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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81orsmlaprl.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350:[-"What is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"-]]]
3
4->“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.”
5-->-- '''Zachry'''
6
7The third novel by Creator/{{David Mitchell|Author}} (no, 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 [[AfterTheEnd future]]. 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:
8
9* ''The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'' (1859): An American notary, returning by ship from the Chatham Islands of New Zealand, keeps a journal of his journey through the Pacific Ocean accompanied by a Moriori stowaway. Ewing has been infected with a parasitic worm, of which Dr. Henry Goose is trying to cure him. A partial copy of the edited and published journal is found by...
10* ''Letters from Zedelghem'' (1931): Robert Frobisher, a tremendously snarky English musician and aspiring composer, formerly [[RichInDollarsPoorInSense Rich in Pounds, Poor in Sense]] and now penniless after a bad game. On the run, he charms his way into a job as an assistant to a retired composer, settling with his employer in Zedelghem, Belgium. He records his experiences in a series of letters, which he sends to his friend and lover Rufus Sixsmith. Much later in life, the letters are read by...
11* ''Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery'' (1975): 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...
12* ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'' (2012): Timothy Cavendish, an old, glum British vanity press publisher who gets into trouble with the mob when one of his authors tosses a book critic off a roof, and he ends up trapped by his brother in a retirement home in a rather undignified KafkaKomedy. His experience forms the basis of a film, which is seen by...
13* ''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]]) 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...
14* ''Sloosha’s Crossin’ an' Ev’rythin’ After'' (106 years [[AfterTheEnd after the Fall]]): Zachry, an elder of a tribe in post-apocalyptic Hawaii that regards Sonmi as their god, meets Meronym, a member of Earth's last advanced civilization. His story is set in a distant future, where most of humanity has died out. In his old age, he narrates his experiences around a camp-fire.
15
16Instead 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 protagonist 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.
17
18The [[Film/CloudAtlas film version]] -- which is a gorgeous PragmaticAdaptation, with some of the storylines significantly altered -- is written and directed by Tom Tykwer, the director of ''Film/RunLolaRun'' and ''Literature/{{Perfume}}'', and Creator/TheWachowskis. The AllStarCast includes Creator/TomHanks, Creator/HalleBerry, Creator/KeithDavid, Creator/HugoWeaving, Creator/SusanSarandon, Creator/HughGrant, Creator/BenWhishaw and many others. It was released in October 2012.
19----
20
21!! This book contains examples of the following tropes:
22
23* ActualPacifist: The real life pacifism of the Moriori tribe (not to be confused with Maori), even in the face of genocide, is discussed in depth in the first story. It didn't go well for them.
24* AdvertOverloadedFuture: Sonmi's era is a capitalist, corporate-run dystopia where even the Moon is an advert.
25* AfterTheEnd: Zachry's era. Nea So Copros also exists after a period called "The Skirmishes", suggested to be a series of "limited" nuclear wars which have already left much of the planet a "deadlands". Presumably a bigger one after Sonmi's period finished the job.
26* AlienNonInterferenceClause: Meronym in the final segment is from a more advanced Earth civilization, not an alien, but this still applies to her. [[spoiler: Zachry manages to convince her to use her medical equipment to save Zachry's sister. To avoid potential problems, they inject her secretly, so she just appears to have a miraculous recovery.]]
27* AllAnimationIsDisney: {{Exaggerated|Trope}} -- in 2144, ''all films'' are referred to as "disneys", because the world has become a total plutocracy. WesternAnimation/{{P|lutoThePup}}un not intended. [[invoked]]
28* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Hae-Joo and Sonmi have this trope going on... [[spoiler: Although Sonmi is convinced he was in on the GovernmentConspiracy in the end.]]
29* AmbiguousDisorder: Frobisher suffers tremendously from bipolar disorder, but being from 1931, he has no idea what's happening or how to handle it.
30* AnAesop:
31** Freedom is the most important thing anyone can have.
32** Our actions have consequences beyond our intentions, and we should interact with others with this in mind.
