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Literature / The Guardians of Time Trilogy

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The Guardians of Time is a trilogy by Marianne Curley about a group of Differently Powered Individuals who are identified and trained to be members of The Guard from a very young age to fight the Order Of Chaos.

Remember the Golden Age of yore, a few years back with a utopian society and magitek? Right, you don't, because it didn't exist now. The Order is run by Lathenia, an immortal Goddess who tries to create chaos in the world by sending members of the Order back in time to Make Wrong What Once Went Right. She ultimately aims to kill her brother Lorian, another immortal who is in charge of the Guard.

The books focus on the adventures of a small group of teenagers who live in Angel Falls, which just happens to be right above the ancient city of Veridian and the location and subject of an ancient prophecy. This prophecy details roles for The Named in a battle for creation that is just around the corner. The Named are unidentified and the overarching plot consists of finding the nine chosen people, working out who does what and kicking chaotic ass.The trilogy consists of ''The Named'', ''The Dark'' and ''The Key''.

A character sheet can be found here.


This trilogy provides examples of:

  • Because Destiny Says So: As almost everything depends on the Prophecy, the fact that the Named all know each other and congregate to Angel Falls is explained away as this.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Played with in the form of King Richard II, who's rescued from certain death to become a member of the time travel Tribunal.
    • Ethan's narration at the beginning implies that most of history as it's known is the result of both factions of time-travelers working behind the scenes to change or preserve events.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Matt spends most of the first book making a show of this trope.
  • The Dragon: Marduke, renegade Guard hero and strong right hand to Lathenia.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: This is Isabel's second skill. It also counts as a (only somewhat justified) case of New Powers as the Plot Demands, manifesting suddenly in the second book where it is instrumental, and then fading into the background.
  • Flight, Strength, Heart: Ethan, whose powers consist of a form of telekinesis, creating illusions and instinct, or the power to fulfill the prophecy.
  • Healing Hands: This is Isabel's primary power, and it gets used fairly often, to the point you wonder how Ethan ever survived to mentor her.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Realistically, there is nothing Ethan as a small child could have done to save his little sister from Marduke. Nevertheless, this failure to protect her and the resulting guilt drive him to join the Guard, and to excel.
  • Love Makes You Evil: This is actually what happened to Marduke, on a mission to the past he fell in love with a future plague victim, and was willing to defy the laws of time and the guard to save her.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Lorian reveals to Arkarian that he is Arkarian's father, making Arkarian a demigod.
  • At the end of the first book, Ethan expects to be expelled from the Guard for abandoning his friends for the start of the crucial battle and breaking their prime rule of non-interference with history by rescuing King Richard. Instead, it turns out that he was merely following the promptings of The Prophecy, and he is granted his wings (teleportation) – the highest honor the Guard can bestow and a sign of trust, and something he has been wanting since before the start of the book.
  • Prophecies Are Always Right: Zig-zagged. The prophecy is, technically, always correct. However, this is because the prophecy sometimes changes when history is altered. Change the cause, alter the effect.
  • Averted with Dillon, who had absolutely no problems with getting the others to trust him.
  • Time Travel: Central to the plot, as the villains try to alter history for their advantage, and the heroes try and stop them. This particular universe has the time-travellers fall asleep in the present, visit the Citadel in their dreams and from there possess the bodies of real people in the past.
  • Upgrade Artifact: In the last book, all the nine Named get an individual weapon that works well with their combat style and a surprise power upgrade unrelated to the new wepaons.
  • Weirdness Censor: At its worst in The Key when all the main characters are raised into the air in public, the school is attacked by hundreds of slightly demonic rats and Ethan runs (to Isabel, the healer) with a severely wounded Mr Carter, to the shock of his teachers. The consequences of this aren't really explored further than Carter's Hand Wave.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: Presumably the basis of Ethan's skill, described as the power to bring "reality into an illusion". Rochelle and Isabel are also faced with this in The Key, when they're in the Underworld.

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