Girl Genius/Tropes A-E

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Tropes A-E | Tropes F-J | Tropes K-O | Tropes P-T | Tropes U-Z

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Girl Genius provides examples of the following tropes:

• Absolute Cleavage
  • Makes a brief and remarkably subtle appearance in the last panel of this page.
  • Lady Vrin, in her nightgown (or whatever it is).
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Sturmhalten.
• Accentuate the Negative
  • The problem with kids these days.

Zeuxippe: So much that they are trying to kill you over it!! Old Man Death: Always you gotta find problems!

• • And the younger guard:

Guard 1: Of course... the castle is over there. We're over here, and those flaming things are coming back... Guard 2: Live in the moment, kid. Live in the moment.

• Accidental Truth
  • Theo's story at the beginning about the Dragon from Mars is a pure flight of imagination, but the Other's lab actually IS in the Heterodynes' basement and, if the novel's prologue adaption is accurate, the Other's base of operations is extra-terrestrial as well! Also, in this story Klaus got wasped. And soon enough...
  • Here the crowd calls Zeetha the Baron's daughter, which according to Word of God is actually true -- if the sketch of her father which looks exactly like Klaus is to be believed.
• Aerith and Bob
  • The list of Heterodyne names in the crypt includes Caligula, the Red Heterodyne, the Black Heterodyne, Mordred, Oxalof, and Bob. Also, the world is full of people with weird names like Gilgamesh, Moloch, and Theopholous living right alongside people with ordinary names like Bill, Barry, and Agatha; no one comments on it or seems to consider it odd.
  • In a side-story: Flopsy, Mopsy, and Nietzsche.
• After-Action Patchup: After the fight with Dr. Merlot, Zola leaps to provide this for Gil.
• AI Is a Crapshoot: Castle Heterodyne. Well, actually, the guy who built it was an evil maniac, so it's probably working as designed. Even Agatha's own little 'bots have stopped listening to her. It seems Sparks can't build anything without it going haywire.
• Alien Geometries: ...what is Agatha holding in Panel 3??
  • It's a three-pronged blivit.
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Castle Wulfenbach
• Allohistorical Allusion: As you'd expect from a universe in which electronics moved quickly enough for Rembrandt to be a roboticist, Galvani's eponym comes not from discovering the effect of electrical impulses on muscles, but something involving molten zinc and Life Energy... which is often used metaphorically to mean electrical stimulation of muscles. Actually a Genius Bonus, as in real life metallurgy, Galvanizing refers to the process by which zinc (or another metal) is plated onto iron or steel to prevent rusting.
• All Part of the Show: Several times:
  • A circus of Sparks pretending to be normal actors pretending to be Sparks.
  • A Jäger hiding among people who pretend to be Jägers.
  • Gilgamesh Wulfenbach pretending to be a street actor pretending to be Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.
  • A Mongfish (Lucrezia's niece) pretending to be the lost Heterodyne-Mongfish heir to secure the Heterodyne inheritance from the real Heterodyne-Mongfish.
• All There in the Manual
  • The Secret Blueprints and the expanded chapter-by-chapter Cast pages.
  • The novels also explain things not mentioned in the webcomic.
• All Webbed Up: What the nyar-spider does to its prey.
• Almost Kiss
  • Between Bill Heterodyne and the storyteller's self-insert character in the Fan Fiction side-story. The interruption comes from the listeners objecting.
  • Argh! Damn you, Merlot! The page is even called "Smoochus Interruptus".
  • Between Agatha and Tarvek twice. Self interrupted by Tarvek here when he realises that it's because Lucrezia-in-Agatha is messing with him, and by both participants here.
• Alternate History: Perhaps better called Parallel History, because the Sparks have been around for long enough that even geography has been changed by their influence, and yet the world and its history are not completely dissimilar to ours:
  • There were still Mongol Hordes on cue, German is still spoken as a European lingua-franca, R(embrandt) Van Rijn was still a famous genius and Casanova a famous skirt-chaser, the [Weather] King was still a towering historical figure...
  • There is still a powerful church(es) with not one, but seven popes, according to this page. Judging by a brief mention here it seems safe to say that the Roman Catholics have decisively split apart.
  • And there's "The Autonomous Library" built by Voltaire.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Together with the above Alternate History.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Jägermonsters, many other kinds of constructs, and anyone infected with Hogfarb's Resplendent Immolation or Vericus Pantiliax's Chromatic Death, although as the names of those ailments may suggest, the affected person didn't start out that way and won't be that way long before something bad happens. Fans are now calling the sequence ending here the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat Sequence. Yowza! Or Eeyyooww-ZAP!
  • Mamma Gkika's skin color changes naturally, though she has some control over it and has stuck with a humanlike pink for a while in order to blend in all schneaky-like.
• Amazon Brigade
  • Bangladesh DuPree's pirate crew seems to be entirely female.
  • Geisterdamen (spider-riding, at that). Zeetha's mysterious tribe. Lots of Amazons.
  • Same goes for Heliolux Airship Fleet's flagship crew.
• And I Must Scream
  • The "squirrel".
  • The copy of Lucrezia stuck inside Zola.
• Anger Born of Worry: By Baron Wulfenbach, towards Gil.

Klaus: LACKWIT! How dare you put yourself at risk!

• • In the novelizations, Pix is furious while Abner is away, showing Gil and Bang "Agatha's" grave. Although she explains she's more angry that he "cut in on her act."
• Anguished Declaration of Love
  • Gil gets one regarding Agatha. Not to her, admittedly, but he was still pretty anguished thanks to Zeetha hitting him.
  • Subtext, people. Subtext.
• Anticlimax: The final "battle" of Revenge of the Weasel Queen.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In a world filled with lightning guns, mind controlling bug robots, and other insane science, Tarvek utterly refuses to believe Gil's flying machine can stay aloft without a gas bag.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:

Othar: We're in Castle Heterodyne with exploding collars around our necks, caught between a fake Heterodyne and a real one (as well as assorted criminals, maniacs, and various monsters), and I suspect that even if we found any beer in here, it would be evil, or at least flat.

