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** CoolAndUnusualPunishment: [[spoiler:Killer is cured of his multiple transformations by getting them all transferred to Arona. So as punishment for his crimes against the Enchanted Forest, Arona must now spend the rest of his life as a seven foot tall blue winged donkey.]]
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The books in the series are ''Dealing with Dragons'', ''Searching for Dragons'', ''Calling on Dragons'', and ''Talking to Dragons'', with an additional short story, ''Utensile Strength''.
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The books in the series are ''Dealing with Dragons'', ''Searching for Dragons'', ''Calling on Dragons'', and ''Talking to Dragons'', with an additional short story, ''Utensile Strength''."Utensile Strength".
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* RescueRomance: Played With. Therandril and the other princesses attempt to invoke this with Cimorene. Cimorene says getting kidnapped by a dragon would be a good way for a princess in search of a husband to find a match.
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* BullyingADragon: Arona Vamist goes out of his way to make himself hated by a group of notoriously temperamental people that can set things on fire with their minds. This might have been excusable in that he at least protected himself against their retribution by allying himself with wizards, but he continues his boneheaded streak by ''literally'' trying invoke this trope by taking severe exception to the intellectual positions held by Kazul -- not just '''a''' dragon, but the King of the Dragons!
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* BullyingADragon: Arona Vamist goes out of his way to make himself hated by a group of notoriously temperamental people that can set things on fire with their minds. This might have been excusable in that he at least protected himself against their retribution by allying himself with wizards, but he continues his boneheaded streak by ''literally'' trying invoke this trope by taking severe exception to the intellectual positions held by Kazul -- not just '''a''' dragon, but the King of the Dragons!Dragons! And to make it worse, the argument is over the behavior of dragons, which Kazul is naturally an expert on.
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** In ''Searching for Dragons'', a princess in the Enchanted Forest tries to move Mendabar with her story of how her WickedStepmother banished her there. Mendabar is not sympathetic, as he instantly suspects that the princess and the stepmother talked the entire thing over as a way for the princess to get a good marriage.
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** In ''Searching for Dragons'', a princess in the Enchanted Forest tries to move Mendabar Mendanbar with her story of how her WickedStepmother banished her there. Mendabar Mendanbar is not sympathetic, as he instantly suspects that the princess and the stepmother talked the entire thing over as a way for the princess to get a good marriage.
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** The circumstances under which Cimorene and Mendenbar 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. These were also rectified in the re-release.
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** The circumstances under which Cimorene and Mendenbar 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.Cimorene, and that they were married only after the sword was stolen. These were also rectified in the re-release.
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* SculleryMaid: Cimorene tries to avert this.
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* FeminineWomenCanCook: One woman can't stand to marry a man who bakes better than she does.
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* TheTourney:
**This does not include a fight between a dragon and a knight, Daystar notices.
**A real one is held in "Utensile Strength"
**This does not include a fight between a dragon and a knight, Daystar notices.
**A real one is held in "Utensile Strength"
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* NoSell: [[spoiler: Morwen shrugs off the soapy-water treatment, and explains it as "clean living".]]
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* 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 but won't actually do the nephew much harm.
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* 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 people, that the nephew will hate, but won't actually do the nephew much harm.
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** If he was only engaged to Cimorene for political reasons in the first place, kingdom and crown might just be all he needs to know the other princess is just as suitable for him.
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* CookingDuel: In "Utensile Strength," a cooking competition is used to determine the rightful owner of a magical frying pan.
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* CookingDuel: In "Utensile Strength," a cooking competition is used to determine the rightful owner of a magical frying pan.FryingPanOfDoom. [[ChefOfIron All of the contestants are warriors.]]
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* MagicMirror: Several of them; mostly used for communication, but they can also be used to find things.
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* MagicMirror: Several of them; mostly used for communication, but they can also be used to find things. things.
* MobileMaze: The forest constantly shifts itself about. Having a will of its own, it often acts in such a way intentionally, to separate people from each other, to get them lost, or to prevent "undesirables" from entering the forest at all.
* MobileMaze: The forest constantly shifts itself about. Having a will of its own, it often acts in such a way intentionally, to separate people from each other, to get them lost, or to prevent "undesirables" from entering the forest at all.
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* MadeOfTemptation: There are two dippers next to the Water of Healing. The correct one to use is plain tin. The other is gold and gem-encrusted, and turns you to stone if you pick it up. Every prince who goes on a quest for the Water of Healing is told to use the tin one, but most of them think they know better and turn to stone until one with sense comes along and uses some of the water on them. This happens again and again.
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* MadeOfTemptation: There are two dippers next to the Water of Healing. The correct one to use is plain tin. The other is gold and gem-encrusted, and turns you to stone if you pick it up. Every prince who goes on a quest for the Water of Healing is told to use the tin one, but most of them think they know better and turn to stone until one with sense comes along and uses some of the water on them. This happens again and again.again; even the prince Cimorene gets the story from in ''Dealing With Dragons'', who ''explicitly'' knew better, still gave in to the temptation to take the damn golden dipper off its hook to look at it... which is why he's "the stone prince."
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''The Enchanted Forest Chronicles'' is a series of [[FracturedFairyTale humorous fantasy novels]] by PatriciaCWrede that deconstruct a number of [[FairytaleMotifs common fairy-tale tropes.]]
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''The Enchanted Forest Chronicles'' is a series of [[FracturedFairyTale humorous fantasy novels]] by PatriciaCWrede Creator/PatriciaCWrede that deconstruct a number of [[FairytaleMotifs common fairy-tale tropes.]]
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'''Examples of:'''
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Shallow Love Interest is now Satellite Love Interest. Removing misuse, zero context example and complaining
* SatelliteLoveInterest: Prince Therandil for Cimorene. In fact, he's so shallow that she runs away and moves in with a dragon to get out of marrying him (The betrothal was her father's idea). She eventually gets rid of him by convincing him to rescue a different princess being held by another dragon. He sees nothing wrong with this, and becomes interested in this new princess after learning only four things about her: first name, name of her kingdom, hair color, and a description of her crown.
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* ShallowLoveInterest: Prince Therandil for Cimorene. In fact, he's so shallow that she runs away and moves in with a dragon to get out of marrying him (The betrothal was her father's idea). She eventually gets rid of him by convincing him to rescue a different princess being held by another dragon. He sees nothing wrong with this, and becomes interested in this new princess after learning only four things about her: first name, name of her kingdom, hair color, and a description of her crown.
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* WhyDidntYouJustSaySo: Telemain's [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness convoluted use of language]] prompts this a lot. On one occasion when Morwen replies to him in a similar style, he uses this phrase word-for-word.
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* BalefulPolymorph: Quite a few. In ''Calling on Dragons'', Killer is hit with multiple ones that ''stack''.
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* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Antorell is consistently ineffectual, but not all that sympathetic. He is, at best, pitiable.
