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Это — английские тропы без выявленного русскоязычного аналога. Пригодятся, если он появится.

TV-Tropes

Тропы

Ссылка: [1]

A

  • Accentuate the Negative:
    • The problem with kids these days.
«

Zeuxippe: So much that they are trying to kill you over [your hat]!! 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 Ventriloquism: When Agatha and Krosp meet Balthazar he mistakes Krosp talking as a «talking cat act» Agatha is doing rather than realizing he’s a cat construct capable of speech.
  • Acquired Poison Immunity:
    • Gilgamesh Wulfenbach has immunity to many many things. Because his father «figures that a ruler should be… hard to kill», what with the people across all of Europe who’re upset at killing that Mad Scientist or the process of ** bombing this town… which extends to his heir. This came in useful in the arc where Tarvek suffered a particularly nasty and rare disease — Gil was able to disregard the risk of infection.
    • Those with Smoke Knight training are also immune to ordinary soporifics, as seen with Violetta and Martellus during the tea break at the Corbettites. Unfortunately for Martellus, those training sessions didn’t include immunity to a blackjack to the head.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: (На самом деле это довольно смешно)
    • The Heterodyne stories frequently paint Klaus as a blithering idiot, but get away with it because he finds them hilarious.
    • When Agatha learns Master Payne’s Circus has started putting on shows based on her adventures, she’s delighted. Zeetha is shocked to start with, but quickly decides she’s fine with it too, even though her tragic lost homeland has been reinterpreted as a comedy bit about not knowing what planet she’s on. Of course, that doesn’t stop them joking about being mad, which the Circus also takes in good part … mostly.
«

Marie: Agatha! Are you here to exact your terrible revenge? Agatha: I'll let you know after the second act! Abner: You two are not nearly as funny as you think you are.

»
  • Admiring the Abomination: Occasionally done by Sparks. Agatha’s family in particular has a known history of this (to the point that at least one ancestor invited attacking forces in so he could get a better look). And not just monsters and siege weapons either. A nice madly-raving newly-broken-through Spark is just as fine a topic of conversation.
  • After-Action Healing Drama: Infiltrating the castle led to an epic one.
  • Agony of the Feet: (Моя нога!) After Agatha tries asserting her authority over Dingbot Prime and Deuce Dingbot, the two miniature Clanks respond by attacking her foot with the tools they’re holding, with Agatha hopping away on one foot in pain while Symbol Swearing on the next page.
  • Ahem: A Corbettite monk reminds another this way that they have a gift shop their guests might be interested in.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: (Алкоголь — это зло) Maghiar brings this trope in force after Gil gives him some Double Fortified Lingonberry Snap as an anaesthetic.
  • Alien Geometries: (Чуждая геометрия) …What is Agatha holding in Panel 3??note It’s a three-pronged blivet.
  • 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.
    • Othar’s Twitter explains some things about himself, like his ability to re-appear when being thrown from impossible height.
«

Freefall, my old nemesis! All I have to do is activate my compressed gas rocket boots and I will cheat you once again! Belt control ON!…On? …

»
  • All Webbed Up: What the nyar-spider does to its prey.
  • Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Together with the above Alternate History.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: A regular pattern. Even if you have the upper hand at the moment with your Ultimate Weapon, you just know that somebody out there is working day and night on their Ultimate Weapon Nullifier (and their explanatory monologue.)
  • Always Identical Twins: Averted with Gil and Zeetha. They have a Strong Family Resemblance, but you have to be looking pretty close to notice it. Fans assumed for a long time that they were just ordinary siblings or half siblings (which made the timeline a little muddled) until the Foglios confirmed they’re fraternal twins.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: (Разноцветная раса)
    • Anyone infected with , 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.
    • Jägermonsters, and many other kinds of constructs. 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.
  • Ambiguously Christian: Just about all of Europa. Passing references are made to a Papacynote , The Biblenote, various saints both real and made-up, holidays like Christmas, and cathedrals. However none of the characters are seen actively practicing Christian worship nor is any explicit naming of the religion shown. Though there is a passing mention of Theo being Christened.
  • Amulet of Dependency: Agatha’s trilobite amulet, though it started out as something entirely different, has become one.
  • An Arm and a Leg:
    • Oggie chops off Dimo’s arm after the limb gets jabbed with a blob-monster’s poison barb. Since the arm then dissolves into green goo, it was probably for the best.
    • Vole thwarts an assassin’s attempt at a Dead Man’s Switch by ripping off the arm holding the device.
    • During their confrontation, Von Pinn starts by tearing off Adam’s arm.
    • Done more humorously in the «Revenge of the Weasel Queen» side story:
«

Agatha: I've wanted a chance to test my pocket de-arming device. Giant Rabbit Monster: Ha! Foolish human! I need no weapons! Agatha: ... I didn't say anything about weapons. BZZZRIP Giant Rabbit Monster: AAGH! My arms!

»
  • And Now You Must Marry Me:
    • It was suggested that Agatha’s grandmother married one of the old Heterodynes, to protect her family from harm. It apparently later backfired, when she taught her sons, Bill and Barry, how to use their Sparky powers for good rather than evil, and in the end poisoned her husband.
    • Martellus' plan to become the Storm King requires marrying Agatha, and after the hilariously failed public rescue he orchestrated, he straight up kidnaps her (she escapes soon after). He’s more focused on getting her Trapped in Villainy, though he later shows (or fakes) a mildly lecherous attitude towards her.
  • And Show It to You: Invoked to get Bang’s attention.
  • …And That Would Be Wrong: This exchange between Ardsley Wooster and Agatha.
«

Agatha: It’s too bad. I think there’s a lot I could have learned from him. Wooster: Yes! All kinds of things! Terrible, evil things! Ways to warp nature and create bizarre, monstrous abominations of science! [Beat]And that would be bad! Agatha: I knew that!

»
  • Anger Born of Worry: (Сёма, шоб ты сдох!)
    • By Baron Wulfenbach, towards Gil.
«

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

»
  • 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.» More so in the novelization.
  • Higgs. He has a very specific reason to be upset about Zeetha running around fighting instead of letting her injuries heal.
  • When Tarvek nearly gets himself shot Gil shoves him to the floor while yelling at him, and puts a knee in his back to keep him from gettting up.
«

Gil: You idot! Are you trying to commit suicide? Tarvek: You know I wouldn’t do that to her. […] Gil: All right I know! Have you already forgotten how much trouble we went through to keep you alive? How dare you risk yourself and her by acting so stupid!

»
  • Agatha is not pleased to find Tarvek fighting a hive monster on his own.
  • Angry Collar Grab: They’re not actually wearing shirts but Agatha grabs Tarvek and Gil’s harnesses up near their collarbones to yank them close and yell at them in this strip.
  • 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.
    • «Spare the surface worlder, Father! I LOVE HIM!»
  • Annoying Arrows: (Раздражающие стрелы) No surprise, they are just that to a Jäger.
  • Ant Assault: In the side-story «Small Problems», the protagonists have to battle «giant» ants after being shrunk. Even after being returned to full-size, Zeetha is still being swarmed by them, and jumping into a moat doesn’t help, as the ants have scuba gear.
  • Anticlimax: The final «battle» of Revenge of the Weasel Queen.
  • Antimagical Faction: Othar is this, all by himself (if by «mages» you mean «Sparks»). His goal is to kill them all, and yes, he’s aware of the irony that he himself is a Spark! He plans to kill himself after killing off all of the others.
  • 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.
  • Aren’t You Going to Ravish Me?: The Professoressa’s reaction on meeting Da Boyz; she apparently expects it to end with her being made a Jäger Queen. Apparently a series of books called «Love Prisoners of the Jägers» have put one or two strange notions in her head.
  • 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.
  • Aside Glance: Plenty.
    • «At least *she* was color coordinated.»
    • Klaus glances at the Fourth Wall in the first panel.
    • Gil got it from his father.
    • Tarvek’s, in the last panel, is probably the funniest one to date.
    • Tarvek is good at these.
    • Agatha in the last panel. You can almost read her thoughts in that look.
    • Even a three-eyed monster gets a go at it.
    • General Khrizhan gives one early on.
  • Assassin Outclassin': After exiting an apparently diverted teleporting device Tweedle barehandedly takes on six Smoke Knights, killing them and his cousin Leopold, with their own daggers
    • The Smoke Knights are also apparently no match for a vigilant Corbettite Monk. The ease in which the monks dispose of the assassins is almost casual.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: 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.
    • Klaus; he clawed his way to being ruler of Europe atop God knows how many others and it shows.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: During the play in Sturmhalten, just as Tarvek is saying «If the mistress were here, she’d say—», he’s interrupted by Agatha (in-character as Lucrezia) yelling «KNEEL, 'YOU MISERABLE MINION!»
  • Attack Hello: Maxim is just saying «hello».
  • Audience Participation: The podcasts/radio dramas, where the audience finishes characters' titles («Agatha Heterodyne—» «—Girl genius!»), fill in crowd noises, and so on.
    • There is also an in-universe example in the Heterodyne plays, as seen on this and the following page.

B

  • Baa-Bomb: Some battering rams are this.
  • Badass Labcoat: Agatha while setting up the really crazy device to fix up Tarvek.
  • Bag of Kidnapping: Sanaa and Othar do this to Tarvek, mistaking him for Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.
  • Bait the Mole: When Gil suspects that his team exploring the time-frozen city has a mole, he leaks different information about their defenses to the different suspects, and watches to see where the attack comes from.
  • 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.
  • Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: (Вымойте и приведите ко мне) parodied when an underling’s proposal «Shall I have her bathed and brought to your quarters?» is met with «Tch. Drusus, you really need to stop reading those Othar Tryggvassen adventure novels.»
  • Battle Butler: (Боевой слуга/Крутой дворецкий) 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.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: One of Theo DuMedd’s methods of getting into a lab on Castle Wulfenbach without suspicion was claiming to be «Mimmoth exterminators». He claimed it worked every time, though the only time he attempted it, he just happened to walk in on Gil experimenting.
    • Sparks with control over minions tend to use a supernaturally amplified version of this, where claiming authority causes most people to accept that authority. The strongest sparks can even occasionally do it to people that are entirely aware that it is happening.
  • Bear Hug: (Медвежьи объятия) Mama Gkika gives Agatha, newly crowned as the Heterodyne, one when they first meet.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: (Красота остаётся незапятнанной) Played with. Otherwise good-looking folks can undergo injuries, sickness, fatigue or drugs that visibly mess them up.
  • Behind the Black:
    • Gil didn’t notice Agatha launching herself at him while he was yelling at Tarvek?
    • Lampshaded when Jenka points out that they should have heard the army of giant clanks (helpfully called War Stompers too) marching up to their tower.
  • Benevolent Dictator: Baron Klaus Wulfenbach is the head of a de facto military regime ruling over the European continent, which he built out of (more or less) brute force. Yet his rule is actually very moderate: citizens enjoy enough freedom of expression to openly mock him (to his amusement), he treats POWs remarkably well, and the worst punishments (namely lobotomy) are saved for the worst criminals. He’s only really a dictator in that he wasn’t elected, and that his government keeps local monarchs in line with the threat of force. Keep in mind that time period before his empire was one of constant, brutal warfare that he single-handedly ended, and a mere two years after his regime collapsed, it’s remembered as a «lost golden age of antiquity». He’s practically a textbook example of The Extremist Was Right — and was in fact the Trope Namer back when it was called And It Worked.
  • «Be Quiet!» Nudge:
    • Dimo to Oggie, with a fist in the ribs. Higgs is still able to guess what Oggie was about to let slip, though.
    • It happens rather frequently with Oggie, as he tends to let run his mouth. Being Jäggermonsters, though, it tends to be quite solid punches rather than nudges. Up to outright knocking him out.
    • Later, Krosp bites Dimo’s finger to make him shut his trap about the presence of Agatha Heterodyne on the train. Sort of the cat-telling-Jaeger-to-shoddop-bout-that version.
  • Beyond the Impossible: This is what the spark does; it lets people bend the laws of physics. However, the Heterodyne breaks them. And apparently the ancient god-queens were to sparks what sparks are to normal people.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Martellus von Blitzengaard suffers from the delusion that he’s The Chessmaster. Agatha (and Tarvek, Gil, etc.) tend to regard him as an infuriating nuisance instead.
  • 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!»
    • The Jägers have the Tiny Book of Let’s Fight, a pocket-sized book that appears to be largely (if not solely) about the rules for fighting someone for ownership of their hat. These rules are very detailed, right down to catagorizing what types of intervention from a third party qualifies as interference or course hazard.
  • The Big Damn Kiss:
    • As of August 17, 2011, it has happened. So very big, it had to be continued on the next page.
«

Tarvek: Don’t be insulting. When she kissed Wulfenbach, my glasses started to melt.

»
  • A year later almost to the day, there is now competition. And it also continued onto the next page.
  • Big Door: The door prisoners are sent into Castle Hetrodyne through is at least two stories tall, and adorned with vicious looking spikes.
  • Big Labyrinthine Building: Castle Heterodyne, and the Wulfenbach airship.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Among other things, Monster Hunter Grantz’s massive eyebrows don’t help identifying her as female, at all.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: (Гнусное семейство)
    • Valois/Sturmvoraus/von Blitzengaard family, a.k.a. «a bunch of evil-minded, cynical, backstabbing old fools». Occasional kinship feelings… such as they are… get expressed in hilariously twisted ways.
    • The Old Heterodynes, as seen with the «nursery», for instance.
«

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

»
  • Not that armored toys weren’t necessary sometimes.
  • The Mongfishes.
    • The Mongfishes again, the reaction at last panel just cemented this.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: (Блондинка, брюнетка, рыжая) Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek. Agatha, Zeetha, and Violetta form a variant, with the brown hair replaced with green.
  • Body-Count Competition: By the Jägergenerals, of course.
  • Bodyguard Legacy: The Valois clan has at least one «cadet branch» that is expected to serve as bodyguards to the main branch. Violetta is one such bodyguard, and she’s introduced protecting her cousin Tarvek.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Othar is always just about gleeful as he fights and gets knocked through walls. The Jägers are a decidedly friendly, at least in mannerism, bloodthirsty bunch who enjoy joking and laughing while fighting even if they’re losing.
  • Bottled Heroic Resolve: (Психостимуляторы и допинги)
    • «Movit #6»
    • Jäger battle-draught. Slightly Better than Death!
    • «Movit #11» has also made an appearance. According to Violetta, using Movit #11 would kill most people.
  • Bottomless Pit: What sort of mad scientist play would this be without at least a few? They never actually seem to work, though, except against Mooks — and the occasional disposable third-tier villain. Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!, barely even notices when he’s dropped down one.
  • Bow Chicka Wow Wow:
«

Zeetha: 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.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
    • «What now?! More Jaegers? Orphans? Jaeger orphans?»
    • The Fashion Clank describing his vision for Jaeger costuming:
«

Fashion Clank: I see armor! Spikes! Spiked armor! Spikes on armor on spikes! And skulls everywhere! Yes! Skulls on spikes! Spikes on skulls — on spikes!

»
  • Franz and Vipsania are going to loot a dead dragon’s hoard, which includes his collection of rare books:
«

Franz: «So, partner, what do you want to do first? Catalog books, or count gold?» Vipsania: «There’s a bunch of books bound in gold…»

»
  • Breather Episode: Side stories every once in a while, like «Maxim Buys a Hat!»
  • 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.
    • Castle Heterodyne was damaged in the Other’s attack — which is probably the first and last time the term 'angel' will be applied, even metaphorically and peripherally, to Castle Heterodyne or any component, characteristic or intention thereof.
  • Brother-Sister Team: (Дуэт брата и сестры) Othar and Sanaa. Othar isn’t overjoyed about it.
  • Bug War: Any fight with Slaver wasps. You have Warriors, which do the direct fighting, drones that do the enslaving (by flying into people’s mouths), and the Queen, kept alive by a Hive Engine apparatus and rendered sessile from it. Except for newer models.
  • Bullying a Dragon: (Моська лает на слона) Vole seems a bit prone to it. And there are two examples so far. And he doesn’t seem to learn, either.
  • Bystander Syndrome: When Agatha tries to send crucial information about information about the Other to Klaus Wulfenbach, her message gets intercepted by British agents. Rather than letting it get forwarded to its original recipient, they decide to keep it to themselves to make Wulfenbach’s job harder.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes:
    • In the flashback showing Zeetha destroying her pirate captors, her eyes are the only thing visible in the dark behind the bars where she was kept imprisoned.
    • When Norville and Krosp are vorped together to who-knows-where, the place is so dark that only their eyes and teeth are visible for the next few strips.

C

  • 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?»
    • Also, the circumstances of Gil and Agatha seem to be similar: he showed up and got disapproval for killing Dr. Beetle, even though «He threw a BOMB at me!», and then Agatha made the impersonator break down into tears, even though she’d tried to usurp her.
    • While creeping through the Sturmhalten sewers, the conversation turns towards «Red» Heterodyne, an ancestor of Agatha’s, who was lost in a cave and would have come out sooner had he not developed a taste for bat meat. Jump forward to the «Maxim Buys A Hat» interlude, and one of the sandwiches ordered to Old Man Death is the «Red Heterodyne», which involves a bat on a sandwich.
    • Near the beginning of the comic Agatha promises a lobotomized spark to help protect his collection of hand-made toy bears. Turns out he’s Krosp’s creator, Vapnoople, and the bears he is trying to protect is actualy an army of sentient bear constructs programed to serve Krosp.
    • One of the earliest examples was between Agatha and Moloch. When she first wakes up in Castle Wulfenbach, he threatens her to not make a scene so that they can work together to stay alive. Later, when she first meets him in Castle Heterodyne, she returns the favor, nearly word-for-word.
    • The Prince of Sturmhalten’s big bet is apparently a well-known bit of local lore.
    • Castle Heterodyne: «That is a trap that will kill you.» Vaults of the Immortal Library in Paris: «It’s a trap that will kill you.»
    • Higgs calling Heterodyne Castle a «mud hut», possibly a callback to when it said it wanted to be a yurt.
    • The Castle Fragment finds «this mobility thing to be highly overrated». A call back to when its greater self said it wanted to be a yurt for its mobility.
    • A single panel in the middle of a flashback showed Tarvek held prisoner by DuPree. Many strips later, Tarvek runs into her and he is NOT happy to see her.
  • Calling Your Attacks: (Название заклинания произносится вслух) Done by Zola under the influence of a massive overdose of battle stimulants, resulting in a cry of «Chophead Tinybits!»
  • Can’t Live Without You:
    • When Gil supports both Agatha and Tarvek when they get infected by Hogfarb’s Immolation.
    • Tweedle pretty much calls the trope by its name when he explains how he hopes to make Agatha compliant by linking her metabolism to his, so that she can’t leave his side and can’t kill him. Unfortunately for him, he dreadfully underestimated the Heterodyne girl. First, she realizes that needing him alive has nothing to do with him being «free and in charge», and she knocks him out and locks him up. And soon enough, she has transfered the dependancy to a wasp weasel pet.
  • Captured Super-Entity: The renegade Mad Scientists of Britain manage to capture an Eldritch Abomination from another dimension and attempt to use a device to transfer its knowledge into one of their own. Their leader successfully absorbs enough of its energy to achieve second breakthrough, a form of Enlightenment Superpower available to the most successful sparks.
  • Cartwright Curse: Being a suitor to Agatha is hazardous to your health.
  • Cast the Expert: In-Universe — Vex is playing Zeetha in the new Heterodyne play of Master Payne’s circus, but she’s also their fencing master and can hold her own against the real Zeetha, who wholeheartedly approves of her.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue:
    • Quoth Klaus just as he activates a stasis-bomb right in the middle of Mechanicsburg:
«

Klaus: Do you have any tea?

»
  • Tarvek and Higgs calmly discussing in which «monster scale» they should categorize the Smakken while in the middle of fighting it has got to be an Exaggerated Trope example.
  • The Cat Came Back: Othar. He’s very hard to shake off, especially when he has set his eyes on a «spunky sidekick». Throw him in a pit, he’ll walk back through another door a few seconds later. Lampshaded by Tarvek after he and Violetta tries to escape him with a «down and up» (that doesn’t work):
«

Tarvek: This is why he’s a hero. He’s very, very good at this.

»
  • The Chains of Commanding: (Бремя лидера)
    • Discussed by Othar and Klaus.
«

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.

»
  • And then by Master Payne.
«

Master Payne: For all we know, those things are some new kind of revenant — and the only thing to do is kill them. Could you burn down people — women and children — even if you knew they had become monsters? …The Baron can. The Baron has. I respect him for that, but I don’t want to be him. No sane man would.

»
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The titles of the first thirteen graphic novels (and the books), and also used in-story as the titles of Heterodyne Boys stories.
  • Chef of Iron: (Крутой повар) Old Man Death
  • 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.
    • Van Rijn’s notebook reappears.
  • 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.
«

Bang: (with glee) It’s Prince «How Dare You»!!

»
  • Which then becomes part of another Chekhov’s Gag! When finally meeting Tarvek again, she curiously asks, if he still has «those scars» as an offhand comment. Once Tarvek is taking a bath after having been stuck in the time bubble for 2 and a half years, it is the first thing she wants to see.
  • 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.
  • Chiaroscuro: Used to great effect.
  • 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.
  • Church Of Evil:
    • While there’s implications that the conventional religion in the Girl Genius world is barely Crystal Dragon Jesus, Mechanicsburg’s town church is highly unusual. The same page also mentions «militant agnostics», a shoutout to Buck Godot Zapgun For Hire.
    • She later meets the curate, and apparently no one’s seen a bishop in years. The cathedral seems to be run by an «abbess», who appears to basically be a bishop, on a medieval model — she has her own war-horse and everything.
    • Examination of the church itself shows that it is not particularly evil in any way, but the abbess does betray Agatha to Martellus, refusing to believe she’s the true Heterodyne.
  • Circling Birdies:
    • Gil sees circling zeppelins after getting socked in the head by the aptly-named Punch.
    • Lady Vrin gets good ol' boring circling stars after being whacked twice by Agatha.
    • Agatha’s little Clanks get circling gears.
    • Maxim, on the other hand, gets circling hats.
  • Circling Vultures: A filler strip notifying that Phil Foglio «is sick and feeling a mite melodramatic» shows him cowering in bed, worriedly eyeing a very large vulture perched on his covers and glaring at him.
  • Citadel City:
    • Mechanicsburg — The town sport is repelling invasions. It’s famous for being impenetrable, basically an entire town of Switzerland: has a very defensible landscape, is heavily armed, booby-trapped, and anyone can be a combatant. The town itself is also a combatant, thanks to generations of Heterodyne Sparks improving it over the years. But that was twenty years ago…
    • Pretty much every city in Europe, apparently, to a greater or lesser extent — a town is a place that protects you from the big bad world. It has walls. If it did not have walls, it would presumably be only a village (or a smoking crater). Paris, Beetleburg, and Sturmhalten are the only actual datapoints here, although Van Zinzer implies that anywhere outside the important towns can be pretty nasty.
  • Cleavage Window: (Вырез на груди) Ferretina’s default. It’s been noted. Quite happily. Underboobs included.
  • Clock Roaches: This. And perhaps the Dreen..
  • Close-Knit Community: Mechanicsburg
  • Closer than They Appear: The wing mirrors on the airship Zeno of Citium warn: «Objects in mirror are more horrific than they appear». Well, when you’re living in a world full of Spark creations…
  • Closer to Earth: Averted. Most of the females in this comic are utterly insane. Then again, most everyone is insane, but there’s a somewhat higher ratio of only sane MEN.
  • Clothing Damage: (Урон по одежде) If you wear clothes and anything action-y happens, hope for the best. The fans certainly do.
  • Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: Rakethorn figured out that Agatha was up to something because he had been studying her… and because Krosp told him.
  • Clueless Chick-Magnet: Moloch appears to be oblivious to the fact that three different women are now interested in him. It’s either that or he’s taken a page out of Agatha’s book and is ignoring love in the interest of focusing on staying alive.
  • Cock Fight: Tarvek vs Gil. Complete with hair-pulling!
  • Collapsed Mid-Speech: After the ordeal in Sturmhalten Agatha passes out mid rant when the stimulants that have been keeping her awake for the past few days wear off.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: (Цветовой дресс-код)
    • Descendants of the Storm King all have red hair.
    • Smoke Knights all wear dark purple
  • Color Motif: (Расцвеченная команда) The Baron’s clothes get progressively darker as the story progresses coinciding with his use of more extreme tactics against Agatha.
  • Combat, Magic, Trickery Trio: If you construe sparkiness to be «magic» (which isn’t too much of a stretch seeing that sparks regularly violate the laws of nature), Zeetha handily lines up as a Warrior Princess, the Gadgeteer Genius Agatha, and Impossible Thief Violetta as such respectively.
  • Combat Uninterruptus: In «Report at the Hospital», Gilgamesh is sword-fighting a madman with a Dead Man’s Switch when Sifu knocks on the hospital room’s door and enters. He asks if it’s a bad time, to which Gilgamesh—still parrying the man—replies nonchalantly by asking whether Sifu’s got news.
  • Comical Overreacting: In the middle of an invasion, Oggie is horrified to note that one of his favorite restaurants has closed.
  • Compensating for Something:
    • Der Kestle about the Wulfenbach:
«

Castle Heterodyne: 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.
  • Complexity Addiction: Sparks in general, a character traits that brings a lot of humor and lampshades. A common gag is to have the Sparks deal with a problem by brainstorming increasingly complicated and over the top mad-science solutions, only for one of the non-Spark characters to suggest the simple and obvious solution instead — especially when Von Zinzer is around.
«

Higgs: I’ve seen this over and over! Damfool Sparks who think they’ve got to send a full-scale army of giant, singing rosebushes or it isn’t romantic enough! Gil: I could build a machine that project a simulacrum of myself that would explain- Higgs: Why I smacked you? Gil: Or…I could just…write…

»
  • Conjunction Interruption:
    • Agatha keeps trying to interrupt with questions while Master Payne explains how one of the muses came to join the circus until Krosp drops a bucket over her head.
«

Agatha: The MUSES?! Moxana is one of the Storm King’s muses?! Payne: The same. Now— Agatha: But they were lost! Payne: They lost themselves. Now— Agatha: But—mmf Krosp: I’m listening.

»
  • When the «rescue party» is trying to figure out how to escape the caverns they’re in climbing is brought up right after Dimo’s arm is amputated and Lars' attempt to point out the problem is quickly brushed aside by Maxim.
«

Maxim: Ve ken climb down. Lars: But Dimo— Maxim: Aw, he bounce pretty goot!

»
  • Van can’t seem to get a word in edgewise with his self appointed assistant.
«

Vanamonde: Who are you? Vidonia: Oh, not this again. I am the person who is putting you to bed. Vanamonde: but— Vidonia: For the first time in days. Vanamonde: but— Vidonia: Because you’ve already done everything you possibly can and you need to sleep now or you will be of no use whatsoever to this town when the attack comes!

