Chronicles of Thomas Covenant



The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a fantasy series written by Stephen R. Donaldson that tends to lean far toward the cynical side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.

Thomas Covenant, a bitter, divorced leper shunned by his community due to his illness, finds himself transported into a fantasy world called rather unintuitively "The Land" where the (good, nice, hospitable) people treat him as The Chosen One, tell him that the wedding ring he still hangs to is a magical artifact of unparalleled power, and expect him to save the world. Covenant, however, refuses to play along, insisting that the fantasy world is All Just a Dream. It does not help that the highly competent main villain, Lord Foul, is usually several steps ahead of the good guys.

At first, Covenant is convinced that it is All Just a Dream. This does not really change, but he eventually decides that it is a dream he cares about. In the first three books, the author makes certain that the reader cannot decide whether or not it really IS a dream. The corruption of The Land could be a subconscious metaphor for Covenant's corruption by leprosy. It also seems suspicious that The Land is rather simplistically detailed for such a dark series -- perhaps because it is All Just a Dream and the dreamer is not a fantasy writer. Oh, and it starts when Covenant is hit by a car and falls unconscious. On the other hand, it is far more vivid, lengthy, and elaborate than any dream should/could be.

The second trilogy more or less confirms that no, it is not All Just a Dream, by adding another main character who joins Covenant. What the Land actually is, however, is left up to the reader.

The series tends to have much more character-driven writing than other High Fantasy stories, and delves pretty deep into the psychology of its characters. Now has a Character Sheet in need of Wiki Magic.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever:
 * Lord Foul's Bane
 * The Illearth War
 * The Power that Preserves

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant:
 * The Wounded Land
 * The One Tree
 * White Gold Wielder

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant:
 * The Runes of the Earth
 * Fatal Revenant
 * Against All Things Ending
 * The Last Dark (forthcoming)


