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alt title(s): Tortall
The Tortall-verse consists of several sets of young adult fantasy novels by Tamora Pierce:
- Song of the Lioness follows Alanna of Trebond and the time between her Twin Switch with her brother to her knighthood and subsequent adventures; for the first two books she must also disguise her true gender.
- Alanna: The First Adventure
- In The Hand Of the Goddess
- The Woman Who Rides Like A Man
- Lioness Rampant
- The Immortals centers around Daine, a young girl able to communicate with animals as the world once again has to deal with the Immortals who had been sealed away centuries before.
- Wild Magic
- Wolf Speaker
- Emperor Mage
- In The Realms Of The Gods
- Protector Of The Small follows Keladry of Mindelan, the first girl to train openly for Knighthood after Alanna and her struggle to keep up with those who want to see her fail and constantly move the goalposts. She's the only protagonist so far not to have any magic.
- First Test
- Page
- Squire
- Lady Knight
- Daughter Of The Lioness follows Alianne, Alanna's daughter, and her involvement in the underground movement in the Copper Isles to install a new Queen to replace the Royally Screwed Up monarchy and free the repressed native people.
- Trickster's Choice
- Trickster's Queen
- Provost's Dog is told in first person from the point of view of Beka Cooper, George Cooper's ancestor 200 years before Alanna's time, and her time in the proto-police force known as the Dogs on the streets of Corus.
- Terrier
- Bloodhound
- Mastiff (forthcoming)
Tropes present in this series include:
- Ace Lightning Syndrome: Numair, magically speaking. Other mages use magic to put out their candles, Numair has to get up and blow it out because if he used his magic he'd splat the candle, the table it was on and the wall behind it.
- Action Girl: Several of them
- Action Mom: Alanna, in later books
- Queen Thayet was a bit of one as well. She founded her own cavalry group, the Queen's Riders, and often would drop whatever she was doing to ride out with them when they were called up.
- Aerith And Bob: Among others, we have Alanna, Jonathan and Raoul alongside Veralidaine, Numair (or Arram) and Keladry.
- Afraid Of Needles: Alanna faints when getting her ears pierced.
- Animal Stereotypes: Wild magic, anyone?
- Animal Talk: Mainly with Daine and Beka.
- Appeal To Audacity
- Axe Crazy: Josiane of the Copper Isles. Literally. Stated to have been the result of inbreeding in the island kingdom.
- Back From The Dead: Alanna kills the Big Bad of the first quartet very dead in book two. Alas, it doesn't stick.
- Badass Bookworm: Tristan makes the very, very stupid mistake of thinking Numair is a complete Cloud Cuckoolander. He won't be making that mistake again. Because now he's an apple tree (he gets better in a short story published years later).
- Badass Normal: Kel, the only protagonist in Pierce novels not to have any magical abilities.
- Berserk Button: See Numair. See Numair (apparently) get killed. See Daine crush the killer's palace WITH ZOMBIE DINOSAURS.
- Better As Friends: Alanna and Jonathan, also Kel and Cleon.
- The Big Guy: Oh my god Raoul.
- And Sarge of the Queen's Riders, a man so huge Daine wonders if he has bear blood in him.
- Blade On A Stick: Kel and her mother both use naginata, and are quite good with them. A later book describes Kel as "that mad woman with the giant pigsticker."
- Bully Hunter: Kel
- Carnivore Confusion: Shapeshifting wildmage Daine suffers from this.
- The Chains Of Commanding: Kel, a natural leader, wonders in Lady Knight if her old schoolmates resent her commanding them. She also has to refrain from greeting old friends with a hug - the leader can't drop her dignity.
- Not to mention that, in order to gain the trust and respect of her command, she needs to do every unpleasant chore in camp without complaining, and she fully expects to be executed for coming to the rescue of several hundred children. She spends at least sixteen hours of every day working.
- Kalasin is another example, though only implied in the books. She planned to become the first female knight, but was talked out of it by her father, to set up an alliance by marriage. This discussion? Happened when she was nine, at the latest. Actually, let's go with every 'good' royal.
- Cosmic Plaything: Most obviously Aly and Kel, but Alanna and Daine both have some elements of this.
- Counterfeit Cash: Bloodhound revolves around this.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Daine loses her temper. Asskicking on a truly epic scale ensues.
