Series / The Shannara Chronicles

The Shannara Chronicles is an American post-apocalyptic fantasy drama television series created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. It stars Austin Butler as Wil Ohmsford, Poppy Drayton as Amberle Elessedil, Ivana Baquero as Eretria and Manu Bennett as Allanon. It was filmed in New Zealand using many of the same crew as The Lord of the Rings.

It is a loose adaptation of the Shannara books by Terry Brooks, taking place in a separate continuity. The first season retells the events of The Elfstones of Shannara, chronicling the efforts of a group of heroes to save the Four Lands from the return of a demonic army from the dimension where they were imprisoned long ago. (Elfstones is actually the second Shannara book, but the rights to the first, The Sword of Shannara, are held by others; also, Elfstones is somewhat more popular). The second season continues the plot and diverges from the books. It also lifts characters from the novel First King of Shannara, a prequel to the original book.

It premiered on MTV in the United States on January 5, 2016; the first four episodes were all released online at that time, and six more subsequently aired for a total of ten in the first season. It was subsequently renewed for a second season, which moved to Spike just a few months before its rebrand as the Paramount Network. In January 2018, Paramount Network opted to cancel the series.

---

This series provides examples of the following:

• Accidental Pervert: When Wil finds Amberle taking a Waterfall Shower he actively attempts to avoid this by trying to get her attention from far away at first, but ends up slipping and making himself look like The Peeping Tom.
• Action Girl: Amberle and Eretria can both kick some serious ass, as can Elven commander Diana. Season 2 adds Lyria, Mareth, and possibly Queen Tamlin.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Cephelo, who became Eretria's adoptive father, was anything but a good parent, and Eretria really resents him:
    Eretria: I spent my days learning how to steal and my nights fending off his men.
    • She later reveals to Amberle that her birth parents sold her off early in her life. (In Season 2 it's discovered her mother actually left her with a friend.)
  • There's also Bandon's parents, who kept him chained and muzzled in a tiny room in the family barn; though to be fair, living with him when he can see everyone's future deaths would have been fairly stressful; plus, given his Face–Heel Turn later in Season 1, they may have had good reason to lock him up.
  • While he wasn't as bad as the above examples, Shea's alcoholism and shaky mental health made him a very poor father, and he physically beat Wil on at least one occasion that we know of.
• Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Elfstones of Shannara ends with Wil and Eretria getting together, following which they seem to have a quiet life until their daughter Brin and son Jair become the main characters of The Wishsong of Shannara. At the end of the first season, Wil and Eretria are seperated, and while they are reunited in the second season, if anything the way the season plays out makes this ending even less likely.
• Adaptation Distillation / Adaptation Expansion:
  • Various changes have been made to translate into the medium of TV, more drama has been added in places (such as making the selection of the Chosen a contest instead of just a matter of the Ellcrys touching those she wants), new characters have been created and relationships added, Eretria meets the other members of the main trio earlier than in the book, Amberle is more physically capable, Shea is now Wil's father rather than his grandfather, etc.
  • The series also had to compensate for the fact the first book in the series, The Sword of Shannara, could not be adapted, adding some additional exposition about the equivalent events in the backstory.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The series never explains what it means that Wil is "a Shannara". In the books, it means he's descended from Jerle Shannara, a King of the Elves pre-dating the current Elessedil family and original wielder of the Sword of Shannara.
• Adaptational Name Change: Lorin's name was spelled "Lauren" in the book, although he was still a guy. Presumably, they thought "Lorin" was more manly.
• Adaptational Diversity:
  • Eretria, a straight woman in the books, is bisexual here. In fact, she's with more women than men.
  • The people of Leah are described as white-skinned in the books. They're all played by black actors on the show (although two of the show's characters are original).
• Adaptational Personality Change:
  • In this version, the Witch Sisters Morag and Mallenroh, while still evil and capricious, are co-guardians of the Bloodfire instead of being archenemies obsessed with destroying each other and locked into a pointless eternal war over who's more beautiful (it's pointless because they're identical twins - in the book). One actually looks upset when the other is killed.
  • The Changeling and the Reaper: the former was described as spiteful and sadistic but never once spoke on-page and acted more like a loyal servant and the latter appeared as a stoic, voiceless but scarily competent tracker. In the series, the Changeling is much more talkative, while the Reaper turns into a roaring Dumb Muscle that can be distracted by the smell of fresh blood like a beast.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Shea Ohmsford was Wil's paternal grandfather in the book, his father in the series.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Eretria is bisexual in the show, flirting with Amberle at one point and shown to have a past relationship with Zora, a Canon Foreigner villainess. Later in Season 2 she is seeing Princess Lyria. She also had (satisfying) sex with Wil previously. In the books there was no hint of her being anything but straight.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • A partial one in that the Dagda Mor is still a demon, however in this adaptation he started off as an Elven Druid before he was corrupted by the Ildatch.
  • Partial change with Shea and Wil. Shea is now a full Elf rather than a Half Elf, and since Wil is now Shea's son instead of his grandson, he is now the Half Elf, instead of 1/8. His greatly diluted Elven blood (despite which he still looked Elfy enough to be mistaken for a full Elf at various points of the novel) was what caused problems with the Elfstones in the first place in the book. This has been abandoned in favor of them simply messing up everybody who uses them.
  • Furies: in the book they're described as half-cat half-woman demons who attack in packs, in the series Furies are grotesque four-winged bat monsters.
  • Eretria is now a descendant of a group of people who had Demon blood.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • The Demon army in the book is described as a nearly-infinite tide of monsters of all shapes and sizes (including Ogres, Goblins, Imps, Demon-wolves, were-creatures, Gremlins, Ghouls, Harpies, Furies, bat-things and giant snakes) with even a lesser one being a threat to a standard soldier. While they're still powerful soldiers in the series, they're reduced to an army of Faceless Mooks who only march towards Arborlon when every single leaf of the Ellcrys has fallen, while in the book they started the assault as soon as a big enough gap appeared, and in the show they have a much more uniform appearance as scary figures in dark armor.
  • Morag and Mallenroth, the Witch Sisters, are easily dispatched by a blast of the Elfstones' blue flames each. In the book, they far outclass the protagonists and only fall in a Mutual Kill that destroys their domain.
  • The Reaper in the series is still an Implacable Man who can easily butcher anyone getting in his way, but is also much slower and dumber. He's also destroyed by Wil right after the Pykon segment as soon as he figures out how to use the Elfstones, while in the book not only he's the Final Boss for Wil's group, but also takes a lot more punishment from the stones before being vanquished.
