The Darkness Series

Harry Turtledove is an award-winning author of alternate history, fantasy, and science fiction. His Darkness series consists of six books:

• Into the Darkness (1999)
• Darkness Descending (2000)
• Through the Darkness (2001)
• Rulers of the Darkness (2002)
• Jaws of the Darkness (2003)
• Out of the Darkness (2004)

The series combines history with fantasy. In this case, the general history, geography, and combatants of World War II are re-created in a world where magic works.

Most of the action in the series takes place on the main continent of Derlavai, which is implied to be the center of culture, education, and military power on the unnamed planet it is on. It is located in the southern hemisphere. This means that directions are reversed - going northwards, the climate becomes hotter, going southwards - colder; going eastwards, the countries are richer and more highly developed, going westwards they are poor and backward.

There are also some lesser land masses and island chains mentioned in the story and on the map included in the novels. It should be noted, however, that the map does not contain the entire northern hemisphere of the planet.

The continent of Siaulia is described as dark and largely unexplored, similar to the African continent. Unless there are some land masses in the northern hemisphere whose existence is never mentioned and which evidently have no bearing on political and economic life in Derlavai, the planet is far more watery than Earth. There are is no equivalent of Asia, and no real America - the island containing Lagoas and Kuusamo being more on the order of an Australia. The Land of the Ice People is a marginally bigger and more habitable Antarctica, but that is far from completely compensating.

Monarchies and Aristocracies

All nations in the Darkness series are monarchies with the exception of Kuusamo, in which seven princes have a sort of stable and hereditary power-sharing arrangement. While by no means all absolute monarchies, in all of them kings (or princes in Kuusamo) seem to have the executive power.

There are no constitutional monarchies (and no constitutions), nor any parliaments - not even ones with rudimentary powers elected by a limited part of the population, such as most European countries had hundreds of years ago. There are foreign ministers, but no prime ministers and no cabinets - a foreign minster evidently reporting directly to the King.

To the extent that monarchs are limited in their power, the limitation comes mainly from hereditary aristocracies which still maintain many privileges of feudal times - especially in the Kaunian kingdoms Valmiera and Jelgava. In effect, in this history France goes through the Second World War and gets into the equivalent of the Atomic Age still without having gone through the French Revolution, having the pre-1789 ancien regime with its corrupt and decadent nobility very much in place.

All this - a quite central feature of the series - is not truly credible. While this world had gone thorough a "Thamaturgical Revolution" instead of the Industrial revolution, using magic as the basis for much (by no means all) of its technology, Eastern Derlavai (corresponding to Western Europe), has manifestly long since developed the economic and social conditions from which representative government should develop. There is a strong and economically powerful middle class, there are industrial manufacturing towns with hosts of workers concentrated in one place, there are universities with multitudes of students - all of which should have long since given rise to revolutionary movements, political parties and trade unions. Turtledove gives no satisfactory answer why they do not. However, in mitigation, the systems of mass production do not appear to be as widespread as in this world. Because of magic, there appears to be less of a need for mass industry. There are plants producing pottery, for example, in large amounts, but behemoths and dragons are bred on farms and clothing appears to be made by tailors instead of in sweatshops. This would tend to reduce the role of trade unionism.

Of course, in most fantasy milieus where magic works, society is ruled by kings and hereditary nobles - but most such books have semi-Medieval settings where this is natural. The smaller sub-genre in which magic works in a semi-modern society can be divided in two. Some - like Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc., Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos (1971 book) and Turtledove's own The case of the Toxic Spell Dump have a recognizable modern society with its political and social institutions, but with magic replacing technology. Others, which clearly include the Darkness Series as well the Randall Garrett's classic Lord Darcy stories - make the assumption that use of magic would have a greatly retarding effect on political institutions. (The magical society depicted in the Harry Potter books seems to steer a middle course - with a modern-seeming Ministry of Magic but considerable power still held by semi-feudal noble families.)

Nations

Unlike most invented worlds, the nations in the Darkness series do not have randomly-invented names for their people and locations. Rather, each nation has personal and geographical names taken from a real nation on Earth - but by no means the nation which plays the same role in the war (sometimes, in fact, the language of its arch-enemy).

For example, Unkerlant - which is clearly the Soviet Union - has German place- and personal names. (And Forthweg - which plays the role of another Slavic nation, Poland - also has a Germanic language, Old English in this case). Similarly, the Algarvic - i.e. Germanic - nations all speak Latin-derived languages: Algarve (Germany) speaks Italian, Lagoas (Britain) has Portuguese, and Sibiu (Holland or Scandinavia) - Romanian.