»
  • Obsidian is taken off guard by Tarvek’s recovery time and ability to pretend to still be unconscious.
«

Terebithia: You may stop playing possum now, Tarvek dear. Obsidian: What? No he’s— Tarvek: Thank you for your desire for my continued well being grandmother. Obsidian: But— Terebithia: Thank you, mister Obsidian. You may leave us.

»
  • Cool Train: (Поезда — это круто!) The dragon-headed train of the Corbettite Railway, run by a holy order who see the train itself as a religious object.
    • And then there’s… the Beast. See the Antagonists character page for details.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: (Вселенские ужасы) It’s shaping up to be this kind of story depending on what the beast coming through the time portal is.
  • Cranial Plate Ability: Inverted: One of the Corbettites has a steel plate in his head; while fighting a monster that eats and controls metal, the plate is a liability instead.
  • 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!»
  • Creepy Cathedral: (Готический собор) Welcome to the Red Cathedral
  • Crime of Self-Defense: A short-lived running gag about Gil defending his killing Dr. Beetle with «He threw a bomb at me!»
  • Crippling Overspecialization: (Жертва сверхспециализации) The elite Vespiary squad are deadly against some of the most dangerous monsters in the series. Other people tend to view them as no threat, correctly. Their intended purpose is protecting humans from wasps, bringing them close to Technical Pacifists when it comes to fighting humans. Conversely, killing slaver wasps is reflexive to them.
  • Cuteness Proximity:
    • little clanks can inspire this.
    • Maxina does it, but she doesn’t really like it.
«

Agatha: Who’s an adowable widdle miwacle of science? Who—?

»
  • Krosp regularly uses this to get information (and food). It has become his catchphrase whenever someone asks how he came to know this or get a hand on that.
«

Krosp: I’m cute.

»
  • Cutlery Escape Aid: Tarvek uses a fork to get out of handcuffs after being kidnapped by The Incorruptible Library/his family.
«

Tarvek: I’ve obviously been abducted. It’s your uniform, you see, no Wulfenbach sigils to be seen—plus, Gil wouldn’t leave me shackled… and if he did he’d never let me have a fork. So much more versatile than a knife.

»
  • Cut the Juice: Anticlimatic variant — «He’s going to FRY— AND NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP IT!»
  • Cyanide Pill: After Gil’s plan to help Moloch goes horribly awry when the slaver engine is started up on Castle Wulfenbach, Gil offers this up as a final aid since Moloch’s being shipped as a prisoner to Castle Heterodyne (a death sentence in all but name). He didn’t use it, so it might come back as a Chekhov’s Boomerang.

D

  • Dead Guy on Display: The giant glass jars of Beetleburg that Taurus Beetle stuffs law-breakers into. Only applies for part of their tenure in those jars as they gotta be dead to be a Dead Guy On Display. If you look closely, there are mummified remains in some of the jars (during the «late for class» sequence).
  • Dead-Hand Shot: (Свисающая рука) In the flashback to the night the Other attacked Castle Heterodyne Agatha’s brother and Carson’s son were both killed by falling debris and their hands are shown resting on the floor beyond the debris when Carson found them.
  • The Dead Have Names:
    • Albia, God Empress of Britain, lists off all the names of those who died during an attack. Tweedle is a little disturbed to find that he still remembers every single name even hours later, and Gil explains that something about Albia’s power means that they will in fact remember those names for the rest of their lives.
    • As Martellus is dispatching a zombie, he says «You were Prince Huvart Desplains, protector of West LeSalle. Go, now, to your rest.»
  • Deadly Deferred Conversation: Klaus' promising to explain everything to Gil is somewhere between this and Tempting Fate, ensuring that something would happen to prevent it. Klaus has been subsequently wasped and frozen in time, and the imprint of him living in Gil’s head doesn’t seem particularly inclined to share information.
  • Deadly Dodging: Two giant monsters are trying to attack an airship flying between them, but thanks to some Mad Science propulsion, it avoids them by propelling downward very fast, leading to the one-eyed monster punching the other in the face.
  • Deadly Euphemism: (Этот субъект больше никого не побеспокоит) When Zola runs into Agatha while in disguse as the Queen of the Dawn someone suggests that maybe she’ll even get to sing for the Heterodyne. In respose Zola draws her gun while saying «Oh, I’ll give her a song» before Terebithia snags the gun.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Movit #11 makes the user a LOT stronger and faster. It is also fatal or nearly fatal to the user.
  • Death by Irony: Two fold for Dr. Merlot. Author notes point out that the doctor probably would never achieve the Spark. Merlot burns all records, labs, notes, and the cryptigraphers when they discover that Agatha is a Heterodyne because he was afraid that he had expelled her and couldn’t find her. He was afraid he would be blamed. He ends up in Castle Heterodyne and it turns out that if he had just told the baron who Agatha was, he probably would have been rewarded because she was captive on Castle Wulfenbach at that time. Furthermore, he does achieve the Spark due to his hatred of Agatha as he blames her for his imprisonment in Castle Heterodyne. Achieving the spark was his lifelong goal and his actions of burning the evidence both led directly to his death when the Castle killed him to protect Agatha.
  • Death Glare: (Убийственный взгляд)
    • Gil gives one to Zeetha along with a brief speech.
    • The normally unflappable Airman Higgs demonstrates an impressive one.
    • Actually, the Baron is merely amused by DuPree’s mistake, but yikes!
    • As listed above under Boring, but Practical, Moloch gets one from a group of Sparks after he spoils their fun.
  • Defeat as Backstory: The Fifty Families are the traditional ruling houses of Europa, and they are all furious at having an «upstart» like Baron Wulfenbach having defeated them and forced them into subjugation to his Empire. The Storm King conspiracy gains grounds due to this as they all want one of their own to become the new Storm King and rule Europa and to that end worked for years to create a Storm King shaped hole, at least in people’s minds, which causes the brutal and bloody swift return of the long war as soon as the Baron is out of the picture.
  • Defeat by Modesty: (Раздевание равносильно поражению) Unintentionally invoked by Gil when he accidentally zaps Zeetha’s clothes off. Ultimately subverted when she chooses to keep fighting anyways.
  • 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 hat.
  • Defensive «What?»:
    • Baron Wulfenbach utters one when Dr. Sun calls him out for leaving his hospital bed in a «Medical Transport» clank.
    • When Dimo realizes that the self-powered coach they are using is being cannibalized by Agatha for her latest invention, just as they’re trying to escape Parisian clanks, Agatha’s sole response to his glare is a dismissive «What?» Then again, she’s in the Madness Place, so it shouldn’t be too surprising.
  • Defiant to the End: (Непокорные, несгибаемые, несломленные) The Beast towards Agatha/Tweedle/The Corbettites as the fight turns against it.
  • Deus Exit Machina: Castle Heterodyne is able to instantly crush anyone in a «live» room, with extraordinary precision. Naturally, much of 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.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: The Great Cetacean Ahnkoranth seeks to convene with Agatha over important matters. However, despite being a giant ancient whale, it turns out to be quite personable, is distracted easily by being able to see its innards through the eyes of its Willing Channeler, and even gets cheeky about things that the channeler was trying to hide from it.
  • Dilating Door: Zola and her crew when she’s trying to usurp power as a false Hetrodyne get stuck for a while trying to force a dilating door open in Castle Heterodyne. The castle kills one of her lackeys and paints «The Heterodyne Must Enter Alone» above the door in his blood.
  • Direct Line to the Author:
    • The entire comic is postulated as a course on the life of Agatha Heterodyne, as taught by the Professors Foglio at Transylvania Polygnostic University («Know enough to be afraid»). Phil Foglio is also shown telling the tale in the street right on page one. (An alternative tryout sketch released online seems to have Agatha herself telling the story to her grandchildren.) The first print collection, Agatha Heterodyne & The Beetleburg Clank, is presented as an unauthorized but accurate record published by TPU, Phil Foglio having witnessed Agatha’s «Battle Circus» himself; later, he is indeed in town when the Battle Circus episode occurs. We even see the Foglios meet while Agatha is in Paris.
    • During the «radio play» episodes of the webcomic, Studio Foglio are repeatedly shown escaping as they perform the last seconds of the episode just as the real (and angry) Agatha Heterodyne and her friends are about to catch them and stop the show.
  • Dirty Business: Barry, in the flashback where he gave Agatha her locket, is crying over the effect it will have on her.
  • Distracted by the Sexy:
    • During the Corbettite train ride, Agatha takes in Lady Margarella Selnikov, a fugitive pro-Tarvek holdout in the Storm King Conspiracy after Martellus strongarms his way in. Since Agatha herself is also trying to travel incognito, she can’t go the Big Showy Clank route in thwarting any would-be assassins for Margarella. So she instead hatches a plan to distract any intruders with the ruse that she is in the middle of changing dress and is clad only in a bath towel. After she shrieks and flusters the propriety of the intruder, they either walk away, or push the issue only to be gunned down by a death ray-packing Krosp. After several botches, it finally works.
    • Hilariously, Zeetha and Higgs being Distracted by the Sexy is the only reason they made it out of Mechanicsburg before the time stop.
    • The two smoke knights that followed Agatha into the hidden library. One is there to spy, the other’s job is to distract him.
«

Malek: …Does this mean no more kissing? Varpa: …Less kissing.

»
  • Martellus intentionally invokes this on Queen!Lucrezia via the Restraining Bolt he placed on Agatha, as they’re sharing a body, giving Trelawny, Tarvek, Zeetha, Gil, and Agatha the chance to forcibly remove Lucrezia from Agatha’s mind.
  • Distracted from Death: The Master of Paris is murdered in cold blood less than a block away from a crowd that was just cheering him on while he fought the Storm King by a backstabbing traitor. His death goes unnoticed due to the spectacle Martellus is making, having grabbed the Storm King’s crown and started up an impromptu parade. The Master dies quietly with no one the wiser until Colette realizes what has happened to her father and furiously takes control of the city as the new master.
  • Divine Right of Kings: The novels poke fun at this, noting that all the royals are really just descendants of cutthroats and brigands, who are now annoyed that, with the industrial revolution and the rise of the Spark, their power is significantly less meaningful than it once was.
    • This is taken far more seriously by Martellus von Blitzengaard, who’s spent more of his screentime working to legitimize his claim to the title of Storm King than he has actually doing much with that claim. Chief among his machinations include securing the allegiance of an order of train-running Monks whose authority and sovereignty is respected all throughout Europa, and acquiring the sword of the first Storm King, an artifact with a LOT of power.
  • Do-Anything Robot: Dingbots!
  • Doctor’s Orders: Both Dr. Sun and Mama Gkika believe in their authority in medicinal matters. And if you try to go against them, you will end up back in their care — only in a much worse state.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • Gill responds with an eager «Wow! Really?» when Agatha tells him he’s coming to her lab so she can properly look him over. Also appears as a trope in plays within the comic.
    • 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 a Geeky Turn-On. Mad science as foreplay, full-on experimentation for the sex. Oh, and did we mention Gil was shirtless the whole time?
    • And then a threesome. With an explosive, satisfying conclusion.
    • 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: (Собака съела мою домашнюю работу) «Sorry, professor, my latest experiment ate my lecture notes…»
  • Domed Hometown: The city of London is set in a massive series of undersea glass domes, due to a cabal of unknown Sparks causing the whole of Britain to sink into the ocean.
  • Doomy Dooms of Doom:
    • PIT OF DOOOOM (patent pending).
    • And the Doom Bell, which has finally been rung! DOOM!
    • The Aguron King has his Grubby Grubs of DOOM, which he feeds his victims to.
  • Dope Slap:
    • Agatha slaps Krosp after the cat suggests that the scared kid they found in a tree would solve their provisions problem.
    • A joking one between Eotain and Shurdlu when they meet Agatha again in a Call-Back to this comic. Which one is doing the smacking is unclear.
    • Zeetha gives one to Gil for asking her to transmit a corny line to Agatha.
    • 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, 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: (Шутка с двойным дном)
    • 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 was everybody’s inside man.
  • Dragons Versus Knights: When the battle between Franz, the biomechanical dragon construct who guards Mechanicsburg, and another dragon is interrupted by a group of giant robots sent by the Knights of Jove, Franz asks the other dragon if these guys are on his side. The latter is apparently quite insulted by the implication that he would associate with knights.
«

Franz: Ah— some of your… friends? Red dragon: Don’t be insulting. They’re knights!

»
  • 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?

»
  • Also present with Tinka.
  • Due to the Dead:
    • The Jägers feel it is important that those that ride with them and help protect the Hetrodynes are not left on the battlefield to rot or be used by the enemy. First shown with Maxim and Lars.
    • Von Zinzer is adamant that no deceased prisoners of the Castle be looted or used for parts, a sentiment his fellow prisoners do not share.
  • Dull Surprise: While Dimo is usually quite expressive when he is laying on the floor getting his bearings and realizing that the recent explosion did not kill him he blandly states: «Huh. Howzabout dot. Hy is not dead. Dot is verra sooprizink.»
  • Dumbass Has a Point: (Идиот был прав) 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, defining «good timing».
«

Professor Mezzasalma: And who the devil is this?!

»
  • Dysfunction Junction: (Они все больны)
    • The Sturmvoraus family. Dear Gott, 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.

»
  • 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.
  • There’s only one dynasty that doesn’t seem prone to it: the Wulfenbachs. And, in a way, that’s worrying.

E

  • Eating the Enemy: Jägers get rather excited about fighting the Other’s wasps, because not only do the things cause mind control which the Jägers revile they’re also tasty bugs that the Jägers love eating.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: While Gil gets Othar back up to speed after the Time Tunnelers extract him from the Take-Five Bomb field, several Wulfenbach minions ogle the shirtless Othar… and then all express disappointment at Gil’s issuance of Othar’s turtleneck.
    • Before when Gil was treated at Mamma Gkika' bar after stopping war clanks alone, he was stripped naked. When he woke up and still not wearing pants, bar wenches likes it.
  • Eat the Summoner: The monster the Quintillius Harmon and his cultist minions summon makes an attempt to eat him before he ascends and gains control over it.
  • Edible Bludgeon: The granddaughter of an old shopkeeper, whose hat Maxim wanted as a trophy, threatened to hit him with a giant kosher salami, if he wouldn’t tell her why he put a Jägermonster (Maxim) through a window.
«

Old Man Death: AAAH! Not with the schlognwurst!note It’s expensive!

»
  • Emergency Cargo Dump: During the attack on Mechanicsburg, an airship crew realizes that the city’s anti-aircraft defences are still operational. They begin frantically throwing everything they can overboard in an effort to gain altitude. This eventually includes their employer, who threatened to have them all killed for running away.
  • Entitled Bastard: The sneering Strinbeck orders the crew to keep Zola’s pink zeppelin in Mechanicsburg airspace, even though the crew has observed the reactivation of Mechanicsburg’s surface-to-air defense net. A subsequent order to dump useless objects overboard for an emergency climb suddenly becomes Destination Defenestration.
  • Epic Hail:
    • Agatha’s signal from Sturmhalten.
    • The Doom Bell.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: (Бензин — это взрывчатка) Discussed, with crashing airships.
«

Goomblast: Vy dun it blow op? Other General: 'Cos dot only hoppens in dose cheap novels, hyu old fool.

»
  • Everyone Is Armed: One poor Smoke Knight experiences this here
  • Evil Doppelgänger: During Rakethorn, Maxim and Dimo’s three minute Offscreen Moment of Awesome they fought evil doppelgangers from another dimension. Dimo and Maxim’s had evil goatees.
  • Evil Gloating: (Долгая злодейская речь) 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 Has a Bad Sense of Humor: (У злодеев проблемы с юмором) Castle Heterodyne is «dangerous, twisted and worst of all… it likes to think it has a sense of humor».
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Zola and Lucrezia each discovered this while trying to manipulate the other.
  • Evil Laugh: (Злодейский смех)
    • 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.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: Though how evil he was is This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.debatable, this becomes the case for Baron Klaus Wulfenbach’s empire post-Time Skip. Various Sparks and nobles all fight for territory and power, with some of the major factions being Klaus' son Gilgamesh (in control of the vastly-reduced Empire), the Knights of Jove/Martellus von Blitzengard, and the Queen of the Dawn (Zola, who possesses the memories of the Other).
  • Exactly What I Aimed At:
    • Lucrezia flings a sword past Anevka, provoking a derisive jeer. But she hit what she was aiming at.
    • Oh, Zola. Zeetha wasn’t throwing her sword at you. But you may wish she had.
    • Ahh, Tiktoffen… Blunt weapons may not be as deadly as a knife, but they are exceedingly more proficient at smashing things. Like your wrist-mounted inhibitor that prevented Castle Heterodyne from making you a target of its cruel caprices.
    • When a spark duels using lightning and raw energy, we get a variant without anything being thrown: «Exactly What I Calibrated For.»
  • Excuse Me While I Multitask:
    • Gil has a habit of doing this.
      • 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.
    • His father Klaus can also be seen casually crushing enemy clanks while giving orders to his underlings.
  • Explain, Explain… Oh, Crap!: (Метод утёнка)
    • After a non-Wulfenbach Dreen suddenly appears to Gil and tells him he will go to Paris, he realizes what Dreen really are.
«

Dreen: Now- you will experience an important revelation. Gil: Wait, I’ll what? Bang: Blood and ash, I hate it when they pull that omniscient act. Gil: They’re not omniscient. My father says they’re simply tangential to time as we know it, and…

  • Beat*

Gil: «And… they had hats…»

»
  • Later, Agatha’s group is informed that an incoming ship is transporting a prisoner who hijacked one of England’s sea serpents. As hijacking said sea serpents is no easy task, Violetta is surprised a single person managed to do it in the first place. Wooster then informs her it’s actually possible, and starts telling her an anecdote that was going to be about Gil pulling a similar stunt in the past… before his brain puts two and two together.
  • Lord Bunstable is explaining to Agatha why people were up in arms over Professor Tobin’s research into higher dimensions and the implication that intelligent, higher-order life exists. Agatha can’t understand why anyone would be concerned, since the only way such beings would even known humanity exists would be if humans interfered with some fundamental force, like gravity…or time.
  • Madwa Korel yammers on about her opportunity to cause mayhem with the time-stopping power of Prende’s Chronometric Lantern when she comes across some members of Team Agatha fleeing a newly arrived monster horde on the forgotten island. She gets a two-fer when she finds Violetta was caught mid-pounce with a dagger in hand, and only realizes too late after some more out-loud monlogue that Violetta is not in the Lantern’s cone of effect. She’s too slow to get her own dagger out in response before Violettta shanks her in the back and pilfers the Lantern for Team Agatha.
  • 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.
    • Agatha’s death ray inconveniently shorts out during the Passholdt Bridge battle… so she jury-rigs it into a bomb to demolish the bridge and cut off the horde of fast revenants rushing out of the town.
    • In the Mêlée à Trois between giant Queen Monahan, giant Queen Lunevka, a horde of corrupted deep kaiju associated with the corrupted Deepspeaker, and eventuall Queen Albia, the relatively diminutive airship carrying Agatha and Company only evades getting crushed by using an improvised experimental Flash Step lightning engine of Agatha’s make (since the conventional engines are in pieces being rebuilt). While Lunevka gloats over scoring a knockout hit on Albia, Agatha orders the airship to fwip in front of Lunevka, have the Fwip Engine’s mounts unfastened, and launched free of its unfastened mounts like a missile into a third-eye-like mark on Lunevka’s giant face that’s cracked open. It fwips about inside her head uncontrolled a few times before exploding her entire face open.
  • 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!» Also, Krosp points out how long his absence lasted in real time, while Agatha states how long it has been in-comic.
  • Expospeak Gag: Various, such as the radio signs reading «Upon the Aether».
  • Expressive Accessory: Zeetha’s headband, with the little face on it that always has the same facial expression as she does. At first, it was nebulous as to whether it was just an artistic affectation or if it was actually imitating her expressions, but attention has since been brought to its function by some of the characters.
  • Extremely Short Time Span: While there’s a time skip of two years just before the change of story arcs, for Agatha, Violetta, Krosp and Tarvek the story from Volume 5 onward takes place over the span of about a month.

F

Ссылка: [2]

  • Face Fault: When Gil makes the (bogus) reveal to Zola that he’s been a pirate all along, this is the reaction from DuMedd, Sleipnir, Zeetha and Krosp. Not from Higgs, though — Airman Third Class Axel Higgs has long since lost the capacity to be surprised by anything.
  • Faceplanting into Food:
    • After a drugged Agatha spills the beans to Aaronev and Tarvek Sturmvoraus about her identity, her past, and her adventures up to that point, she face-plants into her dessert.
    • When the «mysterious, invisible hand» of a Smoke Knight knocks out Martellus with a sap, he face-plants into the «fine cake» he was eating.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Inescapable Death Traps do not always remain so.
«

Lucrezia/Agatha: That hole was not there when I last looked!

»
  • Failed Attempt at Drama: Gil barges in the control bridge of Castle Wulfenbach while fighting an enemy clank, crushes it underneath him and coolly dusts off his sleeve. And then he trips over a broken clank part, all under the eyes of his father.
  • Faking Amnesia: Lucrezia pulls this whilst possessing Agatha’s body, telling Agatha’s rescue party that she’s been drugged and can’t remember any of them. She manages to pull it off for a while, too, since no-one imagines for a second that it could be anyone other than Agatha talking to them. It isn’t until she encounters Klaus, who knew the original Lucrezia and recognizes her mannerisms, that it all goes downhill. It’s later revealed that Zeetha could tell something was off.
  • False Innocence Trick: Agatha mentions this trope when she first encounters Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer! who asks her to free him. She believes he’s doing this and does not free him; however, he actually believes he’s The Hero being held by the villain. He may not be wrong, even if he is a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander.
  • Famed in Story:
    • The Heterodyne Boys. They have a book series on them that is highly exaggerated while probably also being highly understated.
    • Othar is also very popular. Few realize how annoying/insane he can be, and many people don’t even care when they DO find out that he is a CloudcuckooLander.
    • Trelawney Thorpe is another popular hero, who like the Heterodyne Boys has her own book series of debatable accuracy.
  • Fantastic Legal Weirdness: There are a wide variety of ways to bring someone Back from the Dead to varying degrees. Unsurprisingly, this does not mesh well with a social structure based on inheritance, so the Fifty Families have an ironclad rule that once you’re dead, your titles and lands pass to your heirs even if you later get brought back. It’s also mentioned that there have been cases of people trying to conceal the fact that they’ve been killed and resurrected so that they don’t lose their lands and privileges to their next of kin.
  • Fantastic Vermin: Mimmoths are mouse-sized mammoths created by a Mad Scientist some time in the past, which escaped and bred in the wild to become ubiquitous microfauna in both the wilderness and in cities. They’re mostly harmless, but can make machines malfunction by getting inside them and pushing components around with their tusks.
  • Fascinating Eyebrow: Baron Oublenmach should be afraid now… very afraid.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: Maxim, with a glove and a spiked shoulderpad on one side.
  • Filler Strip: Radio Theatre Breaks, Short Stories, Fairy Tale Theatre: Cinderella, and to a lesser extent, Heterodyne Boys Stories and «The Storm King Opera» synopsis, as the latter two contribute to the overall mythology. More lately, there’s been a series of post-story-ending fillers: a Christmas Special involving the two (at the time newlywed) Author Avatar characters coming home to meet the hubby’s family and Fictional Kaja getting embroiled in a returning Mechanicsburg holiday tradition (because the Foglios wanted to), a story about the revival of the Mechanicsburg Guild of Monsters (drawn by their colorist Cheyenne Wright because Phil had rotator cuff issues in his drawing arm), and a Day in the Limelight for Franz Scortchmaw, the Great Dragon of Mechanicsburg. (so the Foglios can get continuity of future material in the main story straightened out)
  • Flashback Effects / Monochrome Past: (Серое прошлое, цветное настоящее) Sepia tones.
  • Flip Personality: Lucrezia and Agatha. Little outward signs of transition, save for the smile and the eyes, but obviously different personalities.
  • Floorboard Failure: Happens to Zeetha’s whole group in the sewers of Sturmhalten, shortly after escaping a rampaging monster. They land in an oubliette, so that 'weak floor' may actually have been a deliberate trap.
  • Fluffy the Terrible:
    • The Fun-sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers, a.k.a. the «devil dogs».note
    • Countless other one-shot gags such as the name of the big happy fun ball of death which Gil has to rescue Zola from.
    • Also the Killer Bunny in a sidestory, whose names range from Flopsy to Nietzsche.
  • Footnote Fever: A great deal of the Adaptation Expansion in the novels comes in the form of footnotes that expand on little side-details about the world.
  • Foot Popping: Agatha with Tarvek. Yup, played straight.
  • For Doom the Bell Tolls: (Зловещий колокольный звон) The aptly-named Doombell.
  • Foreign Cuss Word: Ultimately a subtrope of all the Gratuitous Foreign Language entries.
    • Klaus' "Götterdämmerung!"note
    • Zola will mutter "Merde!"note when riled up enough.
    • «Vot der dumboozle?»
  • Forgets to Eat: This can happen to Sparks if they stay in The Madness Place too long. Non-Sparks can be used to remind them.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Several side comics set in the future confirm that Agatha liberates Mechanicsburg from the time-stop, is officially accepted as the Hetereodyne and restores the town to its former glory; the Other is apparently defeated and Europa is at (relative) peace with some new-ish empire running things. Meanwhile, Violetta and Zeetha are still alive, but Othar Trygvassen has been missing for some time, presumed dead.
  • Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Tarvek admits that he keeps forgetting Othar is a spark.
  • Forgot to Mind Their Head: Rakethorn and Violetta are on the lookout during the island arc, Rakethorn hiding in a hole under a rock outcropping. When Violetta calls his attention, he straightens up too fast and bumps his head.
  • Fork Fencing: Cranked up to Eleven, as can be expected of Sparks, with Gil’s Hand-cranked Runcible Gun.
  • Form-Fitting Wardrobe: (Резиновая одежда/Одевается в секс-шопе?) How does Agatha even breathe in some of those outfits?
  • For the Lulz: Apparently, this is why Castle Heterodyne kills people. Because it «will be fun». All Heterodynes before Bill and Barry also seemed to have this as their primary motivation. Klaus even claims in his Storm King story that Clemethious Heterodyne always smiled, even while sleeping — because he constantly thought up new ways to torture, kill etc. people.
  • Frame Break: Apparently, the Spark also conveys the power to break the fourth wall — quite literally. Or maybe that’s just Gil.
  • Friend or Foe?: The Jägers have an excellent way of solving the problems presented by this trope.
  • Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren’t:
    • Agatha definitely has this dynamic with her maternal side of family sans Theo, the other White Sheep. The paternal side is just as bad, but because her missing father and uncle are the last two Heterodynes before her generation, it’s not mentioned much.
    • Brother Ulm later uses the religious side of the trope word for word in his intro pages.
  • Frustrated Overhead Scribble: (Надголовная каракуля разочарования) When Maxim gets shut down by Gkika, Oggie and Dimo while trying to tell the story of how he acquired his latest hat in turn he slumps with an irked grump depicted with a scribble in his speech bubble.
  • Fur Bikini: (Меховое бикини) Agatha ends up dressed in a skimpy fur top and bottom (along with fur boots) when Albia «snaps» her into a memory of the Queen’s prehistoric past.