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* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Antorell is consistently ineffectual, but Pretty much nothing ever seems to go right for Antorell. He's not clever, not all that sympathetic. good a wizard, both his enemies and his own allies (including his father) largely hold him in contempt, and he's melted in every single book at least once. He is, at best, pitiable.doggedly continues to try and pit himself against Cimorene despite the fact that the result is the same every single time. If he weren't a villain (and didn't transform into a SmugSnake every time he thought he held the upper hand), you might be inclined to feel pity for him.
-->"Ought I to be taking this person seriously?" the stone prince said in a rather doubtful tone.
-->"Ought I to be taking this person seriously?" the stone prince said in a rather doubtful tone.
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* AerithAndBob: Most characters have names like Cimorene and Mendanbar and Kazul and so on. However there are some ordinary-named characters like Jack, Herman, and Rachel. The "normal"-sounding names are all given to characters spoofing familiar fairy-tale characters: Jack for Jack and the Beanstalk (where a pair of giants have been repeatedly vandalized by human men uniformly named Jack), Herman for Rumplestiltskin (who didn't ''want'' to keep people's children and changed his name so that it would be easier to remember or guess), and Rachel for Rapunzel (who let down her ''chair'' to people who somehow got the words mangled up).
* ActionGirl: Cimorene, who matures into...
* ActionGirl: Cimorene, who matures into...
* ActionGirl: Cimorene, who matures into...
* AerithAndBob: Most characters have names like Cimorene and Mendanbar and Kazul and so on. However there are some ordinary-named characters like Jack, Herman, and Rachel. The "normal"-sounding names are all given to characters spoofing familiar fairy-tale characters: Jack for Jack and the Beanstalk (where a pair of giants have been repeatedly vandalized by human men uniformly named Jack), Herman for Rumplestiltskin (who didn't ''want'' to keep people's children and changed his name so that it would be easier to remember or guess), and Rachel for Rapunzel (who let down her ''chair'' to people who somehow got the words mangled up).
* DeathbringerTheAdorable: Killer the rabbit. On meeting him Morwen thinks to herself rabbits have very odd ideas about names, probably because they have to come up with [[ExplosiveBreeder so many of them]]. He ''is'' hit with a variety of transformational spells, but they don't do much to make him more fearsome, just ridiculous, and he's about as brave as you would probably expect an ordinary rabbit to be.
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* DeathbringerTheAdorable: Killer the rabbit. On meeting him Morwen thinks to herself rabbits have very odd ideas about names, probably because they have to come up with [[ExplosiveBreeder so many of them]]. He ''is'' hit with a variety of transformational spells, but they don't do much to make him more fearsome, just ridiculous, and he's about as brave as you would probably expect an ordinary rabbit to be.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Ford of Whispering Snakes.
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* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Ford of Whispering Snakes.
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* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend He Is Not My Boyfriend]]: Cimorene of both Therandil and later Mendanbar, although it's played to [[RunawayFiancee different]] [[EveryoneCanSeeIt effect]].
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* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend He Is Not My Boyfriend]]: HeIsNotMyBoyfriend: Cimorene of both Therandil and later Mendanbar, although it's played to [[RunawayFiancee different]] [[EveryoneCanSeeIt effect]].
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-->"He's been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells," Mendanbar explained, "but he hasn't done it yet."\\
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-->"He's been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells," Mendanbar explained, [[TranslatorBuddy explained]], "but he hasn't done it yet."\\
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* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Telemain's {{Magibabble}}-esque "explanations" tend to require a third-person translation.
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* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Telemain's {{Magibabble}}-esque "explanations" tend to require a [[TranslatorBuddy third-person translation.translation]].
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* TranslatorBuddy: In ''Searching'', Mendanbar frequently winds up in the role of "translating" Telemain's SesquipedalianLoquaciousness[=/=]{{magibabble}} into something more manageable.
-->"Actually, it is," Telemain said. "The Enchanted Forest is unique, magically speaking, and therefore the interface between the forest and the rest of the world is equally unique. Penetrating that interface requires a specific application."\\
"What's that mean, when it's at home?" said Jack.\\
"You need a special spell to get into the Enchanted Forest, because it's different from everywhere else," Mendanbar translated.\\
Telemain looked irritated. "That's what I just said."
-->"Actually, it is," Telemain said. "The Enchanted Forest is unique, magically speaking, and therefore the interface between the forest and the rest of the world is equally unique. Penetrating that interface requires a specific application."\\
"What's that mean, when it's at home?" said Jack.\\
"You need a special spell to get into the Enchanted Forest, because it's different from everywhere else," Mendanbar translated.\\
Telemain looked irritated. "That's what I just said."
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good quote; probably don\'t need it twice
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* JackOfAllTrades: The aptly-named Jack. He mostly does peddling and minor repairs.
** But not giants. "I'm a businessman. I don't ''do'' giants."
** But not giants. "I'm a businessman. I don't ''do'' giants."
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* JackOfAllTrades: The aptly-named Jack. He mostly does peddling and minor repairs.
** But not giants. "I'm a businessman. I don't ''do''repairs. He does ''not'' do giants."
** But not giants. "I'm a businessman. I don't ''do''
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* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The giants Dobbilan and Ballimore are regularly robbed by humans, who are different individuals each time but always named Jack. However, the [[HonestJohnsDealership traveling merchant]] Cimorene and Mendanbar encounter has no interest in trying his luck.
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* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The giants Dobbilan and Ballimore are regularly robbed by humans, who are different individuals each time but always named Jack. However, Jack the [[HonestJohnsDealership traveling merchant]] Cimorene and Mendanbar encounter has no interest in trying his luck.
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** But not giants. "I'm a businessman. I don't ''do'' giants."
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** A particularly good example: "In Which The Plot Thickens", followed shortly by "In Which The Plot Positively Curdles".
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do not add second bullet points for the sake of an aside if you can stick it into the actual entry. The wiki is not supposed to look as though it is talking to itself.
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* ShallowLoveInterest: Prince Therandil for Cimorene. In fact, he's so shallow that she runs away and moves in with a dragon to get out of marrying him (The betrothal was her father's idea). She eventually gets rid of him by convincing him to rescue a different princess being held by another dragon. He sees nothing wrong with this, and becomes interested in this new princess after learning only three things about her: First name, hair color, and a description of her crown.
** Four things, He also learned the name of her kingdom.
** Four things, He also learned the name of her kingdom.
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* ShallowLoveInterest: Prince Therandil for Cimorene. In fact, he's so shallow that she runs away and moves in with a dragon to get out of marrying him (The betrothal was her father's idea). She eventually gets rid of him by convincing him to rescue a different princess being held by another dragon. He sees nothing wrong with this, and becomes interested in this new princess after learning only three four things about her: First first name, name of her kingdom, hair color, and a description of her crown.
** Four things, He also learned the name of her kingdom.crown.
** Four things, He also learned the name of her kingdom.
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**Four things, He also learned the name of her kingdom.
