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Interesting Times: Difference between revisions
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* [[All Asians Know Martial Arts]]: Butterfly, Lord Hong, the Ninja, even the proprietor of the eating house where Rincewind asks for Agatean food as it is known in Ankh-Morpork.
* [[All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats]]: Rincewind discovers this to be truth when evading pursuit - he dons such a hat to look indistinguishable from everyone else and stands there with head bowed, waiting for the pursuit to pass him by.
* [[Androcles' Lion]]: Kind of. Rincewind reluctantly saves the Quantum Weather Butterfly from drowning, which 'repays' him by creating a cloud over his head, raining on his hat until the small added weight makes him crash through the floor. However, this ultimately means he finds the Terracotta Army and saves the day.
* [[Answer Cut]]: Ridcully asks what kind of sad, hopeless person would need to write "WIZZARD" on his hat. The scene immediately cuts to Rincewind.
* [[Appeal to Obscurity]]:
{{quote| 'Like, supposing the population is being a bit behind with its taxes. You pick some city where people are being troublesome and kill everyone and set fire to it and pull down the walls and plough up the ashes. That way you get rid of the trouble and all the other cities are suddenly really well behaved and polite and all your back taxes turn up in a big rush, which is handy for governments, I understand. Then if they ever give trouble you just have to say "Remember Nangnang?" or whatever, and they say "Where's Nangnang?" and you say, "My point exactly."'}}
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: Genghiz Cohen. Doer of mighty deeds. Slayer of dragons. Ravager of cities. He once bought an apple.
* [[Assassin Outclassin]]: Lord Hong.
{{quote| "Fetch me another tea girl. One with a head."}}
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* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]]: Played with in the lead-up to the Horde's big stand. The fact that people (e.g, Twoflower) think the Horde have any chance at all infuriates both Lord Hong and Rincewind - "If it was seven against seventy, everyone would know who would lose. Just because it's seven against 700,000, everyone's not so sure."
** Teach points out that even if the Horde kill a few thousand each, the enemy will have fresh troops and they'll be tired. Cohen retorts that the fresh troops will ''also'' be tired, as they'll [[Atop a Mountain of Corpses|be running uphill]] at that stage.
* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: {{spoiler|''Twoflower''.}}
* [[Continuity Nod]]:
** One of the few books which mention the events of ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Sourcery|Sourcery]]''. This is explained by saying that the wizards are all uncomfortable about what happened and try to pretend that ''they'', personally, were nowhere near the University at the time. It also further explains why they made Ridcully Archchancelor: he really wasn't there at the time.
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* [[Exact Words]]: Lord Hong promises an informant that he will [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|never write or speak an order for his execution]]. He then folds an origami figure of the man...but doesn't have quite enough paper for a head.
** There's also the soothsayer who predicts the enemy will be defeated, but neglects to mention ''whose'' enemy. [[Genre Savvy|Then he gets right the hell out of town in case Lord Hong figures it out]].
* [[Excuse Me While I Multitask]]: Cohen fights multiple [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|ninja]] and rolls cigarettes at the same time.
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: The Agatean Empire is China mixed with Japan, and Xxxx is more or less Australia.
* [[Fantasy Gun Control]]: Played pretty straight - the Agateans' Barking Dogs are primitive cannon (which the wizards understandably [[Discworld (Literature)/Men At Arms|fail to recognise]]) yet they lack handheld firearms, which it didn't take the real China long to discover.
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* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: Mr. Saveloy presents [[Sir Swearsalot|Truckle the Uncivil]] with a list of civilized swear words, forcing him to speak like this for the rest of the book.
* [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath]]: The Silver Horde. Even Mr. Saveloy is frighteningly blasé about mass murder.
* [[He's Dead, Jim]]: The "really obvious injury" version.
{{quote| "He is dead, Cohen. Really, really dead. Alive people have more ''body''."}}
* [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse]]: Along with Death, War makes an appearance along with his sons Terror and Panic (i.e., Mars, Phobos and Deimos) and his daughter [[Odd Name Out|Clancy]].
* [[Jade
* [[King On His Deathbed]]: One of the central plot drivers.
* [[Klingon Promotion]]: The Unseen University faculty still practiced it the last time Rincewind was around, making some suspect that his return means it will come back.
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* [[Pretty Butterfly]]: Even battlefields, although the ensuing thunderstorm caused by the flapping of the wings is less so.
* [[Rage Helm]]: Some of the palace guards have actually cultivated the art of going to sleep on their feet, confident of not being detected behind the expressions of metal rage on their visors.
* [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]]: Well, the Silver Horde are old men, getting on in age, not quite what they used to be and in need of occasional reminders [[In That Order|in what order]] to do them, and that it's rape the ''women'', burn the ''houses''. (When Rincewind goes "Er," at the prospect of the Horde's performance in that first area Cohen tells him not to ruin an old man's dreams.)
* [[Reincarnation]]: The Agateans believe in ''preincarnation'' -- you'll be reborn as one of your ancestors. "Always respect your ancestors, in case one day you become them."
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]: Chinese Civil Service exams ''did'' involve writing complex poetic essays about irrelevant subjects. Much like British Civil Service exams focusing on Classical languages, they were looking for the ability to learn something technical and apply it extremely precisely. Both countries ended up having small bureaucracies governing vast stretches of the world with a reasonable level of skill, so they can't have been all that wrong.
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* [[Teleporter Accident]]: The twenty foot wide, one inch thick, and extra crispy kangaroo.
* [[Trademark Favourite Food]]: This book introduces Rincewind's potato obsession. For which he eventually needed therapy.
* [[We Have Those, Too]]: Rincewind and the local Dibbler equivalent: since Ankh-Morpork is much less xenophobic than the Empire ("We hardly ever kill foreigners, it makes it much harder to sell them stuff"), they have the edge in almost everything.
** Rincewind tries to impress Butterfly by telling her about the Luggage, only for her to show him they're pretty common over here.
* [[The White Prince]]: The Emperor is a very dark take on this trope. Because he was isolated from birth and no one has ever contradicted him, he ends up as a [[The Caligula|sadistic Caligula type]] who has people horribly tortured to death or rewarded based on a whim.
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* [[Valkyries]]: One comes to escort {{spoiler|Mr. Saveloy}} to the afterlife. Complete with [[Horny Vikings|a horned helmet]] and [[Breast Plate]].
* [[Viking Funeral]]
* [[
{{quote| "Noh Actors are allowed to move around."<br />
"Aren't they?" said Rincewind.<br />
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