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@discjude Thank you! I'm glad it could turn out to be helpful to you! If you keep track, I'd love to know how many you manage to use—that's a cool idea.

I'm thrilled the Japeth one got to you! (When I came up with his list, I specifically thought: "I wonder if Jude would have anything to say about it?")

Kei is kind of a hard one, to me. Off the top of my head, I'd assign him: turning point, in medias res, and third person limited pov, which is just another way of saying he's a little unknowable, and/or I don't know him well enough as a character aside from the role he played in forwarding the plot. And, I'm referencing his sudden appearance and relevance.

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I should have assigned symbolism to someone, so that goes to Sophie, Guinevere, and the Storian.

Arthur (and the kingdom of Camelot itself) get magical realism/fabulism, and haunting the narrative. And a less modern way of defining Lancelot could've been "the vernacular." Also, Merlin gets puns.

And, I came up with overlap for Rhian I and Rhian II: oxymoron, paradox, and passive voice (especially when used to displace blame onto another, or to leave out a designated, clear subject performing the deed).

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Latin is a roundabout way of saying: “Rafal is old.”

(In One True King, I'm pretty sure Sophie freaks out and derides him, calling him "Father Evil.")

The more elaborate explanation is that he does not and will never suffer from "belatedness." (Except, in the context of Soman drawing inspiration from elsewhere.)

Rafal is the “first,” in a sense, which lends to him the special, rare advantage of not feeling self-conscious of his work. He was likely the "innovator" of Evil, to an extent, we could speculate, and I doubt he was predated by too many exceptional villains, especially considering how he's held up by those at The Black Rabbit as some kind of exemplar, the Master of Evil, who gets a free pass in on some basis of his actual prodigiousness, something other than his just being a feared authority figure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but: every other villain or antagonist, major or minor, in the entire series (not counting the Storian) exists after him in time, or exists because of him and the influence he exerts, the hostility he elicits, the violence he incites. He's the proverbial "giant," and others stand on his shoulders.

Here, I briefly trawled the internet:

"Quick Reference. In Harold Bloom's theory of literary history (see anxiety of influence), the predicament of the poet who feels that previous poets have already said all that there is to say, leaving no room for new creativity. From: belatedness in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms » Subjects: Literature."

"Belatedness definition: The state or quality of being belated or of being too late."

In addition, while Latin is mostly a reference to Rafal’s age and his lack of suffering from belatedness, it's also the provenance of lots of words from the English language. (I know the Greeks as epic poets came first, but Latin works better for these comparative purposes.) That's why I tied the concept of the etymological roots of words into his list.

If Rafal were a modern scholar, I'm tempted to say he'd pursue the study of philology because it works well for him, as a symbol:

"A theory of language development which traces the ‘family tree’ of modern natural languages like English, French, and German back to their historical origins. The central point of interest of such research is to show the common ancestry of words dispersed across several languages."

Or the common ancestry of all Evil. Horrible, isn't it?

Plus, we might have a sliver of evidence for this so-called "great inheritance" in Fall. Whatever he said to the demimagus in its language or in the language of sorcery (or if we take into account the spells and incantations of SGE in general) they all seem to be derived from Latin, as is common practice among authors.

Thus, he's old—despite being part of an archetype greater than himself anyway. Because, actually, sorry to break it to you: he’s an “Archimago” figure!

(Well, by my interpretation, at least. And besides that, other literary characters I don't know probably predate Edmund Spenser's Archimago as well.)

Thusly, we have:

Lecherous, Bad "Catholic" Rafal -> Making Good Holy Knights Doubt Their True Love, Truth, and Faith & Posing As An Ancient Hermit Since 1590.

I promise I'm not insane. If anyone would like some reference:

SGE Characters as Literary Things

(Not all of these are actual literary or rhetorical devices; some are just writing techniques, forms, genres, mediums, etc.)

This is a bit abstract, so I’m curious about how subjective these might be. Does anyone agree or disagree? And feel free to make additions if you think I left anything out, or request another character that isn’t here.

Hopefully this makes (intuitive?) sense. As always, I'm willing to explain my thought process behind any of the things I've listed.

