Morgaine Cycle

Michael Whelan's cover art for Exiles' Gate

C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle comprises four novels as well as a graphic novel adaptation by Jane S. Fancher of part of the first prose novel. The books are:

• Gate of Ivrel (1976)
• Well of Shiuan (1978)
• Fires of Azeroth (1979)
• Exiles' Gate (1988)

while the graphic novels are:

• Gate of Ivrel: Claiming Rites (1987)
• Gate of Ivrel: Fever Dreams (1988)

The books read like fantasy because they are told from the point-of-view of a samurai-like medieval warrior, Nhi Vanye I Chya (Vanye), and there's much that from his point of view is magic. However, from the point of view of characters from more advanced backgrounds, it's all just technology, albeit of the "indistinguishable from magic" category a lot of the time. The books are tenuously tied into Cherryh's Alliance Union science-fiction universe, although this is a matter of a single quote at the start of the first book and some Backstory in a short story Cherryh published elsewhere (and the graphic novels explicitly state that the task force Morgaine is the last of was sent out on the orders of Ariane Emory herself); it does not actually feature in the story.

Vanye, a fratricide, is exiled as an ilin, roughly a Ronin. Dizzy with starvation in the countryside, he accidentally frees Morgaine, a strikingly beautiful and dangerous historical figure who has been trapped within a Stargate-like Gate for over a century. He makes the mistake of taking food and shelter from her, which according to law makes her his liege-lord for a year's service, which she takes full advantage of. Turns out her mission is to close the Gates, which are messing up time and space, and she uses his service ruthlessly to do so. Each book sees her eventually destroy a world's Gate and use it before it closes up to go to the next world to do the same thing; it's implied that she's been doing this for a long time, and certainly she originally had companions, all of whom have died.

Gate of Ivrel was Cherryh's first published novel and a story she began as a teenager, and for many readers this series is still their favorite work of hers.

Tropes used in Morgaine Cycle include:

