Line #20 Literature/NoMoreHeroes


1	[[quoteright:313:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nomoreheroes.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:313:[[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E5GSZSO No More Heroes - Amazon cover]]]]
3	->''‘This other place... the mage tells me it exists and I believe him. But I do not think it is a place as we know it. Not a location on our charts or even in our skies.’ He stared out of the tiny cabin window.''
4	->''‘There are other worlds, other skies. Places we could not comprehend.’ He looked at the mate with eyes hollowed from lack of sleep. ‘From what little I have been told I believe it to be a realm beyond our understanding. A realm of almost pure chaos.’''
5	->''‘What is this realm?’''
6	->''‘I know little of it other than a name. I have heard the strangers refer to it as… Brighton.’''
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8	''[[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E5GSZSO No More Heroes]]'' is a 2014 Fantasy novel set in modern day Brighton, England, and the magical HighFantasy world of Avia.
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10	Howie, Eddie and Sally have their dull daily lives of commuting, personal issues and tedious routine shattered when they are accidentally transported from their home town of Brighton to a mythical and terrifying world of wizardry and swords by Razz, a naive apprentice mage who is searching for legendary magical beings to save his world from an unimaginably horrific apocalypse.
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12	In this brutal fantasy land they encounter monsters, magic, mercenaries and mind-shattering dimensions of horror, and all they have to help them are an iPod, a management strategy certification and a passing knowledge of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. But in a land of fantasy their normality makes them extraordinary and their belief that even fate itself can be defied starts to affect a world...
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14	As much a deconstruction of the [[{{Fantasy}} fantasy genre]] as it is a straight adventure across magical worlds, ''No More Heroes'' invokes, parodies and inverts many of the main tropes of [[{{Fantasy}} Fantasy Novels]] and [[RoleplayingGame Roleplaying Games]], occasionally crossing over into [[CosmicHorrorStory Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror]].
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16	Not to be confused with [[JustForFun/IThoughtThatWas that]] ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes''
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18	----
19	!! No More Heroes contains examples of:
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21	* ActionSurvivor: Howie, Eddie and Sally
22	* AnotherDimension: Avia, Ko’Thaggor
23	* AnAdventurerIsYou: The entire book is the equivalent of a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' adventure - characters with a modern everyday mindset making generally terrible tactical decisions in a world of swords and sorcery
24	* ApocalypseHow: Kurn's plans [[spoiler:to kill at least one universe, possibly more if required]]
25	* BadassNormal: [[spoiler: Howie]] becomes this, with a little help from [[ICallItVera Frank]]
26	* TheBigBad: Kurn
27	* BigDamnHeroes: Played straight and also inverted by the hero group calling themselves Vengeance
28	* BlackMage: Kurn, an immensely powerful, evil and completely insane sorcerer
29	* TheChosenOne: Averted – On several occasions Razz is openly angry that he ended up with Eddie, Howie and Sally instead of Heroes with actual useful skills.
30	* TheChosenZero: Eddie who lacks even a useful magical item (although he is quite good with Excel)
31	* CrapSackWorld: Avia is a brutal world with a barely functioning economy under military occupation by mercenary armies who will kill you as soon as look at you. And there are all sorts of dangerous creatures. And lethal dungeons filled with traps and monsters. And then there’s The Circle which is a protrusion into the sanity-destroying hell world of Ko'Thaggor which is filled with eldritch abominations that can drive you mad just by seeing them. And there’s the Evil Overlord who plans on killing absolutely everyone horribly. There are also dragons ([[OurDragonsAreDifferent but these aren’t too dangerous]]).
32	* ColdBloodedTorture: Kurn is a master of torture and thoroughly enjoys it, carrying out horrific mutilation for little reason. He also likes to talk about it. Sokol is also an expert torturer but does at least employ it to learn relevant information
33	* CoolSword: A lot of swords in Avia including examples of FlamingSword, ElementalWeapon, WeaponWieldsYou, NamedWeapons, ICallItVera
34	* TheDeterminator
35	* DespairEventHorizon: This is approached several times, getting progresively worse[[spoiler: as they approach The Circle and Kurn's Keep]]. Eventually [[spoiler: in Kurn's cells]]
36	* DualWielding: Two powerful magical swords are ultimately dual-wielded. It is implied this has never been done before on Avia - this may be because it comes with a cost.