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Shallow Love Interest
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* ShallowLoveInterest: Prince Therandil for Cimorene. In fact, he's so shallow that she runs away and moves in with a dragon to get out of marrying him (The betrothal was her father's idea). She eventually gets rid of him by convincing him to rescue a different princess being held by another dragon. He sees nothing wrong with this, and becomes interested in this new princess after learning only three things about her: First name, hair color, and a description of her crown.
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oh, sorry, I didn\'t realize I accidentally deleted this
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* TheDitz: Morwen's cat Fiddlesticks.
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* TheDitz: Morwen's cat Fiddlesticks.
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* TheDitz: Morwen's cat Fiddlesticks.DeathbringerTheAdorable: Killer the rabbit. On meeting him Morwen thinks to herself rabbits have very odd ideas about names, probably because they have to come up with [[ExplosiveBreeder so many of them]]. He ''is'' hit with a variety of transformational spells, but they don't do much to make him more fearsome, just ridiculous, and he's about as brave as you would probably expect an ordinary rabbit to be.
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* BewitchedAmphibians: Morwen is offended at the suggestion, although she considers doing it to Arona Vamist because he irritates her so much. Her cats encourage it as they want something to play with.
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''The Enchanted Forest Chronicles'' is a series of [[FracturedFairyTale humorous fantasy novels]] by PatriciaCWrede that deconstruct a number of [[FairytaleMotifs common fairy-tale tropes.]]
The first book starts with the forthright [[RebelliousPrincess Princess Cimorene]] deciding 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 with this problem 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 one (which was actually written first) concerns her son Daystar.
The books in the series are ''Dealing with Dragons'', ''Searching for Dragons'', ''Calling on Dragons'', and ''Talking to Dragons'', with an additional short story, ''Utensile Strength''.
----
'''Examples of:'''
* AerithAndBob: Most characters have names like Cimorene and Mendanbar and Kazul and so on. However there are some ordinary-named characters like Jack, Herman, and Rachel. The "normal"-sounding names are all given to characters spoofing familiar fairy-tale characters: Jack for Jack and the Beanstalk (where a pair of giants have been repeatedly vandalized by human men uniformly named Jack), Herman for Rumplestiltskin (who didn't ''want'' to keep people's children and changed his name so that it would be easier to remember or guess), and Rachel for Rapunzel (who let down her ''chair'' to people who somehow got the words mangled up).
* ActionGirl: Cimorene, who matures into...
* ActionMom
* AffectionateParody
* AllWitchesHaveCats: Morwen owns a large number of cats, as the more cats a witch has, the more power she can channel.
* 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).
* AwesomeButPractical: The Sword of the Enchanted Forest: powerful magical weapon, chooser of the heir to the kingdom... also good for plumbing.
* AwesomeButImpractical: on the other hand, the sword...leaks...if you try to take it out of the Forest, and every magic user except its wielder can tell.
* BackToBackBadasses: One version of the cover art for ''Searching'' shows Mendanbar and Cimorene as such ([[CoversAlwaysLie although they were fighting a bit of a distance away from each other in the actual story]]).
* BadPowersBadPeople: Wizards absorb magic from everything around them, unlike witches and magicians who study magic and use magical objects. It seems as if only an unscrupulous person would ''want'' to be a wizard in this universe, since the magic absorption process visibly harms sentient creatures and damages the environment.
** 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.]]
* BagOfHolding: Sleeves, technically; Morwen's enchanted her sleeves to work like a backpack, although there are limits to the spell, at which point her sleeves get heavy.
* BeCarefulWhatYouSay: To the nth degree within the Enchanted Forest itself.
* BetaCouple: Morwen and Telemain. Also Alianora and the Stone Prince in the first book.
* BlessedWithSuck: The fact that Alianora ''wasn't'' cursed at her christening, despite the presence of an evil fairy, seems to have been the origin of so many problems in her life that for years her family thought she might have been better ''off'' with a curse instead. On the other hand, Alianora ''has'' managed to accrue a number of BoringButPractical blessings such as the one on her teeth, not to mention that her unconventionality has made her the only princess besides Cimorene herself who is neither a BrainlessBeauty nor an AlphaBitch.
* BullyingADragon: Arona Vamist goes out of his way to make himself hated by a group of notoriously temperamental people that can set things on fire with their minds. This might have been excusable in that he at least protected himself against their retribution by allying himself with wizards, but he continues his boneheaded streak by ''literally'' trying invoke this trope by taking severe exception to the intellectual positions held by Kazul -- not just '''a''' dragon, but the King of the Dragons!
* CardCarryingVillain: As a member of the Men's Auxiliary of the ''Right Honorable WickedStepmother's Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society'', Prince Rupert has a reputation to uphold as an EvilUncle. [[MinionWithAnFInEvil When it comes to the actual "evil" part, though...]]
* CatsAreMagic: Morwen's cats.
* CatsAreMean: Well, catty, anyway. Morwen observes that it's a good thing only witches can understand cats, and only their ''own'' cats, because her horde tends to be pretty irreverent.
* CatsAreSnarkers: Morwen's cats.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: Mendanbar to a degree, although his inner monologue presents him as more sarcastic than angsty. He doesn't have any use for conventional formality, but he's very serious about his real responsibilities, almost to a fault when he tries to ''personally'' resolve all of the kingdom's problems. Both Morwen and Cimorene observe that he's visibly worn out from trying to do everything by himself.
* ColdBloodedTorture: In the BackStory of one fire-witch.
* ContainmentField: Most interestingly when one group puts up a field to keep the other group from getting ''in,'' and the other group then puts up a ''second'' field around the first to ensure that the first group can't get in either.
* ContinuityNod: In ''Dealing'', Cimorene sneaks out of the castle for the first and only time by using an invisibility spell. In ''Searching'', Mendanbar sneaks out of the castle specifically ''not'' using an invisibility spell, because he's apparently done it so many times that by now it'd be "cheating."
* CookingDuel: In "Utensile Strength," a cooking competition is used to determine the rightful owner of a magical frying pan.
* CoolButInefficient: Literal with most wizards. They tend to be a theatrical lot and their spells create lightshows and loud sounds, all of which are a result of the excess magic that's not being used in the actual spell. The more skilled and dangerous wizards can control their magic to such a degree that only the desired effect of the spell occurs.
* CoolGate
* 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.
** Various mirrors are also shown to be able to let viewers see where things are located or what's going on in other places.
*** At least one is rather petulant, as well-when they try to use it outside of it's prescribed use for calling other magic-mirror owners (ala videophone), it refuses to play until they can ask it to do so in rhyme-and when they do, it nearly refuses anyway because it doesn't like the rhyme.
* CurseEscapeClause
* TheDitz: Morwen's cat Fiddlesticks.
* DoomedByCanon: The situation previously established in ''Talking to Dragons'' requires that ''Calling on Dragons'' have a less than happy ending.
* DoomyDoomsOfDoom: The Frying Pan of Doom. (The enchanter intended to create "The Sword of Doom", but he tripped over his pet pig and enchanted his wife's best frying pan instead.)
