History Literature / TheBaroqueCycle

* Yevgeny the Raskolnik: TheBigGuy. As TheBigGuy he, of course, uses a [[DropTheHammer hammer]] after [[spoiler:he loses his arm at the battle of Khan el-Khalili it is replaced with a cannonball on an iron rod at on point and a massive flail at another point]]

* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Daniel and Isaac. Maybe Édouard de Gex, but it's kept ambiguous.]]

* EvilJesuit: Édouard de Gex

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Vrej Esphahnian]]

** Fr. Gabriel Goto, SJ.

* IndyPloy: Jack loves these.

* UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian: Gabriel Goto

* MusicalAssassin: Sort off, Eliza finally kills [[spoiler:De Gex]] (with some help from Handel) by tossing a cello across an orchestra pit and skewering him with the instrument's end pin

* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler: Jack finds and beheads the man who sold Eliza and her mother into sexual slavery, and sends her his head on a silver platter]]

* Gottfried Leibniz: A [[UsefulNotes/DichterAndDenker German natural philosopher]] just a brilliant as Newton but without the personality flaws and with a ''very'' [[HarmonyVersusDiscipline different worldview]]. Indeed, the book's main focus is the difference betwen Newton and Leibniz's worldviews.

* TakeThat: Enoch The Red mentions having acquired some copies of a book called ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}''. Waterhouse's young son describes it as "A very queer old book, dreadfully thick, and full of nonsense," noting that his father uses it as a {{doorstopper}}.

* AlternateUniverse: Takes place in our own world, but swaps out some of the real historical figures (King Charles II's CABAL, Newton's real Cambridge roommate John Wickins) and adds some mysterious personages (Enoch Root, Solomon Kohan). It also depicts UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} as an active pirate, and the captain of ''Queen Anne's Revenge'', in 1713. While the details of Edward Teach's early pirate career are sketchy, in real life he didn't become a pirate captain until 1716, and acquired the ship he rechristened ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' the following year. (Incidentally, this also means that he named the ship after a still-living monarch, rather than as a tribute to a deceased one as in real life.)

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Just about everyone able to read in the time period(and a few who can't!) makes an appearance.

* MeaningfulName: Moseh de la Cruz, meaning "Moses of the Cross." Being a crypto-Jew in a hostile society, Moseh didn't mess about when choosing his gentile name.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: As Jack is preparing to kill [[spoiler:the duc d'Arcachon]], he informs him that it is for a mother and daughter he abducted, [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil disgraced]], and sold into {{slavery|IsASpecialKindOfEvil}}. [[spoiler:The Duc]] looks bewildered for a moment and asks: "[[FamousLastWords Which ones?]]"

* LostTechnology: Wootz steel. Well, not the steel itself, but the furnaces to produce it. While in India, [[spoiler: Enoch Root]] notes that while the steel-making industry is booming, all the furnaces are old and well beyond point of badly needed repairs. Which nobody seems to perform those, just like building new forges.

* LampshadeHanging: When Bob gets himself in over his head, Teague asks him, "What d'you think y'are, a ''character'' in a friggin' ''novel'', Bob?" He's accusing him of believing that he has PlotArmor.

* MotiveRant: [[SinisterMinister Edouard de Gex]] drops a massive one near the end after capturing Eliza, declaring that he despises money, considering it a form of pagan idolatry, and views her -- a common-born "[[SlutShaming whore]]" whose business acumen has resulted in her being elevated to the nobility -- as a living symbol of everything that, in his view, has gone wrong in the world. He describes his dream of a great ''auto-da-fé'' in which everyone he considers heretical -- Protestants, Jews, capitalists, whatever -- would be burned at the stake, with her given pride of place among them.

* AlternateUniverse: Takes place in our own world, but swaps out some of the real historical figures (King Charles II's CABAL, Newton's real Cambridge roommate John Wickins) and adds some mysterious personages (Enoch Root, Solomon Kohan).

* BiTheWay: William of Orange and Eliza (or at least both of them go out of the way to appear bi, regardless of whether or not they're really attracted to both sexes).

''The Baroque Cycle'' is an epic by Creator/NealStephenson about the birth of the modern world and set during TheCavalierYears. Through the volumes ''Quicksilver'', ''The Confusion'', and ''The System of the World'', the cycle follow the intertwining stories of natural philosopher Daniel Waterhouse FRS, vagabond 'Half-Cocked' Jack Shaftoe, his soldier brother Bob and harem girl-cum-capitalist Eliza of Qwghlm, who's also the love of Jack's life. Spanning decades and the globe, the novels chart the rise and eventual triumph of the scientific method and modern capitalism. Collectively, the story might best be described as historical science-fiction with fantastic elements.

