Genre Savvy/Literature: Difference between revisions

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Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] characters in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:

== ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' ==

* Peter Pevensie demonstrates a degree of [[Genre Savvy]] in [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]'', particularly when -- after Edmund suggests the robin they are following might be leading them into a trap -- he observes that in all of the stories he has read, robins are creatures of good.

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* Edmund also has a [[Genre Savvy]] moment or two near the beginning of ''[[Prince Caspian]]'', drawing upon his knowledge of adventure stories for ideas on how he and his siblings can get by after they find themselves in an unpopulated wilderness.

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** He has another in ''[[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'' when they are considering what has happened to the man whose armor they have found; it is explicitly cited that he reads mysteries.

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* Eustace, [[Foil|by contrast]], has his initial ''[[Genre Blindness|lack]]'' of Genre Savviness pointed out multiple times -- he's said in the narration to have "read none of the right books." In his diary, when the ship is becalmed and drinking water is at a premium, he recounts how Caspian warned that anyone caught stealing water will "get two dozen" and that he didn't know what that meant until Edmund explained it to him. "It comes of the sort of books those Pevensie kids read." (Even the Pevensies have their lapses, like when they first arrive back in Narnia in ''Prince Caspian'' and think they might have to live off the land. They think they remember reading about people eating roots, but they're not sure what kind; Lucy "always thought it meant roots of trees.")

== ''[[Discworld]]'' ==

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* And it's not just the good guys who are [[Genre Savvy]]. The old Count Magpyr in ''[[Carpe Jugulum]]'' has huge stocks of lemons, holy water, and wooden stakes; his servant Igor even added a handy anatomy chart to help vampire hunters find the heart. Windows were easily opened to the sun, and dozens of objects could be converted into an easily recognised holy symbol. Why? His role was the ''recurring'' monster, and he knew what people would do if he tried Going Too Far.

** His nephew, the new Count is just as [[Genre Savvy]], but more ambitious. As savvy as he is though, he's not quite a match for Granny Weatherwax.

== ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' ==

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* Harry Dresden in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. Not exactly harmed by such details as ''Dracula'' having been written to educate people about how to kill a certain kind of vampire.

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* Lampshaded in ''Dead Beat'':

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{{quote|"The trick was to figure out which movie I was in. If this was a variant on ''High Noon'', then walking outside was probably a fairly dangerous idea. On the other hand, there was always the chance that I was still in the opening scenes of ''The Maltese Falcon'' and everyone trying to chase down the bird still wanted to talk to me. In which case, this was probably a good chanceto dig for vital information about what might well be a growing storm around the search for The Word of Kemmler."}}

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** A failure of [[Genre Savvy]] is lampshaded later in the book. When {{spoiler|Sue, the reanimated T. Rex}} eats a ghoul, the ghoul does nothing but scream and throw up its hands to shield itself. Butters points out that never did any good [[Jurassic Park|in the movie]], and Harry notes he must not have seen it.

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** Also Nicodemus. At one point, Harry tries to trick him into telling him his master plan, but Nicodemus sees right through it, causing Harry to suspect he's read the [[Evil Overlord List]].

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* In ''Proven Guilty'' Harry has a plan that hinges on a group of monsters impersonating horror movie creatures ambushing him. When they fail to do so, he threatens to take "drastic, cliched measures" like walking through doorways backwards.

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* Gentleman Johnny Marcone. Competent, ruthless, and precautionary to a tee, he nearly always manages to both place himself on the good side of a certain wizard, and talk his way into learning about the threat of the book. Since the start of the series, he has survived quite handily through attacks from vampires, werewolves, fallen angels, fae, undead, ghouls, and has even established himself as a member of the setting's regulatory body for supernatural war and diplomacy.

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** To give an idea of not only how [[Genre Savvy]], but [[Badass]] this last point makes him; he is a perfectly normal mortal human being, no special powers whatsoever, and he's a member of a group consisting of the most powerful elements of the supernatural world.

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** As an example, in the first book, Harry confronts Marcone by blowing the doors off his club. In ''Even Hand'', Marcone notes that since that incident, he's refurnished the entrances to his establishments: While strategic entrances are properly secured and warded, ''dramatic'' entrances are made with cheap balsa wood so that any other wizards attempting such an entrance won't harm anyone with the shrapnel. To be fair to Harry, that first dramatic entrance he blew the doors ''out'', past him and his kinetic shield, so as to not hurt anyone. Marcone probably made that change just to save on replacement cost.

