Jack Ryan: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Literature/Without Remorse|Without Remorse]]'' -- The [[Backstory]] of [[Badass]] CIA operative John Clark, who goes on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] against a vicious drug gang following the murder of his girlfriend.

* ''[[Literature/Patriot Games|Patriot Games]]'' -- Ex-Marine Jack Ryan, an American tourist in London, rescues the Prince of Wales from [[The Troubles|Irish terrorists]] and comes to the attention of both the IRA and the CIA. This was the second book to be filmed, with [[Harrison Ford]] as Ryan.

* ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'' -- Clancy's first published novel, featuring a rogue prototype Soviet nuclear missile submarine. Ryan is the man on the spot to assist its officers with their plan to defect to the United States. Made into a feature film with Alec Baldwin.

* ''[[Literature/The Cardinal Of The Kremlin|The Cardinal Of The Kremlin]]'' -- America's top agent in the Soviet Union is compromised, just as he comes into possession of plans for a system that could change the [[Cold War]] nuclear stalemate forever. Ryan must play a dangerous mind game against the head of the KGB to rescue the agent, with the balance of power in the Soviet government at stake.

* ''[[Literature/Debt Of Honor|Debt Of Honor]]'' -- After an economic crisis, [[Japan Takes Over the World|Japan decides to launch a new war of territorial acquisition]]. Ryan must help his country figure out how to fight back on two fronts: economic and military, with a navy dangerously drawn down by past presidents.

* ''[[Literature/Executive Orders|Executive Orders]]'' -- The war with Japan is over, at a terrible cost. Meanwhile, Iran, sensing weakness in the badly damaged U.S. government, embarks on a campaign of terrorism and biological warfare in an attempt to unify the Muslim world by force. Not only is Ryan's leadership ability called into question like never before, but he and his family have once again become targets of a ruthless and powerful enemy.

* ''[[Literature/The Bear And The Dragon|The Bear And The Dragon]]'' -- China, facing an economic and political crisis, [[China Takes Over the World|decides to invade Russia.]] The U.S. must cement a friendship with its once-greatest foe to fight off the aggressor. But what will Ryan do when the threat turns nuclear?

* ''[[Literature/Teeth Of The Tiger|Teeth Of The Tiger]]'' -- In the world after Ryan's departure from government, there are new terrorist threats. Ryan's son, also named Jack, joins a Black Ops group dedicated to attacking them on their own turf.

* [[Drives Like Crazy]]: Intentionally invoked by terrorists in ''Rainbow Six'' to (unsuccessfully) discourage pursuit.

** Robby Jackson has a tendency to handle his car with the same... panache, you might say, as he does his F-14.

* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: The justification for the plot of ''Clear And Present Danger''. Subverted when the methods the government uses to attack the drug trade are shown as [[What the Hell, Hero?|clearly worse]] than the trade itself. Played straight, however, in ''Without Remorse'', although the drug dealers in question were also engaged in prostitution and a number of other nasty things. Played straight when Ryan asks for a Presidential pardon for Clark and as soon as he mentions that the people Clark murdered were drug dealers, it's a slam dunk.

* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Occasionally invoked by government officials regarding their bodyguards/SPOs. They (and the Marines) are usually characterized as "knuckle draggers," though in the case of the Secret Service, most if not all of them have at least a college degree and, in the case of Andrea Price, a Masters.

** Yuri Andropov, Leonid Brezhnev, and a few others from the real USSR Politburo play a major role in ''Red Rabbit''. Similarly, [[The Pope|Pope John Paul II]] appears as well.

* [[History Marches On]]: Given the time between publications of his novels, "time" for the characters gets stretched out as events in [[Real Life]] occur. For instance, Ryan leaves government service around 1992 in ''The Sum of All Fears'', but somehow spends only two years on vacation until ''Debt of Honor'', which takes places in 1996, and {{spoiler|serves as President}} for another year or two up until 2001-ish between ''Executive Orders'' and ''The Bear and the Dragon''.

** [[You Fail Law Forever]]: Not only was the issue not being litigated in that case, thus precluding a ruling on the merits, but plaintiffs in civil suits are allowed to advance contradictory theories in court (pleading in the alternative). Funnily enough, after making two legal errors for the price of one, Clancy has another character call Kealty "a bad lawyer."

* [[Honest Corporate Executive]]: In ''Debt of Honor'', Founder/Chairman of the Columbus Group of mutual funds George Winston is practically a saint, as are most of the Wall Street executives in the story.

