Literature / The Legend of Sun Knight

“The benevolent God of Light will forgive your sins.”
I must have said that line at least a million times in my time as the Sun Knight.
However, the greatest wish in my life is to be able to stand before the entire continent and roar, “Damn your ‘the whole continent knows’! This Sun Knight just doesn’t feel like smiling! I just don’t want to forgive these human trashes! I just want to pepper my sentences with ‘f***’!”

— The Sun Knight

The Legend of Sun Knight or Legend of the Sun Knight (depending on who you ask) is a series of Taiwanese novels written by Yu Wo, following the adventures and misadventures of the thirty-eighth generation Sun Knight and the other 11 holy knights. In 2010, it was adapted into a manhua drawn by Os Rabbit Cat/Neko Kreus.

In theory, the Sun Knight is kind, merciful and will never abandon a life. He always smiles and praises the Light God in every sentence; he doesn't drink or swear; he is pure-minded. In practice...not so much - he's a closet pervert, has a ridiculously high tolerance for liquor and a large swearing vocabulary. The rest of the Holy Knights are pretty similar, with expected personalities completely different to their real ones. Now add in two other major religions competing with the Church of the God of Light, a fat pig of a king, and more darkness and evil in the world than you can shake a stick at, and you have a pretty good idea of what The Legend of Sun Knight is like.

Translations for the novel can be found here.

For other works by the same author Yu Wo, see ½ Prince and Eclipse Hunter.

Now with a characters sheet

The series as a whole provides examples of:

• Accidental Truth: To save his own skin, The fat pig king accuses Roland, a former Royal Knight, of seducing the princess. Turns out, there was in fact a Royal Knight who was secretly the princess's lover...
• Aerith and Bob: Some characters have fantastic names like Creus (or Grisia, depending on the translation) and Leithe (or Lesus), then they have common names like Elijah, Ed and Roland.
• Against the Grain: This turns out to be the case for just about all of the Knights, who are chosen early in childhood by the current Knight as a replacement. Not just in skill, appearance and ability, the Knights are forced to adopt the personalities, likes, dislikes and even relationships of the original Knights to preserve the sense of continuity of their organization.
  • Sun is forced to act as a Chaste Hero, be best buddy to Earth Knight (they sabotage each other's flirtation attempts whenever they see each other), an alcoholic who pretends to faint after three cups, can use all magical elements but has to restrict himself to Light, and is best friends with Judgement Knight but has to show polite contempt as the originals couldn't stand each other.
  • Storm Knight is a Casanova flirting with every woman he sees and skipping out on his duties. In reality he's a workaholic spymaster (and still a virgin).
  • Cloud Knight is an agoraphobe, Stone Knight is easygoing but is supposed to be stubborn, while Moon Knight has to appear to look down on everyone... and as a result, literally cannot lower his head.
• Agent Peacock: Creus is forced to be this due to the Sun Knight's image.
• All Work vs. All Play: The Storm Knight is the embodiment of this trope. On the outside, he's a guy who's always winking at ladies, speaking his mind to whoever he wants, and skipping out on all his meetings. On the inside, he's a workaholic who knows every secret worth knowing, or at least knows how to find them out, and often seen carrying piles of paperwork or being buried in them. Sun often worries that Storm will work himself to death.
• Ambadassador: The Sun Knight has the duty of upholding justice, but doing so in a peaceful manner. If that doesn't work, he works behind the scenes, using all his intellect and resources to reach his goals. He even uses people as unknowing pawns if it'll help him. And he doesn't mind secretly rubbing it in when his "victim" is cornered by his plan.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Sun. As much as he'd like to find a lovely woman, he never seems able to...
  • Averted when Charlotte kidnaps him. He's not really interested in her, romantically speaking. That might be because she's taking him away from home. He doesn't like that very much.
• Anger Born of Worry: Sun and Judge chuck this trope at each other like they're playing catch or something.
• Anime Catholicism: The references make no attempt at subtly: The Pope, the God of Light, - who's symbol is a cross, by the way - but it doesn't go so far as to deal with the actual religion of Catholicism. Mostly it's used for aesthetic appeal. After all, since when have Catholics allowed female priests?
  • Has a bit of Fantastic Catholicism sprinkled in; holy light comes from the God of Light, and it's deadly to any creatures of darkness.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: When Sun is trying to find out which noble has a hobby for torturing people, Storm tells him that most nobles share that interest.
• Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Although he (usually) has good intentions, most of Sun's schemes include at least one questionable act. It helps that the main person to notice that he's breaking rules while resolving problems is Judge, who's willing to turn a blind eye on what his friend does.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The Twelve Holy Knights are the highest order of the Church of Light and their prowess makes them practically living, breathing gods.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Sun is the medieval version, even though he can never seem to maintain the image.
• Bad Liar: Roland is one, which is how Sun knew he was lying when he said the Crown Prince was the one who tortured him to death.
• Batman Gambit: The plan to overthrow the fat pig king relies on the king hiding and listening in on Sun and Judge's attempt to stop Roland, the king being an idiot when he hears Roland's motive, Blaze losing his temper, Roland losing his temper, and the royal and holy knights distracting one another from Roland. The number of people Sun had to predict the actions of really hammers home his Chess Master skills.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Sun - the masculine variation of the trope - regularly inverts this by getting sweaty, smelly, bloody, bruised, sliced and so on. The “smelly” part tends to bother him more than the rest.
  Sun: *to himself, after several days without washing* I should be called the stinky knight!

