Gor

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Current revision as of 02:33, 24 June 2012

When we are to be raped, and must serve you as slaves," begged the first girl, she who had been in his arms, "let me be the first to be raped, the first to serve you as a slave.

You will not be forgotten, my beautiful little slut," he promised her.

Thank you, Master, she whispered.

Slave Girl of Gor

The Chronicles of Gor is a Science Fantasy novel series (one of those that blur the lines between the Science Fiction and Template:Fantasy), written by John Norman (real name Dr. John Frederick Lange, Jr., a professor of philosophy). The Chronicles of Gor starts out as a Planetary Romance before moving on to a sex-slave culture where most of the female main characters are legally property. The planet Gor is a Counter-Earth, a hypothetical planet in Earth's orbit on the other side of the sun, always blocked from view - An impossible situation, and thus fantastic, given the gravitational influences observed upon every comet passing into the inner solar system, even before the advent of interplanetary exploration in the 1960s; then again, if the alien species in question is capable of moving entire planets into orbit around stars, erasing traces of gravitational influence would likely not be such a problem. On Gor, some Sufficiently Advanced Aliens decided to take humans from various eras in human history and dump them together and see what happens, after removing any type of firearm and burning anyone who tries to violate said ban.

For a complete list of the books, see that other Wiki.

A complete subculture has been spawned by these books, taking the philosophy of these books and applying them to their daily lives. This philosophy, known as the Gorean lifestyle, does not revolve around the master/slave relationship, although it certainly can incorporate it. There is some debate between practitioners of traditional BDSM and Gorean S&M about the validity and safety of the other's practices, most of it revolving around the fact that safewords are not mandatory.

Two films based on the Gor series were adapted into sword & sorcery films in the late Eighties, Gor (1987) and Outlaw of Gor (1989). Loosely adapted from the first two books, the films depict professor Tarl Cabots’ adventures after being magically transported to Gor. For better or worse, the films Template:Bowdlerized the sex-slavery aspect. This is by no means the only instance of a movie bearing no resemblance (save a few names) to the book that supposedly inspired it, but it is a particularly egregious example from the word "sorcery" onwards.