• • Also involving Othar: "De dirigible iz in flames, everyboddyz dead an' I've lost my hat." To be fair, hats are a big deal to the Jägers whereas arson and murder are hobbies.
  • Another example here:

Professor Tiktoffen: Franz here liked turning people into beetles. Zonia believed that orphan blood had medicinal properties. Krag put his feet on my bed.

• • A villain learns why you must never punch a lady, or wake her up too early in the morning.
  • Now why would anyone want to kill Klaus von Wulfenbach? Let's see...:

Gil: Why? Because Wulfenbach troops turned her village into owls. Or maybe we deposed her favorite mad prince, or hung her lover for piracy, or banished the Heterodyne Boys, or poisoned the well, or raised the price of herring.

• Art Evolution
  • The earlier strips have bizarre anatomy issues and ugly gradient coloring. (Also after the first volume there was a great deal of uneven inking.) These problems eventually disappear.
  • Volume 1 was originally published in black-and-white. Volume 2 saw the introduction of color, in searing neon gradient fills. The coloring eventually settled down and volume 1 was eventually recolored in a somber desaturated palette. The result cleverly mirrored Agatha's psyche, as her perceptions are dulled in volume 1, overloaded in volume 2, and by volume 4 settle into a happy medium.
• Ascended Fanon: In universe in this comic, about Von Pinn really being Lucrezia Mongfish.
• Aside Glance: Plenty.
  • "At least she was color coordinated."
  • Klaus glances at the Fourth Wall in the first panel.
  • Tarvek's, in the last panel, is probably the funniest one to date.
  • Tarvek is good at these.
• Asskicking Equals Authority: This is crucial into getting the Jägerkin in line:
  • Gil uses it on Captain Vole. (Twice.)
  • Boris earns the respect of the Jägergenerals by beating their location out of a messenger.
• Attack Hello: Maxim is just saying "hello".
• Author Appeal
  • Phil Foglio is well-known (unabashedly so) for drawing his female characters with rather large "assets". But it's his wife (and co-author) who loves to get Agatha into the "lacy underthings." She's a big fan of Victorian-era undergarments.
  • Not to mention paper dolls.
  • There's also the matter of all the handsome shirtless men running around.
  • Phil admits the only reason the Jägers became recurring characters is because he really likes drawing them.
• Author Avatar: The creators, Phil and Kaja, are both apparently natives of the story's world who, it would seem, will eventually meet, marry, publish a... controversial account of Agatha's deeds, and flee into our world with it to continue it safe from Agatha as a supposedly fictional comic.
• Authority Equals Asskicking
  • Klaus; he clawed his way to being ruler of Europe atop God knows how many others and it shows.
  • His son; when thrust into authority, Gil's asskicking genes more than rise to the challenge.
  • The Jäger-Generals.
  • More generally -- in a semi-feudal world ruled over by extremely intelligent nutjobs, it's the one at the top of the castle you want to watch out for. They're in that spot for a reason.
• Awesome Yet Practical: Violetta's ability to swap out objects or weapons (or people) held by others for useless decoys. That comes in handy unsurprisingly often.
• Axe Crazy: Oh so many...
  • Most notable is probably Bangladesh DuPree, whose axecraziness is frequently Played for Laughs.
  • Jägers are highly destructive, if not malicious, but "no-longer-a-Jäger" Vole manages to be axe crazy even by their standards.
  • This is also pretty much a requirement for every Spark, especially when in their "madness place". The Heterodynes (with the exception of the Heterodyne Boys and Agatha) deserve special mention for being batshit insane even by Spark standards.
• Back From the Dead
  • "Seriously? The old 'bring her family back from the GRAVE gambit? Have you no SHAME?"
  • The simplest cure for some ailments. Zulenna got this ordered for her by Klaus.
  • Captain Vole tells Dr. Sun that an enemy officer needs medical attention -- and holds up the man's severed head.

Dr. Sun: Yes. Well. Tricky. But I've seen worse.

• Back-to-Back Badasses
  • Gil and Tarvek, on the cover of Volume 9.
  • Zeetha and Higgs during the bar fight.
• Badass: Most of the main cast fit into several subtropes; many of the secondary cast fit at least one.
• Badass Abnormal: Would most Spark characters who have "broken through" and Boris Dolokhov count?
• Badass Boast: Lots and lots.
  • This is one of the more effective examples.
  • Gil can also keep his boasts very short:

Gil: This is not a trick! I did not get lucky! I am Gilgamesh Wulfenbach -- AND I AM IN CONTROL!

• • Dr. Sun's threat towards DuPree.
  • Zola is a beautiful chemical killing machine.
  • Tarvek uses a very short (but effective) one here on Gil:

Tarvek: ... You came running in and saw someone you hate and fear trying to kill her -- of course you reacted. Gil: I do not fear you. Tarvek: Really? You should.