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: At the end of the third book Kazul rather offhandedly [[spoiler:informs the protagonists that she ate Zemenar offscreen.]]
* ElementalHair: Fire witches invariably have red hair (which tends to burst into flames when they get angry enough.)
* EmpathicWeapon: "That dratted sword" makes all sorts of judgment calls on its own, including the selection of the heir designate.
* EnergyAbsorption: Wizards' staffs have the capacity to suck up ambient magic, which is at best discomfiting and at worst fatal to any ''living'' target.
* EveryoneCanSeeIt: DoubleSubverted with Cimorene and Mendanbar. Quite a few characters they encounter in ''Searching'' assume they are a couple or about to become one, for no other reason than they are a guy and a girl traveling together. But the assumptions turn out to be RightForTheWrongReasons as they fall for each other anyway.
* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses
** Subverted in ''Calling on Dragons'', when [[spoiler:Cimorene becomes the queen of the Enchanted Forest.]]
** Also subverted since, with a few exceptions, most princesses are stupid, spineless, and generally useless. In all fairness, they're raised to be that way, but most of the protagonists find them annoying.
* EvilMakesYouMonstrous: Played with when Woraug turns into a toad after displaying un-dragonlike behavior.
* EvilRedhead: Subverted in the case of fire-witches. While they are shown to have nasty tempers and are prone to tantrums, nearly all of the ones mentioned or seen are generally quite helpful to the protagonists.
* EvilUncle:
** 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.
* ExactWords: Addressed a couple of times; see IGaveMyWord below.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Ford of Whispering Snakes.
* EyeOfNewt: Usually in passing Morwen will mention what components are going into her spells. In the first book Cimorene spends quite a bit of time trying to collect increasingly obscure components and had the most trouble locating a set of powdered hens' teeth.
* FantasticScience: Telemain's MagiBabble.
* FantasyCounterpartAppliance: Although the {{Magic Mirror}}s are clearly designed for scrying, in ''Calling'' they're used basically as videophones.
* FisherKing
* FlyingBroomstick: Morwen uses a broomstick, and later enchants a giant basket to fly. Telemain doesn't like it. Morwen insists it's because you're meant to ride them sidesaddle.
* FracturedFairyTale
* FryingPanOfDoom:
** Buckets of soapy water (with lemon juice; don't forget the lemon juice) have an interesting effect on ... ''wizards.'' Not witches. (Although the one witch who's ever been in its path was a particularly tidy one and therefore not prone to melting.)
** The short story collection ''Book of Enchantments'' has an actual Frying Pan of Doom.
* FunctionalMagic: Good writeup of the series' use of magic here.
* GenieInABottle: Cimorene lets loose a genie who [[HowWouldYouLikeToDie promises to kill her]], though she evades it through a legal loophole, due to the genie having been let out a few hundred years early.
* GenreSavvy: This, combined with good old common sense, is near to a superpower in the setting. All of the protagonists have it, and almost no one else does, giving them a tremendous advantage most of the time.
* HarmlessVillain: Prince Rupert is here, if there isn't a rank ''lower.'' He's not remotely evil, and is in fact in danger of being kicked out of the Men's Auxiliary of the Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers' Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society for not being villainous enough.
* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend He Is Not My Boyfriend]]: Cimorene of both Therandil and later Mendanbar, although it's played to [[RunawayFiancee different]] [[EveryoneCanSeeIt effect]].
* HowWouldYouLikeToDie: [[spoiler: "[[TakeAThirdOption Old age]]."]]
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The book titles all follow the format ''[Gerund] [Preposition] Dragons''. See also InWhichATropeIsDescribed for the chapter titles.
* IGaveMyWord: Apparently breaking promises in the Enchanted Forest is a really bad idea.
** Daystar almost uses this exact phrase when he promises to try to do whatever he can to help out a princess - and she asks that he hand over her magic sword.
* ImprobableWeaponUser
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Antorell is consistently ineffectual, but not all that sympathetic. He is, at best, pitiable.
* InWhichATropeIsDescribed: All the chapter titles, such as "In Which Morwen and Telemain Argue and Killer Discovers the Perils of Mixing Cosmetics and Magic."
* ItsWhatIDo
-->"He's been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells," Mendanbar explained, "but he hasn't done it yet."\\
"Why do you want to know that?" Cimorene asked Telemain with renewed suspicion.\\
"Because that's what I do!" Telemain said.
** 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.
* JackOfAllTrades: The aptly-named Jack. He mostly does peddling and minor repairs.
* KarmicTransformation: For Woraug this is explicit, but Arona Vamist qualifies too.
* KindheartedCatLover: The witch Morwen has cats in every color except black.
* LaymansTerms: Telemain's technical babble on magic often needs to be translated.
* LiteralGenie: This ''may'' have happened with the genie encountered by Cimorene and her unwanted fiancee Therandil. Therandil wishes to defeat a dragon in battle and rescue "his" captive princess. Cimorene then points out that Kazul, her dragon, is '''female''', and thus the wish doesn't apply to her. Since both of them were actually happier with the idea of Therandil defeating a ''male'' dragon and rescuing a more "traditional" princess, they never actually try to find out if the wish was indeed literal.
* LivingStatue: The Stone Prince in ''Dealing with Dragons''
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: For most of ''Talking to Dragons'', Daystar has no clear idea what's going on, and the various people who do know refuse to enlighten him. There is a good reason for this, however: [[spoiler:if he was informed of what the sword he was carrying was and what his possessing it meant (that he was prince of the Enchanted Forest), the wizards could use magic to find him.]]
* LongList: Willin carries around one for ''everything'' -- caves in the Enchanted Forest Kingdom, formal occasions the kingdom no longer holds, torture implements once stocked in the dungeon...
* LordErrorProne:
** Therandil.
** The knight running off with the princess Daystar and Shiara meet.
* TheLostWoods
* LoyalPhlebotinum: Mendanbar's sword. It works only for the king or heir of the Enchanted Forest, although a family member can carry it safely.
* MadeOfTemptation: There are two dippers next to the Water of Healing. The correct one to use is plain tin. The other is gold and gem-encrusted, and turns you to stone if you pick it up. Every prince who goes on a quest for the Water of Healing is told to use the tin one, but most of them think they know better and turn to stone until one with sense comes along and uses some of the water on them. This happens again and again.
* MagiBabble: Telemain speaks in nothing but, at least when he's talking shop.
* MagicMirror: Several of them; mostly used for communication, but they can also be used to find things.
* ModestRoyalty
* MoralGuardian: Arona Vamist acts as one in ''Calling on Dragons'', for some unfathomable reason. He basically spends his days calling up magical beings who he believes aren't "traditional" and trying to convince them to rearrange their lives to suit his tastes.
* MundaneSolution: ''[[IncrediblyLamePun Literally]]''.
* MundaneUtility: Mendanbar, King of the Enchanted Forest, uses his great magical powers to dust his house. In fact, this is more or less how he and Cimorene become acquainted with each other -- he introduces himself by using the ancestral weapon linked to the realm of pure enchantment to ''unclog the drain.'' She has to forestall him from doing the dishes.
