Literature / The Last Hero

The 27th Discworld story, the text is roughly the length of a short novel, but each page features lavish illustrations by Paul Kidby, providing much amusing side info (such as a breakdown of different breeds of swamp dragon) and very epic images that capture almost every detail of the characters ever mentioned.

We start with Cohen the Barbarian and most of the Silver Horde (minus Old Vincent, who choked to death on a cucumber), last seen in Interesting Times, setting out on a quest. You see, Fingers-Mazda, the first hero, stole fire from the gods and the Horde feel that it is only fair, as the last of the true barbarian heroes, to return the stolen fire.

With interest.

However, there is a problem. An explosion as big as they are planning to make on the top of Cori Celesti will collapse the Disc's magic field for several years. Of course, the Disc runs on magic, and without it the seas would dry up, the sun would crash and burn, and the turtle and the elephants would probably just stop existing altogether. All of this would happen in the first ten minutes.

So, Cohen's former subjects in the Agatean Empire tell Lord Vetinari to sort it out (as he and the city both have a reputation for getting things done). The solution is devised by the Wizards (after the usual heated debate) and Leonard of Quirm. They build the Kite, Discworld's second known spacecraft, powered by Swamp Dragons, to slingshot under the Disc and to try and beat the Horde to Cori Celesti. The craft is intended for three: Captain Carrot (by the logic that a policeman can find a reason to arrest anyone), Leonard (because the ship will need working on even after take off) and Rincewind (because he's met Cohen before and survived, and because he knows he will end up going anyway). Can they reach Cori Celesti in time to stop Cohen and his horde from their misguided crusade?

Not to be confused with Last Action Hero.

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The Last Hero provides examples of:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Cohen uses his ancient notched sword to roll a natural seven on a six-sided die by slicing it in half while it's in the air.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Leonard asks for journeyman craftsmen, rather than masters, to build his spaceship, because he has no use for "people who have learned the limits of the possible" - specifically the false limits of what people expect to be possible.
• Affably Evil: Evil Harry Dread stays on good terms with the Silver Horde - he just happens to technically be on the other side. Not only does he come by it naturally, but he works hard to perfect it as part of his image.
• Apocalypse How: Technically, a very small Type X-2/Stellar Destruction is threatened, although the loss of Great A'Tuin and the elephants would've vastly outmassed the loss of Discworld's tiny sun.
• Appeal to Obscurity: "What about all the heroes who aren't remembered in song and saga, eh? You tell me about them." Of course in this case it's partially justfied - if you're not remembered, you aren't much of a hero by definition.
• Badass Creed: Played with. The heroes about to journey to Dunmanifestin have patches made with a Latin motto: "Morituri Nolumus Mori." Rincewind thought them up. With something between amusement and disdain, Vetinari requests he translate the motto, which proves to be "We who are about to die, don't want to." Vetinari lets it stand, because it's the perfect motto for a mission to save the world.
• Barbarian Longhair: Cohen the Barbarian is bald, but Truckle the Uncivil, part of his "Silver Horde", is shown with scraggly hair growing past his shoulders.
• Blatant Item Placement: The Lady and Fate heavily imply that they and other Gods have been leaving around treasure maps and helpful supplies for barbarian heroes who are serving as their pawns in their games. Cohen is not very happy to find this out.
• Book Ends: The story begins with the First Hero stealing fire, for which he would be chained to a rock and eaten alive by a bird for eternity. The story ends with him being visited by the Last Hero, who cuts him loose, shakes his hand, and gives him a sword so he can get revenge against the bird.
• Brain Bleach: A mental eraser, actually, after Ponder Stibbons draws a mental picture of how exactly Leonard de Quirm might construct a zero-gravity privy.
• Brick Joke: At one point Leonard designs a frying pan that sticks to any surface in case the crew of the mission want to cook in zero gravity. Later on during said mission, Rincewind asks that a frying pan be removed from his back. Near the end, in an illustration showing Leonard painting the ceiling of the Temple, Rincewind is a member of the gathered crowd - and that frying pan is still there!
• Butt-Monkey: Rincewind's perennial status as this is lampshaded when he un-volunteers for the mission, in essence volunteering to prevent the universe from contriving his participation anyhow. He should be proud — his brand of totally relevant logic managed to confuse the Patrician, probably the only time this has happened in 27 books.
• Call-Back:
  • One of the birds Leonard is feeding is a parrot with the word 'DoG' written on it. In The Truth, William de Worde offered a reward for Lord Vetinari's then-missing dog, Wuffles...
