YMMV / Spellsinger

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The sunken treasure Mudge unearths in book 8, while he let the Princesses take some jewelry. He legally was able to keep the rest of the treasure for himself, though said treasure is never mentioned again after that scene. At most, it's ground for a Lampshade Hanging about how, unlike the stereotypical fantasy hero, Jon-Tom and his friends never seem to come across caches of treasure.
• Fridge Brilliance: Jon-Tom when he first arrives, is outright disgusted by the new world. But as the series progresses the swearing, drugs, and offhand mentions of sex lessen. Because he is slowly accepting it, and realizing it's not as bad as it first seems. Once he fully accepts it, most of the mature stuff is almost completely absent. Showing a better, brighter world. We are seeing the story through his eyes, after all.
  • The perambulator at the end of book 5 ended up crossing into our world. It would make sense if traveling between worlds, it left a tear in space and time. A tear that opened a path between worlds? Maybe situated inside a cave?
• Fridge Logic: It's been stated several times, that otter tails are short and stubby. As opposed to the long trailing ones from our world. This makes sense, seeing as they walk upright—it would be a pain to have that huge thing dragging along behind you wherever you go, slowing you down or tripping other people. So evolution was in play, seeming to have shortened it. (If they were ever long in that world.) In that case it would also be true with other animals with similar tails, though Snooth the Kangaroo's tail is never brought up, nor the tails of other similar creatures like Wallabies.
• Heartwarming Moments: The entirety of Mudge and Weegee's relationship is this. The moment when Jon-Tom gets to listen to Couvier Coulb's collection of gneechee music, and learns that Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janice Joplin have all continued to create incredible music after death, is both this and quite the Tear Jerker.
• Not So Crazy Anymore: When Jon-Tom is trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine illusion, he is in a fantasy of being a singer so respected that the Nobel Prize committee is considering giving him a special award. That is not so outrageous now considering the great singer/songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Tear Jerker: Mudge's emotional breakdown when he thinks Jon-Tom is going away for good. Especially the fact he for the most part seemed to hate Jon-Tom's guts throughout the first four books, and many times wouldn't think twice about just abandoning him.
  A large furry mass struck him square in the chest. He staggered backward with Mudge clinging to him. The otter was sobbing uncontrollably. "You ain't comin' back!" Black nose and whiskers were inches from his face and tears were pouring down fuzzy cheeks. "I know you ain't, once you get back to your own world through that bloody 'ole in the ground you'll be back in familiar surroundin', back among your own kind, an' you'll forget all about us. About poor ol' Mudge, an' Weegee, and that senile 'ardshell Clothahump who needs you to look after 'im in 'is old age, and even about Talea. You'll get back to where everythin's comfortable and safe an' relaxin' an' you won't be comin' back 'ere.'' He grabbed the vee of Jon-Tom's indigo shirt and shook him.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Think Narnia on an unholy combination of pot and Viagra.
• Ugly Cute: Baby Weavers in Hour of the Gate. Despite being a pack of poisonous spiders, they're as open and curious as any children, and quickly develop affection for Jon-Tom and the party.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The premise sounds cute until you realize the books are full of graphic violence, foul language, drug use, and references to furry sex. Though bizarrely, despite that, there is still deep down a strange innocence to it that cannot be explained through words.
• The Woobie:
  • Folly. Not only is she an orphan who has lived her whole life in slavery to Corroboc and his pirates, but she just continually gets put through hardship after hardship—getting mugged, getting taken to the Friends of the Street, getting kidnapped and ensorcelled by Jalwar/Zancresta, and finally sent to kill herself in a lava tube. Her persistence in pursuing Jon-Tom aside, one can hope she was finally able to make a good life for herself after they returned with her to the Bellwoods (or wherever she went).
  • To some degree, so is Braglob, the Big Bad from book five. Which is why the moment when his cowardice and insanity are cured, and he and Jon-Tom seem to connect briefly while he expresses his gratitude, is so heartwarming. Until his typical wolverine nature asserts itself, of course.
  • Stoic Woobie: Cautious, once it's revealed he lost his family in a storm.