History Literature / TortallUniverse

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Squires are depicted as always becoming knights after a certain age (if they pass the Ordeal, and if they don't then they're drummed out entirely - if they live). In the real medieval ages, many were lifelong professional squires. Granted, Tortall is not Earth history, but there was a reason not all squires became knights.

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Initially the case, but as Pierce develops as a writer morality becomes less clear-cut. Her heroines are always good and face at least one truly evil enemy, but there's increasing nuance in the details. Nearly everyone who likes Alanna, and who she likes back, is outright good while those who are cruel to her are evil. She sees the gods, who favor her, as purely good. Daine comes to realize that some of the initially-antagonistic Stormwings and other Immortals have motives she understands and can ally with her, and that just because a man loves animals doesn't mean he's a good person. Kel is possibly the [[IncorruptiblePurePureness purest idealist]] of Pierce's heroines, but she has to navigate an unfair world and understand the value of compromise, and readily understands that just because someone's an UngratefulBastard doesn't mean they should be let to suffer. Aly is sketchier in many ways, as are plenty of her allies, some of whom duck the responsibilities placed upon them, and in her experience the gods are [[JerkassGods certainly not benign]]. Beka, as a commoner Dog, is the protagonist with the least societal power and sees the worst of Tortall. She is literally more corrupt than the others in that she takes bribes, while still being strictly principled.

* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Alanna is a noble who pretends to be a boy to become a MagicKnight, Daine is a backwoods orphan who becomes a NatureHero, Keladry is a normal (noble) girl with normal (noble) parents who becomes a BadassNormal lady knight, Aly is a GuileHero spy, and Beka is a commoner who works as a police officer.

* DeadGuyJunior: Multiple characters end up naming their children after deceased characters, not just limited to the royals. Among the more notable examples are Alanna's children Thom, Alianne and Alan, the latter two named after both her father and the name Alanna she went by during her {{Masquerade}}.

** In ''Bloodhound'', set several centuries before the series proper, we begin to learn of the rise of the worship of the Gentle Mother aspect of the Goddess which supports demure, virginal, separated, and stereotypical female medieval ideas and aspects. Predictably our heroine thinks its nothing but idiocy, but considering it's supported by nobles there's not much she can do about it!

** The Yamani Islands are Japan right down to the language. Ancient China is implied to be on the other side of the sea and so far haven't been seen.

* FantasyContraception: Anti-pregnancy charms are widely available for purchase, some better quality than others. Every protagonist either buys one or is mentioned as owning one at some point in the story.

** Necromancy: Possible through the Gift. The gods do ''not'' like people being brought back from death or spirits being used to animate constructs. One necromancer claims he can't help being one, but it's not made clear if this is true or not. There's also a form of necromancy which simply allows people to ''talk'' to the dead - in Beka's case it's inherent, in Farmer's case it's through his Gift - which people may find creepy but the gods don't object.

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Very consciously averted. WordOfGod[[invoked]] is that the reason almost none of her heroines are blonde is precisely because of this trope. In ''Song of the Lioness'', the blonde princess, Josiane, is evil. However, in her namesake trilogy, the heroine Beka Cooper's hair is described as dark blonde, and Aly's hair is strawberry blonde (red gold), too.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The approximate age of adulthood in Tortall and its neighbors is sixteen, which includes marriage and having kids, as well as going to war, killing, and dying. Marrying is still a practical and political consideration and most young people hope to grow into love with an amiable partner instead of marrying due to love itself. Slavery is openly practiced in the ''Immortals'', ''Trickster'' and ''Beka Cooper'' books, and WordOfGod says that neither Carthak nor the Copper Isles intends to abolish it even after gaining {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s as monarchs. Punishments are harsh and include forced labor, maiming, and boiling in oil, just in case you thought medieval times were fun and romantic. (Fortunately, they do ''not'' follow medieval medical practice. Magic takes care of that.)

* ArtisticLicenseSports: Tamora Pierce's portrayal of jousting is hilariously inaccurate in both the rules as well as the equipment. While the differences in rules can be HandWaved by Tortall not being Medieval Europe, so it can have its own rules for sporting events, what can't be hand-waved is the fact that unless they are fighting honor-duels with the intent to kill, knights tilt in nothing more than a helmet, a shield, and a gambeson (padded shirt), even though plate armour is the norm when knights step out onto an actual battlefield. In real life, anybody who jousted with anything less than a full suit of plate armour would probably die from the first hit they took, and most knights heavily reinforced the left side of their armour anyway, just to make sure.

