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* OhCrap: [[spoiler: The Biologist gets one when she finds the Anthropologist's corpse and Control has his moment when he discovers that the Southern Reach compound has been taken by Area X, something that shouldn't have happened for decades at least.]]

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* OhCrap: [[spoiler: The Biologist gets one when she finds the Anthropologist's corpse and Control has his moment when he discovers that the Southern Reach compound has been taken by Area X, something that shouldn't have happened for decades at least.X.]]
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* OhCrap: [[spoiler: The Biologist gets one when she finds the Anthropologist's corpse and Control has his moment when he discovers that the Southern Reach compound has been taken by Area X, something that shouldn't have happened for decades at least.]]
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* ButNotTooForeign: The psychologist is half-Native American, Control is half Latino, and the Biologist is about quarter Asian.

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* ButNotTooForeign: The psychologist Psychologist is half-Native American, Control is half Latino, and the Biologist is about quarter Asian.
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* ActionSurvivor: the first expedition had no survivors except for Lowry who is the photographer and military man.

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* ActionSurvivor: the first expedition had no survivors wiped out everyone except for lone survivor, Lowry who is the photographer and military man.
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* ActionSurvivor: the first expedition killed each member except for Lowry who is the photographer and military man.

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* ActionSurvivor: the first expedition killed each member had no survivors except for Lowry who is the photographer and military man.

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* ButNotTooForeign: The psychologist is half-Native American, Control is half Latino, and the Biologist is about quarter Asian.



* NotTooForeign: The psychologist is half-Native American, Control is half Latino, and the Biologist is about quarter Asian.
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* BadassBookworm: In the first book, the Biologist rarely alludes to it in her view point but she notices that she's significantly stronger than the Surveyor who is the team soldier. Later on, she reminisces about the entire expedition was given extensive physical conditioning and weapons training before they went in. In the second book, where the physical descriptions of many of the characters are given, Control notes that the Biologist is built like an amazon.


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* NotTooForeign: The psychologist is half-Native American, Control is half Latino, and the Biologist is about quarter Asian.
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* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: Expedition members get out-dated outdated and antique equipment (even down to their clothes!!) to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor Surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.together. The reason for this is that the almost all of the first expedition's high-tech equipment vanished when they weren't being carried personally, as if it were specifically targetted. Using only outdated gear is a tad paranoid, but it's a precaution that seems to work.
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* BreakoutTheMuseumPieces: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* BreakoutTheMuseumPieces: BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.
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* BreakOutTheMuseumPieces: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* BreakOutTheMuseumPieces: BreakoutTheMuseumPieces: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* BreakOutTheMuseumPieces: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.



* UsedFuture: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* ActionSurvivor:

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* ActionSurvivor:ActionSurvivor: the first expedition killed each member except for Lowry who is the photographer and military man.


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* HiddenDepths: The members of the 12th expedition aren't solely the roles of Psychologist, Biologist, Surveyor and Anthropologist. The Anthropologist is also an architect, the Surveyor is an ex-soldier and takes role of the team military expert, and [[spoiler: the Psychologist is the direcotr of the Southern Reach, while the Biologist is purposely intended to be the SpannerInTheWorks]]
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* ActionSurvivor:


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* LonersAreFreaks: The Biologist is so self-contained within herself and detached from the rest of humanity, that she was fired from most of the jobs she had and was considered a poor candidate for the expedition. Which is why the director picked her. She's so freakishly self-contained that she cannot be hypnotized and her cloning went wrong, resulting in Ghost Bird retaining more individuality and memories than the other clones.
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* SecretKeeper: [[spoiler: The psychologist has been the director for most of the Southern Reach's existence and she is also the daughter of Saul the lighthouse keeper. She was there at ground zero before Area X truly formed]].
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* FriendlessBackground: The Biologist is an extreme introvert who'd much rather observe plants and animals than interract with people and has never had any friends, the closest thing she had to that was knowing the friends of her husband.


