"So you really don't understand and that means I have to do a total exposition. Alright, let's get this started."
— Ollie Pirenci, resident villain of the book
Burnt Empire is this troper's attempt at making something readable. She's been working on it for a few years now and it's probably not going to be published. It's about three kids, one of whom was a resistance leader but was captured and escaped. She (self-named Vallian) is travelling with the other kids for reasons unknown for most of the book. And so you're not confused later, the other kids are Hane (girl) and Morley (guy).Now has a character sheet.Also, available for download right here, if you wish to read. The author's on the third revision, so the download link is down.The author's a Wordpress at this address if anyone wants to look at excerpts and things from the new one.
Bad Dreams: With Hane, and Vallian to a lesser extent.
Berserk Button: Every main character. Hane with morals, Morley with 'how dare you try to attack them they're innocent', and Vallian has quite a few. That's just the overview.
Berserker Tears: Vallian after what has been dubbed the 'kiss scene'. It just sets off a whole giant chain of events.
Bittersweet Ending: Nalia, Terra, Joren, all of them are gone. But Ollie is still here, still killing things. Morley, it seems, is always going to be haunted by this and makes no effort to fix things with anyone, not his parents, his brother, anyone. He's really been affected by everything happening, forced to be the nice guy, surrounded by people he's unable to relate to. However, this trope isn't about him, however much he may be more of a protagonist than anyone else in the book. Vallian's not in a good place at all. And Hane is dead.
The Cake Is a Lie: Jacob, around twenty pages in, threatens to kill his brother (Morley) and Morley's friends if Vallian doesn't do what he wants. Guess what? He was planning to anyway.
Can't Argue With Elves: Elves can't lie (or use contractions, but that's a different issue entirely) so they'll often say something bad when they were supposed to say something good.
Chekhov's Gun: The sword Jacob has between his fingers is the same one that is used to kill Nalia.
Chewbacca Defense: Hane likes resorting to crying which confuses the person she's arguing with, especially when she started the fight in the first place.
Morley: Ef. Effing ef ef ef. Of course, what he actually said shouldn't be repeated in a novel at least semi-intended for quasi-child-aged-people, but one can imagine.
Cold-Blooded Torture: Terra Vengen's specialty. To quote a person from the book: "Vengen enjoyed torture for torture's sake. Nothing else about it, she was just a master at making people scream."
Corrupt the Cutie: This, and Kill The Cutie, are used with Hane, however much she's not really a cutie. And she was already corrupted.
Curse Cut Short: There are a lot of these, coming from Hane's setting up a thing to give Morley an electric shock every time he tries to say a swear word. And Morley really likes to swear.
Dark and Troubled Past: Quite a few of the characters. Even a villain, though it doesn't give him a good Freudian Excuse. The author likes drama, okay?
Don't You Dare Pity Me: Hane could live and breathe this trope when the situation warrants it.
Dramatic Irony: It's revealed (at least part of it) about Hane's history to Hane and Vallian (and the reader), but Morley stays in the dark about the whole thing, not even knowing the other two went and found the archives, because he didn't follow them because he wanted to stay back in case something bad happened. Which it did.
The Dragon: Subverted in that one 'fights' the Big Bad approximately a day before the other hero has the whole moral thing against The Dragon.
Evil Is Sexy: Most people seem to think this of Jacob even after he's shown how low he'll sink. In-universe, of course. The author has no idea what the tiny fanbase thinks of him.
Evil Plan: Most people (himself included) believe Ollie's plan is an evil plan. And if the person who made it thinks it is, why shouldn't it be?
Evil Redhead: Averted because Ollie used to have red hair, but for some reason when a vampire is converted a type of dye materializes onto their scalp and gives them jet-black hair. It's not permanent, in case one is devamped or killed or something of that nature.
Faking the Dead: In Ollie's backstory, he does this so people won't search for him when he's just been converted.
Fallen Hero: This happens to Morley gradually at first, but there's a giant increase the speed of it happening after he kills Nalia. At the end of the story.
Fantasy Gun Control: Subverted in that Ollie has a gun but most people in the whole world don't even know they exist in real life and not just stories. However, Jude, Jill's boyfriend in Hane's flashback, has one too.
Fantasy World Map: A world, the four continents in it, and a map key, all using a fancy font.
Fatal Flaw: Hane definitely has one, and Vallian. Morley not so much, except maybe his undying hatred for Jacob, which turns out to be justified.
Filler: It's a novel edited for NaNoWriMo, of course there's filler. A lot of it was cut out after November however, dropping the novel under fifty thousand words.
The Film of the Book: Though the script thing only seeks to provide some explanations for things, not be an actual working movie version. Also foreshadowing!
Flaw Exploitation: Hane does this to Morley multiple times throughout the story.
Footnote Fever: The author, often referred to in the third person, has this.*
At least it's not fatal.
For the Evulz: Jacob. He kills people just to see how much it would hurt for them, among other things.
Foreshadowing: Hane's dream, to name the first instance.
Heel Face Revolving Door: Hane. Good to bad to good to bad. But if you ask her, she's on the side of whoever's winning. Ask the author and she's always been bad, just manipulating people so they think the right thing.
I Am Who?: Subverted and played straight, Vallian is just a girl from this seaside city somewhere and Morley's a noble person. Hane's a noble and didn't know about it.
I Have Nothing to Say to That: Morley and Vallian when Hane makes a fat insult, just because of how unexpected it is.
I Just Write The Thing: My characters have their own lives, man. For instance, Hane is an amoral side-switching-at-the-drop-of-a-hat sort-of-protagonist, instead of the main character as was originally planned.
