Line #12 Literature/TheDevilInIron


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/282999_640.jpg]]
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3	"[[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_Iron The Devil in Iron]]" is a Literature/ConanTheBarbarian story by Creator/RobertEHoward. First published in August, 1934.
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5	[[ColdOpen A fisherman lands on a deserted island]], where he finds a dagger resting on top of a statue as hard as iron. He takes the dagger for himself, [[JumpScare only for the statue to open its eyes...]]
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7	[[InMediasRes Conan has been leading a band of kozaks for some time]], and it's causing no end of problems for the local Turanian governor Agha. Noting Conan's [[GenreSavvy predilection]] towards DamselsInDistress, he decides to use his most beautiful slave, Octavia, as bait to lure Conan into a trap. Octavia, looking to escape her enslavement, warns Conan of the attack, and the two flee to a deserted island in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately, this was the governor's plan all along, and with his best men he follows them.
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9	On the island, Conan and Octavia are shocked to find a city that wasn't there the day before, full of hanging tapestries, golden banquet halls, and beautiful sleeping people. Heading for the center of the city, they find its keeper, Khostral Khel, a millennia-old HumanoidAbomination who has just awoken from his long slumber, and who has now [[MindOverMatter brought the]] [[{{Necromancer}} city back]] to its former glory.
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11	Trapped and with nowhere to run, Conan and Octavia must contend with a giant serpent, Agha's forces,and the horror of [[TitleDrop the devil in iron]].
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13	Has been adapted into comic form by Creator/MarvelComics in ''The Savage Sword of Conan'', and most recently by Creator/DarkhorseComics in their book ''Conan the Savage''.
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15	----
16	!!The Tropes in Iron:
17	* ActionPrologue: The fisherman breaking into the temple.
18	* AsYouKnow: Ghaznavi, a Turanian counselor, tells Jehungir, a Turanian noble, of the island on which most of the action takes place, and how they lost a detachment of troops near it to Conan's ''kozaks''. Lampshaded when Jehungir wryly replies "I am not likely to forget that."
19	* TheBait: Octavia, intended to so enrapture Conan that he'll come alone to an island on the rumor she'd escaped and awaits him there.
20	* BarbarianTribe: The ''kozaks'', made up of criminals, deserters, and other undesirables, who've formed their own society. Conan is leading them.
21	* BedsheetLadder: How Octavia escapes her captivity for true. [[Literature/XuthalOfTheDusk Though again, with torn tapestries instead of proper bedsheets.]]
22	* BlueBlood: Octavia was a Nemedian noble before she was MadeASlave.
23	* ColdBloodedTorture: Jehungir has a Shemite torturer, and just the threat of being turned over to him for an evening is enough to make Octavia's resistance to her part in the plan vanish. Octavia is then handed to Jelal Khan, "a nobleman whose name was a byword for degeneracy." [[NothingIsScarier We're not told what either of them did to or planned for the girl,]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere but it's enough to prompt her to escape.]]
24	* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: The fisherman rouses the evil by his curiosity.
25	* DamselInDistress: Octavia.
26	* DarknessEqualsDeath: Inverted. Khosatral's necromancy only fully revives the population of Dagon at night, as they've been dead too long to be fully restored to true life. By day, they fall into a deathlike slumber.
27	* DecadentCourt: What Octavia fled.
28	* FauxDeath: Conan finds people rousing from it.
29	* FemmeFatale: Octavia was ordered into it.
30	* GodEmperor: Khosatral Khel, back when he ruled Dagon. [[HumanoidAbomination Emphasis on god.]]
31	* HumanoidAbomination: Khosatral Khel, as Conan overhears him explaining to Octavia, is an abominable being spawned in the primordial chaos outside reality. The form he reverts to upon death is so ghastly that it causes ''Conan'' to flee in fear. And the name of the country he ruled? ''Dagon.'' His description is even the page-header quote for this very trope.
32	* HumanSacrifice: Often made to Khosatral Khel in Dagon's glory days.
33	* IntroOnlyPointOfView: The fisherman dies and so exits the story.
34	* LivingStatue: Khosatral Khel is effectively one, indwelling in an iron body because no mortal flesh could properly serve as a vessel for his mighty essence.
35	* LotusEaterMachine: Conan at first assumes the city is this, due to the drugged, sleepy behaviour of the inhabitants. [[spoiler:The townspeople actually act that way because they have been brought back after centuries of death, and Khosatral Khel expends immense amounts of power keeping their mental faculties working.]]
36	* MadeASlave: Octavia's {{Backstory}}.
37	* MadeOfIron: The villain, literally, making him nearly invulnerable to everything except the magic dagger that had sealed him.
38	* MercyKill: Octavia begs for this when she and Conan are cornered by the apparently invulnerable Khosatral Khel (apparently Khosatral has threatened her with a FateWorseThanDeath). Conan instead tells her that he will hold off Khosatral for as long as possible to give her a chance to escape the island.
39	* {{Necromancer}}: One of Khosatral Khel's many hats.
40	* NeutralFemale: Octavia doesn't even try to help out while Conan is fighting [[spoiler:the giant snake]].
41	* NotSoExtinct: Conan ventures into a mysterious city on an island that'd previously held only ruins. His suspicion that something has brought the long-dead settlement back to life is supported when he finds the intact pelt of a golden leopard in a bedchamber, and recognizes it as an animal that went extinct a thousand years ago. [[spoiler:He later fights a giant snake, also of a species known to be extinct.]]
42	* OhCrap: When Khosatral sees that Conan has the magic dagger, he seriously reconsiders his attempt to murder our favorite Cimmerian.
43	* RescueSex: Conan is surprised that Octavia rejects this and he has to seduce her.
44	* SealedEvilInACan: Khosatral Khel, until awakened by a fisherman stealing the dagger that was keeping him inert.
45	* SnakesAreSinister: A forty-foot snake is one of the creatures doing Khosatral Khel's bidding.
46	* TempleOfDoom: Where the trouble was unleashed.
47	* ThisWasHisTrueForm: When Khosatral dies, he reverts to something so ghastly that it sends Conan himself fleeing in fear.
48	* ThunderboltIron: Enabled a slave revolt, providing a power capable of neutralizing Khosatral Khel's influence and wounding his otherwise-invulnerable body.
49	* WaitHere: Conan tries this on Octavia, warning her to stay outside a room with a giant snake in it while tries to sneak past it and get the magic knife. She doesn't listen, HilarityEnsues.

Context Literature / TheDevilInIron