Belgariad/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Villain: Pretty common. Asharak, Zedar, and even Torak all get this. In The Malloreon, Eriond retroactively does this for Taur Urgas, noting that he was insane, and that wasn't his fault.
• Complete Monster: Between the betraying everyone who helps her (by breaking their legs and leaving them to be eaten by lions in one instance), kidnapping Garion's son, attempting to start a civil war in the West, successfully starting one in the East, consorting with demons, brain-washing Ce'Nedra, regularly trying to break the rules of Prophecy, cannibalism, cruelty to animals, and standing around naked in front of a toddler, Zandramas really pushes the envelope. That's all on top, mind you, of already being a priestess of a Religion of Evil who liked to cut out people's hearts and bathe in their blood while nude. Even Torak and The Dark Prophecy think she was a psycho.
  • This is heavily implied with Ctuchik in the first series. Torak's other Disciples, Urvon and Zedar are, respectively, insane and being forced into it. Ctuchik on the other hand, chose to serve Torak of his own will, keeps rooms in a tower dedicated to his vices (which include, by the by, Cold-Blooded Torture and some strongly hinted at sexual deviancy which even disgusted Silk), and is consistently built up to be one of the worst human beings to ever walk the face of the Earth. He doesn't really do anything that awful onscreen, but nor does he do anything to dissuade the reader from coming to this conclusion.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Here.
• Crowning Moment Of Funny: So, so many.
• Foe Yay: The paedophiliac undertones to Garion and Chamdar's relationship may or may not have been intentional, but they were effective.
• Fridge Horror: Sorcerers are implied to subconciously choose their appearance, which is why Belgarath looks like a wise old man, and Polgara an attractive young woman. So what does that say about Ctuchik, who looks like the very archetype of the Evil Sorcerer? Likely that he's fully aware of how evil he is, and either doesn't care, or is proud of it.
• Guile Hero: Prince Kheldar, aka Silk (nicknamed bestowed by his classmates at the school for spies, in honor of how smooth he was). Silk almost always has a way to make a chance meeting or bad situation either work for Team Good or hurt Team Evil (usually both at once). Examples are too numerous to mention.
  • Also Queen Porenn, who helps the inexperienced Queen Islena deal with an a usurping priest and get away with it by letting everyone think it was an Achievement in Ignorance. Not to mention the fact she uses the times she feeds her baby (the only time when the spies who watch her don't) to meet with her chief spy. It stands to reason, really, since she's the woman Silk's in love with early in the first series.
  • And surprisingly, Queen Layla, while she's ruling because the King is off with the army. Never underestimate the wiles of a mother.
  • Note also that Silk's father clearly donated his share of Magnificent Bastard genes to Silk. One of his exploits was infiltrating the Murgo King's harem and impregnating one of the Murgo Queens. For extra style points his bastard child ascends the Murgo throne.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Queen Of Sorcery:

"What happened to you leg?" Wolf asked [Reldegen].
"An arrow in the knee." The count shrugged.

• Moral Event Horizon: Zedar is portrayed as having passed this when he kills Durnik. He said was the one thing above all else that he didn't want to do, and it pushed Belgarath's Berserk Button something fierce.
  • Ctuchik crosses it the second he opens his mouth, confirming all the horrible things we've heard about him up to this point. Zandramas crosses it when they find the bones of the men whose legs she broke so that she could leave them for the lions.
• Nightmare Fuel: What Belgarath does to Zedar in the end.
• The Scrappy: Ce'Nedra just barely misses becoming this, and that only because of her Crowning Moment of Awesome above.
  • Although, to some fans the CMOA wasn't enough to save her.
• Tastes Like Diabetes: The denouement of The Malloreon, where everyone pairs off with their Love Interest and has Babies Ever After. Lampshaded by Silk.
• Tear Jerker: Silk's mother issues. Poledra finally being revealed as alive all along. And Beldin's "departure".
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: In The Malloreon, the Big Guy Band from the first series (Barak, Hettar, Relg, Mandorallen, and Lleldorin) spends a significant portion of the story having mainly irrelevant adventures as they try to catch up with the heroes despite Cyradis' warning that it would be fatal to the prophecy. Of course, Fate was having a fun time with them, as situations seemed to conspire to keep them as far away from the heroes as possible until just after it was all over, at which point they were reunited completely unexpectedly.
• Unfortunate Implications:
  • The "evil races" have oriental features. The "good races" tend to be much more European. The Malloreon lessens this by revealing that the Eastern races are much more nuanced than the West believes; it's mainly their God that sucks.
    • That last bit is still unfortunate, given that Eddings lists Islam as one of the influences on the Angarak Fantasy Counterpart Cultures.
  • Also, Durnik is given sorcery so that he will be Polgara's equal, because apparently that's necessary for a relationship (which may or may not be true). However, no mention is made of giving Ce'Nedra sorcery so that she will not be inferior to Garion (and let's not go into the fact that Garion is presumably immortal whereas she will live up to a few centuries, if that long). Of course, Durnik, being Durnik, is highly unlikely to cause problems, whereas giving Ce'Nedra sorcery might not be the smartest idea, but still.
    • Ce'Nedra's much less bothered about the sorcery than about political power, and she does get an upgrade in that area to match Garion. And then shortly thereafter starts using that power. Also, the other dryads are still young at a few centuries. They may last a lot longer, though sorcerers apparently lack any expiration date at all.
    • This just delays the problem, rather than fixing it.
    • Belgarath does say that even sorcerers die, in the end, implying that it's connected to the purpose they have to serve. Given that Garion's accomplished his, maybe his life won't have to be that much longer than Ce'Nedra's.
• The Untwist: Garion being the Rivan King. It's blatantly obvious to everyone except him, intentionally. It's where a lot of the humour in series comes from.
• Villain Decay: Inverted with respect to Ctuchik, who is portrayed by Belgarath as barely competent until the two actually meet face to face, and it turns out that they are nearly equals. Belgarath is possibly an Unreliable Narrator in this case. The prequels also invert this with Zedar. Beyond stealing the Orb and killing Durnik, he doesn't do a whole lot in the main series, but the prequels show why this guy was considered bad news and deserved a Fate Worse Than Death.
• Wangst: Happens all the time to Garion in this series, complete with his Catch Phrase, which becomes a Running Gag: "Why me?" It's intentional, though -- he's a teenager, and there's a lot of questions he has that Belgarath and Polgara simply won't answer. The other characters frequently tell him he needs to get over himself. In the sequel series, which takes place ten years later, he has. He even explains it to Zakath, when he starts in with the same questions, on being told that he'll join the group or die before the end of the year.
• The Woobie: Vordai's purpose in the books is to be a sympathetic character who manages to break through Belgarath's Jerkass Facade. The Arendish serf Lammer serves a similar purpose with respect to making Ce'Nedra and Lleldorin appreciate the plight of the serfs. And then there's the brain-damaged boy with the flute. Zedar is set up to appear as this to an extent, as his only real mistake was in daring to think he could outwit Torak, and the punishment for it was milennia of enslavement to the God's Compelling Voice and, at the end, eternal imprisonment in solid rock.