33* ArcWords: There are all kinds of repeated references across the six eras. Hydras, feeding ducks, a "crocodile" of people, eating soap, cannibalism, etc. Frobisher's "Cloud Atlas Sextet" follows the same pattern the novel does, and he associates each of the six movements of his piece with an instrument.
34** "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]]
35** "An atlas o(f) clouds."
36* AtLeastIAdmitIt: Henry Goose may be a [[spoiler:murderer, a racist, and a con man, completely devoid of morality and empathy]], but he is almost sympathetic when he skewers the hypocritical missionaries that exploit the natives. He is the only character that feels no need to disguise his brutal Social Darwinism behind religious, pseudo-humanitarian, or patriotic reasons.
37* AteHisGun: [[spoiler: Frobisher.]]
38* BarBrawl: At the very end of the Cavendish story. [[spoiler: It's engineered by the old folks as a way of escaping the bad guys.]]
39* BarbieDollAnatomy: Fabricants in the novel. Kidnapped ones are given cheap surgery and sold as prostitutes.
40* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Sonmi was knowingly cooperating with Unanimity the entire time to have the opportunity to spread her message.]]
41-->[[spoiler:We see a game beyond the endgame. I refer to my ''Declarations'', Archivist. Media has flooded Nea So Copros with my Catechisms. Every schoolchild in corpocracy knows my twelve "blasphemies" now. My guards tell me there is even talk of a statewide "Vigilance Day" against fabricants who show signs of the ''Declarations''. My ideas have been reproduced a billionfold.]]
42* BattleaxeNurse: A scary one runs the nursing home where Cavendish is confined.%%* BavarianFireDrill: Involving the BarBrawl above (also see ViolentGlaswegian below).
43* BerserkButton: The Mexican woman [[spoiler:kills the assassin after he shoots her dog and calls her a wetback]].
44* BioPunk: The Sonmi section takes place in a future setting where humanity is heavily genetically engineered, {{Uterine Replicator}}s are common, and clones perform most unwanted tasks. It's a dystopia, and the biotech in the story is used to enhance the power of the corporate hierarchy that makes the world a dystopia.
45* BirthmarkOfDestiny: Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi, and Meronym all have the exact same birthmark, in exactly the same place; this birthmark is one of the main manifestations of the {{reincarnation}} theme.
46* BittersweetEnding: The ending of each individual story ranges from tragic to uplifting, so in the end, the book as a whole is bittersweet. The last (chronological) story ends with only a few human survivors and the likely extinction of humanity, whereas the last (actual) few pages of the book end with a stirring monologue from Adam Ewing, declaring the need to fight for good and equality despite hopelessness and constant setbacks.
47* {{Blackface}}: Inverted and discussed in Zachry's storyline. Some of Zachry's compatriots start painting their faces out of admiration for the dark-skinned Meronym, but she tells them to stop since her more advanced civilization is unrelated to her skin colour.
48* BodyHorror:
49** Ewing's parasite.
50-->"You are a realist, Adam," Henry told me, "so your pills shall be unsugared. Once the Parasite's larvae hatch, the victim's brain becomes a maggoty cauliflower. Putrescent gases cause the eardrums & eyeballs to protrude until they pop, releasing a cloud of ''Gusano coco'' spores."
51** Zachry's baby, who is born without a nose or mouth due to mutation.
52* BrandNameTakeover: Exaggerated in Sonmi's time, where extreme corporatism has resulted in everyday items being named by the brand most associated with them (eg. "[[AllAnimationIsDisney disneys]]" for films, "rolexes" for watches, "nikes" for running shoes).
53* BreatherEpisode: ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', while creepy in places, is funnier and more light-hearted than the other segments. Especially noticeable since it comes right before/after the very depressing ''An Orison of Sonmi~451''.
54* BurgerFool: Papa Song's Dinery where Sonmi~451 and her fellow clones work is a nightmare version of a fast food restaurant. In the novel, it's strongly implied to literally just be UsefulNotes/McDonalds, with multiple references to its "Golden Arches", the red and yellow colour scheme, and the Papa Song mascot resembling a clown.
55* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler: Robert Frobisher is the only main character to explicitly die, and his lover Sixsmith is murdered in the next story.]]
56* CallBack:
57** 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]].
58** Luisa has a deep-seated fear of guns. [[spoiler: Her predecessor, Frobisher, AteHisGun.]]
59* CallForward: There's also the opposite -- Frobisher, when presented with the opportunity to [[spoiler:slit Ayrs's throat]], has a sort of reverse deja vu calling forward to [[spoiler:Zachry slitting a Kona's throat]].
60* CantStopTheSignal: Sonmi's revelations somehow escape to reach all of Nea So Copros, and are passed down word-for-word until they are regarded as sacred texts.
61* CatapultNightmare: Zachry awakens from a bad dream prophetic dream in this manner in the last story.
62* ContinuityNod: Timothy Cavendish and Luisa Rey appears as a minor character in ''Literature/{{Ghostwritten}}'', and also to point out that Katy Forbes had the same comet-shaped birthmark.
63* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Grimaldi and Lloyd in the 1975 storyline, apparently the entire leadership of Nea So Copros.
64* 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.
65* CrossThrough: Basically ''Cross Through: The Novel''.
66* CultClassic: InUniverse, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'' is considered something like this by 2144.
67* DirectLineToTheAuthor: 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.
68* DeadlyDoctor: [[spoiler: Henry Goose, though Ewing eventually doubts that he was anything more than a murderous confidence trickster.]]
69* {{Deconstruction}}: Of a large number of tropes (see the entire page).
70* DefaceOfTheMoon: In the 22nd century, the moon has been turned into a nightly projection screen, and the idea of a "naked" moon freaks the characters out.
71* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
72** Ewing is very progressive for his time period, but still a product of his age. He's initially frightened that a Moriori stowaway will eat him, right after being told at length about how their own pacifism has nearly driven the tribe extinct.
73** Frobisher is antisemitic and looks down on the working classes, as a typical son of wealthy British gentry of his period would.
74** Timothy Cavendish has the lingering racism and disgust for youth culture that you might expect a bitter old man to have in modern times.
75** Future Korea is a {{dystopia}} filled with deliberate values dissonance.
76** In future Hawaii, Zachry has a child at a very young age with a girl he barely knows. This doesn't seem to be considered abnormal, probably because life expectancies are so short.
77* DepravedBisexual: Robert Frobisher -- charming, hedonistic, manipulative, thieving, sees no problem with cheating, freely admits he'll never truly love anyone but himself ([[spoiler:though in the end, he almost admits he loves Sixsmith]]) and leaps easily from one conquest to the next. He's a true self-absorbed sensualist and opportunist.
78** Even when he's being thrown out by his romantic rival, [[SkewedPriorities he marvels over his rival's fingers]].
79* DoesntLikeGuns: Luisa says that guns make her sick. This might tie her story in with the pacifist Moriori tribe in the Adam Ewing storyline, and more prominently with Robert Frobisher's story.
80* DoomedMoralVictor: Sonmi [[spoiler:cooperated with the GovernmentConspiracy to spread her message, despite knowing it would lead to her death]]. To the point that she's worshiped as a god in the future.
81* DoorStopper: The hardcover stands for 544 pages long.
82* 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. The only thing that saves the entire book from being an example of this is that after his story concludes, the NestedStory moves back in time and shows that [[BittersweetEnding despite its faults and failings, humanity perseveres]].
83* DrivenToSuicide:
84** [[spoiler: Frobisher shoots himself in the mouth]].
85** In Adam Ewing’s storyline, [[spoiler: Rafael]], after [[spoiler: being repeatedly raped by the First Mate and his goons]].
86* {{Dystopia}}: Nea So Copros. How dystopic? Sonmi refers to other dystopian authors as "optimists."