Note that it's a legitimate concern, since everyone expects the Sun Knight to be perfect in every way. Sun has to spend a lot of time and money on beauty products and treatments (and skin care was a major part of his curriculum)

• Belated Injury Realization: Sun experiences a particularly amusing example when the Death Knight slashes his back open. He spends the rest of the chapter getting annoyed with Leaf's anxious, distracting questions, which turn out to be fully justified when Sun topples over. The sight of his own pool of blood on the ground actually shocks Sun.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Leaf is a nice guy, but he is terrifying if you're on the opposite side in a fight, according to Sun. He is also kinda into "voodoo" and using Sun's hair and fingernails for it.
  • For that matter, Sun. He may spout platitudes in every sentence, constantly smile and appear to forgive you for all your sins, but that's just the image he has to portray. The rule among the Twelve Holy Knights themselves is "No matter how lame/foolish the Sun Knight looks,]] never ever provoke his wrath."
• Berserk Button: Do NOT, I repeat: DO NOT harm any member of the Twelve Holy Knights if you don't want Creus to go into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and make you pay in the most horrible way, becouse he WILL get you, no matter who you are.
  • He even dares to do this to a princess from the neighboring country by giving her a recipe of a whitening face mask that turns the poor woman's face into the colour of charcoal for killing the Leaf Knight.
• Bishonen: Pretty much all the holy knights to some extent; taken up to eleven by the first volume of the manhua and toned down thereafter.
• Bishie Sparkle: So, so much in the first manhua volume.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Sun himself has some seriously selfish tendencies that are only exacerbated by his perfect Sun Knight act. For example, he reprimands his squad for beating up a noble who'd attacked Sun, as the God of Light wants his followers to practice forgiveness. His vice-captain Adair decides that they'll beat the culprit until he begs forgiveness. Sun clarifies that the Sun Squad cannot be associated with acts of violence. Adair declares they'll put a bag over the nob's head so he won't know who's beating him. Sun silently congratulates Adair for being so quick to grasp his captain's meaning.
• Blind Seer: The Sun Knight, after he sacrifices his sight to resurrect the Leaf Knight. He compensates for his blindness with his inborn magical ability known as the Elemental Perception, which enables him to perceive the elemental structure of things around him.
• Break the Cutie: Judgement Knight in his training.
  • Ice Knight's training was this, too, as revealed in his side story.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Sun. Not too many people can handle three dangerous liches, Silent Eagle and his Church, untold numbers of undead creatures, the largest coalition in eons between the Church of Light and the adventurers of the continent, and yet try to turn everything into one big game.
• Brutal Honesty: Sun is furious when Judge bluntly admits that he doesn't completely trust Sun's word about murdering the Death Knight. That honesty hurts, because Sun has a little habit of Pay Evil unto Evil; not that Sun's Moral Event Horizon ever gone that far before, but it's more that Judge isn't too convinced that it's not a possibility for Sun. Sun's glare could melt steel.
• Bullying a Dragon: People picking on Sun just cause he's a Not-so-good ^note Rotten swordsman.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: All twelve knights count.
• But Thou Must!: Sun has to go to Pink for help. Even though he already sold his soul to her in return for a past favor.
  • For those who don't understand, it's more like Pink forces him to agree to be resurrected as a Death Knight using necromancy to work for her after his death.
• Came Back Strong: Leaf. His eyesight is even more amazing than before he was killed, although the resurrection did cost Sun his own sight.
  • Subverted at the beginning of volume seven, with Sun.
• Came Back Wrong: The results of a botched Resurrection.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Subverted. The Sun Knight is supposed to be this, turning red on the first cup, getting a headache on the second and keeling over unconscious on the third. In order to achieve this, every generation of Sun Knights has been a strong alcoholic.
• The Casanova: What the Storm Knight is supposed to be; the current Earth Knight actually is one, though.
• Celibate Hero: Sun Knights are supposed to love only God and not women, making them this. The current generation Sun Knight is not happy about it.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Seen often, from character descriptions to hints leading up to Sun's big plans.
• Clear My Name: Sun, when accused of murdering the Death Knight.
• Corrupt Church: Played with, with the Temple of the Light God. The Pope may be a greedy, underhanded trickster, Sun might blackmail people into helping him, (and be blackmailed back) but throughout the books, and especially starting in volume six it's shown that the Temple of the God of Light to some level really care about the people they're supposed to protect. Sun even articulates it when he rescues young Blaze from Pink's clutches:
  Pink:If I were afraid of the Holy Temple, why would I dare to live here? Sun, think about it; why does the Temple of the God of Light put up with me living here?