* NoOntologicalInertia: In several ways, really. Most importantly, after a magic user's death, their spells will cease to exert any influence (unless they're a very powerful/clever magic user). However, the way everything just snaps back to normal after [[spoiler:Daystar brings down the wizards' shield around the castle and releases Mendenbar]] could be seen as an example of this trope as well.
* NotThatKindOfMage: Telemain is a Magician ''not'' a Wizard, no matter how interested in how they work their spells he may be, and regardless of whether or not he happens to have one of their staves at the moment or not.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Cimorene on occasion, mainly in ''Dealing''. She draws from her own sisters' behavior.
* 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 but won't actually do the nephew much harm.
* OldRetainer: Willin
* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The giants Dobbilan and Ballimore are regularly robbed by humans, who are different individuals each time but always named Jack. However, the [[HonestJohnsDealership traveling merchant]] Cimorene and Mendanbar encounter has no interest in trying his luck.
-->"I'm a businessman. I don't ''do'' giants."
* 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."
* OrwellianRetCon: 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 Mendenbar 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. These were also rectified in the re-release.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: They seem to be pretty benevolent; only the real JerkAss dragons eat people. Unless those people are wizards.
* OurElvesAreDifferent: And the groups of elves are all apparently quite different from each other, to the point where in the last book, some side with the king and others with the wizards.
* PairTheSpares: Cimorene deliberately does something like this when she sends Therandil to rescue Keredwel instead of her. It gets Therandil out of her hair, and the two are much better suited for each other, so everyone wins. She continues to do this for the rest of her time as Kazul's princess, sending the knights who tried to rescue her off to rescue other princesses.
* PersonalityPowers: Fire-witches tend to have a certain similar temperament, although it's no indication of being either good or evil.
* PlayingWithFire: [[WitchSpecies fire witches]], who [[BurnTheWitch burn themselves]]. [[IncrediblyLamePun Har]].
* PolitenessJudo: Daystar has a black belt in it.
* PublicDomainArtifact
* PunchClockVillain: Dobbilan the Giant, encountered ''off'' the clock.
* RebelliousPrincess: In ''spades''.
* RightfulKingReturns: [[spoiler:In one swell foop, the king, prince, and queen.]]
* RobeAndWizardHat and SquishyWizard: Literally, if you've got soapy water with lemon juice handy.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Mendanbar, Cimorene, and Kazul are all quite active -- Mendanbar to a unhealthy degree for a while. Daystar might also count, although he was unaware of any royal heritage at the time.
* RunawayFiance: Cimorene's adventures start when she flees an arranged marriage.
* SchmuckBait: The gold dipper by the Water of Healing.
* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Telemain's {{Magibabble}}-esque "explanations" tend to require a third-person translation.
* SheIsTheKing (Third type): 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.
* ShipperOnDeck:
** Cimorene. "Next Queen of the Enchanted Forest" ''indeed''! Plus she made sure the stone prince "rescued" Woraug's princess ''and'' she sent her own fiancé after a more suitable match for him. Later she mentions that she dealt with most of the princes trying to rescue her after the first book's events by sending them to rescue other princesses (who actually wanted to be rescued), and that she made sure to pair up the nicest knights with the nicest princesses. Also it's never revealed just how much of a hand she had in the series BetaCouple hooking up... so yeah, she gets a lot of traction in this role.
** As seen above in SheIsNotMyGirlfriend, a lot of people in ''Searching for Dragons'' think that Mendabar and Cimorene look good together.
* ShoutOut: Naturally, to just about every fairy tale in the public consciousness, but also to some recent literature. The Fire-witch whose castle is full of [[TakenForGranite petrified]] passersby is like the White Witch in ''TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'', and the idea that witches and wizards [[KillItWithWater melt in soapy water]] clearly comes from ''Literature/TheWizardOfOz'', though in Morwen's case it is subverted.
* ShrinkingViolet: Princess Alianora.
* SmugSnake: Zemenar. On so many levels.
* SquishyWizard: Or at least water soluble wizards. Ok, so it takes a little soap and citrus too, but that only makes them tough for a stain.
* StatuesqueStunner: Cimorene is supposedly as tall as most men.
* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Again, Telemain. Presumably other magicians too.
* TakenForGranite: Shiara, plus a bunch of other people who happened by the evil Fire-witch's castle (possible ShoutOut to ''TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''); and the stone prince, although the prince was [[LivingStatue mobile]].
* TalkingAnimal: They're not uncommon. In particular there are witch's cats (who can only be heard by their witch, meaning the reader is only privy to their conversations in ''Calling''), Killer the rabbit (also in ''Calling''), and Suz the lizard in ''Talking''. A few minor examples also exist, like the squirrel who directs Mendanbar to Morwen in ''Searching'' or the frog who sends Cimorene to the dragons in ''Dealing''.
-->'''Cimorene''': Are you an enchanted prince?
-->'''Talking Frog''': No, but I've met a few, and picked up a few things.
* TooDumbToLive:
** ''Killer.''
** Antorell could also count, given that by ''Talking'', his attempts for revenge against Cimorene pretty much have consisted of him dramatically bursting into her house and screaming about how he'll get her, only for her to promptly melt him. Arona Vamist could also count, seeing as he makes it his business to endlessly pester witches (both fire and regular) and dragons about the "proper" way they should behave. Granted he had the power of an entire group of wizards protecting him from the fire witches, but there's really no excuse for him to argue with Kazul over whether or not dragons eat princesses, especially since he had just lost said wizarding protection.
* TrueLovesKiss: Pulled by Daystar to bring Shiara back from being a stone statue.
* UnEqualRites:
** Nobody likes wizards (dragons and other inherently magical beasts are even allergic to them).
** 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.
** Sorceresses ended up a little too popular for their own good.
** Magicians are usually seen as confusing
** Fire-witches as moody and unpredictable at ''best'', but then you get to the worst of them...
** Regular witches are careful to keep their scary reputation up (even though most of them seem to be nice enough) so they don't end up like the sorceresses.
* {{Unicorn}}s: ...are rather narcissistic.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Any wizard can be melted (temporarily) with the simple application of soapy water with a little lemon juice. Later a spell is devised to have the same effect by simply pointing a finger and reciting a magic word.
--> "Argelfraster!"
* WellDoneSonGuy: Antorell. "Father will be so pleased."
** By ''Talking'' [[spoiler:this has graduated into AvengingTheVillain. He doesn't have any better luck with that, either.]]
* WhyDidntYouJustSaySo: Telemain's [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness convoluted use of language]] prompts this a lot. On one occasion when Morwen replies to him in a similar style, he uses this phrase word-for-word.
* WickedStepmother:
** Heck, they have a Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society. And a men's auxiliary for the EvilUncle contingent.
** In ''Searching for Dragons'', a princess in the Enchanted Forest tries to move Mendabar with her story of how her WickedStepmother banished her there. Mendabar is not sympathetic, as he instantly suspects that the princess and the stepmother talked the entire thing over as a way for the princess to get a good marriage.
