The Borribles: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''It is sad to pass through life without one good Adventure.<br>

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* [[Action Girl]]: Sydney and Chalotte.

* [[The Alleged Steed]]: What Sam the Horse appears to be at first.

* [[Anyone Can Die]]: Major characters can and do die for real here and there. Life for the average Borrible is, as the saying goes, nasty, brutish and short.

* [[The Artful Dodger]]: Knocker in particular, but any of the more heroic Borribles fit this archetype.

* [[Asexuality]]: Borribles start off as prepubescent children {{spoiler|(with one very notable exception)}}, so there's little to no sexuality -- at least in the adult sense -- in them to start with. And once they Borrible, there's pretty much no difference whatsover between male and female; after all, Borribles don't reproduce sexually. (Despite this, it's pretty obvious that Knocker feels ''some'' kind of attraction toward Chalotte in the first book.)

* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: What every Borrible hopes to earn. At the end of the first book, Sydney posthumously designates {{spoiler|Knocker's second name}} as "Burnthand", and everyone agrees it's this trope. {{spoiler|Except Knocker himself, who isn't actually dead; when he learns what he was dubbed, he thinks of it as a reminder of one of the most foolish things he ever did.}}

* [[Band of Brothers]]: What the members of the Great Rumble Hunt become by the end of the first book, with a loyalty to each other and their group stronger than their tribal and other ties.

* [[Becoming the Mask]]: {{spoiler|One of the disguised midgets dispatched by Inspector Sussworth in the third book comes to appreciate the Borrible way of life so much that he actually ''becomes'' a real Borrible, despite being an adult.}}

* [[The Big Guy]]: Stonks.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: The trilogy ends with {{spoiler|Knocker volunteering to remain behind to be caught by the SBG -- and thus inevitably to get his ears clipped, turning him back into a normal human child -- so that the rest of the heroes can escape undetected}}.

* [[Call to Adventure]]: Issued in the form a message to each of the tribes of London, asking them to dispatch a single unnamed Borrible to Battersea to be trained for the Great Rumble Hunt.

** Also directly made by Spiff to Knocker moments after the Adventurers depart, when he sends Knocker to join them under the guise of being a "historian" while tasked with a secret mission for Spiff.

* [[Chaotic Neutral]]/[[Chaotic Good]]: The Borribles are by nature extreme individualists dismissive of all attempts to regulate them. They do recognize good and evil, and although their interpretations are somewhat colored by their culture, do come down (more or less) on the side of good.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: Spiff.

* [[Children Are Innocent]]: Thoroughly subverted. A child has to be very much ''not'' innocent to become a Borrible. And if you consider Borribles just mutated children... well, there are ''no'' innocent Borribles. (Although Sydney comes close at times.)

* [[Cool Horse]]: What Sydney thinks Sam is, at least. The other Adventurers are less sure at first -- but Sam does pull off the occasional heroic stunt (for a horse), and seems not at all bothered by traipsing all over (and sometimes under) London with them.

* [[Crapsack World]]: England in the 1970s was not a happy land -- this is the time and land which gave the world [[Punk Rock]] and the first [[wikipedia:Special Patrol Group|British police with guns]].

* [[Disney Death]]: {{spoiler|Knocker, at the end of the first book, appears to have died during the group's escape from the Wendle tunnels; they discover in the second book that he didn't die, but was captured and used as slave labor.}}

* [[Earn Your Title|Earn Your Name]]: The ''only'' way to get any kind of name as a Borrible: until you've earned a name by an impressive feat of daring {{spoiler|such as assassinating a leader of a rival gang}} the best you can expect is to be referred to as "hey, you!" The plot of the first novel is driven in part by the protagonist's desire to get a ''second'' name (which is not unprecedented; one of his associates has several names, each commemorating some memorable deed).

* [[Elmuh Fudd Syndwome]]: The Rumbles have a universal lisp. Since their racial name starts with an "R", it forces them to pronounce it as "Wumble", emphasizing their origin as a [[Parody]] of ''[[The Wombles]]''.

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: The District Assistant Commissioner.

* [[Family-Unfriendly Violence]]: Fights are bloody, and people on both sides die in the "sight" of the reader, sometimes in disturbing manners.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: The mutual loathing the Rumbles and the Borribles have for each other; also, the government attitude toward Borribles smacks of institutional racism on many levels.

