History Literature / ShadesChildren

* ActionGirl: All of the girls in Shade's Children. Ninde and Ella are both the female main characters who we see in the story. Ella is especially shows she's very skilled with a sword and other weapons too.

* ForScience: Shade realizes he's falled into this, having his Children go on Missions to retrieve things more for his scientific curiosity than any help in the fight with the Overlords, no matter how many died, were caught or injured in doing so.

In the third of Creator/GarthNix's books, TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture society has been toppled by an event called the Change, when everyone over the age of 14 suddenly disappeared. The remaining children have been rounded up and sent to prison camps called the Dormitories, where they wait in fear for their 14th birthday (referred to as a Sad Birthday), when the Overlords come to take them away, cut open their bodies and use their organs - especially brains - to build Creatures in the Meat Factory, which are then used in battles between the Overlords. However, some children manage to escape the Dormitories, evade the clutches of the Trackers, Wingers, Ferrets, Myrmidons, Myrmidon Masters, and the Overlords and find a safe refuge in an underground submarine controlled by an entity know as Shade, who appears to be the very last adult alive...[[VirtualGhost for a given value of "alive"]]. Some of these children have developed supernatural powers, known as Change Talents, as a side effect of whatever caused the Change.

Gold-Eye, who escaped and has been on the run, is rescued by one of Shade's Teams, which consists of his future teammates - Ella, Drum, and Ninde. Now the escapee children must come up with a plan to defeat the Overlords and return the world to as it was prior to the Change.

!!Provides Examples Of:

* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The Overlords, while not a traditional example (since they may or may not actually be human) are described in this way - ordinary people you could have walked by in a supermarket without a second glance, no monstrous characteristics at all. Unlike their Creatures.

* WeatherControl: The Overlords have this ability with their Change energy, and frequently use it in ways which benefit them.

* {{Telepathy}}:
** Ninde's Change Talent. She's capable of hearing creatures' thoughts, and those of the Overlords, though not humans'.
** The Overlords themselves communicate mostly by telepathy, as do their top servants.

* {{Cyborg}}: The creatures turn out to be this. Along with being altered to their forms, they also have [[MindControlDevice brain implants which make them obey the Overlords]].

* {{Cyborg}}: The creatures turn out to be this. Along with being altered to their forms, they also have [[MindControlDevice brain implants which make them obey the Overlords]].

* EvilCostumeSwitch: Metaphysical example. [[spoiler:As Shade's humanity deteriorates, he abandons his glamourous human avatar and places his consciousness in a large, terrifying spider robot. When he redeems himself, he appears using a hologram much similar to the real Robert Ingram, imperfections and all.]]
* FangsAreEvil: Silver Sun, the leader of the overlords and the progenitor of the invasion, has teeth filed to points.

* ForTheEvulz: Pretty much the only in-universe reason the Overlords did what they did, unless you subscribe to BlueAndOrangeMorality.

* ThePowerOfCreation: Ella, the leader's Change Talent. She's a tactician and combat specialist, a very practical and pragmatic young woman who's trained herself to cope with the world as it is to the point where she fears being unable to adjust to the world as it could be, should the Overlords be defeated.
* PsychicPowers: Change Talents, which are PersonalityPowers.

* {{Seers}}: Gold-Eye is precognitive, a nervous and twitchy boy who sees danger in every shadow.

* TeenageWasteland: Aside from Shade, there are no adults around any more. [[spoiler:Unless you count the Overlords. [[HumanoidAbomination Which you shouldn't]].]]
* {{Telepathy}}: Ninde's Change Talent. She's an extremely extroverted and talkative girl who voices her own thoughts at the drop of a hat.
* ThereAreNoAdults: With one highly technical exception.

* ThisIsReality: Ninde watches far too many movies, much to Ella's irritation. This leads to her making clumsy attempts to court Gold-Eye, such as pressing his head to her bosom. Of course, he doesn't catch on until he watches Shade's Sex-Ed film. [[spoiler:They don't have sex onscreen, but they do have children in the DistantFinale.]]

%%* FangsAreEvil: Silver Sun, who has teeth filed to points.

%%* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: [[spoiler:Shade.]]

%%* VirtualGhost: Shade.

* CatScare: Quite literally.

* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler:Ella and Drum, TogetherInDeath]].
* {{Dimension Lord}}s: The Overlords.

* FangsAreEvil: Silver Sun, who has teeth filed to points.
* FatBastard: Red Diamond.

* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: [[spoiler:Shade.]]

* TheManBehindTheMonsters: The Overlords look exactly like human adults. Normal ones, for the most part. They are only more horrifying for it.

* ThePowerOfCreation: Ella, the leader's Change Talent. She's a tactician and combat specialist; a very practical and pragmatic young woman who's trained herself to cope with the world as it is to the point where she fears being unable to adjust to the world as it could be, should the Overlords be defeated.