• • Agatha, showing that she learned the "hamming the bunch of unruly minions into obedience" part of her family business.
• Badass Bookworm: Most of the Spark characters.
• Badass Grandpa
  • Old Man Death from the "Maxim Buys a Hat" side-story. He rode with the Jägermonsters in his youth, has never lost a fight, and can still keep up with them to this day -- impressive for a (presumably) baseline human. As a result, his hat has become an object coveted by Jägers striving to prove themselves, but they only get three tries. He also counts as a Cool Old Guy and Badass Normal.
  • The former Seneschal Carson von Mekkhan has been around during the time of Agatha's grandparents. Trust him, you are NOT the weirdest thing he has seen.
  • Dr. Sun Jen-dijeh. He's able to intimidate Bangladesh DuPree, and as for Klaus... Klaus has every reason to fear and respect Dr. Sun. Dr. Sun also expresses complete confidence that he can give Gil a thrashing.
• Badass Labcoat: Agatha while setting up the really crazy device to fix up Tarvek.
• Badass Longcoat: Baron Klaus Wulfenbach has them as regular wear. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach has worn them too. And Agatha, of course. Krosp got his from the circus.
• Badass Normal: Many of the non-Spark supporting characters.
  • Axel Higgs, fullstop. Quiet, unassuming, half-asleep, and nigh-invincible. It is suggested by Mama Gkika that he's actually a Jager in disguise.
  • Zeetha. Versus a pirate stronghold (she won). Versus a demon-horse-thing-monster. (She didn't win, but it cheated by growing a new mouth and tentacles after she cut its head off.)
  • Bangladesh DuPree, and Violetta. Moloch von Zinzer seems to be heading towards this, somewhat unwillingly.
  • Many people might have thought Wooster was on the low end of the Badass Normal spectrum. Then this happened. Now he's basically James Bond in a steampunk/mad science setting. He also gave Bangladesh DuPree an Offhand Backhand.
  • Sanaa is pretty badass when she needs to be.
• Badass Princess: Not only is Zeetha a warrior princess, she doesn't seem to be aware there's any other kinds of princess.
• Bag of Kidnapping: Sanaa and Othar do this to Tarvek, mistaking him for Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.
• Bar Brawl: Apparently there's one every evening in Mamma Gkika's. Except on Thursdays; that's poetry slam night.
• Bash Brothers: Da Boyz and the Jägergenerals. Klaus and the generals were having fun at some points of the wasp attack. The Heterodyne Boys were a more literal example.
• Battle Butler: Ardsley Wooster and Boris Dolokhov, though, technically speaking, neither is an actual butler. Wooster is a spy posing as a valet or gentleman's gentleman; Dolokhov is more of an aide-de-camp, librarian, accountant, and general manager.
• Battle Couple: To an extent, Agatha and Gil during the wasp outbreak on Castle Wulfenbach. Now that she, Gil, and Tarvek are battling with and through Castle Heterodyne, they're a Battle Threesome.
• Battle Cry
  • The official one for the Jägers: "Ve hunt!"
  • Agatha during the Battle of Sturmhalten: "SHOWTIME!"
• Bear Hug: Mama Gkika gives Agatha, newly crowned as the Heterodyne, one when they first meet.
• Behind the Black
  • Gil didn't notice Agatha launching herself at him while he was yelling at Tarvek?
  • Lampshaded here, where Jenka points out that they should have heard the army of giant clanks (helpfully called War Stompers too) marching up to their tower.
• Betty and Veronica: Gil & Tarvek, to Agatha.
• Beware the Nice Ones
  • Agatha. She really is a very nice, pleasant, easy-going girl. Until she goes to The Madness Place or you hurt or threaten one of her friends. Then the Death Ray comes out.
  • Gilgamesh is usually rather pleasant and doesn't scream and beat people to get his way. Piss him off. Go on. Gilgamesh managed to scare the crap out of a Jäger (one completely off the deep end even for Jäger standards) and the resident version of James Bond.
  • Tarvek is the blue to Gil's red. He's rather charming and civil by default. When he gets mad, Zola up and surrenders. He doesn't let it end there. Oh, no.
  • And lets not forget The Indestructible Airman Higgs...
• Big Book of War: Agatha brains Zola with one of these, entitled "Using Found Objects as Weapons." The sound effect when she beans them is "TOME!"
• Bifauxnen: Grantz, Baron Wulfenbach's monster hunter. Even Gil apparently gets this one wrong, as he refers to Grantz as a "he" early on.
• Big Damn Heroes
  • Gil, once again demonstrating why you shouldn't shoot him. You'll just make him mad.
  • Zeetha and her carefully placed clothing swing in to save the day.
  • When a humanoid killing machine is lying on the floor Not Quite Dead and you're caught up in your evil plans to enslave several main characters, frankly what do you expect?
• Big Damn Kiss: As of August 17, 2011, it has happened. And the Fandom Rejoiced. So very big, it had to be continued on the next page.
• BFG
  • The gatling guns carried by the Wulfenbach clanks. Sometimes used by Jägers.
  • Agatha's Death Rays. Played with, when she made a "very small" death ray. That she used to blow a hole out of the castle, taking out a chunk of a nearby mountain. And a hole from fairly high in the castle, to the basement. What a magnificent death ray!
• Big Labyrinthine Building: Castle Heterodyne, and the Wulfenbach airship.
• Big No: Several times.
  • Crashing Gil's "falling machine" into Castle Wulfenbach.
  • Zeetha, after she finally finds someone who knows about her homeland Skifander, but doesn't know where it is, breaks out in a rage.
  • Right after Agatha breaks Merlot's mind with the enormity of his mistakes.
  • Agatha when she gets interrupted again in fixing the castle.
• Big Screwed-Up Family
  • House Sturmvoraus, aka "a bunch of evil-minded, cynical, backstabbing old fools". Occasional kinship feelings... such as they are... get expressed in hilariously twisted ways.

Martellus von Blitzengaard: I can kill family members all day and know I'm making the world a better place.

• • The Old Heterodynes, as seen here, for instance.

Gil: So this was the nursery? Tarvek: It explains... so much...

