History Literature / TheOrphansTales

%% * ElementalMotif: Applied to all four tales. The Book of the Steppe is Earth, the Sea is Water, the Storm is Air, and the Scald is Fire.

* FourElementEnsemble: Applied to all four tales. The Book of the Steppe is Earth, the Sea is Water, the Storm is Air, and the Scald is Fire.

A mysterious orphaned girl lives by herself on the garden of a Middle Eastern-esque palace, shunned by the nobility and considered a witch due to the black birthmarks around her eyes. A boy, son of the Sultan, manages to find out her secret: in the marks are written stories, which the girl agrees to narrate. Thus begins the FramingDevice to ''The Orphan's Tales'', a fantasy book in two volumes (''In the Night Garden'' and ''The Cities of Coin and Spice'') by Creator/CatherynneMValente. What follows is a complex plot that, heavily inspired by several [[FairyTale fairy tales]] and the ''Literature/ArabianNights'', includes most of the tropes related to those stories and subverts, deconstructs or lampshades most of them along the way.

* ShroudedInMyth: Recurs frequently. Sigrid's life story has become the subject of traveling show, opera, and a religion ([[spoiler: Sigrid herself is not very pleased when she finds out.]]) Kashkash is said to be a first genie, who ever lived, and feared by both his own kind and humans, even many years after his death. [[spoiler: Turns out to be invoked by Kashkash himself. He was neither the first nor the most powerful.]]

* WhatTheHellHero: The first thing we see Leander doing is stealing and killing a goose [[spoiler:, who turns into a girl,]] from an old woman. To make matters worse, the old woman is [[spoiler: his mother and the girl his half-sister]]. His story is basically him trying to make amends for this.

* OurGeniesAreDifferent: Genies can grant wishes, but are restricted by law to ones granted by Kashkash, their god. They also only live for about fifteen years at the most, and when they die their fires will go out. They also need fire to grand wishes.

** There are no less than three explanations offered for the decline and "death" of Ajanabh. These are, the farmland was farmed to exhaustion after centuries (''bo-ring''), that a basilisk blighted the fields, and that their Mint ([[spoiler: a Lamia who was kept imprisoned there and forced to cough out coin after coin]]) was discontinued. Then again, possibly Subverted, as it appears Ajanabh enjoys (at least briefly) a second life of art and creation run rampant after the majority abandons the city.
* EngagementChallenge: By longstanding tradition of his country, Ismail can only marry a woman whose perfectly fits a gold-and-jasper belt. He thinks the tradition is stupid, but also realizes he won't be king without meeting the condition.

* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler: Quri and Jin.]] Justified, since this the only way their species will survive.

* CastHerd: The number of named characters is humungous, but fortunately they are divided up by appearances in four books. Mostly.

** Cveti, who is put forward as a candidate for the Papacy of Al-a-Nur, in the city's desperate hour. As a member of the Tower of Hermaphrodites, publicly admitting to their gender would be a heartbreaking renunciation of their faith. But as a loving subject of the city, denying the Papacy could doom Al-a-Nur. [[spoiler: In the end, Cveti comes out as female, and ascends to the Papacy, but she holds fast to the tenets and sacraments of the Hermaphrodites as she can]].
** Sigrid the Netweaver is torn at the end of "The Book of the Sea." On the one hand, her long-lost love from her childhood, and the prospect of returning to her old home. On the other hand, the very Saint she's idolized for so long, and the prospect of sailing beside her. [[spoiler: She goes with St. Sigrid, and "glows like a new bride" when she boards the ''Maidenhead.'']]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Look at the list of races below, and keep in mind that most every one of these races has one representative in the story - at least. The humans in the cast number in the dozens, and there are ample Stars and djinni, as well.

* RapunzelHair: Oubliette is tethered to the ground by her hair, and a house of sod, which means her hair would have to be at least past her hips. She's sitting/kneeling on the ground, but the way the scene is illustrated and described, her hair is spread out a vast distance.
** Scald wears her hair, which is like smoke, in two large silver baskets at each of her hips to keep it from getting in her way. The fact that she has the longest hair of all of the Djinn is, in fact, ''why'' she is made the Ember-Queen at the start of the fourth book.

