The Fionavar Tapestry

The Fionavar Tapestry is a trilogy of High Fantasy novels by Guy Gavriel Kay, set partly in our own contemporary world, but mostly in the fictional world of Fionavar.

The trilogy is set firmly and consciously in the Tolkien tradition of High Fantasy. Guy Gavriel Kay has said that one of his motives for writing it was to show that the 'matter' of High Fantasy was deep enough to be used in various original ways, and that the genre did not have to become debased into nothing but pale Tolkien imitations. The Tapestry tells the tale of five young Canadians, Kimberly (Kim) Ford, Jennifer Lowell, Dave Martyniuk, Paul Schafer and Kevin Laine, who are taken to Fionavar, the first of all worlds, by Loren Silvercloak, a mage of that world. Ostensibly invited to come as guests of the court for a celebration of the anniversary of the monarch's ascension to the throne, all five students quickly find that their roles in Fionavar are far more complex than they originally expected.

The book is well known for keeping good track of its Loads and Loads of Characters, drawing a good amount of its themes and setting from Celtic and Norse Myths, as well as Arthurian Legend.

The story is divided into 3 books:

  • The Summer Tree
  • The Wandering Fire
  • The Darkest Road

It is also available in a collected edition.


While most of Kay's other novels are set in the same multiverse as the Fionavar tapestry, Ysabel (published in 2007)is an actual sequel. Set in twenty-first century Provence, twenty-five years after the events of the The Fionavar Tapestry, it tells the tale of Ned Mariner, a Canadian teenager, who find himself involved into an ancient hatred between two cursed souls. With his own second sight barely awakening, and the advice of his aunt Kimberly, who is by then married with Dave (who also appears), Ned has to find a way to free one of his friend who has become a part of the curse, before she is gone forever.

Is now trying to get a character sheet .

Tropes used in The Fionavar Tapestry include:


  • Action Girl: Sharra, Imraith-Nimphais
  • Aerith and Bob: The Five from Earth all have standard modern names while the characters from Fionavar tend to have strange exotic names. However, there are a few characters who have more standard names, like Matt Soren.
  • All Myths Are True with a hearty dose of Crossover Cosmology: Fionavar itself.
  • Exclusively Evil: The Svart Alfar and the Sluaghs.
  • Anyone Can Die: And a lot of them do. Though two of the main characters who die come Back from the Dead.
  • Badass: Diarmund, Aileron, Dave, Torc, Matt Soren, Arthur and then Lancelot and more!
  • Badass Normal: Out of the Five it's Dave. He's the only one that isn't a reincarnation or gains/awakens powers, relying instead on his strength and wits.
  • Back from the Dead: Matt Soren and Paul/Pwyll Twiceborn. Averted by Kevin, Imraith-Nimphais, Diarmuid, Finn and Darien.
  • Battle Royale With Cheese: The final battle in The Darkest Road, and how!
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Jennifer/ Guinevere, The Lios Alfar. Doubly Subverted with Avaia as she is beautiful from far away, but smells foul and has a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
  • Big Bad: Rakoth Maugrim, The Unraveller
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Tegid
  • Break the Cutie: Jennifer/ Guinevere's rape and the subsequent consequences of it.
  • Default to Good: Darien
  • Downer Ending: At least for The Summer Tree. Four out of the five are reunited, only to learn that the fifth is in deep Despair Event Horizon.
  • The Dragon: Galadan, the Wolflord.
    • Dragon with an Agenda: Galadan serves Rakoth Maugrim, but it's made very clear that this is only to advance his personal goal- destroying the world that witnessed the shame of his true love abandoning him for a mortal and then getting herself killed.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: All the characters, but Arthur, Lancelot and Jennifer/Guinevere especially.
  • Evil Counterpart: Galadan is Paul's, just look at their respective backstories.
  • Evil Overlord: Not just an Evil Overlord. The Evil Overlord of all the worlds in the Tapestry.
  • The Fair Folk: Pendaran Wood, Eiliathen, The Wild Hunt.
  • Five-Bad Band: Who else? The antagonists.
  • Five-Man Band: The Five.
  • Gentle Giant: Literally, the Paraiko.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Averted when the protagonists learn that for over a thousand years, every Lios Afar who set sail to the West for their version of heaven... was devoured by a sea monster set to lie in wait for them by the Big Bad. "Most hated by the Dark, for their name was Light."
  • A God Am I: Several of the characters are either gods or demigod offspring of said gods.
  • Handsome Lech: Hands down: Diarmuid (at least until he and Sharra hook up). In a way Kevin Laine could qualify too.
  • Henchmen Race: the Svart Alfar. They are given no origin story, nor an explanation to why they follow the Big Bad without questions - they just do.
  • Heroic BSOD: Jennifer at the beginning of The Wandering Fire.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Let's see...
    • Paul willingly volunteers to hang from the Summer Tree till his death to bring rain to the parched land. (He gets better).
    • Finn, first by leaving behind forever everyone he's ever known or loved, and then by dying as the only way to prevent the Wild Hunt from killing everyone.
    • Kevin willingly sacrifices himself at Dun Maura to enable the Godess to banish Rakoth's winter.
    • Matt Soren allows himself to be drained to the death to fuel Loren's spells on Caer Sedat.
    • Diarmuid, who fights a duel he cannot win to give Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur a chance to change their fate.
    • Imraith-Nimphais, which goes kamikaze on Rakoth's dragon.
    • And last but not least, Darien, who hurls himself on a dagger he had just given his father Rakoth...a dagger enchanted so that anyone who kills with it, if they kill without love, will die.
  • Meaningful Name: Loren Silvercloak, Pwyll Twiceborn. Jennifer also might count since it's the anglicized form of Guinevere
    • Names of creatures also: Lios Alfar and Svart Alfar literally translate to "Light and Dark Elves" in Old Norse.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Rakoth Maugrim, The Unraveler; Galadan, The Wolflord.
    • Note that "The Unraveler" is much more intimidating when you realize that the people of Fionavar refer to the multiverse as "The Tapestry".
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dave nearly pulls this off near the end of the second book, fortunately a Goddess has a thing for him and it worked out.
  • Non-Action Guy: Kevin.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Surprisingly subverted. The one dwarf we meet early on is The Quiet One. When the book finally shows other dwarves, they are excellent craftsmen, and they solve their conflicts through a debate known as a Word Striving. And in one of the more blatant parodies of post-Tolkien fantasy:

She could never have explained rationally why the presence of a Dwarf woman should surprise her so much, why she'd assumed, without ever giving it a moment's thought, that the females among the Dwarves should look like... oh, beardless, stocky equivalents of fighting men like Matt and Brock. After all, she herself didn't much resemble Coll of Taerlindel or Dave Martyniuk. At least on a good day she didn't! Neither did the woman who had come for her. A couple of inches shorter than Matt Sören, she was slim and graceful, with wide-set dark eyes and straight black hair hanging down her back.

  • Our Indians Are Different: The Dalrei
  • Pair the Spares: Kim and Dave, the only two of the five who live to return to our world and don't have any other love interest, seem poised to hook up on literally the last page. The sequel eventually confirms this.
    • To be fair he always seemed to be happy to see her and at times she had a soft spot for him. But still: *fanboy squeal*
  • The Stoic: Aileron, Matt Soren, Torc, and Dave fit the trope like a glove.
    • Aren't you forgetting Paul?
  • Teach Him Anger: The race of Giants, gentlest of the Weaver's children.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Averted. Humans at the very least very much can fight fate (it's part of what the Wild Hunt stands for), and several characters pointedly do; however, there will usually be a price to pay for that. (For example, when Kimberley refuses the Baelrath's urging to call the Crystal Dragon to war, it eventually results directly in Imraith-Nimphais sacrificing herself to defeat the enemy the dragon was destined to fight.)
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