Codex Alera/Funny

• Almost everything Doroga says, especially in the later books. For example, his very first lines in Academ's Fury, in response to Kitai telling him to hurry up to reach the valley of the Wax Forest:

"We must hurry, because the valley is running away from us. I see. Maybe we should have stayed downwind."

• • Also, his teasing of Tavi as he realizes a few things are... ahem, developing between the young man and his daughter. You practically read the anime-esque heart at the end of this sentence.

"[You are] Doomed, young warrior. Doomed. But her mother and I started off the same way."

• • • Better is Tavi's reaction when he realizes just what Doroga is implying. As the Marat grins and walks away, Tavi freaks out and just yells, "Wait! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
• Max asking Tavi about something when impersonating Gaius Sextus

Max: What if they start talking about some kind of theory I have no clue about?’ Tavi: Just do what you do when the Maestros ask you a question during lecture and you don't know the answer. Max: Belch?

• Back in book one, when Doroga and his Marat come to stop the other Marat, and Tavi's riding on Walker behind him.

Tavi: Uncle Bernard, Uncle Bernard! He followed me home! Can we keep him?

• Tavi and Max's discussion about breaking Tavi's leg in Cursor's Fury. The scene just gets better when Marcus walks in on them, and Tavi blames the sleeping cart-horse for his broken leg.

The old horse let out a snore. Tavi hadn't known they could do that.

• Can't forget when Tavi first met Varg:

"What do you know of my people?" "That they have bad breath, sir, if you are an indication."

• In the second book, when Max is filling in for the First Lord, he unexpectedly runs into Gaius's (ignored and only married for political reasons) wife, Caria, who is extremely angry at her husband for forgetting her even more than usual. Max, still shapeshifted into Gaius Sextus, panics and then defuses the situation by making out with and hitting on her.
  • And later we hear from the real Gaius Sextus that she appreciated it perhaps a bit too much for his liking when she comes into his bath, and Gaius has to, well, do something difficult for an eighty-year old man to manage.

Gaius I adjusted to the demands of my station, of course, but when you speak to Maximus, you might mention to him that in the future, should this situation arise again, he should seek some course other than to fondle my wife

• Amara Out Gambits Lady Aquitainus Invidia, leaving her and her retainers stranded in the woods. Amara calmly and rationally explains to Bernard why they didn't kill her and how she could have made it impossible for them to get charges of treason to stick, and that therefore, this was their best option. Then we get this...

Bernard: Though I feel I must ask... why did we leave them naked? To slow them down? Amara: No, because the poisonous bitch deserved it.

• Maximus is a walking funny moment. This is possibly because his Chivalrous Pervert ways (One word: twins) are more than slightly reminiscent of Thomas Raith (The Dresden Files by the same author), another wisecracking, longsuffering and Hypercompetent Sidekick to a main character who specialises in Crazy Awesome, Indy Ploy and majored in Beyond the Impossible.
• Captain's Fury: Ehren in response to a Crazy Enough to Work plan:

Tavi: Are you in? Ehren: The plan is insane. You are insane. ...I'll need some pants.

• Book four, Kitai (Tavi's barbarian lover) and Isana (Tavi's guardian since infancy) chatting girl talk. And then giggling at poor Tavi when he unknowingly sticks his foot in his mouth.

Kitai: He didn't know what he was doing at first. Except with his mouth. But then, he was always quite clever with that.

• The beginning of Princeps' Fury features a rather hilarious sequence in which a couple of former members of Kalarus's army are traveling, along with a third who turns out to be Ehren. One of them is babbling incessantly while the other gets more and more annoyed... until eventually Ehren, who has apparently had enough, quietly comes up behind him and breaks a tree branch over his head. Too bad about what happens next.
  • A couple chapters later, Valiar Marcus is giving language lessons to a Canim officer, and is trying to tactfully explain the difference between telling someone they have a weak sense of smell and telling them that they smell bad. The Canim takes the criticism badly, and lunges at Marcus. The old Centurion is prepared, however, and body slams the 9-foot-tall wolfman into a daze...and then continues correcting his grammar as if nothing had happened.
• Tavi serving food on the Slive after the storm in Princeps' Fury.

Demos: You really don't have any idea at all how to be a Princeps, do you? Magnus: Extra mash, please, Your Highness.