87* EpistolaryNovel: ''Letters from Zedelghem'' is comprised of Frobisher detailing his life in a series of letters to Sixsmith.
88* ExplosiveLeash: Not technically an explosion but the Fabricants' collar kills them instantly if they try to escape.
89* FantasticRacism: Against fabricants -- just look at Sonmi's attempt to attend a university lecture. By her time, however, actual racism is completely gone.
90* ForegoneConclusion:
91** [[spoiler:Frobisher's early death]] is hinted at in the first half of the Luisa Rey storyline.
92** [[spoiler: Ewing's poisoning]] is mockingly spoiled by Frobisher.
93** The post-apocalyptic wasteland and deification of Sonmi spell out the end of her chapter
94** Zachry's asides to others listening to his story imply from the start that he survives the ordeal, since he's the one telling the story.
95* {{Foreshadowing}}: All over. Just a ''few'' examples:
96** Ayrs talks about a dream he has in "Letters from Zedelghem" -- of a restaurant where all the waitresses have the same face, in a reference to "An Orison of Sonmi~451".
97** As Cavendish travels through the countryside, he mentions one area has been turned into a facility for "cloning humans for shady Koreans". A bit later, as Cavendish escapes Aurora House, he makes a crack about [[spoiler:Soylent Green]]. The nurse also threatens to make him eat soap. These all apply to "An Orison of Sonmi~451".
98* FramingDevice: Adam Ewing's story was documented in his journal, which is being read by Robert Frobisher, whose story is in turn unfolding in letters he writes to his lover Rufus Sixsmith. Sixsmith is also a character in Luisa Rey’s story, the events of which are packaged into a novel and are being read by Timothy Cavendish. A film based on his shenanigans is eventually made, which Sonmi-451 watches. Sonmi tells her own story in the interview leading up to her execution, which is viewed by Zachry and the rest of the characters of ''Sloosha’s Crossin’''.
99* FreeLoveFuture: Sex absolutely isn't taboo anymore in Zachry's time, though society still follows the classic pattern of monogamy, marriage and jealousy. Zachry becomes a father at age 12 and doesn't see anything wrong or shameful about it.
100* FunetikAksent: Zachry’s narration.
101* FutureSlang:
102** Sonmi’s era has been hit hard by this trope. Anything that began with 'ex' now only starts with 'x', and everyday items are referred to by the brand we would most readily associate with them, only without the capital letter. Hence nikes (running shoes), sonys (computers), disneys (movies) etc. Explicitly an example of BrandNameTakeover on a global scale, as her world is run by corporations.
103** The humans of Zachry’s era developed their own future slang as well, though it’s more primitive.
104* GenreBusting: Each story is a completely different genre and written in a different format, from letters to semi-screenplay to interview transcription. Genres include PeriodDrama, HistoricalFiction, {{Cyberpunk}}, FilmNoir, {{Adventure}}, {{Satire}}, {{Comedy}}, {{Dystopia}}, ScienceFantasy, SpaceOpera, RomanticComedy, {{Romance}}, SpyFiction, MysteryFiction, {{Tragedy}}, MagicalRealism, and about [[{{Troperiffic}} everything inbetween]].
105* GenteelInterbellumSetting: Frobisher's era. His letters read like a particularly bitter Creator/PGWodehouse novel.
106* GentleGiant: Wing the disasterman, who stands almost ten feet tall and was genomed to clean up disasters. He’s kind to Sonmi and carries her up to the roof to see the sights.
107* GladToBeAliveSex: [[spoiler:Between Sonmi and Hae-Joo after witnessing the fabricant recycling plant. Sonmi describes it as "joyless". The two also have to improvise, since fabricants are not genomed to be able to have intercourse.]]
108* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: [[OneWorldOrder The Corporacy]] organizing Sonmi's ascencion in order to radicalize public opinion against fabricants and distract from the system's real problems. Sonmi realised it very early on, and decided to play along anyway, since it gave her a chance to start a revolution even if the revolution was engineered.]]
