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* VillainousLegacy: In the long-ago BackStory of the books, the ancestors of the Lakewalkers managed to kill their villainous sorcerer-king that threatened to destroy the world. However, it split into fragments and spread over most of a continent, each piece able to grow into a ''[[EldritchAbomination malice]]''. The Lakewalkers in the books are still clearing those out, several hundred years later.
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* SecondLove: Both Dag and Fawn for each other, Dag coming after Fawn's (disastrous) infatuation with Sunny Sawman and Fawn coming after Dag's twenty-years-deceased wife Kauneo.
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* HookHand: Dag's favourite attachment for his wrist cap is a blunt hook with a spring-loaded pincer.
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* InsatiableNewlyweds: Dag and Fawn's UnresolvedSexualTension gets thoroughly and repeatedly... um... ''resolved''.
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* RomanceNovel: The first book is essentially a bodice-ripper "in disguise." The fantastic elements are there, but primarily as a vehicle for Dag and Fawn's budding relationship. The sequels shift the focus to the actual fantasy, although with the love story still as the central role.
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* FantasyContraception: Ground manipulation allows easy, 100% effective contraception with no side effects.
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* FantasyContraception: Ground manipulation allows easy, 100% effective contraception with no side effects.Groundsense means the rhythm method is very reliable. Technically, it's possible to do an abortion using ground manipulation, but it requires a great deal of skill and is only done in an emergency. The case of ectopic pregnancies is discussed.
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* Retcon: Later books go into more detail about how groundsense and beguilement work, sometimes contradicting earlier books.
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* Retcon: {{Retcon}}: Later books go into more detail about how groundsense and beguilement work, sometimes contradicting earlier books.
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added tropes about Groundsetter powers
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Dag in the later books.
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* RescueRomance: How Fawn and Dag met. Partially averted in that each of them credits the other for killing the malice they were fighting.
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* RescueRomance: How Fawn and Dag met. Partially averted in that each of them credits the other for killing the malice they were fighting. fighting.
* Retcon: Later books go into more detail about how groundsense and beguilement work, sometimes contradicting earlier books.
* Retcon: Later books go into more detail about how groundsense and beguilement work, sometimes contradicting earlier books.
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* SuddenlyAlwaysKnewThat: In book four it turns out that Dag is not the first [[spoiler:Groundsetter]]. Every Lakewalker in the south seems to know about this specialty, strangely Dag doesn't even though he once spent a year patrolling in the south.
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* CoolOldLady: Aunt Nattie.
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* CoolOldLady: Aunt Nattie. Mari as well, though she ''looks'' too young to count.
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* HealingHands: Very much reconstructed and discussed, especially once Dag gets apprenticed as a maker. Medicine makers prefer to use mundane means whenever possible, since healing (usually called ''ground work'') can be draining. It is possible to do PsychicSurgery and similar, but it carries with it real risks to the maker too. Often, mundane methods of medicine or chirurgy are used primarily, while ground work supplements it to fend off infections, control internal bleedings, or repair nerve damage.
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minor edit; moved stuff to author page
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance/western series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, especially the expanding frontier. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against [[EldritchAbomination malices]], and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who tends to think the malices are less dangerous and abundant than they are, and believes (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance/western series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, especially the expanding frontier. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against [[EldritchAbomination malices]], and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who tends to think the malices are less dangerous and abundant than they are, and believes (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
mages]]. Though there is some truth in those beliefs.
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* AuthorAppeal: The angsty, experienced older man/spunky but naive young woman pairing shows up in a number of Bujold's other works, including ''Falling Free'', ''The Curse of Literature/{{Chalion}}'', and ''The Hallowed Hunt''.
** Also, [[{{Polyamory}} group marriage]]. The notion that one can be sincerely in love with more than one person at a time shows up at least once per series:
**** VorkosiganSaga: Cordelia mentions an Armsman who has one wife in the city and one in the country, is chronically stressed by the expense and the secrecy, but can't bear to choose between them and seems to truly love both.
**** Literature/{{Chalion}}: Dowager Royina Ista tells of the close relationship she had with her husband's male lover, and how much her husband loved them both.
**** Literature/TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
** Also, [[{{Polyamory}} group marriage]]. The notion that one can be sincerely in love with more than one person at a time shows up at least once per series:
**** VorkosiganSaga: Cordelia mentions an Armsman who has one wife in the city and one in the country, is chronically stressed by the expense and the secrecy, but can't bear to choose between them and seems to truly love both.
**** Literature/{{Chalion}}: Dowager Royina Ista tells of the close relationship she had with her husband's male lover, and how much her husband loved them both.
