Line #31 Literature/Coraline


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Coraline_Book_3374.jpg]]
2
3	->''"What is there to be frightened of about buttons?"''
4	-->-- '''Creator/NeilGaiman''', "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQC0QVXa33o Koumpounophobia]]"
5
6	''Coraline'' is a 2002 horror novel written by Creator/NeilGaiman and illustrated by Creator/DaveMcKean.
7
8	Coraline Jones is a girl with loving but distracted and inattentive parents. Having recently moved into a new home without any friends around, she finds life utterly boring. Then, one afternoon, she opens a mysterious door in her house. Behind that door lies a different world where Coraline finds other versions of her parents who dote on her, spoiling her with wonderful toys and home-cooked meals. But something oddly sinister lurks just beneath the surface...
9
10	A graphic novel adaptation was released in 2008, and an [[TheFilmOfTheBook animated adaptation]] was released in 2009; tropes for the latter can be found [[WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}} here]].
11	----
12	!!This book includes examples of:
13	* AccidentalMisnaming: Miss Spink, Miss Forcible, and Mr. Bobo mistakenly call Coraline "Caroline", despite her repeatedly correcting them. Meanwhile, their Other World counterparts always call her by her correct name.
14	* AdultsAreUseless: Played with. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read Coraline's tea leaves and see that there's trouble, and give her the hagstone, while Mr. Bobo sends her a message that warns of danger. They seem to be only mildly perturbed, though. Coraline is unable to convey to the old ladies that her parents have gone missing, let alone the rest of it, and when she calls the police the policeman indulgently says she's just had a nightmare. Still, the hagstone helps.
15	* AllTakeAndNoGive: The Other Mother just wants something to love other than herself... and feed, dress, and [[spoiler: take the souls of children so she can possess them completely.]]
16	* AllUpToYou: Coraline tries to tell Miss Spink and Miss Forcible that her parents are missing but they don't seem to hear her, and the police think she's describing a bad dream. If she wants to get her parents back she has to do it all herself.
17	* AllYourPowersCombined: When Coraline is fleeing the Other World for the final time, she struggles to close the door, and calls upon [[spoiler: her parents and the ghost children whose souls she liberated for help; they're able to channel strength to her to seal the passage]].
18	* AndYouWereThere: Everyone in the Other World is (deliberately) based on someone Coraline knows in the mortal world. Except the Cat, that is.
19	* AnimalMotifs: The novel describes the Other Mother using various bits of spidery imagery; she's made into a full-blown spider lady in the film.
20	* ApologeticAttacker: [[spoiler: The Other Father, who tells Coraline he's sorry and that the Other Mother is making him attack her during their encounter in the basement.]]
21	* ArcWords: "Ever and always".
22	* BadBadActing: The illusion the Other Mother shows Coraline of her parents coming home from a holiday to try and make her think her parents are happier without her and it's eased their minds to think Coraline will be with her more loving Other Mother instead. Coraline actually doubts whether it's true or not...for about ten seconds.
23	* BigBad: The Other Mother. She's the real power behind the Other World, and it's her schemes that drive the plot.
24	* BitchInSheepsClothing: The Other Mother and Father might seem like the kind of parents every child wants, but they'll [[spoiler: [[EyeScream sew buttons into your eyes]]]] or worse if you're not careful.
25	* BlackEyesOfEvil: [[spoiler: Black ''button'' eyes of evil.]]
26	* BodyHorror: Geez, where do you start? If the button eyes themselves aren't enough for you, [[spoiler: try imagining the Other Mother sewing buttons into ''your'' eyes. The Other Mother's creations degenerating into horrifying monsters as Coraline rebels against her will also send a shudder up your spine.]]
27	* CatchPhrase: Almost everyone Coraline meets on her first visit to the Other World says "for ever and always" at some point.
28	* CatsAreMean: Downplayed, as the Cat isn't necessarily mean, but it does consider itself to be automatically above any other being in the world and treats them with according superiority.
29	* CatsAreSnarkers: As befits its superior attitude, the Cat has a very smart aleck-y attitude.
30	--> "Please, what is this place?"\
31	The cat glanced around briefly. "It's here," said the cat.
32	* ChekhovsGun:
33	** [[spoiler: "Protective coloration", anyone?]]
34	** The well, which [[spoiler: Coraline uses to finish off the Other Mother's hand and seal the key to the Other World away in one go]].