 * Aerith and Bob: Mostly strange-sounding names, with a few ordinary ones mixed in. The ancient and revered High Lord Damelon Giantfriend is succeeded by High Lord Loric Vilesilencer, and he in turn by High Lord... Kevin.
 * After the End: The second trilogy. And the third. Sort of.
 * Agent Mulder: Hile Troy.
 * Agent Scully: Linden Avery.
 * All Just a Dream: In the first trilogy, Thomas Covenant is convinced "The Land" isn't real. At the end of it, Covenant decides that whether or not it's "real" doesn't matter; if it is a dream, then his dreaming it makes it real and something that's worth protecting. The Land's reality, or lack thereof, is no longer important in the second and third series.
 * Donaldson removed an entire chapter from The Illearth War because it was the only chapter in the entire first trilogy that wasn't from Thomas' eyes. It can be read in his Daughter of Regals anthology.
 * All Powerful Bystander: The Creator.
 * All Up to You: In the first chronicles lots and lots of people tell TC this; he reacts poorly.
 * Always Chaotic Evil: Several races at first, but the Last Chronicles subverts this by having them some of them turn good, and revealing that none of them were originally evil. Lord Foul on the other hand, definitely evil. With a capital E. Heck, with a capital V, I and L too. And the Ravers may actually be worse.
 * And I Must Scream: An interesting subversion (?) in which.
 * Played straight when possessed by Ravers. Linden is not only forced to watch the Raver control her, but the Raver loves to taunt her while possessing her.
 * Another Dimension
 * Anthropomorphic Personification: Lord Foul and the Creator are either this for the Cosmos, or for aspects of Thomas Covenant's soul. The Last Chronicles reveals that one more also exists,
 * Egad Holmes! As aspects of TC's soul/life that makes perfect sense! The creator is his nice, author, pre-leprosy life, Lord Foul is his reaction to and life with leprosy, and
 * Anti-Hero: Thomas Covenant, starting out as a Type i in our world becoming a Type V  then settling down in the second trilogy as a Type III. Linden also starts as a Type I an ends as a Type III.
 * Artifact of Doom: The Illearth Stone
 * The Atoner: Vain, for the entire ur-vile race.
 * Awesome McCoolname: The High Lords, given title surnames based on their greatest deeds, combined with Aerith and Bob tendencies. By the way, the "Kevin" mentioned above is more formally known as Kevin Landwaster.
 * Back From the Dead: The cave-wights in the second chronicles are trying to do this to Drool Rockworm. He would've come back wrong if they had succeeded.
 * Badass Army: The Bloodguard.
 * Bad Moon Rising: Drool Rockworm's corruption of the moon from the first trilogy.
 * Batman Gambit: Covenant's plan at the end of White Gold Wielder only works because he knew that
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: What happens to Lord Foul at the end of the second trilogy is deliciously ironic. Lord Foul's goal throughout the first two trilogies was to obtain Covenant's White Gold wedding ring, so he could use its power to destroy The Land and escape. At the end of the second trilogy, Covenant seeks out Lord Foul for a final confrontation, but, to the amazement of everyone watching, Covenant simply
 * Because Destiny Says So: Almost everyone TC meets expects great things from him due to to ancient prophecies and such-like.
 * Bee-Bee Gun: in the second trilogy, on of the Raver-possessed Sunbane victims chucks a spider at Covenant; earlier a Raver had possessed a swarm of wasps and stung him half to death.
 * Beneath the Earth: Most evil stuff comes from here, The Illearth Stone, the cavewights and ur-viles, the Lurker of the Sarangrave, but that changes as the series goes on. Eventually good things come from here too.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: The Lost Ones, Giants who were stranded from their homeland. They're exceedingly gentle, but look out if they get mad.
 * Big Bad: Lord Foul, who is more like the Biggest Bad; each series has lesser BigBads
 * Big Bad Duumvirate: In the Third Chronicles, Foul has teamed up with . From his prior behavior, though, it's clear that the Despiser doesn't play well with others...
 * Big Badass Wolf: Kresh are the bad kind.
 * Black Eyes of Evil: The Harrow
 * Black Magic: The Illearth stone and the vitriol that Ur-viles use
 * The Blank: The Sandgorgons have no facial features.
 * Blessed with Suck: Esmer, son of a Haruchai and one of the, can wield enormous power but he's always got to betray somebody.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: The Finnish version of Lord Foul's Bane.