Also, anyone can treat this like a “Tag Yourself” meme, if you want. Whose list do you most relate to, use, or encounter?

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LANCELOT (I know—how odd that I’m starting with a minor character and not Rafal, but wait. There’s a method to my madness. Also, watch out for overlap!):

Metonymy, synecdoche (no, literally, to me, these are him.)

Zeugma

Analogy

Figures of speech

Slang, argot

Colloquialisms

Idioms

TEDROS:

Simile

Metaphor

Rhyming couplets

Rhyme schemes

Sonnets

Commercial fiction

Coming-of-age genre

Line enjambment

Overuse of commas

Cadence, prose speech

Waxing poetic, verse (not prose)

Alliteration

Kinesthetic imagery

Phallic imagery/sword sexual innuendos (sorry)

The chivalric romance genre

AGATHA:

Anaphora, repetition

Semicolon, periods

Line breaks

Terse, dry prose

Semantics (not syntax)

Elegy

Resonance

Consonance, alliteration

Pseudonym

Narrative parallels

Realism

Satire

SOPHIE:

Sophistry (yes, there is a word for it!)

Imagery

Italics, emphasis

Em dash

Aphrodisiac imagery

Unreliable narrator, bias

Rashomon effect

Syntax (not semantics)

Diction

Chiasmus (think: “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”)

Rhetorical purpose

Provocation, calls to action

Voice, writing style

Rhetorical modes: pathos, logos, ethos

Metaphor

Hyperbole, exaggeration

Sensationalism, journalism

Surrealism

Verisimilitude

Egocentrism

Callbacks (but not foreshadowing or call-forwards)

Narrative parallels

Paralepsis, occultatio, apophasis, denial

Hypothetical dialogue

Monologue

JAPETH:

Sibilance

Lacuna

Villanelle (an obsessive, repetitive form of poetry)

Soliloquy

ARIC:

Sentence fragments

RHIAN (TCY):

Unreliable narrator

Setup, payoff

Chekhov’s gun

Epistolary novel

RHIAN (prequels):

Multiple povs

Perspective

Dramatic irony

Situational irony

Chiaroscuro (in imagery)

Endpapers

Frontispiece

Deckled edges

Narrative parallels

Foreshadowing

Call-forwards

Foil

Death of the author

RAFAL:

Omniscient narrator

Perspective

Surrealism

Etymology

Word families or 'linguistic ecosystems'

Latin

Verbal irony

Gallows humor

Narrative parallels

Call-forwards

Circular endings

Parallel sentences or balanced sentence structure

Narrative parallels

Foil

Juxtaposition

Authorial intent (“return of the author”)

HESTER:

Protagonist

Allusions

Gothic imagery

ANADIL:

Defamiliarization

Deuteragonist (second most important character in relation to the protagonist)

Psychic distance

Sterile prose

Forewords, prologues

Works cited pages

DOT:

Tone

Gustatory imagery

Tritagonist (third most important character in relation to the protagonist)

KIKO:

Sidekick

Falling action

Dedications, author's notes, epigraph, acknowledgements

Epitaph (Tristan)

BEATRIX:

Pacing

Rising Action

Climax

HORT:

Unrequited love

Falling resolution

Anticlimax

Malapropism

Innuendo

Asides

Brackets, parentheses

Cliché

EVELYN SADER:

Synesthetic imagery

Villanelle

Foreshadowing

AUGUST SADER:

Stream of consciousness style

Imagery

Foreshadowing

Coming-of-age genre

Elegy

Omniscience

Rhetorical questions

Time skips, non-linear narratives

Epilogues

MARIALENA:

Diabolus ex machina

Malapropism

Malaphors, mixed metaphors

Slant rhyme

Caveat

Parentheses

Footnotes

MERLIN:

Deus ex machina

Iambic pentameter

Filler words

BETTINA:

Screenwriting

Shock value

Rhian: You've never dated anyone. Do you even have a type?

Rafal: Of course I have a type. An archetype.

Rhian: That's not—

Rafal: The magus, the archmage, the black magician, the ruler, the trickster, the magnificent bastard, the king of spades...

Rhian: [rolls his eyes]