- Clarabelle and the two test tubes.
- The letter pictures in TDOTL involving Scapegrace. At first, they're of pretty lady Scapegrace doing a sexy pose. Then, they're of zombie Scapegrace doing the same thing. Slightly less sexy.
- The fact that "vaurien" is french for "loon" or "idiot".
Both the words "Vaurien" and "Scapegrace" can be used to mean a bad person, so his name means
"Bad-Guy Bad-guy".
- Pretty much all the book dedications are hilarious.
- Stephanie notices that Skulduggery is a walking, talking skeleton. This conversation occurs.
Skulduggery: Are you going to faint?
Stephanie: I've never fainted before but I think you might be right.
Skulduggery: Would you like me to catch you?
Stephanie: If you wouldn't mind?
Skulduggery: Not at all.
Stephanie: [faints]
- During what is essentially the equivalent of the meadow scene, we get this...
- During another moment with Caelan, Valkyrie asks him to stop making so many proclamations about his undying love for her. This is the response:
- This exchange from the first book.
- Also, this:
Skulduggery: Besides, I need you out here in case something goes
horribly, horribly wrong.
Stephanie: What do I do then?
[Beat]Skulduggery: ...Panic.
- And, when they're in the caves underneath Gordon's house:
Valkyrie: What is that?
Skulduggery: That, my dear Valkyrie, is what we call a monster.
Valkyrie: You don't know what it is, do you?
Skulduggery: I told you what it is, it's a horrible monster. Now shut up before it comes over here and eats us.
- Most scenes involving Billy-Ray Sanguine.
- After a fight, Sanguine disappears into the ground. Thinking he's gone, Tanith insults him, only to have him pop back up again. There's a bit of Witty Banter between Valkyrie, Tanith, and Sanguine, and then we get this:
Sanguine: When you have served your purpose, I swear to you I'm gonna kill you for
free.
[disappears][Beat][pops back up]Sanguine: Or at least half price.
[sinks back down] - When Billy-Ray Sanguine gets his razor stolen.
Billy-Ray: Women. They always take stuff from me. Bits and pieces of my
soul. But now you take my damn straight razor? How am I supposed to kill people? How am I supposed to even
shave? - "But I drove here."
- "I seem to have lost track of this speech, I'm not sure where it is going, but I know where it started and that's what I want you to remember. Has anyone seen my hat?"
Valyrie: Well my morale is certainly boosted.
Skulduggery: Really?
Valkyrie: God, no. That was awful.
- Kenspeckle is pissed off at Skulduggery. So he makes him wear a pink hospital gown covered in elephants and bunnies.
Skulduggery: The important thing is that I can wear this gown and still maintain my dignity.
Valkyrie: Yes. Yes, you can. - Vaurien Scapegrace enters a funeral home in the hopes of being embalmed. The following scene must be read to be believed.
- Erskine Ravel's response to Skulduggery suggesting that making him an Elder wasn't such a bad idea.
- "Your reflection is still naked, by the way."
- Clarabelle's job interview with Doctor Nye somehow manages to be a Crowning Moment of Funny and Nightmare Fuel at the same time.
Clarabelle: I have no medical or scientific training to speak of, and no inclination to learn, and I pick things up fairly slowly because of my short attention span.
Nye: But...?
Clarabelle: But what?
Nye: I'm waiting for you to list your good qualities now.
Clarabelle: Those were my good qualities.
- Two words. Zombie Queen.
- Solomon Wreath suggests they pin the whole Melancholia/Death Bringer debacle on Craven, painting him as a magnetic leader whose willingly led the Necromancers astray with his faith, fervour and charisma.
Valkyrie: Charisma?
Wreath: Yes.
Valkyrie: Don’t you think that’s stretching it a little too far?
Wreath: Do you think so?
Valkyrie: Some people will have met him.
Wreath: Hmm. You have a point. OK, then maybe not charisma. I’ll think of some other lie.
- Skulduggery and Dexter Vex, shamelessly teasing Ghastly at the Requiem Ball.
Vex: By the way, all joking aside, do I call you Ghastly or Elder Bespoke?
Ghastly: You can call me whatever you want.
Vex: Thank you Gladys.
Vex: Francoise. Remember her, Ghastly? Remember that weekend we couldn't find you? We thought Mevolent had snatched you away and was torturing you within an inch of your life. Valkyrie, would you like to know what he was really doing that weekend?
Valkyrie: Yes I would.
Ghastly: No she wouldn't.
