Funny / Book of the New Sun

• A very dark example- Severian tells the story of a lieutenant of the guard who was dared to join the Torturer's Guild for a holiday feast. He was rumored to have been seated on a chair of heated iron or other outlandish tortures. Severian, however, claims that the guard was treated hospitably, which only freaked him out more, thinking that they were lulling him into a false sense of security. He eventually shot himself in the mouth.
  • Even if the guard wasn't hurt, Severian's description of the Guild's feasts is pretty scary. Decorations include a spiked torture wheel. Music includes the guild's hymn called the "Fearful Song" as well as music played on flutes made of bone or instruments designed to sound like screaming men. What makes this funny is that Severian doesn't realize that others might find it scary.
• Severian claims that animal trainers are literally married to their animals. This is generally interpreted as Severian misunderstanding the term "animal husbandry."
• After Severian receives a letter falsely claiming that Thecla was alive, he is in such a hurry to leave that he steals a mount without giving it a second thought. Later, he meets up with his ally Vodalus, who complains off-handedly that somebody had stolen his mount when he went to Saltus.
• Severian expressing, in his usual verbose way, that he did not find a particular destrier ride very comfortable.
  Men have numberless advantages over women and for that reason are rightly charged to protect them, yet there is one great one women may boast over men: No woman has ever had her organs of generation crushed between her own pelvis and the bony spine of one of these galloping brutes.