History Theatre / PeerGynt

* LetUsNeverTalkOfThisAgain: Peer never mentions his incident in the madhouse afterwards. Ever.

* LetsNotTalkOfThisAgain: Peer never mentions his incident in the madhouse afterwards. Ever.

* LetsNeverTalkOfThisAgain: Peer never mentions his incident in the madhouse afterwards. Never.

* {{Gorn}}: One of the madmen slits his throat on stage. Peer is seriously squicked, since he handed over the knife himself.

* TakeThat: The play was a symbolical kick to the Norwegian and Swedish denial of fact at the Battle of Dybbøl in 1864, when Denmark had to fight {{Prussia}} all on their own and lost. Ibsen could not forgive the lack of principle he meant to see in his countrymen, and wrote a play containing a main character lacking almost every principle in the world. And ironically, it became Norway´s national play. The Norwegian elite who in time embraced the play, seems to have been {{Dramatically missing the point}}. And somewhere, Ibsen is laughing his heart out...

** Ibsen also nods to other Norwegian authors, as contemporary poet {{Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson}} wrote of a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold golden haired girl]] in a largely successful story five years prior to the play. Like Solveig, this girl at first sight wore a hymn book, held "her mother's skirt", and had a similar name.
** Creator/HenrikWergeland used "the cabin in the woods" trope even before that, in an 1845 play called "The cabin in the mountains". The play in question also had [[IWillWaitForyou a young girl waiting]].

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: The historical Peer lived and died in the area of Gudbrandsdalen in Norway, was known for his abilities as a reindeer hunter, for his tall tales, and for several encounters with trolls. The boyg and the three dairy maids are all extracted from the works of {{Asbjørnsen and Moe}}.

* OurTrollsAreDifferent.: Coupled with the fair folk trope, as the inside of the mountain is populated with secondary world beings of every order possible: Witches, Goblins, trolls - They are all there. The main type of beings, including the king himself, is trolls, of course, and the main slogan is appointed to them: "Troll, be utterly thyself", as opposed to "Man, be thyself". Can be considered a combination of tropes, as the troll king is the father of the Hulder (not defined as such, only as "the greenclad woman", but her traits are likewise).

* MentalWorld: Most of the fifth act can be seen as this, as Peer`s inner turmoil tends to mirror the landscape he walks through, often a {{barren wasteland}} of sorts, until he hears the song of Solveig and gets a sense of direction.

* SavedByTheBell: Literally inside the mountain, as {{the Fair Folk}} can´t endure the sound of churchbells. And Peer in the end, though it is the singing of hymns that does the trick.
* AmbiguousEnding: "We meet at the last cross-roads, Peer, and then we´ll see - I say no more..."

* MoralityPlay: To the point where {{death}} actually shows up to put the main character straight before he passes (Represented by the Button Moulder). The medieval Morality Play comes in in this part of the play. In this case, Peer is {{the Everyman}} figure, and the people he meets in the fifth act are largely allegorical, and there to teach him of his errors.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Connected to the reception of the play and the position in the Norwegian national canon. The play even gave its name to the annual Peer Gynt prize, who usually goes to a Norwegian who has broken through and made Norway more known. {{Fridge irony}} at all costs.
** Inverted when a newly built high school in Oslo decided to take Peer Gynt as a name of the school, but dropped it after a lot of snarks on behalf of the students, who then probably would be taught to go {{face heel turn}} on every principle in the book...

** Expied brilliantly in ''TheNeverendingStory'', where Bastian experiences the old city of emperors, filled with madmen.

* DescriptionCut: In the fourth act, when Peer has a {{humans are flawed}} monologue while entering his role as "the historian". He ends this with the words: "Women are a feeble stock" - and the scene cuts directly to Solveig, who patiently sits waiting - and does her famous song.
** As if Ibsen just makes a point in saying "feeble? I think not!"
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Peer annoys the mountain king and the entire troll community when he decides not to follow their last request, ''and'' explains why he is not worthy of the king`s daughter. The trolls beat him to kingdom come.
* DidYouJustRomanceCthulhu: Peer gets a child with the greenclad woman, after romancing her alright. If he actually slept with her physically is beside the point, as the Mountain King points out. In the secondary world, lust is enough to conceive. And Peer goes {{oh crap}} instantly.
** When he talks himself out of that situation, he flips off the whole troll society.