 * Blood Magic: The Sunbane.
 * Body Horror: Illearth soldiers, Sun Bane touched, Fertile Sun.
 * Butterfly of Doom: Time travelers must be careful in order not to cause an end of the world by changing the past.
 * The Call Knows Where You Live: And it does not forget. Even when Covenant Answers the Call, it continues to abuse his loved ones just for the hell of it. The Call lets Covenant off the hook exactly once, for a short time, because he was trying to help a girl in the "real" world who was bitten by a rattlesnake.
 * Except for that one time, though, the Call is a real bastard, even to Linden Avery, who, unlike Covenant, never refused the Call in the first place. In the second book, it's revealed that the Call knows your telephone number. In the Final Chronicles, the call shoots Jeramiah and Linden with bullets. The call is more of an asshole than Lord Foul!
 * Came Back Wrong:  in Against All Things Ending is revealed to have come back... slightly damaged.   Naturally, this causes   no shortage of angst.
 * Kevin Landwaster, hoo boy.
 * Catch Phrase: Covenant has many, including (in no particular order): "Hellfire!", "Don't touch me!", and "Nerves don't regenerate." During the first book, he often silently castigated himself with the phrase "Leper! Outcast! Unclean!"
 * Chekhov's Armoury: Covenant's Batman Gambit at the end of White Gold Wielder was founded on the breaking of the Law of Death four books earlier - itself caused by his crossing of the Moral Event Horizon in the book prior to that - and You Can't Fight Fate established five books earlier, with a dash of the You Are Not Ready that pervades the entire series. Not even Lord Foul, eternal Chessmaster, saw it coming.
 * The Chessmaster: Lord Foul, the Creator, the Elohim- pretty much every major power has some sort of long-term plan going.
 * The Chosen One: Though he eventually gets the job done, Mr. Covenant may be the crappiest Chosen One ever. Thomas is a deconstruction of the trope, and the author has confirmed this.
 * In The Power that Preserves, the in-world Creator tells Covenant that he was picked as the Chosen One specifically because he would be bad at it; if the Creator had sent someone to The Land who was not so unheroic, cynical, selfish, uncaring, and just plain stubborn, that person would have easily been pushed past the Despair Event Horizon by Lord Foul.
 * Vain and Findail, the latter of which is utterly depressed at his fate.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - Esmer, quite literally.
 * Collapsing Lair: Foul's Creche is destroyed in Covenant's first confrontation with the Despiser.
 * Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Evil is red, black, or unnatural green; Good is blue, gold, brown, or natural green; The morally unaligned wild magic is white.
 * Comes Great Responsibility: Covenant hates responsibility. Especially responsibility that doesn't exist.
 * Conservation of Ninjitsu: Inverted.
 * Cool Horse: The Ranyhyn; these are horses that can hear someone whistling for them in the future.
 * Corrupt Hick: Sheriff Lytton in the "real" world.
 * The Corrupter: Lord Foul. It's one of his many names names, even. He doesn't just like ruining things forever, he also loves doing it to people. High Lord Kevin and his Ritual of Desecration are his crowning achievements.
 * Cosmic Keystone: The Staff of Law, by its' very existence, supports and upholds the Law -- the natural order, the rules governing the Universe as a whole. When the Staff was destroyed, the Law was severely weakened, which enabled Lord Foul to remake the Law as he saw fit.
 * Also, white gold is specifically called 'the keystone of the Arch of Time'. Guess what Covenant's wedding ring is made of?
 * Cruel Mercy: In The Illearth War, people are paying all of Thomas' bills so he has no reason to enter town. His lawyer calls it "black charity" and is thoroughly pissed.
 * Cryptic Conversation: Numerous throughout the series; for example, Esmer often has to have these with Linden due to the conflicting nature of his obligations and lineages.
 * Amok from the second chronicles is another great example.
 * Cult: A group of cavewights at the end of the first trilogy form one to try and bring  back to life. There is also one in our world in the second trilogy that worships Foul
 * Curse Escape Clause: Kasreyn has to insert a "flaw" into every spell of his. Because of the nature of things, nothing truly perfect can exist. Any perfect spell would just fail. The implication is most spell casters are not good enough to manage perfection, so to them this does not matter. But Kasreyn has to insert flaws deliberately because he is just that good.