G

  • Gadgeteer Genius: Pretty much all Sparks, but the Heterodynes were notable even among Sparks.
«

Von Mekkan: In my experience, a strong Heterodyne will take about two hours to truly warp the laws of nature.

»
  • Gambit Pileup:
    • At the best of times, Europa’s nobility and Sparks could be counted on to have a dozen or so plans brewing to unseat Baron Wulfenbach. Agatha’s Spanner in the Works nature has often prompted these conspirators to set off their coup attempts early….and all at once.
      • Agatha’s arrival in Sturmhalten caused everyone to set off their master plan at once.
      • When Agatha and Zola reached Castle Heterodyne, everything just went nuts as Zola started revealing about half of the actors involved in her power play.
      • After Agatha took the castle, she found herself at the center of a maelstrom as every two-bit power in Europa tried to seize Mechanicsburg (and her along with it); when the various factions started fighting over her, this took the trope virtually to the point of parody. To top it off, Klaus predicted the whole thing, and used it to get all the troublemakers in his realm in one place for easy disposal.
  • The Gay '90s: Paris' popular culture is very like that of our world’s 1890s. The famous Moulin Rouge (home of can-can dancers) exists (being advertised prominently at the Paris train station), for instance, and many women, such as the customs agent Dimo tries to chat up, are dressed in the height of 1890s-1900s fashions, down to the high collars and the Merry Widow hats (one popular brand — not to mention a lot of other things, including a brand of pantalettes — is named after Agatha herself!)
  • Geeky Turn-On: (Ум — это сексуально)
    • And how!
    • And then some — back the other way!
    • Now with some side characters! Although that’s debatable about just how much of it is «geeky» and how much is «insanity».
    • He has a MAGNIFICENT death ray…
    • Gil was initially attracted to Agatha because of her Spark.
  • Generation Xerox: (Ксерокопированное поколение) Several of the characters apparently look almost exactly like younger versions of their parents, enough to confuse Lucrezia in the cases of Tarvek and Zola. Gil appears to resemble his father as well, but it doesn’t get him recognized as the Baron’s son.
  • Gentleman Adventurer: Othar Tryggvassen is the Trope Namer.
  • Get It Over With: Boris
  • Giant Squid: A giant mechanical squid and a giant flying squid.
  • The Girl Who Fits This Slipper: Deconstructed during the Cinderella parody. Tarvek has Cinderella’s slippers and wants to find the girl who fits them, but Gil argues that the shoes, size nine-and-a-half, would fit too many other women. Tarvek keeps adding descriptors, and finally brings out a picture of Cinderella, prompting Gil to point out if they have that, they no longer need the shoe.
  • Giving Them the Strip:
    • The Minstrel leaves his jacket behind to escape a clank.
    • Bangladesh DuPree escapes from being Strapped to an Operating Table by leaving her boots and jacket behind.
    • Monahan frees herself from a grapple by slipping out of her gloves before elbowing Steelgarter.
  • The Glasses Gotta Go: Averted. In Agatha’s case, it is NOT so that «men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.»
  • The Glomp: (Агрессивные обнимашки)
    • Zoing to Gil, with a «GLOMPH» sound effect.
    • No sound effect, but Zeetha does it when unexpectedly reunited with Higgs.
  • Glowing Flora: When Agatha’s group is traveling the river beneath Paris they pass several groupings of giant bioluminescent toadstools on the riverbanks.
  • God Guise: Lucrezia Mongfish (a.k.a. The Other) is worshipped by the Geisterdamen. They literally weep with joy when they get her back.
  • Godzilla Threshold:
    • The Baron’s approach to governance can be summed up thusly: «Don’t make me come down there.» So getting the Baron involved in a problem is perceived this way.
    • Master Payne explains his decision to notify the baron about Passholdt being overrun by monsters, over Agatha’s protest that they should help instead:
«

Payne: Could you burn down people — women and children — even if you knew they had become monsters? The Baron can. The Baron has. I respect him for that but I don’t want to be him.

»
  • The Baron’s own personal Godzilla Threshold involves plots having to do with Revenants or The Other. Unfortunately, this means Agatha is number one on his Most Wanted list because of her relation to and possession by Lucrezia. His response to Agatha gaining full control of the Castle and Mechanicsburg is to fly down himself with a «black level device» which turns out to be a city-wide stasis-field generator.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Dimo (green Jäger with 5 o’clock shadow, wearing an olive-drab cap with mustard trim and a yellow ostrich plume stuck in).
  • Going to Give It More Energy: The «more Movit 11 to Zola» example falls more into Phlebotinum Overdose than this trope.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: What happens when the heroic Blood Knight Zeetha meets with her evil counterpart Bang? They sit down, enjoy some cake, and have some girl talk. Justified since they are in a sanctuary and forbidden to fight. Lampshaded when Zeetha even comments how much fun it’s going to be when they wind up fighting each other.
  • Gonna Need More X: «I don’t think I’ve got one big enough.»
  • Good Cop/Bad Cop: Anyone and Bangladesh DuPree. It happens both intentionally and just because she acts as usual.
  • Good Costume Switch: (Символическая смена одежды) After Eotain and Othar convince several other Geisterdamen to switch their loyalty to Agatha in the aftermath of events in Paris they also change their outfits.
  • The Good Guys Always Win: In a flashback, Lucrezia tells Klaus this one of the reasons why she’s accepted Bill’s marriage proposal.
  • Good Is Not Dumb: Everyone thinks that just because Gilgamesh Wulfenbach never built a Death Ray and almost never screams at people or beats them up to get them under control, they can push him around and act like he’s nothing. When he’s finally pushed over the edge, he shows the entire world that yes, he does know how to build a Death Ray, and yes, he’s perfectly capable of kicking the crap out of Europa to protect his father and not-girlfriend.
  • Good Is Not Nice: (Добро с кулаками) Gil; Agatha; Master Payne… Quite possibly Klaus.
  • Good News, Bad News: When Agatha is worried about Tarvek’s health and whether he might have gangrene, Moloch has this update for her:
«

Moloch: Well, the good news is: I’ve seen gangrene, and this ain’t it. Agatha: Err… what’s the bad news? Moloch: [gesturing to Tarvek, who is currently some shade of greyish green] He’s got something. And I hope you know what it is, 'cause we sure don’t.

»
  • Graceful Loser: Old Man Death takes the loss of his hat to Maxim quite cheerfully, if only because his wife always hated the thing.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: (Пистолет с крюком)
    • Standard issue for Smoke Knights.
    • The Baron and Zola have one too.
  • Gratuitous French:
    • Gil once started speaking French while delirious. Translated: «Excuse me sir, but where is the catastrophe?» Gil spent a lot of time in France when he was younger — and he spent so much of that time coming to the rescue of danger-prone ditz Zola that it’s just sort of reflex for him to keep an eye out for disasters when she’s around.
    • One exit door of Castle Heterodyne has the inscription «Fuyez les dangers de loisir» («Flee the dangers of leisure») above the frame.
    • There’s a sub-trend for characters using French to invoke the inherent sophistication, and butchering it. («Ve get heem fixed op toot sveety! Dot’s French!»)
«

Guard: «Mighty generous» says I, but "no bless obli cheese, " says he. Master Payne: …Does he? Guard: All the time.

»
  • In the «Revenge of the Weasel Queen» side-story, the blueprint for the Giant Mini Mecha costume made by the tailor clank has its captions entirely in (surprisingly accurate) French.
  • Gratuitous German:
    • Jägermonster = hunter-monster (or infantry-monster), Geisterdamen = ghost ladies, Sturmvoraus = storm ahead, Wulfenbach = «Wolf’s stream» (not strictly correct, but German is dialectual and it’s a place/family name). Of course, since this story is apparently set in a 19th century Central Europe not totally unlike our own, this is more of a Translation Convention, since German actually would be the lingua franca of the setting.
    • Though according to the novels, the official language of the Wulfenbach Empire is actually Romanian.
    • There is one straight-up bit of gratuitous German when a Jäger uses «Jägermonstern» as a pseudo-German plural for his own kind. The German plural is in fact «Jägermonster», which of course sounds rather odd in English.
    • Note also the writing on a deactivated clank dial.
    • Holzfäller, the fake surname Gil used in Paris, translates as «lumberjack».
    • Sturmhalten, the home of the Sturmvoraus familiy (see above), literally means «to keep storm», a.k.a. Storm Keep or Storm Hold. This matches with Mechanicsburg, «burg» being old Germanic for «castle». Wulfenbach started as a smaller house, so their fortress is just Castle Wulfenbach.
  • Gratuitous Spanish:
    • Professor Diaz tends to throw it in. (His introductory page alone has two examples.)
    • Tarvek believes Spanish is «muy sexy.»
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: (Бить врага вражиною) WHAK! WHAK!
  • Groin Attack: (Удар ниже пояса) Agatha delivers a solid one to Tweedle after he gets a little grabby with her.
  • Gunboat Diplomacy: Deconstructed. Agatha’s fellow Sparks wanting to bring hidden weapons to a diplomac meeting nearly brings about a total apocalypse. Fortunately, Agatha demands the weapons in her mermaid disguise were removed, which proves to be the right decision.

H

  • Hammerspace: Agatha has multiple pockets that hold just about every other gadget that a well-equipped Mad Scientist might require. Lampshaded on a paper doll page.
  • Hand in the Hole: The castle challenges Agatha to stick her arm into a giant clank’s mouth to prove her identity; unfortunately for her, it’s a blood test….
  • Hands Looking Wrong: Agatha comes to the realization that she caught Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation too — her skin having turned green — by taking out her glove and checking her hand.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: (Хрясь, и пополам!) The Lord High Conservator cuts one of the Smoke Knights that have infiltrated his ship in half.
  • Hard on Soft Science: Yes, there are mad social scientists. They constantly complain that all of the funding goes to flashy clanks and death rays instead of social research. What kind we don’t know, but a thousand orphans, a hedge maze, and cheese is involved.
  • Harmful Healing: Most attempts at Spark medicine follow this. One section follows the long story of Agatha curing another Spark of a disease. In the process she infects two other people, one of them being herself, everyone involved is electrocuted two or three times, all three of them have a rolling death lasting several minutes, and Agatha comes within forty-five seconds of exploding or melting. It works, but bear in mind that the three people involved are all very good Sparks, and fairly disciplined as they go. And of course, for all their knowledge and ability, none of the three are actually doctors.
  • Harmless Liquefaction: According to Aldin (who apparently lacks the imagination to make stuff up), his brother Hoffman was once liquefied during an adventure and Aldin had to carry him in a jar for the rest of it. Given that Hoffman is perfectly healthy during the events of the comic he solidified no worse for wear, and it’s implied this isn’t even the worst thing ever to happen to him.
  • Hash House Lingo: A panel from the «Maxim buys a hat!» side story currently provides the page image. The orders shown are:
    • A Racing Trilobite > One grilled snail and swiss cheese on rye bread.
    • A Botched Construct > A chicken salad on a kaiser roll.
    • A Martian Princess > A beef tongue with horseradish on toast.
    • A Red Heterodyne > A fried bat on pumpernickel with extra mushroom sauce.
    • A Prince of Sturmhalten’s Big Bet > The sandwich maker’s hat, with cheese.
  • The Hat Makes the Man:
    • The helmet which allows Castle Heterodyne to possess the Seneschal.
    • In a «Trelawney Thorpe» short story, the crown of King Arthur, which allows Arthur to possess its wearer.
  • Hat of Authority: (Буржуйский цилиндр) Hats might be the only thing Jägers take seriously. You simply can’t be a Jäger in good standing without a hat, which makes the over-the-top monstrosity they present to Gil a gesture of magnanimity. Hilariously, a lot of generals that are not Jägers also find the hat very impressive and simply believe it must be the son of the Baron since the hat says so. Old Man Death also deserves mention.
  • Haunted Technology: Castle Heterodyne is generally seen as this, and it suits Wulfenbach to let people believe it. The application of Clarke’s Third Law effectively makes it so; even characters familiar with the machinery refer to the rooms as «alive».
  • Head-Tiltingly Kinky: When Agatha is working in the traveling Heterodyne Circus as the psychic Madame Olga.
«

Agatha: She… …tea cozy… …forty-three hours… …only one spoon… …how… eek!

»
  • Heart Symbol: Bangladesh DuPree, of all people, gets a huge one when she meets Vole, a Jägermonster of her taste. More specifically, from hearing his jubilant, bloodthirsty anticipation regarding a war that would devastate the continent.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: (Чёрный кожаный прикид) Von Pinn, and how. Lampshaded.
«

Von Pinn: I teach restraint. DuPree: Oh, so your dressmaker’s an A+ student then.

»
  • Her Boyfriend’s Jacket: Zeetha wears Higgs' striped shirt when we see them after they had hitched up.
  • Her Code Name Was «Mary Sue»: An interstitial series of strips has Mary tell her siblings a Heterodyne story, but she insists on inserting herself into it. The Stinger is that her mother used to do the same thing.
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Lots of the recurring characters in this comic have a very… «flawed» perspective on the sanctity of mortal life.
    • Bangladesh DuPree
    • Castle Heterodyne
    • Most of the Jägers….
  • Hidden Badass: Higgs; Wooster; Tarvek (to Gil and Violetta); Zola, with Obfuscating Stupidity; and Sanaa.
  • Hidden Elf Village: The Lost Kingdom of Skifander, where Zeetha comes from. Notably, it’s lost to her as well, as she has no proper recollection of how she got to Europa (she knows she got there in an airship, but was rendered so feverish & sickly from the horrors of experiencing air travel for the first time that she did not properly keep track of the route she and the explorers she was traveling with were using).
  • Hidden Weapons: (Потайное оружие) Violeta hides weapons in her sleeves even when wearing an obvious utility belt, and Bang is revealed to keep throwing knifes up her sleeves and in her boots.
  • High-Voltage Death:
    • In the Death Montage of the traitor Beausoleil’s bodies one is depicted as getting fatally zapped with electricity.
    • This is how Anevka kills her father.
  • Hindenburg Incendiary Principle: Many, many Zeppelins from Another World appear across the comic. Some are destroyed in the course of the story, some survive, and even more were destroyed in various offscreen incidents («And how do dose alvays end? De dirigible iz in flames…»).
  • His and Hers: Parodied on two pages in Castle Heterodyne.
  • Hobbes Was Right: (Гоббс был прав) You can’t uphold a democracy with power-hungry Mad Scientists running around.
  • Holding Out for a Hero / Stay in the Kitchen: Othar tried to keep his sister «safe» at home. But it turns out that in this world the concept of «safety» is even more volatile.
  • Homicide Machines: Virtually every piece of advanced technology can be used as a dangerous weapon no matter what it was meant for originally.
«

Gil: What about this one? It looks like a toaster. Agatha: Well, it is a toaster. Sort of. Gil: Sort of? Agatha: Oh, yes. It could toast the whole town.

»
  • Hostage Situation: (Взятие заложников) Gil volunteers for one. Agatha doesn’t want it.
  • How Dare You Die on Me!:
    • Agatha’s reaction when it looks like Gilgamesh is dying in Castle Heterodyne. It helps.
    • Tarvek tried the same a bit earlier, in an even more amusing manner.
«

Tarvek: Hang on! The system’s damaged! If you die before we fix it, I’ll… I’ll kill you!

»
  • Hulk Speak: (Странный грамматика) Snoz, quite appropriately, has a mild case of this.
  • Humongous Mecha: Walking Battleships (Moloch served on a walking gunboat) and War Stompers (one of the first armies to lay siege to Mechanicsburg use huge Spider Tanks with Coilgun cannons).
  • Hunter of His Own Kind: Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!) He’s a spark, with a goal of killing every other spark, then killing himself when he’s the last one left.
  • Hurt Foot Hop: Happens in a strip to Agatha (along with subtitled Symbol Swearing) after being attacked by a pair of her little clanks turning against their mistress.
  • Hyde Plays Jekyll; Lucrezia often tries to pass herself off as the girl whose body she has hijacked, to varying degrees of success.

I

  • I Am Who?: (Кто-кто я?) Agatha is quite shocked when her parentage is revealed.
  • I Am X, Son of Y:
    • «I am Zeetha, Daughter of Chump! Yes, I know what it means in your language.»
    • Gil uses the line to much greater effect.
  • I Can Still Fight!: Repeatedly.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each volume of the print collection is titled «Agatha Heterodyne and the Noun Phrase», where the noun phrase in question refers to some person, place, or thing that does indeed appear in that volume, but is never actually referred to by that name.
  • I’d Tell You, but Then I’d Have to Kill You:
    • Combined with «The Easy Way or the Hard Way» when Master Payne gives two Wulfenbach troopers the choice of his being a good magician (who doesn’t reveal how a trick is done) or an evil one (who doesn’t leave any evidence there was a trick in the first place).
    • Castle Heterodyne declines to reveal information about Airman Higgs to Zeetha, as doing so would require Zeetha to be killed. Not that the Castle objects to killing anyone, but Zeetha is essential to Agatha in the Castle’s opinion, so she must be spared.
    • Inverted in a way when a smoke knight tells Agatha «if we told you we’d have to let you live … for a very long time»
  • If I Had a Nickel…: Violetta’s done the math.
  • I’ll Pretend I Didn’t Hear That: In no way did Violetta assault Tweedle’s royal personage with a blackjack in the presence of Father Gerät and several other Corbettites.
  • Ignored Confession: Invoked. No, no, the stairway’s just echo-y.
  • I Just Knew: Invoked: When Higgs’s time-displaced friend tries to explain how he knows which books are relevant, he says it’s because they emit temporal echoes which indicate that they will be leaving the shelf. Instead of relaying this, Higgs says «he 'just knows'».
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: (Хочу быть нормальным) Said by Agatha, in the beginning. Othar thinks the entire idea is hilarious.
  • I Kiss Your Hand: Franz, the giant dragon construct, kisses the hand of a Mini-Mecha manned by Agatha as a sign of respect. We kid you not.
  • «I Know You’re in There Somewhere» Fight: (Я знаю, что ты хороший!) Subverted with Lucrezia (in Agatha’s body) calling forth a copy of her own mind to take over Zola — because the expected possession isn’t working.
  • I’m a Humanitarian: (Каннибализм) «Snapper» Boikov and «Jack A’Horned» — prisoners in the Castle Heterodyne.
  • I Meant to Do That: Agatha, while improving the coffee blender, causes an incredibly large explosion, and quickly states this. Then she goes on to create several more. The people helping her take it in stride.
  • The Immune: For some unknown reason, the people of Mechanicsburg are immune to slaver wasp infestation. After a sweep by the Vespiary Squad and their wasp eater weasels, the only two revenants found were a couple of non-resident tourists. This in no way will be important later on. In one interview, Kaja hinted that it might be thanks to the water of the River Dyne.
  • Impaled Palm:
    • Von Pinn does this purposely to catch Bang’s sword — and crushes the hilt despite the wound.
«

Von Pinn: I live with pain. I use it. Cultivate it.

»
  • In the «Maxim Buys a Hat» side story, Old Man Death spikes Jäger Maxim’s hand to the table with a carving knife. Maxim’s only reaction is to lick the blood off the wound.
  • All Martellus von Blitzengaard gets from trying to strangle Bangladesh DuPree is an impaled palm.
  • Violetta trying to get the jump on Lucrezia in Agatha’s body results in an impaled hand by Zeetha’s two-bladed sword.
  • Improv Fu: Heroic Freestyle is a combat style used by both the Heterodyne Boys and the Hoffmann brothers. It apparently involves a lot of chaotic improvisation and getting hit a lot. Given that the only practitioners we know of are two-person teams it may also be based around team combat.
  • Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Discussing demon summoning while Higgs is impersonating an attendant results in this:
«

Agatha: [smugly] I mean, you can’t just say, «appear before me, all-powerful creature» and expect— Higgs: [appears out of Butler Space] Tea? Agatha: Oh! Yes, thank you!

»
  • Incendiary Exponent: The Torchmen, Mechanicsburg’s air defense system. Imagine a semi-autonomous clank with flight wings that’s on fire. Now imagine a whole lot of them, all perched atop lamp posts throughout the town when inactive. Now you understand why the old timer airman in the Pink Airship was so fretful.
  • Incessant Music Madness: In the (psychological) torture chamber.
«

Othar: …and that MUSIC! WHAT is that MUSIC?!

»
  • Indy Escape:
    • The Rolling Fun Ball of Death.
«

Professor Tiktoffen: Huh. I wondered where that went on Tuesdays. Agatha: Why do I even have one of those?

»
  • Tarvek gets to do the «pursued by giant monster» variation… while carrying an injured woman, an injured Jäger, a dozen baby wasp weasels, and some precious notes.
«

Tarvek: What are you people doing? RUN!

»
  • Indy Ploy: Often. Klaus seems to be almost the only character who plans more than fifteen minutes ahead.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink:
    • 2007 April 18, Panel #7.
    • Gil and Tarvek are in agreement about this.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Diaz and Mittelmind use up all the good excuses.
  • Infantilization Retaliation: When Agatha meets Maxinia, baby daughter of her adoptive parents (who are both constructs and couldn’t have children prior to being rebuilt by Gil), she calls her «an adowable widdle miwacle of science». Unfortunately, Maxinia is rather stronger than the average infant, and really doesn’t like baby-talk. She punches Agatha in the face, almost knocking her out.
  • Infernal Retaliation:
«

Krosp: Great. Now the crowd is trapped by the stalagmites while the flaming monster advances.

»
  • In Medias Res: (In medias res) The Adventures in Castle Heterodyne video game opens with Agatha entering the title castle and meeting Sanaa Wilhelm, which happens at the start of Volume 8 («Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones») in the webcomic.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Despite the fact that there have been people capable of warping the fabric of reality via science for several centuries (and for several thousands of years in a few rare cases) Europa at least still looks relatively similar to 19th century Europe. Cities like Paris, Vienna and Prague still exist, as does the Catholic Church (although with seven Popes) and England still has a vast global empire even though most of the country is underwater at this point — albeit they do also have an extremely powerful and seemingly immortal queen, who refuses to abandon the British Isles.
  • Instant Cosplay Surprise:
    • When Lucrezia abruptly gains control of Agatha’s body, she’s astonished to discover the dress that Tarvek provided for Agatha.
«

Lucrezia: Really now — playing with dolls, at your age.

»
  • When Albia drags Agatha into her «place of utmost secrecy» (a memory of her prehistoric past), Agatha finds herself in cavewoman attire, to her mild dismay.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong:
    • Old Man Death, explaining about Maxim trying to get his hat, notes that Jägers are no good at being subtle, so he can always «see 'em coming two streets away». Unbeknownst to him, Maxim is currently hiding in his barrel of pickled herring, and assuming he’s being called out, bursts out with an indignant exclamation. Old Man Death is forced to admit that sometimes a Jäger can surprise him.
    • Agatha wants to break in a Parisian dress shop, since they are barely clothed and supposed to go to a costume party. Dimo objects, as according to him you should only loot from defeated enemies. Agatha counters that it’s not like she’s going to battle a horde of socialites on the way. Cue a horde of well-dressed socialites turning the corner and coming at her with hostile intentions, to Agatha’s exasperation.
«

Zeetha: Wow! You can find anything in Paris!

»
  • Gil doubts the Dreen’s supposed ability to predict the future, as one recently told him he’d be going to Paris, and he has no reason to go there. Cue an officer entering to tell him they’re about to land there.
  • Princess Neena, disguised as a steward, try to join the expedition to Mechanisburg as a stowaway… sorry, «surprise freelance member». She begs Agatha and Zeetha to not tell her mother, and that everything will be OK as long as Dr. Rakethorn doesn’t see her… not realizing he’s standing right behind her.
«

Neena: It’ll be fine, as long as Doctor Rakethorn doesn’t see me. Rakethorn: Oh, «steward»… won’t your poor me some tea? Neena: AIEEE!

»
  • Instrument of Murder: Sleipnir O’Hara’s «Hot Pipes».
  • Internal Reveal: The fact that «revenants» can actually be normal people is a huge revelation in setting, just look at how they’re treated in Dragon from Mars. But readers get a hint of this well before it becomes common knowledge thanks to Mr. Rovainen’s actions. It takes a while for the full story to come out, though.
  • In the Blood: Sparkiness is usually hereditary. Spark styles of invention too.
«

Agatha: I believe another forty-five point three seconds, and I would have exploded or something. Castle Heterodyne: … or something. Under the circir/circumstances I/I am forced to admit that yo/you are most most likely oneoneone of the family… Agatha: Oh, yeah… I have got to try that again! Castle Heterodyne: yesss… most likely, in/in/indeed.

»
  • In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: Agatha’s self-replicating clanks.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Although it was an intentional delivery of a Large Ham, it’s still epic.
    • «SCHTOP! Hyu horr’ble monster-y ting of Evil!»
  • In-Universe Factoid Failure: Some people apparently believe Klaus Barry Heterodyne, child of Lucrezia and William Hetrodyne, was actually Lucrezia and Klaus Wulfenbach’s child, even though K. B. Heterodyne was born more than two years after Klaus’s disappearance.
  • Irrevocable Order: One of the reasons people are reluctant to hire Ivo Sharktooth, Private Jäger is that you can hire him, but you can’t fire him. In a town like Mechanicsburg, he’s likely to discover something that no one wanted uncovered.
  • It Makes Sense in Context:
«

Agatha: We’re just going to kill you, and then you’ll be fine! [later…] Gil: I’ve changed my mind! Let’s just kill him! Agatha: Stop it. We’re going to kill him properly.

»
  • I Want Grandkids:
    • Oh, Castle Heterodyne, that really wants its current master to get busy in the bedroom to make the next generation.
    • Also, Oggie to the storyteller (his great-great grandson) who he really wants to make him a great-great-great grandpa.
  • I Want My Mommy!: Neena freaking out in a life-threatening situation and screaming for her Mama summons her.
  • I Was Never Here: (Этого никогда не было) Lucrezia to Vrin.0,

J

  • Jar of the Bizarre: Unusual things in flasks, jars and tanks appear frequently as background decoration, and given that the few that are released get weaponised they’re probably safer that way. An in-universe Heterodyne Tale ends climactically with the opening of a literal ocean-in-a-bottle, and later advancements in the Other’s Hive Engine technology produce a small ominous glass globe full of meat and clockwork that manufactures a prototype slaver wasp capable of infecting a Spark.
  • Jaw Drop: (Уронить челюсть/Отпад челюсти)
    • Agatha’s mouth drops open in shock when she realizes that not only is someone taking advantage of the Heterodyne girl rumor to impersonate her and try to take over her town they’re also dressed as an incredibly feminine pink thing that plays very well to the crowd.
    • The jaws drop on pretty much everyone in Mechanicsburg when Gil summons up a lightning strike to destroy the lead war stomper.
    • One of the Mechanicsburg councilors reacts in slack jawed shock to Gil’s rampage.
    • When Sanaa sees that Moloch is actually incredibly competent rather than the bumbling fool she thought he was her mouth goes slack.
    • Goomblast takes the cake. When it comes to jaw-dropping, that huge mouth of his blows the competition away.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: And how! Chekhov’s Guns that were put on the mantle in books 1, 2, and 3 are being taken off and fired years later. Gil and Tarvek also indulge in some Lampshade Hanging when they discuss a bunch of convoluted noodle incidents.
  • Juggle Fu:
    • In an early strip, Gil throws a fishbowl in the air, and catches it again in the first panel of the next page.
    • Gil also throws a silver of vixonite vial while taking a punch from Bang, before catching it again.
  • Just the First Citizen: (Первый гражданин) Klaus Wulfenbach, Ruler of Europa, is styled «Baron» (for context, baron is usually the lowest tier of landed nobility). His son Gil carries on with the precedent set by his father when he inherits the Empire.