  Young Sun: Because they don't want to anger you...
  *Blaze frowns in disgust at the weakness and cowardice of the Church*

  Young Sun: That still doesn't mean the Holy Temple is afraid of you! The city is filled with innocent people, and fighting you might end with thousands of dead people. You couldn't care less about them, but the Temple cannot not care! So long as you don't hurt people, the Holy Temple tolerates your presence, but if you dare harm anyone, the Holy Temple definitely, definitely will not let you. *glaring Pink down*
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Creus Sun versus Silent Eagle. The one who lost is not the lazy fop who constantly worries about his retirement fund and beauty regimen.
  • End of volume six. Sun didn't stand a chance...
• Curse That Cures: Sun's okay with risking world destruction in order to save the world. He's also convinced that staying a sun knight will get him killed. Doesn't take him long to make a choice.
• Cursed with Awesome: Appears a few times
  • The process of becoming a witch is to curse yourself to get power.
  • Sun, after going blind, develops a quasi-X-ray, quasi-infrared, 360º, several hundred meters ratio "sight" known as Elemental Perception.
  • And then he becomes amnesiac, which allows him to learn necromancy without the guilty conscience of being the Sun Knight.
• Cute Witch: Well, more like a cute necromancer, but Pink still arguably qualifies.
  • Red is one too.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Hell Knight on two counts. First by being, well, the Hell Knight, second by being a Death Lord.
  • Or how about Silent Eagle? He just wants to wed the girl of his dreams. Just Following Orders At the cost of Leaf's life, of course.
  • Sun articulates this trope when he convinces a bummed-out Judge that the Judgement Knight, however harsh and cruel he must be, is still on the good side:

    Sun: “Judge, even if you face the dark and have your back facing the light, you are still standing in the light, not the dark!”