This is why Kasreyn is after Covenant's ring. Kasreyn uses pure gold to cast his spells. Because white gold is an alloy and thus "impure," it satisfies the "flaw" requirement and Kasreyn could use it to create perfect spells.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: When Linden cures The Land with the new Staff of Law, she notes that even Pestilence has its own place in the natural order.
 * Vane also qualifies.
 * Deconstruction: The books are mostly a straight, if dark, High Fantasy, but Covenant himself is a deconstruction of the Chosen One, Messianic Archetype, and related tropes.
 * Demonic Possession: The modus operandi of Ravers. In the Second Chronicles, it turns out that  can do this as well. In the Last Chronicles, various powers can possess Anele depending on what he is standing on. As one of these powers is Lord Foul, "demonic" does not quite cover it.
 * Turned right back on one Raver when the free Sandgorgon Nom takes advantage of a Seareach Giant's Heroic Sacrifice to 'rend' the immortal possessing spirit, literally shredding its spirit and learning the mind-speech of the Haruchai in the process. (justifiable as said Raver has possessed a Haruchai on at least one occasion.)
 * Designated Hero: Done deliberately. The people of The Land are in desperate need of a hero, and they tend to treat Covenant like one in spite of the way he actually acts. Indeed, one of the main thrusts of especially the first trilogy is exploring the idea of what happens when the Messianic Archetype is really a self-hating jerk.
 * Despair Event Horizon - High Lord Kevin steps over it in the Backstory. The same later happens to and .   Lord Foul likes pushing people beyond this in general.
 * Deus Angst Machina: Even when Covenant tries to play along/do the right thing/just not hurt anyone something bad still happens. Sometimes it's his fault, sometimes it's not.
 * Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Covenant in White Gold Wielder.
 * Doom Magnet: Covenant may as well trail black cats, swarms of locusts, and hordes of plague rats everywhere he goes for all the good his presence does a town.
 * Doomed Hometown: Mithil Stonedown, Soaring Woodhelvenen to a lesser extent; still doomed but not a 'hometown' for the characters. It was more a place of refuge and respite on the road. But still doomed.
 * The Dragon: Gibbon na-Mhoram. Ravers in general.
 * Either/Or Prophecy: The prophecy of the white gold wielder is one of these; "With one word of truth he will either save or damn the Land."
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Worm of World's end, a mindless creature that lives at the heart of the planet and could destroy it by the act of waking up. Trying to get it to wake up is often part of Lord Foul's scheming, particularly . Linden Avery the Chosen may have   at the end of Fatal Revenant.
 * Elemental Powers Stone and wood powers are prominent, but there are more.
 * Emotions vs. Stoicism: A major theme.
 * The Empath: A common power, but Linden in particular counts. In the first chronicles everyone is pretty much one of these, being able to sense the emotions of other as well as the general health and rightness of the world around them.
 * End of the World Special: At the end of the second chronicles, Linden gets one of these due to both her role as The Empath and the fact that she's between the Land and our world.
 * Energy Beings: The Elohim and the Viles
 * Establishing Character Moment: Lots of these.
 * Evil Eye: The Harrow, oh so very much.
 * Evil Gloating: Lord Foul is very much into it, among others.
 * Evil Minions: Cavewights for sure, ur-viles kinda.
 * Evil Overlord: Lord Foul plays it straight. Another evil overlord that appears in "The One Tree" is something of a deconstruction: he's an evil overlord, yes, but he's basically a frail and sex-crazed senior whose real power comes from his alliance with an Evil Sorcerer.
 * Evil Sorcerer: Kasreyn is the Evil Sorcerer mentioned above, who is played straight.

