History Characters / DollangangerSeries

* {{Hypocrite}}: He hates Chris and Cathy (especially Chris) for their incestuous union. Calling it sinful... but then has an affair with his brother's wife and tries to justify it. It gets even more egregious when he [[SlutShaming Slut Shames]] Cindy.

* LightIsNotGood: The film adaptations tend to put her in white clothes or pastels to emphasise the contrast between how she presents herself and her evil actions.

* WomenAreWiser: She has the suspicion that something's going on almost as soon as she and her siblings are taken to the attic, is the first to lose faith in Corrine and recognize when Corrine is being manipulative, and Cathy's the one who makes the suggestion to just run away. Chris, on the other hand, is a part of the reason why they stay in the attic as long as they do, in part because he still has some faith in Corrine.

* {{Doppelgänger}}: Cathy declares them to be this the moment they're born. As they grow, they continue to bear an extremely strong resemblance, both physically and personality-wise , to their long-deceased great-uncle and great-aunt Cory and Carrie, causing Cathy to constantly slip up and call them by the latter pairs names.

* {{Catchphrase}}: Exclaimed "Golly-lolly day" or "Golly day" when she's a child in ''Flowers''. This is dropped in later books, though it gets a CallBack in ''Petals''.

* NoodleIncident: When Paul sought advice from Julia's mother as to why she was so afraid of sex, her mother mentions "A cousin of hers who'd done something to her when she was four". It's never specified what this was, and her mother never gives more details than that, but as Paul puts it, "it ruined sex forever for my wife."

* ParalyzingFearOfSexuality: She has this thanks to whatever happened to her as a child, to the point of screaming when Paul tries to undress her on their wedding night.

--> '''Actors:''' Victoria Tennant (1987 ''Flowers in the Attic'' film), Creator/HeatherGraham (2014-2015 TV films of ''Flowers in the Attic'', ''Petals on the Wind'', and ''If There Be Thorns'')

-->'''Cathy:''' Do you call her Mrs. Foxworth?
-->'''Bart:''' Olivia, that's what I call her!

* HemoErotic: Given what we know about Malcolm, it's safe to say he's more of a misogynistic sadist than a kinkster:

-->'''Chris:''' Damn him to hell! How many times has he vented his rage on you? How many black eyes--I've seen one--but how many others?
-->'''Cathy:''' Please don't. He never hit me that he didn't cry afterward, and he'd say he was sorry.

-->'''Corrine''': But remember always you were blessed to have for almost twelve years a father who thought you were something very special.
-->'''Cathy''': Because I look like you.
-->'''Corrine''': I'm going to tell you something now, Cathy, that I've never told you before. You look very much as I did at your age, but you are not like me in your personality. You are much more aggressive and much more determined. Your father used to say that you were like his mother, and he loved his mother.

-->'''Madam Marisha:''' You married a man almost dead. Was it a guilty conscience?
-->'''Cathy:''' I don't know. I used to think it was because I loved him and I owed him. I had a thousand reasons for marrying him, the most important being he wanted me, and that was enough.

* RedOniBlueOni: Cathy is the Red Oni and Chris is the Blue Oni. Chris is stable to the point of complacency, while Cathy is mercurial to the point of reckless. They're also a CynicIdealistDuo with cynical Cathy and idealistic Chris. We mostly hear the story from Cathy's POV, and she often thinks Chris is a "prisoner of hope," but she also loves him for this and depends on him as her counterbalance.

* RedOniBlueOni: Cathy is the Red Oni and Chris is the Blue Oni. Chris is the stable to the point of complacency, while Cathy is mercurial to the point of reckless. They're also a CynicIdealistDuo with cynical Cathy and idealistic Chris. We mostly hear the story from Cathy's POV, and she often thinks Chris is a "prisoner of hope," but she also loves him for this and depends on him as her counterbalance.
** TheIdealist[=/=]HopeSpringsEternal: In the attic, Chris holds out hope that their mother will come through long after the evidence stops pointing that way. Even after they escape, he is always inclined to give their mother the benefit of the doubt and believe the best of her. He carries a flame for Cathy for 15 years, all the while believing they are endgame. When Bart insists YoureNotMyFather and spurns him at every turn, Chris loves Bart as his own son and holds out hope they'll repair their relationship someday. In ''Flowers'', Chris says the following, which makes it seem like this is less his ''worldview'' than it is his ''coping mechanism'':
--->'''Chris:''' Sure I've got doubts and suspicions hidden away in me, but I smile and I laugh, and make myself believe because I want to survive.

* TheUnFavorite: Of his mother. She really did love him... but she also really did favor his siblings.

