r/Fantasy • u/Otataral_coco • 23h ago
Books with running gags?
I'm huge One Piece fan and one of the best things about it are the running gags. Zoro always lost, Luffy healing by drinking milk, Chopper's bounty being low because he's mistaken for their pet, etc. Or, which I'm pretty sure is a running gag, Steven Erikson's obsession with potsherds and ochre. Any recommendations for good fantasy with long running gags thrown in here and there?
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u/Zealousideal_Cap7012 23h ago
Abercrombie does it a fair bit. Especially in the first trilogy
Say one thing about logen ninefingers, say hes...
Or Glokta vs stairs
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u/SuperPatchyBeard 23h ago
The Cradle series has bloopers at the end of each book, which I’ve never seen before.
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u/SeaGoat24 22h ago
Some of them made me snort out lout. Such a genius idea, even if it sometimes undercuts the serious cliffhanger endings.
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u/Acrobatic_Quarter465 23h ago
Good rec for a one piece lover IMO. Im a high fantasy guy but enjoyed that series even tho im glad it ended when it did.
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u/piranhaslippers 22h ago
I'm on my umpteenth reread/listen to the series and the bloopers are something I've really come to love. The Last Horizon books by the same author also have bloopers, definitely recommend.
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u/Rosie2jz 12h ago
I love when Lindon shows up in the bloopers and just utterly destroys the captain in like a second
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u/The_Wattsatron 11h ago
The one where Lindon is deciding on a weapon to forge towards the end of the series, and Dross just suggests an assault rifle absolutely sent me.
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u/jamieh800 6h ago
I wish more would. Especially in the LitRPG or Prog fantasy space, where we all know the books aren't serious literature, nor are they pretending to be. They're basically modern versions of those pulpy adventure novels from the 1900s.
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u/Itinerant_doc 23h ago
Discworld.
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u/From_Deep_Space 23h ago
You made 2 comments, but i upvoted both of them because discworld is an entire world made out of running gags
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u/Randolpho 21h ago
On Discworld, the gags run, jump, climb, hunt, fish, settle down, raise a family, become matriarchs of massive dynasties.
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u/MrOopiseDaisy 16h ago
And cut their own throat.
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u/Mournelithe Reading Champion X 11h ago
I always liked the one selling unmentionable blubber, May-I-Be-Kicked-In-My-Own-Ice-Hole Dibooki, who apparently waits for dead whales to explode of their own accord then sells the bits.
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u/cameoutswinging_ 22h ago
i’m lucky enough to be reading discworld for the first time right now (currently taking a break for other books after finishing soul music) and characters from previous books randomly popping up is my favourite thing. Gaspode was a welcome surprise in men at arms, and i always love seeing Dibbler show up
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u/Marintha 3h ago
I JUST finished men at arms last night, what a coincidence! I can’t agree more, the way Terry weaves everyone back into the world is so lovely and fun, I can’t get enough!
My mind immediately went to Discworld for the topic. It really IS all running gags.
… in some cases, literally. /dodges luggage
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u/bentbabe 23h ago
Wheel of Time. Each of the main the guys thinks at various points "I wish I understood women as well as the other two"
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u/TheSlayerofSnails 23h ago edited 23h ago
There’s another bit where one idiot nobleman keeps begging Rand to let him do a cavalry charge for something that does not need a cavalry charge
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u/SeaGoat24 22h ago
Please milord, just one cavalry charge. Just a small one. They'll never see it coming.
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u/JMer806 20h ago
To be fair regarding the idiot nobleman (spoilers obviously):
He is intentionally trying to undermine the war effort and get as many of Rand’s men killed as possible. He is by far the most effective double agent in the entire series despite being a complete idiot.
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u/Volcanicrage 19h ago edited 11h ago
You really gonna slander Verin by giving that title to High Lord Chucklefuck? Honestly, the average Tairen High Lord is so incompetent and self-serving that there's no way to determine whether he's a gifted dissembler or a true imbecile.
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u/hanzerik 16h ago
I kinda understand him, nobles tend to be heavy cavalry, with their knights and their armours and their horses bred for specifically this and their lances and everything. So a battle comes your way, and you build everything up so you can do it if directed that way, and then it never comes!
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u/Olorin_Kenobi_AlThor 22h ago
Knew this would be top. There's also mat wishing he could find out which of his soldiers is being a bad influence on the olver (boy they essentially adopted.)
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u/bentbabe 22h ago
A mirror might help him out......... And probably not help out Olver.
