Mogworld: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

It's the story of Jim, a minor character in the game, who dies when an army attacks his magic school only to be resurrected sixty years later by a "rogue necromancer" named Lord Dreadgrave, and now, all he wants is to find a way to die again, preferably for good this time, which is not an easy thing to do, since death seems only seems to be a temporary state in Mogworld. In his quest, he's accompanied by a pair of other undead (an [[The Ditz|airheaded]] girl named Meryl and a self-righteous priest named Thaddeus) and the inept thief Slippery John - whether he likes it or not.

 

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* [[Aerith and Bob]]

* [[Affably Evil]]: Baron Civious has been cultivating a image of being a [[Evil Is Cool|cool]] [[Evil Overlord]] with [[Evil Sounds Deep|a booming voice]], but behind the scenes, he is more of a [[Dark Is Not Evil]] guy who spends most of his time bickering with his wife {{spoiler|and, thanks to his recent dethroning, being the leader of [[La Résistance]]}}.

* [[A God Am I]]: {{spoiler|Simon's ego leads him to try to make himself into "Lord Si-Mon", the god of Mogworld.}}

* [[And I Must Scream]]: Jim is afraid having his body destroyed will lead to this, as he would be a sentient pile of ash unable to move or communicate with the world.

* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: Odd case. Baron Civious seemed to be evil in the past and possibly still is now (I think the legion of tortured souls of the damned in his battle aura gives it away), but at the time of the story {{spoiler|is definitely working on the side of good by trying to get rid of the Adventurer's Guild and stop the Infusion.}}

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Jim, who at one point claims in narration that actually being dead makes you even better at it. Also Don, the programmer overseeing the Mogworld project and Mr. Bowg, who is also [[The Stoic]].

* [[Death Seeker]]: Jim, although he's more a deletion seeker.

** {{spoiler|His fellow zombies join him eventually. Thaddeus decides he deserves to die for being a zombie and an abomination, Meryl actually wanted deletion for three quarters of the book but tried to hide it.}}

* [[The Ditz]]: Meryl

* [[The Dragon]]: Barry

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: {{spoiler|Jim, in a way. His whole motivation is to acquire a death that isn't an [[And I Must Scream]] scenario, and along the way he winds up developing some heroic tendencies. This lands him not only deletion but something better- a happy, mortal life with Meryl.}}

** Appropriately, it's a clip of two [[NPC|NPCs]] killing one another.

* [[Elves vs. Dwarves]]: Averted, as Mr. Wonderful (an Elf) and Bowg (a Dwarf) are partners. {{spoiler|Then played straight when Mr. Wonderful kills Bowg to help Jim and Thaddeus get to the Nexus.}}

* [[Gainax Ending]]: {{spoiler|1=Dub says AIs have no afterlife. Jim, Meryl, Thaddeus, and Mr. Wonderful all seem to at least remember themselves in the new build, if not the details of their time together. Dub seems to be trying really hard to get a heaven made special for Jim. Only, how do they remember themselves if their original final builds were all deleted? Was Jim really hallucinating, or do sentient AIs get an afterlife, too? Weird.}}

* [[Game Breaker]]: An [[In-Universe]] example: {{spoiler|Barry is turned into one by Simon in order to work as his agent in Mogworld. Civious and especially Thaddeus were likely ones as well, but didn't quite compare. Barry's magic stats had been raised to the highest point possible.}}

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|Mr. Wonderful, at the top of Mount Murdercruel when he sees the Nexus and Jim tells them he can end the Infusion.}} Although how much of a [[Heel Face Turn]] this was will vary when you consider he {{spoiler|only wants the Infusion to end so he can enjoy murdering people again.}}

* [[Hidden Depths]]: Toward the end of the book {{spoiler|Slippery John turns out to be a cunning and manipulative thief who acted like a bumbling doofus so he wouldn't be targetted by the angels, Thaddeus is revealed to have previously been an absurdly badass priest when he was alive, and Meryl turns out to be just as suicidal as Jim upon realizing her homeland had been taken over.}}

* [[Jerkass]]: Simon.

* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]: Lampshaded. Turns out local villagers are not very fond of adventurers, and among their long list of complaints against them is their tendency to just outright take things that don't belong to them.

* {{spoiler|[[Killed Off for Real]]}}

* [[Kill'Em All]]: Well, duh. Jim and his friends are zombies. {{spoiler|Also, everyone else a few times. And then...}}

* [[Light Is Not Good]]: {{spoiler|Barry's holy powers granted by Si-Mon.}}

* [[Million Mook March]]: Barry's {{spoiler|massive army in Lolede.}}

* [[Non-Player Character]]: Jim and his "friends" are these.

* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]: {{spoiler|Slippery John mentions this when he first brings up the fact that he died. This is a reference to the resurrections of the player characters in an actual MMORPG.}}

** Completely averted with Lord Dreadgrave. Despite being a necromancer with a doom fortress and an army of undead minions he is shown to be an excellent boss. He follows through on his promises, is attentive to the needs and wishes of his undead minions and most importantly, he remembers your name.

* [[Physical God]]: Barry, {{spoiler|thanks to Simon.}}

* {{spoiler|[[Reset Button]]: Well, actually used a few times.}}

* [[Running Gag]]: "'''OH GOD YOUR EYES HURRAAARRGLAB!'''"

** [[Insistent Terminology|"Actually it's a trebuchet."]]

* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: {{spoiler|The THIRD ending to the book.}}

* [[Shout-Out]]: Both to [[Zero Punctuation]] and [[World of Warcraft|the obvious]].

** Near the beginning of the book, Jim expresses regret about the magic school he attends not being a castle, which was almost certainly a jab at [[Harry Potter|Hogwarts.]]

** In one scene, Dub begins to wax philosophical about if the NPCs might really be alive or not. Don berates him for watching too much [[Star Trek]], as it makes him talk like Picard.

* [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]]: Mount Murdercruel

* [[Smug Snake]]: Barry, {{spoiler|after becoming Simon's figurehead.}} Also Simon, from what we see of him.

* [[Spanner in the Works]]: {{spoiler|Jim}}

* [[Straw Hypocrite]]: Averted with Thaddeus. {{spoiler|At first he absolutely hates and dismisses the other zombies for being monsters and abominations. When it finally hits him that ''he's'' a zombie just like the others, he decides that he needs to die just as much as the others and joins Jim's quest for permanent death.}}

* [[The Nothing After Death]]: Played with. {{spoiler|The first time Jim dies, he gets visions of a beautiful, perfect afterlife where he's perfectly content with everything, which is abruptly ended when he's resurrected as a zombie. Part of what's discussed with deletion, as opposed to the proper permanent death is that it probably wouldn't include an afterlife. When he discovers he's an artificial intelligence however, he wonders if he had an afterlife at all. Dub outright tells him that was (probably) an illusion since the developers never programmed an afterlife, to which he responds, "Thank God for that." But even after that, Don and Dub discuss if maybe he did see a glimpse of the afterlife simply by way of being a sentient being.}}

* [[Third Person Person]]: Slippery John thinks Slippery John is this.

* [[Those Two Bad Guys]]: Mr. Wonderful and Bowg.

* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: The first major twist, that Jim is a NPC character in a MMORPG, is known to pretty much everyone who followed the news about the book before the launch.

*** To be fair, it surely wasn't meant to be that huge a twist. Even without reading the news or the back of the book, the truth (broadly speaking) of what's going on is obvious ''long'' before any character in the story has a clue.

* [[The Undead]]: Jim, Meryl, and Thaddeus, or <Lord Dreadgrave's Undead Minions> to be more precise.