History Literature / ThatHideousStrength

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments definitely qualifies for ''both'' Stalinist By Any Other Name ''and'' Fascist By Any Other Name. On the one hand, Lord Feverstone talks about "[[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide liquidation of the backwards races]]" being part of their overall plans. On the other hand, they want to take a Great Leap Forward and bring about the New Human Being; and any time any of them talks about their aims, goals, or politics; it's a verbatim quote of historical Stalinist doctrines and philosophy. So are their methods: befitting both they take control of the newspapers, and have a brutal institutional police that is both rather reich-ish and rather Soviet. They pair their philosophy with a scientific veneer like the Nazis; but pathologise dissenters as mentally ill or undeveloped and think they have discovered the science of history like the Stalinists. Their head director, Horace Jules, is good at giving speeches, but rather incompetent overall--[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything sound]] [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler familiar]]?. For contrast, their head of security, "Fairy" Hardcastle, is a gender flipped version of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria Beria]] (written decades before him in a lucky guess). They even have some literally [[LegionsOfHell diabolical]] MadScience going on, giving them the rare feat of having shades of StupidJetpackHitler and {{Ghostapo}} at the same time!

* MacGuffinSuperPerson: The entire reason N.I.C.E. wants Bragdon Wood is [[spoiler:to find Merlin, who they know is entombed there. They want him for his magical knowledge, but this particular Mac Guffin Person turns out to have will of his own and, upon waking, goes to join the heroes.]] Jane is sought after by both sides for her DreamingOfThingsToCome and DreamSpying abilities.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments definitely qualifies for ''both'' Stalinist By Any Other Name ''and'' Fascist By Any Other Name. On the one hand, Lord Feverstone talks about "[[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide liquidation of the backwards races]]" being part of their overall plans. On the other hand, they want to take a Great Leap Forward and bring about the New Human Being; and any time any of them talks about their aims, goals, or politics; it's a verbatim quote of historical Stalinist doctrines and philosophy. So are their methods: befitting both they take control of the newspapers, and have a brutal institutional police that is both rather reich-ish and rather Soviet. They pair their philosophy with a scientific verneer like the Nazis; but pathologise dissenters as mentally ill or undeveloped and think they have discovered the science of history like the Stalinists. Their head director, Horace Jules, is good at giving speeches, but rather incompetent overall--[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything sound]] [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler familiar]]?. For contrast, their head of security, "Fairy" Hardcastle, is a gender flipped version of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria Beria]] (written decades before him in a lucky guess). They even have some literally [[LegionsOfHell diabolical]] MadScience going on, giving them the rare feat of having shades of StupidJetpackHitler and {{Ghostapo}} at the same time!

* OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous: The Oyeresu have genders, but do not have sexes in the biological sense. A quote about the Oyarsa of Jupiter and the Oyarsa of Saturn:

* PoliceState: The college town, as ruled over by The N.I.C.E., qualifies: numerous police were everywhere, protecting constructions workers who were shooing people out of their own homes and tearing everything down.

* PossessionBurnout: When Merlin acts as the vessel for the ''oyeresu'', he does it knowing that it will destroy him -- the human body just can't take that level of angelic power.

* SelfDisposingVillain: N.I.C.E.'s secret masters hold them in just as much contempt as they do all other human beings. [[spoiler:Once Merlin has unleashed the might of the ''oyeresu'' upon their base and ruined their plans for good, they, as Ransom aptly puts it, "break their tools," driving the humans under their close control to destroy one another, and then themselves for their own twisted amusement.]]

* SpannerInTheWorks: The tramp is a crazy homeless wandering tinsmith who gets kidnapped by the N.I.C.E. and mistaken for Merlin, and his utterly unafraid and uncurious behavior gives them no reason to suspect they have an impersonator on their hands. The N.I.C.E.'s most important plan is to team up with Merlin and use his magic to bolster their own power, so just by telling his captors nothing, not even though nonverbal cues, he manages to stall one of the most powerful conspiracies Great Britain ever faced, without even knowing anything about it!

