History Literature / Hogfather

** Really? I had no idea that's what happened; I thought it was that [[spoiler: the increased pressure from the pipe organ produced some very high pressure jets of water in some very uncomfortable places]]

* AllMythsAreTrue

* {{Anvilicious}}: Death's speech to Susan at the end, basically about how people need fantasies like the Hogfather (i.e. Santa Claus), or Terry Pratchett's books for example, to believe in when they're young so that when they grow, they can believe in big fantasies like justice, mercy and...purpose. [[YourMileageMayVary Depending]] on your [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism perspective]], this may even approach BrokenAesop territory, given its UnfortunateImplications.

** [[ThisIsSPARTA Banjo!]] [[OhCrap Don't!]] [[BerserkButton Hit!]] [[WouldntHitAGirl Girls!]]

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of a lot of children's literature; Susan notes the HeroicSociopath nature of Jack and other fairy tale protagonists, but the book is even harsher towards [[{{Disneyfication}} very]] [[{{Glurge}} saccharine]] [[SickeninglySweet works]], which are made to appeal to adults rather than children. Death, meanwhile, does this for various [[strike:Christmas]] [[ChristmasTropes Hogswatch Tropes]].
** Also, the speech Death gives about humans needing fantasy to be human is a deconstruction of the famous "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus" editorial from the Sun (which was ''mercilessly'' mocked in an earlier Susan monologue). It is much more thought-out than the original, and also a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* [=~Didn't See That Coming~=]: Teatime probably would have done just fine if he hadn't underestimated how much Banjo got upset about hitting girls.

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: It's more awe and fear than love, but when Teatime insults the late Ma Lilywhite, that's apparently the last straw for Medium Dave.

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Mr Teatime's [[DisneyVillainDeath fall from the top of the tower]]. He even disappeared afterward, like the other corpses.

* UncannyValley: The kids find Teatime's freaky MismatchedEyes a great deal scarier than a talking skeleton. Particularly because the skeleton is sitting in a comfy chair and eating a biscuit.

** Also the Cheerful Fairy. [[spoiler:The Senior Wrangler, at least, falls for her because of her Woobie-ness.]]
* [=~Wouldn't Hit A Girl~=]: Banjo Lilywhite.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Everyone Teatime ever meets. Sideney is GenreSavvy enough to defy this, but [[spoiler: he still doesn't get out of the Tooth Fairy World alive.]]

* FridgeBrilliance: Susan initially hadn't believed in the Tooth Fairy, as her father Mort always cut out the middleman and gave her cash for lost baby teeth directly. [[spoiler: For once, her [[FlatEarthAtheism Flat Earth Athiest]] upbringing may have done some good, as none of Susan's own teeth wound up in the Tooth Fairy's tower, hence she was never subject to Teatime's and Sideney's sympathetic magic. If she ''had'' been susceptible, she'd probably not have believed Death about the Hogfather being genuine and in danger.]]

* FridgeBrilliance: Susan initially hadn't believed in the Tooth Fairy, as her father Mort always cut out the middleman and gave her cash for lost baby teeth directly. [[spoiler: For once, her FlatEarthAthiest upbringing may have done some good, as none of Susan's own teeth wound up in the Tooth Fairy's tower, hence she was never subject to Teatime's and Sideney's sympathetic magic. If she ''had'' been susceptible, she'd probably not have believed Death about the Hogfather being genuine and in danger.]]

* {{Anvilicious}}: Death's speech to Susan at the end, basically about how people need fantasies like the Hogfather (i.e. Santa Claus), or Terry Pratchet's books for example, to believe in when they're young so that when they grow, they can believe in big fantasies like justice, mercy and...purpose. [[YourMileageMayVary Depending]] on your [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism perspective]], this may even approach BrokenAesop territory, given its UnfortunateImplications.

--> [[spoiler:[[AC:Yes. There are rules. But you broke them. How dare you... ''how dare you?!'']]]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: See {{Awesome/Discworld}}

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of a lot of children's literature; Susan notes the HeroicSociopath nature of Jack and other fairy tale protagonists, but the book is even harsher towards [[{{Disneyfication}} very saccharine works]], which are made to appeal to adults rather than children. Death, meanwhile, does this for various [[strike:Christmas]] [[ChristmasTropes Hogswatch Tropes]].

* DidntSeeThatComing: Teatime probably would have done just fine if he hadn't underestimated how much Banjo got upset about hitting girls.

* FanPreferredCouple: Of an almost unbelievably CrackPairing variety--there's quite a bit of Susan/Teatime [[FanFiction fanfic]] out there, much of it of the FoeYay variety.
* FoeYay: Susan and Teatime, [[YourMileageMayVary depending who]] you ask.

* HideousHangoverCure: Whipped up for Bilious by the wizards, who mix together every single hangover cure they can think of.
** Bilious gets all of the hangovers from Bibulous, the god of wine. Which means [[spoiler: ''Bibulous gets all of the effects of the hangover cure.'']]

* [[{{Ptitlex9bl80i0}} I'm Your Worst Nightmare]]

* KnifeNut: Teatime again ([[SarcasmMode Go!]] [[{{Understatement}} Figure!]]).

* [[KickTheDog Nail The Dog To The Ceiling]]: Teatime, of course.

* NoKillLikeOverkill: Teatime's [[AxCrazy nature]] is revealed from the description of him doing this in the course of an assassination.
* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: Mr Teatime's fall from the top of the tower. He even disappeared afterward, like the other corpses.
* NotWhatISignedOnFor: A certain [[{{Mook}} henchman's]] response when he finds out Teatime plans to kill the Hogfather.

* TooDumbToLive: A quite literal application of the trope. [[spoiler:The Auditors. They pushed [[AC: Death]]'s BerserkButton. ''While they were in mortal form''.]]
* UncannyValley: The kids find Teatime's freaky eyes a great deal scarier than a talking skeleton. Particularly because the skeleton is sitting in a comfy chair and eating a biscuit.

* WouldntHitAGirl: Banjo Lilywhite.

* ContinuityNod: The back of The Lecturer in Recent Runes robe reads [[Discworld/SoulMusic "Born to Rune"]]
** The Dean's, actually. Must have gotten his wardrobe mixed up with Runes'.
* CreatorCameo: Terry Pratchett appears as the toymaker at the very end

* RunningGag: Albert never getting to smoke a cigarette.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: As is really to be expected, Death.

* ThrowItIn: Marc Warren's take on Teatime, which was inspired by JohnnyDepp's take on [[CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory Willy Wonka]]. Many fans of the books were not amused, as Teatime's polite speech and Assassin's Guild upbringing suggested that he was very well spoken, and it was this coupled with his actions and what he was actually saying with his neat little voice that created the creepiness. In an interview, Warren instead decided to use Depp's Wonka voice because, well, he'd just come back from seeing it at the cinema with kids.

--> [[spoiler:[[AC:Yes. There are rules. But you broke them. How dare you...''how dare you?!'']]]]
** [[ThisIsSPARTA Banjo!]] [[OhCrap Don't!]][[BerserkButton Hit!]][[WouldntHitAGirl Girls!]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: See {{CrowningMoment.Discworld}}
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: See {{Funny.Discworld}}
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: See {{HeartwarmingMoment.Discworld}}
* DeathTakesAHoliday: Well, takes ''over'' a holiday, anyway. That said, people seem to die just fine on their own while Death is playing Hogfather.
** This book also reinforces the explanation, provided in ''Discworld/SoulMusic,'' that Death does not attend to every death in the world. He simply reigns over death as a king reigns over his kingdom even when he is not attending to matters of duty, explaining why Death ''can'' take holidays like this.
** It also seems that this time he ''hasn't'' stopped performing his normal duties. He is summoned to the match-girl to handle her inevitable death, but chooses to act in his capacity as the Hogfather and save her instead. Albert's reaction makes it clear that this wasn't supposed to happen.

* NoodleIncident: We never find out exactly why Ridcully boards up the bathroom again.
** Yes we do. [[spoiler:He was using a bathroom designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson, and he pulled the lever marked "Organ Interlock" - during a night when the Librarian was ''using'' said Organ. I refer you to the earlier scene wherein his voice "sounded quite high, and quite near the ceiling"...]]

* SelfMadeOrphan: Downey, on Teatime: "We felt sorry for him because both of his parents had died at a young age. In retrospect, we should have wondered a bit more about that."

* PsychoStrings: Used as a leitmotif for Teatime.

* ThrowItIn: Marc Warren's take on Teatime, which was inspired by JohnnyDepp's take on [[CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory Willy Wonka]]. Many fans of the books were not amused, as Teatime's polite speech and Assassin's Guild upbringing suggested that he was a very well spoken, and it was this coupled with his actions and what he was actually saying with his neat little voice that created the creepiness. In an interview, Warren instead decided to use Depp's Wonka voice because, well, he'd just come back from seeing it at the cinema with kids.

* TooDumbToLive: A quite literal application of the trop. [[spoiler:The Auditors. They pushed [[AC: Death]]'s BerserkButton. ''While they were in mortal form''.]]

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:The Auditors. They pushed [[AC: Death]]'s BerserkButton. ''While they were in mortal form''.]]

* ThrowItIn: Marc Warren's take on Teatime, which was inspired by JohnnyDepp's take on [[CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory Willy Wonka]].

* EvilEye: Teatime has one nearly-black eye. The other's glass. Many fans believe it's a crystal ball - which means he has Discworld magic (only slightly more reliable than [[{{Warhammer}} the Winds of Chaos]]) ''in his eye socket''.

* HumanityIsInfectious: Not used precisely (at least not until ''Discworld/ThiefOfTime'') but the Auditors become addicted to living when they take on the form of wolves to pursue the Hogfather.

* [[KickTheDog Nail The Dog To The Ceiling]]: Teatime of course.

** Yes we do. He was using a bathroom designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson, and he pulled the lever marked "Organ Interlock" - during a night when the Librarian was ''using'' said Organ. I refer you to the earlier scene wherein his voice "sounded quite high, and quite near the ceiling"...

* TooDumbToLive: The Auditors. They pushed [[AC: Death]]'s BerserkButton. ''While they were in mortal form''.

Susan, Death's granddaughter, is trying distance herself from her supernatural side by being normal (which is abnormal for the Discworld) and taking the position of governess in the Gaiter household, where she tries to instill some rationality into her young charges. And if the monsters won't cooperate, the children can have faith in a stout iron poker. Meanwhile, the Auditors of Reality latest plan is to hire the Assassins' Guild to kill the Hogfather, the Discworld's Santa Claus analog. The task is given to Mr. Teatime, a creative but overly zealous young assassin, who has already hypothesized how to kill many [[AnthropomorphicPersonification anthropomorphic personifications]] in his spare time. Unbeknown to the assassins, as the god of the winter solstice, removing the Hogfather will stop the sun rising and end all life, which would make the universe tidier from the perspective of the Auditors.

Death appears and tells Susan that the Hogfather is unavailable, and so Death is delivering presents in the Hogfather's place. Susan is disturbed by what might happen to [[strike:Christmas]] Hogwatch spirit if run by Death and is determined to get to the bottom of this (which is exactly what she would not do if Death had directly asked her to intervene). In Death's domain, she finds the shattered remains of the Hogfather's [[DeathsHourglass hourglass]] and, upon arriving at the Hogfather's Castle of Bones, sees it collapse due to lack of belief. She also finds Bilious, the "Oh God" of Hangovers, who has only recently popped into existence. In order to get some answers out of him, Susan takes him to Unseen University. Hex, the university's thinking machine, reveals that the wizards have been accidentally calling Small Gods into existence from the "spare belief" which previously sustained the Hogfather.

Susan, accompanied by the Oh God, follows a trail leading to the land of the Tooth Fairy, a world create by children's imagination, where they discover Teatime has been using children's teeth to control them into not believing in the Hogfather. While Teatime has been trying to unlock a door at the top of the tower, most of his accomplices are devoured by the childhood fears made real. Teatime grabs Death's sword off Susan but fails to kill her because children do not understand death, and Susan pushes him off the tower.

Death takes Susan back to the site of the Castle of Bones where the Hogfather, in the form of a pig, is being chased by Auditors, in the form of dogs. Susan guides the Hogfather to safety over a cliff while Death confronts the Auditors and condemns them for breaking the Rules. The Auditors are unable to lose their solid form and disappear off the edge of the cliff. The Hogfather transforms back into human form and flies off into the night. Death explains to her that childhood fantasies are important and help us to be human, since later we must understand bigger lies such as Justice, Mercy, and Duty.

They return to the Gaiter's house, but Teatime follows them and contemplates killing Death. Susan throws the nursery poker and, because of the children's belief, it passes straight through Death and impales Teatime.