Journey to the Dream Land is a 2003 children's fantasy novel by Russian writer Dmitry Drimov, aimed at showing the readers the dangers of drugs and treacherous drug-dealers.
When Anya moved from Moscow to a small provincial town, following advice of her aunt who believes that in her absence, Anya's parents would calm down and stop their conflict (and maybe wouldn't divorce), she didn't expect anything strange or mystical to happen. But the life doesn't always go as we expect it...
One day, she gets visited in her dream by a raven, who asks her for help with saving the Dream Land from certain doom planned by evil sorcerer Klingzor. At the same time, in the "awake world", the unpopular math teacher vanishes without a trace, and gets replaced by some creepy old man who asks to call him "Professor Zero", and strange drug dealers starts snooping around...
Tropes featured in the novel:
- Accentuate the Negative: Klingzor's Black Mirror spell allows him to show the people who look into his eyes for long enough all their worst qualities... and none of the good ones. If given enough time, it may convince almost anyone that it's indeed what they are, making them vulnerable for his sorcery and allowing Klingzor to shape them in whatever way he wants. He may also use it to mask his true appearance. Notable uses of the spell include:
- Klingzor uses it briefly in the school when introducing himself as "Professor Zero". It shows which children are vulnerable to it (the majority see him as anything but his true self), which can't be affected by it and see just a misty silhouette (Ali and Bidiya), which aren't even hit by it as they are his potential allies (Imp, Pimple and Muzzle), and which can see him as half-Professor, half-Klingzor (Anna, Masha and Fyodor).
- Maths teacher Blot gets shown what a pig she is... and she transforms into a literal pig, in the wake world. It only gets undone at the very end of the story.
- Klingzor tries to use it in the final battle to demolish the bridge leading to the castle, by persuading the souls composing the bridge that they don't exist, causing them to fall into Abyss. The heroes counter it by using an actual mirror.
- Adventures in Comaland: Most of the cast gets sent into the Dream Land (or Dum-Durg) by being put into coma, in one way or another:
- Anya and Fyodor gets knocked out with a piece of metal, which puts them into a coma until the last chapter. They barely survive this, as this results in them awakening on a fading ice floe and almost falling into Abyss.
- Several characters gets drugged to the comatose condition:
- Imp, Pimple, Muzzle and Zausya gets injected with drugs voluntarily, allowing them to continue serving Klingzor in the Dream Land. It's unknown how this happens to Ali/Aziz, but likely the same way.
- Fatso and Masha gets injected by force; in Fatso's case, it backfires on Klingzor, as it undoes what he did to control him, so he joins the heroes.
- All Your Powers Combined: Subverted; the Sisters have created the eighth Spring by combining their powers, but instead of granting all the powers at once, it erases the memory and forces the person to undergo a reincarnation. Even its color is different; all the others Sources are bright and beautiful, but this one is grey and ugly. When asked why, Mirabel explains that it's like with paints: try to mix them all chaotically, and instead of beauty you would gain the ugliness.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The archeosauruses are universally evil. The sole exception is Wrapper, the first fantasaurus. While more fantasauruses appear later, all of them are transformed by force, while Wrapper becomes like this voluntarily.
- Arc Words:
- "Dharma" (the purpose and duty in life) is recurring word in Masha's arc. She hears the term from Sushchy, and uses it to justify keeping going, despite all risks, as it's her duty to stop the villains before they harm anyone else.
- Pyotr Suschhiy at several points says that the tea he makes is "without benzine". At first, it sounds like just a joke, but later that phrase emerges again when Anatoly Kim arrives with (ultimately futile) attempt to assassinate Suschiy in his apartment. Kim also later uses it to explain the difference between himself and Klingzor: while Kim, in a way, pours the benzine into a tea (referring to his plans to conquer the Land-Under-Sky), Klingzor tries to pour some tea into his benzine (referring to his attempts to make the Dum-Durg look beautiful to make what is essentially a hell look attractive to the fools he wants to exploit).
- Appropriated Appellation: "Wrapper" was intended as an insult by Glung, who was afraid that if he wouldn't abuse his brother Glong, the others would see it as a weakness, or even sympathy. Glong just accepted it as his new name.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Klingzor (who uses the body of "Professor Zero" to operate in the wake world) cooperates with Anatoly "Mentor" Kim to spread around the new drug which would forcefully put people into the Dream Land; each has their own goal they want to achieve by this:
- Klingzor has returned from the Abyss, but returned insane, and now tries to build his castle Dum-Durg right in the middle of the Abyss, using the souls of the people he had corrupted as the basement and building material. For now, only few fall for his lies in their exploration of the Dream Land, seeing Dum-Durg for what it is, but he wants to obtain the Queen of Flowers, which would steal the colors from the Dream Land, giving all its beauty to Klingzor's new kingdom instead. The process is slowly underway even without the Queen, but it's nowhere as effective, and may still be stopped at this point. Kim's support allows him to greatly improve the quality of his drugs (which he uses to gain "supporters"), as they can send people to the Dream Land and trap them there, something he can't achieve with the normal drugs he used before.
- Anatoly "Mentor" Kim (or whatever his real name is) represents the opposite side – he's from the Land-Under-Sky; instead of bothering with decorating the hell like Klingzor does, he wants to conquer the Land-Undere-Sky and alter it to his liking, so the souls going there would be his for exploiting. Klingzor and his drugs would allow him to much easier recruit people to his cause.
- Blessed with Suck: Downplayed. One of the three gifts Anya gains when visiting the Seven Clear Springs is enhanced hearing. It is helpful — until Dum-Durg, where it backfires on her, as she starts hearing Lilianas "talking" about their desire to attack, kill and consume their prey. This causes her to lose concentration and nearly fall into Abyss along with Fyodor whom she carries over it (she grows wings to transport him, while Aluvel carries Camelot).