    "— no, that's not it. No, sir, I know that's not it. Because it's a parrot, that's why. You've taught it to bark and you've painted "DoG" on the side of it but it's still a parrot —"
  • The two-page picture of the gods gathered around the playing-board Disc includes a penguin on the shoulder of Patina (a joke from Small Gods), and a scarab beetle perched on the hovering mini-sun (in reference to Scrab, a Djelibeybian deity seen in Pyramids). Scrab is also referenced in one of Leonard's notes, in which he hypothesises that the Disc's minor planets are balls of dung from the elephants, rolled into spheres by giant spacegoing dung beetles that inspired the Scrab legend.
  • Sweevo, God of Cut Timber, was last mentioned way back in Mort, when the High Priest at Keli's coronation was attempting to name all the known gods.
  • Leonard's method of using mirrors to make male dragons breathe fire by making them think another male is challenging them was first used in Men at Arms as a primitive trigger mechanism for a bomb.
  • The Circumfence makes its first appearance since The Colour of Magic.
  • This even extends to the audiobook version, which uses the sparkly introduction sound and reverb effect to denote footnotes that was used in the first couple of books but quickly dropped.
• Canis Latinicus: Rincewind's chosen motto for the mission, "Morituri Nolumus Mori". Only the Patrician knows the language enough to realise the translation is "We who are about to die don't want to". This is of course a joke on the motto Roman gladiators would call out to the Emperor before fighting, "Morituri Te Salutant" ("We who are about to die salute you").
• Canon Illustrations: Paul Kidby's illustrations add such details as Ponder's "Actually I Am A Rocket Wizard", now as ubiquitous to the character as the robe that looks like an old-fashioned anorak (which is in the text). Defictionalisation has occurred.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Affectionate Deconstruction with Dark Lord Harry Dread. He comes off as a Worthy Opponent and a Noble Demon due to steadfastly following his honor code of Contractual Genre Blindness.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: Rincewind tries to get taken off the mission by claiming to be insane, but Vetinari's got him coming and going: you'd have to be insane to go on the mission, but being sane makes you well-qualified to take part. It's even name-dropped as a "catch" ("the best catch there is").
• Centrifugal Farce: Leonard straps Rincewind into a Clock Punk rotation device before the flight, on the basis that the only way to train for the unexpected is with unexpected training. Before his experience in the centrifuge, Rincewind protests that they're heading for certain death, which you don't need any training for; afterwards he says that if you did, that would be it.
• Chained to a Rock: This is the fate of Fingers-Mazda, the first hero, for giving fire to humans (yes, he's a Prometheus Expy). The titular "Last Hero(es)" track him down, breaks his chains, give him a sword, and leave him to seek revenge on the eagle that has spent centuries eating his regenerating liver.
• Chainmail Bikini: Played for Laughs with Vena the Raven Haired, a Xena pastiche who, like Cohen, is a legend in her own lifetime, is pushing retirement age… and still wears her old form-fitting adventuring outfit.
• Chariot Pulled by Cats: When characters who aren't engineering geniuses are trying to visualise Leonard's plans for a dragon-powered spacecraft, there's a double-page spread showing a fantasia of Leonard riding in a hot air balloon being towed by dragons. (In the actual vehicle, however, the dragons are used as rockets.)
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: For Dark Lord Harry Dread, the Horde would expect nothing less. It's part of the Code.
• Cliché Storm: Invoked by the dungeon the Barbarians fight their way through on the way to Dunmanifestin, quite deliberately. The text also makes a few shoutouts, such as mention of a giant walrus.
• Cold Equation: The Librarian accidentally stows away aboard the Kite, which is consequently short on air and dragon power. Vetinari immediately advocates a pragmatic approach of chopping up the Librarian and feeding him to the dragons. Thankfully, an alternative is discovered.
  Vetinari: One ape dies, one world lives. You do not need to be a rocket wizard to work that out, surely?
  Ponder: You can't ask them to make a decision like that, sir!
  Vetinari: Really? I make decisions like that every day.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: The Silver Horde are a bunch of old seasoned warriors that are willing and able to blow up Dunmanifestin, and they could easily kill anyone who stands in their way — unless they're facing a single truly brave hero like Carrot Ironfoundersson. Which makes them the villains. They realise this when it happens, and it gives them serious pause.
• Continuity Nod: Rincewind mentions falling off the Disc before, a reference to the end of The Colour of Magic, and then mentions that he couldn't see anything as his life was flashing before his eyes, a nod to the beginning of The Light Fantastic. Carrot also remarks that the moon's native dragons resemble Errol, the total whittle throwback swamp dragon from Guards! Guards!
• Contractual Genre Blindness: Lord Harry Dread always hires stupid (and inattentive) minions, builds escapable dungeons and leaves caches of food, medicine and weapons for heroes to find, because that's how things are done, and in return he profits from his ventures (until the third act), always escapes to try again, and both their reputations are enhanced. This is also the stated reason he is the last Evil Overlord; other than the Silver Horde, no-one plays by the Code any more, so they don't escape. He's also a Only Fools and Horses joke of sorts, or possibly a CMOT Dibbler one, with various references that he started with the "Shed of Doom" and "Steed of Dread" (badly tempered donkey with a painful bite), bought dolphins instead of sharks from Dibbler and so on. He also knows how to read and do sums, a necessary skill when you need to have the henchmen on payroll and need to pay dungeon contractors.
