Their guild motto translates to "Never kill without payment". It also seems that people with strong magical gifts, such as Eskarina Smith, can be dangerous to everyone around them if not properly trained. Known flavours of the thaum are: up, down, sideways, sex appeal and peppermint. Books That Bite: The magic books inside the Unseen University's Library have to be chained to their shelves.
Honor Before Reason: The Assassin's Guild ("Where style counts! ") His defining characteristic is that he has no eyes in his head, instead of having a myriad of disembodied floating ones that observe the world for him. Supernatural Sensitivity: Strong magic leaves strong residue, to the point that especially strong magic can leave magical fields behind that warp reality and last for centuries. Supernatural Repellent: Parodied, especially in Carpe Jugulum, where much mirth is raised by recounting, in a Discworld context, all the things which Earth legends say are fatal to vampires. Temporarily banished from a dorm room say crossword clue. Graduates tend to be emotionally scarred for life. Rincewind The Wizzard (The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, and Eric in one volume, 1999, US). Chess with Death: Although he can never remember the me again how the little horse-shaped ones move.
Of particular note are Granny Weatherwax, who put a demon in his place with a few threats, and Mrs. Cake (a medium, bordering on small), whom High Priest Ridcully compares to the things from the Dungeon Dimensions. It essentially boils down to each side calling the other gay (warriors accuse wizards of wearing long robes and can't perform magic when a woman's around, wizards retort that warriors sure do spend a lot of time in gyms surrounded by muscular men wearing very little leather clothing). He also left very quickly. The black clothes seem to be mostly because witches are practical and black is hard-wearing. Temporarily banished from a dorm room say crosswords. Captain "Mayonnaise" Quirke, the leader of the Ankh-Morpork Day Watch until the end of Men at Arms, is a racist (both against fictional species and against actual human ethnicities) and hideously incompetent at keeping the peace, to the point he causes several race riots when he arrests a troll that was completely incapable of committing the murder it's accused of. The Wizards of UU can do this so well that they look more like what they're pretending to be than the real thing does. Probably its most significant example is the law of magic that no shape-shifter, not even gods, can transform how their eyes look — so their eyes always provide a clue to their real identity or nature. The Gods Trilogy (Pyramids, Small Gods, and Hogfather in one volume, 2000, UK).
Onwards, it seems to be Sam Vines raison d'etre to combat this trope such as when he orders Detritus to shot an offending individual knowing what the troll will do note. The Tower of Bugarup University is about 20 feet tall on the inside, or as seen from the bottom — but at the top, it's about half a mile tall. The Discworld Mapp (with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Stephen Player) (1995). Supposedly true for the undead, though Windle Poons manages it in Reaper Man.
Sand Is Water: The Dehydrated Ocean. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. Divine Right of Kings: - A lot of people on the Disc believe in this, which Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch hates. Unresolved Sexual Tension: If you're a major character with a potential love interest in a Discworld novel this is pretty much the only alternative to becoming an Official Couple after your first book. Whenever there needs to be a reason why the large number of highly skilled wizards of Unseen University cannot counter a problem with magic, one of the standard limitations is that it takes precisely the same amount of work (in the physics sense) to do something by magic as by any other means, and all the other mundane limitations (like action-reaction) as well. They don't take commissions on just anyone, or just from anyone. References to Leonard of Quirm's painting of the "Mona Ogg", whose teeth follow you around the room. Pyramids: Ptraci is a dancing girl meant to be sacrificed to serve Teppic's father in the afterlife, but after Teppic convinces her not to take poison, she breaks out of the mindset and ends up ruling the country. Any book with Nanny (and a few other books) will have someone tricked into drinking scumble, made from apples. For example, their ruler is known as the "Low King". Freudian Trio: The Lancre witches (Magrat: ego, Granny Weatherwax: superego, Nanny Ogg: id. Nobles assume (or just like to think) he's a jumped up copper who married his wife for money. Quite a few unfortunate consequences of test-runs for Bloody Stupid Johnson's inventions, as well as a couple of Leonard of Quirm's, are implied to have been quite ugly.
Magic isn't just coloured lights, it holds the Disc together. For example the book gives the impression that castle guards number in the dozens. Cohen and the Silver Horde, a band of octogenarian barbarians. The Hecate Sisters: The typical arrangement of a group of Witches (which is not a hard and fast rule — some operate alone, and Nanny Ogg states they can operate in up to groups of four or five.
The Assassins Guild does not "kill" or "murder" their targets. If we had their proportionate strength, human could pick up buildings. So Far (2012), fifth edition as The Ultimate Discworld Companion (2021). Self-Proclaimed Liar: Casanunda's business card lists, among his other talents, "Outrageous Liar". Footnote Fever: They show up in most of the books to provide often-humorous clarification or deeper history on some topics. He gets emotional over kittens as well. Lampshade Hanging: Just about every book not only includes a lot of Trope Play, but a lot of Genre Savvy characters who will know just what's going on, and will be in no way shy about stating it. It is one of the very few swords on the Disc without a single hint of magic in it, making it more real than anything it tries to cut. His story heads straight into Crosses the Line Twice territory when the narrator says that the despair of people laughing at him even as he begged them to stop eventually drew him to commit suicide. "Do not let me detain you. Taken outside and given a good kicking by the Feegles: "No'-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock. Noodle Incident: - Several Ankh-Morpork-based books make references to "what happened to Mr. Hong when he opened the Three Jolly Luck Take-Away Fish Bar on the site of the old fish-god temple in Dagon Street on the night of the full moon. "
13 seconds and failed to even last the length of his proclamation. The Tower of Art at the Unseen University has 8, 888 steps (more or less). Early-Installment Weirdness: The earliest books are quite different in tone, the characterization is different, things like troll biology are wildly different, all sorts of things. A subversion since they're not evil, but people sure take it like they are. She ends up having serious complications during the childbirth, though both she and the baby fully recover.
Original Man: The first humans to live on the disk were much more powerful than the ones that currently live on the disk. Of course, they are family of (werewolves), so.... - Though in The Fifth Elephant, we're told that most true wolves don't have names, so much as descriptions. Seriously Scruffy: - Samuel Vimes prefers to conform to this trope, although his wife is quite insistent that he maintain appearances after he marries her. It can even get stale. Played with; most of the time, it's the 6-foot tall Carrot who's doing the mentioning. Well, mostly apples. Does This Remind You of Anything? Rule of Funny: Explicitly mentioned several times — one footnote makes reference to the "new rules of comedy" which state that the droll results of wild shots in the air must be told to the public.
Book Ends: The Colour Of Magic, the first Discworld novel, features the first foreign tourist's visit to Ankh-Morpork. She is, incidentally, a very safe dotty old lady; the regulars have apparently adopted her as a sort of unofficial mascot, and at least a couple of thieves who robbed her subsequently turned up without a drop of blood left in their bodies... ). The APF annotations list appears to have been discontinued after about two-thirds of the books; the torch has been carried on by the Terry Pratchett Wiki, which faithfully annotates the later books as well as adding extra detail to the earlier ones. The Perils of Being the Best: This is a point that gets brought up in many, many, books.