[edit] Tropes from the books

• Abusively Sexy: Most civilizations on the world of Gor seem to be built with this as one of their basic premises.
• Alternative Number System: The Kurii use base-12, presumably because they have 12 digits on their "hands."
• Amazon Brigade: Panther girls.
• Anachronism Stew: Romans coexist with Native Americans. Justified in the backstory.
• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Inverted by the Priest Kings, an alien race worshiped as gods who have artificially cultivated and vigilantly constrain Gorean culture and technology. The clearer this becomes, the more arguments about 'the natural order' and the Masters' role in Gor go out the window, but because none of them know the true nature of the Priest Kings they're never exposed to the Fridge Logic. The Free of Gor are themselves pawns in a secret war.
  • The Priest-Kings apparently act as the only barrier between humanity and a particularly brutal alien race called the Kurii, but asking yourself how the world they created in the books helps either their cause or the humans' only makes your head hurt. Still, some of this is gone into in the series: the Priest-Kings, who are hyper-intelligent, have projected that Earth society will collapse catastrophically within a century or two, not least because Man's weaponry has outgrown his rationality and common sense. Therefore, if there is to be hope for the species, some members of it must be preserved off-world with artificial restrictions on their firepower, at least. It is better for mankind, the Priest-Kings reason, if men prevail through their strength, courage and wits, and not through technological advantages, hence the restrictions both on weaponry and on any personal protection bar a shield and helmet. If this results in a society in which a minority of women are slaves (and also many men, though mainly as labourers treated far more harshly than the female pleasure slaves), that is no concern of the Priest-Kings, most of whom are sexless themselves. Then, industrialization and rampant consumerism on Earth has led to massive environmental damage which the Priest-Kings do not want to see repeated in their own backyard - and, as the narrator ponders, has led to a society in which interchangeable sexless labour units exist to service the machine, in a flagrant betrayal of their own origins and biological truths. Finally, it is clearly in the Priest-Kings' own interests that the dangerous and unpredictable humans sharing their planet never be in a position to threaten the Priest-Kings' safety; and, since they are also the protectors of Earth humanity, the occasional death of an ambitious would-be gunsmith seems a small price to pay.
• As You Know: Explorers of Gor opens with Tarl Cabot and Samos telling each other several pages of stuff they both already know but the reader does not. There are other examples too.
• Author Appeal: And how!
• Author Tract: Maybe, maybe not. It is probably the case that Norman is just indulging his fetishes rather than arguing that "maledom is morally imperative."
  • Norman wrote a non-fiction book called "Imaginative Sex" which included both maledom/femsub and femdom/malesub scenarios (albeit more of the latter than the former).
• Boarding Party: The ships of Ar's Station subvert their boarders by boarding back with hundreds of infantrymen hidden in their holds. (Ar is a landlocked city-state, so their not-quite-colony Ar's Station on the Vosk River is not considered a sea power. They use their superior infantry to wage a land war on the river and take their enemies' better ships.)
• Bow And Sword In Accord: Tarl Cabot is an expert fencer, but is teased about his use of the humble peasant's bow. However, whenever Cabot actually uses the weapon he gets the last laugh in no uncertain fashion.
• Burn The Witch: More of "burn the gunslingers and demolitions experts", but it gets the same effect.
• Captain Colorbeard: Marauders of Gor has Ivar Forkbeard, who is a Viking outlaw pirate.
• Commedia Dell Arte: In book 20, Players of Gor, Cabot hooks up with a touring Commedia troupe. The leader Boots Tarsk-Bit appears in book 25, Magicians of Gor. (Gor has no real magicians, but it does have stage illusionists.) Characters in the troupe are named Bina (from Columbina - on Gor, "Bina" means "Slave Beads"), Brigella, Chino, Lecchio (cf Lecchino) and other less obvious correspondences.
• Chariot Race: Assassins of Gor has Tarn races - basically the same thing, except with giant birds people ride.
• Color Coded Multiplayer: Assassin of Gor shows us the tarn racers of Ar, identical in pretty much all respects to the chariot racers of Rome, including the various factions being designated solely by their colours. In the story, the emergence of a new faction called "Steel" is key to the plot.
• Contemptible Cover: The cover of the latest edition may be Exactly What It Says On The Tin, but still, look at it. Preferably at home.
  • If anything, it may be less suggestive than the original cover.
    • Vallejo's cover art does (fancifully) depict a scene from the book. Standing: Tarl Cabot (somewhat less dressed than the story would have had it). Kneeling: Talena (technically Tarl's slave, in practice an honourably-treated captive, pretending to be more thoroughly subjugated to impress). In the howdah: Mintar the Merchant, a slave-trader. Astride, in the background: Kazrak of Port Kar, one of Mintar's caravan guards. The more recent art, though, suggests that female bondage is the major focus of Tarnsman, which is not at all the case.
• Creepy Souvenir: The Red Savages regularly scalp enemies.
• Crystal Spires And Togas: Sky Bridges; that is all.
• Cult Classic: To the point that there are even people in the world who try to model their life on the ideals presented in the series.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cabot; most of the other major characters also have this tendency.
• Decoy Leader.
• Department Of Redundancy Department: Editors apparently refuse to touch these books, because the author repeatedly repeats himself repeatedly. Rumor is that when the books moved to DAW (around book #8), part of the contract was a no-edit clause.
• Endless Daytime: Beasts of Gor takes place in the far northern region of the planet, which has long times of sun and no sun respectively.

  "Come along," I said to Poalu. "It will soon be dark." That was true. In a few weeks the Arctic night would descend.