  • Trolls as a whole go from being a whole race of barbaric but noble and strong warriors of large size to a bunch of almost-feral brutes in post-apocalyptic outfits.
• Adapted Out:
  • The King of the Silver River, who aided Wil in The Elfstones of Shannara, has his scene completely removed. Even though the climax of season 2 heavily involves the Silver River, he still isn't even mentioned, although there is mention of a historical human king associated with the river.
  • Stee Jans and the Border Legion's Free Corps never show up to help the Elves.
• Aerith and Bob: Sprinkled among characters with very fantasy sounding names such as Amberle, Eventine and Eretria you have others with more conventional ones like Wil and Diana.
• After the End:
  • Various ruins encountered in the show as the characters travel from place to place hint at the world of the Four Lands having been, at one time, present-day Earth. The Space Needle's appearance in the opening and first shot confirm this, as do the opening credits that suggest nuclear war or some other catastrophe wiped out civilization. We later get confirmation of exactly how long after the end it's been.
    Crispin: Three thousand years have passed and humankind's weapons are still claiming lives!
  • We get more information about this in "Breakline", when Amberle and Eretria fall through a hole and find themselves in the remains of a human high school. Amberle explains that most human structures were sealed beneath the Earth when human society was wiped out, which kept them from rotting into dust.
  • The human settlement Utopia, which appears in the episode of the same name, has technology from "before", including electric lighting and guns, with the goal of restoring what the human race achieved.
  • Safehold, the target of the trio's quest, is revealed to be the former San Francisco.
• Ain't No Rule: It's not technically against the rules for a woman to compete to be Chosen, but social convention has made it unthinkable until Amberle did it.
• All Trolls Are Different: The adaptation takes the fact that Trolls are human mutants who survived on the surface during the Great Wars and runs with it. Their outfits match more with a Mad Max post-apocalyptic film than the future-fantasy of the human and Elven characters, including their Post-Apocalyptic Gas Masks.
• Anti-Magical Faction: The Crimson, an Elven group that wants to wipe out all magic and magic users.
• Anyone Can Die: Let's put it this way. At the end of Season 2, out of the twenty-odd named characters introduced throughout the entirity of Season 1, four remain alive, and that includes one that appeared in a single episode and was then Put on a Bus.
• Arranged Marriage: Between Ander and Lyria in Season 2, to cement the alliance between Arborlon and Leah. It's clear it's purely a political match, albeit between people on friendly terms, and neither will be expecting the other to be monogamous. Unfortunately, the Crimson crash the wedding ceremony and Ander is slain.
• Artistic License – Physics: The Four Lands are littered with recognizable remains of the present day human civilization, even though 3,000 years are stated to have passed since The End of the World as We Know It. After that long most of those remains would've either rusted away into nothing or been so eroded as to be unrecognizable.
• Attempted Rape: Cephelo tries to rape Amberle and is only stopped by Eretria's timely rescue.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning
  • In "Utopia", Ander is crowned as the new elven king after both Eventide and Arion die. Ander does need some encouragement from Allanon to actually go through with it, though.
  • In "Blood", Lyria is crowned as Queen of Leah after the Warlock Lord is defeated. Her mother had died several episodes prior and everyone had already been calling her the queen, but this made it official.
• Barrier Maiden: The Ellcrys shows itself to Amberle as a female Elf (indeed a doppelganger of herself), and her existence is what keeps the demons trapped in the Forbidding. Replacing her as this turns out to be Amberle's destiny.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • No matter how much Wil knows he shouldn't trust Eretria, he continues to be oddly vulnerable to her charms. And no matter how much she claims that he's a naive fool, she seems to enjoy using her charms against him a little too much...
  • Wil and Amberle are generally more straightforwardly affectionate to each other, but she still seems to spend an awful lot of time aiming Death Glares at him and holding swords to his throat, a lot of it due to the jealousy she feels over his relationship with Eretria.
  • Eretria also gets this with Amberle as the two slowly become friends and Eretria reveals she is bisexual to the princess by coming on to her.
• Betty and Veronica: While Amberle's Betty certainly has a rough streak, she is at her core a way more demure character than Eretria's Veronica. Poor Wil.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Eretria, of all people, makes a habit out of appearing out of nowhere to save another character from some danger, always with a lot of swagger and a snarky one-liner. Not only is it how she enters the story in the first place, but in episode five she saves Amberle from Cephelo, then saves Wil and his Elven escort from a monster not five minutes later.
    Eretria: I leave you alone for a couple of hours, and look what happens!
  • Allanon frequently turns up just when someone is about to get killed by one demon or another and deals with it.
  • In "Breakline", when Amberle and Eretria are in some trouble, they both predict that Wil is going to swoop in at the last moment and save them. They're right.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In season 2 our heroes have to deal with two serious villains:
  • General Riga, leader of the Crimson, an Elven extremist group that seeks to destroy all magic and exterminate all magic users.
  • Bandon, who seeks to resurrect the Warlock Lord. He eventually succeeds and is Demoted to Dragon, while the Warlock Lord becomes the new Big Bad and also gets rid of his competition by brutally killing Riga.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Wil is apparently well-endowed, as Eretria comments "I'll never call you 'short tips' again" after they have sex, with a satisfied look on her face.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Eretria claims that there is one between her, Wil and Amberle as well, something both Wil and Amberle try to deny, while obviously pining for one another. Eretria meanwhile denies that what she feels for Wil is anything but lust, or that she actually cares what Amberle thinks of her, while flirting heavily with both.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Every time Bandon touches someone, he gets a vision of how they are going to die. As if that wasn't bad enough in itself, his abilities apparently scared his family enough that they kept him chained up in the barn.
  • Amberle is blessed with the ability to see the future (thanks to the Ellcrys), swordfighting skills, and she is the first woman in ages to compete to become a Chosen. Plus she's a princess for heaven's sake. And she has not only a half-Elf boyfriend but, if she wants it a human girlfriend. Unfortunately, her destiny is to become a tree for the next untold number of centuries.
  • Just generally, magic in the series always seems to be Cast from Hit Points, require a Human Sacrifice, bind you to a harsh and life-long (at least) duty, be prone to cases of Power Incontinence, make you vulnerable to possession... or just turn you evil, if you mess around with the wrong kind. "Magic always comes with a price," indeed.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The violence in the show is quite more graphic than in the source material, with copious amounts of blood and people being literally torn apart by demons onscreen.
• Broken Pedestal: Amberle does not take it well when she finds out that the Elves used to torture prisoners of war during the War of the Races, especially since her beloved grandfather was already King back then and must have been the one to order it.
