Line #42 YMMV/Dark2017


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: With a cast full of morally ambiguous and emotionally broken people, the show invites wildly differing intepretations, especially since [[spoiler:the very existence of a StableTimeLoop calls into question how free the characters really are in their actions]].
2	** How much sympathy one feels for Ulrich depends very much on whether one considers the bad events in his life a valid excuse for his poor decisions. He's either an unrepentant jerk who willingly cheats on his wife [[spoiler:in two different universes]] and has no one but himself to blame for his failures, or a loving father and husband whose judgment is severely impaired by the emotional distress from losing both his brother and his son.
3	** Did Hannah turn bitter and egotistical because life continued to screw her over, or was she always a full-blown sociopath? And, as Jonas himself wonders, did she ever truly love her husband or was he just a consolation prize after she realized that Ulrich would never be interested in her? [[spoiler:She shows genuine remorse for her actions in Season 3, but is murdered by Adam/Jonas before she can atone, and her original timeline counterpart is shown to be a much nicer person with a stable life, which suggests that the misery caused by the time loop exacerbated her worst tendencies]].
4	** Was Bartosz a genuine friend to Jonas and didn't know about his crush on Martha, or did he deliberately take advantage of Jonas' trauma and prolonged absence from Winden to steal his girlfriend?
5	** The reveal that Ines drugged her adopted son Michael/[[spoiler:Mikkel]] with sleeping pills without his knowledge casts her in a very ambiguous light, especially since she is implied to have been aware, or at least suspected, that [[spoiler:he is a time traveler]]. Was she acting out of a well-meaning, but misguided desire to shield him from the effects of his traumatic experience, or was she selfishly trying to [[spoiler:prevent him from returning to his real family]] just so she could keep him for herself?
6	*** Or might she be [[spoiler:associated with or a member of Sic Mundus, charged with the responsibility of watching him and do any action necessary to keep the loop stable]]?
7	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
8	** The soundtrack by Ben Frost is ''beautiful'', and that's not even getting to the haunting opening with the song "Goodbye" by Apparat featuring [=Soap&Skin=].
9	** The ending of Season 2 used Peter Gabriel's cover of [[Music/ArcadeFire "My Body is A Cage"]] so brilliantly well with [[spoiler: the growing climax with the Stranger taking Magnus, Franziska, and Bartosz into another timeline, Future-Magnus and Franziska preparing the Dark Matter for the synchronization of the timelines, 1921-Noah entering the bunker and seeing eye to eye with Elisabeth, Katharina opening the Sic mundus creatus est door in the Winden caves as the energy of it activates, and of course, most of all, Charlotte seeing 2053-Elisabeth through the Dark Matter portal and reach out for each other, all while finally causing the Apocalypse to occur]].
10	** The Kreator song "Pleasure To Kill" that teen Ulrich Nielsen is listening to in the 80's is definitely this. The quoted lyrics "My only aim is to take many lives; The more the better I feel" also serve as arch words for adult Ulrich in 1953 after being arrested by adult Egon Tiedemann. This becomes FridgeBrilliance when you find out that the lyrics appear at the 33 second mark of the song.
11	** [=Soap&Skin=]'s cover of [[Music/LouisArmstrong "What A Wonderful World"]] is beautifully heartbreaking as it plays to [[spoiler: scenes of Jonas, Martha, Adam, Eve, Claudia, and the Stranger all slowly fading away as the Knot finally is untangled]].
12	** From the ending of Episode 6 in Season 3: the M83 remix of Bloc Party's "The Pioneers", which was also used for the trailer for Season 3. Such a powerful and awesome song, indeed.
13	* BrokenBase: [[BittersweetEnding The ending]] has involved [[{{Understatement}} a huge slew of debates]]. Some fans like it due to the fact that it provides [[EarnYourHappyEnding a genuinely happy ending for at least some of the characters]], even if it comes at the cost of [[spoiler:a huge majority of the main cast, including Jonas and Martha, [[RetGone being erased from existence]]]], which is consistent with the show's theme of self-sacrifice for a greater purpose. Others, however, argue that the final twist which [[spoiler:allows for the breaking of the time loop]] is revealed with barely any foreshadowing and contradicts the show's previous emphasis on determinism. Essentially, whether the ending is perceived as good or bad depends very much on where the viewer's personal belief lies on the SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate.
