History Main / HouseOfCards

'''''House of Cards''''' can refer to the following works:

* ''Series/HouseOfCardsUK'', the BBC British series.
* ''Series/HouseOfCardsUS'', the American remake of the above.

[[redirect:Series/HouseOfCards]]

[[quoteright:223:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/houseofcards.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:223:Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart]]

-> "''You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.''"
-->-- '''Francis Urquhart'''

British TV show and book about Machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart (played by Ian Richardson), who aims to become prime minister by any means necessary. Based in part on ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'' and in part on ''Theatre/RichardIII'', this [[TheBBC BBC]] series became very popular when during the original run of the first series, which depicts Urquhart's conspiracy to become Prime Minister after MargaretThatcher resigns, [[LifeImitatesArt she actually did]].

In 2013, {{Netflix}} released an [[CulturalTranslation American-set]] [[HouseOfCardsRemake original series series based on the novel]].

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!!This show provides examples of:

* AdaptationDistillation: The TV series focuses much more on Urquhart, and is far better for it.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Tim Stamper.
** Though some background dialogue suggests he and his wife are looking for schools for at least one child, so his rather fey manner may not have anything to do with his sexuality.
* AnimalMotifs: The TV series sometimes cuts to shots of rats.
* AsideGlance: Urquhart, frequently.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Urquhart often talks to the audience, both as exposition and telling us his own thoughts. It actually works better than one would expect.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Richardson As a long-term Shakespeare actor]], Richardson was probably quite comfortable with this updated version of the soliloquy.
* ContinuitySnarl: The first novel, published before the television series, [[spoiler:ends with Urquhart jumping to his death when Mattie confronts him at the end, as opposed to him throwing Mattie to her death. The second book (To Play The King) ignores the first book's ending to align itself with the TV continuity but ends with Urquhart again facing his comeuppence as the King abdicates in order to run against him for Prime Minister and that, with the help of several key defections from Urquhart's camp, stands a good chance to do so. But the TV series ends with Urquhart winning re-election easily and the King (who does not run against him) being forced to abdicate the throne in order to get Urquhart to stop his vendetta against the royal family. As such, the third volume drops all reference to the King and his ultimate fate, and continues with Urquhart in charge]].
* CatchPhrase: "You might very well think that, but I couldn't possibly comment."
* CouldSayItBut: His catchphrase, which means "No comment, but yes." (Naturally, he's often using it to imply blatant lies without actually lying.)
* DarkerAndEdgier: "To Play The King" and "The Final Cut". The former has Urquhart picking a fight with and ultimately destroying the King of England for the crime of speaking out against the cruel policies of Urquhart and the Conservative Party. The later shows the dark lengths from which Urquhart will go to in order to avoid being exposed.
* DeadpanSnarker: Urquhart's manner, on occasion.
** Tim Stamper has the occasional moment, especially in "To Play the King":
--->'''Sarah Harding''' ''(having just arrived at a surprise event at Chequeurs)'': Quite a heavyweight gathering isn't it? Half the cabinet, and their wives.
--->'''Tim Stamper''': Hmm, some of them are enormous, yes...
* EngineeredPublicConfession: Done to a tape recorder, which becomes a plot point in the second and third series.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Urquhart describes [[SmugSnake Patrick Woolton]] as, "A lout, a lecher, a racist, an anti-semite and a bully."
* EvilChancellor: As Chief Whip, Urquhart has spent enough time as TheManBehindTheMan to have worked himself into a position of influence over new Prime Minister Collingridge and most of his colleagues.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Urquhart, in ''House of Cards''. He wins people over by being calm, decisive, charming, and someone they know they can rely on in a pinch, all the while calculating how best to stab them in the back. As the series goes on, however, his cold, snake-like qualities become more apparent to those around him, and this trope becomes less applicable. A large part of ''To Play the King'' revolves around his cold, aloof image compared to the King's heart and humanity.