**** Literature/TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
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* DesignatedVictim: Dag, in a rare combination with being the hero and protagonist. Before the books started, he lost his left hand. In book 1, he broke his right arm. In book 2, he was ground-ripped by a malice and stabbed in the thigh by Fawn. In book 4, he got a badly sprained ankle and was stuck up on a cliff ledge.
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* DesignatedVictim: Dag, in a rare combination with being the hero and protagonist. Before the books started, he lost his left hand. In book 1, he broke his right arm. In book 2, he was ground-ripped by a malice and stabbed in the thigh by Fawn. In book 3, he nearly got drowned by a catfish. In book 4, he got a badly sprained ankle and was stuck up on a cliff ledge.
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* ShownTheirWork: The ''Passage'' riverboats, details about low tech farming.
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* ShownTheirWork: The ''Passage'' riverboats, details about low tech farming. The river bandits in ''Passage'' also have their roots in fact, probably inspired by the Cave-in-Rock pirates of the Ohio River in the 19th century.
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* DeathSeeker: the true reason why Dag has killed more Malices than any other Lakewalker.
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The four books in the series are, with The Sharing Knife prepended:
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The four books in the series are, with The ''The Sharing Knife Knife'' prepended:
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* DesignatedVictim: Dag, in a rare combination with being the hero and protagonist. Before the books started, he lost his left hand. In book 1, he broke his right arm. In book 2, he was ground-ripped by a malice and stabbed in the thigh by Fawn. In book 4, he got a badly sprained ankle and was stuck up on a cliff ledge.
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The four books in the series are, with The Sharing Knife prepended:
* ''Beguilement''
* ''Legacy''
* ''Passage''
* ''Horizon''
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* ThoseTwoGuys: Barr and Remo, especially in ''Passage'' but also for a bit in ''Horizon''. Bo and Hod might also qualify.
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who don't believe in those abominations but do believe (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance fantasy/romance/western series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States. States, especially the expanding frontier. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, [[EldritchAbomination malices]], and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who don't believe in those abominations but do believe tends to think the malices are less dangerous and abundant than they are, and believes (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
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* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with. Lakewalker women are empowered and sexually liberated. "Farmers" have more Victorian attitudes. The books make no bones about which is healthier.
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* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with. Lakewalker women are empowered and sexually liberated. liberated (FantasyContraception makes this a lot easier.) "Farmers" have more Victorian attitudes. The books make no bones about which is healthier.
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* FantasyContraception: Ground manipulation allows easy, 100% effective contraception with no side effects.
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, it examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who don't believe in those abominations but do believe (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, it States. It examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who don't believe in those abominations but do believe (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
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* IdealizedSex: Averted, Fawn's first time was ''not'' enjoyable, the complications are gone into. But also played straight in a realistic manner: Sex with Dag is mind-blowing from the get-go, but he puts quite a bit of experienced care and attention into making it so.
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* IdealizedSex: Averted, Fawn's first time was ''not'' enjoyable, and the complications are gone into. But also played straight in a realistic manner: Sex with Dag is mind-blowing from the get-go, but he puts quite a bit of experienced care and attention into making it so.
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* IdealizedSex: Averted, Fawn's first time was ''not'' enjoyable, the complications are gone into. But also played straight in a realistic manner: Sex with Dag is mind-blowing from the get-go, but he puts quite a bit of experienced care and attention into making it so.
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* IHaveToWashMyHair: GenderFlipped with Lakewalkers. Normally, the woman invites a man to spend the night, and he has to fumble for some excuse that won't give offense if he's not interested.
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* TheIngenue: Fawn. Interestingly, she manages to retain the innocence and vulnerability of the archetype while also fighting {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and enjoying red-hot sex with Dag.
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-->It seemed she'd told the truth despite herself.
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-->It seemed she'd [[AccidentalTruth told the truth despite herself.herself]].
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* BeeBeeGun: Dag uses groundsense to weaponize a beehive.
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* BeeBeeGun: Dag uses groundsense to weaponize a beehive.paper-wasp nest.
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* FamedInStory: Between the number of Malices he has slain and the infamous Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag is a near-legend among many Lakewalkers.
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* FamedInStory: Between the number of Malices malices he has slain and the infamous famous Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag is a near-legend among many Lakewalkers.Lakewalkers. But few Lakewalkers connect the scruffy, one-handed old patroller with the latter legend.
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**** TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
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**** TheSharingKnife: Literature/TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
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* JerkAss: Sunny.
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* ImAHumanitarian: No, Lakewalkers are not. But glimpses of their secretive funeral rites (during which femurs are harvested for conversion to knives) started longstanding rumors to that effect.
* JerkAss: Sunny. Barr starts out as one but proves teachable.
* JerkAss: Sunny. Barr starts out as one but proves teachable.