• Call-Forward: Allanon mentions the Ildatch in connection to the Dagda Mor's origins. The first season of the show is an adaptation of the second book in the Shannara series. The Ildatch is a Tome of Eldritch Lore that is central to the plot of the third one.
• Can't Bathe Without a Weapon: Wil finds Amberle taking a Waterfall Shower and ends up slipping and rolling down to where she is. By the time he gets himself up, a stark naked Amberle is holding a knife to his throat.
• Cast from Hit Points:
  • The spell Allanon casts to find the Codex in "Chosen" seems to cause him great pain and leaves him with some very nasty burns on his left hand.
    Allanon: Magic always comes with a price.
  • Using the Elfstones tends to leave Wil feeling, in his own words, like he's "been set on fire and beaten with a shovel."
  • The way to the Bloodfire needs to be opened by a half-demon bleeding into a magical contraption in front of it, and it only stays open as long as more blood is added.
• The Chains of Commanding: Seems to be a recurring theme, where those granted the most power tend to be the least interested in actually having it.
  Allanon: Only a king knows the weight of a crown.
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Breakline", Amberle finds some old blue dice while exploring the human school and keeps them because they remind her of Wil (they vaguely resemble the Elfstones). They come in handy in "Utopia" when Cephalo once again tries to swipe the Elfstones and ends up with the dice instead.
• Child by Rape: Mag, whose father lobotomized her mother to make her his "wife".
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Remo, the caretaker of Pykon, plans to torture the group after he captures them, just for fun. He straps Amberle to a torture device that starts to pull off her nails, but she's rescued by Wil before they're torn off.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Demon magic usually comes with a red light. Allanon's magic and that of the Elfstones tends to come with a blue light - except sometimes Allanon's magic is red too, showing that it's no different from the Dagda Mor's.
• Composite Character:
  • Shea Ohmsford of the series is mainly based on his book counterpart, but also take on some of the traits of Jerle Shannara in that he was the one originally meant to kill the Warlock Lord but failed the test of the Sword of Shannara and so only partly succeeded, with his descendent - Shea in the books, Wil in the series - being forced to finish the job.
  • Mareth is about 70% Canon Foreigner, but gets her name and some of her backstory from a character in First King of Shanarra (500 years before the main trilogy) and her illusion magic seems to be based on Wil's son Jair and his wishsong.
• Contrived Coincidence: The odds of Wil and Amberle both crossing paths with Eretria within a day of one another are extremely low.
• Conlang: Noalath, the language of the Druids that is spoken by Allanon, the Dagda Mor and the Changeling, was created for the show by linguist David J. Peterson.
• Con Man: The Rovers' bread and butter is straight up robbery, but they can spin a con with the best of them if the situation calls for it.
• Cool Old Lady: Amberle's Aunt Pyria, who defied her brother the King and left a life as a Princess to go live on her own in the wilderness. When things go bad, she's the first person Amberle thinks to go to for help. Shame about that Fury.
• Cool Sword:
  • The Warlock Lord's sword is big, spiky and glows with a menacing red light when used.
  • Allanon's fold-up blade is pretty sweet as well.
  • Subverted with the Sword of Shannara, at least according to Wil. He was expecting the ultimate weapon to be a lot more impressive-looking.
• Dark Messiah: Tye leads a village of humans devoted to reclaiming the lost technology of the Age of Man and living free from the Elves. He is intelligent, charismatic, and clearly cares greatly for his people, but his rhetoric has more than a hint of Fantastic Racism to it. And every month he makes a Human Sacrifice to the local Trolls as part of a peace treaty between them and his village.
• Deader than Dead:
  • Necessary for dealing with the Changeling in a permanent fashion. It can be killed, but unless it's burned to ashes and the ashes placed in a sealed jar, it will eventually come Back from the Dead.
  • The Warlock Lord can only be permanently killed by having his heart pierced by the Sword of Shannara, which must be wielded by a Shannara who is able to "face his truth" by accepting the visions the Sword gives him. Shea was not able to fully do so, and so only killed the Warlock Lord temporarily - in Season 2, Bandon succeeds in bringing him back.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • While he didn't actually appear in the book, Shea (Wil's grandfather and hero of the first book) was still alive at that time. In this series, he is Wil's father, and is established as having died young.
  • King Eventine is murdered halfway through the first season, while in the book he lives almost to the end.
  • Ander Elessedil dies in Season 2, whereas in the books he survived to live a full life and had children.
• Death of a Child: in Episode 6. Mag dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to save Wil from her crazy father. Also several times during Season 2, as various villains prove that they Would Hurt a Child.
• Demoted to Extra: The role of the Witch Sisters Mallenroh and Morag is reduced to little more than a cameo as "guardians of the Bloodfire", and they don't even get named onscreen.
• Depraved Bisexual: Downplayed at first. Eretria starts out as a ruthless bisexual thief who flirts with or seduces people regardless of gender solely to rob them blind, but doesn't do anything worse. However, over time her being with Wil and Amberle (who both appeal to her) transforms Eretria into a much nicer woman, subverting it. She has a lover in Season 2, Lyria, whom she's genuinely caring and loving to.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: In the test to become the Chosen, a contestant already ahead of Amberle tries to trip her. Not only does he fall doing this, but she trips him when he tries to get back up, and two contestants cross the finish while they're struggling. This leads to her become one of the Chosen, but not him. Had he just kept running, they both would've made it.
• Did Not Get the Girl:
  • In season 1, Wil loses Amberle when she performs a Heroic Sacrifice to restore the Ellcrys.
  • In season 2, paralleling the above, Mareth loses Wil when he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to purify Heaven's Well. However, he is apparently still alive in the Forbidding (basically a Hell dimension), leaving open the possibility that they can be together. Also, Eretria turns down Lyria's proposal because she is worried about her own demonic heritage.
• Disappeared Dad: It turns out that Allanon is one to his daughter Mareth, whom he never knew existed.
• Downer Ending:
  • Season 1 did not end on a happy note; Amberle became the new Ellcrys, Tilton is dead, Bandon has fully fallen to the dark side, Eretria is captured, and Wil goes to search for her in what he knows is the calm before an even bigger storm.
  • Season 2 is not much cheerier. Allanon is dead, Wil has ended up in what is either the Forbidding or somewhere equally as nasty, and Eretria has decided she can't be with Lyria until she has found a way to keep Lyria safe from her own demonic heritage.