* WickedWitch: Subverted, though Morwen SpeaksFluentAnimal with her cats.
** All witches do, although a 'hear-everyone-else's-cats' spell is still not feasible. Morwen observes that, considering the way her own cats talk about other people, that's probably for the best.
** Witches in general try to pretend that they ''are'' this, because they're afraid that if people are no longer afraid of them, they'll be endlessly bothered for magic cures for everything.
* WitchSpecies: Fire Witches, although it's possible for them to have {{Muggle}} kids- just very unlikely.
----
The first book starts with the forthright [[RebelliousPrincess Princess Cimorene]] deciding 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 with this problem 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 one (which was actually written first) concerns her son Daystar.
The books in the series are ''Dealing with Dragons'', ''Searching for Dragons'', ''Calling on Dragons'', and ''Talking to Dragons'', with an additional short story, ''Utensile Strength''.
----
'''Examples of:'''
* AerithAndBob: Most characters have names like Cimorene and Mendanbar and Kazul and so on. However there are some ordinary-named characters like Jack, Herman, and Rachel. The "normal"-sounding names are all given to characters spoofing familiar fairy-tale characters: Jack for Jack and the Beanstalk (where a pair of giants have been repeatedly vandalized by human men uniformly named Jack), Herman for Rumplestiltskin (who didn't ''want'' to keep people's children and changed his name so that it would be easier to remember or guess), and Rachel for Rapunzel (who let down her ''chair'' to people who somehow got the words mangled up).
* ActionGirl: Cimorene, who matures into...
* ActionMom
* AffectionateParody
* AllWitchesHaveCats: Morwen owns a large number of cats, as the more cats a witch has, the more power she can channel.
* 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).
* AwesomeButPractical: The Sword of the Enchanted Forest: powerful magical weapon, chooser of the heir to the kingdom... also good for plumbing.
* AwesomeButImpractical: on the other hand, the sword...leaks...if you try to take it out of the Forest, and every magic user except its wielder can tell.
* BackToBackBadasses: One version of the cover art for ''Searching'' shows Mendanbar and Cimorene as such ([[CoversAlwaysLie although they were fighting a bit of a distance away from each other in the actual story]]).
* BadPowersBadPeople: Wizards absorb magic from everything around them, unlike witches and magicians who study magic and use magical objects. It seems as if only an unscrupulous person would ''want'' to be a wizard in this universe, since the magic absorption process visibly harms sentient creatures and damages the environment.
** 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.]]
* BagOfHolding: Sleeves, technically; Morwen's enchanted her sleeves to work like a backpack, although there are limits to the spell, at which point her sleeves get heavy.
* BeCarefulWhatYouSay: To the nth degree within the Enchanted Forest itself.
* BetaCouple: Morwen and Telemain. Also Alianora and the Stone Prince in the first book.
* BlessedWithSuck: The fact that Alianora ''wasn't'' cursed at her christening, despite the presence of an evil fairy, seems to have been the origin of so many problems in her life that for years her family thought she might have been better ''off'' with a curse instead. On the other hand, Alianora ''has'' managed to accrue a number of BoringButPractical blessings such as the one on her teeth, not to mention that her unconventionality has made her the only princess besides Cimorene herself who is neither a BrainlessBeauty nor an AlphaBitch.
* BullyingADragon: Arona Vamist goes out of his way to make himself hated by a group of notoriously temperamental people that can set things on fire with their minds. This might have been excusable in that he at least protected himself against their retribution by allying himself with wizards, but he continues his boneheaded streak by ''literally'' trying invoke this trope by taking severe exception to the intellectual positions held by Kazul -- not just '''a''' dragon, but the King of the Dragons!
* CardCarryingVillain: As a member of the Men's Auxiliary of the ''Right Honorable WickedStepmother's Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society'', Prince Rupert has a reputation to uphold as an EvilUncle. [[MinionWithAnFInEvil When it comes to the actual "evil" part, though...]]
* CatsAreMagic: Morwen's cats.
* CatsAreMean: Well, catty, anyway. Morwen observes that it's a good thing only witches can understand cats, and only their ''own'' cats, because her horde tends to be pretty irreverent.
* CatsAreSnarkers: Morwen's cats.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: Mendanbar to a degree, although his inner monologue presents him as more sarcastic than angsty. He doesn't have any use for conventional formality, but he's very serious about his real responsibilities, almost to a fault when he tries to ''personally'' resolve all of the kingdom's problems. Both Morwen and Cimorene observe that he's visibly worn out from trying to do everything by himself.
* ColdBloodedTorture: In the BackStory of one fire-witch.
* ContainmentField: Most interestingly when one group puts up a field to keep the other group from getting ''in,'' and the other group then puts up a ''second'' field around the first to ensure that the first group can't get in either.
* ContinuityNod: In ''Dealing'', Cimorene sneaks out of the castle for the first and only time by using an invisibility spell. In ''Searching'', Mendanbar sneaks out of the castle specifically ''not'' using an invisibility spell, because he's apparently done it so many times that by now it'd be "cheating."
* CookingDuel: In "Utensile Strength," a cooking competition is used to determine the rightful owner of a magical frying pan.
* CoolButInefficient: Literal with most wizards. They tend to be a theatrical lot and their spells create lightshows and loud sounds, all of which are a result of the excess magic that's not being used in the actual spell. The more skilled and dangerous wizards can control their magic to such a degree that only the desired effect of the spell occurs.
* CoolGate
* 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.
** Various mirrors are also shown to be able to let viewers see where things are located or what's going on in other places.
*** At least one is rather petulant, as well-when they try to use it outside of it's prescribed use for calling other magic-mirror owners (ala videophone), it refuses to play until they can ask it to do so in rhyme-and when they do, it nearly refuses anyway because it doesn't like the rhyme.
* CurseEscapeClause
* TheDitz: Morwen's cat Fiddlesticks.
* DoomedByCanon: The situation previously established in ''Talking to Dragons'' requires that ''Calling on Dragons'' have a less than happy ending.
* DoomyDoomsOfDoom: The Frying Pan of Doom. (The enchanter intended to create "The Sword of Doom", but he tripped over his pet pig and enchanted his wife's best frying pan instead.)
* DroppedABridgeOnHim: At the end of the third book Kazul rather offhandedly [[spoiler:informs the protagonists that she ate Zemenar offscreen.]]
* ElementalHair: Fire witches invariably have red hair (which tends to burst into flames when they get angry enough.)
* EmpathicWeapon: "That dratted sword" makes all sorts of judgment calls on its own, including the selection of the heir designate.
* EnergyAbsorption: Wizards' staffs have the capacity to suck up ambient magic, which is at best discomfiting and at worst fatal to any ''living'' target.
* EveryoneCanSeeIt: DoubleSubverted with Cimorene and Mendanbar. Quite a few characters they encounter in ''Searching'' assume they are a couple or about to become one, for no other reason than they are a guy and a girl traveling together. But the assumptions turn out to be RightForTheWrongReasons as they fall for each other anyway.
* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses
** Subverted in ''Calling on Dragons'', when [[spoiler:Cimorene becomes the queen of the Enchanted Forest.]]
** Also subverted since, with a few exceptions, most princesses are stupid, spineless, and generally useless. In all fairness, they're raised to be that way, but most of the protagonists find them annoying.
* EvilMakesYouMonstrous: Played with when Woraug turns into a toad after displaying un-dragonlike behavior.
* EvilRedhead: Subverted in the case of fire-witches. While they are shown to have nasty tempers and are prone to tantrums, nearly all of the ones mentioned or seen are generally quite helpful to the protagonists.
* EvilUncle:
** 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.
* ExactWords: Addressed a couple of times; see IGaveMyWord below.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Ford of Whispering Snakes.
* EyeOfNewt: Usually in passing Morwen will mention what components are going into her spells. In the first book Cimorene spends quite a bit of time trying to collect increasingly obscure components and had the most trouble locating a set of powdered hens' teeth.
* FantasticScience: Telemain's MagiBabble.
* FantasyCounterpartAppliance: Although the {{Magic Mirror}}s are clearly designed for scrying, in ''Calling'' they're used basically as videophones.
* FisherKing
* FlyingBroomstick: Morwen uses a broomstick, and later enchants a giant basket to fly. Telemain doesn't like it. Morwen insists it's because you're meant to ride them sidesaddle.
* FracturedFairyTale
* FryingPanOfDoom:
** Buckets of soapy water (with lemon juice; don't forget the lemon juice) have an interesting effect on ... ''wizards.'' Not witches. (Although the one witch who's ever been in its path was a particularly tidy one and therefore not prone to melting.)
** The short story collection ''Book of Enchantments'' has an actual Frying Pan of Doom.
* FunctionalMagic: Good writeup of the series' use of magic here.
* GenieInABottle: Cimorene lets loose a genie who [[HowWouldYouLikeToDie promises to kill her]], though she evades it through a legal loophole, due to the genie having been let out a few hundred years early.
* GenreSavvy: This, combined with good old common sense, is near to a superpower in the setting. All of the protagonists have it, and almost no one else does, giving them a tremendous advantage most of the time.
* HarmlessVillain: Prince Rupert is here, if there isn't a rank ''lower.'' He's not remotely evil, and is in fact in danger of being kicked out of the Men's Auxiliary of the Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers' Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society for not being villainous enough.
* [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend He Is Not My Boyfriend]]: Cimorene of both Therandil and later Mendanbar, although it's played to [[RunawayFiancee different]] [[EveryoneCanSeeIt effect]].
* HowWouldYouLikeToDie: [[spoiler: "[[TakeAThirdOption Old age]]."]]
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The book titles all follow the format ''[Gerund] [Preposition] Dragons''. See also InWhichATropeIsDescribed for the chapter titles.
* IGaveMyWord: Apparently breaking promises in the Enchanted Forest is a really bad idea.
** Daystar almost uses this exact phrase when he promises to try to do whatever he can to help out a princess - and she asks that he hand over her magic sword.
* ImprobableWeaponUser
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Antorell is consistently ineffectual, but not all that sympathetic. He is, at best, pitiable.
* InWhichATropeIsDescribed: All the chapter titles, such as "In Which Morwen and Telemain Argue and Killer Discovers the Perils of Mixing Cosmetics and Magic."
* ItsWhatIDo
-->"He's been trying to figure out how the wizards work their spells," Mendanbar explained, "but he hasn't done it yet."\\
"Why do you want to know that?" Cimorene asked Telemain with renewed suspicion.\\
"Because that's what I do!" Telemain said.
** 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.
* JackOfAllTrades: The aptly-named Jack. He mostly does peddling and minor repairs.
* KarmicTransformation: For Woraug this is explicit, but Arona Vamist qualifies too.
* KindheartedCatLover: The witch Morwen has cats in every color except black.
* LaymansTerms: Telemain's technical babble on magic often needs to be translated.
* LiteralGenie: This ''may'' have happened with the genie encountered by Cimorene and her unwanted fiancee Therandil. Therandil wishes to defeat a dragon in battle and rescue "his" captive princess. Cimorene then points out that Kazul, her dragon, is '''female''', and thus the wish doesn't apply to her. Since both of them were actually happier with the idea of Therandil defeating a ''male'' dragon and rescuing a more "traditional" princess, they never actually try to find out if the wish was indeed literal.
* LivingStatue: The Stone Prince in ''Dealing with Dragons''
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: For most of ''Talking to Dragons'', Daystar has no clear idea what's going on, and the various people who do know refuse to enlighten him. There is a good reason for this, however: [[spoiler:if he was informed of what the sword he was carrying was and what his possessing it meant (that he was prince of the Enchanted Forest), the wizards could use magic to find him.]]
* LongList: Willin carries around one for ''everything'' -- caves in the Enchanted Forest Kingdom, formal occasions the kingdom no longer holds, torture implements once stocked in the dungeon...
* LordErrorProne:
** Therandil.
** The knight running off with the princess Daystar and Shiara meet.
* TheLostWoods
* LoyalPhlebotinum: Mendanbar's sword. It works only for the king or heir of the Enchanted Forest, although a family member can carry it safely.
* MadeOfTemptation: There are two dippers next to the Water of Healing. The correct one to use is plain tin. The other is gold and gem-encrusted, and turns you to stone if you pick it up. Every prince who goes on a quest for the Water of Healing is told to use the tin one, but most of them think they know better and turn to stone until one with sense comes along and uses some of the water on them. This happens again and again.
* MagiBabble: Telemain speaks in nothing but, at least when he's talking shop.
* MagicMirror: Several of them; mostly used for communication, but they can also be used to find things.
* ModestRoyalty
* MoralGuardian: Arona Vamist acts as one in ''Calling on Dragons'', for some unfathomable reason. He basically spends his days calling up magical beings who he believes aren't "traditional" and trying to convince them to rearrange their lives to suit his tastes.
* MundaneSolution: ''[[IncrediblyLamePun Literally]]''.
* MundaneUtility: Mendanbar, King of the Enchanted Forest, uses his great magical powers to dust his house. In fact, this is more or less how he and Cimorene become acquainted with each other -- he introduces himself by using the ancestral weapon linked to the realm of pure enchantment to ''unclog the drain.'' She has to forestall him from doing the dishes.
* NoOntologicalInertia: In several ways, really. Most importantly, after a magic user's death, their spells will cease to exert any influence (unless they're a very powerful/clever magic user). However, the way everything just snaps back to normal after [[spoiler:Daystar brings down the wizards' shield around the castle and releases Mendenbar]] could be seen as an example of this trope as well.
* NotThatKindOfMage: Telemain is a Magician ''not'' a Wizard, no matter how interested in how they work their spells he may be, and regardless of whether or not he happens to have one of their staves at the moment or not.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Cimorene on occasion, mainly in ''Dealing''. She draws from her own sisters' behavior.