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moved to namespace
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''The Sharing Knife'' is a four novel fantasy/romance series by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, set in a post-apocalyptic world, with a culture patterned on aspects of the nineteenth century United States, it examines the tension between the two cultures: the magical/traditionalist "Lakewalkers", who are fighting an endless war against {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and the techno-agricultural "Farmers", who don't believe in those abominations but do believe (falsely) that the Lakewalkers are [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalistic]] [[BlackMagic black mages]].
----
!!This series contains examples of:
* AnimalThemeNaming: Lakewalker 'tent names' (family names) all seem to be those of animals. Redwing, Wolverine, Crow...
* AuthorAppeal: The angsty, experienced older man/spunky but naive young woman pairing shows up in a number of Bujold's other works, including ''Falling Free'', ''The Curse of Literature/{{Chalion}}'', and ''The Hallowed Hunt''.
** Also, [[{{Polyamory}} group marriage]]. The notion that one can be sincerely in love with more than one person at a time shows up at least once per series:
**** VorkosiganSaga: Cordelia mentions an Armsman who has one wife in the city and one in the country, is chronically stressed by the expense and the secrecy, but can't bear to choose between them and seems to truly love both.
**** Literature/{{Chalion}}: Dowager Royina Ista tells of the close relationship she had with her husband's male lover, and how much her husband loved them both.
**** TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
* BattleCouple: As unlikely as it seems, Fawn has saved Dag's life as often as he's saved hers.
* BeeBeeGun: Dag uses groundsense to weaponize a beehive.
* BigBrotherBully: All of Fawn's older brothers bullied and mistreated her to some degree. Reed was by far the worst.
* BodyHorror: Malices can turn animals into semi-human monstrosities, which they use as slaves and warriors.
* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Fawn]]
* CharmPerson: Lakewalkers tend to do this to {{Muggles}} ''by accident'' if they're not careful. Malices have [[{{Brainwashed}} an even less pleasant version]].
* ConvenientMiscarriage: Averted. Fawn's miscarriage did ''not'' return her to the status quo, but rather brought on a whole new set of problems, physical, ''meta''physical and philosophical.
* CruelMercy: In ''Passage'', Dag agrees to help the villain transfer his life to a sharing knife, rather than letting his death be wasted (the greatest of shames to a Lakewalker.) He then makes the private, intimate ceremony a public spectacle for the gawking Muggles.
* DarkIsNotEvil: The rumors about Lakewalker Necromancy are overblown, but their [[strike:primary]] [[KryptoniteFactor only effective]] blight-bogle slaying weapons ''are'' carved from the bones of their dead and empowered by [[BloodMagic the lives of sacrifices]].
* DisabilitySuperpower: Dag's injured hand is apparently part of what stimulated his magic to grow stronger.
* DysfunctionalFamily: Fawn's brothers are not really nice boys, her parents tend to be oblivious to tensions bubbling under the surface, and her family in general treats her as an ignorant child. Then she meets ''Dag's'' BigScrewedUpFamily, and finds out just how much worse she could have had it.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Fawn regards the baby animal motif as yet another barrier in her efforts to be taken seriously as an adult, and has sworn never to inflict a similar name on her children.
* TheEmpath: Just about everyone with Groundsense is this to some degree.
* EmpathicHealer: Ground-based healing is stressful stuff. If the patient dies and the healer is in deep it can kill them as well.
* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with. Lakewalker women are empowered and sexually liberated. "Farmers" have more Victorian attitudes. The books make no bones about which is healthier.
* EvilCounterpart: ''Passage's'' villain is a rogue Lakewalker that is basically what Dag would have been if he had gone wrong in every possible way. He spends some time in quiet introspection over this.
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Has a case where a Lakewalker couple couldn't have children, their families were pressuring them to break up, instead they brought a second husband into the relationship. The husbands are [[BiTheWay married to each other as well.]]
* FalseWidow: At the beginning of the series, Fawn claims to be a "grass widow" to explain why she is pregnant and alone. Dag delicately inquires if she knows what a grass widow is. Fawn had thought it meant a woman recently widowed; it really meant a woman in her exact situation, never married but claiming to be widowed in order to escape the stigma of unwed pregnancy.
-->It seemed she'd told the truth despite herself.
* FantasticRacism: Across the board. Lakewalkers tend to be more [[CantArgueWithElves contemptuous]], but [[{{Muggles}} Farmers]] balance it out with bouts of superstition-born [[BurnTheWitch violence]].
* FantasticRecruitmentDrive: Dag theorizes that this is how the ancient sorcerer-lords became a separate caste, by searching out people with groundsense and adding them to the gene pool.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Lakewalkers are reminiscent of Plains Indians; the farmers of 19th-century American settlers. In fact, even the map closely resembles that of the American Midwest, with the Grace River representing the Ohio River, and so on.