• A minor but hilarious scene in Princeps' Fury where Max shows the Shuarian Canim the power of watercrafting by healing their leader's leg wound. The Canim warriors are immediately and intensely interested, and when Max tells them he needs a healing tub, they almost instantly grab a barrel, fill it with water, and dump their leader inside, all because they just want to see watercrafting at work.
  • The bit later, when Max curses at the Canim in Canish is hilarious, as is how Gradash and Max apparently teach each other dirty words in each others' languages.
• In Princep's Fury, Max complains about the Canim cavalry mounts, which are bull-sized mules called taurga.

"Legionares do not fear dinner. Dinner fears Legionares."

• • In light of this statement, the name of Max's mount is also pertinent: "Steaks and New Boots."
• Doroga turning the snark on centuries of Aleran tradition when mediating a Duel to the Death.

"I am the Master of Arms. I read up on your combat law. It means I come over here and tell you all the rules, even though everyone here knows them better than I do. Lord Antillus, there, is the challenged. He gets to choose how the duel will be fought. He's chosen steel and fury, which basically means anything goes, which is how fighting ought to be done in any case. Isana is the challenger, which means she gets to choose the time and place of the duel. She has chosen here and now. Obviously. Or none of us would be standing out here in the wind."

• • Earlier in that same book, Doroga had been very impressed by Isana using snow to defend against a very powerful lightning attack:

"I ever invade Calderon again," he said, "it will be in the summer." Isana stared wearily at him, and said, "I'd see to it you never got those sweetbread cakes you like. Ever again." Doroga gave her a wounded look, sniffed, and said to Walker, "Alerans don't ever fight fair."

• Phrygia's stammering son. Seriously, the boy is awesome. And Tavi and Kitai realize this. Which is why Tavi thinks, "If I survive this, I have to give this kid a job," and why they start arguing about who saw him first. The only ways the scene would have been more awesomely hysterical would've been if the boy had miraculously happened to speak Canish, the language they were using to discuss him right in front of him, or if Varg had joined in on the argument.

Cyricus: Y-you are w-welcomed as a guest, sir. B-but if you hurt anyone under my lord f-father's protection, I will kill you myself. Varg: It will be as you say in your house, young Master. <to Tavi, in Canish> Does the pup remind you of anyone, Tavar? Tavi: <in Canish> As I recall, I had a knife to your throat at the time. Varg: It did give you a certain credibility.

• • And

Kitai: Oh my. I might be in love. Tavi: I saw him first. Varg's ears: <quiver, quiver>

• Book six, First Lord's Fury, has a little gem within an otherwise serious chapter. During the briefing for the final defense at Calderon Valley, Senator Valerius continually complains about the fact that Bernard built all kinds of fortifications without telling anyone, and wonders out loud where the money came from. Despite High Lord Antillus' objections, he continues to question Bernard and Amara's integrity and reliability- until High Lord Placida simply picks him up and hurls him bodily from the tent.

"Ass," muttered Raucus. "Thank you, Placida," the Princeps murmured in a dry voice. "Countess, please continue."

• • Preceding that Amara gets her own Crowning Moment of Funny and/or Awesome when a pompous Knight, who's also an ally of Valerius and a friend of Brencis (which should tell you all you need to know about him) refuses to let Doroga into the Princeps' tent and she decks him so hard that she breaks her wrist. She says it was Worth It.
• First Lord's Fury: Canim giving legionares piggyback rides. Very effective for speedy transportation, but not a popular idea. A slightly loopy-from-exhaustion Fidelias had this to say:

How different would the role of cavalry be if horses could talk? And draw swords. And eat their riders. He thought there might be a great deal less running about.

• From the same book, Max throwing a belligerent Cane through a building, while Marcus muses that Max must have been learning diplomacy from Tavi: he threw the Cane through a wooden building instead of a stone one.
• On the subject of sailing around leviathans:

"Respect is elder to convenience." "And if you didn't respect them, they'd eat you." "Survival is also elder to convenience."

• A meta-example would be how the series came to be in the first place. Butcher got involved with an internet argument on a writing forum. The argument was over whether craft or idea was more important to a good novel - basically whether or not a good writer could make a bad idea into a good novel. Butcher took that as a challenge and told the other poster to give him not one but two bad concepts, and he would write a novel with them. The poster responded with Lost Roman Legions and Pokémon. That's right, the Furies have their roots in the canon that spawned Pikachu. And he has indeed made it work.
• In Captain's Fury, Isana seriously tells Tavi they need to talk (about him being Gaius' grandson). Tavi assumes she's talking about the rumors that he's having orgies with the Marat women.
  • Every time Isana and Kitai have a private talk is hilarious because of how frank the Marat is about her...relationship. Such as when Isana asks Kitai to talk about Tavi, and she launches into a whole spiel about her and Tavi's activities, including what he can do with his mouth, sending Isana stammering and trying desperately to get Kitai to stop talking.
• In First Lord's Fury, the Vord Queen uses Watercrafting to send a message to everyone in Alera. This means that a life size replica of her appears wherever there is enough water. How does Varg disrupt it? He scoops up some of the water with a helmet, drinks it, and then shouts;

"I AM STILL THIRSTY!"