* 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 but won't actually do the nephew much harm.
* OldRetainer: Willin
* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The giants Dobbilan and Ballimore are regularly robbed by humans, who are different individuals each time but always named Jack. However, the [[HonestJohnsDealership traveling merchant]] Cimorene and Mendanbar encounter has no interest in trying his luck.
-->"I'm a businessman. I don't ''do'' giants."
* 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."
* OrwellianRetCon: 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 Mendenbar 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. These were also rectified in the re-release.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: They seem to be pretty benevolent; only the real JerkAss dragons eat people. Unless those people are wizards.
* OurElvesAreDifferent: And the groups of elves are all apparently quite different from each other, to the point where in the last book, some side with the king and others with the wizards.
* PairTheSpares: Cimorene deliberately does something like this when she sends Therandil to rescue Keredwel instead of her. It gets Therandil out of her hair, and the two are much better suited for each other, so everyone wins. She continues to do this for the rest of her time as Kazul's princess, sending the knights who tried to rescue her off to rescue other princesses.
* PersonalityPowers: Fire-witches tend to have a certain similar temperament, although it's no indication of being either good or evil.
* PlayingWithFire: [[WitchSpecies fire witches]], who [[BurnTheWitch burn themselves]]. [[IncrediblyLamePun Har]].
* PolitenessJudo: Daystar has a black belt in it.
* PublicDomainArtifact
* PunchClockVillain: Dobbilan the Giant, encountered ''off'' the clock.
* RebelliousPrincess: In ''spades''.
* RightfulKingReturns: [[spoiler:In one swell foop, the king, prince, and queen.]]
* RobeAndWizardHat and SquishyWizard: Literally, if you've got soapy water with lemon juice handy.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Mendanbar, Cimorene, and Kazul are all quite active -- Mendanbar to a unhealthy degree for a while. Daystar might also count, although he was unaware of any royal heritage at the time.
* RunawayFiance: Cimorene's adventures start when she flees an arranged marriage.
* SchmuckBait: The gold dipper by the Water of Healing.
* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Telemain's {{Magibabble}}-esque "explanations" tend to require a third-person translation.
* SheIsTheKing (Third type): 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.
* ShipperOnDeck:
** Cimorene. "Next Queen of the Enchanted Forest" ''indeed''! Plus she made sure the stone prince "rescued" Woraug's princess ''and'' she sent her own fiancé after a more suitable match for him. Later she mentions that she dealt with most of the princes trying to rescue her after the first book's events by sending them to rescue other princesses (who actually wanted to be rescued), and that she made sure to pair up the nicest knights with the nicest princesses. Also it's never revealed just how much of a hand she had in the series BetaCouple hooking up... so yeah, she gets a lot of traction in this role.
** As seen above in SheIsNotMyGirlfriend, a lot of people in ''Searching for Dragons'' think that Mendabar and Cimorene look good together.
* ShoutOut: Naturally, to just about every fairy tale in the public consciousness, but also to some recent literature. The Fire-witch whose castle is full of [[TakenForGranite petrified]] passersby is like the White Witch in ''TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe'', and the idea that witches and wizards [[KillItWithWater melt in soapy water]] clearly comes from ''Literature/TheWizardOfOz'', though in Morwen's case it is subverted.
* ShrinkingViolet: Princess Alianora.
* SmugSnake: Zemenar. On so many levels.
* SquishyWizard: Or at least water soluble wizards. Ok, so it takes a little soap and citrus too, but that only makes them tough for a stain.
* StatuesqueStunner: Cimorene is supposedly as tall as most men.
* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Again, Telemain. Presumably other magicians too.
* TakenForGranite: Shiara, plus a bunch of other people who happened by the evil Fire-witch's castle (possible ShoutOut to ''TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''); and the stone prince, although the prince was [[LivingStatue mobile]].
* TalkingAnimal: They're not uncommon. In particular there are witch's cats (who can only be heard by their witch, meaning the reader is only privy to their conversations in ''Calling''), Killer the rabbit (also in ''Calling''), and Suz the lizard in ''Talking''. A few minor examples also exist, like the squirrel who directs Mendanbar to Morwen in ''Searching'' or the frog who sends Cimorene to the dragons in ''Dealing''.
-->'''Cimorene''': Are you an enchanted prince?
-->'''Talking Frog''': No, but I've met a few, and picked up a few things.
* TooDumbToLive:
** ''Killer.''
** Antorell could also count, given that by ''Talking'', his attempts for revenge against Cimorene pretty much have consisted of him dramatically bursting into her house and screaming about how he'll get her, only for her to promptly melt him. Arona Vamist could also count, seeing as he makes it his business to endlessly pester witches (both fire and regular) and dragons about the "proper" way they should behave. Granted he had the power of an entire group of wizards protecting him from the fire witches, but there's really no excuse for him to argue with Kazul over whether or not dragons eat princesses, especially since he had just lost said wizarding protection.
* TrueLovesKiss: Pulled by Daystar to bring Shiara back from being a stone statue.
* UnEqualRites:
** Nobody likes wizards (dragons and other inherently magical beasts are even allergic to them).
** 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.
** Sorceresses ended up a little too popular for their own good.
** Magicians are usually seen as confusing
** Fire-witches as moody and unpredictable at ''best'', but then you get to the worst of them...
** Regular witches are careful to keep their scary reputation up (even though most of them seem to be nice enough) so they don't end up like the sorceresses.
* {{Unicorn}}s: ...are rather narcissistic.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Any wizard can be melted (temporarily) with the simple application of soapy water with a little lemon juice. Later a spell is devised to have the same effect by simply pointing a finger and reciting a magic word.
--> "Argelfraster!"
* WellDoneSonGuy: Antorell. "Father will be so pleased."
** By ''Talking'' [[spoiler:this has graduated into AvengingTheVillain. He doesn't have any better luck with that, either.]]
* WhyDidntYouJustSaySo: Telemain's [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness convoluted use of language]] prompts this a lot. On one occasion when Morwen replies to him in a similar style, he uses this phrase word-for-word.
* WickedStepmother:
** Heck, they have a Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society. And a men's auxiliary for the EvilUncle contingent.
** In ''Searching for Dragons'', a princess in the Enchanted Forest tries to move Mendabar with her story of how her WickedStepmother banished her there. Mendabar is not sympathetic, as he instantly suspects that the princess and the stepmother talked the entire thing over as a way for the princess to get a good marriage.
* WickedWitch: Subverted, though Morwen SpeaksFluentAnimal with her cats.
** All witches do, although a 'hear-everyone-else's-cats' spell is still not feasible. Morwen observes that, considering the way her own cats talk about other people, that's probably for the best.
** Witches in general try to pretend that they ''are'' this, because they're afraid that if people are no longer afraid of them, they'll be endlessly bothered for magic cures for everything.
* WitchSpecies: Fire Witches, although it's possible for them to have {{Muggle}} kids- just very unlikely.
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