* RedOniBlueOni: Cathy is the Red Oni and Chris is the Blue Oni. Chris is stable to the point of complacency, while Cathy is mercurial to the point of reckless. Chris is TheIdealist and Cathy is TheCynic. We mostly hear the story from Cathy's POV, and she often thinks Chris is a "prisoner of hope," but she also loves him for this and depends on him as her counterbalance.

* RedOniBlueOni: Cathy is the Red Oni and Chris is the Blue Oni. Chris is the stable to the point of complacency, while Cathy is mercurial to the point of reckless. Chris is TheIdealist and Cathy is TheCynic. We mostly hear the story from Cathy's POV, and she often thinks Chris is a "prisoner of hope," but she also loves him for this and depends on him as her counterbalance.

* AmbiguousDisorder: While there's never a named diagnosis given, Bart is canonically said to have some serious mental health troubles. This is shown to be debilitating, both for him personally and for his family. His parents and brother love him and want to help, but don't really know how.

* ItsAllAboutMe / NeverMyFault: He demands to be the center of Cathy and Corinne's universes but the instant they don't love Bart precisely the way he wants he makes everyone around him miserable. He has an AmbiguousDisorder? Well, it's Chris's fault for being intimate with his sister. Doesn't matter if Bart had these problems long before he found out Chris and Cathy were siblings. Something doesn't go his way, then Bart has a screaming fit at the age of twenty-five. Cindy calls Bart out on his {{Jerkass}} behavior towards her? Well, it's her fault she was adopted. The rest of the family calls him out on his behavior? It's always someone else fault, never because of his own choices.

* HeManWomanHater: Combined with a highly obvious OedipusComplex; he adored his mother but as a result of her abandonment of him, he hates beautiful women. This doesn't even stop when he's married, as he tries to rape his beautiful stepmother, Alicia.

* OedipusComplex: Hating a parent and having incestuous subtext with a parent are both common threads running throughout these books. But not until Bart are they combined in a single character to form an entirely classic example of this trope. Bart ''deeply'' resents his stepfather Chris, though treats him as his father as far as this trope is concerned. He intermittently adores and wants to impress his mother, sometimes skirting into incestuous territory.

* OedipusComplex: GenderInvertedTrope. Cathy very much wants to supplant her mother--her power over men, and her poise. Cathy also wants to steal her mother's husband as a way of getting back at her. The husband in question is not Cathy's father, it's Corrine's second husband Bart. That said, Cathy ''did'' have IncestSubtext with her late father, and if he were still be alive at this point it's not out of the question that she might've tried to steal him too.

* CareerEndingInjury: In ''Petals'', Cathy never quite addresses why she ends her dance career. In ''Thorns'', Chris says very explicitly that it's her knee. This points to Cathy as an unreliable narrator, avoiding talking about a particularly emotional issue.

* FemmeFatale
* GenerationXerox: This is actually a major theme of the books, and explored in depth. At the center of her character is Cathy's desire to be like her mother, conflicting with her fear of being like her mother.

* NotSoSimilar: Cathy is a lot like her mother Corrine--she is TheIngenue, and then TheTease, and occasionally the FemmeFatale. Ultimately though, the key difference between them is that Cathy is proactive and driven, with an iron will. Corrine never gets a job, even after her husband dies. Cathy spends years pursuing a career as a professional ballet dancer, which is, for the most part, portrayed as very grueling. While Corrine was spoiled (and emotionally abused) as a child, Cathy was abused far ''differently'', lighting a fire under her ass, making her determined as all hell, and left knowing that she can only rely on herself in the end.
* OedipusComplex: DownplayedTrope and GenderInvertedTrope. Cathy very much wants to supplant her mother--her power over men, and her poise. She also wants to steal her mother's husband--who is not, by this point, Cathy's father. (Although Cathy ''did'' adore her father, and feel jealous that--in his eyes--she came second after her mother. If he'd still been alive by this point, it totally could've gone that way.)

** IncestSubtext: To the point where it's basically text.
* NeverMyFault: There's an incident in the attic where Cathy, having entered puberty, strips down to see her body for herself. And then Chris admires her as well. When Cathy reaches for her dress, Chris tells her not to, and by the time they're aware that Olivia's coming, Cathy doesn't have enough time to put her dress on. Olivia catches them, goes to get scissors to cut Cathy's hair... and then Chris asks Cathy why she was stripped down as though ''he'' wasn't the one who prevented her from dressing sooner.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: TwoFold in the 2014 film:

* JerkassHasAPoint: While hitting Christopher and threatening to whip him was completely uncalled for, she is rightfully angry with Christopher for not returning to the attic after allowing them to hide and watch the Christmas party for a while, and instead exploring the house where he could easily be caught.

