History Literature / Trainspotting

** Renton has ginger hair in the book. In the film, he has short, cropped hair.

* AdaptedOut: Most of the group (most noticeably Matty, Davie and Second Prize) don't appear in the film, due to the book having LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.
** Most signficantly, Mark's older brother, who in the book serves in the Army until he is killed by terrorists in Northern Ireland, is absent from the film.

** Tommy loves Iggy Pop so much that he bought a ticket...on the same date as his girlfriend's birthday.

* BarBrawl: In the movie, Begbie starts one by tossing his empty pint glass off the balcony to the bar below, and shatters on a young woman's head. Slamming his knife on the table and rubbing his hands together with glee, he goes downstairs and declares that nobody is to leave the bar until the culprit is found. When asked by the girl's boyfriend who he is, Begbie simply [[GroinAttack kicks him in the balls]], starting a massive brawl.

* BatterUp: In the novel, Sick Boy makes use of one to kill a dog who had attacked its owner (who had done so because Sick Boy [[GroinAttack shot him in the balls with an air rifle]]). He lampshades its use, noting that nobody on the east side of the Atlantic ocean keeps a baseball bat for playing baseball.

* ButtMonkey: Poor, poor Spud. He always screws up.

* TheCanKickedHim: Nobody dies in them, but toilets provide the setting for some of the movie's nastiest scenes, and at one point Begbie beats a man in a pub toilet until his blood mixes with the urine.

* CharacterDevelopment: The novel is about, in part, Mark's development from heroin addict into the mature adult that appears in ''Porno''.

* CharacterFilibuster: Renton's "Choose life" rant.
** Serves as an IronicEcho as this is what Renton states he intends to do [[spoiler:with the money he stole from his friends.]]

* ComfortingTheWidow: Spud's mother receives this from Renton and his parents, but Begbie twists it into a rant that blames her for her son's imprisonment. In the book, Renton says: "There were no sacred cows for Begbie. Not even old ones from Leith whose laddie had just gone to prison."
** Additionally, Mark puts in a great deal of effort comforting his brother Billy's widow immediately after his funeral.

* CompositeCharacter: Several in the film. Justified in that the book had such a huge cast that they had to be trimmed for the film.
** Matty's death is given to Tommy in the film, whilst Spud inherits some of Second Prize's character flaws. The unfortunate incident involving Davie Mitchell is also given to Spud in the film.

* DemotedToExtra: Gav Temperley had a big part in the book. In the film, he's in the background of a couple of scenes, and tells Renton how Tommy died.
* DescentIntoAddiction: Not the major characters, most of whom are addicts at the outset of the story, but several minor characters undergo this, most notably Tommy, who is introduced to heroin by Renton after his girlfriend dumps him and ultimately contracts HIV.
* DespairEventHorizon: It's implied that, for all his faults, Sick Boy is still a pretty decent guy. Until his daughter dies of starvation. What Renton says about this afterwards provides the page quote for this trope: "It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned."

* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: Tommy has "the virus" but never knew he'd gone "full-blown". He officially died of toxoplasmosis, an opportunistic infection that attacks immuno-compromised people. Renton had to get tested for something that he may have also contracted, but fortunately for him his test came up negative. Clearly his disease was AIDS but it's never used in direct reference to him. HIV was brought up during Renton's GoingColdTurkey nightmare, but at no point in the film is it stated directly that Tommy has, or that Renton doesn't have AIDS.
** Though the phrase "AIDS Junkie scum" spray painted on Tommy's door might have been a clue.

* DrugsAreBad: Seemingly averted at first, but ultimately played straight. Renton gives an articulate and fierce defence of his lifestyle in the beginning, and the gang seem to be living fast and carefree at times, but tragedy and horror strike often. Ultimately Renton leaves the life.
** Renton's mother is on Valium, making her, as Renton sardonically observes, also a drug addict, albeit in a more socially acceptable way.

* EruditeStoner: Sick Boy.