14	* CatharsisFactor: [[spoiler: Hannah spends most of Season 2 being chewed out by other characters over her shitty behavior from Season 1, which acclimates in "Lost and Found" where Future-Jonas calls her out over her sociopathic behavior, [[ArmorPiercingQuestion if she truly loved Michael/Mikkel]] and how she ruins everyone's lives with her abhorrent and selfish behavior]]. Season 3 had her deal with huge amount of TraumaCongaLine until finally [[spoiler: attempting a HeelFaceTurn to Jonas...except Jonas was already in early-Adam stage and afterwards choked her to death]].
15	* EsotericHappyEnding: As stated above, It is easy to see the GrandFinale ending as this for how it plays with the idea of [[ExpendableAlternateUniverse toying around with universes as if they were expendable]] and completely leaves out the moral ambiguousness of the entire thing. [[spoiler: Two universes are erased for the sake of only one to continue to exists. Even if the remaining characters lived HappilyEverAfter, it's not like drama and misery will cease to exist because of it and it seems to ignore the fact that a little more than twice as many lives ''at least'' were sacrificed as a result, and gives the [[AccidentalAesop implication]] that "if you were unlucky enough to live in one of these two worlds... well sorry, but you don't matter". Downplayed, in that everyone who was actually erased rather than fused into their alternate selves was the product of time travel, which doesn't extend far beyond Winden - or the apocalypse in both worlds, which is something ''nobody'' would have wanted to happen, as both worlds were condemned to a slow death that the origin world isn't.]]
16	* FriendlyFandoms: Netflix and the corporate media have marketed ''Dark'' to fans of ''Series/StrangerThings'', due to similarities such as children vanishing under mysterious circumstances, a small town haunted by seemingly supernatural phenomena, and references to the popular culture of TheEighties. Though many ''Dark'' fans see a FandomRivalry between the two shows, typically angered by ''Stranger Things'' having [[ItsPopularNowItSucks greater popularity]] and more straightforward, lighthearted writing.
17	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: "Ultimate fist-bump?"
18	** Doubly amusing in that this of all lines is quite successfully used for tragic effect quite later on.
19	** The BrickJoke surrounding [[NoodleIncident Woller's missing eye.]]
20	** Even funnier is during Season 2, when new character Clausen finally asks him about it during a drive. After a long bit of hesitation and getting Clausen's assurance that he won't tell anyone, Woller agrees. But just as he starts to explain what happened to him "last summer," they are interrupted by [[spoiler: Woller nearly hitting a time-traveling Claudia Tiedemann in the middle of the road.]]
21	** [[spoiler:After traveling to 1986,]] Jonas ends up hitching a ride with [[spoiler: Egon Tiedemann. Still thinking of his previous encounter with young Ulrich and his punk rock music, Egon asks Jonas if kids his age are into Satanism these days. Jonas bursts out laughing, before noticing [[SeriousBusiness Egon's serious face]].]]
22	** After getting arrested [[spoiler: in 1953, Ulrich realizes the cop who caught him is a young Egon Tiedemann, the police chief who was out to get him as a teenager. He can't help but quote the Kreator lyrics that once puzzled Egon: "My only aim is to take many lives, the more the better I feel." This ends up planting the seed of Egon's dislike of young Ulrich 33 years later. Which we know because Egon responds to this cryptic statement by asking if Ulrich is a Satanist.]]
23	** In 1953, young Claudia loses her toy poodle Gretchen after the dog goes running off into the cave. In the same episode, Claudia's older self is investigating the cave when, all of a sudden, Gretchen comes out of the darkness and reunites with her. From the dog's perspective, it's only been an hour or so, as opposed to Claudia, who hasn't seen Gretchen in 33 years. Understandably, Claudia can't help but glare at the cute doggie with uneasy suspicion after this. Gets funnier when adult Claudia meets [[spoiler: her elderly self in Season 2, who reveals that she was the one who took Gretchen through time to meet adult Claudia and that the dog plainly recognized every version of Claudia.]]
24	** Katharina laughing incredulously [[spoiler: when Stranger-Jonas tells her that he is her grandson.]]