• Aloof Big Brother -- While both Erij and Kandrys were tough on Vanye, Erij was generally less harsh than Kandrys. Both of them were bigger as well as being better fighters than he, and he was well aware of these facts. The graphic novel clearly shows Erij telling Kandrys he'd gone too far, just before Kandrys pushed Vanye into killing him.
• Annoying Arrows -- oh so averted. Morgaine is very badly wounded by an arrow in book 3.
• After the End -- the qhal created a catastrophe by using the Gates to travel back in time.
• Bittersweet Ending -- The epilogue of Fires of Azeroth shows the commemoration of Roh's death, several decades after the main story. For all the sense of loss, there's also the fact that they wouldn't be honoring him if he hadn't taken back enough control from the Body Snatcher to live out his life and die peacefully ... which proves he defeated the one who'd "murdered" him.
• Blond Guys Are Evil -- See Fantastic Racism below - Vanye's hair may be brown but it's too close to blond for other Kurshin folk to be comfortable with, so he gets painted with a bit of this brush.
• Body Surf -- Several characters, notably Thiye Son of Thiye, for whom this is a case of Offstage Villainy, though the friendly chap has apparently been doing this to his own appropriately-named descendants. The main instance of this particular subtrope is Chya Zri/Liell/Roh. An interesting variation on this trope is that the Body Snatcher can only abandon their previous body when it's mortally wounded - this is usually self-inflicted and deliberate.
• But Now I Must Go -- An explicit part of Morgaine's mission, really: close the Gates on one world and then move on to the next. Fires of Azeroth ends with this trope actually happening, but the first two books invoke but then subvert it, ending with Morgaine and Vanye pursuing Roh through gates into the next world instead.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder -- almost everybody from Shiuan.
• Cool Gate -- well, they're there, and they do what it says on the tin, but they're not good for you.
• Cool Sword -- the tip of Morgaine's crystal sword Changeling opens a rift in reality which swallows anything it gets near.
• Courtly Love -- how Vanye behaves towards Morgaine.
• Cowardly Lion -- Vanye considers himself to be a coward, and his family agrees. He's also an Action Survivor who spends large sections of each book badly hurt, battered, half-starved and sleep-deprived to a degree that could make Bruce Willis wince, yet kicks numerous shades of butt along the way. After the battle of Nehmin, Morgaine calls him out on this: "Thee? Braid thy hair, Nhi Vanye. Thee's been too long on this road for that."
• Crapsack World -- Most of them. The worst and most hopeless is the setting for the second book, Well of Shiuan, which is sinking into the water; within a generation or two, no land will be left. And this was way before anyone was worrying about rising sea levels and global warming; no Green Aesop was meant.
• Deadly Decadent Court -- the Khal nobility of Ohtij-in. It is implied that the rest of the Shiua courts run much the same way.
• Dirty Business -- Neither Morgaine nor Vanye (especially Vanye) relish the antiheroic actions that become necessary along the way, and they're well aware of how morally objectionable some of these things are.
• Dirty Coward -- Liell.
• Elric of Melnibone -- a clear influence on Morgaine, who is like Elric tall, white-haired and bears a sword that eats people.
  • This has not been lost on cover artists - see page image.
• Fantastic Racism -- the Qhal detest humans, who they spread throughout the worlds of the Gates essentially as a supply of dumb labor. Humans, for their part, detest the Qhal for being their slave-masters. The Qhalur low fertility and thus low numbers mean that in the long run they're doomed, and in several of the worlds, the remaining Qhal are actually mostly only part-Qhal, mostly human crossbreeds who bleach their hair. Meanwhile, even being blond is often enough to get you treated with suspicion among humans, or indeed killed.
• Frickin' Laser Beams -- Morgaine's backup weapon is a small energy-beam pistol. It's a significant marker that she's from a Science Fiction background.
• Grand Theft Me -- can be done with sufficient knowledge of the Gates' workings. One character is taken over by an ancient qhal mind, though his own consciousness still remains inside as well. The same character suggests that Morgaine must have done this in the past, although she denies it, and it seems not to be true given revelations in book 4.
• Grey and Gray Morality -- Almost everybody has understandable albeit not always sympathetic reasons for what they do and which side of the conflict they are on.
• Hero Antagonist --Merir and the Arrha. Morgaine invokes her likelihood of running into this trope several times, notably with her statement, "With devils, there is dealing. Sometimes far easier than with an honest man."
• Heroic Bastard -- Vanye is one of these and due to this fact is treated badly by his father and has some serious Cain and Abel action going on with his two older (legitimate) brothers.
• Heroic Vow -- These are a really important element in the story and in Vanye's characterization due to his Nhi obsession with honor, and when he does something stupid to keep his honor he's generally well aware of the stupidity of what he's doing. Oaths, their making, their consequences and the attendant difficulties, anguish and so on make for some major drama. He, Erij and Roh all have to deal with complications assorted with oaths they have made.
