Skulduggery Pleasant/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • If Valkyrie didn't ask Caelan to drink her blood, he may have never gotten that obsessive.
  • Melancholia. Was she driven crazy by Craven or was she always a homicidal maniac? Or did she just go Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers?
• Awesome Ego: Skulduggery.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Tesserect is given a rather poignant final moment at the end of Mortal Coil.
  • Scapegrace gets this when the White Cleaver beheads him. Hilariously subverted, since he doesn't actually die.
• Anvilicious:
  • Religious fundamentalists and cults are bad. However, while most of the religious people in the books are freaking insane, Valkyrie's family is Christian and a big deal isn't made out of it.
  • The War On Terror thing.
  • There are some Randian/Objectivist themes, though they're somewhat more subtle.
  • Landy obviously thinks that the relationship between Bella and Edward in Twilight is dangerous and unhealthy and viciously satirises it.
• Complete Monster: Quite a few. There's Nefarian Serpine, Baron Vengeous, Dreylan Scarab, Dusk, Mevolent and Davina Marr. The Faceless Ones make them all look like pretty nice guys.
• Crazy Awesome: Skulduggery refuses to give an answer on whether or not he is insane. Making that decision, he says, is the job of a psychiatrist. He is not a psychiatrist; he just punches people.
• Die for Our Ship: Fletcher is considered by some Valduggery shippers to be either a complete moron or evil incarnate. Caelan on the other hand, is mercilessly mocked by just about everyone. Including the author.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Almost every single non-main character counts, although Ghastly and Sanguine seem to be the most popular.
• Foe Yay: China Sorrows and Eliza Scorn.
• Holy Shit Quotient:
  • Towards the end of Dark Days, it starts trending upwards and just keeps going.
  • Death Bringer. That is all.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • China Sorrows is a prime example of this trope. And in heels too!
  • She gets outplayed by Eliza Scorn in book six.
  • Nefarian Serpine.
• Narm Charm: A chunk of the series has some of this starting out due to rampant Awesome McCoolname syndrome, though justified because everyone chooses their own name. The names "Valkyrie Cain" and "China Sorrows" sound more like Dick Tracy characters, but they make it badass. And the name Lord Vile sounds really Narm-y... Then you get to the end of Mortal Coil and you see Skulduggery break down at the sight of him.
• Squick:
  • It's a piece of Hollow Man skin - in your hair.
  • Remnant Tanith and Billy-Ray Sanguine kissing. Valkyrie certainly seems to think so.
    • Even moreso when you think about it. Sanguine had a very creepy thing for Tanith for a while. Now, he's got an evil, possessed, fully consenting Tanith. God help the poor thing if/when she comes out of this stupor.
  • On a somewhat more light hearted note, Valkyrie flirts with a guy at the Requiem Ball. What she doesn't realise is that she has his drunk father's vomit in her hair.
  • Lord Vile sticking his thumb in Darquesse's eye.
  • The end of Death Bringer has Valkyrie biting that... thing to get it off her while they try to get away from Lord Vile. Even Melancholia stops being mean to her for a moment.
• Wangst: Caelan, although it's quite deliberate.
• What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: This series is advertised for children 9 and up. This would utterly shock the people who have read the series without knowing this.
• The Woobie:
  • Fletcher in Death Bringer.
  • Ryan.