35	** The stone with a hole in it, which proves essential for finding [[spoiler:the ghost children's souls]].
36	* CoolGate: The wooden door leading to the Other World.
37	* CordonBleughChef: Subverted -- Coraline treats her dad's creations as if he's one of these, but he actually seems to be a competent chef who enjoys experimenting with complex gourmet techniques. Coraline just despises "recipes" and, as young children often do, doesn't like spices and garlic and would prefer pizza and french fries.
38	* CreativeSterility: The Other Mother suffers from this, and it's actually a major plot point. She can't make anything new, only copies of things that exist in the real world, so Coraline wonders [[spoiler: why she would have a snow globe on the mantel when the real one has nothing on it]].
39	* CreepyBasement: CREEPY? Try absolutely ''terrifying''. [[spoiler: It's got the horribly mutated Other Father creature in it, and he comes this close to catching Coraline before she can escape.]]
40	* CuriosityIsACrapshoot: Coraline is bored in the week before school and just ''has'' to go through the mysterious door... She nearly dies because of it. [[spoiler: And three other kids in her position actually ''did'' die]].
41	* DangerouslyGarishEnvironment: The Other World is very colourful, with bright clothes on the people, flowers, and so on, but it's run by demon-like creatures who want to [[WouldHurtAChild trap and eventually kill Coraline]]. Unlike in the movie, the world doesn't become less colourful when it starts to disintegrate, but instead it becomes less defined, and is described as looking like a 2D drawing.
42	* DarkWorld: The Other World is a perfect example of this. Interestingly enough, it first tries to look like an improvement over the real world, but when Coraline rejects it, it takes a turn right down into nightmare fuel.
43	* DeathOfAChild: Coraline encounters [[spoiler: the three ghost children abducted by the Other Mother prior to her arrival. Avoided with Coraline herself however, who survives the story with no worse than a skinned knee and a scratched palm]].
44	* DefangedHorrors: The book is definitely scary, but it's scary in a way that kids can usually handle. It's more upsetting to ''adults'' who have children.
45	* DownTheRabbitHole: Coraline goes through a mysterious door in her drawing room, and ends up in an alternate version of her home populated by alternate versions of the people who live there that seems too good to be true.
46	* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: The passageway between the worlds turns out to be one of these towards the end. As Coraline makes her final escape, she touches the sides and discovers it's fleshy and covered in downy fur. Some steps later she touches it again and finds it hot and wet "as if she'd put her hand in someone's mouth".]]
47	* EurekaMoment: While Coraline is looking for the third ghost child's soul, she realizes that the Other Mother can't actually create anything -- she can generate illusions and facsimiles of things in the real world, but they're just copies...which makes Coraline ask herself: [[spoiler: what's the point of that snow globe on the mantel?]]
48	* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler: Every inhabitant of the Other World is one for their real-life selves, but the Other Mother is the big one, since she created all the rest and is the BigBad.]]
49	* ExactWords: [[spoiler: The Other Mother swears on her right hand she'll let Coraline go if she wins their game. Technically speaking, by having her right hand follow Coraline after the Other Mother breaks her word, she's keeping up her end of the bargain.]]
50	* EyeScream: The Other Mother wishes to sew buttons into Coraline's eyes. She's done it to other children before Coraline, as well.
51	* FaceRevealingTurn: When Coraline first ventures into the Other World, the Other Mother does one of these to greet Coraline.
52	--> "And then she turned around. Her eyes were big black buttons."
53	* FakeBetterAlternateTimeline: When the eponymous girl first finds the other dimension in her closet, she enjoys it -- she wears the clothes she wants and there is a circus nearby. However, it then turns out to be a trap laid by the alternate parents, who want to [[EyeScream sew buttons in her eyes]] and then [[WouldHurtAChild kill her]].
54	* FairyTale: The book is one of Neil Gaiman's own invention -- the simply told tale of a little girl who ventures into a mysterious realm and faces down terrifying monsters with her wits and determination. To top it off, the Other Mother is implied to be one of the fair folk, as is [[spoiler: one of the ghost children, who has wings]].
55	* TheFairFolk: The Other Mother is heavily implied to be one of these. She loves to play games, which is a common trait of the fair folk, and her scheme of luring away human children to her otherworldly realm is reminiscent of changeling myths. Her other name, the beldam, is a synonym for witch, but might be a play on words related to a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Dame_sans_Merci poem]] about a fairy that lures knights to her hill and sucks the life out of them. "Belle dame" is homophonous, and it's French for "beautiful lady", and "step-mother" for that matter. And if we know anything about [[WickedStepmother fairy tales]]....
