History Literature / TheDinosaurLords

* GreenEyedMonster: Pere, one of Jaume's male lovers, is jealous of Jaume's affection for Melodía. Jaume knows it, but doesn't think much of it.

* PraetorianGuard: The Tyrant's Guard, named after the ''T. rex'', who serve as bodyguards and palace police of the Emperor.
* RapeAsDrama: [[spoiler:Falk rapes Melodia after his successful power play.]]

* BladeOnAStick: The Grey Angels' weapon is sort of this, but the blade is half again stick's size. As a whole, it's two and a half metres of metal.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Exploited by Jaume; he manages to win over the commanders in the Correction Army by hunting down and killing a wild ''Allosaurus'' that's been preying on camp followers.

* {{Narcissist}}: Jaume is ''incredibly'' self-absorbed. He thinks nothing of Pere's quite powerful hatred of Melodía, thinking he shouldn't be worried. Meanwhile, he outright dismisses the possibility that Melodía might have something to say about his romance with Pere, and that's despite the fact that she doesn't know a thing, and treats their courtship as simply political arrangement to let him continue having male lovers, despite Melodía's crush on him being painfully obvious. He doesn't tolerate ugliness in his elite army, picks lovers whenever he wishes and only his concern for his men and mounts saves him from being an absolute {{Jerkass}}. He gets better as the story goes on, though.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The entire story is based on this.

* AnAxeToGrind: Rob's weapon of choice is an axe he calls Wanda.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Melodía and Jaume, every time.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Surprisingly averted, as far as we can tell -- the dinosaurs are well-researched and plausible, and vast variety of them is used beyond StockDinosaurs. Milán even avoids the common trap of mistaking ''Deinonychus'' for ''Velociraptor''. On the other hand, the hadrosaurs weaponize their vocalizations not unlike in ''Series/ClashOfTheDinosaurs'', something that's highly unlikely in real life. There is definitely an issue of (realistically depicted) dinosaurs from totally different eras co-existing simultaneously.

* StockDinosaurs: ''T. rex'', raptors (namely ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''), ''Triceratops'', ''Stegosaurus'', ''Allosaurus'', ''Apatosaurus'', ''Parasaurolophus'', ''Gallimimus'', ''Troodon'', ''Pteranodon'', ''Elasmosaurus'' and other stars are prominent.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: The series features several less-known genera such as ''Centrosaurus'', ''Einiosaurus'', ''Lambeosaurus'', ''Therizinosaurus'', ''Edmontonia'', ''Germanodactylus'', ''Anurognathus'', and ''Caulkicephalus''.

* TheFightingNarcissist: Jaume has shades of this. He's concerned with his and Companions' appearance as much - if not more - as he is with his actual duties as cavalry commander.

* RightBehindMe: On one of Imperial banquets, count Montañasul gives Melodía a long-winded tirade about the need to annihilate the religious sect of Garden of Truth and Beauty. Melodía, her patience running out, waits until he's finished and them points out that Jaume - on whose works the Garden based its doctrine - is sitting two sits away, and listening with rather disgruntled expression. Montañasul promptly falls silent.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_dinosaur_lords_by_victor_milan_493x750.jpg]]

* RealityEnsues:
** The problem with making a militant order composed of members of TheBeautifulElite: logistics.
--->Sadly, he Empire's most elite band of warrior-artist-philosophers of beauty tended to attract precious few candidates with any gift for organizing things.
** Trying to appeal to better nature of a man rejoicing in slaughtering peasants is hardly going to be successful.

* TyrannosaurusRex: Several pop up, but surprisingly, author refrains from using them too much in favor of other dinosaurs. Their impact on the world is felt, though - the Emperor's personal guard is named the Tyrants after in-universe name for them. There's also a bigger and stronger species of ''Tyrannosaurus'', called ''Tyrannosaurus imperator'' ("tyrant reptile emperor").

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The Palace of the Fireflies is full of court intrigue, illicit romances, schemes and backstabbery.

* TheEmpire: Nuevaropa has this vibe, complete with DeadlyDecadentCourt and many nobles treating peasants like trash.

* BadDreams:
** Karyl suffers from those after his death(s), making him wake up screaming. Funnily enough, it's ''Rob'' who's most mangled by them, as while Karyl doesn't remember them, his screaming has Rob terrified to sleep at nights.
** Melodía starts having nightmares where she relives [[spoiler:Falk raping her]] after she starts to have sexual relationships again.

* BiTheWay: Most of the high-born characters, including Jaume and Melodía, swing both ways.

* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: You thought you're reading a historical fantasy [[AC:[[InSpace with dinosaurs!]] ]]? [[spoiler:Raguel will disabuse you of that notion.]]

