History Literature / BloodOfElves

* AllForNothing: Yarpen goes to extraordinary lengths to prove his loyalty to King Henselt and that not all nonhumans want to wage war against humanity like the Scoia'tael. [[spoiler: A military commander assumes Yarpen is a traitor and thus sets up an ambush to test him--only to have the convoy hit by the Scoia'tael and Yarpen fight with them against non-humans. While the leader of the convoy is mortally wounded, Yarpen lost one of his men and then discovered that the secret cargo they defended and lost their lives for were just boxes full of stone]]. In the end, everyone is soured by the experience and full of this time genuine contempt.

* CoitusEnsues: Geralt and Shani had to be alone for an hour, tops, before they were in bed together.

* AcademyOfAdventure: How Kaer Morhen is treated despite the fact it's an empty ruin devoid of other students.

* AllForNothing: Yarpen goes to extraordinary lengths to prove his loyalty to King Henselt and that not all nonhumans want to wage war against humanity like the Scoia'tael. [[spoiler: A military commander assumes Yarpen is a traitor and thus sets up an ambush to test him--only to have the convoy hit by the Scoia'tael and Yarpen fight with them against non-humans. While the leader of the convoy is mortally wounded, Yarpen lost one of his men and then discovered that the secred cargo they defended and lost their lives for were just boxes full of stone.]]

* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Ciri gets a diet of mushrooms and special leaves by the Witchers which don't give her super-strength but make her insanely strong and fast for a teenager. [[AllPeriodsArePMS They also exacerbate her menstrual symptoms]], and Triss worries about [[ACupAngst their effect on Ciri's "womanly attributes"]].

* MuggingTheMonster: A team of SiblingsInCrime is hired to off Geralt. Three of them promptly get killed, and the maimed fourth gets a CoupDeGrace. It wasn't [[GenreBlind genre-blindness]] on their part, they just didn't know the target would turn out to be a witcher (although one of them realized when they were given the job that the one who hired them agreed to an increase in price ''way'' too quickly)

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: The Witchers lost all of their experts on creating new Witchers with the attack on Kaer Morhen.
* ThePurge: The Witchers suffered one of these due to rumors about them and their evils. It effectively destroyed them as a force and caused them to stop taking in new students.

* {{Realpolitik}}: The four most powerful monarchs of the North can't decide what to do with the missing princess of Cintra when and if she turns up, and none of them trust each other with her since she would be such a powerful political tool. So they agree that killing her is the safest option.

%%* TheSpymaster: Dijkstra of Redania is one of these.

* ThePurge: The Witchers suffered one of these due to rumors about them and their evils. It, effectively, destroyed them as a force and caused them to stop taking in new students.

* WhatTheHellHero: Triss reads the riot act to the Witchers of Kaer Morhen when she finds out they've been raising Ciri like one of their own trainees despite the fact that said training is brutal to the extreme. The irony? Ciri actually enjoys it a great deal except for the NoPeriodsPeriod problems which have recently arose.

** More or less the bailiwick of the Scoia'tael. Geralt has a very unsympathetic view of them, believing that the only way to survive is live in peace with humanity.

** More or less the balliwick of the Scoia'tael. Geralt has a very unsympathetic view of them, believing that the only way to survive is live in peace with humanity.

** The Witchers were subject to this due to a {{Expy}} of the Malleus Maleficarum.

* ManHug: One is shared between Geralt and Eskel upon his return to Kaer Morhen.

* CategoryTraitor: Yarpen is considered this by many of his fellow dwarves as well as other nonhumans.

* CoolBigSis: Triss takes this role with Ciri, who desperately needs it after a year with the slobbish Witchers.

** And gets taken to a whole new level with the introduction of the Scoia'tael, who have made things so much worse for everyone.

* TheSpymaster: Dijkstra of Redania is one of these.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Triss and Ciri have this kind of relationship despite their age difference.
* TooDumbToLive: Dandelion telling a grand ballad about the survival of the Princess of Cintra after her nation is subject to a genocide attempt is dangerous enough. It gets worse when he ''says who has her in their custody and they're close friends.''
* TrainingFromHell: Not only was a witcher's training meant for boys, not girls, but it was meant for ''mutation-enhanced'' boys who were tough enough to survive the mutation process. Ciri undergoes it only because that's the only way of raising children witchers know. It proves to be insanely useful later on.
* WhatTheHellHero: Triss gives a pretty big one to the Witchers when she finds out they've been raising Ciri like one of their own despite the fact that said training is brutal to the extreme. The irony? Ciri actually enjoys it a great deal except for the NoPeriodsPeriod problems which have recently arose.

* GenderIsNoObject: Deconstructed. The witchers see no problem in giving a girl the same training and diet that they went through, but Triss points out that their methods don't take Ciri's menstrual cycles into account, and can potentially imbalance the hormones in her still developing body.

* AllMenArePerverts: All three Witchers take Triss' speech on ACupAngst very seriously with Lambert eyeing Triss' cleavage the entire time.

* BiTheWay: A paragraph reveals that Triss experimented with women in the past, and discovered that they could be just as bad as men often were in the sack.

* ReportsOfMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated : Triss was one of the fourteen mages reported to have died on Sodden Hill in the [[Literature/SwordOfDestiny previous book]]. She explains that she was gravely wounded and suffered burns that were so severe, she couldn't be recognized, which is what caused the confusion in the first place.

* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: Yennefer,who turns out to be a surprisingly sympathetic (though harsh) teacher.

* ACupAngst: Triss throws something of a WhatTheHellHero fit over the fear that Witcher training will prevent Ciri from developing womanly curves. (The implications are that the witcher herbs function somewhat like anabolic steroids and can seriously screw up someone undergoing a puberty, which is a fairly serious matter.)

* BaitAndSwitchUmbridge: Yennefer. The old trope name fits better, given her role as a teacher.

* ACupAngst: Triss throws something of a WhatTheHellHero fit over the fear that Witcher training will prevent Ciri from developing womanly curves.

** The implications are that the witcher herbs function somewhat like anabolic steroids and can seriously screw up someone undergoing a puberty, which is a fairly serious matter.