Literature/Fridge

A reminder of the rules of Fridge Brilliance:

This is a personal moment for the viewer, so every example is signed by the contributor. If you start off with "This Troper", really, you have no excuse. We're going to hit you on the head.

This revelation can come from anywhere, even from this very page.

Also, this page is of a generally positive nature, and a Fridge Brilliance does not have to be Word Of God. In fact, it usually isn't, and the viewer might be putting more thought into it than the creator ever did. This is not a place for personal commentary on another's remark or arguing without adding a Fridge Brilliance comment of your own.

Warning: This page has a high HSQ, or Holy Shit Quotient - however, the HSQ refers less to Crowning Moments Of Awesome and more to the idea of, "Holy Shit, You're Right." You're welcome. -

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Authors

 * Jane Austen
 * Dale Brown
 * Franz Kafka
 * Stephen King
 * Kurt Vonnegut

Titles A-E

 * The Adventures of the Princess And Mr. Whiffle
 * Aesop's Fables
 * Alice in Wonderland
 * American Gods
 * American Psycho
 * Arabian Nights
 * Artemis Fowl
 * Black Company
 * The Belgariad
 * The Bible
 * Book of the New Sun
 * The Brothers Karamazov
 * The Catcher in The Rye
 * The Chronicles of Narnia
 * Codex Alera
 * The Culture
 * The Dark Tower
 * Darkover
 * Death of a Salesman
 * The Death Gate Cycle
 * Dexter
 * Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency
 * Discworld
 * Dracula
 * Dragaera
 * Dragonriders of Pern
 * The Dresden Files
 * Duma Key
 * Dune
 * The Earthsea Trilogy
 * The Edge Chronicles
 * Ender's Game
 * Eragon

Titles F-J

 * Fahrenheit 451
 * Fairytales
 * The Frankenstein Papers
 * The Giving Tree
 * Godel Escher Bach
 * The Golden Compass
 * Gone
 * Good Omens
 * Great Expectations
 * Hand of Thrawn
 * Harry Potter
 * The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy
 * The Hollows
 * House of Leaves
 * The Hunger Games
 * I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
 * Ivanhoe

Titles K-O

 * The Kite Runner
 * Layer Cake
 * Lensman
 * The Lord of the Rings
 * Lord Peter Wimsey
 * Macbeth
 * The Magids
 * Mythology
 * Never Let Me Go
 * The Old Kingdom
 * One Hundred Years of Solitude
 * Only You Can Save Mankind

Titles P-T

 * The Pendragon Adventure
 * Percy Jackson and The Olympians
 * Perfume
 * Persuasion
 * Peter Pan
 * The Phantom Tollbooth
 * Pride and Prejudice
 * Quantum Gravity
 * The Redemption of Althalus
 * The Road
 * Romeo and Juliet
 * The Scarlet Pimpernel
 * The Secret Garden
 * Septimus Heap
 * Slaughterhouse Five
 * Snow Crash
 * A Song of Ice and Fire
 * Spenser
 * Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
 * Sword of Truth
 * A Tale of Two Cities
 * The Three Musketeers
 * Treasure Island
 * Twilight

Titles U-Z

 * The Ugly Duckling
 * Warrior Cats
 * Water for Elephants
 * Watership Down
 * Wayside School
 * Wicked
 * Wuthering Heights
 * X Wing Series