    • Subverted when it's revealed that absorbing too much dark element tends to drive you crazy...psychotically crazy.
  • Played straight when Sun uses chains of darkness to restrain a dragon from eating Blaze and Ice.
    • Inverted in the same scene, since he was the one who chucked them to the dragon in the first place.
• Decon-Recon Switch: While the series mocks the tropes inherent in a heroic-knights-and-dragons story, it's ultimately about Sun finding ways to save the day and protect people.
• Determinator: Sun. After all, Neo picked him because, proportionally, he's willing to give up so much more than everyone else, even as a kid. Sure, he might be a Jerkass at the root of the scuffle going on, but he won't just let the problem run wild. He'll fix his own messes, his own way. And the entire 38 generation counts as well.
  Young Sun: *in shock, darting worried glances at Roland* Why did you choose me?
  Neo: Well… *looks from Roland, who's practically untouched, to Grisia, who's skin is covered in bruises, and smiles thoughtfully* Maybe because of your lovely golden hair!
• Did Not See That Coming: Sun has this happen to him a couple of times throughout the series. Hard to catch him off guard like that, though.
• Easily Forgiven: Sun had an awkward conversation with Blaze and Frost after he lost his memories and became a complete Jerkass (as opposed to his usual Manipulative Bastard) doing stuff like taking Frost hostage, throwing Frost into a dragon den and let him become dragon chowder for fun because he wanted to see a Holy Knight vs Dragon battle, ordering Blaze to chop off his own hand while holding his knights hostage, etc., etc., etc., but they play this trope mostly straight. Though Frost blocks Sun's way when he was trying to escape from Judge, but that was mostly for Sun's own good.
  Sun: Didn't you say I was forgiven?!
  Frost: *pats him on the head* I forgive you for throwing me to a dragon. *but continues blocking his way*
• Et Tu, Brute?: Yep. Volume six.
• Equivalent Exchange: Is vaguely present with Sun's resurrection magic. It takes a whole lot of holy light and energy to bring someone back to life to start with, but to do it successfully, without any side-effects, costs an even loftier price, Sun's blue eyes, golden hair, and when himself was resurrected, half of his holy light.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Os Rabbit Cat seemed to think this in the first volume and turned the trope up to twelve. Fans disagreed. Fortunately, the sparkles were toned down in the later volumes.
• Expy: A good dark elf named Aldrizzt. Sounds familiar...
• Forced into Evil: Sadistic Choice Poor Silent Eagle. Either he brutally murders the prince of Kissinger in front of the king and queen, or his own family is destroyed. Most vindictive part? He can't explain anything to the royal family, since Manipulative Bastard his master won't let him talk.
• Foreshadowing: When the Death Knight confronts the object of his revenge, the fat pig king, his defends himself by claiming that he killed the Death Knight because the Death Knight was a Royal Knight who seduced the princess. The Death Knight's former comrades immediately see through the lie. Turns out, there is a Royal Knight who has a secret relationship with the princess: the Hell Knight Elijah. After Sun's intervention, the Death Knight and former Royal Knight Roland replaces Elijah as the Hell Knight.
  • When Sun is reading a book on necromancy, he finds that the ritual for making a Death Knight is very complicated. He internally realizes that Pink said something strange about the subject, but doesn't elaborate. What Sun remembered was that Pink said that she made the Death Knight while trying to make a regular undead. Pink knew exactly what she was doing when she made Roland into a Death Knight, foreshadowing her connection with him.
• Gender-Blender Name: A rare example, when Sun is in a parade in the city, a couple with a newborn child approach and ask him to christen their child, after some thought Sun chooses the name Hungri. The problem? It's a girls name, but the newborn is a boy. ^note  In Chinese, the name "珍萼" (Literally "Rare flower sepal") shares the pronunciation of the phrase "真餓 ("[I'm] very hungry")", but uses characters conventionally used for names (In this case, feminine ones).
  • the kid also returns later in ending of Volume 8., where they were picked as the disciple of the Ice Knight.
• Gentle Giant: The expected personality of the Earth Knight. Completely Subverted in reality, much to Sun's chagrin.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Judge plays the trope on Sun, who's going through shock, denial, and hysteria...in that order.^note It doesn't work.
• Give Me a Sign: More like Sun's convinced he's got one:
  Sun: Judge, first I cast resurrection, and lost my eyes, the blue eyes of the sun knight. Second, lost the golden hair of the sun knight. Third, my connection to holy light power disappeared. What do you think the God of Light means by that?
• God Is Good: The God of Light puts up with Sun. All the time. He should get some kind of award. Sun's (debatably) most ruthless stunt; followed by severe regret. And then the God of Light answers, and we realize why the Sun Knight is considered so special to the God of Light.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: A main aspect of the story universe. The number of believers determines how powerful the god is, and "as such, the gods often resemble gangsters fighting over territory as they desperately attempt to extend the influence of their own religions."
• Good Is Not Nice: Judge mostly Type 4, except he is nice. Really nice. In fact, he's one of the nicest characters ever: how often does he put up with Sun? He and the God of Light should compare scores. Judge mixes Good Is Not Soft, with Good Is Not Nice; he's tough on friends and enemies alike, but only because he wants them all to be better people.
• Guilt Complex: Even Sun's guilt complex has a JerkAss attitude. Anyone who dares suggest that he's not at fault for something he's convinced he is will either regret it or be subjected to a rather nasty, biting comeback.
  • He's not the only one in the series, either. Stone reports that Leaf was nearly ready to try taking out his eyes and giving them to Sun after he heard that Sun was blinded in the process of saving him.
• Hanging Judge: The Judgement Knight is intended to be one of these. The current Judgement Knight is ruthless in court, but can't actually stomach watching most of the punishments he orders, and first tried out for the position after hearing the previous Judgement Knight talk about showing mercy to those who were innocent.
• Heel–Face Turn: Roland. Once he calms down about the circumstances of his death, he goes from trying to kill the Sun Knight, to becoming his solid supporter as the new Hell Knight.
  • Downplayed since according to Roland he were just trying to let Sun recognises him, but the encounter gone about it horribly.
• He Will Not Cry, so I Cry for Him: Sun pretty much gives people a heart-attack if they catch him crying...and not just because of this. Given that he's just found out that Roland was tortured to death, it may not be quite as shocking.
• Hidden Depths: There's a reason Judge is Sun's friend. It's just hidden...really well.