56	** One of the [[spoiler: ghost children]] is also a fairy.
57	** That stone-with-a-hole-in-it? That's a self-bored stone, which according to Myth/CelticMythology tradition allows you to see through faerie illusions.
58	* FateWorseThanDeath: What happened to the ghost children, and what nearly happens to Coraline -- the Other Mother fed on their love, removing their eyes so they would be imprisoned in her world forever, possessing them so completely that they lose their sense of identity and their consciousness is tossed aside. They're NotQuiteDead, referring to themselves as dried husks, and can't move on to the next life until someone saves their souls.
59	* FearIsNormal: At one point, Coraline remembers her father telling her that true bravery is doing something despite one's fear, such as when he braved a wasps' nest to retrieve something.
60	* FemmeFatalons: The Other Mother has these.
61	--> "Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp."
62	* FisherKingdom: Arguably, the Other World counts. After spending a night there, Coraline feels cloudy and groggy, and only after [[spoiler:touching the adder stone -- which is stated to provide protection against the Other Mother -- in her pocket]] does she truly feel like herself again.
63	* GlamourFailure: The Other Mother doesn't show up in mirrors. When Coraline asks her why, she simply replies that mirrors can't be trusted.
64	** The Other World itself begins to suffer this as Coraline finds each of the Ghost Children's souls -- as the Other Mother grows angrier and starts losing her hold on the place, it fades and flattens into something resembling a child's drawing, with no depth or color.
65	* TheGrotesque: [[spoiler: The transformed Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible]], and by the end, [[spoiler: what's left of the Other Father]], each being melted barely-humanoid abominations of their former selves.
66	* HelpingHands: The Other Mother loses her hand when [[spoiler: Coraline closes the door on it in her final escape from the Other World]], and it goes searching for the key in the real world.
67	* IronicNurseryTune: The creepy chants sung by the rats, of which there are three, each creepier than the last. Sadly, all of them are absent from the film. The last one goes:
68	--> ''We have eyes and we have nerveses\
69	We have tails we have teeth\
70	You'll all get what you deserveses\
71	When we rise from underneath.''
72	* IWasQuiteALooker: Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. Coraline gets a glimpse at their former beauty during their performance in the Other World theater.
73	* ImpossibleTask: Coraline has to find all three ghost souls to win the "game" the Other Mother agrees to play with her. Oh, and her missing parents, who are also lost in the Other World.
74	* ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest: The self-bored stone, courtesy of the Misses Spink and Forcible. They're good for bad things, sometimes... Anyway, it [[ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest might help...]] [[spoiler: The adder stone is essential for Coraline to find the souls of the ghost children]].
75	* KidHero: Coraline. Her age is unclear, but the events of the book take place during her school holidays.
76	* KnifeThrowingAct: The Other Misses Spink and Forcible perform this with Coraline as their audience "volunteer".
77	* LeanAndMean: The Other Mother. After the first encounter, she's taller and thinner than Coraline's real mother.
78	* LittleMissSnarker: Coraline tends to say things in a rather flat, deadpan tone.
79	--> ''[the Other Mother eats a blackbeetle whole like a chocolate]''\
80	“You’re sick,” said Coraline. “Sick and evil and weird.”
81	* MagicalLand: The Other World is an alternate version of Coraline's house with magical animate toys, talking cats, and [[spoiler: child-kidnapping monsters]] with buttons for eyes.
82	* {{Matricide}}: Played with. The Other Mother put her mother to the grave, "And when I caught her trying to crawl out, I put her back in". Does that mean she died either time? Is she dead ''now''?
83	* MatureWorkChildProtagonists: Inverted. The book ''was'' written for children, but evokes a vastly different reaction between the intended audience and the grown-ups who read it. Kids, Gaiman found out, see it as a child protagonist cleverly using their wits to escape danger. Grown-ups see a child left on her own in mortal peril.
84	* MindControlEyes: Everyone in the Other World (under the Other Mother's control) has buttons for eyes. [[spoiler: The final step in stealing a child's soul is to sew buttons into their eyes too.]]
