History Literature / TheColourOfMagic

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Death's scythe is mentioned to have bisected a breeze and spoken words, and sliced a candle flame into three parts.

** Kring also mentions a wish to be forged into a ploughshare, a reference to [[Literature/TheBookOfIsaiah Isaiah 2:4]] and [[Literature/TheBookOfMicah Micah 4:3]]
** --> Whoever would be wearing those suits, Rincewind decided, was expecting [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries to boldly go where no man--other than the occasional luckless sailor, who didn't really count--had boldly gone before]].

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Death's scythe is mentioned to have bisected a breeze and spoken words, and sliced a candle flame into three parts.

** Kring also mentions a wish to be forged into a ploughshare, a reference to [[Literature/TheOldTestament Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3]]
** --> Whoever would be wearing those suits, Rincewind decided, was expecting [[Series/StarTrekTOS to boldly go where no man--other than the occasional luckless sailor, who didn't really count--had boldly gone before]].

* AbsudlySharpBlade: Death's scythe is mentioned to have cut a breeze, spoken words, and sliced a candle flame into three parts.

** One of Kring's escapades, which he grumbles about, was spending some time at the bottom of a lake for a time.

* GilliganCut: Rincewind thinks about rescuing Twoflower or buying a fast horse and legging it. A man would have to be a total heel to live Twoflower to the mercy of Ankh-Morpork's crooks... the next paragraph begins with Rincewind having been dragged before the Patrician, after his men caught him trying to flee the city via horse.

It was adapted (with quite a lot of AdaptationDistillation) by Sky TV in 2007, together with ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'' (but the whole thing was known as ''Film/TheColourOfMagic''). It was also adapted into a graphic novel (again with ''The Light Fantastic'') to celebrate the Discworld series' anniversary. Unlike the TV adaptation, this was mostly a straight adaptation of the book, even keeping significant amounts of narrative and not merely the direct plot.

Followed by ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic'', a direct sequel to the story.

** The only spell Rincewind was able to learn. [[spoiler:Subverted, since he doesn't get to use it, at least not in this book. In [[Discworld/TheLightFantastic the next one, though..]]]]

** A peculiar one is that the King of the Wyrmberg calls himself a 13th-level wizard, while the next book will say that there are only 8 levels. Odd because this is the book that introduces and emphasises the number 8 being important, and indeed the idea of wizarding levels is barely brought up in books after ''Discworld/{{Sourcery}}''. In any case, this was justified in the Discworld Companion by saying that levels higher than 8 are just made up by foreign wizards trying to inflate their own titles.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Agatean Empire here seems mainly based on Japan (both the fact that it is closed to outsiders and has only one port, like Tokugawa-era Japan, and Twoflower's tourist stereotype seems mainly based on Japanese tourists). However, its naming conventions are based on Aztec names rendered literally into English. When Pratchett actually sets a [[Discworld/InterestingTimes book]] there, it's mostly based on China, with Japanese items thrown in.

** Hrun says that swamp dragons are extinct, but they prominently appear in later books, such as ''Discworld/GuardsGuards''. For that matter, the description of swamp dragons in this book -- as acid-spewing monsters -- is very different to the small fire-breathing pets of later books.

* SceneryPorn: The epic descriptions of Great A'tuin, the elephants and the Disc. This is often briefly recapped at the start of later novels, but ''The Colour of Magic'' has such descriptions throughout (particularly called-back at the end, where Tethys holds Rincewind over the Edge and he sees them for himself). We finally got to see some of these wonders realised as artwork in ''Discworld/TheLastHero''.

* ShownTheirWork: Before he created the Discworld, Pratchett wrote science fiction, and put some thought into the nature of climate and physics for a functional discworld. Hence the hub is arctic, the edge equatorial (because the sun passes close to the edge). It would also have eight seasons (two summers, when the sun sets or rises near you, two winters when it doesn't, two springs and two falls), hence the general affection for the number eight. The [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness earliest books]] are really the only ones to make much mention of it, thought the characterization lasts. He just focuses more on the stories and people than on Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld. With one or two exceptions.\\\

* ShownTheirWork: Before he started Discworld, Pratchett wrote science fiction, and put some thought into the nature of climate and physics for a functional discworld. Hence the hub is arctic, the edge equatorial (because the sun passes close to the edge). It would also have eight seasons (two summers, when the sun sets or rises near you, two winters when it doesn't, two springs and two falls), hence the general affection for the number eight. The [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness earliest books]] are really the only ones to make much mention of it, thought the characterization lasts. He just focuses more on the stories and people than on Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld. With one or two exceptions.
** Every other book ignores the fact that a Disc year is 800 days long and treats 'a year' as being like one on Earth. This was explained in the Discworld Companion as farmers treating the 400 days' single cycle through the seasons as 'a year' and ignoring the fact that the sun rises on different sides in alternating years, and most ordinary people use the farmers' definition rather than the wizards' one. "You plough, you sow, it grows, you harvest--that's a year, no matter what some daft man in Ankh-Morpork says".

