History Literature / JudgeDee

* BoisterousBruiser: Ma Joong.

* AffablyEvil: The BigBad [[spoiler:Sun Ming]] of ''The Haunted Monastery'', privately confesses his crimes (abduction, multiple rape and murder) to Dee, while pointing out, in the nicest possible way, that his eminence, prestige and connections at the imperial court put him beyond the reach of the law. Judge Dee, however, proves he is [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner not beyond the reach of justice]].

* FiveManBand: The main cast.
** Judge Dee is the hero (and a magnetic one at that).
** Chiao Tai is his lancer; though closest to Judge Dee in social class and education, is a definite contrast; brooding and abrupt where Dee is polished and urbane, unlucky in love where Dee is happily married, devoting his life to vengeance where Dee is committed to perfect justice.
** Ma Joong is the big guy. He freely admits that his only use around the place is beating down dangerous people. He also takes pride in that he's ''extremely good'' at beating down dangerous people.
*** He has elements of the GeniusBruiser however, being capable, with the help of Chiao Tai, of pulling off schemes to apprehend criminals quietly. The arrest of [[spoiler:the Uigar chieftain Ooljin]] in ''The Chinese Maze Murders'' is an example.
** TheSmartGuy is Tao Gan, the best detective of the bunch next to Judge Dee, and the go-to man for complicated schemes and tricks.
** Sergeant Hoong is TheChick as the kindly old man whom everybody likes and trusts, and to whom none of the team would dream of speaking harshly, even at their truculent worst. The worst fighter of the bunch, he differs from the classic portrayal only in that the chain of command leaves ''him'' in charge when Dee is absent, and that he's male.

* HornyDevils: A villainous witch in ''The Chinese Nail Murders'' [[spoiler:murdered her husband]] for failing to provide her with enough life force to absorb through coupling. She is able to sense the refined "[[KiManipulation vital essence]]" of a martial arts master, who has abstained from sex for many years, and uses her powers and hypnotism to seduce him against his will, draining it out of him to keep herself young, then [[spoiler:murdering him]] when he threatened to reveal what she had done by [[spoiler:poisoning his tea]]. Once the Judge ([[MarathonBoss finally]]) manages to wring the truth out of her and break her spirit, the stolen life force leaves her and she ages twenty years in an instant in the sight of the whole court, leaving only a listless EmptyShell.

* FantasticFoxes:
** In ''Poets And Murder'' from the original series, a girl lives in The Shrine Of The Black Fox, which is infested by foxes, and is believed to be possessed by a fox spirit. [[DownerEnding Unfortunately, she catches rabies from her foxes, goes mad, and dies horribly.]]
** The sequels have a Huli Jing show up (sort of): a priest explains that he was always sort of shunned because his father had been tricked into marrying a fox-woman, who turned back into a fox some time after he (the priest) was born. The judge (and everyone else) stare at him in silence for a while, because it's blindingly obvious that the wife ran off with another man, the father passing it off as the fox spirit going back to the wild.

* CassandraTruth: After bluffing a local gangster lord with an imaginary regiment of regular soldiers the Judge reassures concerned civic leaders that there is no army unit just the deserters and former highwaymen he's recruited. They don't believe him. What is more, he predicted that this is exactly what would happen.

* ChivalrousPervert: Even Ma Joong is a little bewildered by his own motives for buying out a prostitute then handing her over to the man she prefers along with twenty silver pieces to give them a start on married life.

* ''The Chinese Gold Murders'' (1959): Judge Dee sets out to take up his first post and finds a couple of juicy murders and a missing person case waiting for him.

* ''The Lacquer Screen'' (1964): The Judge tries to take a few days vacation incognito and finds himself solving a couple of cases of murder and embezzlement.

* ''Necklace and Calabash'' (1967): In Rivertown, an Imperial Enclave, the Judge is of service to the Emperor's favorite daughter the beautiful Third Princess.
* ''The Red Pavilion'' (1964): On his way home from the Capital the Judge reluctantly spends a night at the pleasure resort of Paradise Island and finds himself drafted into a temporary appointment requiring him to solve three murders, one having taken place thirty years before!

* BrawnHilda: Miss Violet of ''The Emperor's Pearl'' is as tall as the judge and possibly wider, which is saying something considering that Dee is not a small man. Downplayed as she's not described as ugly so much as startlingly large, and Cheng Pa is very attracted to her (see below).

* NiceHat: Hats denoted status in ImperialChina, so there are many, especially Judge Dee's winged cap of office.
** Tao Gan has a hat that can be turned inside out to suit different roles as part of his MasterOfDisguise kit.

