Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
The Doctor: Bad Wolf.
Rose: But, I've heard that before; bad wolf, I've heard that lots of times.
The Doctor: Everywhere we go: two words. Followin' us. Bad Wolf.
An enigmatic word or phrase that appears, unexplained and without context, here and there throughout an Arc, and (with luck) is finally explained at or near the climax. A way of building up tension and mystery, as well as an indicator that anyone using the words knows more than they're telling. Can also be used as a memetic way of advertising the show. A typical element of a Mind Screw.
Arc Words can also be a way to hint at the Aesop or one of the themes of a show, often in the form of a question the characters must find an answer to. Alternately, they can be used for Foreshadowing. But they are not the same thing as a Running Gag, a Catch Phrase, or even just a phrase that ends up popping up a lot due to being used a lot in the plot.
Note that the Arc Words often do not have attention drawn explicitly to them; eagle-eyed/sharp eared viewers are left to notice for themselves. In the "Bad Wolf" example below, the words appeared as, among other things, a helicopter's callsign, a reference in dialogue to "The Big Bad Wolf", a graffito, and even in other languages (the Welsh Blaidd Drwg, the French Mal Loup, and the German Böser Wolf).
Often shows up on the Internet Movie Database "memorable quotes" page for the show, with the label "repeated line".
Compare with Arc Number, Dream Melody. Not to be confused with Arc Reactor Words, which generally have to do with caves and boxes of scraps.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Serial Experiments Lain — "Everything is Connected" and "Close the world. Open the next."
- Also, in one or two of the episodes: "Fulfill the prophecy."
- "The Beautiful Night" and "Can happiness be achieved without sacrifice?" from the Giant Robo OVAs.
- Another arguable example would be "Big Fire." For most of the series, we're led to believe that Big Fire is nothing more the name of the global criminal superorganization which opposes the Experts. Only in the next-to-last episode do we learn that Big Fire is a person, and all those worshipful chants the BF members were fond of shouting ("Hail Big Fire! Alliance or death!" and so forth) were in reference to him, not the eponymous organization over which he reigns.
- The Fauxlosophic Narration Badass Creed at the start of each episode of Noir ("..Two maidens who govern death..") is promoted to Arc Words later on in the series itself. Also, "If love can kill people, surely hatred can save them."
- Thus spake the Hermit, the blood of the soldats shall run through the wilderness and mingle with the great sea...
- "Yours is the drill that will pierce the Heavens!" from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?" also from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- Notably in the last episode Simon declares that his is the drill that will create the heavens, and in the Distant Finale Simon starts to say the latter but cuts himself off and decides to simply say he's no one.
- Arguably, the meaning of the second Arc Words is during the Final Speech of the Anti-spiral King, where, upon his defeat, he passes the torch of protecting the universe to Simon, and the Arc Words are the latter's response, of course.
- It's worth noting that the translation of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is "Heaven-Piercing Gurren Lagann", making the name of Gurren-Lagann's final form even more meaningful.
- "Fooly cooly" from FLCL. Despite being the basis for the show's title and appearing at least once in each episode, "fooly cooly" is never explained. In the final episode, Naota's father tries to goad him into revealing the answer to this: "C'mon, you have to know. The main character always knows stuff like this!"
- Mai-Otome has Arc Words in the form of a song ("Hoshi ga Kanaderu Monogatari"). Each of the three main characters — Arika, Nina and Mashiro — knows and sings one stanza each, and its real significance is only revealed in the final arc.
- "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" from The Big O, a mangled-Engrish version of "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
- There are two variations of the second part. The first is "ye not" when Rosewater tries to pilot Big Fau and it just shuts down. The second is "ye guilty" when Alan Gabriel is piloting Big Duo and it kills him.
- Fafner In The Azure Dead Aggressor — "Are you there?"
- "Voodoo Child" are Himiko's personal Arc Words in the Get Backers manga.
- "Three years ago" in the Suzumiya Haruhi anime (and first novels). Lampshaded by Kyon, "I'm getting a little tired of the 'three years ago'."
- In the 9th novel "three years ago" becomes "four years ago" since at that point roughly a year has passed since the start of the series.
- "Sono me, dare no me?" ("Those eyes, whose are they?")
- In the same vein as some of the images described below, a vaguely peanut-like shape starts to appear more and more in various places over the course of Last Exile. Then comes the last episode...
