Funny / Tress of the Emerald Sea

• Tress is not the heroine's name—it's a nickname due to her unruly hair. Her real name? Glorf.
  Hoid: Don't laugh, it's a family name.
  • It's easy to forget throughout the book (since everyone just knows her as Tress), but occasionally brought up again when Tress thinks of some piece of wisdom from "great-grandma Glorf".
• Just the basic concept of the heroine being a girl who enjoys collecting cups.
• Hoid is even snarkier than usual in his narration, such as claiming that the people are very proud of a noble who gets a bunch of soldiers killed pointlessly, since that's obviously his job.
• Charlie is The Bore. He knows he's The Bore. So he decides to get out of any potential engagement by just boring any woman who might be an option.
  • After a few tries, Charlie's father tries to get around this by presenting him to a princess who is deaf. So Charlie throws up on her shoes.
• Ulaam should be trying to break Hoid's curse. Instead, he's making a list of all the most embarrassing things he does to show him once he's cured.
• When Tress gives Ann the chance to fire a cannon Hoid cannot emphasize enough what a terrible idea that is.
  Hoid: That is probably the craziest, most reckless thing I've ever heard someone say—and I was literally part of a secret plot to kill God.
• As the narrator of our tale, Hoid has no choice but to relay everyone's digs and insults of him.
  Tress tapped her finger on the book. The captain was wily, and even Hoid—an obvious idiot (ouch)—had figured out Huck was a familiar.

  Xisis: There is precisely one being I fear on this planet—and no, your friend Cephandrius doesn't count.
  Rude.

  Ulaam: I tell no joke or exaggeration in this, Tress. When he wants to, there are few people in the entire cosmere who can influence events like our dear friend with the inappropriate undergarments.
  I'll have you know I owned those briefs before the curse, and I stand by the purchase.

  Ulaam: For how capable he is, Tress, he often overreaches in some way. It doesn’t matter how powerful a person is, if they believe they are slightly more powerful than they truly are, there’s room between those margins for big errors. Hmmmm?
  Yeah, that one was fair.
• Laggart is so baffled and confused by Tress' genuine kindness and honesty — two things he'd apparently never experienced in his life — that the realization that those things are real and genuine, and not just an act, terrifies him into fleeing the room in a panic, much to Tress' confusion.