History Literature / Horns

* CompellingVoice: Sort of. Ig can make people do something they already want to do, even if it's something horrible that they've convinced themselves they don't want. However, he can't make people do something they have no interest in; Father Mould doesn't want to kill himself, and Eric doesn't want to [[spoiler:not beat up Ig]]. He can also make people forget things but, again, they have to want to forget. [[spoiler:Terry]] thinks that Ig can offer a deal, but the other person has to accept.

* FromBadToWorse: After his horns have caused his grandmother, mother, and father to confess many horrible and very hurtful secrets to him, Ig already believes that he has heard the worst. When he runs into his brother, Terry, he doesn't believe that Terry will be able to blurt out anything worse than what he's already heard and tells him to get it over with. Terry then tearfully tells him that [[spoiler:he knows that Lee Tourneau killed Merrin]], which reduces Ig to a screaming mess for a couple of minutes.

* MeaningfulName: Ignatius literally means "fiery one." Also, Ig's full name, Ignatius Martin Perrish, is mentioned about a grand total of once in the whole book--the first three words of the novel, in fact. This makes it harder to catch that his initials spell "imp".

* TheUnfavorite: Ig is very well aware that his parents don't like him as much as Terry, and knows that his father in particular is disappointed in him because he was unable to uphold the family tradition of playing the trumpet, but he first realizes the full extent of their dislike when his horns start working on them. Most damningly, his father arranged for the biological evidence in the case against Ig to disappear (when said evidence would actually most likely have exonerated Ig entirely), because he had a low enough opinion of his son to fear that he might actually have raped and killed his girlfriend.

* ShoutOut: To Music/TheRollingStones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want", to the point where the final part is entitled "the Gospel According to Mick and Keith".

* ProngsOfPoseidon: Ig hears a nearby commotion, and grabs the first weapon-like object in the ruined foundry without really seeing what it was. It turns out he grabbed a pitchfork.

* ArmouredClosetGay: [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Sturtz and Posada]], the two police officers harassing Ig, are actually both closeted homosexuals and, unbeknownst to themselves, deeply in love with each other. One of them confesses to Ig that he wants to blow the other while under the influence of the horns, and the other is very openly homophobic... so Ig tells the homophobe to beat on anyone that comes onto him and the other to just 'surprise' his partner. To Ig's surprise, instead of them getting into a fistfight, they're a couple when he next sees them.

* ConsummateLiar: [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]]

* SecretlyDying: [[spoiler:Merrin had late-stage breast cancer when she was murdered.]] The real irony was that [[she was rather hoping God would surprise her with a quick death, so she wouldn't have to choose between a slow death and suicide]].

* UnreliableNarrator: Due to brain damage and the resultant sociopathy, [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] constantly misunderstands the actions of others, and has a vivid hallucination of becoming god-like. The worst instance of his misunderstanding is [[spoiler:believing that Merrin was continuously coming on to him and indicating that he was the one she was leaving Ig for. When he finally tries to act on this and she rebuffs him in horrified disgust, he murders her.]]

* TheWormThatWalks: As part of his plan to [[spoiler:kill Lee]], Ig has hundreds of snakes gather inside an old coat and form a rough shape of a human, [[spoiler:thinking that Lee would try to kill Glenna and be attacked by the snakes. Unfortunately, it's not Lee that discovers the ruse.]]

----

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The chapters from [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau's]] viewpoint illustrate his psychopathy, his inability to understand those around him, and his efforts to feign humanity.

''Horns'' is a dark fantasy novel from 2010 and the second publication from American writer Creator/JoeHill.

One morning, Ignatius "Ig" Martin Perrish awakes with a massive hangover. Something that seems more and more common for him these days. Especially since the anniversary for the night his girlfriend and the light of his life, Merrin Williams, was brutally raped and murdered and her disfigured body was found tied to a cherry tree, is rapidly approaching. To his own horror, Ig was arrested for the crime. Though the charge against him was dropped, his name was never cleared, and most of the citizens in his hometown still believe that his rich and influential family protected him against his rightfully deserved punishment. Left by most of his friends and held at a distance by his family, Ig has felt trapped in what can only be his own personal hell.

** [[spoiler:Lee beats Ig to a pulp, locks him in his car and sets it on fire. In his beaten and broken state Ig manages to release the parking brake and the burning car rolls into the river. When Ig climbs out from the wreckage, he realizes that instead of burning him, being engulfed in flames actually healed all of his injuries, to the point where it even cured his asthma]].