K

Ссылка: [3]

  • Kick Them While They Are Down:
    • Here Violetta expresses her fury by kicking the wounded Tarvek — who is not actually down, but can’t really fight back because they are on the same side.
    • It’s all over the place, really — unless someone’s bitten by Chronic Hero Syndrome or in a hurry.
«

Tarvek: Oh, nonono no, you do not "give up!" YOU DIE!

»
  • Martellus repeatedly shoots Rerich at point blank range after unnecessarily attacking him with ten spark hounds and injuring Rerich to the point that he is no longer able to move.
  • Kidnapped from Behind:
    • Agatha is grabbed and taken away while Tarvek and the rest of the group are looking out at the newest attack on Mechanicsburg with their backs to her kidnapping which delays their realizing what has happened.
    • It happens again in Paris with slightly more justification — her friends are fending off an attack by a clockwork android, but it turns out the villain is controlling more than one body so another version of himself snatches Agatha while her friends are shooting in the other direction.
  • Kidnapped While Sleeping: While Tarvek is sleeping off the effects of not sleeping at all during the siege of Mechanicsburg and getting poisoned and painfully healed twice he gets kidnapped by the Immortal Library and doesn’t wake until he’s secured on their ship and far away.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: Beausoleil, after having murdered Simon Voltaire and severed him from the Paris network, encounters his grief-enraged daughter Colette, who is in full-tilt Madness Place as her Spark breaks through (and her ballroom dress disintegrating from the static discharge from her interface to the City). He begins to taunt her about her being new to this, but she cuts him off with a snap of her fingers. Across all of Paris, all of his duplicate bodies are killed in a myriad of violent ways, except the one in front of Colette. This last Beausoleil keels over in pain from sensing the slaughter.
  • Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: Tarvek correctly identifies Higgs as the Secret Jäger General, which prompts Higgs to escalate to being confrontational. Tarvek then deliberately puts Higgs' readied hand on his own throat, telling him to just get it over with if Higgs really thinks Tarvek is an enemy of his Lady Heterodyne. Higgs decides to reveal Tarvek’s correctness in a roundabout way, by giving him a choke-lift, a brutal dress-down about the deviousness of his family and how he’s the most so of the whole lot, and this is from generations of observation. He makes sure Tarvek is chokedly terrified he might actually make the kill for a moment before placing him back down and approving how thoroughly wrapped around Agatha’s finger he is with a characteristic Jäger-style Slasher Smile.
  • Klatchian Coffee: (Убодритель) Agatha discovers coffee in a Mechanicsburg coffeehouse and goes sparky. She also goes into Bullet Time — reading a book on coffee, editing it, and devising a way to rebuild the coffee machine in the time it takes a waitress to say three words. And then there’s the coffee she makes instead. It appears to be a perfect encapsulation not only of the taste, but of everything that pure coffee is. The one person that tastes it goes into a Heroic BSoD since he will never be able to enjoy any other coffee ever again. He also apparently can’t sleep for at least a week, making him a nervous and tired wreck the next time he appears.
  • Knee-capping: Higgs uses this move against Zola. Unfortunately for him, she is too high on combat drugs to fall down.
  • Kneel, Push, Trip: Agatha and Krosp do a variation on this (Krosp is short enough that he doesn’t have to kneel) with Othar, pushing him out of their small airship.
  • The Knights Who Say «Squee!»: The surviving pirates who’d been escorting Tarvek absolutely lose it with delight when they realise that, since Gilgamesh Wulfenbach came to retrieve him in person, the Ax-Crazy woman accompanying him can only be THE legendary Captain Bangladesh DuPree. According to Gil it happens a lot.
«

Pirate: It is her! She stabbed my mom once!

»
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Once Colette has taken control of Paris, Terebithia advises the Queen of the Dawn to get while the getting’s good. Her plans failed, but «it took two Storm Kings, two Masters of Paris, and a Heterodyne to slow [her] down», so she shouldn’t feel too bad about it.
  • Kubrick Stare: (Взгляд Кубрика) Higgs gives one to Tarvek when it becomes obvious the latter has guessed that Higgs is in fact the secret Jäger-General.

L

  • Lady and Knight: (Принцесса и рыцарь) Spoofed with Tarvek and Violetta.
«

Violetta: I'm responsible for this slug's continued existence. Tarvek: This useless nitwit is my loyal servant. Ow! Quitit!

»
  • Lampshade Hanging: (Подсветка) Many. Using a book titled Using Found Objects as Weapons as a bludgeon is probably the best example.
  • Last Grasp at Life: When Colette killed all of Beausoleil’s bodies in Paris one of their deaths is depicted with just a gloved hand reaching desperately out of the muck he’s being suffocated in.
  • Last-Second Word Swap:
    • When Tarvek is trying to get to Agatha’s side quickly he starts saying he’s the Storm King, before switching that out to Chief Advisor to the Heterodyne:
«

Tarvek: I am the St—er—I am the chief advisor to your Lady Heterodyne.

»
  • After the Corbettites defuse the situation between Martellus, Klaus-In-Gil, and Lucrezia-In-Agatha with cake laced with heavy sedatives, Bang (who also ate the cake) stops short of saying «piece of cake». She’s probably secretly hoping that Agatha stays free and finds a way to undo Klaus’s mind control on Gil because she really hates mind control, and didn’t want to clue Gil in on the Corbettites' hand in Agatha’s escape
  • Higgs says the following while talking to a Mad Scientist, swapping out the word mad at the last minute because she obviously is that:
«

Higgs: So you’re not ma-er-upset then?

»
  • This one is a running gag as Agatha has done that as well with another spark that she fought. He was just happy that he learned something about magnets from her trick.
  • Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: With a somewhat unexpected pair of lovebirds in this strip.
  • Legally Dead: Since successful resurrection/reanimation is fairly common in Europa, it plays havoc with various royal or noble titles, as succession obviously requires the death of the role’s previous occupant. As a result, the ruling houses of the continent — the Fifty Families — decreed that any member of a lineage who dies and is resurrected is automatically removed from the line of succession. Or, as Gil puts it, «With them, once you’re dead, you’re dead — even if someone zaps you back later.» This obviously doesn’t stop certain blue-bloods getting resurrected on the sly and hoping no one finds out, but Baron Wulfenbach always does and is able to hold it over them. Ironically, in the story it’s an open secret that the Baron himself is a construct, and the backstory implies he’s the result of all three sons of the Wulfenbach family dying in a lab accident, getting stitched back together, and reanimated. All of which should automatically disqualify him from ruling as well — but he chooses not to play by the Fifty Families' game, and no one dares to call him on it.
  • Leg Cling: The «flashback» panel of Dr. Hengst von Wyrmhaut (Monster Hunter) escaping Mechanisburg, as told by Hector, features him with a Damsel in Distress clinging to his leg. The actual true story, as told by Franz, is a lot less glamorous.
  • Let Them Die Happy: These plants are trying to do this.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Gilgamesh orders that his hat should be hidden in a safe place — and never spoken about again.
«

[seconds later] DuPree: I heard there was a hat! Gil: You’re delusional.

»
  • Licked by the Dog: The wasp weasels seem to really like Tarvek, much to his chagrin.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: (Чудодейственное электричество) The writers love this trope.
  • Lightning Reveal: The Baron’s real forces are revealed.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: (Как старая супружеская пара) Von Zinzer comments on it about Violetta and Tarvek bickering. «Are you sure you’re not married?» To which Violetta (who is actually a cousin of Tarvek’s) responds by almost puking.
  • Lingerie Scene: (Сцена в нижнем белье) The creators admit the work contains «lots of running around in Victorian underwear». Most of the time, Agatha is the offender. Not that surprising, when one of the creators is a big fan of such underthings, and the other is her husband, plus both having a background of having drawn pornographic comics before.
  • Little «No»: (Просто «нет»)
    • Type 1 from Wooster to Bangladesh.
    • A mix of type 1 and 3 from Higgs to Zola.
    • Little «No» meets This Is Gonna Suck meets Oh, Crap! when Castle Heterodyne decides to put out a fire.
  • Living Crashpad: Jägers are polite about this.
«

Martellus: Fortunately, I landed on an idiot. Sparkhound: And I helped!

»
  • Living Distant Ancestor: Oggie the Jäger was Happily Married to a human woman soon after his transformation and has a long line of descendants from her, including his great-great-grandson the Storyteller. In an uncharacteristically serious moment, he admits that he doesn’t feel like his wife is gone as long as he can see glimpses of her in them.
  • Living Labyrinth: Castle Heterodyne
  • Living Legend: Quite a few.
    • Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, very well known and generally viewed as a hero. Except by the main protagonists.
    • Klaus Wulfenbach is fine with having a reputation as a terribly villainous evil emperor if it keeps the peace.
    • The Heterodyne Boys had a wonderfully heroic reputation, beloved in no small degree because their family very much did not.
    • Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek are all rapidly building themselves reputations, what with being stuck in the middle of the most epic story since the Heterodyne Boys defeated the Other. When Agatha visits Paris, she learns that everybody’s slapping her name and image on commercial products, and the opera house is staging a production based on her adventures to date.
  • Living Motion Detector: The Tigerclank in Castle Heterodyne.
  • Living Structure Monster: Heterodyne Castle is alive, and is one giant death trap for anyone who is not The Heterodyne. The proven and acknowledged Heterodyne to be exact, since even Agatha has a few troubles with it until she could prove her heritage. And before Agatha arrives to repair it, convict work crews are sent in to attempt repairs, or die trying. Usually the latter.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Agatha, Theophilus DuMedd, and Zola are maternal first cousins; their mothers being the Mongfish sisters Lucrezia, Serpentina, and Demonica. Agatha and Theo are both glad to finally have a living relative, Zola not so much.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: (Длинноволосый симпатяга)
    • Maxim, the beautiful male Jägermonster. See the Cinderella breather episode, where Maxim is supposed to be one of the «ugly» stepsisters, but it doesn’t quite turn out as planned.
    • Also, Higgs is deemed as very attractive by multiple people in-universe and he has a pony tail.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • Not a weapon. That’s a chair!
    • The Baron’s Pax Transylvania basically amounts to «Don’t Make Me Come Over There.» As long as rulers turn over any of the Other’s technology discovered in their territory, pay taxes, permit the transportation of goods and passengers, hold to some basic humanitarian laws insisted on by the Empire, and above all keep the peace and don’t attack each other, they’re free to rule their lands as they wish. However, less scrupulous and Sparky rulers get away with treating their subjects appallingly, since they’re not attacking neighbouring countries and thus not breaking the peace. The novelizations reveal that since Klaus in turn couldn’t send in his own forces to deal with them, as that would be breaking his side of the bargain, he took to using an unwitting Othar Trygvassen, directing him towards eliminating Sparks that Klaus couldn’t touch himself.
    • The Corbettites are about to be ordered by their leader to give up Agatha to Martellus, but are conflicted because they promised her sanctuary as a passenger on their railway. They decide they can’t hand her over if they can’t find her and have one brother lead her party down to the catacombs to get nice and lost.
    • Also highly likely this is what slaver-wasp victim Klaus is doing during the Siege of Mechanicsburg in regards to whatever orders he’s been given by clank-Lucrezia.
  • Lost Superweapon: Subverted when the legendary Storm King returns from the dead bearing his Legendary Weapon, only to have Simon Voltaire No-Sell its effects. Voltaire points out that he’s one of the intellectual descendents of the Spark who created the weapon in the first place, and has the benefit of two hundred years spent studying the operating principles of the weapon, improving on the design, and developing countermeasures.
  • Love Bubbles: Bubbles and roses.
  • Loyal Phlebotinum: Practically everything that the Heterodynes made. This is, of course, one of the reasons the family was/is so dangerous. Many dangerous Sparks are taken out by their own creations and thus don’t cause lasting threats. The Heterodyne family can always be assured loyalty and safehaven with their creations. This is subverted for The Beast. Also subverted for a few pages when Agatha’s little clanks start a war against each other to find a king and stop listening to her (which she solves by making a tiny clank with a crown).
  • Ludicrous Gibs: The reason Othar doesn’t turn his enemies inside out anymore.
  • Ludicrous Precision: (Комически точные числа) Agatha calculates that another 45.3 seconds of being energized by the Dyne water would have resulted in her exploding if she hadn’t vented it into the stricken Gil and Tarvek.

M

  • The Madness Place: The trope namer, for good reason. All Sparks can be pretty crazy when they’re in a "Spark-induced fugue state, " as one character puts it delicately. They vary in their ability to control it, some being manically sociopathic and some retaining their ability to reason (to some degree). The most dangerous Sparks are by far the latter kind, since they can bend their madness to practical goals. It’s not for no reason that Klaus, Gil, Agatha, and Tarvek are among the most potent sparks in the setting.
  • Mad Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter:
    • Agatha herself qualifies. And she’s a mad scientist herself. Her mother Lucrezia was one as well, and a mad scientist herself too.
    • For a Spear Counterpart flip, Tarvek and Gil qualify as «Mad Scientists' Handsome Sons»… and are also Mad Scientists in their own right.
    • Dr. Mongfish had at least two other daughters besides Lucrezia; Serpentina (Theo’s mother), and Demonica (Zola’s mom).
    • Othar Tryggvassen (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!) actually asks Agatha if she’s one of these.
    • If you haven’t noticed, offspring of mad scientists are often mad scientists themselves. Sparkiness is genetic, it seems.
  • Major Injury Underreaction:
    • It takes four panels for Higgs to react to getting stabbed straight through his torso. (Needless to say, gore warning.) Of course, this is the «Unstoppable» Higgs, Ambiguously Human Airman Extraordinaire.
    • A pretty hilarious case when Lucrezia in Agatha’s body runs Oggie through Zeetha’s sword. Jägers are already Super Soldiers, and Oggie is boosted by a Super Serum at the time, so the worse it does is making him… nostalgic.
«

Oggie: A sword? Right through ze chest… Lucrezia: That’s right! And I— Oggie: Hoo! Dot takes me back, yah! Iz just like how hy met my vife! Lucrezia: Hu— [Oggie knocks her out with an elbow jab] Oggie: Miz Zeetha? Hoy, vake up, sweetie — ken hyu take hyu sword back now? Hy… hy gots to go lie down a leedle.

»
  • Maker of Monsters: Most Sparks end up transforming wildlife and/or people into monsters with which to terrorize the local populace, unless they spend their time making terrible machines instead. The most talented do both.
  • Malevolent Architecture: Castle Heterodyne. It was designed by an Ax-Crazy Spark, and it shows.
«

Zola: Avoid any floorstone marked in white. It is a trap that will kill you. Do not stand under any part of the ceiling marked in white. It is a trap that will kill you. Duck under any opening taller than one meter. It is a trap that will kill you. Do not touch any metal surface. It is a trap that will kill you.

Zola: This place is dangerous, twisted, and worst of all— […] It likes to think it has a sense of humor.

»
  • The Corbettite crypts under the Immortal Library also qualify.
«

Agatha: Deadfalls, swinging blades, hidden rooms — what were they thinking? Librarian: These were the Corbettites. I believe they thought it was «awesome.»

»
  • Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: Defied. There is a lot of in-universe speculation and gossip to the effect that Agatha’s older brother Klaus was in fact Klaus Wulfenbach’s son, based on the name and the fact that Klaus and Lucrezia were an item at one time. This conveniently ignores that the name was Bill’s idea, that Klaus Wulfenbach was at the time a good personal friend to and staunch supporter of the Heterodynes and exactly the kind of person Bill would name his firstborn after, and that Klaus Wulfenbach had been gone without a trace for over two years when young Klaus was born. Carson is driven to quiet despair by the number of people who can’t do basic math.
    • The Castle’s system for verifying a Heterodyne is designed to bypass this trope. Because of it, we can be sure that Agatha really is a Heterodyne, despite her mother’s colorful history.
  • Manipulative Editing: The message recorded: «Lucrezia is the Other. Tell the Baron, and also everyone.» The message played back: «The Baron is the Other.»
  • The Man They Couldn’t Hang: Well, The Jägers They Couldn’t Hang, but otherwise Da Boyz. Definitely Da Boyz.
  • Marriage to a God: The original Heterodyne was supposedly married to a local battle goddess.
  • Marry Them All:
    • It’d solve everything, really. On the personal level, they’re both in love with her, she’s in love with both of them, and Gil and Tarvek aren’t even THAT jealous of each other (for example accepting that the other would do the best they could for Agatha, and that if they had to, or Agatha chose the other, they would step back). Diplomatically, a Wulfenbach/Heterodyne alliance would have enough power to rule the world, and the nobles would fall all over themselves to be ruled by a Sturmvoraus/Heterodyne combined house, due to a prophecy they all believe in. The in-universe betting pool has it at 5:1 odds.
    • The Heterodynes may have made something of a habit of this sort of behavior. The Castle seems very fond of the idea (and mentions that the master bedroom sleeps six), «she’s the Heterodyne» is apparently all the justification Agatha would need, and Satyricus Heterodyne kept a seraglio.
  • Mascots Love Sugar: Agatha’s wasp eater tries to eat a waffle cone whole while in Paris and is seen eating chocolate truffles and other sweets in the dining car on the train to Paris.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain: Gilgamesh is taught by Klaus himself (among others), and we know some of the people who taught the baron himself.
«

Dr. Sun: He does his teachers proud.

»
  • Maximum Fun Chamber: Castle Heterodyne contains several; in fact, most of the castle counts.
  • McNinja:
    • Smoke Knights, followers of the Way of Smoke, serving the heir of Storm King.
    • Baron Wulfenbach’s «stealth fighters», a rival school — though arguably, they are shown to be a lot less competent than the Smoke Knights both in this and previous examples, acting more as a humorous foil for the Jägers and the heroes. They are also more like a military unit, whereas the smoke knights tend to fight as individuals, protecting the individual family patron they are assigned to.
  • The Medic:
    • Although we haven’t seen this happen yet, the Heterodynes to the Jägers.
    • Dr. Sun is a doctor. As well as a Spark.
    • We also have this exchange:
«

Gil: Let me take a look at that. Tarvek: … Already doing it. Gil: Hey! I am a doctor, you know. Tarvek: pft. And who isn’t?

»
  • Mega Neko: (Кот-бегемот) Castle Heterodyne has a lot of giant cat clanks living in it. One of them becomes Otilia’s new body, at least for the time being.
  • Mêlée à Trois: Tarvek vs. Zola vs. Lucrezia!Agatha.
  • Melodramatic: EVERY. SINGLE. SPARK. Can get this way. The only Spark we’ve not seen like this — yet — is Klaus.
  • Memento MacGuffin: (Маленькая вещь на память) Agatha’s locket.
  • Mental Time Travel: Othar, in his Twitter.
  • Midair Repair:
    • Gilgamesh and Agatha while testing Gil’s flying, or rather falling, machine. Of course because they’re sparks, it starts to become midair redesigning the device before Zoing points out to Agatha that they are still falling. It’s the first time that Agatha consciously sparks out (but is not aware she is a spark).
    • Tarvek is forced to do the same thing… while tied up to a Spark fighting with a mad Jäger on board. He finally makes the machine fly inches from the ground.
  • Minion Maracas: Agatha demonstrates the proper technique.
  • Minion Shipping:
    • There’s been strong fan support for Violetta×Von Zinzer, minion in denial and retainer/definitely-NOT-minion of Tarvek and Agatha, respectively. Shipping a snarky McNinja who hates her job with a world-weary ex-soldier just works.
      • Lately, canon seems to agree. But then, he jumped to Fräulein Snaug (repeating the Agatha×Gilgamesh×Zola case).
      • Oh boy, now he’s on Sanaa, with Fräulein Snaug suggesting Murder Is the Best Solution.
      • And here, he makes it worse, by outright telling Snaug that while he’s apparently in love with Sanaa, he feels the same about Snaug too.
    • Also, Zeetha and Higgs. Totally canon.
    • When Sparks do it, others begin to inconspicuously look for blast doors.
    • Another one that makes a lot of sense: DuPree and Vole.
    • …it’s for science!!! Herr Baron. Yeah, just look at a couple of unnamed random crew in issue September 29, 2014.here
  • Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Castle Heterodyne acts as this to the prisoners repairing it, due to its fractured personality; One more lucid fragment may send a prisoner to go repair something, but a more insane fragment in that section may end up killing the prisoner in the attempt.
  • «Mission: Impossible» Cable Drop: Gil does this in a flashback to surreptitiously modify the blueprints of Castle Wulfenbach to make space for a secret lab.
  • Mistaken for Quake: when Agatha finally manages to reboot Castle Heterodyne, the invading forces think they’re experiencing an earthquake until they discover that it’s actually the castle fighting back, seen here.
  • Mobile Maze: Castle Heterodyne. «We’re doomed! The door we came through — it never led HERE before!»
  • Modesty Bedsheet: (L-образное одеяло)
    • Gil, while lying on the bed injured and naked.
    • Von Pinn, in a similar situation.
  • Moment Killer:
    • Merlot, in the page that is aptly titled Smoochus Interruptus.
    • The Jäger generals assume that Gil and Agatha won’t enjoy making out with her mother watching, and that will be enough motivation to quickly remove the copy of the Other’s mind from Agatha.
  • Monochromatic Eyes:
    • The geisterdamen have all-white eyes.
    • Vole’s may be all-black, since it’s hard to tell whether he has white pupils or just reflections.
  • More Hero than Thou: Tarvek and Gil have a brief exchange about who gets to be this.
  • More than Meets the Eye: A few different characters.
    • Agatha kicks the story off with this.
    • Tarvek also qualifies.
    • Airman Higgs seems to be the new, most prominent example.
    • Also, Da Boyz and Zola use Obfuscating Stupidity.
    • Gil (especially in his Paris days), Agatha’s «parents», Wooster, Von Pinn, Dr. Sun, Dolokov, the Circus, Sanaa… it’s probably easier to list which characters AREN’T more than they appear.
  • More than Mind Control: Sparks can be almost irresistibly charismatic when they put their minds to it. Also, while The Other can use actual mindcontrol on people, the citizens of Mechanicsburg do react with absolute obedience to a strong Spark that might be a Heterodyne.
  • Motivational Kiss: Gil gets one here (continued to the next page).
  • Motor Mouth:
    • Movit #11 causes this, increasing with dosage.
    • Coffee does this to Agatha. Increasing dosage was deftly averted.
    • Prince Aaronev’s sedative also had a truth serum effect (or the truth serum had a sedative effect, it’s not fully clear which effect was intended); Agatha blabs for almost three full pages of unrestrained and meandering truth before she passes out. So much for «Lady Olga».
    • Punch, after his voice is repaired.
  • Mr. Fanservice: (Мистер Фансервис) Gil, Tarvek, Klaus, and more.
  • Mugged for Disguise: (Гоп-стоп-маскировка) Agatha tries this more than once after escaping the King of the Silver Lands, who had stripped her to a slave Leia bikini, but none of the guards that she mugs have pants that will fit over her hips. As a result, she’s stuck in the bikini bottom and a guard’s shirt and boots until she finally manages to get a ballgown by battling a horde of socialites.
  • Mummies at the Dinner Table: Anevka, to a degree.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Volume Seven, Page 52. That must be good coffee.
  • My God, You Are Serious!: Turns out the Castle wasn’t being facetious when it told Gil to look very carefully for something amiss at the spot where an enormous Eldritch Abomination was looming. It was expecting centimeters-tall creatures.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: Krosp I, Emperor of All Cats used to be the Trope Illustrator.
  • Myth Arc: One of the best webcomic examples. The foreshadowing starts with the fourth strip of the first chapter (In November of 2002), with hints about the phenomenon scattered over many, many volumes — and a full explanation has still not been given by late 2019, over 17 real-time years later.

N

  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Practically half the cast.
    • Klaus and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach;
    • Lucrezia and her sisters Serpentina and Demonica;
    • Master Payne;
    • Von Pinn;
    • Possibly subverted with Moloch.
    • the Heterodyne family tree is loaded with examples, including; Faustus, Saturnus, Egregious, and Vlad «The Blasphemous.» In Universe, «The Heterodyne» seems to qualify all by itself.
    • If these things are any indication, all strong Spark families tend to be this way.
    • The Queen of England is only mentioned in hushed tones, even though the only British member of the cast is Wooster. It’s implied that she is immortal and that she exercises mind control over the entirety of the English Isles.
      • Confirmed: Queen Albia is Eternal
  • Narrative Profanity Filter: After a blow to the foot, Agatha cuts loose with a string of Symbol Swearing, followed by a small asterisk. The accompanying caption:
«

«* Oooh, what naughty little devices, to turn upon your creator! Oh! Indeed, my foot is in such excruciating pain! I shall construct a device that will give you such a whack, see if I don’t!»

»
  • Navel-Deep Neckline:
    • Agatha’s entire cleavage makes a brief and remarkably subtle appearance in the last panel of this page as the shirt she’s wearing is unbuttoned past her breasts.
    • In Vrinn’s first appearance she’s wearing a nightgown open to her navel, on account of having been dragged into the royal family’s presence in the middle of the night.
  • «Near and Dear» Baby Naming: 2007-08-10: Klaus Barry Hetrodyne was «named at Master William’s insistence», for his friend Klaus, because it’s William and Lucrenzia’s son, not being named after his father and former lover of Lucrenzia, as people think.
  • Necessarily Evil: Any Spark who wants to be a good guy sometimes has to turn into a raging madboy just to keep the million separate interests from coming apart. Klaus, Gilgamesh, and Agatha have all found this out. Tarvek, who considers himself an Anti-Villain, even took part in an unwitting demonstration:
«

Tarvek: [smashing two feuding Dingbots together furiously] I am not enjoying this — but I can keep it up all day if necessary! Gil: Hee hee!… That’s a really good impression of my father!