• Extra Parent Conception: The Kurii have four genders for reproduction.
• Fantastic Rank System: The Kur have one. See the trope page for details.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Semi-Justified, as these are the real Earth cultures transported to another planet.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The Priest-Kings make damn sure there is no type of explosive weapon on Gor.
• Fetish Fuel Future.
• Flame Bait.
• Flanderization: Chiefly of its own subject matter. Norman clearly packs the fictional universe with a heavy amount of detail. Anthropological detail regarding all the various cultures, etc. etc. But over time, the focus gets progressively more and more concentrated upon the Fetish Fuel.
• Gambit Pileup: The plot of Assassin of Gor. Cabot and his female lover infiltrate a slave house that is smuggling in Earth women and guns. The girl allows herself to be captured and trained as a slave in order to receive access to the house. The slave owner, Cernus, sees right through this, but allows her to go through the training (and allows Cabot to stay in his palace) only to reveal his plan right after she is sold to the most brutal slaver on Gor. Then it is revealed that the Priest Kings saw right through both plans, and sent the second slaver who is in fact one of their most trusted agents, his well-deserved reputation notwithstanding, to buy the girl from Cernus. Meanwhile, the supposed city idiot the most trusted agent of Marlenus, who is preparing to return to Ar has been overseeing Cernus's crushing downfall and everything goes wrong just as Cernus is celebrating his own crowning as Ubar of Ar.
• General Badass: Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, is not only a brilliant war general and inspirational city leader, but personally one of the most dangerous men on all Gor.
• Giant Spider: The Spider People do not hurt other sapients, so apparently they're a lot more civilized than the humans. Even the Priest-Kings consider the Spider People unduly pacifistic.
• Gladiator Revolt.
• Happiness In Slavery: One of the central premises of the series, at least for the women; for the most part, no-one cares two hoots whether the male slaves enjoy their lot, which is generally nasty, brutish and short whether in the mines or the galleys.
• Heavyworlder: Inverted. Gor has less gravity than Earth, but it is the Goreans who are described as much more physically strong mainly because they work physically a lot of the time, having no mechanised industry; much like a modern Englishman could not pull an Agincourt-era longbow. However, Earth-raised Tarl Cabot does reap the benefit of his Earth muscles once he has had some warrior training, and Jason Marshall doesn't do too badly either.
• Ho Yay Shipping: Some readers find men embracing men automatically homosexual, so they get a lot out of the books.
• Internet Backdraft: In 90% of the internet, a mention of Gor is equivalent to trolling, unless followed up with scathing hatred and opening the floor to burn John Norman in effigy. It is a banned topic on the StarDestroyer.net forums.
• Icon Of Rebellion: Tarl and his friend Marcus start a rebellion in Ar by claiming to have heard of the "Delta Brigade" (named after the events in a previous book where the forces of Ar were defeated in a delta) and scratch deltas everywhere. There later becomes an actual Delta Brigade which they have nothing to do with. It's like al-Qaeda - no one group has any interaction with any other group, they just call themselves that and engage in uncivil disobedience.
• Jumped The Shark: Some will say that the shark was jumped by page 1, but a not-uncommon sentiment is that "the first N books aren't that bad..." for values of N that range from 2 to 6.
• Kill Me Now Or Forever Stay Your Hand: At the end of Marauders of Gor, Tarl feels the paralysing poison begin to reassert itself. Sarus of Tyros, who was the captain of the other side in the battle where Tarl got poisoned in the first place, turns up with a story and what he says is an antidote. There is not enough of it for Sarus to sample it and prove it harmless, so Tarl quaffs it with a smile on his face and orders to let Sarus go whatever happens.
• Knockout Gas: In Fighting Slave of Gor Jason Marshall and his date Beverly are taken out by knockout gas in the backseat of a specially-prepared taxi. They were only after her, but he forced his way into the cab when she was trying to end the date.
• Literary Agent Hypothesis: Outlaw of Gor (the book) establishes how John Norman got the manuscript for Tarnsman and Outlaw. A short note precedes Priest-Kings (book 3). Dropped after that, but POV characters in several of the books where Cabot isn't the main character mention having read Gor books.
• Long Running Book Series.
• Marty Stu: Tarl is one of the most obvious ones ever.
• Mary Sue Topia: The trope could be named "Lands of Gor" instead.
• Micro Monarchy: Ukungu from Explorers of Gor ends up as an independent kingdom surrounded by the empire of Bila Huruma.
• Mutual Kill: Two unnamed men brought the last egg of the Priest-Kings to the Wagon Peoples, then went back to their respective cities. The cities later went to war with each other, and the men slew each other on the field of battle.
• National Weapon: Several Gorean cultures have them; see the trope page for details.
• Never Found The Body: After Tarl defeats Pa-Kur the Master Assassin in Tarsman Pa-Kur leaps off a tall building, but they don't find the body. Tarl assumes the crowds tore it to pieces. A Chekhov's Gun which as yet to pay off, although it's been mentioned in several other books.
• Outscare The Enemy: In Marauders of Gor, the alien Kurii have commandeered the Beautiful Slave Girls of the Torvalslanders along with other livestock. The slave girls are terrified of the Kurii, but are given orders by their masters, which they obey.

