Narm/Literature: Difference between revisions

** The scene in ''Brisingr'' in which Roran stands dramatically [[Atop a Mountain of Corpses|on top of a 20-foot-tall stack of the bodies of 193 men he had defeated]]. His only stated regret was that there were not enough foes for an even two hundred. While this may suggest [[Alternate Character Interpretation|even worse disturbing sociopathy than Eragon's]] while [[Character Derailment|not gelling with how he's been characterized before]], the scene imagined was so ludicrous that it was [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarious]].

*** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html Only because he'll never be this cool.]

** Oromis's [[Ho Yay|hairless groin.]]

** The high priest of Helgrind resembles a certain [[Monty Python and The Holy Grail|Black Knight]]. It's a miracle that he didn't shout, "It's just a flesh wound!"

*** It's even worse is you're familiar with [[The Modest Orgasm|a certain French euphemism]].

** There is also a scene in which the sight of a bee saves Eragon from the brink of death.

** Oh, ''Inheritance'' is almost unreadable, there's so much Narm. This series just takes itself far more seriously than it often deserves.

*** Such as the moment at the end of "The City of Sorrows" when Roran mentally tells Eragon to "hurry, or I swear I'll haunt you from the grave." While this is not a serious threat on Roan's part, it's clearly meant to be a serious moment showing us the dire situation they find themselves in…but it's such a useless, laughable threat that Roran looks like a wimp. "Just in case feeling overwhelming amounts of anguish/guilt for failing to keep the world from falling to the permanent rule of a horrible, inhuman dictator, letting your liegelord be tortured almost to death, losing the schoolboy-crush-esque love of your life, aren't enough…your cousin is also going to return from the dead as a spook in wherever you live in the ensuing dystopia."

** Many of [[Mills and Boon Prose|the sex scenes]] easily qualify as narm.

** The multiple uses of "half a hundred" as the number of times something gory happens (the little Targaryen princess was stabbed half a hundred times, someone's daughter was raped by half a hundred men during the bread riots, etc.) makes it less impressive and more [[Drinking Game|"take a sip!"]]

* In ''The Good Guy,'' a novel by [[Dean Koontz]], there's a fantastic line that completely breaks the flow of the scenario. A killer is stalking the two main characters. Seeing the killer's car outside waiting for them causes this line (referring to the male hero) to be typed:

{{quote| "He wished he were a buttered muffin."}}

* "Mir. It rhymes with 'fear'." from the short story "Above It All." There are some parts of that story that are truly creepy. That is not one of them.

* ''She Said Yes''. The whole book is riddled with hindsight-based "insight" from the subject's parents (the book's authors) about [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|how every little thing she did was part of an elaborate path towards the end of her life]], repeatedly describing in [[What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic?|overblown]] verbosity the girl's "[[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|shocking]]" lifestyle, which almost any other parent or teenager--or anyone who's seen stories about truly shocking teenage behavior--would recognize as normal adolescence. The only '''real''' gravitas comes from [[Foregone Conclusion|knowing the ending in advance]] (it's the biography of a girl who died in the Columbine High School shootings).

* ''[[Latawnya the Naughty Horse Learns To Say No To Drugs]]'' is made of this. It becomes impossible to absorb the moral of the story when it's full of smoking and drinking horses of the non-anthropomorphic variety. The intended [[Tear Jerker]] moment involving an OD'd horse lying dead with a joint by his mouth is the icing on the cake.

** This is probably the truest, most glorious example of literary Narm on this page.

* Stephen King's ''It'' -- specifically, that scene at the very end of the book. You know the one. The one where 12-year-old Beverly has to help her six friends escape the sewers. Her method, and why it is Narm, is best left unexplained.... <ref>Why is this book legal?</ref><ref>They have {{spoiler|sex}}. </ref>

** It was meant as a growing-up ritual. Aparently, defeating an [[Eldritch Abomination]] doesn't count.

{{quote| Dave's eyes flickered open for one last time and he saw the rockets on the base of the Planet Hopper fire into life. What a view! he thought, and then died as the flames from the engines reached the bus which then exploded.}}

** The screams of laughter from the readers reached the novel, which then exploded.

* Mariel in ''Mariel of Redwall'' is the High Queen of Mood Swings. After a mean old squirrel refuses to travel with her:

{{quote| For the first time, Storm felt alone and unwanted. She walked off out of the squirrel's bower into the surrounding trees, swinging her rope. "Me and Gullwhacker don't need anybeast. We're all right."}}

*** She stabilizes a bit once she gets her memory back.

** Not to mention the line "Sports, playing...what's all that mean?" You've got ''amnesia'', woman, you didn't just crawl out from under a rock! Then there's Treerose and her obsession with being an [[Attention Whore]] until she [[Character Development|grows up a bit.]]

* "[[Bill O Reilly|You wanted a house by the ocean. Well, the ocean can cut both ways!]]"

** Don't worry about it. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. Amen.

* While ''[[The Lovely Bones]]'' generally has very good prose, it's hard to take this line seriously:

{{quote| She asked for coffee and toast in a restaurant and buttered it with tears.}}