The Savior's Series is a self-published Dark Fantasy Action-Adventure series by indie author and youtuber Jenna Moreci.
Everyone across the realm of Thessan worships and loves the Savior, the woman who has purified the land. Suitors from every country flock to the tournament for her hand, to face the challenges of the Labyrinth and become her Sovereign.
Tobias Kaya has never particularly cared about the tournament or the Savior. But when he realizes that participating might be the only way to support his family, he reluctantly enrolls. But the Labyrinth isn't the only thing he will have to watch out for...
Books in the series:
- The Savior's Champion (April 24, 2018)
- The Savior's Sister (2020)
- The Savior's Army (TBA)
There's also a short story, "Great Love" (2021), which is set shortly before the events of the first book.
The Savior's Series contains example of:
- Anti-Hero: Leila, especially in The Savior's Sister. She mostly falls between being a dark Pragmatic Hero and an Unscrupulous Hero. She is more than willing to kill, torture and threaten people to achieve her goals and often expresses little remorse for it (this includes being forced to kill an innocent guard who had witnessed her assassinating a senator and technically holding Pippa - a developmentally-delayed girl she treats as a friend - as a hostage for around a decade to force her grandfather's cooperation. Her motives are sympathetic given she's trying to prevent her own murder and take back control of the kingdom from her evil father, who intends to plunge Thessan into a war, but her methods tend to be ruthless.
- Arc Symbol: The smeared hand-print cross as shown on the cover. Tobias originally gets it when Leila smears a substance on him that she claims the Savior has blessed. It becomes Tobias' official symbol in-universe and many of the spectators start to fly banners depicting it as he grows more popular.
- Benevolent Mage Ruler: The Savior is supposed to be this to Thessan; the powers of each successive Savior have kept Thessan a rich and fertile land, greatly reducing pestilence and famine, and resulting in there being no wars over resources for centuries. However, it turns out that the current Savior has been stripped of much of her political power and is more-or-less a Puppet King to Brontes and the senate.
- Big Bad: Brontes, the father of the Savior and current Sovereign, is revealed to be the overarching villain of the story. It turns out he arranged the murder of the previous Savior - his own wife - to seize control of Thessan for himself. He failed to kill the Savior's unborn daughter - who is also his child - at the same time, but for twenty years he has been planning on finishing the job and blaming it on another nation to justify an invasion.
- Birth-Death Juxtaposition: The prologue follows the former Savior's assassination and the subsequent birth of Her baby daughter.
- The Brute: Anateus is a violent monster and thinks himself superior because of it.
- Dark Fantasy: The series is marketed as such and there is certainly some grim content. Thessan is far from a Crapsack World but it's in danger of becoming one under Brontes' leadership as he's planning on killing the Savior, the woman whose magic is only thing that transformed Thessan from the wasteland it was in the past, and using it to incite war with a neighboring land. Leila has been aware since childhood that her father is plotting to kill her and already killed her mother, and resorts to violent and morally questionable acts herself to survive. The senate is composed of men largely loyal to Brontes who have stripped the Savior of much of her political power. Then there's the Savior's tournament, which involves twenty men fighting to the death to win the Savior's hand in marriage, with plenty of gruesome imagery; the Savior also apparently gets little say in who she marries, which is how Thessan ended up with a tyrant like Brontes as king.
- Deadpan Snarker: Tobias often has some biting commentary on the tournament and the people holding it, as well as his fellow suitors.
- Depraved Bisexual: Kaleo is one of the main villains of the first two novels and is implied to be attracted to both men and women; in addition to being a sadistic Blood Knight, he makes some repulsive sexual comments towards Leila and threatens to rape Tobias at one point.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted. Cosima touching Tobias intimately against his will is not framed as something desirable or sexy and Tobias' feelings of disgust and discomfort are not even slightly played for laughs.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The setting of the series is loosely based upon Ancient Greece / Rome, particularly with there being a senate and Gladiator Games.
- Female Gaze: The suitors' armor is not designed for practicality, but rather to showcase their attractive bodies, especially their arms and chests. Tobias snarks at several points about how they'll probably never get real armor.
- Foreshadowing: The Savior's blessing on Tobias lights up after Leila rubs a substance on him that she claims has been blessed by Her. This is subtle foreshadowing that Leila is the actual Savior. If you pay attention to the various instances of the Savior's blessing appearing, it always takes place after Leila has touched Tobias in some way, shape or form.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Tobias' best friend Milo enters the tournament alongside him and is quickly killed off on the first day of the competition. Tobias tries to attack his killer, is sad and brooding over it for a few chapters and then never brings him up again for the rest of the book.