  We would soon see if such feared sleen and Kurii more, or Gorean males, their masters. If they did not obey, they would be slain. As slaves, they were commanded; as slaves, did they fail to comply, they would be put to death. They had no choice. They would obey.

• Papa Bear: Towards the end of Priest-Kings of Gor, Tarl is escaping from the ruined Nest with his girl of the moment, Vika of Treve, and her silly little father, Parp the fake Priest-King. Their way is barred by two fierce larls - lion-like creatures about half the size of an elephant. Parp flames one with his pipe-lighter, using up all its energy in one go, then asks Tarl to confirm that he can kill a larl with his sword if he is given a free shot at it. Tarl agrees that it's possible - and Parp gives him that free shot by flinging himself into the monster's jaws.
• Planet Of Hats: In all the different cultures on Gor, from the equatorial jungles and deserts to the ice-cap itself, worshipers of Priest-Kings or Aesir or animal spirits alike all agree on the enslavement of women. Where exceptions briefly appear, they are blatantly unstable minority views even if not attended by actual barking madness.
• Planetary Romance: What it's (technically) supposed to be. For a sufficiently inclusive definition of "romance."
• Please Keep Your Hat On: In Savages of Gor, Cabot meets a man who never takes his hat off. In Blood Brothers of Gor, we learn why: He had been scalped as a young adult.
• Public Execution: In Assassin of Gor, Tarl is put into a gladiatorial combat situation where everyone is supposed to be blindfolded, but in reality everyone else in the "tournament" can see through their blindfolds. Note that at that time in the series it was still heavily influenced by the Barsoom series.
• Puppet State: In Tribesmen of Gor most of the desert tribes are vassals of either the Aretai or Kavar tribe. So when outsiders stir up trouble between those two tribes the entire desert is preparing for war with each other.
• Purple Prose: Even when it's Beige. This continues from the influencing series, John Carter Of Mars.
• Rape Is Love: And so is sexual slavery, admittedly for that subset of Earth women who have been expertly psychologically profiled before ever being brought to Gor.
• Rated M For Manly: Cabot (and all the other "proper" Gorean men) consciously try to epitomize the principle of pounding things and people into submission with one's manhood.
• Reactionary Fantasy.
• The Right Of A Superior Species: In Priest Kings of Gor, Sarm justifies the Priest-King practice of smiting humans who experiment with firearm technology by claiming that Priest-Kings are superior to humans in the same way that humans are superior to the animals they kill for food.
• Schizo Tech: Advanced medical technology that includes life extension coexists with medieval weaponry. Justified by the Priest-Kings' constant intervention to keep military technology very limited, but nothing else. Off the battlefield, Gorean tech is at least equal to anything on Earth, if Earth had no large-scale power transmission nor much use of fossil fuels, no motive power bar wind or muscle and no mass communications to name but three differences. Although "energy bulbs" are sometimes used for lighting, most Goreans prefer animal-oil lamps.
• Self Destruct Mechanism: A minor instance: Tarl's mysterious message in Book One is destroyed after he has read it (and after he has foolishly ignored the instruction to throw it away, which costs him his camping gear). And two much more major instances: in Priest-Kings of Gor, Sarm destroys the power plant in the Nest which very nearly blows Gor to shreds as a result; in Beasts of Gor, Zarendargar "Half-Ear" blows up the Kur outpost in the high arctic (but, in deference to his responsibility to his underlings, allows them time to escape first, for which Tarl calls him "a good officer").
• Sex Slave.
• Shout Out: The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, opens up with a scene inspired by the Barsoom series.
  • Also Gor appears to be based on Plato's Republic.
• Siege Engines: Battles between city-states of Gor regularly employ siege weapons.
• Slut Shaming: Slaves taunt each other with this when they're not taunting each other with frigidity.
• Smart People Play Chess: Marlenus, the ultra-alpha Ubar of Ar, plays Kaissa superbly well, crushing Tarl Cabot into the dirt every single time they play. But Samos of Port Kar prefers to play his Kaissa with real people and real lives. Just as well he really is on the side of the angels.
  • A genuine chessmaster appears as a supporting character in Players of Gor, making the name of the book a neat pun since a Player, in Gorean, is in fact a chessmaster, not a theatrical performer. (The Star Books cover art is themed on the red and yellow Kaissa board.) He gets a story arc of his own: disgraced by a highly public defeat in an earlier book, he has voluntarily exiled himself and regains his self-respect late in the story when he is challenged to play chess for ownership of the only slave he has ever been interested in. Needless to say, he too curb stomps Tarl in every single game they play.
