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Arc Words: Difference between revisions
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Often shows up on the Internet Movie Database "memorable quotes" page for the show, with the label "repeated line".
The high-browed, academic <ref> Read "[[
When this is a number instead of a phrase, it's [[Arc Number]], and [[Arc Symbol]] if it's an image. Compare with [[Dream Melody]]. Not to be confused with [[Iron Man|Arc Reactor Words]], which generally have to do with [[Memetic Mutation|caves and boxes of scraps.]]
'''Remember''': To be [[Arc Words]], they must be both repeated and unexplained, at least until or just before the Arc's climax. Do not confuse with [[Running Gag]].
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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** [[Gao Gai Gar]] ''FINAL'' has the oft mentioned, never quoted Oath Sworn Through Courage, which serves as a source of strength for the cast as they encounter the enemy.
* "The Destination of Fate", "Survival Strategy", and "Never amount to anything" in ''[[Mawaru Penguindrum (Anime)|Mawaru Penguindrum]]''.
** "Survival Strategy": Revealed to be {{spoiler|some sort of terrorism plot by the [[Well
** "Never amount to anything": Initially, it was only used by the Princess of the Crystal in mocking those that she summons, but it's later revealed that this particular phrase has ties to the self-worth of several characters.
* [[Pandora Hearts]] has, "A darkness that swallows everything," which is used to describe several plot related things.
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** ''[[Lost Highway]]'': Dick Laurant is dead. We've met before, haven't we?
* Not as enigmatic as many of the other examples, but the phrase "I want to fuck the whole world over" from ''Croupier'' could arguably count, along with the narrator's constant meditations on the differences between croupiers, gamblers and cheats and application of gambling terminology to real life.
* In the original draft of the screenplay, Dante's constant complaint that "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" in ''[[The View
* ''[[The Shining]]'': REDRUM... REDRUM...
* [[Zoolander|That Hansel...he's so hot right now...]]
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* [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Otherland]]'' features a significant and enigmatic character who keeps repeating, "An angel touched me."
* The purpose behind Thomas Pynchon's ''[[The Crying of Lot 49 (Literature)|The Crying of Lot 49]]''. The words are "Trystero", "WASTE" (apparently [[Fun With Acronyms|an acronym for]] {{spoiler|"We Await Silent Trystero's Empire"}}), "DEATH" ("Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn"), and a picture of a muted postal horn (trumpet). The best part, though, is that {{spoiler|we never find out if it means anything}}.
* "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!" from ''[[Nineteen Eighty
** The phrase is referenced in Neil Gaiman's ''[[The Graveyard Book (Literature)|The Graveyard Book]]''. Knowing the reference makes it even more chilling.
** This phrase is also referenced in ''Silent Hill: Origins''. Except that it is changed to read "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes the butcher to chop off your head!" And there's the three Party slogans: "Big Brother is watching you" (verifying the accuracy of this statement is arguably the point of the narrative), ""War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength" (which is ultimately explained by Goldstein's book) and "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past" (which is explained in detail by O'Brien in the novel's third act).
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** ''[[Only Revolutions]]'' by the same author has several of these (none of which are ever really explained), with "always sixteen" and "everyone loves the dream but I kill it" (and variants) probably cropping up most frequently.
** These are made even more obvious by being typeset differently: "House" (in better copies) appears in blue text and a slight offset and "Minotaur" in red (and is frequently, if not always, struck out).
* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' is crawling with these; every major noble family in Westeros has its words (with House Stark's "Winter is coming" getting the spotlight). There is also ''valar morghulis'' {{spoiler|"all men must die"}} and ''valar dohaeris'' {{spoiler|"all men must serve"}}, the code-phrases-cum-mottos of the [[Murder, Inc.|Faceless Men]].
