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  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • In The Shining Ones, Aphrael summoning a hydrofoil manned by a species of snake-women from another dimension to take the party to where the Bhelliom is hidden
    • The scene right after Zalasta has a conference with Scarpa and Krager Krager becomes sober, having pretended to be drunk for the conversation (to the point of dumping out a drink), and Scarpa suddenly becomes rational instead of his usual frothing-at-the-mouth batshit insane. They have an intelligent conversation, and then both return to their respective status quos. Neither behaves this way ever again in the books. In fact, the actually become worse afterwards; Scarpa begins to command non-existent armies, and Krager begins shaking violently at the thought of even putting a drink down.
  • Complete Monster:
    • The Elenium trilogy: Azash is a horrible, sadistic Eldritch Abomination who manipulates his followers into performing rituals that involve Human Sacrifice, torture, cannibalism, necrophilia, engaging in sexual perversions until they collapse dead from exhaustion, and the like. He plots to extend his worship over the continent, and to that end backs a conspiracy to poison the Queen of Elenia, tries to subvert the Elene Church by placing one of his agents on the throne, has a mercenary army under Martel destroy much of the Holy City of Chyrellos, and uses The Seeker, a child-eating insectoid freak, as his Mouth of Sauron. He uses his final moments to kill other subordinates, just because they failed him.
    • The Tamuli sequel trilogy: Zalasta, Sephrenia's childhood friend, is revealed to be an Evil Sorcerer and traitor par excellence. Having arranged for the massacre of his and Sephrenia's hometown when they were children—resulting in the slaughter of his own family—Zalasta went onto become Styricum's most powerful magician and an integral, behind-the-scenes player in Azash's scheme to conquer the world. Years later, he joins forces with Cyrgon to instigate revolution in the Tamul Empire, and persuades the Elene peasantry to commit genocide against the Styrics—his own people—in order to harm Sephrenia's goddess, Aphrael. Eventually betraying Cyrgon in order to serve Klæl, Zalasta is responsible for not only tens of thousands of deaths, but for endangering the very existence of the world; when everything falls apart, he makes two final attempts on the lives of Sephrenia and her lover Vanion. Driven by lust for Sephrenia, and loathing of Aphrael, Zalasta is guilty of every crime from high treason to "consorting with ye powers of darkness," and is content to damn the entire world, so long as he gains possession of the woman he wants.
  • Designated Villain: It's startlingly common for Eddings' heroes to butcher people who simply happen to be in their way. At first these are specified as being Annias' venal and bullying "church soldier" brute squad, but by the third book, soldiers in the service of totally random patriarchs are being killed just as examples. The Rendors come in for a lot of this too: considering the amount of corruption and vice the Elene Church condones in its high churchmen, treating them as subhumans comes off as a bit myopic. This may be somewhat justifiable by the main cast being comprised mostly of hardened, pragmatic soldiers with no real problems about killing anyone in their way. Sephrenia is the only one who regularly expresses disgust for their nonchalant attitudes.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: After the revelations that the authors were convicted child abusers, some passages make for uncomfortable reading, especially when Berit (an almost fully grown adult knight) beats the crap out of ten year old Talen for being “disrespectful” and everyone apart from Talen finds this amusing.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • During the second book the Knights are approached by a displaced Troll in the dark who starts shouting for them to hand over the child who stole from him. Everyone automatically assumes it's Talen. It's inexplicable at first, until you find out later the Troll is actually Ghwerig and he's looking for Flute, not Talen, whom everyone thinks of instantly when they hear "child" and "thief".
      Ulath: How could Talen pick a Troll's pocket? They don't even have pockets!
    • Berit's statement that Styric language is very complicated because "there are nine tenses" comes as very amusing for Spanish readers, used to their seventeen tenses.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Avin Wargunsson. Yes, he's a Small Name, Big Ego Prince Regent, but he developed this bad attitude because of his stature; being over a foot shorter than everyone around him, he was constantly ignored (and often stepped on) by everyone else - Thalesians generally wind up somewhere in the 6-7 feet range. Upon his death, Bergsten is more concerned about if the wine that Avin was drowned in could be saved than about the Prince Regent being assassinated in his own office.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Martel is a renegade Pandion Knight, Dragon-in-Chief to Azash, archenemy of protagonist Sparhawk, and the primary planner behind everything the villains do. Having procured the poison that Primate Annias needed to incapacitate Queen Ehlana, Martel moves about Eosia, stirring up trouble in Rendor and Lamorkand in an effort to draw the Church Knights out of Chyrellos and make it easier for Annias to gain the Archprelacy by way of intimidation. When Sparhawk and his companions foil these plans and restore Ehlana to health, Martel convinces the Rendors to invade Arcium, then attacks Chyrellos with his own private army of mercenaries. Robbed of victory by way of divine intervention when the Child-Goddess Aphrael steps in and leads King Wargun's army to Chyrellos, Martel lures Sparhawk to Zemoch, so that Azash can deal with him, and steal the Bhelliom—the entire plot of the series, from the poisoning of Ehlana onward being revealed as part of a scheme to force Sparhawk to uncover Bhelliom and then take it from him. Out for his own profit first and foremost, Martel used Annias, Zemoch Emperor Otha, and even Azash, as means to his ends, hijacking all of their plans in order gain revenge on Sparhawk and empower himself.
    • The Tamuli: Stragen is the chief of the thieves of Emsat, a councillor of the Kingdom of Elenia, a proud patricide, and an all around bastard. During Sparhawk’s sojourn in the Tamul Empire, Stragen’s varied talents prove invaluable, as he bullies the Thousand of Styricum into aiding their cause, transforms the thieves of Daresia into an intelligence network that answers only to him, and organizes the largest mass assassination in history, killing every enemy agent across the breadth of two continents. The first to admit that he’s a very bad man, Stragen is the single most devious, and most unrepentant member of a crew of professional soldiers, political manipulators, and criminals.
  • Narm:
    • Annias' title is Primate. It makes sense if you think about the origin of the word, but it's hard to take a guy seriously when people are practically calling him "ape" left and right.
    • Scarpa. His character lose a lot of points when you know that his name means "Shoe" in Italian.
      • That might be a bit of Fridge Brilliance, since Scarpa's status as a bastard son of a prostitute caused everyone (even his own father) to kick him around all his life (and generally treat him like something you'd scrape off the bottom of one).
  • Nightmare Fuel: Seems like it's par for the course for an Eddings series to have at least one villain suffer a case of And I Must Scream. In The Tamuli, the heroes call upon the powers of the Troll Gods to place Zalasta outside of time and then light him on fire. He is going to spend eternity running around the time-frozen landscape, completely alone, unable to put the flames out or die from them.
  • Sequelitis: One could make a case for The Elenium being some of Eddings' best stuff. But then The Tamuli comes along, which is a big step down, largely thanks to an abundance of Harmless Villains.


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