History Literature / TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles

** The key does appear later in the book, but completely at random without explaining what it was used for or why did her mother give it to him in the first place.

-->''"Well, wha-- wha-- what do you know a-- a-- about dat!" It's the ba-- bah-- bahbies Naddie and Neddie were tal-- talking ah-- ahbout," he stuttered to himself. "We got-- got-- gotta get ya ou-- ou-- out-- a here! There's a st-- stor-- storm ca-- ca-- comin'," he stuttered nervously...'' (from [[http://www.insomniaville.com/journal/011402.html here]]). Yes, he even stutters in internal monologue.

* GrumpyOldMan: Yur. He's the oldest male Muggle, and he's deaf and arthritic.

* {{Muggles}}: Surprisingly averted: The baby-like protagonists might be called "Muggles", but they throw random magic around like nobody's business. Granted, this would make sense, as the book ''does'' predate the term in the Harry Potter sense we all know and love... if the author hadn't sued J.K. Rowling over use of the term.

* TechnicolorScience: Nuclear fallout is purple; evidently the bombs used in the final war contained radioactive potassium permanganate. Nuclear fission produces, among other things, radioactive iodine-131 - hence the use of iodine pills to protect against exposure by saturating the body with normal iodine so the radioactive stuff doesn't get absorbed. Iodine, at least in vapour form, is purple. However, it doesn't colour fallout purple, and its half-life is so short that you can forget about it after a week or two, and if there was enough iodine-131 to color the fallout purple, then everything on Aura would be extremely dead from the ludicrous amount of radiation the cloud would emit.

* TechnicolorScience: Nuclear fallout is purple; evidently the bombs used in the final war contained radioactive potassium permanganate. Nuclear fission produces, among other things, radioactive iodine - hence the use of iodine pills to protect against exposure by saturating the body with normal iodine so the radioactive stuff doesn't get absorbed. Iodine, at least in vapour form, is purple. However, it doesn't colour fallout purple, and its half-life is so short that you can forget about it after a week or two.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The clouds of "radiation" are able to entirely blot out the sun, yet somehow let the light from the moon and stars through, which makes zero sense.

** It's not explained how plants still exist ''at all'' if the sun has been blotted out for 500 years.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: The humans living on Aura evolved into Muggles in 500 years. For comparison, the human species (homo sapiens) has existed for 100,000 at the most conservative estimate, and we are just greenhorns compared to even most mammals.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: Stouffer doesn't seem to understand the difference between fallout and radiation, as she talks about clouds of "purple radiation" While ''fallout'' sometimes looks like clouds, and could conceivably be purple (although it's unlikely, as listed under TechnicolorScience), radiation is invisible.

%%* ChristmasCake: Noona.

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: At least 70% of all names for places and characters in the book.

** The Muggles scramble to get water and Aloe Salve for the "thirsty birds" and "blind deer" that Yur misheard from Golda. The fact that they get Salve for ''curing blindness'' speaks for itself.

** The Nevils and Zyn gorge themselves with the food stolen by the Muggles after seven years of eating nothing but seaweed and meager grass. Sudden and copious eating in such condition would have been devastating on their already frail health.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Zyn, the supposed bad guy, becomes more and more ugly and thin as he descends in depression, especially after residing in the Manchineet Tree. The Nevils get the same treatment, growing long claws and hair.
* BigShadowLittleCreature: The "Shadow Monsters" on Dezra are nothing but Zyn and the Nevils' heavily distorted shadows. And somehow they're afraid of them.
* BrightCastle: Depicted on the cover, and apparently where Lady Catherine lives, [[CoversAlwaysLie which is featured in the first chapter and never appears again]].

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: ''Every single character'' (besides the brothers) who appears in the first two chapters is never brought up in the rest of the story.

* GenreRoulette: The story changes from war, to YA romance, to children's fantasy, to slapstick comedy, to adventure/drama. Not only it switches between genres, but also between styles (all of which are raw and badly written). It's like if each individual chapter should belong in a completely different book.
* GoodAnimalsEvilAnimals: The "Greeblies", rabbit-faced rats, and "Nardles", sand dogs as large as lions that the muggles keep.

* MeaningfulName: The Muggles are named in a ceremony because of a particular sign or a behavior that shows in its infancy. However, some of the names don't have clear origins (like Peter or Yur and Golda), some inexplicably match for lovers or spouses (Pitter and Patter, Pick and Pluck), and some imply that the Muggle is doomed to a flawed life, such as Boggs, who is implied to [[ThePigPen smell bad and be covered in mud]] ''since birth''.

