Inheritance Trilogy/Characters
Unmarked spoilers ahead.
The Three
Yeine Arameri
"I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore. I must try to remember."
An Action Girl from a Barbarian Tribe called to participate in a clan succession ceremony, who ends up embroiled in the affairs of gods.
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: To Sieh? Through... soul replanting...?
- Action Girl
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: "Having sex with Nahadoth at night gets people killed? I've gotta try that!"
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Takes on Enefa's powers and goddesshood.
- Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?
- Dead Person Conversation: With Enefa.
- Deity of Human Origin
- Divine Date
- Fish Out of Water: In Sky.
- Green Eyes: Part of her "looks like Enefa" package.
- Halfbreed: Half Darre, half Amn.
- The Hero Dies: ... but embodies the cycle of life and death, and pops back to life.
- Hot Amazon
- Inner Monologue: The viewpoint character for book one.
- Interspecies Romance
- Mama Bear: Sieh notes that Enefa was less maternal than Yeine, whose maternal instinct is so strong that she, as a human girl, attacks a god to protect Sieh.
- Polyamory
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone
- Promotion to Parent / Parental Substitute
- Proud Warrior Race Guy
- Sanity Slippage: As a result of her two souls.
- Save Your Deity
- Women Are Wiser
Nahadoth
"Here, fueled by the residue of ancient devotion, he showed me all he had once been: first among gods, sweet dream and nightmare incarnate, all things beautiful and terrible."
Our Hero… Heroine… Err… the oldest of a Power Trio of deities, enslaved by his brother and forced to serve a human family. Nahadoth is a god (most of the time) of darkness, change, and chaos.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With
- And I Must Scream: Being imprisoned in Sky.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Not that he's evil.
- Dark Is Not Evil
- Different As Night and Day: With Itempas.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Ultimatum to Shadow.
- God in Human Form
- Mr. Fanservice:
"Face like the moon, pale and somehow wavering. I could get the gist of his features, but none of it stuck in my mind beyond an impression of astonishing beauty. His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition."
"When heavy, thick warmth pushed into me, I had no idea whether this was a penis or some entirely different phallus that only gods possessed. I suspect the latter, since no mere penis can fill a woman’s body the way he filled mine. Size had nothing to do with it."
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: To a human body during the day.
- Jerkass Gods
- Living Emotional Crutch: He's Itempas's main one.
- Mad God
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant
"And then the face shifted again into something that in no way resembled human, something tentacled and toothed and hideous, and I screamed. Then there was only darkness where his face should have been, and that was most frightening of all."
- Offing the Offspring: The demon holocaust.
- The Older Immortal
- Parental Favoritism: Sieh notes that he's prone to playing favorites.
- Papa Wolf / Knight Templar Parent: Comes out strong in book two when godlings start dying, and in the backstory of Nahadoth going on a mad genocidal killing spree to take out the demons.
- Parental Incest
- Person of Mass Destruction: Even with his powers bound, he sinks an entire continent. He was trying for the whole world.
- Physical God
- Polyamory
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow
- Really Gets Around
- Sibling Yin-Yang
Itempas (Shiny)
“I am all knowledge and purpose defined. I strengthen what exists and cull that which should not.”
Our Whackjob, one of the three creator deities, who killed his sister to have sex with his brother forever, and spends the second book facing the consequences. Itempas is a god of light, order, and stability.
- Abusive Parents: To the Enefadeh.
- Bi the Way
- Break the Haughty
- Brother-Sister Incest
- Brought Down to Normal
- But Now I Must Go: Bye, Oree!
- Character Development: He's bound as a human so that he'll change for the first time.
- Clingy Jealous Girl
- Dark and Troubled Past
- Death Is Cheap: His human form regenerates whenever he dies. He commits suicide routinely.
- Death Seeker: "Yes, I think I will slit my wrists after making dinner tonight!"
- Defrosting Ice Queen
- Descend From a Higher Plane of Existence
- Different As Night and Day: With Nahadoth.
