I Shall Wear Midnight: Difference between revisions

** "Least said, soonest mended" keeps cropping up, too.

** "Poison goes where poison's welcome."

** This is sometimes stated as being every few centuries, and in other places it is said to have happened a few times in living memory. The older witches do think Tiffany's encounter with the Wintersmith drew the Cunning Man back this time, presumably sooner than expected after {{spoiler|Granny Weatherwax (of course!)}} defeated him the last time. As it turns out, the Cunning Man's return was hastened by {{spoiler|both Tiffany's kiss with the Wintersmith and Letitia's hex}}.

* [[Author Avatar]]: The old Baron, in a way.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Don't go near the Feegle mound with anything metal larger than a knife if you want to keep your limbs.

* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: The nurse, Miss Spruce. Also the cook {{spoiler|while possessed by the Cunning Man}}.

* [[Book Ends]]: The Scouring faire.

* [[Bungled Suicide]]: Mr. Petty.

* [[Burn the Witch]]

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: It's Pratchett, so there are a number of them. One particularly subtle one is the revelation that Daft Wullie carries matches and sometimes uses them to start fires at ''really'' inappropriate moments (such as when high up in the air on a broomstick). You think it's just another example of Daft Wullie being [[The Fool|Daft Wullie]], but at the climax of the books, his fondness for matches play a small, but vital, role.

* [[Continuity Nod]]:

* [[Cool Old Guy]]: the Baron, even on his deathbed.

* [[The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much]]

* [[Exact Words]]: Tiffany really does {{spoiler|marry Roland. [[My Own Private I Do|To Letitia]].}}

* [[Eyeless Face]]: The Cunning Man has a curious variation of this trope: not smooth skin or empty sockets, but simply holes where his eyes should be, through which you can see what's behind his head. In [[Discworld]], where eyes are literally the mirror of the soul, this is a very bad thing indeed.

* [[Fluffy Tamer]]: Letitia. Even Tiffany's a bit scared of the ghosts at Keepsake Manor, but Letitia helped them without a second thought.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Tiffany's hygiene trick.

** Petty to Tiffany: "What are you going to do when the music comes for ''you'', eh?"

* [[Generation Xerox]]: It turns out that <s>Granny Aching</s> Sarah Grizzel and the Baron had much the same (non) relationship as Tiffany and Roland.

* [[Genius Ditz]]: Amber and {{spoiler|Letitia}}.

* [[Good Is Not Dumb]]: Preston.

* [[I Just Want to Be Special|I Just Want To Be A Witch]]: Letitia.

* [[I Was Just Passing Through]]: Rob Anyboy's excuse for helping Tiffany out. Not a straight example since they aren't rivals, however she had told him repeatedly to stop following her around.

* [[Insult Backfire]]

{{quote| '''Wee Mad Arthur:''' "...ye are a bunch of thieving drunken reprobates with no respect for the law whatsoever!"<br />

'''Rob Anybody:''' "Would you no' mind adding the words drunk and disorderly? We wouldnae want to be sold short here." }}

* [[Irony]]: 'Cunning Man' is actually a fairly old term for a 'wise man', in essence a type of male not-quite witch.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: Mr. Petty - He {{spoiler|beat Amber bad enough for her to miscarry and to require the Kelda to step in and heal her.}} Yet after Tiffany saves his life (twice), nothing more is said about punishment. His wife even takes him back with no reservations. Tiffany lampshades the fundamental wrongness of this, but that's as far as she goes.

** Also it should be noted that the second time Tiffany saved his life, it was by {{spoiler|cutting him down after he tried to hang himself.}} The circumstances convinced Tiffany of his remorse, which is probably the primary reason he's allowed to stay in the community.

* [[Karmic Death]]: {{spoiler|the drunken cook, who fell into the cellar and broke her neck -- right after she called on the earth to swallow Tiffany up. With the Cunning Man's [[Hate Plague]] in effect, no wonder everyone suspected poor Tiffany.}}

* [[Literary Allusion Title]]: To the comic poem '[http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/warning/ Warning]', a.k.a 'When I am an old woman I shall wear purple', by Jenny Joseph.

* [[Little No]]: When Tiffany asks if the Duchess is going to start talking about spinning-wheels next, the Duchess takes her at her word and orders every spinning-wheel in the castle destroyed. [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Roland]] mentions that his mother had one, and that no-one is to touch it. When she doesn't take the hint...

* [[Mediation Backfire]]: Discussed and [[Defied Trope|defied]] by the Feegles - "Any man who interferes with the arguin' of women is gonnae find himself with both of them jumpin' up and doon on him in a matter of seconds".

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The transition from the first to second chapters...

{{quote| "No mercy," she said aloud, "no redemption. You forced a man to kill his harmless songbird, and somehow I think that was the greatest crime of them all."}}

* [[Morality Pet]]: Invoked in the Tanty, where they give the truly irredeemable criminals canaries to look after. Macintosh killing his is seen as a true [[Moral Event Horizon]] by all concerned.

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: The Duchess towards Letitia.

* [[My Own Private I Do]]: {{spoiler|Tiffany marries Letitia and Roland in a folk ceremony the night before the official wedding}}.

** Ironically, the Duchess isn't nice at all to anyone beneath her social status, but damn if she's not going to care for everybody in her employment, regardless. Apparently the reason why they need hundreds of servants is because a fair number of them are in fact needed to tend to those servants too old to work.

** In a literal example, it's why Tiffany (reluctantly) adds some of the Feegles' relish to her mutton sandwich, even knowing that it contains snails.

* [[Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny]]: The Cunning Man's origin story.

* [[Ship Sinking]]: Tiffany and Roland. Despite what the last three books [[Implied Love Interest|seemed to be setting up]], it turns out being two outcasts who've been put through hell by fairies isn't ''quite'' enough to build a relationship on.

** She is also a shout out to the Larry Williams song "Short Fat Fanny".

* [[Stop Helping Me!]]: Tiffany tries to get the Feegles to stop, repeatedly. Eventually she hits upon the idea of explaining that it's like a battle which [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|she has to fight for herself.]]

{{quote| "And where they had gone wrong was in believing, somewhere in their minds, that because two things were different, they must therefore be alike.".}}

* [[Take That]]: Against those that use the word Ass instead of Arse. This is a belief that Terry has held for a long time but this is the first time it came up in a book.

* [[The Hecate Sisters]]: Tripled, even. Apart from the original witch trio (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat) turning up at the funeral, there are also three witches that fit the description coming from Ankh-Morpork, and Tiffany, {{spoiler|Amber}} and {{spoiler|Letitia}} seem to make a coven of their own on the Chalk.

* [[The Talk]]: Given to Letitia, first by Tiffany, later by Nanny Ogg to make sure everything got through, and then some.

* [[That Came Out Wrong]]: And Tiffany wasn't even planning to say it in the first place! {{spoiler|She still ends up marrying Roland, though...''to'' Letitia.}}

* [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|This Is Something She's Got To Do Herself]]: While the other witches would help Tiffany with the Cunning Man if she asked them, doing so would be admitting to the whole world that she was too weak to help herself.

* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: {{spoiler|Eskarina.}}

* [[The Unchosen One]]: {{spoiler|Tiffany, according to Eskarina: "I said you weren't ''born'' with a talent for witchcraft: it didn't come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and will always be, high. [ ... ] People say you don't find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you've found it, even if at the time you didn't know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you."}}