• Hired for Their Looks: The reason given for Sun being chosen to become the next Sun Knight despite his inexistent swordsmanship is stated his having the right type of hair.
• How Dare You Die on Me!: Sun, in the fifth volume, when Judge dies.
• Humans Are Flawed: Maybe this should've been the name of the series, given the number of times the trope is played straight:
  • First off, there's Sun. Everyone knows he's incredibly flawed; but on many levels, he actually deserves the title of Sun Knight. After all, he forgives the guy who just killed on of his "brothers" really quickly... especially when you consider that it's Sun.
  • Or Earth, who drives Sun up the wall by seducing so many woman, but who still cares about Sun on some level, and steadfastly stands by the Holy Temple.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Both the Storm Knight and Adair do most of the work of the Sun Knight. Or rather, most of his work is pushed onto them. Adair is one of the few people who relays the words of the Sun Knight to the rest of the division, and is perceptive to what the Sun Knight actually wants. This includes getting other people beat up in revenge and other underhanded measures required to be taken.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Judge. And he still loves his highly flawed friend, Sun.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: One long, extended fight between Judge and Sun. Judge insists that Sun needs to choose to come back of his own volition, but that doesn't stop him from giving Sun a little push in the right direction now and again.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: The holy knights decide, after reaching the conclusion that Sun used necromancy and let a Death Lord be born in order to overthrow the king, that their best course of action is to go on pretending Sun is perfect.
• Implausible Hair Color: Though it's mentioned that Storm's blue hair is technically impossible, the matter of Ice's light blue hair, Leaf's green hair, etc. is never brought to attention.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: In the manhua. Special mention goes to the Sun Knights, who go above and beyond this trope with freakin' wings and roses on their outfits.
• Insistent Terminology: Sun prefers to call his swordsmanship "not very good" rather than "rotten", despite being closer to the latter. Somewhat justified in that while his swordsmanship is indeed "rotten" compared to the other Holy Knights, as a swordsman being compared to other *ahem* ordinary swordsmen, he is still rather good.
• Instant Expert: Sun can master any spell he sees without even learning the proper incantations...
• Insult Backfire: Various times, Sun takes many instances of people calling him a useless pretty boy as a compliment.It means I'm pretty, right?. Even the Metal Knight calling him a glowing pillar is taken as a compliment.
• Intrinsic Vow: Sun, about protecting his holy knights. Do not test his dedication.
• It's Personal: Sun. As Metal puts it so succinctly:
  *in shock* Metal: ...You are so freakin' mean!
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sun. It might be more convenient to list the times where he does not embody this trope...
  • Played straight, because while his fellow knight captains and holy knights will describe him as a Manipulative Bastard, they also insist that he'll never abandon them. ^note Cue the latter volumes. He might allow them to get within inches of death, but if someone actually tries to KILL one of his holy knights, that someone will pay dearly.
  • When the Son of War nearly kills Adair: Sun. Is. Not. Happy.
  • Umm... Leaf?
  • And Silent Eagle, after he'd just ticked Sun off, and gotten served by Sun, is promptly healed by the same, much calmer, but still pissed off Sun.
  • He's not too chuffed with the Pope when the Pope wants to dispose of the original Hell Knight.
  *to himself* Sun: If the Pope is manipulating you, making you leave, I'll kill him!
• Kind Restraints: The other Holy Knight Captains don't take very well to Sun's unhinged attempts at suicide ^note because he'd just been resurrected.
  Judge: *whispering* Sun, you're getting quiet, like you're afraid of struggling, but I seem to prefer you struggling; don't be so quiet...quiet as if you've given up everything.
• Knight in Shining Armor: What's expected of the Sun Knight. The 38th generation is highly skeptical of this type of character. He frequently deconstructs the trope in his head.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Sun (and all the other holy knights to different degrees) are this. The best way of summing this up is by quoting Sun's teacher:
  Neo: Child, the Sun Knight may not be able to achieve absolute justice. The Sun Knight may have to compromise. However, the Sun Knight would never relinquish his duty to uphold justice. The moment you forsake enforcing justice is the moment when you should tear off the Sun insignia, because you will no longer be a Sun Knight!
• Legacy Character: Deconstructed. The twelve knights are forced to copy not only the original knights' appearance and mannerisms (the first Storm was a flirt, the current never gets further than winking at women), but even relationships (the first Sun and Earth Knights were best friends, the current ones hate each other and are forever deliberately playing Moment Killer to each other while pretending to be friends in public).
• The Legend of X
• Lemony Narrator: Look at the page quote, yeah, that's pretty much how the entire manhua and novels go around the story.
  • Actually it's more like a First-Person Smartass , Sun is not merely a narrator. He is one of the main characters.
    • Actually, Sun is not merely one of the main characters. He is the main character.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Sun Knight himself, usually he seems like a pansy, and a horrible joke, rather than a knight, but when Leaf dies, Sun proves just how dangerous he can be when he gets serious.
• Light Is Good: Played straight.
• Living Legend: The Twelve Holy Knights, the Son of War and Silent Eagle.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Many of the Knights.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Judge is the comically serious variation, and the loony friend is unquestionably Sun. There isn't enough time left in the universe to calculate how often he's been persuaded to steal pies, buy sweets, chase off dogs, beat up "bad guys" and other, assorted, "underhanded" tricks.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: Only the Sun Knight can use the Divine Sun Sword's full powers. Anyone else can only use it as an ordinary sword.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: All of the Holy Knights to some extent love Sun; some more than others. ^note *cough, cough* Earth! *cough, cough* End of volume six...everyone’s heartbroken. Even the Pope. But they also to some extent fear Sun, since he’s so dang powerful. Not that they think he’ll kill them...but...well, life might become a whole lot less pleasant if they really cross him.
  • Additionally, Sun cares deeply about Judge, but also worries way more than anyone with a “clear conscience” should about what Judge will do when he finds out what Sun’s been up to recently... This is probably because Sun almost never does have an actually clear conscience.
