Supernatural (TV series)/Tropes A-E: Difference between revisions

** Season 2's "No Exit" had Dean, Sam and Jo trap H. H. Holmes (the United States' first recognized serial killer) spirit in a ring of salt, in the middle of an iron barred sewer, because they could not salt his bones since they were encased in tons of concrete. To make sure that his spirit never got out, they encased ''it'' in tons of concrete.

** In Season 3's "Time Is On My Side", Dean and Sam face the immortal Dr. Benton. Unable to kill him, they bury him alive to be trapped underground forever.

* [[Animal Wrongs Group]]: Surprisingly, the Devil and his followers. He actually wants to turn Earth into a massive nature preserve...but he also wants to murder most of humanity and zombify most of the survivors.

* [[Animate Inanimate Object]]: Dean's {{spoiler|car in season 6; also manequins and dolls in the same episode}}

* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]: the Four Horsemen.

* [[The Antichrist]]: {{spoiler|Jesse}}

* [[Anyone Can Die]]: Whether they ''stay'' dead is another matter.

* [[Arbitrary Skepticism]]:

** The Hunters fight demons all the time, but refuse to believe in angels.

** Despite there being hundreds of years of lore and mythology relating to dragons that pre-dates their inclusion in fantasy fiction and video games, both Sam and Dean believe that they can not exist because they only exist in fiction and video games.

* [[Archangel Gabriel]]: Season 5 reveals that {{spoiler|he is the Trickster, and he went into what he calls "witness protection" and became Loki of [[Norse Mythology]]}}.

* [[Archangel Lucifer]]: Season 5 reveals that {{spoiler|Sam is his intended vessel}}.

* [[Break the Cutie]]: Poor Sam. Poor Castiel. And poor, ''poor'' Dean.

* [[Breather Episode]]: Usually the signal for the ''next'' episode to crank the '''[[Angst]]!''' [[Up to Eleven]].

** In ''The French Mistake'', after getting thrown into the "Real World", the directors discuss salvaging the footage of the brothers being thrown through the window by freeze-framing right before the interference. At the end of the episode, when they're getting thrown back into their own universe, how do you think they film it?

* [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]]: In the season five finale, Sam invokes this trope to stop the apocalypse. He {{spoiler|invites Lucifer to possess him, then [[Heroic Willpower|throws the both of them]] back into the Devil's Cage.}}

* [[Broken Hero]]: Both Sam and Dean qualify, though their optimism has been somewhat drained by circumstance.

** Cas (from season five onwards) and Bobby definitely qualify too. Although Bobby is probably the most functional of the group, he's still alcoholic and pretty messed up about his wife's death.

* [[The Call Knows Where You Live]]: Happens ''twice'' in the ''pilot episode'' for Sam. First, his Dad goes missing and Dean comes to get him. He refuses ''that'' after killing the [[Monster of the Week]], but watching his girlfriend burn up on the ceiling like his mother finally forces him to take the call for good.

** In fact, any time either boy starts thinking about getting out of the business, they're dragged back in by rather brutal means. The Call doesn't just know where you are, it will stalk you from Hell and back. ''Literally''. As in, angels besieged Hell and dragged Dean out because they had work for him. They dragged the brothers back from Heaven, too.

* [[Caught With Your Pants Down]]: Implied in an episode, although when two male characters who are not having sex spend all their time together, it is to be expected.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|The Horsemen's rings are needed to trap Lucifer in Hell again}}.

** Midway through Season Six we meet Bobby's friend Dr. Visyak, a professor with knowledge of the supernatural. In the penultimate episode of the season, we discover that {{spoiler|she is an escapee from Purgatory, and is the only one who knows how to open a portal to it.}}

* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: In "On the Head of a Pin", {{spoiler|Alistair escapes from the devil's trap when Uriel manipulates a nearby water pipe}}. In "Abandon All Hope...," {{spoiler|Cas pulls something similar on Meg to get out of the angel equivalent of said trap.}}

* [[Cool Car]]: The Impala. So much so it even has its own [[Fan Nickname]]: The Metallicar.

* [[The Coroner]]: A different one appears in many episodes (since they're moving all over the country working on cases) to explain to the Winchesters how the latest [[Victim of the Week]] met his or her gruesome end.

* [[The Corruption]]: At the end of season four, Castiel tells Dean that {{spoiler|consuming enough demon blood to kill Lilith will permanently mutate Sam into a monster. Possibly, God cleaning it out of his system prevented this.}}

* [[Cosmopolitan Council]]: In [[Supernatural (Anime)/Recap/S05 E19 Hammer of the Gods|Hammer of the Gods]], the council composed of {{spoiler|ten gods, including [[Norse Mythology|Odin]], [[Classical Mythology|Mercury]] and [[Hindu Mythology|Kali]]}}.

* [[Dark and Troubled Past]] / [[Dysfunction Junction]]: if you haven't realised already that this show '''is this trope incarnate'', then you obviously have not seen the first episode. Or any episode. Or were severely inebriated or high while watching... Or some combination of the above.