• Cool Starship: The Kite. Untested and still under construction when they left Ankh-Morpork, Leonard still built in many advanced features, including Prince Haran's Tiller (an autopilot). Note that Vetinari, being the product of an arts-based education, understands the reference to the Klatchian folk tale but Stibbons — a scientist — doesn't.
• Cosmic Chess Game: "The gods play games with the fates of men. Not complex ones, obviously, because gods lack patience."
• Crisis Crossover: The story sees the Wizards, City Watch and many other characters teaming up to stop the Horde destroying the disc.
• Crystal Ball: By the time of the story University Wizards have refined the crystal ball concept to create the "omniscope", which can view anything in any part of the universe, which also has the effect of maybe not being able to see anything but darkness (since the universe is made up mostly of empty vacuum). A happy accident involving a broken omniscope leading to a reliable means of long-distance communication between Mission Control and the Disc's first spacecraft.
• Cup Holders: The Kite has these. Leonard considers them worth mentioning on his diagram of the ship — which also includes such trivialities as the wing jettison, rudder controls, and "Device for Looking Behind You".
• Cute Kitten: An illustration shows known cat-lover Death petting an excellent example of this trope, in the scene in question he has a few things to say about Schrödinger's famous thought experiment.
• Cutting the Knot:
  • Cohen is demanded by Fate to role a seven on a six-sided die, and does so by cutting it in half so the six and one sides are both facing up. The original story is also mentioned, and was how Cohen got his inspiration. Cohen himself even lampshades this, calling it a "knotty problem" and reminding the Bard (who had told Cohen the tale of the Tsortean Knot earlier) to remember that he said that.
  • Leonardo is tasked with painting a vast ceiling within several years by the gods. He does it in mere weeks by using a hovercraft and a device to spray the paint evenly and nicely.
• Dem Bones: There is a "very old zombie" that appears to have lost all his soft tissue over the years. His name is "Gak". Or least they think it is. He doesn't have a tongue, so it's all he ever says.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Evil Harry's henchmen, with the possible exception of the troll, are not merely stupid but appear to be suffering from genuine intellectual disabilities.
• Did Not Think This Through: While going over their plans to launch The Kite off of the Disc, Rincewind learns (and points out) that the take-off site is near the island of Krull, which means running into the Circumfence, a giant net designed to keep things from falling off of the Disc. The narration notes that at that point, everyone else began thinking of excuses of why they couldn't have remembered that tidbit, and why everyone else should have.
• Distracted by the Luxury: Cohen buys the Bard's services by showing him a handful of massive rubies. For the next few seconds, the Bard can't even think without the word "rubies" intruding.
  They are offering me rubies rubies.
• The Dragalong: Not Rincewind, for once, who knew he would be The Dragalong and decided to cut to the chase. Instead, it's the Bard, who was kidnapped by the Silver Horde so that he can write their saga.
• Due to the Dead:
  • The Silver Horde believe strongly in this. They have a word for those who rob the graves of fallen warriors. That word is "Die!"
  • The Bard makes sure Cohen and his fellows are remembered in the greatest song of all.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: "Aren't we supposed to shout somethiiiiiiinnnnngggggg..."
• End of an Age: As the title suggests, the world has no place for barbarian heroes or evil overlords any more. Cohen and the Horde decide to Go Out With A Bang and take the Gods with them instead of sliding into senescence, and Harry Dread and Vena The Raven-Haired join them for the same reason. Still, Cohen is taken aback to learn all his other peers have settled down to quiet lives, or more often died of old age and mundane causes, like choking on their stew. The Time of Heroes is over.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What would happen if the Silver Horde succeeded. The book includes a 'what-if' illustration showing the Discworld turned red and dead, with the elephants and the turtle reduced to skeletons.
• Every Man Has His Price: The bard is offered a substantial bag of rubies for joining the Horde and writing a song about their final adventure. He's well aware that rubies it's madness to join these rubies lunatics as they try to rubies get themselves killed, but harder to ignore the rubies rubies rubies. At the end, he throws the rubies away, abandoning them in the snow drift.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • The Silver Horde cares nothing for the laws of gods or men, but they do have a Code they follow scrupulously. Having a Code, they believe, is the difference between being a Barbarian Hero and being just some thug in a loincloth.
  • While the gods are mostly callous jerks with little regard for human life, even they consider Nuggan to be a particularly obnoxious little prig, and several are disturbed to learn he forbade his followers from eating ginger, mushrooms, garlic and chocolate. He also has an unpleasant little moustache.
