History Literature / CarpeJugulum

* {{Acrofatic}}: Whenever Perdita takes over Agnes' body. Agnes has a quite a lot of muscle she doesn't know how to use.

* BalancingDeathsBooks: When she's called to see to the young Mrs. Ivy, a heavily-pregnant young woman who had been kicked by a cow. Death himself seems unsure of who will be going with him when he shows up, and it's hinted that the choice of whether mother or child lived fell to Granny.

** Once Count von Magpyr takes baby Esmerelda hostage - something the Old Count would ''never'' have done - Igor decides that enough's enough and revives the Old Count, that that may more be a case of Igor's personal GodzillaThreshold being crossed. ([[KickTheDog Killing his dog]] probably factored into it as well.) A more classic example is him being stunned when confronted with the prospect of the Magpyrs using the mist trick to get through the vault door that Magrat and baby Esmerelda are behind, simply because it's so unsporting.

* MakeMeWannaShout: Agnes's superhuman vocal range lets her scream high and loud enough to stun keen-eared vampires, albeit not for long.

* PunnyName: Igor named the dog he made out of many dogs' bodies Scraps. (Or Thcrapth, in his lisp)

* AtLeastIAdmitIt: The Old Count, who never saw the point in trying to hide being a blood-thirsty predator. Everyone knew he was evil and he never pretended that ''not'' killing someone should somehow make them any more grateful to him. On the other hand, he was also a sportsman who gave his prey a fighting chance, [[WouldNotHurtAChild targeted only adults, particularly 'only adventurous females over the age of 17 who looked good in a night-dress']], and held those who defeated him in high regard as a WorthyOpponent, even reminiscing about it to their descendants.

* BerserkButton: Seeing the IndustrializedEvil (which the Magpyrs ironically intended as a demonstration of how civilised and un-monsterly they were,) is what truly convinces Agnes that there must be no mercy for them.

* DeaderThanDead: The Old Count, unlike his nephew, realizes this is what a vampire who doesn't play by the customary rules of sportsmanship will eventually wind up. The Escrow villagers are all for inflicting this fate on the defeated Magpyrs, e.g. by scattering their ashes into the sea or a windstorm.

* StatusQuoIsGod: The people of Lancre don't mind having a king with big ideas for change... just as long as he doesn't expect them to actually listen to any of them. They like how things are as it is thank you. King Verence however manages to upset Nanny by telling her in no uncertain terms that change ''will'' come whether they likes it or not, and he intends for Lancre to be at the forefront of it. He's not exactly wrong about this, but the way he goes about it (inviting vampires) is absolutely terrible.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: We see what happens when someone bad-mouths Granny Weatherwax in Nanny Ogg's presence. Perdita makes the nasty comment, but Agnes is the one who gets knocked to the floor.

* SpotOfTea: Granny drives the vampires mad by giving them an insatiable thirst... for tea.

* StealthPun: Mightily Oats's outfit - a broad-brimmed hat and a black robe - sounds an awful lot like a preacher for the ''Quakers'', and would make him a perfect mascot for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_Oats_Company Quaker Oats]]. (This might be coincidental, since the Quaker Oats Company is American.)

* FantasticFantasyIsMundane: Teenage vampires going through the equivalent of a goth/VampireVannabe phase do things like dressing in mundane clothes, insisting on being called "Susan" instead of "Lacrimosa", and drinking blood in bottles but claiming it's wine.

* VampireVannabe: {{Inverted}}. Normal rebellious teenagers start dressing in black and giving themselves elaborate names. ''Vampire'' rebellious teenagers, apparently, try to act like ordinary people for the same reason. However, as is made plain, they are ''still'' vampires.

* NamingCeremony: The one for Magrat and Verence's daughter is key to the plot. The ceremony can apparently be performed by whatever priest is handy, and there seems to be a rule that whatever the priest says after "I now name you..." is irrevocable -- which is how the girl in question ends up as Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre. (Also mentioned: James What The Hell Is That Cow Doing In Here? Poorchick and King My God He's Heavy the First.)

* ContractualGenreBlindness: Traditional vampires like the Old Count did this for entirely pragmatic reasons so people wouldn't try to make sure he stayed DeaderThanDead, and because he was a FairPlayVillain, and Igor does it too as a matter of style (though also to aggravate the new Count, whom he finds insufferable).

** The Old Count's ContractualGenreBlindness is in no small part a survival mechanism - so long as he gives people a sporting chance, people will just stake him and wait until he comes round again. If he wins too often, someone will snap and render him DeaderThanDead.

* Vlad using Granny's catchphrase shortly after she gets bitten by the Magpyr family is a sign that Granny is turning them, rather than the other way around.

* Vlad using Granny's catchphrase shortly after she gets bitten by the Magpyr family is a sign that [[spoiler:Granny is turning them, rather than the other way around]].