- Book Ends: The story is kickstarted when the Maths teacher "Blot" disappears (allegedly gettick sick) and gets temporarily replaced by "Professor Zero" (Klingzor's puppet), which is announced by the principal. The final chapter starts with the same principal giving a lecture about encephalitis (the official excuse for several students disappearing is that they left vacation, so it's a perfect explanation for everything that followed), and Blot returning to her old place.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Deconstructed with fantasauruses created via the Change-Grass; unlike Wrapper, who becomes good voluntarily, those who were transformed by force lacked the strength of will it takes to resist addiction to the grass (as they never developed it through working on themselves), and ultimately went extinct as it transformed them into various kinds of plants and insects.
- Came Back Wrong: It's possible to come back after falling into Abyss, but whoever returns, wouldn't be the same – if they return at all.
- After falling into Abyss, Camelot's soul broke into two parts: one, which contains his actual personality, was trapped somewhere in the Abyss, while another, which contains his skills, got enslaved and used in various Klingzor's schemes in different worlds, with the latest incarnation being Fatso. The process gets undone when Fatso gets sent to the Dream Land by force, which makes two halves of his soul reunite, bringing back Camelot.
- No one knows for sure what has happened to Klingzor in the Abyss, but it's somehow related to both his powers – and his insanity. It may also explain why he looks like a skeleton.
- The Cavalry:
- Anna and Fyodor finally reaches the Dream Land proper, but get attacked by the Nightmares – the monstrous creatures that inhabit the borders. When Fedya gets hurt by a spider-like monster and faints, it seems that it's over (Anya is nowhere as good as a fighter as her friend), but then they get discovered by a knight who joins the battle and protects them. Then the local villagers find them too and help them fight back when the knight is about to be overrun as well.
- When Sergey Ivanov, Pyotr Sushchiy and Masha arrive to find Bidiya, they discover him sitting in a trance, not reacting to anything, and Anatoly Kim preparing to deal with them. The "Mentor" indeed easily dispatches of them... and then Bidiya awakes and, despite initially receiving two cuts from Kim, kicks his ass, subdues him and helps the heroes with their injuries.
- When Anna and her friends run into Imp in the Dream Land, Imp tries to kill them by starting an avalanche. Aluvel arrives just in time to protect them with his powers.
- Sergey Ivanov is forced to babysit Blot after she turns into a pig, to his annoyance. One day, she gets lost... only to be "found" just in time to stop Klingzor from murdering Sergey and his team, by kicking his body's ass (literally) and breaking the hypnosis he uses on one of the cops. However, she arrives too late to protect Masha...
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: The support Sergey Ivanov had requested to arrest Kim arrives when it's already over, due to their car breaking on their way. Though, in retrospect, the heroes admit that they likely stood no chance anyway.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Anya reveals that she has a mirror, she gets warned that the mirrors don't work the same way in the Dream Land as they do in the Awake World, and it makes them dangerous. If one brings the mirror from outside and looks into it, it would reflect not their look, but their alternate self from another world. Even briefly looking at it may force you to merge with it, and looking for long may speed up the process. It ultimately happens to Anya, who gets suppressed by her older self, Annabel, and Fyodor, who deliberately follows her and suppresses his old self, Burdock, which actually follows a Stable Time Loop due to him acting the way he acts precisely because he is Fyodor, not Burdock.
- Chekhov's Lecture: On the first session, Sushchiy tells Anya a story about an alpinist group led by his friend, an experienced explorer, who go to climb a mountain pass; the leader knows all along where the goal is, but the rest mistake several other, smaller passes for the true goal, dedicate all their powers to pass them, and quickly get exhausted due to the constant change of the goal leaving them out of willpower. At one point in the Dream Land, Anna remembers this story, and, realizing that the Dream Land runs on Your Mind Makes It Real, figures out that the reason why they passed the forest so easily yet it took them so long to reach the mountains is because they set up them as the goal, instead of either Dum-Durg or, in Camelot's case, restoring his memory.
- Coloring in the World: The Evil Sorcerer Klingzor, ruling over a realm of nightmares and drug-induced hallucinations, attempts to steal the colors from the pure and vibrant Dream Land, hoping to snare more people if his realm has more of true beauty in it. He partly succeeds, and a good deal of the outskirts of the Dream Land turns monochrome, so one of the heroes' goals in defeating him is bringing the colors back again. However, Klingzor's land doesn't become a genuine example of the trope, since the colors don't adjust to it well and look like ugly clots of half-dried paint.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the Springs is of a different color, though only the people who have the right to be there can see the difference. Not all of them are specified, but it's known that the green one is the Spring of Smell, the golden one is Creativity, the red one is Power, the blue one is Sound, and the black one is Knowledge (the reason why it's black is explained by the saying "Too much knowledge brings much suffering"). There's also the small grey Spring of Oblivion, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, erasing a person's memories and forcibly reincarnating them.
- Cosmic Keystone: The process of making the Passion Flower the Flower Soul, which fuels the Dream Land and makes it as beautiful and magical as it is, has required every flower to sacrifice the part of their own beauty to make it. When the Passion Flower, convinced through cruel lies that he's no longer needed nor loved, decides to escape, it causes the entire Dream Land to slowly lose its colors and die out. And as long as Imp (the Passion Flower's reincarnation) is alive in any world (or at least until he rejects the title officially), a new Soul can't be chosen.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When Sergey Ivanov and Pyotr Sushchiy come to arrest the Mentor, they get effortlessly defeated, with Sergey knocked out and Pyotr thrown to the wall. Masha fares slightly better, but only a for short time. Kim is only stopped from killing them when Bidiya finally intervenes.
- Dark Is Evil:
- Archeosauruses, huge and very dangerous reptiles, are mud-brown.
- Unlike the white will-swords of Anya and Fyodor, Aziz's will-sword is pitch-black, as he's a villain.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Spring of Knowledge is ebony-black, but was created by benevolent queen Mirabel. The blackness signifies the bitterness and heavy responsibility knowledge brings.
- Disproportionate Retribution: At some point, Imp calls Ali a racist slur and gets instantly beaten up. His response? Trying to frame Ali up by putting some drugs into his bag, and use his father's connections to put him into jail.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Played With regarding the Raven. The Raven isn't the true name, but since he's in the form of a raven at the time, and they have no time for proper introductions, he allows Anya to just refer to him as the Raven for much of the story. It is later revealed that his true name is Aluvel.