- Dark Is Not Evil: One of the three main gods in Tortall is the Black God, who is in charge of death and judgment. He is said to be the kindest and most merciful of the three, and one of the main characters, Lawful Good Beka Cooper, actually works for him on occasion.
- Dead Guy Junior: Multiple characters end up naming their children after deceased characters, not just limited to the royals. Among the more notable examples are Rikash and Sarralyn, Daine's children named after the Stormwing she befriended and her late mother and Alanna's children Thom, Alianne and Alan, the latter two named after both her father and the name Alanna went by during her Masquerade.
- Also, most, if not all, of Jonathan's and Thayet's children are named after dead guys. Liam, Lianne, Roald. . .
- Kalasin fits this as well - she's named after Thayet's mother.
- Word Of God also says that Aly and Nawat had triplets after the Trickster books ended. Apparently dead-guy-junioring isn't done in raka tradition, so instead of Ochobu, Ulasim and Junai, they named the kids... Ochobai, Ulasu and Junim.
- All of the above are truly and spectacularly outdone by Coram and Rispah, who name their children: Jonthair, Alinna, Thomsen, Mylec, Daran, Liam, and Thayine.
- Dead Man Writing: In Lioness Rampant.
- Determinator: Kel has this going for her, and when one enemy is stupid enough to kidnap the refugees she'd been put in charge of and take them to Scanra they really have it coming to them. See Mama Bear.
- Also Beka. It's where she gets her "Terrier" nickname.
- Dirty Cop: The Provost's Guard's definition of "dirty" is a bit looser than our modern one (taking kickbacks in "happy bags" is a well known and accepted practice for even good cops) but as Beka eventually discovers, a large percent of the Guards of Port Caynn are completely corrupt (including their head, Sir Lionel (who also happens to be Alanna's supposed ancestor).
- The Emperor. Daine has some trouble with Emperor Mage Ozorne, who wants to rule the world or something.
- Fan Nickname: Numair Salmalin was referred to as "Numy" by several fans... in Daughter of the Lioness, the nickname has stuck as canon.
- Fan Preferred Couple: Averted with Alanna's childhood friend George Cooper, who Pierce decided was better for Alanna after she sunk the ship of Alanna/Jonathan in The Woman Who Rides Like A Man.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Yamani Islands are Japan right down to the language, Tortall's version of Ancient China is implied to be on the other side of the sea in Protector of the Small, the people at the Roof of the World were modeled after the Tibetans and Nepalese and etc, and Carthak is one big African nation, complete with lots and lots of black people. Oh, and the Bazhir are Arab. The Copper Isles are fairly analogous to India and Southeast Asia, right down to the types of dress and foods.
- Fantasy Pantheon: in spades. Covered in the Song of the Lioness quarted, half the point of The Immortals.
- First Guy Wins - Aside from her twin brother and her man-at-arms, George is the first guy Alanna meets. Likewise with Daine and Numair, although he's a hawk at the time. The same occurs with Aly and Nawat in the "Daughter of the Lioness" duo.
- First Name Basis: Many, many characters, including the royal family.
- Foreign Queasine: Daine in Carthak, Kel in the desert and Aly in the Copper Isles.
- Friend To All Living Things: Deconstructed with Ozorne, who is popular enough with his animals (and particularly his birds), but is otherwise a very, very nasty man. On the other hand, Daine is nature's friend through and through.
- Generation Xerox: Usually averted, as children are usually not like their parents and have different interests, most obviously with Alanna's daughter Aly. Sometimes it's played straight, though— Joren of Stone Mountain is so filled with bigotry that he dies during his Ordeal (a magical experience in which one's flaws are tested), and when his father comes to blame Kel for it, he proves himself to be much the same.
- Also a hilarious inversion in the Beka Cooper books: Lionel of Trebond, the head of the Port Caynn guard and presumably Alanna's ancestor, is a sexist who subscribes to a cult that thinks women have "tender souls" and aren't cut out for violence. He's also far too much of a wimp to deal with the Rogue.
- Genius Ditz: Numair's mishaps whenever he tries to do things that don't involve huge magic (eg. having candles explode) are referenced in both The Immortals and Protector of the Small.
- Gentleman Thief: George Cooper and Rosto the Piper, plus several characters in the Beka Cooper series.
