History Literature / KnightAndRogueSeries

* PoisonousFriend: Fisk, though if Michael weren't so hellbent on doing no wrong he'd be a much milder example.
** Jack Bannister was this to Fisk, deliberating instilling trust issues in him and then trying to shame him out of any moral development he achieves during his time with Michael.

* AdultFear: There is a scientist gathering mentally impaired children and running magic experiments on them

* IFoughtTheLawAndTheLawWon: [[spoiler:Michael, when he refuses to bring Ceciel in for what he believes will be an unfair trial.]]

* TalkingInYourDreams: What [[spoiler:Wheatman]] believes happened to him. While he initially dismissed the dream he recounts to Michael as a [[RealDreamsAreWeirder regular nonsense dream]], he places unusual meaning on it after learning she died while he was asleep, and took it as a sign that she wanted him to take up vigilantism.

** Almost every noble the age of Michael's oldest brother, Rupert, is named Rupert in memory of the previous High Liege who passed around the time of those Ruperts' births. The current High Liege then went on to name his son and heir Rupert.

* PlanetOfSteves: Starting with ''Rogue's Home'' there are a dozen Potters. A newly introduced Potter usually includes the line "No relation to so-and-so Potter."

%%* BadassBookworm: Fisk

%%* BornUnlucky: Michael
%%* BrainlessBeauty: Rosamund

%%* CapitalLettersAreMagic: The Gifts.
%%* ChekhovsGun: Aquilas

%%* CoolOldLady: Nettie's Ma
%%* CrankyLandlord: Mrs. Inger

%%* DeathByOriginStory: Fisk's parents.

%%* DontCallMeSir: Michael.

%%* EarnYourHappyEnding

%%* EmbarrassingFirstName: [[spoiler:Nonopherian]] Fisk.
%%* EmbarrassingNickname: Nonny.

%%* EvilCripple: Hackle

%%* FantasyCounterpartCulture

%%* TheFool: Michael.

%%* GoldSilverCopperStandard

%%* HeroWithBadPublicity: Michael and, by association, Fisk.
%%* HeterosexualLifePartners: Michael and Fisk.

%%* HonorBeforeReason: Michael, though less so in the third book.
%%* HopelessSuitor: Michael to Rosamund.
%%* HyperCompetentSidekick: Fisk

%%* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Michael.
%%** Not nearly as much so in ''Thief's War'', where he's not above trying to play off the villain's paranoia and jokes about manipulating Fisk the same way.

%%* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: To say that would be a gross understatement.

%%* LegallyDead: [[spoiler:Rosamund]]

%%* LordErrorProne

%%* NobleFugitive: Michael.

%%* NotAMorningPerson: Fisk
%%* NotTheFallThatKillsYou

%%* TheOathBreaker: Jack Bannister

%%* PerpetualPoverty

%%** Jack Bannister may also count.

%%* TrickTwist: At least one per book.
%%* TrojanPrisoner: Fisk pulls this to free a captured Michael.

%%* WalkingTheEarth

%%* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: Michael. Michael would be.

%%* BattleInTheRain: The climax of ''Player's Ruse''.
* BeautyBrainsandBrawn: In the last two books Kathy joins the group as a permanent member filling in the beauty part. Though she's described as being distinctly average looking she's certainly prettier than Fisk and Michael and has a tendency to be wearing unnecessarily fancy clothing since she's supposed to be attempting to court a Prince at the time.

* ArrestedForHeroism: Anytime Michael gets in trouble with the law this is involved.

* TheRainman: Seymour Peebles. Incredibly good with numbers, and not that functional with anything else.

** After his exploits in ''Thief's War'', the general law enforcement even takes the time to look into the circumstances of Michael's status and are sympathetic to his situation.

The two leads mostly play NancyDrew to several mysteries they happen to stumble upon in their travels. Michael is all for figuring them out and helping people, while Fisk just wants them to get through things alive and preferably not imprisoned.

* ArrestedForHeroism: Anytime Michael get's in trouble with the law, this is involved.
* AssholeVictim: Thrope, in ''Rogue's Home''

** Maxwell counts too, but only in regards to Fisk and Michael. [[spoiler: They litterally save him and his family from a life of poverty only FIVE YEARS after he kicked Fisk out with the promise he'd provide for Fisk's sisters and how does he repay them? By kicking them out again. Even his offer to send Fisk to University was a thinly veiled attempt to get him out of town without looking like a dick...]] he failed in that regard.