- Dream Land: There are two, the Dream Land proper and the sea of ice floes.
- The Dream Land is the place built of humanity's collective ability to dream, which now exists more or less autonomously and can actually teach those few who can reach it, giving them powerful mental abilities which would persist even once they awake.
- The sea of ice floes is the place of mundane everyday dreams and ordinary memories, with only occasional floes from the Dream Land proper reaching it.
- Dream Within a Dream: Several chapters (actually called "dreams within a dream") involve main characters dreaming while already in the Dream Land and seeing their past lives, from before they got reincarnated on Earth.
- Drugs Are Bad: Klingzor uses drugs to trick naive people to visit Dum-Durg again and again, ultimately causing them to stay there forever, trapping their souls and turnings them into the building material Klingzor may use for his goals; while their bodies in the wake world would wither and die. The reason why he wants to deprive the Dream Land of its colors and steal them for himself is because Dum-Durg is intended to become a perfect flytrap, but for now, it's too ugly to stand a chance in the competition – this "paradise" is too obviously fake. If Klingzor succeeds, the stream of new willing slaves would become enormous.
- Enemy Mine: Subverted; Aluvel mentions that at some point there was a war against archeosauruses which caused two fractions who normally can't stand each other to negotiate for a possible alliance against them, but when another, much easier way to deal with archeosauruses — mutating them into peaceful fantasauruses with the Change-Grass — was discovered, the alliance ended up cancelled, as neither fraction actually liked each other enough to work together unless absolutely necessary.
- "Eureka!" Moment:
- While Bidiya provides much help with finding Ali with his visions, he identifies the final clue by his logic, when he realizes that since Anya's parents are on vacation, her aunt wouldn't be there until the weekend, and Anya herself is in coma, Klingzor's underlings can use her house to hide Ali without suspicion. Unfortunately, instead of Ali, they discover... Fatso, drugged and heavily beaten.
- When Masha mentions that the guy who just visited Sushchiy has a stomach ulcer, Sergey Ivanov realizes that it's the same person whom Masha previously saw talking with Klingzor (he still preferred the mineral water, despite being able to afford alcohol), and compares the fingerprints on the glass from the cafe, on the knife which Kim had lost in Sushchiy's apartment, and on the knife which was used to kill Said, confirming that yes, it's the same guy in all three cases.
- Anya and Fyodor tells Aluvel a joke about an elephant who covered itself in flour and, after looking at itself in the mirror, believes itself to be an enormous pelmen. This gives Aluvel an idea on how they can deal with the bridge to Klingzor's castle, made out of corrupted souls which Klingzor would try to force into falling down into the Abyss — they can show them their reflection in Anya's mirror, where they would see their true selves and no longer fall for Klingzor's lies.
- Evil All Along: Kim reveals that Ali was never a prisoner – he was part of the the plan all along; even him throwing the bag of drugs into the fire didn't actually end with it burning – Anya was unable to see it clearly from the window, but the bag had dropped behind the fire, allowing Kim to take it. It was him who convinced two sides to work together, and who suggested to improve the quality of the drugs. Ali (in his original incarnation — Aziz) shows up in the final battle, fighting on Klingzor's side.
- Eviler than Thou: Fatso decides to give Imp a chance, but comments to his lackey Zausya that if anything goes wrong or he tries something funny, Imp will die and not even his father's connections will save him, since way too much money are involved in this business.
- Evil Makes You Ugly:
- After returning to the Dream Land, Muzzle and Pimple became a mix of their human selves and their original forms (a moth and a worm respectively), to disgusting results. Downplayed with Imp, who becomes a mix of a human, a flower and a dragon, but he's nowhere near as ugly as his followers are, still having some innate nobility and beauty left.
- Wrapper changed his coloration from the dirty-brown one standard for archeosauruses to a bright rainbow-like one, as he grew up dreamy and friendly. The other fantasauruses undergo similar changes as they transform, but only Wrapper did so voluntarily.
- Exact Words: Spring Dream offers her soul to Klingzor if he would give "her rescuer" the ability to fly, meaning Titurel who has just jumped into the Abyss with her when Klingzor pushed her there. Klingzor fulfils her wish — and saves Aluvel, by giving him a power to transform into a raven.Klingzor: I will fulfil my promise! But there are two rescuers! So let one of them fly! Unless the torments of his conscience push him to the ground!
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When, after being put into coma, Anna and Fyodor awakes on the melting ice floe (a fading dream), Anya tries to explain to Fedya where they are, and mentions the ice floe. When he asks why she chose that analogy, she says it's because it's melting... and realizes that they better go, now, or they risk falling into Abyss (the dream's instability is related to their fading consciousness).
- Extra-Strength Masquerade:
- The characters spending much of the story away from the school gets explained as them going on a paid vacation, sponsored by the government. Imp dying, Pimple and Muzzle becoming much dumber, and several children having scars from injections gets explained as them falling ill with encephalitis (the injections were allegedly the medicines). Despite multiple weak points, this explanation works well enough.
- In the end, it turns out that they choose to go with the mumps version of Blot's absence after all, despite her being literally a missing person for couple of weeks.
- False Reassurance: Palyony is lucky, Klingzor's not gonna kill him for his screwup... but he's unlucky, as he's gonna take all the blame for putting Anna and Fyodor into coma.
- Famed In-Story: Aluvel's past adventures with his friends — Titurel and Spring Dream — were described in the legends, which were written so long ago that many people in the Dream Land no longer believe that they happened for real.
- Fantastic Drug: Archeosauruses sharing many characteristics with plants and minerals is what makes them vulnerable to the Change-Grass (a plant normally used to give food magic shapeshifting abilities, just for fun), as it causes them to mutate into bright (and kind) fantasauruses. That same plant becomes the fantasauruses' undoing, as addiction to it causes them to consume more and more of it, provoking further plant-like mutations until they eventually become plants completely.
