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The Dark Is Rising: Difference between revisions
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Adult Child]]: The Greenwitch is very much portrayed as one of these. Watch out for her tantrums...
* [[Affably Evil]]: The Withers siblings in ''Over Sea, Under Stone''. While their [[Most Definitely Not a Villain]] cred is established by their beautiful yacht (Simon just so happens to love sailing), pristine white clothes and gleaming smiles, and Polly's [[Evil Is Sexy|loveliness]], for most of the book they come off as either genuinely nice, bumbling people or at worst [[Punch Clock Villain
** The same could also be said for Maggie Barnes in ''The Dark Is Rising'', {{spoiler|[[Lady Macbeth|Mrs. Rowlands]]}} in ''Silver on the Tree'', and {{spoiler|Mrs. Palk}} also in ''Over Sea, Under Stone''. For all her use of mythic archetypes, [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]], and [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]], [[Susan Cooper]] loves this trope. And despite this, [[The Reveal]] about {{spoiler|Mrs. Palk and Mrs. Rowlands}} [[Your Mileage May Vary|is still genuinely shocking]] upon first reading. Even Merlin didn't figure it out until it was almost too late.
* [[All Just a Dream]] / [[Or Was It a Dream?]]: Jane's encounters with the Greenwitch are played as something the reader is never quite sure is real, all in her head, or a magical interaction, until she awakens with the lost scroll case, and at the end of the book when Mrs. Penhallow talks about the leaves and the smell of the sea filling her room.
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* [[Chekhov's Boomerang]]: Will's mother's wedding ring. Not only is fixing it the reason Roger Stanton has to call in a specialist, which allows the Black Rider to enter Will's normal life as "Mr. Mitothin", but the "odd runic lines" Merriman comments on needing to examine more closely, when Will envisions it for him, turn out to be {{spoiler|the spell of Lir, which the Rider uses to enchant Mary}}. And then this same spell appears again in book three, as one of those the painter uses to try and control the Greenwitch.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: When the Dark first assails the hall where Will meets Merriman and the Lady, [[Manipulative Bastard|tempting him to open the door with the voice of his mother]], he stumbles just in time on the candlestick, thus burning the symbol of the Light into his arm from the [[Detect Evil|frigid Sign of Iron]] on his belt. This scar, once healed by the Lady, then proves to be extremely useful in the series, from its first usage to drive the Black Rider away from the door of Huntercombe Manor to it being the key needed to pass Will and Bran safely through the last magical barrier inside Bird Rock in ''The Grey King'', so they can obtain the golden harp. None of which could have happened [[Hoist by His Own Petard|if the Dark hadn't caused him to get it in the first place]].
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Aside from the Walker who turns out to actually be [[Face Heel Turn|Hawkin]], Mr. Penhallow from the first book counts. What seems just a random villager introduced to add flavor to Trewissick ends up becoming far more useful than could have been
* [[The Chick]]: Sadly, for most of the series Jane is this, trailing after the others while always being either afraid or objecting to the danger and generally being a party pooper. In the first book she acts mostly as a helpless damsel, with the few times she does anything of significance such as deciphering clues on the map being brushed aside or downplayed by her brothers; this is not helped when, in a moment of determination to prove her usefulness she decides to find the author of a guidebook on Trewissick to see if he can shed any light on the coastline on the map. Too bad the vicar she finds [[Horrible Judge of Character|turns out to be Hastings/the Black Rider]]. In book three, while she does obtain [[MacGuffin|the secret scroll]] from the Greenwitch so they can translate the grail, it comes about through a very stereotypically feminine manner, the fact [[The Heart|she felt sorry for the Greenwitch]] and "wanted her to be happy". And in the last book, her one claim to fame is receiving the message from the Lady and then resisting the ''afanc'' (though she still needs Bran to rescue her), and calling Bran out on his arrogance and
** [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on book three. In such a melancholy book, filled with so much selfishness, some found her genuine altruism to be refreshing and heartwarming. And her gender is never pinpointed as the reason for these feelings. Rather, Jane herself seems to be a genuinely compassionate person who was disturbed and saddened by the intense misery the Greenwitch felt.
** Point. Still, even Jane herself felt rather silly and childish wishing for such a thing, when she could have asked for the grail back or the scroll. There was a definite tinge to her thoughts that her choosing such a compassionate wish was a "girlish" thing to do. On the other hand, the very fact only women were allowed at the making of the Greenwitch, so that only Jane had a chance to make a wish at all, rather undermines the idea of women being useless. Perhaps someday compassion and selflessness won't have to be seen as exclusively female things. In the meantime it can't be denied that while many were heartwarmed, touched, or even brought to tears by Jane's compassion, others without insight or understanding could look at her actions and call her a stereotypical [[The Chick|Chick]].