To add to the deliberately-created confusion, each nation has physical characteristics derived from still a third actual nation or ethnic group. Thus, the Algarvians play the role of Nazi Germany, speak Italian and are red-haired and green-eyed like the Irish. Obviously, this scrambling of linguistic and ethnic charcateristics is deliberate.

Algarve is the equivalent to Nazi Germany, ruled by King Mezentio, who is analogous to Adolf Hitler. Located in the center of the continent, its people are characterized as red-headed, given to flamboyancy in word and gesture, and its males exhibit manifest macho behaviour. Their typical dress includes kilts. Algarve was defeated in the Six Years' War a generation ago, which was analogous to World War I.

Valmiera is the most likely equivalent to France. It is located on the southeastern section of Derlavai. Its people are descendants of the ancient Kaunian Empire and as such are slim, blonde and blue-eyed and their dress is typically trousers and tunics.

Valmeira was one of the states which declared war on Algarve in the first year of the war. The Algarvian offensive in the spring of the second year led to the defeat and occupation of the country.

Identification of Jelgava is difficult. It is culturally close to Valmiera/France, their two Kaunian-descended languguges being nearly two dialects of the same, and having the same style of dress. The two are depicted as roughly equal in size and power, which makes not quite appropriate an identification with the Low Countries or specifially with Belgium. A possible solution can be found considering the fact that both Kaunian kingdoms are depicted as dominated by reactionary, Eighteenth Century-style aristocracies, that of Jelgava even more opressive and reactionary than of its southern neighbor. Taking this rather than role in WWII as the key, and considering Turtledove's obvious joy in scrambling togheter different political and cultural features, Jelgava might be Spain - not the Spain of 1939 which had just gone through a bloody civil war and remined neutral in the bigger war, but 18th Century Spain, with the odious King Donalitu standing for the decadent Spanish Bourbons of that time. (Napoleon made his brother King of Spain, as the Algarvian King Mezentio does for his own brother in Jelgava; Jelgava, like Spain, has a subtropical climate where olives and oranges grow, and is seperated from the rest of the continent by a high mountain chain; Spain and France are two Latin countries of arroximately the same size, as are Jelagava and Valmiera.)

Forthweg is the equivalent to Poland. Its people are dark-haired, stocky, bearded, and prone to wearing long tunics. Part of the Kaunian Empire many centuries ago, it has a substantial amount of blondes living there. King Penda declared war on Algarve as part of the initial coalition against Algarve, but was attacked by both Algarve and Unkerlant and divided. Forthweg's climate is far warmer than Poland's - being subtropical, with olive and citrurs groves a prominent part of its agriculture. However, Gorthwegians and Kaunians alike are portrayed as exremely fond of gathering mushrooms - which is in truth a prominent feature of Polish popular culture, fully shared by Polish Jews.

Yanina is the equivalent of Italy. Allied with Algarve in the beginning of the war, its people are most noted for being incompetent militarily, though individual soldiers and dragon flyers are brave - which fits with the reputation of Italian soldiers in WWII. Also, Yanina/Italy has a colonial possession in the strategic Land of the Ice People (which stands for North Africa), which it is unable to defend against Lagoas (Britain), and is being forced to pass effective conduct of the war there into the hands of the Algarvians/Germans. However, in the last phase of the war, when the Unkerlanter/Soviet army approaches its border and the Yaninan King quickly changes sides, Yanina seems to stand for Romania. The pom-poms which Yaninans wear on their shoes are the source of constant riducule of Yaninans by members of other nations. Greek readers may feel slighted by the fact that Yaninans, whose langugue is obviously Greek, are among the only nations who do not have a viewpoint character to represent it.

Ortah is the equivalent of Switzerland. Isolationist, mountainous, and protected by swamps, its people are generally left alone on the political stage. It is located in the center of Derlavai.

Sibiu is equivalent to Denmark, Norway or The Netherlands - or possibly combines attributes of all three. It is an island chain nation off of the southern coast of Derlavai. Its people are Algarvic in blood, but it allies against Algarve. Sibiu, a member of the initial coalition, was overrun in a surprise attack by Algarve in the first year of the war, and freed in the third year of the war. It is mentioned that some 300 to 250 years in the past Sibiu fought a series of naval wars with Lagoas, over trade and control of the sea - which seems equivavlent to Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century. Also, the strong feeling of dustrust and alienation, felt by Sibilan sailors in Lagoas, is very similar to the experience of Dutch exiles in Britain during WWII, as reflected for example the novels by Jan de Hartog.