* FamedInStory: Between the number of Malices he has slain and the infamous Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag is a near-legend among many Lakewalkers.
* FunctionalMagic: Combination of Force Magic and Nature Magic.
* HandicappedBadass: Even before his ghost hand shows up, Dag uses the BeeBeeGun on a gang of harassers with one hand missing and his other arm ''broken''.
* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Lakewalkers believe the gods abandoned them for their part in creating malices, and that they will return to the world when the last malice has been killed. In the meantime, "Absent gods!" is a popular oath.
-->'''Fawn''': I heard you people don't believe in gods.
-->'''Dag''': Rather the opposite, in fact.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Lakewalkers tend to be tall by [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]] standards, Dag is taller than average for his people, and Fawn is a genuine runt among hers. When added up the differences prove striking; her head barely reaches his chest.
* IKEAErotica: Averted. Attention anyone contemplating writing a sex scene: Please read the first book for multiple examples of how to do it correctly.
* JerkAss: Sunny.
* KissingCousins: It's specifically mentioned that the two men in the three-way marriage are cousins.
* LethalHarmlessPowers: Throughout ''Passage'' Dag experiments with absorbing the [[LifeEnergy ground]] from things, and it seems like a harmless way for him to further his magic ForScience. Then [[spoiler: he ground-rips a cross-sectional slice from the spinal cord of a man holding Fawn at knifepoint]] and it becomes a lot less harmless.
* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: The Lakewalkers were ''much'' more advanced societally and technologically in the distant past. Nobody's quite sure what happened, but the legends say that one of their kings tried to achieve {{Immortality}} and turned into the first malice, which when killed [[AsteroidsMonster exploded and rained down other malices across the land]].
* MagicalNativeAmerican: While there isn't any America in this setting to be a native of, the Lakewalkers have similar traits. There's one main difference, though: characters who aren't {{Jerkass}}es still get to [[ScrewYouElves insult their arrogance]].
* MagicByAnyOtherName: The Lakewalkers tend to be very [[InsistentTerminology insistent]] that ground is ''not'' magic, but have trouble explaining why not.
* MagneticHero: Not the actual heroine, Fawn, who only attracts two characters. Rather, it's Dag who attracts twenty-one more through a combination of [[FamedInStory martial fame]], magical ineptitude, and a disregard for tradition.
* TheMagocracy: Strongly implied the world of the story was once one of these, before the malices were unleashed and brought it all down.
* TheMaidenNameDebate: Lakewalkers use a matrilineal system of naming and inheritance (husband normally takes wife's 'tent' name, and households are passed to the eldest daughter), while [[{{Muggles}} farmers]] use a patrilinal one. As Dag Bluefield (ne Redwing) earned himself a spot in multiple ballads under his ''prior'' married name (Dag Wolverine of Leech Lake Camp) this leads to a degree of confusion.
* MalignedMixedMarriage: [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]][=/=][[WitchSpecies Lakewalker]] pairings are looked at askance more often than not by just about everyone, but the latter tend to be rather more dogmatic about the matter. Unlike most cases, [[JustifiedTrope there are objective reasons]], Lakewalkers need to keep their groundsense (and hence, bloodlines) strong since TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed, and having sex with {{Muggles}} tends to inadvertently MindRape them.
* MarionetteMaster: Both malices and Lakewalkers gone bad.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: A mild version; the hero's life expectancy is roughly twice the heroine's and he's already middle-aged [[MayDecemberRomance (as in, older than her father)]] when they meet.
-->'''Whit Bluefield''': "I don't know if he's robbing the cradle, or if she's robbing the grave!"
* MercyKill: Sharing can be this, as is slaying mud-men after the malice is killed.
* MindlinkMates: Lakewalker marriage essentially involves becoming a limited form of this.
* MissConception: Sunny tells Fawn she can't get pregnant her first time. She doesn't know if he was lying to get in her pants or if he actually believed it, but either way it's a costly mistake.
* MoodyMount: Dag's "evil" horse Copperhead.
* MundaneUtility: When they're not busy killing malices, Lakewalkers use ground manipulation for all sorts of everyday tasks, to include chasing flies off your horse, or luring fish right into your boat.
* {{Muggles}} (Lakewalkers call them all farmers, regardless of their occupation or where they live).
* MyGreatestFailure: Twenty years ago in what became known as the Battle of Wolf Ridge; Dag lost all but three of his command, his left hand, and ''his wife'' in the space of an hour. It does not help that more than one epic poem[=/=]song has been composed about it, and he tends to make himself scarce when one some pup decides to sing one at a celebration.
