Running Gag/Literature: Difference between revisions

▲** For example, reactions to CMOT Dibbler's sausages span both multiple books and multiple countries/incarnations of CMOT Dibbler.

▲** Similarly, we find multiple versions of [[Those Two Guys|Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs]] elsewhere in the Discworld. These repetitions are pegged in the canon as "morphic resonance."

▲** Or Moist keeping stealing pencils.

▲** Or Granny Weatherwax's broom, which needs a large running start in order to get it to fly.

▲** Each book has its own, personal running gag. ''[[Discworld/Feet of Clay|Feet of Clay]]'' features a vampire who complains to the watch every time something goes wrong at his new job. His jobs? Holy water bottler, garlic stacker, pencil maker, picket fence builder, and sunbooth tester.

▲** Across the later books, "It is a pune, or play on words."

▲** "Oh no, it's Mrs. Cake!"

▲** In ''[[Discworld/Soul Music|Soul Music]]'', we have the people constantly asking if the main character is elvish (which a double pun--the book, being about rock music and rock icons while, at the same time, the character comes from an environment consistent with myths of elves).

▲** Also the insistence that scrumble is made from apples. Well... mainly apples.

▲** Most books involving witches will mention the old idea of them dancing around in the woods at night with no clothes on, and how impractical it would be due to nettles, stones, hedgehogs, the cold, etc.

▲*** With the caveat "Well, [[Dirty Old Woman|maybe]] [[Bawdy Song|Nanny]] [[Boisterous Bruiser|Ogg]]" added if anyone who's met her is present.

▲** In ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'', everybody says that "there's good eating on one of them" to tortoises.

▲* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' has several, but only one running through several books. MacAnally's Pub, the most-commonly used [[Truce Zone|neutral ground]] for the series' supernatural community, is operated by "Mac", a fellow who brews his own beer. It is served warm (which offends American drinking sensibilities) but ''everyone'' who tries it for the first time goes through a virtually identical routine: a dubious look at the bottle, a small sip for politeness' sake, a surprised stare at the bottle (often followed by an equally surprised stare at Mac), and a considerably larger pull from the bottle.

▲** He then goes on to one-up ''himself'' in ''Book 10: Small Favor'' by producing three bottles of what is obviously his private reserve. The contents are apparently as far above his usual brew as they themselves are above fill-in-the-name-of-your-least-favorite-mega-brew-here.

▲** ''[[The Dresden Files]]''' other running joke is Dresden's constant dated pop-culture and movie references. Initially Murphy always had something to say about them, but by the later books they exist primarily to confuse the bad guys, who don't have any idea what he's talking about.

▲{{quote|"Some people wouldn't know a pop culture reference if it jumped up and planted an embryo in their esophagus."|Dresden, to a centuries-old fallen angel, who [[Don't Explain the Joke|didn't get the reference]]. }}

▲** Another running gag is Bob's obsession with sex, and Harry's frequent use of pornography as a bribe.

▲** In the first three books, there was the recurring situation of Harry ending up dressed in borrowed or scavenged clothing, which was always something humiliating or bizarre such as a shirt with a peculiar slogan (''Stormfront''), purple sweatpants (''Fool Moon'') or yellow duck boxers (''Grave Peril'').

▲** Or [[Full-Frontal Assault|naked]].

▲** And ''always'' [[Made of Iron|getting the crap kicked out of him.]] This one even makes it into the comments in the RPG sourcebooks, one of the sidebars comments between Billy The Werewolf and Harry is as follows:

▲{{quote|How come most of the pictures of me show me beat to crap, Billy?

▲Are you on a case right now, Harry?

▲Yeah.

▲Then you're beat to crap?

▲Oh. Right. }}

▲** Similarly, in the first few books he'd usually end up in handcuffs at some point, and ends up wearing them on one wrist for a good portion of the book. It gets to the point where Murphy asks if he has some sort of fascination with them.

▲** Harry blows up and/or burns down buildings. A lot. So much so that the opening line of Blood Rites is "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."

▲*** To the point where [[The Syndicate|Mar]][[Noble Demon|cone]] instructs all his various businesses/clubs to treat Dresden nicely, hopefully lessening the chance of the place winding up as rubble.

▲**** The [[The Dresden Files (game)|tabletop RPG]] takes the running gag up to eleven and makes the above quote from Blood Rites one of Harry's aspects (defining character elements) along with repeatedly mentioning the joke in the margin comments.

▲** Harry's [[My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels|inability to speak Latin very well]] whenever he tries to speak it on his own. Stupid Latin correspondence course.

▲** A bit of in/out universe example – on every single cover Harry is depicted wearing a hat, despite never having one in the books. It goes to the point where Harry usually, about once per book, make mention of how he should get a hat like everyone keeps telling him to.

▲** There's also one that's mostly confined to ''Summer Knight''. In that book, Harry has to fight a plant monster, but realizes that it needs a better name, so he calls it a ''chlorofiend''. The naming proves pointless, as the standard exchange shows:

▲{{quote|'''Harry''': "A chlorofiend."

▲'''[Other Character]''': "What?"

▲'''Harry''': "A plant monster." }}

▲** Everyone mistaking Harry and Thomas for lovers.

▲* If Professor McGonagall walks onto a scene in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' carrying books, expect her to drop those books in shock or horror at some point.

▲** And then there's the fact that no one in the main cast likes Divination, not even Dumbledore.

▲** Professor Trelawney never seems to predict anyone else's death but Harry's. {{spoiler|Completely averted with an actual prediction said ''to'' Harry about Dumbledore, not ''about'' Harry.}}

▲** Harry: "And Snape..." Other person: "''Professor'' Snape..."

▲** "Oh, don't you two ever read?" and "I read it in ''Hogwarts: A History''."

▲** Ron's dislike for spiders is a [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|cruel irony]] in the second movie, but becomes lighter later, with things like Ron mumbling in his sleep, "The spiders. They want me to tap-dance. I don't want to tap-dance," and Harry mumbling back "You tell those spiders Ron."

▲** Hermione answering teacher questions with a lightning fast-hand in the air and a response "like she had swallowed the textbook."

▲** Hagrid's inedible cooking. And, he was not supposed to tell ''that''. He could get troubles if someone know, so if you could not tell anyone...

▲** Dawlish is a running gag ''character''. Every time he shows up or is mentioned, it is so he can get confunded, often with someone remarking on how often or how easily it happens to him.

▲** If you really, really need to go to the bathroom, the Room of Requirement will appear, full of chamber pots.