Skulduggery: I think she would.
Ghastly: If you tell her, I will have the both of you arrested. And possibly flogged.
- The entire The sparrow flies south the for winter scene, but particularly,
Valkyrie: So, if that had been our code, and Dragonclaw had told you that all we have to do is pull a lever, how would you have worked
the sparrow flies south for the winter into the conversation?
Skulduggery: I would have said
Ok, Bison, so you're sure we only need to pull a lever? And he would have said
Yes, and I'd have said
Excellent, thank you. Did you know, by the way, that the sparrow flies south for the winter? And then I'd have punched him.
- Hell, anything involving Bison Dragonclaw can count.
- Valkyrie doesn't like not having a proper weapon.
Valkyrie: You have a gun, Tanith has a sword... I want a stick.
Skulduggery: I'll buy you a stick for Christmas.
- Fletcher verbally castrating Caelan. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome.
- The fact that Skulduggery's subconscious is going around killing people really shouldn't be funny. But then you get this.
Valkyrie: [on the phone] It's me.
Skulduggery: No, it's not. Because then I would be talking to myself and I don't do that any more.
- Valkyrie deciding that dingoes are cute and that she wants one as a pet. While looking after her infant sister.
- Fletcher telling Val he's moving to Australia partly because Australians 'Talk funny.'
- China's Freak Out when Valkyrie accidentally uses the Sceptre of the Ancients and disintegrates her books.
- One of the short stories, Gold, Babies and the Brothers Muldoon, has this golden moment:
- Also, the thing that's thrown him through the roof is a giant, hideous goblin...that's fallen in love with him.
- Then, during a fight scene we get this:
In the middle of the church,
Peg had Skulduggery wrapped up in a bear hug. He was trying to hit her with a section of a broken pew.
- "You put me on a list with Hitler?"
- The running gag in The End Of The World.
Valkyrie: Bloody vampires.
Ryan: That was a vampire? That guy who looked like an accountant?
Skulduggery: We don't talk about vampires.
Ryan: But it was daytime. How could he have been out during the-
Valkyrie: We don't talk about vampires!
- It appears to have tuned into a Never Live It Down thing in Kingdom of the Wicked.
Skulduggery: I also think Valkyrie's ex-boyfriend will come in handy here.
Ravel: [frowning] The dead vampire?
Valkyrie: [glaring] I think he means Fletcher.
Ravel: Oh. Sorry.
Valkyrie: Caelan was never my boyfriend.
Ravel: I didn't mean to-
Ghastly: We don't talk about Caelan.
Ravel: I'm really sorry, Valkyrie. Fletcher's great. He's wonderful. I'm sure he'd be delighted to help, and having a teleporter around will certainly solve some problems. We'll arrange that, we'll get him over to you, start the ball rolling, as it were. Once again, sorry about bring up the vampire.
Ghastly: Why do you keep talking about him?
Ravel: I can't help it.
Now he's all I can think about.Valkyrie: You realise that we can hear you both perfectly well.
- In an otherwise tense scene in which Skulduggery expresses his loathing of China Sorrow to her Alternate, you get this.
Skulduggery: Do I look dead to you?
Alternate China: I refuse to answer ridiculous questions.
- This entire exchange from Death Bringer
"Desmond," her mum said from the couch, "don't poke the baby."
Her dad stopped, looked guilty, then leaned closer. "You may have won this round," he whispered, "but I WILL have my-"
"And don't threaten the baby, either."
"I wasn't," he said, straightening up immediately.
"Just leave her alone. You're annoying her."
"I'm not annoying her. She doesn't even know enough to BE annoyed. She's, what, a week old?"
"She's three months."
"She's three months in OUR years, but how old is she in baby years?"
"Come away from her. Steph, could you pick her up? It's time for her feed."
Valkyrie went to the baby while her dad frowned.
"Why didn't you ask me to pick her up? I was standing right there. Don't you trust me? That's it, isn't it? You don't trust me."
"I do trust you," her mum said. "I just don't trust you a LOT. Stephanie has safe hands."
"You want to see safe hands?" her dad asked. He went to the fruit bowl on the side table, took two apples, and proceeded to juggle them. "See? Safe as anything."
Her mum frowned at him. "Are you proposing you juggle our new-born child?"
"Of course not," he said. "I'd only be able to juggle her if you'd had twins. Otherwise its just throwing."
"Steph," her mum said, "give me my baby and never let your father near her."
"Deal," Valkyrie said, handing her sister over.