** Even Bobby (previously the [[Only Sane Man]]... okay, still the [[Only Sane Man]] but for this show that doesn't say much for his comparative sanity) has massive problems.

* [[The Dark Side Will Make You Forget]]: By the end of the fourth season, Sam pretty much runs out of legitimate excuses for his dark side-skirting behavior. He cops to this in early Season 5.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: Season 1 is more or less a show about two brothers trained to fight the supernatural, looking for their lost father. Then [[It Got Worse]].

* [[Devil but No God]]: Basically assumed true until Season 4, where angels of the Lord started showing up. God is confirmed to exist in Season 5, but he {{spoiler|refuses to do anything}}.

* [[Did Godzilla Just Punch Out Cthulhu]]: Demons, angels, archangels, the [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse|horsemen]], God... The entire purpose of Team Free Will was to stop this happening {{spoiler|between Michael and Lucifer}}. Because this would unfortunately have the tiny little side-effect of destroying nearly all life on Earth.

** Winchesters! Stop pissing off insanely powerful creatures who already do not like you!

** "Castiel. Did you just Molotov my brother...with holy fire?" "[[Implausible Deniability|Uhh...no.]]"

* [[Did You Just Index Cthulhu]]: The Winchesters are fighting [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]] every other day of the week, what do you think?

* [[Did You Just Scam Cthulhu]]:

** Lucifer manages to trap Death into his servitude. Death, who is very annoyed that he's being leashed by a petulant child with daddy issues (...yes, that is how Death perceives the Devil), proves that [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu|it's not a good idea to piss off an eternal and infinite force of nature]] by actually helping them imprison him again.

** In Season Six, Crowley appears to be this to Eve, the Mother of All. {{spoiler|Except, in actuality, ''she'' was the this to ''him''.}}

** In the season finale, it turns out that {{spoiler|they were both this to ''Castiel'', of all people}}.

* [[Disposable Woman]]: There are already two by the first episode. In fact, one wonders if there were any women on the writing team. Well, except for all the [[Fetish Fuel]]. (Although, to be fair, those two women were not forgotten. The men who loved them basically declared war on the forces of hell over them. Also, really, anyone who's not actually Sam or Dean dies, regardless of sex.)

* [[Distracted By the Sexy]]: "Don't objectify me!" cries Dean to a Bela, after she proposes they have angry sex.

* [[Distressed Damsel]] / [[Distressed Dude]]: So they might be big, tough men, but they've got nabbed enough times for this trope to apply. Sam is more often the one in peril, but when Dean is captured, he is usually captured for longer (for instance, in "Hunted"). Notable instances are when Sam is taken in "The Benders" (and then it was subverted by him getting out and Dean winding up being captured instead), in "Bloodlust" (although the vampires just wanted to talk with him and they release him afterwards), in "Home", "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1", "Long Distance Caller", "Time Is On My Side", and "Ghostfacers." Dean is captured in "Hunted", "Wendigo", "What Is And What Should Never Be", "Monster Movie", and "Scarecrow." Both are captured in "Skin" (Dean gets them out), "A Very Supernatural Christmas" (they somehow managed to get out off-screen) and "Shadow" (Sam gets them out, though Dean was pretty close). To list all the times one has been helpless/at the mercy of the [[Monster of the Week|MOTW]] so that the other can save him would be far too long especially in the case of Sam, Season 1 (and Dean managed to catch up in Seasons 2 and 3) -- it's more than half the episodes. Not to mention that every episode there is at least one person (usually female) who needs to be rescued.

** The [[Monster of the Week]] in "Something Wicked" was played like a pedophile.

** The male vampire in [[Supernatural (Anime)/Recap/S03 E07 Fresh Blood|Fresh Blood]] is portrayed like a date-rape sexual predator.

* [[The Dog Is an Alien]]: There are [[Skin Walker|Skinwalkers]] who can take the form of a dog. One of them becomes attached to the family he lives with.

* [[Doppelganger]]: Shows up in "Skin" and in "Nightshifter." And "The End", to an extent.

{{quote| '''Alistar''': ''Go directly to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.''}}

* [[Downer Ending]]:

** Dean in "What Is And Never Should Be." Sort of. Damn [[Alternate Universe|alternate universes]] make these things confusing.

** Another two for Dean would be "Croatoan" where he stays with his possibly psychotic-due-to-being-infected brother and "Faith" where he accepts his pending death and doesn't even run away when the reaper is after him. My God, that kid is screwed up.

** Almost happens to Dean in "Point of No Return", also arguably Castiel.

** Sam at the end of season five {{spoiler|(with Dean and Bobby's reluctant approval!)}} in "Swan Song" (unless {{spoiler|deliberately planning on jumping into Hell is seen as [[Fate Worse Than Death|anything other than suicide]]}}).

* [[The Dutiful Son]]:

** Dean, oh so very much. Except, for the most part (it was revealed in "Skin" that he does feel resentful of Sam getting to leave), he's a dutiful brother as well.

 

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