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* OppositesAttract: How the Biologist and her husband became a couple. She thought he was energetic and alive while he thought she was mysterious. As they got to know each other after marriage, their relationship hit the rocks...turns out he's overbearing and she's withdrawn.

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* BodyHorror: Expedition members are warned to avoid contamination by Area X lest they suffer this fate. [[spoiler:But every member eventually does]]. [[spoiler: How the anthropologist dies must have been very nasty, her jaw was nearly wrenched off before she was filled with spores that infest her body - which fuses some parts while eating away at others]]

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* BodyHorror: Expedition members are warned to avoid contamination by Area X lest they suffer this fate. [[spoiler:But every member eventually does]]. [[spoiler: How the anthropologist dies must have been very nasty, her jaw was nearly wrenched off before she was filled with spores that infest her body - which fuses some parts while eating away at others]]


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* UsedFuture: Expedition members get out-dated and antique equipment to bring to Area X, they're not allowed contemporary equipment like cellphones or laptops. The surveyor freaks out when she finds out that the one concession to their group - her assault rifle, is nothing more than 30 year old parts cobbled together.

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* AsTheGoodBookSays: The text lining the walls of the "tower" reads almost like a warped, vaguely sinister version of a Bible passage.



* BiblicalBabbling: The text lining the walls of the "tower" reads almost like a warped, vaguely sinister version of a Bible passage.
* BodyHorror: Expedition members are warned to avoid contamination by Area X lest they suffer this fate. [[spoiler:But every member eventually does]].

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* BiblicalBabbling: The text lining the walls of the "tower" reads almost like a warped, vaguely sinister version of a Bible passage.
* BodyHorror: Expedition members are warned to avoid contamination by Area X lest they suffer this fate. [[spoiler:But every member eventually does]]. [[spoiler: How the anthropologist dies must have been very nasty, her jaw was nearly wrenched off before she was filled with spores that infest her body - which fuses some parts while eating away at others]]

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* ApocalypticLog: The notebooks of the previous expeditions, discovered in the lighthouse.

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* ApocalypticLog: The notebooks of the previous expeditions, discovered in the lighthouse. In ''Acceptance'', the lighthouse keeper's journal, which details odd jobs and animal sightings around the lighthouse but gradually degenerates into apocalyptic babbling and unintelligible scribbles.



* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Whitby was eccentric ''before'' his unauthorized trip into Area X with the Director. What he saw there didn't help his state of mind one bit.



* LighthousePoint: A prominent feature in Area X, which expeditions tend to be drawn to. There's also one on the island. [[spoiler:It's not the lighthouse itself that's important, but the ''lens''.]]



* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Name a particularly disturbing scene in ''Authority'' or ''Acceptance'', any scene. Chances are, Whitby figures into it somehow.



* ObstructiveBureaucrat: In ''Authority'', Grace makes it clear that she intends to undermine everything Control attempts to do.

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* ObstructiveBureaucrat: In ''Authority'', Grace makes it clear that she intends to undermine everything Control attempts to do. Lowry does the same with basically everyone, particularly the former Director.



* StraightGay: Saul the lighthouse keeper and his boyfriend Charlie. Possibly Grace, who has an ex-husband and a child from that marriage but currently has a girlfriend. Her devotion to the Director borders on the romantic.



* TheVoice: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Voice.]]

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* TheVoice: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Voice.]] [[spoiler:In ''Authority'', at least. The Voice is revealed to be Lowry, who we see in flashbacks in ''Acceptance''.]]


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**More explicitly horrific examples would be [[spoiler:the eleventh expedition's psychologist, who became the moaning thing in the reeds, and the twelfth expedition's biologist herself, who becomes a {{Kaiju}}-sized glowing green tentacle monster covered in eyes (many of which are still human, others...not so much).]]
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On second thought, this trope isn\'t in play at all. Neither character is more \"traditionally feminine\" than the other, and both die.


* VasquezAlwaysDies: The surveyor is the toughest and most aggressive member of the twelth expedition, being ex-military. [[spoiler:She is shot dead by the less skilled, more feminine biologist -- though the biologist is also solidly built and physically capable, and no one makes it out alive in the end anyway]].
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* WordSaladHorror: The Crawler's message on the inside of the tower is a magnificent - and appropriately unsettling - example.