• • • Not that armored toys weren't necessary sometimes.
  • The Mongfishes.
• Bilingual Bonus
  • Many names of people, races, places, etc., make more sense if one knows a little German; for instance, "Jägermonster" can be interpreted as "hunting monster".
  • "Si vales valeo" is Latin for "If you are well, I am well", a phrase used in ancient Roman times to start writing a letter like "Dear Mister Smith". In the world of Girl Genius, it has a more literal meaning.
• Black and Gray Morality: Agatha and Klaus are both sympathetically gray and fighting for perfectly reasonable reasons. There are several villains that are clearly black, and both of them want those destroyed.
• Bleached Underpants: A variant, in that prior to Girl Genius, Phil Foglio was the author and artist of the XXXenophile series of pornographic comics, and unlike many artists with a similar background makes no attempt to hide it. However, before XXXenophile, he was already well known for What's New with Phil and Dixie for Dragon Magazine, and Buck Godot Zap Gun for Hire, and did book covers and illustrations (most memorably, for Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series), as well as the classic Con Reports and a trio of excellent, funny updates of old '60s humor comics for DC Comics at about the same time as XXXenophile.
  A lot of Girl Genius is made up of brilliant little ideas that Foglio didn't use in his pornographic work. The Jägers' speech pattern and dental work? From XXXenophile: "A Beautiful Tail" and "My Favorite Oitling". Zeetha's jewelry, with the little faces that mimic whatever her current facial expression is? From XXXenophile: "Blue Opal".
• Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: Cheese appears often, and sometimes seems to be employed as a symbol of romance. And a barfight projectile. Sometimes both at the same time. See Zeetha and Higgs. Lars was a cheesemaker's apprentice before he joined the Circus.
• Blessed with Suck
  • The Spark itself. If you have it, you can warp the laws of physics with the contents of the average Store Cupboard. Bad part? You go insane to varying degrees whenever you do it. The natural result of that is that most Sparks, and Agatha in particular, have to deal with being shunned, used, or attacked by most everyone they meet. And that's if they don't get killed by one of their own creations.
  • Agatha before her breakthrough, when she wore the locket to suppress her Spark. It undoubtedly saved her life, but it also made her completely incompetent and destroyed her self-esteem.
• Bling of War: Most troops are trying to look cool -- some, too hard. Jägers tend to dress in less unified fancy clothes, with their own peculiar taste. Of "Da Boyz", Maxim wears the most fashionable set -- he's an ex-cavalry officer, after all.
• Blondes Are Evil: Played straight with Lucrezia and Zola; played with by Von Pinn. Averted with Agatha (who's a strawberry blonde, therefore crossing into Heroes Want Redheads).
• Blue Blood: Noble families are sometimes mentioned as opponents for the Baron. Most notable characters are Zulenna and Tarvek.
• Body Count Competition: By the Jager Generals, of course.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Othar, as well as the Jägers.
• Bottled Heroic Resolve
  • "Moveit #6"
  • Jäger battle-draught. Slightly Better than Death!
  • "Moveit #11" has also made an appearance. According to Violetta, using Moveit #11 would kill most people.
• Bow Chicka Wow Wow:

Zeetha: (a green-haired Amazon) Hey, Skifander's patron Goddess is Ashtara, she who controls, among other things, fertility. Our holy-days are fun! (Cha cha cha!)

• Brain Bleach: Remember, the strip is full of Mad Scientists.

Snaug: ... spiky trap-doors... torture chambers... man-eating bats... impertinent mechanical squid... Mittelmind: Oh, there is some psychological damage, but I always wipe her memory for her birthday. Snaug: Happy birthday to meeeeeee...

• Braggart Boss: Minus the fact people of the street think he is a hero, Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!) fits the mold nicely.
• Breather Episode: Side stories every once in a while.
  • "Maxim Buys a Hat!"
• Brick Joke
  • A long time after Agatha is convinced that her battle merry-go-round is too dangerous to construct, a soldier who failed to capture her is diagnosed with a concussion for explaining that her injuries were sustained while destroying a merry-go-round.

"It could be a really evil town..."

• • In the Cinderella special, the "evil step-mother" comments that Agatha could win the kingdom with a dead rat and a houseplant. At the end, she bribes the king, a cat, with a dead rat and potted catnip.

Evil stepmother: Hy knew hit!

• • Gil throws Othar out of an airship, and when Agatha gets mad, he assures her that once she gets to know Othar, she'll do the same. An hour later, she does, and mentions, "I owe Gil an apology." About ten chapters later, she gives it to him.

Agatha: I got so mad at you, and then, within the hour, I threw him out an airship too! Gil: And you felt bad for throwing-- Agatha: I felt bad for yelling at you!

• • "But why are there mechanical squid in the cistern?"Well, two years and two volumes earlier...
  • Steam-powered feet? Steam-powered feet!
• Broken Angel: The muses, the delicate creations of the greatest spark of the time. Most of them are destroyed or damaged while sparks tried to reverse engineer them. Known examples are Tinka, studied by Tarvek, and Otilia, found beneath Castle Heterodyne. She manages to cause some trouble in her "broken" state though.
  • Also Castle Heterodyne, damaged in the Other's attack.
• Brother-Sister Team: Othar and Sanaa. Othar isn't overjoyed about it.
• Brown Note: Ringing the Doom Bell has this kind of effect. This bit implies that the Doom Bell actually uses doom itself as a means of incapacitating people, by hammering them with the concept of existential despair.
• Bullying a Dragon: Vole seems a bit prone to it. And there are two examples so far. And he doesn't seem to learn, either.
• The Bus Came Back: Zoing, Gil's mechanical sidekick, was apparently not heard of again after he undergoes some serious character development. Until...
• But for Me It Was Tuesday: Gil has no idea which particular atrocity the various assorted assassins are trying to off his father over.
• Butt Monkey
  • Moloch Von Zinzer
  • Tarvek in the Paris flashbacks.
• Caffeine Bullet Time: Agatha has it. It is implied to be a Heterodyne thing.
• Call Back
  • After their reunion, one of the first things Agatha needs to get off her mind is an apology to Gil... for yelling at him.Lampshaded when even Gil takes a while to remember about the incident. (It'd been a very hectic few months/years.)
  • "Did you know he really likes waffles?"
• Calling Your Attacks: Done by Zola under the influence of a massive overdose of battle stimulants, resulting in a cry of "Chophead Tinybits!"
• Came Back Wrong: Subverted. Apparently being brought Back From the Dead causes memory loss (as we have been repeatedly told) and frequently drives the recipient Ax Crazy. However, when it happens to Tarvek, all it takes to bring him out of a homicidal rage is the following:

Moloch: Uh... hey, check it out. Tarvek: Good Heavens.

