Supernatural (TV series)/Tropes F-O: Difference between revisions
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* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|Castiel goes [[Jumped Off the Slippery Slope|off the deep end]]}} in the season six finale.
* [[Facing the Bullets One-Liner]]: In Season 5, {{spoiler|right before Ellen pushes the buttonto blow up herself and the hellhounds, "You can go straight back to Hell, you UGLY BITCH!!!"}}
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* [[Love Martyr]]: Poor Dean. Poor, deluded Dean.
* [[Lucky Rabbit's Foot]]: One of the episodes centers on a cursed rabbit's foot. If you touch it, as long as you had it in your possession, you have phenomenally good luck. As soon as you lost it, your luck would turn and soon you would die through sheer bad luck.
* [[Machine Empathy]]: Dean seems to have this in regards to his Impala. This concept becomes very important as the show goes on.
* [[Made of Iron]]: Justified for demons, angels, et al. Sam and Dean, however, have sustained more head injuries between them than Muhammad Ali.
* [[Major Injury Underreaction]]: Lucifer, after being {{spoiler|shot in the ''head'' by the ''Colt'', the series until-then kill-everything weapon}}, crumples to the ground...before taking a deep breath and staring back up at Dean.
{{quote|'''Lucifer''': ''Ooooowwwwwww!''}}
* [[Male Gaze]]/[[Female Gaze]]: An odd one, this. There's a hot girl every episode and lots of attention gets paid to her cleavage, of course, but there's been slow, lingering shots panning up the boys' long legs and arses, half of their promo shots for Season 2 consisted of hooker poses and you just can't deny that they're not wearing a bit of lip gloss and eyeliner in Season 1 episodes. When there's a sex scene, the camera generally spends more time looking at Sam or Dean than his partner.
* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]]: Dean, although it's portrayed as not always a good thing. Hilariously, he concludes in Season 4's "Monster Movie" that, thanks to full body regeneration after being pulled out of Hell, he is a virgin again. (By the end of that episode he's not.)
* [[Manly Tears]]: You have to admit, they cry a hell of a lot for two, supposedly manly, blue-collar soldiers/warriors.
* [[Man of Wealth and Taste]]:
** {{spoiler|Lucifer!Sam}} in a [[Light Is Not Good|pristine white suit]]. [[Man in White|Need we say more]]?
** Crowley.
* [[Meaningful Name]]:
** {{spoiler|[[Paradise Lost|Anna Milton]]}}, a fallen angel.
** Arguably, the Winchester name itself, given the [[wikipedia:Winchester Mystery House|Winchester Mystery House]].
** In one episode, a girl called Lily is revealed to have the power to kill someone by touching them. The lily flower is often a symbol of death.
* [[Mental World]]: Sam is stuck in one in the season 6 finale of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' after {{spoiler|Castiel destroys the mental barrier that is keeping his traumatic memories from potentially turning him into a vegetable}}.
** Dean and Sam also enter Bobby's nightmare world in another episode.
* [[Martyr Without a Cause]]: All three Winchesters.
* [[McLeaned]]: Many of the characters who were killed off because their actors got regular roles on other shows.
* [[Milky White Eyes]]: Upper level demons.
* [[Mind Screw]]:
** "What Is And What Should Never Be" and "Mystery Spot"
** "Dark Side of the Moon." At least until it was explained that {{spoiler|Sam and Dean are actually in Heaven, reliving their fondest memories}}.
* [[Minion Shipping]]: The two demons from "Sin City", Casey and the priest.
* [[Missing Mom]]: She's killed by deomns when Sam turns six months old, in the pilot.
* [[Mistaken for Gay]]:
** Being [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] who always travel and work together, the brothers are sometimes mistaken for a gay couple. Luckily for them, all they have to do is quickly mention they're brothers and not be bothered with any further questions (or delve into a [[Not That There's Anything Wrong with That]] discussion).
** In "The French Mistake", this continues with Sam and Dean transported into the bodies of their actors Jared and Jensen. This despite the fact that both actors are married--[[Fandom Nod|wait a minute]].
* [[Mood Whiplash]]:
** In "Mystery Spot", Dean keeps dying, we laugh hysterically because they're showing the funny ones, and then Dean dies for real, which breaks Sam completely, and we feel guilty for ever laughing at all.