->Dinosaur Lords'' has medieval knights riding dinosaurs into battle. Your decision to read the book will inevitably be based not on this or any other review but on precisely how excited you feel by the phrase “medieval knights ride dinosaurs into battle.”''
-->--'''[[http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/dinosaur-lords-victor-milan/ Smart Bitches, Trashy Books]]'''

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!!Tropes in ''The Dinosaur Lords'' are:

* AnArmAndALeg: Karyl loses a hand when escaping his pursuers after he dies for the first time.
* AnAxeToGrind: Rob's weapon of choice is an axe he calls Wanda.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Surprisingly averted, as far as we can tell - the dinosaurs are well-researched and plausible, and vast variety of them is used beyond StockDinosaurs. Milán even avoids the common trap of mistaking ''Deinonychus'' for ''Velociraptor''. On the other hand, the hadrosaurs weaponize their vocalizations not unlike in ''Series/ClashOfTheDinosaurs'', something that's highly unlikely in real life.
** There is definitely an issue of (realistically depicted) dinosaurs from totally different eras co-existing simultaneously.

** The Emperor mentions that he likes to repeat the many platitudes his subjects bestow on him on his old, toothless, blind pet T-rex, as according to him the creature would receive just as much respect as him, was it elected.

* TyrannosaurusRex: Several pop up, but surprisingly, author refrains from using them too much in favor of other dinosaurs. Their impact on the world is felt, though - the Emperor's personal guard is named the Tyrants after in-universe name for them. There also exist a bigger and stronger species of ''Tyrannosaurus'', called ''Tyrannosaurus imperator'' ("tyrant reptile emperor").

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Surprsingly averted, as far as we can tell - the dinosaurs are well-researched and plausible, and vast variety of them is used beyond StockDinosaurs. Milán even avoids the common trap of mistaking ''Deinonychus'' for ''Velociraptor''. On the other hand, the hadrosaurs weaponize their vocalizations not unlike in ''Series/ClashOfTheDinosaurs'', something that's highly unlikely in real life.

* BrickJoke: Early in ''Knights'', Pilar and Melodía get rid of a pursuing allosaurus by tricking it into ramming its head in a falled tree. Later, Shiraa encounters a fellow allosaurus she treats with contempt because it has a broken mouth, as if it was in "some sort of an accident".

* CallARabbitASmeerp: A lot of dinosaurs get several in-universe nicknames - for example, allosaurus becomes matador, and deinynochuses are commonly known as the "horrors".

* CavalryBetrayal: At the start of the story, Jaume is ordered to perform this on Karyl's troops, just as they are being decimated by Rob's ankylosauruses.

** Falk's father is heavily implied to have been an abusive tyrant who rutinely hurt his son, and his mother is a ManipulativeBitch who belittled Falk until she had him wrapped around her finger. Falk ended up pushing his father off the stairs to his death, but in contrast to Karyl, he never really recovered fully, still being an obedient tool to his mother.
* DavidVersusGoliath: The finale of ''Knights'' has Karyl fighting [[spoiler:Raguel]], with the latter being easily three times his size and mounted on a ''Tyrannosaurus Imperator'', a predator to end all predators. [[spoiler:He manages to take the imperator down, but Shiraa has to step in to save him from Raguel.]]

* DomesticatedDinosaurs: With the only Earth-like domesticated animals being horses, cats, dogs, ferrets, and goats, dinosaurs are domesticated for all other purposes: food source, pets, war mounts, beasts of burden and all others.

* DreadfulMusician: Karyl is a horrible musician, and Rob, who's a professional trubadour, can't help but point it out. To Karyl's defence, he has only one hand, which makes learning hard.

* GoodIsNotNice: Karyl lets his militia brutally lynch the knight who's been leading raides on their lands, stating that the man is a criminal and as such shouldn't be treated honorably.

* HeelFaceTurn: While it's not very pronounced, over time [[spoiler:Falk, against Bergdahl's wishes,]] choses to side with Jaume for the sake of everyone's survival. Not that Jaume knew they were a heel.

** When Karyl proposes his plan of ambushing the riders and striking at them from the dark, the Gardeners are appalled, stating that it's dishonorable and he should meet the enemy face-on, despite Providence's militia being severely under-trained and under-manned. Karyl lambasts them for this and reason prevails.

* ItsQuietTooQuiet: The north of Providence is strangely silent and devoid of activity. Rob notes that while this seems to be better than the news of raids coming from all other regions of the land, it's still creepy and suggesting of something worse happenning there.
* JerkassRealization: When all of her ladies-in-waiting assist her in escaping the palace, Melodía notes with shame that she was a judgemental jerkass and likely the most shallow of all the girls.

* KickTheDog: If readers start to feel sorry for WellDoneSonGuy Falk, his attempted rape of Melodía, and later conviction that she was tempting him, are enough to make him unlikeable again in some readers' eyes.

