History Literature / EnchantedForestChronicles

* StandardHeroReward: Half a kingdom and the princess's hand in marriage is said to be the standard reward for rescuing a princess who has been captured by a dragon. When Cimorene learns that her parents have offered it on her behalf, she notes that half the kingdom is not only a considerably larger dowry than she might otherwise have been offered with, as the youngest of seven sisters, it's larger than all her elder sisters' dowries put together. And Morwen states Linderwall itself is rather large in comparison to other kingdoms.

* YoungestChildWins: Discussed. The stone prince was turned to stone while attempting a quest to obtain the magical cure for a king's illness; he tells Cimorene that in retrospect he ought to have realised that as two of the king's three sons had already attempted the quest and failed, nobody was going to succeed except the third son. Cimorene becomes Queen of the Enchanted Forest and as a close friend of the King of Dragons herself Cimorene is the luckiest out of all her sisters.

* LoopholeAbuse: A downplayed version. The stone prince knew that the water from the healing spring would turn all the other enchanted princes back to normal when someone successfully completed the quest, so when he touched the golden ladle and started to turn to stone, he thought the water would stop the enchantment from taking effect in the first place. Apparently whoever enchanted the golden ladle hadn't expected anyone to do that though, so only his physical appearance was changed in that he was made of stone but still able to think and move about. Even Cimorene acknowledges his quick and sound course of action of utilizing the spring as being "smart".

* AffectionateParody

* {{Bizarchitecture}}: Thanks to centuries of previous kings making changes to the plans on a whim, the castle of the Enchanted Forest has quite a few strange quirks, such as numerous staircases that don't actually go anywhere (brought on by one King who was fond of sweeping up and down stairs in his best crown and long velvet robes) and a dungeon that can only be accessed from the sixth floor.

* BrainlessBeauty: Most of the princesses and the princes too. Though Cimorene notes that it's not as though the poor dears can help it, given the typical education of one.

* ContainmentField: Introduced (chronologically) in ''Searching for Dragons'', where a vastly enhanced version of a standard reptile restraint spell is used to imprison Kazul. In ''Calling on Dragons'', the wizards then use a similar spell around the Castle of the King of the Enchanted Forest to keep the dragons and their allies from getting in, and then (sometime after the battle is done) the dragons, with Telemain's help, duplicate it and put up their own version to keep the ''wizards'' out of the castle. The only way to remove the wizards' version, both times, is with the King's sword.

** Later on, in ''Calling on Dragons'', Brandel has a magic mirror that can serve the same purpose of scrying, though it's cranky and won't cooperate unless they specify what they're looking for in rhyme.
* CurseEscapeClause: The usual cure for being turned to stone is to be kissed, or via water from the Living Spring. [[spoiler: Prince Riddle's transformation into a cat is more specific: it can only be reversed if he's kissed by a princess who's drunk water from a unicorn's pool. The queen who enchanted him did it specifically so he'd be forced to marry her extremely unpleasant daughter, who already met the requirement and could have broken the spell... had he not escaped and, eventually, found another princess who wound up becoming able to break the curse.]]

* DragonsVersusKnights: Cimorene gets to read up on a history book which, in a setting where knights register in her life as annoyances and she lives with dragons by choice, details a history of dragons that includes the crimes typically associated with them, "defeating knights and princes" and, it registers as the exception, "occasionally being defeated by them".

** Prince Rupert, technically, although he's actually a milquetoast who ''likes'' his nephew. He's also rather annoyed that his sibling and in-law ran off questing rather than running the country, indicating he'd rather not play EvilRegent if he did not have to to keep his membership.
** There's an entire ''group'' for them in the "Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers' Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society" -- their 'Men's Auxiliary', while officially meant for wicked stepfathers, mostly consists of uncles.

* ExploitedImmunity: Witches melt in water, and wizards melt in ''soapy'' water (with some lemon juice). At one point Zemenar uses the witch Morwen as a shield, so the stone prince gets both of them with the cleaning solution, correctly deducing that "no one who lives in a house as clean as Morwen's could possibly melt in a bucket of soapsuds".

** [[spoiler: Princess Annalisa from "Utensile Strength" also has one who, after Rothbern usurps power in her kingdom, helps her escape to the Enchanted Forest so she can hide as a scullery maid; Cimorene remarks that she's probably a traditionalist and didn't think about doing something actually helpful, like aiding Annalisa regain her kingdom.]]