• Exact Words:
  • When Blind Io asks Captain Carrot if he is a gods-fearing man, Carrot replies that what he's seen of the gods certainly frightens the life out of him, and adds that his commander always says that when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods. Naturally, the gods completely miss the irony.
  • Rincewind does not wish to volunteer to go on the mission. He is volunteering, but he's really not happy about doing it.
• Expy: Vena the Raven-Haired is Xena: Warrior Princess or Red Sonja grown elderly. In the audiobook, Stephen Briggs reads Vena with an antipodean accent to emphasise the Xena connection.
• Famed In-Story: Those who follow The Code. And the reason why they drag a bard along.
• Fang Thpeak: Offler the crocodile god.
• Fantastic Nuke: The keg of Agatean Thunder Clay.
• Fire Stolen from the Gods: Inverted: the book concerns the efforts of Cohen the Barbarian's Silver Horde to "return" fire to the gods, in the form of a keg of explosive powerful enough to destroy Cori Celesti (and thus the Disc) as a form of Rage Against the Heavens for the gods letting one of their friends die of choking on a cucumber. Eventually they are stopped, but steal the horses from the Valkyries who came for them and head off into the stars, only stopping by Mazda's rock to break his chains and leave him a sword. Mazda doesn't quite get what's happening, but for the first time he can't wait for the eagle to get there.
• Foreshadowing: During the priests' gathering at the Temple of Small Gods, it's mentioned that the paintings of gods and heroes on the ceiling could use some repairs. At the story's end, Leonard is tasked to re-paint the whole thing, and does so in record time.
• Fun T-Shirt: One illustration shows Ponder wearing a long-sleeved tee with "Actually, I Am A Rocket Wizard" across the front rather than the gray robes he wears in every single other picture of him.
• God Test: Done literally when the Silver Horde try to sneak into Dunmanifestin by claiming to be "new gods". The existing gods decide to play along, and have some fun by demanding Cohen prove his bonafides by rolling a seven on a six-sided die. He does.
• Heel Realization: Of sorts. When Carrot stands in the way of the Silver Horde, the latter realizes that they are the large group of warriors facing the lone hero who is fighting to protect the world (and who might just be the true heir to a kingdom), and thus have no chance of possible winning. Of course, they realize this because they'd been exploiting this universal law for most of their lives.
• Hero Antagonist: A major plot point.
• He's Just Hiding: invoked Evil Harry Dread so wants to believe that The Horde is still alive, somehow. The Bard and Vena know better, but keep quiet about it.
  • Considering what's hinted to happen to them later, Harry may very well be right. Just not on Discworld.
• I Can See My House from Here:
  Cohen: I can see everyone's house from here!
• Impossible Task Instantly Accomplished: Leonard da Quirm is ordered by the gods to paint the ceiling of a massive chapel in Ankh-Morpork with suitably epic art, and is given 10 years to do so. Everyone present reacts as though this is too short a time. Three weeks later, he has finished painting the chapel with a view of the Discworld, as seen from directly above.
• In Harm's Way: If you settle down, you're no longer a hero.
• Insane Troll Logic: Like much Disc physics, how gravity works on the moon: it only has enough gravity to hold down light things, like air molecules, not heavy things, like people. So it has an atmosphere but the adventurers are in constant danger of flying off into space.
• In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face: The Steampunk spacesuit worn by Leonard of Quirm is specifically designed with a transparent bubble-helmet, because Leonard wanted to be able to see out of it as easily as possible.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Vena the Raven-Haired, now a great-grandmother and no longer exactly raven-haired, as such (though she still dresses as such).
• Jerkass Gods:
  • Toyed with. The gods are, as has been established long before this story, as a whole selfish, short-sighted and literally play games with people's lives. On the other hand, Nuggan is regarded by even his fellow gods as being an unpleasant, odious little oik for banning his followers from eating chocolate, garlic and mushrooms. Nuggan's got this fussy little moustache too. A footnote makes mention that outside of Borogravia he's a minor deity in charge of paperclips, correct things in the right place in small stationery sets, and unnecessary paperwork - on the whole a god who garners approval the way Cohen saves money.
  • It's mentioned that some gods toy with averting this in order to get more worshipers — specifically, forbidding the eating of certain unpleasant foods like broccoli or brussels sprouts. Sweevo, God of Cut Timber, is noted as banning the practice of panupunitoplasty. He has no idea what it is, or even if it's real, but is amused by how it makes his worshipers panic.
  • And Offler, one of the oldest gods there is, notes after talking to Nuggan that he only got that way by recognizing that a god needs to offer his people something more than a lack of thunderbolts.
• Jet Pack:
  • Leonard builds a contraption that straps a dragon, upside down, to Rincewind's back, with mirrors that can be put in front of the dragon to make it flame. Why? Because he's Leonard of Quirm, dammit.