Drool Rockworm is a Cavewight from the first book, who thinks he can use the Staff of Law and the Illearth Stone to become one of these. In truth, they're both far more powerful than he is and almost literally eat him up. . Depending on how far you're willing to stretch the term, all ur-vile loremasters and members of the Clave, as well as some Insequent, could count as well. "And these were only the nearest entrancements. Other sights abounded: grand statues of water; a pool with its surface woven like an arras; shrubs which flowed through a myriad elegant forms; catenulate sequences of marble, draped from nowhere to nowhere; animals that leaped into the air as birds and drifted down again as snow; swept-wing shapes of malachite flying in gracile curves; sunflowers the size of Giants, with imbricated ophite petals. And everywhere rang the music of bells -- cymbals in carillon, chimes wefted into tapestries of tinkling, tones scattered on all sides -- the metal-and-crystal language of Elemesnedene."
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You have three guesses as to what kind of guy Lord Foul the Despiser is. The first two don't count.
 * Also, the vortex of trepidation. "What will it do?" "It will make us afraid!"
 * Executive Meddling: The title Lord Foul's Bane was created by Lester Del Rey, Donaldson's editor. Donaldson's original title for the book was Foul's Ritual. Also, the second chronicles was intended to be a quartet, but Del Rey insisted on a trilogy.
 * Expansion Pack World: The second trilogy expanded the map from the first one quite significantly.
 * Fantastic Fragility: Wild magic can destroy the Arch of Time; Earthpower is not inherently bound by the Law, so unwise use of Earthpower can actually destroy natural laws.
 * The Fair Folk: The Elohim, in addition to being mind-numbingly incomprehensible and powerful, believe that everything happening in The Land is a reflection of their own inner problems, and adjust their arrogance accordingly.
 * Flat Earth Atheist: Keeping an iron grip on his survival disciplines is the number one priority for Tom. He feels he simply can't make any admissions to the "magic" that he keeps seeing, or it'd undermine his sense of reality and necessity.
 * For the Evulz: Lord Foul wants to destroy the world so he can escape from the Arch of Time, but it is pretty heavily implied that even if he did not have to escape, he would destroy the world anyway out of sheer sadism.  The Rsavers as well.
 * Functional Magic: Earthpower is a combination of the theurgy, rule magic, and force magic. The facets of earth aren't quite sentient as we know it, but they do respond and cooperate when properly asked/manipulated.
 * Gambit Pileup: Things get pretty convoluted in the Last Chronicles.
 * Gentle Giant: Foamfollower is introduced as this.
 * Ghibli Hills: Andelain, oh Andelain.
 * Glamour Failure: More than a couple supernatural beings are succeptable to this, but the most obvious is a person posessed by a Raver, who has a veritable laundry list of dead giveaways.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Lord Foul and the Stonewights. Lord Foul's have a penchant for appearing by themselves, in classic "formless evil" fashion. Stonewights are just crazy and evil.
 * God of Evil: Foul, again.
 * God's Hands Are Tied: The Creator exists and is good, but he cannot get into the Land himself without letting Foul out. As a result, he works through agents like Covenant and Linden, and usually appears to them as an old man before they are transported to the Land.
 * Good Samaritan: The Healer of Morinmoss.
 * The Grotesque: Pitchwife is a painfully deformed giant who still manages to be irrepressible and charming.
 * Grumpy Bear: In the first trilogy, Thomas Covenant is determined to be miserable no matter how wonderful a place he finds himself in, acting as though he expects things to go to hell any minute now. Partially subverted in that the Sugar Apocalypse really is just around the corner, but, unlike the people around him, Covenant is unable to enjoy the good times while they last.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: Esmer is half-Haruchai half-merwife. The merwives themselves are half-human half-Elohim.
 * Harbinger of Impending Doom: If a certain old man comes to you in "The Real World", look out. You're about to be teleported away to another world that is in deep, deep trouble.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: There are a lot of these throughout the series; as an example, in the first chronicles on the Hirebrand of Revelstone throws himself into a magic trap to prevent High Lord Prothal from dying.
 * Hollywood Tactics: Hile Troy's battle plan in the Illearth War.
 * Honor Before Reason: Linden points out to The Masters that they have neither the numbers nor the strength (not without Earthpower, which they can't use) to defeat Foul and staying their current course is basically suicide by degrees. Their response to Linden is basically, "...Shut up."
 * The Haruchai in general embody this to the point of sadomasochism.
 * How Do I Shot Web?: Covenant does not learn to control wild magic until the final book of the Second Chronicles.
 * Idiosyncratic Cover Art: See the picture at the top of the page.
 * I Have Many Names: Lord Foul. Parodied in the first book, where Covenant asks Lord Foul what his name is: Lord Foul the Despiser, The Grey Slayer, Fangthane the Render, Satansheart Soulcrusher, Corruption, and A-Jeroth of the Seven Hells. After that list of names he then proceeds to hit Covenant with 'We are not so different, you and I...'
 * Implacable Man: Two of them: One as an inscrutable, passive follower, and one as a raw, violent force of nature.
 * Innocent Bystander: Soaring Woodhelvenen, the whole town.
 * Inverse Law of Utility and Lethality: Linden's healthsense starts like this but she learns to use it for good.
 * Jerkass: Plenty of them, especially Covenant in Fatal Revenant. Thomas also qualifies in the first trilogy.
