You'll never mistake the story for a comedy, but it is leavened up with some humor.
- When Harrell gets his first look at Kwap and his lady-killer plumage, he completely loses his composure and you get this exchange:Harrell:I'm sure glad I'll never have to compete against you during Flight Festival!!noteKwap:You could say I have no problem finding partners during the Festival.
- The next is provided by this specimen
, believe it or not! Ranger Nightmare is a very, very odd Golden-Naped griffin that was effectively Raised by Wolves (in this case, greenies and herders). She takes a shine to Kwap's display plumes, like every other female he meets. Unlike all the other females, she has no idea of griffin etiquette and No Sense of Personal Space, and ends up chasing him all over her roost. He finally ends up under Harrell, Nightmare still begging to let her preen him. When Harrell makes a rare snarky comment about it, the normally cool Kwap starts screaming native-language Dancer obscenities at him. - Then there's Ant, a true One-Scene Wonder. She's a wizened little hanz who's in charge of a major communication center in Flatland City and with whom Kinnee spends part of his indenturement working for. Ant takes crap from exactly nobody. Everyone there lives in terror of Ant and hops to her tune, even white-shouldered griffins! But the most priceless exchange comes here:Ant: Don't second guess everything. Or just send Fille here to get the pass for you. Not like she's doing anything important.Fille:*gives a rude hanz gesture while her back is turned*Ant:*without turning around* You do realize I can see you reflected on the screen?
- Of the Black Humor variety: The Running Gag between Raan and Winter. Goes like this:Winter:(says some batshit insane thing or starts making Hell Is That Noise)Raan:SHUT UP! *boots Winter thru the fence*
- A much more lighthearted Running Gag happens in the first book, with a steadily increasing parade of female griffins losing their composure around Kwap, including Vaniss. Harrell gets more and more irritated the longer this goes on, and just when he's about ready to eat Kwap's head, Kwap meets Ranger Nightmare...and Harrell gets to watch Kwap Hoisted By His Own Petard.
- When Vaniss finally busts into the human lab with her war flock, the first group the rescued are the captive greenies. Most are far too insane to reason with and simply run right at the the enemy, but one particular one is a very recent addition: A greenie correspondent that Coro-er refers to as "Shithead." Vaniss adopts the nickname, and before that poor greenie knows what hit him, everyone is calling him Shithead. Rawk!note
- The final and best comes from the griffins in captivity, when they happen upon a rather...unique way to attack their tormentors.Kreet: I shit on the one with the pole.
- Of course Winter is the first to chime in with this straight line:
Winter:Good move, Brownie!!!- Then gets even funnier when Aera, Harrell's daughter, decides that's a great idea and starts instructing all the griffins to do it. Harrell looks completely horrified.
Harrell: Aera! That's disgusting!- After a hard Mood Whiplash, and a "Reason You Suck" Speech yelled at him by his daughter, he gets summarily voted down (though he never stops grumbling about how uncivilized it all is), and from then on it's a contest between the griffins' high-pressure ejection systems and a particular poor lab tech who ends up the Butt-Monkey to the griffins. What ends it, unfortunately, is the Butt-Monkey lab tech going in and administering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with an electric cattle prod to Cerrick, to make an example of him. The Poop Wars grind to an abrupt halt.