- A God Am I: Emperor Ozorne all but bans worship of the gods, declaring that "if the people need to worship someone, they can worship him."
- God Was My Copilot: Faithful/Pounce in both the Lioness books and Beka Cooper novels. He was affirmed as a god at the end of The Realm of the Gods, the last Immortals book. It distinctly points out that Daine met a black cat with purple eyes. He was annoying the Goddess. It could also be interpreted, using information from Terrier, that Faithful and Pounce are one and the same constellation
- Hair Of Gold: Very consciously averted. Word Of God is that the reason almost none of her heroines are blonde is precisely because of this trope. In Song of the Lioness, the blonde princess, Josiane, is evil. However, in the new Provost's Dog series, the heroine Beka Cooper's hair is described as dark blonde.
- Aly's hair is strawberry blonde (red gold), too.
- Heroic Bastard: Daine is illegitimate, as indicated by her matronymic "Sarrasri" from her mother Sarra, and this affects her and how other see her throughout The Immortals. However, in Realms of The Gods we find out that her father is really Weiryn, the god of the hunt, and her mother has gone up to join him to become The Green Lady, a minor Goddess. Daine very briefly considers changing her patronymic to Weirynsra before deciding to keep her old one after having been through so much with it.
- Heroines Want Redheads: Not counting her one-sided crush on Neal and likewise her crush on Neal's cousin Dom, Kel's only Love Interest has red hair.
- Hide Your Lesbians: So far none of the Tortall books have had any openly gay characters, though there was a passing mention to a man who took male lovers in Lady Knight. Pierce has said that Lalasa from Protector of the Small is gay, but it wasn't important enough to put in the books. Except she did, what with all the Lalasa/Tian subtext, and all. This is averted in the Circle books, however, and in the latest Beka Cooper book, Bloodhound, there is a homosexual couple, one of whom is a cross-dressing singer.
- However, Word Of God has stated that Duke Roger and Thom were originally intended to be in a homosexual relationship, before she changed the book to be marketed to young girls instead of adults..
- Honor Before Reason - The lady knights. Kel runs into enemy territory in the middle of a war to rescue the refugees who have been abducted from her camp.
- On the other hand... She's been explicitly told, by what amounts to a god, that it's her fate to face off with the perpetrator, which is a pretty good sign that she'll win. If she doesn't go save them, the number of nigh-unstoppable killing machines assaulting the border will quintuple, because they're powered by the souls of murdered children - given that they're already losing the war... Not to mention that after her initial departure, they explicitly avoid charging in, and Kel kills the unarmed main antagonist in 'dishonorable' cold blood. Seems more like CombatPragmatism to me.
- Hot For Student - Ohhhhhhh, Daine and Numair.
- To be fair, Daine had reached the age where she would be considered an adult before she even realized Numair liked her.
- Huge Schoolgirl: Kel ends up towering over most of her male friends by the end of her series.
- Interspecies Romance: Daine's parents (human and god), Aly and Nawat (human and crow-turned-human)
- Its All Junk: The bet the crows make with the Trickster god in the Daughter of the Lioness books.
- Kaleidoscope Eyes: Liam's eye color changes depending on his mood.
- King Incognito: More of a case of Prince Incognito: "Johnny", the rich young merchant's son befriended by the King of Thieves, is really Prince Jonathan. Also Thayet in Lioness Rampant when on the run during a civil war.
- Knife Nut: George and Aly
- Knight In Shining Armor: Alanna and Kel are female examples.
- Lady Of War: Kel and Alanna mainly, but Thayet, Buri and the Yamani ladies also fit this trope.
- The Lancer: Neal to Kel.
- Loveable Rogue: George and Rosto. Surprise surprise, they might even be related.
- Magic Knight: Alanna, and any of the other Gifted knights. Most of them rely more on the Knight than the Magic in combat situations.
- Magic Music: Numair Salmalin manages to retrieve several large boulders to fortify the defences around an army camp in Protector Of The Small. Word Of God says that the name of the music he uses (The Sorcerer's Dance) is meant to reference the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
- Magnificent Bastard: Duke Roger in the Lioness books is behind the attempts on the royal family's life, and winds up showing that Death Is Cheap when he manages to come back from the dead ( thanks to Alanna's twin brother Thom ) and try again.
