Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking/Literature: Difference between revisions

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 Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
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+== ''[[Discworld]]'' ==
+* In ''[[Making Money]]'' Cosmo Lavish says Moist Von Lipwig is "a cheat and a liar, an embezzler, and [has] no dress sense whatsoever". Moist replies "[[I Take Offense to That Last One|I happen to think I dress rather snappily!]]"
+* In ''[[Going Postal (Discworld)|Going Postal]]'', Moist is tested by the Order of the Post to see if he's worthy of becoming the new Postmaster. Moist rhetorically wonders "What's the worst that could happen?", Mr. Groat explains, "The worst that could happen is you lose all your fingers on one hand, are crippled for life, and break half the bones in your body. Oh, and then they don't let you join."
+* ''[[Unseen Academicals]]'' has Glenda realizing that the romance novels she voraciously reads are actually rather dull and formulaic: "It's absolutely guaranteed that, for example, an exciting civil war or an invasion by trolls or even a scene with any cooking in it is not going to happen."
+* In ''[[Interesting Times]]'', "Teach" Saveloy introduces Cohen the Barbarian thusly: "Doer of mighty deeds. Slayer of dragons. Ravager of cities. He once bought an apple." Though actually ''buying'' an apple instead of stealing it is quite an accomplishment for a member of the Silver Horde.
+* ''[[Soul Music (novel)|Soul Music]]'' describes the influence of [[The Power of Rock|Music With Rocks In It]] thusly: "It made you want to kick down walls and ascend the sky on steps of fire. It made you want to pull all the switches and throw all the levers and stick your fingers in the electric socket of the Universe to see what happened next. It made you want to [[Emo Teen|paint your bedroom wall black and cover it with posters]]."
+== ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' ==
+* The back-cover blurbs for books in ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' list five or more events, props, or characters, a few of which (usually but not always the last) are often something harmless-sounding, such as "a doll named Pretty Penny" or "a bad casserole". Some of the later books subvert this by making the last item on the list something more dramatic-- such as "a surprising survivor of a terrible fire".
+** This is re-subverted when some of the harmless-''sounding'' items are actually very important and dangerous, like "[[MacGuffin|a sugar bowl]]", while some of the dangerous-sounding items, like [[Deathbringer the Adorable|"Chabo the Wolf Baby"]] are harmless.
+** There's an arrest warrant out for [[Big Bad|Count Olaf]] for Arson, Fraud, Murder, and [[Poke the Poodle|stealing a tray of cupcakes]]
+** And don't forget the carnival freaks from book 9: a hunchback, a contortionist, and an ambidextrous guy.
+** Speaking of examples from the ninth book, while discussing which part of a ferocious beast is to be the most feared, Snicket writes, "Some say the teeth of the beast, because teeth are used for eating children, and often their parents, and gnawing their bones. Some say the claws of the beast, because claws are used for ripping things to shreds. And some say the hair of the beast, because hair can make allergic people sneeze."
+** From Book the 13th: "Sooner or later everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two, a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set."
+* Let's face it, Snicket loves this trope, and uses every opportunity to parody and lampshade it. The real life Snicket (Handler) does this too, often referring to his own books with the trope.
+== Other works ==
 * From [[The Bible]], 1 Peter 4:15 says, “by no means let any of you suffer as a murderer or thief or evildoer or a troublesome meddler.” So in other words, "Don't kill, don't steal, don't be evil and don't gossip," M'kay?
 **In an honor society getting a bad rep can be a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] and is often metted out by rather erratic standards. Gossip can be [[Serious Business]].
 * Juvenal (second century A.D.) uses this now and then in his satires. Most of the time his examples actually escalate (adultery, murder, murder of close relations) but now and then he throws in this trope, as in listing the dangers of living in Rome as "conflagrations, collapsing buildings, poets reciting in the month of August". Which makes this one [[Older Than Feudalism]].
-* Appears also in [[Candide]]: or, Opptimism. It fits particularly well due to the dry and dispassionate tone of the narrative. After the titular character slays the Jew, who was a joint owner of Cunegonde (Candide's love interest), the Inquisitor, the other joint owner, sees this upon entering:
+* Appears also in ''[[Candide]]: or, Opptimism''. It fits particularly well due to the dry and dispassionate tone of the narrative. After the titular character slays the Jew, who was a joint owner of Cunegonde (Candide's love interest), the Inquisitor, the other joint owner, sees this upon entering:
 {{quote|Entering, he discovered the whipped Candide, with his drawn sword in his hand, a dead body stretched on the floor, Cunegonde frightened out of her wits, and the old woman giving advice.}}
 ** The unfortunate people sentenced to [[Public Execution]] in Lisbon after the earthquake: "a Biscayan for marrying his godmother"; "two Portuguese for taking out the bacon of a larded pullet they were eating"; and "Dr. Pangloss, and his pupil Candide, the one for speaking his mind, and the other for seeming to approve what he had said."
