War of the Dreaming

The War of the Dreaming is fantasy duology by John C. Wright.

Books included

• Last Guardian of Everness
• Mists of Everness

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Tropes used in War of the Dreaming include:

• Adult Child: Wendy tries for "the best of both worlds."
• All Myths Are True: shading over to Crossover Cosmology.
  • Interlaps with I Have Many Names; it is explicitly stated(by Heracles) that Cerberus is another name for Koschei the Deathless.
• And I Must Scream: "galen help im trapped in nastrond."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: two villains rattle off a list of atrocities they can/will commit against the American people...and pause when they are ordered to nuke Hollywood.
• The Atoner: Azrael realizes he was wrong from the beginning and sets out to make amends.
• Badass Cape: lampshaded and justified via Functional Magic, not to mention roundly mocked.
• Call to Adventure
  • Ignorant of the Call: Raven merely wants to save his wife.
  • Jumped At the Call:Galen.
  • Refusal of the Call: Peter.
  • They all end up Resigned to the Call
• Coat, Hat, Mask
• Cool Car
• Cool Sword
• Covert Pervert: Wendy "Hey, is this the Oval Office?" Varovitch. Notably, although published in the millenium, the books were written long before a certain scandal happened.
• Crazy Prepared: The Waylocks as a family. Pendrake.
• Crossover Cosmology: In addition to Wright's own creations, the world of the Dreaming includes angels and fallen angels, beings from Greek, Norse, and Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend. Plus lots of briefer references, see Shout-Out below.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Acheron vs the US Pacific Carrier group. Also Acheron's archangels vs the 105th Fighter Attack Squadron. On the other hand, mortal technology is quite good at wiping out non-immortal bad guys.
• Dream Land: Central conceit.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• Even Evil Has Standards.

Sometimes Mackleir did not care for the ways of his people.

• Evil Is Petty
• Even Mooks Have Loved Ones: When one enemy soldier dies, he gasps out a woman's name, "surely a sweetheart's or a lover's." Some of the selkie also speak of returning to their wives.
• Fighting for Survival
• Fish Out of Temporal Water: Azrael
• Genki Girl: Wendy
• Grand Theft Me
• Hannibal Lecture: Azrael attempts this.
• Hero Secret Service: Pendrake directs a variant of this.
• Hot Sub On Sea Serpent Action
• Hope Spot: the air force performs a Colony Drop on Acheron, utterly destroying all the lesser minions...and is curb stomped by the immortals.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Merlin/Azrael's answer for everything.
• Kill and Replace: Played for both horror and comedy, weirdly enough. The selkies wear people's skins, but swap faces often enough that no one knows who anyone else is.
• Knight Templar: many of the bad guys see themselves as this. They are wrong.
• Love Makes You Evil: Most of the evil of the plot was kicked off because Raven was willing to do anything to keep his wife alive.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Azrael is the Waylocks' distant ancestor. However, while he goes to some lengths not to injure them permanently, they have less compunction about trying to kill or banish him.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Wendy.
• Meaningful Name: lots.
• Meditation Powerup: Raven can only control the storm princes by remaining calm and confident.
• Mysterious Parent: Wendy knows perfectly well who Mommy and Daddy are. It's her husband who has no idea.
• Mythology Gag: (?) of The Shadow. Azrael realizes that Pendrake's cloak and hat are a reference to Odin.
• Nuke'Em
• One-Man Army: Peter
• Possession Implies Mastery: Averted. The heroes are able to use the talismans without any foreknowledge at all, but hurt themselves badly.
• Reason You Suck Speech: Titania points out how all of Merlin/Azrael's machinations to save Britain bore bitter fruit. The "necessary" lies were covered by other lies which led to the fall of Arthur. At the end, he gets the same treatment from Prometheus about his schemes that encompassed most of the plot.
• Science Hero: Pendrake
• Screw Destiny: Done instead of following the prophecy and summoning the King in the Mountain.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Peter's ex-wife has this reaction.
• Sealed Army in a Can: The Armies of Heaven (lead by Oberon) await only the call to descend and restore Earth. Theoretically.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: Azrael de Gray.
• Selkies and Wereseals: Selkies refer to the skins as "jackets," and they can be made from any species' flesh. Weirdly enough, this is also played for comedy: high-ranking selkie switch skins so often the lower ranks are perpetually confused about their identities.
• Shock and Awe
• Shout-Out: to Jack Vance, among many others: C.S.Lewis' Space Trilogy, H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories, Atlas Shrugged, the Green Hornet...
• Story-Boarding the Apocalypse
• Take a Level In Badass: What happens when the heroes do figure out how to use the talismans correctly.
• Too Dumb to Live: Let's put it this way. When the resident Cloudcuckoolander calls you out on it, you are probably this trope.
• Victorian Novel Disease: Wendy is dying from this at the beginning of the novel. Raven's trying to save her kicks off his involvement in the plot.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Azrael, who wished to make men independent of both Acheron and Heaven.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:

di Angello: "You're gonna kill us the minute we turn our backs."
Wentworth did not bother to contradict him.