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Ander resorts to this after the apparent death of his brother Arion and the realisation that his father Eventine has been dead for a long time, with the Changeling posing as him without Ander noticing it. He's stated to have spent much of the time after the death of his eldest brother doing the same thing, too.
  • Wil's father Shea drank altogether too much to try to get over his experiences in the War of the Races.
• Due to the Dead: After finding some gnomes massacred by demons, Prince Ander unchains the imprisoned Slanter so he may give them the proper rites. It later proved to be a critical gesture to the Elf and Gnome alliance.
• Dying as Yourself: Arion shows up in the season 1 finale having Come Back Wrong and kills Commander Tilton. He manages to recover himself enough to tell Ander to kill him.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Eretria and Amberle both get an eyeful of Wil's bare chest on separate occasions, but it's Eretria who ogles the most.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Eretria refers to Wil as "short tips", as his Pointy Ears are slightly shorter than those of a full-blooded Elf.
• Enclosed Extraterrestrials: Technically mutants, not extraterrestrials, but still alien-like, the Trolls are all covered in Steampunk clothing.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Amberle's ability to communicate with the Ellcrys warns her that her homeland will be doomed.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Eretria is initially brought along to the journey to Safehold due to her necessity to the quest there being prophesised, even though she has absolutely no interest in going and Amberle, for her part, would rather leave her to rot in a cell.
  • Ander enlists the Gnome who killed his brother as a guide to the lands where the demons are believed to be massing, and later forms an alliance with the Gnome tribes to fight the demons.
  • Cephelo and the heroes find themselves on the same side when the Reaper comes after them all.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Wil hurries home with new medicine to cure his mother, but she dies despite his best efforts and he is heartbroken.
  • While it's technically his second scene, Allanon's Unflinching Walk into the Elven palace during which he effortlessly flings a guard aside before striding up to the royal family and ordering them around tells just about all you need to know.
  • Eretria saves Wil's life by killing a Troll with a single thrown knife and proceeds to snark mercilessly at him. In the next scene, she tricks him into stripping down before drugging and robbing him, all of which also turns out to be par for the course.
  • The Dagda Mor gets one when he enters Allanon's mind in Paranor and freaks him out. Anything that Allanon is terrified of is bad news.
• Eternal English: By all appearances, English is still being spoken and read three thousand years After the End (though it is not the only language). The shot of the fallen Space Needle in the Pilot indicates that this area is a futuristic version of the Pacific Northwest, where English would have been the dominant language during the Age of Man. It's possible Translation Convention is also in effect.
• Everyone Can See It: Over the course of Season 2, three different characters manage to take one look at Mareth and realise how she feels about Wil. None of those three characters is Wil himself.
• Eviler than Thou: Season 2 has two main villains - Riga, a zealot who persecutes magic users for their supposed culpability in the demon invasion and who is himself immune to magic, and Bandon, a bitter magic user who has been both persecuted and exploited for his gifts and wants revenge on normal people because of it. While they avoid each other for most of the season, they eventually face off and Bandon's newly resurrected master, the Warlock Lord, is far more than Riga can handle and kills him without much difficulty.
• Fantastic Racism: The different races that populate the Four Lands do not get along, to put it mildly, but of particular importance to the plot is the profound animosity between the Elves and the Rovers.
  • Elves also don't like Gnomes - Arion initially believes that they, not the demons, are to blame for the murder of the Chosen (he is basing that belief partly on the fact that ten years ago, his brother was killed by a group of Elf-hating Gnomes).
  • Also as shown in Episode 6, the Elves did themselves no favors by using the city of Pykon as a torture site during the War of the Races, then covering it up (allegedly by slaughtering those stationed there) instead of admitting any wrongdoing.
  • Some of the Elves still resent humankind because of their role in The End of the World as We Know It, even though it has been 3,000 years since that happened.
  • The humans of Shady Vale fear Gnomes and Trolls and Rovers, if Flick is anything to go by. They also gave Wil a hard time growing up, but it's unclear if it's because he was half Elven in particular or if it was just because he was different.
  • In fact, the only race that is known to exist without anyone being known to hate them is the Dwarves - and that may be because we never really find out anything at all about them except that they exist.
  • The humans of Utopia are happy to trade with "Elf hunters" and hiss when they see an image of the Elf-like Mr. Spock on a screen.
  • Season 2 shows that many of the Elves have developed a widespread prejudice against magic users (of all races, including their own), whom they associate with the demons that attacked them last season. This is also not entirely a new thing, as shown by Bandon having been kept locked up by his parents for having inherent magic.
• Fashion Dissonance: For a show playing in an After the End Medieval Stasis society, somehow the main characters are managing to find jeans and other clothing that could have come straight from a modern mall. And are somehow stain resistant, no matter how battered the characters are.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The trio as they set off on their quest. We have Amberle (fighter), Wil (mage), and Eretria (thief).
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • Eretria becomes close to Wil and Amberle as they battle Demons, Rovers and mad Elves.
  • Ander hopes that a battle against the demons is what will finally end all the strife between the races. Sure enough, Season 2 shows that a lasting alliance has been formed between the Elves of Arborlon and the Gnomes who were previously their sworn enemies.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Prince Arion doesn't believe in magic or demons and thinks the problems the Elves are facing is the work of Gnome assassins and that Allanon is a charlatan, despite the good evidence otherwise. He finally accepts they're real when it becomes just too strong.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The first thing Dagda Mor does upon being released from the Forbidding is to recite the same words that Allanon does when he wakes up from his Druid's sleep. This is the first indication that Dagda Mor was once a Druid himself.
  • A Five-Second Foreshadowing example: Eretria warns Wil that a Rover would take one look at him and steal both the clothes off his back and the Elfstones. That's exactly what she does moments later when it turns out she is a Rover.
• Freudian Trio: The three younger members of the main cast in Season 1. Amberle is the Superego, idealistic and high-minded, but also sometimes cold and unforgiving. Eretria is the Id, all passion and self-interest, motivated by primal things like anger, pleasure and survival. Wil is the Ego, thoughtful and capable of seeing different sides to an issue, but also lacking in drive and caught in an eternal tug-of-war between the other two.
• Future Imperfect: Most of the history of the Age of Man has been lost in the last 3,000 years, but even those who do remember have some things mixed up, like thinking Star Trek: The Motion Picture was history and Humans used to travel through the stars.