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* WordSaladHorror: The Crawler's message on the inside of the tower is a magnificent - and appropriately unsettling - example.message.
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* WordSaladHorror: The Crawler's message on the inside of the tower is a magnificent - and appropriately unsettling - example.

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The Southern Reach is a secret government agency responsible for investigating and hiding the existence of Area X, a rural village which was one day surrounded by a nearly-impenetrable barrier. Strange phenomena have been occurring in Area X ever since, and the Southern Reach has been sending in team after team in an attempt to find out what was responsible for the Area's creation -- and if it poses a danger to the outside world. The series begins as the Twelth Expedition, consisting of a Biologist, Psychologist, Anthropologist, and Surveyor, crosses the boundary and confronts what lies within.

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The Southern Reach is a secret government agency responsible for investigating and hiding the existence of Area X, a rural village which was one day surrounded by a nearly-impenetrable an invisible and nearly impenetrable barrier. Strange phenomena have been occurring in Area X ever since, and the Southern Reach has been sending in team after team in an attempt to find out what was responsible for the Area's creation -- and if it poses a danger to the outside world. The series begins as the Twelth Expedition, consisting of a Biologist, Psychologist, Anthropologist, and Surveyor, crosses the boundary and confronts what lies within.


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* BiblicalBabbling: The text lining the walls of the "tower" reads almost like a warped, vaguely sinister version of a Bible passage.
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* EldritchAbomination: ''From the dim-lit halls of other places forms that never could be writhe....''

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* KingIncognito: At the beginning of ''Authority'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:the psychologist in ''Annihilation'' was the director of the Southern Reach]].
* KnownOnlyByTheirNickname: Ghost Bird. Played with in Control's case.



* VasquezAlwaysDies: The surveyor is the toughest and most aggressive member of the twelth expedition, being ex-military. [[spoiler:She is shot dead by the less skilled, more feminine biologist]].

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* VasquezAlwaysDies: The surveyor is the toughest and most aggressive member of the twelth expedition, being ex-military. [[spoiler:She is shot dead by the less skilled, more feminine biologist]].biologist -- though the biologist is also solidly built and physically capable, and no one makes it out alive in the end anyway]].
* TheVoice: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Voice.]]
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* Alien Geometries: [[spoiler:The Crawler.]]

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* Alien Geometries: AlienGeometries: [[spoiler:The Crawler.]]

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* Alien Geometries: [[spoiler:The Crawler.]]



* WasOnceAMan: There's something strangely human-like about the eyes of certain creatures in Area X... [[spoiler:Many of them are implied to have once been expedition members before being transformed into their current states]].

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* WasOnceAMan: There's something strangely human-like about the eyes of certain creatures in Area X... [[spoiler:Many of them are implied to have once been expedition members before being transformed into their current states]].states, and the Crawler is what remains of the lighthouse keeper, whose photograph the biologist sees earlier in the book]].
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* AlliterativeTitle: ''Annihilation'', ''Authority'', ''Acceptance''.
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** "Authority" is part of another code phrase, "Consolidation of authority", which [[spoiler:forces the listener to obey]].
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* DoomedHometown: [[spoiler:The Director of the Southern Reach, who is also the Psychologist from the 12th expedition,]] lived in "the Forgotten Coast", as the place that became known as Area X used to be known, as a child. It's ''why'' she was driven to [[spoiler:become the Director of the Southern Reach]] in the first place.
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The '''Southern Reach Trilogy''' is a book series by Jeff [=VanderMeer=].

The Southern Reach is a secret government agency responsible for investigating and hiding the existence of Area X, a rural village which was one day surrounded by a nearly-impenetrable barrier. Strange phenomena have been occurring in Area X ever since, and the Southern Reach has been sending in team after team in an attempt to find out what was responsible for the Area's creation -- and if it poses a danger to the outside world. The series begins as the Twelth Expedition, consisting of a Biologist, Psychologist, Anthropologist, and Surveyor, crosses the boundary and confronts what lies within.