Unkerlant is the equivalent to the Soviet Union. It occupies nearly all of the western part of Derlavai. Though bigger by far than all other nationas, it is effectively a Russia which ends in the Urals, without a Siberia. Its people are dark-haired and stocky, clean-shaven, and wear long tunics. Its people are brutally treated by paranoid and ruthless King Swemmel, analogous to Joseph Stalin, a hard, suspicious man who is fond of boiling his enemies alive. Swemmel defeated his brother Kyot in the Twin King's War (equivavlent to the Russian Civil War) shortly after the Six Year's War.

Gyongyos is the equivalent to Imperial Japan. Located in far-western Derlavai, it is separated from Unkerlant by vast mountainous terrain. Its people are described as tall, broad, and muscular, with wiry blonde hair and beards. Their langugue is Hungarian. It is ruled by an ekrek (emperor) instead of a king; he is seen as a direct descendant of the stars and is the person with whom the stars commune. Their religion is different from that of all other nations, distinguished by worhsip of the stars (those on whom the stats shine are blessed, those who are denied their light are cursed) and a very strong taboo against eating of flesh of goats, evidently modeled on the Jewish and Muslim prohibition regarding pigs (Gyongyosians have, however, nothing against pork).

Gyongos and Kuusamo had been fighting a war over possession of islands in the Bothnian Ocean for when the Derlavian War broke out. In the second year of the war, Gyongos attacked Unkerlant from the west, but never threatened the Unkerlant homeland in the same way Algarve did. For several years, the Kuusamans made slow headway against Gyongyos in the Bothenian theater, capturing several key islands. In the sixth year of the war, Kuusaman magic destroyed the island of Becheley; Gyongyan prisoners of war watched the display, but could not convince the ekrek's government. The capital city was destroyed by magic, killing the ekrek, and Unkerlant invaded the portion of Gyongyos on land.

The languagues of Gyongos and Kuusamo are based on, respectively, Hungarian and Finnish - which are both Finno-Ugric languages, though too distant to be mutually intelligeble. Finns and Hungarians are too geographically distant to have much to do with each other, but always felt rather sympathetic to each other and inspired by each other's efforts to become independent in the 19th Century. Making them into neighbors and bitter enemies (the enmity likely to be even more bitter after the way the war ended) is clearly part of Turtledove's general tendency to take aspects from real history and turn them upside down (as is also depicting Hungraian, in reality the langugue of a completley land-locked country, spoken here by a major naval power involved in island-hopping wafare.

Zuwayza is located on a peninsula on the far northern part of Derlavai. Because Derlavai is a southern continent, that puts it right on the hottest part of the planet. The people of Zuwayza typically go nude except for jewelry and broad-brimmed hats. They are described as very dark-skinned, presumably what we would term "African", and speak Arabic. It has some similarities to Finland, but only in terms of the military situation and past history (the Winter War and Continuation War), rather than culturally. Zuwayza was once ruled directly by Unkerlant but gained independence after the Six Years' War.

Unkerlant attacked Zuwayza in the first year of the war and gained territory. In retaliation, Zuwayza allied with Algarve against Unkerlant. When Algarve was driven back, Zuwayza was forced to sign a separate peace, allowing Unkerlant great advantages, but preserving its independence.

Lagoas is the equivalent of Great Britain. Its capital is Setubal and it is ruled by King Vitor - rather a cypher, who never appears onstage and of whom little is told except for the bare fact of his being king. It and Kuusamo share a large island off of the southeast coast of Derlavai. Its people are also Algarvic in blood and mannerisms. Lagoas joined the war against Algrave when Sibiu was invaded and underwent several air attacks from Algravian dragons based in Valmeria. Lagoan and Kuusaman forces invaded Derlavia from the east in the fifth year of the war under the command of Kussaman Grand General Nortano.

Kuusamo is the equivalent of the United States, in terms of its role in the war - but not in connection with its past relations with Lagoas. It occupies most of the island it shares with Lagoas. Its people are Asian in appearance and are deliberate and low-key in their work, and their langugue is derived from Finnish. The Kussamoans are proud of their heritage of having been in their land before the Kaunians came and before the Lagoans came; a chant to this effect is recited, much as the Pledge of Allegiance is recited as a ceremony before classes and before spells.