* NoOntologicalInertia: When a malice is killed, its mud-men slaves revert to their animal minds--and then die, trapped in the wrong bodies--and the spell is lifted from any mind-controlled humans who have been enslaved by it, though they may or may not be able to go back to their old selves; though the Ontological Inertia is present in the case of the mud-men/animals, who die slowly, trapped in bodies they do not know how to use.
* NotBrainwashed: Alder, Fawn.
** In the fourth book, half-blood Calla thinks she has magically beguiled Sage into marrying her. When Dag discovers the persuasion, he tells Calla she cast a love spell on a boy that was already in love with her.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Fawn[[note]](after finding out that the man she had been sleeping with was older than her 50-odd father)[[/note]] makes a habit of adding an extra fifteen or twenty years to the estimated age of any Lakewalker that looks older than 30 or so. It is usually accurate.
** Fawn's own size and features work to convince most that she is closer to 12 than 18.
* {{Polyamory}}: A rare example of a woman married to two husbands. It's not really accepted practice among Lakewalkers, but they have no actual law against it, and the three are happy together, so the rest of the clan just kind of adjusted to it.
** It's also quite clear that the husbands [[BiTheWay are also married to each other]].
* PoorCommunicationKills: Setting aside the [[BurnTheWitch repeated incidents]] rooted in rumor caused by quarter-understood glimpses of Lakewalker customs; it is clear that Malices emerging under a farmer town where no one would recognize the signs of them even if they believed such creatures existed is in many ways the most dangerous scenario possible.
* PowerPerversionPotential: Used benignly, Lakewalker ground manipulation can ''greatly'' enhance sexual encounters. Used unethically, it can "persuade" a reluctant partner into consenting.
* PsychicRadar Groundsense can be used for this. It's more literally lifeforcesense; allowing a practitioner to detect and sense lifeforce around them, from other humans to animals and even the malices.
* RapeIsLove: Averted. To be exact, "Seduction by a Lakewalker is [[MindRape mind raping]] you into obsession with him or her for the rest of your life." One of the reasons Dag's clan opposes his marriage is that they think he did this to Fawn.
* RescueRomance: How Fawn and Dag met. Partially averted in that each of them credits the other for killing the malice they were fighting.
* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Dag and Fawn.
* ScarsAreForever: Even minor wounds inflicted directly by a [[EnemyToAllLivingThings malice]] are unusually slow to heal, and fade to an odd silvery color once they eventually do.
* SettlingTheFrontier: The farmers are trying to reclaim and settle new land, even when the Lakewalkers deem it unsafe.
* ShownTheirWork: The ''Passage'' riverboats, details about low tech farming.
* [[SuicideByCop Suicide By]] EldritchAbomination: Attempted in Dag's backstory. After Dag's first wife died, he passed the DespairEventHorizon and essentially tried to commit suicide by repeatedly going for the kill on every malice he faced. He ended up killing over twenty five, when the most experienced Lakewalker commanders normally rack up maybe five or so in their lifetimes. Many Lakewalkers almost consider him a PhysicalGod by now..
* SwissArmyAppendage: Dag, played fairly realistically in that the attachments take time to switch, are often inferior to regular tools, and cause a lot of physical wear and tear to Dag.
* TrueCompanions: Most of the cast in ''Passage'' end up becoming this.
* VirginityMakesYouStupid: Fawn got swept up by romantic feelings during a wedding, making it easy for Sunny to take advantage of her.
* WalkingWasteland: A sufficiently large malice can kill every animal and plant in a region and leach the life from the soil for a millenium.
* WhatTheHellHero: Dag uses CharmPerson on an ObstructiveBureaucrat near the beginning of ''Horizons'' after having taken taken one of his young wards to task for doing it in the previous book. He gets called on it almost immediately. Turns out he was seriously stressed because he thought he was turning into a malice.
* WitchSpecies: The Lakewalkers think of themselves as one, and use it to justify their arrogance towards the farmers. They're wrong--magic can appear in farmers as well, albeit in rudimentary form.
* WizardsLiveLonger: But only about twice as long as "farmers".
* TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed: In the "staving off disaster" rather than "recycled apocalypse" sense -- if any malice ever goes undetected long enough to go critical, it will wipe out all life and civilization.
* YouWillBeAssimilated: Any living thing a malice doesn't [[CharmPerson "beguile,"]] it "ground-rips," powderizing it and gaining its strength, knowledge, and to a certain degree abilities. A malice that eats lots of humans can plan tactics, a malice that eats bats can fly, and so on. This incidentally justifies the BishonenLine, as a malice that's eaten many, many animals and has grown to tremendous size is often less dangerous than one that has eaten enough humans to [[ItCanThink think]].