- Fantasy Keepsake: The rusty key discovered early in the part two persists even after Anya returns from from the Dream Land.
- Fate Worse than Death:
- Falling into Abyss doesn't just kill you; it traps your... soul, for lack of better word, there for indefinite amount of time. Some people manage to escape it (the most infamous case is Klingzor), but they always return radically different, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
- Pimple, Muzzle and (presumably) Zausya survive the the destruction of Dum-Durg, but lose a lot of their intellectual abilities, to the point that Pimple and Muzzle are forced to transfer to the school for the mentally challenged. It may be related to the Abyss somehow.
- Foreshadowing:
- The chapter about a school volleyball match at first looks like sheer filler, but then, during the match, Pimple accidentally shows some clearly unnatural stretchiness, shortly after his contact with Klingzor, as well as weirdly greenish skin (which only Ayna notices). Anya herself also shows unusual strength (which is the second time she manifests some power in the Awake World; the first was when she realized on her own that the pig is indeed Marya Ivanovna herself), which is another indication that the Raven is right about her.
- Out of three Springs Anya dives in, the one she likes the most is the Spring of Smell. It is later revealed that she's the reincarnation of Annabel, the Queen of Flowers, who was able to communicate with plants via, you guess it, the smell.
- When Klingzor chews his minions out on screwing up, Zausya goes from acting like a Sycophantic Servant to acting like some doggy which tries to plead its owner for forgiveness. When he shows up again in the climax... he's a literal small dog.
- When going to Anya's apartment following Bidiya's advices, instead of Ali, Sergey Ivanov finds... Fatso, Imp, Pimple and Muzzle, drugged to comatose condition, with Fatso being heavily beaten up and injected with an additional dosage which nearly kills him, as if he did something to earn Klingzor's wrath. In the next chapter it would be revealed that by taking the ring from the island with a dragon, Fyodor has released Fatso's true personality -– the knight Camelot –- and freed "Fatso" from Klingzor's control.
- Fire-Forged Friends:
- After working together to arrest Professor and Mentor, Sergey Ivanov becomes close friends with Masha.
- Despite initially almost hating her, Sergey Ivanov becomes much friendlier to Blot when she saves him from Klingzor (long story). She, in turn, stops causing him problems and even attacks the other cops when she mistakes them for enemies when they find Sergey drunk (even longer story).
- Frame-Up: Imp cooperates with Fatso to frame up Ali, by dropping some drugs into his bag, so that he may be arrested for it, "avenging" being humiliated by him before. The plan fails because Ali discovers it, disposes of the drug, and throws Imp's bag (filled with drugs and a large sum of money) into a window, where it drops into a fire, or so it seems.
- The Ghost: Aluvel has another friend, the Wanderer, who still travels around somewhere, but his exact whereabout are unknown; he never appears in the story, unless he's somehow related to Suschiy (who knows much more than he's willing to tell).
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Aluvel deals with the massive Nightmares attack by transforming them all into hares (one directly, and the others transformed by touching already transformed ones). It works at first, but then the hares start increasing in size to near-elephant levels, forcing him and Camelot to fight them after all.
- Good Counterpart: Fantasauruses are essentially archeosauruses, but nice, friendly and bright instead of evil and ugly, but no less powerful.
- Heel Realisation: After seeing his brother Wrapper dying right before him, and seeing that he was always just a tool for Klingzor, nothing more, Imp realises that his betrayal was for nothing — and that it was truly a betrayal, on his side. This convinces him to change sides in the last moment, and give up his life for Wrapper.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: At first, it seems that Imp is a reincarnation of Wrapper — a stingy betrayal, as he was believed to be the best of the warriors of the good side. But in the end, it turns out that it wasn't Wrapper... it was his brother Glung, who became a fantasaurus himself after getting hit with the Change-Grass and realizing how evil he was. Then his old self reemerged when Death's Head and Uglind convinced him that Annabel no longer respects or cares for him and plans to abandon him, resulting in him becoming the Imp we know.
- He Knows Too Much:
- Kim assassinates Said — Ali's (adoptive) father — due to him coming too close to actually discovering his son, which would ruin Kim, Klingzor, and Ali's, plan.
- Kim nearly kills Suschiy in his house, as he's Bidiya's (current) mentor and may help the heroes to find him (Kim has abducted Bidiya, to either kill or corrupt him). He only stops because he learns about more expected visitors, and realises that, since he can't kill them too, they would help the police to identify him, and the risk isn't worth it.
- Muzzle (back then, Death's Head) kills all the flowers who were too close to see her and Imp escaping. Annabel only manages to save one of them, the rest are dead for real.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Realising that his treachery was All for Nothing, Imp mortally wounds himself and falls on the body of his dying brother Wrapper, sharing his blood with him that way and allowing him to heal... but Imp himself dies from blood loss.
- Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Anatoly "Mentor" Kim believes that by helping Klingzor with modifying the drugs, he may convince more people to believe in his cause — that the Awake World is a backwater which doesn't deserve any attention (along with any people who don't share the similar opinion), and that they should follow him into the Dream Land and further, into the Land-Under-Sky, which Anatoly wants to conquer for himself.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard:
- Camelot's soul was broken in two parts, with one being enslaved by Klinzor, becoming Fatso. By beating and drugging Fatso, he ensured that two halves reunite, bringing Camelot back.
- After Sergey Ivanov's arrival (with a machine-gun, no less!), the Hallucinations falls into panic and starts trying to run away, blindly crushing through their own ranks, causing more casualties than all heroes combined, and basically decimating Klingzor's army, leaving only a relatively small squad of Heroins left, which is much easier to handle.
- It's Klingzor who gave Aluvel the power to transform into a giant raven, as a cruel joke. It later comes in very handy when Aluvel is assisting the heroes in bringing down Klingzor.
- In-Series Nickname:
- Several major characters are consistently referred by their nicknames, usually based on their surnames.
- Some teachers were nicknamed by the students, usually in rather insulting manner.