• Can't Live Without You: When Gil supports both Agatha and Tarvek when they get infected by Hogfarb's Immolation.
• Cartwright Curse: Being a suitor to Agatha is hazardous to your health.
• Catch Phrase
  • Agatha: "You'll like him."
  • Tarvek: "I can't [really] complain."
  • Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!): "Foul!"
• Cat Fight: Gender-flipped (but still played for Mr. Fanservice in-comic) here. Complete with hair-pulling!
• The Chains of Commanding:

Othar Tryggvassen: What, tyrant? Does your empire give you no pleasure? Klaus Wulfenbach: No. It gives me no pleasure. Politics always annoyed me. Now I do it every day. I haven't seen my wife in years. My old friends are gone. I haven't traveled or explored. At least with the Heterodynes we had the adventures. The occasional fight. Now it's send in the armies, then the bureaucrats with mops. It's become an old formula.

• Chandler's Law
• Character Development
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The titles of the volumes, and also used in-story as the titles of Heterodyne Boys stories.
• Charm Person: "Ah, it is part of the power of the Gifted. Those around them wish to aid them. To serve them. Even when we know them to be monsters."
• Chaste Hero: Barry Heterodyne, quite possibly. Barry always ends up with "the High Priestess" in the stories and plays, "The High Priestess" being the catch-all term for whatever lost priestess, Damsel in Distress, or mad scientist's beautiful but misguided assistant (other than Lucrezia) happened to figure in any given Heterodyne play (basically, an in-world trope). There is no indication Barry had a love life in Real Life, though. Also Agatha, thus far.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Gil's invisibility device mentioned offhand by DuMedd quite a bit earlier. And seen in action even earlier, although at the time Gil didn't realize what it was and used it as a simple power source.
• Chekhov's Gag: when Tarvek relates all the trouble Gil got him into while they were in Paris, there is a very short gag (just one panel, the fifth) in which he complains about having to deal with pirates because of what Gil did. The pirate in that panel looks a lot like DuPree. It takes two years and five months to start to guess what exactly Tarvek went through then.
• Chekhov's Clank: The creature who climbs out of the pit in this comic was first seen, looking much better for wear, in the back of a fresco depicting the Storm King's Muses.
• Chekhov's Gun: Bunches of them, often coming back several 'books later.
  • Gilgamesh's lightning generator which was used again almost four years later.
  • The Torchmen. Seen before activation here, although we didn't know what they did at the time.
  • Even PIES end up as Chekhov's Guns in this comic. Possibly also qualifies as a Brick Joke.
  • Then there's the poison pellet Gilgamesh gave Von Zinzer to use as a suicide pill if he chose. While Von Zinzer has shown up again (alive), the poison hasn't shown up again... yet.
  • Agatha's locket. It is introduced at the very beginning, then disappears from the story within the first few chapters. Then its importance is revealed -- and then it comes back a second time, important in a brand new way.
• Chekhov's Skill: Agatha's training under Zeetha. Mind you, it's not like it was ever a secret it would be useful.
• Cheshire Cat Grin
  • Agatha frequently sports these, as do many other Sparks when in The Madness Place, sometimes reaching the level of Slasher Smile.
  • The Jägerkin sport those every time they're about to fight, so it also overlaps with the Slasher Smile.
• Chewing the Scenery: It's bursting at the seams with mad scientists who are compelled, by their very nature, to go off on emphatic rants on how the fools did not understand! This section is called "Gil Chews the Scenery." Which he does.
• Chew Toy: Moloch von Zinzer. He didn't start out that way, and it's not physical abuse. He was one of the soldiers who stole the Orphan's Plot Trinket. The Karmic Chess Master moved him next to Agatha. He tried to play rough. Now his nerves are the butt of every joke the fates can manage. Examples: The tables are turned, his GenreSavvy fails, the rain of fear begins, the Castle has some fun, the Castle gets serious, GenreSavvy does no good at all, GenreSavvy says it all, Nightmare rising, Especially when it works as planned, Fool for love, and many, many more.
• Chiaroscuro
• Chirping Crickets: During the Hugo acceptance speech.
• Chronoscope: The strange "windows" that appear at several points in the comic, with doubles of some of the comic's characters standing on the other side and observing events through them, may well be a case of a chronoscope seen operating from "the other side" -- i.e. from the perspective of the observed, rather than the observing. Presumably, the device itself will show up and be used at some point in the comic, but that time hasn't been reached yet.
• Circling Birdies
  • Gil sees circling zeppelins after getting socked in the head by the aptly-named Punch.
  • Agatha's little Clanks get circling gears.
  • Maxim, on the other hand, gets circling hats.
• City of Weirdos: Mechanicsburg. Lampshaded when one of the inhabited asked if growing up there made them weird.
• Cleavage Window: Ferretina's default. It's been noted. Quite happily. Underboobs included.
• Close-Knit Community: Mechanicsburg
• Clothing Damage: If you wear clothes and anything action-y happens, hope for the best. The fans certainly do.
• Compensating for Something
  • Der Kestle about the Wulfenbach:

Castle Hetrodyne: All the Wulfenbach sparks are known for their oversized machinery, you know. I mean, just look at castle Wulfenbach. What exactly are we trying to say, here?

