History Literature / TheScar

* DidntSeeThatComing: [[spoiler: The New Crobuzon fleet pays a high price for Fennec's having overlooked the tugboats' potential as explosive ramships.]]

** In ''PerdidoStreetStation'', the single brief appearance of a vampire implied that the ab-dead in New Crobuzon appear to be completely normal people and live in secret.

* ShoutOut: The physical description of the Brucolac makes him sound a lot like Kai from ''Series/{{Lexx}}''.

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: Uther Doul and Silas Fennec, as Bellis realises at the end. They both are Manipulative Bastards, and both was using Bellis, but never felt anything for her.]]

** ''Absolutely everything'' about the grindylow.

* CunningLinguist: Bellis fills this role on the ship, complete with being both cunning and [[TheStoic unapproachable]].

* {{Badass}}: Uther Doul, perhaps the only outright badass in the trilogy. The Brucolac may also qualify. Uther Doul ''does'' manage to beat up The Brucolac, but getting beat up by Uther Doul is like getting beat up by Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
** Tanner Sack also certainly qualifies as a badass, and is maybe the only truly heroic character in the Scar. The Lovers are also a pair of badasses, having built themselves up from nothing and commandeered the entire city of Armada together

* ThrowAwayGuns: [[BadAss Uther Doul]] actually manages to use this effectively. He can throw an empty flintlock with enough force and accuracy to kill someone.

** the description of what [[spoiler: Silas Fennec's Magus Fin-empowered saliva]] does to a person's flesh is the stuff of nightmares.

* SpamAttack: Justified in with Uther Doul's Possible Sword. Proof that ChinaMieville has read up on quantum mechanics, charging this weapon with current causes it to deliver every possible strike it ''could'' deliver, all at the same time. The more possible a strike is, the more solid the sword's edge will be for that strike. Targets of the Possible Sword come out looking like they've been run through a mincing machine.

* ShootTheShaggyDogStorry: What [[spoiler: raising the Avanc and sailing out to the hidden ocean]] ends up being to Armada. [[spoiler: They turn around after finding out it will likely kill them all, and the Avanc dies shortly after they escape back to the Swollen Ocean.]]

** That is speculative. Bastard John was the only dolphin character in the Scar, and it's likely he may have been a trained one at that

** Tanner Sack also certainly qualifies as a badass, and is maybe the only truly heroic character in the Scar.

Creator/ChinaMieville's second book in the ''Literature/BasLag Cycle'', first published in 2002. Despite being a stand-alone novel, [[{{Sequel}} it takes place immediately]] after the events of ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation''.

* EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks

* HordeOfAlienLocusts

** Sadistic dolphin is sort of redundant.

** The Anophelii are somewhat similar in this regard, but more time is given to the females. The female Anophelii are not purely monstrous, but due to the shape of their mouths they are unable to talk with the male Anophelii, leaving them as beasts with severely limited intelligence. Once fed, they are able to respond enthusiastically and positively to sentient creatures. Of course, they did spread over and rule most of the world during a dark time referred to as the Malarial Queendom, so they had their bad moments too, to say the least...

* TheReveal: Bellis's letter was being written to [[spoiler: no one; she didn't have anyone in particular in mind]].
* SapientCetaceans: Sapient dolphins aid the security forces of the floating pirate settlement of Armada, and there's a small mention of sapient whales. Inverting typical presentations the main dolphin character is a sadist named Bastard John, while the whales are all extremely stupid dupes of the book's primary antagonists.

* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: ''Literature/TheScar'', being set in both a pirate nation ''and'' [[Literature/BasLagCycle Bas-Lag]] is absolutely rife with these. Cactus pirates, vampire pirates, giant-scarab-headed women librarian pirates... You get the idea.

* MockGuffin: Everyone assumes that [[spoiler: New Crobuzon and then the Grindylow]] have come for [[Silas Fennec's statue]]. While it has power, it is a trinket compared to [[spoiler: Fennec's documentation of how to build a canal around Grindylow-controlled waters, increasing New Crobuzon's trade power at the Grindylows' expense]].

* WarIsHell: The naval battle, seen trough Tanner's eyes, is tragic and horrifying.