** Sick Boy definitely cultivates the image, but it is Renton (at least in the book) that is perhaps closer to actually being this, constantly ruminating on his views on the world, quickly getting a grasp at psychoanalytical ideas when he is being examined and having an understanding on the overall ideas of Kierkegaard. Spud in the book is a failed example of this, constantly saying vaguely coherent rants on the importance of love and taking care of animals. However, he deserves credit for his astute observations regarding other characters, and is fairly well read despite some of it being beyond his comprehension e.g. ''Literature/CrimeAndPunishment''.

* GoingColdTurkey: Renton tries to break free of his heroin addiction this way, but doesn't go all the way.
** After his overdose his parents lock him in his room and force Cold Turkey on him.

* GroinAttack: Renton does this to a pitbull with an air rifle.

** Begbie also tends to fight dirty.
* HairTriggerTemper: Francis Begbie is almost as dangerous to his "mates" as he is to everyone else. Renton even outlines a number of Begbie's myths that the gang must play along with, so as not to get beaten up.

* [[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming Idiosyncratic Chapter Naming]]: Some of the more chilling heroin problems are narrated by Renton in, well, Junk Dilemmas No. 63-67, with italics for emphasis. He only manages to get up to Straight Dilemmas No. 1 by the end of the novel, although his chapters in Porno could easily have been named as such.
** More significantly, each grouping of chapters juxtaposes Renton's long and hard transition from a full time junky to a reforming addict against his need to leave Leith behind: Kicking, Relapsing, Kicking Again, Blowing It, Exile, Home and Exit.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Begbie arries around sharpened knitting needles in the book, and is said to be not much cop when it comes to a fair fight without weapons.

** The sleazy, drug-dealing, pimping Sick Boy is supposedly an extremely disgusting human being, but compared to Francis Begbie and Alan Venters, he comes off as just a lovable rogue. [[spoiler:He does become a lot worse in the sequel. He's not above blackmailing city officials and pimping out girls for his own ends.]]
*** Subverted when you look at the trilogy overall. Sick Boy ''wants'' you to think of him as a loveable rogue, all the better for him to manipulate you. He's fooled his friends, anyone he can get business off of, his mother and sisters, Renton's parents (and they are also taken in by Franco and Billy's public personas so [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter clearly aren't the best judges of character]]) and of course the innumerable women he's been with. He only had two narrated chapters in the original, but got many more in ''Literature/{{Skagboys}}'' and ''Literature/{{Porno}}'' which go a very long way to show you what a scumbag he really is. Combined with other characters narrating about finding out sooner or later about his true nature, the reader is in no doubts he that is an extremely ropey, unlikeable individual. [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation It was to his benefit that Renton and Spud could have been interpreted as giving him a bad press]] in the original.

* IronicEcho: The "Choose Life" speech. The first time Renton delivers it, he's being sarcastic and cynical. The second time, he's fully sincere about living that life.

* LimitedSocialCircle: Averted, at least in the book, where there are tons of people in the main group.

* TheNapoleon: In the book, Begbie is a tattooed and physically massive bully, but director Danny Boyle cast the relatively short Robert Carlyle on the belief that smaller guys are more foul-tempered.

* NobodyPoops: Thoroughly averted in a disgusting scene where Spud has a hilarious accident with shit, piss and vomit (in the book, semen as well - and Davie is the victim, rather than Spud).

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Even more thoroughly and explicitly averted than NobodyPoops, and even more {{Squick}}tastic.
** In fact, almost every chapter narrated by a female character features an aversion of this. (Welsh possibly has some difficulty writing female characters.)

* PosthumousCharacter: Mark's heavily disabled brother Davie.
** He's present in ''Literature/{{Skagboys}}'', until his unfortunate passing.

* SameLanguageDub: The first 20 minutes of the film were redubbed to make the thick Scottish accents comprehensible to an American audience. The Region 1 DVD releases restored the original audio.
** Interestingly, the subtitles (or at least the Netflix ones) have the original slang; bird/girl, post/mail, skag/smack etc.

** Unless you drink as much as Second Prize, you're not really an alcoholic in {{Creator/Irvine Welsh}}'s literary universe. This is Scotland, after all.

* TheSociopath: Begbie, an AxCrazy psychopath who [[DisproportionateRetribution glasses a man for spilling his pint]], carries around sharpened knitting needles to stab people with, and [[DomesticAbuser beats his pregnant girlfriend]], all without a hint of remorse.

* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: In the film, Begbie robs a jewellery shop with a [[WeaponForIntimidation replica pistol]] and hides out in Renton's bedsit. They end up having to share the bed, where Begbie twitches and convulses in his sleep. When Sick Boy joins them and the three of them end up sharing, Renton decides he's had enough and sends them to a flat he has trouble renting out.

** Most readers probably have this reaction as soon as they start reading the book's dense phonetics. [[ItMakesSenseInContext One gets used to it, however.]]

* UnsettlingGenderReveal: In the movie, but not the novel. One of Begbie's club hookups turns out to be packing a salami surprise. His reaction is [[OhCrap predictable]], though much less violent than might have been anticipated. %% In the book, this happened to ''Renton'', not Begbie. However, as opposed to panicking, Mark admits to probably just being bisexual and ends up getting to third base with him. Eventually, the violently homophobic Begbie caught Renton fondling the transvestite and beat him until he couldn't walk for a couple days.

* VillainProtagonist: Mark Renton. He is after all, a heroin addict who shoplifts, sells drugs, takes sexual advantage of his late brother's widow, and [[spoiler:steals thousands of pounds from his friends. He promises the audience that he's going to lead a normal life from then on, however.]]

* WouldntHitAGirl: Viciously averted by Begbie and Alan Venters. Subverted by Second Prize: when he sees Venters beating up his girlfriend in the pub, he remembers his dad telling him never to hit a girl, advice he claims to have followed; but then observes that holding his girlfriend so she can't walk away from their arguments doesn't really count. Renton disagrees, and says it's the same principle.

It was adapted into a film in 1996 by Creator/DannyBoyle, and was the second of three films from the mid [[TheNineties nineties]] directed by Boyle and starring Creator/EwanMcGregor, along with ''Film/ShallowGrave'' and ''Film/ALifeLessOrdinary''. It also features Creator/JonnyLeeMiller as Sick Boy, Ewen Bremner as Spud, a scarily emaciated Creator/KevinMcKidd as Tommy, Creator/RobertCarlyle as Franco Begbie and a youthful Creator/KellyMacdonald as Diane. Allegedly due to a head cold, Kevin [=McKidd=] missed being on the iconic poster.

** Tommy loves Iggy Pop so much that he bought a ticket...on the same date as his girlfriend's anniversary.

** Diane sings "Temptation" by Music/NewOrder in the shower.

** Interestingly, the subtitles (or at least the Netflix ones) have the original slang; bird/girl, post/mail, skag/smack etc.

The book has a 2012 prequel, ''Literature/{{Skagboys}}'', which chart the descent of the main characters into drug addiction, violence, crime and defeatism. The 2002 sequel, ''Literature/{{Porno}}'', catches up with them ten years later and follows mainly Sick Boy and Renton as they work through their issues with each other while producing a pornographic movie. And in 2016, Welsh wrote ''Literature/TheBladeArtist'' which focuses on an apparently reformed Begbie in the present day. ''Dead Men's Trousers'' is the sequel to Porno (following the cliffhanger set up by ''Artist''), due March, 2018. Welsh has teased that [[CharacterDeath one of the Big Four will die in this novel]], and that the new depravity for them to profit by will be the illegal organ trade. Together, the quintet of novels form the Leith trilogy of addiction, brutality and soul which has come to define Welsh's output.

The characters also make other appearances in passing throughout Welsh's works, perhaps most notably in ''Literature/{{Glue}}'' and it's follow-up ''A Decent Ride''. In some ways, the character traits of the Big Four of the ''Trainspotting'' series are reflected in the "B team" of ''Glue'', but with important differences.

* BiTheWay: Mark ends up hooking up with a few men over the course of the novel, and doesn't see it as a big deal, although he feels more comfortable with women.
** AdaptationalSexuality: Mark's flings with men are absent from the film, but the relaxed attitude towards same sex relations remains in place, making him AmbiguouslyBi in the film.