* FracturedFairyTale

* FunctionalMagic: Good writeup of the series' use of magic here.

* HeIsNotMyBoyfriend: Cimorene has two:
** Therandil, who she's the RunawayFiancee of.
** Mendanbar, where EveryoneCanSeeIt.
* HowWouldYouLikeToDie: Jinns, if let out of their bottles, always ask their liberator this question. Cimorene decides to TakeAThirdOption, saying [[spoiler: "Old age]]."

* IdiotBall: The Stone Prince is generally one of the smarter characters in ''Dealing With Dragons'', but he became a walking, talking statue because of this trope, and he's well aware of it -- despite ''knowing'' that he should use the tin dipper and not the golden one to draw healing water from the magic well, he couldn't resist taking the gold one down from its hook just to ''look'' at it for a minute. Cimorene mentally lampshades that he behaved foolishly in that instant, but decides not to say so to his face because she can also tell that he's well aware of how foolish he was at that time. To be fair to the prince, he didn't ''know'' that just touching the gold dipper would trigger the enchantment (he thought you had to actually try to ''use'' it before the magic kicked in), and then when realized what was happening he saved himself from being completely TakenForGranite with some very quick thinking which Cimorene ''does'' acknowledge out loud.

* ItsWhatIDo:

** Specifically, "what he does" is research magic, trying to find the underlying ur-spell in any given magical rite, as well as experimental magic. His house has two stairwells, one of which only goes up and the other only down, apparently for no other reason than he was experimenting and those were the nearest handy sets of stairs.

* LoopholeAbuse: a downplayed version. The stone prince quickly sticking his arm in the healing spring after touching the golden ladle as he knew that the water would turn all the other enchanted princes back to normal when someone successfully completed the quest so he thought it would prevent the enchantment on the golden ladle from taking effect. Apparently whoever enchanted the golden ladle hadn't expected anyone to do that and thus only his physical appearance was changed in that he was made of stone but still able to think and move about. Even Cimorene acknowledges his quick and sound course of action of utilizing the spring as being "smart".

* LoyalPhlebotinum: Mendanbar's sword. It works only for the king or heir of the Enchanted Forest, although a family member can carry it safely. Even ''Morwen'' can't hold it without feeling like she's getting burned, despite only wanting to save Cimorene's life by doing so.

** Cimorene, especially when she was Kazul's princess, you are more apt to see her in sensible clothing with an apron. Even after marrying Mendanbar, she sticks to it. Mendanbar himself dresses very casually and hates formal occasions (which he calls stuffy and boring), canceling as many as he can get away with, much to his steward's dismay. At one point, another character chides him for it, saying he should at least wear the crown or else no one would know who he was.

** In ''The Princess, the Cat, and the Unicorn'', the King of Oslett has advisors who do much the same: they try to convince his daughters that they're supposed to hate one another, and their stepmother that she's supposed to be unpleasant toward her stepdaughters. None of the royal family cares for their behavior; in fact, when Princess Elyssa leaves to seek her fortune, her father tells her that he hoped "she would give the councillors one in the eye". They're ''still'' acting this way after her return with [[spoiler: Prince Riddle]], and it's noted that while everyone else lived happily ever, they were the exceptions because they never gave up trying (and failing) to make the family act as the advisors thought they should.

* NiceGuy: Roxim is easily one of the kindest, friendliest and most rational dragons that Cimorene meets, reminding her of an elderly great-uncle of whom she's rather fond. She even makes a note to herself to find him a nice princess to keep his caves clean and organized, since he clearly needs the help and would treat her well.

* PregnantBadass: Cimorene in ''Calling on Dragons''. The baby grows up to be Daystar.
* PrincessClassic: The majority of the princesses, Cimorene excluded, are this -- innocent, demure, and overly feminine. However, with a few exceptions [[spoiler:(such as Princess Annalisa in "Utensile Strength")]], it's treated as a negative: most princesses are shown to be stupid, spineless and generally useless. In all fairness, they're raised to be that way, but most of the protagonists find them annoying. It's the first clue to Mendanbar that something is wrong with the forest: apparently, the forest doesn't like them either and will shift itself around so they don't enter, but the fact that one got in is a sign that there's a problem.