Kuusamo was involved in a war with Gyongos over the possession of islands in the Bothenian Ocean when the Derlavian War started; they stayed neutral until the second year of the war, when Kuusamo declared war against Algarve over the massacre of Kaunians for their life force. The Algarvians retaliated with a magic strike against the capital city, killing one of the Seven Princes and a master mage.

The Land of the Ice People is the setting of a capmpign roughly equivalent to that in Northern Africa. Located at the South Pole, its people are mysterious, separated by distance and mountains from Derlavai. Both sexes have extensive body hair, on the order of primates. Their languge is Biblical Hebrew. Magic that works well in Derlavai will not work well in the Land of the Ice People; the Algarvians learned this to their disadvantage when they tried murdering Kaunians there. The Ice People are the only people known to worship gods, instead of spirits.

The Duchy of Bari is the equivalent of Austria. Once the southern part of Algarve, it was politically separated at the conclusion of the Six-Year war (the equivalent of World War I) and given independence under Duke Alardo. Its people are Algarvic and maintain strong loyalties to Algarve.

The Duchy of Grelz is located in the southern part of Derlavai. Its people are Unkerlanter but speak with a strong accent, being the Ukraine/non-Russia analog to Unkerlant's USSR.

Harry Turtledove's Sorcery

In his various fantasy novels, Harry Turtledove has treated sorcery and magic differently from popular culture such as in J.R.R. Tolkien's creation, Middle-earth. The world of Darkness is no exception, and uses fundamental laws of magic that are similar to ones used in Turtledove's various Videssos-based novels.

Sorcerous study, application and education are treated like other, more standard fields of study such as geometry, engineering, architecture, chemistry, philosophy, and logic. Just as a person cannot simply pick up a dusty chemistry book and whip up some high-order explosives or study an engineering book and then build a suspension bridge, a person cannot simply pick up a book of magic spells and summon Lucifer or turn an enemy into a frog. Popular "how-to" books for the general public do exist, but the spells published in them are not always relyable, and can bsackfire in dangerous or emabarassing ways.

Just as in our world there are many people who used advanced pieces of technology and engineering while having little understanding of the underlying principles, so do people in the magical worlds. Industrial magic is used to mass-produce mechanical and magical devices for use by the consumer in a variety of ways. Craftesmen have spells used in each profession, often transmitted as a craft secret from father to son or master to apprentice, such as a tailor's spell by which the thread could be made to make the stiches by itself.

Professional mages are divided into "theoretical" and "practical", analogues to practitioners of pure and applies science respectively. Theoretical mages are similar to physicists - or rather, they ARE physicists in terms of their universe: they reasearch the relationships and underlying laws governing the behaviour of matter and energy, formulate hypotheses expressed in complicated mathemtical formulas, and devise careful experiments in order to prove or disprove these hypotheses emprically. And as happened to our physicists, this leads some of them to stumble on ways of constructing weapons of mass destruction.

In the specific case of the the Darkness universe, Turtledove replaces many conventional items with sorcerous equivalents. For example, firearms have been replaced with 'sticks', which are described as being shaped roughly like a conventional rifle but instead of bullets discharge beams of sorcerous energy. Bombs are replaced with 'eggs', which are metal hulls filled with sorcerous energy. Upon impact, the stored energy is releases in a violent explosion. Like conventional explosives, eggs take different forms of employment. They can be dropped like bombs, buried like land mines, launched like artillery shells, or thrown like hand grenades. And the radio has been replaced by crystal balls, which can be sorcerously linked to a specific ball much like a radio can be tuned to a specific frequency. Crystal balls also serve the equivalent of TV and telephone.

On the planet that contains Derlavai there exists a grid of magical energy called 'ley lines' that converge at 'power points'. Along these narrow lines and at these points the sorcerous energy can be accessed by a mage to perform large feats of magic. (The power points were laready known at the time of the Kaunian Empire, ley lines were discovered only about 200 years before the time of the Darkness books).

It is also along these ley lines that ships and caravans travel. By tapping into the energy grid, ships and ley-line caravans (the sorcerous equivalent of a train) can move around without requiring engines or sails. It is not explained why ley-line caravans cannot simply cruise over the water, but in other fantasy novels Turtledove makes us of the premise that magic is changed and weakened by use over water.

In wartime, retreating armies as well as gurrilas and commandos behind enemy lines regularly sabotage ley lines by planting eggs (bombs).

The pverty and backwardness of Unkerlant are partially explained by the fact it has fewer ley-lines than other countries (or that many ley lines there were not yet discovered).

