Peter and the Starcatchers (2024)

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The Peter and the Starcatchers saga, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a series of fantasy novels; prequels to Sir J.M Barrie's Peter Pan. The series contains four books:

• Peter and the Starcatchers
• Peter and the Shadow Thieves
• Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
• Peter and the Sword of Mercy

A new series in the same universe of Peter and the Starcatchers begins with the book The Bridge to Neverland.

Tropes used in Peter and the Starcatchers include:

• Action Prologue: Sword of Mercy opens with a battle between Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane. Receives a Call Back at the end of the novel with one between Peter and Hook.
• Always Save the Girl: Every time the villains organize a Hostage for Macguffin.
• Androcles' Lion: The mermaids side with Peter after he heals their leader with some starstuff.
• Bad Boss: In the very first scene with Black Stache, we see him tying up his two fattest sailors and marooning them in a dory, just to make the ship lighter. (They survive.)
• Big Damn Heroes: Peter, in the first book, when Slank has a knife to Molly's throat.
• Bungling Inventor: Uncle Neville in The Sword of Mercy.
• Catch a Falling Star: Peter catches Wendy in the fourth book.
• Changeling Fantasy: The common orphan boy Peter turns out to have a very extraordinary family history.
• Character Filibuster: Chapter 20 of the first book, "Molly's Story", is one of these.
• Combat Pragmatist: Black Stache. Smee is quite surprised to hear that he's planning to take the Wasp in a fair fight.
• Creator Cameo: J.M. Barrie and his Saint Bernard Porthos make a short appearance in Shadow Thieves when he helps Peter and gives him directions to Molly's house.
• Dark Is Evil: Ombra is a textbook case.
• Embarrassing Rescue: The heroes rescuing Hook from Rundoon in the third book.
• Empty Promise: Peter finds himself making these to the other boys quite often.
• Enemy Mine: Shining Pearl and the pirates in the third book.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: It's mentioned that Black Stache only ever loved his mother, and felt bad about that time he marooned her.
• Evil Gloating: Slank to Molly in the first book.
• False Reassurance: King Zarboff. See You Said You Would Let Them Go.
• Five-Man Band: The orphan boys from St. Norbert.
  • The Hero: Peter
  • The Lancer: James
  • The Big Guy: Tubby Ted
  • The Smart Guy: Thomas
  • The Chick: Prentiss, the youngest of the group
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: In the first book, Slank is quite clearly heard having sex with Molly's governess.
• Gunship Rescue: In The Secret of Rundoon, George and the orphan boys pilot a flying boat to attack King Zarboff's palace just before the rocket launch.
• Heroic Willpower: Used by Peter to resist Ombra taking him over.
• Hook Hand: Captain Hook. (Obviously.)
• Hostage for Macguffin:
  • In the first book, Slank takes Molly hostage and demands the trunk of starstuff in return.
  • In the second book:
    • Ombra and his crew capture Shining Pearl for the same reason. The Molluscs don't have the starstuff, though, so they end up using her to guarantee safe passage back to their ship.
    • The Others kidnap Louise Astor and hold her ransom for the starstuff.
  • In the fourth book:
    • von Schaffen captures Tinker Bell and holds her hostage to swap with Peter.
    • Shining Pearl is once again used as leverage to get the starstuff from Fighting Prawn.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming
• I Have Your Wife: Used to set up a Hostage for Macguffin in the second book.
• Just Between You and Me: This happens pretty much every time The Others capture one of the good guys. In the third book, Ombra admits he just wants to see Leonard's reaction once he knows what's really going on.
• Living Shadow: A major plot point from Shadow Thieves-onwards.
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Glotz, the evil scientist who devises a plan to force large quantities of starstuff to fall.
• Mayfly-December Romance: Peter and Molly
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: When Molly is talking to the porpoises, she keeps telling them her teeth are green when she means hello.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: Commonly used.

• Never Grew Up: Peter
• No One Gets Left Behind
• Not Even Human: Ombra.
• Orphanage of Fear: The series begins with Peter and the other boys leaving one of these to board the Neverland.
• Running Gag: You know that whenever Peter translates Tinker Bell's speech for someone, that's not what she said...
• Sustained Misunderstanding: A standard gag between Smee and the Cap'n. Tubby Ted gets in on it too:

• Tactful Translation: Peter's translations for Tinker Bell.
• Take a Third Option: Black Stache, torn between chasing after Astor and taking the trunk or calling his bluff and pursuing the Wasp, decides to take a third option: he tosses his British Navy prisoner overboard. Predictably, Astor turns around to rescue the drowning sailor, coming close enough to the Sea Devil for Black Stache to harpoon his dory.
• They Called Me Mad: Dr. Glotz cackles this in his first appearance.
• Trilogy Creep: Originally the book started as a trilogy, and then came Sword of Mercy, acting as a full fledged prequel to the events of Peter Pan.
• Two-Part Trilogy: The first work can actually stand by itself, acting as an introduction with the major plot points (of that book) more or less resolved. Around Shadow Thieves, the series starts to blend together into a bigger story arc.
• Unspoken Plan: Shining Pearl's plan to attack the Scorpions.
• The Watson: Peter. There's a whole chapter where Molly goes on a Character Filibuster to tell him all about Starstuff and the history of the Starcatchers, and another bit where Fighting Prawn explains Mr. Grin's origin story to him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At first, Slank planned to kill Little Richard for this reason. But by the time he actually does it, it's for a different reason.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: In the third book, after Peter locates the starstuff. Zarboff decides to feed the boys to the snake anyway--he only promised that if Peter didn't do as he was instructed, he would feed them to the snake. He didn't say anything about not feeding them to the snake if he did follow the instructions.