History Literature / TheSouthernReachTrilogy

* NotSoDifferent: It's shown that the biologist and psychologist are quite similar people at heart, both being introverts who distrust authority and prefer the company of animals to that of people.

** [[spoiler:An Area X clone of the Director/Psychologist shows up back at the Southern Reach at the end of ''Authority''. Despite looking exactly like her original self, the clone is so ''off'' that Control completely flips upon seeing it, and even the ever-loyal Grace is ready to shoot it down mere moments after its arrival.]]

* PsychoPsychologist: [[spoiler:The psychologist constantly brainwashes the rest of the crew with hypnosis, wantonly sacrifices the anthropologist without a second thought to try and get a sample from the Crawler, and tries to force the biologist to kill herself using said hypnotic commands.

* JigsawPuzzlePlot: One with a lot of questions and very few answers. ''Authority'' partially becomes this InUniverse, as a large part of the plot involves Control trying to make sense of the director and Whitby's notes.

** "Annihilation" is one of the trigger phrases used by the psychologist to activate post-hypnotic suggestions in the expedition members. It's supposed to force the listener to [[DrivenToSuicide immediately commit suicide]].

* TouchedByVorlons: 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.

* TriggerPhrase: The psychologist implanted the expedition members with post-hypnotic suggestions, which she can activate using trigger phrases woven into her speech.

** 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, and the Crawler is what remains of the lighthouse keeper]].
** 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 leviathan covered in eyes (many of which are still human, others... not so much).]]
* WeHaveReserves: The Southern Reach's only plan is to just keep sending expeditions in, all under increasingly bizarre experimental conditions, in the hopes that one will eventually yield answers. It's revealed late in the first book that [[spoiler: there have been way more than 12 expeditions, and literally none of them have come back alive and unchanged. We find out in ''Authority'' that this is primarily Lowry's doing]].
* WithholdingTheirName: Expedition members are explicitly forbidden from telling each other their names. None of the characters in ''Annihilation'' are named, referring to each other only by their job titles: the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist, and the surveyor. While some of their names are eventually given over the course of the next two novels, the biologist refuses to ever give her real name, insisting that she be called by the nickname "Ghost Bird".

** ''Authority'' has the most dramatic plot shift of the whole series, completely shattering the status quo and making the situation extremely critical. [[spoiler:After almost two books of being relatively inert, Area X makes its move, sending the psychologist's clone into Southern Reach. She brings the expansion of Area X, taking down the Southern Reach in a single swipe and propagating from all the points in which the clones emerged.]]

** Control has to abandon [[spoiler: his cat Chorry]] at the end of ''Authority'', and it's never mentioned what became of the animal (although Control conjectures he is [[spoiler: happily hunting rats]]). We never get to learn what happened to Whitby's [[spoiler: pet mouse], either, although it can be inferred from his reaction to seeing it that [[spoiler: it is the dead mouse found in the locked drawer of the director's desk with the plant and cell phone.]]
** It's never mentioned what happens to [[spoiler: Whitby, Lowry, Jackie Severance, Central, or the rest of the earth]] for that matter, though it's implied to not be very good.

** The Crawler's message, which reads like a [[AsTheGoodBookSays warped, vaguely sinister version of a Bible passage]] and is chock full of dark, damning imagery, but makes very little sense when read in its entirety. A sample:

* 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''.

* BiTheWay: Grace used to have a husband and has two children, but by the time of the story, she is in a steady relationship with another woman.

* PosthumousCharacter: The biologist's husband died before she even went into Area X. Noteless, he is a very important character in the book and [[spoiler:his expedition journal]] is pivotal in the final acts of ''Annihilation''. [[spoiler:Or... his clone died. He survived inside Area X, but he was turned into an Owl by the corrupting nature of the place]]. Additionally, [[spoiler:the psychologist]] dies surprisingly early into the trilogy, at roughly 2/3s into ''Annihilation'', but she remains a extremely important character over the entire series due to the fact she [[spoiler:was Southern Reach's director]], and a key figure to many Southern Reach employees, who are mayor characters in ''Authority'' and ''Acceptance''. She is also very prominently featured in ''Acceptance'' in several flashbacks.

** When Control is appointed director of the Southern Reach, he finds that the previous director's office includes a door that opens onto a wall covered in scrawled writing: ''Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim-lit halls of other places forms that never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who have never seen or been seen...'' Additionally, he finds a mysterious plant that looks like it's taking nourishment from a dead mouse and an old cellphone in the director's desk, and a huge pile of notes taken on all kinds of surfaces all over and between the books in the former director's office.
** Later in ''Authority'', Control discovers that one of the scientists has created an even more elaborate RoomFullOfCrazy in a ceiling crawlspace, featuring oil paintings of animals and creatures from Area X with printed copies of human faces taped to them. A sleeping bag and other things indicate said scientist actually lives there.

** Control has to abandon [[spoiler: his cat Chorry]] at the end of ''Authority'', and it's never mentioned what became of the animal (although Control conjectures he is [[spoiler: happily hunting rats]]). We never get to learn what happened to Whitby's pet mouse, either.

** Control has to abandon [[spoiler: his cat Chorry]] at the end of ''Authority'', and it's never mentioned what became of the animal (although Control conjectures he is happily hunting rats). We never get to learn what happened to Whitby's pet mouse, either.

** Control has to abandon [[spoiler: his cat Chorry]] at the end of ''Authority'', and it's never mentioned what became of the animal. We never get to learn what happened to Whitby's pet mouse, either.