»
  • Neck Lift:
    • Merlot finds out this way that Baron Wulfenbach despises traitors.
    • Von Pinn introduces herself to Agatha by giving her a personal demonstration of this trope.
    • Mamma Gkika also explains through this method (with «slammed-into-a-wall» bonus) to Oublenmach why it’s a bad idea to wake her up too early in the morning.
    • Vole reminds Tarvek and Gil that you should never, ever take a Jäger lightly, by catching the two of them in a strangling neck lift — one in each arm.
    • Higgs gets in on the action after Tarvek identifies him as The Secret Jäger General. Tarvek dares Higgs to just kill him if there is any doubt about Tarvek’s allegiance to Agatha by placing Higgs’s hand around his throat… And then Higgs decides to remind Tarvek about how ineffectual a corporeally normal human is to a Jäger by choke-lifting him one-handed straight up. He then disparages the Surmvoraus family as inherently devious snakes to which Higgs has had generations of observation to attest, and that Tarvek is by far the most dangerous ever from that family… and then fakes Tarvek out by putting him back down and saying he’ll serve Agatha nicely while wearing a characteristic Jäger Slasher Smile.
    • Lunevka lifts a knocked-out Zeetha by the neck with her remaining hand (Zeetha had cut the other on the previous strip). Thankfully, Oggie stops her before she can deliver a killing blow.
    • In a long-awaited moment in a Battle in the Center of the Mind, Agatha, bolstered by the Essentia-Purging Device her body is strapped into, throttles her mother’s essentia and finally purges her Archnemesis Mom from her head.
  • Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight:
    • Zola vs. Agatha:
«

Zola: Bringing a knife to a gun fight doesn’t seem very smart, now does it? Agatha: Well, I suppose it isn’t that much worse than bringing a gun to a clank fight.

»
  • And later, «It’s harder to break things with a knife.»
  • Never Found the Body:
    • A plot point has significant individuals from the past killed by a machine made from «farm machinery and pork products», which turns them into a string of sausages. Hard to confirm that.
    • Not to mention, Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer; he’s been tossed out of two airships on-screen, within the same chapter. Gil doesn’t even consider the possibility that he died, having seen him come back from the same or worse so many times.
    • Gil is also Genre Savvy enough to find it suspicious his father’s body is never found. And sure enough, Klaus soon reappears very much alive.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Before she was even aware of who she really was, Agatha lashed out at a minion grabbing her butt. Turns out her Command Voice inherited from her mother prompted that minion to let go — and also possibly (as he was a revenant of the Other) to activate the Slaver Engine that was brought onto Castle Wulfenbach for study.
    • Bang blows up the machine at Sturmhalten that was keeping The Other suppressed in Agatha’s head, causing Lucrezia to take back control and cause problems for everyone. Ironically, the course of action she joked about would have saved everyone a truckload of grief. Admittedly, whether Bang qualifies as a 'hero' is debatable to say the least, but she was on the good guys' sidenote at the time, so it still counts.
    • Zeetha’s presence during the standoff at the circus camp at the end of the Sturmhalten arc distracts Klaus long enough for Lucrezia to wasp him.
    • Dr Sun takes down the Baron’s escape clank — by himself — and enforces Klaus’s bed rest in order to stop him killing himself from the strain. Awesome — until we learn that, in keeping Klaus in the hospital, Sun’s unwittingly exposed him to Anevka!Lucrezia, which is more or less what Klaus feared. Oops.
    • Boris tried to invoke this trope when Wooster revealed the Baron’s plans to invade Mechanicsburg and kill Agatha to the Jägergenerals, but as far as Wooster was concerned it was entirely intentional;
«

Boris: Do you know what you’ve done!? Wooster: Destabilized Britain’s greatest rival, and saved an innocent girl’s life. A mighty good day’s work, I’d say.

»
  • If Agatha’s mini-clank hadn’t succeeded in freeing the three Geisterdamen from their prison cell, Agatha would have escaped without getting a copy of Lucrezia downloaded into her head.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Lucrezia-copy inside Agatha’s head gets herself shut down by assuming the locket she finds in the possession of Klaus is just symbolic decoration, and putting it on.
  • Ninja Log: Violetta can effortlessly snatch anything from anyone’s grip and switch it with another thing without anyone noticing, including the audience. Later, another Smoke Knight pulls a similar trick, complete with the log. Another Smoke Knight comments that it’s common ability among them.
  • Noblewoman’s Laugh:
    • Zeetha in the second panel.
    • Lucrezia in the first panel.
    • Martellus' uplifted cat in the fourth panel of the second row.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Back when they were children Tarvek tried to help his friend Gil uncover his mysterious family history. In response Gil’s father secretly revealed himself to Gil and convinced his son that Tarvek was evil due to his family history and that him finding out about Gil’s parantage would be horrible resulting in Gil betraying Tarvek (while thinking Tarvek was trying to use him ans never considered him a friend) and Tarvek being sent back to his abusive and murderous family that has been trying to assassinate him ever since.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
    • Holy crap. Tarvek?!
    • Also, Higgs to Zola.
  • No Name Given:
    • The Mechanicsburg Assistant is never addressed by name. Eventually it’s lampshaded. In the Girl Genius print-novels she is given a name and a backstory.
«

Vanamonde: [heavily sleep-deprived] Who are you again? The Assistant: Oh, now don’t start.

»
  • The pirate-ish airship captain who is contracted to take Tarvek to England appears for a fairly extended period without being named, but finally it’s revealed to be Jeanne Hawkins.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Subverted with the title of 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.
  • Noodle Implements:
    • «Thank goodness you had all those clockwork ducks, Klaus».
    • Regarding Agatha’s first Fortune-Telling, all we know is that it involved the recipient talking about a tea cozy, «only one spoon», and something lasting for 43 hours.
    • Used to hilarious effect in «The Storm King» Opera synopsis. The roller-skating giraffe pretty much speaks for itself.
    • Why does one need a hammer to cure Verictus Panteliax’s Chromatic Death? Unfortunately, we never find out, since Tarvek has some other kind of disease (which is much worse, by the way).
    • Which activity in a Romance Novel is only possible with special shoes?
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Apparently, the Baron has used the Med Clank before. After what happened last time, he promised to put it away.
    • The Socket Wench of Prague is a great big one for readers. All we know is that it’s (at least) heavily suggestive at times.
    • The other Heterodyne plays and stories are just as bad. Why does Race to the West Pole end with Klaus in a barrel?
    • Apparently Zeetha’s cousin turned out to be the prophesized holy one of a race of people.
    • The novelizations have a lot of these, usually referring to some strange thing that some Spark had built or what said Spark attempted to do with said strange invention.
    • The Great St. Valentine’s Day Riot.
    • «And that was the last time Professor Phosphorous visited the fireworks factory. Or anything else, really.»
    • «The Nuremberg Pudding Incident», rumored to have involved the Professora herself. One of the official scents is based on it.
    • The Opera Synopsis again, where practically every event mentioned is a Noodle Incident. The logistics of someone being trapped in a bonsai hedge maze will likely forever be a mystery to us. In a Reddit AMA with the Foglios, a reader asked if the bonsai hedge was an artistic license take on the thorn barrier erected by the Castle after Klaus froze time in Mechanicsburg. The response: «It is now.» It must have taken such actions before.
    • About half the things Gil, Tarvek, and Zola did in Paris.
    • The entire concept of the Island of the Monkey Girls was one for a long time. It was eventually confirmed to be a night club in Paris… but when a fan asked what Zola thought Gil could have done to get himself imprisoned in the ** Castle, where the Empire sends people it wants to disappear, the only explanation supplied was «Zola was Head Waitress at the Island of the Monkey Girls Theatre and Showbar in Paris.» So that’s still an enigma.
    • The Lusty Loves of Lady Heterodyne apparently includes a scene that is impossible without «the right shoes».
    • The real Heterodyne Boys adventure stores. We know they fought many people (as Heroes, not madmen), visited many place, fought the «Other» after incident at Mechanicsburg Castle, went missing, Barry came back and joined by Klaus and Lucrezia. Apparently, the Boys and Lucrezia have gone to Skifander before as proven when Lucrezia taunts Zeetha.
«

Lucrezia-in Agatha: I know better than to fight you, Skifandrian.

»
  • The advisers of Mechanicsburg point out that it’s a new record for a new accepted Heterodyne to not kill anyone in the first two minutes of their rule. It remains to be seen if this applies to the Heterodyne Boys.
  • The story of Baron Wulfenbach’s exile. He suddenly disappeared before Lucrezia and Bill got married and came back few years later after Bill, Lucrezia and the Other are gone. Finding everything is in chaos, he resolved to impose order by amassing forces and built his The Empire. What happened between he disappeared and he got back is ripe source for gossips. (Though in real life, thanks to a sketch drawn by Mr. Foglio, fans at least know where he was sent: Skifander.
  • We get a interesting one while the group is in the the hidden library. Even Agatha notes that she has «much to learn about the rich and varied history of Jägers».
«

Agatha: Maybe it’s a Jäger Shredding Machine! Dimo: No vay. Dey melted dot down.

»
  • Jiminez Hoffman does these on regular basis.
  • Did something that messed the order of books and left behind a machine that could process and decypher books while destroying the originals in Incorruptible Library. It is also implied that he also did some «disasters» in there before.
  • He also saved the Moligarchy King and brokered peace between Arguron and Moligarchy, became Moligarchy Prince and betrothed to Larana.
  • He also constantly dragged his brother, Aldin Hoffman, to his adventures much to Aldin’s displeasure.
  • Aldin Hoffman hid in his room for a week after an outside professor gave her demonstration. And so did half of senior shelvers.
  • One of the standalone stories set vaguely in the future refers to Othar as «the lost hero».
  • No One Could Survive That!: Othar. Being thrown out of an airship and surviving is among the least of his feats. From the side-story «Revenge of the Weasel Queen»:
«

Othar: Ha! It’ll take more than being tied to a lit keg of explosives and tossed into a pit of acid filled with mutant, acid-resistant flying pirahnas armed with flame-throwers and battle axes while venomous, mechanical, missile-launching Morris dancers armed with liquid nitrogen harpoon guns are overhead; riding giant, rabid killer bees with side-mounted death rays to kill Othar Tryggvassen! Ferretina: Whoops! Silly me, I forgot to turn the lightning generators on! Othar: Er… not a whole lot more, I’ll admit.

»
  • No-Sell:
    • Gilgamesh versus the Doom Bell. Rather than filling him with enough «existential despair» to knock him out, like it does to every other human in the bar, the sense of victory he feels on hearing it is enough to send him into his madness place temporarily. (Victory because it means Agatha has succeeded).
    • Any physical attacks to date launched against Grandmother’s agent Mr. Obsidian, to the point that metal tools break against his skin.
    • One of the Dreen shrugs off an attempted squashing by a twenty-foot tall Giant Mecha and then obliterates its attacker with a single energy blast.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: The average Jäger has no qualms about being in everyone’s space like they’re old friends. Dimo in particular has learned to weaponize this by looming threateningly over people often by perching on something a person he wants unsettled is next to so as to surprise them with a well timed comment and when they turn they’re faced with an uncomfortably close Jäger that is crouched like they’re ready to pounce with all their very sharp teeth showing in a menacing grin.
  • The Nose Knows:
    • Jägermonsters;
    • Krosp;
    • The Revenant-detecting weasels.
  • Not a Game:
    • The Castle warns Agatha that claiming to be the Heterodyne is not a game!
    • Gil declares to her that he is playing no game.
  • Not Bad: Zeetha has this reaction to Violetta replacing a hostage held by an antagonist with a dummy.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: Spark mode Agatha doesn’t even bat an eyelash at the fact that her two (rival) paramours are nearly nude.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Tarvek denies having any part in the plan to usurp the Wulfenbachs by installing a fake Heterodyne — his plan was orders of magnitude better!
  • Not Himself: When Agatha is being cruelly flirtatious, Tarvek notes that she’s acting very strange about a half-second before realizing that «You’re acting-- gah! You’re acting like Lucrezia!»
  • Nothing but Skulls: The floor of the chapel in Castle Heterodyne is covered by the skulls of those who claimed to be a new Heterodyne master — and failed. The Castle even left a nice empty spot for Agatha’s skull…
  • Nothing Is Scarier: «But I don’t see anything!» «Don’t say that like it’s a good thing!»
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After the Time Skip, everything has changed. Mechanisburg is sealed, along with the Baron, Gilgamesh now leads the crumbling Wulfenbach Empire, and Agatha is on the run from everyone.
  • Not in the Face!:
    • Played with:
«

Castle Heterodyne: No! Not in the facing!

»
  • Agatha’s reindeer clank also says «Not the face!» after jumping down a ledge. It tries again when faced with Bohrlaikha, but gets Killed Mid-Sentence.
  • «Not So Different» Remark:
    • Lucrezia feels this way about her and Klaus, since they’ve both used force to try and bring the world under their command to bring peace, and both possessed their offspring in pursuit of this.
    • Tarvek comes to realize that this is the case with him and Higgs, due to their similar romantic difficulties (specifically, the fact that neither of them had ever truly fallen in love before they met Agatha and Zeetha, respectively).
  • Not-So-Innocent Whistle: «Why do you even have one of those?!»
  • Not That Kind of Doctor: Actually, most Sparks are. The only reason Agatha isn’t is because they wouldn’t let her take the tests.
  • The Nudifier: The Wacky Weave Destabiliser. (Un)Fortunately Zeetha wears special underwear.
  • # 1 Dime: Hats, to the Jägers.

O

  • Obeying Under Protest: For a diplomatic meeting with some Fish People, Agatha has to wear an artificial mermaid tail in a Mobile Fish Bowl vehicle (It Makes Sense in Context). However she has to order the mad scientists who built it to remove all the Hidden Weapons first, which they do while protesting petulantly.
  • Occam’s Razor: Invoked as Agatha and crew were wondering why the Baron was invading instead of his old plan of flattening the city.
«

General Zog: Occam’s Razor! Agatha: Yes, you’re right of course— General Zog: Hit vas forged by Old Occam Heterodyne! Agatha: Ah… What? General Zog: Seriously — who vouldn’t vant it? Hoo— dot ting ken cut through anyting!

»
«

Tarvek: What? No! That was that idiot from the Island of th… [makes a face] She is good.

»
  • Some of the Jägerkin are considerably smarter than they appear. Then again, they may only hide it because it is implied that Jägerkin aren’t exactly in favor of «smot guys».
  • More specifically, while he doesn’t act «stupid» per se, The Secret Jäger General «Higgs» hides in plain sight as a legally-enlisted low-level military minion of whatever Europan empire is currently most appropriate.
  • The circus pretends to be simple performers when in truth they’re mostly Sparks.
  • Astonishingly enough, Tarvek seems to be in this category. Considering that he’s an Insufferable Genius with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder who’s spent an inordinately long time on the Face side of the Heel-Face Revolving Door, it’s shocking that it took this long.
  • Agatha began the comic with an item that forced her to Obfuscate Stupidity. It’s a locket given to her by her Uncle Barry to suppress her Spark, so that The Heterodyne Boys' numerous enemies wouldn’t try to kill/manipulate/etc. her.
  • Gil appears to have spent most of his life doing this. As a child he hid his Spark, and in Paris he pretended to be a much worse student than he really was. It was only after returning from school that he was finally able to stop doing it and fully be himself.
  • Wooster apparently tried this, or at least Obfuscating Normal, on Gil, to infiltrate Castle Wulfenbach. Gil was onto him, but played along until he could make more use of Wooster as a British secret agent.
  • Oblivious to Love: (Любовная близорукость) Holy crap Moloch is dense.
  • Odd Reaction Out: 20091026: 2 out of 3 Sparks aren’t accompanying Agatha and the last one is only because all the good excuses were taken.
  • Odd-Shaped Panel: Quite common.
  • Of Corsets Sexy: Usually on Agatha.
  • Offhand Backhand: (Атака не глядя)
    • Used by both Wulfenbachs, Wooster, and Zeetha.
    • And then Tarvek on Othar.
    • Gil gives Bang an offhand backfoot
    • Larana silences Madame Velix with an offhand elbow.
    • Tarvek does it with an offhand failsafe phrase he had on his sister’s surrogate clank body.
  • Oh, My Gods!: Here, in the second panel.
  • Oh, No… Not Again!: When Agatha’s trying to snap Gil out of a stupor:
«

Agatha: Hey, Gil! All of Paris is about to go up in flames, and Zola has her head caught in a bucket! Up and at 'em, Hero Boy! Gil: Hm? A bucket? Again? Okay, I’m comin'. Agatha: [shooting a sideways glance at Zola] Yeeeess. I suspected as much.

»
  • Oh, the Humanity!: In Paris there is a poster with Agatha, an airship and the text «eau de humanity».
  • The Old Convict: Tiktoffen is the «man in charge» in the sentient, sapient and homicidal Castle Heterodyne. Subverted, as he’s actually only been in for three years — but he’s still the longest-serving prisoner. People don’t tend to last long inside Castle Heterodyne, especially since half the time it’s actively trying to kill them. Fixing parts of the Castle gives you points and takes months off your sentence, but it’s worth noting that the Castle has been noted to specifically target convicts who are close to finishing their sentence, and that in the fifteen or so years that the Castle has been used as a prison, only two people have been depicted or mentioned as scraping together enough points to get out. It’s eventually revealed that Tiktoffen came the the Castle willingly, and has an Sparkish implant in his wrist that lets him nullify at least the worst of the Castle’s deathtraps.
  • Old Master:
    • 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. And when he says «Strict bedrest» — he really means it! Dr. Sun is quite capable of singlehandedly disassembling any number of clanks — and he taught Klaus and Gil quite a lot about martial arts.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: Castle Wulfenbach certainly qualifies, although it floats because it’s a gigantic zeppelin.
  • Ominous Multiple Screens: The command center of the Master of Paris in the Awful Tower has the walls covered in screen depicting the goings on all over the city. While the Master is benevolent he’s also quite dangerous and his control over his city is both renowned and feared.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: This transpires when knowledge of Tarvek’s … «adorning» of Lucrezia-controlled Agatha becomes widely known. Even Gil heard about it. He still does it in his head sometimes, so he has only himself to blame for it.
  • One Degree of Separation: Multilayered.
    • Agatha’s father Bill was best friends with Klaus, the dictator ruling the continent, from before he became a dictator. Her mother Lucrezia also had an affair with Klaus when she was engaged to Bill, and she at least flirted with this one prince named Aaronev Wilhelm at some point.
    • Both Klaus and Aaronev had sons (though not with Lucrezia) named Gil and Tarvek who went to grade school with each other, and later had a rivalry when they went to the same university. They both met Agatha at different points and both fell in love with her before they had to part ways. Then the two both snuck into a broken castle where they met both each other and Agatha again. Agatha didn’t know Gil and Tarvek knew each other until this point.
    • In said castle, there was a girl named Zola who was trying to impersonate Agatha. Zola was not only Agatha’s cousin on their mothers' sides, but was also an actress at a place that Gil visited when he was in university.
    • Klaus had a janitor named Dimitri, who used to be an evil Mad Scientist who taught other Mad Scientists in the ways of evil. Dimitri was fraternity brothers with Agatha’s paternal grandfather, and was also a close friend with her mother Lucrezia’s family. On top of that, he was the teacher of Tarvek’s cousin Martellus, and he also created the talking animal that Agatha made friends with when staying at Klaus' place.
  • One-Steve Limit: Avoided in unusual fashion.
    • One of Agatha’s ancestors and one of the Sparks who attack Mechanicsburg share the first name Igneous.
    • Only slightly more prosaically, two minor characters (one in Mechanicsburg and one in England) are named «Hadrian».
    • Tarvek answers to his middle name because he shares his first name (Aaronev) with his father. Counting Tarvek, there have been five Princes of Sturmhalten named Aaronev Sturmvoraus.
  • Orifice Invasion: The means that Slaver Wasps enter the body and enthrall someone is through the mouth.
  • Orphan’s Plot Trinket: Agatha’s locket.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: And buried, followed by digging up the body and checking the clothing and accessories to make sure it’s really her. The corpse is doctored to make it look like Agatha, and it indeed fools the Wulfenbachs. But then it occurs to Klaus that a living Heterodyne body still would be useful, and so he clones it, which gives the deception away, as the result is clearly not Agatha.
  • Our Founder: (Памятник основателю)
    • In «Jägermonsters to the Rescue», it turns out that in Agatha’s two-year absence, Gil has topped Mechanicsburg’s city walls with towering statues of Agatha. Dimo describes them as being over 150 meters tall. For the non-metrically inclined, that’s 500 feet. The ones at the entrance of the valley are said to be even taller. A few from the Sturmvoraus family really hate Gil for this since they made it absolutely impossible to create a second Heterodyne imposter since literally all of Europe now knows what she looks like. Agatha on the other hand is… less than pleased.
«

Agatha: I… I am going to kill him.

»
  • More prosaically, Agatha’s father and uncle have a statue commemorating them in the middle of the Mechanicsburg town square. Zola uses it as a backdrop when she begins her public Heterodyne-heir impersonation.
  • Out-Gambitted: The Knights Of Jove swept in to rescue Agatha for their own nefarious purposes, at which point Klaus revealed virtually his entire army had been waiting in hiding for them to show up. And they weren’t even the real reason he did it.
  • Out of Focus: Lots of characters have done this.
    • Most notably, Gil dropped out of the story early in Volume 4, reappeared briefly at the end of Volume 5, and finally reentered the story for real in Volume 7.
    • Lots of other characters from the first arc disappeared after it was over and have either not returned or only showed up again in the third arc. The end of the second arc also sent a large number of supporting characters offstage. It also happens within arcs: Klaus has done this more than once. Given the webcomic format, the size of the cast, and the demands of the story, it’s inevitable that it will keep happening.
    • This gets a non-canon lampshade in a bonus picture that so perfectly encapsulates the trope that it’s the page’s image.
«

Gil: AAARGH! I haven’t had any lines in months! Am I even still a main character?!

»
  • Outdoor Bath Peeping: Gender inverted, Oggie’s eventual wife catching sight of him is what spurred her interest in him, at least going by Flash Back.
  • Outscare the Enemy: Veilchen does something like this.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Before the Other War, conflicts between Sparks involved at least a few diplomatic messages (or loud declarations of imminent destruction) before war was declared. Nobody was prepared to deal with an unannounced meteor bombardment right on their heads, and by the time any target realized what was happening, it was already too late. For a continent full of blustering megalomaniacs who enjoyed making elaborate and overcomplicated war machines, an assailant who was efficient, ruthless and totally silent would have been beyond their capacity to withstand without the aid of the Heterodyne Brothers.
  • Overcomplicated Menu Order: From the Twitter of Othar Tryggvassen:
    • We can’t just walk out, and I’ll bet the garbage and mortuary wagons are routinely inspected. This calls for desperate, unsavory measures.
    • Chez Leon, one of the best restaurants in the city. The Master dines here frequently. Oslaka is puzzled. Didn’t we just eat? Indeed we did.
    • The waiter and I spend twenty minutes discussing our meal choices. I demand only the freshest and most exacting dishes. He almost smiles.
    • The meal is brought. It' a masterpiece of presentation. The chef himself appears and compliments me on the suggestions I made. He weeps.
    • He waits for me to eat. I hesitate, and then ask for a bottle of ketchup. We are tossed out the city gates less than 3 minutes later.
  • Override Command: Subverted. When Colonel Chakraborty tries using an override device stolen from the Baron to take control of three hostile clanks, the clanks recognize the signal as illegal and move in to destroy the signal’s source.

P

Ссылка: [4]

  • Painting the Medium:
    • Speech bubbles tell you a lot about a person. As a Spark descends into the Madness Place, their bubbles become increasingly fragmented. Clanks have rectangular ones with a fancy, old-fashioned font, and Jägermonsters have slightly rough borders on theirs. A few characters (Von Pinn, Castle Heterodyne) have unique bubbles.
    • Flashbacks and memory recollections are denoted by sepia panel colors.
    • When Agatha’s spark is suppressed at the very beginning, the comic is colored in harsh black and white. After the locket suppressing it is stolen, color begins to return to the comic in decreasingly-washed-out shades until the comic is eventually in vibrant full color. It didn’t quite end there, either; when the comic first returned to full color, it was bright and positively garish, reflecting Agatha’s hyperactive Sparkiness as her mind and body adjust to it. Once they have adjusted (and she’s no longer eating enough for at least three people), the garishness is toned down a little. You could argue that some of this is Art Evolution, though.
    • At one point, Gil smashes Tarvek’s head into a wall so hard it cracks the panel border.
    • Doctor Hembelbrogg of the Guild of Monsters uses the Leroy lettering font that was prominent in the old EC horror comics.
  • The Pardon: Suggested to Agatha as a way to get the prisoners on her side.
  • Parental Hypocrisy: The moment when Gilgamesh jumps in to play corrida with what amounts to a small locomotive with legs and arms, giving his father time to analyze its structure. Klaus roars at him for taking an unnecessary risk, but Jägermonsters eagerly express approval when they see a badass performance, so right at the next page a Jäger sergeant quietly tells Gil that Klaus himself «doz crazy schtupid sctoff like dot all de time.» Of course, as they both are mad scientists with chronic anti-hero syndrome, it wasn’t likely to be the craziest for either.
  • Parental Sexuality Squick: According to Zeetha and the Jägers' speculations, Agatha has been avoiding getting sexy with her Love Interests — and other hot men — because she’s got Lucrezia in her head, and she doesn’t want her mother watching and/or involved.
  • Parrot Pet Position:
    • Agatha’s little clank, sometimes — and not necessarily when she wants it to.
    • Also her weasel, once she needs to keep it close by at any time.
  • Pass the Popcorn:
    • Boris and Gil are having tea and pretzels while sending a Jäger to test out a rogue clank.
«

Boris: You see, Herr Baron. Entertaining, but harmless.

»
  • Snaug enjoys watching Gil and Tarvek fight. Where did she get popcorn deep below Castle Heterodyne, you may ask? Who cares?
  • And later, so does Zeetha: «AGATHA! You’re missing the show.»
  • The Patient Has Left the Building: Klaus Wulfenbach makes his escape in style: on a giant mecha while still in a hospital bed and surrounded by two nurses, to the exasperation of Dr. Sun.
  • People Jars:
    • Dr. Beetle in Beetleburg put criminals into giant glass jars to perish.
    • Gil is temporarily trapped in one of these in the aptly named chapter, «Hero in a Jar».
    • Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek get stuck in them by Zola/Lucrezia.
  • Pet the Dog: (Добрый поступок злодея)
    • The Baron stops in the middle of chasing Agatha just to make sure Zulenna gets revived (DuPree stabbed her when she was defending Agatha). When questioned, he bluntly states that it was his fault, and that the girl didn’t deserve to die. He has several other moments like this, to demonstrate that even though he’s a major antagonist, he is still a good man.
    • Lucrezia does seem rather fond of her nephew DuMedd… at first.
    • Bangladesh DuPree was apparently devastated once the Baron was presumed killed at the hospital seeing as the mere memory causes her to burst into tears.
    • Zola appears to have genuinely fond feelings for Gil and attempts to keep him alive even while ruthlessly chopping into all the other protagonists.
    • Doctor Mittlemind, and the Sparks in Castle Heterodyne as a whole, have different priorities on what counts as Petting the Dog.
«

Doctor Mittlemind: I always made sure my test subjects were let out for Christmas. [beat, as everyone stares in horror] Mittlemind: What kind of madman do you take me for?! I’m obviously not talking about the control group! [sighs of relief from the other Sparks]

»
  • Phlebotinum Overload:
    • After Agatha drinks from the Dyne (when Higgs offers a cup of «water» to her.) She stops it before she explodes, however, by channeling the extra energy into the dying Gil and Tarvek, revitalizing them in the process.
    • After Zola downs a vial of Movit#11, which is basically a supercharged energy drink, Violetta’s solution to stop the rampage is to inject her with more Movit#11, which will apparently lead to a complete nervous collapse (or possibly cause her to combust).
  • Pictorial Speech-Bubble: With multiple characters:
    • Bangladesh DuPree, when her jaw is broken:
      • «Gil = nut?»
«

Gil: Kill everyone who enters, except Dr. Sun and myself. DuPree: [Man] [Woman] [Child]? Gil: Yes, everyone. DuPree: [Knife] [Gun] [Axe] [Cheese]? Gil: Yes, however you want. DuPree: [glomping Gil] [World’s Best Boss trophy]! [Hey. Key? Key?!]

