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* JerkassHasAPoint: The Barons are crude, bitter, and hostile, and much of their comments are lashing out at others around them or their children for not visiting. However, they are among the only white souls in the cemetery to be (comparatively) friendly with Elson. [[spoiler: Betsy also has something of a HeelRealization towards the end of the novel that allows her and her husband to pass on.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Willie and most of the other named spirits in the bardo accept their fate and pass on, including Elise Traynor, who Vollman and Bevins had failed to help earlier. Thomas Havens also manages to escape the cemetery and leave it with Lincoln. However, the president will never recover from Willie's death, and there's [[Foregone Conclusion still the horrors of the Civil War and its aftermath to come]], not to mention Lincoln's eventual assassination.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Willie and most of the other named spirits in the bardo accept their fate and pass on, including Elise Traynor, who Vollman and Bevins had failed to help earlier. Thomas Havens also manages to escape the cemetery and leave it with Lincoln. However, the president will never recover from Willie's death, and there's [[Foregone Conclusion still the horrors of the Civil War and its aftermath to come]], come, not to mention Lincoln's eventual assassination.]]
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* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Willie and most of the other named spirits in the bardo accept their fate and pass on, including Elise Traynor, who Vollman and Bevins had failed to help earlier. Thomas Havens also manages to escape the cemetery and leave it with Lincoln. However, the president will never recover from Willie's death, and there's [[Foregone Conclusion still the horrors of the Civil War and its aftermath to come]], not to mention Lincoln's eventual assassination.]]
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* IronicHell: Although it's more purgatory than Hell, souls in the bardo take on a shape that reflects their personalities and deeds from when they were alive. For example, Hans Vollman forever sports a giant erection because he died hours before he was going to have sex with his wife, and Jane Ellis is haunted by three glowing orbs that remind her of her three daughters.
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Dewicked trope
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* AdultFear: President Lincoln is overwhelmed by the idea of having to live life without his son's love after having experienced it.
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* CrapsackWorld: The bardo.
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* CrapsackWorld: The bardo.bardo, an intermediate afterlife in which inhabitants are haunted by demons and their own regrets.
* CrossoverCosmology: The bardo is a Buddhist concept, but this afterlife also features the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell as well as elements from Ancient Egyptian mythology.
* CrossoverCosmology: The bardo is a Buddhist concept, but this afterlife also features the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell as well as elements from Ancient Egyptian mythology.
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* GagPenis: Hans Vollman possesses a rather large member.
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* GagPenis: Hans Vollman possesses a rather large member. It's because he died before being able to consummate his marriage, and he thus is eternally sexually frustrated while in the bardo.
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* AfterlifeAntechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
* PurgatoryAndLimbo: The "bardo", namely the Buddhist equivalent of Limbo, although as written in the book it's closer to the Christian idea of Limbo. That's where Willie goes.
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* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.
* Afterlife Antechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
* Afterlife Antechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
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* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.
* Afterlife Antechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.lovers.
* Afterlife Antechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
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* OneHundredEight: The number of chapters in the book.
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* Afterlife Antechamber The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
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* Afterlife Antechamber Antechamber: The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
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* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.
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* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.lovers.
* Afterlife Antechamber The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
* Afterlife Antechamber The whole bardo is basically the Antechamber and the demons are the entrance to what is beyond.
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* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Deliberately invoked. Though the bardo is a Tibetan Buddhist concept, it is followed by a Christian judgment phase, and also features Egyptian elements. [[WordOfGod Saunders says]] he did this to avoid being "too literal".
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: How [[spoiler: the demons who work to encase Willie in a granite carapace]] feel about their fates. [[spoiler: They passively accept that they always had the capacity to do the horrible things they did in life and that their entire lives were set up to lead up to their horrible acts, and now just want to do their jobs without resistance.]]
* BreakTheCutie: The dismal nature of the bardo begins to affect Willie's sunny, gentlemanly disposition and make him lose hope.
* ButThouMust: Double subversion. [[spoiler: The Reverend Everly Thomas, faced with an unspeakably horrific fate that he has no idea what he did (or didn't do) to earn, runs away from it. However, he is warned that because he fled, his punishment will be even worse upon his return, and that all who reside in the bardo do so temporarily and must eventually face their ultimate judgment.]]
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: How [[spoiler: the demons who work to encase Willie in a granite carapace]] feel about their fates. [[spoiler: They passively accept that they always had the capacity to do the horrible things they did in life and that their entire lives were set up to lead up to their horrible acts, and now just want to do their jobs without resistance.]]
* BreakTheCutie: The dismal nature of the bardo begins to affect Willie's sunny, gentlemanly disposition and make him lose hope.
* ButThouMust: Double subversion. [[spoiler: The Reverend Everly Thomas, faced with an unspeakably horrific fate that he has no idea what he did (or didn't do) to earn, runs away from it. However, he is warned that because he fled, his punishment will be even worse upon his return, and that all who reside in the bardo do so temporarily and must eventually face their ultimate judgment.]]
