History Literature / Safehold

** The Earl of Thirsk is consistently said by the Charsian characters to be the single most dangerous commander the enemy has. He proves them correct, too, as his overhaul of the Dohlaran navy makes it the only nation that can even ''attempt'' to challenge Charis at sea. More importantly, the only reason they don't have him assassinated is because he actually tries to treat his prisoners of war honorably.

* AmbiguousEnding: ''Through Fiery Trials'' ends on [[spoiler:an image of the Archangel Schueler telling a group of assembled congregants the truth about Safehold's history]]. It's unknown whether this is the next stage of "The Narmahn Plan" the protagonists had discussed just prior to that scene, or [[spoiler:the long-feared return of the Archangels coming when the Inner Circle thought the first deadline had come and gone without incident]].

* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers of ''Midst Toil and Tribulation'' and ''At the Sign of Triumph'' depict Carisian troops as heavily resembling German troops of [=WW1=] in feldgrau uniforms and pickelhauben. The books however describe their uniforms more like modern splinter pattern camoflauge and plain steel helmets.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Clyntahn claims that Siddermark ''had'' to have been planning to rebel against the Church. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have had the military strength to prevent the total takeover he launched without any warning. The same also goes for Charis — there's no way they could have survived this long if they hadn't been planning their heretical rebellion for years. Many of his other explanations for his actions/plans can come across as this as well, since the ''Writ's'' statement that "[[KnightTemplar Extremism in the pursuit of godliness can never be a sin]]" means that everything he had done up to that point was always justified as far as he's concerned.

** Post-Jihad, Siddarmark passes a law requiring returning war refugees to re-register to vote. Many places deliberately stall on processing the registrations of people who fled west (to the Temple Lands) as opposed to east (to Protector-held territory), resulting in a lot of people being legislatively disenfranchised for allegedly backing the Jihad whether they had committed any crimes or not for years.
* WarIsHell: Acknowledged in every battle, but especially in ''Midst Toil and Tribulation'' with the [[spoiler:religiously inspired civil war in Siddermark, following the Sword of Schueler.]]

* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers of ''Midst Toil and Tribulation'' and ''At the Sign of Triumph'' depict Carisian troops as heavily resembling German troops of WW1 in feldgrau uniforms and pickelhauben. The books however describe their uniforms more like modern splinter pattern camoflauge and plain steel helmets.

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Sharleyan. The throne of Chisholm was given to her when she was twelve years old, and she had to learn to be, or at least appear, as hard as possible in order to both ''keep'' that throne and govern her kingdom. One reason she cherishes her relationship with Cayleb is it lets her feel more like a woman than a queen.

** Just because the Church of God Awaiting doesn't know ''how'' the Charisians stay one step ahead of them doesn't mean they can't work out countermeasures against it, as the fourth, fifth, and sixth books demonstrate. The Church utilizes sealed orders, written in the Temple where they know Charisian spies ''haven't'' infiltrated, and those orders aren't revealed until the last moment possible so that, even if the Charisians do find out what's in them, the time they have to respond is drastically reduced.

* FiveManBand: Charis' upper leadership, later the "inner circle".
** TheHero: King Haarahld, later Cayleb.
** TheLancer: Earl Grey Harbor, later Sharleyan.
** TheSmartGuy: Baron Wave Thunder, later Nahrmahn.
** TheBigGuy: Earl Lock Island, later, given his abilities, Merlin comes closest.
** TheChick: Maikel Staynair.
** TheSixthRanger: Merlin, later [[spoiler:Nimue Chwaeriaeu]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: InUniverse, the Archangels think they've ruled out the possibility of an industrial revolution with religious proscriptions forbidding any power source other than wind, water, or muscle. As Merlin points out, the British industrial revolution didn't start with steam, it started with water. Coal-fired steam engines only saw widespread use after every river and stream was packed with water wheels.

** Grand Vicar can't forbid the Punishment of Schuyler, because that's enshrined in holy law. He can, however, set the rules for when it's applied, and ensure that it's practically impossible to invoke.

* LoopholeAbuse: The Charisian leadership have to be very careful about dancing around the Proscriptions. Though doing so is made ''much'' easier once [[spoiler:Father Paityr is inducted into the Inner Circle and cheerfully ''helps'' abuse said loopholes.]]