The series consists of ''Annihilation'', ''Authority'', and ''Acceptance''.

!Tropes appearing this series include:

* ApocalypticLog: The notebooks of the previous expeditions, discovered in the lighthouse.
* BaldWomen: The returning expedition members have their heads shaved.
* BodyHorror: Expedition members are warned to avoid contamination by Area X lest they suffer this fate. [[spoiler:But every member eventually does]].
* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:Area X creates doppelgangers of the people who die in it, but they tend to be... off.]]
* ClingyMacGuffin: A cellphone brought back from Area X by Whitby, which resists the attempts to throw it away made by Control in ''Authority'' and the psychologist in ''Acceptance''.
* CloningBlues: Features in ''Authority''. [[spoiler:The returned copy of the biologist realizes that she's not the original, and is depressed by it.]]
* DoNotTauntCthulhu: On their first night in Area X, the members of the twelth expedition taunt the moaning creature in the reeds by moaning back at it. When the moaning gets louder and angrier, however, they quickly realize that this might not be the best idea and desist.
* DontTouchItYouIdiot: The anthropologist shouts this at the biologist when she discovers the fungus-writing in the tower. The biologist doesn't actually touch it, but does get too close and causes things to go wrong.
* DrivenToSuicide: All members of the second expedition to Area X committed suicide.
* EldritchLocation: Area X is one.
* GovernmentConspiracy: The Southern Reach, a government agency which hides the existence of Area X with the cover story of a local environmental catastrophe and organizes the expeditions into it.
* HellIsThatNoise: The loud moaning noise which comes from the reeds every evening.
* InsistentTerminology: The biologist insists on calling the buried structure a tower instead of a tunnel.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: All members of the eleventh expedition to Area X reappeared back at their homes with no memory of what happened in the area or how they'd gotten back.
* MagicFeather: Each expedition member is given a strange device with a red light on it. The biologist later learns that it doesn't actually do anything; it's just intended to make them feel safer.
* MeatMoss: Witnessed by the biologist after she inhales spores inside the tower. [[spoiler:Though the tower walls initially appeared to be made of stone, the spores allow the biologist to see that they are actually living flesh]].
* MindRape: The biologist experiences this during her encounter with the Crawler in ''Annihilation''.
* NoNameGiven: Expedition members are explicitly forbidden from using each others' names, referring to each other by role instead. In fact, not one character is named in ''Annihilation'', though some of their names are revealed in ''Authority''.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: In ''Authority'', Grace makes it clear that she intends to undermine everything Control attempts to do.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The biologist's real name is never revealed, and she even refuses to allow Control to use it; she is only known as Ghost Bird.
* RoomFullOfCrazy: Control discovers one in ''Authority'', revealing that Area X's influence has begun spreading to the staff of the Southern Reach.
* SecretlyDying: [[spoiler:The psychologist was dying of cancer when she joined the twelth expedition]].
* TitleDrop: "Annihilation" is one of the trigger phrases used by the psychologist to activate post-hypnotic suggestions in the expedition members. [[spoiler:It's supposed to force the listener to immediately commit suicide]].
* TouchedByVorlons: [[spoiler:The biologist's "brightness", which she gains from inhaling spores in the tower; it renders her immune to hypnotic suggestions, and gives her superhuman healing and reflexes in her fight against the surveyor]].
* TriggerPhrase: The psychologist implanted the expedition members with post-hypnotic suggestions, which she can activate using trigger phrases.
* VasquezAlwaysDies: The surveyor is the toughest and most aggressive member of the twelth expedition, being ex-military. [[spoiler:She is shot dead by the less skilled, more feminine biologist]].
* WasOnceAMan: There's something strangely human-like about the eyes of certain creatures in Area X... [[spoiler:Many of them are implied to have once been expedition members before being transformed into their current states]].
* YearInsideHourOutside: Time passes faster inside Area X, first hinted at by the speed at which nature reclaimed the human structures in the area and finally confirmed in ''Acceptance''.

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