- Fatso's underling Roman Nogtev is better known as "Zausya" — a weird nickname which, knowing this book's love for Meaningful Names, is likely to be related to the word "zaus'kivat" (to flatter, to try and please someone in sycophantic manner), which is rather fitting, as he's a Sycophantic Servant.
- Anna often calls Aluvel "the Raven" instead of his true name, as it's how he originally introduces himself, and, well, he indeed often takes the form of a raven. Aluvel doesn't mind.
- Insistent Terminology: Sergey Ivanov just keeps calling the Raven "the penguin": it's a bird, and it's associated with the ice flows, ergo, it's a penguin! Klingzor, when he hears this, for whatever reason finds it extremely funny, and decides that it's how he's gonna call Aluvel from now on.
- It Can Think: Downplayed with Change-Grass; in the large concentrations, it gives the food shapeshifting abilities and makes it semi-sentient (and rather chaotic in its actions), but it's not truly sapient. For example, the very first fantosaur was created when Aluvel's meal became a little Amur and shot it in the heart with small grass arrow, injecting it with Change-Grass.
- Invisible Parents:
- Justified with Anna. Her parents are on very heated terms and on the brink on divorce, and her aunt, believing that her constant presence only heats it up farther, moved her to another city in hope that without arguing over daughter, they would calm down a bit. Then said aunt gets a very high-paying job in Moscow, and gets forced to leave, only visiting Anna on weekends (when she has time); she keeps contact over the phone, but all such talks happens offscreen. It later would be revealed that both the conflict between Anna's parents, and her aunt's job in another city were caused by Klingzor, who wants to separate her from the friends and relatives, as he has a plan for her.
- Fyodor is mentioned to have a mother (a father has died on the war), but she never appears in person. Even when Fyodor gets put into coma.
- Ali's father never appears onscreen. The most effect he plays in the plot is when he gets Killed Offscreen.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Aluvel voluntarily steps down, knowing that not only his friend Titurel loves Spring Dream too, but she loves him in return, and Aluvel doesn't want to ruin their friendship like this.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Sergey Ivanov tells Anya the story how Al Capone's criminal career has ended due to him being arrested for taxes evasion, and says that whatever "evil forces" are involved, they may stop or at least harm them by putting Professor Zero behind the bars and cut their access to the school.
- Kick the Dog: At one point, Muzzle steals Nepomnyashiy's eyeglasses, and drops them in such a way that he would step on them and break them, knowing that he's Blind Without 'Em. He's the nicest teacher in the entire school.
- Killed Off for Real: After dying in Dum-Durg, Imp dies in the wake world as well; unlike what has happened to those who used the Source of Oblivion (which was compared to the death in-universe), this death is final, no reincarnations.
- Large Ham: When Fatso refuses to further participate in the plan (it involves going into coma using drugs, to access the Dream Land), stating that he knows all too well that with drugs, there can not be "just one time", Klingzor quotes him telling directly opposite things to a schoolgrader to convince him to buy some drugs. This leads to this conversation, showing once again that yes, Klingzor can't do things without cheap effects:Fatso: How did you... I was alone, who've told you? How...
Klingzor: You're saying "how" a bit too much, aren't you! Do you still refuse to believe in the obvious? Am I resemble your Professor too much? But I'm not your pathetic Professor, I'm KLINGZOR-R-R!!! - Laser-Guided Amnesia: Blot forgets almost everything about the time spent as the pig, except for some food she was able to eat "in the hospital" (official version), like shrimps.
- Literal Metaphor: Russians often compare jerks and egoists to pigs. Blot gets transformed into a literal pig.
- Living MacGuffin: Klingzor's plan requires him to make Passion Flower root in Dum-Durg; for this he needs a person capable of becoming said flower, and a Weeper to cry over it.
- The person fitting to become a flower is Imp — a reincarnation of the previous Passion Flower, who, in turn, is transformed Glung, Wrapper's brother. It's the main reason why Klingzor needs him, and as soon as he obtains alternative option — Wrapper himself — he decides to kill him, as his heart may help him to provide archeosaurs with immunity to Change-Grass.
- There are two options for Weeper. The first one, whom Klingzor targets initially, is Anna, a reincarnation of the previous Weeper Annabel. But later Klingzor learns that Annabel's predecessor — Spring Dream — was reincarnated too, and now is known as... Masha. He immediately stops hunting for Anya in the Dream Land, and goes for Masha instead, though once she comes into Dum-Durg anyway, he uses Masha as a hostage instead.
- Load-Bearing Boss: As soon as Klingzor loses his second eye duel with Fyodor and gets hit with his own "black mirror", Dum-Durg starts collapsing into Abyss. The heroes only survives because Wrapper carries them away.
- Loss of Identity:
- Going into the Source of Oblivion strips you of your memories and past identity, and sends you back to the wake world, to be reborn anew. Even if you somehow regain the old memories, it would no longer be your old self: sure, you would remember what has happened before, but the person analysing and reacting to those memories would be different.
- As the Dream Land is a reflection of the wake world, mirrors normally don't exists there (unless you somehow bring them from the wake world), as they are literally impossible by the rules on which this world operates: you can't reflect the reflection. If one brings the mirror in anyway and looks into it, it would reflect not their look, but their alternate self from another world. And the longer you look, the closer you would be to actually merging with your reflection until only one would "survive"; and there's no guarantee that it would actually be you; just briefly looking at it is enough to start the process, doing it for longer would make it instant. Anna and Fyodor indeed gets trapped in the past (the last day of their previous incarnations), only Anya gets consumed by Annabel, and Fyodor manages to suppress Burdock, remaining himself. They both ultimately ends up in the Source of Oblivion, and only survives the experience because Anna manages to remember herself, and Fedya never forgot to begin with, so only their past selves ends up erased; had Anya not remembered herself, she would've been erased completely, perishing alongside Annabel.
- Love Makes You Evil: As Suschiy explains, Aziz's example shows that not all kinds of love are good for you. The true love is always sacrificial, you want your beloved to be happy; but Aziz was obsessed with Annabel and wanted her to be his and his alone, to own her like you can own a thing. When people like Aziz don't get what they want, their love turns to hatred towards those they believe are standing on their way.