25	* GeniusBonus: That, or a cultural bonus for native Germans. Even though the Winden of the story is fictional and its exact location unknown (and largely inconsequential), the package that is sent to Jonas in season 1 has the postal code of 36177 on it, which is in the state of Hesse, close to the city of Fulda.
26	* HarsherInHindsight: The opening of 1921 timeline in Season 2, in where a young Noah bludgeons a fellow miner to death becomes this as the latter is revealed to be [[spoiler: ''Bartosz'' stuck in 1888, who is Noah's '''father'''.]]
27	** Adam [[spoiler: manipulating Jonas to cause Michael's suicide becomes this retroactively when it's revealed he has already killed their mother Hannah before, in 1911, taking away her daughter Silja from her for Elisabeth to be her guardian in the post-apocalyptic Winden.]]
28	* JerkassWoobie: Both Ulrich and Katharina are deeply flawed and not particularly pleasant characters, but given what we see of their troubled childhood and their strained relationship after their son goes missing, it's hard not to sympathize with them.
29	* MemeticBadass: [[spoiler:Future-Jonas]], as considering how [[spoiler:[[TheWoobie 2019-Jonas]]]] is, it'd be refreshing to see how he became so level headed.
30	* MemeticMutation:
31	** "Everything is connected."
32	** Trying to figure out [[spoiler: the timelines]] has become this.
33	** Jokes that [[spoiler: Ulrich's phone]] is what [[spoiler: causes the timeline problems]].
34	** "The question isn't how: The question is ''when''."
35	** "'''WHERE/WHEN IS MIKKEL!?'''", bonus points if it's German.
36	** "Sic mundus creatus est!"
37	** "Ich bin du."
38	** "What's with Torben's eyepatch", which is echoed by majority of the fanbase wondering why [[EyeScream he has an eyepatch]]. It ended up even becoming a joke among the fanbase ''and'' the show runners considering [[spoiler: the second universe had Torben without an arm and the final episode almost had him explain the reasoning for his eye injury only to be interrupted]].
39	* MemeticPsychopath: Due to the amount of twists and reveals in the series, it became popular to joke that Gretchen the poodle, of all characters, was the real mastermind behind everything and that she was somehow Adam.
40	* {{Narm}}: When [[spoiler: Adam achieves his goal of sacrificing Alt!Martha to kill her unborn child because he believes that child to be a paradox that is the origin of the knot]]. He just kinda stands there waiting for something to happen, and it is hilarious.
41	* ShockingMoments:
42	** Season 2 made it more intense with [[spoiler: the revelation that Noah's entire reason for doing what he did for all of Season 1 was to find his daughter, ''Charlotte Doppler'' and the revelation that Noah works with a man known as Adam leading a sect known as Sic Mundus who want to recreate the world without restriction by time even if it means ''causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt'', with Adam actually being '''Jonas'''. And it's also revealed that Charlotte's mother... ''is an adult Elisabeth'']].
43	** [[spoiler: The Season 2 finale revealing that not only does time play a role, so does '''alternative realities''']].
44	** The writers say they deliberately scheduled "holy shit" moments around three-quarters of the way through each episode. This can also be seen on a season level, with season 1 episode 8 and season 2 episode 6 being notable Wham Episodes.
45	* {{Squick}}:
46	** The fact [[spoiler:Mikkel becomes Jonas's father and Jonas fancies Martha, who's ''his aunt'']]. Brr. Building on this, we see [[spoiler: Jonas and Martha having sex]] ''four times'' in season 2. They also continue to [[spoiler: kiss even after knowing the their relationship is incestuous.]]
47	** To an extent, Hannah [[spoiler: unknowingly having an affair with her husband's father.]]
48	** [[spoiler: The reveal that Past-Noah and a later on adult ''Elisabeth'' are the parents to Charlotte. Yes, Charlotte's own ''daughter'', is her mother]].
49	** [[spoiler: By the end of season three, it's revealed that all of the families are interconnected throughout time. Meaning that, throughout the series, various characters have been taking part in AccidentalIncest, whether they realized it or not.]]
50	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Silja first appears at the end of season one. She reappears in seasons two and three, and there’s teased to be more to her than just being one of [[spoiler: Elisabeth]]’s henchwomen. Ultimately, she’s revealed to be [[spoiler: Bartosz’s eventual wife and Hannah’s second child. These relationships, and the character herself, receive essentially no development]].