109* GreatOffscreenWar: ''An Orison of Sonmi~451''’s Skirmishes.%%* GunKata
110* HappinessInSlavery: A running motif. Slavery appears in some form or another in every story:
111** Adam Ewing slowly comes to realise that social darwinism is wrong.
112** The entire Moriori race becomes enslaved to the Maori.
113** Vyvyan Ayres tries to blackmail Frobisher into remaining his assistant and supplying him with music to steal.
114** Luisa and Joe stumble on a sweatshop.
115** The retirement home that Cavendish is sent to is essentially a prison. Residents are expected to pretend to be happy with their "new life."
116** Sonmi and her fabricant sisters are engineered to be happy in slavery.
117** Zachry's brother was enslaved when he was very young, and the slavers come back for the rest of the island.
118* HiddenElfVillage: Meronym's civilization is strongly implied to be this, due to the fact that they've retained technology from Sonmi's time.
119* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: [[ZigZaggedTrope Played straight, subverted, invoked, played straight again, and discussed at length.]] Arguably, the degree of truth to this trope is the main theme of the novel.
120* HumanResources: [[spoiler:Fabricants are turned into food for new fabricants.]]
121* 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").
122* ImAHumanitarian: Cannibalism, both literal and figurative, is a running motif through most of the stories.
123* ImpairmentShot: From the POV of a man who is being poisoned.
124* InterchangeableAsianCultures: The name of Nea So Copros, the future version of Korea, is a corruption of '''N'''ew '''E'''ast '''As'''ian ('''S'''phere '''o'''f) '''Co-Pros'''perity. It is named after the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which is Imperial Japan's attempt to establish a pan-Asian union.
125* IntrepidReporter: Luisa Rey is the classical example of this trope.
126* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Discussed. "Human hunger birthed the Civlize, but human hunger killed it too."
127* KafkaKomedy: Cavendish’s story. A book publisher is being tormented by a bunch of east end thugs, his older brother, and an evil nurse. This is also the lightest segment of the book, thanks to its playful narration and its absurdity.
128* KickTheDog: The assassin in 1973 shoots the dog of a woman who is annoying him by not speaking English.
129* KnuckleTattoos: Dermot Hoggins (Creator/TomHanks) in the 2012 story.
130* KukrisAreKool: Autua has one in the scene where he asks Adam to kill him rather than give him up to the Captain.
131* LaResistance:
132** The Union in Nea So Copros [[spoiler: which may just be a puppet of the Corpocracy]].
133** Cavendish mounts a minor one in the [[spoiler: retirement home]].
134* LastBreathBullet: A heroic example shown from the perspective of the one firing it.
135* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: When he finds out he's been locked into a mental hospital, not a hotel, Cavendish relates that the reader probably figured that twist out long before he did.
136* LighterAndSofter: Cavendish’s story is the most comedic, though its narrator is also the most curmudgeonly.
137* LockedIntoStrangeness: Zachry tells a story about a man named Truman, whose black hair went white from the shock of seeing Old Georgie harvesting a soul.
138* LondonGangster: Dermot "Duster" Hoggins is such a criminal. And he'll do anything to get the returns from his autobiography.
139* LostTechnology: By the time of Zachry's era, technology has mostly devolved back to the iron age, but a small group has access to some stuff on our current level and a even a few objects more advanced than anything we currently have.
140* ManipulativeBastard: Frobisher, very much so. As is Ayrs.
141* MagicalRealism: The protagonist of each story appears to be a reincarnation of the previous ones. In Zachry's story conversations with the dead and with the Devil appear commonplace as well as the seers words coming true.
142* MatterReplicator: Sophisticated 3D-printer-like devices are seen rapidly assembling fast food in Papa Song's.
143* MeaningfulName:
144** Two of the {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s of Seaboard in the Luisa Rey story have the last names "Hooks" and "Wiley".
145** Sixsmith partially inspired Frobisher's creation (smithing) of the Cloud Atlas Sextet (a piece written for six players).