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** Marcone gave orders to all of his establishments to treat Harry with the utmost courtesy - including making Harry a platinum member of Marcone's, ahem, ''health club''. He reasons that if Harry is too distracted by boobs, Marcone's buildings are less likely to burn down.

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** Upon coming face to face with his [[Evil Twin|sub-conscious]], Harry says "So I'm good Harry and you're Evil Harry and you only come out at night?"

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* Harry tracks a target by first showing the target all of the magical tracking that the target's genre-savvy would expect, then siccing a muggle detective on him.

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* Some acquired genre savvy on Harry's part would be the issue of darkness - Wizards immediately call light, making targets of themselves. Harry has apparently never heard of the concept of night-vision goggles, or a similar spell, but he will call up a wall of lava somewhere else that wont make him a target.

== Other works ==

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** Invoked in ''The Opal Deception,'' when Holly asks Artemis to think like a videogame character in order to divise a solution to their predicament (being attacked by trolls). Artemis decides to think like a character in a war game, tries to create a list of exploitable weaknesses that the trolls possess, and forms a plan based around their hatred of bright lights.

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* Peter Pevensie demonstrates a degree of [[Genre Savvy]] in [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]]'s ''[[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]'', particularly when -- after Edmund suggests the robin they are following might be leading them into a trap -- he observes that in all of the stories he has read, robins are creatures of good.

⚫

** Edmund also has a [[Genre Savvy]] moment or two near the beginning of ''[[Prince Caspian]]'', drawing upon his knowledge of adventure stories for ideas on how he and his siblings can get by after they find themselves in an unpopulated wilderness.

⚫

** He has another in ''[[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'' when they are considering what has happened to the man whose armor they have found; it is explicitly cited that he reads mysteries.

⚫

** Eustace, [[Foil|by contrast]], has his initial ''[[Genre Blindness|lack]]'' of [[Genre ~~Savvy]]~~ pointed out multiple times -- he's said in the narration to have "read none of the right books." In his diary, when the ship is becalmed and drinking water is at a premium, he recounts how Caspian warned that anyone caught stealing water will "get two dozen" and that he didn't know what that meant until Edmund explained it to him. "It comes of the sort of books those Pevensie kids read." (Even the Pevensies have their lapses, like when they first arrive back in Narnia in ''Prince Caspian'' and think they might have to live off the land. They think they remember reading about people eating roots, but they're not sure what kind; Lucy "always thought it meant roots of trees.")

* Subverted in ''The Dumas Club'' by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Rare book finder Lucas Corso has read enough to recognize a trope when he sees one and insists on following them until he can nab the [[Big Bad]]. He's mostly right {{spoiler|but the [[Big Bad]] is someone completely different than he suspected}}.

* Subverted in ''[[A Dance With Dragons]]'': {{spoiler|Quentyn Martell knows that, in stories, princes always win fights against dragons and get the beautiful princess afterwards.}} Too bad for him it is ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' we're talking about, so saying that things go spectacularly wrong is a bit of an understatement.

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* In [[Jasper Fforde]]'s ''[[Thursday Next]]'' and ''[[Nursery Crime]]'' novels, the lead characters are successful because of their [[Genre Savvy]]. Thursday works in the Literary Crime division, making sure that novels stick to the conventions of their genre and using her [[Genre Savvy]] to get out of many sticky situations. The main problems come when she has trouble identifying the genre she has stepped into. Jack Sprat, in the Nursery Crime novels, is an interesting character because he not only investigates crimes committed by [[Nursery Rhyme]] characters, but he also has a strange empathy for the genre-driven urges that make them commit the crimes.

* Commissar [[Ciaphas Cain]] is this in universe. He realizes that acting like the rest of the Imperium's commissars (trigger happy hardasses) will only get him killed faster, and realizes that giving a damn about his troops means he doesn't get fragged, they give a damn about him, and he more chances to avoid getting killed. He also realizes the grim dark setting for what it is, and realizes that most forms of danger are better avoided if he doesn't try to run. It gets truly insane how [[Genre Savvy]] he is when realizes that being a fanatical jackass makes him expendable, so unlike the rest of the Imperium (who put insane amounts of faith in the God Emperor of Humanity), he decides to proactively work very hard at saving his own ass himself, making him one of the smartest humans in the whole series.

