History Series / Trueblood

* DoggedNiceGuy: Sam. Emphasis on ''[[JustForPun dogged]]''.

--?''[[https://youtu.be/sMPNjPpdjKU ♪ I wanna do real bad things with you... ♪]]''

** Luna Garza (Creator/JaninaGavankar) and Rikki Naylor (Creator/KellyOverton) are all gorgeous women who constantly end up in states of undress due to ShapeshiftingExcludesClothing. Danielle (Creator/JamieGrayHyder), who's very beautiful, also plays a werewolf woman, showing extended full frontal nudity.

''True Blood'' is a SupernaturalSoapOpera produced by Creator/{{HBO}} and created by Creator/AlanBall. It is set in an alternative universe where vampires not only exist, but have recently publicized themselves through an event commonly referred to as ''The Great Revelation'', and are now trying to coexist with humans. This has become possible with the invention of a special drink -- the eponymous [=TruBlood=] -- developed as a safe means to replace human blood.

* TeensAreShort: Tommy and [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Godric]].

* ThreeWaySex / AThreesomeIsManly: Sookie's EroticDream in Season 4's "Run".

And that's just the first season, before we start introducing {{Herald}}s like Rev. Steve Newlin (Creator/MichaelMcMillan) and his wife Sarah (Creator/AnnaCamp), leaders of the Fellowship of the Sun, the local Christian-themed anti-vampire [[KnightTemplar Knights Templar]]; or Maryann Forrester (Creator/MichelleForbes), a philanthropist and eccentric who knows something about Sam's secrets; or even Jessica Hanby (Creator/DeborahAnnWoll), a 17-year-old girl kidnapped from a restrictive, conservative family and turned against her will, struggling to figure out the three most confusing things in the world: puberty, her newfound freedom, her vampire powers, and boys.

** General:
*** The way vampires are portrayed on the show: While they are immortal and have certain advantages (super-speed, glamouring, etc), that does not mean they are ''invulnerable'' or unable to make mistakes. Just like humans and other living beings, vampires have their weaknesses and can either be fended off or killed with the right tools and weapons. Most of the vampire deaths that occur on the show happen because the vampires in question were either arrogant enough to underestimate their opponents, or were caught off-guard at the wrong moment.
*** When vampires come out of hiding, they're unprepared for one key reaction: The IRS going after them for decades of unreported income and unpaid taxes. [[spoiler: This is the main reason Sophie-Anne embarks on her selling of V, as she's currently in dept to the IRS and is also trying to keep up her lavish lifestyle.]]
*** Because of a lack of trust and FantasticRacism on both sides, relationships between vampires and humans are very fragile and the slightest provocation from either side can cause problems. On the one hand, it's not like humans don't have valid reasons to dislike vampires, especially since many of them have spent centuries viewing humans as either food, pets, or disposable commodities, and some have a very ugly history of kidnapping, raping, draining, and disposing of humans. On the other hand, there are vampires who want to mainstream and genuinely integrate into human society, and the only way they can do this is by trying to convice the human public that they deserve the same rights as humans do, which is why organizations like the American Vampire League (AVL) are created and the Vampire Rights Amendment (VRA) is pushed fiercely. There are tensions from both species, and it causes most of the issues on the show: [[spoiler: When Russell Edgington rips a man's spine out on Live TV during season 3, it causes the VRA to fail in Congress, and the vampire governments are forced to issue a crackdown on vampires who are caught on camera feeding or hurting humans.]] Likewise, in season 5, when [[spoiler: the human-hating Sanguinistas take over the Authority and bomb the True Blood factories while also ordering vampires to turn as many humans as possible, it completely destroys vampire/human relationships, and causes the humans to declare war on the vampires.]]

* TakeThat: In Season 4, Bill delivers a ''delicious'' one when he discusses how vampires have infiltrated and controlled powerful institutions throughout history, such as the Catholic Church in the 1600's, and in the modern day, Google and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Fox News.]] This moment also counts as a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}}.
** In RealLife, Stephen Moyer was asked how he thought ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' stacked up against True Blood. His response?
--->'''Stephen:''' [[TakeThat What's Twilight?]]
** Another ''Twilight'' Take That comes after Hoyt breaks up with Jessica. He throws a copy into a box of her possessions labeled "For you, monster."

And that's just the first season, before we start introducing {{Herald}}s like Rev. Steve Newlin (MichaelMcMillan), leader of the Fellowship of the Sun, the local Christian-themed anti-vampire [[Knight Templar Knights Templar]]; or Maryann Forrester (Creator/MichelleForbes), a philanthropist and eccentric who knows something about Sam's secrets; or even Jessica Hanby (Creator/DeborahAnnWoll), a 17-year-old girl kidnapped from a restrictive, conservative family and turned against her will, struggling to figure out the three most confusing things in the world: puberty, her newfound freedom, her vampire powers, and boys.

And that's just the first season, before we start introducing {{Herald}}s like Rev. Steve Newlin (Creator/MichaelMcMillan), leader of the Fellowship of the Sun, the local Christian-themed anti-vampire KnightsTemplar; or Maryann Forrester (Creator/MichelleForbes), a philanthropist and do-gooder who knows something about Sam's secrets; or even Jessica Hanby (Creator/DeborahAnnWoll), a 17-year-old girl kidnapped from a restrictive, conservative family and turned against her will, struggling to figure out the three most confusing things in the world: puberty, her new vampire powers, and boys.

