History Literature / DyingEarth

* ArtInitiatesLife: Strongly implied with [[spoiler: Ameth]], although never stated outright.

* AntiHero: Liane the Wayfarer. Also Cugel. In fact many of Vance's characters are [[AntiHero anti-heroes]].

* StayOnThePath: Enforced for one character in a short story whose father's blessing protects him while on the road.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Several examples among creatures and monsters, but the spells deserve special mention for combining black comedy with YouDoNotWantToKnow: the Spell of Forlorn Encystment, Lugwiler's Dismal Itch, the Spell of the Macroid Digit (in which one toe of the target swells to the size of a house), and many more.

* CuteMute: The three ArtificialHuman mimes on board the ''Avventura'' are waif like women with childish personalities. Even Cugel is disgusted that the womanizing passenger is attempting to seduce them; they are too innocent for any normal person to be able to view them sexually.

* TheCasanova: Rhialto the Marvellous. Ivanello, at least where the Mimes are concerned. Liane the Wayfarer and Cugel the Clever both consider themselves such but are not. Liane is an unrepentant rapist.
** Normally he isn't TheCasanova, but in the section of ''Cugel's Saga'' called "The Seventeen Virgins", Cugel as a caravan guard "deflorates" fifteen of the seventeen titular virgins, over the course of a 10-day journey. The girls were all apparently perfectly willing, since when questioned by the Grand Thearch of Latham they "merely raise their eyes to the ceiling and whistle between their teeth," rather than accuse Cugel of anything.

* AssholeVictim: Quite often, the GoodIsNotNice hero preys on fellow rogues. In Cugels case, this trope goes both ways.

* EvilCounterpart: Downplayed, since Cugel’s character development ends with him as neutral rather than truly good, but Iolo is essentially who he used to be in the first book, back before he was nigh incapable of even the most informal forms of cooperation. Ironically, Cugel’s newfound moral compass initially lets Iolo get the better of him until Cugel’s elaborate revenge finally plays out.

* HeelFaceTurn: Cugel goes from utterly horrid scoundrel to TrueNeutral wanderer. It’s rather telling that around the halfway point of book two, people begin to stick their necks out for him (like covering for the theft of the ship, or aiding him against enemy wizards) and he actively tries to avoid having to cash in these favors due to the risks involved for them, whereas earlier he gleefully would have used their dead bodies as stepping stores.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Even a few million years are enough time for natural selection and genetic drift to significantly alter living species -- for reference, humanity went from being essentially bipedal chimps to its current form in about three million years. The millions of years that would have transformed our world into the Dying Earth would also have seen humanity evolve into something we likely wouldn't perceive as human anymore. While offshoot races adapted to the planet are shown, mainline humans like Cugel are still the majority despite not having adapted or changed at all. Familiar animals such as horses are also present.

** Normally he isn't TheCasasnova, but in the section of ''Cugel's Saga'' called "The Seventeen Virgins", Cugel as a caravan guard "deflorates" fifteen of the seventeen titular virgins, over the course of a 10-day journey. The girls were all apparently perfectly willing, since when questioned by the Grand Thearch of Latham they "merely raise their eyes to the ceiling and whistle between their teeth," rather than accuse Cugel of anything.

* AnAesop: One of the stories with T'sais is definitely one, some of the other ''Dying Earth'' stories could be said to be one also. Arguably, Cugel the Clever learns that backstabbing is bad and trust is good by the end of his second book.

** Blikdak is a gigantic corpulent demon whose leaking bodily fluids take on lives of their own as monstrous phantoms and who is able to devour knowledge itself.

%%* LoveRedeems: Platonically, between T'sain to T'sais.%%How?

** Chun's is also his MyNameIsInigoMontoya and his PreMortemOneLiner.

* AccidentalMisnaming: When Cudgel asks one of the Smolod elders for information about the violet cusps, the elder refers to the demon Unda-Hrada as "Underherd" several times.

* {{Fingore}}: When the residents of a fishing village hold a feast in honor of Cudgel and Garstang, everyone attending, including Cudgel and Garstang, are required to [[{{Autocannibalism}} cut off a finger for the communal cook-pot]] as a symbol of unity.

* MagicMisfire: Cudgel finds out the hard way that incorrectly cast spells tend to malfunction in the most ''[[HilarityEnsues inconvenient]]'' ways.

* ContemptibleCover: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dying_earth.jpg cover]] of the very first edition of ''The Dying Earth''.

* AntiHero: Liane the Wayfarer. Also Cugel. Also Magnus Ridolph. In fact many of Vance's characters are [[AntiHero anti-heroes]].

Welcome to Earth, a few million years in the future. [[TheMagicComesBack Magic has returned]] and has, for the most part, displaced science. The setting is both AfterTheEnd and JustBeforeTheEnd. Civilization has largely collapsed, and the Sun is close to going out. Earth's remaining inhabitants are generally aware of this but have no means to escape their increasingly hot and barren CrapsackWorld. Those that haven't become religious zealots are largely [[StrawNihilist nihilistic fatalists]], engaging in what debauchery they can in the time left.

* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: Pandelume is more than happy to take any mage competent enough to reach him under his wing, and tries to bring out the best in his students. He showes such incredible remorse that his mistakes while creating T’Sais have caused her suffering that his main goal in recruiting students seems to be finding someone who can fix her (In a setting where people callously kill without a thought). He’s also some kind of entity that is so horrificly wrong that glimpsing him drives you mad or kills you on the spot.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Cugel thinks of himself as a ManOfWealthAndTaste and LovableRogue. In reality he's basically a {{Jerkass}} DirtyCoward who regularly gets OutGambitted and HoistByHisOwnPetard. That said, by the events of Cugel's Saga his wits have improved to the point he actually manages to live up to that "The Clever" epiphet during several story arcs, when his own greed doesn't get in the way.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: Even a few million years are enough time for natural selection and genetic drift to significantly alter living species -- for reference, humanity went from being essentially bipedal chimps to its current form in about three million years. The millions of years that would have transformed our world into the Dying Earth would also have seen humanity evolve into something we likely wouldn't perceive as human anymore. While offshoot races adapted to the planet are shown, mainline humans like Cugel are still the majority despite not having adapted or changed at all.

* GoodIsNotNice: Cugel the Clever, who was downright evil for the first book he was in (in general, calling him ''good'' even after his CharacterDevelopment is a bit of a stretch).