- Gay Best Friend: Delphi serves as this to Leila; she's a lesbian whose main role in the story is to give Leila advice, help her with her plans, help her and Tobias meet up and generally be her best friend.
- Hate Sink: The three main Beasts.
- Kaleo the Shepherd is a sadistic psychopath and scumbag who takes every opportunity to mock and antagonize Tobias in particular. He's also responsible for Milo's death and kills several others over the course of the tournament, seemingly purely for his own amusement. At one point he even considers raping Tobias. For no other reason than he'd enjoy the feeling of power it would give him.
- Drake the Dragon, who is almost as sleazy as Kaleo.
- Anateus the Giant is a misogynistic, callous brute, who believes that every man not willing to kill for glory is weak and unworthy of living.
- Healing Hands: One of the Savior's abilities is healing wounds with a touch; she can also temporarily transfer this ability to others, enabling her handmaidens to heal injured competitors. At the end of the first book, Leila uses this power to undo Tobias' sister's paralysis.
- The High Queen: The Savior is treated as this, as her magic powers are what keep the land fertile and peaceful. Competing for her hand is considered an honor and a privilege (by most of the guys, at least).
- Hypocrite: One thing Delphi frequently criticizes about Cosima is her promiscuity. Delphi herself is mentioned as having hooked up with many palace servants, the only difference being that Delphi is hooking up with women rather than men.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Implied. Cosima repeatedly tries to seduce Tobias, despite him not actually being interested in her and making that very clear several times. Even though she has many other suitors at her disposal, many of which are stronger and more handsome than Tobias and worship the ground she walks on.
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: This trope on steroids with regards to Pippa. She is, according to Jenna, autistic/developmentally delayed, and she exists in the story purely to be a "cinnamon roll" and is never allowed to have any agency or emotions. Jenna has also said some rather problematic things about Pippa, like "she can't have a love interest because she's disabled." One of the characters even says, with regards to her: "She's stuck with a mind younger than her years"
- Instant Expert: Tobias, who had previously never held a sword in his life, gets one night's worth of training sessions with Leila and quickly becomes a skilled enough swordsman to go toe-to-toe against more seasoned warriors.
- Ironic Nickname: Kaleo's title is The Shepherd. You'd be hard-pressed to find a character with a less fitting moniker.
- Just Eat Gilligan: A big chunk of the conflict in the first book is driven by Tobias feeling torn between his growing love for Leila and the fact he must win the Savior's hand in marriage to survive and provide for his family; he confides in Leila about this issue on several occasions and even deliberately fails some of the tasks because of his hang-ups about Leila. The situation could've been resolved fairly easily if Leila had just told him she was actually the Savior, though of course she has to keep it secret for some reason or there's no conflict. It would also resolve the problems in their relationship, given that Leila is constantly getting jealous over Tobias spending time with Cosima and feeling upset about him berating the Savior even though he doesn't know Leila is the Savior because she won't tell him the truth.
- King Incognito: It's revealed that Leila has been disguising herself as a healer and one of the Savior's handmaidens, when she is in fact the Savior herself. She initially goes in disguise to more closely interact with the competitors, as she knows three of them were hired as assassins by her father (though not which three specifically). She later starts sneaking around in disguise to visit and help Tobias after she develops feelings for him.
- Low Fantasy: The books are set in a secondary world, primarily in a country based loosely upon Ancient Greece and/or Ancient Rome. Magic is not commonplace in the setting; the only known magic-user is the Savior, who primarily uses her vaguely-defined powers to keep Thessan fertile; she's treated as a living god by some but as far as the reader can tell she's just a human with powers. Everything else in the books comes off as much more mundane. The primary conflict of the first book is Tobias trying to survive a tournament to win the Savior's hand in marriage, which he entered to save his family from poverty; his goals are sympathetic and he's not a bad person, but he's not exactly heroic. The second book is more of a political thriller in which Leila discovers a conspiracy to assassinate the Savior centered around the tournament and sets out to foil it, and she's willing to do some morally grey or questionable things to accomplish this.
- Meaningful Name: There are several instances of this.
- It's lampshaded that Tobias' name means "goodness"; for the most part he's a well-meaning Nice Guy with no overt personality defects.