• I Choose to Stay -- Morgaine and especially Vanye want to do this a couple of times, but don't get to. Jhirun and Kithan, however, do. As does Roh.
• I Did What I Had to Do -- Morgaine explains that with the kind of stakes that ride on her quest to close the gates, she can't afford to be kind or honorable.
• Knight in Sour Armor -- Vanye.
• Last of His Kind -- Morgaine is the last of her kind, both in that she's the last survivor of the team that set out to close the Gates, and the last of the pre-Qhal race. Vanye, meanwhile, is the last of his kind once they pass the first Gate except for his cousin, possessed by an enemy.
• Manly Tears -- "Vanye himself wept; a man might, at such a time." When Roh goes free.
• The Magic Goes Away -- Morgaine closing the Gates means that all their power is gone, and all, good and ill, that can be done with them.
• Meaningful Name -- Morgaine, who's named after the sorceress in the King Arthur legends, Morgaine, aka Morgan Le Fay.
• One-Way Trip -- Morgaine is permanently closing the Gates behind her. She says at one point that she doesn't expect she'll ever know that she's shut down the last Gate; she'll just ride into it and never come out anywhere. At least she has no awareness of anything between Gates, so it won't be And I Must Scream.
• Portal Network -- the Gates allow travel between different worlds settled by the Qhal, as well as travel within a world and indeed Time Travel. The latter part is what especially shreds reality, unfortunately.
• Power Limiter -- Changeling's sheath.
• Reasonable Authority Figure -- Subverted in the case of Liell - he looks like this at first but it quickly becomes clear that he's an Evil Chancellor and the Man Behind the Man to the thoroughly corrupt local regime.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni -- Morgaine is the Blue Oni and Vanye the Red Oni, except of course the fact that Vanye is the one bound up by weight of tradition with an Honor Before Reason code of conduct.
• Reset Button -- Morgaine set up a system linked into the Gates so any time Vanye passes through one of them, his body will be returned to the state it was in when she set it up: healthy, rested, well-fed. Evidently her own use of this is why she doesn't need the Body Surf to remain young. Vanye's not entirely happy about this, because he doesn't feel he's reached a man's full growth ... and now he never will. But it saves his life at one point, when he's dying of internal injuries compounded by exhaustion, starvation, and stimulant overdose.
• Ronin -- Vanye, exiled for fratricide
• Royally Screwed-Up -- the Lethen nobility. Kasedre would be The Caligula if he weren't just the latest (hopefully the last) of a line of mad hedge-lords.
• Science Fantasy -- reads like fantasy, but technically science fiction. Laser guns and stargates.
• Self-Made Orphan -- Morgaine claims to have murdered her pre-Qhal father because he raped her mother.
• Space Elves -- The Qhal. Type III before the disaster wiped out their civilization; those encountered in Fires of Azeroth have "matured" into Type II.
• Temporal Paradox -- The Gate network is inherently dangerous for a number of reasons, but the worst is the likelihood of "backtiming" causing extremely dangerous temporal paradoxes and breaking reality. One or more of these were what destroyed the Qhal civilization. Their precursors too
• The Horde -- the Shiua and Hiua refugees. We do get a fairly good look at the personalities and culture of several of the constituent parts of this horde, but the Marshlander rabble don't get much focus.
• There Is Only One Bed -- Vanye would sleep on the floor, but Morgaine puts her sheathed sword down the middle of the bed to divide it in two and insists that they share, because it's important that they both get their rest. Of course, this only makes the sexual tension between them worse.
• Time Crash: The Gates can be used to travel through time. If anyone goes back in time and changes the past, a cataclysmic disaster will happen on each planet with a Gate; this already happened with the Qhal. Preventing this from happening again is what drives Morgaine to shutdown the Portal Network.
• Traumatic Haircut -- Vanye's father hacks off his warrior's braid as an outward and severe sign, easily understood by anybody in Andur-Kursh, of stripping his honor from him and declaring him an outlaw above and beyond just making him swear Ilin-oath.
• The Unfettered -- Morgaine has large helpings of this, though eventually her affection for Vanye begins to erode this.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension -- between Vanye and Morgaine, and how. Unresolved until book 4, anyway.
• Walking the Earth -- The series dwells at length on the difficulties of poverty, hunger, danger and uncertainty inherent to a life living this trope - across multiple worlds. They don't particularly enjoy it, but it's inherent to their quest and, at least initially, their outlawry. When Morgaine and Vanye leave Roh to live in Shathan, she tells him that both she and Vanye will envy him his exile.
• Weapons That Suck -- Changeling, Morgaine's crystal gate-sword.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl -- Morgaine, although she's more White Haired Achingly Beautiful Woman to Vanye, who is overcome from the first. The white hair indicates that she's not fully human, as well; it's one of the ways Qhal blood shows itself, though we find later that Morgaine is actually half-human, half of the lost race that preceded the Qhal.
• Wretched Hive - Ra-Leth. The credits in the graphic novel lampshade this.