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The Redemption of Althalus is a stand-alone fantasy novel by David and Leigh Eddings about... well, the Redemption of Althalus.
In his early adult life, Althalus was a thief. Since he was neither strong enough to rob people by force nor small and fast enough to steal via stealth, he aspired to become successful by outwitting his targets. He did, and he managed to gain a reputation as the best thief in the northern wilds of the world. After hearing of the wealth available in the cities to the south, he decided to try his luck there. When things didn't go well, he returned home and accepted a job to steal a Book from the House at the End of the World.
Upon reaching the house, Althalus met the goddess Dweia and became her disciple, spending multiple centuries preparing for the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil, before embarking on a journey with her to find those needed to unite and destroy the evil that threatened the world.
This book provides examples of:
- Adipose Rex: Gosti Big Belly is just a clan chief, but otherwise fits the bill.
- The Alcoholic: Twengor until Althalus cures him.
- Anticlimax Boss: Yakhag, who's built up as a total monster, and killed in less than ten minutes.
- The Atoner: Bheid, eventually.
- Because Destiny Says So: Lampshaded: Each good character has an evil counterpart, and they are the only ones who are allowed to confront them, despite Althalus preferring to get things over with quickly.
- Big Bad: Daeva
- Big Eater: Eliar (though he grows out of it), and Gosti.
- Blood Knight: Gelta
- Book Ends: The last section of the book is Althalus going back in time to revisit his adventure in Gosti's hall and his meeting with Ghend, and making it play out differently this time.
- Broken Bird: Leitha
- Burn the Witch: Leitha
- Crystal Ball: The windows of the House.
- Death Seeker: Yakhag
- Divine Date: Althalus and Dweia
- Eternal English: When Althalus emerges from the House after two thousand years, he has no trouble understanding anybody, this may be part of his training.
- Evil Counterpart: Everybody has one (Ghend for Althalus, Argan for Bheid, Koman for Leitha, Khnom for Gher, Gelta for Andine, Pekhal for Eliar and Daeva for Dweia).
- Expy: Many, many expies for characters from Eddings' earlier books.
- Notably, Althalus himself bears many similarities to both Silk and Belgarath from The Belgariad.
- Fate Worse Than Death: How Gelta is dealt with, by sending her to a room in The House. "It's a fairly nice room, it just doesn't have any doors or windows."
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: Daeva's headquarter Nahgharash apparently looks like this.
- Five-Bad Band
- Big Bad: Daeva
- The Dragon: Ghend
- Evil Genius: Argan and Khnom both fit this description in different ways.
- The Brute: Again, Pekhal and Gelta both fit this description and work together for the first major conflict in the war.
- Dark Chick: Oddly enough, not Gelta, but Koman, who is the bitch of the other members of the band.
- Sixth Ranger: Yakhag for all of ten minutes, then Bheid kills him.
- Five-Man Band
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: Played straight with Deiwos, averted with Dweia.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Althalus returns to the past and becomes thieving partners with Ghend.
- Heel Face Turn: Andine, who spends the first part of the book trying to kill Eliar.
- Heroic BSOD: Bheid has this after he kills Yakhag.
- High Fantasy
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Deiwos to Althalus.
- I Have Many Names: There are dozens of gods in the world, known by names like Kherdhos and Apwos. Turns out that there's only three gods- Deiwos, Daeva and Dweia. Apwos, Kherdhos and all the others are just other names for Deiwos- cultures looked at what was most important to them, like lakes or herds, and turned that into the names of their god- Apwos means 'water god' and Kherdhos means 'herd god'.
- Immortal Immaturity
- Language of Magic
- The Legions of Hell
- Loophole Abuse: Althalus occasionally uses very loose definitions of words to make magic work.
- Although it's pointed out that the Book wants to help them, it's Dweia who insists on exact terms.
- Love Goddess: Dweia is the goddess of love and fertility.
- Medieval Stasis: Averted.
- Merlin and Nimue: Dweia and Althalus, minus the betrayal.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Leitha thinks so anyway.
- Mordor: Nekweros.
- Multinational Team
- Omnicidal Maniac: Daeva is literally the god of destruction, and the job he does is important- it's when he decides to destroy everything that things get out of hand.
- The Only One
- Painting the Fourth Wall: The scenes where the villains and Dweia attempt to change history or the future are printed in a different font than the rest of the narrative.
- Papa Wolf: Althalus.
- Physical God
- Place Beyond Time
- Portal Network: both the House and Nahgharash.
- Portal to the Past
- The Power of Friendship: Good wins because their evil counterparts only care about themselves.
- Psychic Link
- Purple Prose : The "hey-let's-change-history" parts (in a different font, no less) are not as purple as most fanfiction, but more purple than the rest of the text.
- The Quest
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old
- Revenge Myopia: Andine to Eliar over her father's death. She gets over it eventually.
- Rewriting Reality
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory
- Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny: The witch-hunter who tries to burn Leitha. According to her, he specifically targets women he finds attractive.
- Sinister Minister: Argan
- Slap Slap Kiss: Andine's relationship with Eliar starts out with her wanting to brutally and slowly murder him for the death of her father, and ends with them getting Happily Married.
- Stepford Smiler: Leitha
- Teleporters and Transporters
- There Are No Therapists: Andine and Leitha.
- Tsundere: Andine
- Weaksauce Weakness: The telepaths, Leitha and Koman, are vulnerable to people thinking lists of numbers and fractions- specifically, out of order numbers and fractions.
- Weddings for Everyone
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: Althalus robs somebody but doesn't take anything because he doesn't understand what paper money is.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Dweia and Daeva are fond of this when they're making and breaking prophecies. Althalus tends to make fun of it.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: played straight and inverted.