I'd put this on the TN-4 board, but someone here (MuseSusan, methinks) told me that book-specific threads tend to die out pretty quickly. If someone of authority here thinks this ought to go in that board, I'm totally cool if they move it there (not that it'd make much of a difference if I was completely opposed to it).

Anyway, here's a little gratuitous observation. Remember the "Sword in the Stone" style fight between Yorrick Kaine and the Cheshire Cat near the end of TN-4? I was somewhat disappointed that the Kraken was mentioned as the ultimate and most dangerous monster in all of fiction. Firstly, because the so-called Kraken isn't fictional, it's a real species of giant squid as you all already know, and I really doubt Jasper was at a loss of fictional monsters to put into that scene. What about C'thulhu? Surely he is a much more threatening figure than a giant squid? He's no longer under copyright, and in my own humble opinion he deserved that spot far more than the Kraken.

Then there's the case of Grendel. Why was Beowulf able to just slice him up into eight pieces with his sword so easily? If you care to remember the story, the whole "gimmick" to Grendel was that he could not be defeated by weapons, and that Beowulf was only able to kill him (or at least rip off his arm) when he was unarmed. That's another of those small things that made such a cool scene much less memorable in my mind...

I wasn't happy about the non-fictional T-Rex, either.

WARNING: Off-topic anecdote to follow.

But in happier news, I have spread the Nextian word! I went to the library the other day to check out one of the Fforde novels I haven't read and was appalled to see that the place was 100% Fforde-ffree! What's worse, the librarian didn't even know who either Jasper or Thursday were! So I sprung into action and immediately requested the titles to be brought here. And on Monday, they finally arrived! I can't wait to force my book-loving friend to read them. I'm sure he'll totally dig them once he gets the hang of that world.

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Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die. -Mel Brooks

Excellent points, but I still love the blue fairy coup de grace!

Ever since I watch Futurama I can't look at C'thulhu and not see Zoidburg, sorry.

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Blood! Death! War! Rumpy pumpy! Triumph!

Kraken the mythical monster is quite different to Kraken the giant squid.

C'thulhu, though I did totally adore Lovecraft as a kid, has become far from intimidating for me since I saw this:
[www.hello-cthulhu.com]
[www.hello-cthulhu.com]

and this dents cthulhu as well
[i218.photobucket.com]
And him taking on Iain 'M' Banks
[i218.photobucket.com]

I think I have to agree--Cthulhu definitely isn't the monster he used to be. Neither is the kraken, for that matter.

Or

I read the description of the Kraken, with description and assumed it was secretly Cthulhu... perhaps Lovecraft gets the same treatment as Poe, it's too disturbing for most book people to get involved in.

Presumably the Tyrannosaurus wasn't the mere oversized predator known to paleontologists, but a fictional T-Rex: a giant, unstoppable rampaging, (possibly fire- breathing) enormous, beast of doom!

Much like my grade 6 english teacher.

I remember up until about third grade the principal actually had a paddle stuck on a kind of shrine on the wall of her office. It never came down, as far as I know. It was just there to scare us. It wasn't half as scary as she was. Ah, St. Clare's, and the days with the old nuns therein...

St Clare's? Sounds very jolly hockey-sticks!

What do unhappy hockey sticks look like?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Like an aged Xaveria Hollander.

Did you solve crimes and foil smugglers at half-hols?

No I committed crimes and defoiled Kit Kats in mine holidays. Nothing done by halves, only quarters.

Like whom?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Yes, I do. I'm quite fond of whom actually. What can get on the nerves though.

I'm sorry, but:

ON a bus an old lady over heard two gentlemen from the sub-continent discussing a word. One said 'it is spelled 'whom' and the other demurred, saying' Oh no my friend. It is definitely spelled 'whooom'.

After a while she got sick of this and interuppted them saying 'Excuse me gentlemen, but it is spelled 'womb'" and the left the bus.

After she had gone one turned to the other and said: "How does she know what sound a blue whale make when it farts to 500 fathoms?"

I have heard it, but fart jokes are everfresh. So to speak.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

"How Abu Hasan Brake Wind" is perhaps the earliest written wind-breaking joke. I say 'perhaps' because Sir Richard Burton includes it in his translation of the "Arabian Nights" (the first English version not to be Bowdlerised) but it is largely suspected that Burton wrote it himself.

Abu Hasan disgraces himself by letting fly in front of the local nabob and goes into exile for many years. Eventually thinking that he may have suffered enough, he sneaks back into town one night only to overhear a conversation where a woman says something like, "Oh no, we can't do such and such tomorrow, because that is the anniversary of the day that Abu Hasan broke wind".
Abu runs back into exile crying, "Woe is me! My fart has become a date!"

Burton himself was apparently notorious for it. 'The Miller's Tale' (coming up to 600 years old) has one that leads to rather painful consequences.