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Mad Scientists rule the world. Badly.
A Web Comic (originally a print series) by Phil and Kaja Foglio, which has become one of the classics of the Steam Punk Gaslamp Fantasy genre.
The title character of the story is Miss Agatha Heterodyne, who begins as a young apprentice to a type of Mad Scientist known to the world as a "Spark".
Can be found at the Studio Foglio website, accessible through this elegant and finely-crafted link .
Girl Genius WILL ALWAYS update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, usually around midnight.
Given a Hugo Award in August 2009.
Talk about the comic in our discussion forum for ''Girl Genius''. A character sheet can be found here.
Girl Genius provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: Moloch von Zinzer fits this trope to a giant neon capital T. He starts out as a mere soldier who steals a MacGuffin from the main character in the first chapter, so you'd expect him to last about five minutes. But after his brother's death caused by the pilfered MacGuffin, getting mistaken for a Spark, and eventually ending up imprisoned in a sentient castle built by a family of murderous sociopaths, he's still kicking thanks in part to large amounts of luck and Genre Savvy.
- Aerith and Bob: the list of Heterodyne names in the crypt includes Caligula, the Red Heterodyne, the Black Heterodyne, and Bob.
- Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Castle Wulfenbach
- AI Is a Crap Shoot: Castle Heterodyne. Well, actually, the guy who built it was an evil maniac, so it's probably working as designed.
- Even Agatha's own little 'bots have stopped listening to her. It seems Sparks can't build anything without it going haywire.
- All Part of the Show: Twice, a circus of Sparks pretending to pretend to be Sparks, and a Jäger hiding among people who pretend to be Jägers.
- Not to mention a Heterodyne pretending to pretend to be a Heterodyne...
- All There in the Manual: the Secret Blueprints and the expanded chapter-by-chapter Cast pages.
- Almost Kiss: Argh!
- Alternate History: Perhaps better called Parallel History, because the Sparks have been around for long enough that even geography has been changed by their influence, and yet the world and its history are not completely dissimilar to ours: there were still Mongol Hordes on cue, German is still spoken as a European lingua-franca, R(embrandt) Van Rijn was still a famous genius and Casanova a famous skirt-chaser, the [Weather] King was still a towering historical figure, and there is still a powerful church(es) with
a pope(s) seven popes, according to this page.
- The page itself is not entirely clear or definitive as to whether there are seven popes at once, or whether there have been 7 popes since it was written. This is entirely possible, as at one point (before the creation of the Holy Roman Empire a.k.a. the area that covers what we now call Germany), most popes only lasted from a few months to maybe 2 years... considering this is an alternate history, that life expectancy rate may have survived into the 19th century.
- Or indeed there may be seven popes at once, given a comic exaggeration of the Great Schism when there were two simultaneous Popes in Rome and Avignon (a joke also used in Blackadder, when at one point a bull is signed by "both Popes", and later in the episode by "all three Popes").
- There were once three popes at the same time. Schisms could be pretty bad in the Middle Ages.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Jägermonsters, and anyone infected with Hogfarb's Resplendent Immolation or Vericus Pantiliax's Chromatic Death.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Gil gets one regarding Agatha. Not to her, admittedly, but he was still pretty anguished thanks to Zeetha hitting him.
- Anti Climax: The final "battle" of Revenge of the Weasel Queen.
- Anti Villain: Klaus Wulfenbach. He may have used military might to bring Europa under his iron-fisted rule, but when you consider the alternative...
- Archive Binge: Probably one of the most notable in webcomic history. Originally a print comic, when Girl Genius first became a webcomic it had two archives; one consisting of pages from the print comics, one consisting of the new pages produced after the website went online. When the version for people who started reading it online caught up with the version for people who'd read the print comics an awful lot of people read the newer half of the combined archive, the equivalent of four and a half books worth of pages, in one sitting. The website server went down for a long time.