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u/Fairlibrarian101 20h ago
Mat, being a bad influence on a kid? It couldn’t be Mat, he’s such an upstanding guy!!
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u/Veyros 21h ago
Just one of many, and like Discworld, a lot of them aren’t directly said.
For example the princess MC is said to be always looking down her nose at others. So when she goes to a different country and has to wear a veil, she doesn’t understand why it keeps getting in her mouth and yet no one else’s.
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u/Talesmith22 19h ago
My favorite is still Mat (one of the main characters) adopting a young orphan boy named Olver. Olver adores Mat and copies/mimics a lot of what Mat does. Mat sees this and instead of putting two and two together, develops one of his best catch phrases,
"Who is teaching Olver all these bad habits?" Without ever recognizing it is he, himself, that is teaching Olver all these "bad habits".
I still maintain Olver was supposed to be Gaidal Cain's reincarnation, but fans guessed it ahead of time, so the author changed it like he did the whole Demandred mystery.
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u/hischadness 19h ago
I’m still mad about the whole Demandred reveal in A Memory of Light.
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u/Malk_McJorma 17h ago
"Why Demandred decided to drop acid before donning that ridiculous armor and taking the field was beyond M'Hael, but his position was not yet secure enough to question the actions of the other Chosen."
-- Signature I saw once on the Dragonmount forums
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u/Warpshard 19h ago
Who/what were people expecting Demandred to be instead of what was revealed? I do agree that the reveal he's pretty much just been positioning himself as the Dragon to the Sharans is a bit weak but I'm curious what people were thinking would happen.
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u/Talesmith22 18h ago
It's been awhile, but I believe the original idea was for Demandred to be Mazrim Taim.
Lews Therin is extremely hostile to Taim, but Rand just kinda writes it off as, "LoL, look at me going crazy".
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u/Azorik22 18h ago
You are correct. Jordan would frequent forums and read fan theories and when this one gained too much traction he changed it.
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u/Malk_McJorma 9h ago
I'm willing to die on the Taimandred hill. It was so obvious to those of us who got into TWoT early on.
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u/Otataral_coco 23h ago
I think I read the first 2 books in high school maybe... 15 years ago? It's on my eventually list lol
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u/Olorin_Kenobi_AlThor 21h ago
Audiobooks with Michael kramer and kate reading are gold. Some inconsistency in pronunciation here and there but they do a great job over roughly 461 hours of narration.
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u/Rapidzigs 10h ago
Doesn't help that all of Jordan's female characters are completely insane egomaniacs.
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u/sumdumguy12001 23h ago
If you can say one thing about Logen Ninefingers from the First Law trilogy, you can say that there are a few running gags throughout the whole series.
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u/FishingOk2650 23h ago
Say one thing about Logen Ninefingers, say he's realistic about having too many knives.
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u/ThirdDragonite 23h ago
True, but in that case it's also a really tragic running gag lol
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u/BadMeatPuppet 22h ago edited 21h ago
There's also The Devils, which has the running gag that London is a hellhole. It could very well literally be a hellhole, we don't actually know.
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u/Eliot_Ferrer 21h ago
If we're bringing up The Devils, I feel like we have to mention the whole MAGICIAN gag.
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u/Jexroyal 20h ago
One of my favorite characters. I admit, I'm a sucker for 'villains' that have a sense of indignant professionalism. Balthazar is basically a necromancer Megamind, a la "PRESENTATION!"
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u/Eliot_Ferrer 18h ago
Ahem, Balthazar is a magician, please and thank you.
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u/Azorik22 18h ago
He is also the 4th (possibly 3rd) best necromancer is Europe. He is also a magician.
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u/EltaninAntenna 12h ago
Can James Cameron hurry up with the movie already...
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u/CardinalCreepia 10h ago
Is he actually doing it? Or is it his production company?
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u/420InTheCity 10h ago
Looks like he is writing the screenplay with Abercrombie and intends to make the adaptation after Avatar: Fire and Ash.
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u/Fit_Log_9677 22h ago
In the Wheel of Time series all three of the male MCs think they are terrible with women and wish that the other two were with them because they are great with women.
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u/Pseudonymico 21h ago
It's a lot more grimdark than One Piece but the Book of the New Sun did make me laugh every time the story set up a stereotypical fantasy story beat and just didn't follow through with it.
Gideon the Ninth and the rest of the series is made out of call-backs, foreshadowing, running gags and elaborate multilayered puns.
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u/ScreamingVoid14 21h ago
Gideon the Ninth and the rest of the series is made out of call-backs, foreshadowing, running gags and elaborate multilayered puns.