* HumanMomNonhumanDad

* EnthrallingSiren: Unwittingly enthralling, the three siren sisters sing for pure joy of it, and have no idea the effect their singing has on sailors -- which is, the sailors hear the voices of the women that they love best, and almost always jump overboard to be with "her." When the sirens ''do'' learn what their songs have wrought, they vow to be silent forever. Also, they are birds from the waist up and human women from the waist down.

* OurMonstersAreDifferent: The general rule across the story. For starters, every creature listed here is sentient.
** OurCentaursAreDifferent: Their hearts are divided into eight parts, and once they ruled the Eight Kingdoms.
** OurDragonsAreDifferent: Any goldfish can become one by jumping over a dam. However, its immature phase will look exactly like a young maiden -- until they mature fully. Flying over the same dam will cause said dragon to [[spoiler: revert back to being a goldfish.]]
** OurGeniesAreDifferent: Genies can grant wishes, but are restricted by law to ones granted by Kashkash, their god. They also only live for about fifteen years at the most, and when they die their fires will go out. They also need fire to grand wishes.
** OurGhostsAreDifferent: The Pra-Iti of Marrow. Their name derives from the Sanskrit term translated as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preta "hungry ghosts"]]. A hunger-demon consumed [[SoiledCityOnAHill an entire city,]] turning the people into Pra-Iti. They're solid enough to take living children prisoners. Even when the whole city is waste, they're compelled to act out what was so important to them in life: feeding the city's Mint.
** OurGiantsAreBigger: One becomes the gate and walls around a whole city. The Arimaspians might be classified as giants, being described as looking like black-skinned men the size of elephants, and they have but one eye, and are at war with Griffins. Also, they don't like being called "Cyclops," as they consider the race of Cyclops to be drunken layabout sheepherders.
** OurGriffinsAreDifferent: The size of elephants, often vivid in coloration. Their preferred diet is horses, their preferred material for their nests is gold, and their enemies are the Arimaspians.
** OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Indeed, they're big, burly, poisonous, and will drink you under the table. [[InsistentTerminology And called magyrs]]. There are technically mermaids as well, but they aren't nearly as interesting.

* SameSexTriplets: The Sorella, three daughters with oracular powers granted by the Stars. Knife mentions early in her tale that daughters always come in threes to her tribe of horse-people, and that her sister's names were Quiver and Sheath. (But her daughter, Aerie, is a single birth. Never explained.) [[spoiler: It turns out that this is because the Sorella's tribe eventually becomes Knife's tribe.]]

%* ClockworkCreature: Hour resides in the city of Ajanabh, the creation of semi-mad scientist Folio. Originally Hour was a fancy clock, shaped like a rooster, but Folio kept fiddling with the device, adding more parts and a voice, and Hour began to ask questions. Now Folio considers her to be a clockwork daughter.

** Cveti, who is put forward as a candidate for the Papacy of Al-a-Nur, in the city's desperate hour. As a member of the Tower of Hermaphrodites, publicly admitting to their gender would be a heartbreaking renunciation of their faith. But as a loving subject of the city, denying the Papacy could doom Al-a-Nur. [[spoiler: In the end, Cveti comes out as female, and ascends to the Papacy, but she holds fast to the tenants and sacraments of the Hermaphrodites as she can]].

* LawOfInverseFertility: A straight example in the case of Immaculota's parents. She is born as a WonderChild. Lantern the firebird is another example. He wants nothing more than a little chick of his own to love. Thanks to the strange reproductive cycle of firebirds, which is symbiotic with the Ixora tree, Lantern is sterile. But he hopes that with [[PlantPerson Ravhi's]] help, he can have his own chick, but that ends up not working out. Later, he gains an adoptive human daughter, Solace.

* SeaMonster

%% * BlackEyesOfEvil: Ragnhild, the Black Papess, is said to have these.

