Diamond Dogs: Difference between revisions

* [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul]]: Played with. Doctor Trintignant was already pretty immoral, even before he began experimenting on unwitting subjects (along with himsefl). On the other hand {{spoiler|Richard and Childe become pretty warped in their quest to beat the tower; by allowing Trintignant to modify their bodies, they steadily become less human within and without.}}

* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|Everyone except Richard and Celestine are killed, with the possible exception of Childe, who might've suffered a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. Richard and Celestine are unable to reverse the radical changes they made to their bodies because society back home has collpased (thus the technology no longer exists) and Dr. Trintignant, the only other person who can do it, kills himself. They're forced to eke out a bleak and poor existence in Chasm City to survive, with Richard having to pretend to be a strange looking dog, due to his appearance. Eventually, the situation, combined with his memories and obsession with the Spire, causes him to give up and throw away his life with Celestine to return to the Spire (where he'll almost certainly be killed or worse, like Childe).}}

* [[Forbidden Fruit]]: Despite being unquestionably dangerous, the crew can't help but keep on going into the Blood Spire, even after people start getting mutilated and/or killed.

** One character compares it to climbing a mountain: "''Because it's there.''"

* [[Only Smart People May Pass]]: A deconstruction of this trope {{spoiler|and [[Body Horror|the characters]].}}

* [[Schmuck Bait]]: Near the end, the narrator/protagonist speculates {{spoiler|that this might be the ultimate purpose of the tower. It lures in intelligent beings with it's tests, forcing them to adapt their minds and bodies to pass it's increasingly esoteric tests. When they finally get to the top, they're "harvested" by the tower, like some kind of alien Venus Fly Trap.}}

{{quote| "I had the same dream," I said, wonderingly. "And there was another dream in which I was inside somekind of-" I halted, waiting for the words to assemble in my head. "Some kind of underground tomb. I remember being chased down a corridor by an [[Indy Escape|enormous stone ball]] which was going to roll over me." <br />

Hirz nodded. "[[Indiana Jones|The dream with the hat, right?]]"<br />

"Christ, yes," the infiltration specialist said, as if suddenly remembering. "The cubes. What about you, Richard?" "Indeed," I answered, flinching at the memory of that one. [[Cube|I had been one of a party of people trapped inside an endless series of cubic rooms, many of which contained lethal surprises.]] "I was cut into pieces by a trap, actually. Diced, if I remember accurately."<br />

"Yeah. Not exactly on my top ten list of ways to die, either.'" }}

* [[Title Drop]]: "Diamond Dogs" refers to the monsterous forms {{spoiler|Childe and Richard modify themselves into in order to beat the tower; by the end of the story, they resemble rottweilers standing on their hind legs, covered in a diamond fabric.}}