A number of reoccurring master plots are found in the Lymond Chronicles. 'The Riddle', as mentioned by Robert Tobias, best describes the series as a whole, with the truth of Lymond's birth an overriding issue throughout. Each of the books has its own riddle to solve. Other Master Plots are found in each book; Christopher Booker's 'Voyage and Return' and 'Tragedy" as applied to the whole series, 'Overcoming the Monster' as applied to Gabriel, (DK and PIF), 'Rags to Riches' as applied to both Lymond and Philippa (GOK, PIF, RC and CM), 'The Quest' in Lymond's search for his son (PIF). The promise of The Lymond Chronicles is fulfilled when the central protagonists achieve their individual journeys of self-discovery via the various plotlines involved.
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson: together with journal of a tour to the Hebrides and Johnson’s Diary of a journey into North Wales Volume IV 1780-1784, Ed. George Birkbeck Hill, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934) 236.
Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories (London & New York: Continuum, 2004) 8.
Georges Polti, Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, Trans Lucille Ray (Boston: The Writer, Inc, c1940) 13,17,26,29,31,36,44,69,73,81,93,101,109,113,115.
William Foster-Harris, The Basic Patterns of Plot (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959) 66.
Ronald B Tobias, 20 Master Plots (and How to Build Them) (Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993) Table of Contents.
Aristotle, The Poetics, Ed and Trans Stephen Halliwell (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995) 63-65.
