History Literature / YoungWizards

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: The wizard's manual describes plain old things like teleportation in insanely impossible-to-understand words. Justified in that magic is based on telling the universe what you want it to do in a very specific manner. You NEED to be able to split hairs and use precise diction. Especially when you want to do things like bring air with you on your jaunt to the moon. If you miswrite a name, the name changes to fit.

* AChildShallLeadThem: In ''Deep Wizardry'', S'ree becomes a Senior at a very young age because the Lone One made a whaling boat kill her mentor. This puts her in charge of the Song of the Twelve, which is basically the most important ritual in the sea--the last time it failed, an entire continent was destroyed. In ''Wizards at War'', [[spoiler: the older wizards lose their wizardry, which means that all the high-ranking positions like Senior are temporarily held by people who are fourteen at most.]]

The first nine books were rereleased as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, [[ReCut creating a more cohesive timeline among other changes]].

The first nine books were rereleased as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, [[UpdatedRerelease creating a more cohesive timeline among other changes]].

-> ''Fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance!''

* ''Lifeboats'' - Kit, Nita, Dairine and Rolan (among others) are called upon for an emergency evacuation of an entire alien race to new planets, because their moon is about to break up and the pieces will crash into the planet, in full-blown ''Armageddon'' style. Problem is, millions of the aliens almost inexplicably don't want to leave even in the face of unavoidable death and no one truly understands why. Kit, meanwhile, is fretting about Valentine's Day ([[spoiler:since he and Nita were promoted to OfficialCouple in ''A Wizard of Mars'']]) and even a race to save a world isn't enough to get it off his mind.

---> '''Nita''': "But...we make our houses out of you, we-- (...) We kill you and we write on your bodies!"
---> '''Liused''': "Well, We are all in the ''Book'' together, after all. (...) We do what we have to, to live. Sometimes that means breaking a rock's heart, or pushing roots down into ground that screams against the intrusion. But we never forget what we're doing."

---> '''Kit's Mum''': "Are there Cooking channels?"
---> '''Kit''': "Oh yeah. On second thought, it might be smarter to avoid those. Some of them feature humans, Well, humanoids, anyway. But not as the cooks."

* [[ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself This Is Something a Wizard Has To Do Itself]]: The Oath must be done without outside influence. [[spoiler:This causes a problem in book 6]]

** Also the fate of [[spoiler: The Lone Power]] in ''A Wizard Alo''ne when [[spoiler: Darryl traps it in his mind world with his autistic self.]]

* EverybodyLives: [[spoiler: ''A Wizard Alone'', and ''A Wizard of Mars,'' amazingly.]]
** Although [[spoiler: both have the characters dealing with a death or disappearance that occurred in the last book.]]
* ExactWords: Being that the Speech can alter reality, wizards learn to use language with precision.

The first nine books were rereleased as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, [[UpdatedRerelease creating a more cohesive timeline among other changes]].

* EmbarrassingMiddleName: Nita really hates her middle name "Louise". Why? Long story... that NOBODY KNOWS. Grrr.

* InTheNameOfTheMoon: The traditional greeting to the Lone Power, some variant of "Fairest and fallen... greetings and defiance!" Just because you're fighting {{Satan}} doesn't mean you have to be ''rude'' about it.
** There's also that no wizard in the universe expects the Lone Power's eventual permanent defeat to be brought about by killing it -- largely because that's ''impossible''. What they ''do'' expect is that eventually, in the fullness of time, [[spoiler: the Lone Power will finally surrender and redeem. And that's going to take long enough on its own, so no need to make the wait even longer by pissing it off with adding insult to injury. Even if/when does redeem, as an Eternal Power outside of time, he's not as bound by chronological causality as mortals are. His evil self is/was/will be messing with Wizards in the future simultaneously.]]

* LanguageOfMagic, LanguageOfTruth: the Speech. Even the Lone Power can't lie while using the Speech.

* MagicPrerequisite: only those specifically given Enacture (wizards) are capable of performing wizardry.

** in one book, [[spoiler: Carmela]] uses a single chocolate bar to persuade an entire squad of alien mercenaries/hitmen to go somewhere else, and tell anyone who asks that the humans were never there in the first place.

* TheOmnipresent: The Transcendent Pig. An Earth pig that has somehow managed to become sentient and universally transcendent, it reveals itself whenever it thinks it's funny.
** Apparently, it's the only being ever who actually knows the meaning of life, so every Wizard that's ever lucky enough to meet it asks for the answer. Fanon says that it once answered '42' as a joke to a young Earth wizard named Douglas Adams.

* PortalNetwork: The worldgates. Carmela has one [[spoiler: in her closet!]]

* SentientVehicle: In the first book, Kit and Nita encounter cars, including a [[{{CoolCar}} Lotus Esprit]] who are alive and acting as predators/prey in the urban jungle of Manhattan.

The first nine books were rereleased as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, [[UpdatedRerelease creating a more cohesive timeline among other things]].

The first nine books were rereleased as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, [[UpdatedRerelease fixing continuity errors among other things]].

The first nine books were released as [[https://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/pages/young-wizards-new-millennium-revised-editions New Millennium editions]] from 2012-2019, fixing continuity errors among other things.

* AdultsAreUseless: Mostly averted. The younger the wizard, the stronger their magic, to make up for the lack of experiences. They still sometimes have to consult Senior Wizards though. In one of the books, someone muses that young wizards are better able to sacrifice themselves. However, in ''Wizards at War'', [[spoiler:the older wizards lose their powers and forget about magic. Without the advice of the older wizards, the younger wizards are very confused about what to do next. The point of experience is shown here.]]

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu and DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: To be expected in a series where human teenagers fight {{Satan}}... and some of the instances are [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome pretty dang awesome]].

** More specifically, in ''A Wizard Abroad'', to remake the Spear Luin, they had to get iron from the beginning of the universe ''from the heart of a star'', because no modern iron would be perfect enough to hold the spear's soul, a pure essence of the element of fire. And [[spoiler: Dairine]] does this, earning herself a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* OneOfUs: [[Creator/DianeDuane The author]] has been known to edit this wiki from time to time.

* HeroicSacrifice: Used so much in the series, it's almost a joke. Don't get too attached to any character Nita and Kit give a nickname to!

There's also a sister series, ''[[Literature/TheBookOfNightWithMoon Feline Wizards]]'', which takes place in the same universe, but concerns a team of cat wizards who maintain the [[CoolGate worldgate wizardry]] for New York City.

* MagicalComputer: Literally; though Nita and Kit have book-form Manuals and the animals tend to listen to the ocean or wind or whatever, some of the newer human wizards have their manual in laptop or iPod form (a {{Mac}} laptop no less, coincidentally. In-universe, the wizards designing the electronic manuals to resemble Macs because of the symbolism of having their logos be [[RuleOfSymbolism an apple without a bite out of it.]] (Think Adam and Eve, and the theme of a species' Choice to accept the Lone Power's "gift" of entropy.) Out of universe, Duane just really likes apple products (though the YW wiki maintains Windows and Android versions of the manual are being developed.)

* SoYouWantTo: Be a Wizard?

It has a sister series, ''[[Literature/TheBookOfNightWithMoon Feline Wizards]]'', which takes place in the same universe, but concerns a team of cat wizards who maintain the [[CoolGate worldgate wizardry]] for New York City.

See also ''Literature/TheBookOfNightWithMoon'', which takes place in the same setting.