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!!This series contains examples of:
* AnimalThemeNaming: Lakewalker 'tent names' (family names) all seem to be those of animals. Redwing, Wolverine, Crow...
* AuthorAppeal: The angsty, experienced older man/spunky but naive young woman pairing shows up in a number of Bujold's other works, including ''Falling Free'', ''The Curse of Literature/{{Chalion}}'', and ''The Hallowed Hunt''.
** Also, [[{{Polyamory}} group marriage]]. The notion that one can be sincerely in love with more than one person at a time shows up at least once per series:
**** VorkosiganSaga: Cordelia mentions an Armsman who has one wife in the city and one in the country, is chronically stressed by the expense and the secrecy, but can't bear to choose between them and seems to truly love both.
**** Literature/{{Chalion}}: Dowager Royina Ista tells of the close relationship she had with her husband's male lover, and how much her husband loved them both.
**** TheSharingKnife: a Lakewalker woman is married to two men. The original couple couldn't have children--all-important in Lakewalker culture--but they didn't want to split up, so they just brought in an extra husband.
* BattleCouple: As unlikely as it seems, Fawn has saved Dag's life as often as he's saved hers.
* BeeBeeGun: Dag uses groundsense to weaponize a beehive.
* BigBrotherBully: All of Fawn's older brothers bullied and mistreated her to some degree. Reed was by far the worst.
* BodyHorror: Malices can turn animals into semi-human monstrosities, which they use as slaves and warriors.
* BuriedAlive: [[spoiler:Fawn]]
* CharmPerson: Lakewalkers tend to do this to {{Muggles}} ''by accident'' if they're not careful. Malices have [[{{Brainwashed}} an even less pleasant version]].
* ConvenientMiscarriage: Averted. Fawn's miscarriage did ''not'' return her to the status quo, but rather brought on a whole new set of problems, physical, ''meta''physical and philosophical.
* CruelMercy: In ''Passage'', Dag agrees to help the villain transfer his life to a sharing knife, rather than letting his death be wasted (the greatest of shames to a Lakewalker.) He then makes the private, intimate ceremony a public spectacle for the gawking Muggles.
* DarkIsNotEvil: The rumors about Lakewalker Necromancy are overblown, but their [[strike:primary]] [[KryptoniteFactor only effective]] blight-bogle slaying weapons ''are'' carved from the bones of their dead and empowered by [[BloodMagic the lives of sacrifices]].
* DisabilitySuperpower: Dag's injured hand is apparently part of what stimulated his magic to grow stronger.
* DysfunctionalFamily: Fawn's brothers are not really nice boys, her parents tend to be oblivious to tensions bubbling under the surface, and her family in general treats her as an ignorant child. Then she meets ''Dag's'' BigScrewedUpFamily, and finds out just how much worse she could have had it.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Fawn regards the baby animal motif as yet another barrier in her efforts to be taken seriously as an adult, and has sworn never to inflict a similar name on her children.
* TheEmpath: Just about everyone with Groundsense is this to some degree.
* EmpathicHealer: Ground-based healing is stressful stuff. If the patient dies and the healer is in deep it can kill them as well.
* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with. Lakewalker women are empowered and sexually liberated. "Farmers" have more Victorian attitudes. The books make no bones about which is healthier.
* EvilCounterpart: ''Passage's'' villain is a rogue Lakewalker that is basically what Dag would have been if he had gone wrong in every possible way. He spends some time in quiet introspection over this.
* ExoticExtendedMarriage: Has a case where a Lakewalker couple couldn't have children, their families were pressuring them to break up, instead they brought a second husband into the relationship. The husbands are [[BiTheWay married to each other as well.]]
* FalseWidow: At the beginning of the series, Fawn claims to be a "grass widow" to explain why she is pregnant and alone. Dag delicately inquires if she knows what a grass widow is. Fawn had thought it meant a woman recently widowed; it really meant a woman in her exact situation, never married but claiming to be widowed in order to escape the stigma of unwed pregnancy.
-->It seemed she'd told the truth despite herself.
* FantasticRacism: Across the board. Lakewalkers tend to be more [[CantArgueWithElves contemptuous]], but [[{{Muggles}} Farmers]] balance it out with bouts of superstition-born [[BurnTheWitch violence]].
* FantasticRecruitmentDrive: Dag theorizes that this is how the ancient sorcerer-lords became a separate caste, by searching out people with groundsense and adding them to the gene pool.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Lakewalkers are reminiscent of Plains Indians; the farmers of 19th-century American settlers. In fact, even the map closely resembles that of the American Midwest, with the Grace River representing the Ohio River, and so on.
