Cwen's Quest - Television Tropes & Idioms

Cwen's Quest is a webcomic written by Nick Stroffolino and drawn by Sarah N. It stars Cwen, an angry ex-princess with tiny wings, Riddly, her mysterious life slave, and Wendy, her cute stuffed animal companion and wise sage, are all on Cwen's titular quest for revenge against her father. Despite the premise, the comic has thus far avoided getting too serious and tends to address serious situations with black humor.

The story takes place in a strange fantasy world years after the titular character Cwen has been exiled via a swift kick off a cliff, and left for dead by her father Lord Attez. When Cwen returns she finds her father long gone and chaos in his absence. Cwen's interest is in getting even with her father, but is forced to help some people along the way in order to find him, gaining a few allies as she does so. The story tends to jump between the past and the present frequently through various narrative devices to show various characters' back stories and dropping plot points to be explained in the present.

What makes Cwen's Quest stand out though is its bizarre original setting, which fuels much of its humor and doesn't dip into the usual sources like World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy. In a world where wolf-men run hordes of invaders as tight-fisted CEO, the mysterious Fau X group runs magic like science, a girl has a paralyzing fear of hats, and giant apes with British accents fight dragons, hilarity seems to be the only options left to most characters.

Cwen's Quest also features a creator blog which dives into mostly unrelated side stories about other adventures living in the CQ universe. The author himself seems to be an avid TV Tropes fan as he has written trope examples at least twice into the comic in response to people putting the comic as examples on tropes that didn't really fit.

This comic provides examples of:

Abusive Parents: Lord Attez shouldn't be allowed to have children...and he has tons!
The Ace: Gram Trellion
Action Girl: Cwen.
Amusing Injuries: Inverted. While many characters have suffered amusingly painful slap stick style harm character has consistently shown to be actually harmed by these including keeping broken limbs for whole story arcs and secondary characters keep scars from being set on fire.
April Fools' Day: A fake cover was put up for chapter 5, it helped that the update naturally fell on April 1st.
Art Shift: A small one when the comic gained limited color Sin City style.
Artificial Limbs: One of the Sabril's has one of these.
Asskicking Equals Authority: Cwen and Sabril settle the issue of who should be the Witch Queen by building things to fight for them.
Back Story: We frequently get flashbacks to Cwen and later Sven's past.
Badass Boast: Riddly has a few of these when he isn't having a bad day.
Battle Aura: Riddly gets one of these a couple of time when he is particularly powerful. No idea what triggers them.
Berserk Button: Trel does not like hats. AT ALL.
Best Served Cold: The point of Cwen's...well, quest!
Beware the Nice Ones: Riddly is a nice happy go lucky guy who will beat someone to death with a fish if you ask him.
Big Badass Wolf: Vorg, Owner and CEO of Team Vorg
Big Brother Mentor: More like big sister, Wendy.
Big Screwed-Up Family: The Attez family. Attez personally screws up all his kids and the fan theory is he kills his wives.
Blade on a Stick: Cwen's weapon of choice, a polearm.
Bloody Hilarious: On the page aptly title SPLAT.
Calling Your Attacks: Blind side attack fool!
The Cameo: Mostly from the artist's other comic, Vampire Phantasm, and the author's wife's comic, Charby the Vampirate. Some have even become regular characters in Cwen's Quest.
Cat Girl: Symus
Catch Phrase: Minor characters only, it seems.
Chainmail Bikini: Averted. When going to war everyone wears armor.
Challenging the Chief: This is one of two options for settling disputes over who has the right to be the Witch Queen, though like good magic using nobles they create champions rather then fight themselves.
The Chew Toy: Fans really seem to like it when bad things happen to Riddly.
Chronic Hero Syndrome: Subverted
Companion Cube: The Nemesis Cube and the Companion Pyramid.
Cloning Blues: Averted. The Sabrils get along just fine and seems to consider each other equals.
Couldn't Find A Pen: Inverted. Ulric likes scrawling notes on himself, then on scantily clad assistants, then on naked assistants, and eventually on the armor of the nearest guard.
Cowardly Lion: Zergarem the Destroyer
Creepy Child: Lyria complete with tentacles.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Riddly, mainly due to his short attention span.
Crowning Momentof Awesome: Riddly's unconventional attack.
Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Cwen vs. a raccoon
Day In The Life: All of chapter 6
Dead Pan Snarker: Wendy Weasel.
Didn't See That Coming: Essex reaction to a Giant Ape fighting a Dragon derailing his battle plan.
Disproportionate Retribution: A lot of people seem to want this in CQ but so far none of them have gotten any. In particular, Sven wants to kill Cwen just because their father used to mistake him for her due to the fact they look and their names sound sort of the same...and he's never even met her before!
Drop What You Are Doing: Riddly does this often.
Dual Wielding: Essex Forrester with both swords and axes.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Team Vorg
Everything's Better with Princesses Averted
Evil Chancellor: Subverted; the three chancellors are actually nicer than the Witch Queen they serve!
Even Evil Has Standards: Averted with Symus.
Evil Laugh: The Witch Queen a little to much for everyone's comfort.
Evil Overlord: Lord Attez
Evil Sorcerer: Lord Attez
Fake Platform: Lord Attez' floating island after years of neglect
Fanservice: Averted here
Five Finger Fillet: Done on a fairy here.
Foe Tossing Charge: Riddly "in the Zone" on the battlefield.
Freudian Excuse: Cwen hates her dad and her siblings.
Genius Bruiser: Essex seems to be one of these.
God Save Us from the Queen!: The Witch Queen
Good Wings, Evil Wings: Cwen and Sven.
Gosh Dangit To Heck: Frex!
Hair of Gold: Subverted
Handsome Lech: Gram Trellion, gentleman adventurer
Hitchhiker Heroes
Honor Before Reason: Averted The Witch Queen would have gladly just had Cwen killed on the spot when she challenged her to an honor duel for the throne and only didn't because of Cwen's very large dragon at the time.
Human Sacrifice: The original Witch Queen had literally sacrificed all the children in her kingdom that could be found.
Insane Troll Logic: Cwen loathes her siblings just for being born because her father, whom she wants to kill, kicked her out when a younger sibling was born. She is aware this makes no sense but that hasn't done much to change her mind.
Instant Bandages
I Owe You My Life: Life slaves are part of Riddly's culture
It Only Works Once: Riddly's powers
Jerkass: Cwen can be one to people she doesn't like but she tends to be subtle about it.
Princess For A Day: Cwen wishes she could pull this off.
Laughably Evil: Cwen's father, Lord Attez
The Lancer: Riddly Lancer, Naturally
Living Toy: Wendy Weasel
Mad Scientist: Lord Attez
Mismatched Eyes: Lyria two times
Mood Whiplash: It is a lot less then most adventure comedies but still.
Mr. Exposition: Ulric gives a power point assisted exposition twice for the benefit of a confused Riddly.
Murder Is the Best Solution: This seems to be Team Vorg's business model. "Vision, Community, Scorched Earth Tactics"
Mysterious Past: We know very little of Riddly before he entered the comic. Then again no one ever asks Riddly.
Naughty Tentacles: Averted
Not So Harmless: Ulric as he turns out to be Lord Attez
Obfuscating Stupidity: Cwen remembers Lord Attez as one of these. Later when Riddly meets him he turns out to be a brilliant scientist studying magic.
One of Us: List Cwen on a TV trope it doesn't really fit under and expect a better example to appear in the comic before too long.
Only Sane Man: Wendy is frequently the one in this position. Strangely she doesn't seem to mind.
Our Time Travel Is Different: Looks like it might be the wormhole type.
Padding: Chapter 6 possibly forgivable if you consider the they used them time to get a huge buffer for the comic.
Parental Abandonment: All of Attez' kids get exiled.
Planet of Hats: Er... not quite. An entire dimension of hats. Nothing but hats.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Averted. "Team Vorg is equal opportunity and does not judge after all."
Power Glows: Riddly when he is "in the zone"
Put on a Bus: Essex who simply left off panel between chapters with no indication of where he was going but since Cwen owes him a HUGE favor odds are good he'll be back to collect.
- And then there was Lyria, who not so much put on a bus as hit with one. It's questionable whether or not she survived, since she seems to be some sort of cyborg.
The Psycho Rangers: Sven, Omi, Symus and Sussex vs Cwen, Wendy, Riddly and Essex
Quirky Miniboss Squad: Sven and Crew.
Red Shirt Army: Most of Team Vorg and the Army of the Witch Queen.
Regent for Life: Averted. The Witch Queen eventually took power away from her advisers when she became powerful enough.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: Edwin the Egg Shaped and Magnificent
Royal Blood: Cwen was abducted once as a child because she has both Royal and Demon blood.
Running Gag: Many lesser characters have these.
- Your Mother.
Schizo Tech: For the most part CQ seems like an off beat fantasy world but if you see a Fau X logo on something that seems to go out the window.
She Cleans Up Nicely: Subverted
Shout Out: this page is full of them.
Shown Their Work: Inverted. The author doesn't research since the comic runs on rules of funny but will come up with detailed explinations for questions asked by fans.
Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Wendy
Stable Time Loop: The current story arc seems to be one of these.
Stealth Hi/Bye
Super Soldier: Zergarem the Destroyer was supposed to be one of these, he found he was apparently better suited to police work.
Take My Hand: Played with in chapter 1 when Cwen needs of these and one isn't immediately forthcoming.
Temporal Sickness: Only when you travel forward in time.
There Are No Therapists: Subverted. Although she appears mostly in the side stories Doctor Elestria provides therapy to several characters. Though it is obviously some characters haven't been to see her yet.
Unusual Ears: Many characters like the Witch Queen and Sven seems to have variations on pointy ears. Symus even comments on her new ears in surprise when she is turned into a cat girl.
Unusual Dysphemism: Son of a monkey whore!
Unusual Euphemism: "Kick him in the pills!"
Villainwith Good Publicity: Averted as Team Vorg's good name is based on their reputation for total war against those who defy them.
Walking the Earth
Weasel Mascot: Wendy
Webcomic Time: Made worse by a time travel arc.
What Is Evil?: Parodied on this page
Winged Humanoid: Cwen, though her wings are useless.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Witch Queen Sabril
Word of God: The author has stated the world mostly runs of the rule of cool and rule of funny so you shouldn't question things but if you ignore this and ask the author how something works and he will explain it in detailed pseudo-science provided it doesn't spoil the plot.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Symus the demon cat girl has blue hair but since the comic is mostly in gray with only occasional color we rarely get to see this. Word of God states that blue hair is a demon trait in the CQ universe.
Zerg Rush: Cwen leads one of these as the final phase of Essex's battle plan against Team Vorg.

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