»
  • The Dingbots as well, particularly in their internal war in Castle Heterodyne.
  • Pie in the Face: (Пирог в лицо) The Calming Pies.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: (Роскошное платье принцессы) A number show up, for various reasons.
  • Pinned to the Wall: A variant when Zeetha is sparring with Bang: she pins the Pirate Girl with one of her own knives to the floor not through a sleeve but through her long braided tail. Right in the path of a massive pendulum.
  • Pirate Girl: (Пиратка) For a long time, every single pirate (or proud Europan of piratical-descent) seen in the strip has been female, though male pirates do exist; the captain taking Tarvek to England says both her parents were pirates, and we do finally meet ex-pirate Ulysses Bonney in person.
  • Pirates vs. Ninjas: What basically happens when a shipful of Smoke Knights attack the air pirates taking Tarvek to England.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: Lucrezia plagiarizing and passing off her «friend» Francisia Monahan’s college projects as her own research is one of the many reasons why the latter absolutely hates the former.
«

Francisia Monahan: —Not only that, your project for the Midwinter Abominations Festival in our senior year was clearly stolen from my work on variable mechanics in dormouse thought patterns, and you never gave me credit—

»
  • Playboy Bunny: (Костюм зайчика из Плейбоя) During the Weasel Queen omake, Zeetha and Agatha evoke this trope with their «rabbit costumes».
  • Playing Possum: (Изобразить опоссума) Evidently Violetta has seen her aunt the Lady Margarella Selnikov play dead before and initially thinks she’s doing so again when she is killed by the Beast, removing the cloth respectfully placed to cover her mangled face convinces Violetta that she’s not faking this time.
  • Pocket Protector: (Карманный защитник) Nothing like a book fanatic who just found a rare book to invert this.
  • Politeness Judo: Agatha minionizes Moloch without him even realizing it after he puts on a tirade about how he’s not her minion by exercising this.
  • Portal Network: The Queen’s mirrors, a collection of ancient artifacts that connected the realms together. They mysteriously stopped working long ago, and even the ancient Queen Albia doesn’t seem to understand how they work, but they will sometimes reactivate unpredictably.
  • Power High: When Agatha is subjected to the effect of Dyne water plus electroshock for the first time and feels godlike. Later the Castle implies it’s a normal reaction:
«

Agatha: I believe another forty-five point three seconds, and I would have exploded or something. […] Oh, yeah… I have got to try that again!

»
  • Power Limiter: The Heterodyne locket Barry gives Agatha is meant to subdue her sparkyness. She eventually outgrows this, and the locket has found a new use in keeping the Other contained. The device only works properly on sparks, unfortunately for Omar von Zinzer, it is fatal to normal humans.
  • The Power of Love: (Любовь побеждает зло) A minor case — at one point when Agatha is under the control of the Other, it becomes obvious that Gil will die without her help. So Agatha shrugs off the possession long enough to get the locket (mentioned above) on.
  • Present Company Excluded: Zeetha hates assassins at parties.
  • Privateer: Captain Hawkins and the crew of the Mopey Tortoise airship are privateers in the service of England.
  • Projectile Toast: Death Ray toast, anyway…
«

Gil: It looks like a toaster. Agatha: … well, it is a toaster. Sort of. Gil: Sort of? Agatha: Oh yes. It could toast the whole town.

»
  • Properly Paranoid: (Параноик был прав) Rudolf Selnikov, a high and haughty lord that is/was part of the Knights of Jove, shaves himself because of the Decadent Court that the order is.
  • Pun-Based Creature: One of the creatures brought to the siege of Mechanicsburg is a literal battering ram used to try to break down the city’s gates.
  • Pun-Based Title: 2007-05-28 displays a book about coffee, «Bean There Done That», «Bean» for «Been».
  • Punctuated Pounding: Tarvek to Zola. Not explicit, but he’s just got to be timing his punches to his exclamation points.
  • Punny Name: Doubling as Bilingual Bonus. Dr. Beetle’s first name, «Tarsus», is the insect equivalent of the foot. Not a particularly meaningful pun, but it’s there.

Q

  • Quirky Town: Mechanicsburg. Lampshaded when one of the inhabitants wonders if growing up there made them weird. After he ensures the town’s children are safely in the protection of their ancestors… a group of undead crypt-dwellers.
«

Undead Thing: Snotulous child! I will smite your allowance!

»
  • Quote Mine: Agatha’s recorded message that Lucrezia Mongfish is the Other and that someone should warn Baron Wulfenbach ends up being edited to say that Baron Wulfenbach is the Other. Needless to say, this causes problems.

R

  • Race Against the Clock: In the side-story «Ivo Sharktooth, P.J.», the winners' trophy for a prestigious race is found to be missing just after the racers set off, and bad things will happen if it’s not found in time to be presented at the end of the race. Fortunately, it’s the annual Mechanicsburg Harvest Festival Snail Race, and the snails take four days to complete the course.
  • Rage Against the Author:
    • In a filler strip, Agatha can’t be convinced that Phil and Kaja Foglio have legitimately earned the Hugo Award, suspecting some mind control at work.
«

Phil Foglio: Maybe we just won.

»
  • In 2011 they decided to shut down the mind-control device and resign from the category.
  • Raised Hand of Survival: The Storm King’s zombie knights shove their hands through the cobblestones shortly after the Master of Paris buries them in a temporary chasm in the street while they try to attack his city.
    • Probably subverted when Violetta stabs Madwa Korel. While their arm and hand are raised in the next panel it’s just because Violetta was taking something out of their hand, and she later says she’s pretty sure they’re really dead.
  • Randomly Gifted: Sparks run in families but also develop among normal people.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking:
    • Baron Wulfenbach is the preeminate example, ruling much of Europa with an iron fist through exceptional military strength and strategy.
    • His son; when thrust into authority, Gil’s asskicking genes more than rise to the challenge.
    • The Jägergenerals.
    • 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.
  • A Rare Sentence: The Heterodynes and their Jäggermonsters are much more used to being the most likely suspects. Having their help be appreciated is just icing on the strangeness cake.
«

Lord Bunstable: I will appreciate your help. You, your lady, and her retinue are perhaps the least likely suspects. Dimo: Huh. No vun haz effer said dot to us before. Lord Bunstable: Strange times, and make no mistake.

»
  • Ready for Lovemaking: Barbarian-style. When Castle is detailing Agatha’s lineage, a historical depiction shows the Skull Queen of Skrall splaying herself out on her throne, enticing Dagon Heterodyne to take her after «sending two hundred warrior homunculi to pique his interest.»
  • Real Is Brown: The first volume. Not so much «brown is real» as «the world is dull when your mind is damped down». For anyone who’s reading the archives, going from the last page of volume one to the first page of the next is quite jarring.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: For a guy who conquered a continent, Klaus is surprisingly open to other people’s ideas. Sure, he’s still the final authority, but at least he’ll hear you out.
  • Reclining Reigner: In a flashback, we see Queen Zantabraxus, Zeetha’s mother, reclining on a couch while giving an audience to professor Consolmagno.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: The occasional machine gun is seen (actually some variety of Gatling, in most cases), but this weapon and the enormous amounts of dakka it can provide seem not to have changed the face of war as they have in Real Life. Machine guns become less effective when half the opposing army is made of metal, is using advanced Spark technology, or are Jägers.
  • Relationship Reveal: For a long time, it was hard to tell if Theo and Sleipnir were a couple or just really close friends. Then came this strip.
  • Relationship Upgrade: This may count as one. Higgs is pleased. And if it didn’t, these certainly do!
  • Releasing from the Promise: Tarvek does it to Violetta.
  • Reverse Psychology: (Сделай наоборот) For centuries inexperienced sparks tried to assert control over creations turning against them by shouting something like «Stop! I am your master! I created you! You can’t attack me!». It never worked.
    • Even Agatha made this mistake once. But finally Agatha found the right words.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter:
    • Agatha’s little clanks she builds as assistants, practically the unofficial mascot of the comic.
    • Mimmoths also qualify.
    • Young wasp weasels.
  • Ridiculously Long-lived Family Name: The House of Heterodyne was established over a thousand years ago by Genghis Ht’rok-din. While the name has evidently changed a bit, most of Agatha’s ancestors from what appeared to be the Middle Ages have been referred to by the surname «Heterodyne.»
  • Right Behind Me: (Он что, стоит у меня за спиной?) Agatha is too far away to hear the conversation, but still…
«

Xerxsephnia: [about Agatha] It’s not as if she’s in her own lab — or even her own town. She’s kilometers from Mechanicsburg — trapped in our fortress — in the dead of winter. What can she do? [Agatha flies past the window behind her] Xerxsephnia: … And why do you have that idiotic look on your face?

»
  • Right in Front of Me: Agatha in front of Klaus, and Gil in front of Zola.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • Thanks to the one she gave the pirates that kidnapped her, Zeetha has killed anyone who could help her find her way back home to Skifander. This is heavily implied to be Dupree’s fortress whose destruction made her have to give up her bid to reconquer her homeland, forcing her to go work for Klaus. Zeetha has not made the connection yet. Dupree has learned of it.
    • Airman Higgs is normally calm and unflappable, even when everything is going to hell. But stab his kinda-maybe love interest in the stomach and, well, things might get ugly.
    • Agatha, after Lars dies.
    • Larana goes into one when Jiminez gets acid in his face by a trap of the library.
  • Rolling Pin of Doom: Okay, a frying pan.
    • Later also a actual rolling pin.
  • Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: (Романтизм и Просвещение) A theme of the series is finding the balance between the two. With the Knights of Jove and Baron Wulfenbach representing the extreme sides of those movements.
  • Royal Blood: The House of Heterodyne and the line of the Storm King are both very important elements of the plot, as is resentment over the current overlord of the continent being a jumped-up baron.
  • Royal School: The baron’s educational facility for Europa’s heirs. The world makes it a bit different, and it’s made abundantly clear its primary purpose is to keep the children of potential troublemakers firmly in the Baron’s grasp, but the education is excellent and the faculty stern but fair and loving.
  • Royally Screwed Up: (Династия уродов)
    • Tarvek’s entire family — apparently, even the non-spark members. Best summarized by Tarvek when he explains that «The only way to keep my family in line would be to bury them in a row.»
    • Sparks are, by definition, at least somewhat unbalanced; most recent ruling dynasties are sparks whose families shot their way to the throne at some point; and even if the one who first seized control of a domain were comparatively self-controlled rather than brilliant and/or charismatic enough to compensate for serious instability, their heirs can survive growing far more bonkers than those who have to worry about the typical Torches and Pitchforks thing.
  • Rubik’s Cube: International Genius Symbol: Agatha is seen solving a Rubik’s cube in the Radio Theatre interludes.
  • Rummage Sale Reject: Appearances aren’t very nonsensical for the trope, but the aesthetic is unmistakably present, mostly because several characters near-literally assemble their outfits this way.
    • Gil spends the latter part of his time in Mechanicsburg wearing an outfit from a bar’s costume selection with most of the more ostentatious pieces taken off.
    • Krosp got his ubiquitous coat from a circus’s costume department.
    • Jägers win their hats off of enemies, so if you’re a Jäger and your hat matches your outfit, it’s luck (and they prioritize nize hats, so many combine random aesthetics, such as Dimo’s aviator cap with goggles and plume, in true «why not put all the toppings on the pizza!?» style).
    • Tarvek’s outfit in the Castle seems to have been scavenged from stuff left lying around by past Heterodynes, and amounts to white undershirt + fancy greatcoat + green pants with two belts stacked on top of each other + an extra belt worn like a sash.
    • Zeetha steals the long shirt and Badass Longcoat of one of Zola’s Faceless Mooks and wears them under the leather pieces from her old outfit after all the cloth she was wearing is dissolved by mad science.
    • Moloch eventually ends up wearing the fancy red pants from the nice outfit he was introduced wearing, two shirts he must have obtained while imprisoned, a neckerchief to cover the collar/necklace all the Castle prisoners get, and a heavy apron from working in the murderous kitchen.

S

  • Sailor’s Ponytail: Airman Higgs («The Unstoppable» Airshipman Higgs) wears one of these. As airship units are treated as analogous to naval ones (though seafaring definitely exists in this setting), it certainly qualifies as a Sailor’s Ponytail.
  • Science-Related Memetic Disorder: The Spark condition. Though even non-Spark scientists and engineers are a bit off-kilter, probably because that’s how everyone expects them to act. Those usually have to assist or use stuff of Sparks. It’s either become a Mad Scientist or go insane from this all anyway.
  • Scienceville: Europe is ruled by Sparks but most cities or towns have just one family of them since they’re somewhat territorial. Paris is an exception due to the Master’s ruthless enforcement of neutrality and many houses send their scions there for their education.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: (Визжит, как девчонка)
    • Professor Tiktoffen often screams like this, and the castle thinks it’s funny.
    • Also Tarvek, at least according to DuPree.
«

DuPree: Oh my Gosh! I’d know that girlish scream anywhere!

»
  • Screw Gun Safety:
    • The Jägermonsters, though it’s pretty in-character for them to try.
«

Jäger 1: Ho! Leedle recoil problem there, sir! Jäger 2: Pretty neat though, ya?

»
  • Agatha and Gil look straight into a lightning generator’s business end while Gil repeatedly pushes the button.
  • Screw the Rules, They’re Not Real!:
    • Baron Wulfenbach took this approach and ignored political norms when he marched in and conquered Europa. While it did bring relative peace, it has been pointed out that doing so made enemies of the nobility he disrespected.
    • The Jägergenerals acknowledge that there is a «goot vay» to cheat.
  • Scrub: Invoked in Othar’s log:
«

He was a dirty fighter, what with all that «winning» all the time.

»
  • Scully Box: The guardslime’s creator uses one.
  • Secret Circle of Secrets: Nearly all of Queen Albia’s Mad Scientist division goes renegade joining one of these, complete with hooded cloaks, Human Sacrifice, and the summoning of an Eldritch Abomination.
  • Secret Sewer Society: Paris hosts several reclusive tribes and underground kingdoms within its elaborate catacombs and cave networks, such as the mole-like Talpini and the pale-skinned, human-like Argurons. Mechanicsburg likewise lies above a complex, multi-layered system of tunnels, basements, and secret chambers where some of the Heterodynes' more reclusive creations live. Most cities have underground networks of this sort, although most aren’t as extensive — if they did, Europe would be one hard rain away from collapsing on itself.
  • Secret Test of Character: (Проверка на вшивость) When we first see Gil, his father is asking him to figure out what’s wrong with the machine he ordered built — except he’s really testing to see if Gil is honest, brave and/or smart enough to tell him it isn’t actually possible for it to work the way Klaus said it should.
  • Seen It All: In the later comics Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek aren’t even surprised anymore by most of the crazy behavior exhibited by everyone around them. It’s to such a point where when a guard captain (who used to be a Mechanicsburg resident) is referred to as a 'toy', not only is he not insulted, he says it’s the Mechanicsburg way. Gil and Tarvek both admit that they aren’t surprised in the slightest by this.
  • Self-Serving Memory: When Castle Heterodyne attacks Castle Wulfenbach, Der Kestle has such a moment in response to Agatha’s «When did I tell you to do that?!»
«

Imaginary Agatha: Yay! Do that! Kill everyone in the sky!

»
  • Separated at Birth: Though not explicitly mentioned yet, This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Word of God and many strong hints shown in the comic point to Zeetha and Gil being fraternal twins. The only character depicted so far that knows this is their father, Klaus.
  • Seppuku: Expected of Jägers who break the Oath — but only if they get caught. At least if you believe Oggie and Maxim, who are admittedly clowning around a bit at the time. Otherwise, the Jägers show no aversion at all to rampant Loophole Abuse, such as by claiming that, being several floors underground, they’re technically not in the town.
  • Serial Escalation: (По нарастающей/Больше и эпичнее) How many more «distractions» will Agatha, Gil and Tarvek go through before they reach their goal? The whole Castle Heterodyne arc appears to follow the old Hollywood maxim «start with a volcanic eruption, then build to a climax.»
  • Serious Business:
    • The Jägermonsters really love hats. Nothing more needs to be said. When Agatha, the Chosen One, flips Maxim’s hat off, he even almost attacks her for a moment despite his Undying Loyalty to her. In fact, Maxim refuses to let Lars be buried Hatless.
    • The Incorruptible Library apparently takes reclaiming their books so seriously that they will (or at least, patrons honestly believe that they will) send strike teams to kidnap people who have overdue books.
    • A lot of university professors are sparks, and being Mad Scientists, are willing to enact projects of dubious legality. Otherwise ordinary university students will happily assist them in their crimes, however dangerous or heinous, in return for good grades.
  • Sexbot: In one side-story, Agatha makes a «mechanical bedwarmer» which appears to be a robot double of Gil.
  • Sex Sells: Upon arriving to Paris, Agatha is dismayed to discover that her image is quite popular on posters advertising for various products — said illustrations being very often scantily clad. Up to one advert for Turkish drinking chocolate where she’s wearing nothing but a Modesty Towel. Later on, Colette sends Tarvek a whole portfolio of advertising posters, which he and Gil watches appreciatively (most of them hidden from the readers, unfortunately).
  • Sexy Soaked Shirt:
    • Lars gets an eyeful of Agatha washing herself.
    • Agatha, Tarvek and Gil, with material for everyone!
    • Agatha, say hello to Hadrian Rakethorn.
  • Shadow Government: The von Mekkahns have been running a shadow government that makes the Wulfenbach-appointed city administration impotent. They and the rest of Mechanicsburg have no interest in being governed by outsiders but they certainly don’t mind tricking outsiders into thinking they run things.
  • Shaped Like Itself:
    • In the not-quite-canon story The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon from Mars,
«

Bill: I never thought I’d have to use this. Dr. Mongfish: [reformed] «Ocean in a bottle»? What’s that? Bill: Truth in packaging.

»
  • A book titled Using Found Objects as Weapons gets used to beat a particularly persistent enemy upside the head, striking with the sound effect TOME!
  • In Revenge of the Weasel Queen, Agatha uses a De-arming Device. It does exactly that, cutting the arms off Agatha’s opponent.
  • Shared Family Quirks: It’s mentioned that Sparks' «styles» of design and technology run in families; Sparks born of Sparks, even when they’re not raised by their parents, will tend to follow similar paths and designs.
  • Sharing a Body: Agatha and Lucrezia have had the antagonistic version of this relationship since the latter’s mind was transferred into the former. It was supposed to be a Grand Theft Me, as mentioned above, but it wasn’t totally successful. Later the same thing happens with Zola and Lucrezia, again not very successfully. And then it’s done with Gil and Klaus.
  • Ship Tease: Agatha wears a locket with the Heterodyne trilobite sigil on it… but we’ve seen a future version of her, and in the future, she’s modified it (or replaced it, as it’s now been destroyed) to a winged trilobite, strongly suggesting a marriage. It’d be a much better clue if both Gil and Tarvek didn’t have winged sigils (rook and sword, respectively), of course.
    • Dimo tends to get pretty physical when protecting Agatha. It’s unlikely for anything to come of it even if there was an attraction there as Agatha is pretty obsessed with Gil and Tarvek and Dimo is all duty.
  • Shoot the Dog: Tarvek disabling and deactivating Anevka’s clank. Wooster nearly does this to Klaus but is interrupted.
  • Shout-Out: Lots of them, now having their own subpage.
  • Shovel Strike: (Убил дедушку лопатой) Zeetha can do.
«

Lapinemoth: A shovel? Ah! What can you do with a— BWONG!

»
  • Shutting Up Now: Two-part example involving Agatha and Moloch.
  • «Shut Up» Kiss:
    • Agatha to Gil.
    • Tarvek to Agatha.
    • And again by Tarvek to Agatha; this time Tarvek silences Agatha’s wagging tongue with his own before she blows Higgs' cover.
    • Martellus to Lucrezia.
  • Side Bet: After Tarvek kisses Agatha after she saves him, the people of Mechanicsburg and the Jägers are seen placing bets on who Agatha will choose, with Vanamonde von Mekkahn and Violetta playing bookies.
  • Sigil Spam:
    • The Wulfenbach family signs everything, from their airships to their war machines to the smallest mechanical parts of Castle Wulfenbach, with that winged rook.
    • The trilobite symbol of the Heterodynes is pretty much ubiquitous in Mechanicsburg.
    • It’s the same with the Sturmvoraus family symbol in Sturmhalten.
  • Signed Up for the Dental: The lapinemoths in the Weasel Queen filler.
  • Signs of Disrepair: Above the entrance door to Castle Heterodyne is a sign reading «Thank you for shopping». Except that, when Wulfenbach troops attack it with a battering ram, it dislodges the «shopping» part which was an add-on, revealing the original sign to be «Thank you for cowering».
  • Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: (Идеализм — для детей) In the backstory, Klaus Wulfenbach helped the Heterodyne Boys with the idealistic approach; the result was an Europa that was Holding Out for a Hero, so he has little use now for idealism. As another example, Vole believes all the other Jägermonsters are being foolishly idealistic.
  • Simple Solution Won’t Work: During the battle for Mechanicsburg, several people bring up the option of just falling back and living to fight another day to Agatha. She nixes the idea because Mechanicsburg is the Heterodyne fallback postion, so there’s nowhere to fall back to.
  • Single Sex Offspring: The Heterodyne family is known for almost exclusively giving birth to boys. The two exceptions, Euphrosynia and Agatha, have been very important in the family’s history, and Agatha in particular is implied to have been engineered somehow to make sure she was female.
  • Skeptic No Longer:
    • The Von Mekkhans both were skeptical of Agatha’s claim of lineage at first, but eventually are convinced by her deeds: Vanamonde had a nirvana moment after drinking a cup of «perfect» coffee out of Agatha’s Coffee Engine, and Carson was convinced when she cowed Castle Heterodyne from tormenting a much more vocally skeptical other village elder (who was also a Skeptic No Longer and groveled at Agatha’s feet for saving him from that fate).
    • The Corbettites appear to believe the goodness in Agatha’s heart after she was instrumental in putting the Beast of The Rails down for good, and also for completing their pipe dream ultimate rail liner locomotive (which they then used to extricate Agatha from a sanctuary trap).
  • Skewed Priorities:
    • Locking children in vats and letting them out only for Christmas is a terrible thing, but only if you let the control group out.
    • Subverted with the Jägers (or at least their generals), as evidenced by this exchange:
«

General Zog: Ve haff a team of Jägerkin, Lackya, clenks and crew at each entry. Klaus Wulfenbach: Excellent. I’m pleased at the lack of rivalry. General Zog: Sir — dere iz a time to twit nancy-boy feetsmen und a time to crush bogs.

»
  • Skilled, but Naive: Vole claims that Gil and Tarvek are this.
  • Sky Pirate: Almost any time pirates are mentioned in the story, they are of this kind, airships being a widespread commodity. (Though according to Sanaa’s account of her activities after leaving home, sea-borne ones do exist as well.) Notably, Bangladesh DuPree and her crew. One of the radio plays gives us the character of Deathwish Dupree, Bang’s older brother «of whom she is heartily ashamed».
  • Sleep Mask: Mama Gkika wears one at night.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: (Небольшая роль с большим влиянием)
    • Teodora Vodenicharova, so far mentioned in two footnotes in the novelizations, was the mother of Bill and Barry Heterodyne who raised them to be heroes, and saved them from being killed by their father at the cost of her own life; without her, the history of Europa would have been very different.
    • Madame Olga only has a very brief appearance in the story before her death (which involved making a big impact on a rock) but thanks to Master Payne’s Circus using her body to deceive Gil, Bangladesh and the Baron, Agatha is able to hide from the Empire.
    • Oublenmach, the goon that holds Van’s servant hostage, is ultimately the one that rings The Doom Bell, saving several lives in Mechanicsburg.
  • Smoldering Shoes: Martellus punching DuPree sends her flying while leaving her boots behind (revealing skulls-adorned socks).
  • Smooch of Victory: Agatha’s idea of a fine way to celebrate exploding a giant writhing slug.
  • Snark-to-Snark Combat: Being Vitriolic Best Buds, Gil and Tarvek tend to fall into this routine whenever they’re together.
«

Gil: [regarding Zola’s part in the Storm King conspiracy] Um, well, let’s just say I don’t think much of this Storm King guy’s taste. Tarvek: Oh, really? That’s encouraging, considering the kind of girls you preferred in Paris— Gil: True, they didn’t like to play dress up much at all. Tarvek: That’s because they were hardly ever dressed. Gil: Jealous?

»
  • Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Krosp. He’s a cat, so of course he only has a moderate grasp of human concepts like morality.
«

Krosp: Is this one of those situations that involves «ethics»? 'Cause I’m a cat, you know. I’ve never been very good at those.

»
  • Snowball Lie: Seffie winds up telling one to the Queen of England after she arrives in London with the contents of a dessert tray stuck in her hair. Rather than admit she’s just been caught in an embarrassing situation, she tries to pass the sweets in her hair off as the latest fashion from Paris. Hilarity Ensues as she begins roping other people into helping her defend this new «fashion» at a dinner party.
  • Soft Glass: Here. (Although that may not count, 'cos they’re Jägers.)
  • Sole Surviving Scientist:
    • Othar has been that but managed to go back in time (according to his Twitter, anyway).
    • Tarvek in the same Twitter may have been a better example, since he sent Othar back and was much closer to the problem (while Othar metaphorically «slept through it»).
  • Something Else Also Rises: (Символическая эрекция) A female example here, when Dr. Rakethorn takes off his dress tunic to help Agatha with her latest project. Agatha’s welding torch suddenly lights up with a «FOOM!», despite her fingers being nowhere close to the tap.
  • Something Only They Would Say:
    • Gil learns there are two alleged Heterodyne heirs in Mechanicsburg. One arrived in a gaudy pink airship, has made several speeches and then entered Castle Heterodyne. The other is in a coffee shop rebuilding their coffee machine (and causing several explosions in the process). It doesn’t take him long to realize which one is Agatha.
    • Tarvek invokes one explicitly when asking Agatha what she did to Vrin. Since neither Agatha nor Lucrezia have a conscious memory of what the other was doing when the other one is in control of Agatha’s body, Agatha would answer that she repeatedly hit Vrin with a broom (stunning Vrin momentarily with a Compelling Voice that only partially worked each time), while Lucrezia trying to pretend to be Agatha would have said she killed Vrin with a fully effective compelling voice.
    • Agatha proves she knows Punch by revealing information about him that isn’t part of the Heterodyne Boys stories.
    • Lucrezia instantly finds out that Klaus has possessed Gil by the way he talks.
  • Sonic Stunner:
    • André from Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure uses a sonic gun. When he’s about to discharge it in a fight he warns the other members of the troupe to try and cover their ears.
    • «Clankrezia» can use her «voice» as a shrill sonic scream, distracting Zeetha enough at close range that she can be easily clonked out.
  • The Spark of Genius: Possible Trope Namer. Definitely invoked throughout; it pretty much says it on the tin.
«

Heliotrope: In my experience, a strong Heterodyne will take about two hours to truly warp the laws of nature.