** Daniel Waterhouse is an extremely intelligent technophile who makes contributions to the realm of computing, but lives in the shadow of his more brilliant friends, just like his descendants Lawrence and Randy Waterhouse.
** Jack Shaftoe and his sons are irreverent badasses. Bob Shaftoe is a soldier. Their descendants are also soldiers and/or fiercely independent badasses.
** Gabriel Goto is a tough and level-headed side-character, just like Goto Dengo.

* LampshadeHanging:
-->'''Teague''': What d'you think y'are, a ''character'' in a friggin' ''novel'', Bob?[[note]]Bob has been attempting, and mostly failing, to duel the Earl of Upnor; Upnor is a highly skilled swordsman who has been killing people for a long time, while Bob is just barely proficient with a sword despite some recent training. Teague illustrates the pragmatic approach, viz, bludgeoning the Earl to death with an eight-foot pole, leading to the suggested epitaph quoted above.[[/note]]

* MeaningfulName: Moseh de la Cruz.
-->"'Moses of the Cross'? What the hell kind of name is ''that?"''
-->Moseh did not appear to find it especially funny. "It is a long story - even by ''your'' standards, Jack. Suffice it to say that the Iberian Peninsula is a complicated place to be Jewish."

* "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe: ActionHero, CrazyAwesome LovableRogue, and unwilling CelibateHero ("Half-Cocked" has more than one meaning...) with a thirst for adventure who lives his life as one IndyPloy after another and is an example of IHaveManyNames, such as: 'Half-Cocked' Jack, [[BilingualBonus L'Emmerdeur]], the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak, Quicksilver, Sword of Divine Fire, and Jack the Coiner.

* Enoch Root, also known as [[ColorCodedWizardry Enoch the Red]]: [[{{Immortality}} Immortal]] [[{{Alchemy}} alchemist]] and the only character from ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'' to personally appear in ''Literature/TheBaroqueCycle''. Straddles the line between DeusExMachina and DeusExitMachina: he often [[MrExposition tips off the protagonists to vital information]] they couldn't have known otherwise (but he doesn't tell them ''too'' much), and he quickly makes himself scarce so the protagonists can act on that information by themselves.

* PhantasySpelling: Many words are spelled in the archaic fashion, such as phanatiques, technologickal, clew, and phant'sy. Other words are hyphenated to show that the terms are new and have yet to become compound words.

** Newton is off in his own world much of the time. Newton was this in real life. During his entire stint in Parliament, his only recorded words were a request to open a window.

* AlternateUniverse - Takes place in our own world, but swaps out some of the real historical figures (King Charles II's CABAL, Newton's real Cambridge roommate John Wickins) and adds some mysterious personages (Enoch Root, Solomon Kohan).
* AntiHero - Jack and Eliza
* ArrangedMarriage - As per history, most of the nobility. Notably the German princesses Eleanor and Caroline.
* BackFromTheDead - [[spoiler:Daniel and Isaac. Maybe Édouard de Gex, but it's kept ambiguous.]]

* TheBaroness - D'Oyonnax.

* BerserkButton - Eliza does not like slavery. It's enough to get her to [[spoiler: attempt to kill Jack with a harpoon for getting involved with it.]]
* BigDamnHeroes - Eliza and Fatio's rescue of William of Orange.
* BiTheWay - William of Orange and Eliza (or at least both of them go out of the way to appear bi, regardless of whether or not they're really attracted to both sexes).

* BunnyEarsLawyer - William of Orange is GenreSavvy enough to understand that the most competent people have the weirdest quirks. Thus, he goes out of his way to hire quirky people, and he distrusts those without quirks.
* TheCaptain - Captain Otto van Hoek, member of the Cabal and captain of ''Minerva''. Yes, he has a HookHand.
* CaptainErsatz - Stephenson substituted some RealLife figures with these to make his story flow better: all members of Charles II's CABAL are these, Roger Comstock's life is almost identical to that of Charles Montagu (the narration even [[{{Lampshaded}} lampshades]] it by referring to Roger as "a Capulet or a Montague"), and in college, Daniel took the role of Isaac's RealLife roommate.