** Also, see Morwen, who wears robes (close enough to dresses), makes cider, bakes gingerbread and gardens deadly nightshade, apples and lilies. She's also a very powerful practical witch and magic user.

* RightfulKingReturns: [[spoiler:''Talking to Dragons'' ends with the return of the rightful king (who'd been magically imprisoned), queen (who'd gone into hiding to raise their son and keep him safe from the would-be usurpers), and prince (who was the only one who could free his father from his prison, and literally only figured out who he and his parents really were about the second he achieved said freeing).]]

** As seen above in SheIsNotMyGirlfriend, a lot of people in ''Searching for Dragons'' think that Mendanbar and Cimorene look good together.

* ShrinkingViolet: Princess Alianora, who's very shy around anyone except Cimorene (and Antorell when she gets mad at him). She gradually grows out of it.
* SmugSnake: Zemenar. On so many levels.

** Nobody likes wizards (dragons and other inherently magical beasts are even allergic to them).

* SheIsTheKing: In ''Dealing'', Cimorene assumes that if Kazul wins the competition for King of the Dragons, she will be crowned Queen; but Kazul explains that no, King of the Dragons is a gender-neutral title, and Queen of the Dragons is a separate (also gender-neutral) job, with very little power, that nobody much wants. Also an [[{{Inverted Trope}} inversion]], since at the start of the story, the most recent Queen was a male dragon.

* EnchantedWeapon: The Sword of the Kings is able to aid in casting spells or undo them, along with absording and attracting magic in general. It also makes many judgment calls on its own, including the selection of the heir designate.

* EmpathicWeapon: The Sword of the Kings is able to aid in casting spells or undo them, along with absording and attracting magic in general. It also makes many judgment calls on its own, including the selection of the heir designate.

** CrystalBall: The dwarf Herman has a window in his house that can show distant things, which is used by Cimorene for discovering what became of Kazul during ''Searching for Dragons''. It breaks however when she tries to find Kazul's location with its magic.

* CrystalBall: The King's Crystal can scry as well as foretell the future, but it's actually a flat plate instead of a sphere. Morwen has a more conventional ball. Later on, in ''Calling on Dragons'', Brandel has a magic mirror that can serve the same purpose of scrying, though it's cranky and won't cooperate unless they specify what they're looking for in rhyme.

* EmpathicWeapon: "That dratted sword" makes all sorts of judgment calls on its own, including the selection of the heir designate.

* FantasticScience: Telemain's MagiBabble.

* MagiBabble: Telemain speaks in nothing but, at least when he's talking shop.

* RescueRomance: Played with. Therandil and other knights and princes attempt to invoke this with Cimorene; she's not having any of it though. She ''does'' discuss it with Alianora and admits that getting kidnapped by a dragon would be a good way for a princess in search of a husband to find a match. Morwen herself even admits that princesses from less well-off nations should actually be clamoring to become a Dragon’s princess as practically guarantees a good match as far as spouses are concerned especially if that spouse is also the heir to a more prosperous kingdom.

* WantedAGenderConformingChild: In book 1 (''Dealing With Dragons''), Cimorene mentions that her parents are worried about her because she isn't princess-y enough, is too tall, and tried to learn swordfighting. She runs away to volunteer as dragon princess.

* RescueRomance: Played with. Therandil and other knights and princes attempt to invoke this with Cimorene; she's not having any of it though. She ''does'' discuss it with Alianora and admits that getting kidnapped by a dragon would be a good way for a princess in search of a husband to find a match.

* StandardHeroReward: Half a kingdom and the princess's hand in marriage is said to be the standard reward for rescuing a princess who has been captured by a dragon. When Cimorene learns that her parents have offered it on her behalf, she notes that half the kingdom is not only a considerably larger dowry than she might otherwise have been offered with, as the youngest of seven sisters, it's larger than all her elder sisters' dowries put together.

** Princess Annalisa's Uncle Rothbern tries to kidnap her in the middle of a tournament in "Utensile Strength", in the Enchanted Forest. Mendanbar nullifies his magic and asks him what the hell he's doing, and the competitors honorably prepare to defend her because they are armed to the tooth and pumped for a fight. It's more or less a SuicideMission. [[spoiler:Fortunately or unfortunately, Annalisa manages to use the Frying Pan of Doom to turn her EvilUncle into a poached egg, stopping any fight before it can begin]].

