Line #20 YMMV/TheFionavarTapestry


1	* ClicheStorm: Every standard high fantasy trope you can name, most played straight. [[WordOfGod Kay has said]] he wrote the books as a thrown gauntlet to those who he felt were bastardizing Tolkien's work by misusing the tropes.
2	* CompleteMonster:
3	** [[BigBad Rakoth Maugrim]], the Unraveler, is a deity from outside of Fionavar who loathes the world he had no part in making. Long ago, Maugrim arrived in Fionavar and [[TheCorrupter began corrupting]] what he could with the intention of [[TakeOverTheWorld conquering the world entirely]] (and as Fionavar is the "first world" of all creation, it's outright stated that if Rakoth rules in Fionavar ''all'' worlds will eventually suffer for it). After freeing himself, Maugrim captures [[spoiler: the heroine Jennifer]] and, vowing to take everything from her, rapes her, while taking the forms of her father and lovers to destroy all happiness she may have. Aware his rape has gotten her pregnant with his son, thus binding him to Fionavar, Maugrim gives [[spoiler: Jennifer]] to a servant of his to rape and torture for a night as long as he kills her at the end of it. When she is saved, Maugrim later inflicts a brutal winter on Fionavar, killing many by freezing and starvation, while using his forces to ravage the land. When he meets his son Darien, Maugrim is gleeful about [[OffingTheOffspring a chance to murder him]], vowing not only to kill him but to ''unmake'' him utterly, so as to regain his immortality and invulnerability.
4	** [[EvilChancellor Metran, First Mage to the High King of Brennin]], at first seems to be a [[ObfuscatingInsanity harmless, senile old man]]. Revealed as a servant of Rakoth Maugrim, assisting his master in returning from imprisonment, Metran arranges the massacre of [[spoiler: Jennifer's guards]] to deliver her to Maugrim to be raped and murdered. In the second book of the trilogy, Metran obtains the Cauldron of Khath Meigol, which allows him to [[CastFromHitPoints power his magic]] by [[BadBoss draining the lives of hundreds of minions]], resurrecting them and killing them again; he uses this horrendously magnified power to create a killing frost over the lands that dooms many people to die via cold and starvation. Another realm, Eridu, is destroyed by a death rain that fatally poisons almost everyone within its borders. When finally slain, Metran is attempting to bring the death rain over the mountains to wipe Brennin off the map. (Metran does briefly claim to [[TheDragon Galadan]] that at least part of his motivation is revenge for the High King he served before Ailell, Garmisch of House Garantae, who Ailell overthrew and slew -- but by the end it seems like he is simply [[DrunkWithPower wreaking destruction for the sheer malicious joy of it]]).
5	* HoYay: Sure feels like Loren Silvercloak and Matt had a Meet Cute some point. And they're ''very'' devoted to each other.
6	* MoralEventHorizon: Raping and torturing [[spoiler:Jennifer]], for Rakoth Maugrim.
7	* OneTrueThreesome: [[spoiler: Jennifer/Guinevere]] with Arthur and Lancelot--she's in love with both of them and they have some pretty intense HoYay.
8	* StoicWoobie: Aileron, Matt Soren, Torc, Dave and Paul (''especially'' Paul) all tend to conceal their personal anguish behind emotional facades of varying sorts, and none of them is at all good at reaching out for help. [[spoiler:They do all get better about it, though it takes some of them more time than others.]]
9	---> '''Loren:''' ''(in exasperation, discovering Matt bleeding)'' How am I supposed to know when you're hurt if you won't tell me?
10	---> '''Matt:''' You aren't. You aren't supposed to know.
11	* TearJerker:
12	** Many, both for readers and in TheVerse. (Characters will often weep when it would be the normal human response, unlike many works of the genre.) [[spoiler:The GoMadFromTheRevelation aversion is one notable example; learning the reason Paul wants to die is another.]]
13	** A goodly number of character deaths, including [[spoiler:Kevin Laine, Diarmuid, and both Finn and Darien]].
14	*** [[FridgeHorror Fridge Horror]] sets in when you remember that [[spoiler:unlike David and his father Josef, Kevin is close and loving with his father, Sol--so much so that "Abba" is Kevin's last thought before impact. And unless Dave and Kim can get to Sol and explain what happened in a way that makes sense, Sol's son will have basically flown to England and then vanished off the face of the Earth without a single trace, with no body to collect or any kind of closure.]]
15	** The scene that reveals what happened to Paul Schafer's fiancee, Rachel: [[spoiler:they were driving home when she told him she was in love with someone else. Then their car crashed and she died, after which Paul blamed himself, feeling that he subconsciously held back from trying to escape the accident as an act of revenge.]]
16	** Rakoth raping and trying to break [[spoiler: Jennifer Lowell]], as well as the fate of her being [[spoiler: Guinevere]], and the LoveTriangle she finds herself trapped in with [[spoiler: Arthur and Lancelot]].
17	** Dave Martyniuk learns that [[spoiler:he has to leave Fionavar, despite feeling like he belongs there. However, he's learned a lot about himself and finds the courage to ask Kim out in the end.]]
18	* ValuesDissonance:
19	** Little is made of the age difference between Sharra and Diarmuid (she's seventeen, he's around twenty-four or twenty-five). However, in many mediaeval cultures women commonly married at that age or younger, and the two are depicted as genuinely loving each other.
20	** Somewhat more troubling is that Sharra apparently has the captain of her guard garroted merely out of (so her father Shalhassan thinks) a temper tantrum. However, given that the captain ''did'' completely fail to keep an untrustworthy stranger out of the palace's gardens and thus, in principle, put the life of the heir to the realm at risk, it's arguable that this is a kinder fate than he might have met under normal Cathal law.
21	** Diarmuid's seduction of Sharra in Larai Rigal's gardens was actually (according to [[WordOfGod Kay himself]]) meant to evoke this trope; he had wanted to deconstruct the "Dashing Prince" archetype by showing Diarmuid doing something reprehensibly selfish -- something that not only constituted blatant manipulation and deception (if not outright nonconsensual rape), but could easily have caused all sorts of diplomatic and political fallout up to and including war, given that both parties were heirs to their respective thrones. Kay states that "very few readers have ever held that garden scene against Diarmuid to the extent I thought they would."

Context YMMV / TheFionavarTapestry