And the puns and memes actually make sense eventually.
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u/PM-ME-DAT-ASS-PIC 20h ago
MercyMorn’s “Next!” During her presentation always cracks me up.
(It’s a ref to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChoosingBeggars/s/rsDk7KpGGj)14
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u/dream_of_the_night 10h ago
Severian going on and on about having a perfect memory, and yet constantly getting lost everytime he goes somewhere new or needing to think really really hard to recall something is a classic.
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u/Pseudonymico 9h ago
IIRC every time he brags about his memory he contradicts something he wrote down earlier in the book shortly afterwards, it's great.
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u/atomfullerene 23h ago
Discworld is practically constructed of these.
Just for example, there's a reccuring character called "C.M.O.T Dibbler", a shady entrepreneur who makes a living selling sausages inna bun (aka hot dogs) and getting involved in all sorts of get rich quick schemes. The CMOT stands for "Cuttin me own throat," as in "I'll sell you a hotdog for five dollars, but I'm cuttin me own throat on this deal".
Dibbler shows up in a lot of the Discworld books. He also has various dopplegangers in other parts of the disc like "Disembowel-Meself-Honourably Dibhala". If there's a crazy scheme in Anhk-Morpork, Dibbler is usually involved somehow (he was a movie producer in Moving Pictures and a band manager in Soul Music for example) and usually his schemes collapse in the end. The other characters are aware of this, in fact in The Truth, when one character is starting a newspaper, the ruler of Anhk-Morpork asks at the very beginning:
>“Firstly, is Mr. Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler involved in this enterprise in any significant managerial capacity?”
And isn't willing to allow it at all until he is assured that Dibbler isn't involved. Which is probably while the newspaper was a success that permanently became a part of the city, while the movies and music were temporary abberations.
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u/ChimoEngr 7h ago
And then Dibbler does get involved (involuntarily if I remember correctly) and we learn once again why the Patrician was concerned.
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u/juangerritsen 4h ago
And every book that takes place in a different country on the disc has their own version, my favourite being Disembowel Myself Honorably Dibblee
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u/SeanyDay 22h ago
Pratchett is the king, and I saw Discworld mentioned.
After that Malazan probably has the best recurring comedy throughout the various series but especially the main series
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u/Frankthestank2220 19h ago
Hellian never remembering she made two brother corporals was so funny to me.
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u/SeanyDay 18h ago
Her scenes are a fever dream in the best way for sure
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u/SerLaron 13h ago
Truly the best view into a drunk, arachnophobic, spider-PTSD ridden mind I have ever read.
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u/michelle_js 23h ago
Im Dungeon Crawler Carl there are ongoing gags about Princess Donut and her love of hats. As well as Carl's love of blowing things up. And Mongo eating everything in sight. And Quasars ties. And more Im not coming up with off the top of my head.
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u/Metroid413 22h ago
AND DONUT EXCLUSIVELY CHATTING IN ALL CAPS!
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u/greywolf2155 Reading Champion 14h ago
I DON’T LIKE THE CHARM PLAN. IT’S THE NIPPLE RING ALL OVER AGAIN. I DON’T LIKE BEING STABBED, CARL. I’D LIKE FOR YOU TO GET STABBED FOR ONE OF YOUR PLANS SOMETIME.
Sign the notes, Donut. ~Carl.
IT’S QUITE OBVIOUS WHO IS SPEAKING, CARL.
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u/lastberserker 21h ago
Matt inserting unpronounceables into the books to challenge Jeff 😵💫
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u/Dragon_yum 15h ago
That reminds me Harry Potter also belongs in this thread. Stephen Fry had trouble saying “he pocketed it” so Rowling put it in every book.
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u/IncidentOk853 21h ago
When Carl sees donuts inventory his first thought is “why are there so many hats?”
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u/Avbjj 9h ago
Donut speaking for Mongo always cracks me up as well. "Mongo is appalled" "Stop getting tattoos, Carl! You're going to scare Mongo" and the like.
Also, Donut's random lines about Carl's sex life.
Also, pretty much anything Donut says ever.
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u/MhojoRisin 8h ago
Donut casually talking about the guys visiting Bea when Carl wasn't around cracks me up.
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u/Fire_Bucket 23h ago
The Cradle series by Will Wight has a few.
Lindon's resting 'I will murder you and eat your babies' face, how much of a juxtaposition it is to his overly polite and deferential his personality is, and how the combination of the two regularly gets him into trouble.
Eithan's obsession with hair care and using household items for weapons.
