History Literature / GoodOmens

* EmbarrassingFirstName[=/=]EmbarrassingMiddleName: Pepper's real name is [[LordOfTheRings Pippin Galadriel]] [[TheNeverendingStory Moonchild]]. It's also her BerserkButton.

** Pepper's real name, [[LordOfTheRings Pippin Galadriel]] [[TheNeverendingStory Moonchild]] is twofer reference to ''LordOfTheRings'' and ''TheNeverendingStory''.

Co-written by TerryPratchett (''Literature/{{Discworld}}'') and NeilGaiman (''TheSandman''), each at the top of their form. The two of them considered working on a sequel, but aside from the potential title ''668: The Neighbour of the Beast'' nothing has yet come of this.

* BlandNameProduct: Burger Lord.

* AndADietCoke

* BadassBiker: The Bikers of the Apocalypse.

* ChekhovsGun: Aziraphale's flaming sword.
** [[spoiler:That Crowley arranged the M25 to be a demonic symbol.]] It seems like a throwaway gag at first, but it comes back in a big way.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Sable.

* ParodyNames: Burger Baron.

* ElvisLives: A RunningGag.

-->'''Death:''' I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAYS I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM!

* ElvisLives or ElvisHasLeftThePlanet

* OddlySmallOrganization: The Witchhunters are just Shadwell, joined by Newt. Perhaps there's others about, but that's all that are mentioned.

** They are, however, growing very well, mostly because Crowley has made clear what will happen if they do not.

* They are, however, growing very well, mostly because Crowley has made clear what will happen if they do not.

* UnluckyEverydude: Newt. Literally. He has terrible luck at everything at does, minus finding a job. [[spoiler:Gets out of it at the end]].

* CloudCuckoolander: Pollution.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent

** Arguably, Crowley and Aziraphale. [[NotSoDifferent It's up to you which one's the 'evil' one...]]

* GoodIsNotDumb: Aziraphale. Members of TheMafia [[ShameIfSomethingHappened that threaten his bookstore]] [[MuggingTheMonster tend to mysteriously disappear]]. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Just because he's an angel doesn't mean he's weak.]]
** More specifically, they never ''come back'' to his bookstore. He could just be using his powers to make them forget about it. Or, considering who he is, ''very strongly suggest'' that they give up crime.

* PrecisionFStrike: [[spoiler:Aziraphale. "Oh, ''fuck.''"]]

* BuffySpeak: [[KnightTemplar Shadwell]], of all people, when instructing [[ArthurDent Newt]] to look out for "Phenomena. Phenomenatrices. Things, ye ken well what I mean" as the main part of his witch finder media-watch duties. Also Aziraphale when drunk.

* DarkIsNotEvil / GoodIsNotNice: See NotSoDifferent.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Aziraphale is described as giving the impression that he is "Gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide". The same passage explains, however, that divine beings are without sexual characteristics (unless they really want) and therefore couldn't be considered to have any sexual orientation.

** [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. [[spoiler: He's a mischevious kid who doesn't quite understand adult morality yet, but doesn't do anything really ''nasty''... then he gets angry at the way the human race is screwing up the world and decides to do something about it. For a bit, he becomes a crazed monster, willing to genocide the human race and build new, better people for him to play with. Then his human side regains control and he becomes basically good, but still with that dark well of evil threatening to burst through every so often.]]

-->[[spoiler: "It might, or might not, have helped Anathema get a clear view of things if she'd been allowed to spot the very obvious reason why she couldn't see Adam's aura. It was for the same reason that people in Trafalgar Square can't see England."]]

* BabyTalk (or possibly, given that she's a Satanist, CutenessProximity): Sister Mary Loquacious, getting distracted by the baby AntiChrist and his little hoofie-woofies. [[spoiler: Which he hasn't got]].
* BackToBackBadasses: [[spoiler: Aziraphale and Crowley when preparing for the final battle armed with a flaming sword and a tire iron]].

* BadassDecay: In-universe example. A huge dog that would make angry rottweilers and pitbulls cower gets turned into a small terrier-like mongrel with an odd ear, because Adam's his master and he said so. Much to Dog's dismay, he can't scare away cats like he used to and tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to fight small-dog instincts.
* BadassNormal: [[BadassBystander Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale]] who [[spoiler: defeat the Horsemen]], and Shadwell, who's [[spoiler:ready to take on Satan]].

* BeingGoodSucks / BeingEvilSucks: Aziraphale and Crowley commiserate while drinking.

* BlondGuysAreEvil: Subverted with [[spoiler: Adam]], though the hair probably comes from [[{{Satan}} his dad's side of the family.]]

* CallBack: [[spoiler: The M25 becomes a major hurdle. It was first mentioned in a characterization joke in the first chapter.]]

