History Literature / CloudAtlas

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler: In the movie, Dr. Goose gets bludgeoned over the head with the money he was trying to steal.]]

** The Union in Neo Seoul [[spoiler: which may just be a puppet of the Corpocracy]].

** "The weak are meat the strong do eat."[[note]]The odd syntax is a direct translation of [[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BC%B1%E8%82%89%E5%BC%B7%E9%A3%9F a Chinese proverb.]][[/note]]

** "The weak are meat the strong do eat."[[note]]The odd syntax is a direct translation of [[https://www.orientaloutpost.com/shufa.php?q=the+weak+are+meat+the+strong+eat "jakunikukyoushoku"]][[/note]]

* RedemptionEqualsDeath

* ScrewDestiny: Zachry intentionally ignores his personal prophecy and [[spoiler: murders a man]], believing that his soul is already doomed to never reincarnate and that it therefore won't matter what he does. Adam Ewing's description of the Moriori culture already foreshadowed that this would stop reincarnation; Zachry's tribe has the same belief, almost to the letter. And since the story ends with Zachry's time, [[FridgeHorror the reader can assume that it's true, and that Zachry and Meronym (who also murders) would not reincarnate again]].

* {{Dystopia}}: Nea So Copros/Neo Seoul. How dystopic? Sonmi refers to other dystopian authors as "optimists."

* CantStopTheSignal: Sonmi's revelations somehow escape to reach all of Neo Seoul / Nea So Copros, and are passed down word-for-word until they are regarded as sacred texts.

** "The weak are meat the strong do eat."[[note]]The odd syntax is a direct translation of [[https://www.orientaloutpost.com/shufa.php?q=the+weak+are+meat+the+strong+eat. "jakunikukyoushoku"]][[/note]]

** "The weak are meat the strong do eat."

The third novel by Creator/{{David Mitchell|Author}} ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}} [[Creator/DavidMitchellActor one]]), Cloud Atlas is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

Instead of being completely sequential, each of the first five stories ends halfway through, sometimes on a cliffhanger, once in mid-sentence. The sixth and central story is the only one presented in one go -- afterwards, each of the other five resumes in reverse order, taking the reader back to the beginning (notably, there are also in-universe explanations for the stories resuming, with the protagonists of each story finally getting around to reading/watching the later half of the chronogically preceding story). This mirrored pattern can be found throughout the novel in other things: most prominently, in the ''Cloud Atlas Sextet'', the tangled musical piece that Robert Frobisher feverishly composes.

Instead of being completely sequential, each of the first five stories ends halfway through, sometimes on a cliffhanger, once in mid-sentence. The sixth and central story is the only one presented in one go -- afterwards, each of the other five resumes in reverse order, taking the reader back to the beginning (notably, there are also in-universe explanations for the stories resuming, with the protagonists of each story reading/watching the later half of the chronogically preceding story). This mirrored pattern can be found throughout the novel in other things: most prominently, in the ''Cloud Atlas Sextet'', the tangled musical piece that Robert Frobisher feverishly composes.

Instead of being completely sequential, each of the first five stories ends halfway through, sometimes on a cliffhanger, once in mid-sentence. The sixth and central story is the only one presented in one go -- afterwards, each of the other five resumes in reverse order, taking the reader back to the beginning. This mirrored pattern can be found throughout the novel in other things: most prominently, in the ''Cloud Atlas Sextet'', the tangled musical piece that Robert Frobisher feverishly composes.

%%* BarBrawl: At the end of the 2012 story.

%%* IntrepidReporter: Luisa Rey.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Given that California was admitted to the Union as a free state, it's highly unlikely that a family who works in the slave trade would have put down roots there.

* ''Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery'' (1973): Luisa Rey, a reporter for a fluffy media magazine in Northern California, when she crosses paths with the old Dr. Sixsmith. She starts investigating reports of ongoing corruption connected to the local nuclear power plant, and winds up with Sixsmith’s collection of letters. Her story is presented as a mystery novel manuscript, submitted to...

->''“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same, it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ’morrow? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.”''

The third novel by Creator/DavidMitchell ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}}), Cloud Atlas is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Did it strike you as unrealistic that the people of Nea So Copros refer to shoes as "nikes", to electronic devices as "sonys", and to movies as "disneys"? Well, have ''you'' ever instinctively referred to a stick of lip balm as "chapstick", to a tissue as a "kleenex", or to an adhesive bandage as a "bandaid"? All three of those common words are actually brand names ("[=ChapStick=]", "Kleenex", and "Band-Aid") that have become widely accepted terms for everyday items. As bizarre as it might sound, there ''is'' precedent for brand names becoming recognized words in vernacular languages, and the novel accurately shows that phenomenon in action.