* BadMoonRising: The unnamed planet they are on has two moons: the Creature Moon (it's gold) and the Green Moon ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin yep, it's green]]). They are both heavily tied to the dangerously chaotic magic (Creature animal, Green plants) that inhabits the place.
* BadassBookworm: Fisk
* BailEqualsFreedom: Averted surprisingly hard for a fantasy series with it's own legal system.

* BattleInTheRain: the climax of ''Player's Ruse''.

* BornUnlucky: Michael
* BrainlessBeauty: Rosamund

* CapitalLettersAreMagic: The Gifts.
* ChekhovsGun: Aquilas

* ClearTheirName: Fisk is called home in ''Rogue's Home'' to prove his brother-in-law wasn't bribed to wrongfully hang someone.

* CompellingVoice: [[spoiler: By the fourth book, Michael has discovered that when he combines his enhancement magic with his animal handling Gift he can make it work on people. He deliberately doesn't see how far he can go with this, but implies that he could essentially force a woman to trust him if he so desired.]]

* ContractualImmortality: If he didn't have this Michael would have died at least once per book.

* CoolOldLady: Nettie's Ma
* CrankyLandlord: Mrs. Inger

* DeathByOriginStory: Fisk's parents.

* DisproportionateRetribution: The captain of the Albatross has Michael flogged for accidentally spilling paint.

* DoingItForTheArt: Nate Jobber, who was so dedicated that he even considered his forgeries to be works of art, and [[WhatAnIdiot hid his signature in them]].
* DontCallMeSir: Michael.

* EarnYourHappyEnding

* EmbarrassingFirstName: [[spoiler:Nonopherian]] Fisk.
* EmbarrassingNickname: Nonny.
* EnforcedMethodActing: Fisk manages to make Michael appear genuinely freaked out by the sacrifice the two are faking as part of an escape by indicating, without having warned him first, that he's going to be castrated.

* EvilCripple: Hackle

* FantasyCounterpartCulture

* TheFool: Michael.

* ForeignMoneyIsProofOfGuilt: This is what leads the heroes to suspect [[spoiler: Worthington]] in ''Rogue's Home''.

* GoldSilverCopperStandard

* HeroWithBadPublicity: Michael and, by association, Fisk.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: Michael and Fisk.

* HonorBeforeReason: Michael, though less so in the third book.
* HopelessSuitor: Michael to Rosamund.
* HyperCompetentSidekick: Fisk

* IShallTauntYou: The main bad guy of ''Player's Ruse'' does this to a tied up and devastated Fisk after it looks like [[spoiler: Michael has been tossed off a cliff to his death.]]

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Michael.
** Not nearly as much so in ''Thief's War'', where he's not above trying to play off the villain's paranoia and jokes about manipulating Fisk the same way.

* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: To say that would be a gross understatement.
* JackOfAllTrades: Michael, due to making a living by stopping to help work wherever a spare hand is needed.

* LastNameBasis: Fisk. Michael doesn't even learn his first name until the second book, and even then it's only because of Fisk's sister.

* LegallyDead: [[spoiler:Rosamund]]

* LordErrorProne

* MadScientist: [[spoiler: Lady Ceciel]] turns out to be one in ''The Last Knight''.

* NoNonsenseNemesis: When [[spoiler:Worthington]] is lured out by Nettie's Ma he decides it would be a better use of his time to go catch the people he realizes have broken into his home than chase an old woman, much less listen to her gloating.

* NobleFugitive: Michael.

* NotAMorningPerson: Fisk
* NotTheFallThatKillsYou

* TheOathBreaker: Jack Bannister

** Fisk is normally looking out primarily for himself, and it's almost a OnceAnEpisode moment that the first thing Fisk would do when facing armed thugs is wait for an opportunity to flee. In ''Scholar's Plot'', Michael recalls this very fact, only when a thug makes a swing at Kathy, Fisk doesn't run--''he tackles the thug instead''. [[spoiler: Initially comes off as a bit of CharacterDevelopment for Fisk, who at the start of the book is beside himself at doing something selfless of his own volition. Except later, via a separate event, Fisk realizes that he's fallen for Kathy and that suddenly he has a whole group of people to watch out for, not just his own neck]].

* PerpetualPoverty

** Jack Bannister may also count.
* PowerIncontinence: [[spoiler:Michael's powers activate on their own on occasion in the third book.]] Fisk points out that pracitce would be the easiest solution here, but Michael refuses.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: If the sheriff hasn't already been bought by the local baron, they're likely one of these.
** After his exploits in ''Theif's War'', the general law enforcement even takes the time to look into the circumstances of Michael's status, and are sympathetic to his situation.