85	* MuggleInMageCustody: Coraline almost becomes a foster child of the Other Mother, who turns out to be a kind of evil witch.
86	* NewHouseNewProblems: The book starts with Coraline and her family having moved into a new house not long ago, and it's in this new house that the door to an Other World is located.
87	* NoNeedForNames: The cat is only ever known as "the cat". According to him, cats don't have names, and they don't need them because unlike humans, they know who they are.
88	* NonHumanSidekick: The cat. It accompanies Coraline on each of her forays into the Other World, providing enigmatic advice and support.
89	* NothingIsScarier: Excellently evoked for a lot of the scares. As Coraline explores the Other World, its uncanny dissimilarities to the real world pile up until the tension has been ratcheted as high as it can go.
90	* NotTheFirstVictim: Coraline's discovery of the three ghost children reveals this, though the victims end up playing a larger role in the plot than usual for this trope.
91	* OnlySmartPeopleMayPass: If Coraline can't see past the Other Mother's illusions to find her parents and the souls of the ghost children, she'll have to stay in the Other World forever.
92	* PapaWolf: Coraline tells the Cat a story of how she and her father stumbled into a wasps' nest near their old house. Her father told Coraline to run, while he stayed behind to be the one getting the majority of the bee stings.
93	* ParentalBonus: Gaiman cites this as the reason the story is, ironically, scarier for grown-ups than for children. The themes go over children's heads, so they read it as an adventure story with some creepy monsters, delivering familiar {{Aesop}}s such as "Be brave" and "BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor." Adults, on the other hand, get the message, "If you neglect your children, they might be [[spoiler: kidnapped, mutilated, and murdered by somebody who pretends to be you]]."
94	* ParentalLoveSong: The "twitchy-witchy" song, in which Coraline's father expresses his affection for his daughter by telling her (goofily) the things he will and won't do for her.
95	--> ''Oh—-my twitchy witchy girl\
96	I think you are so nice,\
97	I give you bowls of porridge\
98	And I give you bowls of ice\
99	Cream.\
100	I give you lots of kisses,\
101	And I give you lots of hugs,\
102	But I never give you sandwiches\
103	With bugs\
104	In.''
105	* ParentsInDistress: [[spoiler:Coraline's parents are kidnapped by the Other Mother, and she has to challenge the Other Mother to an exploring game save them.]]
106	* PerfectionIsStatic: The other crazy old man upstairs tries to persuade Coraline to stay in the Other World by promising that the Other Mother will make every day a paradise for her. Despite being only a child, Coraline is wise enough to understand that getting everything she ever wanted, all the time, would be meaningless.
107	-->'''Coraline''': And will there be grey, wet days where I just don't know what to do and there's nothing to read or to watch and nowhere to go and the day drags on forever?\
108	'''Other Crazy Old Man Upstairs''': Never.\
109	'''Coraline''': And will there be awful meals, with food made from recipes, with garlic and tarragon and broad beans in?\
110	'''Other Crazy Old Man Upstairs''': Every meal will be a thing of joy. Nothing will pass your lips that does not entirely delight you.\
111	'''Coraline''': And could I have Day-Glo green gloves to wear, and yellow Wellington boots in the shape of frogs?\
112	'''Other Crazy Old Man Upstairs''': Frogs, ducks, rhinos, octopuses -- whatever you desire. The world will be built new for you every morning. If you stay here, you can have whatever you want.\
113	'''Coraline''': You really don't understand, do you? I don't ''want'' whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn't ''mean'' anything. What then?
114	* PineappleRuinsPizza: One of Coraline's pet peeves is the food prepared by her father, because [[CordonBleughChef he always experiences weird recipes]], which she refuses to eat. After defeating the Other Mother and getting her parents back, her father makes for dinner a pizza with meatballs, green pepper and pineapple. Having learned to accept her parents as they are, Coraline eats her slice of pizza - except the pineapple pieces.
115	* PlotCoupon: The souls of the ghost children. Coraline challenges the Other Mother to an exploring game in order to escape, with the souls as tokens that she has to produce for the Other Mother before she can be set free. If she can't find them, she'll be trapped in the Other World forever.
116	* PluckyGirl: Coraline faces down all the horrors the Other Mother can throw at her but never once whines or gives up.
117	* PoliceAreUseless: Coraline calls the police to report her parents kidnapped, but is told to go to bed by the cop. [[JustifiedTrope Understandably]], since she tells him her parents are stuck in a mirror and that the Other Mother wants to sew buttons into their eyes...
