Implied Death Threat / Literature

Implied Death Threats in Literature.

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• Codex Alera: In Captain's Fury, all that Lady Aquitaine Invidia needs to say to cow her Smug Snake of a pawn Senator Arnos into line during a heated argument is to growl "Don't make me raise my hand, Arnos. When I slap someone, he doesn't scurry away after."
• Discworld:
  • One is shown early in Pyramids:
    "A noble blood flows through my veins."
    "Want it to stay there?"
  • Pteppic tries one himself, though he admits it's not very good as threats go, because the Guild didn't really cover that:
    Pteppic: I could give you this knife.
    Guard: So what?
    Pteppic: I could give it to you point first.
  • In Going Postal, Lord Vetinari has the swindler Moist Von Lipwig arrested, then offers him a job as the postmaster of Ankh-Morpork after he's had Moist's Death Faked for You, citing himself as "an angel" and then this phrase:
    "The first interesting thing about angels, Mr. Lipwig, is that sometimes, very rarely, at a point in a man's career where he has made such a foul and tangled mess of his life that death appears to be the only sensible option, an angel appears to him, or, I should say, unto him, and offers him a chance to go back to the moment when it all went wrong, and this time do it right."
    • Later in that chapter, when Moist tries to get out of Ankh-Morpork, Vetinari has his parole officer (a golem) find Moist and bring him back. Vetinari then adds in the second interesting fact about angels, which qualifies for this:
    "Remember? The first interesting thing about angels? I told you yesterday? I expect you were thinking about something else. The second interesting thing about angels, Mr. Lipwig, is that you only ever get one."
  • In Wyrd Sisters, the Duchess's bodyguard explains to the late king's doctor that the king died of natural causes, and these natural causes can be brought on by unwise opening of the mouth.
  • In A Hat Full of Sky, Hiver!Tiffany delivers this to her broomstick:
    "I am not going to learn you, you are going to learn me. Or the next lesson will involve an axe!"
    • The above also qualifies as Russian Reversal.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Not very subtly implied, but in Grave Peril Bianca is celebrating her new position by giving gifts. Her gift to Harry is a cemetery plot and a gravestone that reads, "Here lies Harry Dresden — He died doing the right thing". A later gift to one of his enemies puts Harry in the position of allowing an innocent to be killed (and Michael would doubtless die trying to prevent it), or to take on the entire court of vampires and almost certainly be killed himself. This is clearly exactly what Bianca had planned when she presented him with the tombstone.
  • In Blood Rites, Harry Dresden asks Bob to recon and search for the Villain of the Week. Bob instead spends all the time scouting out strip clubs. Harry picks up a hammer in Tranquil Fury. When Bob notes that Harry is looking tense, Harry replies that he'll "feel a lot better in about a minute".
  • In Skin Game, Harry Dresden has to do a job for Mab, the Queen of the Winter Sidhe. He asks what she might do if he refused to do the job. Her reply is "Nothing." The catch is, she doesn't mean he won't suffer any consequences, but rather he has a mental parasite growing in his head and it will soon hatch, killing him in the process, and because of it being made from him, it will hunt down all his friends and loved ones, bypassing any defenses they might have. Harry, trapped on an island keeping the thing at bay, won't be able to escape to find other help in time when she leaves. However, if he helps her, she will let him meet a person who can remove the parasite.
• Ender's Game: When Ender returns from school after being attacked by/beating up Stilson, he is verbally and physically assaulted by his older brother Peter. To try to deter Peter, he pulls off his shoe and shows it to Peter while saying, "See there, on the toe? That's blood, Peter. It's not mine."
• The Executioner. A Chicago mafia boss demands a Dirty Cop serve as his bodyguard while Bolan is on the prowl. When the cop starts to say that he can't do that, the reply is: "Sure you can. The only thing that can stop you is a bullet in the head."
• The 1980 thriller The Fifth Horseman, about a Libyan government plot to detonate an atomic bomb in New York, ends with the US President sending Muammar al-Gaddafi a quotation from the Quran: Whoever ye shall be, death will overtake you, even though ye reside in lofty towers.
• Gentleman Bastard: Capa Raza and Locke Lamora exchange these in the presence of a noblewoman at a fancy dinner party to maintain their covers. Under the guise of discussing the wine trade, they reference things that they have and plan to do to each other.
• Early on in The Girl from the Miracles District, Nikita, nicknamed Mantis by her coworkers, gets a particular present from the Big Bad: thirty mantids with pins driven through their heads.