- Brontes was the name of one of the Cyclopes of Greek mythology; one of Brontes' notable physical features is his missing eye and his moniker is "the Cyclops".
- Drake's moniker is the Dragon and Drake literally means dragon.
- One of the meanings of Cosima is "beauty", and Cosima is known for being Ms. Fanservice.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Labyrinth, which is lampshaded in the first book. It's not an actual maze but a long, straight tunnel filled with traps.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: At several points when they're alone together, Tobias takes the chance to vent his gripes with the Savior and how much he's come to hate her and the messed up tournament held for her hand to Leila. Unaware of the fact that Leila is the Savior, who has been doing everything in her power to take control over her kingdom back from her tyrannical father. She also doesn't like the tournament anymore than Tobias does and feels incredibly guilty for the deaths that have occurred.
- Perspective Flip: The Savior's Sister is a retelling of the first book from the perspective of Leila rather than Tobias. It's expected that the reader have read The Savior's Champion first, given that The Savior's Sister has the former's plot twist of Leila being the true Savior as part of its main premise. It re-treads some of the plot points from Champion, but also includes additional scenes where Tobias wasn't present and adds context to some scenes that Tobias wasn't aware of.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Leila is described as being beautiful with pale skin and black hair. Tobias is certainly smitten.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: The Sovereign certainly thinks so. At the very beginning of the tournament, he gives his favor to three of the Beasts, the physically fittest participants and, as it turns out, the most willing and eager to kill. In his first face-to-face meeting with Tobias, he expresses disgust that Tobias is so physically unremarkable.
- Regent for Life: Brontes was the Sovereign of the previous Savior, who was assassinated but survived by her newborn daughter. Brontes has been ruling for his daughter the past twenty years, ostensibly until she comes of age and takes up the reins herself. However, it becomes clear Brontes has no intention of relinquishing control of Thessan and has done his best to keep his daughter from holding any political power.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: In an almost laughably obvious example of this trope, Milo and a competitor with the title "The Jester" are the first to die in the labyrinth. Both times it's because of one of the Beasts.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: The goal of the tournament Tobias enters is to become the Savior's husband but he finds himself developing feelings for her servant, Leila, who helps him with some of the tasks. Tobias has no interest in the Savior and would rather be with Leila, but he can only be with her if he fails the tournament, which will result in his death and/or his family staying in poverty. It's later subverted, as it turns out Leila has been the Savior all along and there's nothing stopping them from being together besides Tobias' own ability to win the tournament.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- After Kaleo gets Milo killed, Tobias flies into a rage and lunges at him. Kaleo easily subdues him. Adrenaline rush or not, pure anger doesn't usually give you the combat abilities necessary to overpower a trained fighter.
- Leila is fairly good at fighting off perverts, as she readily demonstrates several times. But when she's caught off-guard by Drake, a mercenary several times bigger and stronger than her, she ends up pinned and is only saved by Tobias walking onto the scene. Tobias even tells her that this defeat isn't anything to be ashamed of, seeing as Drake is an experienced fighter while Leila herself has, at most, basic self-defense skills and she can't use her powers without revealing she's actually the Savior.
- Til Murder Do Us Part:
- It's revealed that Brontes arranged the assassination of his pregnant wife, the Savior preceding Leila, to seize power over Thessan. He presumably intended for their unborn daughter to die in this assassination too, but this was thwarted.
- Leila learns that three of the competitors in the Savior's tournament have been ordered by Brontes to murder Leila on her wedding night should they win her hand in marriage.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It's revealed in The Savior's Sister that as a child, Leila took Pippa - a fellow child with a developmental delay - as a hostage and threatened to kill her to force her grandfather to turn on Brontes. Leila's motives are understandable given that she'd learned Pippa's grandfather was plotting with Brontes to murder her, though it's still disturbing that even as a child she was prepared to go to such lengths and that this was the first plan she came up with (as opposed to fleeing).
- Villain Ball: Brontes has bern holding onto this for two decades. Considering his master plan is to kill Leila to seize power and use her death as a Pretext for War, some have questioned why Brontes wouldn't have tried harder to bump Leila off as a vulnerable child who couldn't properly use her magic, as opposed to waiting until she'd reached young adulthood and had time to master her powers. One also wonders why Brontes never told his three assassins what their target looks like, drawing things out even longer; he never provides them with a drawing or painting, or even just describes Leila to them. He instead decides to go through the entire tournament and hopes one of his three assassins wins (thus giving Leila ample time to plot against him).