- Malicious Slander: Death Head moth intentionally lies about the circumstances of Aziz's visit to Annabel, to make Passion Flower angry at her and convince him to turn against her in belief that she no longer needs him nor she cares about him.
- Meaningful Name: Many Awake World characters, both major and minor, have surnames which tells something about their personalities. For example, Galina Boyko, the resident gossiper, in her past life, was a bee named Meduniya -– from the word "myod" ("honey"); how else you can name a bee, right?
- Metaphorically True: Initially, it was told that the math teacher has "Piggy" (paratitis). Then it turns out that she had disappeared... or, rather, was somehow transformed into a pig, literally.
- Missed the Call: Ali was intended as the second hero protecting Anya on her journey in the Dream Land, but due to Klingzor's schemes he goes into troubles in the "real world" and ultimately is the one who needs rescuing himself. Then it gets revealed that Alis was Evil All Along.
- Mordor: The Dum-Durg castle is built beyond the Dream Land, right in the middle of the Abyss, on the fundament made out of souls of people who fell for Klingzor's lies, but can no longer serve him in any other way. Being so close to the Abyss, it has all the nasties, like lilianas, and is inhabited by the loyal servants of Klingzor.
- Morton's Fork: If Masha agrees to cry over Wrapper, she would save him by turning him into second Passion Flower, but would doom the Dream Land, as it would mean Klingzor's victory. If she wouldn't, Wrapper would die, and the Dream Land would die anyway, even if slower.
- Motivational Lie: Aluvel tells his friends that Hallucinations are Klingzor's elite forces, so they would be more motivated to defeat them, and would feel upbeat after succeeding. Unfortunately, then the true elite forces shows up, and he has to explain that the first ones were not the worst obstacles, and the ones they face now — the Heroins — are likely to be not the last either.
- Nervous Wreck: Without Klingzor in his brain, "Professor Zero" is pathetic, scared and weak, without not just any powers, but without even the basic strength of will, who feels uncomfortable even near the school children.
- New Body, Old Abilities: While Anna at least undergoes some training before actually regaining her old-self's memory (and has troubles with using them until she does so), Fyodor learns how to use the Will-Sword on the very first day. In penultimate chapter, it would be revealed that he's a reincarnated Titurel.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Ali throws Imp's bag with drugs and dirty money into a window — right into a fire which was stared under the window shortly before. Unfortunately, Sergey Ivanov was already aware of the story with drug trading and Imp planning to frame Ali up, and was hoped to use Imp and this bag to gain something to use against Fatso and Zausya (and their boss), but now it's not gonna happen, and Fatso wouldn't let his guard down like this again. It would be subverted later, when it turns out that the drugs were not destroyed by this... and that Ali did this intentionally, so another person he works for — Anatoly Kim — may obtain them for himself and use in the negotiations with Klingzor. Yes, Ali was Evil All Along...
- When Sergey Ivanov and his team manages to apprehend Professor (currently not inhabited by Klingzor, and thus weak), Masha, when learns about this, decides to arrive, despite Sergey asking her not to, so she may look at him and defeat her fear... just in time for Klingzor to return, hypnotise one of the cops to knock out two others, and inject Masha with the last dosage of drug, sending her to the Dream Land too. Sergey himself only survives because the previously escaped pig comes back and kicks Klingzor, breaking the hypnosis and forcing Klingzor to leave the body again.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Fatso was more or less loyal to Klingzor, but when Klingzor put him into the Dream Land by force, it caused him to reunite with his better half, and resurrected Camelot, while "Fatso" vanished.
- The Not-Love Interest: It gets explicitly stated early in story that there's no romantic attachment between Anna and Fyodor, as Fyodor was already taken by Masha when the story even started; they are just best friends, and both are fine with it. As with almost everyone in their class, their backstory is tied to the Dream Land and Annabel's flower kingdom.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: One of Fatso's underlings is called Palyoniy.note . His real name never gets revealed.
- Origins Episode:
- Several chapters have "dream-within-dream" subtitle, and tells the past of various characters, including their past incarnations.
- In one of the chapters, Anna and Fyodor finds the pages containing poetry about Aluvel and his first attempt to fight Klingzor (which went bad), origin of Wrapper, origin of the fantasaurs (which expands on what Aluvel has told her), and how Camelot ended up in the Abyss (causing him to reincarnate). Unfortunately, none of the documents is complete, as the papers were messed up, and Fyodor had used some of them to fuel the campfire before they even realised what it is. All of this would be expanded upon in later chapters.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The archeosaurs are the evil creatures made of the Abyss, who are part-animals, part-plants and even part-minerals. They were hostile to the then-newborn Dream Land, but were forced to retreat to the Abyss once the method to turn them into friendly fantosaurs was discovered (which fought against their former kin). Klingzor plans to gain them as his allies once he gather enough power to break them through the surface of the Abyss (which they can't do on their own... for now).
- The Outsider Befriends the Best: Subverted. Anya (later joined by Fyodor) is an ordinary eleven-year-old who visits the Land of Dreams and befriends one of its queens Mirabel, a famous magician and wanderer Aluvel, and the legendary Lonesome Knight. However, as her memories gradually return, she is revealed to be Annabel, one of the queens and founders of the Land of Dreams and Mirabel's sister, born again on Earth.
- Past-Life Memories: Aluvel tries to make Anna remember her past life, as she's gonna need her past incarnation's skills very soon. But the events escalate too quickly, forcing her to train on her own. She would learn the key events of her past life at later points of the story.
- Perilous Power Source: Sure, the Sources give you great abilities if you bath in them. But only select few can see that the Sources are actually differently coloured; doing so blindly risks you ending up in the Source of Oblivion and losing your identity. It's not elaborated upon, but the "normal" Sources may be dangerous too if you overdo them or use the ones you don't really need.
- Phlebotinum Analogy: Realising that he has not enough time to explain things, the Raven compares the Abyss to the river which acts as the borderline between the worlds, and the dreams floating on its surface to the ice floes. Except the normal river usually wouldn't kill you if you fall into it...