- In Hellsing the phrase: "The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." appears together with the series' title as well as on Alucard's coffin. It's taken from the Ripley Scrowle, by alchemist George Ripley. (Whoever that is.)
- There is much signifigance to the word "Awakening" in Ergo Proxy.
- Occasionally the phrase "Can you feel the pulse of the awakening?" was used, too.
- In Madlax, there's one phrase that's used over and over again: Elda Taluta. There are two others that accompany this (Sarks Sark and Arks Ark) but rarely get used. The Big Bad uses these words to drive the "true nature" of humans out, which normally results in brutal murders or mind rape.
- In Gundam00, the Innovators often mention or allude to what they call "the dialogues to come", which according to Revive is a concept beyond human comprehension. However, after Setsuna becomes an Innovator, it's hinted that these "dialogues" may be referring to what he believes is Aeolia Schenberg's plan for human evolution.
- "May those who accept their fate find happiness. May those who defy their fate find glory."
- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: "Time waits for no one."
- The "kind king" of Konjiki No Gash Bell that everyone who encounters Gash hopes to become.
- "The monster inside me has grown so big!". Also, "People can become whatever they want to be" and "Welcome home" are both phrases that plague Nina's memory. Their significance is eventually explained.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: "A small wish".
- Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex has one of these for each season so far, both integrated into an iconic Arc Symbol. For the first season, the Laughing Man logo contains the phrase "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes" (a quote from J. D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye), which eventually leads Togusa and the Major to the truth behind the convoluted Laughing Man case. Similarly, 2nd Gig features a symbol containing kanji that are read idiosyncratically as "Individual Eleven", a phrase that has ties to almost every part of the season's Story Arc.
- Chobits — "A person just for me..."
- Lots of CLAMP works, especially xxxHOLiC, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Tsubasa Chronicle, involve the idea of "hitsuzen": basically, an event, meeting, or other twist of fate that was determined by previous actions or decisions, and is thus unavoidable. Usually, a phrase along the lines of "There are no such things as accidents. There is only hitsuzen" is used, with "hitsuzen" sometimes translated as fate or destiny. The idea is that people determine their fates with their decisions and actions.
- One Piece: The "Will of D"; even the title itself is one.
- Welcome To The NHK has NHK show up often, especially when the protagonist is about to have a nervous breakdown.
- Although it's more obvious in the Visual Novels it's based off of: "Without love, it cannot be seen."
- Chrono Crusade: Mary Magdalene. Used to the point that the name is actually worked into the title logo.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion has a few, but the most recognizable by far is "I mustn't run away."
Comic Books
- "Something fell" from Cerebus.
- Stephen Marley's Spirit Mirror has Chia, Black Dragon Sorceress, the amnesiac Action Girl heroine, asking herself: "What happened in Egypt?" We never really find out what happened in Egypt until the next book, though. Similarly, the sequel, Mortal Mask, has Chia pondering her long-lost Egyptian lover's enigmatic plea of "Forgive me".
- Watchmen: "Who watches the Watchmen?", "Pale Horse" and "Krystalnacht" (both band names), "One in five (later 'three') go mad", "The Comedian is dead"
- The full phrase "Who Watches the Watchmen" is never shown in its entirety Until the very last page, after the story has ended. It's always either unfinished (as it mainly appears as graffiti) or cut off by the panel border. Probably a subtle suggestion that the minds of the "heroes" are not fully comprehensible.
- It could also be a suggestion that up until then, the question was unanswered — the vigilantes were mostly ungoverned. Then Ozymandias manipulates them all, showing that he was watching and controlling the "watchmen". The question was only shown when it had been answered.
- There's also an interview with Alan Moore somewhere where he mentioned a possible double meaning: not who watches to see if the watchmen are criminals, but who watches them to look after them and take care of them. The question within the story is the first meaning, going unasked because someone already is. Afterwards, it's Alan Moore telling the reader that *no one* takes care of the watchmen, hence their various psychological issues and the slaughter of Manhattan. Heavy.
- No mention of The Invisibles? "Try to remember. It's only a game." And, see below, "Wake up."
- For Morrison's run on Batman, there was "Zurr En Arrh," a piece of graffiti that ends up being a trigger phrase for Batman. And it also ends up being his backup personality, the Batman of Zurr En Arrh. In the end, it turns out that the phrase is a bastardization of Thomas Wayne's last words, "Zorro in Arkham."