• Snark Bait: One of the main reactions by most to the ideals behind the series, followed closely by horror and/or hatred, and considering the premise of the series...
  • If Houseplants of Gor is any indication, Gor is just begging for an Abridged Series.
  • And don't forget Gay, Bejeweled, Nazi Bikers of Gor.
  • Somewhere out there is a fan novel called Transvestites of Gor with a followup called Female Men of Gor. Fans at conventions used to joke about Podkayne of Gor, but it's uncertain whether that one actually exists.
  • And indeed the Quotes section of this very page consists only of parodies, not selections from the books themselves.
• Spiritual Sequel: to Barsoom, the world of John Carter Of Mars.
• Stay In The Kitchen: And naked and on your knees. Except for the Panther women. And the >97% of Gorean women who are not slaves.
• Straw Feminist: In Assassin of Gor, one of these is brought over and put through slave training. Of course her silly ideas about equality are played for laughs, as only a foolish woman could ever believe it. And also of course, she is deliberately put up against an expert in debating who has argued the same points a thousand times before, and the narrator himself opines that the truth lies somewhere in between.
  • Nearly every free woman comes across as having aspects of this, especially the ones with power. Until Tarl Cabot comes by and puts them in their place, much to their pleasure once they submit.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Priest-Kings
• Thank Your Prey: Red Hunters (Inuit) routinely ask a sea sleen's permission to kill it for its much-needed meat and fur.
• Thieves Guild: But only in Port Kar. Elsewhere, thieves get very short shrift indeed.
• This Page Will Selfdestruct: In the first book Tarl (on Earth) gets a letter from his father (on Gor), which says that it will burn up a few minutes after he opens it. Tarl puts it in his backpack and sure enough, his pack burst into flames.
• Unfortunate Implications: Not so much implied as bashed over one's head. One standout is a black woman in Assassin who takes to slavery extremely easily, even by Gorean standards (the others comment on this).
• Unstoppable Rage: Several instances. One arises in Raiders of Gor after Tarl was captured and enslaved by the Rence Growers in the Vosk marshes. It seemed as though he had just about tired of slavery and was about to bite the bullet when slavers from Port Kar attacked the Rencers and killed a small boy who had been kind to him. Tarl spends the next few days trailing the slow-moving slave barge and mercilessly picking off the slavers one by one with his bow. In Hunters of Gor Tarl, after delivering a speech about how he lost his honour in the marshes, and cannot regain it, nevertheless sometimes recollects it, takes on fifty armed men single-handed. Then in Marauders of Gor Tarl begins the story crippled by a paralysing poison for which there is no known cure, until the news reaches him that his amour du jour Telima has been carried off by the Kurii. The ensuing rage sustains him through several months of adventure - at the climax of which, all the fighting men of Torvaldsland unleash an Unstoppable Rage of their own.
• Values Dissonance: Tarl expresses this himself throughout the first books, when he's still a Stranger In A Strange Land, less and less as he adapts. Then in the late series, he and a few other Masters clinging to their values refuse to see that the world is changing, and keep insisting that it's wrong.
  • A meta example: The loudest critics simply can't accept that they have Values Dissonance with a completely fictional culture, and analyze it with that in their perspective. And so they wage as much as WarOnStraw over the books as John Norman does with the characters in it.
• Wandering Minstrel.
• Water Source Tampering: In Tribesmen of Gor, an outside party causes unrest by masquerading as one of two opposing tribes and attacking the others' oases. At one point they destroy a well, which tells Tarl's best friend of the book that they aren't really tribesmen because no tribesman, no matter how evil, would destroy a well.
• Wham Episode: In the first five books, Tarl has faced all manner of certain death. In book six, Raiders of Gor, he falls into the hands of the Rence Growers, who sentence him to death by being thrown to the crocodiles (swamp tharlarion, if you're particular) tied hand and foot, and the only choice they offer is whether to kill him mercifully first. Defying the trend established repeatedly in all the previous volumes, Tarl can find no way out except begging for shameful slavery, and he will never again be the same man as he was before.
• William Telling: The Wagon Peoples had a similar thing as a contest of skill - a Slave Girl would stand in profile holding a piece of fruit in her teeth and a warrior would lance it while galloping by on the local equivalant of a horse.
• Worthy Opponent: Almost more remarkable in the breach than the observance. Often crosses species boundaries; for instance, the Kurii, in the climactic battle at the end of Explorers of Gor, pointedly roar a salute to the brave but outmatched humans (flimsy Zulu-style shields and spears are not very useful against iron weapons too heavy for a man to lift).

