Daria: Difference between revisions

* [[All There in the Manual]]: The ''Daria Database'', a book containing in-universe materials from the show's cast, contained a great deal of detail on the supporting cast that never comes up in the show. While nothing in the book was ''vital'' to understanding the characters, some of it provided some interesting depths to the cast, such as what happened to Brittany's biological mother or that Jodie apparently had a sister we never saw on camera.

** Mind you, in 'Gifted', Jodie's parents make reference to the fact that Jodie has a brother and a sister.

** Alternatively it suggests that despite her boy crazy persona she's actually much shyer than she lets on (or she just likes to use men for little more than dinner, money, and transportation).

** Early on, she drops hints that's she's not so chaste and definitely not innocent, but that was eventually dropped and she became more of an untouchable [[Defrosting Ice Queen]].

* [[Fractured Fairy Tale]]: Daria and Jane use a series of them as bedtime stories for the kids they're sitting in "Pinch Sitter."

** In "The Teachings of Don Jake," Jake, Helen, Quinn and Daria both try to tell scary fairy tales around the campfire. Jake's was a [[Mundane Ghost Story]] about his father getting drunk during a camping trip in Jake's childhood, Helen's was a racy vampire romance that she had to clean up at the last minute, Quinn's story was more about how badly-dressed Cinderella was, and Daria's [[Team Rocket Wins|version]] of "Hansel and Gretel" made everyone else sick (but was probably the best one out of the four).

* [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]]: In-universe: in "The Misery Chick," returning alumnus Tommy Sherman manages to piss off just about everyone in the school. Daria speaks of her resentment at the reverence he'll receive for the rest of his life, which Jane follows up remarking he may not live that long. A second later, a goalpost collapses and kills him offscreen.

* [[Fur Bikini]]: Jane wears one in a picture during the credits. Daria makes a joke about wearing one in the show proper.

* [[The Glasses Gotta Go]]: "Through a Lens Darkly".

* [[The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry]]: Quinn and Daria, as well as Helen and her sisters.

* [[Good People Have Good Sex]]: Played straight with Jake and Helen, despite her worrying in later episodes that the romance from their marriage is dying; subverted hard in the strange case of Janet Barch and Timothy O'Neill. While these two ''do'' have sex (definitely at Ms. Barch's request), they're far from good people. Ms. Barch is a psycho [[Straw Feminist]] stuck in her personal black hole of being rejected and blames all men for it (often dishing out cruel and unusual punishments, such as locking Upchuck in a closet [what she calls "independent study"] or forcing Kevin to pose as an ugly man as part of a science project, or inflicting violence on them, like she did with Mr. DeMartino in "The Daria Hunter" and "The New Kid") while Mr. O'Neill, despite being a [[Hippie Teacher]] and [[Extreme Doormat]], is a horribly self-centered man who convinces himself that he’s some sort of altruist while trying to shove his pie-eyed beliefs down the throats of his students who either don't agree or don't care (Translation: in a [[Fridge Brilliance|fridge brilliant]] way, these two were made for each other based on their unsymapthetic personalities).

* [[Gosh Hornet]]: The episode "Antisocial Climbers", has Kevin giving Brittany a bouquet of freshly picked flowers... filled with bees. It takes a few stings before she starts running.

* [[In Love With Love]]: In one episode Quinn is upset that Daria might be seen as more mature than her because Daria is in a steady relationship with a boyfriend. So Quinn spends the episode frantically trying to get one herself, before her mom tells her that she should want to go steady with a boy because she ''likes him'', not simply for the sake of having a boyfriend.

* [[It Runs in The Family]]: The musical episode shows how Quinn and Helen are actually much more similar than they appear at first. Whether with fashion or with work, they both share a fiery unhealthy obsession with being the best.

* [[Jerk Jock]]: Mildly subverted by Kevin; he's so dim that he usually doesn't go much further past inconsiderate on the jerk scale, and seems to consider Daria a friend. Played straight with Tommy Sherman in "The Misery Chick".

* [[Jive Turkey]]: The magazine editor Val uses language like this in an attempt to seem like she is still in touch with teenagers.

* [[The Lancer]]: Jane Lane.

* [[Leaning On the Fourth Wall]]: In "That Was Then This Is Dumb" after Jane explains Trent's "dormant cycle" he opens his eyes and smiles at the "camera" as it shifts left.

* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: Even ''the Fashion Club!'' There's a clever [[Lampshade Hanging]] in "The Teaching of Don Jake." While Daria and Jane are having a conversation, Jane is idly packing a suitcase to head off to a family reunion. EVERY shirt she puts in the suitcase is the exact same as the one she's wearing.

* [[Local Hangout]]: The Pizza King where Daria, Jane, and many of the other Lawndale High students frequent.

== M-P ==

* [[Magic Realism]]: Has quick brush with the genre in "Depth Takes a Holiday".

* [[The Mall]]: The episode "Malled" has the cast visiting the Mall of the Millennium.

* [[Mama Bear]]: If you threaten either Daria or Quinn, Helen will use all of her knowledge of the law - and a well-placed threat or two - to bring you down.

* [[No Social Skills]]: Ted. He was homeschooled and does it show. He didn't even know what pizza was before Daria took him out.

* [[Nothing Is the Same Anymore]] or [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]]: Starting with the episode "Jane's Addition", the series changes into becoming a [[Dramedy]] with a [[Story Arc]] about the characters' coming of age and Daria realizing that her snarky attitude is hurting her more than it's helping her. Some of the fans didn't take to well to this, though others liked the stronger [[Character Development]]. The introduction of Tom had something to do with this as well (see [[Die for Our Ship]]).

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Quinn, and possibly Stacy as well.

** Possibly Brittany too, mainly because despite her seeming ditzy nature she couples, "[[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]" and Cloudcoocoolander together on occasion.

** Subverted in "I Don't". Daria's bridesmaid dress is a very nice style and ''should'' have looked great on her, but the seamstress put zero effort into fitting it to Daria, blaming her "lack of hips" as the reason, and she spends the rest of the episode enduring complaints on why she didn't get the same style as the other bridesmaids while wearing it.

* [[Shipper On Deck]]: Jane takes a few opportunities to try to set Daria up with Trent, though it may have more to do with wanting to get some time alone with Jesse.

** Also, Demartino's throwing a sink through a window to escape in "Is It Fall Yet?" deliberately mirrors the fountain-throwing scene in [[One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest]]

* [[Show Within a Show]]: Sick Sad World

* [[The Snark Knight]]: Daria was such a striking examples of the trope, she was its original [[Trope Namer]]. She despises the world she aches to mend, but is in no position to act. The frustration and anger behind that still expression flows out endlessly in her quips. She devotes considerable intelligence and energy to her snarky retorts that all too often fail to find purchase -- her target just does not have the depth. She is quite aware of her own nature: in the final regular episode, where she has a personal crisis after finding a refrigerator box in the backyard, Daria fears that she unfairly burdened her parents by being that way due to all the teachers telling Helen and Jake about Daria being antisocial. Her parents firmly reassure her that they consider her personality worth the price for such an intelligent and principled daughter.

* [[Snowed In]]: "Antisocial Climbers".

* [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]]: In-universe, it's shown in ''Arts and Crass'' that Ms. Defoe believes this.

* [[Spin-Off]]: Daria was originally a minor character on ''[[Beavis and Butthead (Animation)|Beavis and Butthead]]''. A Mystik Spiral-based spin-off-spin-off was briefly considered.

** Helen apparently started working hard at school so that she would get attention from her mother, which has blossomed into full-blown workaholism by adulthood.

* [[Well, Excuse Me, Princess!]]: Daria, Quinn, Helen - oh, hell, ''all'' of the "Barksdale Women".

** "Boxing Daria" gives the above episode a run for its money.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: Although the creative team ran out of ideas by then, consider this exchange in ''Is It College Yet?'':

** Oregon is actually like this, despite the whole "Other Rainforest" thing. (Desert: John Day area and Kah Nee Ta resort; Mountains: Mt. Hood and Mt. Bachelor.)

* [[Wicked Stepmother]]: [[Subverted]]; Brittany and her stepmother, Ashley-Amber, have a close, sisterly relationship. Possibly because there's only a decade difference between their ages.

* [[Women Are Wiser]]: Brittany is closer to Earth than Kevin, in the sense that Neptune is compared to Pluto.

** Helen to Jake, though she's far from flawless herself. She's definitely ''smarter,'' but he's arguably more moral.