* {{Narcissist}}: Jaume is ''incredibly'' self-absorbed. He thinks nothing of Pere's quite powerful hatred of Melodía, thinking he shouldn't be worried. Meanwhile, he outright dismisses the possiblity that Melodía might have something to say about his romance with Pere, and that's despite the fact that she doesn't know a thing, and treats their courtship as simply political arrangement to let him continue having male lovers, despite Melodía's crush on him being painfully obvious. He doesn't tolerate ugliness in his elite army, picks lovers whenever he wishes and only his concern for his men and mounts saves him from being an absolute {{Jerkass}}. He gets better as the story goes on, though.

* OracularUrchin: People with connection to magic, such as the strange woman he meets on the battlefield and sorceress Aphrodite, seem to know awful lot about Karyl. At least in Aphrodite's case, she makes some effort to explain her knowledge away; Witness is just plain weird [[spoiler:and, bizzarely, the same person]].

* SuicidalPacifism: Some Gardeners, most vocally Sister Violette, oppose fighting against invaders bearing down on them, stating that "[they] can't abandon their principles just because they became inconvenient", even though the likely result is getting murderered, sold to slavery, raped or any combination of those.

* TheBard: Rob composes songs when not handling dinosaurs, and makes some money playing in bars.
* TheChampion: [[spoiler:Aphrodite]] decides that Karyl will be her champion, though she refuses to explain why and against what.
* TheChurch: The Creators have their own Church, which has quite some political power despite many people professing agnosticism.
** More dangerous than even the church is the fact that there is a "cult" within the church that ends up causing a lot of problems throughout the series. They insist that, rather than taking the word of the gods at face value, men should look for hidden meaning behind those words instead. This is in spite of the fact that these words were handed down in the same language as spoken by the people, and were intended to have no possible means of severe misinterpretation, to the point that the gods stated that there was no wrong interpretation of their words. This even includes an explanation for basic hygiene and the exact consequences for ignoring those rules. The cult argues that, instead of following those rules, people are supposed to act in the exact opposite way. One of the main ways you can tell if someone belongs to this cult is the fact that they have poor hygiene.
* TheCorrupter: Bergdahl for Falk. Whenever Falk has bouts of conscience or hesitates to KickTheDog, Bergdahl pushes him further down the [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope slippery slope]].
* TheCoup: Falk's scheme is to [[spoiler:take over the Tyrant's Guard and use it to eliminate any other person with any influence over the Emperor, making him the only power behind the throne.]]
* TheCynic: Abi is very realistic about the world around her, sees right through court games and has no qualms playing DaddysGirl to get what she wants. She's also the one to tell Fina that with the world they live in, noblemen branding and whipping slaves is nothing out of ordinary.
* TheDreaded:
** Falk's mother. The mere suggestion that she may be arriving on the scene of events is enough to make usually snarky Bergdahl admit that he's trembling in fear.
** Karyl has a reputation for never losing (it's not completely correct), making most of Nuevaropa shiver with terror whenever he arrives on the battlefield.
* TheEmpire: Nuevaropa has this vibe, complete with DeadlyDecadentCourt and many nobles treating peasants like trash.
* TheEndOrIsIt: As everybody celebrates victory over [[spoiler:Raguel's horde]], [[spoiler:Aphrodite]] pops in and tells Karyl that this was only first of seven {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s likely hell-bent on the Empire's destruction.
* TheFairFolk: Paradise is full of stories about Fae, and while most dismiss them as children stories, Karyl does get to meet a strange being who hits all the marks of a Fae.
* TheFightingNarcissist: Jaume has shades of this. He's concerned with his and Companions' appearance as much - if not more - as he is with his actual duties as cavalry commander.
* TheFundamentalist: The People of Life-To-Come sect are the most fundamental and ascetic of all Church's orders, to the point of denying themselves even pleasures approved by the Creators, calling them metaphorical.
* TheHedonist: The religious sect called Garden of Beauty and Truth believes that the purpose of the world is pleasure, arts and appreciation of beauty, and spend most of their time with one of those.
* TheKnightsWhoSaySquee: Rob, Dinosaur Master extraordinaire, is positively giddy at the chance of watching Karyl in combat, even though Bogomirskiy fights for the opposite side. Later, he stays in Providence even though he'd rather be away, because of his self-admitted hero worship of Karyl.
* TheManBehindTheMan:
** Falk is presented as the villain of the Palace of the Fireflies plot, but it's quickly shown that he's played like an instrument by his servant, Bergdahl, who actually works for Falk's mother.
** In the end, it turns out [[spoiler:Raguel]] has been manipulating events quite literally from the start.
* TheSocialExpert: When faced with unwilling recruits, Karyl manages to turn them around by playing on their emotions and expectations, and using his erstwhile reputation to pull them over.
* TheSpeechless: Karyl pretends to be mute when in Porto Fea, mostly to dissuade queries into his past.
* ThePigPen:
** Montserrat is said to be unable to walk five metres without making herself messy.
** The sect Life-To-Come claims that Creators' order to remain clean is referring to the afterlife, so they make a point of not bathing.
* TheMole: [[spoiler:One of Gardeners in the Council, and Karyl's loudest opponent, is an agent of Brokenheart knights.]]
* TheReveal:
** [[spoiler:Violette and Bogardius are allied to - or enthralled by - a Grey Angel, and that the "Ascension" in ranks of Gardeners involves accepting his guidance.]]
** [[spoiler:Aphrodite is a guardian spirit of Paradise, and the same person as the Witness.]]
** [[spoiler:"Father Jerónimo", Emperor's confessor and confidant, is a Grey Angel.]]