--->'''Corrine:''' For heaven's sake, Cathy, names can be changed legally. And the name Dollanganger does belong to us, more or less. Your father borrowed that name from way back in his ancestry. He thought it an amusing name, a joke, and it served its purpose well enough.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Madame Naverena Zolta Korovenskov

* IllGirl: After the attic, she is forever dainty from the arsenic poisoning. Not only that, she is miles behind her peers in weight and height, not getting much taller than four and a half feet when she's an adult.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Early in the 2014 film, Corrine tries to pass off a store-bought apple pie for her husband as one she cooked herself, before Cathy reveals she forgot to take off the bakery label. This cleverly foreshadows how she is not as truthful or dedicated to her family's well-being as she seems. Also, that she's cunning but not all that smart.

** He turns this UpToEleven, denying Cindy as his sister (AdoptionDiss), and sometimes Jory as his brother too (HalfSiblingAngst).

* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler:While she was told that Chris Sr. was her half-uncle, which was true, he was also her half-''brother''. Neither of them ever knew this.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: While hitting Christopher and threatening to whip him was completely uncalled for, she is rightfully angry with Christopher for not returning to the attic after allowing them to hide and watch the Christmas party for a while and instead exploring the house where he could easily be caught.

* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler:His relationship with Corinne. He is her half-uncle, as he and her father have the same father; but they are also half-siblings, as they have the same mother. Neither one ever learns this.]]

* ParentalFavoritism: ''Garden of Shadows'' implies that Mal was his mother's favorite.

* PetTheDog: In a ''very'' rare show of kindness, in ''Flowers'' Olivia gives the children real flowers after she learns that they're turning the attic into a playground.
* MissingMom: ''Garden of Shadows'' reveals that her mother died when she was a little girl.

* UsedToBeASweetKid: ''Garden of Shadows'' reveals that she was more or less a young woman in her mid-20s wanting to marry a handsome young man. Years of being married to Malcolm eventually turned her into a cynical religious zealot.

* LoveWillLeadYouBack: Chris--the eternal optimist--spends the duration of ''Petals'' (about 15 years) holding out hope that him and Cathy were endgame. Around the age of 40, he tries to explain it to his son, saying:

* [[spoiler:AngstySurvivingTwin: Carrie was never the same after Cory died]].

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Early in the 2014 film, Corrine tries to pass off a store bought apple pie for her husband as one she cooked herself, before Cathy reveals she forgot to take off the bakery label. This cleverly foreshadows how she is not as truthful or dedicated to her family's well-being as she seems. Also, that she's cunning but not all that smart.

* {{Flanderization}}: Also doubles as FaceHeelTurn. Corrine still has some traits of vanity and materialism at the start of the story, but is still a decent person and a loving mother to her children who only imprisons them in the attic because her mother has forced her to. However, once Corrine is reintroduced to high society, her selfish traits grow stronger while her redeeming qualities weaken, to the point where she is perfectly willing to poison her children as she cannot part with her money.

* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler: Succeeds in poisoning Cory, and fails at doing the same to the rest of her children]].
* PlayingTheVictimCard: Cathy thinks she and her siblings are suffering in the attic? Well, whatever they've suffered, Corrine's suffered worse! She's had to suck up to her father and [[FauxHorrific she get's to come and go as she pleases]]! Such a cross to bear...
* SpoiledBrat: Corrine was spoiled heavily by her father and later her husband, to the point where she was constantly depending on a man. She didn't even try to get a career when her first husband dies even though she has four children to care for.

* BrotherSisterIncest: His relationship with Corinne. They are a half-uncle and a niece, but also half-brother and sister; which they do not know of.

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Malcolm was 28 when his father Garland (55) married Alicia (16). Garland and Alicia's son--Malcolm's half-brother--was born the following year, making him younger than Malcolm's older 2 children, and oldest than his youngest child.

* UsedToBeASweetKid: Garden of Shadows reveals that she was more or less a young woman in her mid-20s wanting to marry a handsome young man. Years of being married to Malcolm eventually turned her into a cynical religious zealot.

-->'''Malcolm's journal:''' I took pleasure in beating them, putting red welts on their fair unbroken skins I saw blood, their blood, and it made me excited.

* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Malcolm was 28 when his father Garland (55) married Alicia (16). Garland and Alicia's son--Malcolm's half-brother--was born the following year, making him younger than Malcolm's older 2 children, and oldest than his youngest.

* MayDecemberRomance: She married her husband Garland when she was 16 and him 55.

* TheCorrupter: He ultimately does this to Bart; imploring Malcolm's view of women onto him.

* MamasBoy: His is Corrine's favorite child. He adores his mother and puts her on a pedestal. Even when she fails them in every imaginable way, he still half-forgives her.

* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler: Succeeds in poisoning Cory, and fails at doing the same to the rest of her children.]]