* FromBadToWorse: After his horns have caused his grandmother, mother, and father to confess many horrible and very hurtful secrets to him, Ig already believes that he has heard the worst, and when he runs into his brother, Terry, he doesn't believe that he will be able to blurt out anything worse than what he just heard, and tells him to get it over with. Terry then tearfully tells him that [[spoiler:he knows that Lee Tourneau killed Merrin]], which reduces Ig to a screaming mess for a couple of minutes.
* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] believes that he once, for just a brief moment, held the power of God, [[spoiler:when it actually was the result of brain damage caused by being impaled through the head with a pitchfork]].

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: [[spoiler:Ig eventually finds a letter from Merrin explaining their breakup. She's dying of the same kind of cancer that killed her sister, and decided to push him away to spare him the pain of watching her die slowly and horribly. She hopes he'd find another girl and move on before realizing the truth.]].

* MeaningfulName: Ignatius literally means "fiery one." Also, Ig's full name, Ignatius Martin Perrish, is mentioned about a grand total of once in the whole book - the first three words of the novel, in fact. This makes it harder to catch that his initials spell "imp".

* ArmouredClosetGay: ThoseTwoBadGuys, Sturtz and Posada, the two police officers harassing Ig are actually both closeted homosexuals and unbeknownst to themselves deeply in love with each other. One of them confesses to Ig that he wants to blow the other while under the influence of the horns, and the other is very openly homophobic... so Ig tells the homophobe to beat on anyone that comes onto him and the other to just 'surprise' his partner. To Ig's surprise, instead of them getting into a fistfight, they're a couple when he next sees them.

* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: Most people in town believes that Ig is guilty of murdering Merrin. It is actually a somewhat justified case, since Ig's case ended in a mistrial when some evidence in the case was mysteriously lost, and people saw the event as Ig's family having arranged for the evidence to disappear to save him from his just punishment at the hands of the court. The public perception are actually quite right. Ig's father did indeed arrange for the evidence to disappear, because he believed that Ig was guilty and to save the family from the embarrassment of having him convicted, but he did so without Ig's knowledge.

* InconvenientlyVanishingExoneratingEvidence: The DNA evidence from Merrin's body which would have cleared Ig of her murder was destroyed when the building where it is being stored burned down. [[spoiler:When Ig's horns start compelling people to confess truths to him, his father confesses that he got a friend to destroy the evidence on the assumption that Ig was guilty.]]

* LivingLieDetector: Ig's horns compel people to confess their sins and their darkest thoughts once they see them. [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] is the only person immune to their effect, [[spoiler:because he has Merrin's cross. When Ig takes it, Lee can't shrug off Ig's power anymore]].

* MeaningfulName: Ignatius literally means "fiery one."
** Ig's full name "Ignatius Martin Perrish" is mentioned about a grand total of once in the whole book - the first three words of the novel, in fact. This makes it harder to catch that his initials spell "imp".
* OrificeInvasion: [[spoiler:Ig sends a snake into Lee's open mouth during the climax.]]

* PokeThePoodle: Ig frequently forbids people affected by the horns from doing the really bad things they're thinking about, but incites them into performing lesser sins instead, in many cases ones that are likely to improve their lives. For instance, he tells a store clerk that he may not kill his Alzheimer-suffering wife and go off and live with his mistress. Instead, he is to ''put his Alzheimer-suffering wife in a nursing home'' and go off and live with his mistress.

* PowerLimiter: [[spoiler:Merrin's cross necklace]] shuts off the influence of Ig's horns. Ig also discovers that when he [[spoiler:wears the cross]], people can no longer see his horns or the other psychical alterations he acquires over the course of the story.

* SecretlyDying: [[spoiler:Merrin had late-stage breast cancer when she was murdered. The real irony was that she was rather hoping God would surprise her with a quick death, so she wouldn't have to choose between a slow death and suicide]].

* SouthernGothicSatan: Subverted, parodied, zigzagged, and even played for heroics: Ig Perrish is a once-promising young man accused of the brutal rape/murder of his girlfriend, and is innocent but has no way to prove it. One morning he wakes up to find a pair of horns growing from his forehead and everyone he meets confesses their darkest sins and impulses to him. Ig returns to his hometown and uses his power to hunt the real killer, stirring up a vipers' nest of sin, which ironically improves some peoples' lives, and also evolves slowly into the red-skinned, bearded tempter we all know and love. [[spoiler:In the end he's quite happy to ascend to the throne of Hell itself, with his dead girlfriend at his side and everything on fire]].

