El Club de Hopewell

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Hopewell Club (in Spanish: “El Club de Hopewell”) is a web original comedy by Anthony Tesla about the lives of three high school students: Allyson (a smart , cynical yet romantic girl), Jake (a criminal often involved in things that he doesn't even seem to be able to keep track of) and Sarah (a cute but mentally unstable gothic girl)

In essence, it's a Slice of Life kind of work, with some cartoonish and surrealist elements thrown into the mix; the series doesn't take itself too seriously, subverting and lampshading all kinds of tropes and conventions about teen stories, but always in an affectionate way.

If you read Spanish, you can read the series here: http://www.wattpad.com/2873268-el-club-de-hopewell-capitulo-i-la-carta and here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120418212439/http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2834135/1/El_Club_de_Hopewell

The author is looking for some help to translate it into another language, by the way (I'm just saying...)

This page needs...a lot more work, of course...

Tropes used in El Club de Hopewell include:
  • Aborted Arc (The idea about the Principal La Fontaine and his backstory is abandoned early in the series when it was originally planned as a more explored theme)
    • Fixed to a little degree in the Wattpad version, where is implied that he might be Sarah's real father
  • Adaptation Expansion: The Wattpad version includes new episodes and tries to close some holes from the original fictionpress version, and there are even new chapters for older stages of the series.
  • Affectionate Parody: To Teen films and series in general, BUT specially the Degrassi franchise and the John Hughes's movies.
  • All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Discused and played with Sarah: She comes from a white family, and her surname sounds Northern European (Greenberg), however, she is stated to have darker skin. It's implied that she could have Sephardim blood, but since Sarah's mother Really Gets Around, it's theorized that Sarah could have either Mediterranean, Latin American or Middle Eastern heritage
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Allyson towards Ryan, her first crush.
  • All Men Are Perverts and All Women Are Lustful: Jake and Sarah.
  • All There in the Manual: The blog of the author releaseas details about the characters from time to time.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Sarah seems to be more like "whinesexual" and while she clearly has a preference for men, there are a couple of times when she doesn't seem to mind the gender of a person she's atracted to.
  • Ambiguously Brown: more like "ambiguosly tanned", Sarah is declared as such, when the group is confronted as racist because all of them are white (It Makes Sense in Context)
  • Author Appeal: Parodies to all kind of films the author considers noteworthy
  • Break the Cutie: In the Holiday's Special, Sarah is very excited to see her father for Hannukah he doesn't arrive
  • Brilliant but Lazy: If these kids put half the effort into school that he puts in getting high and avoiding school...
  • The Bully: Jake
  • Canada, Eh?: Averted, but parodied in a couple of times
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Zig Zagged: The earliest and latest episodes of the seasons always seem a little more serious that the big bunch in the middle
  • Christmas Special: More like "Holiday" Special (Sarah being Jewish and Jake...part of the "Seinfeld Church"). Two, so far.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Sarah
  • Comedic Sociopathy
  • Cool Big Sis: The way Jessica (Allyson's older sister) likes to see herself; Allye begs to differ.
  • Cool Loser: The main characters.
  • Cool Old Lady: Sarah's grandmother, Ruth
  • Crossover: Josh and Mel from another Tesla's series, "Conozcan a Josh" (Meet Josh)
  • Damsel in Distress: Discused at one point, in words of Allyson: "Jake is the strong one, and Sarah is the trickster, and I am...the one who always would be kidnapped..."
  • Disappeared Dad: Allyson and Sarah; Jake is more ambiguous about his situation with his mother
  • Erudite Stoner: Averted: if anything, they are even dumber when high
  • Even the Girls Want Her: It has been made implicit that the Arts Teacher (a female) has a crush on Sarah
  • Fiery Redhead: Inverted: If anything, Allyson is the shyest and less self-confident member of the group
  • Freudian Excuse: Sarah was a very lonely girl who often was ignored by her parents
  • Genre Roulette: The author has even admited that the whole "teen comedy" aspect of the series is more a Excuse Plot, and that the series really got its edge when it stopped try to be a ordinary teen series and focused more in spoofing as many genres as it can
  • The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Allyson and her older sister, Jessica.
  • Granola Girl: Sarah's mother
  • Guilty Pleasures: Each one of these kids has one especially embarrasing that is revealed late in the series
  • Guy-On-Guy Is Hot: Mostly Sarah, but Allyson shows some aspects of being a Yaoi Fangirl too from time to time
  • High School Hustler: The three of them
  • Imagine Spot: Allyson's dreams
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jake, but Allyson may qualify as well
  • Lady of Adventure: Sarah's grandmother
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Sarah could be considered as such. But then again, she hasn't been involved in the life of a male character in order to "spicy up" his life. In fact, it could be say that she's more of a odd variation, since if anything, the one she tries to make her life more colorful is Allyson.
  • Meaningful Name: To some degree. "Sarah" means "Princess" in Hebrew it's revealed later in the series that her grandmother is a very rich woman and she wants to make Sarah her hereiss
  • Medium Awareness
  • Meta Girl: Sarah
  • Ms. Fanservice: Sarah; she's described as a lot more atractive than Allyson, and as wearing more revealing clothes than her
  • Odd Friendship
  • Only Sane Woman: Allyson, but then again, while she is not exactly free of her own issues, she's pretty much normal compared to Jake and Sarah.
  • Perky Goth: Sarah
  • Platonic Life Partners: Allyson and Jake, to some degree: They met each other before meeting Sarah, so their relationship is...a lot more complex than saying they are just friends, but most of the time averted because of the group dynamic.
  • Post Modernism
  • Sadist Teacher: Parodied with the PE teacher, who is actually a former member of the Israeli Army that escaped to Canada in order to avoid presocution for crimes against humanity
  • Shout-Out: Where do we even start? Cinema Paradiso, Anastasia, An American Tail, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Scott Pilgrim, The Dark Knight, Pretty in Pink...
  • Shrinking Violet: Allyson, to a degree, early in the series
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Surprisingly, very idealistic. It even tries to rebuild the ol' The Power of Friendship trope, indeed, in its own way ("We're alone in this stupid crappy place, at least we can try to hold on together and beat the shit out of them!")
  • Stalker with a Crush: Toto, introduced in the second season, develops a crush on Allyson. Sarah to a degree with Josh Horwitz, a character from another series, "Meet Josh"
  • Sticky Fingers: Jake
  • Stoners Are Funny: The drug use is always played for laughs
  • Story Arc: Probably one of the defining traits of the series: unlike others Internet novels, that usually follow a single long narrative from begining to end, Hopewell is divided in arcs of about 3-4 episodes each, in order to give it a more "TV-like" sensation to the reader.
  • Surreal Humor: Break the Fourth Wall or make meat rain from the sky, among other things
  • Take That Me: Not in the series, but as much as the author loves his own creation, he often bashes the series for all his flaws.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: While Allyson is not that masculine, Sarah is a little more feminine in her clothing and her attitudes.
  • True Companions: This is a series whose principal theme is friendship, after all
  • What Could Have Been: The series had a lot of changes before it became what it is now: two of the biggest changes were that originally it took place in London, and that the main cast were 5, not just 3 kids.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Including Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Hunger Games parodies
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/El_Club_de_Hopewell?oldid=1892888"