[edit] Outlaw (of Gor) and the Gor movie series

• Advertised Extra: While Jack Palance's character is a major villain in Outlaw, in the first film he only had a cameo at the end to set up the sequel. Nevertheless, Palance was third billed on the first movie.
• California Doubling: As Crow points out, "Gor" is quite obviously Iowa in some scenes.
• Casanova Wannabe: Watney.
• Cat Fight: There's one of these about halfway into Outlaw of Gor between Talena and two Hot Amazons.
• Eighties Hair: Talena has a bad case of it.
• Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The Hunter.
  • The Elder. Even Xeno awkwardly states, "That old fool The Elder..."
• Evil Chancellor: The High Priest Xeno, as played by Jack Palance.
• Fan Disservice: We get more up-skirt shots of Tarl Cabot's midget sidekick than we do of the female cast. And a lot of the queen's guards REALLY need to put on a shirt or - failing that - a bra.
• Fan Service: While there aren't any naked slavegirls, there are a lot of scantily clad serving wenches and muscular men in gladiator armor for everyone to drool over.

  Mike and The Bots: It's an arealogical, autoerotical, toobular boobular joy!

• Gainax Ending: For some reason, Watney ends up transported to... some city somewhere... in his little Gorean toga. "Hilarity" ensues.
• God Save Us From The Queen: Queen Lara, in Outlaw of Gor.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Watney. Lampshaded by Servo in the MST3K version.
• Hey Its That Guy:
  • Jack Palance in Outlaw of Gor. This was between Ripley's Believe It Or Not and City Slickers.
  • Besides Jack Palance, there's the screenplay writer...

    Servo: (singing) Har-ry Al-len Towers!!!

• Impaled With Extreme Prejudice: Lara.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: The Hunter wears these, although he's bordering on Rummage Sale Reject...
• In Name Only: The characters, setting and plot when compared to the books.
• Informed Ability: The Hunter doesn't appear to be as talented or bloodthirsty as Lara wishes us to believe.
  • He does throw a mean javelin.
• Most Annoying Sound: Anything and everything that comes out of Watney's mouth.
• Panty Shot: Oh-so-inverted. "Buffalo shots." "Think about it, won't you?" "Thank you."
• Punch Clock Villain: The Hunter.
• The Reason You Suck Speech: Xeno gets off a good one.

  Xeno: Because you are behaving like a bitch in heat, and not as a proper Queen!

• Say My Name: CABOT! Repeated endlessly when he arrives in Outlaw of Gor (the film).
  • According to IMDB, the name "Cabot" is said 55 times in the first ten minutes of the film alone.
• The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: The queen actually seduces Watney just to have an alibi for her husband's murder.

  Servo: Oh geez, now she's trying to sleep her way to the bottom.

• The Scrappy: WATNEY!
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: "Oh, thank you! I'll just stab myself here."
• Why Dont You Just Shoot Him: Xeno trying to convince Lara to have the captured Cabot killed.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Unfortunately, she doesn't actually kill Watney, just has him tossed in prison so he can come back and annoy the everloving snot out of everyone later in the movie.

[edit] The MST3K episode

• Bread Eggs Milk Squick: Jack Palance's diary

  Servo (mimicking Palance): Day 10. Missed call. I think I... [normal voice] ...I think I killed a man today, more later?!

  • The gang decides they've had enough and walk away from the book - til Crow exclaims that it has an entire chapter on Tango And Cash.

  Mike (mimicking Palance): Saw Russell's butt today...!

• Callback: A few:

  He looks like a happy pig!

  My-my-my-my Mitchell!

  Oh no, they're on the Moon Zero Two set!

  Watch out for snakes!"

  Sa... sa..." "Sampo!

  Uh-oh. Warrior Of The Lost World set.

• Kill Him Already: Watney Smith

  Mike: No one would see if you killed him now!

  Crow: He'd probably get a free drink at the Pullman.

  Mike, Tom, Crow: (chanting) Kill him, kill him, kill him...