** In 'Poets and Murder' he arranges for the wife of a poor shopkeeper to get all the sewing from the Chinwa Residence which should give them a good income and improve their standard of living. [[spoiler:He would have given them custoy of a poor girl living alone in an abandoned temple, but she died of rabies before this could be carried out.]]

* BrawnHilda: Miss Violet is as tall as the judge and possibly wider, which is saying something considering that Dee is not a small man. Downplayed as she's not described as ugly so much as startlingly large, and Cheng Pa is very attracted to her (see below).

** BrawnHilda: Miss Violet is as tall as the judge and possibly wider, which is saying something considering that Dee is not a small man. Downplayed as she's not described as ugly so much as startlingly large, and Cheng Pa is very attracted to her (see below).

* BlindIdiotTranslation: The French translation dutifully notes every time a character says something [[DeadpanSnarker "dryly"]]. Unfortunately, in French the expression is closer to "sharply", making the judge seem short-tempered instead of sarcastic.

* LostLenore: It's clear that Pure Jade will be this to Candidate Wang in ''The Chinese Bell Murders''.

* JusticeByOtherLegalMeans: the Judge resorts to this in ''The Chinese Bell Murders'', arranging for the guilty party to ConfessToALesserCrime and then reveal that "lesser" crime is far worse than he thought.

* GoAndSinNoMore: Candidate Wang in ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' is guilty of seducing an unmarried girl (yes, it's a crime [[ValuesDissonance despite her consent]]; the punishment for rape is ''much'' worse), an act that brings disgrace upon the girl's family, Wang himself, and the scholarly class as a whole. However, Judge Dee judges that Candidate Wang truly loved the girl, intended to propose and marry her once he'd pas his examinations and was heartbroken by her murder, and as such has been sufficiently punished by his grief (and the [[PoliceBrutality rough treatment]] he'd already received during his interrogation). Instead of inflicting further punishment, Judge Dee proposes a plan that restores everyone's honor and allows Wang to return to his studies.

* ActionGirl: Despite the fact that this is ImperialChina, where Confucian ideals confine women to the home, the Judge and his lieutenants encounter Violet Liang, a Mongolian wrestler with her own dojo in ''The Emperor's Pearl'' and Bluewhite, a skilled street-fighter in ''The Willow Pattern''. [[spoiler:Ma Joong marries the latter]].

* GunStruggle: Knife variant. A suspect claims to have stabbed the victim in a struggle. The judge finds the angle of the wound questionable and asks Ma Joong for his expert opinion. Ma Joong agrees the angle is odd but 'strange things happen' in a fight and in his judgement the claim of self-defense is possible. [[spoiler:The victim was already dead when he was stabbed]].

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: [[spoiler:The beautiful Third Princess is actually the daughter of Master Gourd; the Emperor almost ''has'' to know she isn't his but she's his favorite daughter anyway. Although this affection is interpreted [[ParentalIncest rather differently]] by some in-universe]].

** In one FanSequel (where the judge is looking for the head of a vast conspiracy to send troublemakers and criminals to an out-of-the-way town), a shopkeeper reports Tao Gan's shoplifting to the local judge. This turns out to be a mistake, since Dee deduces that if the shopkeeper caught Tao (a ''very good'' thief), he must be a professional himself. And if he can go and report it without caring that this automatically marks him as a criminal as well, then there is a very good chance the man he's looking for is in the town. [[MoleInCharge He's right]].

* UsefulNotes/WhyMaoChangedHisName: The books include lots of idiosyncratic romanizations of the characters' names. Curiously some names, chiefly the religious names of monks and the names of courtesans and some other female characters, are ''translated''.

* WifeHusbandry: An unintentional case with Captain Ni, who raised the orphaned daughters of the woman he'd loved, but they fall in love with him. [[spoiler:The judge later confirms he's not their father]].

** Doctor Tsao in the first story is a philosopher with a three-pointed beard, which gives the judge some insecurities. [[spoiler:It was actually a fake and the doctor a criminal]].

There was a TV adaptation of ''The Haunted Monastery'' in 1974, as well as [[Film/DetectiveDee three movies]] [[note]]featuring the HistoricalDomainCharacter but not based on the novels[[/note]] in 2010, 2013, and 2018.

* ActionGirl: Despite the fact that this is ImperialChina, where Confucian ideals confine women to the home, the Judge and his lieutenants encounter Violet Liang, a Mongolian wrestler with her own dojo in ''The Emperor's Pearl'' and Bluewhite, a skilled street-fighter in ''The Willow Pattern''. [[spoiler: Ma Joong marries the latter]].