* TyrannosaurusRex: Several pop up, but surprisingly, author refrains from using them too much in favour of other dinosaurs. Their impact on the world is felt, though - the Emperor's personal guard is named the Tyrants after in-universe name for them.
* UndeadChild: Twelve-yeard-olds are seen killing people.

** The epilogue to ''Lords''. [[spoiler:Two Grey Angels are about and they manipulated the news of their arival to have the biggest impact on people at the best time. The other Angels are fighting a war with something called the Anomalies which is beginning to be active on Paradise. One of the Angels is walking the world completely unseen.]]

Karyl Bogomirskiy, a mercenary in service of Nuevaropa, loses his memories after his triceratops legion is shattered and the Empire he fought for backstabs him. Along with Rob Korrigan, a wandering minstrel, Dinosaur Master and the man partly responsible for Karyl's downfall, they're recruited by a self-proclaimed sorceress to train the people of her homeland in arts of war in preparation for religious schism. Meanwhile, Nuevaropan prince Jaume, who did the backstabbing, wanders all over the land fighting wars and skirmishes he doesn't think wise on orders of an Emperor he doesn't respect, and his fiancee, Melodía, the Emperor's daughter, attempts to carve out a space for herself in imperial politics as the civil war moves from battlefields to the shaded corridors of the Palace of the Fireflies.

* ActionPet: Shiraa, Karyl's mount, whom he raised since she was hatched, and who tracks her master herself and is likely the most intimidating character in the entire story. Fittingly, as she's a freaking ''allosaurus''.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Exploited by Jaume; he manages to win over the commanders in the Correction Army by hunting down and killing a wild allosaurus that's been preying on camp followers.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: A benign example; the Nuevaropans don't consider public nudity to be embarassing, but ''empowering'' - a person appears in court or in front of a crowd naked if they're convinced that they're in the right and want to shame their opponent.

* DomesticatedDinosaurs: With the only Earth-like domesticated animals being horses, cats, dogs and geese, dinosaurs are domesticated for all other purposes: food source, pets, war mounts, beasts of burden and all others.

** Karyl's White Legion of triceratopses used much like war elephants. They're infamous for never having been defeated, and before Rob unleashes his surprise, they all but annihilate rebels' cavalry wing.

* FluffyTheTerrible: Falk's infamous albino Tyrannosaurus Rex mount is called Snowflake.

* HorseOfADifferentColour: Dinosaurs! Mostly hadrosauruses and deinonychuses, with occasional allosaurus and T-rex.

* MakeMeWannaShout: The main mounts used in warfare are hadrosauruses, who can produce powerful infrasounds, which are capable of crippling the people caught in the blast.

* MonstrousCannibalism: At one point, Shiraa eats a fellow allosaurus, who was annoying her.

* PraetorianGuard: The Tyrant's Guard, named after the ''T. Rex'', who serve as bodyguards and palace police of the Emperor.

* BittersweetEnding: ''Lords'' ends badly for Team Protagonists, with [[spoiler:Falk all but in charge of Imperial politics, Melodía on the run, Jaume slowly losing control over his own army, Rob and Karyl arrested and Grey Angels up and about.]] The only things to sweeten this are that [[spoiler:Melodía manages to escape Falk with Pilar, and her co-conspirators won't be arrested per Emperor's direct order. Blessedly, the man still can think for himself.]]

* MissingMom: Melodía's mom died in childbirth bearing Monsterrat.
** How Shiraa views Karyl, (s)he is her mommy and (s)he is missing so she must find him/her. Because she's a good Allosaurus.

* StealthyColossus: Shiraa the allosaurus has stalking skills on par with [[VideoGame/MetalGear Solid Snake]] - though granted, she is a predator that relies mostly on surprise to hunt.