: In Jarison Haven, it's especially costly to keep horses, so anyone who can afford it is extremely rich by default. However, horse-driven carriages (although these horses are far from true-bred) can be rented, so the locals such as Mr. Ernscott don't bother with buying a horse of their own, even though Mr. Ernscott could afford it theoretically.
• Vehicle Title: Brig Scarlet Flamingo. Appropriately, of the seven main POV characters, five (Amelia, Joseph, Walter, Anthony and Frank) are or have been in the Flamingo’s crew, one (Mabel) has spent several dozen chapters aboard, and one (Joel) considers the Flamingo’s men his worst enemies.
• Vicarious Gold Digger: Baron and Baroness Loyceter are completely impoverished (due to their own irresponsibility with money no less), and they try to find the wealthiest husbands available for their daughters, regardless of the daughters' wishes. The fact that they constantly demand money from their in-laws has made them so infamous that by the time their sixth daughter reaches marriageable age, nobody from continental Walsia wants to ask for her hand.
• Viler New Villain: The corsairs are Affably Evil and Joel de Goirré genuinely wants to bring people to the glorious era of anarchy. Then Anthony Jamble defects to the Amlonians and his selfish, deceitful nature blossoms fully, and the corsairs encounter Simon Canter who kills his own family members and threatens to poison a baby.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Queen Carolina was and still is viewed as a sweet and gentle woman who suffered the tyranny of her husband. In fact, she was just as wicked as him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Joseph and Marten argue about absolutely everything and don't shy away from beating the daylights out of each other, and yet when it comes to anything serious, they firmly stand together.
  • To a lesser extent Joel and Louis, who take opposing sides in Order Versus Chaos and argue all the time, but are best friends nevertheless. They have been like that since childhood, with their differences in upbringing always causing conflict between them.
• Walking Spoiler: It is very hard to bring up George Marr without explaining he is Walter and Amelia's son.
• We Used to Be Friends: Edgar Cole was one of Gerald Ernscott's best friends at school. Then, over the following forty years, Edgar Took a Level in Jerkass. Now they absolutely loathe each other.
• Weather Manipulation: Enrique Eguires sells a powder that can quiet a storm to the Flamingo's crew. As they find out, it does indeed quiet the wind, but doesn't make the waves any smaller.
• Wham Episode:
  • Part three, chapter one. Walter Roberts is killed and Amelia is stranded in Jarison Haven and believed to be dead by her crew.
  • Part five, chapter five. Jerome de Barnec is Good All Along and still loves Yvonne.
• Widow's Weeds:
  • Even though they were never legally married or engaged, Amelia buys black clothes after Walter’s death.
  • One of Lidia's disguises is that of a widow just out of full mourning and therefore dressed in purple.
• Women Are Wiser: According to Emma Ludd, a thief from Monge Point who also trains street urchins in pickpocketing, girls are much cleverer than boys. She once tells Joseph that among her young charges, she starts sending the girls to "work" at thirteen and the boys at eighteen.
• You Are in Command Now: Norbert Cotewell commanded a ship for the first time in his life, for several months, after his captain got killed in action.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: Yvonne is mentioned to be in her early twenties and Eua-le is eighteen at the start of the novel. Nevertheless, Eua-le is the savvier and more experienced one and acts as mentor figure to Yvonne.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Scarlet Flamingo crew are a beloved and admired Living Legend in Walsia, with tales of their heroism and daring spreading far and wide – and The Dreaded ones in Courbarte, hated by their victims and topping the Most Wanted list of each of the rivalling governments. The same in reverse goes for any Courbartian corsair ship, which Jerome de Barnec readily admits.

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