 * Kill It with Fire: Comes in many different flavors and alignments.
 * Kill It with Water: In-universe, this represents a profound violation of natural law, requiring some sort of eldritch catalyst to be possible in the first place. So it follows that the villains would be eager to make use of this trope with Illearth Stone in hand.
 * Knight Templar: The Masters made all of the right deductions and came to all of the wrong answers.
 * Last of His Kind:
 * Left Justified Fantasy Map: Averted with the Land
 * Living Lie Detector: Throughout the books, when people have a direct connection to Earthpower they can see health, feel Law, and hear falsehood. Kinda trippy, but in a good way.
 * The Magocracy: The Land in several eras, Brathairealm too although Kasreyn is an eminence grise rather than an outright ruler.
 * The Magnificent: Covenant is the Unbeliever and White-Gold Wielder; Linden Avery is the Chosen.
 * Covenant is, in fact, "Ringthane and White Gold Wielder, Ur-Lord Illender, Unbeliever and Prover of Life".
 * Mama Bear: Linden Avery, in the third series.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * Thomas Covenant comes from the Biblical "Doubting Thomas" and the Old/New Covenant.
 * Lord Foul the Despiser; doesn't get more meaningful than that.
 * This is the Giants' naming convention, i.e. Saltheart Foamfollower. They do state their true names are unutterable in normal tongue.
 * Mind Rape: This plus Demonic Possession is the main shtick of the Ravers although Lord Foul does it occasionally. His brand of Mind Rape is usually more metaphorical; he likes to manipulate you into mind-raping yourself.
 * Mismatched Eyes: The Mahdoubt has one blue eye and one orange one.
 * Mordor: The area around Lord Foul's home.
 * Mutants: The magically created sort.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Lord Foul the Despiser.
 * Narnia Time: The time difference between the Land and the "real world" seems to be "Whatever is narratively convenient."
 * It's stated in Runes of the Earth that it's roughly one day in the "real world" to one year in the land. Which works, as in the First and Second Chronicles no character is in the Land for more than a few months, or unconscious in the other world for more than a few hours.
 * Nature Spirit: The Forestals and the Wraiths; the Ranhyhn to a lesser degree.
 * Near Villain Victory: The First Chronicles has it close. The Second Chronicles has it even closer.
 * Never Got to Say Goodbye: Linden sobs at the end of White Gold Wielder that she never got to say goodbye to Tom (or her father) after Tom's Heroic Sacrifice.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lord Foul's ability to alter the Law-- the natural order, or the rules that control the way the universe works-- is ultimately a result of Covenant destroying the Staff of Law.
 * Linden's  in Fatal Revenant has an unintended side effect - it   Oops!
 * Not So Different: Thomas  Lord Foul in White Gold Wielder when he realizes that Foul is the embodiment of his own self-disgust, in a sadomasochistic ying-yang relationship: Thomas is self-hate while Foul is hate.
 * Obstructive Zealot: The Masters. All of them.
 * Oh My Gods: "Stone and sea!" is what the Giants use. "By the Seven" and "Melenkurion Abatha" from the Lords and peoples of the Land.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: Lord Foul wants to destroy the Arch of Time in order to escape it, which would mean The End of the World as We Know It. Kastenessen is a more straightforward example- he just wants to set everything he can on fire.
 * Omniscient Morality License: The Elohim think they have one and behave accordingly.
 * Our Mermaids Are Different: The merewives are very different.
 * Our Souls Are Different: They are stars apparently. Although that might just part of the creation myth.
 * Our Time Travel Is Different: To travel through time, one has to unceremoniously jab holes in the last 'Law' still holding reality together.
 * Parental Incest: Elena and Covenant. Elena seduces Covenant almost as soon as he appears in the Land again. It's almost as though she's had a crush on her mysterious white-gold-wielding other-worldly father for awhile. Thomas eventually accepts her advances, though nothing is implied beyond that...
 * Path of Inspiration: The Clave and its Rede although it didn't start out that way.
 * Phlebotinum Overload: In AATE,  blows up after consuming Earthpower.
 * Physical God: Lord Foul, the Elohim, and possibly the Forestals.
 * Pillar of Light: At the end of the first trilogy.
 * Planet of Hats: All the main races are rather hatty- the Land's humans are all The Messiah, the Giants are jovial but Badass, the Ramen all love the Ranyhyn, the Insequent are wizards who Walk the Earth, the Elohim are incredibly arrogant and think they have an Omniscient Morality License, the Waynhim are The Atoner, the Cavewights are Axe Crazy Mooks, the ur-viles are enigmatic sorcerers, and the Haruchai are stoic proud warriors. Of course, there are exceptions to all of these.
 * Power Glows: Check, most of the time it's also Color Coded for Your Convenience as well.
 * Power Nullifier: Esmer by his mere presence to Linden's use of wild magic.
 * Power of Trust: The entire theme of the second trilogy. Linden has the power to use The Ring without disrupting the Arch of Time, while Thomas can't because of the venom in his body. Everyone, and we mean everyone, wants Linden to take the Ring from Thomas and just destroy Foul. Linden finally seizes the Ring from Thomas at the Grand Finale - but gives it back to Thomas to give to Foul, after he wordlessly asks with a look, "Do you trust me?"
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: One of the defining traits of the Haruchai.
 * Pure Magic Being: The Elohim in the second trilogy are Earthpower incarnate.
 * Purple Prose: Author Donaldson loves him some archaic adjectives. Just take this lovely (infamous) piece of English as an example. It doesn't often get worse, but it IS consistently around that level.