- Point of No Return: Klingzor manages to collapse the bridge after all, and while the heroes successfully travels on the other side as Aluvel carries over Camelot, and Anna grows wings and carries Fyodor, it's clear that they wouldn't make it back the same way until they deal with Klingzor... or die trying.
- Posthumous Character: In a way, all characters from the flashbacks ("dream-within-dream") chapters, as they all were reincarnated and have lost their memories, becoming different people, with their own experience and memories. The souls are still alive, and some traces of the original peoples are still there, but the original persons are gone (Mirabel explicitly says so about Annabel). Imp, Pimple and Muzzle seems to be exceptions, which may or may not be related to them being Klingzor's servants.
- Power Source: The seven sisters each are associated with some powers which fuels the Dream Land (Mirabel, in particular, is associated with Knowledge). At some point they decided to create the hidden Sources which can grant them their untainted power in case of emergency to either themselves, or the people who need them, in the remote place of the Dream Land. To gain the powers, one needs to bath in them.
- Redemption Equals Death: In the end, Imp sacrifices his life to save his brother Wrapper, which earns him forgiveness. When the heroes awakes, they learn that Imp had perished in the wake world as well. Even Fyodor, who hated him, admits that he had some nobility after all.
- Reincarnation: Some of the wake world humans involved in the plot are reincarnations of the old heroes (and sometimes villains — or, in one case, just the jerk) who either perished or fell into Abyss:
- Anna Rusakova was Annabel, the Queen of Flowers.
- Bidya Sansaron used to be known as Badmuy, and he finally reached nirvana, before he chose to return to human form again, realising that the world needs him. This caused him to be reborn as Bidiya.
- Fyodor Streltsov and Masha Myshkina were flowers in in the Dream Land (burdock and forget-me-not, respectively), the subjects of the Queen of Flowers, and became close friends back then already. In the penultimate chapter, Aziz would also reveal that Burdock, in turn, is a reincarnation of Titurel, Aluvel's close friend, who perished in the Abyss and was reincarnated, while Forget-Me-Not is a reincarnation of the Spring Dream, a woman loved by both Titurel and Aluvel.
- Eduard "Imp" Obernibesov is the reincarnation of Wrapper's brother, who, some time after being turned into fantasaur, became the Passion Flower, the heart of the flower kingdom, but ultimately was reincarnated due to the Source of Oblivion. By the end of the story he remembers his past Heel–Face Turn, and makes the final Heroic Sacrifice to save the day.
- Serafim "Pimple" Pryschev was the worm Uglind who originally convinced Imp (then — the Passion Flower) to betray the Queen of Flowers and jump into the Source of Oblivion.
- Nonna "Muzzle" Mordar' was a moth of "Death Head" species, who was already associated with Klingzor back then and assisted him by spreading the poisonous lies. She, alongside Uglind, was the one who convinced Imp to go evil, back when he was still the Passion Flower.
- Vladimir "Fatso" Koscheev is the knight Camelot (or, rather, the part of his soul), whose soul was broken apart, with one part enslaved by Klingzor and reincarnated in the wake world. Once the story ends, Camelot returns to his body in the wake world, now as a hero.
- Ali is Aziz, Anna's (or, rather, her previous incarnation's) Abhorrent Admirer, who's actually in league with the villains.
- Galya Boyko, the resident dimwitted gossiper, is a reincarnation of the bee Meduniya, a gossiper as well, who had no standards when it comes to sources of information (it may even be someone associated with Klingzor); sometimes, she even flat-out makes stuff up. Despite her sharing background with other characters, it plays no role in the plot.
- Reincarnation Romance: Even after two reincarnations, Fyodor and Masha are still together.
- Riddle for the Ages: Anna recognises the bee Meduniya as the past incarnation of the gossiper Galya Boyko. At what circumstances she was reincarnated, and not just somewhere, but in the wake world? It never gets answered.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Bidiya senses Ali being held hostage in his own house; but when the heroes arrive there, they only find Klingzor's minions drugged to comatose condition, and... Fatso being tied up instead of Ali (and also drugged). Ali was indeed captured by Klingzor, but it was before Ali revealed to Klingzor who he is, and for whom he works, convincing Klingzor to cooperate with "Mentor", Ali's new boss; the reason why Bidiya was able to sense him but not Fatso is because he spent more time being tied, and leaved stronger "trace".
- Sadistic Teacher: The local school has bad luck with teachers; excluding outright villains who managed to infiltrate the school (Professor Zero and Anatoly Kim), they have:
- The math teacher, who has a habit of lowering grades for whatever tiniest excuse she can find.
- The principal, who often screams at students if they screw up in any way, angrily yelling at them that they would end up in jail.
- The history teacher, who has a habit of putting all students in line and keeping asking them for dates of certain events and subtracting one grade for each mistake right until they reach an "F" grade; he does that until he runs out of either the dates, or the students. There's a reason why he was nicknamed "Pinochet". He's considered to be an improvement over the previous teacher (who died from old age), who was nicknamed "the Ghost of Communism", and who was even nastier and borderline vile.
- Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Bidiya volunteers to spy on Klingzor by acting like a "transmitter": he would see and hear Klingzor and whoever is near him, and vocalise it for Suschiy and Masha (but wouldn't actually memorise much of that himself). It works right until Klingzor shouts his name particularly loudly, which stuns Bidiya and causes him to faint.
- Sequel Hook: The story ends with "Mentor" escaping, while the heroes finds that the mystical key they have discovered while traveling in the Dream Land is still with them, not knowing what purpose it serves. However, sequel never comes.
- Sixth Ranger:
- Towards the end of the story, Aluvel finally personally joins Anna, Fyodor and Camelot on their journey to Dum-Durg, and assists them in the final battle against Klingzor.