* FamedInStory: Between the number of Malices he has slain and the infamous Battle of Wolf Ridge, Dag is a near-legend among many Lakewalkers.
* FunctionalMagic: Combination of Force Magic and Nature Magic.
* HandicappedBadass: Even before his ghost hand shows up, Dag uses the BeeBeeGun on a gang of harassers with one hand missing and his other arm ''broken''.
* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Lakewalkers believe the gods abandoned them for their part in creating malices, and that they will return to the world when the last malice has been killed. In the meantime, "Absent gods!" is a popular oath.
-->'''Fawn''': I heard you people don't believe in gods.
-->'''Dag''': Rather the opposite, in fact.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Lakewalkers tend to be tall by [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]] standards, Dag is taller than average for his people, and Fawn is a genuine runt among hers. When added up the differences prove striking; her head barely reaches his chest.
* IKEAErotica: Averted. Attention anyone contemplating writing a sex scene: Please read the first book for multiple examples of how to do it correctly.
* JerkAss: Sunny.
* KissingCousins: It's specifically mentioned that the two men in the three-way marriage are cousins.
* LethalHarmlessPowers: Throughout ''Passage'' Dag experiments with absorbing the [[LifeEnergy ground]] from things, and it seems like a harmless way for him to further his magic ForScience. Then [[spoiler: he ground-rips a cross-sectional slice from the spinal cord of a man holding Fawn at knifepoint]] and it becomes a lot less harmless.
* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: The Lakewalkers were ''much'' more advanced societally and technologically in the distant past. Nobody's quite sure what happened, but the legends say that one of their kings tried to achieve {{Immortality}} and turned into the first malice, which when killed [[AsteroidsMonster exploded and rained down other malices across the land]].
* MagicalNativeAmerican: While there isn't any America in this setting to be a native of, the Lakewalkers have similar traits. There's one main difference, though: characters who aren't {{Jerkass}}es still get to [[ScrewYouElves insult their arrogance]].
* MagicByAnyOtherName: The Lakewalkers tend to be very [[InsistentTerminology insistent]] that ground is ''not'' magic, but have trouble explaining why not.
* MagneticHero: Not the actual heroine, Fawn, who only attracts two characters. Rather, it's Dag who attracts twenty-one more through a combination of [[FamedInStory martial fame]], magical ineptitude, and a disregard for tradition.
* TheMagocracy: Strongly implied the world of the story was once one of these, before the malices were unleashed and brought it all down.
* TheMaidenNameDebate: Lakewalkers use a matrilineal system of naming and inheritance (husband normally takes wife's 'tent' name, and households are passed to the eldest daughter), while [[{{Muggles}} farmers]] use a patrilinal one. As Dag Bluefield (ne Redwing) earned himself a spot in multiple ballads under his ''prior'' married name (Dag Wolverine of Leech Lake Camp) this leads to a degree of confusion.
* MalignedMixedMarriage: [[{{Muggles}} Farmer]][=/=][[WitchSpecies Lakewalker]] pairings are looked at askance more often than not by just about everyone, but the latter tend to be rather more dogmatic about the matter. Unlike most cases, [[JustifiedTrope there are objective reasons]], Lakewalkers need to keep their groundsense (and hence, bloodlines) strong since TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed, and having sex with {{Muggles}} tends to inadvertently MindRape them.
* MarionetteMaster: Both malices and Lakewalkers gone bad.
* MayflyDecemberRomance: A mild version; the hero's life expectancy is roughly twice the heroine's and he's already middle-aged [[MayDecemberRomance (as in, older than her father)]] when they meet.
-->'''Whit Bluefield''': "I don't know if he's robbing the cradle, or if she's robbing the grave!"
* MercyKill: Sharing can be this, as is slaying mud-men after the malice is killed.
* MindlinkMates: Lakewalker marriage essentially involves becoming a limited form of this.
* MissConception: Sunny tells Fawn she can't get pregnant her first time. She doesn't know if he was lying to get in her pants or if he actually believed it, but either way it's a costly mistake.
* MoodyMount: Dag's "evil" horse Copperhead.
* MundaneUtility: When they're not busy killing malices, Lakewalkers use ground manipulation for all sorts of everyday tasks, to include chasing flies off your horse, or luring fish right into your boat.
* {{Muggles}} (Lakewalkers call them all farmers, regardless of their occupation or where they live).
* MyGreatestFailure: Twenty years ago in what became known as the Battle of Wolf Ridge; Dag lost all but three of his command, his left hand, and ''his wife'' in the space of an hour. It does not help that more than one epic poem[=/=]song has been composed about it, and he tends to make himself scarce when one some pup decides to sing one at a celebration.