** The plural and adjective for dwarf are dwarves and dwarven respectively, as in ''TheLordOfTheRings'' (and its many imitators). Pratchett would not switch to 'dwarfs' and 'dwarfish' until a few books later.

** Kring the talking sword mentions a notch that came from an enemy wearing an octiron collar. Likely a reference to Gimli and Legolas' BodyCountCompetition in ''Literature/TheTwoTowers'', Gimli's axe was notched from the forty-second orc, who had an iron collar.

** Death acts psychotically, randomly killing people out of spite, unlike his later sympathetic view on humanity, seeing his role as a duty and not being the one who decides who dies and when.

* QuietCryForHelp: A variation on this trope is seen when Rincewind tries to take advantage of the fact that only he speaks Twoflower's language to warn Rincewind about his choice of lodging.

** Kring the talking sword mentions a notch that came from an enemy wearing an octiron collar. Likely a reference to Gimli and Legolas' BodyCountCompetition in TheTwoTowers, Gimli's axe was notched from the forty-second orc, who had an iron collar.

** For that matter, perfectly reversed in the German translation, where Twoflower is named Zweiblum ("Zweiblumen" actually is the plural form and would correspond to "Twoflowers"; also, the German translator rendered Twoflower as Zweiblum to make it sound like a genuine German [[labelnote:note]] contrary to popular perception, not exclusively Jewish, despite the the ''-blum'' ending [[/labelnote]] name). The name of the aforementioned counterpart is, obviously, reverse-translated into Jack Twoflower.

* DownerEnding: Rincewind and Twoflower fall off the edge of the world. However, they survive in the next book.

->''On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet ...''

* TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons (The VancianMagic system, in which spells take up a certain amount of space in one's head, and are usually named after their creator - also a scene in which the gods literally play dice with the fates of men, [[RandomEncounters teleporting a troll into Rincewind's path]])
* Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser (Bravd and the Weasel, and the whole opening chapters with Ankh-Morpork burning. The initial characterization of Death as an actively malevolent being who directly kills people was also taken from here. There are also some noticeable similarities between the plot and some of the characters in ''The Lure of the Wyrm'' and Leiber's ''The Lords of Quarmall''. The name of the city Ankh-Morpork is only coincidentally similar to Leiber's Lankhmar, though; Pratchett has denied being consciously influenced).
* Creator/HPLovecraft (Bel-Shamharoth's temple)
* Literature/ConanTheBarbarian (Hrun the Barbarian -- note that Creator/RobertEHoward used quite a few {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and indeed considered Franchise/CthulhuMythos canonical in Conan's world)

* [[Literature/DragonridersOfPern Pern]] (The Dragons of the Wyrmberg, especially since the riders use exclamation marks in their names in a similar way to how [=McCaffrey's=] Dragonriders use apostrophes)

* AndroclesLion: A fairly straight example; Rincewind saves a frog from being swept over the Edge and it later turns out to have had The Lady "riding in its mind". Being that The Lady is...The Lady, it is implied she set this up herself

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: [[EldritchAbomination Bel-Shamharoth]]. "He was not Evil, for even Evil has a certain vitality; Bel-Shamharoth was the flip side of the coin of which both Good and Evil together make up only one side".

* CheapGoldCoins: played with. Ankh-Morporkian "gold pieces" are actually "gold-ish", containing less actual gold than seawater. The coins Twoflower brings with him, however, are solid gold - he comes from the Agatean Empire, where gold is a very common metal - and he frequently pays for meals with enough gold to buy the restaurant out of business.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: A LOT. Let's see -

* PalatePropping: Rincewind props open the Luggage's lid before he dares remove some packed food and water from it. Soon as he's finished doing so, the Luggage subverts this trope by ever-so-deliberately closing its lid, grinding the wooden prop into powder.

** Hrun says that swamp dragons are extinct, but they prominently appear in later books, such as ''Discworld/GuardsGuards''. But then, Rincewind notes to himself that he's never seen Hrun outside of Ahnk-Morpork before, and when Hrun is out doing the heroing thing he's very different from the drunken lout Rincewind has previously seen. It's quite possible that swamp dragons are extinct apart from being kept as pets and he's never noticed them in cities because on arrival in any city Hrun goes into the first tavern and drinks until he runs out of money or bartender's patience. For that matter, the description of swamp dragons in this book -- as acid-spewing monsters -- is very different to the small fire-breathing pets of later books.

** Rincewind is almost kind of a {{Jerkass}} who shamelessly fleeces Twoflower out of his money and only protects him because the Patrician will kill him if he doesn't. However, you can't blame him due to how terrible his life was beforehand.

* Literature/ConanTheBarbarian (Hrun the Barbarian -- note that Creator/RobertEHoward used quite a few {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, and indeed considered CthulhuMythos canonical in Conan's world)