History Literature / HerculePoirot

* FunnyForeigner: a deliberate front, as pointed out in ''Three-Act Tragedy''.
* GambitRoulette / GambitPileup: ''The Big Four'', where most of the plans (on both sides) counted on their victims seeing through one layer of deception but not one another. Achille Poirot's role also counts.

* DeathInTheClouds: the 1935 novel of that title is the {{Trope Namer|s}}.

Fastidiously neat, we'd today diagnose him with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive–compulsive_disorder OCPD.]]

* MyBelovedSmother: Mrs. Boynton in ''Appointment With Death'' is a nigh-perfect example, bleeding over into EvilMatriarch.

[[caption-width-right:300:''[[GratuitousFrench Bon soir, mon ami]]''.]]

->[[caption-width-right:300:''[[GratuitousFrench Bon soir, mon ami]]''.]]

* RaisedCatholic[=/=]ChristianityIsCatholic: WordOfGod states that Poirot's religion is Roman Catholicism, which is a part of Christianity. He has some morality based on that part of Christianity, since he is Roman Catholic by birth.

* MasterOfDisguise: In ''The Big Four'', one of the Four is a MasterOfDisguise.

* YouJustToldMe:
-->'''Poirot''' (confronting the killer): We found your finger prints on the bottle.
-->'''Murderer''': You lie! I wore... (trails off, realizing what he just said)

*** And on a related note, in the obituary on the August 6, 1975 edition of ''The New York Times'', Poirot misquotes Shakespeare in the play ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', whose actual line is spoken by Prince Malcolm to his father Duncan regarding the execution of the thane of Cawdor [[spoiler:(and the same line holds true of the great Belgian detective)]]: "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it" (I, iv).
* SocietyMarchesOn: In "The Capture Of Cerberus", what draws Poirot's attention to the villain is that [[spoiler: she wears unflattering clothes, in particular, a skirt with ''pockets''. To Poirot, this is unimaginable, because surely no woman would ever care so little about her own appearance as to wear pockets.]] Nowadays, it'd be hard to find anyone who'd agree.
* StarbucksSkinScale: In "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", there is a young man from an unnamed Eastern country who has a "coffee-coloured face".

Many different actors have played Poirot on screen. Peter Ustinov gained some fame for his many appearances as the character in the 1970s and 1980s, Albert Finney was nominated for an Oscar for playing him in 1974, but nowadays the definitive portrayal is believed to be David Suchet's ''Series/{{Poirot}}'' (though ironically, he first played Inspector Japp in the 1985 adaptation of ''LordEdgwareDies'' before taking the role of Poirot).

* TheButlerDidIt: subverted.

Originally a Belgian police detective, he became a refugee when the WorldWarI broke out and ended up in the tiny English village of Styles St. Mary. Naturally, while he was there, someone was murdered. It was, Poirot later admitted, quite a common occurrence around him. Solving ''The Mysterious Affair at Styles'' revitalized him, however, and he embarked on a career as a private detective.

* DeathInTheClouds: the 1935 novel of that title is the TropeNamer.

* BadassMoustache: Agatha Christie liked the 1974 adaptation of MurderOnTheOrientExpress, and had but a single complaint: Albert Finney's mustache wasn't magnificent enough!

* CreatorBacklash: as the quote at the top of this article suggests, Agatha Christie much preferred her other character, Literature/MissMarple.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: "Triangle At Rhodes" has [[spoiler: two. Marjorie Gold and Tony Chantry want to get married, but they're both already married. They decide to fix this problem by orchestrating a pretend love triangle between Tony, Marjorie's husband Douglas and Tony's wife Valentine, and then killing Valentine, making it look as though Douglas did it while trying to kill Tony, and letting Douglas be hanged for it. Unluckily for them, Poirot sees through it.]]

* PoirotSpeak: ''Naturellement''. Although it's usually justified as being part of an ObfuscatingStupidity FunnyForeigner act; Poirot actually speaks very good English, but people tend to let their guard down around someone who doesn't even seem to speak the language clearly.

* ChristmasEpisode: The novel ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'' and the short story "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding".

* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget: [[spoiler:''Three Act Tragedy'']] and [[spoiler:''Literature/TheABCMurders'']]

* UnderTheMistletoe: Poirot, of all people, gets caught under mistletoe in "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", on account of being too busy exercising his little grey cells to notice where he's standing. He doesn't seem to mind the result.

* AffectionateParody / {{Deconstruction}}: "The Veiled Lady" is a literary ShotForShotRemake of the SherlockHolmes story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", but with an extra TwistEnding.

* SarcasticDevotee: Captain Hastings, at times. Hastings relates a story where (in a shout out to SherlockHolmes) Poirot solved a mystery involving a box of chocolates perfectly, except for having overlooked a vital clue that would have told him very clearly who the murderer was, and thus accused someone who was completely innocent (but who was quickly exonerated once the truth was known). After that affair, Poirot tells Hastings that if he ever acts too conceited, he should use the words "chocolate box" to bring him down a peg. Poirot isn't amused when Hastings uses the code words mere seconds later.

* CelibateHero: Poirot does not have a romantic relationship over the course of his literary career. He expresses a strong admiration for Countess Vera Rossakoff, but Christie does not pursue a relationship between them.

* TheLestrade: Inspector Japp. Giraud from ''Literature/TheMurderOnTheLinks'' is a parody of this type.

* TheWatson: Captain Hastings in the early novels, a variety of one-shot characters in the later books.

-->'''Poirot''' (confronting the killer): We found your finger prints on the typewriter.

* TheCorrupter: [[spoiler:Stephen Norton in ''{{Literature/Curtain}}'']]

** In universe, [[AuthorAvatar Adriane Olivier]] delivers nearly the same quote when talking about her own character, a [[FunnyForeigner Finnish]] detective with a bizarre quirk (he grates his vegetables before eating them).

* MistakenNationality: he is ''Belgian'', not French. It annoys him, although Hercule Poirot does not forget his dignity so far as to call it a BerserkButton.

* PrettyLittleHeadShots: Someone is killed by this method in Poirot's last case, ''{{Literature/Curtain}}''. [[spoiler: It turns out to be a major ChekhovsGun]]

* CluelessMystery: All too often, Poirot keeps the key clue to the story hidden from the reader until the summation comes. Sometimes it's possible to solve it, but not very often.

* ChristmasEpisode: ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas''

Fastidiously neat, we'd today diagnose him with [[{{Monk}} OCD]].