The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Difference between revisions

* [[Herald]]: Ford.

* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Ford and Arthur.

** In this case the poor unfortunate gazelle-like creatures are used more as furniture than transport, as they were too fragile to support a full-grown Vogon and their backs would snap instantly under the strain.

* [[Human Aliens]]

** Well, humans ARE only the third most intelligent species on Earth, behind [[Sapient Cetaceans|Dolphins]].

* [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]]: Travel through hyperspace is described as "unpleasantly like being drunk." "What's so unpleasant about being drunk", you say? Ask a glass of water.

* [[The Infinite]]: As a speed you can move at it is played for all the absurdity it is worth with the Infinite Improbability Drive. Where you can move at infinite speeds but only if the destination is really improbable.

* [[Informed Obscenity]]: The word Belgium, while on Earth the name of a [[Useful Notes/Belgium|country]], is elsewhere a very foul expletive. See [[Pardon My Klingon]] below.

* [[Memory Gambit]]: Zaphod setting up a scheme to learn who the ruler of the universe is, which involved [[Manchurian Agent|giving himself self-imposed amnesia]] so that he could become president, allowing him to steal a ship equipped with the Infinite Improbability Drive so that he could find the hidden planet used to hide the aforementioned Ruler of the Universe.

* [[Message in A Bottle]]: A fossilized towel, in the original radio version.

* [[A Mind Is a Terrible Thing To Read]]: The Belcerebons of the planet Kakrafoon, cursed with the social disease of telepathy by the Galactic Tribunal.

* [[Monkeys On a Typewriter]]: As a result of the Infinite Improbability Drive, Ford and Arthur get approached by "an infinite number of monkeys who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."

** The second one is the reason that Zaphod's direct ancestors are named in reverse order; his father is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, his grandfather the Third, and so forth, all the way back to Zipo Bibrok 5 × 10 to the 8th power or some damn thing.

*** Fenchurch's discarded underwear were also noodle implements in their own right as they massively changed lives for reasons not gone into.

* [[The Nudifier]]: Finite improbability generators were doing this in their early versions.

* [[Ominous Floating Spaceship]]

* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: {{spoiler|Hactar. And because of him, also}} the people of Krikkit.

* [[Only Known By Their Nickname]]: The name Ford Prefect was born with is long since lost in the mists of time. Apparently he couldn't pronounce his own given name, causing his father to die of shame. Before he adopted the Ford Prefect moniker, he was known by the nickname Ix.

** Which means [[Translation: "Yes"|"boy who cannot sufficiently explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven."]]

* [[Only Sane Man]]: After being convinced the entire universe is insane, Wonko the Sane built an inside-out house and named it "Outside the Asylum". If the outside of the house is on the "inside", then everything on the outside is also on the "inside" and thus safely contained. (If you know topology, this makes absolutely perfect sense -- see, he told you he was sane.)

* [[Outsourcing Fate]]: To the real President of the Galaxy, a little old man in a shed in the middle of nowhere. All he's interested in is feeding his cat, but occasionally people stop round and ask him what he thinks about certain things.

* [[Pardon My Klingon]]: Apparently, "Belgium" is the most offensive word in the entire galaxy.

* [[Pieces of God]]

* [[Relatively Flimsy Excuse]]: The radio series has a subversion of the 'this autograph isn't for me' variant: "It's not for my daughter, you understand, it's for me." (It turns out to be a ruse to get Zaphod's signature on a contract he'd never have signed voluntarily.)

* [[Riddle for The Ages]]: The Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything, although there's a hint in ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' that it may be {{spoiler|"Think of a number, any number."}}

* [[Robot Buddy]]: Subverted with Marvin the Paranoid Android, and just about everything made by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

* [[Sanity Ball]]: Arthur starts off as the sane one. Ford quickly takes over this role. You ''know'' things have gotten weird when ''Zaphod'' gets the ball, however temporarily...

** [[The Movie]] even gave the dolphins a musical number as an opener, complete with a beautiful view of them shooting into the skies like rockets.

* [[Sapient Ship]]: The spaceship Heart Of Gold is maintained by Eddie, a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation computer with a sickeningly cheerful and optimistic programmed personality. Other equally unlikable computers have been installed to run other functions on the ship as well, right down to automated doors run by programs that live for the chance to open and close for someone. At one point Zaphod discovered that Eddie had an emergency backup personality - unfortunately, it was worse.

* [[Science Is Wrong]]

* [[Sealed Evil in A Can]]: Krikkit

* [[Security Blanket]]: Always know where your towel is.

* [[Seekers]]: Most of the core cast, really.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: ''So Long And Thanks For All The Fish''. Not the book itself which has the happiest ending of any in the series, but what ''Mostly Harmless'', the next book in the series, [[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome|did to this happy 'ending'...]]

* [[Sinister Geometry]]: The Vogon ships in the movie.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Firmly cynical, with a brief one-book excursion to visit the idealistic side.

* [[The Slow Path]]: One of the ways in which the universe keeps kicking Marvin in the teeth is that he keeps getting sent back in time but never forward, resulting in him just waiting around to intersect with the rest of the cast again. {{spoiler|By the end of his life he is more than 37 times older than the universe itself}}

* [[Somebody Else's Problem]]: Trope named by the Somebody Else's Problem Field.

* [[Sound Effect Bleep]]: In the radio version of ''Life, The Universe And Everything'', "Most Gratuitous Use of the Word * engine roar* in a Serious Screenplay".

* [[Sound to Screen Adaptation]]