Mort: Difference between revisions

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''Mort'' is one of the most popular early Discworld novels and won a contemporary award for best [[Gothic Novel]] of the year, despite [[Death of the Author|Terry Pratchett's protest]] that it wasn't Gothic.

 

 

* [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]]: One of the books chronicling Albert's life is from before they invented spelling. Believe it or not, prior to the spread of dictionaries, there was no one way to spell things; Spelling was done entirely phonetically, and two different spellings of the same word could be completely legitimate.

* [[Apothecary Alligator]]: In Cutwell's workshop.

{{quote|There was a large crystal ball with a crack in it, an astrolabe with several bits missing, a rather scuffed octogram on the floor, and a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling. A stuffed alligator is absolutely standard equipment in any properly-run magical establishment. This one looked as though it hadn't enjoyed it much.}}

* [[Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?]]: When Mort is about to enter Ysabell's room, she readjusts her clothes to be more revealing and mentions "I hope that you have not forced your way in here in order to take advantage of your position in this household." She is, in fact, entirely hoping this is the case.

* [[Big Beautiful Woman|BBW:]] Ysabell, "eleven stone of womanhood" at sixteen years of age. Her chest has "enough 'puppy-fat' for an entire litter of Dobermans".

* [[Butterfly of Doom]]: Though the butterfly effect is not part of the cataclysmic aspect of the Interface, it is referenced. On one side of the Interface, the clouds are distributed differently to the other, because the small changes added up to alter the weather patterns. When Mort sees the Interface sweep through a pub, not only does the name change from the Queen's Head to the Duke's Head as a direct result of the Retcon, but also the landlord's clothes change because he happened to decide to put on different ones in the altered timeline.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: "Mort", Mort's response to being called "boy".

* [[Character Overlap]]: Rincewind and the Librarian feature in a cameo at the university.

* [[Creative Sterility]]: Death can't create. He can only copy.

* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: [[The Grim Reaper|Death's]] glowy eyes change from their usually placid shade of blue to pants-crappingly-scary red when he's mad.

* [[Redheaded Hero]]

* [[Retired Badass]]: Albert

* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]]: Princess Keli kind of, and {{spoiler|Mort and Ysabell}} become this

* [[Stealth Pun]]: Death's home contains written stories of the lives of every person on the disc who has ever lived. Stories that write themselves. Naturally, they're called autobiographies.

* [[The End of the World as We Know It]]: What happens if someone doesn't deal with Death's node charts. (Luckily, Ysabell knows how.)

{{quote|'''Ysabel:''' Pardon me for living, I'm sure.

* [[Unwanted Rescue]]: Death does this to a fisherman who was unhappy with his life but whose religious beliefs forbade deliberate suicide, and so was quite pleased to be drowning.

* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: subverted with Albert, who is quite happy living the repetitive tedium of being Death's manservant outside time, and considers his plan to achieve immortality a relative success.

 

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