*** There are also developments in magical technology, though it may appear that it's declined between Beka's time and the later-set books as in her era there are options available that are not mentioned later. Out of universe this can be chalked up to a bit of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness as Tamora Pierce didn't worldbuild as much in her first novels as she did later. In universe, the events of the third book alienate many powerful mages from the Tortallan government. By implication they start preferring to settle outside of Tortall. In Alanna's time, it's not that [[TheMagicGoesAway the magic ever went away]] but it was de-emphasized and powerful mages only started to be welcomed back, and pages trained in magic, after the Heir was nearly killed.

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Usually played straight, though the ''Beka Cooper'' books [[ValuesDissonance don't always look that way]], and the gods are... greyer. (See JerkassGods, below.) The morality seems to be getting less clear-cut as the series goes on.

* DesecratingTheDead: The entire purpose of metal-winged immortals called Stormwings is to defecate on and claw battlefield corpses to pieces to leave a stinking, rotten mess. (They were created by a mage in an effort to deter humans from warfare, but it didn't work.)

** Necromancy: Possible through the Gift. The gods do ''not'' like it. One necromancer claims he can't help being one, but it's not made clear if this is true or not.

* WarIsHell: All but the ''Beka Cooper'' books involve warfare at some point, and it's always shown as being thoroughly unglamorous, brutal, and nasty. The prospect of death and being forced to kill are not treated lightly, and the addition of Stormwings (creatures who desecrate the dead to punish humans for waging war) just makes it worse.

* BetterAsFriends: In series with TriangRelations, the unpicked partner usually ends up as this.

* BreakingTheGlassCeiling: In the first series, Alanna becomes the first female knight, but this isn't publicly known until after she's done it, because she [[SweetPollyOliver disguised herself as a boy]]. As a result of Alanna's achievement, however, Kel (in the third series) is then able to become the first girl to train ''openly'' (and she insists on wearing dresses at dinner to ensure people don't forget that she's a girl).

** Mithros and the Threefold Goddess/Great Mother Goddess/Goddess, as well as some less prominent members of the pantheon. They have no problem using even young children as disposable pawns in their power struggles and seem genuinely ''unable to comprehend'' how important human problems are to humans... so at one point, the Mother Goddess is supporting a house that throws the children of rebels into a piranha-filled moat, because the rebels are favored by her rival brother.

* NobodyPoops: Completely averted through small mentions of characters going to the bathroom in the middle or end of a scene, and latrines. In ''Lady Knight'' Kel volunteers to clean the lantrine in 'lead by example' humility. It's taken UpToEleven in ''Mastiff''. Beka describes often and at great length the many times her scent hound Achoo finds a spot where their quarry relieved himself on the road. And then of course we had Saucebox demonstrating his opinion of Pounce's high opinion of himself.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Every book from ''Squire'' onward has had a cast list in the back — as the pagecount has gone up, so has the number of people each protagonist encounters in their story. Characters from previous series are frequently seen alongside of new faces.

* LeftJustifiedFantasyMap: Whenever a map of the full nation of Tortall is included, the western ocean is on the left side of the map. Although the map very roughly corresponds to the pattern of Europe (with an analogue for Africa to the south and one for the Himalayas on the eastern edge), Tortall and its neighbors are usually referred to as "the eastern lands" relative to their position with the further-west Copper Isles and Yaman, both analogues to places in the "east" on Earth.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Squires are depicted as always becoming knights after a certain age (if they pass the Ordeal, and if they don't then they're drummed out entirely). In the real medieval ages, many were lifelong professional squires. Granted, Tortall is not Earth history, but there was a reason not all squires became knights.

[[http://tpwords.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/more-on-future-releases/ Many others]] are upcoming. Has a [[Characters/TortallUniverse character page]].

