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The Borribles: Difference between revisions
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The trilogy was originally published in the late 1970s and early 1980s and immediately was the target of [[Moral Guardians|reactionary criticism]] for its "antisocial" and "anti-authority" themes. The release of the third volume was actually ''canceled'' in 1985 by a nervous publisher who felt that in the wake of well-publicized riots that year, the political climate had changed too much for it to be considered "acceptable" anymore; fortunately, a less squeamish firm then took up the challenge. Despite this, the trilogy became, and remains, a cult classic, with literary figures such as [[China Mieville]], [[Diana Wynne Jones|Diana Wynne]] [http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/newquestions.htm Jones], [[Neil Gaiman|Neil]] [http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008_07_17_archive.html Gaiman] and [[Cory Doctorow|Cory]] [http://boingboing.net/2014/01/16/the-borribles-are-back.html Doctorow] touting its influence on their work and eagerly evangelizing it to anyone who will listen. And the movie rights have been optioned many times over the years, although no production has yet to escape [[Development Hell]].
Sadly, as Michael de Larrabeiti passed away in 2008, no new Borrible adventures are likely to be forthcoming. However, as of January 2014, the entire series has been relaunched by TOR UK in both
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00HQKF8HM/downandoutint-21 ebook] and [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1447251792/downandoutint-21 print] formats.
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* [[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.
* [[Ascended to Carnivorism]]: Apparently Rumbles smell and taste just like fresh, sweet hay to horses, who will eagerly eat them. Sam the horse consumes a Rumble prisoner while the Adventurers aren't looking, eating him skin, fur, bones and all.
* [[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. There is also some evidence of 70s-vintage sexism among Borribles as well.)
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* [[Big Damn Heroes|Big Damn Horse]]: Sam. See ''The Cavalry'', below.
* [[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 Adventurers can escape undetected}}.
* [[Bottomless Magazines]]: Averted. The Adventurers frequently find themselves running out of ammunition during the assault on the Rumble bunker.
** Before they began the assault, they filled Dewdrop's wagon with gravel so they could effectively use this trope during their escape from Rumbledom.
** And during their escape from Dewdrop's clutches, they only had five shots -- one marble each smuggled in the mouths of the five Borribles who found the slingshots while burgling a house.
* [[Brats with Slingshots]]: The classic forked-stick-and-rubber-band slingshot (called a "catapult" in British parlance) is the traditional weapon of all Borribles, and they eagerly embrace its high-tech descendant the wrist rocket. Borribles are deadshots with catapults; they can -- and do -- kill both Rumbles and adult humans with well-placed shots.
* [[British Accents]]: On display throughout. The Borribles generally speak in a lowerclass dialect (although Sydney demonstrates enough upperclass mannerisms that one wonders who her family was before she ran away and Borribled).
* [[Call to Adventure]]: Issued in the form of 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.
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* [[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.
* [[The Fair Folk]]: There are subtle hints that the Borribles may be the origin of most "elf" and "fairy" myths.
* [[False Friend]]: {{spoiler|Napoleon Boot, or so it seems at first. But he doublecrosses his own tribe to help the Adventurers escape Wandsworth at the end of ''The Borribles''.}}
* [[Famed in Story]]: The Adventurers, according to the end of ''The Borribles'', to the point of becoming [[Shrouded in Myth]].
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* [[Gladiator Games]]: Flinthead's favorite entertainment is to set prisoners loose one at a time in the maze of the Wendle tunnels and let them be hunted down by his people.
* [[Harmless Electrocution]]: Thoroughly averted. Vulge kills the Rumble chieftain by dropping a space heater in his bath, then wires up the doorknob to his quarters before hitting the intruder alarm. The electrified door kills at least a score more Rumbles.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]:
** At the end of ''The Borribles'', {{spoiler|Knocker, Stonks, Oroccoco and Napoleon Boot hold the mouth of a tunnel against a numerically superior force of Wendle warriors so that the other Adventurers can escape Wandsworth. In Napoleon's case it's especially telling, as he is betraying his Tribe to do so.}}
** At the end of ''Across The Dark Metropolis'', {{spoiler|Knocker chooses to stay behind to be caught by the SBG so that the others can escape}}.
* [[History Marches On]]: The socio-economic conditions which made 1970s England so hospitable to the Borribles, and the urban wasteland in which they had their adventures, are both long gone.
* [[Hobbits]]: Subverted -- the Borribles are urbanized, adventurous, scruffy, and tough; they live in a world much like ours, but with fantastical elements. They do share the stereotypical hobbit's small size, stealthiness, distaste for authorities, compassion for animals, and tendency to steal whatever's not nailed down, though.
* [[Human Subspecies]]: Borribles definitely qualify. Human childen turn into Borribles, and if their ears are clipped, Borribles go right back to being human children.
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* [[Lawful Evil]]: Pretty much all government is portrayed this way. When the police are allowed to physically mutilate a prisoner without any kind of trial or due process first ''in order to turn him into a good little citizen'', it's hard to see them as anything else.
** 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
* [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]]: In ''The Borribles'', because each of the Adventurers has a specific Rumble leader to assassinate, and those leaders are not conveniently gathered together in a single location when they attack. The group ''must'' split up to accomplish its objectives.
* [[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). The only reason the Hunt is launched (instead of a massive [[Zerg Rush]] of Borribles against the Rumbles) is so Spiff can send someone in to retrieve the treasure. The existence of the treasure drives the ending of the first book and much of the plot of the second; and an event that would never have occurred had the Hunt not been launched is responsible for the rest of book two's plot and all of book three.
* [[The Magnificent]]: "Burnthand", the name Chalotte gives to Knocker at the end of the first book.
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* [[Posthumous Narration]]: There are a couple very subtle hints at the end of ''Across The Dark Metropolis'' that the entire trilogy has been told by {{spoiler|the clipped and now grown-up Knocker}}.
* [[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.
* [[Rodents of Unusual Size]]: The Rumbles, who are likened to several different types of rodents (including rats and rabbits) and are the size of human children.
* [[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 metamorphosizing.
* [[Satisfied Street Rat]]: Spiff, Flinthead and many others, despite not technically being adults.
* [[Shown Their Work]]: With the amount of detail de Larrabeiti puts into the Adventurers' travels in ''The Borribles'', the reader can follow almost every footstep they take above ground on Google Maps.
** It's possible to narrow down the location of Dewdrop's home to a ''specific block''.
** And sometimes even ''specific buildings'' can be identified, such as Spiff's house. See the Flickr streams on the [[The Borribles/Image Links|Image Links]] subpage.
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* [[Sound Off]]: "Sussworth's Victory Song" in ''The Borribles Go For Broke'', which is as much a political manifesto as it is this trope.
* [[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 Mom]]: Sydney.
* [[Team Pet]]: Sam the Horse.
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* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: Chalotte and Sydney, respectively.
* [[Torture Cellar]]: Under Dewdrop's house in ''The Borribles''.
* [[Training
* [[The Unmasqued World]]: Authorities know of the existence of Borribles and establish special police squads to deal with them. The average citizen has heard of Borribles, but usually has never seen one (at least knowingly). Rumbles own automobiles and drive them in the street in broad daylight.
* [[Urban Fantasy]]
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:The Borribles]]▼
[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]
[[Category:Urban Fantasy]]
[[Category:Pages Original to All The Tropes]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borribles, The}}
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