Improbable Age: Vallian. Twelve-year-old resistance leader, anyone? Eh, brilliant at tactics and whatnot.
Ironic Echo: Most people have the version without this, but it's during the scene before Morley steals Jacob's sword.
Morley: So? Some of us are dynamic people. (during chapter three) (for context, during chapter seven) Morley: Why the hell did you kill her! All she did was– Jacob: Threaten to expose me as a double agent. So she was killed to uphold the masquerade. And you of all people should know some of us are dynamic people.
It Makes Sense in Context: The author tried to explain to (online) friends, and the only response was 'What.'
Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Someone finds out Jacob is a bad guy and actually goes out to make it public, but before they can, he kills them just like that. Bam. Dead. Onscreen, no less. Helps with showing his Complete Monsterdom.
Meaningful Rename: Vallian is a thinly-veiled respelling of 'valiant'. But until later, her actually being valiant is an Informed Ability for the most part.
Monster Town: Full of zombies and exploding brains, Old Arlaz. They don't actually like fighting anyone who looks like they could fight back, so hide if a formidable-looking person comes in.
No Name Given: Vallian is referred to as just that, her chosen and preferred nickname, until The Reveal at the end. Although in the script, we get a thing that breaks that careful no-revealing-of-her-surname, even if does help with foreshadowing aforementioned reveal.
Odd Friendship: Does Hane and Morley being friends at the start count? Because, dude, they're pretty much only friends because of Hane and her Psychic Powers. She needed a friend and he was there.
Pet the Dog: Ollie seems to have one, but it turns out to be sparing a little boy while Ollie kills his parents in front of him.Arguably much, much worse.
Plot Technology: At least Ollie actually uses his gun for things like killing people.
Prequel: Magical. The author does suggest reading that first, once it's finished.
Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Yes. A very select few are immune. And it doesn't usually start until around the same time as puberty.
Pyrrhic Victory: They won, yes, but Morley's lost his friends, Vallian is... broken, for lack of a better word, and Hane is dead. See Bittersweet Ending above for more details.
Rebel Leader: It's been mentioned quite a bit who led the resistance.
Relationship Upgrade: Well, it is mentioned in the story info that Anton's only real friends are Morley and Zo, so does it come as that much of a surprise that Anton and Morley are in a relationship? And yes, that does technically make Morley a cheating bastard.
Shout Out: Plenty. Mainly to music (such as the title), though there's quite a bit to different bits of literature too.
This one is of note:
He exited the room that had tested and trialed him so, going to sit on the bench or piece of architectural genius, a word which here means 'A particularly good piece of building', and its lesser known second meaning, 'Please don't sue me, Mister Snicket'.
Rule One: Don't kill anyone, ever. Rule Two: Never blackmail, especially not for anything disgusting. Rule Three: Never steal, ever. Rule Four: There is no Rule Four. Rule Five: Don't insult anyone who doesn't deserve it.
Unpopular Popular Character: People in-universe really don't like the guy who sells sausages in Arlaz, but he's the author's favorite character. Although one would suppose they have good reason, as his character is expanded on so he's part of a thing that sells kids as part of a political blackmail thing.
Verbal Tic: Morley will add practically any swear word to practically anything he says, while Vallian adds 'hell' all the time (as in 'what the hell is this?' instead of 'what is this?', ekcetera.)
Vetinari Job Security: The only reason Vallian even goes to try and stop things is because no one else will. And then when someone else does, they fail miserably.
Villain with Good Publicity: Again, Nalia and Leo. They rule a whole continent, so it might not be only the heroes (in this case one of the heroes) know, it's everybody else is too scared to speak up. Seriously.
World Of No Grandparents: Pretty much. Jacob makes a reference but you never hear of grandparents again.
Would Hit a Girl: Until afterwards and he finds out who the girl he hit is.
You Monster!: Used a few times quite a lot. An exception is when Morley says "You... you..." to Vallian, wanting to say 'monster', but he's unable to spit it out.
Lampshaded by Ollie: "There's a disproportionately high chance someone will say 'you monster', with varying inflections and in some cases words in this world. It's losing its meaning with all of this."
Section for Magical here. Shall be edited tomorrow.Magical is a sort of prequel to Burnt Empire, this troper's previous novel. It focuses on Esme The Magnificent, who infiltrates the rebel base to turn in information to the queen and become (more) famous. Of course, there are some problems.
A Day in the Limelight: This is the prequel (as mentioned right there) to Burnt Empire, told from the perspective of a character who's only in footnotes in the aforementioned story. Which is why she dies at the end.
The All Concealing I: It's told in first-person, so you could say this, such as why she has a Mysterious Past in the first place and doesn't really tell people all that much about her husband, besides his presumably running off with his sister to Arazim.
Backstory: The whole story can serve as backstory for Vallian and Jacob from Burnt Empire.
Code Name: Everyone important to the plot's code name will be mentioned. Vallian is Pirate, Esme is Magic, and Jacob is Teller.
Mysterious Past: You never really learn about Esme's life before she decided to infiltrate the rebels.
Precision F-Strike: Esme only swears when she's translating or directly quoting someone, and the strongest word she actually uses in her own speech is 'ass'. Except at the end. "God-fucking-dammit Vespian is evil, isn't he?"
Retcon: It's added in that Jacob was a mole for the official army from one year in his actually being in the army to just after the war ended. Then he had to track down Vallian and you get Burnt Empire.
You Are Too Late: "Esme, why would I tell you all this if I thought you had a chance of stopping things? It started twenty minutes ago."
What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Said by the woman who's apparently been listening to Esme after she shoots our protagonist. It is mentioned at the start that there's a person there holding a gun, so...)
if anyone wants to look at excerpts and things from the new one.
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