Codex Alera/YMMV

"Bernard: "Anyone could have done it.""
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Twice.  And the second time is more surprising:
 * Complete Monster: Generally one of these per book. Starting off with Kord,, Brencis,  , and Lady Antillus, who comes along with the First Aleran specifically to try to organize Max's death  . But the prize has to go to Lord Kalarus, who   And honestly, that's just the top of the list.
 * Just to make things a bit worse, that girl he holds hostage to make her mother ? He also used the same girl as hostage against a prisoner's good behavior - a High Lady is too powerful to be credibly threatened by soldiers or gargoyles, so instead, if the High Lady made any escape attempt, the little girl would be the gargoyles' primary target. But anyway, that's not the part a bit worse. The part a bit worse is,.
 * It would probably not be unfair to speculate that Kalarus considers the day wasted if he hasn't found at least three dogs to kick or otherwise violate before lunch. It's up to the reader to decide where he finally crosses the Moral Event Horizon, but he's undeniably beyond it by the time all is said and done.
 * And Fidelias's help, as well as threatening to kill a High Lord, a defenseless young woman, and a little girl (and this is all before she got taken by the Vord). . And Navaris, who tries to kill Tavi the minute he doesn't comply with her orders, and seems to get orgasmic pleasure from killing people.
 * Brencis Minoris. For the first 4 books, he does quite a few sinister things, but we didn't know how much of it was his father's influence and violent temper exerting control over him. Then in Princeps' Fury  What. A. Bastard.
 * Crazy Awesome: Tavi. I mean, good lord. He stops in the middle of a battle to sit in front of the gates and play chess with the enemy commander.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: Many over the course of the series.
 * Any and all of Tavi's tactics as captain in the third book, take your pick from
 * Most of Tavi's actions in books three and four count, actually. Particularly when he
 * When he, the earth shook and the sky turned red. The reader knows that's because  , but as far as the characters know it's because he's just that awesome.
 * He thinks something like, "I have no idea what that is, but there's no point letting it go to waste, is there?"
 * It did add something to the delivery, after all.
 * Amara
 * Bernard
 * Book 6: Lots of them: Starting with when
 * Or how about this scene in the climax of book five. Tavi needs boats. He doesn't have any boats. So instead, he.
 * Isana is not exactly a fighter. Which makes her when cornered in the sixth book that much more awesome.
 * Bernard taking down with one (slightly modified) arrow.
 * Bernard taking down with one (slightly modified) arrow.

""I saw an earth fury that looked like a gargant bull knock down a building being used to shelter orphaned children. I saw a pregnant woman burned to black bones by a fire fury. I saw an old woman dragged down into a well by a water fury, her husband holding her wrists the whole way. He went with her." She paused, musing over the placid, inflectionless calm of her own voice, and added, "The second minute was worse.""
 * And then High Lord Cereus tops Bernard by doing the same thing.  Manly Tears.
 * One word:.
 * On a Meta level, Jim Butcher for writing a series based on the concept of Pokémon and making it awesome. (And on a bet no less.)
 * Crowning Moment of Funny - Has its own page.
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming - Has its own page.
 * Evil Is Sexy:
 * Brencis. When the person who you've kidnapped and are about to rape notices how handsome you are, I believe you fufill this trope (though the mind control collar helped).
 * The Vord Queen, considering she looks like a green Kitai.
 * Fan Nickname: The Vord Queen is HIB-- short for 'Her Imperial Bugginess'. Lady Aquitaine is TEBI-- short for 'That Evil Bitch Invidia.' Ehren is often referred to as "the crowbegotten Batman."
 * Magnificent Bastard: Gaius (who's basically Dumbledore without the facade of eccentric senility) and Lord Aquitaine are both solid examples.
 * Moral Event Horizon:
 * Brencis, son of High Lord Kalarus into slaves for the Vord.
 * Kalarus pole-vaults over it and keeps running. No second crossing.
 * Nightmare Fuel
 * The Vord, especially in the second book, before we know much about them. Also the discipline collars and Lord Kalarus's Immortals.
 * The Canim are pretty creepy when they're introduced in Academ's Fury, though they become significantly less so as Tavi (and by extension the reader) becomes more familiar with them. The Ritualists are still fairly disturbing, though, even the decent ones- Blood Magic and all.
 * In First Lord's Fury, Amara serves us up this gem, noting that she seems to be in shock:


 * HSQ: Trends steadily upward over the course of the series, until it takes up the majority of the entire final book.
 * Nightmare Retardant - Intentional. At the end of First Lord's Fury, Ehren reads Tavi a series of reports saying that unrest has arisen between
 * Stoic Woobie: Araris seems to get injured a lot, and that's not even counting his motivations behind his alternate, Obfuscating Stupidity persona. But he really doesn't show his emotions to anyone but Isana, and that's after some serious empathic prodding.
 * Tear Jerker: Damn you, Jim Butcher, for making us go all sniffly over
 * Too Cool to Live: in book 1, and   in book 5.
 * Uncanny Valley: Most of the Vord Queen's attempts at acting human in the final book fall squarely into this, particularly her little "dinner parties" with Invidia.
 * The Woobie: Rook gains a lot of sympathy points once we find out her motivation and past.
 * The Woobie: Rook gains a lot of sympathy points once we find out her motivation and past.