The Mirror Visitor

The Mirror Visitor (La Passe-miroir in the original French) books are a fantasy/adventure/romance quadrology by French author Christelle Dabos (* 1980). The English translation was done by Hildegard Serle, the outstanding Cover Art by Laurent Gapalliard.

It's set in a world that consists of several Arks (as big as big cities or even bigger) floating far above a glowing core. This situation was created centuries in the past by a mysterious event called the Rupture.

In this world, (almost) all people have a magical power. Our protagonist Ophelia even has two special ones in addition to it: She can travel between mirrors (hence the title) and can read items.

The plot starts when she is betrothed to a guy named Thorn from the barbarian Ark of the Pole, whom she doesn't even know.

Originally, the story was published on the internet, and the community Plume d'Argent (the silver pen) helped it to become better known.

The whole series has been translated into English, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Polish. Additionally, parts of it were translated into Russian, Spanish, Czech, Slovenian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Korean.

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Tropes used in The Mirror Visitor include:

• Alliterative Name: Howard Harper, the Carnival Caravan.
• Answers to the Name of God: Some very mysterious character. Later we learn the real name: Eulalia Gonde!
• Anti-Hero: This series is chock-full of it.
  • Ophelia is short, very clumsy, short-sighted, soft-spoken and only interested in her museum, so very unlike her sisters who're only interested in men, gossip and fashion. Hell, even her looks separate her from her family -- she's short when they're tall, brunette when they're strawberry blonde.
  • Thorn is a Heroic Bastard, his mother was Mutilated (highest punishment at the Pole), almost his (well, his father's) whole clan gets eradicated in the first novel, and pretty much everyone at the court hates him. Even the banished Chronicler clan (his mother's) hates and loathes him. His personality is gruff and emotionless, and he seems to be driven by nothing but ambition (even when he isn't). He's covered in scars (56, canonically) as well.
  • Archibald is the ambassador of the Pole, but prefers looking like a vagabond. He's an incorrigible Casanova who's seduced the wives of many men at the Pole - and lets them know it.
  • Mother Hildegarde is pretty old (over 150 years, in fact), a foreigner at the Pole and doesn't have any nobility. Also, she's a Bunny Ears Lawyer who'll rather side with the servants when nobody else does.
  • Fox is a servant and doesn't have any magic, hence is very low in the pecking order. He doesn't like work very much.
  • Gail has powerful Anti-Magic, but has to hide it from the powerful (and vengeful) illusionists, the Mirages, who already eradicated almost her whole clan, the Nihilists. She's also very sarcastic.
• Anyone Can Die: The list of dead people is pretty long and spares only few named characters. Among the dead are: Almost the whole Dragon clan, Thorn's family. His grandmother Catherine too, unrelatedly. Pistache. Clothilde. Gustave. Mother Hildegarde. Baron Melchior. Miss Silence. Cunegond. Fearless-and-Almost-Blameless. The sweeper/janitor. Lady Septima. Ambrose. The genealogues. Don Janus. Fox and Gail. Octavio and even Helen the family spirit (OK, they get better).
• Approval of God: Christelle Dabos liked Camille Ruzé's parody with funny pictures and acknowledged her in #4.
• Arc Words: "Try your dears". Mysterious indeed. It's a Spoonerism and supposed to mean "Dry your tears".
  • If you know that in other versions, like French or German, it's "Scelle tes charmes" ("seal your charms") or "Kein Grün zu weiden" ("No green to graze on") instead, you may conclude that they don't matter - but their spoonerisms "Sèche tes larmes" (same words as in English) or "Kein Grund zu weinen" ("No reason to cry") do.
  • Later, we get "But that well was no more real than a rabbit of Odin". This was actually the former name of a main character...
• Arranged Marriage: Between Ophelia and Thorn. They become fiancees in book #1, and in #2 their marriage is supposed to happen. This is what sets the plot in motion.
• Culture Police: Censors the grand-uncle's archive and the libraries of Babel. They want to erase any memories of war and violence.
  • In tome #2 Ophelia learns that the Doyennes at Anima also have become this, having closed her museum, for the same reason.
• Doorstopper: Four nice big fantasy books with over 2,000 pages, all in all.
• Ending Fatigue: When Ophelia and Thorn have to fight God/The Other AND to prevent The End of the World as We Know It, two problems which can't be saved at the same time, this trope happens.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The Rupture, which happened long time (at least 300 years) ago.
  • And then, it seems to happen again as parts of the big Arks and some smaller ones break off and fall down, never to be recovered.
• Fan Art: The series lends itself to it, with the many quirky characters and Canon not influencing their fantasy in one way or another -- the covers only depict buildings.
• Forbidden Fruit: The oranges are interpreted as "golden apples", making them this.
• Genuine Human Hide: The books of the family spirits are made of a material that uncannily reminds of human skin. It's never confirmed, but the fact that the color of the books matches their corresponding family spirit is noted.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The main antagonist wants to be able to use all the powers of the family spirits. At the end, Janus' one -- control of space -- is the only one left.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Used on some Arks, in lieu of an accent. A bit like Poirot Speak. On Babel, it's English (and French in the English translation), on LandmArk Spanish, on Serenissima Italian. Helps sometimes to identify the origin of an otherwise unrevealed character.
• Immortality: The Family Spirits have it, essentially.
  • The Genealogues who rule Babel want it.
• Maybe Ever After: Not in the sense of Will They or Won't They?. Thorn is caught in the Inverse -- the world behind the mirrors -- but Ophelia is determined to find him.
• The Nothing After Death: People don't have gods anymore, so they expect this. Some believe though that if a family spirit looks at you, your soul will live forever. At Anima, people think that they will live on in the things they animated.
• One Steve Limit: The strict version is averted, with one Thomas (son of Berenilde, killed by the Knight's parents) and a Tom (baby son of Ophelia's sister Agatha and her husband Charles).
  • Also, Thorn's (deceased) father Boris and an unrelated count Boris.
  • Famous world traveller Augustus from Anima (long dead) and Archibald's grandfather Augustine.
• Only One Name: Most people, it's custom in this world. Among the few exceptions are Eulalia Gonde (who was born before the Rupture, so it's justified), Howard Harper (who also lived centuries ago), and maybe Chekhov, Professor Wolf, and Miss Silence (unless that's just a nickname).
• Parody/The Abridged Series: Has one, drawn as a comic abridging the first three novels, by a Camille Ruzé here. Which got Approval of God.
• The Reveal: Lots and lots of them, especially in the fourth book. Check out the recap pages.
• Spoonerism: More than one character uses them. No, it's not the case that all of those are really the same.
• The Wiki Rule: Three ones in fact - in English, German, and French. Last one's the biggest, not surprisingly, and has the best pictures.