Modern cities are located at the convergence of ley lines to take maximum advantage of the different routes available. At Setubal, the capital of Lagoas, more ley-lines converege than anywhere else, which makes it the biggest and most cosmopolitan city of the world (analoguous to London, New York or both.

Kaunians and the Kaunian Empire

The Roman Empire did and still does form a strong historical link between many nations of Europe. Most of the languages of Europe use the Roman alphabet or a variation thereof. Latin for many centuries was the language of scholars across Europe in both religious and secular matters, and is the basis for languages such as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Roman-style architecture is still the norm for many American and European government buildings.

Like the Roman Empire, the Kaunian Empire serves to create a common cultural history to much of the continent. School children, for example, learn the history and language of both their nation and the ancient Kaunian Empire. it is the languague in which scholars, mages and diplomats frequently communicate with each other, and people wishing to show off their erudition quote proverbes in it (even while engaged in killing the actual Kaunians, Algarvians still do it!).

When the Kaunian Empire fell, the Kaunians remained the dominant cultural and ehtnic group in Eastern Derlavai (which correposnds to Western Europe - directions being reversed in this South Hemisphere location). First they lived in independent city states and small principalities which later coalesced into the successor-states Jelgava and Valmiera, similar to France and Spain. Jelgavan and Valmieran have devloped to the point that the their speakers don't underataind the classical languague unless they study it especially. (It is mentioned specifically that the term "to marry" in Calssical Kaunian came to mean "to have sex" in modern Jelgavan, which causes Kaunian-speking Alagarvian soldiers to misunderstand what the local prostitutes are offering.) In the parts of Lagoas and Kuusamo which were part of the empire, Kaunians disappeared completely - as Romans had disappeared from Britain.

In the more westward parts of the continent, in contrast, Kaunians became an ethnic minority in countries formed by the invading "barbarians": maintaining a distinct and largely separate minority culture, keeping the ancient langugue in more or less its original form as their daily speech, clinging to the short tunics and trousers common in the days of Empire, and frowning at the idea of mixed marriages.

Ancient Kaunian is a language of many tenses and verb forms, which makes for a language of precision. Kaunians bring this precision into play when they switch to a more modern language, generally to the distain of others.

All this has no parallel in the Roman Empire's history. Clearly, in this context the Kaunians stand for Jews and their languguage represents not Latin but Yiddish. It is mentioned that Kaunian "pickpockets and thieves" in the Forthwegian capital Eoforwic (anloguous to Warsaw) have their own dialect, barely comprehemsible even to other Kaunians - which was indeed the case for Jewish criminals in Warshaw and other big Polish cities until the Holocaust.

Kaunians are characterized as on the slender and tall side, with fair skin and blonde hair. The wearing of trousers by the Kaunian women tends to be a distraction for other peoples, as the tight pants reveal more than the more modern knee-length tunics do. This often results in Kaunian women being regarded as sexually promiscuous - a widespread racial stereotype which is deliberately used by King Mezentio in fomenting hatred and delegitimation of Kaunians. (Nazi propaganda made much use of the theme of the alleged sexual appetites of Jewish males - and a similar theme was used by anti-Black racists in the US.)

In Algarve itself, Kaunians seem to have, already for several generations, to be deeply assimilated in the surrounding society. They speak Algarvian, wear kilts, call themselves by Alagrvian names (or "Alagarvianise" their names by adding the characteristic final "-o"), and their males have Algarvian-style moustaches and behave in the blatant macho way encouraged by Algarvian culture. Until their persecutions started, there were prominent Kaunian scholars (or rather, "Alagarivians of Kaunian blood") at the University of Trapani (Berlin). All of which fits well with the assimilated German Jews of the late 19th and early 20th Century.

Whether highly assimilated in Algarve (Germany) or very distinct ehtnically in Forthweg (Poland), Kaunians face suspicion and prejudice, a separate and vaugely detested minority in many nations. With the beginning of war, Kaunian armies from Jelagava and Valmiera invade Algarve, and local Kaunians - however Algarvian they are in culture - face popular hostility, with their blond hair marking them out. They resort to painting their hair - but exactly that draws to them the attention of the state authorities which start arresting them en masse.

In this way, Turtledove creates an equivalent to the Holocaust, where Kaunians under Algarvian control are systematically stripped of their rights, prejudice, discrimination, and violence against them is either ignored or actively encouraged, and eventually many of them are interred in special camps.

Eventually, Algarve, facing a desperate stalemate against Unkerlant, begines slaughtering Kaunians en masse to fuel vast quantities of death-energy-powered sorcery in an attempt to break the impasse.