146** Jocasta, the composer Vyvyan Ayrs's wife. In Myth/GreekMythology, the wife of King Laios of Thebes and mother of Oedipus. In the novel, DepravedBisexual Robert Frobisher (son figure) makes love with Jocasta (mother figure), the wife of Vyvyan (father figure).
147** A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meronymy "meronym"]] means something that is part of a whole.
148** Bill Smoke’s surname evokes his status as a shadowy assassin.
149** Unanimity, the government ruling Nea So Copros, means the uniting of an undivided opinion. This foreshadows the fact that [[spoiler:[[LaResistance Union]], the rebellion against Unanimity, is actually a part of it.]]
150** [[BilingualBonus In Greek]], "néa sou kopros" would be "your new shit".
151* MegaCorp: The Corpocracy in 2144. Doubles as TheGovernment and PoliceState.
152* MercyKill: Hae-Joo Im shoots [[spoiler: Xi-Li]] in the head when the latter is hit by a government weapon that causes agonising pain while keeping the victim conscious. Similar mercy kills are accepted practice among [[LaResistance Union]].
153* MetaTwist: Timothy mentions ''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 ''Soylent Green'' 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]].
154* 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 ''exactly'' overlap[[note]]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?[[/note]]... ''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.
155* MistakenForInsane: Both the book and the movie, Timothy Cavendish is pranked by his brother into committing himself into a mental institution. He tries to convince the staff that he is mentally healthy, but they refuse to allow him to leave, keeping him trapped on the property.
156* MortonsFork: Luisa and Fay both encounter this in their dealings with boorish men.
157-->[Fay:] "[...] What would you do? Dash off some witty put-down line, let 'em know you're riled? Slap him, get labeled hysterical? Besides, creeps like that enjoy getting slapped. Do nothing? So any man on site can say shit like that to you with impunity?"\
158[Luisa:] "An official complaint?"\
159"Prove that women run to senior men when the going gets rough?"
160* TheMourningAfter: It's implied Sixsmith lived forty-five more years, but never loved again after Frobisher. Ouch.
161* NestedStory: With the relationship between the various narratives left deliberately unclear. Robert Frobisher thinks Adam's journal looks fake, the archivist interviewing Sonmi refuses to accept parts of her story, and Zachry's son thinks his dad probably made part of his story up. It's entirely purposeful, and it ties into what Isaac Sachs writes about virtual pasts and virtual futures.
162* NextSundayAD: "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" takes place in 2012; the novel was published in 2004. Ironically, the movie was released in 2012, so the story became a contemporary one, even though it wasn't so in the book.
163* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: ''Half-Lives'' is set in Buena Yerbas, a fictional Californian metropolis somewhere between LA and San Francisco. It gets a callback later on when Meronym mentions having lived among the Swannekke tribe.
164* NoNewFashionsInTheFuture: Averted. While the fashion changes between 1974 and 2012 aren't much, 2144 is another matter altogether. Apart from some working overalls, virtually ''nothing'' is recognizable.
165* NoPaperFuture: 2144. The Fabricants thought a book was a broken computer, and where surprised to inside find "[[Literature/{{Cinderella}} the grimy server serving three ugly sisters]]; [[Literature/SnowWhite seven stunted fabricants carrying bizarre cutlery behind a shining girl]]; [[Literature/HanselAndGretel a house built of candy]]".
166* NotQuiteDead
167* NuSpelling: In 2144, many spellings are truncated (particularly, "gh" seems to have been dropped entirely, resulting in "lite" and "thoro", etc.; additionally, "exactly" has become "xactly", etc.) and brand names have substituted several everyday terms ("disney" versus "film"). Both spelling and grammar have changed a good deal [[AfterTheEnd after the Fall]], although Meronym speaks it in a more twentieth century form in her communication with her ship's captain.
168* OnlyAFleshWound: "The bullet went right through and killed nothing but his appetite."