The story follows a group of young Scottish men who are close friends, and their lives of drinking, sex, family problems, HIV, death, and most of all, heroin addiction. The protagonists are Mark Renton, an on-and-off heroin junkie, and his friends Danny "Spud" Murphy, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, Francis "Franco" Begbie (these four are known as the Big Four characters of the franchise), and Thomas "Tommy" Laurence; childhood pals, they are beginning to drift apart. It's all very darkly humorous ''and then a baby dies''. Noted for its cynical and occasionally shocking tone, the novel has been called "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wise and grown eloquent".

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!!Provides examples of the following tropes:

->''"Still, failure, success, what is it? Whae gies a fuck. We aw live, then we die, in quite a short space ay time n aw. That's it; end ay fuckin story."''
-->-- '''Renton''' ''(the book)''

--> --'''Renton''' ''(the film)''

--> --'''Renton''' ''(the book)''

* ArtifactTitle: The only reference to trainspotting in the book was omitted from the movie.

** Danny Boyle has implied that ''Film/ShallowGrave'' is also set in this universe.

* UnsettlingGenderReveal: In the movie, but not the novel. One of Begbie's club hookups turns out to be packing a salami surprise. His reaction is [[OhCrap predictable]], though much less violent than might have been anticipated. In the book, this happened to ''Renton'', not Begbie. However, as opposed to panicking, Mark admits to probably just being bisexual and ends up getting to third base with him. Eventually, the violently homophobic Begbie caught Renton fondling the transvestite and beat him until he couldn't walk for a couple days.

* MushroomSamba: Inverted - most of the characters' hallucinations take place when they AREN'T on drugs, and aren't pleasant at all.

** Sick Boy has black hair in the book. In the film, he's blond.

** Mark's flings with men are absent from the film, but the relaxed attitude towards same sex relations remains in place, making him AmbiguouslyBi in the film.

* BrokenAce: Second Prize.

* ButtMonkey: Spud!

** The prequel focuses on Sick Boy's [[StartOfDarkness descent into villainy]], showing how he developed from a LovableRogue to a [[TheSociopath borderline-sociopath]].

* ChaoticStupid: Begbie strays into this territory frequently, given that he insists not only on being a violent and often sadistic brawler, but often doing it within plain sight of people who are liable to call the police or remember his face. At one point, after kicking in a man's head and accidentally slicing open Spud's hand, he stands right in front of the bar and various shocked witnesses and demands that Renton take at least a minute to "bring me doon a fukken ciggareh" before even considering leaving — or taking his injured friend to a hospital. He's also been known to attack bystanders for eating chips too loudly. Neutral AxeCrazy might be a better description of his alignment, come to think of it.

* TheFilmOfTheBook

* GambitRoulette: Used and lampshaded in the novel's ''Bad Blood'' chapter, where the HIV-positive character Davie pulls this on Alan Venters, the man who gave the HIV to the former's girlfriend by raping her, thus leading to Davie's own contraction of the virus. His plan is to make friends with a dying Venters, so that he is allowed to visit him in hospital, and also seduces the mother of the rapist's only son so that one day she may trust him enough to let him babysit for her. When this happens, [[spoiler: Davie drugs the child with a sleep-inducing substance and takes pictures of him, making it look like he violently raped and murdered the boy. Then he shows the pictures to Venters on his deathbed and suffocates him with a pillow, thus filling his last moments in life with immeasurable suffering]].ThePlan depended greatly on random chance (most significantly on Venters staying alive long enough for all the pieces to fall into place), a fact that Davie is well aware of.

* ImprobableWeaponUser / ImprovisedWeapon: As an accomplished brawler, Begbie makes plenty of use of these. The book mentions that he has an arsenal of Stanley knives, knuckledusters, sharpened screwdrivers, and knitting needles (because there's less chance they get stuck in the victim's ribcage). Renton states that he does not actually rate Begbie as a terribly strong fighter without his blades.

** interestingly, the subtitles (or at least the Netflix ones) have the original slang; bird/girl, post/mail, skag/smack etc.

* AmbiguouslyBi / EveryoneIsBi: All the main male characters that are in relationships are in relationships with women, but they all also seem to be quite physically affectionate with each other, at least when they're high. [[ArmouredClosetGay Except Begbie]]. Renton speculates at one point that human beings are bi by default, and it's social pressure that causes most to conform to being heterosexual. The film celebrates the idea by starting off with a gay (if heroin-induced) snog.