* OminousOwl: Inverted. In ''Acceptance'', a letter written by the biologist about her time in Area X tells of how she found a peculiar and very friendly owl on the island. It's never entirely disclosed, but due to the peculiar behavioral patterns of said owl -- not taking flight when she approaches, bringing her a dead rabbit, nesting close to her -- , she comes to suspect and later believe that [[spoiler:this is what Area X transformed her husband into]]. [[spoiler:When the owl passes away, she loses her final drive and connection, ultimately letting the Shimmer take over her, turning her into a horrible monster.]]

''Annihilation'' deals with the twelfth expedition into Area X, consisting of a biologist, a psychologist, an anthropologist, and a surveyor, who cross the boundary and confront what lies within.

''Authority'' tells of how Control, the new director of the Southern Reach, tries to deal with the aftermath of ''Annihilation'' while navigating the labyrinthine structures of the Southern Reach -- and its employees.

''Acceptance'' brings it all together by revealing how Area X came to be and how the individual workings of the characters influence what it's going to become.

The ''Southern Reach Trilogy'' is a book series written by Jeff [=VanderMeer=].

* {{Kaiju}}: [[spoiler:The biologist]] eventually becomes an amphibious leviathan with about a thousand eyes. [[spoiler:As a funny bonus, she's actually part Asian.]]

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 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.

* CovertGroupWithAMundaneFront: The Southern Reach's official job description is containing a nasty but mundane chemical spill.

** Members of the Seance and Science Brigade.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Control has to abandon [[spoiler: his cat Chorry]] at the end of ''Authority'', and it's never mentioned what became of the animal. We never get to learn what happened to Whitby's pet mouse, either.

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: The Southern Reach is one for the GovernmentConspiracy and GovernmentAgencyOfFiction, as it is shown to be an underfunded, understaffed backwater of an agency that's hardly made any progress at all in the twenty plus years it's been banging its collective head against Area X, where any attempts at progress are hamstrung by petty factional infighting and power games.

* TheHeroDies: In ''Acceptance'', it is revealed that after resisting for 30 years in Area X, [[spoiler:the biologist ultimately also lost to the corrupting nature of the place]]. Its made ''particularly'' heartbreaking by the fact that [[spoiler:the biologist]] did not gave up thanks to ThePowerOfLove, but once [[spoiler:the owl that her husband had been transformed into]] passes away, [[spoiler:she]] can't continue anymore, and lets it take over.

* StraightGay: Saul, the lighthouse keeper, and his boyfriend Charlie, a fisherman, show no steretypically gay behaviour at all. If they weren't sleeping together, they'd look just like close friends who like to share a beer at the bar.

* BittersweetEnding: For a single character at least. The biologist [[spoiler: is transformed into an enormous, near-immortal alien with a thousand eyes who can live on land or sea and travel between worlds. Grace and Control are horrified, but for an extreme loner and detail-oriented observer fascinated by new places and transitional ecosystems -- is this such a terrible fate?]]

%%** Members of the Seance and Science Brigade.

* MaybeEverAfter: [[spoiler: The biologist spends thirty years in relative happiness in the company of an unusually behaved owl that may or may not be her transformed husband.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The biologist finds a photo of a little girl and the Lighthouse Keeper when she enters the lighthouse. Shortly after exiting the lighthouse, she finds the dying [[spoiler:psychologist]] and after she dies she loots the corpse for information, finding a note addressed to "S" (which she repudiates without reading). We later learn towards the end of ''Authority'' (almost '''two''' whole books after) that [[spoiler:the Lighthouse keeper is the eponymous "S" aka Saul, who used to be the psychologist's father figure. She is the little girl in the picture]].

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: While the series takes place in the United States, we never get firm details on where Area X, or for that matter anywhere else, is located.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Whitby was eccentric ''before'' his [[spoiler:unauthorized trip into Area X with the director]]. What he saw there didn't help his state of mind one bit. He drifts in and out of focus, voicing cryptic suggestions, and Control remarks how Whitby's theories make sense only on the surface but descend into outlandish fantasies upon a closer look.

* NotSoStoic: An interesting example of in ''Annihalation''. The book is told by the biologist on first person, and [[spoiler: is her expedition diary]]. Her tone and voice never really wavers, making it seem like she is unshakable and unaffected by the horrors she is seeing. In a handful of blink-and-you-miss-it moments, the biologist directly comments on the fact that she is a bit shaken up, but only does so very briefly and it is not apparent in her narration. [[spoiler: As a diary, the passages were written after the events happened, so she was more calm]]. The biggest one is after her final conversation with the Psychologist. Through it the biologist seems fine and keeps a harsh mask to try and force answers out of the psychologist, but her narration later states that she was deeply shaken and unnerved by what she saw and learned. Its made much more apparent when she reads [[spoiler:her husband's journal]], by that point she was affected severely enough for emotion to be apparent in her narration (these are in fact among the few scenes ''in the whole trilogy'' it shows)

* BittersweetEnding: The biologist [[spoiler: is transformed into an enormous, near-immortal alien with a thousand eyes who can live on land or sea and travel between worlds. Grace and Control are horrified, but for an extreme loner and detail-oriented observer fascinated by new places and transitional ecosystems -- is this such a terrible fate?]]

* 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 the role of the team's military expert, and [[spoiler: the psychologist is the director of the Southern Reach, while the biologist is purposely intended to be the SpannerInTheWorks.]]