- The Don: In book three. You could even call him the Godfather.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Embarrassing Nickname: Shiny, Shiny, Shiny.
- Emergent Human
- Mr. Fanservice
- Eyes of Gold: Though they're brown once he turns human.
- Flying Dutchman
- Forgets to Eat
- God in Human Form
- God Is Evil: Or...
- God Is Flawed
- Go Mad From the Isolation: Very, very fast.
- Grow Old with Me
- Hot God
- Humanity Ensues
- Incest Is Relative
- Interspecies Romance
- Jerkass Gods
- Jerkass Woobie: In book two.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- Light Is Not Good
- Love Makes You Crazy
- Love Makes You Evil
- Love Redeems
- Miles to Go Before I Sleep
- Misery Builds Character
- Murder the Hypotenuse
- Mysterious Past: The reader knows it, but Oree is in the dark about it for a large chunk of the book.
- New Child Left Behind: Slightly messed with in that Tempa and Oree's daughter, Glee, chases her dad down and stays with him.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Book one plays up the drama that the Stone of Earth kills the sacrificial Arameri who picks it up. But Itempas kills Yeine before she can pick it up, and the Stone, and because it embodies the power of a goddess of the cycle of life and death, it actually revives her.
- Papa Wolf: Like Nahadoth, Itempas shows this most strongly when godlings start dying.
- Polyamory
- Pride
- Redemption Equals Sex: Thanks for the book three opening quickie, Yeine!
- Redemption Quest
"You will serve, not a single family, but all the world. You will wander among mortals as one of them, unknown, commanding only what wealth and respect you can earn with your deeds and words. You may call upon your power only in great need, and only to aid these mortals for whom you hold such contempt. You will right all the wrongs inflicted in your name."
- Reformed but Rejected: Nahadoth and Yeine initially bound Itempas to wander as a human until he corrected all the wrongs done in his name or found love. But when he found love in ten years, they decided he hadn't suffered enough and sent him back on the road.
- Even after Tempa cries for Sieh's death and is given his powers back, Yeine and Nahadoth still don't like him.
- Sibling Yin-Yang
- Single-Target Sexuality: In contrast to Nahadoth and Enefa, who took loads of human lovers, Itempas is so content with the OT3 that he only takes two human lovers in all of history, and those only when Nahadoth and Enefa (or Nahadoth and Yeine) abandon him.
- The Stoic
- Someone Has to Die: Is planning to go out saving the world from the God Mask and the Maelstrom, hitting notes of Face Death with Dignity and Redemption Equals Death in the process.
- Super OCD
- Took a Level In Kindness
- Top God: During book one.
- White-Haired Pretty Boy
Enefa
“She killed things all the time, Yeine. She was death as well as life, the twilight along with the dawn. Everyone forgets that.”
Our Dead Girl, the dead third creation deity. Enefa was the goddess of twilight, life and death, and balance.
- Abusive Parents: To Kahl.
- Brother-Sister Incest
- Dark Secret: Kahl.
- Dead Person Conversation
- Green Eyes
- Hot Scientist
- Incest Is Relative
- Mother Nature, Father Science: Averted hard. Nahadoth and Itempas are emotional forces of nature, while Enefa is the steel-hearted scientist who creates life and offs imperfect experiments as she sees fit.
- Parental Incest
- Posthumous Character
- Women Are Wiser
Godlings
General Godling Tropes
I had not met many godlings at that point, but anyone who dwelled for long in Shadow learned this much: they drew their strength from a particular thing—a concept, a state of being, an emotion. The priests and scriveners called it affinity, though I had never heard any godling use the term. When they encountered their affinity, it drew them like a beacon, and some of them could not quite help responding to it.
Our Divine Supporting Cast.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With
- Big Screwed-Up Family
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Averted. Turns out they don't even like having worshippers that much.
- The Mafia: In book three.
- Parental Incest: Everywhere!