** Jack, but not by choice- the nicknamed ''Half-Cocked'' refers both to his mental state and the result of an operation to cure venereal disease gone horribly wrong
** Also Isaac Newton, as per history

* CoolBoat - ''Minerva''.
* CoolSword - Jack's Janissary sword; it's made out of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel wootz]], which is for all intents and purposes, {{unobtanium}} that exists in RealLife. He acquires it while saving Eliza and it stays with him through his many adventures.
* DeadpanSnarker - The older Daniel gets, the snarkier he gets.
* DoorStopper - Three books, written by Creator/NealStephenson. They're broken into ''eight'' more manageable, but still enormous, novels in some markets. The manuscript (on display at the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle), is a handwritten stack of paper that is taller than the author. The audio version is one hundred and thirteen hours long.

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether - Daniel Waterhouse and Isaac Newton, as well as Upnor, Monmouth, and Jeffreys, were all at Cambridge at the same time.
* EvilJesuit - Édouard de Gex
* EyeScream - Both in-story and for the reader: Daniel inadvertenly walking in on Isaac experimenting by sticking a needle into his own eye socket. [[note]]While Daniel Waterhouse is entirely fictional, Isaac Newton [[http://www.edinformatics.com/great_thinkers/newton.htm really did put a blunted needle into his eye socket]] while at Cambridge, in order to manipulate his eye in an effort to better understand light. [[/note]]
* FaceHeelTurn - [[spoiler:Vrej Esphahnian]]
* FunetikAksent - Lord Gy speaks in an almost impenetrable Scottish accent. Other characters insist that he's not actually speaking English. In the afterword, Stephenson assures anyone who might be offended by the accent that his ancestors are surely already spinning in their graves.

* HarmonyVersusDiscipline - Leibniz is Harmony, Newton is Discipline. The ''real'' reason why they hate each other.
* HeelFaceTurn - [[spoiler:Lothar]], when he comes to feel affection for little [[spoiler:Jean-Jacques/Johann]].
* TheHighQueen - Sophie of Hanover.
* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: Peter the Great. In reality he was extremely tall, but also very thin and prone to muscle spasms. In the series, he's a giant with immense strength who [[spoiler:single-handedly duels and kills the enormous badass Yevegny]].
* HollywoodTourettes- Jeronimo. There's even an amusing reference to the (fictional) St. Etienne de la Tourette.
* UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover - The first two Georges make their appearances, but have rings run around them by Sophie and Caroline.
* UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfStuart - Beginning with the beheading of Charles I, Daniel Waterhouse gets to witness more than he ever wanted about the lives of the Stuart successors.
* {{Immortality}} - The goal of the Alchemists, and apparent state of [[spoiler: Enoch Root]]
* IndyPloy - Jack loves these.

* UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian - Gabriel Goto
* KarmicDeath - Bob suggests this as an epitaph for [[spoiler:the Earl of Upnor]]: "finest swordsman in England, beaten to death with a stick by an Irishman", which is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly how he died]].
* KilledOffForReal - Quite a lot of people. Of course, when you're writing HistoricalFiction, {{Historical Domain Character}}s [[JustifiedTrope have to die when they're supposed to]].
* LargeAndInCharge - Peter of Russia - effect underlined by the fact that he apparently surrounds himself with midgets.
* LittleMissBadass - Johann von Hackleheber is a male example. [[spoiler:At the age of five, he shoots a man attempting to harpoon his adopted father--in the eye--with a toy bow and arrow. Doing so saved his father's life.]] He only grew from there.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters - Just about everyone able to read in the time period(and a few who can't!) makes an appearance.
* UsefulNotes/TheLongitudeProblem - It's unsolved. This causes problems. The problem is brought up a number of times, with the English government offering a cash prize if the problem can be solved. A number of natural philosophers take up the challenge, but the problem remains unsolved by the end of the series.

* LovingAShadow - Gets an interesting twist in Eliza's relationship with Bob. She references the trope, but notes that since Bob is healthy and level-headed, and Jack is a crazy syphilitic, Jack, the original love, is the one who looks more like a shadow.
* MadeOfIron - Yevgeny is extremely tough and stoically endures even the most grievous injuries.
* MagneticHero - Jack is one. It's outright stated in the books that the people that Jack finds himself around would in any other situation be leaders and good ones- as van Hoek shows. But they all look towards Jack to take action.
* MasterSwordsman - The Earl of Upnor is said to be the most skilled swordsman in England. During a duel, he even manages to convey sarcasm through the movements of his sword.

