The Borribles: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: What every Borrible hopes to earn. At the end of the first book, Chalotte 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.}}

* [[Badass]]: The Adventurers, of course, especially ''after'' they get out of Rumbledom, to the point of becoming culture heroes and {{spoiler|the specific targets of an entire special police squad}}.

* [[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).

* [[The Cavalry]]: In ''The Borribles'', Sam the horse coming to the Adventurers' aid at the last moment.

* [[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.

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

* [[Crowd Song]]: Sometimes the "impromptu" songs sung by the Borribles, some allegedly composed on the spot, seem a bit too polished and unified.

* [[Disney Death]]: {{spoiler|At the end of the first book Knocker, Stonks, Oroccoco and Napoleon Boot all appear to have died covering the remaining Adventurers' escape from the Wendle tunnels; it's discovered in the second book that they didn't die, but were captured and used as slave labor.}}

* [[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.

* [[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]]:

* [[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.

* [[Inspector Javert]]: An utterly unsympathetic version is found in Inspector Sussworth, to whom the Borribles' very existence is in defiance of his social and political vision of the world.

* [[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 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). 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.

** Inspector Sussworth is named for the [[Sus Law]].

* [[Mooks]]: The vast majority of Rumbles.

* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: The District Assistant Commissioner, Sussworth's superior.

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

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

* [[Parody]]: The trilogy prominently features a major parody recognizable only to the British: The Rumbles are a ''vicious'' parody of ''[[The Wombles]]''.

** The Special Borrible Group is an equally vicious parody of the [[wikipedia:Special Patrol Group|Special Patrol Group]].

* [[Pointy Ears]]: The only obvious ''physical'' trait that distinguishes Borribles from human children.

* [[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.

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

** 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.