Follow TV Tropes

Following

Funny / Pyramids

Go To

  • Everything about camels.
  • The Gods' brawl over who gets to carry the sun commented on as an overexcited rugby match or horse race.
    It's noon! It's noon! Nooooon!
    ..."Why are you yelling into a bulrush?"
  • The amicable Ephebe and Tsort soldiers, who return to their respective sides... only to turn back and give each other embarrassed looks once they realize they went the opposite way.
  • The Plague of Frog, described near the beginning of the book.
    • It was quite a large frog.
      • This is even better if you know the context; see the YMMV page for details.
  • The sequence where Pteppic's Token Religious Teammate goes to "say his prayers" before bed and some of the other kids make fun of him, only for him to drag in a goat and conduct a rather elaborate sacrifice. This leads to increasingly more bizarre rituals from every student until the headmaster has to put his foot down. Sadly, none are the actual reason no student is allowed to keep a crocodile in his room.
  • Dios has a persistent habit of calling Teppic "we" which leads to this gem:
    Dios: It is time to raise the subject of our marriage.
    Teppic: Well, I'm sorry, but I don't think we'd be compatible, Dios.
  • Teppic's dream is simultaneously a fairly realistic portrayal of a dream and absolutely hilarious: "Dios floated past his vision, explaining that as a result of an edict passed several thousand years ago it was essential that he marry a cat.[...]He saw seven fat cows and seven thin cows, one of them playing the trombone. But that was an old dream, he dreamt that one nearly every night".
    • When Teppic meets Khuft, he says that when it was his day, one of the cows was instead smoking a cigar.
  • Dr. Cruces' speech about how killing for money is the only moral reason for killing is this, and possibly a rhetorical Moment of Awesome as well.
  • A footnote, on dolphins (which are not as smart as camels): "Never trust a species that smiles all the time. It's up to something."
  • Pteppic's father learning that Pteppic supposedly killed himself... then escaped on a camel. "What an active afterlife we have in this family."
  • Since Pteppic is regarded as a living god, his subjects, like Ptaclusp react to his attempts to be cordial with horror.
    Oh gods. The king was going to Put Him at his Ease again.
    He looked imploringly at the high priest, who with the merest twitch of his features indicated that there was nothing he proposed to do about it. This was too much, he wasn’t the only one to object to this, Dil the master embalmer had been subjected to half an hour of having to Talk about his Family only yesterday, it was wrong, people expected the king to stay in the palace, it was too...
    The king ambled toward him in a nonchalant way designed to make the master builder feel he was among friends. Oh no, Ptaclusp thought, he’s going to Remember my Name.
    “I must say you’ve done a tremendous amount in nine weeks, it’s a very good start. Er. It’s Ptaclusp, isn’t it?” said the king.
    Ptaclusp swallowed. There was no help for it now.
  • The note explaining that Djel only has three seasons based on the rise and fall of the river, and everyone agrees this is entirely right and practical, save barbershop quartets, "because you feel like a right idiot singing "in the good old fashion inundation, that's why."
  • Teppic outwitting the Sphinx, getting it to give away the answer and distracting it with technicalities before it can work out what's just happened.

Top