• • The Heterodynes never built anything small either.
• Continuity Nod: Hundreds, and ranging from extremely obvious to incredibly subtle.
  • While having tea with the Jägergenerals, mention is made of "gingerbread trilobites from Mechanicsburg", and of the fact that Castle Heterodyne is mad, dying, and useless. Guess what Zeetha's eating as she stumbles across Gil putting his plan in motion in order to enter the mad useless castle, six years later.
  • Old Man Death has a mini-flashback of people who rode with the Jägers -- like the Seneschal. Still not sure if he's in there, though.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted beautifully here. Anevka pumping out enough electricity in her arm to flash-fry her father releases enough waste heat to send her entire outfit and wig bursting into flames.
• Cool Airship
  • Castle Wulfenbach, of course.
  • Zola's ship would qualify, but as this handy comic showing them both demonstrates, the Baron's ship is tough competition.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Mamma Gkika wants you to remember that it's bad to hit women or to wake her up too early in the morning.
• Covert Pervert: Zeetha could have told him he wasn't wearing pants earlier.
• Crapsack World: The world is dominated by people and things who'd fit right in with Warhammer 40000 Orks, and the only thing keeping them mostly in check is anti-villain dictator Klaus, who is quite willing to level cities in order to achieve such. His territory is described as containing a lot of empty space despite being central Europe, is littered with forgotten but highly-lethal Spark inventions, and walled-in cities are the closest one comes to safe. The Other systematically leveled much of Europe not long before that, and currently has free reign of Sturmhalten, a large army, and has mind-controlled Klaus. Outside Europe, things aren't much better, with northern nations having a tax on fire. The greatest folk heroes are missing, and the second greatest folk hero is a serial killer.

Rudolf Selnikov: The depressing thing? Twisted and ruthless as you people are, throwing in with you is a step up.

• • Alternatively, A World Half Full. Europa has mostly recovered from a devastating genocidal war that employed mad science bioweapons just decades ago, and is ruled by an extremely intelligent benevolent dictator who keeps the peace and lets most people get on with their lives. There are systems in place to contain the mad monstrosities that arise, and the people Othar has killed (usually) had it coming.
• Crazy Enough to Work: You get the impression this happens a lot. Perhaps the most hilarious one would be curing Tarvek of a terrifying disease by killing him and then bringing him back to life. Even more hilarious given the way Agatha said the trope name. "This has a small, but fascinating, chance of actually working! Let's do it!"
• Crazy Prepared: Zola Malfeazium, as acknowledged even by The Other, who took care... only to discover she's been outmaneuvered once more.
• Crime of Self Defense: A short-lived running gag about Gil defending his killing Dr. Beetle with "He threw a bomb at me".
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
  • Da Boyz. Oggie is the least bright of the three, but don't let that fool you.
  • Zola looks like a vapid fool, but then she drops the "vapid fool" mask and soundly beats Zeetha and Violetta, and matches Higgs -- three of the seven most capable physical fighters in the main cast. (The other four are Da Boyz -- Oggie, Dimo and Maxim; and VonPinn, who's a construct.) Though her physical abilities were boosted by a Deadly Upgrade, she did have to steal the upgrade -- from a Smoke Knight -- requiring a different kind of badassery.)
• Cry Cute: DuPree of all people gets a moment here.
• Cryptic Background Reference: All over the place, as Chekhov's Guns, but Sanaa's backstory is one of the few that is likely never going to be explained further.
• Cultured Badass: Klaus and Gil at times, but definitely Tarvek. The Jägergenerals can be this when they're not beating the hell out of someone. Wooster's Badass Normal status puts him here as well. Dolokhov can make tea or beat people up with equal effectiveness.
• Curb Stomp Battle
  • The first time we see the Lapinemoths, them against Agatha, Zeetha, and Othar (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER) was this.
  • Two in rapid succession. Zola drinks Moveit#11 and one-shots Zeetha, but despite her incredible fighting ability, Higgs is beating her down so badly the panels can't keep up with his attacks.
• Cuteness Proximity: Agatha's little clanks can inspire this.
• Cut the Juice (Type 2): "He's going to FRY-- AND NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP IT!"
• Cutting the Knot: Krosp's method of dealing with an out-of-control clank.

Krosp: This thing just wants to catch someone, right?

• Cyanide Pill: One is offered to Moloch von Zinzer, but he obviously has yet to use it.
• Cyber Cyclops: Most little Clanks. Subverted, though, as it doesn't stop them from being more cute than sinister. Well, usually; except here. Red Eyes, Take Warning, much?
• Dangerously Genre Savvy
  • Castle Heterodyne. To the point where once it finds out that Othar Tryggvassen is a hero, it immediately dumps him down a bottomless pit. Of course, the castle knows all about heroes...

Castle Heterodyne: Oh tosh, if he was a real hero-- Othar Tryggvassen: (comes through the door dusting himself off) This is an annoying place, isn't it?

• • Lately, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach seems to have taken a line from the castle. To ensure that Tarvek makes it out of Castle Wulfenbach safely, he handcuffs Tarvek to Othar, shoves them both in a broken flying machine, and drops it out a window.

Gilgamesh: He's always falling out of airships and stuff-- so if you're with him-- I know you'll get away! (drops them) Oh, and LET ME KNOW HOW HE DOES IT!

