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YMMV / Dragon Keeper Trilogy

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  • Fridge Horror: Well, if you really think about it, the story really changed nothing. Dragons are still rare, and humans are still probably slaughtering the few remaining ones. However, their rarity could really just be because they're in hiding.
    • Knowing that the stone is actually Danzi's egg (incase you haven't figured it out by the end) puts the whole perspective of the first book into a new light.
    • Could it be that in "Dragon Moon", the necromancer found Ping because she told Jiang Bing she and Danza were going to the Ocean in the previous book? It seems likely, given the necromancer could've summoned Jiang Bing's spirit after she drowned.
  • Heartwarming Moments: The few times Ping meets humans who are not cruel, self-serving or selfish. At least in the beginning of Dragon Keeper, she meets a few farmers and country folk who treat her and her "grandfather" (Danzi in disguise) with more kindness and generosity than she's ever known.
    • Ping reuniting with her mother.
    • Ping and Jun starting a relationship together, possibly even marrying.
  • Iron Woobie: Like Ping, Danzi goes through all sorts of hell. First his mate dies (making him the last of his kind), is heavily sick and injured throughout the journey, he gets kidnapped and held in chains a couple times, and he constantly almost loses his egg and worries nonstop about it. But nothing will stop him from getting to the ocean.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The dragons on the cover are quite simply, horrifying.
    • Ping almost getting sacrificed to a dragon god that doesn't even exist against her will.
    • Everything about the Necromancer.
    • The burning and eating of Danzi's mate in the beginning of the first book. It was terrifying and upsetting for Ping to have to listen to Danzi's howls of sorrow all night.
    • Ping finding Kai dying from blood loss and then "Saggypants" also dying from blood loss after his liver was forcefully cut out and taken from him in the second book.
    • Emperor Liu Che's growing obsession with immortality that leads him into doing very questionable things, such as eating poisonous plants that create rashes and nausea to torturing Kai to use his blood to grant immortality.
    • The reason Princess Yangxin is so terrified of rats is because her lover was put to death, and his body was displayed in front of the whole town. Over time, his corpse was eaten by the many rats that came about to eat his dying flesh. The princess understandably never got over it.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Hua was the most useless character in the first book, but by the second book he Took a Level in Badass and became the most useful character for Ping during her journey onwards.
  • Squick: We can all relate to Danzi for freaking out over a centipede crawling into his ear and needing Hua (a rat) to get it out.
    • Danzi and later Ping cutting themselves and feeding their blood to Kai.
  • Tear Jerker: When Kai found out that all the dragons in the Dragon Haven had been slaughtered, let''s just say he was not pleased
    • Ping's tearful goodbye to Kai.
    • The crying princess from the second book.
  • The Un-Twist: The end reveals that the Dragon Stone is actually an egg. Any reader would have figured this out long ago.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Our main character is an orphan slave girl who has to take care of an old and crippled dragon while being pursued by a Psycho for Hire Professional Killer and a terrifying Necromancer. There is lots of blood and dark themes throughout the trilogy (take a look at the Nightmare Fuel page above for starters).
  • The Woobie: Ping....Oh so much.
    • Kai. Reached its peak when Ping finds him silently moaning in agony from blood loss.
    • Ping's mother. After sending her daughter, Ping, away thinking that she will have a better life as Dragon Keeper, her husband and son die and she was left to suffer in poverty before meeting her second husband.
    • Princess Yangxin was forced to never leave her kingdom after having had an affair with the Captain of the Guards while married to the Duke in a another kingdom. She spends the rest of her days crying and regretting her past decision making.

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