* [[Hot Line]]: ''Sum of All Fears''. Played realistically in that instead of the stereotypical "red phone" with national leaders directly conversing, it's a teletype connection with translators on both ends. Using this form of communication nearly backfires, however, because President Fowler, having chosen to believe faulty intelligence information, suspects that he's talking to someone other than the Soviet Premier.

* [[Interservice Rivalry]]: All over the place. CIA vs. FBI, FBI vs. Secret Service, KGB vs. GRU, etc.

* [[Issue Drift]]: The RyanVerse novels have grown more politically focused over time, reflecting Clancy's conservative (and occasionally libertarian) viewpoints.

* [[It Won't Turn Off]]: Subverted in ''Debt of Honor'' -- a Japanese executive's television is confused by the infrared signal of a spotting laser used by a Comanche attack helicopter to guide a missile into his apartment.

* [[I Want My Beloved to Be Fashionable]]: In ''Patriot Games'', Cathy Ryan has Jack buy some rather nice English suits. It's extended on and commented on throughout many of the subsequent novels.

* [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]]: John Clark uses this a lot, particularly in ''Without Remorse'' and ''The Sum of all Fears''; in the latter it's also a case of [[Mutilation Interrogation]], and it fails in that the badguys were planning all along to lie under interrogation to [[False-Flag Operation|falsely implicate]] Iran in their bomb plot.

* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: In ''Executive Orders'', the Mountain Men subplot involves some domestic terrorists intent on exploding a truck bomb at the White House. Iran's biowarfare attack, however, causes a travel lockdown that {{spoiler|keeps them penned up at a motel long enough for them to get caught}}. It may come across as a [[Shaggy Dog Story]] but the moral is that evil sometimes defeats itself. There's some [[Irony]] here as well, in that Daryaei himself laments near the beginning that if only all of these plotters would ''coordinate'' with each other, they'd be more successful.

* [[No Party Given]]: Trent and Fellows's parties are not explicitly named, even though it's quite obvious that Trent is a liberal and Fellows is a conservative. Ditto for Fowler and Durling, who belong to the same party as Fellows.

* [[NSA]]

* [[Number of the Beast]]:

* [[Peace Through Superior Firepower]]: The American military arsenal is described in lavish, loving detail.

* [[Perfect Poison]]: The succinylcholine used in ''Teeth of the Tiger''. It kills by simulating a heart attack via muscular paralysis, and is rapidly eliminated from the bloodstream, leaving no traces of what killed its victim.

* [[Pink Mist]]: Clancy, for all your realistically gory headshot descriptions. This is especially prevalent in ''Rainbow Six'', though realistic in that counter-terrorists are always trained to go for the head.

* [[The Plot Reaper]]: How a certain [[Author Stand In]] {{spoiler|gets to be President at the end of ''Debt of Honor''}}.

** The Prime Minister of India in ''Executive Orders''.

* [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]]: The police (and as a result drug dealers) in ''Without Remorse'' initially identify Kelly as a "rich beach bum" given that he leases his own island.

* [[Right-Wing Militia Fanatic]]: Used as throwaway villains in the "Mountain Men" subplot of ''Executive Orders''.

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Clark ''lives'' off of this trope in ''Without Remorse''.

* [[Sociopathic Soldier]]: Soviet KGB troops tend to get this treatment, as distinct from the Red Army's soldiers. Even the Red Army soldiers show their disdain for their green-shoulder-board-wearing comrades.

* [[Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan]]: Featured in ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin''.

* [[Spy School]]: Several references are made throughout the series to "The Farm", a CIA training facility in Virginia. In some of the latter books Clark is shown teaching some classes there.

* [[Status Quo Is God]]: Fought tooth and nail, but ultimately victorious in favor of real world progression. Many of Jack Ryan's, and others', accomplishments are undone or nullified within the next book or two.

* [[Techno Babble]]: Clancy's lengthy, loving descriptions of exactly how military technology works can occupy whole chapters. A typical example can be found in ''Sum of All Fears'', where a chapter is given over to describing how a thermonuclear bomb detonates. However, the process is plot-relevant, as the engineer who designed it didn't complete a step needed to ensure the detonation was as powerful as intended, providing a crucial clue that prevents all-out war.

* [[Technology Porn]]: Lots, especially military technology.

* [[Throwing Out the Script]]:

** In ''Executive Orders'', {{spoiler|President}} Ryan is giving a speech at a presidential funeral. Instead of reading the speech written for him, he speaks off the cuff to the children of the deceased president.