** Sidmarkian Archbishop Zagyrsk and his staff spend the civil war providing food and medical care for forced laborers, preventing the inquisitors from harming people under their jurisdiction, and smuggling hundreds of children out of concentration camps. However, none of this is mentioned until the end of the conflict, when they meet Green Valley and he reveals his knowledge of their actions and praises them when they except to be arrested or worse as enemy prelates.

* {{Expy}}:
** The entire planet of Safehold is one for the planet Pardal from the third book of Weber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' series, written 11 years earlier.
*** A technophobic theocracy that rules over many small, divided kingdoms? Check. Engineered to hide from a threat which nearly wiped out humanity? Check. Treats its precursors as angels or demons? Check. Holds itself together by a communication advantage via semaphore towers, acting as the world's creditor with money from tithes, and the threat of brutal inquisitions & purges? Check. A revolt initiated by a kingdom the church hierarchy is already wary of because of its physical distance from the church capital and reputation for (relative) inventiveness? Check. Inability to use advanced technology to penetrate said church capital because it contains advanced sensors? Check. The highest members of the church hierarchy are decadent and corrupt? Check. Five-day weeks called "five-days"? Check.
*** It looks like Weber wrote ''Safehold'' to further explore the concept behind Pardal and find out how such a world would ''really'' work. Or at least try it again on a bigger scale and get into more detail.
** The Gbaba are also an Expy for the Achuultani (also from ''Empire from the Ashes''), in that they are a xenocidal alien race who periodically wipe out all other sentient life they can find. Weber has said he wrote the aforementioned book mostly because he didn't have time to make it a full series back then. (Weber has a bit of a problem with juggling too many epic series at once.)
** Earl Thirsk, who is a) a dedicated Navy man trying to give his sailors a fighting chance of survival while hampered by a nation (or in his case ''planet-wide church'') going mad with its own power around him, b) a genuinely honorable man, c) a WorthyOpponent to the protagonist Charisian Empire, d) determined to treat his prisoners of war with all due respect and dignity while terrified as to what will happen to them if the Inquisition gets its hands on them, and e) [[spoiler:stages a coup to overthrow his country's bad government, winding up in a fairly high-ranking position, paving the way for said country to become an ally of the protagonists' country.]] He has a few too many parallels with the Literature/{{Honorverse}}'s Thomas Theisman for it to be a pure coincidence.

* InventedIndividual: Zhevons, Mab and Slaytyr are all Merlin's guises used by him when he has to be someplace that, by Safeholdian standards, he shouldn't be able to reach quickly. It goes UpToEleven when Owl starts writing reports to a spymaster who's LockedOutOfTheLoop — it creates an entire host of fictional ''seijins'', each of them with their own style and handwriting.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters:
** When your list of characters by the second book takes [[UpToEleven ten pages]], you know you've hit this.
** As of the sixth book, the character list now occupies ''[[SerialEscalation forty-one]]'' pages.
** In book seven, it takes up pages 585 through 651 — that's 66 pages. Given the also-growing size of the glossary, this is beginning to avert SpoiledByTheFormat: there's a good half an inch of pages left, it can't be almost over yet! No, it ends with a {{Cliffhanger}} on the next page.
** Said character list consists of everyone in every book who speaks a line or is mentioned in the text, so some inflation of it is to be expected. That being said, it still counts. And even then, most people are only given names if they are of some importance, so there isn't as much inflation as one might think.
** In book nine, it gets to the point where the list is so long it impacted the publisher's ability to bind the book. As a result, instead of 100+ pages of character listings, there was one page, which referred readers to a web page containing the character listing.

# ''Off Armageddon Reef''
# ''By Schism Rent Asunder''
# ''By Heresies Distressed''
# ''A Mighty Fortress''
# ''How Firm a Foundation''
# ''Midst Toil and Tribulation''
# ''Like a Mighty Army''
# ''Hell's Foundations Quiver''
# ''At the Sign of Triumph''
# ''Through Fiery Trials''

* BadassBeard: Cayleb grows one in ''By Heresies Distressed''.

* BadassMustache: Merlin Athrawes has a BadassBeard too, but it always takes second place to his ''fierce mustachios''.

** [[spoiler:"This is my Testimony, the ''Testimony of Schueler'', and I leave it with you so that all who see it may know I truly appeared before you, that this is truly my word. And that word, my children, is that it was not Shan-wei who Fell, but Chihiro who ''lied''."]] Book ten.[[note]]Theologically, this is comparable to the Archangel Michael coming down to Earth and announcing that Satan didn't fall, he was pushed...by God[[/note]]