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* Harry Dresden in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. Not exactly harmed by such details as ''Dracula'' having been written to educate people about how to kill a certain kind of vampire.

⚫

** Lampshaded in ''Dead Beat'':

⚫

{{quote|"The trick was to figure out which movie I was in. If this was a variant on ''High Noon'', then walking outside was probably a fairly dangerous idea. On the other hand, there was always the chance that I was still in the opening scenes of ''The Maltese Falcon'' and everyone trying to chase down the bird still wanted to talk to me. In which case, this was probably a good chanceto dig for vital information about what might well be a growing storm around the search for The Word of Kemmler."}}

⚫

** A failure of [[Genre Savvy]] is lampshaded later in the book. When {{spoiler|Sue, the reanimated T. Rex}} eats a ghoul, the ghoul does nothing but scream and throw up its hands to shield itself. Butters points out that never did any good [[Jurassic Park|in the movie]], and Harry notes he must not have seen it.

⚫

** Also Nicodemus. At one point, Harry tries to trick him into telling him his master plan, but Nicodemus sees right through it, causing Harry to suspect he's read the [[Evil Overlord List]].

⚫

** In ''Proven Guilty'' Harry has a plan that hinges on a group of monsters impersonating horror movie creatures ambushing him. When they fail to do so, he threatens to take "drastic, cliched measures" like walking through doorways backwards.

⚫

** Gentleman Johnny Marcone. Competent, ruthless, and precautionary to a tee, he nearly always manages to both place himself on the good side of a certain wizard, and talk his way into learning about the threat of the book. Since the start of the series, he has survived quite handily through attacks from vampires, werewolves, fallen angels, fae, undead, ghouls, and has even established himself as a member of the setting's regulatory body for supernatural war and diplomacy.

⚫

*** To give an idea of not only how [[Genre Savvy]], but [[Badass]] this last point makes him; he is a perfectly normal mortal human being, no special powers whatsoever, and he's a member of a group consisting of the most powerful elements of the supernatural world.

⚫

*** As an example, in the first book, Harry confronts Marcone by blowing the doors off his club. In ''Even Hand'', Marcone notes that since that incident, he's refurnished the entrances to his establishments: While strategic entrances are properly secured and warded, ''dramatic'' entrances are made with cheap balsa wood so that any other wizards attempting such an entrance won't harm anyone with the shrapnel. To be fair to Harry, that first dramatic entrance he blew the doors ''out'', past him and his kinetic shield, so as to not hurt anyone. Marcone probably made that change just to save on replacement cost.

⚫

*** Marcone gave orders to all of his establishments to treat Harry with the utmost courtesy - including making Harry a platinum member of Marcone's, ahem, ''health club''. He reasons that if Harry is too distracted by boobs, Marcone's buildings are less likely to burn down.

⚫

*** Upon coming face to face with his [[Evil Twin|sub-conscious]], Harry says "So I'm good Harry and you're Evil Harry and you only come out at night?"

⚫

** Harry tracks a target by first showing the target all of the magical tracking that the target's genre-savvy would expect, then siccing a muggle detective on him.

⚫

** Some acquired genre savvy on Harry's part would be the issue of darkness - Wizards immediately call light, making targets of themselves. Harry has apparently never heard of the concept of night-vision goggles, or a similar spell, but he will call up a wall of lava somewhere else that wont make him a target.

* ''[[Left Behind]]'' has an "unintentional" variant that cripples the narrative from the get-go. Many of the characters, who should have shown emotions at certain times, seem to be aware of the type of book they are in; they thus either do not display the appropriate emotions, or merely go through the motions. This cripples the first book of the series to an extreme extent in regards to making the characters seem real.

* In book two of [[Tanya Huff]]'s ''[[Smoke and Shadows]]'' trilogy, the production team and main cast of a [[Vampire Detective Series]] are trapped in a [[Haunted House]] while filming an episode about a haunted house. A large part of their defenses are ripped off from ''[[Charmed]]'' or ''[[The X-Files]]'', and much of the dialogue consists of witty observations -- and creative criticism -- of their predicament, and blatant self mockery of [[Show Within a Show]] ''Darkest Night''.