* NoOntologicalInertia: When a malice is killed, its mud-men slaves revert to their animal minds--and then die, trapped in the wrong bodies--and the spell is lifted from any mind-controlled humans who have been enslaved by it, though they may or may not be able to go back to their old selves; though the Ontological Inertia is present in the case of the mud-men/animals, who die slowly, trapped in bodies they do not know how to use.
* NotBrainwashed: Alder, Fawn.
** In the fourth book, half-blood Calla thinks she has magically beguiled Sage into marrying her. When Dag discovers the persuasion, he tells Calla she cast a love spell on a boy that was already in love with her.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Fawn[[note]](after finding out that the man she had been sleeping with was older than her 50-odd father)[[/note]] makes a habit of adding an extra fifteen or twenty years to the estimated age of any Lakewalker that looks older than 30 or so. It is usually accurate.
** Fawn's own size and features work to convince most that she is closer to 12 than 18.
* {{Polyamory}}: A rare example of a woman married to two husbands. It's not really accepted practice among Lakewalkers, but they have no actual law against it, and the three are happy together, so the rest of the clan just kind of adjusted to it.
** It's also quite clear that the husbands [[BiTheWay are also married to each other]].
* PoorCommunicationKills: Setting aside the [[BurnTheWitch repeated incidents]] rooted in rumor caused by quarter-understood glimpses of Lakewalker customs; it is clear that Malices emerging under a farmer town where no one would recognize the signs of them even if they believed such creatures existed is in many ways the most dangerous scenario possible.
* PowerPerversionPotential: Used benignly, Lakewalker ground manipulation can ''greatly'' enhance sexual encounters. Used unethically, it can "persuade" a reluctant partner into consenting.
* PsychicRadar Groundsense can be used for this. It's more literally lifeforcesense; allowing a practitioner to detect and sense lifeforce around them, from other humans to animals and even the malices.
* RapeIsLove: Averted. To be exact, "Seduction by a Lakewalker is [[MindRape mind raping]] you into obsession with him or her for the rest of your life." One of the reasons Dag's clan opposes his marriage is that they think he did this to Fawn.
* RescueRomance: How Fawn and Dag met. Partially averted in that each of them credits the other for killing the malice they were fighting.
* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Dag and Fawn.
* ScarsAreForever: Even minor wounds inflicted directly by a [[EnemyToAllLivingThings malice]] are unusually slow to heal, and fade to an odd silvery color once they eventually do.
* SettlingTheFrontier: The farmers are trying to reclaim and settle new land, even when the Lakewalkers deem it unsafe.
* ShownTheirWork: The ''Passage'' riverboats, details about low tech farming.
* [[SuicideByCop Suicide By]] EldritchAbomination: Attempted in Dag's backstory. After Dag's first wife died, he passed the DespairEventHorizon and essentially tried to commit suicide by repeatedly going for the kill on every malice he faced. He ended up killing over twenty five, when the most experienced Lakewalker commanders normally rack up maybe five or so in their lifetimes. Many Lakewalkers almost consider him a PhysicalGod by now..
* SwissArmyAppendage: Dag, played fairly realistically in that the attachments take time to switch, are often inferior to regular tools, and cause a lot of physical wear and tear to Dag.
* TrueCompanions: Most of the cast in ''Passage'' end up becoming this.
* VirginityMakesYouStupid: Fawn got swept up by romantic feelings during a wedding, making it easy for Sunny to take advantage of her.
* WalkingWasteland: A sufficiently large malice can kill every animal and plant in a region and leach the life from the soil for a millenium.
* WhatTheHellHero: Dag uses CharmPerson on an ObstructiveBureaucrat near the beginning of ''Horizons'' after having taken taken one of his young wards to task for doing it in the previous book. He gets called on it almost immediately. Turns out he was seriously stressed because he thought he was turning into a malice.
* WitchSpecies: The Lakewalkers think of themselves as one, and use it to justify their arrogance towards the farmers. They're wrong--magic can appear in farmers as well, albeit in rudimentary form.
* WizardsLiveLonger: But only about twice as long as "farmers".
* TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed: In the "staving off disaster" rather than "recycled apocalypse" sense -- if any malice ever goes undetected long enough to go critical, it will wipe out all life and civilization.
* YouWillBeAssimilated: Any living thing a malice doesn't [[CharmPerson "beguile,"]] it "ground-rips," powderizing it and gaining its strength, knowledge, and to a certain degree abilities. A malice that eats lots of humans can plan tactics, a malice that eats bats can fly, and so on. This incidentally justifies the BishonenLine, as a malice that's eaten many, many animals and has grown to tremendous size is often less dangerous than one that has eaten enough humans to [[ItCanThink think]].
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