History DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything / Literature

* In Creator/{{R A Heinlein}}'s ''Literature/BetweenPlanets,'' the hero receives a tatty ring-the least of rings, you could say (it's literally the kind you'd get for a quarter from a gachapon toy machine at the supermarket)-entrusted to him by an elderly family friend, which reveals its true nature under a specific set of circumstances. How do we know this isn't a straight ShoutOut? Because ''Between Planets'' predates [[Literature/LordOfTheRings LoTR]] by a good three years.

*** A closer allegory may be UsefulNotes/{{Transgender}} people's plight in the real world. Since the dwarfs are (at least on the surface) a OneGenderRace, any dwarf identifying as the "wrong" gender gets about the same reaction as people beginning transitioning do in real life. There's even a case of "self-trans panic" in the books, wherein [[spoiler: the villain of ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'' turns out to be a closeted "female dwarf" who had a mental breakdown due to a combination of stress and cognitive dissonance--she was a prim and proper dwarf, but prim and proper dwarfs don't have dreams of wearing leather skirts and flowing chainmail dresses--brought on by the growing dwarf femininity movement.]]

** Frequent parallels are drawn between magic and nuclear power/science: born of the structure of the universe, it's immensely powerful and can be employed for much benefit, but has to be handled with great care. Places where it went wrong are left barren and toxic and may simply be craters, and the waste products are dangerous and damaging for centuries afterwards, but generally it's perfectly safe to be around [[FalseReassurance right up until the moment when it very much isn't]]. This is due likely in part to how Sir Terry Pratchett was once a press officer for Britain's nuclear energy providers, and best summed up with the below quote from ''Going Postal'':

* In ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'', [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique the Deplorable Word]] is a dark spell that quite obviously a ''[[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped very]]'' {{Anvilicious}} [[FantasticNuke depiction of the nuke]].

*** A closer allegory may be {{Transgender}} people's plight in the real world. Since the dwarfs are (at least on the surface) a OneGenderRace, any dwarf identifying as the "wrong" gender gets about the same reaction as people beginning transitioning do in real life. There's even a case of "self-trans panic" in the books, wherein [[spoiler: the villain of ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'' turns out to be a closeted "female dwarf" who had a mental breakdown due to a combination of stress and cognitive dissonance--she was a prim and proper dwarf, but prim and proper dwarfs don't have dreams of wearing leather skirts and flowing chainmail dresses--brought on by the growing dwarf femininity movement.]]

** Frequent parallels are drawn between magic and nuclear power/science: borne out the structure of the universe, it's immensely powerful and can be employed for much benefit, but has to be handled with great care. Places where it went wrong are left barren and toxic and may simply be craters, and the waste products are dangerous and damaging for centuries afterwards, but generally it's perfectly safe to be around [[FalseReassurance right up until the moment when it very much isn't]]. This is due likely in part to how Sir Terry Pratchett was once a press officer for Britain's nuclear energy providers, and best summed up with the below quote from ''Going Postal'':

* In ''Literature/SmallGods'', the shape of the world controversy within the Omnian Church is clearly based on the Catholic Church vs. Galileo. Of course, there's lots of delicious {{Irony}} to be had in that the Omnians' claim that their world is a round sphere orbiting a star in space is actually ''false'', as the Discworld is a provably flat disk balanced on the back of four elephants that in turn stand on the shell of a giant turtle with a miniature sun and moon orbiting it.

** Parallels are drawn between magic and nuclear power: born out of the structure of the universe, it's immensely powerful and can be employed for much benefit but has to be handled with great care. Places where it went wrong are left barren and toxic and may simply be craters, the waste products are dangerous for centuries afterwards, but it's perfectly safe right up until the moment when it very much isn't. (Creator/TerryPratchett was once a press officer for Britain's nuclear energy providers.)
** The prejudice shown by traditionalist dwarfs to those who [[OneGenderRace admit to being female]] is portrayed in a way that reflects reactionary attitudes to feminism, homosexuality, and transsexuality.
** In ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', on the other hand, the clash of ideals between moderate and extremist dwarven factions closely resembles similar conflicts in the history of religion, Islam being the most prominent one in recent times. ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'' makes the point in the same Dwarvish context that "conservative" does ''not'' necessarily mean "extremist".
** ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' was centered around a conflict between the Westernized Ankh-Morpork and the Arabia-metaphor country of Klatch. Anti-Klatchian prejudice bore a remarkable similarity to the xenophobic ignorance shown against Middle Eastern peoples, and the illogic of this stance is lampooned many, many times. (The prejudices are about both the modern religious terrorists angle, and the old British colonial stereotypes.)

** In ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', drunk Vimes says (paraphrased): "Ah, life... it grabs you... kicks you in the... in the... y'know, thingies... that you have in the mouth... Teeth. That's it."
** Angua wears a leather collar as a part of her everyday clothing and calls her boyfriend "master" (albeit not to his face). She's a werewolf, and has a mild case of dog-like instincts towards humans, but it clearly resembles BDSM.