• Dark Action Girl
  • Bangladesh DuPree. Don't let her cheerful attitude or status as perhaps the most consistently fully-clothed female semi-regular throw you. She's probably the most Ax Crazy evil non-Spark in the series.
  • These days, Zola is giving DuPree stiff competition for that title.
• Dartboard of Hate: Violetta had one after she was Reassigned to Antarctica.
• Deadly Upgrade: Moveit #11 makes the user a LOT stronger and faster. It is also fatal or nearly fatal to the user.
• Deadpan Snarker
  • Krosp and Moloch.
  • Sometimes Dr. Sun has such moments.
  • And Zeetha.
• Death Glare
  • Gil gives one to Zeetha along with a brief World of Cardboard Speech.
  • The normally unflappable Airman Higgs demonstrates an impressive one.
  • Actually, the Baron is merely amused by DuPree's mistake, but yikes!
• Death Is Cheap: The horrifying tendency towards murder that Sparks possess is made slightly less horrifying when you find out they can (under some circumstances) bring the dead back to life. Examples:
  • Punch and Judy;
  • Agatha and Tarvek curing themselves of a disease by killing and reviving themselves.
  • "... Dot don't vork so much..."
  • Played straight with Dr. Mittelmind, who apparently dies enough to have trained his assistant to revive him in under five minutes.
  • The noble class has had to determine strict laws on the matter of title inheritance after reanimation.
  • The last three panels say it all, really. (Warning, not kid-friendly)
• Death of the Hypotenuse
  • Lars, anyone?
  • The current arc is an inversion of this, since a new hypotenuse came into play and the majority of the current arc has been spent preventing his death.
  • And one of the "what if" stories even lampshaded this topic in amusing fashion. Why two love interests? (Giant grins from two female cast members and female co-author.) "Deal with it."
• Death Ray: Just about every Spark has made one or something like one -- though no-one but Agatha redesigns the landscape with them during sleep. Agatha considers Gil's NOT having built a death ray gross negligence of the highest order, going so far as to say "what's wrong with him?" He takes this criticism to heart, and most of his later inventions are somewhere between "Mobile Heavy Artillery" and "Force of Nature".
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Old Man Death puts it best: "I'm just a human. Rode with the Jägers. Never. Lost. A. Fight." No wonder they covet his Nice Hat.
• Defictionalization: Some of the better in-comic T-shirt designs find their way into the Foglios' store. ("Fools! I will destroy you all! (ask me how)")
• Deliberately Monochrome: Volume 1, "The Beetleburg Clank", makes wonderful use of this. Before Agatha's locket is removed, the comic is almost entirely in grayscale; the only color is some blue around the sound effects of Sparks' machines (and Agatha's Green Eyes). Right after the locket is removed, the colors are present but dim, as her Spark starts to assert itself although she still gets headaches -- but in her most Spark-ish moments, the colors are bright and clear. By Volume 2, when the headaches have stopped, the entire comic is in full color. One flashback in Volume 2 shows the color fading the moment Agatha puts her locket back on. Originally, the first volume was black and white (it was a print comic) and that was the end of it. The retconned color is just full of symbolism.
• Detached Sleeves: Sleipnir; Zola
• Deus Exit Machina: Castle Heterodyne is able to instantly crush anyone in a "live" room, with extraordinary precision. Naturally, all the action takes place in rooms where the Castle isn't yet repaired, so it can't help out.
• Didn't See That Coming: Happens all the time. Just when the characters think their plans are set, just when the audience thinks it knows what is going to happen next, some Chekhov's Gun will be taken off the mantle and fired, some character who we haven't seen for several months or years will suddenly reappear to immensely consequential effect, or some machine will malfunction at exactly the wrong (or right) time, radically reorienting the direction of the plot in a very short amount of time.
• Dirty Business: Barry, in the flashback where he gave Agatha her locket, is crying over the effect it will have on her.
• Damsel in Distress: Zola, for a while. Considering what happens later, it may have been completely an act. Even at the time she appears to intentionally pick up the Distress Ball to draw attention from Gil to herself. Which makes the spider hazard, and its resolution, a satisfying comeuppance.
• Do-Anything Robot: Dingbots!
• Doctor's Orders: Both Dr. Sun and Mama Gkika believe in their authority in medicinal matters.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?
  • Gil and Agatha's rapid-fire exchange of ideas on how to cure Tarvek gradually get more breathless and excited as they go on, culminating in this strip. Mad science as foreplay, full-on experimentation for the sex. Oh, and did I mention Gil was shirtless the whole time?
  • And then a threesome. With an explosive, satisfying conclusion.
  • "Wow! Really?" Also appears as a trope in plays within the comic.
  • Violetta plainly said it:

Violetta: Jeez, you Sparks get all into your freakish, twisted courtship rituals--

• • Death rays:

Castle Heterodyne: And you cannot deny that [Gilgamesh] has a magnificent death ray. Agatha: (red and looking aside) That's... That's hardly a basis for stable relationship.

• • Also this slightly disturbing moment. Let's just say she'll be doing more than handing him tools.
  • In the novelization, Agatha thinks she knows why Gil is denying having a Death Ray.

Agatha: I'm sure that next time you'll build a much bigger one, but trust me, right now any Death Ray, will do, no matter how-- Gil: I. DO. NOT. HAVE. A. DEATH. RAY!

• • Baron Wulfenbach is not on good terms with England.
• A Dog Ate My Homework: "Sorry, professor, my latest experiment ate my lecture notes..."
• Doomy Dooms of Doom
  • PIT OF DOOOOM (patent pending).
  • And the Doom Bell, which has finally been rung! DOOM!
• Dope Slap
  • Zeetha gives one to Gil here.
  • It's also common for Maxim and Dimo to slap Oggie around whenever he's saying something stupid, but since they're Jägermonsters it tends to be very solid punches. Jenka joins too, if she's around.
  • "Fool! Never total your points out loud!"
  • And another one here, although frankly Moloch didn't deserve it; it's just that Sparks hate having their melodramatics cut short by perfectly mundane solutions.
  • Moloch gets his turn though, displaying his newfound Level in Badass.
• Double Entendre
  • The Castle teasing Agatha about her attraction to Gil: "All the Wulfenbach Sparks are known for their over-sized machinery..." Also figures in about half the references to Death Rays. And almost every reference to toolbelts.
  • Apparently, The Socket Wench of Prague is pretty brutal in this regard.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Professor Tiktoffen
• Dramatic Stutter: When Otilia's body isn't in the best shape. He-he-hhello, S.H.O.D.A.N.:

Otilia: Yesss--but let's ju/ust add the next step, sha/all we?

