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alt title(s): Across The Nightingale Floor
The wind stirred the ancient cedars; the night insects kept up their insistent music. It would always be like this, I thought, summer after summer, winter after winter, the moon sinking towards the hills, giving the night back to the stars, and they, in an hour or two, surrendering it to the brightness of the sun, which would pass above the mountains, pulling the shadows of the cedars after it, until it descended again below the rim of the hills. So the world went, and humankind lived on it as best they could, between the darkness and the light.
Written by Lian Hearn and set in a fictional version of feudal Japan, The
Tales Of The Otori series tells the story of a pair of Japanese teenagers who become ensnared in a secret war between between two powerful warrior clans, the Otori and and the Tohan. It is told from the perspective of Takeo, young man in whose veins flow the blood of two profoundly different groups: the pacifistic
Japanese Christian sect known as the Hidden, and the Tribe, a secret network of supernatural assassins. After his village is massacred by Iida Sadamu, leader of the dominant Tohan clan, Takeo is adopted by the disgraced warrior Otori Shigeru, who wishes to use Takeo's awakening supernatural abilities to overthrow the Tohan. But before he can accomplish this goal, he must first come to terms with his own identity as both a pacifist and an assassin. The other principal viewpoint character is Shirakawa Kaede, whom Hearn describes as her "tribute to all the Japanese women who are nameless in Japanese history, who figure in samurai family trees simply as
onna (woman)." A young heiress held hostage to ensure her father's loyalty to the Tohan, Kaede is soon caught up in Shigeru's plot against Iida.
Other important characters include:
- The Otori — A once great warrior clan; recently defeated in battle, it's standing amongst the great domains has been greately reduced.
- Otori Shigeru — Former heir to the Otori; disgraced in battle against Iida Sadamu; adoptive father of Takeo.
- Otori Shoichi and Masahiro — Joint-leaders of the Otori; Shigeru's uncles.
- Miyoshi Kahei and Gemba — Vassals of the Otori family; friends of Takeo.
- The Kikuta — The dominant family within the Tribe.
- Kikuta Kotaro — Leader of the Kikuta; cousin of Takeo's father.
- Kikuta Akio — Nephew and heir of Kikuta Kotaro; husband of Muto Yuki.
- The Muto — The Kikuta's main rival for control of the Tribe.
- Muto Kenji — Leader of the Muto; Takeo's teacher in the ways of the Tribe.
- Muto Yuki — Kenji's daughter, Takeo's lover.
- Muto Shizuka — Kenji's niece and Takeo's cousin; Kaede's bodyguard and confidant.
- Others
- Iida Sadamu — Ruler of the Three Countries.
- Kubo Makoto — A Warrior-Monk of the Terayama Temple; Takeo's closest friend and advisor, possibly his lover.
- Maruyama Naomi — Leader of the Maruyama, the last matrilineal domain in the Three Countries; Kaede's cousin; Shigeru's lover.
- Arai Daiichi — Warlord in the service of Iida; Shizuka's lover.
- Lord Fujiwara — An eccentric nobleman with ties to the imperial family in Miyako; Arai's ally.
- Terada Fumio — Son of a pirate lord; a friend and ally of Takeo.
- Kondo Kiichi — A member of the Kuroda family of assassins; Kaede's bodyguard.
- Jo An — An outcast and supporter of Takeo.
- Dr. Ishida — Lord Fujiwara's physician; employed by the Muto family; Shizuka's lover.
The series consists of three books which account Takeo and Kaede's role in the downfall of Iida Samamu and its aftermath, as well as a sequel set 14 years after the original trilogy, and prequel set 18 years before. They are:
A film adaption of
Across the Nightingale Floor is being planned, and Lian Hearn has confirmed that a script is in progress, being written by
David Henry Hwang
.
This series contains examples of:
- Action Girl — Muto Yuki and Muto Shizuka. Kaede also has her moments.
- Action Girlfriend — Yuki, to Takeo.
- Anyone Can Die
- Arranged Marriage — Kaede and Fujiwara.
- Attempted Rape
- Ax Crazy — Iida Sadamu.
- Badass Family — The Mutos.
- Battle Couple — Takeo and Yuki.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished — Subverted: Kaede is badly burned in the fire at the end of The Brilliance Of The Moon and loses much of her hair.
- Betty And Veronica — Kaede and Yuki.
- Bi The Way — Takeo has had both male and female lovers; this is not treated as that big a deal.