  • Deconstructed by the UU's senior faculty, of course, as they wonder how useful such a device could be. Leonard says it's for emergencies, but what could be worse than having a dragon strapped to your back?
• "Just So" Story: Parodied with the N'tuitif people, who have no imagination whatsoever and come up with scientific explanations for everything rather than myths. And are promptly wiped out by a neighbouring tribe who are far more motivated by their beliefs to expand and conquer.
• Killed Off for Real: Cohen and the Silver Horde all die at the end, although it doesn't seem to cramp their style much.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": At the end the horde hunts down Mazda, the Discworld Prometheus, just so they can shake him by the hand. Then they break his chains and leave him a sword to deal with that damn bird...
  • Afterwards, Mazda isn't sure what happened, who they were, why there were congratulating him, or even if it was quite real. What he is sure of is that he has a sword, he's not wearing chains, the bird is coming and he's going to enjoy the hell out of this.
• Lack of Imagination: The veldt of Howondaland is home to a tribe known as the N'tuitif, who have no imagination whatsoever. Their story of "How The Giraffe Got His Long Neck" simply describes the process of evolution selecting for longer-necked giraffes. After witnessing a spacecraft, the Kite, taking off from the Discworld's moon, they recount: "The moon was brightly lit and from it rose another light which then split into three lights and faded. We do not know why this happened. It was just a thing." The N'tuitif have been more or less hunted to extinction by their more-imaginative neighbours, who are inclined to interpret such things as their gods instructing them to go out and expand their territory.
• The Last Dance: Cohen and his Silver Horde have decided to go on one last adventure, returning fire to the Gods, with interest, as revenge for letting them grow old.
• The Last Title: The Last Hero. An unusually ambiguous example, in fact; the last heroes appear to be Cohen and the horde, but the title could as easily describe Carrot, a hero for a new era.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Parodied, though not in the main story. When the crew of The Kite realise someone else (the Librarian) is on board, they briefly consider the idea that the ship's under attack by some monster that lives under the Disc. One of Leonard's sketches shows his idea of such a creature, with a note that if something like it actually does appear it's essential that the crew split up to search for it.
• Lizard Folk: Evil Harry has "the last two stupid lizard men" working for him. They're both called Slime. "Not much good at remembering more than one name, you average lizard man."
  • The don't look much like lizards in the illustrations apart from having tails in any case, having large noses and pointy ears like a typical fantasy goblin.
• The Magic Goes Away: What will happen if the Silver Horde succeeds. Lord Downey of the Assassins' Guild thinks they can get on without magic for a few years (and indeed would rather enjoy the wizards being taken down a peg or two), but Ponder Stibbons rapidly disabuses him of this notion:
  Ponder: The seas will boil. The sun will burn out and crash. The elephants and the turtle may cease to exist altogether.
  Downey: And that'll all happen in two years, will it?
  Ponder: No, sir. That'll all happen in the first ten minutes. You see, magic isn't just lights and fireballs. Magic holds the world together.
• Mirrored Confrontation Shot: Between Captain Carrot and the Silver Horde.
• Molotov Truck: Rafts loaded with inflammable materials are used to blast a gap in the Circumfence.
• Morton's Fork: See the Shout-Out for "the best catch there is".
• Mugging the Monster: What Vena the Raven-Haired does to a couple of bandits with her knitting needles shall be left as an exercise for the reader.
• Mundane Wish: When the gods of the Disc are granting requests to the heroes, Rincewind asks for a blue balloon (to replace one he had lost when he was six). He also translates the Librarian's request for three thousand file cards, a new stamp, five gallons of ink, and a red balloon.
• Mythology Gag: When Ponder Stibbons explains how the end of magic will instantly annihilate the Disc, this is referencing multiple statements from the early books, especially The Light Fantastic and The Colour of Magic, about how the Disc can only exist because it exists in a magic-rich environment, where raw magic can take up the slack for its otherwise weak and underdeveloped physics.
• Nay-Theist: The Horde, obviously, to the point that they've decided to Kill The Gods. The Minstrel also becomes this after meeting his god, Nuggan, and finding him to be nothing more than a short, fat bully with an annoying moustache who imposes petty and pointless rules on his worshippers simply because he enjoys making them miserable.
• Needlework Is for Old People: Vena the Barbarian Princess is encountered as a woman in her seventies who is embroidering a sampler with the legend "Burn This House". She's also said to have slain several heavily-armed assailants with nothing more lethal than a pair of knitting needles.
• Never Mess with Granny: Vena the Raven-Haired, a barbarian heroine (now a great-grandmother) who joins the Silver Horde. Much like them, she's quite an elderly heroine, and if anyone gets that old as a barbarian hero(ine), it means they're really, really good at it.