''True Blood'' is based on ''Literature/TheSookieStackhouseMysteries''; each season is loosely based on a single novel. The show differs greatly from the books however, adding a lot of adult content such as graphic violence and explicit sex, as well as a more diverse cast and a quirky, [[BlackComedy black-comedic]] atmosphere, in a way, being a SpiritualSuccessor to Alan Ball's previous series, ''Series/SixFeetUnder''. Also, certain story elements are drastically changed from the books, to keep both readers and non-readers constantly wondering what will happen next.

Other supernatural creatures -- such as [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shifters]], [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent were-animals]], and [[TheFairFolk fairies]] -- also exist. However, their existence is mostly closeted.

The plot mainly follows Sookie Stackhouse (Creator/AnnaPaquin), a young bar waitress from the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps. Sookie's a telepath, which makes life extremely problematic for her at times.

Her life changes drastically when Sookie meets a vampire for the first time. His name is Bill Compton and he used to live in Bon Temps about a hundred years ago. Sookie discovers that, unlike the thoughts of humans -- which are constantly forced on her, requiring effort to shut out -- the vampire's mind is a closed book to her, which she finds immensely refreshing. After she saves Bill from a couple of drainers, the two slowly fall in love. However, soon after that a serial killer appears in Bon Temps, targeting all women who sleep with vampires.

* EmergencyTransformation: Tara in Season 5.

* BadassCrew: Bill, Eric, Pam, Jessica [[spoiler:and a flamethrower]], [[PowerWalk power-walking]]. It is as it sounds.

->''"''Series/TrueBlood'' makes teen drama ''[[Literature/Twilight2007 Twilight]]'' look like an after-school special on the Creator/{{Lifetime}} network. It's...for grown-ups, with enough plot twists and turns to shock your brain into overload."''

->''"''Series/TrueBlood'' makes teen drama ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' look like an after-school special on the Creator/{{Lifetime}} network. It's...for grown-ups, with enough plot twists and turns to shock your brain into overload."''

* ADateWithRosiePalms:
** Sookie indulges in taking matters into her own hands because of her power-related problem.
** When Jason takes the vial of V, he spends hours trying to make his problem go away and ends up having to get the blood drained, he even had a blister on his thumb he had been going so long.
** Tara does while showering [[spoiler: in her dream, after having escaped Franklin.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Nobody ''from'' Logroño was burned at the Logroño witch trials of 1610. It was just where the auto-da-fe was held. The accussed witches were from around Zugarramurdi, on the French border, and spoke Basque, not [[{{Spexico}} Latin American Spanish]].

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Besides witches and vampires being real, nobody actually ''from'' Logroño was burned at the Logroño witch trials of 1610. It was just where the auto-da-fe was held. The accussed witches were from around Zugarramurdi, on the French border, and spoke Basque, not [[{{Spexico}} Latin American Spanish]].

* DeathBySex:
** The victims of the murders in season one, [[spoiler:with Adele Stackhouse paying the price for the sex Sookie has.]]
** [[spoiler:Talbot]] in Season 3. And killed with [[spoiler: a piece of ancient vampire erotica, no less.]]
* DeathSeeker:
** [[spoiler:Maryann]], apparently, along with [[spoiler:maenads]] in general.
** [[spoiler:Godric]] too.
** And [[spoiler: Bill]] in season 7.

* CoitusEnsues: The numerous, mostly out-of-nowhere sex scenes are a trademark of the show .

* PreserveYourGays: The show kept Lafayette alive when [[SparedByTheAdaptation the book actually killed him]], his body would have been found at the beginning of season two it the show stayed accurate to the book. He ends the series alive, which is more than most.

** Bill's Civil War flashbacks in season 7. In previous seasons, it's never once hinted at or mentioned that Bill was oppossed to joining the Confederacy or of the treatment of black slaves during that period of time. In fact, Bill claims he "knew little of the political or ideological conflicts" back then, and proudly talks about his time in the Confederate army, going as far as to call it "a destiny handed down to us above." Furthermore, in Episode 2 he's asked point-blank by Tara if he was a slave-owner when he's reminiscing about his time as a human, and all he says is that he personally didn't, though his father did, and then begins listing off the slaves owned, much to Tara's disgust. Tara even points out to Sam later that the very least Bill could have done was apologize to her and didn't, giving the impression he didn't see anything wrong with being a slaveowner. This gets retconned in season 7 where he is suddenly shown being opposed to getting in a war with the North (to the point he gets kicked out of a bar of pro-slavers and pro-Confederates) and him leading a poorly organized Underground Railroad for black slaves [[WhatAnIdiot in broad daylight]] that predictably ends in failure.

** TheChick: Sookie

* LeftHanging: The show never fully explains exactly why Maryann was so obsessed with keeping Tara and Eggs by her side, when in fact they had no role in her master plan to [[spoiler:sacrifice Sam]] that couldn't have easily been filled by anyone else.
** Hand-waved by Michelle Forbes; Maryann keeps Tara and Eggs by her side because their emotional turmoil and distress make them easy prey, since she feeds on human emotional energy.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Really, Karl. The Egyptian towels were just not necessary. Now go clean yourself up.