** Notable in "Swan Song."
{{quote|Dean: Assbutt?
Castiel: He'll be back, and upset, but you got your five minutes.
Lucifer: Castiel...did you just Molotov my brother with holy fire? }}
** The sixth season episode "Live Free or Twi-Hard" starts with a dead-on Twilight parody but switches to angsty after the first act.
** Ghostfacers has a lot as well. Between the incompetence of the Ghostfacers crew, the depressing ghost's story, {{spoiler|Corbitt's death and Ed's tearjerker farewell}} and the Ghostfacers bumps before every commercial break, the episode is all over the mood map.
* [[Moral Dissonance]]:
** The Winchesters seem to care less and less about killing the demons' human hosts as the show goes on, though this may be a result of the sheer number of demons they encounter. And Dean's [[Moral Myopia]] means he'd rather kill them all than [[Big Brother Instinct|risk]] Sam [[The Dark Side|using his powers]] to save the hosts, especially once he finds out [[Psycho Serum|demon blood]] fuels them.
* [[Moral Myopia]]: Dean's attitude towards the possibility of Sam turning into a monster or otherwise being abnormal; he's perfectly willing to kill strangers who might go darkside, but simply refuses to do so with his brother even when presented with clear indications of this happening, because he couldn't bear to live without him.
* [[More Than Mind Control]]: This is [[The Only One|basically]] what [[Evil Mentor|Ruby]] did to [[Unwitting Pawn|Sam]] with the help of [[Psycho Serum|demon blood]].
** Lucifer used this to successfully gain permission to possess Nick
* [[Monster Lord]]: Azazel, Crowley and Lilith are powerful, high-ranking demons. Bobby refers to Death as the "Big Daddy Reaper". The Alphas and Mother of All also count.
* [[Monster Progenitor]]: Season 6 introduces the concept of Alphas, the progenitors of various monster types such as shifters, vampires and skinwalkers, and then the Mother of All Monsters.
* [[Monster of the Week]]
* [[Most Important Person]]: Sam and Dean are this to each other. Though some fans will always [[Slash Fic|insist differently]].
* [[Mother of a Thousand Young]]: The Mother of All, the [[Big Bad]] of the second half of season 6.
* [[The Multiverse]]: As of season 6 we have Earth, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, an alternate future, the Trickster's alternate realities, and of course, Fairy World. [[The Masquerade]] for normal humans has gone beyond just covering up for things that go bump in the night (oh, and the apocalypse). And, of course, heaven itself is a mess of alternate realities strung together.
* [[Mundane Solution]]: Decapitation is only a minor setback to a Leviathan, but they can be burned by {{spoiler|Borax, which can be found in common household cleaners}}. They regenerate even from that, of course.
* [[Must Make Amends]]: Season five is this for Sam after accidentally starting the Apocalypse {{spoiler|and freeing Lucifer}} and in response to his behavior in season four. The second half of season six starts like this for him after he finds out what he did {{spoiler|while soulless}}.
* [[My Horse Is a Motorbike]]: [[Horsemen of the Apocalypse|The Horsemen]] don't ride horses. They ride in style, baby. Except Pestilence, naturally.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]:
{{quote|'''Nick's "wife"''': I'm an angel. My name is Lucifer.}}
* [[Nay Theist]]: Sam and Dean, after a certain point in season 5. You would be too if the angels were, on the whole, [[Light Is Not Good|dicks]] and {{spoiler|it looked like God didn't care about stopping the Apocalypse}}.
* [[Near-Death Clairvoyance]]: "In My Time of Dying"
* [[Neurodiversity Is Supernatural]]: Sam's body living without a soul is treated like sociopathy.
* [[Never Sleep Again]]: The M.O. of a [[Monster of the Week]]
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: at the end of season four, Sam spends most of the season getting the power to kill Lilith so he can stop her from breaking the final seal {{spoiler|and freeing Lucifer. In actuality, Lilith '''was''' the final seal, and by killing her he causes the release of Lucifer and kick-starts the Apocalypse. Oops.}}
** At the end of Season six, {{spoiler|Castiel absorbs the monster souls of Purgatory to get the power}} to defeat [[Archangel Raphael]], who wanted to restart the Apocalypse. But in doing so, he unleashes {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|the Leviathans]],}} creatures that God locked away to stop them from eating everything else.