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old
- Tangled Family Tree
Sieh
Madding sighed. “Mortal languages don’t have words for this. He… lives true. He is what he is. You’ve heard that saying, haven’t you? It’s more than just words for us.” I had no idea what he was talking about. He saw that in my face and tried again. “Imagine you’re older than this planet, yet you have to act like a child. Could you do it?”
Impossible to even imagine. “I… don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Madding nodded. “Sieh does it. He does it every day, all day; he never stops. That makes him strong.”
Our Trickster, a lesser deity imprisoned alongside Nahadoth. Sieh is the god of childhood.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Eventually becomes an actual god, and makes a new Three along with Shahar and Dekarta Arameri.
- Break the Haughty: This happens a lot in book three.
- Calling the Old Man Out
- Creepy Child
- The Dutiful Son: Thinks of himself as this, while looking down on all the godlings who didn't stick by Nahadoth during his imprisonment.
- Even the Guys Want Him
- Green Eyes: To honor Enefa.
- Growing Up Sucks: Especially if you're the god of childhood and have to experience puberty.
- Fantastic Racism: Aside from children, Sieh doesn't have a very high opinion of mortals, albeit with good reason.
- First-Person Smartass: In book three.
- Happily Adopted: By Yeine.
- Has Two Mommies: Yeine and Enefa. Also, two daddies—or one daddy and a Naha.
- Heroic Sacrifice
- I Miss Mom
- Immortal Immaturity
- Inner Monologue: Book three's viewpoint character.
- Interspecies Romance: With Shahar and Deka in book three.
- Jerkass Gods: Look at the choice he tries to force on Shahar!
- Kids Are Cruel
Sieh chuckled. “Of course I’m sorry, Lil. Do I look like the kind of person who would hold a grudge? That would be petty of me.”
“Petty,” agreed the blonde woman, “and childish and cruel. Does his suffering please you?”
“Oh, yes, Lil. It pleases me very much.” Not even the pretense of friendliness this time. There was nothing in that boyish voice but sadistic relish.
- Made a Slave: Thanks to Parental Betrayal
- Man Child
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It turns out that Sieh played his own unwitting part in starting the Gods' War by lying to bring Itempas home to Nahadoth and Enefa, never considering what his abandonment would do to Shahar Arameri's none too stable mind.
- Offing the Offspring: To Kahl.
- Parental Incest: With Nahadoth and Enefa; notably never with Itempas.
- Rapid Aging: This happens in book three, where there are several instances when Sieh ages decades in a matter of hours.
- Sand in My Eyes
- Trickster Archetype
- Voluntary Shapeshifting
- What the Hell, Hero?: At times it seems like everyone is saying this to Sieh in book three.
Hado/Ahad/Beloved
“Once upon a time, there was a god imprisoned here. He was a terrible, beautiful, angry god, and by night when he roamed these white halls, everyone feared him. But by day, the god slept. And the body, the living mortal flesh that was his ball and chain, got to have a life of its own. It wasn’t much of a life, mind you. All the people who feared the god did not fear the man. They quickly learned they could do things to the man that the god would not tolerate. So the man lived his life in increments, born with every dawn, dying with every sunset. Hating every moment of it. For two. Thousand. Years. Until suddenly, one day, the man became free.”
Our Sort-Of-Clone, a human body with its own personality that comes to life by day and keeps Nahadoth’s godly power imprisoned. Spends book two confusing the hell out of Oree, and book three taking not a little pleasure in both tormenting Sieh and sending him on errands.
- General, and shared with Nahadoth:
- In book one:
- Born Into Slavery
- Gollum Made Me Do It: Routinely "wakes up" to find himself next to the bloody remains of people Nahadoth slaughtered at night.
- Jerkass
- Involuntary Shapeshifting
- Living Bodysuit
- Sex Slave
- Slave Collar
- Super-Powered Alter Ego
- In book two:
- Ambition Is Evil: In book two, Hado tells Oree that he infiltrated the New Lights in order to become an Arameri full-blood so he could eventually become the family head and rule the world. Oree is horrified.