»
  • Speak of the Devil: (Нечисть по вызову) Discussed Trope.
«

Lucrezia-Zola: But he’s been missing for years. He’s no threat— [Beat] [nervous glances] Lucrezia-Anevka: Do you want him to show up?! Lucrezia-Zola: Ooh… So sorry, dear. I can’t think what came over me!

»
  • Speech-Bubble Censoring: Mama Gkika’s dressing screen panel, presumably featuring a naked girl, is obscured by Gilgamesh Wulfenbach saying:
«

Gil: So — does this place have a back door?

»
  • Spider Limbs:
    • A couple of background characters are like this, apparently double amputees who use them as mobility prosthetics. Given that the whole backdrop is of a pseudo-Europe which has been in a state of low-level warfare for an indefinite period, It Makes Sense in Context.
    • Agatha’s exoskeleton, used to get a good night’s sleep despite Zeetha’s wish, also gives off this vibe. Especially when it pulls out the weaponry.
  • Spit Take: (Выплеснуть напиток изо рта)
    • Tarvek spit-takes his wine during a formal diner at the Sturmvoraus table. Then again, Agatha just made a really unexpected off-hand revelation.
    • Dr. Sun spit-takes tea in a flashback panel. As in the first example, Baron Wulfenbach wasn’t expected to punch out of his own healing engine.
    • A random background jäger lets fly right back into his flagon when he sights General Dimo chatting with a newly arrived Agatha after she disappeared for two and a half years.
    • Aldin spit-takes so hard that he blasts out the bottom of his cup when he suddenly realizes the romantic misunderstanding his brother Jiminez is having between them and Princess Larana.
  • Spontaneous Human Combustion: There’s a disease (probably engineered by some Mad Scientist), «Hogfarb’s resplendent immolation», that causes this effect. The body is filled with an incendiary substance, and in the end the victim will «go up like a torch». Unless they simply melt. The water from the River Dyne also makes this happen.
  • Spy Speak: (Верблюды идут на север) While visiting the underground library in Paris, Violetta gives the order for two other Smoke Knights who were trailing Agatha’s party to reveal themselves by uttering the phrase, «All shadows are to come into the light.»
  • Squee: Zeetha over Higgs, in panel 8 here.
  • Squick: An in-universe example of this is used by General Khrizhan to explain why Gil and Agatha being together is for the best: they can’t exactly get their mad science on as long as the Other, Agatha’s mother, is still inside Agatha’s head and possibly sensate. Nobody will ever work as fast as those two will when they eventually twig on that. Incidentally, this also serves to keep the Unresolved Sexual Tension nice and unresolved, just the way the writers like it. Later the sentiment is expressed by Tarvek, to the Jäger Generals' amusement.
  • Stable Time Loop:
    • An apparition from the future in the third strip got the whole story rolling, and it’s become clear that Agatha will — eventually — cause it to happen.
    • This probably happens in this strip. The time window that Bang sees the first time happens after the second one from the point of view of the characters in the window. Gil calls Bang a maniac in the first one, probably because she pointed a gun on them in the second one, which she did because «earlier» he insulted her.
    • In the sidestory The homecoming king" (from here to here) some students summon the Ht’rok’dyn (the first Heterodyne) from the past. He learns that he has descendants who created a big empire, so he goes back in time to make sure it happens.
  • Staged Populist Uprising: The Knights of Jove conspirators like to claim they’re doing it for the people.
  • Standard Female Grab Area: Subverted. «Snapper» Boikov tries it on Sanaa. Hilarity Ensues.
«

R-79: Tsk. Even I know that was stupid. Wrenchman: Requiescat in pace and all that rot. Dibs on his boots!

»
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: (Обречённая любовь) Violetta is of the opinion that Gil and Agatha’s romance has a huge chance of going down in flames. Tarvek realizes she may have a point.
  • Stating the Simple Solution:
    • The Baron discusses the possibility when dealing with Othar in a strip. Othar was certainly not expecting it.
    • And a case with the henchmen pointing out the flaw… and the Bond Villain Stupidity exploding in the bad guy’s face in record time:
«

Assassin: Highness, don’t talk to him! Just let us kill them! Leopold: Tch, Plenty of time for that, my -drgl

»
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Agatha emerges from one of her sleepwalking-creating states to find herself putting the finishing touches on a mechanism, with somebody off-panel handing her tools on command. She turns to see who it is, and…
  • Stealth Pun: Agatha hits Zola with a Door Stopper book, with the Unsound Effect «TOME». The name of the book? Using Found Objects as Weapons.
  • Storm of Blades:
    • An insane secondary kitchen in Castle Heterodyne uses this against Agatha twice. The storm includes not only knives, but forks, corkscrews and skewers.
    • Castle chases after a fleeing Zola with several sharp and dangerous implements, including a cheesegrater, candelabra, and a shoehorn.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: Various incidents here and there — this is a world run by mad scientists, after all.
    • Othar, by Klaus.
    • From a Heterodyne play: «You! Minion! Why am I strapped to this table? And WHERE ARE MY PANTS?!?»
    • Tarvek and Gil have to be strapped to a table for the Si Vales Valeo procedure.
    • Gil does it to DuPree to have his hands free while doing Mad Science.
«

Bang: …Seriously pathetic. Gil: I assure you, that table is purely for medical purpose. Bang: That’s what I meant!

»
  • Stuff Blowing Up:
    • Sooo much shrapnelly goodness… Making things blow up that by all rights shouldn’t seems like a mandatory side-effect of being a Spark.
«

Andre: No big deal. Schtuff blows op all de time.

»
  • «Hee hee. Death Ray go BOOM!»
  • Even the most mundane of things:
«

Gil: What is she doing in a coffee shop? Vole: She iz making coffee, sir. Gil: Making coffee… Vole: Dere haff been THREE explosions so far, sir.

»
  • Stylish Protection Gear: (Крутая пелерина)
    • Agatha’s winter outfit she dons in order to wait for the train in the freezing cold at Clankshead is a very pretty white fur coat with matching hat decked in gold badges and filigree with red cord, jewels and tassels. She’s also wearing a green scarf with a knit diamond cable pattern in gold and golden trilobites at each end with matching gloves.
    • Gil’s winter coat when he’s trying to track down Agatha is a tailored navy Ulster clasped with a silver Wulfenbach pin and edged in blue silk, lined in dark red and topped with three layered capelets worn over a matching waistcoat.
  • Submarine Pirates: Sanaa Wilhelm or rather Trygvassen was apparently queen of a group of pirates who used a mechanical narwhal before ending up at castle Heterodyne.
  • Succession Crisis: The underlying cause of the Long War was the disappearance of the Storm King, who had no legitimate heirs and far too many illegitimate ones. The arguments of who the rightful heir of the Lightning Crown is and how to get Europa to acknowledge him have been going on for roughly two hundred years, regularly interrupted by Sparks deciding to Show Them All.
  • Suddenly Speaking: Adam «Punch» Clay after Gil upgrades him during a resurrection. After several decades of not speaking, it’s hard to make him stop again.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Trope Namer. In the Cinderella side story, Agatha as Cinderella fixes the Fairy Godmother’s malfunctioning magic wand, despite being told she couldn’t possibly understand the principles behind its operation.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: When the heroes are threatened by two Godzilla-sized Queens and a monster the size of a small mountain that spews other giant monsters from its mouth, Neena’s solution is to call out for help from her mother, Queen Albia, who dwarfs all of them.note
  • Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom:
    • Castle Heterodyne has several of these, including The Happy Fun Ball of Death and Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispensers.
    • The Radio Theater Break has one, in the form of Ferretina’s lightning generator, labeled «Zappy Fun Box MK 1.»
    • Super-Persistent Predator: Tarvek decries that the decidedly not sessile Hive Queen seems fixated on him while he flees it with an armload comprised a crippled Jäger, a crippled vespiary squadmate, a shelf’s worth of books, and some wasp eaters.
  • Superpower Lottery: (Мозаика сверхспособностей) The Spark provides those who possess it with varying levels of genius — and that’s all; they need to be taught how science works just like anyone else. Unlike those with access to good resources and a proper education, Sparks born into poor families with few opportunities are rarely able to harness their intelligence properly or protect themselves from people who hate and fear mad geniuses.
  • Superstitious Sailors: The novels mention that Klaus Wulfenbach has put this to use. Instead of trying to get rid of superstition among his navy, he had mad social scientists alter the superstitions a bit. Anything considered «bad luck» is something that is actually genuinely bad; leaving a rope unfastened on deck, carrying an open flame too close to the gas bag, so on. The things deemed «good luck» are statistically improbable but ultimately irrelevant coincidences like two ships finishing their preparations at the exact same time. The end result is that the navy has exceptionally high morale combined with combat readiness.
  • Surrounded by Idiots: (Меня окружают идиоты)
    • The various Jäger Generals display this attitude on occasion, including eventually Dimo.
    • Not content to merely say this trope, Martellus rants about it instead;
«

Martellus: I have a pack of sparkhounds, a cadre of over-trained smoke knights, and veritable clown-carriage of cowed relatives all running around my castle like a swarm of ants on fire, and they still can’t find two women and a blasted cat wearing a coat! No wonder everything has gone to hell and back! These fools are enough to make me toss it all and open that designer pet shop in Paris!

»
  • Symbol Swearing: (Символическая ругань) With translation, no less. See Tactful Translation below.
  • Synchronization: Gil and Tarvek, thanks to the Si Vales Valeo procedure.

T

  • Tactful Translation: (Тактичный перевод) Whatever Agatha was saying after a foot attack, it most certainly wasn’t what was in the footnote.
«

Ooh, what naughty little devices, to so turn upon your creator! Oh! Indeed, my foot is in quite excruciating pain! I shall construct a device that will give you such a whack, see if I don’t!

»
  • Tactical Superweapon Unit: Invoked. Many «Sparks» certainly think their first invention is this, and try to solo the local warlord’s private army with their all-conquering-whateveritis. They are usually swiftly and violently disabused of these notions, either because they didn’t build something on par with a superweapon, or because they ticked off the fully-intelligent… thing… they just forced into tormented existence in a bout of reality-warping craziness. About one in a thousand or so (generally, the ones still lucid enough to realize that any one war machine able to fight a whole army is impractical at best and scare up an army of their own) actually succeed in their goal, and a good many more catch the attention of The Baron, who wants to see what fun little toys they can make for him under controlled conditions — at least, until they annoy him and get sent to work on one of his more dangerous projects or find themselves Strapped to an Operating Table.
  • Take a Number: Part of the psychological torture room. «The torturer is now serving victim number 03.» In a subversion, the distributor is out of numbers… Othar doesn’t take it well.
  • Take Our Word for It: The titillating plot of The Socket Wench of Prague.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Bangladesh DuPree indulges in this vernacular once. Well, she is a pirate lass, after all.
«

DuPree: Ooooh, I’ve missed you, me proud beauty. Hee hee! YARRRR!

»
  • Tall Tale: The Heterodyne Boys tales.
  • Tattooed Crook: DuPree’s second-in-command, and many other air pirates or privateers.
  • Team Power Walk: (Крутой проход) Jägermonsters pull one here. Subverted slightly since most of them are already inside the city and the walk is just to fool enemies.
  • Tears of Remorse: Barry, in the flashback where he gave Agatha her locket.
  • Tempting Fate: Many instances here and there.
    • Da Boyz:
«

Oggie: Dose tings? Dey don’t look like much. Maxim: Oh, now hyu iz just asking for it.

»
  • «It’s just one little clank.»
  • «Somebody’s coming out! To surrender, I imagine.»
  • «How much more trouble could it be?»
  • «Whelp, the day can’t get any weirder!» For future reference, that is something you simply do not say in this story. Ever.
  • Tarvek should really know not to say such things, but:
«

Tarvek: Ah! Violetta! My little cloud of doom! Even you cannot dampen my spirits right now.

»
  • Clank-Anveka tempts fate rather horribly only two pages after the Author Avatar’s «Whelp, the day can’t get any weirder!» above. Next page starts with Tarvek handing the device in question to The Other.
«

Clank-Anveka: Well, then. A device he doesn’t know about — hidden where he will not find it — in a safe he cannot open? I have more pressing things to worry about. Besides, if it was in his hands, do you really think he’d just hand it to her?"

»
  • Xerxsephnia makes a very foolish assumption that she has Agatha helplessly grounded, far away from her town or any potential allies. When her brother tries to persuade her that «the Heterodyne Girl» is a threat after all, she brushes his concerns off, asking «What can she do?» Cue Agatha flying past the tower’s window in a swan-shaped sleigh.
  • In a conversation between two instances of the Other, one of them starts to say Barry Heterodyne wouldn’t be a threat to their plan before they both stop and look around in abject fear of this trope.
  • When Klaus first discovers Agatha and Moloch at the end of the clank’s trail in Beetleburg and assumes the latter was his mystery Spark, he admits that he had hoped for something interesting. Then Agatha turns out to be a Heterodyne and Lucrezia’s daughter, and that’s just the start. Arguably also a case of Be Careful What You Wish For.
  • Agatha is fighting a running battle in Paris while trying to find clothes that fit and are appropriate for an upcoming ball. They find a closed shop.
«

Dimo: No! Only looting from defeated enemies iz allowed! Agatha: It’s not like I’m going to battle a horde of socialites on the way! Horde of socialites: [rounding the corner] There she is! …And look how she’s dressed…. GET HER! Zeetha: Wow! You can find anything in Paris!

»
  • That Came Out Wrong: (Плохо прозвучало) Gil has such a way with words. Of course, it would have helped if she’d let him finish his sentence.
  • That Wasn’t a Request:
«

Wooster: The castle spoke to him. It demanded to be repaired. One of the team members spoke against the idea. And the castle made it clear that it wasn’t a request. It was then that they realized just how far it was to the door.

»
  • Theatre Phantom: When Gil is listing the threats he had to rescue Deliberately Distressed Damsel Zola from, one of them is «some overly dramatic maniac who lived in the Paris Opera House», who is depicted as a theatre phantom playing a bass drum.
  • They Called Me Mad!: Seems to be a Catchphrase for mad scientists.
    • Parodied in the Cinderella omake, in which Cinderella/Agatha becomes queen of the kingdom, «and, I might add, showed them, showed them all.»
    • Later, Agatha inspected herself in a small mirror which read on the back «You Will Show Them All.»
  • They Look Like Us Now: The «stealth» revenants, only now being discovered.
  • This Is Reality: Tempting Fate here.
  • This Is Something He’s Got to Do Himself: Tervek asks if Gil thinks he needs to fight Vole alone in some show of machismo…but Gil says quite desperately that he’s only that stupid in front of Agatha.
  • This Way to Certain Death: The vaults beneath Paris are littered with the corpses of adventures who ran afoul of the many death traps protecting the items interred there.
  • Threesome Subtext
    • Agatha×Gil×Tarvek, ever so much, culminating in this exchange:
«

Tarvek: —loyal vassal?! Gil: …and we’re both «on Agatha’s string!» Tarvek: Well… that I can live with!

»
  • «We could have kept him safe.»
  • Gil goes to very far extremes to retrieve Tarvek after Tarvek gets kidnapped (twice) which is compared to rescuing a princess, and then when Gil starts talking to a Muse to get relationship advice the topic quickly shifts from Agatha to Tarvek.
  • Through His Stomach: (Путь к сердцу лежит через желудок) Snaug, on Moloch.
  • Throw a Barrel at It: Although it isn’t technically «thrown», the comic is proof that even a Barrel can be Ax-Crazy.
  • The Time of Myths: Ancient records hint at a world of wonders and magic, and there are lingering relics that even modern Mad Science still cannot explain.
  • Time Skip: One occurs In-Universe when Tweedle takes Agatha (and inadvertently Krosp and Violetta) through a transit portal. Though it should have been instantaneous, two and a half years passed before they emerged. A rare example in that not only does the audience need another Info Dump, so do the protagonists! It’s later revealed that Klaus caused this by activating some sort of time-stasis device in Mechanicsburg at the exact moment they entered the portal — making a transit that should have been instantaneous into a bus ride. In the interval, the Wulfenbach Empire fell, Mechanicsburg and its environs fell under Gil’s monomaniacal control and Tarvek’s family has abandoned their claim to the title of Storm King.
  • Time-Travel Tense Trouble: An extradimensional being that the English conspirators summon has a very difficult time working out what verbs to use in its sentences. The fact that the summoning and the being’s own nature are altering the local flow of time doesn’t help either.
  • Tongue on the Flagpole: (Примёрзнуть языком) Krosp (Emperor of All Cats) gets his tongue stuck to the milk of his bowl, suddenly frozen by the mere eldritch presence of the Polar Lords.
  • Too Much Information:
  • Tea cozy… only one spoon…
  • «He had to leave… rather qvickly vun-» «I did not ask!»
  • Torture First, Ask Questions Later: Oh, Bang.
«

DuPree: [zaps Abner] Now, are you going to cooperate, or… Payne: What do you want?! DuPree: Oh, right.

»
  • Traitor Shot: Tiktoffen is playing all sides while really being on his own and intending to betray everyone. This shot of him in the shadows with skulls behind him rather foreshadows his betrayal of Gil.
  • Translation Convention: This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.Word of God and incidental writing in the background says that everything is actually in German and Romanian, translated for the benefit of the audience. At least some of the dialogue in the arcs set in Britain is presumably in English.
  • Tranquilized Mid-Sentence: In one strip, Violetta tranqs a cop getting ready to search her vehicle.
  • Trapped in Villainy: Tarvek’s cousin, Tweedle, tries this on Agatha. Immediately subverted in that she knocks him unconscious, locks him in her chains, and sets about taking off the leash.
  • Traumatic Superpower Awakening: (Активация через страдание) Sparks during the «breakthrough» usually go crazy in a destructive way. Due to her uncle’s tampering, in Agatha’s case the «awakening» part happened when she was technically asleep. It’s explained also that this trope is how a lot of Sparks get killed early on: either their creation turns on them, or else they create an incredibly powerful weapon and yet are also still crazy/inexperienced enough to turn it on an army.
  • Troubled, but Cute: Lampshaded at the start of the Cinderella filler, when Gil and Tarvek argue over who’s playing the story’s prince:
«

Gil: I’m the prince! I’m all tortured and driven by love! Tarvek: Feh. I’m the misunderstood one with the mysterious agenda. Muy sexy.

»
  • Try and Follow:
    • Tarvek, has a bright idea to run into the Castle Heterodyne. At the time, it’s one big insane deathtrap used as a prison not seriously guarded once against escape — usually the equivalent of a death sentence. Yes, the guards didn’t follow him inside…
«

Violetta: Now do you understand what I have to work with?!

»
  • In fairness, Tarvek was heading into the Castle anyway. Agatha uses the same tactic earlier by fleeing into an uncharted Castle corridor that hadn’t been mapped for deathtraps. However the mooks end up following her anyway, when their Bad Boss shoots one to encourage the others.
  • Twisted Echo Cut: If the Mistress were here, she’d say…" — «Kneel, you miserable minion!»

U

Ссылка: [5]

  • Underestimating Badassery:
    • Happen to many named characters, because Obfuscating Stupidity is best form to not sticking out and make you obvious target or just because their chance is still not coming yet.
    • Being a Spark seems to include some megalomania as part of the package, especially when in The Madness Place, and since most important people are Sparks, they are very prone to doing this frequently.
    • Just because a woman is crying doesn’t mean she can’t do her job. Then just a few pages later, same woman, same mistake.
  • Understatement: Vanamonde pulls out a great one:
«

Vanamonde: Um — I wonder if growing up here might make us a little… weird…

»
  • Underwater Ruins: A large globe in the background of one panel shows a world with a radically different coastline, with large swaths of Africa, Siberia, and the entirety of the Himalayas being underwater. (Though we’ve also seen other globes with more familiar continents; it’s not yet clear if this is plot-significant or just a case of artistic sloppiness on Phil’s part.)
  • Undressing the Unconscious:
    • After stopping war clanks alone, Gil collapses and later wakes up naked in Mamma Gkika' bar after being treated. Not realizing it, he gets out of bed in front of Zeetha and walks around nude for a while, until she points how his state of undress and he has a Naked Freak-Out, using the bedsheets to cover his front from her… not noticing The Jägergirls are behind him Eating the Eye Candy.
    • In this page, Agatha awakens to find she’s been Strapped to an Operating Table and stripped down to her corset by Anevka, who’s deliberately trying to provoke Agatha, using her verbal outbursts and angry demands for her clothes back to copy her voiceprint into her system.
  • Unfazed Everyman: Von Zinzer. Also the Only Sane Man.
  • Unit Confusion: Brother Matthias channels Han Solo.
«

Agatha: Surely it’s not so bad if we’re a little late… Brother Matthias: Yes it is! My train? Late?! This is the Wyrm of Limerick! The engine that made the Königsburg run in less than twelve kilometers!

»
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: (Бездонный гардероб) Played with. At the end of the Paris arc, as Agatha is preparing to leave, every high-end tailor and dressmaker in the city gives her a free outfit so that they can claim that they dressed the Lady Heterodyne for advertising purposes. Her wardrobe now comes in over a dozen trunks. But despite all that, Agatha normally sticks to a small number of outfits that are practical for working in, and she hasn’t even opened most of those trunks, much less tried on their contents.
  • Un-Paused:
    • When Andronicus Valois, the first Storm King is freed from the Time Stands Still effect of Prende’s Chronometric Lantern, he doesn’t realize that two hundred years have gone by. For him, it was mere seconds ago that Van Rijn betrayed him.
    • When Mechanicsburg is finally freed of the time-stop effect that has encased it for nearly three years, the inhabitants only experiment a short moment of confusion before restarting what they were doing, like the rat chestnut seller who immediately resumes touting his wares. However, this only lasts as long as it takes them to look up and notice the huge outer-dimensional monster looming over the city.
  • Unreliable Expositor:
    • Klaus encoded a message to his son in a story he tricked Phil into delivering. Although we only see the tail end of Phil’s version, it’s clearly different, and judging by Gil’s reaction he screwed up most of the symbolism (that is, the entirety of the message) too. Luckily, Tarvek notices something is up.
    • Very nearly every story anyone tells about the Heterodynes. On purpose by someone, since they’re all published and almost everyone who has books seems to have at least some of them.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: (Что ж ныне меня преследуете вы?) Initially Moloch has a crush on Sanaa but she seems to think he’s rather useless. However after he Takes a Level in Badass and becomes Agatha’s chief minion Sanaa seems to be attracted to him and he seems to be over his crush. And unfortunately for her there could end up being some competition.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: (Застенчивая парочка) Jeez, Agatha, just make out with Gil already…
  • Unsound Effect:
    • Spork! Spork! Spork!
    • SNEAK SNEAK SNEAK SNEAK SNEAK
    • Mite! Mite! Mite!
    • Tome! (Notice also the title of the book…)
    • Shove!
    • DOOOM
    • Subtle, but when the Jägers are clapping, the sound effect is in the Jägers' accent. This one comes up a handful of times throughout the series. Just about every time a sound effect shows up for one of the Jägers it’s in their accent.
    • Master Voltaire indulges his artistic side with some combat cubism.
    • Several of the myriad ways that the Beausoleil copies die involve this (including another Cubing), others are more proper onomatopoeic sounds.
  • Unusual Euphemism: (Японский городовой)
    • «Useless Inferior Coprolitic Components!» — Professor Mezzasalma (Coprolitic, literally meaning fossilized dung, therefore an ancient piece of shit.)
    • «I am sure he intends to wed her most vigorously!»
    • Alternatively spelled either «Gott’s little feesh in trousers!» or «Gott’s leedle feesh in trousers!»
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: «Why do I even have one of those?» «I wondered where that went on Tuesdays.»
  • Unwanted Assistance:
    • Gil as his friends «creatively» explain his plans and motivations to the people of Mechanicsburg, as seen in the fourth panel here, almost word-for-word.
    • And Agatha to Moloch, as seen in the last panel here.
«

Agatha: THANK YOU. For your HELP. Moloch: I—I’ll just… Agatha: Shut up…? Moloch: Yes…

»
  • This happens a lot, especially when Sparks are involved. At one point when Gil unleashes a mechanical cage in an effort to attract a crowd, Theo and Sleipnir try to keep the crowd safe, while only making things worse.
«

Zeetha: They are trying to help, right? Gil: It’s my fault, really. I make it look easy.

»
  • Gil has this reaction a few times towards folks — most notably here, where he’s trying to stop folks from describing his romantic reasons for trying to help Agatha. Unfortunately for him, he’s being shouted down by an enthusiastic crowd, two trained circus performers who are trying to rile up said crowd, and two friends who like to see him squirm.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Agatha, before knowing her true heritage or even that she was a Spark, inadvertently used the Command Voice on a sleeper revenant, who then carried out what he thought was her orders: activate the confiscated Hive Engine that the Baron Wulfenbach ordered examined.

V

  • Vetinari Job Security: Hilariously deconstructed with Baron Wulfenbach. He completely fits the description in that he is so important and necessary for the continued functioning of Europa that only a madman would think about overthrowing him. Unfortunately, this being Girl Genius, there are powerful madmen (a.k.a. Sparks) everywhere, which is why there is nearly always a rebellion somewhere. Further illustrated in that, as soon as he is hospitalized (and possibly killed), the whole continent immediately erupts in chaos. And then he time-freezes himself inside Mechanicsburg, and everything goes even further to hell.
  • Victoria’s Secret Compartment: (Тайничок в декольте) The Other hides a miniature hive engine in her bosom, as it fits her personality — but not Agatha’s, providing a minor bit of hilarity.
  • Villain Has a Point: (Никто не верит злодею)
    • Othar is unquestionably one of the villains of the story, but he really isn’t wrong when he claims everything bad about the world can be blamed on the Sparks. Just about every other Spark we’ve seen has been a homicidal lunatic, and it’s open fact that all of the monsters and chaos in the setting are Spark experiments that have either Gone Horribly Wrong or Gone Horribly Right. Treating humans as experiment components (or targets) is as natural to a Spark as breathing. Even our heroes have been shown having Skewed Priorities at best.
    • After the time skip, the conspiracy to re-institute the throne of the Storm King are entirely correct that the continent needs a single strong leader to keep the sparks under control, and that their group is by far the closest to having one in place. Their plan of using a political marriage to bring the new heterodyne under control also legitimately gives Agatha what she wants (the ability to protect those under her promised protection and the autonomy to largely do her own thing). How reasonable the compromise is has reached the point where Agatha’s only real objection is to the specific candidate being put forward as the new King (she’d prefer it to be the member of the family that she already likes), and the coordinators of the conspiracy actually seem inclined to bend to that request as well in the interest of stability. If they weren’t also willing to compromise with the Other for similar reasons, they would verge on being an unambiguously 'good' faction.
  • Villainous Valor: Whatever Tweedle’s other faults, he’s no coward. Ditto Zola.
  • Visible Silence: Appears often, but then four times in a row.
  • Volleying Insults: Gil and Tarvek, during their brawls and in the Cinderella story.