- Aluvel has tried to train Sergey Antonov (who, for whatever reason, refers to him as a penguin; possibly due to associations with ice flows) the way he may travel to the Dream Land and join the adventure, clearly seeing him as the right person for that task, but Sergey struggles to actually perform what was required of him. But towards the end, he feels remorse over letting down Masha and the others (especially since Masha was just abducted by Klingzor), and, with the help of... some amount of vodka, manages to join in the final battle and rescue the heroes when they are about to be overrun.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Knyazeva believes that her surname indicates that she has some aristocracy in her family line, and is extremely arrogant about it, despite having absolutely no proof of that. Naturally, Fyodor mocks her surname when she acts too annoyingly, which she can't counter at all.
- The Starscream: After dealing with Wrapper and Camelot, Glung was attacked by his strongest warrior whom he took with himself as officially it was supposed to be a duel (Glung versus Wrapper, said warrior versus Camelot). Glung survived, but was heavily wounded, which led to his capture and him becoming the fantasaur himself (and later becoming the Passion Flower).
- Storming the Castle: The climax of the story involves literally storming Klingzor's castle, Dum-Durg, in attempt to stop his evil plan.
- Suddenly Shouting: When Anna and Fyodore gets knocked out and nearly killed, Klingzor talks to Imp in calm, almost parent-like tone, and then suddenly, without a pause, yells at the drug dealers (who nearly botched his years-long plan by doing so) on top of his lungs, scaring the crap out of them.
- Sycophantic Servant: Zausya serves Fatso and always tries to say or do something which would please him. He acts even more pathetically near Klingzor. Ultimately, he gets literally transformed into a mean little dog.
- Take That!: After seeing some "faces" familiar to her by various horror movies (including Franchise/Godzilla) amongst the Hallucinations — Klingzor's "elite" forces — Anna wonders whether the creators of those movies have visited the Dum-Durg at some point... and if yes — as who? Considering the ways Klingzor uses to attract visitors...
- Theme Naming:
- While only two sisters were introduced (Mirabel and Annabel), it's safe to assume that the rest are also named with "-el" at the end of their names.
- Klingzor's minions (those created by him, not those who have joined him, like lilians), fittingly, have drug-themed names. Generic infantry are called "hallucinations", while his elite forces are called "heroins".
- There Is Another: Towards the end of the story, Klingzor learns about the old "pact" Masha did with Pimple (back when they were Forget-Me-Not and Uglind, respectively, but it's still valid), and realises that she may be used as the replacement Weeper instead of Anna... much more obedient and easy to break into compliance. Due to Masha's mistake, he manages to inject her with the last dosage of drug, and send her to Dum-Durg.
- Token Minority: While most characters in the wake world are ethnic Russians, there are some exceptions amongst both the students and the teachers; we have Ali Mukhammedov (a muslim of unknown ethnicity native to Caucasus), Bidiya Sansaron (a buddhist from Buryatiya) and P.E. teacher Anatoly Eugenievich Kim (a Russian-Korean).
- Uncertain Doom:
- It's unknown what has happened with Zausya and Ali/Aziz after destruction of Dum-Durg. While with Zausya it's likely that he shared the same fate as Pimple and Muzzle (being dumbed down to near vegetable), Aziz was last seen fighting Camelot, the battle he was losing. He certainly couldn't escape, as the first thing Camelot did is to cut off his wings.
- Once Klingzor gets defeated, he falls into Abyss. As we already know, the results may be unpredictable, and Klingzor has survived it once (in one way or another), so it's not possible to say what would happen to him. But for now, he's disposed of.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Zausya after battle for Dum-Durg?
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Sergey Ivanov's boss was very angry and not only not willing to allow him to take Vladimir as his intern, but being on the verge of kicking out Sergey himself. Fyodor somehow saves the situation by vouching for Vladimir in formal, very serious tone (even addressing him in military format, like he used to speak with his father) and saying that he used to know Vladimir as a villain, but after knowing him better over this week, he can say for sure that he has changed and is now worth of trust, with others agreeing. This surprises the boss and convinces him to give Vladimir a chance. He still refuses to promote Sergey to major, though, due to his previous screwups, like him being busted drinking with a pig in his house.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Fatso was ready to kill Imp if he causes any problems, no matter who his father is. Even if Imp is already an asshole, he's still eleven years old, while Fatso is in the final grade (meaning he's 17 or 18).
- Palyoniy is of the same age as Fatso, but he's perfectly fine with hitting Fyodor and Anna (both are eleven years old) in the head with a piece of metal, putting them into coma.
- Professor's gang, including Fatso, are drug dealers who sells drugs to school-graders, knowing perfectly well what it would do to them and feeling no remorse, even lying to clients about their true danger.
- You Have Failed Me: Doubly Subverted with Palyoniy. Klingzor reacts so badly to him hitting Anna and Fyodor into head and putting them into coma (thus nearly ruining Klingzor's eleven years-long search Anya, who's vital for his plans), that it's clear that he's about to kill him. But then he decides to spare him after all... and force him to take all the blame for attack, which would put him behind the bars for a long time, possibly forever.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- Klingzor goes into rage when he realises that Kim has ignored his request and didn't protect his body from harm while Klingzor was busy in the Dream Land, resulting in said body being beaten up and arrested. But then he decides that he's gonna replace this body anyway, and leaves it, allowing Professor to be arrested: Klingzor no longer needs this weak-willed drug dealer, especially since he's became too notorious.
- With Wrapper in his hands, Klingzor no longer needs Imp, so he plans to cut off his heart and use it to give archeosaurus immunity to the Change-Grass. Imp doesn't take it well.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: In both the Dream Land and the "wake world" (Earth), strong enough belief in your powers may indeed give them to you; but in both worlds, those native to them have mostly lost those powers due to growing up convinced that they are impossible. In the Dream Land, they call those who come from the wake world "those who live awake", as they're able to show powers which are borderline magic for them (like manifesting their pure strength of will into the Will-Swords). Those native to Dream Land, like Klingzor, or those who are related to its creation, like Aluvel, may manifest them in the wake world as well; it's actually the reason why Klingzor reincarnated several of his minions: this made them "those-who-live-awake", so, by restoring their memories, they would gain the powers in both worlds, giving Klingzor a way to conquer both the Dream Land and the wake world (something he can't do by alone, magic or not, being just a single man).
