History Literature / TheScholomance

* LoadBearingBoss: [[spoiler:Enclaves are built on a foundation in the void with an act of sacrifice which creates a maw-mouth. Should that maw-mouth later be destroyed, the foundation stone breaks, which will severely damage the enclave (if it has more than one foundation, as the larger ones do) or cause it to fall out of reality entirely (if it's got only one). This isn't generally known even among those who know the closely-guarded secrets of enclave creation because no one had ever actually managed to kill a maw-mouth before El--apparently a smaller one being absorbed by a larger one doesn't count or do anything to the related enclaves--and El is somewhat horrified to realize that the mysterious destruction of enclaves was not due to the first shots in an enclave war but because of her killing them. Worse, it doesn't seem like the relationship works the other way: they can't eliminate maw-mouths by evacuating existing enclaves and destroying the foundation stones.]]

* AcademicAlphaBitch: Anyone aiming for Valedictorian tends to be decisive, ruthless, increasingly arrogant, and either possesses a genius-level intellect or is such a monsterously hard worker that the others aiming for Valedictorian can't keep up.

* AcademicAlphaBitch: Anyone aiming for Valedictorian tends to be decisive, ruthless, increasingly arrogant, and a possessor of genius-level intellect.

* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: Liu's grandmother had her uncle and mother in her fifties and sixties, respectively, using magical means that left her frail in her old age. This is because China's one-child policy at the time meant she couldn't have another child until the current one she was raising started attending the Scholomance and effectively vanished from the face of the earth. Even then, her first four children ended up dying anyway and it wasn't until Liu's uncle that she finally got a child back from the school.

* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:In addition to trying to turn Liu into their new maw-mouth anchor, the Beijing enclave ties up her parents, aunt and uncle and sets them right outside the altar to be her first meal when the ritual is done, just because they protested using Liu for it. While the former can be justified under TheNeedsOfTheMany, there was no reason for the latter other than abject cruelty]].

* LaserGuidedKarma: In the second book, Prasong, a Bangkok enclaver who found himself shit out of luck when his enclave was destroyed, decides to go maleficer to keep his current lifestyle and tries using an incompetently-made flaying hex circle to drain malia from a group of unsuspecting freshman kids (including one of his fellow former Bangkok enclavers) whose homeroom is in an isolated corner of the library. Unfortunately for him, also on that weird library homeroom is El, who has a far stronger affinity for TheDarkArts, assumes it was so incompetently done it must have been a particularly stupid mal, and takes the opportunity to show the little freshers how to not only do it better but instantly turn it around on the being that cast it in the first place. Needless to say, it does not end well for Prasong.

* OnlyThePureOfHeart: [[spoiler:The Golden Stone sutras create enclaves without the usual cost in malia, but can only be cast by wizards who are completely free of malia themselves. They unfortunately also have to be once-in-a-generation level powerful, which rendered the spells all but useless for thousands of years.]]

* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: [[spoiler:While Liu's family are genuinely horrified by the modern-enclave building spells and outraged that Liu was nearly sacrificed to make Beijing's new enclave to the point that they worked with El to stop the ritual, it doesn't stop them from leveraging the incident to get spots in the much more powerful Shanghai enclave at the end of the third book. Liu herself doesn't hold it against them and even has her own spot in the enclave, but refuses to move into Shanghai proper until it's rebuilt into a Golden Enclave by El]].

* AcademicAlphaBitch: Anyone aiming for Valedictorian tends to be decisive, ruthless, and increasingly arrogant.

* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler:The Scholomance itself.]]

** Liesel specifically seeks out Alfie as a future spouse because of his high standing in the London enclave, planning to use him to springboard herself into being London's next Domina in about thirty years or so. Unlike most examples of this trope, Alfie is fully onboard with the idea because Liesel's plans include boosting his career as well. [[spoiler:The two are also willing to making El [[{{Polyamory}} a part of their relationship]] if she's up for it. While El does end up [[SexForSolace sleeping with Liesel for solace]], she's not interested in becoming a triad with them, and ends the series in a fully committed relationship with Orion]].