• Noble Demon: Evil Harry Dread isn't even pretending he isn't one: he always played fair and gave the heroes a chance. He even warns them that they shouldn't invite him along because he 'really ought to betray them.
• No Name Given: The Bard is never named. "No one remembers the singer, but the song remains." Ironically, he seems to be inspired by Orpheus "famous of name."
• Noodle Incident: Any combat that the members of the Horde are involved in by this point, since who is going to win is never even a question. Of particular note is the dungeon they plough through on the way to Dunmanifestin. The Heroes are chatting casually about it, and comparing it unfavorably to other dungeons they faced in the past. The Bard, meanwhile, has been reduced to a Heroic BSoD by the events.
• No One Could Survive That!: And so they presumably didn't. And do they care? Nope.
• Not So Invincible After All: The gods initially scoff at Cohen's "famous firework", explaining that they're immune to fire. However, when Cohen counters that the entire Disc will shortly see Dunmanifestin explode, which will probably cause them to lose faith in the gods, a few of the brighter ones suddenly aren't so confident. (Of course, if it had gone off there it would definitely have killed them, as there wouldn't be anyone or anything left to believe, but they don't appear to realise that.)
• Obvious Judas: Evil Harry Dread even warns them that he is, it's in the code. To which Cohen replies that he would have expected nothing else, since he also knows "The Code". invoked
• Old Soldier: Every single member of the Silver Horde counts as one of these because every single one of them is at least eighty. You don't live to be that old in barbarian adventuring unless you're very, very good at it.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Swamp dragons are rather different to mythological dragons (which appeared earlier in Guards! Guards!).
  • And in turn, moon dragons, which are a more aerodynamic version of swamp dragons who fly by firing out the other end and using their flame as a jet. It is mentioned that the dragon Errol in Guards! Guards!, who used the same method to fly, might have been an evolutionary throwback.
• Our Nudity Is Different: Apparently there's a religion in Ankh-Morpork which prohibits women from showing their ears, lest they inflame the passions of men.
• Planet of Steves: All Stupid Lizard Men are apparently named Slime. The entire species is too stupid to remember more than one name.
• Plot Armor: During the cutscene in which the Silver Horde and Evil Harry Dread and his minions fight their way through the Dungeon located with the mountain, every single one of Harry's six minions manages to die, while Harry and the silver horde emerge relatively unscathed.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: Morituri Nolumus Mori. It means "we who are about to die don't want to."
• Rage Against the Heavens: What motivates Cohen and his Horde, for making them so good at what they do that they could live to grow old and weak and see a world that doesn't need them anymore. Averted by Carrot, who's obviously appalled by the deities' attitudes but restricts himself to a Stealth Insult.
• Red Shirt: Evil Harry Dread's Stupid Evil Henchmen. True to form, they are taken out in the dungeon to show the situation is serious. Cohen and Harry are proud of them, morons to the end.
• Resigned to the Call: Rincewind, who saves himself the bother by volunteering because the Call will surely find some way to put him on the Kite otherwise.
• Right-Hand Cat: Evil Harry wanted to play this trope straight, but is allergic to cats, so has to settle for a white hamster in a diamante treadmill.
• Robbing the Dead: The Horde would like to have a word with those who practice this. That word is "Die!"
• Schmuck Bait: Schmuck baiting is considered a spectator sport among the gods. Also, the lever in the Kite marked Troba that causes the wings to fall off.
• "The Scream" Parody: One of Paul Kidby's illustrations shows Lovable Coward Rincewind in the Scream pose, as a reaction to the immensity of the elephants supporting the Disc. This was used as the cover to the full-size paperback edition, although in The Art of Discworld, Kidby complains that both versions were cropped for a close-up on Rincewind, rather than sticking with the Scream layout with lots of background above him, to show just how big these elephants are.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Do not push the button labeled Troba!
• Secret Legacy: After it slowly dawns on the Silver Horde that Carrot might be more than he appears to be, one recalls the story of Anhk-Morpork's true King working as a watchman because he prefers it. Carrot, being Carrot, responds thusly.
  Carrot: Never heard of him.
• Seen It All:
  • Rincewind just knows he'll end up being drafted into the mission, and if he runs away and hides it'll be in a crate that gets loaded onto the ship, or something, so he just volunteers (or "not volunteers") at the start.
  • Part of the reason for the Horde's mission. They have been everywhere, done everything, conquered nations and now they simply have nothing left to do.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Rincewind barges into the meeting to declare that he's definitely not volunteering for the mission and wants it known that he never wanted to go, even though someone's bound to put him up to it. No-one had considered him until then, and when they subsequently do so, he seems more satisfied that the universe is still working as normal than annoyed about it.
• Shark Pool: Evil Harry got cheated. His pool of dolphins just didn't cut it, even with the fins.
• Shout-Out: Notably in both the text and the art, independently.
  • Another ship took a trip over the edge of the Disc. There was one survivor. His last words: "My God, it's full of elephants!"
  • Apollo 13: "Ankh-Morpork, we have an orangutan..."
  • After landing on the moon: "Small steps, I said. Not giant leaps."
  • Emperor Carelinus is the Disc's version of Alexander the Great, complete with his cutting the Tsortean Knot.
  • The Nothingfjord Blue. Lovely plumage... er, wonderful scales, but a tendency to pine for the fjords... I mean, towards homesickness.
  • One illustration of Rincewind screaming in abject terror with his hands on his face invokes Edvard Munch's "The Scream".
  • Just as the Kite launches, Leonard tells Rincewind to think of it as "a magic carpet ride". Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" is played by Zefram Cochrane during Earth's first starship launch in Star Trek: First Contact, and is also one of the songs played regularly as an in-flight wake-up call for NASA astronauts.
  • There are some Aliens references too, as when Carrot searches the hold and finds a banana skin. Leonard's illustration of the Imaginary Hull Borer ("if such a creature invades the ship, vital crew split up in order to search for it") includes the Latatian "Nucleus situm ex orbita, unus certis maximus". In other words, "Nuke the entire site from orbit, It's the Only Way to Be Sure."
  • A marginal note in Leonard's drawings mentions "Bird's Eye Maple, 1 1/2d per foot", referencing an old Stanley Holloway monologue "Three Ha'pence A Foot".
  • Harry Dread has a pool of dolphins, you say? Are they ill-tempered?
  • You would have to be insane to take part in the mission. Of course, if you're not insane, the Patrician has a duty to send only the keenest minds on such a vital errand. It's the best catch there is.
  • Cohen's cutting the dice in half so it comes down as 6+1=7 is a reference to a Viking king who did this to win a bet. The legend implies the dice split on its own, but in The Science of Discworld Terry Pratchett wondered if he was holding a large axe at the time. It's also a double reference, as way back in The Colour of Magic one of the gods threw their dice and scored a seven, though in that case by using Alien Geometries (the cube-shaped dice had more than six sides). Cue admonition by another god to play fair, please.
  • "Second star to the right and straight on till morning." "That's the worst navigation advice I've ever heard." As they're in a space ship, this also counts as a Shout-Out to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
  • A sketch of Rincewind, stripped down to a loincloth, strapped spread-eagle into a three-axis rotation device, and clearly about to hurl, mirrors Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man'' (except for the hurling part).
  • The Silver Horde discusses finding maps, keys and first aid kits just sort of lying around in the dungeons, and never speculating who'd put them there or why up until that moment. Inexplicably helpful item placement will sound very familiar to anybody who's ever played an old first-person shooter. (Sir Pterry was, of course, an avowed fan of Doom. And of course, of older adventure games that developed the trope.)
  • A few panels are done in the style of The Bayeux Tapestry, to invoke a proper old-timey heroic saga effect.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: When told that Cohen the Barbarian plans to detonate a Fantastic Nuke on top of Cori Celesti, which will result in the death of the gods and the end of magic for two years, several people think it's a small price to pay. Ponder Stibbons has to explain that it means the end of the world.

  Mr. Slant: Well, we can do without magic for a couple of years, can't we?
  Ponder: With respect, we cannot. The seas will run dry. The sun will burn out and crash. The elephants and the turtle may cease to exist altogether.
  Slant: That'll happen in just two years?
  Ponder: Oh, no. That'll happen within a few minutes, sir. You see, magic isn't just coloured lights and balls. Magic holds the world together.

• Sistine Steal: A sketch parodying Michaelangelo's The Creation of Adam, with Cohen (as Adam) flipping off Blind Io (as God).
• Society-on-Edge Episode: Averted. The Disc is endangered once again, thanks to Cohen the Barbarian's Rage Against the Heavens. Unlike the previous examples, Ankh-Morpork's powers-that-be manage to keep the peace and work together to confront the problem.
• Space Suits Are SCUBA Gear: Literally here, as Leonard's notes indicate that the space suits are repurposed deep diving suits.
• Stealth Insult:
  • Asked by the gods if he fears them as mortals should, Carrot truthfully replies that what he's seen of them frightens the life out of him ... a statement which, true to form, could be interpreted very differently from the compliment Io takes it for.
  • Earlier, Carrot delivered this stellar could-be-an-example when Rincewind tells him that he'd seen his life flash before his eyes the last time he went over the Edge:
    Carrot: Well, perhaps this time we'll see something more interesting.
• Stealth Pun: Prince Haram. In Arabic the word means "against religious rules", "sin", or "bad (for you)". On Discworld, Prince Haram is a Klatchian folk hero who sailed all over the world. Over here, he is Sinbad the Sailor of the seven seas.
• Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Ponder's description of what will happen to the Disc if magic goes away. On the next page, a full-page spread of the burnt-out Disc and skeletal Great A'tuin and elephants.