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The Nac Mac Feegle are pretty similar to their later portrayal in the Tiffany Aching books, but their accent is quite [[TheUnintelligible stronger.]] Also, Terry stated that childrens' books are "...written with the knob turned down a level, so it will be more accessible to the younger market." This was probably deliberate "de-obfuscation" so that young readers wouldn't be going "Mummy, what's he saying there?" every other line." The Watsonian explanation is that the different clans just have different accents; there are cultural differences too, like this clan embracing contract law instead of fearing lawyers, something alluded to later on with Jeannie - who came from the Long Lake clan, this clan - embracing literacy and teaching her husband to read.

* AsTheGoodBookSays: When Mightily Oats must build a fire in a wet, cold forest, he looks for guidance in the Book of Om. First, he runs into irrelevant passages ("...and in that time, in the land of the Cyrinites, there was a multiplication of camels..."), but then he finds this: "Where there is darkness we will make a great light." So, he takes the book and makes a great light.

* MundaneUtility: Granny's attempts to fight her vampire transformation generate incredible heat, which she transfers into an iron anvil to keep it from killing her. The blacksmith then puts a pot of tea on the anvil to boil.

* BaitAndSwitch: After getting vampired, it seems Granny Weatherwax has Borrowed herself into little Margaret. Agnes and Perdita catch on quicker than Nanny Ogg that this is too obvious a move, and think she's gone into Oats. [[spoiler:They're all wrong - she's in the ''vampires''.]]

** After being told to leave Granny alone, Nanny Ogg and Margrat take roughly five seconds (Perdita counted) before declaring they accidentally dropped something in the caves and must go back and check. Agnes tries pointing out she never saw Nanny remove the pipe she supposedly lost, which makes Nanny insist she'll have to search all the harder.

** Listing typical vampire weaknesses, Nanny Ogg notes that they can be crippled by someone stealing one of their socks (they're anal-retentive, see?). Later on, the Count mentions how he's overcome that weakness too, and it only irritated him a little. Meanwhile, Igor notes how the Old Count had this happen to him... and was upset, because they were expensive, dammit.

* ChekhovsGag: Oats lists some of the ways vampires can be defeated, which depends on where they're from, including stuffing a lemon in their mouth. While trying to leave Lancre Castle, Nanny encounters a vampire, and politely asks where in Uberwald he's from. On learning, she stuffs a lemon in his mouth, and escapes while he's incapacitated.

** Once Count von Magpyr takes baby Esmerelda hostage - something the Old Count would ''never'' have done - Igor decides that enough's enough and revives the Old Count, that that may more be a case of Igor's personal GodzillaThreshold being crossed. ([[KickTheDog Killing his dog]] probably factored into it as well.) A more classic example is him being confronted with the prospect of the Magpyrs using the mist trick to get through the vault door that Magrat and baby Esmerelda are behind, simply because it's so unsporting.

* FantasticFantasyIsMundane: Teenage vampires going through the equivalent of a goth/VampireVannabe phase do things like dressing in mundane clothes, insisting on being called "Susan" instead of "Lachrimosa", and drinking blood in bottles but claiming it's wine.

* {{Goth}}: Completely turned on its head: Lacrimosa and her vampire friends partake in a subculture that has them wearing bright colours, pretending to drink wine, staying up well past Midday, and adopting names like "Henry" and "Freda".

** King Verence is the only person who manages at least to keep a small part of his mind intact from the vampyres' MindControl.

* INeverToldYouMyName: When Agnes meets Vlad he says her name without being told. When she considers that he might have asked someone, Perdita asks her why anyone would ask for her name.

* MathematiciansAnswer: During a near-death experience, Granny Weatherwax asks Death if she's dying, and he answers [[AC:"Yes."]] She quickly realizes that from Death's point of view ''everyone'' is dying, so this is not a very helpful answer.

** Magrat mentions a joke Nanny told about "the priest, the old woman and the rhinoceros." Nanny says that even she didn't understand that one until she was forty.

* {{Revenge}}: [[spoiler: The male phoenix]] unleashes hell on the Magpyrs for what they did to his relative.
-->'''Granny''': He ''knows'' what they did. He was ''born'' knowing. [[spoiler: Phoenixes]] share their minds. And they don't tolerate evil.

* StatusQuoIsGod: The people of Lancre don't mind having a king with big ideas for change... just as long as he doesn't expect them to actually listen to any of them. They like how things are as it is thank you. King Verence however manages to upset Nanny by telling her in no uncertain terms that change 'will' come whether they likes it or not, and he intends for Lancre to be at the forefront of it.

* TookALevelInBadass: With a little coaching from Granny, Mightily Oats goes from a wishy-washy priest wracked with doubt and inner turmoil to [[spoiler:chopping off the head of the evil Count Magpyr with a single axe blow]].

* VampireVannabe: {{Inverted}}. Normal rebellious teenagers start dressing in black and giving themselves elaborate names. ''Vampire'' rebellious teenagers, apparently, try to act like ordinary people for the same reason.

* WhiteSheep: When vampires try to be goths.

* ImprovisedCross: Weaponized, where the vampires have built up an immunity to all the traditional vampire repellents including garlic and holy symbols (crosses are not mentioned, but there are so many religions on the Disc there's probably one or two). This backfires spectacularly when [[spoiler:Granny gets in their heads causes them to recognize the shapes of the symbols everywhere, paralyzing them]].