History Literature / Lyonesse

* EldritchAbomination: Joald. Waking him up is sufficent to submerge the land of Ys.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Madouc's hair is vivid red-gold. She ends up marrying [[spoiler: Dhrun.]]

* ThrownDownAWell: In ''Suldrun's Garden'', Aillas is lowered into an Oubliette ("a bell-shaped cell fourteen feet in diameter and seventy feet underground"). He finds the previous occupants still down there as skeletons. One of them as written "Welcome to our brotherhood" on the wall.

* MagicIsEvil: Murgen and Shimrod are pretty much the only magicians met for the first half of the series who are decent people (though they have vices of their own, Murgen enjoys cruel pranks at the expense of his followers such as making Shimrod climb a mountain pursued by a chicken hag, and Shimrod himself is a shamelessly pushy manwhore) and magic is considered a sign of a wicked or avaricious person by the inhabitants of the isles. The vast majority of magicians are amoral with a soft spot for a handful of people at best, and outright monsters at worst. This is why Murgen created his non interference clause in the first place. The good that would be gained from him interfering would be totally offset by the evil the rest of the mages would do.

* TheFairFolk: While mostly the pure "faries" aren't downright malicious (instead they tend towards the whimsical in a negligent or destructive fashion) they aren't the only supernatural spirits in the woods. Ogres regularly rape and eat people who are unfortunate enough to get caught by them, Hags disguise themselves as humans (or at least mostly do, they cannot hide their chicken feet) and try to murder travelers, Redcaps will kill anyone who goes over a bridge alone, etc. And this is only the smallest fraction of the things that infest the land in and around the Forest of Tantrevalles.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Alias and Murgen. Also surprisingly, the king of Faries, who seems to be the only who lacks sadism and has common sense in his court.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Faries simply don’t get why humans would want to know the specifics of unpleasant events. Why make yourself unhappy like that? [[spoiler: Twisk has to be forced by the king of fairies to see why Madouc just might be a little upset that Twisk won’t tell her own daughter who her father might be.]]

* BalefulPolymorph: happens to Tamurello, who is turned into a weasel. Another magician, who defied Murgen's rule of non-interference, is said to have been compressed into an iron pillar nine feet high and one foot square.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Faries simply don’t get why humans would want to know the specifics of unpleasant events. Why make yourself unhappy like that? [[spoiler: Twisk has to be forced by the king of faries to see why Madouc just might be a little upset that Twisk won’t tell her own daughter who her father might be.]]

* FantasticRacism: The Ska, while human, are genetically different enough through ten thousand or so years of reproductive isolation that they are often considered a seperate race. They hate everyone else as they consider non Ska subhuman, and are hated by everyone in return for their vicious behavior towards non Ska.

* AndIMustScream: wizards ‘’love’’ inflicting these kind of punishments on other people. One executioner kills a wizards lover in a needlessly gory and sadistic way and is forced to experience every second of his flesh rotting away and bones crumbling after his death. A different wizard traps another in a jar where he can do nothing but stare out in hatred.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The aristocracy of Lyonesse seems to be vaguely Germanic, Dahaut is pre-Revolutionary France, and the Ska are based on the Vikings. Troicinet represents Britain. All of these are based not so much on modern images of these cultures as on representations from the 19th century or earlier (Troicinet is a sea power and balances the other nations; the Ska aren't noble warriors but fearsome and heartless raiders, similar to portrayals of Vikings in mediaeval English sources.)

* LiteralGenie: Downplayed. Sandestins resent thst they are forced by pact to follow the will of the mage they belong to, but cannot usually use loopholes to harm the pact maker. They can, and gleefully do, instead use loopholes to do as little work as possible while being technically in line with their orders. In some cases, unless explicitly forbidden, they can even take orders from enemy mages as long as they don’t technically prevent the original orders from being executed.

* StealthPrequel: The existence of Sandestins and several spells from {{Literature/DyingEarth}} imply that the alternate version of Earth depicted here is the exact same one that will, millions of years later, be the one that Cugel and Rhialto have their various adventures in.

The Design Mechanism released [[TheRolePlayingGame a role-playing game]], ''TabletopGame/{{Lyonesse]]'' using the Mythras system in 2020.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: [[spoiler: Melancthe's]] death is cruelly abrupt and painful.
** [[spoiler: the FiveManBand Casimir forms and Shrimrod infiltrates goes from villains to corpse chariot off screen.]]

* ExactWordsGenie: downplayed. Sandestins resent thst they are forced by pact to follow the will of the mage they belong to, but cannot usually use loopholes to harm the pact maker. They can, and gleefully do, instead use loopholes to do as little work as possible while being technically in line with their orders. In some cases, unless explicitly forbidden, they can even take orders from enemy mages as long as they don’t technically prevent the original orders from being executed.

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: King Casmir imprisons Prince Aillas at the bottom of an oubliette. Aillas gradually loses his sanity and starts thinking of the skeletons of former inmates as friends and comrades in adversity. He gets better after escaping.

** [[spoiler: the FiveBadBand Casimir forms and Shrimrod infiltrates goes from villains to corpse chariot off screen.]]

* DawsonCasting: literary example: Dhrun, Aillas' son, is raised by the fairies under YearInsideHourOutside conditions, and is thus about eight years older than he should be. People who don't know this end up wondering if the two are brothers, or how Aillas managed to father him in the first place.

%% * BodyHorror: [[spoiler: Desmei's]] interrupted resurrection.

* MasterSwordsman: Aillas reveals himself to be a "demon with a sword."

%% * DepravedBisexual : Tamurello

* TheFairFolk: While mostly the pure "faries" aren't downright malicious (instead they tend towards whimsical in anegligent or destructive fashion) they aren't the only supernatural spirits in the woods. Ogres regularly rape and eat people who are unfortunate enough to get caught by them, Hags disguise themselves as humans (or at least mostly do, they cannot hide their chicken feet) and try to murder travelers, Redcaps will kill anyone who goes over a bridge alone, etc. And this is only the smallest fraction of the things that infest the land in and around the Forest of Tantrevalles.