* AffablyEvil: The BigBad [[spoiler: Sun Ming]] of ''The Haunted Monastery'', privately confesses his crimes (abduction, multiple rape and murder) to Dee, while pointing out, in the nicest possible way, that his eminence, prestige and connections at the imperial court put him beyond the reach of the law. Judge Dee, however, proves he is [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner not beyond the reach of justice]].

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shortly after their first meeting, Chiao Tai inspects the Judge's sword, the legendary ''Rain Dragon'', and exclaims in admiration: [[spoiler: "If it should be ordained that ever I should die by the sword, I pray that it may be this blade that is washed in my blood!"]] And in the last book ''Murder In Canton'', a villain steals ''Rain Dragon'', and [[spoiler:Chiao Tai is killed in preventing him from killing Judge Dee with it.]]

* BrotherSisterIncest: In ''Murder in Canton'', the BigBad [[VillainousIncest tried to force himself on his sister during his youth]], citing bygone rulers who did the same to keep bloodlines pure. When she refused, he [[spoiler: [[EyeScream poured boiling water in her eyes while she was asleep]], blinding her.]]

* ConspicuousGloves: In one story, a character keeps his gloves on to hide the fact that [[spoiler: he badly injured it by touching a freshly-lacquered table after murdering a woman]].

* DeathBySex: There is one case, where a bridegroom thinks he has done this to his bride on their wedding night, freaks out, goes into hiding, and is accused of murder. [[spoiler: Turns out that she had only fainted]].

** The central place of filial piety is repeatedly displayed, especially in the crime that gets the judge the angriest we see in the series: [[spoiler: General Ting's son was having an affair with one of his father's concubines, and tried to poison him. [[DrivenToSuicide The judge outright tells him to commit suicide.]]]]

* DownerEnding: ''The Chinese Nail Murders'', which sees [[spoiler: Sergeant Hoong dead]] in a way that could have been avoided given a few more hours' time, the Judge worked to the brink by a combination of dealing with a crafty criminal who maneuvers him into mortal peril and unfulfilled and unfulfillable love with a married woman who [[spoiler: commits suicide after essentially admitting to a murder of her own to save him]]. Then he gets appointed to Chief Justice of the Empire, and quickly starts to learn that his father was right, and it's LonelyAtTheTop. No surprise that he starts going grey and looking his age after this one.

** One biological eunuch is also driven mad by unfulfilled sexual lust [[spoiler: in ''The Chinese Nail Murders'', and he even murders Sergeant Hoong.]]

** Mo Mo-te in ''The Haunted Monastery'' presents himself as an itinerant Taoist friar, which means, of course, that he is actually a petty crook. [[spoiler: However, he is ''not'' the criminal behind the murders, and actually came to the monastery to hunt down the one responsible for murdering his sister.]]

* {{Expy}}: Dee is pretty much universally considered by the Chinese as their answer to ''Literature/SherlockHolmes.''

*** He has elements of the GeniusBruiser however, being capable, with the help of Chiao Tai, of pulling off schemes to apprehend criminals quietly. The arrest of [[spoiler: the Uigar chieftain Ooljin]] in ''The Chinese Maze Murders,'' is an example.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: Chiao Tai's death by the judge's sword]] is repeatedly, but subtly, alluded to.

* HornyDevils: A villainous witch in ''The Chinese Nail Murders'' [[spoiler:murdered her husband]] for failing to provide her with enough life force to absorb through coupling. She is able to sense the refined "[[KiManipulation vital essence]]" of a martial arts master, who has abstained from sex for many years, and uses her powers and hypnotism to seduce him against his will, draining it out of him to keep herself young, then [[spoiler:murdering him]] when he threatened to reveal what she had done by [[spoiler: poisoning his tea]]. Once the Judge ([[MarathonBoss finally]]) manages to wring the truth out of her and break her spirit, the stolen life force leaves her and she ages twenty years in an instant in the sight of the whole court, leaving only a listless EmptyShell.

* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier: To the end of his career as a detective Judge Dee is moved by the suffering of the victims, and hates witnessing the often brutal punishments of the guilty.

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: [[spoiler: The beautiful Third Princess is actually the daughter of Master Gourd; the Emperor almost ''has'' to know she isn't his but she's his favorite daughter anyway. Although this affection is interpreted [[ParentalIncest rather differently]] by some in-universe]].

** In ''The Chinese Gold Murders'', a drunken, BrilliantButLazy poet is a lot more than he seems. By the middle of the story, Dee and his lieutenants think that he's a DiabolicalMastermind and behind all the criminal events of the book. [[spoiler: He's not]].

