Discworld: Difference between revisions

{{franchisetropes}}

'''Tropes that are not specific to one character (or group of characters) ''and'' appeared in three or more books (anything else should go in those pages, since otherwise five-sevenths of the tropes on this site would be listed).'''

* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: Death's scythe and sword, Carrot's sword, and Inigo Skimmer's palm knife. Especially Death's scythe, which is described as "proverbially sharp" and can [[Painting the Fourth Wall|cut the dialog]] ''in the book'' when it's swung. It exudes an aura of sharpness that extends several inches from the actual blade- ''because it is that sharp.''

** Carrot's sword is also very interesting. It is one of the very few swords on the Disc without a single hint of magic in it. Instead, it is a long and very sharp piece of metal designed specifically to cut through man, horse and armour. IT is also an extremely old sword. This makes sense, given its implied origin.

*** A maze so small that people get lost looking for it.

*** Crazy paving that has committed suicide.

{{quote|''"To Bloody Stupid Johnson, scale was something that happened to other people."''

''"If you wanted a small ground-to-air missile, you just asked him to make an ornamental fountain"'' }}

** And, quite impressively, he managed to create an explosive out of nothing but sand and water.

** Completely inverted with Leonard of Quirm (who invents, among other things, incredibly destructive siege engines as intellectual exercises, including cutting instructions and parts lists) and Goldeneyes (one client tore them out to prevent him from making any works greater for anyone else) Silverhand (hand cut off for similar reasons by ANOTHER client) Dactylos, the Discworld's greatest engineer (who dies near the end of the first book, killed by his LAST client, same reason).

* [[Excuse Me, Coming Through]]: An important element of the Law of Narrative Causality, complete with [[Lampshade]] and two guys carrying a pane of glass.

* [[Exposition of Immortality]]: In a [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] world populated by Anthropomorphic personifications, golems, gods, and wizards you should expect plenty of this. The golems are one of bigger examples: given that they're made of rock and effectively unkillable. [[Time Abyss|Anghammarad]] is an extreme example; built over 20,000 years ago and still functioning, remembering times, events, places and languages that nothing else on the Disc does. Several of the vampires who pop up get in on this, too. The Count de Magpyr (the old, traditional one, not the trendy new one) recognises the names of several of the peasants in the mob at his castle and makes mentioning of remembering their grandparents.

* [[Fallen-On-Hard-Times Job]]: Is [[Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler]] selling sausages? Then another stupid moneymaking scheme has just blown up in his face.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: dwarfs versus trolls; humans versus trolls in some places; just about everyone versus goblins.

* [[Freudian Trio]]: The Lancre witches (Magrat: ego, Granny Weatherwax: superego, Nanny Ogg: id. Very, very id)

* [[Fridge Brilliance]]: Thank goodness for [http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html the Pratchett File].

* [[Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire]]: All the members of the League of Temperance, who only drink animal blood taken from slaughterhouses.

** Or switch to something completely different. Coffee, anyone?

* [[Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook]]: The "learning to commit more serious crimes" variety is parodied when the Ankh-Morpork Thieves' Guild, an entirely legal organisation, runs official classes in the city's main prison, the Tanty.

* [[Happily Married]]: Commander Vimes and Lady Sybil, Fred Colon and his [[The Ghost|unnamed wife]], and King Verence and Queen Magrat of Lancre.

** Detritus is said to be Happily Married to Ruby in Thud!, though they lack Babies Ever After.

* [[The Hat Makes the Man]]: The king's crown and the archmage's hat both influence their wearer's personality.

* [[Humans Are Leaders]]: Not too surprising as humans appears to be the most populous species. But in Ankh-Morpork, dwarves, trolls, and vampires are factions that Vetinari and the Watch deal with like another guild.

* [[The Igor]]: An entire family of them that does henching and [[Mad Science]] professionally. They also pioneer surgical techniques and do it almost recreationally; when an Igor is said to have his father's eyes, it's probably not a figure of speech. They may have been handed down through the generations (a good pair of hands are worth hanging onto as well). One of them has a pet dog made up of the pieces of many other pet dogs; he isn't too broken up about it when Scraps gets killed off, because it's only a matter of time until the next thunderstorm.

*** When we finally get an on-screen Igorina (in ''[[Monstrous Regiment]]'') she makes an off-hand remark that the scars from the stitching can be gotten rid of in 15 minutes with the right ointment. That means that Igors go around covered in scars ''because that's how Igors want to look''.

* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Susan Sto Helit desperately wants to lead an ordinary life, which is complicated by the fact that she's the daughter of Death's adopted daughter and his former apprentice. And she's a duchess. Rincewind also hates being forced into dangerous quests to save the world, and would like nothing more than to be bored the rest of his life. Carrot Ironfoundersson may also qualify, as despite the fact that he <s> is</s> probably is the heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, he prefers to be a copper.

** This is the Discworld. [[Heads-Tails-Edge|It might not.]]

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Incredibly Lame Pune, or Play on Words]]: Common, though often subtle.

* [[In the Local Tongue]]: Discussed several times. For example, Mount Oolskunrahod in Skund, which translates as "Who is this fool who doesn't know what a mountain is?"