51	** A case can be made for Agnes Nielsen too. In Season 1, there's a lot of mystery surrounding her character - she's a glamorous woman who arrives in Winden in 1953 with her son Tronte, claiming that her husband is dead, and cryptically suggesting that her grandmother lives in Winden. Season 2 [[spoiler: unravels some of the mystery, by revealing that she is Noah's sister, and a former member of Sic Mundus who's now working with Claudia.]] It seemed that she was being set up with an interesting story-arc for Season 3 [[spoiler: as a DoubleAgent embedded in Sic Mundus, with a mystery surrounding her past and her future. But when Season 3 actually arrived, Agnes barely makes more than a cameo appearance - as a willing member of Sic Mundus who goes off on an off-screen mission and is never seen again. A lot is revealed about her backstory, including her parents and the father of her child, but these developments seemingly have no impact on her character arc.]]
52	** Magnus Nielsen and Franziska Doppler. [[spoiler: Season 2 seemed to elevate them from largely superflous supporting characters to being potentially a crucial piece of the puzzle, as their teenage selves in 2020 learn about time-travel and the future selves are members of Sic Mundus working with Adam in 1921. But in Season 3, their characters are barely explored at all - their only significant action is saving the alternate-Martha from the apocalypse on her world, which could have been performed by literally ''any'' character. Their motivations to work with Adam, and their feelings about things like Adam being the murderer of Magnus' sister and ordering the killing of Bartosz, aren't explored at all. The alternate versions of Magnus and Franziska are not explored much better.]]
53	** The Unknown seemed to originally be set to play a much bigger role in the series, especially with [[spoiler: the revelation that ''he/they'' are the reason the Nilssen family line even exist to begin with]], as well as [[spoiler: he/them being the son of Jonas and the other Martha of Eve's universe and being the writer of the Book that Adam and Noah use]], but after the events of "Life and Death", they just stop appearing and they don't even make a cameo [[spoiler: at the very end when the Knot is finally broken]].
54	* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler: Due to the ending where the time knot is prevented from happening, practically '''''everyone''''' who ceased to exist qualifies. But special mentions goes to Jonas & Martha who pulled a HeroicSacrifice to achieve said ending. Their older selves Adam & Eve qualifies as well.]]
55	** [[spoiler: Claudia, [[TheChessmaster who manipulated events in different timelines to accomplice the aforementioned ending]], when she was killed by Noah.]]
56	** [[spoiler: [[EvilIsCool Noah]] as well, both when he was killed by Adam and when he ceased to exist in the aforementioned ending.]]
57	* TheWoobie:
58	** Jonas is deeply traumatized by his father's suicide, finds himself alienated from his friends and family after returning from the psychiatric ward, and discovers he's having an affair with [[spoiler:his own aunt]]. Then [[spoiler:His future self]] warns things aren't going to get any better for him...
59	** Mikkel/[[spoiler:Michael, who is stranded in 1986 with no means of returning to his former life. Although he is eventually adopted by Ines and founds a family of his own by marrying Hannah and fathering Jonas, he admits in his suicide letter that he never really felt at home]].
60	** Regina. As a teenager, she was neglected by her mother and bullied by her classmates, driving her to [[SelfHarm cut herself]] in order to cope with the stress. As an adult, she still hasn't received any apology from her former bullies, struggles financially, and is [[spoiler:diagnosed with cancer]].
61	** Season 2 establishes Egon as one of the most pitiful characters in the entire series: an honest small-town cop who becomes entangled in a conspiracy too vast and complex for him to grasp, loses his wife to another woman, turns into an alcoholic out of depression, and suffers from cancer in his old age. His valiant, but futile attempts to solve the mysteries surrounding him despite being LockedOutOfTheLoop only make him an even more tragic character, and just when [[spoiler:it looks he finally found the answers he was looking for, he is accidentally killed by his own daughter]]. The sheer injustice of his fate is emphasized by old Claudia when she [[spoiler:travels back to 1954]] and preemptively apologizes for what he is about to endure:
62	---> '''Claudia:''' You're too good a person. But you always have been. The world doesn't deserve you. You don't deserve any of this. But sometimes the good ones get hit the hardest.

Context YMMV / Dark2017