- And shortly after the hilarious "Dad dropped me?" scene:
Desmond: Can I please just hold her?
Melissa: I don't think that's wise.
Desmond: A lot of things aren't wise, Melissa. Is crossing the road with your eyes closed wise? No, but I do it anyway.
Melissa: [nods] Stephanie, you're in charge of teaching Alice how to cross the road.
Val: Gotcha.
- Skulduggery's conversations with Baron Vengeous are utterly hilarious.
Skulduggery:So, you married or anything? Do I hear the pitter patter of tiny evil feet?
- Turns out his Alternate Universe counterpart actually is married. To a batshit crazy version of Eliza Scorn. Serpine's deadpan assessment of their marriage adds to the hilarity.
- Skulduggery's abysmal attempt to cheer Valkyrie up after Fletcher gets a new girlfriend. Which includes bringing up Hansard's rejection and asking her if she feels "unattractive".
- Even funnier if you take it as yet another shameless dig at Twilight.
- Valkyrie cheering up Alternate Universe Meritorious. By showing him Angry Birds on her phone in prison.
- While an involuntary sex change borders on Dude, Not Funny! and is later played seriously, Valkyrie's reaction to Thrasher and Scapegraces's new bodies was fairly hilarious.
- Alternate Serpine's "did you get lost on your way to kill me?" comment in Kingdom of the Wicked was quite funny in a very dark way.
- At the start of Kingdom Of the Wicked we get one of the greatest moments in current literature- the Butterfly Scene.
- Also at the start is how Desmond gets rid of a date he set up for Stephanie- he tells them Stephanie has diarrhea. Valkyrie puts it best:
Valkyrie: Mum? Kill him for me will you?
- Kenspeckle getting ready for his date. Bingo.
Valkyrie: You're all dressed up. You
never get dressed up. Are you...? Do you have a
date?
Kenspeckle: Why do you sound so surprised? Because I'm old, is that it? Because I'm an old man and old people shouldn't go out on dates? Because we don't need love or companionship, and we don't get lonely? Is that it? Is that why you're so surprised I have a date?
Valkyrie: No.
It's because you're really grumpy.Kenspeckle: Ah. Yes. I
am rather grumpy. But what can I say? Some women like that.
Valkyrie: What women?
Kenspeckle: Women with low expectations.
- Valkyrie teasing Skulduggery about his unrequited love of Grace Kelly.
- In Kingdom of the Wicked, Alternate Lord Vile's reaction to seeing Skulduggery and Skulduggery's little wave back.
- At the end of the incredible fight between Mevolent and Darquesse, Darquesse begins smashing him with fence posts. She stops and Mevolent tries to recover his bearings, and Darquesse hits him with a horse
- "Your hair Fletcher. It defies logic and reason."
- It's very dark, but in Kingdom of the Wicked Valkyrie is having a conversation with Alternate!Mevolent and we get this little piece:
Alternate!Mevolent: Other stories tell how I eat innocent newborns, how I'm ten feet tall, how I breathe fire and have great dragon wings. None of these are wholly accurate. I don't have dragon wings, I don't breathe fire, I'm only eight feet tall and
I've never eaten a baby that didn't have it coming. - Ghastly's Stupid Sexy Flanders moment... with Scapegrace. It's not the only time it happens, either.
She was a knockout. She was gorgeous. She was…
Oh dear God, she was Scapegrace.
- Erskine Ravel gives Fletcher a pager, which is programmed to incapacitate him when a certain phrase is uttered. This phrase would naturally need to be something that nobody would ever say under normal conditions. What is the phrase? "Your hair is really cool."
- Ghastly after the Dead Men slide down a water slide. "I think I may have lost a nipple up there."
- Behold! Grand Mage China Sorrows! The most honest politician in the history of literature.
- The way Desmond starts his speech on Valkyrie's birthday.
Desmond: It's no secret that I've always wanted a son.
- It's a weird blend of funny, heartwarming, tearjerking and Nightmare Fuel (seeing as China is on fire at the time), but the Ship Sinking of China/Skulduggery was rather dry.
Skulduggery: I need you, China.
China: How I longed to hear those words...
Skulduggery: I need you to help me get Valkyrie back.
China: ...followed by those ones. - The various attempts to rename "The Dead Men" after Valkyrie joins. They come up with "Dead Non-Gender-Specific Persons" before Ghastly decides to stick with the original. Also rather heartwarming.