** To an extent, Dean as well, not only for {{spoiler|breaking the first seal}} between seasons three and four, but also for {{spoiler|revealing to Azazel beforehand that his plans were going to work.}}
* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: Lucifer thinks raising [[Time Abyss]] [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Death]] and [[Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?|keeping him on a leash]] will ''help'' him. [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu|Mistake]].
** Zachariah sends Dean into a bleak future to convince him he must say yes to Michael. The trip also convinces Dean he has to stick with his brother, which lets Sam talk Dean out of the Michael thing and lets Dean give Sam the strength to {{spoiler|[[Fighting From the Inside|take control of his body]] from Lucifer long enough to [[Heroic Willpower|throw him back into the Cage]].}}
* [[Nigh Invulnerability]]: A number of types of this trope appear in the show:
** ''God'': Pagan gods can be killed by mere mortals, but the trope does apply to the Big G, since it seems like Death is the only entity that could kill him.
** ''Divine protection'' mixed with ''Resurrection'': In season 5 Sam and Dean are functionally incapable of staying dead. If they do die then the Angels (and in Sam's case, also Satan) will just resurrect them because they can't be used as Angelic vessels if they're dead.
** ''External Repair'': Dr. Benton is a scientist who somehow gained immortality, but his body kept on decaying. In order to continue functioning he regularly harvests new organs.
** ''Extreme Luck'': Whoever acquires the rabbit's foot, at least [[Artifact of Death|as long as they have it in their possession]].
** ''Regeneration'': The Leviathans recover from almost anything. The only known means of immobilizing them so far is to chop off the head, and then keeping it absolutely out of reach of the body so it can’t just reattach itself.
* [[No Dead Body Poops]]: Averted in the [[Groundhog Day Loop]] episode.
** Subverted in "Free to Be You and Me" when Dean prevents the angel Castiel from insta-transporting him somewhere: "The last time you did that I didn't poop for a week!"
* [[Noble Demon]]: Possibly played straight with Casey in ''Sin City''.
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: The "douchebag" magician, Jeb Dexter, is pretty much a dead ringer for Criss Angel. In fact, the episode's title is "Criss Angel is a Douche Bag."
* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Castiel delivered one of these to {{spoiler|Dean Winchester}}, when Castiel caught him attempting to {{spoiler|surrender, which the angel considered a betrayal.}}
** In 4x16, when Alastair unexpectedly freed himself from the devils-trap. And having been tortured by Dean for a few hours, he was quite pissed to put it mildly.
** In the season 5 finale, Dean puts himself on the receiving end of such a beatdown when he refuses to leave his brother {{spoiler|while Lucifer is possessing Sam.}}
** In 6x13, {{spoiler|a soulless-Sam}} gives one to a cop who's grown suspicious of his cover.
* [[Nostalgia Heaven]]: Except that, because you become distracted by the projections of your friends/family, instead of actually getting to meet up with your loved ones, the characters who find out are decidedly unhappy.
* [[Noodle Incident]]:
** From "Yellow Fever": ""
{{quote|'''Dean''': …the truck stop waitress with the bizarre rash…}}
** From "And Then There Were None", and possibly "When the Levee Breaks", there's the situation in Omaha between Bobby and Rufus.
** ''Sam, Interrupted''
{{quote|'''Sam''': Martin is a great hunter.
'''Dean''': Was... until Albuquerque. }}
* [[Not So Different]]:
** Michael and Lucifer lecture Dean and Sam about this, who {{spoiler|are their respective vessels}}. Michael tell Dean that he is dutifully obedient to his father (God), that he cast Lucifer down because he defied him, and that he [[Promotion to Parent|practically raised his younger brother]], taking care of him "in a way most people could never understand". Lucifer tells Sam that he loved and idolized his older brother and begged him to stand alongside him in refusing to bow down to humanity, but that Michael instead called him a "freak" and a "[[You Monster!|monster]]", casting him down because he was different and had a mind of his own.
** Eve gives this speech about herself and their mother in "Mommy Dearest".
* [[The Nth Doctor]]: Demons who come back later on take on new bodies (Ruby and {{spoiler|Meg.}})
* [[Odd Couple]]: Sam and Dean.
* [[Offscreen Teleportation]]:
** Primary mode of travel for angels. Though it's only offscreen for the audience; there've been a number of instances of Sam or Dean watching as an angel vanishes.