- Arc Fatigue: Severe, in the case of the current arc. The "Castle Heterodyne" storyline has been in progress for over two full years with no end in sight; in comic-time, only a day or two has passed.
- Arc Words: "I can work with that."
- Also, "I hate this place" & variations.
- And "You have no idea."
- Aside Glance: "At least she was color coordinated."
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Klaus, his son (when thrust into authority, Gil's asskicking genes more than rise to the challenge), and the Jäger-Generals.
- Asskicking Equals Authority: More generally, in a semi-feudal world ruled over by extremely intelligent nutjobs, it's the one at the top of the castle you want to watch out for. They're in that spot for a reason.
- Because someone's tied them to a weathervane?
- Author Appeal: You think it's an accident Agatha wears such lacy underthings? And more to the point, has spent quite a bit of time in them?
- Phil Foglio is well-known (unabashedly so) for drawing his female characters with rather large "assets". But it's his wife (and co-author) who loves to get Agatha into the "lacy underthings." She's a big fan of Victorian-era undergarments.
- Not to mention paper dolls.
- There's also the matter of all the handsome shirtless men running around.
- Author Avatar: The creators, Phil and Kaja, are both apparently natives of the story's world who, it would seem, will eventually meet, marry, publish a... controversial account of Agatha's deeds, and flee into our world with it to continue it safe from Agatha as a supposedly fictional comic.
- Art Evolution: It started in black and white.
- Axe Crazy: Oh so many... Most notable is probably Bangladesh DuPree, who also happens to be a Complete Monster.
- Also of note is EVERY HETERODYNE in the family prior to Agatha's parents' generation.
- Back to Back Badasses: Gil and Tarvek, on the cover of Volume 9.
- Badass: Too many to count. Baron Wulfenbach, especially, clawed his way to being ruler of Europe atop God knows how many others and it shows.
- Badass Boast: Several; this is the most effective example.
- Badass Normal: The non-Spark supporting characters: Zeetha, Bangladesh DuPree, Wooster, maybe Lars, and particularly Violetta who recently got the full force of Lucrezia's Command Voice and didn't turn a hair.
- Bald of Evil: Veilchen
- Bar Brawl: Apparently there's one every evening in Mamma Gkika's. Except on Thursdays; then it's poetry slam night. Emphasis on slam.
- Battle Butler: Ardsley Wooster; Boris Dolokhov
- Betty and Veronica: Gil & Tarvek
- Beware the Nice Ones
- Beyond the Impossible: How many more "distractions" will Agatha, Gil and Tarvek go through before they reach their goal?
- Big Screwed Up Family: House Sturmvoraus. So much.
- Bilingual Bonus: Many names of people, races, places, etc., make more sense if one knows a little German.
- And "si vales valeo" is Latin for "If you are well, I am well".
- BFG: "Clenk Gon", Agatha's Death Rays.
- Bifauxnen: Grantz, Baron Wulfenbach's monster hunter.
- Big Damn Heroes: Gil, once again demonstrating why you shouldn't shoot him. You'll just make him mad.
- Big No: Right after Agatha breaks Merlot's mind with the enormity of his mistakes.
- Black and Gray Morality: Agatha and Klaus are both sympathetically gray and fighting for perfectly reasonable reasons. There are several villains that are darkly black, and both of them want those destroyed (except for DuPree, who Klaus keeps on a short leash).
- Bleached Underpants: A variant, in that prior to Girl Genius, Phil Foglio was the author and artist of the XXXenophile series of pornographic comics, and unlike many artists with a similar background makes no attempt to hide it — they're quite good. However, before XXXenophile, he was already well known for What's New with Phil and Dixie for Dragon Magazine, and Buck Godot, and did book covers and illustrations (most memorably, for Robert Asprin's Myth series,) as well as the classic Con Reports.
- Or a trio of excellent, funny updates of old '60s humor comics for DC Comics at about the same time as XXXenophile.