-->Moseh did not appear to find it especially funny. "It is a long story -- even by ''your'' standards, Jack. Suffice it to say that the Iberian Peninsula is a complicated place to be Jewish."

* ObfuscatingStupidity - Daniel Waterhouse pretends to be suffering from senile dementia in order to root out the spy in Sophie of Hanover's court.
* OffWithHisHead - [[spoiler: Jack finds and beheads the man who sold Eliza and her mother into sexual slavery, and sends her his head on a silver platter]]
* OutWithABang - [[spoiler:Roger dies rogering Newton's sexy niece.]]

* RedOniBlueOni - Jack and Bob.
* ReallyGetsAround - To an extent Eliza, although some of this is an UrbanLegendLoveLife as part of ObfuscatingStupidity
* RealPersonFic - About the {{Original Character}}s Jack, Eliza, and Daniel in the middle of the Baroque era.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething - Louis XIV, William of Orange, Peter the Great, and the females of the House of Hanover. Notably, the King Charles II personally led a squad of firemen to deal with the Fire of London, and killed Daniel's father when he got in the way.
* {{Ruritania}} - The fictional island of Qwghlm is presented as a backward place, with almost no resources except a lot of bird crap. The main livelihood of its residence is acting as Wreckers of English ships.

* SingleTargetSexuality - Jack for Eliza, since Eliza is literally the only person who is able to sexually satisfy Jack (it has to do with Jack's [[UnusualEuphemism disability]] and the things Eliza learned from "books of India" while in slavery.)
* SlaveGalley - Monsieur Arlanc, and [[spoiler: Jack, as well as everyone else in the Cabal]] served in one.
* UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition - The members of the Cabal get an up-close-and-personal look at the Inquisiton when they arrive in Mexico in ''The Confusion''. And, yes, there was a Creator/MontyPython reference in ''The System of the World''.
* SpannerInTheWorks - One of Jack's nicknames, "L'Emmerdeur [[note]]French for "he who covers everything in shit" -- literally "the enshittener"[[/note]]," specifically references his tendency to be this.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute - Daniel [[DiscussedTrope discusses this trope]] when he notes that some people can easily be replaced by {{Suspiciously Similar Substitute}}s (e.g. Thomas More Anglesey replacing John Comstock), while others aren't so easily replaceable.

* TwoLinesNoWaiting - Three, actually: Daniel, Jack, and Eliza. And those are just the major ones...
* {{Unobtanium}} - The Solomonic gold [[spoiler: Jack ends up with possibly the known world's supply, some of which is used in a life potion brewed up by Root]].

* TheUnpronounceable - The written language of Qwghlm employs runes. Transcribing words into letters makes them utterly unpronounceable because there are no vowels.
* UpperClassTwit - Peer, who so embodies this trope that his name isn't even given in the text.
* TheWatson - Daniel Waterhouse for Isaac Newton, Gottfreid Leibniz, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren, Christiaan Huygens, Henry Oldenberg, ''et al.'' Waterhouse's CharacterArc can be described as a journey to the point where he finally stops being the Watson and requires his own Watsons to explain things to.
* WellIntentionedExtremist - All of the Puritans, though the ones that get the most focus are Drake Waterhouse and the Bolstroods. The Raskolniks, too, including Yevgeny.
* WinterRoyalLady - Much is made of the legacy of the original one; Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen.

* FunetikAksent - Lord Gy speaks in an almost impenetrable Scottish accent. Other characters insist that he's not actually speaking English. In the afterward, Stephenson assures anyone who might be offended by the accent that his ancestors are surely already spinning in their graves.

* Gabriel Goto: JapaneseChristian {{Ronin}} who demonstrates KatanasAreJustBetter. Born after his father was exiled from Japan and wants to go home for the first time in his life. As a Jesuit priest, he's also well-educated, and very much a GeniusBruiser.

* JapaneseChristian - Gabriel Goto

* IsaacNewton: CloudCuckoolander extraordinaire and AmbiguouslyGay [[LonersAreFreaks freakish loner]] who happens to be one of the most brilliant people who have ever lived.

* LittleMissBadass - Johann von Hackleheber is a male example. [[spoiler:At the age of five, he shoots a man attempting to harpoon his adopted father--in the eye--with a toy bow and arrow. Doing so saved his father's life.]] [[BadAss He only grew from there.]]