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 * In [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Good Omens]]'', begins a section with a list of phenomena commonly thought to be caused by demonic influence: such as "wars, plagues, [and] sudden audits".
 ** There's also a mention of how people are attracted to costumes and new activities, such as dressing up in sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people.
-* The back-cover blurbs for books in ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' list five or more events, props, or characters, a few of which (usually but not always the last) are often something harmless-sounding, such as "a doll named Pretty Penny" or "a bad casserole". Some of the later books subvert this by making the last item on the list something more dramatic-- such as "a surprising survivor of a terrible fire".
-** This is re-subverted when some of the harmless-''sounding'' items are actually very important and dangerous, like "[[MacGuffin|a sugar bowl]]", while some of the dangerous-sounding items, like [[Deathbringer the Adorable|"Chabo the Wolf Baby"]] are harmless.
-** There's an arrest warrant out for [[Big Bad|Count Olaf]] for Arson, Fraud, Murder, and [[Poke the Poodle|stealing a tray of cupcakes]]
-** And don't forget the carnival freaks from book 9: a hunchback, a contortionist, and an ambidextrous guy.
-** Speaking of examples from the ninth book, while discussing which part of a ferocious beast is to be the most feared, Snicket writes, "Some say the teeth of the beast, because teeth are used for eating children, and often their parents, and gnawing their bones. Some say the claws of the beast, because claws are used for ripping things to shreds. And some say the hair of the beast, because hair can make allergic people sneeze."
-** From Book the 13th: "Sooner or later everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two, a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set."
-* Let's face it, Snicket loves this trope, and uses every opportunity to parody and lampshade it. The real life Snicket (Handler) does this too, often referring to his own books with the trope.
 * In ''[[The Wind in the Willows]]'', Toad gets the biggest part of a twenty-year jail sentence for [[Major Misdemeanor|insulting a policeman]].
-* ''[[Discworld]]'':
-** In ''[[Making Money]]'' Cosmo Lavish says Moist Von Lipwig is "a cheat and a liar, an embezzler, and [has] no dress sense whatsoever". Moist replies "[[I Take Offense to That Last One|I happen to think I dress rather snappily!]]"
-** In ''[[Going Postal (Discworld)|Going Postal]]'', Moist is tested by the Order of the Post to see if he's worthy of becoming the new Postmaster. Moist rhetorically wonders "What's the worst that could happen?", Mr. Groat explains, "The worst that could happen is you lose all your fingers on one hand, are crippled for life, and break half the bones in your body. Oh, and then they don't let you join."
-** ''[[Unseen Academicals]]'' has Glenda realizing that the romance novels she voraciously reads are actually rather dull and formulaic: "It's absolutely guaranteed that, for example, an exciting civil war or an invasion by trolls or even a scene with any cooking in it is not going to happen."
-** In ''[[Interesting Times]]'', "Teach" Saveloy introduces Cohen the Barbarian thusly: "Doer of mighty deeds. Slayer of dragons. Ravager of cities. He once bought an apple." Though actually ''buying'' an apple instead of stealing it is quite an accomplishment for a member of the Silver Horde.
-** ''[[Soul Music (novel)|Soul Music]]'' describes the influence of [[The Power of Rock|Music With Rocks In It]] thusly: "It made you want to kick down walls and ascend the sky on steps of fire. It made you want to pull all the switches and throw all the levers and stick your fingers in the electric socket of the Universe to see what happened next. It made you want to [[Emo Teen|paint your bedroom wall black and cover it with posters]]."
 * A piece of background text in the first ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' book states that Fowl Manor has survived "war, civil unrest and several tax audits".
 * Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (1952). “No man, however highly civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting, or Welsh hymn-singing, and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. It would be interesting to take a group of the most eminent philosophers from the universities, shut them up in a hot room with Moroccan dervishes or Haitian voodooists, and measure, with a stop watch, the strength of their psychological resistance to the effects of rhythmic sound. Would the Logical Positivists be able to hold out longer than the Subjective Idealists? Would the Marxists prove tougher than the Thomists or the Vedantists? What a fascinating, what a fruitful field for experiment! Meanwhile, all we can safely predict is that, if exposed long enough to the tom-toms and the singing, every one of our philosophers would end up by capering and howling with the savages.” (p. 321) of the Penguin 1975 reprint