- And Ozorne. This reader got chills in Emperor Mage when Ozorne, cool as you please, tells Daine he plans to have her teacher executed while she's succumbing to the drug he slipped into her drink so he can abduct her and use her disappearance to set off a war. And after she'd been nice enough to take care of his birds!
- Joren's another. And in Lady Knight, Kel is disappointed when Blayce turns out not to be this, but rather a scrawny, inept, vulgar little man.
- Mama Bear: Despite never actually having children, Kel fits the mold quite well indeed. Do not pick on people close to her. There's a reason the quartet of books featuring her are collectively called the "Protector of the Small" series.
- A Man Is Not A Virgin: So many examples, but especially: Numair (whom you of all people should know he's been involved with the women at court), Jon, and Rosto.
- Mary Sue: Can be and has been argued for Alanna, Daine, and Aly, with their exceptional talents, strong magical capabilities, closeness with gods, and the many men who love them. However, proving that Tropes Are Not Bad, it's mostly justified in the name of plot and character development and there are notable subversions, such as Alanna's moderate-not-stunning looks and infamous temper and Daine's absolute refusal to be a Purity Sue. And Kel averts it every which way.
- Merlin And Nimue: Daine and Numair.
- Mind Rape: The Chamber of the Ordeal, which must be faced by all would-be knights, is essentially a big box of this.
- Modest Royalty
- Nature Hero: Daine, who was raised in (relative) isolation and who is Friend To All Living Things.
- Never Mess With Granny: Eda Bell. And Alanna herself, after Aly gets pregnant by Nawat.
- Nice To The Waiter: Goes along with Pet The Dog below for Wyldon.
- Beka also has a few moments in Bloodhound where she intentionally leaves food for the young girl who is spying on her for the Court of the Rogue, since she knows that the girl probably is not well fed and Beka used to be in a similar situation herself. The girl later helps her escape and find what she needs to take the Rogue in.
- Everyone good is Nice To The Waiter, everyone bad is not. We keep being told by the huge cast of nobles who care about commoners that it's atypical in Tortall for nobles to care about commoners. The only borderline exception is Kel's friend Merric, who, while certainly not cruel or miserly, tells her and Neal at one point that they're too concerned and generous.
- The Nicknamer: Oh my god Daine. And she's not even creative about it.
Daine: This is Skysong, but mostly we call her Kit, or Kitten.
- Let's not forget her nicknaming a dragon Big Blue.
- In fact it seems the vast majority of protagonists in both series who have the curse of names longer than two syllables have them shortened. Kel for Keladry, Sandry for Sandrilene...
- Non Sequitur Thud: Not as random as some examples, but Kel is noticeably... ineloquent after three rounds of jousting with Lord Wyldon.
Kel: I know, my lord. You wish I were a boy. But being a girl is more fun. More fun-er? Is that right?
Wyldon: Go lie down, Mindelan. You're tilt-silly.
- No Periods Period: Completely averted by frank discussions of feminine issues and magical birth control, and in the Lioness books Alanna ended up outing herself to George Cooper after she panicked during her first period and went to see his mother, a healer.
- Not Good With People: Daine at first.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Thom freaks his teachers the hell out when he stops doing this.
- Also Numair in Wild Magic refers to depending on Tristan remembering him as having been a "book-bound idiot" back in Carthak.
- Beka invokes this sometimes when she has to pass as a "loose dog". Asskicking generally ensues for whoever underestimated her.
- Odd Friendship: Daine and Rikash the Stormwing. She even names one of her kids after him after he dies.
- Older Sidekick: Coram to Alanna, arguably Numair to Daine (depending who you view as the 'hero')
- One Last Fling: Alanna and Liam. They eventually break up after they realize that they're too different, and then he dies.
- Pals With Jesus: Perhaps 'pals' is the wrong word, but many characters (such as Aly with Kyprioth the Trickster) are on speaking - often first-name - terms with the gods.
- Pet The Dog: Is usually indicative that a character may not be as cold-hearted as they initially appear. The Stormwing Rikash has one of these moments in the Wild Magic series, as does Kel's sexist training master Lord Wyldon in a literal Pet The Dog moment with Kel's terrier Jump.
