Line #13 Literature/BloodAndSand


1	[[quoteright:294:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blood_and_sand_rosemary_sutcliff.jpg]]
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3	''Blood and Sand'' is a 1987 HistoricalFiction novel by Creator/RosemarySutcliff. During UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, Private Thomas Keith of the 78th Highlanders is taken prisoner in Ottoman Egypt. He befriends Tussun Bey, the younger son of the Viceroy Muhammed Ali, and serves their family as a cavalry officer through a power struggle in Egypt and a war in Arabia. It is VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory.
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5	Creator/TakarazukaRevue adapted the novel into a 2008 musical called ''Love and Death in Arabia'' or ''Red Hot Sea''.
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7	Not to be confused with ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand''.
8	----
9	!!''Blood and Sand'' provides examples of:
10	* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Zeid, Thomas, Anoud, Tussun.]]
11	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Thomas's fellow-convert Osman is inspired by a real person, but his English name wasn't Donald [=MacLeod=]. He became a dragoman well-known to British travellers, not a doctor.
12	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted. [[spoiler:Anoud loses a couple of fingers in the sack of Medina.]]
13	* BraveScot: Thomas is a [[ManInAKilt private of the 78th Highlanders]] who started life as an Edinburgh gunsmith, but he also has talents in riding, sharpshooting and swordsmanship. The Ottomans decide he's CavalryOfficer material and he ends up as governor of Medina.
14	* BreachingTheWall: The Egyptian expedition mines Medina's [[CitadelCity inner citadel]] and Thomas is first through the breach. It's one of the plot points attested by historical sources.
15	* TheCavalry: [[spoiler:Averted. Thomas and Tussun both fail in the attempt to ride to each other's rescue at El Rass.]]
16	* ContrivedCoincidence: [[spoiler:Heavily-pregnant Anoud plunges down the stairs and breaks her neck on the same morning that her husband Thomas dies in battle.]]
17	* DecadentCourt: The first half of the book takes place in Egypt, where the Ottoman Viceroy Muhammed Ali is trying to bring the country's old slave-soldier aristocracy, the Mamelukes, under his control. He achieves this by slaughtering them all at a banquet. Thomas's personal share in the intrigue is a duel with a spy, a seduction, and an assassination attempt.
18	* DuelToTheDeath: Thomas fights a duel of honour with Aziz Bey, a Mameluke rival for Tussun's favour. He's then arrested for murder by a passing Turkish pasha and has to be rescued by the Vicereine with a spot of {{Blackmail}}.
19	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:TheHeroDies, along with his family and friends.]]
20	* FemmeFatale: Lady Nayli, Tussun's sister and a ManipulativeBastard, [[spoiler:arranges an assassination for Thomas after finding that she can't overcome Thomas's loyalty to Tussun. Her unofficial punishment is to go through with her distasteful ArrangedMarriage. Having already noted that she's frustrated by the lack of an outlet for her brains, the narrative retains some sympathy for her.]]
21	* FriendVersusLover: Tussun frankly admits he's jealous of Thomas's sudden affection for his wife Anoud.
22	* TheFundamentalist: The second half of the novel follows the events of the Ottoman-Saud War, in which the Ottoman Egyptians set out to [[CapitalOffensive retake Mecca and Medina]] from the puritan Wahabi sect of the Arabian interior.
23	* GoingNative: Thomas is sent to train as an officer among the Bedouin cavalry of Upper Egypt. Under the influence of his friend Zeid, he adopts the Bedouin as his "second people" and eventually converts to Islam.
24	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Thomas Keith, "Donald [=MacLeod=]," and the various political figures of Egypt and Arabia were real people. Anoud was not.
25	* IChooseToStay: When the British prisoners are repatriated, both Thomas and TheMedic Donald [=MacLeod=] have discovered better career prospects in Egypt.
26	* KillTheOnesYouLove: [[spoiler:Mameluke conspirators contrive to get the impetuous Tussun drunk and enraged against Thomas. He orders Thomas's assassination. Paradoxically, this brings them closer together, by cancelling Thomas's sense of his debt to Tussun.]]
27	* LastStand: [[spoiler:Thomas leads a small relief force to Tussun's aid at El Rass. He is intercepted by a vastly superior force of Wahabi cavalry. Tussun can't get there in time, and Thomas and his men go out in a SelfDestructiveCharge with only the hope of TakingYouWithMe.]]