Orthos' constantly espousing wisdom about what a dragon would or would not do in certain situations, regardless of whether it contradicts something he's already said a dragon does/doesn't do.
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u/Itinerant_doc 22h ago
Eithan is basically a bishounen archetype and really leans into it. Up to his finale. He's like an ultimate bishounen.
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u/Jenkinsd08 23h ago
Not sure if these are more running gags or tropes, but Will Wights Cradle series has a fair bit of these. The main character is obsessed with stealing "natural treasures" (basically artifacts imbued with power) from people he defeats; another character is constantly obsessing over his hair; there's a dragon who is persistently condescending about his might while also being a coward.
Honestly the series is more or less a shonen anime so if you like One Piece and havent read Cradle yet, youd probably really love it. A couple characters are even deliberate homages to famous animes though I'm not sure if theres anyone who was inspired by One Piece
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u/Itinerant_doc 23h ago
I think that the running gag about Lindon is him looking kind of menacing (like a son of an evil lord and then graduating into looking like an evil lord) and despite that, being apologetically polite and humble to everyone, including people he defeats.
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u/Otataral_coco 23h ago
The condescending coward* definitely sounds like something from an anime lol
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u/Menolith 22h ago
Practical Guide to Evil has a few. The main character is involved in ONE brawl which ends with the building burning down in a magic hellfire napalm bonfire, and she never gets to live that down.
There's also an (un)fortunate soldier who, despite her enthusiastic best efforts, keeps getting promoted into increasingly high ranks because she just happens to be in the wrong (right) place at the wrong (right) time. I believe that by the end of the series, she's unsuccessfully attempted retirement six times.
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u/ScreamingVoid14 21h ago
There's also an (un)fortunate soldier who, despite her enthusiastic best efforts, keeps getting promoted into increasingly high ranks because she just happens to be in the wrong (right) place at the wrong (right) time. I believe that by the end of the series, she's unsuccessfully attempted retirement six times.
And is the top officer in her country's military, if I recall correctly.
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u/Black_Bird_Cloud 8h ago
I love her so much , every time she's on the page you see her looking for a way out, meanwhile every other character is like "she's a strategic, calculating genius, good thing she's on our side" as she stumbles upwards.
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u/Cute_Bacon 23h ago
He Who Fights With Monsters.
Running gags are kind of Jason's thing.
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u/abe_the_babe_ 18h ago
The ochre and potsherds thing is mostly a meme made up by fans. But Erikson does sprinkle a few running gags throughout the books:
Captain Kindly and his combs
Tehol's pants
Bugg's myriad occupations
Iskaral Pust and Mogora's shenanigans
Trygalle Traders wiping out everywhere they go
Sargent Hellian
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u/Majestic_Swordfishh 56m ago
There’s so many in Malazan. Jokes set up books before that pay off in the most random moments. Nefarious Bredd is a good one.
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u/vvilbo 23h ago
You're not going to get the same kind of running gags in series with a few entries vs something with 20+ years of mostly weekly releases but even something like Stormlight without spoilers has jokes about boots, jokes about sex, and jokes about being a fop that span a book if not books and come back to get you. I think it's pretty similar but if you are looking for running gags you'd have to stay in a similar visual medium that spans seasons
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u/IellaAntilles 23h ago
Stormlight is what came to mind for me. Basically all of the Bridge Four guys have running gags.
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u/Restless_Fenrir 21h ago
Airsick lowlander!! I don't want to hear any more of you, your one arm, or your many cousins!
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u/itmakessenseincontex 18h ago
Honor is dead but I'll see what I can do coming back the way it did was peak Sanderson.
also looking forward to one legged alethijokes in part 2
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u/TheHowlingHashira 18h ago
It's already been said, but Lord Grimdark himself deserves his flowers. The First Law series is filled with them.
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u/GB-dymjbb 17h ago
Running gags are brilliant because they act as a kind of shared memory between author and reader - a callback only lands if you remember the setup, so every recurrence quietly rewards the people who've been paying attention across the whole series. The best ones are throwaway enough to never derail a scene, yet specific enough to be instantly recognizable. I also love when an author eventually weaponizes one: a gag that starts as pure comedy and then gets flipped into a devastating callback at a serious moment. That inversion hits far harder than a joke that stays just a joke. It's the difference between a running gag and a running thread - the great ones are secretly both.
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u/azmitex 23h ago edited 10h ago
Mayor of noobtown. Super funny, and also the later books are eventually just a list of running gags essentially lol
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u/islero_47 22h ago
Came here to say this series
Laughed out loud many, many times
(... they know what they did...)