• Drill Tank: The Deep 6 Model; also something of a Punny Name.
• Dr. Jerk
  • Less jerk and more questionable bedside manner. Agatha to Tarvek.
  • Dr. Sun also has that reputation.

Selnikov: Ah, yes. That "Sun-ny bedside manner" everybody talks about.

• Dude, Where's My Respect?: "What do I have to do?! I just took down an entire army of clanks, and still I get treated like a halfwit child!"
• Due to the Dead: Especially here, which also qualifies as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Rustics say about Geisterdamen that they cause revenants, steal children, blight crops -- the usual, right? Then again, Two Out of Three Ain't Bad.
• Dynamic Entry: Zeetha, in this strip which defines "good timing".

Professor Mezzasalma: And who the devil is this?!

• Dysfunction Junction
  • The Sturmvoraus family. Dear God, the Sturmvoraus family. Their name, when translated out of German, means "Storm ahead" (in the sense of a weather forecast) so that's no surprise.

Tarvek: You don't last very long in our family unless you've got a good nose for intrigue. Tarvek: The only way to keep my family in line would be to bury them in a row. (Tarvek's cousin) Martellus: Now don't get me wrong, I can kill family members all day and know I'm making the world a better place....

• • And then there's the Mongfish family, which is at least as dysfunctional as the Sturmvorauses (with the same occasional distribution of good guys).
  • The old Heterodynes were no pushovers in this. See Axe Crazy and Big Screwed-Up Family.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Oggie's great-great-grandson is initially seen 4-years earlier telling kids the story on the first page.
• Emperor Scientist: The entire world is run by these. Baron Wulfenbach is an especially fine specimen.
• Enfant Terrible: Not quite yet, but when Gil rides out with the "devil dogs" to defend Castle Heterodyne until it's all the way fixed and goes into full-on ape-shit Spark mode, this conversation happens:

Council Member: But--I thought the new Heterodyne was a girl! Vanamonde: She is. That's just the boyfriend. Council Member: That's-- Vanamonde: Uh-huh. Council Member: We're...we're going to have to break out those little iron cages for their children, aren't we?

• Entitled Bastard: The sneering Strinbeck orders the Pink Airship to stay in Mechanicsburg Airspace. A subsequent order to dump useless objects overboard suddenly becomes most satisfying. A footnote in the novelization comments that when Strinbeck's death was logged as being "Lost Due to Own Stupidity," his next of kin felt no need to question this.
• Epic Hail
  • Agatha's signal from Strumhalten.
  • The Doom Bell has been foreshadowed as this. Foreshadowing Confirmed!
• Everyone Can See It: Mostly played straight, in that anyone who meets either Gil or Agatha and merely hears them talk about the other knows they're madly in love, but they know it too -- they just refuse to admit it (though Zeetha finally got a confession out of Gil).
  • Agatha did tell Franz the dragon that she was "somewhat" in love with Gil. She also, earlier, skated around the exact words but made it pretty clear how she felt, when she wondered how many other girls worried "about whether or not it's smart to really trust their... ah, you know, the guys they..."
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Castle Heterodyne. Also, again, Showtime!
• Everything's Worse with Bears: Da Boyz weren't fazed at all by the horde of things that infested Passholdt. Just recently, though, some bear-like adversaries showed up -- and Dimo told everyone around him to run away. Evidently he doesn't think a train crewed by heavily-armed fanatic monks and including the Lady Heterodyne and James Bond Ardsley Wooster among its passengers can take these bears. Considering one of them then swatted him away, he may be right....
• Evil Albino: The Geisterdamen, an order of ghostly-white priestesses who are in the service of the Other.
• Evil Gloating: Sparks in general, and particularly evil ones, seem to be fond of doing this.
• Evil Hand: May be a side effect of the Spark, as Agatha demonstrates.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Zola and Lucrezia each discovered this while trying to manipulate the other.
• Evil Laugh
  • Or sometimes, not so much an evil laugh as an insane one; basically every Spark at some point while they're in The Madness Place.
  • Zola post-Movit-11 has had a few.
  • Lucrezia too, though it's not entirely apparent if it's the Spark, her personality, or both causing it.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Oh, Zola. Zeetha wasn't throwing her sword at you. But you may wish she had.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin
  • It happens in the not-quite-canon story The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon from Mars but nonetheless, ocean in a bottle anyone? "Truth in Packaging" indeed...
  • A book titled Using Found Objects as Weapons gets used to beat a particularly persistent enemy upside the head.
  • A De-arming Device anyone?
  • Double Subverted with in the story Maxim Buys a Hat. Because a Jäger's hat is a badge of honor, one does not simply buy a hat, one has to earn it by taking it from a worthy enemy; the story ends with Maxim tricking Ol' Man Death into selling him his hat.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Gil has a habit of doing that:
  • Hearing a report from Dr. Sun while fighting against a pair of assassins sent after his father.
  • Making some difficult Mad Science preparation... while in the middle of a fight with DuPree. She's even unwittingly helping him.
• Exploding Closet: In Volume 1 Agatha creates one. Gil opens it. The plot is off its leash and has soon crossed its event horizon.
• Explosive Overclocking: Movit #11, for most people. Zola seems to have survived, but only because she is now under the care of Dr. Sun.
• Exponential Plot Delay: Agatha's efforts to repair Castle Heterodyne and officially be recognized as the Heterodyne heir lasted three years and ten months, starting from the time she entered the castle and ending when she ordered the Doom Bell be rung. The actual ringing of the bell lasted another three weeks. Tarvek was critically ill and about to die for just short of 15 months. The general concept is lampshaded in this strip. And again here, "It only seem like deyz been in de kestle a long time!"
• Expressive Accessory: Zeetha's headband, with the little face on it that always has the same facial expression as she does.
• The Extremist Was Right
  • Klaus, former Trope Namer.
  • Also, Tarvek ("I'm not proud of that, but...").