- The Matrix: The very title was an arc word throughout the marketing and right up until a third of the way through the film.
- Every David Lynch film. Ever.
- Dick Laurant is dead. We've met before, haven't we?
- Not as enigmatic as many of the other examples, but the phrase "I want to fuck the whole world over" from Croupier could arguably count, along with the narrator's constant meditations on the differences between croupiers, gamblers and cheats and application of gambling terminology to real life.
- In the original draft of the screenplay, Dante's constant complaint that "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" in Clerks. was intended to foreshadow the tragic irony of Dante getting shot to death by a criminal at the film's conclusion. As the script was revised, this particular meaning is lost: however, Randall still references Dante's use of the phrase in his rant near the end about how Dante refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions or attempt to make change in his miserable life.
- The Shining REDRUM... REDRUM...
- That Hansel...he's so hot right now...
- All Mongols fear thunder.
- There was also "FUBAR" from Saving Private Ryan.
- Citizen Kane — "Rosebud."
Live Action TV
Professional Wrestling
- The run-up to Chris Jericho's return to WWE in 2007 had the commentators and the wrestlers on-screen puzzling over mysterious interruptions to WWE's programs that prominently featured the phrases SAVE_US.222, SAVE_US.X29, and 8.2.11/SAVIOR_SELF. Note that most of the puzzlement happened on-screen; the fans largely figured it out fairly quickly (though there were a few alternate theories that stuck around until The Reveal, chief among them a new Hart Foundation stable led by Bret Hart's nephew Teddy), which reportedly drove the WWE's creative team nuts.
Close Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- Unknown Armies: 333 is a number to dread, and thus it pops up over and over. Also? You did it.
Theater
Video Games
Web Animation
- Broken Saints has a great many, most notably "What would you give to know the truth?" "This was not meant for me!", the LEAR/SPEC/SILO anagram, and anything printed on the Vagrant's board.
- Several Strong Bad Emails in a row in Homestar Runner featured the words "DNA evidence", which later turned out to lead to a cartoon of the same name, where the seemingly out-of-context utterances were explained. (The last email to feature these words only did this in an Easter Egg, which involved Homestar wearily saying these words after a long silence, as if he was obliged to continue the gag.)
- Parodied in the Stick Figure Comic Stickman And Cube: For about nine strips, every comic contains the word "potato salad" somewhere. When the characters call the author on it, he admits that the words were foreshadowing something: they were foreshadowing their own exposition, and meant absolutely nothing.
- "Nothing Dead Here" in the "Kesandru's Well" arc of Sluggy Freelance.
- And "Nosce Te Ipsum" (Latin for "Know Thyself") throughout all the Oasis storylines.
- Irregular Webcomic: Time Travel.
- Not sure that counts; it doesn't appear "unexplained and without context" (except possibly in the "Me" storyline), it's just that several of the storylines are featuring it simultaneously. The cat and rat who've started chasing each other through all the time-travel settings might count as an arc image, though.
- The Worm Lord is Rising!
- The robots in Gunnerkrigg Court seem to respond to every mention of a particular woman with "She died and we did nothing". As with most other puzzling things in Gunnerkrigg Court, this is probably important in some way. As with most other puzzling things, the author is taking his sweet time getting around to it.
Web Original
- "The Truce" from The Lonely Winds
, an as-yet unexplained arrangement preventing a shadow war between the dragon Terek Domar and seemingly everyone else from deteriorating into all-out war.
- DNA Evidence...
Western Animation
- In Xavier Renegade Angel, "Taste The Pain" seems to be this, or it could just be a strange sort of Running Gag. It seems to be spoken at least Once Per Episode
- The phrase is usually "Take that! Taste the pain!".
- One episode of Home Movies reveals that Brendan ends each of his movies with the same line — "It's time to pay the price." He doesn't even realize this until Paula points it out.
- Numerous in Twelve Ounce Mouse, including "aspirind", "Meat Wars", and "CJ Muff".
- Subverted in Tiny Toon Adventures where the characters misheard the word being spoke.
- From Meet The Robinsons: "Keep moving forward."
Music
- The Mega Man rock opera from the self-titled CD by The Protomen has two: "Hope rides alone" and "we are the dead". Both get darker meanings by the end.
Real Life
|
|