- The Casanova
- Deep-Cover Agent
- Dragon with an Agenda
- Going Native: Boy has he picked up on the Arameri social-climbing, power-hungry, ambitious tendencies. Although, see below...
- High-Class Call Girl
- In book three:
- Abusive Parents: We learn that, in his very early developing years, Ahad regarded Sieh as a father figure. Let us just say that Sieh did not live up to that image very well.
- Always Save the Girl
- Badass Long Hair / Cultured Badass: The badass doesn't come out until Glee is hurt.
- Beta Couple
- Defector From Decadence: Of a sort. He grew fed up with living in Sky due to its continued corruption...so after having an affair with T'Vril's wife and collecting his reward for doing so, he now runs an elaborate brothel. And lounges around smoking cheroots.
- Everyone Is Related: To be fair, it's a logical extension of sleeping with half of Sky before he left to join the mob.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Two thousand years of emotional fuckitry at the hands of the Arameri drove him to nihilism, apathy, and general hatred, preventing him from realizing that his divine affinity, and the thing he should be drawing power from, is love.
- Generation Xerox: Sort of! Nahadoth's strange child and Itempas's daughter seem like their Opposites Attract romance will play out better than Naha and Tempa's did. (And hey, Ahad is a doppelganger of Nahadoth's Sky form while Sieh calls Glee "Itempas made over with breasts.")
- Happily Never Married: With Glee.
- I Will Protect Her
- Kissing Cousins: Or should it be Incest Is Relative when a girl hooks up with her uncle's clone?
- Lap Pillow
- Love God
- Mayfly-December Romance: Again with Glee, although she's unusually long lived for the 'mayfly' part of the equation.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: He's a pimp.
Kahl
I will not be a slave to fate. I will embrace it, control it. I will be what I wish to be.
Our Long-Lost Relative and Big Bad all in one; spends book three gearing up to take his revenge on the parents who abandoned him. And since he's a Godling of Vengeance, that's a very big revenge indeed.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Sees Sieh as Archnemesis Dad and Enefa as the Evil Matriarch.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You: For a start, Mummy made him forget he even sired you.
- Final First Hug
- Freudian Excuse: He was left alone and abandoned in a void for millenia, after all.
- Luke, You Are My Father: To Sieh.
- Mommy Issues
- Offing the Offspring: Ultimately an offee.
- Patricide: Attempted.
Miscellaneous Godling Tropes
- The Big Girl: Zhakkarn.
- Horror Hunger: Lil.
- Mayfly-December Romance: Madding and Oree.
- Racist Grandma: Kurue, who hates mortals with reason.
- Scaled Up: Kitr turns into a snake.
- War God: Zhakkarn of the Blood.
Arameri
General Arameri Tropes
“Like our ancestress Shahar, we Arameri are first and foremost the servants of Itempas Skyfather. It is in His name that we have imposed the age of the Bright upon the world. Peace, order, enlightenment. Itempas’s servants do not use, or need, weapons. Tools, though…”
Our Ruling Clan, which unofficially controls the world from the city of Sky.
- Big Screwed-Up Family
- The Beautiful Elite
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
- The Clan
- Dysfunctional Family
- Humans Are the Real Monsters
- Incest Is Relative
- Made a Slave: The Arameri central family forces distant relatives to serve in Sky.
- Propaganda Machine
- Stealth Insult
- Tangled Family Tree
- Wicked Cultured
T’vril Arameri
“Not only has my cousin forgotten that Bright Itempas no longer rules the gods, but she has also forgotten that we Arameri now answer to several masters rather than one. The world changes; we must change with it or die.
Our Recurring Side Character, a high-ranking Arameri servant in book one who is running the world by book two.