Viewpoint Characters

Turtledove's Darkness is written in the third-person omniscient format from an unusually large number of viewpoint characters. The first book, Into the Darkness, lists 17 viewpoint characters from 10 nations. Furthermore, Turtledove is not shy about killing off a few viewpoint characters at any time during the course of the story and replacing them with new ones. The viewpoint characters rarely meet, so while the viewpoint may jump several times among a like number of characters in a chapter there is generally a substantial amount of writing done between jumps.

• Bembo is an Algarvian constible from the town of Tricarno in eastern Algarve. He is chubby, lazy, and prone to taking bribes. When Algarve occupies Forthweg, he is sent to serve as a constable in the occupation force - and to take part in rounding up Kaunians and sending them to their deaths. Precisely due to his vanlity, he is not the worst - being on occasion willing to save some people's lives in return for monetary or sexual favors. Turtledove sets him off in contrast to his partner Oraste, a dour and brutal man who enjoys breaking people's heads. In the end, Bembo goes on working as a policeman also in Kussamian-occaupied Algarve, while Oraste ends up a slave-laborer in the Unkerklanter mines - and there becomes a gang leader among the rough prisoners.
• Cornelu is a Sibian leviathan rider - riding on a huge sea monster which can eat a human in two bites but which can become very attached to its rider (and vice versa) and doing the equivalent of a submarine's job - from sinking enemy ships to ferrying spies and saboteurs into enemy territory and taking out VIP refugees such as the exile King of Forthweg. While he is on a mission, the Algarvians invade and conquer his homeland. Bitter but undaunted, he sets his Leiathan to swim to Lagaos and offers his services to their navy. He risks his life again and again and survives. Even when his beloved Leiathan Eforiel is killed by an Agarvian dragon, he swims to the Sibian shore, hides out in logging camp and eventually manges to steal an Alagarvian leiviathan and return to the war. Yet upon his triumphant return to liberated Sibiu, he is poisoned by his wife, whom he found pregnant by an Algarvian officer.
• Ealstan is a Forthwegan student. Throughout the novels, he meets Vanai (see below) and they fall deeply in love. They get married, despite the laws prohibiting it. Much of Ealstan's story, particularly in the later books, revolves around his involvement in the Forthwegan resistance. After the Forthewegian resistance movement is crushed by Algarve, he evades capture, only to be impressed into the Unkerlanter army, where he is wounded fighting to take his home town, Groemhart.
• Fernao is a Lagoan wizard. He discovers that the Kuusamans have stopped talking about a form of magic and is sent to investigate this. While doing so, he falls in love with Pekka. Recalled to Setubal, he is given a mission to recover King Penda of Forthweg from a position in peril on the southern continent. There he is wounded with a sorcerous egg, causing him months of recovery and requiring the assistance of a cane to get about.
• Garivald is an Unkerlanter peasant. He is perhaps analogous to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in that he is a popular writer who falls afoul of King Swemmel. Garivald found that he had a talent for song and poetry, and his songs were popular throughout Unkerlant. However, because he was popular, King Swemmel perceived him as a rival, and he was forced to disappear. He disguised himself as a peasant named Farinulf, only to be impressed into the Unkerlanter Army. He was taught his letters by an officer and rose to the rank of sergeant. Because he reached Algarve and attracted the attention of then-colonel Illimaren of the Kussaman army, he was arrested and joined Sidroc in the cinnabar mines of the Mamming Hills. He and Sidroc escaped; Garivald was able to evade pursuit.
• Illimaren is a Kuusaman mage. He is analogous to Richard Feynman. He is brilliant, implusive, and unpredictable.
• Istvan is a Gyongyosian soldier. At the beginning of the series, he was fighting the Unkerlanters in the mountain ranges between the two nations (an analogy to the Battle of Khalkun Gol. He was sent to the Bothenian Ocean and fought Kuusamans, then sent to participate in the Gyongyian invasion of Unkerlant. There, inadvertently, he perfomed the most despicable act in Gyongyian mores: he ate goats' flesh. He was very concerned that his secret would escape, but continued to soldier on until he was captured at Becheley. The Kuusumans released him to be a witness of the test of their magic, which destroyed Bechely; but the Ekrek's Eyes and Ears, the secret police, arrested him and confined him in prison, where he watched the destruction of the capital.
• Leofsig is a Forthwegan soldier. He is captured in the Algarvian invasion of Forthweg, but escapes from his captive's camp to return to his home in Groemhart. There he learns his brother, Ealstan, is living with Vanai, a Kaunian woman. He is killed by his cousin Sidroc in a fight over the matter.