* ForTheEvulz: Urquhart takes delight in making people very angry, and whilst considering his retirement, remarks that "there's time for plenty more fun yet!"
** Similarly, his reason for his vendetta to destroy the King of England. He could have ignored the criticism that the King was giving him, but the chance to utterly destroy a man's life (as suggested his wife, who noted how bored Urquhart was becoming having succeeded in becoming Prime Minister) was too tempting to pass up, simply because of the challenge and the joy of doing so.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Had the Prime Minister simply promoted Urquhart from Chief Whip to a position in the Cabinet, Urquhart would probably have remained content. Instead, it's being passed over that sets Urquhart on his scheming, destructive course.
* {{Gayngst}}: [[spoiler: David Mycroft]]
* GhostTown: Most of the focus of the TV series is on Urquhart as a character, so we don't really see much of the impact his policies have on Britain. However, ''To Play The King'' suggests that this trope is a growing problem, while ''The Final Cut'' reveals that he has abolished the Arts Council.
* IronicEchoCut: Often in the television series, Urquhart will predict what someone will do or say... and since he's a magnificent bastard, he's usually right. Sometimes the ironic echo is accompanied by Urquhart raising a knowing eyebrow to the camera.
* KarmaHoudini: Even though [[spoiler: he is assassinated at the end of the series]], Urquhart never really gets punished for [[spoiler: the murders of Roger O'Neill and Mattie Storin]] - the tape recording that Tom Makepeace planned to use against him becomes useless with his death. Even moreso in the final book, in which [[spoiler: Urquhart organises ''his own'' assassination so he can salvage his reputation by heroically saving his wife, and manages to set up the destruction of Tom Makepeace's political career in the process]].
** [[spoiler: His wife, [[LadyMacbeth who has been his willing accomplice throughout the series,]]]] apparently escapes any repercussions.
* KavorkaMan: Here is a piece of dialogue from the first episode.
-->'''Mattie Storin''': Urquhart’s leading the witch hunt. I do think he has a sort of – I don’t know – magnetism about him.
-->'''Journalist colleague''': Kissinger syndrome. The aphrodisiac effect of power.
-->'''Mattie''': I guess that must be it.
* LadyMacbeth: See TheManBehindTheMan.
* MacGuffin: [[spoiler:The tape recording of Urquhart's confession.]]
* TheManBehindTheMan: While she does not get much screen time until the last series, one could very well argue that Elisabeth Urquhart is even nastier than her husband. She is the one who pushes him to topple the current prime Minister (from his own party) and in the third series, [[spoiler:it is strongly implied that she had Urquhart assassinated in order to protect herself. (Although, she did seem motivated by her desire to salvage his reputation posthumously after Tom Makepeace threatened to publish the tape implicating Urquhart in the murder of Mattie Storin)]].
** There seems to be quite a bit of this around. Patrick Woolton's wife also seems to be quite a bit tougher than expected.
* MeaningfulEcho: Urquhart is galvanised to depose Collingridge when the PM passes him over for a higher post in the cabinet, explaining, "I need a good Chief Whip more than I need a new Home Secretary." In the second series, Urquhart's own chief whip and sidekick, Tim Stamper, decides to betray him: [[spoiler: "But you promised me the Home Office!"]] Urquhart also acquires a new young, female protege [[spoiler: with the same results.]]
* NextSundayAD: The first story is set at an unspecified but close future date when MargaretThatcher has resigned - even closer than the writer thought, as it turned out, as she resigned during the run of the first series. The second story is set in motion by the death of Queen Elizabeth.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The King in the second serial is based on Prince Charles, with obvious stand-ins for Princess Diana and Prince Harry.
* NoPartyGiven: Never officially mentioned in the books, though in the series Urquhart is stated to belong to the Conservative Party.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Geoffrey Booza-Pitt, who has a reputation as a harmless, somewhat buffoonish character, but is suggested to be much cleverer than he looks. In the TV series he is undone by Urquhart's manipulations, but in the books his reputation lets him hang on in the succeeding ministry.