169* OurSoulsAreDifferent: In 2144, "Soul" refers to an electronic tracking device implanted in the index finger by the totalitarian government, which functions as identification and an electronic wallet. Fabricants have similar Soulrings worn around the neck. Despite their mundane, technological nature, the Archivist in "An Orison of Sonmi~451" refers to them as "eternal Souls" as if the metaphysical concept and the electronic device have been conflated.
170* PageTurnSurprise: [[spoiler: The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing]] is cut off mid-sentence in such a way that the sentence appears to run onto the next page, but it turns out that the next page is blank, and the page after is the title page for the next story.
171* {{Pastiche}}: Every story. Most notable in Sonmi’s chapters.
172* PlanetOfHats: Sonmi's time period. The hat in question? Capitalism.
173* {{Postmodernism}}: Yes. Pushed further with this meta joke:
174--> Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ’cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late [...]
175* PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler: Fabricants that serve out their time as workers are killed and recycled into Soap and food to feed fabricants and purebloods, respectively. Sonmi has the good fortune to ''watch this happen''.]]
176* PsychoForHire: The novel makes it clear that Bill Smoke is quite obsessed with murder. Smoke also briefly employs another killer who keeps a book of his victims' last words.
177* RapeAsDrama: Used several times in the novel, and foreshadowed when Cavendish is momentarily scared that he might get raped. Completely PlayedForDrama in all cases.
178* ReassignedToAntarctica: As a way around MortonsFork, Fay Li in ''Half-Lives'' transfers the employee mentioned to Kansas as punishment.
179* {{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.%%* RedemptionEqualsDeath
180* ReincarnationIdentifyingTrait: It is heavily implied that five of the six protagonists of the NestedStory are all the same soul (the exception is Zachry; it's Meronym who's got the mark), and are identified by their comet-shaped birthmark.
181* SecretPolice: [[spoiler: Somni [[TheReveal drops a figurative bomb]] on her archivist when she reveals that she suspected she was in their grasp almost from the beginning but played along at the end at least because the book they wanted her write would be more influential and important than they realized. Considering how she is regarded in Zachry's era, she was probably right.]]
182* SelfDeprecation: Cavendish finds a manuscript of Luisa Rey's adventure and dismisses the {{Reincarnation}} angle as far too New Age-y, despite [[LampshadeHanging having a similar birthmark himself]]. He also describes the birthmark in decidedly less romantic imagery than the comet everyone else seems to see it as.
183* 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.
184* ShoutOut: Many and varied, since Mitchell writes in just about every genre going. Each genre is more or less explicitly compared to what inspired it:
185** Frobisher compares Adam Ewing’s diary to Creator/HermanMelville.
186** In one story, ''The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish'', the protagonist quotes [[spoiler:''Film/SoylentGreen'', which becomes horribly relevant in the next story]].
187** The name of one story's title character, Luisa Rey, is an apparent [[ShoutOut reference]] to the book ''Literature/TheBridgeOfSanLuisRey'' by Thornton Wilder.
188** Sonmi~[[Literature/{{Fahrenheit451}} 451]]'s number.
189** Fabricants? Disposable clones employed for inhuman tasks without regard for their dignity? Sounds like [[Film/BladeRunner Replicants]].
190** Sonmi mentions reading the works of "optimists" Huxley and Orwell. This is a reference to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, best remembered for their respective dystopian novels ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' and ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''
191* TheSocialDarwinist: Another running theme throughout multiple stories.
192* StabTheSalad: [[spoiler: Zachry looks like he's about to stab Meronym but instead stabs a weird hologram thing next to her.]]
193* StepfordSmiler: The fabricant waitresses are genetically engineered to always smile. Even if they wish they could kill themselves.
194* StickyBomb: Hae-Joo uses sticky bombs to dispose of some Corporacy aircrafts.
195* StopOrIWillShoot: “[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Excessive force authorised.]]”%%* StraightGay: Rufus Sixsmith
196* StylisticSuck:
197** Cavendish's story in the book is far worse written than the other storylines, with intrusive similes, plenty of tangents, and stylistic levels swinging wildly between the pompous and the slangy.