* RunningGag: What's the difference between X and a bandit?

* TattooedCrook: Played straight [[spoiler: with Michael from the second book onward.]] People in the books are tattooed with chains on their wrists if they are permanently unable to repay their debts (usually because they killed someone but for some reason was spared from hanging). [[spoiler: Michael didn't kill anyone, he just refused to fulfill a contract he was forced to make with his father that would have resulted in him losing his freedom for the rest of his life.]]

* ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: Used by Fisk when he's trying to explain that Michael's father is a climber, though he amends himself and says that there are probably over thirty different types of noblemen alone.
** And used by Michael when describing how difficult it is for a [[spoiler:unredeamed]] man to work odd jobs near the beginning of the second one.

* TrickTwist: At least one per book.
* TrojanPrisoner: Fisk pulls this to free a captured Michael.

* WalkingTheEarth

* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: Michael. Michael would be.

* WillfullyWeak: [[spoiler:Michael refuses to use his magic unless he has to.]]
** As of ''Thief's War'', he's more willing to experiment with his abilities, and even uses them directly on people.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Miss Ceciel. At least, not intentionally.

* BeautyBrainsandBrawn: I the last two books Kathy joins the group as a permanent member filling in the beauty part. Though she's described as being distinctly average looking she's certainly prettier than Fisk and Michael and has a tendency to be wearing unnecessarily fancy clothing since she's supposed to be attempting to court a Prince at the time.

* MagicIsMental: [[spoiler:[[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. According to academic theory, magic and intelligence are incapable of coexisting, explaining why it is only found naturally in animals and humans born with mental disabilities and/or with very young children, as well as why Michael's magic triggers when he's in a state of panic, but not when he tries to will it to work. Elaborated upon in ''Scholar's Plot'': the invocation has to be more ''natural'' as opposed to ''logical'', proven when Michael ends up turning invisible as opposed to enabling himself to breathe underwater the first time he tests this theory. His magic responded to his need to hide, but not his logically thinking he needs to breathe underwater in order to hide.]]

A final book called ''Lady's Pursuit'' is planned.

* GenreSavvy: Fisk is this, for the most part.

* MagicIsMental: [[spoiler:[[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. According to academic theory, magic and intelligence are incapable of coexisting, explaining why it is only found naturally in animals and humans born with mental disabilities, as well as why Michael's magic triggers when he's in a state of panic, but not when he tries to will it to work.]]

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: [[spoiler:Considering he could already feel magic, being able to see it is only a slight step up. Even when Michael starts to seriously work magic, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman the number of situations where it could come in handy are slim]]. It isn't until the third book that his magic really starts to look impressive. By book four he's begs to test the waters by using it to enhance his animal handling Gift in order to affect a human, but it's in book five--when he actually gets a plausible theory on ''how'' to control his magic--that it actually becomes useful in two separate occasions in the book: 1) by hiding him from an angry con who got busted by Fisk; 2) by creating a bubble of air to protect himself and Fisk from the fire destroying the old tower. The second time is when Michael actually makes the magic do what he wants, as it only really responds to the will of his heart (or primal instinct).]]

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When Michael takes a little too much glee in how they handle Ceciel after capturing her, Fisk is extremely concerned.

* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: [[spoiler:Considering he could already feel magic, being able to see it is only a slight step up. Even when Michael starts to seriously work magic, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman the number of situations where it could come in handy are slim]]. It isn't until the third book that his magic really starts to look impressive.]]

A series of fantasy novels for young adults by author HilariBell. The books focus on the OddCouple of Sir Michael, a KnightErrant, and his squire, Fisk (a former conman). The two start out very much on the opposite ends of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism (guess who is at which end). They travel together through a made-up country that sounds remarkably like Western Europe at the tail-end of the medieval ages, where feudalism is losing hold and industry and the middle class are starting to take over. All this however just minus the Catholic Church (or really any religion of any kind) but with lots of magic around [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou that can kill you]]!

* IncriminatingIndifference: [[spoiler:Dayless acting as though Quicken's sabotage of her own research is no great trouble and arguing that he be let of light for it is what leads Michael and Fisk to suspect she's the one behind every]]

Books already released:

A fifth book called ''Scholar's Plot'' and a currently untitled sixth book are planned.

* ClearTheirName: Fisk is called home in ''Rogue's Home'' to prove his brother-in-law is innocent.

* LoveTriangle: Though Michael worries one will arise between him, Fisk, and Rosamund, it instead occurs with the actor Rudy his rival in love.