• Great Offscreen War: The War of the Races, wherein the Warlock Lord tried to take over the Four Lands, which took place over thirty years ago and was the last time magic was wielded openly. It gets repeatedly mentioned by several characters and Wil's father played a key role in its outcome.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Cephelo tries to capitalize on the discrimination that Wil has endured all of his life as a half-Elf to get him on his side.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Three half-Elves appear in the series: Wil (Elven father, Human mother), Mag (a Child by Rape with an Elven father and Human mother), and Mareth (Elven mother, Human father). Eretria is also revealed to be a descendant of a group called Armageddon's Children who were part-Demon.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In "Ellcrys":
    • Eretria goes back to get a stuck gate to shut, trapping herself on the same side of it as a group of hostile Trolls to keep them from pursuing Wil and Amberle. She survives but ends up captured.
    • Amberle has to give up her physical existence to rejuvenate the Ellcrys and banish the demons. While this isn't quite death - her spirit lives on within the tree, and Allanon claims that she will eventually be able to communicate - her life as a regular person is definitely over.
  • In "Blood", Allanon dies to hold back the Warlock Lord and give the others a chance to escape, and towards the end Wil lets himself bleed out in Heaven's Well, knowing that his Shannara blood will undo the effects of the Warlock Lord's Blood Magic. However, the viewer sees him alive in the Forbidding at the episode's end.
• High-Dive Escape: In "Wraith", Wil and Mareth escape the Mord Wraiths by jumping off a cliff into a lake.
• Hollywood Tactics: When facing demons in battle, elves seem to think it's a sound military tactic to take the perfectly good shield wall that's been marched into place to take advantage of a shallow but serviceable defensive ditch and, at the first sign of the enemy, have the elves in the unit jump into the ditch to fight individually against demons whose knees are now at the elves' eye level.
• Hotter and Sexier:
  • The series adds a lot of sexual innuendo and even minor sex scenes that were absent from the source material (though Terry Brooks reportedly insisted the series not be an adults-only affair like Game of Thrones).
  • Zigzagged in the second season. The sex is all offscreen, the romances are uncomplicated C-plots, and there are barely a handful of onscreen kisses, but it also featured Allanon and Wil getting tortured by the Crimson in a BDSM-style dungeon, with tons of tension between Allanon and the leader of the Crimson. And with Wil shackled, sweaty, panting, stripped naked except for his leather pants, and enduring a rather... penetrative sort of torture - all aimed at getting Allanon to talk, just like in the standard "we'll rape / kill your girlfriend in front of you" man-pain scene. And the next episode, Wil got assaulted by a tentacle monster that sprayed a white goo in his face.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Wil's ability to trigger the Elfstones is a bit hit-and-miss at first.
• Humans by Any Other Name: Averted. In the book series, the Races are sometimes called human collectively and the ones who are like ordinary modern humans are referred to (as in Tolkien's legendarium) as Men. Here, what would be called Men in the books are called humans.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Trolls are often mentioned to eat humans and Elves if they can catch them. The entire village of Utopia only survives by sacrificing foreigners to the local Trolls.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty:
  • Cephelo makes it clear what Amberle's fate will be as his captive. He probably shouldn't have been so open about it while Eretria was still within earshot.
  • This was also the fate of Mag's mother at the hands of the warden of Pykon after lobotomizing her, and what he intended to do to Amberle as well.
• Implacable Man: The Reaper is silent, steady and absolutely relentless in its pursuit of the heroes, surviving crossbow bolts, sword blows, and at least one giant explosion. In the end it takes a point blank shot from the Elfstones followed by a fall from great height to get it to stay down.
  Wil: Just die already!
• Informed Flaw: Commander Tilton describes Ander as having spent the last ten years "lost in booze and anger and doubt." Yet with one exception - a single episode when he is seen Drowning His Sorrows after the loss of his father and brother - there is no onscreen portrayal of him having a drinking problem or anger management issues, and he probably does the most to galvanize others into action against the demons.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: Cephelo's original plan to get Wil on his side involved a fight to the death between Eretria and Amberle... with Amberle wearing a leather bikini.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: In episode 5, Eretria is suddenly alarmed and asks the group if they hear something. They reply no, and she clarifies that's her point, she can't hear the birds anymore. They then encounter what appears to be a radioactive hotspot.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One:
  • Allanon admits early on that even if Wil succeeds perfectly at a very dangerous, very difficult quest he is woefully unprepared for, using the magic of the Elfstones will likely fry his brain. No wonder he tries to leave at every opportunity in the beginning - though of course he never succeeds and eventually he decides to just go along with it.
  • This is backed up by what happened to his father Shea, who saved the Four Lands but ended up a drunken wreck whose heroism was all but unknown. Allanon indicates this was at least in part the cost of Shea using magic.
  • Amberle is told in no uncertain terms by the Ellcrys that being the last of the Chosen means that she has to do whatever it takes to save the Four Lands, no matter what it costs her. It turns out that the cost is her own existence as an Elf woman - she has to become the new Ellcrys, living out the following millenia as a sentient tree.
• Jerkass: Crown Prince Arion is a complete dick to almost everyone he interacts with, including members of his own family.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Tye and his blonde companion try to feed the heroes to the nearby tribe of Trolls to keep Utopia safe and try to gun them down when they make an escape attempt. By the time the Trolls show up to claim their sacrifices, they end up taking Tye and his girlfriend as food.
• Last of His Kind: A lot of the characters, in one way or another.
  • Allanon is the last of the Druids, so the responsibility of dealing with magical threats lays squarely on his shoulders. Except there's an ex-Druid running around too... Cogline. I guess because he left the order he can't pick up the slack?
  • Wil is the last living descendant of King Jerle Shannara.
  • Amberle is the last living member of the Chosen.
  • At the end of Season 2, Mareth is the last of the Druids after Allanon's death, and also the last living heir to the Elven throne.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Amberle proposes this to Eretria while she and Wil are Eretria's captives. Eretria responds by dismounting her horse and headbutting Amberle without loosening her restraints.
• Love Triangle: At the start of the first season, Commander Tilton is with Prince Arion but used to have a thing with Prince Ander, who Amberle notes is still "pining" after her, although he denies it. It gets "resolved" at the end of season 1 with Arion and Diana both dying.
• The Magic Comes Back: Magic is widely believed to have completely disappeared from the Four Lands by the time the series starts, but the imminent death of the Ellcrys triggers its sudden resurgence.
• Magic Knight: While powerful combat magic exists, almost none of the characters rely on it exclusively but use it interchangeably with regular fighting skills. Even characters who start out as straight casters eventually make sure to pick up some training with a sword. The stated reason is that "magic always comes with a price" and so trusting in it completely is too risky.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Tomboy Eretria is with Girly Girl Lyria in Season Two.