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* [[Easy Amnesia]]: Will gets inflicted with this {{spoiler|by his own side}} to set up the plot of ''The Grey King''.
* [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: The six Signs--[[Kill It with Fire|Fire]], [[Kill It with Water|Water]], [[Dishing Out Dirt|Stone]], [[Chinese Mythology|Wood]], plus Iron and Bronze to represent modern man (and thus also joining Western and Eastern elements).
* [[Empathic Weather]]: Played entirely straight for most of the series, with the rising of the Dark accompanied by blizzards and cold, a tornado, and a great deal of storms, shadow, and lightning in general. But on at least one occasion, this is
* [[The End of the World as We Know It]]
* [[Eureka Moment]]: Partly due to his [[Easy Amnesia]] but mostly because of his ignorance of Welsh, Will figuring out where the "door of the birds" and "the pleasant lake" were count as this trope. The latter especially because his realization comes about due to a random comment made by Farmer Ty-Bont.
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* <s>Horror</s> [[Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday|Evil Doesn't Settle For Simple Tuesday]]: The time of the Dark's first Rising in the series coincides with the twelve days of Christmas, while Will's coming into his powers as an Old One begins on his birthday, Midwinter Eve/Day. The second great Rising occurs at Midsummer. Justified because these times are said to be naturally ones of great magical power.
* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: In ''The Dark Is Rising'', the Walker and the Dark summon the nine candles of winter to attempt to freeze all the villagers staying at Huntercombe Manor. When this scheme is foiled by knocking out the Walker (who was the Dark's ticket in), the Light is able to grab the candles before they fade and use them to fill the candle-ring, thus fulfilling the prophecy and obtaining the Sign of Fire.
* [[Humans Are Flawed]]: The ultimate conclusion of the series, and why the Light can defend them and their right to make their own free
* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: Perhaps this is only to be expected in a British series starring mostly British characters. The last book alone has two prominent examples, very close together. First Will chides his sister Barbara for being "shamefully naked" in a sunsuit, when he's wearing only a pair of shorts himself. Then there's this exchange from the Welsh mountaintop:
{{quote|'''Jane''': Have some chocolate before it melts. And don't tell me it's bad for our teeth, Simon, because I know it is.
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* [[I Know Your True Name]]: A power over other supernatural beings by knowing and invoking their true names is explicitly described as a method of the Light in the Book of Gramarye. The reader first sees it used by Merriman on Hastings/the Black Rider at the climax of the first book; he does so again to Maggie Barnes in book two. In that same book, the Black Rider attempts a spell based on the same premise when he uses the Christmas ornament which was carved for Will at birth and [[Sympathetic Magic|a strand of Mary's hair]] to take control of his sister and exert leverage upon him. Unfortunately for the Rider, who [[Did Not Do the Research]], the ornament in question had actually been carved to resemble the symbol of the Light, and he was thus powerless against it.
* [[Identical Grandson]]: When the Drews and the Rowlands visit the past, this is apparently the case, since Evan Rowlands and his wife look exactly like John and Blodwen, while Caradog Lewis is the spitting image of Prichard. In the latter case this is also an example of [[Generation Xerox]], since despite Merriman's warning Prichard ends up making the same mistakes as and becoming exactly like his ancestor.
* [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]]: When applied to
* [[Instant Expert]]: Will, at riding horses. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] because both the white mare of the Light and the horses in the Lost Land are [[A Wizard Did It|magical]].
* [[Intergenerational Friendship]]: Eleven- to twelve-year-old Will and his white-haired mentor Merriman. Mind you, in their other reality they're ageless Old Ones, but still. Also perhaps the Drew children and Merriman, though he's more like family, being their courtesy uncle.
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* [[Language of Magic]]: The Old Speech
* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]: Used by the painter of the Dark on Barney to make him forget the grail ([[Genre Savvy|but not Simon]]), and on all the Drews by Captain Toms to make them forget Will and Merriman jumping off Kemare Head to visit Tethys. {{spoiler|Also John Rowlands' fate in the end.}}
* [[Laser-Guided Karma]]: Villainous
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]] / [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: The "theatre of life" Will and Bran find in the City of the Lost Land. From the missing side of the room that makes for a literal [[No Fourth Wall]], to the fact they can later observe the people in it from the outside just as they were observed earlier (and always by the reader), to Gwion's commentary that "all life is theatre, we are all actors...in a play which nobody wrote and which nobody will see. We have no audience but ourselves", it all seems like one long metafictional [[Lampshade Hanging]] by Cooper on the nature of fiction. Gwion's wry note that this is "the best kind of theatre there can be" even suggests the idea that authors first and foremost write for themselves, regardless of whether anyone ever will read their work.
* [[Light Is Not Good]]: The White Rider, [[Captain Obvious|robed and hooded in white]], representing the evil in beings totally "blinded by their shining ideas".