** Urquhart himself pretends to be charming and unambitious in House of Cards. By the later stories, [[FauxAffablyEvil it's clear to everyone that he isn't.]]
** Also Elizabeth Urquhart - when talking to the chairman of the Cyprus border arbitration panel she pretends to be dim so she can accidentally-on-purpose let slip some very sensitive information.
* OldMediaAreEvil: The newspaper Mattie works for at the start of the first series is corrupt and firmly in bed with the Conservative Party, having tied their fate to that of the Prime Minister when they helped him get elected at the start of the series. Mattie finds out the hard way, when a story she writes (thanks to leaked material provided to her by Urquhart) is spiked because it would harm the Prime Minister. And when she finds proof that the Prime Minister and his brother were framed by someone within their party, the paper (now backing Urquhart in the upcoming special election to replace the Prime Minister) not only spikes the story, but permanently reassigns Mattie to the humiliating task of writing the "cooking" section of the newspaper and tell her, point-blank, that if she quits, they will exercise her "no-compete" clause to keep her from finding work for a reporter for three months.
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler:Mattie Storin]] continues to haunt the plot long after they've died. [[spoiler:Sarah Harding and Tim Stamper]], [[ForgottenFallenFriend on the other hand...]]
* PrimeMinistersQuestionTime
* PsychoForHire: Commander Corder, Urquhart's intensely loyal bodyguard, does not think of his victims as human beings, and is willing to kill anyone who threatens the PM and his reputation, [[spoiler: including Urquhart himself.]]
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: The King in ''To Play The King'' clearly wants to be this. Unfortunately, it quickly puts him at odds with Urquhart. Although Urquhart is, of course, opposing the King for his own venal interests, the story does [[StrawmanHasAPoint point out]] that there's a very good reason why, in the British constitutional monarchy system, RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething In Terms Of Taking Political Sides is ''not'' a good thing. In the novel, the King abdicates on his own discretion and announces that he will stand for parliament and oppose Urquhart as a democratically elected MP. However, thanks to retcons between books, this isn't mentioned in the final part of the trilogy.
* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler: The B-plot in ''The Final Cut'' involves an aging Cypriot named Evangelos Passolides trying to get into a position to assassinate Urquhart and avenge his brothers, who were executed illegally by Urquhart during his time as an army officer stationed in Cyprus. In the final scene of the series, he steps out of a crowd to take his shot at the PM just as Urquhart is assassinated by a completely unrelated gunman]]. Also counts as ShootTheShaggyDog.
* [[spoiler: Mattie's story. Not just the story she's compiling, but her story as in her role on the series.]]
* ShootTheDog: Quite literally, at the beginning of ''The Final Cut'', explained as one of Urquhart's moments of tough pragmatism.
** [[spoiler:[[FridgeBrilliance Ironically, this happens to Urquhart himself in the end.]]]]
* SignificantMonogram: '''F'''rancis '''U'''rquhart. Quickly noticed by the tabloid papers in-universe.
* StrawmanPolitical: Mostly averted in the TV series. Every character who expresses strong views is always allowed to justify them, and any such character portrayed negatively (such as Patrick Woolton) is simply shown as a generally unpleasant individual in spite of their beliefs. Michael Dobbs was a Conservative, though, which might cancel out any motivation to show the Conservatives in an unfavourable light, as they have often been portrayed by other writers.
* ThanatosGambit:
** In the novel, [[spoiler: Urquhart arranges his own death so he can appear to die heroically shielding his wife from an assassin's bullet while organising events to strike at Makepeace from beyond the grave and destroy his political career, ensuring his legacy in the process.]]
** In the series, [[spoiler: Elizabeth Urquhart organises Urquhart's death with Corder's help in order to save his reputation, which had been torn to shreds by a botched military operation in Cyprus resulting in the deaths of several children, along with several impending scandals.]]
* UnholyMatrimony: Mr and Mrs Urquhart
* UpperClassTwit: Geoffrey Booza-Pitt, a minor cabinet minister and staunch Urquhart loyalist who is promoted to Foreign Secretary to humiliate the outgoing office-holder (Urquhart's rival) Tom Makepeace.
* VillainProtagonist [[VillainWithGoodPublicity With Good Publicity]]: Urquhart - he becomes prime minister after all, and remains so longer than Margaret Thatcher. [[spoiler:One day longer.]]
* {{Whitehall}}
* YourCheatingHeart: Subverted. Elizabeth Urquhart encourages her husband to enter affairs with other women if it is politically advantageous to do so. ''The Final Cut'' suggests that she is having an affair with Corder with Urquhart's knowledge.
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