W

  • Warrior Princess: Not only is Zeetha a warrior princess, she doesn’t seem to be aware there’s any other kinds of princess.
  • Was Just Leaving: Invoked by Krosp I, Emperor of all Cats, when he tries to direct Wolkerstorfer’s mid-evil monologue Derailed Train of Thought by suggesting that he was just leaving. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
«

Wolkerstorfer: […] Say, don’t you hate it when you’re in the middle of something, and then you completely forget what you’re doing? Krosp: Um… You were just leaving?

»
  • Wasn’t That Fun?: Occurs after Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek try revivification.
  • Way Past the Expiration Date: Gil tries to mix up a cure for Tarvek in Castle Heterodyne, but quickly realizes that everything stored there is nearly twenty years old, thus expired, requiring a more drastic action to save him.
  • Weapon Tombstone: Agatha Clay’s grave has the remnants of a warbot, a tree, and a pile of rocks with a death ray stuck in it.
  • Weasel Mascot: (Хитрый хорёк) The Wulfenbach Bug Squad (a.k.a. the Vespiary Squad) of course! Apart from their uniform’s slaver-wasp skull, this is their main hat. Their charges are all modified weasels, without which the Squad could not do their job as wasp detectors and exterminators. Although they have eight legs, they are still, very much, weasels of some description (however big they get). And, they are sooo cute (for a given definition of cute).
  • Webcomic Time:
    • Tarvek was critically ill and about to die for just short of 15 months. The general concept is lampshaded once. And again: «It only seem like deyz been in de kestle a long time!»
    • Agatha first went into the Castle on Dec 26, 2007. She left the Castle on Nov 02, 2011. Three years, ten months, eight days, and approximately 602 comics. Maybe one day, in universe. The ringing of the Doom Bell, which starts immediately after Agatha leaves, takes about three weeks.
    • This leads to interesting situations such as Higgs and Zeetha falling in love over what should be a single day.
    • After reaching Paris, Zeetha notes that she’s «only» been training Agatha for six months (as an excuse for why the people Agatha hits can get back up). Real-world time the training started ten years before that scene.
    • Also riffed on after Krosp returns to the story after a three-year hiatus. He says «It’s been what, three years?» and Agatha says it’s been «less than three weeks» since they last saw each other.
    • When watching a Heterodyne play in London, Agatha gets teary about the death of Lars, which happened nearly fourteen years before in real time — but as she points out, while it’s been years for some of the other characters, for her it literally was last month.
  • Weird Science: Rules the Earth. Badly.
  • We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Defied by Othar, and immediately subverted by Klaus (who wishes he could invert it).
  • We Need a Distraction: Gil and Tarvek help, in a fight scene incorporating many battle tropes.
  • What Are You in For?:
    • When our heroes come across Mr. Foglio in the dungeons of Prince Aaronev:
«

Maxim: Vot hyu in for? Foglio: Bad storytelling. Maxim: Ho! How hyu do dot? Foglio: You put the Prince in the story.

»
  • Sanaa asks Agatha this when she first enters the castle.
  • What Does She See in Him?: (И что она в нём нашла?) Gilgamesh and Tarvek, towards Agatha regarding each other.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Gil plays it to the hilt when somebody mistakes him for Trelawney’s new sidekick.
«

Trelawney Thorpe: [facepalming] Never, ever talk like that again.

»
  • What Would X Do?: Agatha improvises a speech to the Jägers by simply asking herself what Zeetha would like.
  • When I Was Your Age…: Zeetha says this after a day of rough training for Agatha.
  • Who Dares?:
    • Bang encounters Tarvek and is overjoyed to see Prince «How Dare You!» again, having apparently been on the receiving end of this trope in Paris. What Tarvek was receiving to make him deliver the line we can only guess.
    • The Dragon of Mars delivers the trope straight.
  • Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In this strip Dupree lampshades that, if someone writes their story down, they will not name it after Gil.
«

Dupree: You’re surprised? She’s outsmarted us before, right? I mean, if they write this down, they ain’t gonna be calling it «Boy Genius.»

»
  • Willing Channeler:
    • Though the level of willingness is debateable, a Seneschal of Mechanicsburg still has to willfully sit in the Throne of Faustus Heterodyne to interface with the Castle Heterodyne so the Genius Loci can speak through them. It is not a pleasant experience, since it requires pre-drilled holes in their skull and a rather gruesome cranial impalement of electrodes. But, when there’s no other option to interface, the Throne of Faustus it is.
    • His Serenity, a haughty deepdweller high priest, acts as the Deepspeaker for the Great Cetacean Ahnkokanth to any who are not Deepdwellers.
  • World of Badass: Show us a character who’s not badass, and within a couple of strips they’ll either turn out to be badass or they’ll be dead. In a world ruled by mad scientists, even the minions and staff have to be pretty tough to avoid getting killed.
  • World of Buxom: Just about every post-puberty female character, notably Agatha, Zeetha, the Geisterdamen and Mama Gkika. The Muses and Clank Anevka have pretty darned voluptuous figures, too. The few exceptions are Rivet, WrenchWench for Master Payne’s Circus; Daiyu, doctor Sun’s daughter (who would be decent-sized in any other work); Grantz, the immensely strong monster hunter (who falls firmly into the Bifauxnen slot); and Miss Baumhund, the lanky grad student (who has only appeared in that one strip — so far), who seems a bit out of place when compared to other female characters. Lieutenant Krishnamurti and Xersephnia, Martellus' sister, are somewhat below average too.
  • World of Ham: Naturally. The Spark package comes with a side order of ham.
  • Worrying for the Wrong Reason: The scary part about being trapped in a room full of broken machinery within an insane castle is not that the castle will kill you if you’re unable to fix it, but that Gil’s interest has been piqued.
  • Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Gil, after falling victim to the Exploding Closet.
«

Gil: That’s the worst filing system I’ve ever seen.

»
  • Worth It:
    • This is Agatha’s attitude in the Cinderella play to being grounded. Of course, she was grounded after tricking Mamma Gkika’s «Wicked Stepmother» into putting her fist through a hive of specially-bred quilting bees.
    • And in a more serious tone, Klaus’s attitude to the pain he suffered getting to the window and back. Not only that, Klaus actually said that if the experience paralyzed him for the rest of his life, it would still be worth it after seeing his son pull off that moment of awesome.
    • Upon Gil meeting one of his personal heroes, Trewlaney Thorpe:
«

Gil: [whispering, irritated] Why am I naked in front of one of my heroes? Tarvek: It was DuPree’s idea. Gil: I will give you to her. Tarvek: Worth it!

»
  • Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Sergeant Nak’s advice:
«

Nak: Do not hit the crowd, or I’ll eat your ears!

»
  • Wound Licking: Maxim licks his hand after it gets impaled by Old Man Death.
  • Wrench Whack: And, naturally, they’re used as melee weapons quite often.
    • Agatha, against Moloch, Vole, and Prof. Tiktoffen.
    • Gil, against Othar.
    • In the flashback, Airman Higgs is shown Dual Wielding two wrenches.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: (Рестлинг) When Othar is being typically obstinate after being extracted from Time-frozen Mechanicsburg, Gil sits on him and gets a leg hold on him.
  • Written Sound Effect: Frequently, and often quite creative.

X

  • X Days Since:
    • There’s a sign counting the days without a major explosion on Castle Wulfenbach.
    • There’s one counting the days since the last hideous death. Considering the Castle’s nature, this may be a way of keeping score. (Although, the sign might not be accurate any more, since the guy whose job it was to update it died a hideous death.)
  • X-Ray Vision: The vision-augmentation helmet Agatha and Jiminez put together has «x-ray vision» as one of its many settings. It is one of the settings which make Jiminez able to see the mechanisms of a very fancy vault door which makes him and Aldin able to open it. The first time Jiminez switches through the different modes, he accidentally switches to X-Ray at the moment he… «looks» at fellow lady-adventurer Larana.


Y

  • Yank the Dog’s Chain: (Приманить собаку) After all the hell Agatha’s gone through over the past couple months, being kidnapped multiple times, seeing her surrogate parents and several of her friends killed, nearly dying herself more than once, having several factions attempt to use her as a pawn in their power games, she has finally fully repaired her castle, been officially recognized as the Heterodyne by both the castle and the people of Mechanicsburg, she has the loyalty of the Jägers, and she has defeated all the armies attacking her town. It seems she can allow herself to take a breath and begin the process of settling in to her new position. Then Martellus kidnaps her AGAIN and spirits her away just as Klaus envelops the town in a time-stopping bubble.
  • You Can See Me?: During a mid-adventure tea break with Zeetha, Bangladesh DuPree can’t see the hidden Smoke Knight Violetta, but she sure can tell she’s here, on the seemingly empty chair.
«

Bang: That’s really amazing — but whatever it is you’re doing, knock it off. Violetta: Whoa. You could see me? Bang: No. And it was giving me a headache.

»
  • «You!» Exclamation: Klaus' reaction to Zeetha.
  • You Fight Like a Cow: «You fight like ducks!»
  • You Killed My Father: The reason why Agatha is not too keen on accepting Von Pinn’s help.
  • You Meddling Kids: Du Quay would make any Scooby-Doo Villain of the Week proud.
«

Du Quay: —And I would have GOT away with it, too, if I hadn’t been for—

»
  • You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Parodied with a genuine ghost ship on display in a museum, which has cardboard skeleton holding a sign that says «YOU HAVE TO BE THIS DEAD TO BOARD THE GHOST SHIP.»
  • Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
    • Gil’s expression says it all.
    • The castle would prefer Agatha use an alternative word to good to praise its actions.
    • «Delightfully done, my lady. Your enemy is thoroughly crushed. You are a true Heterodyne.»
    • A variant when Klaus asks Bangladesh DuPree if she isn’t worried he’s actually The Other, as accused.
«

Bang: You’re always telling me "Oh DuPree, don’t torture people, " or "Don’t burn any towns, " or whatever. And if you were the Other, I’d be a revenant, and I’d have to obey you. Even if a town really needed burning, y’know? But I can still act on my better judgment, so I know everything’s okay! Klaus: And here I was foolishly hoping for an argument that would reassure the troops.

»
  • Your Favorite: Wooster knows how Gil likes his tea.
  • Your Mom: «Ah-go kees an hoctopus. Oh vait, hyu mama already deed!»
  • Young Love Versus Old Hate: Our heroes are trying to break the cycle of destruction.
  • You Will Be Spared: Agatha hamming the other sparks to submission. Also, Third Hugo acceptance speech.
  • You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry!: Klaus Wulfenbach’s official domestic policy is «Don’t make me come over there».

Z

  • Zombify the Living: Andronicus Valois a.k.a. the Storm King (himself already undead) uses his mace, the Platonic Solid, to fire a blast of energy at a group of knights, ripping the flesh off their bodies. Next page, the now skeletal knights are taking orders from him.

Мета

Ссылка: [6]

  • Creator’s Favorite: (Любимец автора) The Jaegers are apparently so loved by the authors that they keep involving them in the plot. Not that anyone’s complaining.
  • Demand Overload: The creators did it to themselves, and it takes a bit of explaining. Basically, it started off as a print comic. When the Foglios turned it into a webcomic, they had two different archives updating at the same time: the „101 archive“ where they digitized the original print run, and the „advanced class archive“, where they continued the story where the print run left off. In July 2007, the 101 archive caught up with the beginning of the advanced class archive. The volume of readers archive binging the advanced archive was enough to crash the comic’s server.
  • Mid-Development Genre Shift: As the website’s page for the „original“ Heterodyne Boys explained, Phil’s old idea for Girl Genius was a near-future setting instead of the neo-Victorian Gaslamp Fantasy that they actually went with.

Misc. trivia

  • Agatha is a Latin name, coming from a Greek word meaning „good“. However, the famous St. Agatha of Sicily was a third-century martyr, and her many patronages include…er…the bosom. Very apt, even if unintentional.
  • The Danish Army’s elite soldiers are called the Jaegers. And they speak English like that.
    • „Jaeger“ in Germanic/Norse languages generally means „hunter“. It’s historically been quite common for such nations to call select elite or light units „Jaeger“.
  • Dolokov’s name may or may not be a reference to the Manipulative Bastard and Karma Houdini of War and Peace.
  • The whole story is full of modified historical domain characters:
    • Master Payne is a real person, who has several personas and performs amusing magic tricks.
    • Van Rijn, master Spark, artisan, the creator of the Muses, though few nowadays know his full name, „Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn“.
    • The circus cook, when his calming pie works — magnificently — on Agatha, exclaims, „Take that, Brillat-Savarin!“ Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755—1826) was a famous French expert on high-quality eating, famous for advocating a high-protein, low-carb diet (thus likely to disapprove of pies in general). He’s also the origin of the saying, „You are what you eat.“
  • Othar Tryggvassen’s name comes from the 10th Century Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason.

Вкусовщина

Ссылка: [7]

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Let’s just say there are good reasons why the character pages are divided by „Protagonists“ and „Antagonists“ rather than „Heroes“ and „Villains“.
  • Arc Fatigue: (Затянутая сюжетная арка)
    • Severe, in the case of the Mechanicsburg arc. The „Castle Heterodyne“ storyline took five years to complete; in comic-time, only a day or two passed. In real-time, from the first page showing Mechanicsburg to the moment Tweedle drags Agatha (and Violetta and Krosp) through the cathedral portal just as Klaus’s „Take Five Bomb“ detonates is over six years.
    • A copy of Lucrezia was stuck in Agatha’s head since January 2006, and it took until November 2019 for Lucrezia to finally be removed from Agatha for good after thirteen years.
    • The 2020 Christmas story ended up taking two and a half months to complete, holding up the ongoing plot until mid February of the following year.
    • And in 2022 the Foglios topped that by interrupting the main plot with a side-story starring Franz the Mechanicsburg dragon, which lasted a whole year.
    • After the two and a half year time skip in-universe, Agatha’s quest to find a way to free Mechanicsburg from the time-stop that Klaus inflicted on it officially began in March 2014, and finally began to wrap up in 2024, a decade later in real life — and even then, various plot shenanigans meant that the freeing of Mechanisburg wouldn’t happen until 2025. It’s taken so long that Moloch, a character that will make it to (what is presumably) the final arc at minimum, had to be removed from the „main character“ page of this very wiki.
  • Archive Binge: Probably one of the most notable in webcomic history. Originally a print comic, when Girl Genius first became a webcomic it had two archives; one consisting of pages from the print comics, one consisting of the new pages produced after the website went online. When the version for people who started reading it online caught up with the version for people who’d read the print comics an awful lot of people read the newer half of the combined archive, the equivalent of four and a half books worth of pages, in one sitting. The website server went down for a long time.
  • Can’t Un-Hear It: The idea of BRIAN BLESSED!!!!! voicing Castle Heterodyne. Or Master Payne.
  • Catharsis Factor: After watching Clank Lucrezia once again boast non-stop about how glorious she is and how she’s going to ascend to queendom, then attempt her standard method of overwriting Dr. Monahan’s mind with her own, it is deeply satisfying to see her attempt fail due to Monahan (who was secretly working against her) having blocked her attempt, and then proceeding to kick her into a pool of deadly spark-goo while giving her a blistering „The Reason You Suck“ Speech. While Lu does (unfortunately) survive this, Monahan’s intervention threw a massive wrench in her plans.
  • Continuity Lock-Out: An odd example that is present from the very beginning of the comic. Several important aspects of the world and story (such as what are Sparks and Jägermonsters or what The Other is) aren’t given clear explanations, leaving the reader to figure out what they are based on dialogue (and the comic tends to Avert As You Know and The Watson).
    • At this point, the story is so long-running and so complicated that when a plot thread that was left hanging years ago gets picked up again, even longtime readers can get confused. Fans often advise each other to occasionally do a full reread to refresh their memory. A new reader who doesn’t read the whole story from the beginning has little hope of understanding much of anything.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: (Так грубо, что уже смешно) Bangladesh Dupree is an Ax-Crazy Dark Action Girl; Castle Heterodyne is A.I. Is a Crapshoot that’s Gone Horribly Right; Vole is something verging on Omnicidal Maniac. They’re all successfully Played for Laughs.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: At one point, a flipped-out Agatha directs a small army of Clanks, (including giant Transforming Mecha and Luggage) by playing a calliope. Behold.
  • Cry for the Devil:
    • Admit it, you did this when Tarvek explained what Anevka really was.
«

Tarvek: That was... harder than I'd thought.

»
  • Interestingly enough, this also applies to her distaff ancestor Andronicus … or what’s left of the man. He dies thinking he was reunited with his love.
«

Andronicus Valois: Euphrosynia?

»
  • Escapist Character:
    • Agatha Heterodyne is a beautiful, kind and brilliant mad scientist, is pursued by Europa’s royalty, commands an army of loyal minions, super-soldiers and monsters -one of them a dragon-, owns a sentient „haunted“ castle and lives extraordinary adventures across the continent. She is also Kaja Foglio’s avatar. (Though a more explicit copy of Kaja appears in the strip as well, at one point pretending to be Agatha…)
    • A side-story about In-Universe Heterodyne Boys fanfiction actually defends the role Mary Sues play in young girls' aspirational fantasies.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Very narrowly (by this comic’s standards) averted. In the novelization of the Sturmhalten arc, when Oggie runs into his great-great-grandson and pesters him about great-great-great-grandchildren., a footnote states that, due to Ognian’s constant interference, his family line has all but died out. Many real-life years later, this little joke becomes incredibly upsetting when the comic reveals why it’s so important to him: his descendants keep him connected to the world and his humanity, because they remind him of his long-gone but much-loved wife. Seven months later, A Mechanicsburg Solstice Story shows Ognian’s family is anything but endangered, and has already produced a whole batch of great-great-great-grandkids. It becomes clear that Ognian was talking about the Storyteller’s personal family branch. Given the real-life Phil has kids, that line ends up fine as well.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Gil and Tarvek, during the disease arc. Semi-naked, snarky, and walking arm-around-arm? Oh yes.
    • This looks suspiciously much like an Almost Kiss, and if it isn’t, it’s still slashy as hell.
    • When Tarvek realizes that Gil was kidnapped by the Baron, he tries to rationalize the importance of keeping him before he just admits to himself and Agatha that they could’ve kept him safe with a look of utmost worry and concern.
    • After Gil goes through a whole lot of trouble to rescue Tarvek from the time stop he hangs out and chats with Tarvek while Tarvek is bathing and then carries him in a Bridal Carry to a bed when everything finally catches up to ** Tarvek and he passes out dead asleep.
    • After the Library captures Tarvek shortly after Gil frees him, Gil is very determined to steal him back. Tarvek seems a little surprised by his vehemence.
    • When he saves Tarvek yet again, he peacefully doses off next to him. In his current state he often spends up to a week without sleep, being constantly winded up, and Tarvek is the only prson besides Agatha whose presence can finally put him at ease.
    • Tarvek makes a jibe at Gil saying «On our honeymoon I’ll be sure to tell her you said so» clearly meaning his honeymoon with Agatha. Gil quickly turns it around as though Tarvek meant his honeymoon with Gil, which Violetta calls out as flirting.
    • The Foglios have thrown fans another bone. Nobody expects Othar/Gil!
    • Gil also gets some hurt/comfort flavored Ho Yay with Maghiar here.
    • There’s always been a fair bit of Les Yay between Agatha and Zeetha, but the one-off strip has some fans seeing Agatha/Kaja.
    • Though Played for Laughs, Colette Voltaire apparently flirts with Agatha at one point, just to later invite her over to her Chateau to stay.
    • Later, Agatha mentions Colette in the same breath as Gil and Tarvek, when she says there’s things she can only talk to with other Sparks. And she’s stammering when she says it.
  • I Knew It!: In general, fans reward each other for correct predictions with «Moxana points» (much like winning Internets).
  • Iron Woobie: Tinka. Yes, yes, it’s also a pun: but she struggled with her 'disability' desperately to help Agatha reunite with her last (known) surviving sister. Then she was destroyed offhandedly, and her parts presumably packed up in a closet for Tarvek to try to reassemble when he got back…which he never has.
  • Like You Would Really Do It:
    • Klaus Wulfenbach, apparently killed in a random attack on the hospital, and his body hadn’t been found. Nobody, least of all the characters, believed that he was dead. When he turned up alive, Gil, Tarvek and the fanbase immediately said «I knew it!» in unison.
    • Similarly, pretty much no one bought that Violetta was murdered off-panel.
  • Magnificent Bastard: (Великолепный мерзавец)
    • «Fairy Tale Theater Break: Cinderella»: Sleeping Beauty Snow White Rapunzel Ozma Rose Red Riding Hood Rumplestiltskin whom everyone called «Cinderella» is reimagined here as a brilliant Mad Scientist. When the kingdoms’ twin princes create a science fair, Cinderella’s cruel stepmother steals her inventions for the ugly stepsisters to use and grounds her. Initially content to miss the fair, Cinderella decides to go after her Fairy Godmother tells her that the winner will marry one of the princes. Showing her brilliance by fixing the Godmother’s wand in order to set up a grand entrance to the fair, charming the princes and exposing the stepsisters’ lies. When the princes reveal that their kingdom has no real defences, Cinderella reveals that she had actually sent a lifelike clank to the fair and reveals her «science fair project» to be an army of battle clanks she uses to conquer the kingdom, bribing the king into not objecting.
    • «Homecoming King», by Cheyenne Wright:
      • The Ht’Rok’Din is the first Heterodyne, famed and feared for his status as a brutal conqueror and a brilliant inventor. Summoned from the past, the Ht’Rok’Din attacks several students before learning that he is in a school owned by his descendant. He collects a number of devices, including one he famously used to teleport his army behind enemy lines in the past, to build a machine. When the machine is finished, he declares that he will conquer time itself, before sending himself back to his normal time to sire a son and begin the mighty Heterodyne family.
      • Professor Bosewichte is a brilliant and proudly evil teacher at Transylvania Polygnostic University. When the Ht’Rok’Din is summoned by a pair of students, Bosewichte ambushes and ties them up and aids the Ht’Rok’Din in building his machine. Bosewichte attacks the students when they try to stop the machine and when the Ht’Rok’Din sends himself back in time, he explains that he was ordered by Lady Heterodyne to ensure that the Ht’Rok’Din is returned safely.
  • Memetic Badass: (Такой крутой, что уже смешно)
    • Klaus Wulfenbach and Old Man Death have earned the status a few times over. And Axel «The Unstoppable» Higgs.
    • Notably, Klaus Wulfenbach appears to have this status in-universe. When he threatens to kill someone while immobilized in a hospital bed with only the power of his mind, even people who’ve worked closely with him are only mostly sure he can’t do that.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Moxana points. The imaginary «points» you get from correctly guessing where the comic’s storyline will go, basically like «brownie points.» They’re named after Moxana, Muse of Mystery, and the term originated on Yahoo! Groups.
    • Sneaky Gate. A gate the Jägers used to covertly get into Mechanicsburg, first mentioned in Vol. VII of the comic. It’s also the fan euphemism for a way to access new strips before they’re actually posted (by changing the YYYYMMDD codes on the .JPG files of pages instead of on the actual main comic webpages on the site).
  • Never Live It Down: Tarvek’s… «adorning» of Lucrezia-controlled Agatha. Even Gil heard about it. He still does it in his head sometimes, so he has only himself to blame for it.
  • One True Threesome: Agatha/Gil/Tarvek. Initially, both of the gentlemen are eager to reduce it to a One True Pairing, but agree to tolerate each other’s presence due to dangers of Castle Heterodyne. By the end of the Mechanicsburg arc, there are signs that Gil and Tarvek are coming to accept that they’re both important to Agatha. And then there’s this page, which has Tarvek expressing very genuine fear and regret over Gil, and Agatha consoling him. The Cinderella side-story indicates that the authors are at least okay with a «keep them both» scenario. It’s been suggested as a possibility in the story, too.
  • Romantic Plot Tumor: (Опухание романтики) Hoffmann and Larana’s endless sitcom-level miscommunications during the Paris plot-arc.
  • Shocking Moments: The Castle Heterodyne arc just kept escalating further and further to the Big Finish. To put it in perspective, the immediately following sequence, despite involving time travel, a twisted future resulting from Agatha’s absence, and Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, was a relative relief by comparison.
  • Signature Series Arc: The Mechanicsburg Arc, wherein Agatha struggles to reclaim her heritage and then fights to drive a horde of mad scientists and an empire out of it, introduces the most iconic location in the series and is the best remembered storyline.
  • Squick:
    • Lucrezia’s behavior towards Tarvek in Sturmhalten is very disturbing. She deliberately stays half-dressed and keeps making obviously sexual remarks, while wearing the body of her own daughter. Once she realizes that he’s uncomfortable with this, she purposely teases him. The whole thing is made even more disturbing by how Lucrezia keeps comparing him to his father (who was obsessively in love with her to the point he tried to download a copy of her mind into his own daughter) and to Klaus (her former lover). It’s even suggested that she actually planned on bedding him in Agatha’s body, taking additional glee from the fact that he was in love with her daughter and still hoped to save her. Oh, and apparently Lucrezia was the one, who designed Tarvek as her ideal Storm King candidate, possibly planning to marry him later in Agatha’s body.
    • Likewise, her suggestion to Klaus at the Corbettite base: steal their kids' bodies permanently and work together again, relationship implied. Thankfully Klaus will have none of it.


Мета

  • Abandon Shipping — fandom had a variant, in that shippers didn’t ditch a pairing due to one of the characters doing something unconscionable, but simply because a better one showed up. When Tarvek and Bangladesh interacted, Bang’s schoolgirl glee at seeing Tarvek again earned the pairing a lot of fans. Two days later, Bang met Vole, and everyone immediately jumped to that ship. To quote one of the posters on our own forums: «I support this ship. I support this ship so much it will not displace water. I support this ship so much it will be a skyship.»
  • Affectionate Parody (Ласковая пародия) Girl Genius parodies pulp 1940s serials, old-school Science Fiction, Victorian-era Steampunk in the vein of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, Fairy Tales, and every Mad Scientist trope in the book (the main characters all suffer from a trait which causes both madness and scientific genius… and by «suffer», we mean they enjoy every minute of it).
Источник — https://wikitropes.ru/w/index.php?title=Участник:Novilit/Девушка-Гений/Вторая_очередь&oldid=419397