198** Luisa Rey's story is written in the present tense, and intentionally feels like a somewhat clumsy imitation of mystery novels, which Cavendish (ironically) decides to edit into something better.
199* SurvivorGuilt: Zachry gets this twice -- once when during his childhood a band of Kona kill his father and kidnap his brother, and again in his adulthood when the Kona destroy his camp and kill or enslave his family and people.
200* TechnicolorEyes: Sonmis have white irises in the novel.
201* TeethFlying: At the previously-mentioned BarBrawl.
202* {{Thematic Se|ries}}quel: The six stories come together to form three thematic pairs. The two stories within each pair are united by a common thematic/plot element. To paraphrase [[WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh Kyle Kallgren]]:
203** A strongly moral woman learns of a great societal injustice committed by greedy businessmen and sets out to right it (Luisa and Sonmi).
204** A Pacific Islander meets a person from an advanced civilization, and they save each other's lives (Adam Ewing and Zachry).
205** An artist (Frobisher) creates a piece of work, only to be screwed over by his supervisor and cause the artist's downfall/An artist creates a piece of work, which screws over his supervisor (Cavendish) and cause the supervisor's downfall
206* ThereAreNoTherapists: Frobisher has the bad luck of being a manic-depressive in 1931.
207* ThickerThanWater: Cavendish refers to this pretty much word-for-word.
208* TimeyWimeyBall: The narrative structure of the novel weaves together themes, ideas, and people forward and backward in time.
209* TitleDrop:
210** Zachry talks about wishing he had some kind of map to track souls as they move across the ages, like clouds across the sky. He calls it an "atlas o' clouds".
211** Cavendish, [[OutOfCharacterMoment in an oddly poignant moment]], writes a passage about the futility of recording the ephemeral, once again referring to an "atlas of clouds".
212** 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.
213* 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.]]
214* TranslationConvention: "An Orison of Sonmi~451" is presumably actually in a future version of Korean.
215* TheUnfavourite: Robert Frobisher is this to his parents, who much prefer his older brother who died in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Frobisher isn't too fond of his Mater and Pater either.
216* 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.
217** Robert Frobisher's ending seems initially arbitrary, as it doesn't fit the cavalier tone of his letters, until you realize the space between letters increase and he's being *overly* glib about events and it makes sense.
218* UnsettlingGenderReveal: Cavendish has sexual fantasies about the writer of ''Half-Lives'' (who goes by the name of [[GenderBlenderName Hilary]]), only to be put down when they finally meet and Hilary turns out to be male.
219* ViolenceIsDisturbing
220* ViolentGlaswegian: Cavendish and his co-conspirators manage to [[spoiler:throw off their captors for good]] in a pub in Scotland [[ExploitedTrope by appealing to this trope]]. The Scots Rugby team have just lost a televised match against England, and the escapees turn the patrons' built-up anger against the mostly English [[spoiler:hospital staff]] (by saying that the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical latters are trying to claim 'dominion' over them]]).
221* WholePlotReference:
222** "An Orison of Sonmi~451" has several key similarities to ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', such as the foundation of a dystopia following a GreatOffscreenWar, mandatory consumer quotas, tailor-made clones, a populace kept happy with psychoactive drugs, and the protagonist opposing the regime due to exposure to literature from a previous era. Sonmi actually reads ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' halfway through her story.
223** Adam Ewing’s plot to ''Literature/MobyDick'', with Melville himself and whales being mentioned frequently.
224** Cavendish’s story to ''Film/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' (he saw the film once).
225* WideEyedIdealist: Adam Ewing. At one point he sees a sailor carried off by the First Mate and his cronies and assumes they're taking him down to his lodgings to get some sleep. [[spoiler:They actually rape him. This, and the man's subsequent suicide, goes some way towards shaking Ewing out of his naiveté.]]
226* WilliamTelling: Boom-Sook Kim and his friends get drunk and use Sonmi for this. This is what convinces Mephi to get her away from Boom-Sook as soon as possible.

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