** The eternal rivalry between the Summer and Winter courts of [[TheFairFolk the faeries]] bears more than a passing resemblance to the Cold War between America and Russia. Both sides are pretty much equal in strength, and it's clear that a full scale conflict between them would, in the most likely scenario, largely wipe both sides out and send the world into a new ice age, but if it looks like one side's showing weakness ... well, they just ''have'' to exploit it. That's what archenemies do, right?
** In ''Literature/GravePeril'', Harry is captured by the Red Court and, while he doesn't go into detail about what they do to him, Bianca's straddling him and shifting from beautiful, seductive woman to monstrous vampire, the way the Red Court finds feeding to be a key turn on, in a dark variant of EroticEating, and his statement "They did things to me," subtly plays up the gang rape angle. And, when he appears a few months later in ''Literature/SummerKnight'', while he's grim, anti-social and short-tempered partly because he's spent his time trying to cure [[spoiler:Susan]] and failing, it's not unreasonable to suggest that part of it is his reaction to what they did to him.

* ''{{Literature/Utopia}}'': Utopia sounds a lot like a communist paradise. Nobody owns anything, people live together in communes, everyone takes what they need from warehouses when they need it, the state provides free hospitals, everyone has a job and works when they want (provided it meets a minimum of six hours a day), and generally everyone is happy with their lives.

** ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' was centered around a conflict between the Westernized Ankh-Morpork and the Arabia-metaphor country of Klatch. Anti-Klatchian prejudice bore a remarkable similarity to the xenophobic ignorance shown against Middle Eastern peoples, and the illogic of this stance is lampooned many, many times. (However, the prejudices about both the modern religious terrorists angle, but about the old British colonial stereotypes.)

** ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' was centered around a conflict between the Westernized Ankh-Morpork and the Arabia-metaphor country of Klatch. Anti-Klatchian prejudice bore a remarkable similarity to the xenophobic ignorance shown against Middle Eastern peoples, and the illogic of this stance is lampooned many, many times. (However, the prejudices were less about the modern religious terrorists angle, but about the old British colonial stereotypes.)

* "Literature/AngelDownSussex" is about an apparent ChangelingTale in the 1920s, with a lot of similarities to AlienAbduction lore that are invisible to the characters but visible to the reader. Apart from the inherent similarities between fairy abduction and alien abduction legends, there's a strange visitor who switches between human and [[TheReptilians reptilian form]], a group of TheGreys, an AnalProbing incident, unidentified flying objects, livestock mutilations, crop circles, and a pair of [[TheMenInBlack strange men in black suits and tinted spectacles who show up near the end and confiscate the evidence]].

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* In ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio'', Pinocchio's DisneyDeath scene where the Fox and the Cat hang him from a tree while disguised in hooded robes, eerily resembles a UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan lynching.

* ''Franchise/{{Star Wars|Legends}}: Literature/{{Shatterpoint}}'' is a very thinly veiled allegory for European imperialism, mish-mashing various elements from the colonisation of African and South and South East Asian nations (the off-worlders come to Haruun Kal to harvest and export the valuable rare spices and other plants) and the genocide of Indigenous peoples (the Korunnai and their herds are shot on sight by civilians and militia alike). The [[{{Planetville}} whole planet]] could easily be considered a [[{{Bulungi}} ramshackle African nation]] if set on Earth. There's also more than a few parallels with UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, what with invaders with superior technology fighting a protracted war with no end in sight against local guerrilla fighters who use the jungle itself as a weapon. Once Mace Windu arrives and sets the planet straight with the help of the Republic army, he declares the whole mess a "police action" rather than a war, a phrase which instantly brings UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar to mind. Windu's reasoning is sound, however; if not for bribery and corruption, the Republic law enforcement would have nipped the problems in the bud long ago.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': ''Spottedleaf's Heart'' is about a young Spottedpaw who becomes interested in the much older Thistleclaw. Even as a kit, Thistleclaw was very friendly towards Spottedpaw so she always looked up to him. Thistleclaw asks Spottedpaw to be his mate and, when she protests due to her age, he says he'll wait until she's older if he has to. Their relationship doesn't turn out well because Thistleclaw has ulterior motives. Essentially, the book is about child predators. There's even a point where Thistleclaw asks Spottedpaw to meet up with him alone, late at night, and to not tell anyone (they end up going to the Dark Forest, which is essentially cat Hell, and it is against the Warrior Code to train there).

** In ''Discworld/{{Thud}}'', on the other hand, the clash of ideals between moderate and extremist dwarven factions closely resembles similar conflicts in the history of religion, Islam being the most prominent one in recent times. ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'' makes the point in the same Dwarvish context that "conservative" does ''not'' necessarily mean "extremist".
** ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}'' was centered around a conflict between the Westernized Ankh-Morpork and the Arabia-metaphor country of Klatch. Anti-Klatchian prejudice bore a remarkable similarity to the xenophobic ignorance shown against Middle Eastern peoples, and the illogic of this stance is lampooned many, many times. (However, the prejudices were less about the modern religious terrorists angle, but about the old British colonial stereotypes.)

** In ''Discworld/GuardsGuards'', drunk Vimes says (paraphrased): "Ah, life... it grabs you... kicks you in the... in the... y'know, thingies... that you have in the mouth... Teeth. That's it."

** The Black Ribbon Society, a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent group of vampires which have pledged to give up blood]], which clearly resembles the Temperance movements of the late 19th/early 20th century, and more recent movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

** Angua wears a leather collar as a part of her everyday clothing and calls her boyfriend "master" (albeit not to his face). She's a werewolf, and has a mild case of dog-like instincts towards humans.