** Wizards don't like fire-witches due to some rather dangerous interactions thanks to the incompatibility of their magics, and they also do not like the unique magic wielded by the king of the Enchanted Forest. (Mainly because it's so effective at stopping them.)

* YoungestChildWins: Discussed. The stone prince was turned to stone while attempting a quest to obtain the magical cure for a king's illness; he tells Cimorene that in retrospect he ought to have realised that as two of the king's three sons had already attempted the quest and failed, nobody was going to succeed except the third son.

As the first book begins, forthright and tomboyish [[RebelliousPrincess Princess Cimorene]] decides that she is tired of being a princess and doesn't much like the prince her parents are pushing at her. Her Fairy Godmother is no help, so she follows the advice of a talking frog and ends up offering her services to a dragon. The first three books in the series follow Cimorene's adventures. The fourth book (which was actually written first) concerns her son Daystar.

** In ''Dealing With Dragons'', Princess Cimorene's parents try to pawn off their difficult daughter on the braindead Prince Therandil and tell her she has no choice; Cimorene runs away and becomes a dragon's princess instead. It becomes a defied trope once her parents learn that she’s become a Dragon’s Princess after her disappearance as “the man who rescues her will have her hand in marriage”.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The King of the Enchanted Forest inherits a link to the magical forces that sustain the realm, which is more than enough power to be a match for any individual spellcaster (though you still run into trouble with groups if you aren't carrying the sword the King also inherits).

* OurGargoylesRock: There's a wooden one in Mendanbar's study, who was apparently put there to keep an eye on the castle so if the wood starts to rot or structural problems develop, it can alert someone. It spends more of its time insulting Mendanbar though.

* LoopholeAbuse: a downplayed version. The stone prince knew that the water in the spring would turn all the other princes to normal when someone successfully completed the quest so he thought it would prevent the enchantment on the golden ladle from taking effect. Apparently whoever enchanted the golden ladle hadn’t expected anyone to do that and thus only his physical appearance was changed.

* LoopHoleAbuse: a downplayed version. The stone prince knew that the water in the spring would turn all the other princes to normal when someone successfully completed the quest so he thought it would prevent the enchantment on the golden ladle from taking effect. Apparently whoever enchanted the golden ladle hadn’t expected anyone to do that and thus only his physical appearance was changed.

* IdiotBall: The Stone Prince is generally one of the smarter characters in ''Dealing With Dragons'', but he became a walking, talking statue because of this trope, and he's well aware of it -- despite ''knowing'' that he should use the tin dipper and not the golden one to draw healing water from the magic well, he couldn't resist taking the gold one down from its hook just to ''look'' at it for a minute. Cimorene mentally lampshades that he behaved foolishly in that instant, but decides not to say so to his face because she can also tell that he's well aware of how foolish he was at that time. To be fair to the prince, he didn't ''know'' that just touching the gold dipper would trigger the enchantment (he thought you had to actually try to ''use'' it before the magic kicked in), and then he saved himself from being completely TakenForGranite with some very quick thinking, which Cimorene ''does'' acknowledge out loud.

** In ''Dealing With Dragons'', Princess Cimorene's parents try to pawn off their difficult daughter on the braindead Prince Therandil and tell her she has no choice; Cimorene runs away and becomes a dragon's princess instead.

** In ''Talking to Dragons'', [[spoiler:after the battle, it is mentioned that a few of the wizards surrendered and were willing to cooperate with the allies of the Enchanted Forest. Although, their alternative was being eaten by dragons.]]

* RebelliousPrincess: Zig-zagged. Cimorene doesn't rebel just because she'd rather play with swords and hates girly princess stuff as Rebellious Princesses tend to. She just sees nothing ''useful'' about learning common princess skills such as dancing and embroidery. She prefers cooking and learning magic. She grits her teeth and learns the princess skills anyway... then runs away to avoid an unwanted marriage. Her training as a princess only comes in handy when dealing with the ranks of the various dragons, and when she wants to pretend to be an "airhead" princess. She ends up becoming queen, and a very happy and efficient one at that.