** So . . . the Stark words are Arc Words.
** The phrase "words are wind" is used often throughout ''A Feast for Crows'' and ''A Dance with Dragons''.
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** ''[[Warrior Cats Power of Three|Power of Three]]'': "There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws." (First appeared chronologically in ''Firestar's Quest'' and continues through to ''[[Omen of the Stars]]'')
** ''Omen of the Stars'': "The end of the stars draws near. Three must become four, to battle the darkness that lasts forever."
* ''[[Dragons (Literature)|Dragons/The Last Dragon Chronicles]]'' has "Sometimes", generally used as an enigmatic answer when questions are asked. [[Self
* [[Robert Heinlein]] had a few:
** '[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]': "Thou art God."
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* ''[[Lemony Snicket the Unauthorized Autobiography|Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography]]'' has several phrases, but the most notable is V.F.D. motto "The world is quiet here."
* In its original Hebrew, [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] makes use of this trope, making it [[Older Than Dirt]]. Due to the nature of the Hebrew language, which can use the same root word with different suffixes and prefixes to mean any number of different things, this effect is used very flexibly and is often not picked up in translation.
* Probably the only memorable thing about Ira Levin's execrable sequel to his excellent ''[[Rosemarys Baby]]'', ''[[Son Of Rosemary]]''. Throughout the book, various characters josh around about how long it takes to solve the riddle "ROAST MULES" with the clue "Any five- or six-year-old might do this every day." {{spoiler|The answer is ''somersaults''. Rosemary seemingly awakens from sleep thinking it was [[All Just a Dream]] -- that's the ''entire story, first book and sequel''. This is where most people toss the book down in disgust. In the final paragraphs, though, it turns into [[Or Was It a Dream?]]? Rosemary's friend Hutch telephones, and at the very end of the conversation he casually tosses off how long it took him to solve "roast mules". This tells Rosemary that everything that happened in her "dream" was ''real'', that her now-nonexistent son has pulled off the ultimate sacrifice to save the world, and that she'd better be damned (yeah) careful about where she and her husband move.}}
* ''[[Dark Future (Literature)|Dark Future]]'': Has meta-arc words, ''"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock."'' Jessamyn Bonney is {{spoiler|possessed by the Ancient Adversary, a spirit being dedicated to opposing the coming of the Dark Ones and the [[Endofthe World As We Know It]] this will cause, that [[Big Bad]] Elder Seth is actively seeking.}} When the two establish a [[Psychic Link]] by accident, Jessamyn manifests in Seth's mind as these words. The form the Ancient Adversary most commonly takes in the spirit world? A giant crocodile. Also represents the ticking away of time until the end of the world.
** ''Comeback Tour'' is subtitled ''The Sky Belongs To The Stars''. During the Prologue we meet NASA Officer Lawrence Fonvielle who expresses his belief about The Dream of the Space Programme being to ''"reach up into the sky, make a fist and hold on tight;"'' taking ownership of some part of space. As the novel progresses, it's revealed that Elder Seth plans {{spoiler|to reactivate a [[Kill Sat|dormant satellite weapons system]] and use it to eliminate everyone who could stop his plans for the Apocalypse.}} Fonvielle comes to see {{spoiler|[[Heel Realization|that his belief in The Dream was wrong and that space can't belong to anyone]] and says exactly this to [[The Dragon|Roger Duroc.]] [[Rewarded As a Traitor Deserves|Who promptly shoots him.]]}}
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* The new ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' has had one each series/season.
** "Bad Wolf" from Series One.
*** Which Russell T. Davies admitted he didn't think that fans would [[Viewers
*** "Bad Wolf" is also something of a subversion in that the words kept appearing (although less often) after the "arc" was concluded, because the words were across all of time and space, so they wouldn't be expected to only appear where they were actually needed.
*** The phrase also appears in the DVD release of "The Invasion" (with animation replacing the [[Missing Episode|Missing Episodes]]). From the Doctor's perspective, that's long ''before'' the arc...