37	* DungeonCrawling: The Crypts of Ramen are the very embodiment of this trope (the layout is based loosely on the dungeon in Literature/{{Fighting Fantasy}} novel ''Literature/DeathtrapDungeon'')
38	* DungeonMaintenance: Humboldt and his unseen clan tend to the Crypts of Raman
39	* TheDragon: Sokol, Hox
40	* EldritchAbomination: The things which live in The Circle, and the denizens of [[CosmicHorrorStory Ko’Thaggor]]
41	* TheFatalist: Almost everyone on Avia is this, except for some of the Magemasters
42	* FateWorseThanDeath: What Kurn has planned [[spoiler: for everyone on Avia perhaps even ultimately Earth]]
43	* FantasyCharacterClasses:
44	** [[VancianMagic The Rule-Based Mage]]: Razz
45	** {{Necromancer}}: Kurn
46	** [[MagicKnight Evil Fighter Mage]]: Sokol
47	** [[SummonMagic The Summoner]]: Troda
48	** TheBrute: Hox
49	** BarbarianHero: Xantox
50	** [[MasterOfIllusion The Illusionist]]: Sleevane
51	** [[ProfessionalKiller The Assassin]] [[VideoGameStealing The Thief]]: Portissia
52	** [[ForestRanger The Ranger]]: Forgen
53	** Other examples: [[{{Swashbuckler}} The Swashbuckler]], TheBerserker, [[ArmyScout The Scout]], [[TheMedic TheCleric]] [[WanderingMinstrel The Bard]]
54	* FromBadToWorse: Almost becomes Eddie’s catchphrase every time he discovers the latest downturn in their situation
55	* FunctionalMagic: Fulsing bluestones with Jagen
56	* GenreSavvy: Our protagonists are a Computer Game Developer, an ex ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' DungeonMaster and a history graduate with a wide knowledge of classical mythology. But their genre savviness is mostly negated by their inability to form anything approaching a coherent plan
57	* GrimUpNorth: Kurn’s stronghold and The Circle itself are of course, In The North.
58	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Vengeance, particularly Xantox]]
59	* {{Hell}}: The dimension of [[EldritchLocation Ko’Thaggor]] which, if not actually hell, is pretty much similar in terms of madness and suffering (maybe even worse). It's [[GoMadFromTheRevelation a place which can drive you insane even just by being near to it…]]
60	* HereThereBeDragons: Actually spoken by Howie when he realises they are on Avia.
61	* HighFantasy: Avia is a world of magic, myth and monsters.
62	%% * ICallItVera: Frank
63	%% * ImmuneToFate: Averted and/or or played straight, or averted again… [[spoiler:or is it?]]
64	%% * ImpossiblyTackyClothes: When Eddie attempts to dress heroically
65	* InMediasRes: The Prologue on the ship
66	%% * TheJuggernaut: Hox
67	* LevelDrain: The Battlefield Drain around Brighton’s Pier is implied to be able to do this so severely that it clearly terrifies the mage Razz
68	%% * MagicalLand: Avia
69	* MindControl: Eddie is placed under a form of this, also Sokol has several people in Brighton under a Thrall spell
70	* AMinorKidroduction: We open in flashback with one of the characters as a kid playing ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''.
71	* MorningRoutine: Eddie’s routine for getting out of bed is described in painstaking detail.
72	* {{Mordor}}: Everything inside the circle is Kurn’s domain and effectively populated by his psychopathic Black Dagger guards. Although the barrier they have to travel through to get there is actually [[EldritchLocation even worse]].
73	* TheMultiverse: Earth, Avia, Ko’Thaggor, and countless others are implied. Eddie illustrates with strings on a harp.
74	%% * NamedWeapons: Vortus, Frank, Velkran
75	* OmnicidalManiac: Kurn intends to kill not just [[spoiler: our heroes]] or [[spoiler: the whole of Avia]] or even [[spoiler: the entire universe in which Avia exists]] but possibly [[spoiler: multiple universes, including the one in which Earth exists]]
76	* OnceUponATime: The title of the opening chapter (although with a Bon Jovi twist).
77	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Puff dragons are like big floating cows. That can explode.
78	%% * OurDwarvesAreDifferent: Humboldt
79	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The vampire in The Crypts. Vampires on Avia are basically [[spoiler: black holes to life and magical energy]] and frighten even Sokol
80	* PlayerParty: In a sense Howie, Eddie and Sally are literal [player characters], ‘real’ people enacting with a ‘fantasy’ world
81	* RocksFallEveryoneDies: Invoked no further than p2 of the book [[spoiler: the child DM had previously killed a player’s character under a rockfall for giving it an overly stupid name]]
82	%% * ScrewDestiny: Literally spoken by Sally
83	%% * ThePawn:
84	* TheQuest: Played straight, inverted and possibly subverted as our heroes have to complete a Quest that they don’t care about and isn't even for their world, simply to get home.
85	* SecretIdentity: Howie, Eddie and Sally have to pretend to be temps, then True Heroes, except when they are pretending to be Wandering Minstrels, except when they are pretending to be magical researchers… after that it gets complicated
86	* SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate: A central question in the story.
87	%% * SquishyWizard
88	* SpellLevels: Razz explains spells in Avia have levels according to difficulty in casting. This doesn’t mean that low level spells can’t drain magical energy at a huge rate (Eddie drains Razz’s stone after asking for repeated small pointless bottle levitations when they first meet)
89	* TomesOfProphecyAndFate: The Codex of Koth
90	* TreacherousQuestGiver: Razz’s master Birau is suspected to be not entirely trustworthy, by just about everyone except for Razz
91	* TurnUndead: Averted – When encountering a terrifying and debilitating vampire they have no magical means of repelling it
92	* UrbanFantasy: The first part of the book is set in Brighton, England as two magic users arrive in our world
93	%% * WanderingMinstrel
94	* WeHelpTheHelpless: Averted – True Heroes on Avia are implied to have been selfish and arrogant (Razz openly mocks this specific suggestion)
95	%% * WizardDuel
96	* YouAllMeetInAnInn: Played incredibly straight as homage to the fantasy genre. We first meet our heroes in a Brighton pub and this is also where they first meet Razz

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