* ActionGirl: The cast is full of them. Alanna trained as a knight since she was ten, is an expert swordswoman, and can handle herself with a manner of other weapons and even unarmed. Daine is an excellent rider and archer, though her ability to transform into any animal understandably gives her a leg up in a fight. Kel, like Alanna, is a trained knight (with a particularly notable skill at the lance), and can wield a heavy glaive with ease. While Aly prefers to use stealth to fighting, she is more than capable of handling herself. Beka, meanwhile, was a cop and excelled at using the baton or her fists.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The approximate age of adulthood in Tortall and its neighbors is sixteen, which includes marriage and having kids, as well as going to war, killing, and dying. Marrying is still a pratical and political consideration and most young people hope to grow into love with an amiable partner instead of marrying due to love. Slavery is openly practiced in the ''Immortals'', ''Trickster'' and ''Beka Cooper'' books, and WordOfGod says that neither Carthak nor the Copper Isles intends to abolish it even after gaining {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s as monarchs. Punishments are harsh and include forced labor, maiming, and boiling in oil, just in case you thought medieval times were fun and romantic. (Fortunately, they do ''not'' follow medieval medical practice. Magic takes care of that.)

* FantasyPantheon: Covered in the ''Song of the Lioness'' quartet; half the point of ''The Immortals''.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The approximate age of adulthood in Tortall and its neighbors is sixteen, which includes marriage and having kids, as well as going to war, killing, and dying. Slavery is openly practiced in the ''Immortals'', ''Trickster'' and ''Beka Cooper'' books, and WordOfGod says that neither Carthak nor the Copper Isles intends to abolish it even after gaining {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s as monarchs. Punishments are harsh and include forced labor, maiming, and boiling in oil, just in case you thought medieval times were fun and romantic. (Fortunately, they do ''not'' follow medieval medical practice. Magic takes care of that.)

* EternalSexualFreedom: Played with. In a fictional universe based around medieval, European culture, there is no problem with a 12-year-old girl (Alanna) that has just had her first period being given birth control by an older woman so she can have sex without fear of pregnancy. The nobility, at least, pays lip service to "men can do what they want, women should be virgins until marriage". On the other hand, we see several noblewomen, good and bad alike, taking lovers in a more modern "dating" fashion. Kel's books say that commoners don't hold with all this nonsense and sleep with whomever they like... but the endless, ''endless'' negative terminology thrown at Kel suggests that the commoners don't approve of women sleeping around either! In the end it seems most like modern life, double standards and conflicting messages and all.

** Necromancy: Possible through the Gift. The gods do ''not'' like it.

* GoldSilverCopperStandard: Tortall's currency is based on this. All three metals are divided into "nobles" (big coins) and "bits" (smaller ones).

** The Gift, or the main type of magic in Tortall, manifests in a color fairly unique to the user.
*** Family members can have similar colors, like Alanna and her twin Thom (who both have a violet Gift), and Duke Baird and [[Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall Neal]] of Queenscove (Baird has emerald green and Neal's is described as "very dark green").
*** Duke Roger has orange (until [[spoiler: Thom resurrects him]], at which point his magic turns dark to reflect the corruption of his soul [[spoiler: and indicates that he CameBackWrong]]. It actually becomes a mix of his natural orange and [[spoiler: Thom's darker purple]].
*** Numair, easily the most powerful magic user in the series, has an unusual Gift described as "black with white sparkles".

* MayDecemberRomance: Pierce likes large age gaps. Alanna, Daine, and Kel are all more than five years younger than their main love interests. Pierce has admitted openly that this is AuthorAppeal.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Completely averted by frank discussions of feminine issues and magical birth control.

* RedshirtArmy: it is mentioned that the Tortallan army uniforms are maroon. In the war with Scanra, there are huge numbers of corpses in uniform.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: The Tortall Universe follows the feudal system to a T. The serfs would work on the land owned by their lords, and the lords would train to be warriors (aka, knights), who would defend the kingdom against invaders; Kings were expected to be strong warriors to defend their holdings and inspire the men around them.

* KnightInShiningArmor: Alanna, Kel and Sabine are female examples. Seen best when Alanna and her apprentices have to defend the Bloody Hawk tribe from being attacked.

* RelationshipCeiling: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with [[spoiler:Daine and Numair]], who seem to be ''more'', if not just as, in love with each other after ten years of being lovers, than they were at the beginning of their relationship. WordOfGod[[invoked]] claims that they would never tire of each other, although they didn't know that, which is why they wouldn't "trap each other in a marriage" initially.

