Stand Up and Cheer

'...But now his long slow wrath is brimming over, and all the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings that they brought have spilled it: it will soon be running like a flood; but its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard. A thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong.'

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien, page 122

My favorite media have at least one "stand up and cheer" moment. Without going into spoilers, I'll talk about why.

The Princess Bride (c) Twentieth Century Fox, image from screenrant.com

This musing owes key vocabulary to Howard Tayler, who among other things wrote the daily webcomic Schlock Mercenary for over 20 years without ever missing an update and co-hosts the Writing Excuses podcast where he and his friends (all in the writing / publishing space) talk about their craft. The title "stand up and cheer" is his shorthand for the moments in a book which...make you want to stand up and cheer. Often they're the payoff for the hard work that the character has put in, and come at critical points in the plot. Ideally, they're "surprising but inevitable" (another Tayler-ism) in that they surprise the reader, but as soon as they're revealed it's obvious things had to turn out that way. (Side note - if you have to choose, Howard recommends picking "inevitable" rather than "surprising".)

The quote from The Lord of the Rings is the foreshadowing of the Last March of the Ents. (Minor spoilers for The Two Towers, but I'm claiming statute-of-limitations on something first published in 1954!) We are introduced to the Ents, a species of intelligent and mobile trees who are notable for their slow, deliberate thinking and disconnect from the rest of the world. When members of the Fellowship of the Ring encounter one of them, they trigger the above "waking up"...and they crush Saruman's army and fortress in such a complete fashion that their battle is revealed by witnesses telling other characters (and the readers) about it while they all sit in the ruins of Saruman's fortress. This setup and payoff is a great combination of "stand up and cheer" (Saruman and the Ents both deserved what they got) and "surprising but inevitable" (strong foreshadowing, but the actual events are surprising).

The review I linked as a reference for "stand up and cheer" is for I Shall Wear Midnight by GNU Sir Terry Pratchett, the fourth Discworld book with Tiffany Aching as the protagonist. As Howard Tayler writes, Pratchett was a master of these moments, with my favorite people to to star in those moments including Tiffany Aching, Granny Weatherwax, and Sam Vimes.

For me as a reader, those moments are what make the book enjoyable and re-readable. I've lost track of how many times I've re-read Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, but I keep coming back because of those moments.

Because I can't resist the temptation, I'm going to put some context-free (and then hopefully spoiler-free) snippets that allude to some of those moments. If you know you know.

• "In my city!" he growled. "In my bloody city!" ... "What? Oh. Sorry." Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn't make an issue of it because a man angry enough to lift 300lbs of orangutan without noticing it is a man with too much on his mind." - Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
• He was drinking wine, hs color already greatly improved and having shifted his bloodstained clothing for fresh; Lenton and a couple of the scout captains were sitting with him and discussing positions to hold along the coastline.
  Coming up to him, Laurence told him very quietly, "If you can walk, get on your feet; otherwise I will carry you." - His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
• The moo started off low and rose slowy. It was a visceral sound that had rolled across the ancient tundra and told early man that here came dinner or death, and either way it was pissed. It was the sound of a big beast that was still too small to restrain all the emotions that were welling up inside it. And it was a duet. - Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
• "Message reads: 'Houston, be advised: Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man.'" - The Martian by Andy Weir
• "CHOW CALL!" Miles screamed at the top of his lungs. - The Borders of Infinity (short story) by Lois McMaster Bujold
• "She tells the and whut it is, and it tells her who she is," said Awf'ly Wee Billy, tears running down his face. "I canna write a song aboot this! I'm nae good enough!" - A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
• "Chernobog, I give you my word! By high magic I'm going to close this mountain crack now, and shut you out for good!" - Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
• "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. - The Princess Bride (the movie is my canon)