** To be fair, Ibsen loved to pull this on his audience.
* MsFanservice: Anitra, daughter of a bedouin chieftain, who tricks Peer in the desert.
** If Peer is right in his description of her during her famous dance, she is actually {{fan disservice}}, but most productions play her the other way around.

* ShoutOut: To {{Faust}}, nontheless. Solveig is the Margrethe equivalent of the play. Also prominently to {{Asbjørnsen and Moe}}.
** Ibsen also nods to other Norwegian authors, as contemporary poet {{Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson}} wrote of a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold golden haired girl]] in a largely successful story five years prior to the play. Like Solveig, this girl at first sight wore a hymn book and held "her mother's skirt". ''And she had a similar name''. Creator/HenrikWergeland used "the cabin in the woods" trope even before that, in an 1845 play called "The cabin in the mountains". The play in question also had [[IWillWaitForyou a young girl waiting]].

* CreepyChild: The brat Peer begat with the hulder arguably counts. He has grown horribly fast, and the first thing he says, is "I shall chop you with my axe".

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Solveig. Also a girl with {{Hidden Depths}}. {{Incorruptible Pure Pureness}} also fits on her. Solveig does in fact invoke a number of tropes relating to the Romantic Heroine. The [[HeroicWillpower sheer willpower]] in her constant waiting for Peer to return, could arguably make her a passive power blonde.
** Arguably, Solveig is in danger of being interpreted, and even played out as a {{Mary Sue}} character, making the trope {{older than television}}. Of course, she is a victim of {{memetic mutation}} as well, as the character stood out originally as good, but the megatons of memes coming along with movies and live action TV have all but ruined the interpretation, and made it hard to actually believe in her.

* MarySue: Solveig as handled in some literary criticism. She verges on {{Mary Sue classic}} throughout the play.
* MamaBear: Peer's mother Åse. She is rather arguable and dissatisfied with the ways of his son, but stands up for him when she believes him threatened - to the point where she tries to face down the local smith, arguably the strongest man in the community and Peer's archnemesis in the first part of the play. Occasionally, she also acts like a {{jewish mother}}.

* AllJustADream: The second act from the moment he stumbles against the wall of a mountain shed dreadfully hung over, to the moment he wakes up at the end of the act with a dry throat. The passage with the trolls and the boyg, let alone the Greenclad woman happens in between. Whether or not this actually ''is'' just a dream is open for interpretation.
* ArtisticLicenceGeography: When coming home in the fifth act, Peer is standing on deck of a ship and claiming to see the mountain Hallingskarvet, and the glacier Hardangerjøkulen. None of those can be seen from the western seas. It is also unclear whether the captain of the ship is right when stating that one can see Norway`s highest mountain from the top mast.

* BedlamHouse: The madhouse in Cairo, taken {{up to eleven}} by the fact that even the asylum keeper seems to have lost his marbles. Here, he seems to meet his peers, a number of people who are themselves to the point of hilarity. Peer makes a {{heel realization}} in the process.

* IWillWaitForYou: Solveig again. Her famous song, set to music by Edvard Grieg points this out {{up to eleven}}:
-->''Here I will wait, as I promised you.''

* LoveRedeems: Solveig`s love for Peer. Only just possibly.

* MoralityPlay: To the point where {{death}} actually shows up to put the main character straight before he passes (Represented by the Button Moulder). The medieval Morality Play comes in {{up to eleven}} in this part of the play. In this case, Peer is {{the Everyman}} figure, and the people he meets in the fifth act are largely allegorical, and there to teach him of his errors.

** Ibsen also nods to other Norwegian authors, as contemporary poet {{Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson}} wrote of a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold golden haired girl]] in a largely successful story five years prior to the play. Like Solveig, this girl at first sight wore a hymn book and held "her mother´s skirt". ''And she had a similar name''. Creator/HenrikWergeland used "the cabin in the woods" trope even before that, in an 1845 play called "The cabin in the mountains". The play in question also had [[IWillWaitForyou a young girl waiting]].

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Connected to the reception of the play and the position in the Norwegain national canon. Taken {{up to eleven}} when a prize is given up each year, bearing the name of the play. The Peer Gynt prize usually goes to a Norwegian who has broken through and made Norway more known. {{Fridge irony}} at all costs.

* ItRunsInTheFamily: Both Peer`s grandfather and father were moulded by the Button Moulder, so Peer had it coming, from a genetic point of view.

--> Here I will wait, as I promised you.