• The classic from Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  "Come," called the old man, "come now or you will be late."
  "Late?" said Arthur. "What for?"
  "What is your name, human?"
  "Dent. Arthur Dent," said Arthur.
  "Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent," said the old man, sternly. "It's a sort of threat you see... I've never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective."
• Rain of the Ghosts: After being thwarted by the heroes, Hura-Hupia backs off to recuperate and try again, but is confronted by Maq who tells her that Rain and her friends earned a respite and if she wants to go after them again that night she'll have to go through him, and that she's been too injured for a direct confrontation. She asks why Maq doesn't just finish her off then and there if he's so confident, to which he replies that confrontation isn't his style, then warns her not to push him:
  Maq: None of us would wake up happy. Or even again.
• Ranger's Apprentice: In Erak's Ransom, Gilan is captured by a group of Tualaghi and keeps looking at one, who's been using the opportunity to batter him, with an odd, unsettling smile. When the guard questions the smile, Gilan answers that he's fixing the man's face in his memory; it could be useful.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Played with in A Clash of Kings when Tyrion is attempting to get Joffrey to understand that being the king doesn't mean he's untouchable:
    Joffrey: The king can do as he likes.
    Tyrion: Aerys Targaryen did as he liked. Has your mother ever told you what happened to him?^note Jaime Lannister, one of his Kingsguard (and also Tyrion's brother, and Joffrey's father), killed him when his cruelty and insanity went too far.
    Ser Boros Blount: No man threatens His Grace in the presence of the Kingsguard.
    Tyrion: I am not threatening the king, ser, I am educating my nephew. Bronn, Timett, the next time Ser Boros opens his mouth, kill him. Now that was a threat, ser. See the difference?
  • A straight example from the next book, A Storm of Swords:
    Joffrey: You're the monster, Uncle.
    Tyrion: Am I? Perhaps you should speak more softly to me then. Monsters are dangerous beasts, and just now, kings seem to be dropping like flies.
  • King Robert Baratheon wants to bring one of his bastard daughters to live at the royal court, but the Queen points out that the city can be a dangerous place for a young girl. This earns her a slap from her husband, but he doesn't bring up the subject again.
• In the Warrior Cats book Veil of Shadows, Fake-Bramblestar - after Alderheart objects to one of his wishes - decides that now they need another medicine cat apprentice in case something "happens" to Alderheart. Bristlefrost knows that this means that once Flipclaw's been trained, then Bramblestar will be free to get rid of Alderheart, and Alderheart himself also clearly recognizes the threat.
• Wilder Girls: An all-girls school has been placed in quarantine, and they have supplies dropped in. Hetty is chosen to join the girls who pick up the supplies. She can't believe it when their chaperone, Ms. Welch, throws away about two-thirds of the food, even though the girls have very little to eat as it is. Welch claims it's because most of the food is either spoiled or has pesticides (in reality, Welch doesn't want the girls to be Unwitting Test Subjects of researchers and is trying to sabotage the tests by throwing away contaminated food).
  "I told you, Hetty: I picked you because I thought you could handle it. Admittedly, sometimes I'm wrong about people. And if that's the case, we can take care of that just fine." She moves slightly, and I watch as her hand rests on the butt of her revolver where it's tucked in the waistband of her jeans.
• The Witch of Knightcharm:
  • Chosovi Naha, an incoming witch at an evil Wizarding School, mentions that she played 'games' (including both videogames and extreme sports) against people back at her home, that she beat everyone, and that she 'even let a few of the losers live.' The implication that she didn't let the other losers live is not lost on the protagonist Emily, who has to compete against her and each other in the school's 'orientation,' a lethal obstacle course.
  • When Emily doesn't progress quickly enough for her mentor's liking, the mentor threatens to send her 'out the front door' of the school. Nobody has ever come back after going out the front door, so while nobody's sure what's out there, everyone's confident that it's lethal. Again, Emily gets the threat.
  • Rebecca, when she sees younger students disobeying the rules or bullying each other, will idly note that her wolf familiar Sica is hungry. Most students get the hint and, not wanting to be eaten by a wolf, run off. Rebecca can also be more direct and at one point tells Emily that, if Emily ever hurts Sica again, people will 'never find [Emily's] body.'

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