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*** "Sometimes a Great Notion" reveals more: {{spoiler|Earth was nuked to a barren wasteland 2000 years before The Colonies were at the start of the series.}}
*** And the finale has {{spoiler|Head!Six and Head!Baltar}} saying a slightly different version: "All of this has happened before... but does all of it have to happen again?" Possibly in reaction to {{spoiler|modern-day humanity progressing the same way their ancestors did}}.
*** ''The Plan'' has "Love outlasts Death": {{spoiler|spoken by the Cylon Hybrids before destroying the Colonies, and written on the suicide note of the Simon who killed himself rather than harm his human family. Also, Sam's [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] paraphrase of the concept turns out to be the [[Epiphany Therapy]] that separates the Caprican Cavil from the one on Galactica.}}
** "Nothing but the rain", on the other hand, is not Arc Words, just an inside joke between Adama and Starbuck.
* ''[[Millennium (TV)|Millennium]]'' season two: "This is who we are."
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* ''[[The Pretender]]'' contained a nursery rhyme sung by Young Jarod at the very beginning of the show, which continued to appear throughout the remainder of the show, and was even sung by characters other than Jarod. Its significance was never explained.
* ''[[Threshold]]'' has a fractal triskelion pattern that appears throughout the series. Though it is explained in the first episode as a representation of a triple helix, and the characters consider its mere presence to be evidence of an infectee, its true nature is never explained.
* ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'' had a question associated with each of the two most prominent races of First Ones in the show: "Who are you?" commonly asked by the Vorlons, and "What do you want?" from the Shadows. (When Sheridan asks Kosh "What do you want?" in an early episode, not realizing its significance, the Vorlon angrily tells him, "Never ask that question!") During his [[Near Death Experience]] he meets Lorien (''the'' First One) who has his own questions: "Why are you here?" and "Do you have anything [[Worth Living For]]?". In "Into the Fire," the younger races throwing off the yoke of the First Ones is emphasized when Sheridan turns their questions around on them: "Who are ''you''?" he asks the Vorlons; "What do ''you'' want?" he puts to the Shadows; [[Armor
** Which are, altogether, a slight recasting of the key questions from Alfred Bester's (no, the writer) ''The Stars My Destination'': "Who are you?" "Where are you from?" "Where do you live?" and "Where are you going?"
** ''Babylon 5'' also referenced the arc words from ''The Prisoner''; when the more sinister members of the Psi Corps say goodbye they do the same salute, complete with "be seeing you".
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* While not recurring, the very first spoken lines in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'' ("The thirteen days after we awoke were the beginning of the end") definitely qualify for the "meaning unveiled slowly as the story progresses" part. That includes questions like who is the speaker, in which sense did she awake, why did she awake, whom does she mean with "we", why is it "[[Arc Number|thirteen]]" days, what end is she referring to, why is it the beginning, etc..
** In [[Final Fantasy XIII-2|Final Fantaxy XIII-2]], "If you change the future, you change the past."
* "What can change the nature of a man?" from ''[[Planescape Torment|Planescape: Torment]]''. Also an [[Armor
** Also "torment" itself, along with the symbol that represents it that looks like an oddly bent shuriken.
* The original ''[[Baldurs Gate]]'' had Gorion's spirit appearing to you in dreams at the end of every chapter and always telling you "You will learn..." before you wake up and discover a new entry in your special ability list. {{spoiler|Presumably, he meant learning about your Bhaal heritage by that.}}
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* [[Portal (Video Game)|Portal]]: '''The cake is a lie...'''
* In conversations with the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Qunari]] over the course of [[Dragon Age 2]] the 'certainty' of the Qun is contrasted with the chaos of free will, foreshadowing the primary conflict of the second chapter.
** As [[Well
* ''[[Bayonetta]]'': "The Left Eye, our treasured Left Eye, will never fall into the hands of another!"
** "May Jubileus, the Creator, grace you!"
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