* BarBrawl: At the end of the 2012 story.

* BavarianFireDrill: Involving the BarBrawl above (also see ViolentGlaswegian below).

** Also Zachry's baby, who is born without a nose or mouth.

* [[spoiler: BuryYourGays]]: [[spoiler: Robert Frobisher is the only main character to explicitly die.]]
* CallBack: Several of the protagonists remember an experience from one of the earlier (or later) stories. For example, Sonmi experiences deja vu while falling from a bridge in a car, due to the same thing happening to Luisa Rey, and Adam feels strange deja vu when he believes he's drowning. Frobisher also mentions a mistrust of "opportunistic quacks," which could be related to Adam's [[spoiler: near death at the hands of Henry Goose]].

* CatapultNightmare: Zachry in the last story.

* DoomedMoralVictor: Sonmi. To the point that she's worshiped as a god in the future.

* DownerEnding: Zachry's tale ends with the extinction of all free tribes on the Big Island, the Kona expanding across the Hawaiian archipelago, and the collapse of the last advanced civilization on Earth. It's implied that the reason the novel doesn't continue further into the future of the human race is because there ''isn't'' any future for it to probe.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Frobisher.]]

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler:Frobisher's early death]] is hinted at in the first half of the Luisa Rey storyline.

* GunKata

* IntrepidReporter: Luisa Rey.

* KafkaKomedy: Cavendish’s story.

*** [[BilingualBonus In Greek]], "néa sou kopros" would be "your new shit".

* MindScrew: Each story initially appears to be set in the same universe as its predecessor. This is toyed with when Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing’s journal, then completely undermined when Cavendish receives Rey's story as a manuscript for a fictional novel. Yet connections between the characters seem to bridge this fiction-reality divide, such as the shared birthmark of Frobisher, Rey, Sonmi, and Meronym. Similarly, the reader is led to believe that all of the protagonists are one reincarnated soul, marked by the distinctive birthmark, but this is disputed since the lifespans of Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish should overlap... ''unless'' [[FridgeBrilliance they’re two aspects of the same person, since they're the exact same age]]. Her being a fictional character in his universe might be a more significant barrier, unless she was real and "Half-Lives" is a story based on her adventures -- which is entirely possible.
** Cavendish and Luisa Rey may actually be of exactly the same age: she was born in 1947 (would turn sixty-five in 2012), and Cavendish is "65 and a half" in 2012. Can one soul be divided in two?
** Something to consider: as already pointed out, murder ends the reincarnation cycle of the soul. So then perhaps [[spoiler: Frobisher's suicide caused his soul to "fracture"]] causing Rey and Cavendish to exist separately, but with the same soul.

* StraightGay: Rufus Sixsmith

* ''An Orison of Sonmi~451'' (2144): Sonmi~451, a fabricant, a genetically-engineered clone, employed at the Papa Song's diner chain. She lives in Nea So Copros ([[UsefulNotes/{{NorthKorea}} formerly]] [[UsefulNotes/{{SouthKorea}} Korea]], named Neo UsefulNotes/{{Seoul}} in the film adaptation) in a dystopian near future. Fabricants have been created as slaves to a capitalist, totalitarian society -- and Sonmi had the misfortune of developing intelligence far beyond the limits of her genetic engineering. Her story is told in a final interview, during which she's allowed to tell an uncensored account of her entire life. The recording of this interview, called an orison, is viewed by...

* AnAesop: Freedom is the most important thing anyone can have.
** In the film adaptation at least, it is probably best summarized by Sonmi's Orison: "Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. To be is to be observed, so it is only possible to know oneself through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and actions, which ripple across space and time for all eternity. With each cruelty and every kindness we birth our future."

* BirthmarkOfDestiny: Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi, and Meronym (or Zachry in the film) all have the exact same birthmark, in exactly the same place (although in the film the birthmark is instead placed in various dramatically appropriate locations for each character); this birthmark is one of the main manifestations of the {{reincarnation}} theme.

* TheCorrupter: Old Georgie, the future Hawaiian imagery of the devil. Zachry's tribe have a strong storytelling culture and smoke a ''whole'' lot of weed, so for them, seeing and hearing Old Georgie is as normal as anything. He very appropriately looks like a Hawaiian witch doctor in the film version.