"Do not hurt when holding is enough
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Normally all you can see of Lord Foul are his glowing yellow eyes, though it's implied he can take any shape he wants
 * Refusal of the Call: Covenant does it once to save a little girl in his world.
 * Findail doesn't want to be
 * Samaritan Syndrome: Covenant finds out the hard way that this trope is in force.
 * Scars Are Forever: Covenant lost two finger on his left hand, which helps sell the people of The Land that he's the Chosen One, since his disfigurement matches that of their most legendary hero.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: Lord Foul. The entire fantasy world is his can, and he wants out.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The narrator. Donaldson will never say "silver" or "strength" when he can say "argent" or "puissance". The people of the Land speak this way as well, to contrast with Covenant and Linden's more familiar speech patterns.
 * Speak of the Devil: The case with the Sandgorgons.
 * Spell My Name with a "The": All of the Insequent are like this -- the Vizard, the Ardent, the Harrow, the Mahdoubt, the Theomach.
 * Stable Time Loop: Done rather well in the third chronicles; the characters are even Genre Savvy about it.
 * Stock Evil Overlord Tactics: Lord Foul has used most of the list at some time or other. The major exception is the time travel section since time travel works differently in this series.
 * The Stoic: The Haruchai, an entire race of them. Unusual in that their outward unflappability is simply a manifestation of their deeper passions.
 * Vain in the Second Trilogy, who only speaks once in the series, as he's about to be.
 * Suck Out the Poison: Covenant does it in the first chronicles when he does a Refusal of the Call, Linden does it in the second chronicles after TC gets attacked by Raver-Marid.
 * Sugar Apocalypse: When The Legions of Hell attack Ghibli Hills, the result is not pretty.
 * Summon Everyman Hero: Definitely what happens to TC.
 * Supporting Leader: Both Hile Troy and Lord Mhoram
 * The Maker: The Creator.
 * The World Is Always Doomed: Just about the only time anyone from our world gets summoned to the Land is when it's in peril.
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The Masters' attitude towards Foul. To the point where they bar the use of Earthpower, which they are incapable of using.
 * Time Travel: Done in the third chronicles to great effect.
 * Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Oath of the Land subverts and plays with the ideal of Thou Shalt Not Kill, and takes it further:

