History Literature / Temeraire

** Dragons, with their inherent love of shiny things, like their captains to dress up. Laurence, being a practical officer, does ''not'' like to dress up. Cue Temeraire trying valiantly to find occasion for Laurence to war his ornate Imperial robes, and Laurence finding every occasion to avoid it, up to and including [[spoiler: conveniently kicking them into a fire in the middle of an assasination attempt. Don't worry: Temeraire gets him another set.]]

* RunningGag: Temeraire attempting to whisper conspiratorially, only for the narration to note that a twenty-ton dragon's "whispers" can still be heard by anyone remotely nearby.

** Her breath weapon is also reminiscent of a powerful rocket’s exhaust; quite fitting, then, that her chosen name translates into English as [[NASA Tranquillity]].

** Her breath weapon is also reminiscent of a powerful rocket’s exhaust; quite fitting, then, that her chosen name translates into English as [[UsefulNotes/NASA ''Tranquillity''.]]

* ABoyAndHisX: An Esteemed British Gentleman And His Dragon.

* AlternateHistory: For obvious reasons. The presence of dragons results in a kind of FixFic to some of the worst tragedies of the imperialism. Although the British still control India and use opium as a trade tool against China (and the Ottoman Empire and Russia are no vacation destination either), China is still powerful, the Tswana in Africa could claim to be the strongest nation in the world, the Inca in South America likewise remain extremely formidable despite the depopulation caused by European diseases, the United States has colonists and natives working in harmony ''with'' dragons, and Australia, whose natives [[spoiler:put together a trade network with China]], casually declares independence and keeps it. Even Napoleon's tyranny in France is begrudgingly admitted by Laurence to at least be getting put to better use in many ways than Britain's own petty, short-sighted government. ''Blood of Tyrants'' reveals that the President of the United States is [[spoiler:Tecumseh, suggesting better relations between Native Americans and settlers]]. In addition, Alexander Hamilton is implied to still be alive in 1812 and to have run for (but lost) the presidency (though whether he survived the fateful duel or it never happened is never mentioned).
** ''Golden Age and Other Stories'' gives us an [[AlternateContinuity alternate history of this alternate history]], one where Temeraire's egg wound up on the shores of a small island rather than in Laurence's care, where he is raised by a pack of ferals and taken to piracy, which Laurence comes to put an end to. Laurence is still a captain on the Reliant, Riley is his second, and for some reason [[ForWantofaNail O'dea is part of the crew instead of being sent to the Australian penal colony]].

** When Laurence [[spoiler: commits treason to save the French dragons]] and loses his position and honor -- something that [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules shatters]] [[TheFettered his]] [[ToBeLawfulorGood view of]] [[HeroicBSOD himself and his country]], Temeraire is singularly concerned with the added [[HumiliationConga tragedy]] of Laurence losing 10,000 pounds from a [[NoGoodDeed lawsuit from two slavers whose victims Laurence has freed.]] Even several books later, Temeraire can't understand how Laurence isn't upset by the loss of the money, certain that Laurence is pretending to be fine with it, and feels immense guilt whenever it's brought up.

# ''League of Dragons'' (2016) is the final novel of the series, in which Napolean's endeavours to invade Russia through her harsh winter have been temporarily halted by Temeraire and Laurence, the Russians, and the Chinese. But when startling news comes of Temeraire's and Iskierka's egg having been stolen from the Imperial palace in China, Temeraire and Laurence are forced to leave the frontlines in an effort to take it back. But this comes with its own host of complications...

* FirstEpisodeTwist: Temeraire is from China. He's originally identified as an Imperial, but his [[MakeMeWannaShout sonic attack]] identifies him as a Celestial--one of, it is believed, less than two score alive[[note]]it's actually eight[[/note]]--and was meant to be Napoleon's personal steed. Of course, this [[SequelHook raises the question]] of why China was sending a valuable, nay priceless, dragon to France...

** At the climax of ''His Majesty's Dragon'', Napoleon attempts to bypass the British blockade by constructing dragon-carried troop transports while decoying much of the Aerial Corps to Spain. It would have succeeded, were it not for Temeraire's [[MakeMeWannaShout breath weapon]] kicking in.

* MakeMeWannaShout: The Celestials' "divine wind" is a roar powerful enough to shatter wood and stone and cause avalanches.

* SteelEardrums: Aside from the usual use of this trope (characters weather multiple battles that include rifles, cannon, and other explosions but never suffer hearing damage), the series exploits this trope egregiously when it comes to Temeraire's [[MakeMeWannaShout divine wind]]. Despite his entire crew working on a dragon whose roar can splinter ships, there's never any major collateral damage to their own eardrums. Either Temeraire's roar is extremely finely controlled, or Novik decided it would sacrifice too much dignity for Laurence and co. to be wearing fluffy earmuffs into battle.

* StraightGay: When the subject comes up late in the series, it is treated with period-accurate views by the English aviators- homosexuality is technically illegal and cause for social ostracism, but in reality almost everyone overlooks gay preferences as long as it's kept discreet. All this subterfuge and evasion is fairly confounding to the dragons, who have none of humanity's moral issues on any sexual subject.

* ADateWithRosiePalms:
** In ''His Majesty's Dragon'', Laurence pets a young Temeraire's recently-sprouted facial tendrils, only to [[IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn realise from his reaction]] that they are [[FantasticArousal clearly an erogenous zone]].
** Early on in ''Black Powder War'', Temeraire bathes in a mountain lake, and innocently reveals afterwards that he had a bit too much fun frolicking on the rocks in the water - prompting Granby hastily to order the crew to pour out the water they've just fetched from the lake for drinking.

* AscendedFanfic: This is basically a fanfiction of the ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' series that got changed heavily and got made into a book, according to WordOfGod.

* ProductDeliveryOrdeal: The protagonist buys a red porcelain vase as a gift for his estranged father, [[CosmicPlaything not expecting]] its delivery to be a book-and-a-half-long, 5000-mile ordeal involving multiple natural disasters, bandits, a ship fire, months of military campaigning, several [[DragonRider aerial battles on dragonback]], and an English horseback deliveryman. [[spoiler:It makes it, but they never get the chance to mend their relationship.]]

* PapaWolf[=/=]MamaBear: Dragons of their sex are known to get "broody," becoming extremely protective of eggs in their care, even if they aren't the parents. This concern evaporates almost instantly on the eggs' hatching, since a newborn dragon is fully able to take care of itself. They also have this attitude towards their captains, and more rarely their crews.
** The sixth book demonstrates how theft of an egg triggers the BerserkButton of any adult dragon custodians, even if they're unrelated. The ninth book shows how such attitudes can be exploited, both to provoke attacks (if you're the one stealing it) or shame the guilty (if you were a dragon complicit in the theft).

* StealthPun: Mokhachane, who the Tswana regard as their reincarnated king despite being a female dragon. In other words, a Drag(on) King.

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: In ''Black Powder War'', Laurence is shocked to see [[spoiler:Lien]] (a proud Celestial dragon) with a rider who appears to be a regular French officer. Laurence's Prussian crewman recognises the rider as [[spoiler:Napoleon]]. In a bit of an inversion of the name of this trope, Laurence is surprised to find that the latter isn't as short as usually described in English newspapers.