** Future Korea is a {{dystopia}} filled with deliberate values dissonance

** This was left out in the movie.

* HappinessInSlavery: Pretty much the main theme of the novel and film. Slavery appears in some form or another in every story:

* HypocriticalHumor: Timothy Cavendish initially criticises the manuscript of ''Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery'' sent to his publishing house for being badly written and obviously intended to be turned into a screenplay. His own story suffers from StylisticSuck, and he ends up putting in explicit directions for its future director (whom he imagines as a reclusive Swede named "Lars"). The film version of ''Film/CloudAtlas'', rather fantasically, takes him up on it and actually follows his notes.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: Played with. Despite the characters apparently being reincarnations or something similar of each other, some of the stories are presented as fiction when they appear in another story. Lampshaded by Frobisher, who points out to Sixsmith in his letters that ''The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'' feels a bit too well-structured to be a true diary. The logical overlap between the lives of Rey and Cavendish only makes things more confusing. The novel lampshades this when Cavendish outright rejects the idea of his birthmark being similar to a comet; the film does away with this angle by never calling attention to any ambiguous fictitiousness.

* MetaTwist: Timothy mentions [[spoiler:Film/SoylentGreen]] in connection with cloned Koreans before Sonmi's story even starts; the clones all [[spoiler: drinking the same nutrients each day]] invokes the connection very strongly. But the plot thread seemingly gets dropped very early on in Sonmi’s tale, to focus on political intrigue instead. Small hints are dropped -- a reference to Malthus, for example. By the time Sonmi reaches the ship, it's of course a ForegoneConclusion that Xultation isn't real... but the sudden return of [[spoiler: the Film/SoylentGreen theme]] is unexpected, if just because the story already includes such a large number of other famous sci-fi twists in its loving {{pastiche}}. And then it gets taken a step further when it turns out that [[spoiler:not just the Soap is made of discarded clones, but also the regular food in Papa Song's diner]].

* TogetherInDeath: [[spoiler: Frobisher hopes that this will be the fate of himself and Sixsmith. Considering that the entire plot is about reincarnation, not the afterlife, this may be either false hope or they could be together in another timeline. Interestingly (in the film at least), they both die the same way - with a gun in their mouth.]]

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The third novel by Creator/DavidMitchell ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}}), 'Cloud Atlas' is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

The third novel by Creator/DavidMitchell ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}}), ''Cloud Atlas'' is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

The third novel by Creator/DavidMitchell ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}}), Cloud Atlas is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

The third novel by Creator/DavidMitchell ({{n|amesTheSame}}o, not ''Series/{{that|MitchellAndWebbLook}}), ''Cloud Atlas'' is a sweeping epic that connects wildly different genres and writing styles into a single narrative. The novel consists of six nested stories, each set in a different place and era, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to the future AfterTheEnd. Each story and style is a {{pastiche}} of the most recognisable examples of the genre (which the characters swiftly realise and comment on), and lovingly combines old clichés with new twists. A comet-shaped birthmark appears in each story, generally on the protagonist, and the characters often recognize names, places, and experiences from other stories. In order of introduction, the six stories are:

->''"Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds."''

* ContinuityNod: Timothy Cavendish and Luisa Rey appears as a minor character in ''Literature/{{Ghostwritten}}''. Also to point out that Katy Forbes had a comet-shaped birthmark that plays the major role in the story.

* GreatOffscreenWar: "An Orison of Sonmi~451"'s Skirmishes.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: As a way around MortonsFork, Fay Li in "Half-Lives" transfers the employee mentioned to Kansas as punishment.
* {{Reincarnation}}: A recurring theme in the novel (though it is left ambiguous whether it is real). Also an explicit belief of the Valleysmen in "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", of the Buddhists in Sonmi's era and of the Moriori. Luisa doesn't believe in it at all.

** The title of Frobisher's masterpiece is ''The Cloud Atlas Sextet''. Its structure is described as extremely similar to that of the novel, with six individual parts slowly woven together into one greater whole. Frobisher himself isn't sure if it's clever or gimmicky.

* UnreliableNarrator: Most of the stories are told in first-person perspective, and it's occasionally suggested that some of them are not being entirely honest. Zachry's narration, in particular, is heavily influenced by his tribe's superstitions and storytelling conventions (and presumably by the copious amounts of weed he smokes throughout). He freely talks about the wind and the animals whispering things to him, about his dead father appearing to him, and about corpses speaking and time freezing and the devil himself appearing before him, because that's just how his tribe traditionally experiences life.

** Adam Ewing's plot to ''Literature/MobyDick'', with Melville himself and whales being mentioned frequently.
** Cavendish's story to ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' (he saw the film once).