- China's deadpan reaction to hearing that her Alternate Universe counterpart had been killed by Serpine. "Typical".
- Skulduggery and Valkyrie attempt to rescue Fletcher from the Brides of Blood Tears (witches). Skulduggery demands to know what the Brides want with their resident Teleporter:
Skulduggery: What do you want with him?
Bride: He is the last living Teleporter, we want his blood.
Fletcher: [snarls] I don't think so!
Bride: We want his genes.
Fletcher: That's a bit more vague...
Bride: We want him to breed with us.
Fletcher [turning to Skulduggery] I reckon I'll be OK here on my own.
Skulduggery And when you're done breeding with him, what will you do then? Kill him?
Bride We'll never be done breeding with him.
Fletcher I'll hold them off, you save yourself.
Skulduggery I'm not leaving you here, Fletcher.
Fletcher Ah, go on.
- "Flaming drongo" coming from a teenage assassin from Sydney, particularly for Australian readers.
- China does not ship Ghanith. After Ghastly's Adorkable attempt to ask Tanith out, she responds with...
China: Oh, good God. *eye roll* I do hope the Remnants kill me first.
- Most of The Horror Writer's Halloween Ball.
- Gordon gets jealous of Skulduggery and fellow author Susan DeWick. A very amused Skulduggery promises to back off.
- Gordon's costume.
- The fight scene.
- The ending:
[Gordon] did accompany Skulduggery Pleasant on at least one more case, solving the mystery of the Phantom Killer at Darkenholme House. But that... is another story.
It's also not very interesting.
The Butler Did It.
- In The Dying of the Light, Skulduggery comes up with a plan to separate Valkyrie's personality from Darquesse's using Deacon Maybury's technique. In order for it to work, Valkyrie needs to hold onto her thoughts as best she can. When Cassandra tells her to use a word or phrase to latch onto, Valkyrie naturally chooses "The sparrow flies south for winter".]]
- Valkyrie pretends to be Darquesse in order to fool Mevolent and proves that she is in fact a massive nerd.
Valkyrie: Your little toys only work on me for a short time. We have a race of beings in my universe-we call them the
Borg. They taught me everything they know about adapting to new weaponry. You cannot defeat me, Mevolent. Resistance is futile.
- The exchange between Valkyrie and the alternate Torment:
Valkyrie: Save your disgust, OK? I've heard it before. You don't like me because I have the blood of the Ancients in my veins, and I don't like you because you're old and nasty and creepy and you stole Gandalf's beard.
Torment: I don't know who this Gandalf is, but that is not why you disgust me, you insolent little - !
- Ravel's death in The Dying of the Light. What makes it funny is that it's told through conversation in a very offhand and flippant way rather than showing the actual scene itself.
- Valkyrie and Wreath are talking when Skulduggery arrives.
Valkyrie: Please don't annoy him.
Wreath: Me? When have I ever annoyed the great Skulduggery Pleasant?
Skulduggery: [walks to their table]
Wreath: Hello.
Skulduggery: I will shoot you in the eye.
Wreath: I think I've annoyed him.
- Valkyrie tells Melancholia that there are aliens. Her reaction.
Valkyrie: (...)Also, there are aliens now.
Melancholia: REALLY?
Valkyrie: No.
Melancholia: I hate you so much.
- Scapegrace and Thrasher's final scene in Dying of the Light: Thrasher gets killed by the Guardian's blade, Scapegrace defeats the Guardian, they share a heartwarming final moment as Thrasher dies, and when he finally stops moving, Scapegrace pulls out the sword... and Thrasher says "Oh. I think that did it."
- Gracious O'Callahan describing his first girlfriend (who happened to be Donegan's sister).
"She had hair as long as rope, and a nose. All her eyes were blue and she had a smile like a radiant hole in the ground, with teeth. God, she was beautiful.”
"She sounds terrifying,” said Donegan.
- Much against Fletcher's will, the Monster Hunters then start giving him advice about girls.
“Honesty is, honestly, the best policy,” said Saracen. “But when honesty doesn’t work, lie, and lie convincingly.”
“Treat her right and with respect,” said Vex from up ahead. “Even when it ends, you want to remain friends.”
Donegan pondered. “My advice would be to go for someone better than you are. Stops you from getting complacent.”
“Grow a beard,” said Dai.
- Skulduggery killing a sofa because he thought it was a sofa bed. Spoiler: it wasn't.
- Skulduggery promising to be calm: "I cross the place where my heart used to be and hope to be even more deader than I am now."