** Crowley can do this, and quite possibly is better at it than Cas. When Cas does it, you hear wings. When Crowley does it, you hear nothing. Considering that Crowley is a demon, this is quite possibly intentional [[Paranoia Fuel]] on his part. {{spoiler|It's also a sign of upgraded-Cas' power that he can do it silently now.}}
** It also seems that any demon that is summoned will also teleport, and it will also do it offscreen.
** In Season 6, {{spoiler|Eve}}, like the angels, is capable of doing this while Dean is ''looking directly at her''. She just appears behind him, and still somehow manages to surprise him.
* [[Oh Crap]]:
** We get a pretty epic one at the end of season 4, because it doesn't get much worse than {{spoiler|finding out that you've just accidentally unleashed Lucifer when you were trying to prevent exactly that.}}
** [[Oh Crap]] reactions all around, at the end of Season 6:
{{quote|'''{{spoiler|Castiel}}'': {{spoiler|I'm your new God, a better one. So you ''will'' bow down, and profess your love, unto me your Lord, or I shall destroy you.}}}}
* [[Oh Crap There Are Fanfics of Us]]: This happens in-universe thanks to Chuck's books. The guys aren't exactly thrilled when they realise what "[[Slash Fic]]" means.
{{quote|Dean: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}5Wz2KWCixtE&feature{{=}}related What's a slash fan?]}}
* [[Only the Chosen May Wield]]: Dean has to pull a sword from a stone in "Like a Virgin". When it doesn't work, {{spoiler|he just blows it up.}}
* [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping]]: Inverted; Sam seems to become more and more Southern as the series goes on. While his actor is a Texan, Sam's ''earlier'' accent is closer to Jared's.
** While Jensen Ackles is also a Texan, his accent is nothing like Dean's. Dean's accent has ''also'' gotten more Southern, though a lot more overtly.
* [[Other Me Annoys Me]]: In "The End", ''both'' Mes are annoyed (or, you know, scared by) their Other; in "The French Mistake", Other Me manages to be annoying without actually being present
* [[Our Angels Are Different]]: As Dean puts it, they're more "dicks with wings" than [[Touched By an Angel|Roma Downey]]. Like demons, they posses (albeit willing) people in order to move about on Earth, and they can relinquish their grace and be reborn as humans.
* [[Our Demons Are Different]]: The souls of the damned who've had their humanity tortured out of them in [[Hell]], they appear as black smoke unless they are possessing someone.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: ancient beings from purgatory who resemble "Giant Bats", have heat-hands, can shapeshift into human form and serve a being they only refer to as "Mother" and can only be killed by a weapon forged in their blood. They also have hordes of gold and collect virgins for their rituals.
* [[Our Souls Are Different]]: You can sell 'em to demons (or angels!), string 'em up in Hell, and torture them! And when you need to move 'em around, a briefcase is all you'll need (admittedly, this was a Cosmic Power's means of soul transportation, not a mortal's). Humans can apparently survive without them, and simply lack emotions, empathy, and the need to sleep when lacking one. Monsters have them too, while ghosts and demons are respectively trapped and corrupted souls. Angels don't have them. Nor do Leviathans, being far older than the creation of souls.
* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: They are. This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''Monster Movie'', where they encounter an apparently typical Bram Stoker Dracula and are completely baffled. The really funny part is that the witnesses immediately identify it as a vampire, whereas this would probably not be the case with an actual vampire.
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: In addition to werewolves ([[The Virus|who infect humans with their bites]], eat hearts and look like humans with fangs and claws), there are also shifters ([[Shapeshifting]] [[Doppelganger|Doppelgangers]]), rougarou (humans who transform into hideous, cannibalistic monsters), okami (who look like humans with wolf teeth, have [[Lightning Bruiser|superhuman athletic ability]] and are [[Nigh Invulnerability|nigh invulnerable]] to anything other than a [[Kryptonite Factor|bamboo dagger blessed by a Shinto priest]] or a woodchipper) and skinwalkers (who can turn into wolves and are vulnerable to silver).
* [[Overly Long Scream]]: In the second-season episode Hollywood Babylon the brothers investigate a possible haunting on a movie set. This trope is one of the signs of how terrible the [[Show Within a Show|horror movie being filmed]] is.
{{reflist}}
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