* TakeThat: Horace Jules, the deluded and easily manipulated Director of N.I.C.E serves as one to H. G. Wells. While C. S. Lewis was a fan of Wells' science fiction, he felt Wells "hocked his talent for a pot of message" and disliked his later books which were basically one AuthorTract after another.

* ToWinWithoutFighting: St. Anne's plans to win not by force, but relying on the ''eldila''. While [=MacPhee=] wants to use human might to defeat the N.I.C.E., Ransom and the others know that isn't an option. [[spoiler:They succeeded, with Merlin and the Oyeresu disrupting the Institute's plans]].
* TouchedByVorlons: Ransom appears to be divinely young as a result of his journey to the eternal paradise of Venus. On the [[EvilCounterpart evil side of things]] - Frost and Wither both have something really ''weird'' and unnatural about them. That bilocation thing, for instance...

* VillainousBreakdown: Inverted - Frost and Wither have lost so much of their humanity that they don't have emotions left to react to the total collapse of their plans, and instead lapse into something close to a [[DemonicPossession demon-controlled]] fugue state.

* ColdSleepColdFuture: Merlin's experience of the modern world, which has replaced many of the close personal connections he is familiar with machines that serve similar functions, the nations of the earth are internally and externally divided, and the magic of his time is almost impossible to perform anymore.
* CrazyHomelessPeople: In a convoluted series of events that could've driven him crazy if he weren't already, a homeless man who barely speaks english (and often isn't comprehensible when he does) called "the tramp" is mistaken for Merlin, [[CrazyEnoughToWork mooches off of the baffled N.I.C.E]] [[FearlessFool while not being afraid or even curious about them]], then the ''real'' Merlin shows up and casts a mind-control spell on the tramp, finally forcing him to ''impersonate'' Merlin as part of the real Merlin's plans to destroy the N.I.C.E. For his part, the tramp himself was unaware of all of this, and just wanted to eat and drink as much as possible. It's difficult to say whether C.S. Lewis wanted this PlayedForLaughs, PlayedForDrama, or both.
* CrucialCross: The event which convinces Mark to disobey the will of the ever-so exclusive N.I.C.E. is their command to crush a crucifix beneath his feet. Mark was never a Christian, yet he cannot find it in himself to stomp on the image of one so vulnerable. His vain desire to be part of something exclusive and powerful like N.I.C.E. is overwhelmed by the sheer evil of destroying something so helpless and by that helplessness, the hideous nature of N.I.C.E. is exposed to Mark.

* DeathWorld: In Professor Filostrato's telling, the Moon mountains so sharp that you could impale a man on them and undiluted heat so intense a human body would instantly disintegrate into moondust. It was not always so; there was a race that "cleansed itself" and lives beneath its surface, and Frost hopes to follow their example.

** {{Inverted|Trope}} with Merlin, who becomes the vessel for five ''oyeresu'' -- angelic possession. Even though he knows that [[PossessionBurnout channelling their power will destroy him]].
* DistractedByMyOwnSexy: Flirted with, particularly when the ladies of Logres are dressing up. Also {{Averted}} in an interesting way in the dress-up scene. The dressing room contains no mirrors, and none of the women can see why the dress ''they're'' wearing is so incredibly beautiful on them, though they can all see it on each other - which illustrates the point (on humility - think of others, not of yourself). Jane Studdock for example thinks her dress is too fussy, though blue ''is'' her color. But the others like it on her so she wears it - and promptly forgets all about it in the interest of choosing dresses for the others.

* GodsHandsAreTied: The angels and demons stay under cover partly to avoid escalating their conflict into a premature Armageddon, but also because of the Seventh Law: God won't send down extraterrestrial [[OurAngelsAreDifferent eldila]] to the inside of the moon's orbit until armageddon...though there are loopholes in this law. Yet another reason why the [[CelestialParagonsAndArchangels planetary powers]] don't intervene directly is because they're so powerful, their untempered power would destroy Earth outright.