• Metaphorically True: Wil’s description of how Eretria stole the Elfstones from him in the Royal Palace is accurate... from a certain point of view.
  Amberle: He said you broke into his room. That he struggled, but you knocked him out.
  Eretria: That's one way to put it. But you should know that the "struggle" was mutual and lasted about an hour.
• Mole in Charge: The Changeling eventually murders and replaces King Eventine himself, and tries to sabotage the Elves' efforts against the demons with the king's authority.
• Mr. Fanservice: The pilot shows Wil in a Bathtub Scene and a Shirtless Scene. He continues to have other scenes where he's shirtless and thus shows off his chest throughout the series.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • In the pilot Amberle has a Waterfall Shower with Shoulders-Up Nudity and Toplessness from the Back.
  • "Pykon" has Amberle and Eretria bathing together in the castle, with Eretria flirting with Amberle, although it doesn't shown more than their bare shoulders and bare legs.
• Mutants: Trolls, Dwarves and Gnomes are actually mutated humans named after their resemblance to the Faerie creatures. Elves, on the other hand, actually are the Faerie creatures, having survived our present-day era before the Great Wars by hiding from humanity.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Amberle tells Wil as much in no uncertain terms when he comes across her bathing. Later gets an Ironic Echo when he strips down to swim and she starts Eating the Eye Candy.
  Wil: What happened to "eyes up here"?
• Mythology Gag: In "Dweller", Allanon claims that Mareth can't be his daughter because he was told that the Druid sleep would prevent him from fathering children. Wil suggests that those who told him that might simply have been wrong. Which turns out to be the case - Mareth is eventually proven to be Allanon's daughter. In the books, Mareth initially believed Bremen to be her father, but he told her that it wasn't possible for that same reason, which in the books was true.
• Naked First Impression
  • Allanon first meets Wil when he finds him passed out naked in a bathtub after being drugged and robbed by Eretria.
  • Wil first meets Amberle when he happens upon her taking a Waterfall Shower. He ends up making it look like he was peeping on her which infuriates her and starts their Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Official Couple: While Season 1 centers on a threeway Love Triangle between Wil, Amberle and Eretria without committing to any of the possible pairings, Season 2 has the two official couples of Wil/Mareth and Eretria/Lyria.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Eretria disabling the dozen or so guards outside Cephelo's tent quickly and quietly enough that none of them even managed to raise the alarm. And then she has a second one almost immediately after, killing a monster that was menacing a whole party of soldiers from the shadows. She was clearly in the zone that day.
• Off the Rails: The first season is a more or less straightforward adaptation of The Elfstones of Shannara, but the second one breaks with the book series and takes the story in a different direction, most likely because the following novel, The Wishsong of Shannara, takes place a generation after the previous one and shares almost no characters with it.
• One Head Taller: Wil is considerably taller than Eretria. It becomes most obvious when they're riding a horse together.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
  • Several of the Fake American characters slip into their New Zealand accents on occasion, as does British Caroline Chikezie.invoked
  • One particularly amusing incident happens when Erroll Shand's Valcaa starts a scene with what seems to be a Texan drawl, then halfway through switches to a more "regular" Midwestern one.
• Our Elves Are Different: The Elves seem to basically just be like humans with pointy ears (although Wil mentions differences in the placement of vital organs), subject to all the regular mortal frailties and follies. On the other hand, they are the dominant people in the Four Lands, having a rich and powerful kingdom with royalty and a standing army while all the Humans, Gnomes and Trolls we see in the first season are farmers at best, scavengers and outlaws at worst.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Much like the Trolls, the Gnomes are visibly some form of mutants with a definite After the End aesthetic to them.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Eretria's mother died in her childhood, killed by a demon, and her father is unknown. She was adopted by Cephalo after that, who's a terribly abusive father to her.
  • Lyria's father isn't mentioned or seen, while her mother kills herself rather than be killed by Riga.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Wil asks this of Amberle when she's interrogating him at knifepoint while completely naked.
  Wil: This conversation would be much less awkward if you were dressed.
• Polyamory: Wil finds himself in a situation of being attracted to both Amberle and Eretria; Amberle and Eretria both are in love with Wil; Eretria is also sexually attracted to Amberle; Amberle also grows to become very attached to Eretria. As the three's relationship as a team deepens it is strongly implied that they're headed in this direction if not already there.
• Post Apocalyptic Gasmask: Trolls wear stylized gas masks, likely a cultural leftover from surviving on the surface after the Great War.
• Posthumous Character: Shea Ohmsford is dead by the start of the series, but he gets mentioned a lot for his actions in the War of the Races and the impact he had on Wil's life, making him a tangible presence throughout the series. In Season 2, he shows up repeatedly in flashbacks, visions and one incident of Time Travel.
• Power Nullifier: The Crimson use special collars that make it impossible for the person wearing them to use magic. They are said to be relics from the Great War, which would make them Lost Technology.
• Practically Different Generations: Inverted. Amberle, the daughter and only child of King Eventine's late eldest son Aine, is Practically the Same Generation as her uncles Arion and Ander, especially the latter.
• Pre-Climax Climax: In "Ellcrys", Wil and Amberle make the most of their last hours together before going to face the demons.
• Preserve Your Gays: By the end of season 2, bisexual Eretria is pretty much the only named character from season 1 still alive (and not trapped in an existence as a tree or banished to a hell dimension for the time being). Almost every other character introduced in the first season - except a couple really minor one-episode characters that were never mentioned again, and the Gnome leader, who barely gets any lines - died a graphic onscreen death. Her Love Interest Lyria, introduced in season 2, also survives, unlike many other major characters introduced in that season. Only her ex-girlfriend Zora is killed, and she only appears in two episodes.
• Prison Dimension: The Forbidding, an alternate dimension where all the demons were banished by the Elves' magic.
• Promoted to Love Interest:
  • Amberle and Lauren (Lorin) were not a couple in the book.
  • A downplayed example: in the book, Wil and Amberle were only Implied Love Interests rather than explicit.
• Psycho Lesbian: Zora, Eretria's old girlfriend who is now an obsessive and brutal Elf Hunter. She still clearly shows attraction to Eretria, which comes off as creepy under the circumstances because she's hunting her, but has zero hesitation at harming or capturing Eretria to sell her as a slave either.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes:
  • Amberle's big, dark eyes ensure that any scene where she's in pain is sheer heartbreak.
  • Wil's baby-blues aren't far behind them when it comes to projecting beautiful misery.
• Queer Establishing Moment: Eretria tells Amberle (after having previously slept with Wil) that she also likes women before starting to flirt while they're taking a bath together.