• Magnetic Hero: Played with by our favorite anti-hero, Sun.
  • Subverted, because the Twelve Holy Knights have to listen to him; he's the head of the God of Light's knight division. ^note And the darling of the God of Light.
    • Played straight, because almost all of the Twelve Holy Knights have personal loyalty towards him, despite knowing him for the jerk he is.
• Master Swordsman: Neo, the thirty-seventh generation Sun Knight and the current one's teacher, is said to have been the strongest Sun Knight in history. Ice is very good, and Roland could apparently beat a grown man at ten. Inverted by Sun, who's... not very good with a sword.
  • Judge got left out? He often acts as the simultaneous sparring commentary for Sun since Sun is rot... *ahem* not very good at swordsmanship. And he was able to make grown men quake in their boots using only a knife. Before he became the Judgement Knight.
  • Roland was apparently good enough to beat grown men at age ten.
• Mundane Utility: Ice uses his ice magic to make sweets for Sun.
• Mutually Unequal R Elationship: An odd version with the current Sun Knight and the Earth Knight: Each strongly dislikes the other, but because every new generation of the Twelve Holy Knights is forced to reenact the personalities, appearance and relations of the original, they have to act as though they're best friends (the Earth Knight is a womanizer, the Sun Knight is forbidden to have relationships; both of them enjoy playing Moment Killer to each other). The people only know the original legends and see the public facade the Knights put up, so they believe Sun and Earth really are friends. Meanwhile, Sun's actual best friend is the Judgement Knight, when they're supposed to be archenemies.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sun...poor Sun.
  • He gets a rather nasty surprise when Red gives him back all his memories.
• Nice Guy: Leaf.
• No Hero to His Valet: Sun's knights are still more than willing to follow him, but after having been ordered to gang up on so many people none of them seem swayed by the image of a perfect, pristine Sun Knight, and will often bad mouth him when they don't think he can hear.
• No Matter How Much I Beg: What Sun makes Judge promise before he faces off with Charlotte. Judge doesn't let him down.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: The fat king is introduced as a useless idiot who's easily cowed. Then it turns out he's into killing the castle maids, and tortured a man to death over three months when he found out about the king's proclivities.
• Number Two: Adair... and eventually Dylan.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: The Sun Knight spends most of his time spouting inane platitudes and keeping up with his beauty regimen. Luckily for him, he's also a genius mage and necromancer, as well as a very capable Chessmaster. Almost everyone who gets to know him is a little bit afraid of him.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Hell has one with his vice-captain upon returning to take his position. While Hell is confirming that the person he's talking to is, in fact, his vice captain, and then confesses that he's not the real Hell Knight, his vice captain believes they're discussing how Hell shouldn't be allowed to reclaim his rank after having been gone so long.
• Orgy of Evidence: The fat king stumbles into this when he specifies that the Death Knight was tortured to death. Sun capitalizes on the error. And takes deep pleasure in it.
• Our Liches Are Different:
  • Pink is revealed to be a Lich in volume 3.
  • Red and Stephen are the other Liches, making up a total of 3 Liches in the story.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Played with. Sun's disguise as "Supreme Dragon" is actually pretty good, dying his hair, distorting his voice (thanks to the mask) and at first the readers (and Sun) are led to believe that he fooled Blaze with it. However, the extra chapter of the first volume has a not-so-secret meeting with the Holy knights sans Sun, revealing that Blaze recognised him, but wasn't sure merely because he was using necromancy.
• Parental Abandonment: Implied when the little kid knights-to-be are sent for 'training'.
• Passing the Torch: A few extra chapters go into the thirty-ninth generation of Holy Knights who Sun and the others have chosen and are now training.
• Playing with Fire: Blaze.
• Please Wake Up: Metal shouts this after Sun experiences serious emotional heartbreak when Judge dies.
  Metal: Judgement Knight! Wake up, tell them you're not dead!
• Plot-Triggering Death: The chain of events for the first three books can all be traced back to Sun becoming involved in Roland's murder.
• Power-Strain Blackout : Sun experiences a small one after he brings Leaf back to life.
  • He dances on the edge of doing so after saving Adair. Bizarrely, these delays only seem to irk him - no one ever said Sun was normal. In fact, he frequently confirms the reverse.
  • Or when he's masquerading in the streets as the Hell Knight. He falls out of the sky because he runs out of magic. Ouch.
    • Right after that, when Judge catches him redhanded, and he tries using his perception-sight. Nearly freaks Judge, Hell and Adair out.
• Psychotic Smirk: Sun pulls off a particularly creepy, dangerous one when he exposes and deposes the fat king. The king finally understands the level of danger he's in.
  • Even though Sun put him on the throne, the fact that he was capable of deposing his father in the first place makes the former Crown Prince who was crowned king distrust the Church of Light. He attempts to subtly reduce its influence, setting off another chain of events.
• Really 700 Years Old: Hinted with Pink.
  • And Red. And Stephen.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sun and Judge. In their own twisted way.
• Refuge in Audacity: Points for being a literal refuge. Where is the best place to hide a Death Lord, a monstrously powerful undead being that should be killed on sight? Why, the Holy Temple, the headquarters of the strongest anti-undead forces in the world, of course! And it works.
• Religious Bruiser: Sun maintains BA status, but shockingly, he really believes in the power and wisdom of the God of Light.
  • ...Nevertheless, he frequently attempts to get away with stuff, when he thinks the man upstairs isn't looking.
• Right Behind Me: A variation. Chances are, while you're badmouthing Sun, he's listening to you while remaining hidden. Poor Ed.
  • A somewhat benign version applies to the Cloud Knight. You can never find him until you turn around... It never fails to freak Sun out.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Crown Prince plays this trope straight, but not his gluttonous pig of a father. Also, Princess Ann from Moon Orchid.
• Running Gag: Sun is always interrupted when he is applying his whitening mask.
  • And he and Earth keeps barging into each other's room when things are getting sexy, which is the main cause of their strong mutual dislike and animosity. Earth seems a bit more talented, since through all eight volumes, Sun's a virgin.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Judge invokes this when Sun gets his memories back.