28	* LoveAtFirstSight: Thomas and Tussun Bey fall in something like it. [[HomoeroticSubtext Platonically speaking]].
29	* MadeASlave: Thomas and Donald [=MacLeod=] are bought from their captors by a Turkish general until their eventual repatriation. This bothers Thomas less than his SlaveLiberation at Tussun's expense, for which he [[IOweYouMyLife feels indebted]].
30	* MerchantPrince: Muhammed Ali, Viceroy of Egypt and threat to the Ottoman Sultan, started his career as an Albanian tobacco merchant.
31	* MercyKill: [[spoiler:The Egyptians dispatch their wounded the night before they pull out from Terraba.]]
32	* MrExposition: Thomas's new friends Colonel D'Esurier, the French gunnery adviser, and Zeid ibn Hussein, the Bedouin cavalry captain, to whom Thomas is sent to learn MountedCombat, DesertWarfare, Arabic, and good manners.
33	* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: The author's note highlights Thomas's evening spent single-handedly fighting off a pack of assassins before jumping out a window as too implausible to invent.
34	* RapePillageAndBurn: Ahmed Bonaparte sacks Medina, and Tussun in turn sacks him.
35	* RescueRomance: [[spoiler:Thomas rescues a murdered merchant's daughter named Anoud from being assaulted in the street during the looting of Medina. She has nowhere to go, so they enter into a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage.]]
36	* SacredHospitality: Muhammed Ali violates it [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder whenever expedient]], notably slaughtering the Mamelukes of Cairo at a banquet, arresting the Grand Shariff Ghalid at a meeting, and impaling twelve surrendered Wahabis before the gates of Mecca.
37	* ScaryBlackMan: The most formidable of Sulieman ibn Mansoor's assassins is Mubarak, a huge, silent man given away by his SignatureScent.
38	* ShoutOut: Zeid's comment, "We be brothers, you and I," is from ''Literature/TheJungleBook(s)'' by Creator/RudyardKipling. Sutcliff echoed it in more than one novel.
39	* SiblingYinYang: Hot-headed Tussun and his elder brother, the coldly capable Ibrahim Pasha.
40	* SilkHidingSteel: Tussun's mother, the Vicereine Amina.
41	-->''"A woman who would rule her household so skilfully, the iron hand hidden in its velvet glove, that they would seldom realise that they were being ruled at all. Thomas remembered that she was reputedly the person who, of all those surrounding him, had the most influence over the Viceroy."''
42	* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:Medhet is unwillingly dispatched ahead of battle [[BringNewsBack to warn Medina]] of the fate of Thomas's force.]]
43	-->''“I ask a greater courage than I ask of myself or the rest of us. It is easy for us to charge swiftly and gloriously to death among dear comrades; you may have to die slowly and horribly — and alone.”''
44	* TacticalWithdrawal: The disastrous campaign against the hill fortress of Terraba, occupied by a dreaded female sheikh reputed to be a witch, ends in a RunForTheBorder.
45	* TagalongKid: Medhet, a teenage boy among Thomas and Donald's Albanian captors, becomes their protégé and Thomas's junior officer.
46	* TradingBarsForStripes: Turkish general Ahmed Bonaparte buys Thomas and Donald off the Albanians who took them prisoner in order to add their skills to his bodyguard. After verifying that he doesn't want them [[SexSlave for something else]], they take the offer.
47	* TragicBromance: [[spoiler:Thomas is killed coming to Tussun's relief at El Rass. Tussun ends his campaign, goes home, and dies about a year later.]]
48	* TranslationConvention: Thomas speaks English, French, Arabic, and a little Turkish. Tussun and his family speak Albanian, French, Turkish, and some Arabic. In theory, most of the novel takes place in French or Arabic.
49	* TrapIsTheOnlyOption: On their first attempt to take Medina, the Egyptian force plans to trigger the inevitable ambush in the Jedaida pass, [[spoiler:but they weren't expecting the local tribesmen to be [[HiddenArmyReveal massively reinforced by Wahabi cavalry]].]]
50	* YouShallNotPass: On the retreat from Terraba, Thomas recaptures a gun and turns it on their pursuers long enough to cover the Egyptians' escape through the pass into neutral territory.

Context Literature / BloodAndSand