* MeaningfulName: Sorrow's mother hoped to avert this for her, giving her that name so that the rest of her life would balance it in joy. Other names include Solace (Sorrow's counterpart), Knife, Hour, Seven (the seventh son of a seventh son), Snow, Scald, Dinarzad (Queen Scheherazade's sister in Arabian Nights) etc. Oubliette is a name for a trap from which no one can escape, and Oubliette develops an obsession with escaping and freedom.

%%* ClockworkCreature: Hour.

* ClockworkCreature: Hour.
* {{Constellations}}: Technically speaking, the Stars are named as constellations, such as the Serpent (Hydra) and the Twinned-Star (Gemini). The Manikarnika are the Pleiades.
* ConflictingLoyalties: Cveti, who is put forward as a candidate for the Papacy of Al-a-Nur, in the city's desperate hour. As a member of the Tower of Hermaphrodites, publicly admitting to their gender would be a heartbreaking renunciation of their faith. But as a loving subject of the city, denying the Papacy could doom Al-a-Nur. [[spoiler: In the end, Cveti comes out as female, and ascends to the Papacy, but she holds fast to the tenants and sacraments of the Hermaphrodites as she can]].

* CourtMage: Omir serves three kings over the course of his career. Although it might be more accurate to say [[TheManBehindTheMan the later ones serve him.]]

* StartXToStopX: Early in the history of kappas (turtle-like beings who keep a reservoir of water in their skulls, that holds their strength and agency) a brilliant gardener named Yazo became obsessed with proving to her people that they couldn't continue living a life where their water was in danger of spilling. So she regularly drained the water from her head (described by another kappa as a disgusting self-mutilation), becoming more and more feeble and weak, until she finally died. The kappa learned from her example and moved to very cold climates, where their water froze and would never spill again.
* Stellar Names: ''Technically,'' although they're more like titles: all of the Stars (more properly, constellations) are known by the shapes that they form (Serpent, Harpoon, Twin, Weaver), and their personal names are more private.

* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Grog

* HorrorHunger / HungryMenace: A lord named Maciej becomes filled with an insatiable hunger, which drives his lands to ruin and can only be (briefly) sated by eating his wife's body. What's weirder, it's never explained where this curse possibly came from, and just to top things off, the lord ''glows'' when he eats.

* HumanSacrifice: Attempted with Seven. "Gods" didn't care or even knew.

** OurGhostsAreDifferent: The Pra-Iti of Marrow. Their name derives from the Sanskrit term translated as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preta "hungry ghosts"]]. A hunger-demon consumed [[SoiledCityOnAHill an entire city,]] turning the people into Pra-Iti. They're compelled to act out what was so important to them in life: feeding the city's Mint.

** OurGhostsAreDifferent: The Pra-Iti of Marrow. Their name derives from the Sanskrit term translated as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preta "hungry ghosts"]], and they fit TheOtherWiki's description: long skinny neck, distended stomach-- and a HorrorHunger. A hunger-demon consumed an entire city, turning the people into Pra-Iti. They're compelled to act out what was so important to them in life: feeding the city's Mint.

* SlidingScaleOfUnavoidableVsUnforgivable: Leander's father, a wicked king, sums up the issue when Leander says that he wants to be a better king:

* CreationMyth: The proper "creation of the world" myth is told early in the first book, the story of how the Mare appeared out of the blackness, created the Stars, and created the world and all who live there. Lesser creation stories that line the pages involve the creation of a ship-tree, of a human bloodline that gains magic power from Star-blood, of the city of Shadukiam and the City of Marrow, [[spoiler: and in fact, the series ends up culminating the story of how one girl came to be born]].

* IncorruptiblePurePureness: The Manikarnika, and ''especially'' Diamond, who is mentioned more often than any of the others, and always in terms of absolute purity and loveliness. It really stands out in a set of novels that are otherwise insistent on ripping to shreds every other trope associated with IncorruptiblePurePureness -- like unicorns and golden-haired princesses.