* RebelliousPrincess: Princess Cimorene -- early in the first book, she intentionally gets herself "kidnapped" by a dragon in order to escape her current life and an ArrangedMarriage. Before this she insisted on her teachers teaching her things not normally covered: magic, cooking, politics, fencing, Latin, etc. She also (verbally) fights off many of the princes and knights to come to rescue her herself to prevent them from bringing her home, and changes her official title (among the dragons) to "Chief Cook and Librarian" to help drive them away.

* AchievementsInIgnorance: Invoked for Daystar in ''Talking to Dragons'', since if he [[spoiler:rescued the King of the Enchanted Forest ''knowing'' that the sword he carried would only work for a blood relative of the king, the wizards would be able to track him down.]] Cimorene isn't happy when discussing this plan while Daystar is a baby, but she eventually has no choice when [[spoiler:her husband is taken hostage.]]

* CrystalBall: The King's Crystal can scry as well as foretell the future, but it's actually a flat plate instead of a sphere. Morwen has a more conventional ball.

%% * [=GettingCrapPastTheRadar=]: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* KingInTheMountain: Happens to [[spoiler:Mendanbar]] between book 3 and 4.

* TheLoad: Killer. A rabbit turned into a floating blue donkey, Killer spends the whole story whining about not getting enough to eat, eating things that are obviously magical and dangerous despite being warned numerous times and despite having suffered bad consequences already from it, whining about being in danger that his own actions have put him into and thus requiring rescue, whining about having to carry an incapacitated Telemain, and in general being an all-around useless pain to the heroes. The heroes only take him along because Telemain thinks he can use what's left of the wizards' size-changing spell on him to locate their headquarters once they get close enough.

* MenCantKeepHouse: Gender-neutral with the dragons, whose homes tend to be full of stuff just lying around; while cleaning, Cimorene thinks to herself that dragons in general aren't very tidy creatures. Of the three main dragons whose caves were seen or had their status referenced, Kazul's is the tidiest (though Cimorene still winds up picking up a lot of stuff that's just lying around where it doesn't belong), Kazul tells Cimorene (after visiting them for the first time) that the official vaults for the King of the Dragons are in even worse shape than Kazul's were when Cimorene first moved in, and Roxim's caves in particular are full of clutter to the point where he has a hard time finding anything and is visibly frustrated about it; Cimorene winds up having to help him find the item he's looking for. This is part of why they have princesses, to act as live-in maids and keep things clean and organized for them, and after seeing the abysmal state of Roxim's caves, Cimorene makes a mental note to find a nice princess for him who can handle the job.

* OffToBoardingSchool: Mendanbar's suggestion of what the aforementioned EvilUncle should do. He's been ordered by the Wicked Stepmothers' Society to do something evil or lose his membership, but he genuinely likes his nephew, and in addition, can't get his nephew to think getting lost in the forest is actually a ''bad'' thing, because the nephew is a [[JumpedAtTheCall wannabe adventurer]]. So Mendanbar tells the uncle that boarding school is the perfect solution, because it's a thing that's conventionally done by nasty people, that the nephew will hate, but won't actually do much harm.

* OpenSesame: The gate from the Mountains of Morning to the Caves of Fire and Night. Apparently, Open Sesame was the ''literal'' passcode for a time, but "word got around and we had to change it."

* RetCon: The re-release of ''Talking to Dragons'' had some edits to bring it into line with things that had changed during the writing of the prequels. These included:
** In the original version of ''Talking to Dragons'', Telemain was reasonably comprehensible, but the prequel novels gave him his habit of constantly speaking in MagiBabble. When ''Talking to Dragons'' was reissued, his dialogue was edited accordingly.
** The circumstances under which Cimorene and Mendanbar knew each other -- the original version of ''Talking'' asserted that the Enchanted Forest and the Mountains of Morning had been closely allied, bringing them into each other's immediate orbit, but in ''Searching'' the relationship between the two kingdoms is shown to be neutral at best, and in fact the two meet while trying to prevent an outbreak of full-scale war. There was further mention of Antorell having actually ''courted'' Cimorene, and that they were married only after the sword was stolen. These were also rectified in the re-release.

** While not precisely evil, Alianora’s Great-Aunt Ermintrude has spent most of her life putting Alianora in danger for the sake of propriety. She did everything from inviting a wicked fairy to the princess’s christening to ensuring that Alianora would end up kidnapped by a dragon.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Ford of Whispering Snakes.