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* DeadToBeginWith: Everyone in the bardo, though no one [[spoiler: except the Reverend]] realizes it. Some toy with the idea, but reject it, thinking their recovery imminent.
* FailureKnight: Hans, Roger, and the Reverend want to help Willie leave the bardo [[spoiler: because they know from past experience with their failure to help Ellie Traynor that children are particularly ill-suited to extended stays there.]]
* FailureKnight: Hans, Roger, and the Reverend want to help Willie leave the bardo [[spoiler: because they know from past experience with their failure to help Ellie Traynor that children are particularly ill-suited to extended stays there.]]
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* GroundhogDayLoop: It's implied that [[spoiler: Lieutenant Cecil Stone]] and [[spoiler: Elson Farwell]] will [[spoiler: continue to fight forever—Stone consumed by his hatred of black people, Farwell by his desire for vengeance on whites.]]
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* MyGreatestFailure: Within the bardo itself, Hans, Roger, and the Reverend have lasting guilt about [[spoiler: not doing more to help Ellie Traynor acclimate and pass through.]]
** [[spoiler: The Reverend actually doesn't know what his is—only that it must have been really bad.]] [[spoiler: He never figures it out, but eventually accepts that there is no point in delaying his inevitable fate.]]
* OneHundredEight: The number of chapters in the book.
* PuppeteerParasite: Played with. Hans and Roger think they can do this, but others argue their successes as anecdotal or coincidental. The people of the bardo can enter the bodies both of the living and each other, but their influence on them is minimal and they don't do them any harm, and the people of the bardo absorb the knowledge, emotions, and motives of the people they enter. This becomes the catalyst for a number of major epiphanies, particularly toward the end of the book.
** [[spoiler: The Reverend actually doesn't know what his is—only that it must have been really bad.]] [[spoiler: He never figures it out, but eventually accepts that there is no point in delaying his inevitable fate.]]
* OneHundredEight: The number of chapters in the book.
* PuppeteerParasite: Played with. Hans and Roger think they can do this, but others argue their successes as anecdotal or coincidental. The people of the bardo can enter the bodies both of the living and each other, but their influence on them is minimal and they don't do them any harm, and the people of the bardo absorb the knowledge, emotions, and motives of the people they enter. This becomes the catalyst for a number of major epiphanies, particularly toward the end of the book.
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Getting the page started, more to come.
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''Lincoln in the Bardo'' is a novel written by George Saunders and released February 14, 2017. After a long career comprising exclusively short stories and novellas, it is his first full novel. Abraham Lincoln's son Willie dies and finds himself in the titular "bardo", an intermediate plane between death and the next life that is supposed to be temporary, but where people with unresolved issues and untold secrets linger, often for years.
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!!This book contains the following tropes:
* AdultFear: President Lincoln is overwhelmed by the idea of having to live life without his son's love after having experienced it.
* CrapsackWorld: The bardo.
* GagPenis: Hans Vollman possesses a rather large member.
* GreekChorus: Hans, Roger, and the Reverend Everly Thomas, mainly, with occasional interjections from others.
* HistoricalFiction: Insofar as it takes place during the Civil War and Abraham and Willie Lincoln were real people. Aside from that...
* InvoluntaryShapeshifter: Many people in the bardo will change shape or acquire new extremities when experiencing extreme or volatile emotions; Roger Bevins III, for example, grows multiple hands, eyes, ears, and noses when consumed by reverie.
* LeaveYourQuestTest: Essentially what the demons subject the inhabitants of the bardo to. Inhabitants of the bardo are occasionally bombarded by demons that try to tempt them into proceeding to the next plane without resolving the issues that cause them to linger in the current plane. And boy, do they put on the pressure.
* SirSwearsalot: Eddie and Betsy Baron.
* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.
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!!This book contains the following tropes:
* AdultFear: President Lincoln is overwhelmed by the idea of having to live life without his son's love after having experienced it.
* CrapsackWorld: The bardo.
* GagPenis: Hans Vollman possesses a rather large member.
* GreekChorus: Hans, Roger, and the Reverend Everly Thomas, mainly, with occasional interjections from others.
* HistoricalFiction: Insofar as it takes place during the Civil War and Abraham and Willie Lincoln were real people. Aside from that...
* InvoluntaryShapeshifter: Many people in the bardo will change shape or acquire new extremities when experiencing extreme or volatile emotions; Roger Bevins III, for example, grows multiple hands, eyes, ears, and noses when consumed by reverie.
* LeaveYourQuestTest: Essentially what the demons subject the inhabitants of the bardo to. Inhabitants of the bardo are occasionally bombarded by demons that try to tempt them into proceeding to the next plane without resolving the issues that cause them to linger in the current plane. And boy, do they put on the pressure.
* SirSwearsalot: Eddie and Betsy Baron.
* SomethingForEveryone: Most of the demons that try to tempt people into leaving the bardo manifest to their tormentors as close relatives or lovers.