** It's most visible when Jane (who ends up with the heroes more or less only because they take her in to protect her from the villains who want to exploit her DreamSpying ability), by herself in the garden, thinks about how she doesn't fit in with the supernaturalistic side because "‘Religion’ was [...] something steaming up from specially gifted souls towards a receptive Heaven" (and she isn't thus gifted). She wishes she could be like the others on her side who instead of this mental picture of religion have a notion of God and the assurance of divine help, but... She gets really distressed about it, and this gets worse and worse until "for one moment she had a ridiculous and scorching vision of a world in which God Himself would never understand, never take her with full seriousness." God, who is implied to be in some subtle form personally present, and definitely listening - and strenously in disagreement with this hopeless image and having none of it - steps in before she reaches the DespairEventHorizon. Instead of leaving her [[YouAreNotAlone alone]] with the image of an indifferent God who'd never truly understand her, He lets her have a quick glimpse of what He's ''actually'' like; and obliges to her wish for DivineIntervention by gifting her a religious experience - moreover one that in form ecchoes more or less exactly the form she'd described it in her thoughts as to how that assured divine help she'd wish existed instead of religion would look like.

* KingInTheMountain: Merlin, resting under Bragdon Wood in. Additionally, Enoch, Moses, Elijah, King Arthur, and, at the end of this book, Ransom himself are living eternal lives on Perelandra, awaiting the final salvation of the silent planet.

** For a very long time, there was apparently a decree from God that the planetary angels were not to act within the Moon's orbit. Much of the Enemy's plan in ''That Hideous Strength'' revolved around the idea that mankind was cut off from direct celestial aid. Unfortunately for the Enemy, when he arranged for humans to leave the moon's orbit and interfere with Malacandra and Perelandra, the planetary angels were freed to interfere with Thulecandra in its turn.

* BenevolentAlienInvasion: The ''eldila'', peaceful aliens who live in the vacuum of space, have covertly infiltrated Earth to undo the corruption caused the Bent One. There's even a rumor the master of the ''eldila'', Maleldil the Young, has personally intervened in the matter.

* CastFromHitPoints: A variation: it's implied that using Atlantean magic had a subtle negative effect on the user's health, though it wasn't specific what that was. The characters didn't seem to know exactly what it was, themselves, though they can sense that Merlin has been somehow withered: his quietness is "like the quiet of a gutted building".

** When Ransom is explaining to Merlin how [[Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet he was taken captive to Mars]], he uses the phrases "enginry" and "natural philosophy" where we might use "technology" and "science". What we today call science really was once considered a branch of philosophy.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The tramp that Belbury picked up thinking he was Merlin survives the story through a mixture of RefugeInAudacity and being so weird that his oddity is mistaken for mysticism. He rarely speaks to his handlers, and when left alone with Mark conspiratorially rambles about toasted cheese, thinking it's some kind of spy code, while helping himself to the free food while it lasts.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To fellow Inkling Charles Williams' ''Descent Into Hell''. Both books feature supernatural goings-on taking place in a quaint British town that turn out to be the work of demons and both feature a tramp as minor, but important characters. The major difference between them is ''That Hideous Strength'' is a work of science fiction and Williams' ''Descent Into Hell'' is a fantasy thriller.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: A downplayed example: Ivy Maggs couldn't handle the discussions about opening a decapitated man's head (that was being kept alive artificially) and experimenting with the MyBrainIsBig trope, so she declared she'd had enough and left the room. She didn't abandon the good guys; she just walked away from that conversation.

If you get the feeling that this one is a hackjob copy of ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' or ''Literature/Fahrenheit451'', [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny you actually have it backwards]]. This book came first: and right about the time of the atomic bomb. Creator/GeorgeOrwell actually wrote a snazzy review (titled "The Scientists Take Over") and sang the book's praises, with the caveat that he thought it was weakened by the book's supernatural premise, since of ''course'' good will beat evil if angels are involved. The book is also riddled with Christian allegory, although less overtly so than ''Literature/{{Perelandra}}'' was. Slightly. Perhaps it may be most generously summed up in the words of Lewis's friend and fellow Anglican apologist, Creator/DorothyLSayers: "less good but still full of good stuff." On the other hand, another friend, Creator/JRRTolkien, dubbed it "That Hideous Book".