- Cold-Blooded Torture
- The Good Chancellor
- Good Is Not Nice
- Halfbreed: Half Amn, half Ken.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: In-universe. He has a one-night stand with Yeine, but just can't compare to Nahadoth. Also a Romantic Runner-Up.
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- Royals Who Actually Do Something
Viraine Arameri
“But at least I still have a soul. What did you trade yours for?”
To my surprise, Viraine’s glee seemed to fade. He looked down into the pit, the gray light making his eyes seem colorless and older than Dekarta’s. “Not enough,” he said, and walked away.
Our Court Mage who facilitates a certain web of lies, and is keeping someone secret.
Kinneth Arameri
Once upon a time there was a little girl whose father murdered her mother. Then she set all her mind and heart and formidable will on vengeance… because that is what a daughter does when her mother has been murdered.
Our Heroine's Dead Mom, who actually kicks off the plot.
- Daddy Issues
- Defector From Decadence
- Mama Bear
- Mommy Issues
- The Paragon Always Rebels
- Rebellious Princess
High Priestess Shahar Arameri
The child was mad, of course. Later events proved this. But it makes sense to me that this madness, not mere religious devotion, would appeal most to the Bright Lord. Her love was unconditional, her purpose undiluted by such paltry considerations as conscience or doubt. It seems like Him, I think, to value that kind of purity of purpose—even though, like warmth and light, too much love is never a good thing.
Our Crazy Priestess, a fanatical follower of Itempas who is at least partially responsible for everything bad in the series, and imposed the Itempan Church on the world two-thousand years before The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
- Activist Fundamentalist Antics
- Black and White Insanity
- Founder of the Kingdom: A Broken Pedestal example.
- High Priest
- Knight Templar
- Living Emotional Crutch: To Itempas.
- Offing the Offspring
- Posthumous Character
- Self-Made Orphan: At the very least, we know she killed her dad.
Lady Shahar Arameri
I am Shahar Arameri, and I am alone.
First of Our Messianic Twins, who manage to form a friendship with Sieh despite the fact that they're the heirs of the family who tortured him for two thousand years. They both also love him passionately - yes, like that - which both creates a OT3 and causes a whole lot of joy and grief.
- Altar the Speed / Wartime Wedding: Rushes to marry Datennay as a Hope Spot in face of The End of the World as We Know It.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence
- Angsty Surviving Twin
- Decoy Protagonist: The blurb on the back makes her sound like the main character, while she actually gets shunted aside 260 pages in.
- Deity of Human Origin
- Interspecies Romance
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Their reality altering powers mean that, in making a blood oath to get Sieh to be their 'best friend forever,' they unwittingly made him mortal. Oops.
- Pimped-Out Dress
- Rebellious Princess
- Royals Who Actually Do Something
- She's All Grown Up
- Sibling Triangle
- Sleep Cute
- Spirited Young Lady
- Stalker with a Test Tube
- Twin Desynch
- The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask
Dekarta Arameri
"But I will not be nothing to you, Sieh. And if I must change the universe to have you, then so be it." He smiled again, tight, vicious, beautiful. Terrifying.
Second of Our Messianic Twins, who manage to form a friendship with Sieh despite the fact that they're the heirs of the family who tortured him for two thousand years. They both also love him passionately - yes, like that - which both creates a OT3 and causes a whole lot of joy and grief.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence
- Badass Bookworm
- Deity of Human Origin
- Interspecies Romance
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Their reality altering powers mean that, in making a blood oath to get Sieh to be their 'best friend forever,' they unwittingly made him mortal. Oops.
- Sibling Triangle
- Sleep Cute: Sieh spies on them
- Twin Desynch
- The Unfavorite
Miscellaneous Arameri
- Bondage Is Bad: How do you know Scimina is evil? Because she keeps Nahadoth's human form on a Slave Collar all the time.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Remath.
- Rich Bitch: Scimina.
- Twincest: Relad prefers women who look like his twin sister.
Others
Oree Shoth
"I am, you see, a woman plagued by gods."