** [[spoiler: That Crowley arranged the M25 to be a demonic symbol.]] It seems like a throwaway gag at first, but it comes back in a big way.
* TheChosenOne: Technically subverted, first when [[spoiler: the Antichrist is SwitchedAtBirth one too many times, resulting in the wrong person being prepared for 11 years]], and secondly when [[spoiler: he then decides he doesn't want to cause Armageddon and convinces both Heaven and Hell not to go through with it]].

** Which he could probably hide, but then what would be the point of always wearing CoolShades.

** Arguably, even him. It's noted that trying to understand the ineffable plan is something akin to playing poker for infinite stakes in a pitch black room with blank cards and a dealer who refuses to tell you the rules, and who smiles ''all the time''. It being, by its very nature, impossible to understand except by God, who isn't saying anything.

* DarkIsNotEvil / LightIsNotGood: See NotSoDifferent.

** He takes this to the level of a superpower. He once got a joke circuit board that isn't supposed to do anything, and ended up building a wireless radio that could reach Russia.
** Winds up as a [[spoiler: BrickJoke when he "fixes" the launch computers, causing them to fail in spectacular fashion.]]

* EarthIsYoung: The Earth has only been around for 6,000 years and all the 'old' stuff in the ground is God's decoration.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Anathema.

* EnergyBeings: [[spoiler: [[UnusualUserInterface Beings of angelic stock can travel through the phone lines.]]]]

* EvilCounterpart: Inverted. [[spoiler: The Them]] are the good counterparts to [[spoiler: the Four Horsepersons.]]

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: In-universe subversion in the form of CHOW™, SNACKS™ and MEALS™ which thanks to cutting edge food-science technology contain nothing of any nutritional value whatsoever. The latter is a true work of art in that if you eat it in any significant amount, it will cause you to both become morbidly obese AND die of malnutrition.
** [[spoiler: Should come as no surprise that it was Famine who was responsible for these products]]

* [[FailOSuckyname Fail O'Suckyname]] - The secondary group of Bikers of the Apocalypse.
** Their names are: Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Really Cool People, and Treading In Dogshit (formerly All Foreigners Especially The French, formerly Things Not Working Properly Even When You've Given Them [[PercussiveMaintenance A Good Thumping]], never actually No Alcohol Lager, briefly Embarrassing Personal Problems, and finally [[ItMakesSenseInContext People Covered In Fish]])

* FieryRedhead: War, who can [[HeroesWantRedheads make men fight over her]]. To be more exact, fight ''through'' her, they were going to execute her for disrupting a four-way battle. [[spoiler:Well, you get the idea.]] Pepper is a human example of the trope.
* FictionalColour: there was a mention of infra-black, that was the color that flashed before your eyes when you've just run into a wall head-first, right before you died.

* FriendlyEnemy - See the OddCouple entry.
* [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Friendly Neighborhood]] [[strike:Vampire]] [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Demon]] - Crowley.

* FunnyForeigner / EagleLand: [[spoiler:Sister Mary mistakes Mr. Young for the American diplomat.]] HilarityEnsues.

* GiftedlyBad: Newton with electronics. To such an extent that, when he's struggling to prevent armageddon, [[spoiler: the solution is "make this computer work better"]].

** Crowley underlies some of the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome horror]] underlying Heaven's [[{{Glurge}} glurgy]] tedium when he tells Aziraphale that if Heaven wins Armageddon, in the time it takes for a bird to fly from one end of the universe to the other and wear down a mountain by sharpening its beak against it, Aziraphale STILL won't have finished watching ''The Sound of Music.'' And Aziraphale will enjoy it. ''Every single time.''
*** [[NotSoDifferent Note that this is a parody of the traditional hellfire sermon, where the bird flying across the universe is used to suggest how long the torments of the damned will go on for.]]

* TheGrimReaper: Similar to but a lot less interested in humanity than the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' version. (Almost nothing like the ''[[TheSandman Sandman]]'' version, for the record.)

* HaveAGayOldTime: Non-sexual example in ''The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter'' (the word 'nice' didn't settle on its modern implication until the 19th century). Probably influenced by the story of Alice Nutter and the Device family of Pendle, Lancs., being recorded in a 1612 book called ''The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in Lancashire''- wonderful at the time meaning simply 'amazing'.)

* HowDoYouLikeThemApples

* HumanoidAbomination: The Horsemen approach this as Armageddon draws near. Their human forms are described as "ill-fitting" and their human-like personalities start to fade as their basic programming as bringers of destruction becomes dominant. [[spoiler:Something similar nearly happens to Adam.]] Only Death is unaffected -- Death never changes after all.