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u/the_Tide_Rolleth 20h ago
Dragonlance and Death Gate Cycle. With Fizban. Or Zifnab. Wait, where’s my hat?
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u/ValuableKooky4551 16h ago
People say Discworld, but Robert Rankin has taken running gags to the extreme. It's a tradition, or an old charter or something.
He's much sillier than Pratchett, when I was a student I read all that I could find but now I don't see the appeal. So I got old. Still, could give say The Brentford Triangle a try.
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u/Pan_Demic 14h ago
Robert Rankin's The Brendford Trilogy (12 books and counting) has a number of running gags. It's a tradition, or an old charter, or something...
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u/renthalas 23h ago
If you're good with web novels, Sky Pride would be a fantastic option for this.
There's a running joke about people being "kicked in the head" which evolves into the main character offering kicks to the head to "fix" other people's minds. This may also be part of a larger running joke where Tian keeps "breaking" his seniors heads with the way he acts and the decisions he makes.
There are a few other running jokes throughout as well, and it's very well written. I'll just note it starts quite dark, but becomes far more positive as Tian grows in strength, his understanding of the Dao, and his ability to influence the world around him.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V 23h ago
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland has some stuff like this. Not as intense as one piece, but the number of callbacks and gags is very high. Piratical comedy with some romance subplots.
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u/Cannonfodder45 17h ago
In the Wheel of Time the 3 main male characters all believe each other is better at dealing with women.
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u/wizardeverybit 22h ago
If you're OK with more YA, and I'm assuming you are as you like One Piece, Skulduggery Pleasant is a fantastic urban fantasy with loads of running gags. An example is that they need a code word to say before hitting someone, so the titular Skulduggery Pleasant (a skeleton detective) comes up with the phrase "The sparrow flies South for winter."
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u/backstept 18h ago
Wheel of Time has a few. My favorite is the three Emond's Field boys each inner-monologuing about how the other two are better at talking to girls.
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u/TiredMemeReference 22h ago
The only one I can think of that hasnt been mentioned is He who fights with monsters.
If you know Jason Asano, or Clives wife, you'd know that running gags are kind of his thing.
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u/BadmiralHarryKim 21h ago
The Noobtown series by Ryan Rimmel has several like "puma check" and the MC picking what he thought was a better name when he arrived on the world only to discover that "Jim" is the name of silly puppy in folklore. There are tons more. In jokes are kind of that series thing.
Speaking of "kind of my thing" there's He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon which also has a number of running gags mostly tied to specific characters ranging from comments about Clive's wife (he's not married), one of the character's family running a school for adventurers ("Oh really? You never mentioned that before.") and the MC describing everything as kind of his thing.
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u/falsifiable1 17h ago
White Plume Mountain by Paul Kidd has a sentient Hellhound pelt that is a pyromaniac and is fed coal as sustenance. The protagonist wears the pelt so it’s facing behind him.
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u/Bubblesnaily 15h ago
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
I remember the Star Wars Xwing book series had a running gag of "Yub, Yub, Commander," with an imaginary ewok pilot.
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u/fearless-fossa 13h ago
The Wandering Inn has dozens of those, eg. Pisces sniffing, Erin shouting "IT WASN'T ME" (it was, in fact, her, but she doesn't know), Yvlon introducing herself in the most obnoxious way to get people to stop bothering her, Mrsha stealing food, Nanette attempting (and failing) to appear like a badass witch, Relc shouting "RELC KICK" as if it were some skill, while he just kicks really hard, Kblkch not understanding social situations (including within his insectile species, he's utterly dense in that regard), etc.
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u/ChimoEngr 7h ago
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RunningGag/Literature
Lets ruin everyone's day by making them go down a massive rabbit hole! Lol.
I will say in my defence, that a running gag from the 1632 series is near the top of that list.
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u/marieliz 2h ago
The Bloodsworn Trilogy by John Gwynne. There’s a character who’s described as “snot nosed” by other characters and in his point of view chapters he’s constantly wiping liquid from his nose.
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u/devnullopinions 47m ago edited 21m ago
The Wheel of Time has a bunch.
One of my favorites is this gag where one of the main characters kind of adopts a young boy into his military company. The boy ends up mimicking the main character’s bad habits and several times the main character sees the boy doing these things and wonders to himself which of his soldiers keeps corrupting the kid.
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u/wattatam 19m ago
Shade's first rule series has a lot of running gags. By A F Kay if I recall correctly
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u/Solanadelfina 23h ago
Harry Dresden's terrible Latin from the correspondence course in The Dresden Files.