Do not wound when hurting is enough

Do not maim when wounding is enough

And kill not when maiming is enough

The greatest warrior is he who does not need to kill"


 * Too Happy to Live: Pondered by Covenant in Lord Foul's Bane. He believes that he had a lifetime's worth of laughter before he was diagnosed with leprosy.
 * Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Anele
 * True Name: First, the Sandgorgons, who are summoned and proceed to break stuff in a big way whenever their names are uttered, and then more traditionally with the Insequent.
 * Turncoat: Esmer, whose very nature prevents him from ever offering any aid without simultaneously backstabbing someone.
 * Unreliable Narrator: The first trilogy was always from Thomas' point of view, leaving the question open of whether The Land was a dream, a psychosis or real. In fact, Donaldson removed an entire chapter because it would have spoiled the fact that everything is real by virtue of the fact that Thomas was not in it. (It was reprinted in Daughter of Regals.) The subsequent trilogies didn't keep up the pretense.
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Done a few times throughout the series, White Gold Wielder takes the cake though since its done in-universe as well. TC won't tell anyone what he plans to do with his ring when he gets to Lord Foul.
 * Well, he admits he plans to give the ring to Foul. He just asks Linden to trust him.
 * Up the Real Rabbit Hole: TC does this a lot in the first chronicles but he treats the Land with greater respect as the series progresses.
 * Utopia: The good guys in the First Chronicles.
 * Victim Falls For Rapist: Played for Squick, and possibly Deconstructed as well.

She does seem to recover her senses.
 * The Villain Makes the Plot: Done rather well; Lord Foul is a Big Bad for the whole series but each chronicle, and sometimes each book, have their own villain. As the series progresses the villains evolved with the heroes.
 * Villains Act, Heroes React: Oh yah, big time. It's one of the strengths of Foul's plans.
 * Villain with Good Publicity: the Clave
 * Walking the Earth: This is like a hat for the Insequent.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Those members of the Clave who think they're moderating the Sunbane, rather than making it worse. Those in the know are straight Evil Sorcerers.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Linden Avery is just full of this to the point of being an Author Avatar admonishing his own characters. However, due to Covenant being a self-absorbed Jerkass who think The Land is All Just a Dream, he gets it roughly every 20 pages in the first trilogy. Especially and deservedly after his rape of Lena.
 * Wild Card:

Towards the end of Fatal Revenant, Linden is this in relation to the Elohim, Insequent and other major players in the Land. She's gained a ton of power but no one knows what she's going to do with it.
 * Wild Magic: Covenant's white gold wedding band is a source of powerful wild magic. The trick being figuring out how to use it without breaking the Arch of Time.
 * Will Not Tell a Lie: Lord Foul, though this is more about arrogance than honesty- he thinks he doesn't need to lie to win. The scary thing is, he's mostly right.
 * Witch Species: The Insequent are all magic-users of great power, though they're not as good as the Elohim. Probably because the Insequent have to learn their powers while the Elohim are power incarnate.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Drool Rockworm, though as a Cavewight he was already pretty crazy by most peoples' standards. Also, carrying around a chunk of the Illearth Stone for an extended period of time is not advisable for your mental health.
 * The Unfettered: The Unfettered
 * Word of God: Donaldson spends a lot of time answering reader questions on his Gradual Interview
 * Words Can Break My Bones: The Old Lords learned seven words of power, but the New Lords had forgotten some of them.
 * The World Tree: The One Tree. One of its branches was used to make the first Staff of Law.
 * Xanatos Gambit: Everything Lord Foul does ever is a Xanatos Gambit. You can fight him or you can refuse to fight him, avoid his traps or walk right into them, but no matter what you do, he wins.
 * Xanatos Planned This Index: By this sixth book, pretty much every tactical trope had appeared, and there are yet more and more Xanatos Gambits being started up in each subsequent book. If it's in that index, it is in these books. Played by Covenant, by Mhoram, by Lord Foul, and by The Creator.
 * You Are Not Ready: The danger of "unearned power" is a reoccurring plot point.
 * Highlighted by Elena learning the Seventh Ward of Kevin's Lore before anyone had learned the Third Ward and beyond. She uses it to resurrect Kevin Landwaster, and things go about as bad as expected.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: One "law" of traveling between The Land and the "real world" is that you will leave The Land in exactly the same physical condition in which you enter it. If you, say, have a broken leg when you enter The Land and then it heals when you are inside, something will happen to cause that leg to break again. Also, each time Covenant enters The Land, Lord Foul tells Covenant a prophecy about his future.
 * Findail tries this. He fails.
 * You Know the One: Anele speaks like this in his less-than-lucid moments.
 * Your Head Asplode: The horrible death of  in AATE.