• The Storyteller: The Bard.
• Surrounded by Idiots:
  • Evil Harry does his on purpose. Because it's a rule. He has a skeleton, two lizard men who are both named Slime because they can't remember more than one name, a troll at room temperature who's stupid even for a troll at room temperature, a jailer guaranteed to wear the keys easily visible on his belt, and a dwarf — which the others congratulate him for. It's actually really hard to find a dwarf sufficiently stupid to qualify for a band of evil minions. (His name's "You're Armpit.")
  • There's also the (unnamed) smith of the gods, the Discworld equivalent of Haephestus/Vulcan, who repairs Leonard's ship for him because he's the only one of them who has any kind of mechanical common sense (and, as the text notes, there always has to be one person who knows how these things work for an organisation to survive).
• Swallowed Whole: Happened to one of the Silver Horde during the (off-camera) fight with the giant fish. A good thing, since they were running out of walrus meat.
• Take Our Word for It: The description of the Bard's ballad.
• Terminally Dependent Society: This is the book that makes it clear that a place like the Disc needs magic simply to function, without it the sun would fall on it and the ocean would fall off of it... and that's just the first few minutes..
• Theory of Narrative Causality: Invoked by all sides.
• This Ain't Rocket Surgery: Ponder Stibbons is drawn wearing a shirt with the words "Actually, I Am A Rocket Wizard" on it.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Bard. First a Butt-Monkey, is dragged along by Cohen and threatened with death. He ends the story by threatening Harry with death, throwing his payment (a fortune in rubies) into the snow, picking up a lyre he handcrafted from a sharpened stick, string, and a skull, and singing, apparently, the greatest song ever. The final illustration shows him wearing leather furs and a sword on his hip, to contrast the foppishly dagged bright red and yellow he was wearing at the start. Even the lighting around him seems to have gotten more Heavy Metal.
• Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup: Subverted. When the ambassadors of countless nations and the leaders of multiple guilds pour into his palace to have a say in stopping the Silver Horde, Vetinari lets them form committees, then locks the door and goes to a separate meeting with his usual people to tell them about Leonard's flying machine.
• Too Much Information: Rincewind hopes that if he just keeps nodding, Ponder will stop with the Info Dump.
• Training from Hell: Ridcully decides that the crew of Leonard's space craft need to be trained for the mission. Ponder Stibbons points out that they're going into the unexpected, but Ridcully insists they be given some unexpected training. Rincewind states that they're going into certain death, which needs no training for whatsoever. He later decides that Leonard's device (designed to test if a human body can handle the stress of leaving the Disc) would do. After five minutes on it, death would seem like a release.
• Undead Author:
  • When the Horde begin to compare maps to Dunmanifestin, a place no one's ever returned from, the Bard asks where the maps come from. While this apparently happens to them all the time, they suddenly realize exactly what it implies (the gods play Dungeons & Dragons with the lives of men in this setting).
  • The need to avert this is why the Bard is certain he'll return from Dunmanifestin. He knows that once the gods realize that they're under attack by a man claiming to be the Muse of Swearing and a guy wearing a hat made from a decapitated giant fish, they're going to want someone to survive to tell the story of what happened next.
• Underestimating Badassery: On an intellectual level. The gods know Leonardo da Quirm just built a device that could go to the moon and around the turtle. They think their challenge to paint the ceiling of a great temple in Ankh-Morpork will be a strenuous affair that will keep him occupied for decades. He has it done in less than a month.
• Valkyries: They show up to collect the Silver Horde and promptly get horsejacked.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Parodied. Code heroes like the Horde let them go, but others just block the escape route before attacking (which is why Harry is the last Evil Overlord). Bastards.
• Wandering Minstrel: The Bard, at first.
• With Due Respect: Ponder has become quite adapt at this.
  "With respect," said Ponder, without respect.
• The World Is Just Awesome: Numerous times in the illustrations, but particularly one where Rincewind and the others stand on the moon as it rises and look into the continent-sized face of one of the elephants holding up the Disc. Apparently, after his return to Ankh-Morpork, Leonard manages to depict the awesomeness of it on a temple ceiling, so well that the priests think it may somehow be blasphemous.
• Worthy Opponent: Evil Harry Dread is very much one. Just as the Horde are the last heroes to follow the Code, he's the last villain.
• Xenomorph Xerox: The Imaginary Hull-Borer (which, as the name suggests, probably doesn't exist) looks like a less insectile and more cephalapodian face-hugger. Leonard's notes say that, if it does exist, the crew should split up to look for it, and "Nucleus situm ex orbita, unus certis maximus!"
• You're Insane!: The Bard and the Horde, after the obligitory big dungeon fight:
  "Mad! Mad! Mad! You're all stark staring mad!"
  "We prefer the word "berserk", lad."

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