* TogetherInDeath: [[spoiler:Ig and Merrin]].
* UnreliableNarrator: [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] constantly misunderstands the actions of others, and has a vivid hallucination of becoming god-like.

* FeedItWithFire: [[spoiler:Lee beats Ig to a pulp, locks him in his car and sets it on fire. In his beaten and broken state Ig manages to release the parking brake and the burning car rolls into the river. When Ig climbs out from the wreckage, he realizes that instead of burning him, being engulfed in flames actually healed all of his injuries, to the point where it even cured his asthma]].

!!Tropes shown in the novel include:

* WhereDaWhiteWomenAt: As he waits outside the doctor's office, Ig comes into physical contact with an upper-middle class white woman, who is cheating on husband with her black golf-trainer. Ig also learns that the woman, for all her put-on sophistication, is quite a boorish racist, who thinks black people are uncultured and stupid, but happens to make an exception with her golf-trainer, because he is [[TheWhitestBlackGuy "well-educated" and "speaks like a white person"]], and because BlackIsBiggerInBed.

* GeniusBonus: The end papers of the hardcover edition show a Morse code message that translates as "Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name" -- a line from "Sympathy for the Devil" by Music/TheRollingStones.

* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] believes that he once, for just a brief moment, held the power of God, [[spoiler:when it actually was the result of a light case of brain damage from landing on a pitchfork with the back of his head]].
* GodIsEvil: Ig concludes that the reason why God allowed Merrin to be raped and killed is because he is actually not very fond of humans, and detests women in particular, because they, like him, can create life and also because they can redefine love as they see fit. He also compares him to a gangster, only offering his protection in exchange for blind faith and worship.

* PowerLimiter: [[spoiler:Merrin's cross]] shuts off the influence of Ig's horns. Ig also discovers that when he [[spoiler:wears the cross]], people can no longer see his horns or the other psychical alterations he acquires over the course of the story.

* InconvenientlyVanishingExoneratingEvidence: The DNA evidence from Merrin's body which would have cleared Ig of her murder was destroyed when the building where it is being stored burned down. When Ig's horns start compelling people to confess truths to him, his father confesses that he got a friend to destroy the evidence on the assumption that Ig was guilty.

* PowerLimiter: [[spoiler:Merrin's cross]] shuts off the influence of Ig's horns.

* LivingLieDetector: Ig's horns compel people to confess their sins and their innermost thoughts once they see them. [[spoiler:Lee Tourneau]] is the only person immune to their effect, [[spoiler:because he has Merrin's cross. When Ig takes it, Lee can't shrug off Ig's power anymore]].
* LoveMartyr: Glenna is generous to a fault and wants nothing so much as a chance to make someone happy. Unfortunately, this has led her to have a string of boyfriends who all treated her like a doormat - Ig was arguably the best of the lot, and he barely cared about her at all. [[spoiler:The final chapter hints that her fortunes may be improving, though.]]

* FromBadToWorse: After his horns have caused his grandmother, mother, and father to confess many horrible secrets to him, Ig already believes that he has heard the worst, and when he runs into his brother, Terry, he doesn't believe that he will be able to blurt out anything worse than what he just heard, and tells him to get it over with. Terry then tearfully tells him that [[spoiler:he knows that Lee Tourneau killed Merrin]], which reduces Ig to a screaming mess for a couple of minutes.

* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: Most people in town believes that Ig is guilty of murdering Merrin. It is actually a somewhat justified case, since Ig's case ended in a mistrial when some evidence in the case was mysteriously lost, and people saw the event as Ig's family having arranged for the evidence to disappear to save him from his just punishment at the hands of the court. The public perception are actually quite right. Ig's father did indeed arrange for the evidence to disappear to save the family from the embarrassment of having Ig convicted, but he did so without Ig's knowledge.

* FieryCoverup: Ig's father asked a CSI he knew to do something about the evidence of Merrin's murder. The CSI didn't actually work on the case or at the facility where the evidence was stored, but he half-believes the CSI set it on fire at his request.

* TheUnfavorite: Ig is very well aware that his parents don't like him as much as Terry, and knows that his father in particular is disappointed in him because he was unable to uphold the family tradition of playing the trumpet, but he first realizes the full extent of their dislike when his horns start working on them.