• Race Against the Clock: The Ellcrys is dying, and there is only so much time before a very one-sided war will break out, leaving only demons who have been bent on revenge for a very long time.
• Race Lift:
  • The books describe Eretria as "dusky", from a people based on the Roma. Here, she's played by a white Spanish actress.
  • Allanon, described as white, is portrayed by part-Maori actor Manu Bennett.
  • While Tamlin and Lyria have no book counterparts, in the books people of Leah are described as white. On the show they are played by black actors, along with Garet Jax.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Wil and Bandon both spend most of Season 2 being absolutely furious at Allanon. Wil resents him for not revealing the fact that Amberle's quest would end with her having to make a Heroic Sacrifice to restore the Ellcrys, while Bandon blames him for pushing him too far and too fast in his magic studies and thereby getting him spiritually captured by the Dagda Mor, resulting in him being corrupted by demon magic - which in itself is implied to fuel his anger. In both cases, Allanon's defense is that He Did What (He Thought) He Had To Do.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Several artifacts from the Age of Man are shown to still be operational after three thousand years, such as light-bulbs, film projectors and guns and ammo.
• Redemption Equals Death: Cephelo stays to cover Eretria's escape in "Utopia" and is killed. Subverted in that he only did it because he was mortally wounded anyway, meaning that he chose redemption because it didn't actually cost him anything.
• Red Shirt: Almost everyone who isn't one of the four main characters will die shortly after introduction.
• Reforged Blade: The Sword of Shannara, after it shatters in the fight between Wil and Bandon and is taken to the Ellcrys.
• Rescue Romance:
  • While "romance" might be an overly... romantic word for what's between Wil and Eretria, there's clearly something there, and it all started with her saving his life.
  • Bandon and Catania have a more straightforwardly romantic one, with her beginning to show interest in him after he saves her life from the Changeling.
• Resigned to the Call: Wil Ohmsford comes in for this as he has no idea that he is, in fact, the last known living descendant of magic users until he is informed that he is very necessary to saving the world by Allanon. His reaction is decidedly less than wholeheartedly enthusiastic, given the obvious dangers he will have to dodge.
• The Reveal: Not that the characters particularly care, but Safehold turns out to be the 3000 year old remains of San Francisco
• Revolvers Are Just Better: So much so that they still work perfectly after 3,000 years.
• Rousing Speech: Alannon, Ander, and the Dagda Mor all give one in the first season finale.
• Schizo Tech: As part of the After the End nature of the setting, there are a number of modern-day gadgets to be found even though the overall tech level is medieval. Most commonly, all Trolls seem to wear gas masks, though it's unclear if they still work or if they're just ornamental at this point.
• Screw You, Elves!: The Rovers' general outlook, which is also shared by Slanter and his Gnomes. In fact, when Wil is leaving Shady Vale, Flick warns him that this sentiment is just about the only thing the other races all have in common.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Dagda Mor and his army of demons are sealed away by the Ellcrys. The tree dying is slowly unleashing them on the realm.
• Seers: Bandon was born with the ability to see a vision of the death of anyone he touches. This has not led to a very happy life for him.
• Self-Defeating Prophecy: Bandon sees visions of people's deaths, but it is possible for him to keep them from coming true. In episode four he sees Catania being stabbed to death by the Changeling, but when the time comes he pushes her out of the way of the knife and she lives.
• Sequel Hook:
  • At the end of the last episode of the first season, Eretria has been captured by Trolls and brought before... someone whom she apparently recognises, Wil is heading back to Safehold to look for her, Allanon predicts that while the Dagda Mor is gone his actions have unleashed many unrelated evils, and Bandon has stolen the Warlock Lord's sword and is looking over the Dagda Mor's abandoned camp with scary all-black eyes.
  • At the end of the second season, Wil is stuck in the Forbidding, or a similar place, and clearly needs saving.
• Sexual Karma:
  • Good people tend to have healthy relationships and satisfying sex lives while villains are either perverts (Cephelo), sexual deviants (The Dagda Mor), or romantically frustrated (Bandon).
  • Played With in the Betty and Veronica Love Triangle in season 1. "Bad" girl Eretria flirts and seduces Wil early on and they go at it for around an hour of great sex and he is completely spent the following morning, showing she's great in bed, but the scene is portrayed in a non-romantic manner as it happened almost entirely off-screen and she only did it to trick him, leaving him in the morning after while taking the Elfstones with her. Meanwhile, when "good" girl Amberle has her Pre-Climax Climax with Wil, this is portrayed in a romantic Idealized Sex manner, with the scene showing them making love while triumphant music plays and followed by them happily cuddling under the bedsheets in the aftermath.
• Shapeshifting Seducer: The Changeling turns into Amberle and kisses Lorin to make him drop his guard before killing him.
• Sherlock Scan: Amberle and Eretria both do a quick one on each other. Amberle notices that Eretria doesn't have a wedding band, so she cannot be meeting her husband as she claims. Eretria returns the favour by noting that Amberle bears the royal crest of the Elves, which could be worn by a princess but not the simple teacher she claims to be.
• Shirtless Scene: Wil constantly finds himself in situations that require him to take off his shirt, roughly Once an Episode. Bandon's shirt also comes off a lot, though the circumstances tend to be a lot less sexy.
• Shout-Out:
  • In "Chosen", Allanon warns Wil that "Magic always comes with a price."
  • In "Utopia some of the characters use an ancient movie projector to watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (Paramount, owners of the Star Trek franchise, also owns MTV.)
  • The big man with the burned face that Eretria meets in the Utopia infirmary looks suspiciously similar to Sandor "The Hound" Clegane from Game of Thrones.
  • The Shannara books are considered archetypes of Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game-style fantasy (people of different races with different abilities coming together for a quest). The blue objects Amberle recovers from the school that resemble the Elfstones are in fact the same type of multi-sided dice that RPG players use.
• Sigil Spam: The griffin is the symbol of the Elven royal family, and the Elves put it absolutely everywhere, to the point that there's hardly a scene set in Arborlon where one isn't visible in the background. Same with the capital of Leah in S2; their archer statues are all over the place.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The series can generally be found somewhere on the middle. Most people genuinely mean well or at least have sympathetic motivations for what they do. However, good intentions definitely do not always lead to good results, and heroic characters frequently make mistakes or let themselves be deceived by their passions. On the flipside, trying to be cynical and look to the greater good can also backfire terribly on you, making it never quite clear what the right thing to do is in any given situation.
