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{{work}}
{{Infobox book
| image = Reaper_Man_cover.jpg
| caption =
| author = Terry Pratchett
| central theme =
| elevator pitch =
| genre = Fantasy
| franchise = Discworld
| preceded by = Moving Pictures
| followed by = Witches Abroad
| publication date = 1991
}}
Unusually, there are two almost completely separate plots, and they are even [[Painting the Fourth Wall|denoted using two different typefaces]] (most noticeable in the first hardback edition).
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The title is a pun on ''[[Repo Man]]''.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: Death's scythe. His first one is sharpened on ''sunlight'' and is so sharp it cuts ''words.'' But at the end when Death is forced to use the harvest scythe against the New Death, ''his own rage'' gives it an edge "beyond any ''definition'' of sharpness".
* [[Bait and Switch Comment]]: The wizards see a man chasing his [[Dancing Pants|animated suit]] shouting that he paid seven dollars for it, who is then followed by a pair of walking trousers. Ridcully then comments on what an extraordinary occurrence this is: a tailor selling a suit with two pairs of pants for only seven dollars.
* [[Berserk Button]]: Death, when he sees that the New Death wears a crown and sees himself as ruling over the lives of mortals.
{{quote|
** This is rather shocking if you look at his entire career. [[OOC Is Serious Business|That was one of the few times he's used an exclamation mark]].
* [[Big Yes]]: One that takes up a whole page by itself. Rumor has it Pratchett went to the extra effort of writing an entire extra page of narrative just to ensure the "YES" was on the left side, so the reader would see it when they turned the page.
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** Even better: Death deduces when the New Death will arrive because a Death who will pose on a hill on a skeletal horse during a thunderstorm to be lit up by a lightning flash, will not come at 11:25 when he could come at midnight.
* [[Death Takes a Holiday]] (or is fired, but the effects are the same)
* [[Early
* [[Eureka Moment]]: Subverted. Ned Simnel is wondering how to make his Combination Harvester run without a horse. A blast of steam goes off immediately, but he writes it off as a useless distraction.
** In the ''New Discworld Companion'', it is claimed that this has happened to poor Ned over ''[[Too Dumb to Live|150 times]]''
** Made even funnier when you've read Sourcerer, which has a brief bit discussing inspiration particles that fly through the universe, and only ever once-in-a-million times strike the right person at the right time. How persistent was this idea?
*** ''Very'' persistent - it [[Raising Steam|eventually ended up hitting Simnel's son]].
*** And how fortunate that it didn't end up striking, say, a nearby duck.
* [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]]: The New Death is unable to understand why Miss Flitworth would give up some of her own time on the earth to give Death a chance to defeat him.
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* [[Glamor Failure]]: Sal, the innkeeper's daughter, can see Bill Door clearly for a skellington in overalls.
* [[Gosh Dang It to Heck]]: The excess of life force causes Mustrum Ridcully to produce small, strange-looking creatures whenever he swears. He resorts to euphemisms to prevent this from happening, and eventually produces "the most genteel battle-cry in the history of bowdlerization: 'Darn them to heck!'"
* [[Hair
{{quote|
* [[Heroic Fire Rescue]]: By Bill Door (Death) no less.
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Sort of...the New Death's appearance and some of his dialogue is based on the Witch-King of Angmar from ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (who proclaimed to Gandalf that he was "Death Himself"). Then again, [[Older Than They Think|the Witch-King has a certain resemblance to the personification of Death in]] ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.
* [[Hive Mind]]: The predatory shopping mall.
* [[Line-of-Sight Name]]: Death comes up with his alias' surname because there's a door behind Miss Flitworth (after his initial attempt of looking up and suggesting {{smallcaps|Mr. Sky?}}).
** There's also One-Man-Bucket, short for One-Man-Pouring-A-Bucket-Of-Water-Over-Two-Dogs.
*** This was a tribal tradition in One-Man-Bucket's tribe - children are named for the first thing their mother sees outside the tent after their birth. His elder twin brother, named ten seconds earlier, wasn't so lucky...
{{quote|
'''One-Man-Bucket:''' Two-Dogs-Fighting? Two-Dogs-''Fighting?'' Wow, he would have given his right arm to be called Two-Dogs-''Fighting''. }}
* [[Literal Metaphor]]: The overabundance of life after Death is fired means that it infuses what was only a metaphor - the ''idea'' of shopping malls as parasitic predators that suck the life out of inner city shops - and makes it real.
* [[Mathematician's Answer]]: Death answers some questions this way.
{{quote|
'''Death''': {{smallcaps|Yes.}} }}
** Also, Azrael.
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* [[Pinball Projectile]]
* [[Powers That Be]]: Azrael, the Death of Universes, is one of the eight Old High Ones.
* [[Shout
{{quote|
** Windle Poons' last words to the company in the Great Hall of Unseen University are almost identical to those of Lawrence Oates, a member of Scott's doomed Polar Expedition who deliberately walked out and lost himself in the Antarctic night so as not to slow his comrades down.
{{quote|
** His last words when he dies for the first time ("What I could do with right now is one of Mr Dibbler's famous meat pies -") mirror the alleged last words of [[William Pitt the Younger]] ("I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies.")
** Can't forget Vetinari's line when nobody in Ankh-Morpork knows what's going on with the poltergeist activity.
{{quote|
*** Being Vetinari, of course, he opts to correct the grammar of the quote even as he unwittingly references it.
** A possible one to [[For a Few Dollars More]]: Death's hourglass running out as New Death bears down on him, only for Miss Flitworth to give up some of her time to give him a chance, is strongly reminiscent of The Man With No Name bringing the second musical pocketwatch into the duel between Mortimer and Indio.
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** The Priests in the Lost Jeweled ''Temple of Doom'' of Offler remark that a [[Indiana Jones|chap with a whip]] managed to get past the boulder booby-trap, but was killed by the giant spikes.
* [[Sibling Rivalry]]: Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully's brother Hughnon is the High Priest of Blind Io and therefore the leader of Ankh-Morpork's clerics. They get on pretty well, but drop continuous cracks about each other's vocation:
{{quote|
'''Hughnon:''' Not bad. How's the tinkering with things men was not meant to understand?
'''Mustrum:''' Pretty fair. Pretty fair. }}
* [[Staring Kid]]: The little girl who won't stop talking about the "skellington with clothes on." She's seeing exactly what's there, unlike the adults, and poor Death is at a complete loss trying to deal with her.
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* [[Werewolf]]: Ludmilla Cake; fellow Fresh Start Club member Lupine is the opposite, a wolf that turns into a human every full moon. Poons arranges for them to meet, but it isn't clear if anything comes of it. Another character points out the [[Fridge Logic]] involved.
** At the end, we get this passage that makes it pretty clear what happens between them:
{{quote|
** ''[[
* [[Womb Level]]: The predator mall becomes this once Windle and company get the Queen's attention.
* [[
* [[Zombie Advocate]]: Spoofed.
{{reflist}}
{{The Big Read}}
▲[[Category:Reaper Man]]
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