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Judge Dee's behavior in setting up his scheme to take down [[spoiler: a gang-rape scam perpetuated by scoundrels posing as monks]] seemingly involves accepting a large bribe, buying two prostitutes and adding them to his household, and affecting sudden interest in military matters, not to mention brusquely shutting down anyone who questions him. From his First Lady to Sergeant Hoong, his household is very distressed, [[spoiler: though Tao Gan, at least, was certain it was all a clever plan from the beginning.]]
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: [[spoiler: Tang]] in ''The Chinese Gold Murders'' might be a weretiger. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Maybe.]]

* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Mrs. Kuo, the doctor's wife in ''The Chinese Nail Murders'', is a remarried widow. Her first husband was a notorious {{Domestic Abuse}}r, before his sudden death. Her second husband, though a hunchback, is also a sweet, supremely loyal man who loves her dearly and has helped her become a literate and educated woman with a very progressive position as a female doctor. ([[DeliberateValuesDissonance Male doctors are only allowed to take a woman's pulse.]]) She and Judge Dee, who has been separated from his beloved family for some time, also form a kind of mutually unfulfilled romance. [[spoiler: After she ultimately kills herself to spare Dee the pain of having to arrest her for murdering the first husband, Doctor Kuo comes forward to confess, expecting to be executed so that he may loyally follow her in death. Deeply moved, Dee instead puts a recently-orphaned young girl into his care, so that he will have something to live for.]]

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Blue-white and Coral from ''The Willow Pattern'' are a tough, outspoken fighter and a shy, discreet dancer and musician, respectively. [[spoiler: Ma Joong ends up marrying both.]]

''Judge Dee'' is a series of PoliceProcedural novels and short stories set in ImperialChina and written by the Dutch diplomat and sinologist Robert van Gulik. The series was InspiredBy the 18th century Chinese novel 狄公案 (dí gōng àn) or ''Cases Of Judge Dee'', which van Gulik had translated during his war service, and had published in 1949 as ''Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee''.

* DynamicCharacter:
** Not so much over the course of any single book, but Judge Dee's character undeniably evolve over the course of the series: the Judge Dee of ''The Chinese Lake Murders'' never could have pulled off what the more experienced Judge Dee of ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' does. And while he remains dedicated to the absolutes of Confucian ethics, the Judge becomes painfully aware of the ambiguities and gray areas implicit in Real Life over his long years as a District Magistrate, particularly when circumstances push him to the brink in ''The Chinese Nail Murders''.
** Also Ma Joong goes from a happy womanizer to a man looking to settle down - but having trouble finding a girl to settle down with. He finally does so (with [[spoiler:''two'' girls, actually]]) in the next to last book ''The Willow Pattern''.

* SpotOfTea: The Judge hits the teapot like Sam Spade hits the bottle. His Lieutenants prefer 'the amber liquid' (ie: wine). A cuppa "bitter tea" is even offered to witnesses and accused in court to lubricate testimony or confession.

* ''Chiao Tai'' - Ma Joong's best friend. Another ex-highwayman and fellow investigator, he is a rather mysterious fellow, obviously of gentle if not noble birth, with peculiarly [[FatalAttractor fatal luck]] in love. He is an ex-soldier who [[{{Wuxia}} turned outlaw to pursue revenge]] on a superior officer who [[BestServedCold betrayed]] him and his men. However, when he finally catches up with his man, [[spoiler:as a recent murder victim,]] he decides he wasn't worth the killing anyway.

* BadassBeard: The Judge is very proud of his full black beard, which combined with his bristling brows and piercing eyes causes more than one guilty soul to confuse him with the Judge of the Underworld.

** BrawnHilda: Miss Violet is as tall as the judge and possibly wider, which is saying something considering that Dee is not a small man. Doesn't bother Cheng Pa, though (see below).

** Cheng Pa, the head of the Beggar's Guild, is infatuated with Miss Violet, a Mongolian wrestler. It's apparently mutual, bu tbecause of a Catch22Dilemma, it doesn't go anywhere (he won't go to a matchmaker until he knows for certain she'll say yes; she'll say nothing without an official proposal from a matchmaker).

** In the final story, the judge is familiar enough with it not just to realize his opponent has [[TheChessmaster the mind of a chess player]], but the ''kind'' of game chess: not ''{{TabletopGame/Weiqi}}'' (where all pieces have the same value) but ''TabletopGame/Xiangqi'' (closer to the Western version of chess with a queen).