- Again, you're welcome.
 * I was rereading Mid-Flinx by Alan Dean Foster and came to a scene where one of the invaders comes across a cluster of beautiful flowers with a magnificent scent. She touches them and when nothing instantly tries to kill her, she decides that they're safe and weaves them into her hair. The narration then says something like 'There was beauty here as well as death'. Before I reread the line, I thought that 'here' referred to the planet. Then it hit me: it was also referring to the flowers, which turn out to be deadly. Awesome double meaning. - Zadia
 * John Ringo. The Villain Protagonist of the Paladin of Shadows series, a would-be kiddy diddler who hunts and kills actual rapists and pedophiles. Origin of "OH JOHN RINGO NO". Author Appeal in describing the protagonist's arousal at seeing young women - girls, really, brutally victimized and forced into prostitution? OR, utterly brutal no-holds-barred Deconstruction of Evil Is Sexy and/or Draco in Leather Pants tropes? (Possibly even a Take That at fans thereof.)
 * Word of God has it that the series is meant as a deconstruction of numerous tropes in men's adventure fiction (including those mentioned above) and a Take That at the fans thereof. Ringo supports a charity that helps rehabilitate girls/women forced into prostitution.
 * A few years back, I and my friends in English class all repeatedly mocked the poem "The Red Wheelbarrow", which runs as follows if you don't feel like reading that: "So much depends/upon/a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain/water/beside the white/chickens". It seemed completely pointless; then much later I remembered it and started thinking about just what reason could make a red wheelbarrow so important. Even if it wasn't the intent, I suddenly realized that the poem had forced me to think about something more profound in it. --The Great Unknown
 * Actually, the back story makes it make more sense. The poet was a doctor who was called to a case on a farm - a small child with pneumonia ended up dying in his bedroom, surrounded by his parents and grandparents. This flies in the face of the natural order, and how things are meant to be. Anyone who has truly lived in the country knows that wheelbarrows don't stay clean and red, and chickens are never clean and white, but in their purest forms, they are. To maintain sanity, the illusion of beauty and order must be also be maintained.
 * The first time I read The Angel's Game, I thought it was alright, your standard sell-your-soul novel, but on the second reading, I realised the 'warrior saviour' that David is writing about in his book is supposed to be  Cue all of David's actions in the second half of the book suddenly making a lot more sense. -Fulgaraverde
 * I was reading H.P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer In Darkness and happened to notice that at one point in Akeley's last letter, The Outer Ones are briefly referred to as "we" instead of "they" mid-sentence: the specific phrase is "we have rudimentary vocal organs". I don't know if this is present in every printed version of the story, and it could well be the editing mistake I initially took it as... But of course, given the ending, it's entirely possible this could be a revealing slip-up by the real author of the letter, which the narrator himself apparently missed. - Mike K
 * In Demian by Hermann Hesse, the character Pistorius talks about how his father wanted him to become a priest, but he did not want to. This is all well and good, perfectly fine with the themes of the book, but it has so much more meaning when you realize that Hesse and his father had the exact same situation, that his father wanted him to become a priest against Hesse's own wishes. (0dd1)
 * I was musing over Fade To Blue, which I found to be a very good book but also very confusing. Then it hit me: Everything about Kenny- his being attractive, popular, able to get any girl he wants and spending lots of time with Aaron Agar- is pretty much Sophie's ideal guy- which makes a hell of a lot of sense once you find out that  Given the chance to be anyone, doesn't it make sense that when choosing to be a guy, she'd make him into the ideal guy, everything she isn't?- User:Zadia
 * In the graphic novel Level Up, the main protagonist is a Chinese-American college student named Dennis Ouyang who would rather play video games than study to get through college. Dennis's dead father sends four chibi angels to help Dennis with his gastroenterology studies (don't ask). There are four of them because and because the Chinese/Japanese/Korean words for "four" and "death" are pronounced (almost) the same!! Also ties in nicely with the Pac-Man motif, for bonus points. ;)
 * The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe ends with the House of Usher collapsing. This occurs for no readily apparent reason. But when I read it a second time for a different class, I discovered something. Amidst the dense, plodding prose, clues are given as to why it happened. The narrator notices that all the stones that make up the building are permeated with lichens. One of the mad Roderick Usher's strange beliefs is that plants are sentient. Are you following here? The lichens did it! They destroyed the house by deliberately compromising the stonework that supported it. - Floyd Pinkerton
 * The reason the monster from Frankenstein is also called Frankenstein is because he's technically Victor's son. - Um Lovely
 * He's not called Frankenstein. People just get confused between 'Frankenstein' and 'Frankenstein's Monster'
 * I know. It's just my theory that that's how the confusion started.
 * This troper read the Dr. Seuss book "Ten Apples On Top" and wondered why the irate bear with the mop felt obligated to try an beat the three critters, as he/she didn't have much reason, Then it occured to me, if I were that bear, I'd probably be mad too if I had just discovered that a lion, a dog, and a tiger had just wrecked my kitchen and hijacked my apples. - kablammin45
 * In the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,  says "I declare you purged, as polished and as pure/as the day you were born, without blemish or blame." The characters are clearly Christian, as they celebrate Christmas and Easter. So that means that they believe everyone is born with Original Sin, the sin of temptation. Which means that if he was restored to the status as when he was born,
 * In Dream Park, the LARPing players don't bother to "behead" the bodies of their slain party members, even after some of those killed earlier in the South Seas Treasure Game are reanimated by the villains and sent to attack them. This seems like an oversight, until you look back at the rules for how the International Fantasy Gaming Society is awarding points for the Game, as those who are "killed out" suffer a loss of half their points, but are also rebated half of that loss (total of 75% points received) if they return as a zombie. That means that preventing a party member from rising from the grave as an undead would be bad sportsmanship, as it'd deprive a fellow-Gamer of the chance to regain those points!