* MamaBear: Peer`s mother Åse. She is rather arguable and dissatisfied with the ways of his son, but stands up for him when she believes him threatened - to the point where she tries to face down the local smith, arguably the strongest man in the community and Peer`s archnemesis in the first part of the play. Occasionally, she also acts like a {{jewish mother}}.

* TheFairFolk: played straight with the greenclad Hulder, who abducts him into the mountain.

* NapoleonicWars: The historical background, set in the early nineteenth century, as the beginning of the play. Later events shout out to the greek rebellion (1825) and the {{San Francisco Gold Rush}} in 1848. Peer returns several years after this, sometime before 1865.
* TheAtoner: Solveig, interceding on Peer`s behalf. And How.

After having his way with the bride Ingrid, who was sweet on him, but had to marry someone else, he dumps her, only to get exceedingly drunk with three dairy maids in the mountain, and then finally to get abducted into the same mountain. Here, he encounters the Mountain king and his daughter, the green-clad Hulder, and has to pass some tests for the right to woo her. He goes some of the way, but rejects the trolls when they ask for permission to alter his eyesight for ever. Then the trolls beat him within an inch of his life before disappearing because of church bells, invoked by his mother, who seeks for him outside.

Peer lives large in foreign lands, earns a lot of money on slave trade and missioning, and is abandoned by his foreign friends off the coast of Morocco. From there, he finds his way to Egypt, playing the prophet and seduces a beduin chieftain´s daughter who robs him, before he eventually tries his luck as an historian in Cairo. He ends up in a local madhouse, suddenly realizing how he got there.

Returning to Norway an old man, he ends up shipwrecked off the western coast, and comes home as an unknown beggar. He sees his old farm fallen to total ruin, is mocked by the villagers who believe him dead, and returns to the mountains, where he finally realizes that his life is wasted. He meets {{the Devil}}, the Mountain king and a button moulder, who tells him to be reshaped, as his soul was squandered. He finally admits defeat and runs to the only one who can still save him: Solveig, still waiting in his old cabin. The play ends with a "we´ll see" from the Button Moulder.

* AssholeVictim: The four businessmen (a brit, a swede, a german and a frenchman), who abandon Peer on the coast of Morocco, steal his yacht and his fortune, and immidiately being blown to pieces.

** Expied brilliantly in [[literature/TheNeverendingStory]], where Bastian experiences the old city of emperors, filled with madmen.

--> The Boyg (finally defeated): He was to strong - he was backed by women.

** Expied brilliantly in {{literature/The Neverending Story}}, where Bastian experiences the old city of emperors, filled with madmen.

* CatchPhrase: "Go around, said the Boyg". "Be ''utterly'' thyself".

* AssholeVictim: The four businessmen (a brit, a swede, a german and a frenchman), who abandon Peer on the coast of Morocco, steal his yacht and his fortune, and immidiately being blown to pieces.

* CreepyChild: The brat Peer begat with the hulder arguably counts. He has grown horribly fast, and the first he threatens to do, is chop Peer with his axe.

* AllJustADream: The second act from the moment he stumbles against the wall of a mountain shed dreadfully hung over, to the moment he wakes up at the end of the act with a dry throat. The passage with the trolls and the boyg, let alone the Grennclad woman happens in between. Whether or not this actually ''is'' just a dream is open for interpretation.

'''Peer Gynt''' is an epic drama written by Norwegian playwright Creator/HenrikIbsen in 1867. The play is a verse drama, telling the life story of the {{farm boy}} Peer, an unreliable poet who is prone to make up {{tall tale}}s of his own experiences, often based on local folklore. This to the chagrin of the villagers, who have heard the stories before. Peer lives with his widow mother on a downtrodden farm, coming from a family who has seen better days. During his youth, he trespasses on a rural wedding and runs off with the bride, after being rejected by the chaste Solveig, who apparently made a lasting impression on him.

** Ibsen also nods to other Norwegian authors, as contemporary poet {{Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson}} wrote of a [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold golden haired girl]] in a largely successful story five years prior to the play. Like Solveig, this girl at first sight wore a hymn book and held "her mother´s skirt". ''And she had a similar name''. {{Henrik Wergeland}} used "the cabin in the woods" trope even before that, in an 1845 play called "The cabin in the mountains". The play in question also had [[IWillWaitForyou a young girl waiting]].

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Peer annoys the mountain king and the entire troll community when he decides not to follow their last request. The beat him to kingdom come.