* {{Muggles}}: Surprisingly averted: The Teletubby-like protagonists might be called "Muggles", but they throw random magic around like nobody's business. Granted, this would make sense, as the book ''does'' predate the term in the Harry Potter sense we all know and love... if the author hadn't sued J.K. Rowling over use of the term.

* NobodyPoops: It would certainly explain how Rah and Zyn arrived on the island squeaky-clean despite being adrift for days without any attention.

* PlotHole: The Muggles use elaborate flower arrangements in their naming ceremony, which is described as "traditional". By "traditional", it's implied it was that way before Rah and Zyn's arrival, when there was no plant life alive at that point. And this is one of the tamer plot holes.

* TimeSkip: Random numbers of years will pass between chapters.

The tale opens with a nuclear war caused by government corruption, in a way that's guaranteed to send any 6-year-old to a [[NightmareFuel somewhat restless]] sleep, followed by an AuthorFilibuster about the abuse of eminent domain laws. If this jars with the colourful FairyTale kingdom depicted on the front cover (which in fairness isn't too bad) then it should. It's like watching an episode of ''WesternAnimation/HandyManny'' with [[StuffBlowingUp explosions]] and [[KillEmAll genocide]]. The title character somehow brings sunlight back to the land of the Muggles, who [[HollywoodEvolution evolved implausibly quickly]] from the survivors of the apocalypse. No attempt is made to HandWave the conditions AfterTheEnd that led humanity down that particular evolutionary path, let alone with such speed. The subsequent chapters present a disjointed and incoherent account of the lives of Rah, his brother Zyn and the Muggles, as several years will often be skipped in-between chapters.

''The Legend of Rah and the Muggles'' is a children's book written and published by Nancy Katherine Stouffer (also referred as "N.K. Stouffer") in 1984. (That title is a modification; the book title didn't actually feature the word "muggles" when it was released; Stouffer added it later to increase her chances of winning her lawsuit.) The book languished in obscurity until 1999, when Stouffer sued Creator/JKRowling (author of the wildly popular ''Literature/HarryPotter'' book series) for intellectual property damages, claiming that Rowling had stolen elements from ''Rah'' and used them in the ''Potter'' books without permission, primarily the use of the word "muggles". The subsequent lawsuit was eventually laughed out of court, as Stouffer was unable to verify her claim that she originally trademarked the term.

* {{Jerkass}}: Zyn is meant to be seen as this.

* PregnantBadass: Lady Catherine, [[InformedAbility supposedly]].

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: So, which nation/continent is "Aura"?

* RandomEventsPlot: Between the 2nd and 9th chapter, the plot stops to a screeching halt and turns into a mish-mash of random anecdotes involving Rah and Zyn.

** Yur declares that the light of the fireflies will keep Zyn on the island of Dezra forever. The lifespan of a firefly is two months, so in practice the Muggles have accomplished nothing by storming the island.

''The Legend of Rah and the Muggles'' is a children's book written and published by Nancy Stouffer (now referring to herself as "N.K. Stouffer") in 1984. (That title is a modification; the book title didn't actually feature the word "muggles" when it was released; Stouffer added it later to increase her chances of winning her lawsuit.) The book languished in obscurity until 1999, when Stouffer sued Creator/JKRowling (author of the wildly popular ''Literature/HarryPotter'' book series) for intellectual property damages, claiming that Rowling had stolen elements from ''Rah'' and used them in the ''Potter'' books without permission, primarily the use of the word "muggles". The subsequent lawsuit was eventually laughed out of court, as Stouffer was unable to verify her claim that she originally trademarked the term.

* PlotHole: For example, the Muggles use elaborate flower arrangements in their naming ceremony, which is described as "traditional". By "traditional", it's implied it was that way before Rah and Zyn's arrival, when there was no plant life alive at that point. And this is one of the tamer plot holes.

* PlotHole: The Muggles use elaborate flower arrangements in their naming ceremony, which is described as "traditional". By "traditional", it's implied it was that way before Rah and Zyn's arrival, when there was no plant life alive at that point. And this is one of the tamer plot holes.

* SequelHook: At the end, it is written that everything we've read so far was written in the "Ancient Book of Tales". The book's info also explains that this is only the first of a series of books, but so far there is no proof that later installments of the series exist.