History Creator / RudyardKipling

* NotSoDifferent: Zig-zagged. Sometimes he described Europeans as just another tribe, sometimes as superior. Perhaps the summation was that he in fact thought Europeans ''were'' another tribe (and thus shouldn't make too much heavy weather) but that, by chance they happened to be a tribe that had a lot to teach other tribes. Though better off not falling into narcissism out of this.
** Also Kipling was a good character writer and had a great fascination for how other people lived. His characters seem like real people that happen to be following the customs of their respective tribe/caste/whatever and not merely extensions of stereotypes.
** ''The Roman Centurion's Song'' is about a Roman Centurion pleading not to be sent home to Rome, as he has lived among the 'primitives' of Britain so long that he has gone native. Kipling was making the obvious comparison of how many British soldiers felt after living in India, and pointing out that once upon a time it was the Britons that were the subject of colonial ambitions by a 'more civilised' power and were viewed as savages by their colonial masters.
* OlderThanTheyThink: ''[[http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_junkandhow.htm The Junk and the Dhow]]'' -- "But before, and before, and ever so long before..."

--->''[[GodWhatHaveIDone What tale shall serve me here among]]''
--->''[[GodWhatHaveIDone Mine angry and defrauded young?]]''

--->''[[HeelRealization What tale shall serve me here among]]''
--->''[[HeelRealization Mine angry and defrauded young?]]''

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Kipling poured over these enough of acid to dissolve a battleship or two. From ''Pagett, M.P.'' to ''Mesopotamia'' and ''Stellenbosh'' to ''The Lesson'':

* NotSoDifferent: Zig-zagged. Sometimes he described Europeans as just another tribe, sometimes as superior. Perhaps the summation was that he in fact thought Europeans ''were'' another tribe (and thus shouldn't make too much heavy weather) but that, by chance they happened to be a tribe that had a lot to teach other tribes.

* RetiredBadass: Col. Dabney:
---> Damnable! Oh, damnable! But I'll be considerate. I'll be merciful. By gad, I'll be the very essence o' humanity! Did ye, or did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don't attempt to deny it! Ye did.

* MemeticMutation[=/=]NeverLiveItDown: [[InUniverse in]] ''A Code of Morals'', a tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale about communications security, a moment of chatter on the heliograph line results in:
-->But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan
-->They know the worthy General as "that most immoral man."

** Including a rather... unconventional scene in ''The Ballad of Boh Da Thone''.

* AwfulTruth

* BoardingSchool

* DontYouDarePityMe

* GodGuise

* MamaBear

* AffectionateParody: The ''Just So Stories'' is this for various different oral traditions (hence all the repetition), most obviously ''The Butterfly That Stamped'', which is a parody of the Koranic style ("Now listen and attend!")

* ChekhovsGun: Parodied mercilessly in the ''Just So Stories'', specifically ''How The Whale Got His Throat'', in which we are reminded practically every paragraph not to forget that the protagonist wears suspenders (braces). In the end these do play a part in the story (he ties a grate in place with them in the whale's throat) but this is [[Main/{{Anticlimax}} hilariously minor]] compared to the leadup.
* CityOfSpies: Lahore in {{Kim}}

* ElephantsChild

* {{Malaproper}}: The narrator of ''Just So Stories'', with such famous ones as "'satiable curtiosity" (for 'insatiable curiosity').

* RunningGag: The ''Just So Stories'' has lots, most obviously "you must never forget the suspenders".

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness

* StreetUrchin : Kim

** For [[ManlyMenCanHunt predators]] in ''[[Literature/TheJungleBook The Jungle Books]]'':
-->''Now Chil the Kite brings home the night, that Mang the bat sets free''
-->''The herds are shut in byre and hut, for loosed til dawn are we''
-->''Now is the hour of power and pride. Talon and tush and claw.''
-->''Come hear the call, good hunting all, that keep the Jungle Law.''

* BeastOfBattle: ''Parade Song of the Camp Animals''

* FriendToAllLivingThings

* ManlyMenCanHunt: ''Captains Courageous'' and ''The Jungle Book''
-->''The Jackal may follow the tiger, but cub when thy whiskers are grown, remember the wolf is a hunter, go forth and get food of thine own''

* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Played straight in Rikki Tikki Tavi (unlike ''Literature/TheJungleBook'').

* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Played straight in Rikki Tikki Tavi (unlike ''Literature/TheJungleBook'')

** Including a rather... [[CrowningMomentOfFunny unconventional]] scene in ''The Ballad of Boh Da Thone''.

-->[[CrowningMomentOfFunny They know the worthy General as "that most immoral man."]]

* "If--" ("If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" -- one of his most famous poems, much quoted. It can be seen by players entering Centre Court at Main/{{Wimbledon}}.)

Many of Kipling's works, including ''Literature/TheJungleBook'', are set in British India, and popularised most of the associated tropes. His other works include some early {{Science Fiction}}, while his literary style, particularly indirect exposition, was a significant influence on Campbell, Creator/BertoltBrecht and RobertAHeinlein.

* ''Stalky & Co.'', [[Main/{{BoardingSchool}} Boarding School]]

* "If--" ("If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" -- one of his most famous poems, much quoted. It can be seen by players entering Centre Court at [[Main/{{Wimbledon}} Wimbledon]].)

He lost a son in [[Main/{{WorldWarOne}} World War One]] and was responsible for choosing two of the common phrases associated with Remembrance in the UK: "Their Name Liveth For Evermore" and "Known Unto God" (on the graves of Unknown Soldiers). And... referred to it in DoubleEntendre of all ways:

---> Tell them, because our fathers lied.

* WhiteMansBurden

* {{Defictionalization}}: Some of the dialect of [[BritsWithBattleships the British Army]] was actually made up by Kipling. Originally it was a device to give the atmosphere of how soldiers talked without using the words [[MoralGuardians soldiers actually used]]. In WorldWarI a lot of boys entered the army brought up on Kipling and imported the dialect they thought was "soldierly".

* GreedyJew: Subverted in ''The Treasure and the Law''.

* RecycledInSpace: some sci fi is affected by Kipling.

** For [[ManlyMenCanHunt predators]] in JungleBooks:

* LawfulNeutral: Some of his political opinions come across as this.

* [=~White Man's Burden~=]

* [=~Don't You Dare Pity Me~=]
* [=~Elephant's Child~=]

* [=~Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used To Be~=]: [[strike:Mocked]] Discussed in ''The King''.

---> He spoke of the heat of India as the "Asian Solar Myth";
---> Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
---> [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay till September.]]

--->'''Nilghai''': It’s a chromo,’ said he,--’a chromo-litholeo-margarine fake!

--->'''Dick''': Then the art-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn’t like it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,--man being naturally gentle when he’s fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, with a little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as well talk to a sheep as an art-manager.

---> To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die.

-->''Now Mann the Kite brings home the night, that Mang the bat sets free''