• Leudast is an Unkerlanter soldier. At the beginning of the series, like his counterpart Istvan, he is fighting the Gyongyosians in the mountain ranges between the nations. He is sent east to Forthweg to participate in the Unkerlanter occupation, and then to Zuwayza to take part in the "Summer War", where he encounters Marshal Rathar. Leudast makes sergeant and survives the initial Algarvian invasion of Unkerlant. In reoccupying the Duchy of Grelz, he captures the Algarvian set up as King of Grelz and is promoted to lieutenant. He takes part in the battles for western Algarve, including the occupation of Trapani, then is sent west to finish off Gyongyos.
• Hajjaj is the Zuwayzan foreign minister. As a young man, he studied in Cottubus, and served the Kings of Zuwayza as a diplomat for as long as Zuwayza was independent. He faced many demands from Algarve and Unkerlant, including demands interfering with his personal life, when the wife of the Yanninan ambassador asked for his personal protection.
• Krasta is a Valmerian marchioness. She is Skarnu's sister. When the Algarvians occupy Priekule, the Valmerian capital, she ends up having an affair with an Algarvian colonel and bears his child.
• Pekka is a Kuusaman mage. In her researches into magic, she discovers a principle analogous to the discovery of nuclear energy here-and-now. She becomes one of the leading researchers in the project to develop super-weapon based on this principle, to her surprise being accepted as an equal by Ilmarinen and Siuntio, the greatest theoretical mages of their age (possibly equivalent to Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein). She assumes direction of the "Naantali Distinct Project", (the Manhattan Project), having the combined roles of Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer. A highly sympathetic character, warm-hearted, humorous, a devoted mother and a loyal wife, she agonises for over three volumes about having fallen in love with Fernao without falling out of love with her husband Leino - a dilemma solved tragically only when Algarvians kill Leino in a magical battle.
• Yet at the same time, Pekka gives her all to developing the most fearsome weapon her world ever saw - with the best of motives, the apprehension that Algavians may find it first and the urgent need to find a "clean" counterbalance to the Algarvian murder-powered magic. Eventually she gets to use the weapon herself, together with her beloved Fernao and with Illmarinen releasing enormous sorcerous energy upon the Gyongiosian capital capital Gyovar, killing in a single instant all its inhabitants, including tens of thousands of other mothers and their children. In this she effectively assumes also the role of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the plane Enola Gay which dropped the first atomic bomb and destroyed Hiroshima - though as a mage, she could actually feel the anguish and death of her victims, as a pilot could not. Immediately afterwards, she and Ferano have a rather bland wedding ceremony and settle down to domestic bliss in a nice provincial town, not too deeply haunted by what they had done - or so would Turtledove have his readers believe.
• Note: "Pekka", like other Kuusaman names, is taken from Finnish. To non-Finnish readers, it is a plausible woman's name, but actually it is a typical male name, the Finnish equivalent to "Peter" (see [1], [2], [3]). In fact, some of Finland's neighbours used it as a derogatory nickname referring to a drunken/bad-mannered Finnish tourist (see Offensive terms per nationality). It is nuclear whether Turtledove was aware of this when he gave the name to a female character. (However, in many ways the series deliberately turns things upside down, as for example having blond, blue eyes Kaunian "Jews" persecuted by circumcised Algarvian "Nazis").
• Rathar is the Marshal of Unkerlant. He is analogous to Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov.
• Sabrino is an Algarvian dragon-flyer. He is analogous to Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Courageous and gallant, always at the forefront of the fighting and arousing the immense loylaty of the dragon-riders under his command, he firmly opposes the mass killing of Kanunians and dares to speak his mind to King Mezentio in person - for which he is denied the promotion he amply deserves. Shot down during the last desperate fighting in Alagarve, he loses a leg. In the aftermath, he rejects out of hand the Unkerlanter victors' offer to become their pupper king. The character bears some resemblance to 'Colonel Heinrich Jaeger, a German tank commander in Turtledove's Worldwar & Colonization Series.
• Sidroc is a Forthwegan anti-Kaunian and cousin of Leofsig and Ealstan. He threatens to betray Ealstan for living with a Kaunian and in a fight, kills Leofsig. To avoid prosecution, he enlists in King Plegmund's Brigade, a Forthwegian-manned unit of the Algarvian army, analogous to the Waffen SS. Sidroc fights in eastern Unkerlant and makes corporal during the retreat eastward into Trapani, and is the soldier who blazes King Meztizo on his request as the Unkerlanters enter the palace. He is captured and goes into captivity in the cinnabar mines of Unkerlant; he escapes with Garivald, but is caught and killed.