* RealityEnsues:
** In ''Emperor Mage'' and ''Trickster's Queen'', two separate nations (Carthak and the Copper Isles respectively) that practice slavery are taken over by more moderate, reasonable leaders after overthrowing the previous tyrants. However, in both cases, slavery is not abolished by the new leaders, as it is quickly pointed out by everyone involved that the economic impact of suddenly freeing every slave in the country and being forced to provide them with wages instead of just room and board would be ''catastrophic''. Thus, while it's implied that the new rulers are slowly working to phase slavery out, the system itself remains in place for the time being.
** A single female hero, no matter how triumphant or legendary, does not undo centuries of misogyny and paternalistic attitudes towards women. It takes ten years for any noble girl to apply for knight training after Alanna opens the way; no family until the Mindelans would allow their daughter to undertake it. Kel struggles against sexist attitudes from her entry into training all the way through being appointed to command as a knight, including from other women.

* SecretRelationship: That Alanna and Jonathan were romantically involved in their youth and even seriously considered marriage, to the point that [[BrosBeforeHoes Thayet initially angsted about accepting his advances for fear of endangering her friendship with Alanna]], is evidently far from common knowledge even decades after the fact, despite the fact that [[EveryoneCanSeeIt they weren't terribly discreet about it at the time.]] Well {{Justified}} in that four books into the series, they're both married, FamedInStory, and highly visible political figures whose reputations (particularly Alanna's) could be very heavily damaged if this information were to become public due to the obvious potential conflict of interest of her serving as the King's Champion.

* SecretRelationship: That Alanna and Jonathan were romantically involved in their youth and even seriously considered marriage, to the point that [[BrosBeforeHoes Thayet initially angsted about accepting his advances for fear of endangering her friendship with Alanna]], is evidently far from common knowledge even decades after the fact, despite the fact that [[EveryoneCanSeeIt they weren't terribly discreet about it at the time.]] Well {{Justified}} in that four books into the series, they're both married, FamedInStory, and highly visible political figures whose reputations (particularly Alanna's) could be very heavily damaged if this information were to become public.

* SecretRelationship: That Alanna and Jonathan were romantically involved in their youth and even seriously considered marriage, to the point that [[BrosBeforeHoes Thayet initially angsted about accepting his advances for fear of endangering her friendship with Alanna]], is evidently far from common knowledge even decades after the fact, despite the fact that [[EveryoneCanSeeIt they weren't terribly discreet about it at the time.]] Well {{Justified}} in the fact that four books into the series, they're both married, FamedInStory, and highly visible political figures whose reputations (particularly Alanna's) could be very heavily damaged if this information were to become public.

* SecretRelationship: That Alanna and Jonathan were romantically involved in their youth and even seriously considered marriage, to the point that [[BrosBeforeHoes Thayet initially angsted about accepting his advances for fear of endangering her friendship with Alanna]], is evidently far from common knowledge even decades after the fact, despite the fact that [[EveryoneCanSeeIt they weren't terribly discreet about it at the time.]] Well {{Justified}} in the fact that four books into the series, they're both married, FamedInStory, and highly visible political figures whose reputations (particularly Alanna's) would be very heavily damaged if this information were to become public.

* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Alanna is a noble who pretends to be a boy to become a MagicKnight, Daine is an orphan who become a NatureHero, Keladry is a normal (noble) girl with normal (noble) parents who becomes a BadassNormal lady knight, Aly is a GuileHero spy, and Beka is a commoner who works as a police officer.

** The Copper Isles are a mix. They're fairly analogous to India and Southeast Asia, right down to the types of dress and foods but one could also make the for Hawaii with its history, theology, and customs.

* RealityEnsues: In ''Emperor Mage'' and ''Trickster's Queen'', two separate nations (Carthak and the Copper Isles respectively) that practice slavery are taken over by more moderate, reasonable leaders after overthrowing the previous tyrants. However, in both cases, slavery is not abolished by the new leaders, as it is quickly pointed out by everyone involved that the economic impact of suddenly freeing every slave in the country and being forced to provide them with wages instead of just room and board would be ''catastrophic''. Thus, while it's implied that the new rulers are slowly working to phase slavery out, the system itself remains in place for the time being.