Trylle Trilogy - Television Tropes & Idioms

Nothing about me resembled a pink-haired doll with a jewel in its stomach or a creepy little monster that lived under a bridge. Admittedly, I was kind of short, but Finn was at least six feet tall.

"You're thinking of trolls the way they've been misrepresented, obviously," Finn hurried to explain. "That's why we prefer Trylle. You don't get any of that silly 'Billy Goats Gruff' imagery. But now I have you staring at me like I have totally lost my mind."

-Switched

The Trylle Trilogy is a fantasy book series by American author Amanda Hocking. It follows the story of Wendy Everly, an almost eighteen-year-old teenaged girl who lives with her aunt Maggie and brother Matt. She recounts her sixth birthday party, when her less-than-stable mother grows convinced that Wendy stole the baby she gave birth to, and proceeds to attempt to kill her.

We then cut back to the present day, where Wendy has forced both her aunt Maggie and Matt to uproot their lives and move when she is again kicked out of school. She begins to be disturbed by the also-new student Finn Holmes who constantly watches her, emotionless and unaware. Wendy ponders on her secret skill; she's always known that, ever since she was little, she has always had the ability to make a person act however she wanted merely by thinking a command. Wendy begins to think her mother might have been onto something.

With the help of Finn Holmes, Wendy finds herself in a world she never knew existed - a world both beautiful and frightening, and Wendy's not sure she wants to be a part of it.

Books in the series:

Switched, 2010
Torn, 2010
Ascend, 2011

Contains examples of:

Abusive Parents: "She lunged at me, screaming at me to tell her what I did with her real baby."
Adult Child: Oh, Duncan. When you've got a cast of characters 20 years old or younger who call you a kid, it's time to act a little more your age.
Age Appropriate Angst
All Trolls Are Different: The Trylle, Vittra, Trackers, and Vittra hobgoblins.
Always Save the Girl: Finn to Wendy. Mostly because she's the princess and he's pretty much a bodyguard to the royal family. She does seem like she's sort of capable what with stabbing Jen and leaping on his back when they're hundreds of feet off the ground.
Arranged Marriage: Loki and the Vittra Queen Sara were engaged when Loki was just a kid, before Oren took an interest in Sara.
- Elora and Oren
- Wendy and Tove
Aura Vision: Tove
Ax Crazy: Kim Everly, Wendy's host mom.
Babies Ever After: Wendy and Loki.
Back from the Dead: Loki
Battle Couple: Wendy and Finn, Wendy and Tove, and Wendy and Loki
Blessed with Suck / Cursed with Awesome: The powers the Trylle possess drain their energy and eventually accelerated aging.
Brainwashed: Loki has the ability to do this to a person. He starts to do it to Wendy in Torn, but stops, saying that he wants her to want to leave with him.
Bratty Teenage Daughter: Wendy is portrayed thus as she, as a Trylle, simply does not fit into human society.
Brown Eyes: The Trylle have very earthy coloration. Most of the main Trylle cast has brown eyes, including Wendy and Finn.
Changeling Fantasy
Charm Person: Wendy with her persuasion.
Cloudcuckoolander: Tove often falls into this catigory, since he can sense when others use their powers and their auras.
Coming of Age Story
Dating Do Si Do: Wendy and Willa seem to switch the objects of their affection pretty easily.
Dawson Casting: In-universe example. The Trackers pose as high school seniors to get close to the changelings in order to bring them back to Forening. Duncan in Torn is 27.
Defrosting Ice Queen: It's said that the only person that Elora ever really loved was Thomas Holmes, Finn's father. She's later defrosted further by Wendy.
- Less extreme example with Matt and Willa.
Disney Death: Loki
Does Not Like Shoes: The Trylle do not like wearing shoes. Ever. Even at the fanciest of balls, you can bet that everyone will be bare foot.
Dreaming of Things to Come: Elora has the power of precognition, yet can only use her power by painting the future scene.
Dysfunctional Family: Wendy's father died when she was young, her mother went crazy and tried to kill her when she was six and her brother is not her biological brother.
Dysfunction Junction: Find a normal, functioning character who isn't breaking some sort of rule, law, or standard.
Elemental Powers: Some Trylle can control certain elements, like Willa who can control the wind and her mother, who could control the clouds. Finn says the reason for the bipolar weather was because of the Trylle messing with their powers.
Feuding Families: The Trylle and the Vittra. There's even a chapter in Torn where the two are compared to the Montagues and Capulets.
Fridge Logic: If the Vittra promised not to attack Forening until Wendy becomes Queen, why didn't Elora swallow her pride and marry Garrett Strom, giving Willa a shot at the crown?
Green Eyes: Tove has mossy green eyes
Healing Factor: Those decended from the Vittra. Especially Oren.
Healing Hands: Aurora Kroner and Sara.
Hypnotic Eyes: Loki's power, which he inherited from his father.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Wendy
Jedi Mind Trick: Persuasion. Lampshaded by Rhys in Torn.
Rhys: Aren't you just gonna Star Wars them? When Obi-Wan's like, 'These aren't the droids you're looking for.'
Killed Off for Real: The Chancellor and Elora
Lethal Chef: Rhys, who manages to simultaneously burn and drown the stirfry he makes for Wendy when she first arrives in Forening.
Long Lost Relative: Rhys to Matt
Love Dodecahedron: So much. So much.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Wendy's biological father turns out to be the king of the Vittra. Surprise, Wendy!
Mysterious Parent: Both Wendy's adopted father, the husband of Kim, and Wendy's biological father to the point where she worries when Finn tells her that his father had an affair with her mother. Thankfully, he tells her that they could not be siblings.
Older than They Look: The Trackers. Makes sense, seeing as how their job requires them to pose as high school students, but Wendy's second Tracker, Duncan takes the cake, as he's 27 posing as an 18 year old.
Parental Abandonment: A practice of the Trylle. Finn replies with, quite simply, "it's what we do".
Picky Eater: The Trylle. Basically, they only eat all-natural, non-processed foods. With Wendy's aunt and brother, it's to the point where they can't even cook for her anymore.
Psychic Nosebleed
Rags to Royalty
Rapid Aging: Using their powers causes the Trylle to age much faster than normal.
Rebellious Princess: Wendy pretty much tires to piss Elora off. She's even called this by Loki in Torn.
Rich Bitch: Willa. She's pretty much a bitch to everyone, especially the manskligs and Trackers. She does genuinely care about Wendy, though.
Royal Blood: Wendy comes from a long line of royal Trylle and Vittra, which is why she has so many awesome powers.
Secretly Wealthy: Even Wendy doesn't know how much money her family really has, thinking that her mother's hospital bills and their constant moving has eaten away at their fortune. Turns out, they've been living far below their means.
Sexy Mentor: Finn and Tove are both described as being "foxy" by Wendy on more than one occasion.
Switched at Birth: All Trylle babies are switched with human children so that they can bring back trust fund money when they're 18.
Teens Are Monsters: Literally.
The Needs of the Many: The reasoning everyone tries to use against Wendy for taking her role as Princess of the Trylle.
- Also the reason Elora married Oren.
The Unfavorite: Kim much prefers Matt and the son Michael she didn't even know to Wendy, even telling her to "leave Michael alone" as he is a "good boy".
Totally Radical: What kind of mordern-day teenage girl refers to every good looking guy as foxy?
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Poor Tove. He has to use his powers in order to focus and keep from going insane, but using his powers too much causes outburst of insanity.
Younger than They Look: Elora. When Wendy first meets her, she appears to be around 50. We find out in Torn that she's actually only 39. She dies of old age by the end of Ascend. Using her powers caused her age prematurely.