• From Captain's Fury, Ehren overhears Tavi say Isana is the First Lady of Alera, leading him to assume at first that she's a glamored Caria.
• From Captain's Fury comes this gem:

Tavi: So... I want you gone, and you want to BE gone. Perhaps we can work something out? Nasaug: Perhaps that would be possible in a rational world, But we are in Alera

• This exchange

Kitai: In that time, have I ever attempted to deceive you? Tavi: The first night I met you, you gave me that [scar] with one of those stone knives. And I thought you were a boy. Kitai: You are slow and stupid. We both know this. But have I ever deceived you?

• Captain Cyril explaining that the Aleran Legion isn't like the others:

Cyril: We've only one Knight Ignus, and he's currently being treated for burn wounds.

• • And that's not even the worst of it:

Tavi: Most Legions would kill to have [sixty] Knights Aeris, sir. Cyril: Yes ... if they could fly. Tavi: They can't? ... I thought that was what you had to be able to do to be one of those, sir. Cyril: Oh, they can get into the air, for the most part. Getting down again in one piece has proven something of a problem...

• Tavi gets out of marching with the Legion by breaking his leg. He explains it as a result of a spooked horse. The ASLEEP horse doesn't cooperate.
• First Lord's Fury, Lord Gram's reaction to seeing the Vord Bulks for the first time. As the other High Lords and assembled Citizens discuss what to do about them, Gram's only lines for about three solid pages are a repeated, "Bloody crows," occasionally mixed with, "Blighted bloody crows."
• Tavi and Kitai getting married Aleran Style. More precisely, Kitai's reaction.

Kitai: It is foolish, but we must endure this Aleran nonsense. It will make your father happy. Tavi: It's a necessary formality. That's all. Kitai: (ignoring him) Like many Alerans, he places undue value upon acts performed in front of witnesses in which all manner of ridiculous things are done that would be much more simply done at a desk or table than here. But we love him, so we will do these things. (After Tavi explains the ceremony) Kitai: You... are quite serious, aren't you? Tavi: That's... the wedding ceremony. I mean... granted there's no swordplay or arson or rock climbing, but what were you expecting?

• • Their Marat-style wedding included all three of those things ... and so did the challenge from Book One when they were both kids, which they would subsequently claim as an Accidental Marriage.
• The absolutely hilarious conversation between the various high lords and ladies at Calderon in First Lords Fury. For example:

Antillus Raucus: Well. There it is. Phrygius: Brilliant last words. We'll put them on your memorium. Right next to, "He died stating the obvious." Placida Sandos: Ah. It begins. Phrygius: See? Sandos knows how to go out with style. Antillus Raucus: You want to go out with style, I'll strangle you with your best silk tunic.

• Attis takes time out of his duel to the death with Invidia to serve her divorce papers.
• Doroga bursts in on the Vord ambush on the lines of fleeing refugees from Riva. He's very cheerful about it, all the while doing grievous harm to the Vord around him.

Doroga: Good day!

• In First Lord's Fury, Tavi gives a stream of orders to Schultz, Max, and Crassus. None of them have all the information Tavi has, and since Tavi finds being mysterious akin to getting high on really good drugs, he doesn't give it to them, so the orders don't make much sense anyone but him. The reactions:

Schultz: I have no idea what you're talking about, sir. On my way. (After Tavi has issued orders to Max and Crassus) Crassus: At least it won't be more ice ships. Tavi: Not...exactly, no. Max: Does he know how annoying that is? Crassus: Oh, absolutely. Max: You think we should say anything about it? Crassus: The burden of command is heavy. We should probably let him have his sick fun.

• Also in First Lord's Fury, there's something hilarious about how the narration specifies that Marcus orders the Knights Aeris to, "Keep those bloody bug men off my roof!" It makes perfect sense in context—and it's a serious, deadly context—but the wording and implied tone just makes him seem more annoyed than worried he's going to get torn limb from limb.