History Literature / TheSeasonToBeWary

* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler: Cosmic: The eye transplant works... but when Miss Menlo takes the bandages off, it's during a [[BigBlackout citywide blackout]], so she still can't see. The ''Night Gallery'' adaptation [[KickTheSonOfABitch twists the knife a bit]] by having the blackout occur just ''after'' she takes the bandages off-- so she sees for a moment.]]

* PayEvilUntoEvil: [[spoiler: After Connacher has turned black, he manages to run afoul of the local whites when he seeks help (in particular, he addresses his ex-groupie by her first name and [[WhatAnIdiot tries to touch her]]). Later, a mob comes across the tracks to the black part of town where he's hiding out. Running from them, he meets the minister whose house burned down later-- ''and the minister is now white.'' Said minister ends up [[ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine using Connacher's earlier speech against him]] and throwing him back to the mob to die.]]

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Or rather, its "Bad People Have Bad (or Meaningless) Sex" aspect: Connacher and a groupie he finds go and have a wild fuck on the outskirts of town. Both enjoy themselves, but the narration makes it clear that each treated the other as basically a sex toy that happened to be sentient.

* CorruptHick: The mayor of Chaseville.

* InfantImmortality: ''Averted.'' Connacher stirs up a mob that goes and sets the black minister's house on fire. One of his children-- a four-year-old girl-- doesn't get out alive.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Or rather, its "Bad People Have Bad (or Meaningless) Sex" aspect: Connacher and a groupie he finds (yes, the racist creep has groupies!) go and have a wild fuck on the outskirts of town. Both enjoy themselves, but the narration makes it clear that each treated the other as basically a sex toy that happened to be sentient.

* YankTheDogsChain: While hiding out in an art museum, Strobe has a vivid feeling of being in a painting of a fisherman on a lake, completely at peace and free of the fear of capture. Then someone in the gallery complains about a gruesome painting of a concentration camp and snaps him out of it.

* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler: Cosmic: The eye transplant works-- but when Miss Menlo takes the bandages off, it's during a citywide blackout-- so she still can't see. The ''Night Gallery'' adaptation [[KickTheSonOfABitch twists the knife a bit]] by having the blackout occur just ''after'' she takes the bandages off-- so she sees for a moment.]]

"The Escape Route" and "Eyes" were eventually adapted into two parts of the pilot episode of ''Series/NightGallery''[[note]]Serling rightly noted that TV execs wouldn't dare do "Color Scheme"[[/note]].

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* HourglassPlot [[spoiler: which kills one man and thoroughly breaks the other.]]

* FalseRapeAccusation: [[spoiler: how Miss Menlo forces Charlie into signing over his eyes.]]
* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler: (cosmic) The eye transplant works-- but when Miss Menlo takes the bandages off, it's during a citywide blackout-- so she still can't see. The ''Night Gallery'' adaptation [[KickTheSonOfABitch twists the knife a bit]] by having the blackout occur just ''after'' she takes the bandages off-- so she sees for a moment.]]

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Zig-zagged. Connacher and a groupie he finds (yes, the racist creep has groupies!) go and have a wild fuck on the outskirts of town. Both enjoy themselves, but the narration makes it clear that each treated the other as basically a sex toy that happened to be sentient.

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* GypsyCurse: A little of this and a little of TheCassandra-- Strobe, during a sleepless night, recalls a gypsy[[note]]The term "usefulNotes/{{Romani}}" was not in common use at the time of the book's publication[[/note]] who he had spent a while interrogating and finally just [[EyeScream blinded with needles.]] The last thing he remembers the gypsy telling him was: "My pain is brief... but yours, Gruppenfuehrer-- yours will last an eternity. I will that to you. I leave it to you as a legacy. Pain-- eternal pain."

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* "The Escape Route": Joseph Strobe, once a Gruppenfuehrer in Nazi Germany and now a fugitive in Buenos Aires, is scared. Adolf Eichmann has just been captured and is en route to Israel to stand trial. Who's next? Him? His colleagues, Lanser and Gruber? Finding no help from either man, Strobe looks for an escape route of his own-- and thinks he found it...

* GypsyCurse: A little of this and a little of TheCassandra-- Strobe, during a sleepless night, recalls a gypsy[[note]]The term "Roma" was not in common use at the time of the book's publication[[/note]] who he had spent a while interrogating and finally just [[EyeScream blinded with needles.]] The last thing he remembers the gypsy telling him was: "My pain is brief... but yours, Gruppenfuehrer-- yours will last an eternity. I will that to you. I leave it to you as a legacy. Pain-- eternal pain."
* LimaSyndrome / StockholmSyndrome: A really weird example with Lansing and Zamorski. Zamorski was one of Lansing's torture victims in the camps, and he escapes with him-- because who would expect a Nazi to be traveling with one of the Jews he victimized? Lansing regards Zamorski as a kind of pet (or maybe a favorite toy that he played with), and Zamorski seems content to stay with Lansing. [[spoiler: Though it turns out that Zamorski may have just been playing a really long game...]]

!! The ''NightGallery'' adaptations of "Escape Route" and "Eyes" provide examples of: