The Legend of Sun Knight

“The benevolent God of Light will forgive your sins.”
I must have said that line at least a million times in my time as the Sun Knight.

However, the greatest wish in my life is to be able to stand before the entire continent and roar, “Damn your ‘the whole continent knows’! This Sun Knight just doesn’t feel like smiling! I just don’t want to forgive these human trashes! I just want to pepper my sentences with ‘f***’!”

—The Sun Knight

The Legend of Sun Knight or Legend of the Sun Knight (depending on who you ask) is a series of Taiwanese novels written by Yu Wo, following the adventures and misadventures of the thirty-eighth generation Sun Knight and the other 11 holy knights. In 2010, it was adapted into a manhua drawn by Os Rabbit Cat/Neko Kreus.

In theory, the Sun Knight is kind, merciful and will never abandon a life. He always smiles and praises the Light God in every sentence; he doesn't drink or swear; he is pure-minded. In practice...not so much - he's a closet pervert, has a ridiculously high tolerance for liquor and a large swearing vocabulary. The rest of the Holy Knights are pretty similar, with expected personalities completely different to their real ones. Now add in two other major religions competing with the Church of the God of Light, a fat pig of a king, and more darkness and evil in the world than you can shake a stick at, and you have a pretty good idea of what The Legend of Sun Knight is like.

Translations for the novel can be found here and the manhua scanlations can be found here.

For another work by the same author Yu Wo see Half Prince and Eclipse Hunter.

Tropes used in The Legend of Sun Knight include:

• Aerith and Bob: The Knights have fantastic names like Grisia and Leithe, then they have common names like Elijah and Roland
• All Work vs. All Play: The Storm Knight is the embodiment of this trope. On the outside, he's a guy who's always winking at ladies, speaking his mind to whoever he wants, and skipping out on all his meetings. On the inside, he's a workaholic who knows every secret worth knowing, or at least knows how to find it out, and often seen carrying piles of paperwork or being buried in them. Sun often worries that Storm will work himself to death.
• Ambadassador: The Sun Knight has the duty of upholding justice, but doing so in a peaceful manner. If that doesn't work, he works behind the scenes, using all his intellect and resources to reach his goals. He even uses people as unknowing pawns if it'll help him. And he doesn't mind secretly rubbing it in when his "victim" is cornered by his plan.
• An Ice Person: Ice.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Leaf is a nice guy, but he is terrifying if you're on the opposite side in a fight, according to Sun. He is also kinda into "voodoo" and using Sun´s Hair for it
• Berserk Button: Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT harm any member of the Twelve Holy Knights, if you don't want Creus to kill you in a really unplesant way, becouse he WILL get you, no matter who you are.
• Bishonen: Pretty much all the holy knights to some extent; taken Up to Eleven by the first volume of the manhua and toned down thereafter.
• Bishie Sparkle: So, so much in the first manhua volume.
• Blind Seer: The Sun Knight, after he sacrifices his sight to resurrect the Leaf Knight. He compensates for his blindness by using his magical abilities to sense auras.
• Break the Cutie: Judgement Knight in his training.
• Bullying a Dragon: People picking on Sun just cause he's a Not-so-good ^[1] swordsman.
• But Thou Must!: Sun has to go to Pink for help. Even though he already sold his soul to her in return for a past favor.
• Came Back Strong: Leaf. His eyesight is even more amazing than before he was killed, although the resurrection did cost Sun his own sight.
• Came Back Wrong: The results of a botched Resurrection.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Subverted. The Sun Knight is supposed to be this, turning red on the first cup, getting a headache on the second and keeling over unconscious on the third. In order to achieve this, every generation of Sun Knights has been a strong alcoholic.
• Casanova: What the Storm Knight is supposed to be; the current Earth Knight actually is one, though.
• Celibate Hero: Sun Knights are supposed to love only God and not women, making them this. The current generation Sun Knight is not happy about it.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Seen often, from character descriptions to hints leading up to Sun's big plans.
• Cute Witch: Well, more like a cute necromancer, but Pink still arguably qualifies.
• Mr. Fanservice: Pretty much all the holy knights to some extent, again.
• Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs: Pink and her hair bow(s).
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Os Rabbit Cat seemed to think this in the first volume and turned the trope up to twelve. Fans disagreed. Fortunately, the sparkles were toned down in the second volume.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Judgement Knight, although he's not evil so much as contractually obliged to be scary.
• Fiery Redhead: Flame Knight
• Gentle Giant: The expected personality of the Earth Knight.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: A main aspect of the story universe. The number of believers determines how powerful the god is, and "as such, the gods often resemble gangsters fighting over territory as they desperately attempt to extend the influence of their own religions."
• Hair of Gold: The expected appearance and personality of the Sun Knight.
• Heel Face Turn: Roland. Once he calms down about the circumstances of his death, he goes from trying to kill the Sun Knight, to becoming his solid supporter as the new Hell Knight.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Both the Storm Knight and Adair does most of the work of the Sun Knight. Or rather, most of his work is pushed onto them. Adair is one of the few people who relays the words of the Sun Knight to the rest of the division, and is perceptive to what the Sun Knight actually wants. This includes getting other people beat up in revenge and other underhanded measures required to be taken.
• Implausible Hair Color: Though it's mentioned that Storm's blue hair is technically impossible, the matter of Judgement's purple hair, Ice's light blue hair, Leaf's green hair, etc. is never brought to attention.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: In the manhua. Special mention goes to the Sun Knights, who go above and beyond this trope with freakin' wings and roses on their outfits.
• Insistent Terminology: Sun prefers to call his swordsmanship "not very good" rather than "rotten", despite being closer to the latter.
• Instant Expert: However he can master any spell he sees without even studying...
• Insult Backfire: Various times, Sun takes many instances of people calling him a useless pretty boy as a compliment.It means I'm pretty, right?.Even the Metal Knight calling him a glowing pillar is taken as a compliment.
• Let's Get Dangerous: Sun Knight himself, usually he seems like a pansy, and a horrible joke, rather than a knight, but when Leaf dies, Sun proves just how dangerous he can be when provoked.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Many of the Knights.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: Only the Sun Knight can use the Divine Sun Sword's full powers. Anyone else can only use it as an ordinary sword.
• Master Swordsman: Neo, the thirty-seventh generation Sun Knight and the current one's teacher, is said to have been the strongest Sun Knight in history. Ice is very good, and Roland could apparently beat a grown man at ten. Inverted by Sun, who's...not very good with a sword.
• Mundane Utility: Ice uses his ice magic to make sweets for Sun.
• Nakama: The twelve Knights.
• Nice Guy: Leaf.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: The Sun Knight spends most of his time spouting inane platitudes and keeping up with his beauty regimen. Luckily for him, he's also a genius mage and necromancer, as well as a very capable Chessmaster. Almost everyone who gets to know him is a little afraid of him.
• Our Liches Are Different: Pink is revealed to be a Lich in volume 3.
• Parental Abandonment: Implied when the little kid knights-to-be are sent for 'training'.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Hinted with Pink.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Sun and Judge. In their own twisted way.
• Right Behind Me: A variation. Chances are, while you're badmouthing Sun, he's listening to you while remaining hidden. Poor Ed.
• Secret Identity: Every Knight is slightly if not completely different from their surface personalities. Sun furthers this when he temporarily wears a disguise and goes by "Supreme Dragon", and when he learns necromancy despite being leader of the Holy Knights.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Sun Knight regularly uses these in order to praise the God of Light. A few people regularly understand him, but most people suffer headaches if they talk to him for too long from trying to intrepret his words.
• Sexy Man, Instant Harem: Apparently, as long as you have blue hair and wink at girls, you get em.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Oh, where to begin...The knights' names are transliterated differently by Prince Revolution and OSS, argued over frequently, and on top of that the Thai transliterations are different too. It's complicated.
• Statuesque Stunner: Moon's girlfriend is one because he has to look up all the time
• Sweet Tooth: Sun.
• The Chessmaster: The Sun Knight. The only reason he can get away with being such a lazy fop is because he's very, very good at dirty tricks and manipulation. He's well-intentioned, though, and he uses his skill to do things like depose the corrupt king of his country.
• The Power of Blood: Played With. The Sacred Dragon Mail requires blood to be worn. It can also also use blood to create knives, shurikens, grappling hooks... Resurrection also requires blood
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: in vol 3. Sun throws his sword at Pink and impales her on it, destroying her current body.
• Uncanny Valley: On first glance Pink looks like a cute little girl with a fondness for the color pink. On a closer look though, we notice that she looks a bit off, for example her skin is literally pink.
• Urban Legend Love Life: Played straight with Storm, who's supposed to be a Casanova but is probably still a virgin, and inverted with Earth, who's supposed to be bad with girls but has tried to seduce about thirty-one or thirty-two.
• Verbal Tic: Sun has to include the God of Light in nearly all of his sentences.
• Villainous Glutton: The king who rules the land where the story takes place.
• We Used to Be Friends: Sun and the death knight.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Pink and the Sacred Dragon Mail.
• World's Strongest Man: The previous Sun Knight Neo is called the Stongest Sun Knight in History, and when we see him in action in vol 3, it seems he's more like the strongest knight in history. Either way, Sun can't really think of anything that could really threaten him.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: A literal case, the Storm Knight must have blue hair, since the first one had blue hair. Every Storm Knight after him has had to apply blue hair dye every day as part of his role, and 8 out of every 10 has died from kidney failure due to too much hair dye.

1. ↑ Rotten