** Borribles also view the Rumbles this way, and what little we get to see of Rumble society suggests it might be justified.

* [[Least Is First]]: Instead of choosing the most skilled and cunning named Borribles of London for the Great Rumble Hunt, a team of unnamed new Borribles is assembled, and given [[Training From Hell]].

* [[Like Reality Unless Noted]]: The world is very clearly 1970s Earth -- except for the immortal elfin children and the intelligent rodents each maintaining their own civilizations in the cracks and crevices of human civilization.

* [[A MacGuffin Full of Money]]: The Rumbles' box of money which Spiff secretly charges Knocker with retrieving (under the guise of being a "historian" documenting the Great Rumble Hunt); it directly drives the ending of the first book and much of the plot of the second.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: A cultural trope for Borribles -- all Borrible names refer to their personal histories and refer to specific deeds they've performed or adventures they've had.

** The heroes of the books are a special case even among Borribles: they were each provisionally given a name ''before'' earning it -- the name of their target on the Rumble High Command. When they succeeded in killing their target, the name would become theirs permanently.

* [[Mouse World]]: Although the Borribles and the Rumbles are somewhat larger than the usual inhabitants of a Mouse World, their (mostly) hidden civilzations still count.

* [[The Movie]]: Film adapations of ''The Borribles'' have been bandied about for a decade or more; the film rights are in active play as of this writing, but so far they remain in [[Development Hell]].

* [[Neat Freak]]: Inspector Sussworth, to the point of complete germophobia.

* [[Nice Hat]]: Borribles always wear wool caps or other hats which cover the points of their ears when out and about. Some of them get an unusual amount of description in the narration.

* [[Not Growing Up Sucks]]: Averted vigorously. As far as Borribles are concerned, growing up is basically ''death''.

* [[Odd Couple]]: Long, lean, intelligent neat-freak Inspector Sussworth and his right-hand man, the rather dim, overweight and slovenly Sergeant Hanks.

* [[Real Women Don't Wear Dresses]]: Mostly by accident; there's functionally no difference between male and female Borribles, and all Borribles pretty much wear the same general clothing: jeans, sneakers, sweaters and knit caps pulled down to hide their ears.

* [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]: Although Borribles are theoretically immortal, few survive long enough to enjoy it. Spiff, however, admits to having been around London Borrible society since the days of Queen Victoria.

* [[Runaway Hideaway]]: Borrible society provides many examples of the Type 3 variety; some are long-established, others are temporary squats. Perhaps the most permanent (and impressive) example are the Wendle tunnels under the neighborhood of Wandsworth.

* [[The Runaway]]: Every Borrible starts out as a runaway child before metamorphosing.

* [[Satisfied Street Rat]]: Spiff, Flinthead and many others, despite not technically being adults.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Firmly on the Cynical end, at least as far as the narrative point of view is concerned. The Borribles themselves seem to sit on the balance point, aware that it's a [[Crapsack World]] and that life frequently sucks, but still managing to be surprisingly happy and occasionally even light-hearted among it all.

* [[Street Urchin]]: The base state for a Borrible; a very successful Street Urchin turns into a Borrible.

* [[Take That]]: In addition to the scathing satire of ''[[The Wombles]]'' found in the Rumbles, the rag-and-bone man Dewdrop and his son Erbie from ''The Borribles'' are vicious caricatures of ''[[Steptoe and Son]]''.

* [[Team Pet]]: Sam the Horse.

* [[Terrified of Germs]]: Inspector Sussworth.

* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: Chalotte and Sydney, respectively.

* [[Training From Hell]]: The Adventurers are basically run through an over-the-top boot camp to ready them for the Great Rumble Hunt.

* [[Values Dissonance]]: Arguably what drives much of the plot of all three books: the difference between the Rumbles' values and the Borribles', the difference between the Wendles' values and those of the other Borrible tribes of London, and the difference between adult human (specifically Sussworth's) values and the Borribles', just to start with.

* [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?]]: Much of the criticism of the trilogy's "subversive" nature was rooted in the automatic (and rather ridiculous) assumption by [[Moral Guardians]] that because the Borribles were ''like'' children, the books were not only intended for children, but were a primer for a proper way of life.

 

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