History Literature / TheLabyrinthOfSpirits

* MorallyBankruptBanker: Miguel Ángel Ubach, Enrique Sarmiento, and Ignacio Sanchís. Subverted by [[spoiler: Sanchís' HeelFaceTurn]].
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Sergio Vilajuana is obviously a fictional version of Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, a real life journalist and writer whom Zafón was a friend of.
* NoNameGiven: Subverted. Daniel's father had gone unnamed for all the three previous books, but here he's revealed to be named Juan.

* TheScrappy: Daniel. Many readers disliked his portrayal as an ineffectual amateur detective and aspiring writer in Shadow of the Wind, and his portrayal in The Prisoner of Heaven only doubled down on his worst traits while making him even more of a non-entity in his own story. Now, he's a weird, creepy, possessive [[spoiler: almost rapist]] who's even less proactive in saving his own family. Zafon seems to be openly welcoming readers to hate him at this point after trying to make him the hero of two previous novels.

* AllGaysArePedophiles: Excluding the AmbiguouslyBi Alicia, who doesn't make it much better given that she was predatory fantasies, Virgilio is the only character openly stated to be gay, and a couple of his lines imply he is also an ephebophile.

* BittersweetEnding: For this book and the entire Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. [[spoiler: Alicia kills everyone involved in the child trafficking plot and sends evidence of it to a prominent Spanish journalist, who exposes the government for its complicity. She gets to go to America and spends the rest of her life traveling the country, but dies in her early sixties of a terminal disease. The Sempere family survives a possible attempt on their lives and Daniel sees justice done to the man who killed his mother, but his all-consuming hatred for Valls has deteriorated his relationship with his family. Even though he and Bea agree to have another child, the marriage remains strained, and rather than grow up to become the successful novelist the character dreamed of being in the previous two books, he instead ages into a bitter, neurotic man obsessed with his dead mother's memory. Julian Sempere finally gets to meet his namesake, Julian Carax, who helps him write his family's story, but Carax himself is a broken shell of a man who's stopped writing again after only publishing one new novel. He now spends most of his time hanging around Nuria Montfort's grave out of guilt for his role in her death, and eventually dies of a heart attack there. In the final scenes, an adult Julian Sempere visits Fermin, whom it's implied is close to death, and the pair ruminate that while the 1992 Barcelona Olympics are a high-water mark for the city, the radical change to its culture as a result of the event means the place they loved no longer exists.]]

* TogetherInDeath: The fate of the [[spoiler: Mataix sisters]], who after finally being reunited agree they don't want to live with the memories of their parents' murders and the subsequent sexual abuse they suffered. Alicia finds them together in bed after peacefully ODing on morphine.

** At the outset of the story, Valls' wife has been dying for years of some sort of degenerative illness implied to be multiple sclerosis or possibly early-onset Parkinson's Disease. By the time [[spoiler: Ariadna]] finds her, she's little more than a breathing skeleton. The narration implies that it's a mercy when [[spoiler: Ariadna suffocates her]].

* BittersweetEnding: For this book and the entire Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. [[spoiler: Alicia kills everyone involved in the child trafficking plot and sends evidence of it to a prominent Spanish journalist, who exposes the government for its complicity. She gets to go to America and spends the rest of her life traveling the country, but dies in her early sixties of a terminal disease. The Sempere family survives a possible attempt on their lives and Daniel sees justice done to the man who killed his mother, but his bitterness has deteriorated his relationship with his family. Even though he and Bea agree to have another child, the marriage remains strained, and rather than grow up to become the successful novelist the character dreamed of being in the previous two books, he instead ages into a bitter, neurotic man who still maintains an unhealthy relationship with his dead mother's memory. Julian Sempere finally gets to meet his namesake, Julian Carax, who helps him write his family's story, but Carax himself is a broken man who stopped writing again and now spends most of his time hanging around Nuria Montfort's grave out of guilt for his role in her death. In the final scenes, an adult Julian Sempere visits Fermin, whom it's implied is close to death, and the pair ruminate that while the 1992 Barcelona Olympics are a high-water mark for the city, the radical change to its culture as a result of the event means the place they loved no longer exists.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: Why does [[spoiler: Leandro goad Alicia into killing him? Is it because all of his allies are dead and he's afraid of being the one man to go down for the scheme he concocted with Valls? Because Alicia refuses to ally with him to help build a "New Spain"? Because he feels guilty about setting her up to get killed by Rovira? Or some combination of the above?]]

** Invoked by an adult Julian Sempere, who believes that the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona are the last great thing the city will achieve, and that the event will mark the beginning of its decline.

* BittersweetEnding: For this book and the entire Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. [[spoiler: Alicia kills everyone involved in the child trafficking plot and sends evidence of it to a prominent Spanish journalist, who exposes the government for its complicity. She gets to go to America and spends the rest of her life traveling the country, but dies in her early sixties of a terminal disease. The Sempere family survives a possible attempt on their lives and Daniel sees justice done to the man who killed his mother, but his bitterness has deteriorated his relationship with his family. Even though he and Bea agree to have another child, the marriage remains strained, and rather than grow up to become the successful novelist the character dreamed of being in the previous two books, he instead ages into a bitter, neurotic man who still maintains an unhealthy relationship with his dead mother's memory. Julian Sempere finally gets to meet his namesake, Julian Carax, who helps him write his family's story, but Carax himself is a broken man who stopped writing again and now spends most of his time hanging around Nuria Montfort's grave out of guilt for his role in her death. In the final scenes, an adult Julian Sempere visits Fermin, whom it's implied is close to death, and the pair ruminate that the 1992 Barcelona Olympics are both a high-water mark for the city but that it will probably be the last great thing it achieves.]]

* AffablyEvil: [[spoiler: Leandro]], a kindly, avuncular figure who treats his proteges as his children, and who in contrast to his more brutal colleagues performs his interrogations over tea in a luxury hotel (albeit with a low dose of heroin to loosen his subjects' lips). None of that prevents him from [[spoiler: having had hundreds of families murdered so their children could be sold to Franco sympathizers, or orchestrating a series of further murders to help cover up his past crimes]].
* TheAlcoholic: Since this is late-50s and early-60s Spain, quite a few characters are functioning alcoholics. Vargas is mindful of his intake after killing his family in a drunk driving accident, while Alicia readily admits that she self-medicates with booze and is chugging white wine in virtually every scene she's in. Meanwhile, Fermin travels everywhere with a flask of what's essentially moonshine and drinks champagne for breakfast.

* FourEyesZeroSoul: Both Mauricio Valls and [[spoiler: Leandro]] are described as having a scholarly, bookish appearance due to their glasses. Both men [[spoiler: orchestrated the mass murders of hundreds of families so their children could be sold to high-ranking government officials, and Valls spent a large portion of his life as the warden of a political prison where he sadistically tortured inmates to vent his own frustrations at not having been given more power in the Franco regime.]]

* EndOfAnAge: Invoked by Leandro. The book is set during a period when Franco's regime was loosening its totalitarian control of Spain in an effort to have better relations with its European neighbors as well as the United States. Leandro even admits that ruthless torturers and murderers like Hendaya and Valls will have no place in the coming Spain, whereas conscience-driven individuals like Alicia will be in higher demand.