- Blessed With Suck — Hisao is a ghostmaster, which mainly means a lifetime of headaches and garbled visions of his dead mother.
- Complete Monster — Lord Fujiwara, Kikuta Akio.
- Chekhovs Gun: Kaeda is given a razor-sharp knitting needle by Shizuka to use for self defence should the need ever arise. She kills Iida with it by driving it through his eye.
- Chekhovs Gunman — Terada Fumio is introduced in Across The Nightingale Floor, but does not play a major role in the plot until Brilliance Of The Moon.
- Christianity Is Catholic
- Depraved Homosexual — Fujiwara.
- Deus Ex Machina — Takeo's rise and fall is literally ordained by heaven.
- Doomed By Canon — Shigeru and Naomi in Heaven's Net.
- Disappeared Dad — Takeo's father.
- Doomed Hometown — Mino.
- Downer Ending — The Harsh Cry Of The Heron.
- Dropped A Bridge On Her — Maruyama Naomi, Muto Yuki.
- Evil Overlord — Iida, and later Arai.
- Eye Scream — Iida takes a knitting needle through the eye.
- Face Heel Turn — Arai.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture — The story is set in a fantastical alternate version of Japan. The island on which the story takes place is pretty much Shikoku, the oft mentioned "mainland" is China/Korea, the white "barbarians" in The Harsh Cry of the Heron are from Portugal, and the off-island Imperial Capital of Miyako is more or less Edo (Tokyo) on neighboring Honshū.
- Faux Action Girl — Kaede.
- Five Man Band
- Heel Face Revolving Door — Kenji. He sorts himself out in the end.
- The High Queen — Maruyama Naomi.
- Hitman With A Heart — Takeo, as well as most of the Muto.
- Ho Yay — Takeo and Makoto.
- I Call It Vera — Shigeru's (and later Takeo's) sword is named Jato.
- Idiot Ball — See Poor Communication Kills (below)
- I Did What I Had To Do — This becomes Takeo's M.O. as the series goes on.
- Instant Expert — Takeo picks up his Tribe skills, swordplay, and artistic abilities fairly quickly; writing, not so much.
- It Got Worse — All 600 pages of The Harsh Cry of the Heron
- Long Lost Relative — Shigeru turns out to be Takeo's uncle.
- Loony Fan — Jo An.
- Low Fantasy
- Magnificent Bastard — Kaede for much of Grass For His Pillow, Muto Kenji for the whole series.
- Mysterious Parent — Kikuta Isamu.
- Ninja — The Tribe (Hearn never actually calls them this, but it's essentially what they are).
- Ninja Maid — Shizuka, to Kaede.
- Not Using The Zed Word — Members of the Tribe are never referred to as ninja, even though they pretty much are. Similarly, the various warrior clans are never called samurai.
- Obfuscating Stupidity — Takeo pretends to be an ineffectual artist to disguise his true nature.
- Older Than They Look — Shizuka is a thirty-something mother of two who has the appearance of a fifteen year-old.
- She looks that way by using her ninja magic.
- Old Master — Matsuda Shingen.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage — Takeo would love to follow Arai's order to marry Kaede; unfortunately, it isn't as simple as that.
- Pirates — The Terada family. At least one major pirate stereotype is averted, however, in that the they are amongst of Takeo's closest allies.
- Poisonous Friend — Jo An to Takeo, simply because of his social status.
- Poor Communication Kills — Takeo's failure to explain to Kaede about his affair with Yuki. Had she found out in almost any other manner than the one did, the story would have had a much happier ending. For the record, Takeo had twenty years in which to explain all of this, but didn't.
- Posthumous Character — Otori Takeshi.
- Shoot The Dog — Arai forces Takeo to kill Jo An to prove his loyalty to him.
- Star Crossed Lovers — Takeo and Kaede, Shigeru and Naomi.
- Theme Naming — The Hidden all have Rōmaji Christian names: Jo An (John), Madaren (Madeline), Tomasu (Thomas).
- Those Two Guys — Kahei and Gemba. Taku and Zenko. Taku and Hiroshi.
- Treacherous Advisor — Muto Kenji.
- Trilogy Creep — Two of them, The Harsh Cry of the Heron (sequel) and Heaven's Net Is Wide (prequel).
- Why Dont You Just Shoot Him — Averted: Fumio shootsArai just before a major battle.
- Wicked Cultured — Lord Fujiwara.
- You Are What You Hate — Takeo spends much of his life denying both his Hidden and Tribe upbringing.