118	* PostClimaxConfrontation: After Coraline successfully escapes from the Other Mother and her custom dimension, her severed hand returns and attacks the former one final time in a last-ditch effort to reclaim the key that'll then allow the latter to enter the normal world, but the sequence instead ends with the severed hand getting dropped right on down into a deep hole with a boulder holding it down as well on top of that, and as an added bonus, this also even happens within the animated film adaptation near the end.
119	* ProtagonistTitle: ''Coraline'', starring Coraline.
120	* PsychicPowers: Miss Spink and Miss Forcible have mild psychic ability: they accurately read tea leaves to tell Coraline's future, and Miss Spink gives Coraline a self-bored stone, sensing that the girl might need it soon.
121	** There's also Mr. Bobo's mice, who send Coraline a cryptic warning "not to go through the door"; Mr. Bobo himself can communicate with the mice.
122	* {{Pun}}: After her parents disappear, Coraline remarks to Miss Spink and Miss Forcible that she thinks she's become a "single-child family".
123	* ReadingTeaLeaves: Spink and Forcible insist on reading Coraline's tea leaves, and discover an omen of doom in them.
124	* RealFakeDoor: This is the normal state of the door to the Other World, as it originally led to another part of the house, but got blocked off in the process of dividing the house into flats.
125	* SeeThruSpecs: The stone with the hole in it. When Coraline looks through it, she can see [[spoiler: the souls of the ghost children]] glowing.
126	* ShoutOut: At the beginning of chapter 8, the illustration shows a mess of toys, including a [[{{Franchise/Pokemon}} Pikachu]]'s head.
127	* SoreLoser: After Coraline finds the first soul, the Other Mother sends a roaring wind ''indoors'' to slow her down. She also has no intention of letting Coraline go, whether she wins the exploring game or not.
128	* StylisticSuck: The story that Coraline writes on her dad's computer when she discovers that her parents are missing.
129	--> "CORALINE’S STORY.\
130	THERE WAS A GIRL HER NAME WAS APPLE. SHE USED TO DANCE A LOT. SHE DANCED AND DANCED UNTIL HER FEET TURND INTO SOSSAJES THE END."
131	* SupremeChef: The Other Mother is much better at cooking than either of Coraline's parents. When she makes a delicious lunch of roasted chicken, potatoes, and peas, Coraline mentally compares it to her mother's chicken which is always dry and tasteless, and her father's chicken which is cooked in strange recipes.
132	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Other Mother tells Coraline she shouldn't listen to ghosts because they don't exist and everyone knows ghosts are liars.
133	* TalkingAnimal: The cat, although only in the Other World.
134	* TrappedInAnotherWorld: Near the end, the Other Mother. As for the ghost children, they're stuck there until Coraline can find their souls.
135	* UrbanFantasy: In an ordinary house, behind an ordinary door, there's an Other World inhabited by a witch/faerie and her servants who scheme to lure children away from their families and trap their souls forever.
136	* VagueAge: This seems to be the case with Coraline. The illustration for the first chapter makes her look like a teenager, but the story she writes on her father's computer is the work of an eight-year-old, maximum.
137	* VaguenessIsComing: Lampshaded. When Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read Coraline's tea leaves for the first time, they warn her that she's in serious danger. She asks what that danger is, and they explain that they can't tell--the leaves are good for ''general'' predictions, but don't reveal anything about specifics.
138	* WickedStepmother: The Other Mother, in a way, as she's an evil alternate version of Coraline's real mother.
139	* WickedWitch: The Other Mother is a supernatural creature who uses illusions to kidnap innocent children and trap their souls forever.
140	* WigDressAccent: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]]. Coraline tells her parents a story about confusing alien abductors by wearing a wig and talking in a foreign accent.
141	* {{Yandere}}: The Other Mother insists that she does everything she does because she loves Coraline, even as she tries to steal her soul and sew buttons into her eyes.
142	* YouDirtyRat: The species of the rodents in Coraline's house depends on which world she's in. Good world = mice. Bad world = rats. Simple.
143	* YouWontFeelAThing: At one point, the Other Parents tell Coraline this when they try to convince her to let them sew the buttons on her eyes. Coraline doesn't believe them for an instant, as whenever adults say that something won't hurt, it always hurts very much.

Context Literature / Coraline