• Slippery MacGuffin: Wil cannot seem to hold on to the Elfstones for any amount of time without him dropping them or them becoming stolen. He does develop some Genre Savviness about this fact over the course of Season 1, though.
• Slipping a Mickey: Eretria's favorite trick is to offer her marks a goblet of wine or water with drugs in it, and rob them blind at her discretion while they're unconscious. Amberle doesn't fall for it and throws it on her instead.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: This trope is unexpectedly played straight when petite Eretria is given a massive 3,000 year old revolver, which she proves very adept with.
• Spikes of Villainy: Very much present among the demon army.
• Swiss-Cheese Security:
  • The Royal Palace of Arborlon has serious security problems. Leaving aside the admittedly shapeshifting demon that is able to infiltrate it, the Gnomes have successfully carried out assassinations in its halls in the past and Eretria is able to waltz in with little effort.
  • The Royal Palace of Leah isn’t any better. Eretria also has little trouble getting in and the Crimson are able to kidnap Allanon right off the royal stables without anyone being the wiser.
  • Queen Tamlin and her head guard had dealings with the Crimson so it's not hard to think the Crimson could kidnap Allanon.
• Taught by Experience: After being robbed of the Elfstones numerous times by Cephelo and Eretria, Wil switches them out for dice and let's Cephelo see where he put the pouch, so when Cephelo inevitably steals it, he ends up stealing the worthless dice.
• Time Skip: One year passes between the end of season 1 and the start of season 2.
• Threesome Subtext: Both Amberle and Eretria are in love with Wil, who himself loves and cares deeply for both, though he can't seem to decide which one he wants to be with. Meanwhile Amberle and Eretria slowly but surely become very good friends, which added with Eretria's bisexuality has earned them their own form of Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Eretria, who's a tough Action Girl in masculine clothes, vs her girlfriend Lyria, an elegant princess who wears beautiful dresses.
• Torture Technician: Remo. He claims to have once served King Eventine in this capacity, but at the time of the series, he just does it for his own amusement.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Utopia. The people there are happy, idealistic, productive, fun-loving and have all sorts of neat scavenged technology... and make a monthly Human Sacrifice to the local Trolls as part of a peace treaty with them. They also hate Elves an awful lot, but they don't make a secret of that part.
• Trailers Always Spoil: In Episode 6, Allanon is apparently killed and his body burned to ash. It's a powerful moment, but it would be more convincing if the trailer for the season as a whole hadn't featured him prominently.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: It's not clear how much time has actually passed between Amberle leaving her home and later returning. Several times in both seasons characters will need to get from one place to another... and usually arrive quickly in what should have taken a day or several.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Most episodes have two or three plot threads taking place in different locations, usually being resolved or at least coming to a head by the end of the episode. It crosses into Third Line, Some Waiting at times when one or more characters are off one their own doing things that don't immediately affect the main plots.
• The Unfair Sex: At one point, Eretria accuses Wil of being a typical man by seducing her and then throwing her aside after he got what he wanted. What actually happened was that she seduced him by claiming she wanted to change her ways (and implying strongly that having a good guy like him in her life would make that possible for her), then stole the Elfstones and sneaked out while he's still sleeping. When she got caught, she rubbed their night together in Amberle's face in front of Wil, ensuring that Wil's and Amberle's already rocky relationship got even rockier. She's probably just doing it to mess with his head, though. There's also an undertone of her being genuinely jealous of whatever's between Wil and Amberle and resentful of being treated like "the other woman" in that Wil lied to Amberle about how Eretria got hold of the Elfstones, as if he were hiding an infidelity from his girlfriend... but regardless, she really doesn't have the moral high ground in the situation.
• Uniqueness Decay: In Season 1, magic is so rare that most people don't think it exists anymore. In Season 2, it's so common that there's a fanatical crusade going on to stomp out its use. ^note Possibly justified in that it may be only the public perception of magic's uniqueness that's changing, and it's possible that there was always more of it around than people wanted to believe in Season 1, and that the fear and paranoia brought on by the war against the demons then caused people in Season 2 to persecute perfectly normal people as "magic users." Lampshaded by Jax at one point.
  Jax: Ever since the demons showed up, everybody with a party trick is coming out of the woodwork.
• Unnecessary Roughness: During the test to become one of the Chosen, some of the participants will try to take out the competition by assaulting them.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The Four Lands are confirmed to be Western North America 3,000 years After the End, but the precise locations aren't made clear. The ruins of the Space Needle are visible at one point, placing Arborlon and Shady Vale near Seattle, but later episodes indicate Safehold is located in the ruins of San Francisco, even though the characters haven't been traveling long enough to cover the 850 miles between the two places. This is justified by the Great War having caused massive tectonic shifts, reshaping the world drastically.
• White-and-Grey Morality: While there are a few truly black-hearted fiends around, most of the major characters have sympathetic motivations but also often conflicting opinions and desires.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Using the Elfstones during the War of the Races apparently gave Wil's father Shea some sort of brain damage. We don't get any details on what was wrong with him, but Flick says he was "never the same" afterward, and the general opinion in Shady Vale was apparently that he had become a lunatic. This later gets subverted in Season 2, where it turns out that what really drove Shea crazy was the guilt of having failed to kill the Warlock Lord Deader than Dead.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Season 2 shows that while the Elves won the war against the Dagda Mor, a year later they're still suffering the effects in the form of an empty treasury and hordes of refugees whose homes were destroyed by the demon army. The crown's weakness and the widespread suffering has also caused the rise of a rebellious faction that persecutes magic users as scapegoats for the war and is plotting to overthrow the government.
• The Worf Effect: Used quite extensively in "Wraith" to show off the prowess of the new seasonal villains (and one new Anti-Hero).
  • If Jax defeating a bunch of Rovers effortlessly wasn't enough to establish him as a seriously tough customer, him laying Eretria out with a single punch should do the trick. She makes a slightly better showing of herself when they meet the next time, but he still proves able to get the better of her even when he starts out with her knife at his throat.
  • Riga turns out to be skilled enough to take out Allanon on his own in only a few seconds. True, being immune to magic helps, but Allanon has always been shown to be a great fighter even without magic.
  • Bandon deflects Wil's attacks with the Elfstones almost contemptuously. In this case, however, it's possible that Worf Had the Flu, since Bandon comments that Wil has gotten "rusty."
• Your Eyes Can Deceive You: The competition to become one of the Chosen involves racing through the forest between the Royal Palace and the Ellcrys blindfolded and with your hands tied behind your back, so the participants must rely on their other senses to complete the course. You might also have to fight the other competitors while you're at it.

---