The Laundry Series: Difference between revisions

* [[Critical Failure]]: During ''The Fuller Memorandom'' when {{spoiler|Iris tries to summon the story's monster of the week into Bob while he casts a summon of his own -- from inside his freaking head, even! -- Bob leaves his body and is PULLED RIGHT BACK IN thanks to her summon. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]].}}

* [[Eagle Land]]: Um...is there a type three? Because while the Laundry and their European counterparts [[Shoot the Dog|aren't exactly]] [[Good Is Not Nice|that good]], they're about as nice as an organization can be in a world where [[HP Lovecraft|Lovecraft Was Right]]. The Laundry's american counterpart, the [[Names to Run Away From Very Fast|Black Chamber]], on the otherhand, is basically outright ''evil'', as are most other Americans in the story. Basically the Supreme Court in the land of the free has taken [[What Measure Is a Non -Human?]] to its most extreme conclusion, by declaring that the Constitution only applies to humans, and ''only'' pure humans at that. The Black Chamber loves taking the "human" out of "human intelligence", using lots of golems, zombies, Deep Ones, and the like, all of whom are said to have had no choice in becoming disposable tools for the organization. And the handlers of the various creatures are just brutal.

* [[Fish People]]: {{smallcaps|Blue Hades}} are an extremely advanced species, living on and below the deep sea floor, that have been around for millions of years. The various occult spy agencies stay in semiregular contact with them via [[Half -Human Hybrid]] go-betweens. To their credit, they aren't hostile towards humanity, which is just as well considering that they could wipe out much of us surface-dwellers via volcanoes and tsunamis. Angleton speculates that they have even more advanced weapons that humans cannot comprehend, comparing it to a soldier pointing a bayonet-tipped assault rifle towards a headhunter (who would only see a [[Blade On a Stick]].)

* [[Genre Blindness]]: In ''The Jennifer Morgue''. For a pop-culture quoting geek who claims to have seen all the films and books in question before he was 15, Bob takes an awfully long time to realize that the archetype he's labouring under is {{spoiler|1=James Bond. He even gets a cabin where the DVDs are all Bond titles, and still doesn't figure it out. To his credit, he easily figures he's in some kind of thriller, but even after Ellington tells him that the archetype in question has been reinforced by millions of viewers over fifty years of film -- [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine|while they're at dinner]]-- he still doesn't catch on}}. (Partially this is because the archetype itself is keeping him from realising, since {{spoiler|he's more the (good) Bond girl rather than Bond himself}}; also, Ramona Random mentions that it's designed to prevent "recursive attacks", i.e. trying to brute-force your way through the geas by taking advantage of the knowledge of James Bond.)

* [[Gone Horribly Right]]: a mild version of it. {{spoiler|Angleton, a.k.a. Teapot,}} was originally trained to be a weapon, an Eater of Souls under the command of the Laundry's predecessor. Unfortunately for J.F.C. Fuller and the rest, when it was trained/indoctrinated to pass for human, it absorbed the British ideals--fair play and honor and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a very sharp sense of humor]]--more than its cynical human masters did, rendering it useless in its original purpose of a hungry ghost. {{spoiler|Instead the SOE assigned it to management, where it performs stellar service as Angleton.}}

* [[Half -Human Hybrid]]: {{spoiler|Ramona Random}} is half [[Fish People|Deep One]].

* [[Incompetence, Inc.]]: The Laundry finds it easiest to deal with people who can't be let go by simply giving them a pointless paper-pushing job until they can retire with a pension. It's cheaper in some ways, and it avoids a ''lot'' of nasty legal and PR issues.

{{quote| I start swearing: not my [[Cluster F -Bomb|usual "shit-fuck-piss-cunt-bugger" litany]], but ''[[Up to Eleven|really]]'' [[Noodle Incident|rude words.]]}}

* [[No Such Thing As HR]]: Averted. [[Pointy -Haired Boss|They're not]] [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|particularly helpful]], though.

* [[Our Mermaids Are Different]]: The [[Half -Human Hybrid|half-Deep ones]] are aquatic lifeforms but not half-fish, avoiding the [[Mermaid Problem]]. It's explicitly mentioned that some Laundry employees "start spending too much time skinny-dipping with a snorkel".

* [[Pointy -Haired Boss]]: The woman from the Laundry's cover-organisation who doesn't have a clue what Bob actually ''does'' but, thanks to matrix-management, somehow has a say in how he does it.

* [[Sarcastic Confession]]: the Blofeldian supervillain of ''The Jennifer Morgue'' jokingly claims that his plans for world domination are all for [[Right -Hand -Cat|Fluffy]]'s sake. {{spoiler|"Fluffy" is the vessel for the mind of the ancient [[Eldritch Abomination]] that he plans on resurrecting.}}

* [[Self -Fulfilling Prophecy]]: Averted. When Dr. Kringle prophesies that there will be no Christmas party next year, everyone assumes that it's because the Laundry will be overrun by gibbering squamous horrors by then. When Bob asks if they couldn't avert that by just canceling the party themselves, Andy derides the idea as ridiculous.

* [[Shout Out]]: ''Lots'', ranging from [[HP Lovecraft]] to ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''. ''The Jennifer Morgue'' is a [[Whole -Plot Reference]] to [[James Bond]].