• Skarnu is a Valmerian soldier. In the beginning, he was a Valmieran Marquis who took up the call to arms. After Valmiera fell to the Algarvians, he went into hiding and joined an irregular resistance.
• Spinello is an Algarvian major (later colonel), whose character expresses the complicated and contradictory Alagarvian attitude to the Kaunians. Before the war he was a scholar specializing in ancient Kaunian culture and liked to spend quiet hours at the Kaunian Museum in Trapani, the Alagarvian capital. With the outbreak of war he becomes the military governor of the Forthweg village where Vanai and her grandfather Brivibas live. Spinello first befriends Brivibas, a famous Kaunian scholar of whom he heard a lot, and treats him as a pupil to master. Then, however, Spinello begins to demand that he publish an endorsement of Algarvian rule, and upon Brivibas' complete refusal Spinello forces him into hard physical labour which would soon lead to his death. To save her grandfather, Vanai agrees to have sexual relations with Spinello, who is well-aware that she finds him hateful but envoys imposing his will on her - which clearly has as much to do with her being Kaunian as with her being an attractive young woman. As seen through Vanai's eyes, he is a hateful monster. In desperation, Vanai casts a spell to make him go away, and Spinlello is sent to Unkelant to command the unit in which Trasone serves; he and his fellow soldiers are surprised to see their theatrical new commander develop into a good combat officer, brave without being reckless and caring about his men's welfare - though they soon feel tired of his repeated boasts about his sexual exploits with Vanai. Spinlello is wounded at Solingen (Stalingrad) and is evacuated at the last moment to save his life from the tightening siege.
• At his point, Spinello becomes a viewpoint charcater in his own right. Back in Trapani, he visits the museum and is severely reproved by his old teacher for the army's persecution of Kaunians. Back at the front, he forms a laison with another Kaunian girl, Yadvigai, who has been adopted as a kind of mascot by his new unit. This time, the relationship is entered into willingly by the girl and is based on as much mutual trust and affection as could be expected in the circumstances. Spinello and Yadvigai escape together through the marches, hunted by the advancing Unkerlaters, and reach Forthweg, where she departs though bearing no ill-will to Spinello. However, at the Fortwegian capital Spinello resumes his habit of boasting to everybody around of his realtions with Vanai - with fatal consequences. Vanai, who still deeply hates Spinello, hears about it from her husband Ealstan, who happened to hear Spinello talk with his soldiers in the street. Furious and determined to get her revenge at last, Vanai disuises herself magiacally and feeds Spinello poison mushrooms which kill him three days later.
• Talsu is a Jelgavan tailor who fought in the Jelgavian army until its surrender. Returning home, he found himself as pawn between the resistance and the Algarvian occupiers, including being thrown into a dungeon. He assists the Kussaman army in liberating his country, only to be thrown back into a dungeon again and interrogated by the same persons who worked for the Algarvians. His wife writes Pekka, the Kussaman mage, and the Jelgavian government releases him from prison and expels him into Kussaman custody.
• Tealdo is an Algarvan soldier, the friend of Trasone. The story follows him from being a raw recruit taking part in the bloodless occupation of Bari (analoguous to the Austrian Anschluß ), through the realively easy conquests of Sibiu, Valmiera and Jelgava, and through the first part of the war in Unkerlant. Trasone becomes a veteran, learns to kill and act ruthlessly, but also shows unexpected compassion and sensitivity in an encounter with a starving girl in occupied Jelgava. He is killed at the high-tide mark of the invasion when Algarvian soldiers get within sight of Cottbus (Moscow) but are thrown back.
• Trasone is an Algarvan soldier, Tealdo's friend and comrade in arms, who continues this thread after Tealdo's death. A member of a army which commits terrible atrocities, Trasone is not persoanlly party to them. He is a seasoned combat veteran, daily fighting the Unkerlanters and developing a grudging respect for them. He takes part in battle of Sulingen (Battle of Stalingrad) and is part of the Alagarvian forces which are cut off and are in an icreasingly desperate situation. In his final scene he and his superior and friend, Sergeant Panfillo, are shown facing bravely and stoically the certainty of their approaching doom, and recalling Tealdo who was killed a year before. Soon afterwards, the Unkerlaters launch their final assault and Trasone is killed by an exploding "egg".
• Vanai is a Forthwegan Kaunian.