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* [[Literary Allusion Title|Literary Allusion]]: When John Rowlands plaintively asks Merriman if {{spoiler|any of his life with Blodwen was real}}, Merriman's response is a paraphrase of [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|''The Merchant of Venice'']].
{{quote|'''Merriman''': If you prick us, we bleed, if you tickle us, we laugh--only, if you poison us, we do not die, and there are certain feelings and perceptions in us that are not in you.}}
** The kids quote from Shakespeare at the beginning of book five. Cooper appears to be a major Shakespeare
* [[Locked Out of the Loop]]: The families of all the children, obviously, but usually the three Drews are as well.
* [[Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me]]: Against certain forms of [[Sympathetic Magic]] - in ''The Dark Is Rising'', Will points out that the Black Rider's [[I Know Your True Name|attempted name magic]] against him couldn't have worked because Old Ones have no names, and the Rider retorts with the fact that the Lords of the Dark have no shadows.
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* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: The Black Rider, hands down. There's his hypnotism of Barney in the first book as Hastings (preceded by a very charismatic rhetoric in which he almost convinced Barney [[Good Is Bad and Bad Is Good|he was on the good side and Great-Uncle Merry was on the bad side]]); his [[Did Mom Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?]] moment at Christmas; his kidnapping, enchanting, and near [[Mind Rape]] of Will's sister Mary just before Twelfth Night; his taunting appearance in the rose garden and just before the glass tower in the Lost Land; and his attempt to [[I Have Your Wife|use Mrs. Rowlands]] to obtain John's cooperation in outlawing Bran from participating in the final showdown.
* [[Masquerade]]: The entire conflict of Light vs. Dark.
* [[Massive-Numbered Siblings]]: The Stanton family. The movie ruined this by making them [[Expy|Expies]] of the Weasleys, but in the book Will had eight
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Merriman Lyon=Merry Lyon=Merlion=Merlin. Jane's name happens to be similar to one of the Lady's names, Jana or Juno. John Wayland Smith's middle name is a reference to the legendary Saxon smith, Weyland. The alias the Black Rider assumes in ''The Dark Is Rising'', Mr. Mitothin, is associated with [[Norse Mythology|Loki]]. It may also be noted that Simon is the name of one of the apostles, Simon-Peter. The crystal sword's name, Eirias, meaning "blazing", is an in-story deliberate invocation of the trope. And the mountain Bran's mother comes from, Cader Idris, means {{spoiler|"the seat of Arthur"}}.
** A different sort of [[Meaningful Name]] appears with Cafall: {{spoiler|he was given the same name as Arthur's hound, so as to reference Bran's true heritage}}.
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* [[San Dimas Time]]: Even though the Old Ones' [[Time Travel]] should allow them to have all the time in the world to perform the task and go from one time to another, and even though in every other instance of the series this was not the case, Merriman tells Will in the last book that he only has "a night and a day" in his own time to recover the Six Signs so they may be used in time to combat the Dark at the Battle of Badon and in the present. This may be because it is the last great Rising, or because it is a rule of the High Magic which is being used to conceal the Signs.
* [[Self Destructing Security]]: The protection surrounding the Book of Gramarye in ''The Dark Is Rising''.
* [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]: A literal
* [[Ship Tease]]: Between Jane and Bran at the end of ''Silver On The Tree''. In particular, Bran gives Jane the nickname "Jenny", which is of course short for "Jennifer", which is the Cornish version of "Guinevere", which mirrors the fact that Bran himself is {{spoiler|King Arthur's son}}.
* [[Shoot the Dog]]: {{spoiler|''literally''}}
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* [[Sundial Waypoint]]: Two of the clues the Cornishman left on the map are of this nature, one involving the setting sun and the other the rising moon.
* [[Sympathetic Magic]]: How the Black Rider gets control of Mary, through one of her hairs. May also be how the painter influenced Barney, through his drawing.
* [[The Three Trials]]: Occurs multiple times in the series. Structurally, book two is divided into three parts actually ''called'' "The Finding", "The Learning", and "The Testing", which accurately describes the overall tasks Will undergoes. In book four, Will and Bran have to overcome three
* [[Time Stands Still]]
* [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]: Applies sometimes to how the Old Ones travel through and manipulate time. One moment they're in the past, then the present; time passes in an eyeblink or follows [[The Slow Path]]; a moment in time can take place in two overlapping periods at once...
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* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]
* [[Actor Allusion]]: The Black Rider (played by [[Christopher Eccleston]]) pretends to be the village ''[[Doctor Who|doctor]]''.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: The Stantons are now the Weasleys. Prankster twins, [[Aloof Big Brother]], traitorous big brother, annoying sister... Check check check '''check'''!
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