History Literature / Perelandra

* ZenSlap: Done mentally by [[spoiler: none other than Maleldil]] of all ... people, to [[spoiler: Ransom]], for [[ILied lying]] to Tinidril. The act ''itself'' of telling a lie becomes [[CorporalPunishment physically]] rather painful and extremely nauseating to [[spoiler: Ransom]] -- the narration compares it to a vomit tearing all through him -- which quite emphatically conveys the disgust and disappointment. He [[WhatTheHellHero tells him off]] for it through their psychic link, too.\\

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: [[spoiler: Asked by none other than ''Maleldil'', no less.]] As Ransom agonizes over how to deal with the Un-Man on Perelandra, this is what he eventually realizes he must do; he can never completely defeat the Un-Man in argument, since the Un-Man will never give up but will always simply switch to yet another tactic (even returning to previously failed strategies and all the while planting subtle seeds of self-absorption in the mind of the Queen with his endless narration of sleazy romance fiction) but he can kill him physically. Unfortunately, even this is trickier that it seems as there are no weapons or even sharp objects in the area where the first half of the story take place and Ransom has already thrown into the sea the gun that Weston (of course) brought with him precisely in order to ''prevent'' what is about to take place. Ransom is left with his fists and the Un-Man with his very long very ''very'' sharp fingernails. Ransom's efforts to dispatch the physical body of the Un-Man (originally Weston's body) make up a large part of the drama of the latter half of the novel.

* YearOutsideHourInside: Ransom witnesses the Great Dance that binds the universe together and finds that the brief euphoria had "took up" a whole year. The likeliest explanation for the time gap seems to be that witnessing the Great Dance requires leaving Time and entering eternity.
* ZenSlap: Done mentally by [[spoiler: none other than Maleldil]] of all ... people, to [[spoiler: Ransom]], for [[ILied lying]] to Tinidril. The act ''itself'' of telling a lie becomes [[CorporalPunishment physically]] rather painful and extremely nauseating to [[spoiler: Ransom]] - the narration compares it to a vomit tearing all through him - which quite emphatically conveys the disgust and disappointment. He [[WhatTheHellHero tells him off]] for it through their psychic link, too.\\
That being said: considering the later plot events following from even that one essentially non-malicious lie, and that he needs [[spoiler: Ransom]] explicitly to ''counteract'' the influence of TheCorrupter to prevent the end of Perelandra, [[spoiler: Maleldil]] has ''very'' [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness good reason]] to enforce CannotTellALie on [[spoiler: Ransom]] towards Tinidril. When [[spoiler: Ransom]] [[NoSell tries to]] lie to [[spoiler: Maleldil]] ''directly'' half a book later, the latter much less drastically just gives him a very disappointed Look until [[spoiler: Ransom]] stops it - and even gets ''the snark on'':

** [[spoiler: Partway through the book, Ransom has a mental chat with none other than God Himself. It's ''heavily'' implied that the psychic link through which this takes place has been as open as the Green Lady's psychic link with God for all the time Ransom has been on Perelandra - only Ransom, and [[AudienceSubstitute by proxy]] the reader, doesn't realise it's there and he could use it just as easily as she can.]]

* EvilIsPetty: The Un-man is capable of making very eloquent-sounding arguments to tempt his subject towards evil, but when he's unable to do anything more profoundly evil, he amuses himself with torturing small animals and annoying Ransom. His most frequent pasttime is standing by Ransom as he tries to sleep and repeating his name ad infinitum until Ransom responds. Then he replies, "Nothing," and starts again.

* TheGodsMustBeLazy: Ransom wonders why he wasn't receiving divine help in light of the direct demonic intervention from the other side. Then he works out the answer - he himself ''is'' the divine help -- Adam and Eve didn't have the benefit of advice from an older race that had failed the ForbiddenFruit test; [[spoiler:Plus, Satan is in a physical body of a human being, which can be killed...]]

* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe: The Queen of Perelandra is known as the Green Lady for, well, her green skin. Besides that, she's looks exactly like a human woman in the nude. Implied that, this being Venus, her race's blood is oxygenated by copper rather than iron and its outright stated they look like humans since it'd be weird for them not to look like that after God became man that time.

* ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne: Ransom's thoughts about the upcoming physical fight with the Un-Man, pretty much - which he perceives as a SuicideMission. [[spoiler: Maleldil]] comforts him about it while telling him what he has to do by telling him he's got his back and that they are [[NotSoDifferentRemark aren't so different]] [[spoiler: ("my name is also Ransom")]] - though considering [[spoiler: [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} who]] He is and how literal this name is there]], it borders on AssuranceBackfire.

* MonsterFromBeyondTheVeil: Played with: Weston didn't actually die [[spoiler: until Ransom killed him and pushed the hopefully dead body into lava to be absolutely sure, since the Un-man had played dead on him - twice]], but during a brief reprieve from his [[spoiler: DemonicPossession]], he spoke as if he'd been dead the whole time, and while that didn't make him hostile to Ransom, it made him unnervingly insane, unreasonable, and pitiable. It's implied that the things that happen to the damned really did happen to him during that time.

* {{Neologism}}: Ransom's apprehension interplanetary coffin operated by extraterrestrial angels that is a color beyond colors inspires Lewis to coin the terms "trans-sexual" and "trans-gastronomic." Specifically, Ransom's experience with the trans-colored coffin leads him to believe that at the Last Judgement, the sexual members and digestive systems of humanity will somehow be made to take on dimensions beyond what could be imagined now.

* ThePowerOfHate: An interesting example, in that it's justifiably used by the ''hero''. There's a moment when Ransom is physically battling the evil Dr. Weston [[spoiler:who just happens to be possessed by the Devil]] discovers not just a moment of Perfect Hate, but also just what to do with that hate, which allows him to actually overcome a far stronger enemy. Or to put it another way: knowingly, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu Yes He Did Just Punch Out Cthulhu]]. This is given a [[{{Justified|Trope}} theological justification]] as to why Ransom can do this and morally remain a good guy: Weston is [[spoiler:possessed by The Devil, and thus is pure evil, and pure evil is the only thing that righteously deserves to be hated]]. Note that hate is clasically defined as desire for a thing not to exist.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: The King and Queen of Perelandra are given authority over the world in a multi-dimensional ceremony involving the assembly of all animals, the physical manifestation of the Oyeresu of Malacandra and Perelandra, and a glimpse into the Great Dance of pure joy that awaits all with faith in Maleldil. It takes a year and is so ecstatic that those present don't notice the time pass.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Ransom briefly encounters giant flies and beetles in the caverns under the dry land. Subverted, however. Once the Un-man's presence is removed, and the fear it generated is gone, Ransom also ceases to fear the creepy crawlies, and speculates that they may, in fact, be sentient beings.

* CannotTellALie: When Ransom tries on Perelandra, it is physically painful for him because - although he doesn't know it yet - he'll be acting as [[MissionFromGod Maleldil's representative]] in the upcoming confrontation; who for one thing will have none of it on principle, and for another ''needs'' him to always tell the truth. It's a plot point that his adversary Weston [[DemonicPossession (or rather, the thing that used to be Weston)]] by contrast lies nearly all the time.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: The Un-man may be an ancient creature from the depths of space, but when it appears in ''Perelandra'', it has the appearance of a human body. The problem is, its body is always a little un-lifelike, as if its a corpse operated by a puppeteer (a good visualization is the primary villian in ''[[Film/MenInBlack Men in Black]]''). [[spoiler:After all, the Un-man is the very human Weston possessed by a being of pure mind.]]

* AsskickingLeadsToLeadership: The hero has to prevent TheCorrupter from tempting alien Adam and Eve. He first tries to do this through debate, but the Un-Man relentlessly keeps "winning" the arguments through cunning lies, half truths, obfuscation and diversion. [[spoiler: By [[MissionFromGod direct command]] from God,]] the hero then settles matters [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim more physically]].

* NecessaryEvil: Ransom [[spoiler:killing the Un-Man]] is seen as justified evil to save [[spoiler:Perelandra from a far greater, corrupting evil.]]

* ForbiddenFruit: In this [[TheVerse 'verse]], every planet's sapient inhabitants are given a single rule that is not to be broken. Earth's rule was the TropeNamer. Perelandra's denizens are not allowed to sleep on solid ground, and must return to one of the floating islands in the ocean. Lewis' conclusion seems to be that most of [[Literature/BookOfGenesis Genesis 3]] is merely window-dressing. All that matters is that Adam and Eve were ''tested'' (and failed); the ''form'' the test itself took (whether eating a literal fruit or sleeping on solid ground) is immaterial.