** Liesel specifically seeks out Alfie as a future spouse because of his high standing in the London enclave, planning to use him to springboard herself into being London's next Domina in about thirty years or so. Unlike most examples of this trope, Alfie is fully onboard with the idea because Liesel's plans include boosting his career as well. [[spoiler:The two are also willing to making El [[{{Polyamory a part of their relationship]] if she's up for it. While El does end up [[SexForSolace sleeping with Liesel for solace]], she's not interested in becoming a triad with them, and ends the series in a fully committed relationship with Orion]].

* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim:

* LoopholeAbuse: Students regularly work around the rather loose rules of the Scholomance to improve their chances of survival. The most obvious example is homework--the school doesn't care about who does the work, as long as it gets done. Students regularly do each other's homework and sit for each other's exams for trade or to win brownie points, and the Scholomance won't give a damn. The less time a student needs to spend on homework, the more time they have to work on their strategy for graduation, whether that's building mana, practicing spells, brewing potions, or building a powerful piece of artifice.

* LoopholeAbuse: Students regularly work around the rather loose rules of the Scholomance to in order to improve their chances of survival, particularly with homework--the school doesn't care about who does the work, as long as it gets done. Students regularly do each other's homework and sit for each other's exams for trade or to win brownie points, and the Scholomance won't do a thing to them.

* LongDeadBadass: Sir Alfred Cooper-Browning founded and built the Scholomance in 1886. While much can be said of how it was set up to favor the Manchester enclave he was part of and not ''all'' the wise-gifted children of the world, Cooper-Browning was no coward and believed in the project enough to personally lead an expedition attempting to repair the scouring devices to make it safe for graduating classes four years after it opened. They completed enough repairs to save the next three years' worth students before Sir Alfred was eaten by a maw-mouth. [[AndIMustScream He isn't]] ''[[AndIMustScream technically]]'' [[AndIMustScream dead, but he might as well be, and would almost certainly be a lot happier if he was.]]

* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: Orion and El provide an ([[spoiler:initially]]) platonic version. The other students (especially the kids who grew up with Orion in New York) are stunned and baffled by how much time Orion starts spending around surly loner El, when he's spent his entire life ignoring everyone else except when acting on his ChronicHeroSyndrome. The real reason is that Orion finds all of the attention everyone else gives him unsettling and considers El's annoyance at his rescues as a sign that he can be more open with her, [[spoiler:plus, he's a BloodKnight and until connecting with El literally the only thing he wanted to do is kill monsters]]. It takes a while for anyone else to figure this out.

** When explaining the background of the Golden Stone sutras, it's stated that the original author, Purochana, was the one to erect all ten of the original Golden Enclaves. El dismisses this as false, because it makes no sense for him to bother building any more besides the one he was going to live in himself. [[spoiler:Upon a re-read, the detail actually serves as a major hint as to why the sutras fell into disuse. Purochana did erect all of the original Golden Enclaves himself, and the reason why is because he was the ''only'' person alive who could use the sutras, something El only realizes in the third book after using them herself]].

* AbsurdlyElderlyMother: Liu's grandmother had her uncle and mother in her fifties and sixties, respectively, using magical means that left her frail in her old age. This is because China's one-child policy at the time meant she couldn't have another child until the current one she was raising was attending the Scholomance and effectively vanished from the face of the earth. Even then, her first four children ended up dying anyway and it wasn't until Liu's uncle that she finally got a child back from the school.

* AffairBlameTheBastard: [[spoiler:Instead of getting rid of her "useless husband" (as El calls him), the wife of Liesel's father went after Liesel's mother instead, injuring her so badly that she barely made it to her daughter's induction day before dying]].

** Aadhya suspects her paternal grandfather committed suicide after his SafetyWorst idea of protecting his family led to her older sister (who was only eight at the time) getting killed by mal after she snuck out of the house.