** The above is found in a forest named "Your finger, you fool," after an explorer pointed and asked a native "What's this?"

* [[Just Following Orders]]: Subverted, inverted, played with, deconstructed, and generally given hell from (at the very latest) ''[[Guards! Guards!]]'' onwards.

** ''[[The Fifth Elephant]]'' probably attacked it most viciously, when Vimes encounters a man who let the enemies take his wife, Lady Sybil, because of 'orders'. He ordered Detritus to shoot the man on the spot, which the troll refused to do, proving why Vimes works with him at all. Doubles as a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for both Detritus, and for Vimes, who trusts his officers not to take bad orders ''even from him''.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: Just about every book not only includes a lot of [[Playing with a Trope|Trope Play]], but a lot of [[Genre Savvy]] characters who will know just what's going on, and will be in no way shy about stating it.

* [[The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday]]: Pops up in quite a few books, including ''[[The Light Fantastic]]'' and ''[[Soul Music (novel)|Soul Music]]''.

** Nutt

** Death

** Mustrum Ridcully, Moist von Lipwig and Nanny Ogg have practically made careers of it.

* [[Oh Look More Rooms]]: Death's Domain. The initial hallway is intimidating enough, but several of the rooms along it open up into cavernous chambers filled with books or hourglasses.

* [[OOC Is Serious Business]]:

** Death is generally a calm and collected speaker, so whenever ''he'' loses his temper (at, say, New Death in ''[[Reaper Man]]''), you know shit just got real.

** An upset Nanny Ogg is bad to see, as Agnes notes in [[Carpe Jugulum]]. A Nanny Ogg that misses a chance to mock Agnes' [[Accidental Innuendo]], on the other hand, is rather dread-inducing, because then ''something is seriously wrong''.

* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: Swamp dragons are unstable, [[Ugly Cute]] little runts which manufacture volatile chemicals in their insides for firebreathing purposes and are prone to exploding violently. Noble dragons are your typical fantasy dragon, but have all disappeared for some reason.

* [[Overwhelming Obsession]]: This is the dwarfs' racial attitude toward gold. In more than one novel, it's made clear that their sorrow after a mine cave-in isn't caused by the loss of dwarf life, but rather by the loss of a seam of gold that hadn't been completely mined out yet. As for keeping the gold once they've dug it out of the ground:

{{quote|Dwarfs are very attached to gold. Any highwayman demanding 'Your money or your life' had better bring a folding chair and packed lunch and a book to read while the debate goes on.

* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: Death {{small-caps|who talks like this}} has his own font, as do Golems in some books; Carrot's letters and their "ballistic approach to grammar"; the Auditors talk outside of dialogue (One thinks, one speaks like this); particularly odd looking signs might actually appear in the books as poorly drawn handwriting; etc etc. Pratchett doesn't as much paint the fourth wall as much as he uses a nice wallpaper and hangs an attractive painting off it.

* [[Parodied Trope]]

** "Do deformed rabbit, it's my favorite."

* [[Sand Is Water]]:

** In ''[[Jingo]]'', a D'reg refers to ships as a camel of the water.

* [[Sanity Ball]]: Let's just say there are only a few bouncing around.

* [[T-Word Euphemism]]: Lots, from the vampires' refrain of "the B-vord", Mr. Tulip's repeated use of "---ing", Quoth the Raven's "N-word", and Moist Von Lipwig's tirade against Reacher Gilt in ''[[Going Postal (Discworld)|Going Postal]]''.

** The K-word, the L-word, the T-word, ''both'' S-words, the V-word and the Y-word.

** Don't forget to NEVER, EVER use the M-word near the Librarian of the Unseen University.

* [[Talking Animal]]: Usually due to the magical equivalent of radioactive waste.

* [[True Sight]]: Wizards and witches can see what's really there. Susan also teaches this in her class in ''[[Thief of Time]]''

** Children seem to have this. Even when Death makes himself known, most adults won't even notice that he's a skeleton, because everybody knows that skeletons can't walk around and talk. Children don't know that, though, and they see Death as he really looks. Not that it bothers them at all.

* [[Unusually Uninteresting Name]]: The Patrician's scary secret service goes by the name of ...Clerks.

** Well, everyone calls the ''actual'' scary secret service the "Dark Clerks", and a good many of them are scholarship students to the Assassin's Guild School. (Generally regarded as just about the finest place to get a general education in the whole world, even foreign royalty have been known to send their children there. Of course, it's also helpful to know how it's done if you want to avoid being inhumed...)

* [[Watering Down]]: Several jokes about this.

* [[We All Die Someday]]: It's widely acknowledged that Death meets everyone, sooner or later. But to note:

{{quote|'''Vimes''': I've been talking to people who are going to die today. Do you have any idea how that feels like?

'''Lu-Tze''': Of course. Everyone I talk to is going to die. Everyone you talk to is going to die. Everybody dies. }}

{{quote|'''Ponder''': Graveyards are full of people who rushed in bravely but unwisely.

'''The Librarian''': Ook.<ref>Sooner or later, graveyards are full of ''everybody''</ref> }}