Holy Knight Captain: Theoretically, the sun knight is the leader of the temple, head of the Twelve Holy Knights, right?"

Other Holy Knight Captain: Yes!

First Holy Knight Captain: So, theoretically, the Judgement Knight can't arrest the Sun Knight and hold him in solitary confinement.

Other Holy Knight Captain: Not even the Pope could do that.

First Holy Knight Captain: So...this doesn't really seem right, does it?

Other Holy Knight Captain: In theory, no, but in fact...if you're daring enough, just try to let Sun out in front of Judgement!

First Holy Knight Captain:...I'm not actually much of a theorist.

• Secret Identity: Every Knight is slightly if not completely different from their surface personalities. Sun furthers this when he temporarily wears a disguise and goes by "Supreme Dragon", and when he learns necromancy despite being the leader of the Holy Knights.
  • There are rumors that the Hell Knight is merely the Sun Knight's secret identity ^note This isn't true though, which Sun takes advantage of to avoid having to participate in a duel against the Son Of War.
  • Roland's disguise comes in handy a lot:
    • Dylan, when the Hell Knight is AWOL.
    • Sun, trying to make the other knights think he's the Hell Knight.
    • Silent Eagle and Princess Alice don't even believe that Sun's really himself until he takes it off!
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Sun Knight regularly uses these in order to praise the God of Light. A few people regularly understand him, but most people suffer headaches if they talk to him for too long from trying to interpret the meaning of his words.
  • He weaponizes this against the Son of War, successfully giving him headaches within his first few sentences.
• Sexy Man, Instant Harem: Apparently, as long as you have blue hair and wink at girls, you get 'em. Unfortunately, to keep up with his Urban Legend Love Life, he winks s often that his eyes are bloodshot.
• Shame If Something Happened: Sun drops by a secret meeting of knights who suspect that Sun is the Supreme Dragon and a necromancer to announce that's he's learned a Resurrection spell, but it's a very difficult one, so who knows if it fails on the day he has to cast it on one of his brother knights...
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Played with. On the surface layer, the world is incredibly idealistic, filled with heroic knights ready; beneath that, of course, is a hefty layer of cynicism. But ultimately since Sun always succeeds at saving the day, and the majority of characters are essentially decent people, it swings back around to idealism in the end.
• Spell My Name With An S: Oh, where to begin...The knights' names are transliterated differently by Prince Revolution and OSS, argued over frequently, and on top of that the Thai transliterations are different too. It's complicated.
• Statuesque Stunner: Moon's girlfriend is one because his neck is eternally craned upwards.
  • The woman in question is definitely statuesque, but whether she qualifies as a stunner leaves room for discussion since she talks in a deep bass voice.
• Stalker with a Crush: Charlotte, for Sun. An innocent crush: she sees him on a pedestal of untouchable perfection... Sun.
• Suppressed Rage: What happens on those rare, scary occasions when either Sun or Judge cross a line, and gets the other really mad. Then they get quiet...and the Holy Temple trembles in its metaphorical boots.
• Survivor's Guilt: Judge, about his parents. He keeps it really well controlled, though, considering how serious-minded he is. Of course, it's hard to take yourself seriously with a friend like Sun around.
• Sweet Tooth: Sun.
  *after rescuing Blaze from potential death* Young Sun: “Want a lollipop? I have blueberry, strawberry, and chocolate. Which one do you want?”
• The Chessmaster: The Sun Knight. The only reason he can get away with being such a lazy fop is because he's very, very good at dirty tricks and manipulation. He's well-intentioned, though, and he uses his skill to do things like deposing the corrupt king of his country.
• The Conscience: Judge, for Sun, who rarely listens to his literal conscience. He prefers to ignore both.
• The Power of Blood: Played With. The Sacred Dragon Mail requires blood to be worn. It can also also use blood to create knives, shurikens, grappling hooks... Resurrection also requires blood. Also, Sun's blood is so saturated with Holy Light that it's practically poison to the undead creatures.
• The Power of Friendship: Sun twists the trope to suit his own purposes. He thinks he gets the power of friendship: half the reason everyone fears him is because of his dangerous friends. But he also hates letting any of the same friends involved in REAL danger. Hates it.
  • Lampshading this trope while playing it lovingly straight seems to be the the whole goal of the series; Sun has to realize that he can't do everything by himself, the arrogant Jerkass.
• The Stoic: Frost.
  • And Roland.
  • Not So Stoic: When faced with an amnesiac Sun who is planning an ambush on Blaze, their True Companion.
• Too Dumb to Live: Charlotte seems like this when she calls Sun a pure, noble person. Of course, she's actually seeing what almost no one else ever does, even Sun himself and his closest friends. Sun has flaws, some pretty bad, but there's a reason he was picked as the next Sun Knight...and it wasn't his lovely hair.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In volume three Sun throws his sword at Pink and impales her on it, destroying her current body.