* HumanityIsInfectious: Crowley and Aziraphale are both changed somewhat by their time on Earth. Crowley's fellow demon Hastur notes this and claims that Crowley is going native. Though even Hastur isn't all that different -- when he really wants to let Crowley just how pissed off he is, he uses ''human'' curses since he thinks demonic ones aren't volatile enough.

* KnightsTemplar: Played with for the Witch Finder Army, generally for laughs.
** Played horrifyingly straight for [[spoiler:the forces of Heaven and Hell]]

* LineOfSightName: Due to Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell's shady book-keeping, the suspiciously small organization that is the Witchfinder's Army is made up of the likes of of Witchfinder Majors Milk, Tin, Cupboard, and Saucepan.

* LovecraftianSuperpower: Crowley scares off the paintballing commando by turning into something [[strike: dreadful]] [[FreakyIsCool cool]]... "I think the maggots were a bit over the top, myself."

** One of the three first impressions of Aziraphale is "gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide."

* MySignificanceSenseIsTingling / SpiderSense

* OverlyLongGag: The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.

* PrecisionFStrike: [[spoiler: Aziraphale. "Oh, ''fuck.''"]]

* ScrewDestiny: The entire book is about breaking away from destiny and people's expectations of you, and finding your own path. At the end, [[spoiler:Newton Pulsifer even convinces Anathema Device not to live her life trying to interpret prophecies left to her by a distant ancestor]]. Also, [[spoiler:the Anti-Christ averts Armageddon.]] However, [[spoiler: Agnes may have seen it all coming.]]

--->''God does not play dice with the universe. He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the other players, to be involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you rules and SMILES ALL THE TIME.''

** At the [[spoiler: last paragraph after Adam managed to avert the apocalypse [[NineteenEightyFour "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot]]... No, imagine a sneakerlace trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human... [[TheSecondComing Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield...]] [[NineteenEightyFour forever..."]] ]]
** A few to the ''[[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' series. When discussing the coming apocalypse while drunk, Aziraphale mentions, "Something about Dolphins."

** Admittedly the angel-demon OddCouple does provide a good deal of the philosophical ponderings of the novel, and they pretty much embody the idea of "good" and "evil" being NotSoDifferent. But as for actual effects on the plot, Crowley and Aziraphale are basically running a HardyBoysInvestigation. They put a lot of effort into preventing it, but the net result of their efforts is zero. Then again, having the entire plot resolved by only the human characters without supernatural help may be the point of the story.

* StevenUlyssesPerhero / SueDonym: Mr. (Ezra?) Fell, Mr A. Ziraphale.

** It's made clear that this televangelist believes what he says and really does funnel most of his enormous income back into the ministry, doing "what he genuinely believed to be the Lord's work". One can only speculate whose cause ''that'' helps.

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Shadwell's cans of condensed milk.

* WalkingTechbane: Newton Pulsifer.
** [[spoiler: Turns into a ChekhovsSkill in the end with the nuclear launch systems. "So? Fix it."]]

* WhiteHairedPrettyboy: Pollution. [[spoiler:Until he goes all squishy...]]

** Anathema's spelling is mentioned as being 300 years too late, a given though because she learnt spelling from The Book.

* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Brought up in one of Aziraphale and Crowley's binge drinking philosophical debates.

* [[spoiler:ApocalypseNot]]: It's a pretty close call though.

** [[ETTheExtraterrestrial Upon seeing the Them ride past on their bikes the airbase guard asks if anyone saw if they were carrying an alien in a basket]].

** And [[spoiler:a delivery boy pointing out the man and asking, "Does he remind you of anyone?"]] to which [[spoiler:Famine]] promptly replied "No." Also possibly a slight dig at Elvis, considering [[spoiler:Famine probably ''wouldn't'' have ever met him. IfYouKnowWhatIMean.]]

** War, after getting her sword in a bar full of armed soldiers, decides it's time to [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean get to know them better]].

** [[DatingCatwoman Newt and Anathema.]] But that one makes a certain amount of sense. He was a witchfinder and, well, he [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean found himself a witch]].

* UnusualEuphemism / GoshdangItToHeck: "Oh Go--, Sa--, [[AcceptableTargets Manchester]]!", also "[[IfYouKnowWhatIMean making an effort]]".

** Both 'Nutter' and 'Device' are names of real families who were persecuted under the early 17th century witch hunts (though their situation seems rather different to the one described in the book). The case of the [[http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14490790 Device family]] is particularly tragic and disturbing (though Anathema's existence suggests that little Jennet must have had children of her own in this 'verse...) ''Alice'' Nutter, a yeoman's daughter caught up in the same place, was probably guilty simply of being a Catholic; their story is told in a book called "The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in Lancashire".