- In Bloodhound, Pearl Skinner, the Rogue of Port Caynn, also gets a literal Pet The Dog moment with Beka's hound Achoo. Beka comments that knowing that even someone like her has some nice spots makes plotting against her harder.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: In "Alanna: The First Adventure", when Alan (Alanna) and Jon are fighting the Ysandir, said evil magicians make her clothes disappear, revealing her naked girlyness. Jon ogles her for a moment before blushing and offering his tunic. Also been described as the "lolwutboobies" moment.
- Powered By A Forsaken Child: In Squire and Lady Knight the Killing Devices are powered by the souls of murdered children. Admittedly, they are made for the enemy nation, but the mage who makes them offers to defect if Kel doesn't kill him. She refuses.
- Raised By Wolves: Or, in Nawat's case, raised by crows. Additionally Daine experiences this trope literally.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Conte family embodies this.
- Arguably, every named royal does - even the evil ones have some pretty profound effects on their societies. (The luarin royals in the Copper Isles, or Ozorne, for instance.) Most nobles, and all unnamed royals, though... Who ever worries about Gallan politics? (Probably justified by length restrictions on the books.)
- Royally Screwed Up: the luarin royalty of the Copper Isles in Song of the Lioness and Daughter of the Lioness.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Many female characters get at least one of these. Alanna's first one comes in In the Hand of the Goddess, when she starts taking lessons from Mistress Cooper in feminine dress and behavior, and George and Jon see her in a dress. Lampshaded by Alanna after Jon starts coming onto her:
This was what came of wearing a dress! Men got ideas when a person wore skirts!
- Also in Lioness Rampant, where her comrade/lover Liam, despite thinking she looks pretty, reacts snappishly and tells her basically that she can't be a warrior and a lady and she'd better straighten out her priorities. Later he apologizes.
- Shrinking Violet: Lalasa, at first.
- Single Target Sexuality - Nawat is Alysexual.
- The Smurfette Principle: Attacked with great fury by the lead of just about every book (the only exceptions being the Circle books focusing on Briar and a forthcoming book about Numair's early life).
- Squick: Aly and Nawat, for some people. Daine and Numair, for others. 14 year age gap and relative social status is often quoted as the reason.
- The Stoic: Kel and her "Yamani face".
- Technicolor Eyes: Alanna and Thom have Purple Eyes that match the color of their magic; so does Faithful.
- Thieves Guild: Also known as "The Court of the Rogue", with one in each major city.
- Token Deity - It's a bit odd that the chief god worshiped by a medieval white society is a black man...something they can't be unaware of considering how much the Tortallan gods like to meddle. Particularly bizarre in the Copper Isles, considering that the white elite look down on the colored natives, though race and religion seem to not be such hot points in that world even though people hate seeing so many outsiders.
- Unstoppable Rage: Please don't piss Daine off. Otherwise you'll be dealing with skeleton zombie dinosaurs crushing your palace.
- Perhaps less dramatically, if she is in the form of a giant bird, don't follow close behind her. Just... don't.
- And in Numair's case, he'll just turn you into a tree.
- Unusual Euphemism: Beka's sarden, which, combined with her lower-class slang and Kyprish commands to her dog, can result in some nigh-incomprehensible sentences. There is luckily a guide in the back of the books defining what everything means to make it easier.
- Vestigal Empire - The historic Thanic Empire, whose states are the modern Eastern Lands. Roughly analogous to Ancient Rome.
- Villainous Breakdown - Many a villain when he's drawn into the open.
- Weak But Skilled: Neal and his father Duke Baird when compared to Numair magically. Nowhere near as powerful but as healers trained to a level of precision that Numair could never hope to match because of his Ace Lightning Syndrome
- Well Done Son Guy: Kel's stern training master Lord Wyldon serves as one of these for Kel - a conservative opposed to the concept of female knights, but fair enough to recognize her hard work and skill.
- What Happened To The Mouse: So many people asked about what happened to the tree that became a man that Pierce wrote a short story about it for an anthology.
- Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: Kel starts out terrified of heights.
- Wutai: The Yamani Islands
- You Kill It You Bought It: Alanna winds up a Bazhir shaman this way.
- You Say Girl Like A Bad Thing: Alanna starts out hating her femininity and wishing she was a boy, and one of the major themes is her coming to accept said femininity. She still remains a more-than-competent Action Girl. IIRC, Pierce actually used the line "You say I'm a girl like it's a bad thing" in one of her books, but the exact place escapes me.
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