* SupernaturalGoldEyes: Gold-Eye.

* VirtualGhost: Shade.

* ApocalypticLog: Coincides with DeadManWriting. The escaped children often make video-logs, knowing that their next mission may be their last, and the book's main stylistic quirk is having one before every chapter. There are also snippets of memorial lists, recorded footage, Shade's private musings and so on. It all adds up to one conclusion, which is that [[spoiler:[[NotSoDifferent Shade is not as different from the Overlords as he'd like to believe]]. He just leaves the brains in when he sends children marching off to die]].

----
!Provides Examples Of:

* MugglePower: A possible explanation for the Overlords. The Overlords are positively shocked when they learn the children have powers...and then intrigued by what use they could have in their games.

* PsychicPowers: Change Talents, which are PersonalityPowers

* BadassGrandma: Gold Claw, one of the warlike Overlords, is described as a wrinkled old woman.

[[quoteright:270:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shades_children_garth_nix.jpg]]

* DiedHappilyEverAfter: Ella and Drum, TogetherInDeath.

* [[spoiler:BittersweetEnding: The cyborg children all die, the Change powers fade, no one will ever know where the adults went and half of the strike team in the final assault died of exposure to lethal amounts of Change radiation, but the Overlords seem to be gone for good and the radiation has dissipated, allowing humanity to return to normal at last, with time.]]

* [[spoiler:CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Subverted. When Shade's identity begins to fragment and he begins to understand he's become HeWhoFightsMonsters, he initially attempts to convince himself this is the case...then he realizes that, even if that is true, he still chose to embrace that side of himself.]]
* [[spoiler:DiedHappilyEverAfter: Ella and Drum, TogetherInDeath.]]

* [[spoiler:HeWhoFightsMonsters: Shade. Even when he betrays the children to the Overlords, he seems sure that he's doing it for their own good. It's only after he's called out for his amoral behavior that he starts feeling guilt for what he's done.]]
* [[spoiler:HumanoidAbomination: The Overlords. They look like humans, but they communicate with telepathy (and have to learn human speech), come from ''elsewhere'', see all beings outside their origin place as animals, and have no problem whatsoever with crushing the local population and using its children as raw material to make soldiers to play games with.]]
* [[spoiler:LightIsNotGood: Shade's hologram losing some of his good looks is the visual representation of his final HeelFaceTurn.]]

* [[spoiler:[[TheManBehindTheMonsters The Men And Women Behind The Monsters]]: The Overlords look exactly like human adults. Normal ones, for the most part. They are only more horrifying for it.]]

* PsychicPowers, overlapping with PersonalityPowers:
** [[{{Seers}} Precognition]]: Gold-Eye, a nervous and twitchy boy who sees danger in every shadow.
** {{Telepathy}}: Ninde, an extremely extroverted and talkative girl who voices her own thoughts at the drop of a hat.
** [[MindOverMatter Telekinesis]]: Drum. Interestingly, he was a muscular child fed steroids to grow even more huge and now much stronger physically than the average telekinetic.
** [[ThePowerOfCreation Conjuring/Creation]]: Ella, the leader, tactician and combat specialist; a very practical and pragmatic young woman who's trained herself to cope with the world as it is to the point where she fears being unable to adjust to the world as it could be, should the Overlords be defeated.

* [[spoiler:TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: The Overlords, while not a traditional example (since they may or may not actually be human) are described in this way - ordinary people you could have walked by in a supermarket without a second glance, no monstrous characteristics at all. Unlike their Creatures.]]

* AppliedPhlebotinum: The Change. Because of it, the adults vanished, the Overlords arrived, Shade came to power, the children gained their Talents, and the Creatures can exist. [[spoiler:Ultimately, it's revealed there's some sort of unique radiation or energy field powering all the effects of the Change, and it has a source. Once the source is destroyed, all the reversible effects of the Change are undone instantly.]]

* TheBigGuy: Drum. A very tragic example of the trope. [[spoiler:The chemicals that built up his muscular frame also rendered him totally sterile and shrunk his genitalia. In a sense, he's been chemically castrated, and even refers to himself as a eunuch.]]

* ManInTheMachine: Shade.

* TorturedAbomination: Every one of the Creatures. Every single one. They're implanted with devices to keep their thought patterns suited to their roles, but these devices sometimes fail, and then there's a human child in the mind of a monstrous thing, unable to stop him or herself from attacking other Creatures and rounding up other children.

* [[spoiler:CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Subverted. When Shade's identity begins to fragment and he begins to understand he's become HeWhoFightsMonsters, he initially attempts to convince himself this is the case...then he realizes that, even if that is true, he's still chose to embrace that side of himself.]]