  • The third son of Baron Gerland impales Sun as he's fleeing the scene. ^note Luckily, it's only the shoulder.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sun really likes blueberries.
  • He doesn't actually like blueberries. He just has a fetish for any sort of blueberry-flavoured food.
• Tranquil Fury: Storm, when you really upset him. Like when he exposes Roland's murder:
  *to himself, while staring in awe* Sun: ...Woah. Storm is pissed.
• Trouble Entendre: Adair is very skilled at interpreting orders to have somebody beaten from what sounds like Sun praying for the target in question.
• True Companions: The twelve Knights.
  • Except in the case of Sun and Earth, who are supposed to be best friends and actually dislike each other. Sun and Judgement are best friends, but are supposed to dislike each other.
• Underestimating Badassery: Played straight when Princess Ann, the Son of War, and Austin all think that Sun is a wimp. Then Leaf dies. Sun flips out.
  • Inverted when Yuna, Igor and the other three adventurers assure Sun that the Twelve Holy Knights are practically gods.
• The Unintelligible: Sun borders on this when praising the God of Light in every sentence. While it's easy to make out his words, actually figuring out what they mean can be difficult, and even headache-inducing for other characters.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Played straight with Storm, who's supposed to be a Casanova but is probably still a virgin, and inverted with Earth, who's supposed to be extremely shy around girls but has actually seduced more than 30, and the number of 'victims' is still skyrocketing.
• Verbal Tic: Sun has to include the God of Light in nearly all of his sentences.
• Villainous Glutton: The king who rules the land where the story takes place.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Played straight in that Charlotte loves Sun.
  • Subverted when she kidnaps him, and she doesn't want to do anything more than touch his hair.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Sun, in the third book. And he doesn't even remember where he was before waking up.
  • Again, when Charlotte kidnaps Sun.
• Was It Really Worth It? : Sun meditates on this when Leaf dies, wondering if resurrection is really saving lives, or endangering them, since Adair nearly died because of it, and Leaf just did.
  Sun *to himself*: Once people know resurrection is possible, will they start disregarding the importance of life?
• We Used to Be Friends: Sun and the death knight.
  • Actually an averted trope, as Roland slicing Sun in the back was an accident, and he really doesn't understand how his actions created a lot of trouble for Sun. They are still close friends.
  • Averted with Judge and Sun. They call each other out on their mistakes, but all obstacles to friendship have been exterminated with extreme prejudice.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: When Sun gets Easy Amnesia. An interesting example as he turns into a bigger Jerkass then usual.
  • Turned up to eleven after Sun becomes the Demon King in the last volumes
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Played with. Sun feels sorry for the banshee that attacks Elijah, not because she gets killed by Holy Knights, but because she was an Unwitting Pawn in his plan. Sun asked Pink for an undead to attack Elijah to make Elijah look better, and the banshee took the fall. In this case, the mook is truly a member of an Always Chaotic Evil race, and yet is on the heroes' side.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Played with when Sun tries calling Judge out for unnecessarily sacrificing over five-hundred innocent holy knights while attempting to bring him back home. ^note they're not dead
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Pink and the Sacred Dragon Mail.
• Why Won't You Die?: What every villain feels about the Sun Knight throughout the 38 generations. Passionately.
  • Sun in particular is hard to kill ^note he's like a roach; Pink comments that she's finished her strawberry ice, and he still hasn't bled to death...
• World's Strongest Man: The previous Sun Knight Neo is called the Strongest Sun Knight in History, and when we see him in action in vol 3, it seems he's more like the strongest knight in history. Either way, Sun can't really think of anything that could really threaten him.
• Wrecked Weapon: Sun wants to avert this. He doesn't use the Divine Sun Sword to fight ordinary undead, not because it's too strong, but because he's afraid of the the sword breaking, of all things. He elaborates that the sword would require sharpening after overuse, and the price of a blacksmith skilled enough to touch the sword is the same as an entirely new sword. Plus, sharpening a sword makes it more fragile.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Storm Knight has a technique to make girls swoon en masse that involves putting his face right next to Sun's and pushing a strand of Sun's hair away.
• You Are Not Alone: Ever heard of the thing the Sun Knight hates more than the undead? Yeah, the thing you never do unless you'd like to die...painfully. It causes a bit of tension among the Twelve Holy Knights regarding teamwork and the Sun Knight, and how one's comrades shouldn't be treated as damsels in distress.

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