• Notable Original Music: This Neologism-tastic number.
  • Getting Crap Past The Radar: Practically every word.
• Old Shame: Averted for the most part, as Mike doesn't seem that embarassed about his early acting career. That said, he did seem to wear a lot of sailor suits. Even for Death Of A Salesman, Waiting For Godot, Hamlet RichardIII, Oh! Calcutta! ...
  • Not even Mike realised this until the bots pointed it out to him, leading to some relatively mild horror on Mike's part.
• Overly Long Gag: "Missed call!"
  • The USA Network movie titles during the end credits.
• Running Gag: Replying to the frequent questions by the film's cast of "What/Where the hell is _________?" with "It's/You're the hell here!"
• Take A Third Option:

  Lara: There's a prisoner loose in the desert, and I want him back alive. Bring him to me and you shall receive 50,000 tusks. Dead? Nothing!

  Mike: Wounded? We can prorate it, we'll talk about that...

• Take Our Word For It: The Mads' time machine.

[edit] Quotes

The cactus plant next to the spider plant shuddered. It attempted to cover its small form with its small arms and small needles. "I am plant," it said wonderingly. "I am of Earth, but for the first time, I feel myself truly plantlike. On Earth, I was able to control my watering. I often scorned those who would water me. But they were weak, and did not see my scorn for what it was, the weak attempt of a small plant to protect itself. Not one of the weak Earth waterers would dare to water a plant if it did not wish it. But on Gor," it shuddered, "on Gor it is different. Here, those who wish to water will water their plants as they wish. But strangely, I feel myself most plantlike when I am at the mercy of a strong Gorean master, who may water me as he pleases."

"I will now water you," said Borin, the cactus's Gorean master.

The cactus did not resist being watered. Perhaps it was realizing that such watering was its master's to control. Too, perhaps it knew that this master was far superior to those of Earth, who would not water it if it did not wish to be watered.

--Houseplants of Gor, by "Ellerol Elvish".

"In denying it we deny our nature. In betraying it we betray no one but ourselves. The master will never be happy until he is a master. The slave will never be happy until she is a slave. It is what we are."

--Explorers of Gor

"It is one thing to own a woman, and it is another to have her within the bonds of an excellent mastery."

--Magicians of Gor

"The Goreans, often so cruel to one another, tend to have an affection for wildlife and growing things, which they regard as free, and thereby deserving of great respect."

--Captive of Gor

"Steel is the coinage of the warrior, with it he purchases what pleases him."

--Tribesmen of Gor

"Be strong and do as you will. The swords of others will set you your limits."

--Tribesmen of Gor

"The Perfect Bondage" is said to be one man and one woman, the complete master and the complete slave, ideal and perfect for each other's needs."

--Slave Girl of Gor

"The Gorean woodsman, it might be mentioned, before he will strike a tree with an axe, speaks to the tree, begs its forgiveness and explains the use to which the wood will be put."

--Captive of Gor

"On this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy of constraint is not honored on this planet."

--Tarnsman of Gor

"There seem to be two major reasons why free women are seldom raped on Gor. First, it is thought that they, being free, are to be accorded the highest respect, and secondly, slave females are regarded as being much more desirable."

-- Guardsman of Gor

"The Gorean man, as a man, cheerfully and dutifully attends to the rescuing of his female in distress, but as a Gorean, as a true Gorean, he feels, perhaps justifiably and being somewhat less or more romantic than ourselves, that he should have something more for his pains than her kiss of gratitude and so, in typical Gorean fashion, puts his chain on the wench, claiming both her and her body as his payment."

-- Priest Kings of Gor

"Free women, incidentally, among the Wagon Peoples are not permitted to wear silk: it is claimed by those of the Wagons, delightfully I think, that any women who loves the feel of silk on her body is, in the secrecy of her heart and blood , a slave girl, whether or not some master has yet forced her to don the collar."

-- Nomads of Gor

"Any free woman who couches with another's slave or readies for such, becomes, by law, herself a slave and the property of said slaves owner."

-- Magicians of Gor

"You were not struck for such an absurd reason," I said, "You are, after all a free woman, and free women are entitled to insult, and attempt to demean and destroy men. It is one of their freedoms, unless men, of course, should decide to take it from them. You were struck rather, because you were attempting to manipulate me." She nodded, putting her head down."

-- Mercenaries of Gor