Our Redemption Love Interest, a blind painter with a unique magical talent who finds an undead man in her dumpster.
- Blind Seer
- December–December Romance: Mixed with Mayfly-December Romance. By the time Itempas comes back to her she's well over a hundred even if she doesn't quite look it. This doesn't matter to Itempas, but he does alter his visible form to look substantially older in order to match.
- Disability Superpower: Can see magic.
- Divine Date: With both Madding and Shiny!
- God Was My Co-Pilot: Until Madding drops The Reveal about "Shiny." Subsequently, Pals with Jesus.
- Inner Monologue: Book two's viewpoint character.
- Interspecies Romance: Two of 'em.
- I Will Wait for You: This is hinted at the end of book two, but she vehemently denies doing so at the end of book three. Itempas comes back for a Grow Old with Me anyway.
- Living Emotional Crutch: One of Itempas’s.
- Locked Out of the Loop: About the true identity of "Shiny."
- Love Father, Love Son: Inverted! Madding dies and she hooks up with his dad!
- Mayfly-December Romance: She and Madding break up because of it. It doesn't stop her from having a relationship with Itempas.
- Meaningful Name: Maroneh girls have sorrowful names and boys have vengeful names because Nahadoth sank their homeland.
- Milky White Eyes
- Morality Pet: To Itempas.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: Oree's narration goes out of its way to let you know that she didn't kiss Madding until the second date.
- Restored My Faith in Humanity: For Itempas.
- Save Your Deity: It's Oree's magic that loosens Nahadoth and Yeine's chains on Itempas's powers long enough for Itempas to beat down Dateh.
- Someone to Remember Him By: “The Broken Kingdoms” is a story Oree is telling to Itempas’s daughter, Glee, in the womb.
Glee Shoth
For just an instant, her eyes seemed to flare red-gold like a struck match. "I have spent nearly the past century trying to keep this world from falling apart," she snapped. "I'm not a god. I have no choice but to live in this realm, unlike you. I will do whatever I must to save it -- including working with godlings like you who claim to despise Itempas, though in reality you're just as selfish and arrogant as him at his worst!"
Our Daddy's Girl, the daughter of Oree and Itempas. The mediator between her father and her lover Ahad (who don't really like each other, for some reason) and one of the leading figures in the attempts to find out just who is causing unrest in the kingdoms.
- Action Girl: When the going gets tough, she won't hesitate to fight to the death.
- Berserk Button: Don't threaten her daddy, or she will summon a sword of order and come after you. And yes, you should be scared.
- Beta Couple
- Dating What Daddy Hates / What Does She See in Him?: Daddy and mommy disapprove of Ahad.
- Generation Xerox
- Guardian Entity: With hints of Battle Butler, Number Two, and Hypercompetent Sidekick as she travels around protecting her daddy, hiding him from attackers, and ensuring that the Arms of Night act according to his wishes.
- Human Mom, Nonhuman Dad
- Hot Chick with a Sword: Uses her daddy's BFS.
- Iron Lady
- Kissing Cousins
- Lady of War
- Meaningful Name: Maroneh girls are customarily given sorrowful names; Sieh even comments on the contrast Glee's name makes.
- Older Than They Look: She looks about thirty. She's actually nearly a hundred, and she's got quite a few years left in her yet.
- Parents in Distress
- Woman in White: In the final battle.
- Wreathed in Flames: With a side of Tranquil Fury.
Dateh
“We demons are the gods’ children, too, are we not? Yet they have hunted us nearly to extinction. How is that right? I say that if they fear us so, we should give them something to fear: their despised, persecuted children, coming to take their place.”
Our Villain, or one of the closest things we’ll have to a straight-up unsympathetic villainous character, who spends book two trying to off stupid sexy Nahadoth.
- A God Am I
- Blood Magic
- Ethnic Magician
- I'm a Humanitarian
- Kill the God
- Rage Against the Heavens
- You Are Who You Eat