- Blessed Are the Cheesemakers
- Blessed with Suck: Most sparks, and Agatha in particular, have to deal with being shunned, used, or attacked by most everyone they meet. And that's if they don't get killed by one of their own creations.
- Blondes Are Evil: Played somewhat straight with Zola and Von Pinn, somewhat averted with Agatha (who's a strawberry blonde, therefore crossing into Heroes Want Redheads).
- Boisterous Bruiser: Othar. Also, most of the Jägers.
- Boobs of Steel: Otilia. Literally.
- Bottled Heroic Resolve: Two different ones, so far: "Moveit #6", and Jäger battle-draught.
- Cargo Cult: The Other is believed to be a deity by the Geisterdamen.
- Circling Zeppelins: Gil sees these after getting socked in the face by the aptly named Punch.
- Chandler's Law
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Both in and out of setting.
- Charm Person: Sparks are very charismatic...
- Chaste Hero: Barry Heterodyne, as far as we know. The folks who write the fairy tales about the Heterodynes try to avoid mentioning this.
- He always ends up with "the High Priestess" in the stories and plays. What happened in Real Life is more unsure...
- "The High Priestess" wasn't any one single person — an older version of the cast page explained that this was the catch-all term for whatever lost priestess, Distressed Damsel, or mad scientist's beautiful but misguided assistant (other than Lucrezia) happened to figure in any given Heterodyne play. Basically, an in-world trope.
- Chekhov's Boomerang:
- Gil's invisibility device mentioned offhand by DuMedd quite a bit earlier. And seen in action even earlier, although at the time Gil didn't realize what it was and used it as a simple power source.
- Agatha's locket. It is introduced at the very beginning, then disappears from the story within the first few chapters. She's got it back now, but it still keeps coming back as important in a new way in every book.
- Chekhov's Clank: The creature who climbs out of the pit in a recent comic was first seen, looking much better for wear, in the back of a fresco depicting the Storm King's Muses.
- Chekhov's Gun: Bunches of them, often coming back several 'books later.
- Gilgamesh's lightning generator which was used again almost four years later.
- The Torchmen. Seen before activation here, although we didn't know what they did at the time.
- Even PIES end up as Chekhov's Guns in this comic. Possibly also qualifies as a Brick Joke.
- Then there's the poison pellet Gilgamesh gave Von Zinzer to use as a suicide pill if he chose. While Von Zinzer has shown up again (alive), the poison hasn't shown up again... yet.
- Chekhov's Skill: Agatha's training under Zeetha. Mind you, it's not like it was ever a secret it would be useful.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: The Heterodynes frequently sport these, as do many other Sparks when in the Madness Place, sometimes reaching the level of Slasher Smile.
- The Jägerkin sport those every time they're about to fight, so it also overlaps with the Slasher Smile.
- Chiaroscuro
- Continuity Nod: Hundreds, if not thousands of them, and ranging from extremely obvious to incredibly subtle.
- Cool Airship: Castle Wulfenbach, of course. Zola's ship might have qualified if she hadn't colored it pink.
- Zola's airship more than qualifies precisely BECAUSE she coloured it pink.
- Crazy Enough to Work: While you get the impression this happens a lot, perhaps the most hilarious one would be curing Tarvek of a terrifying disease by killing him and then bringing him back to life.
- And that's before we find out what they're going to use as the power source: Lucrezia's life force.
- Didn't they just take off the locket because wearing metal would be dangerous?
- Crazy Awesome: Jägers are a race of Crazy Awesome individuals.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: These seem to happen with alarming regularity, with each one topping the last.
- Crowning Moment of Funny: Mechanicsburg, basically. The final panel of this strip, in particular.
- Agatha's reaction to her first cup of coffee.
- The doctor taking care of Klaus, right here.
- Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: "Please... please be real..." "Shhh. I am."
- Cyanide Pill: One is offered to Moloch Von Zinzer, but he obviously has yet to use it.
- Death Glare: Gil gives one to Zeetha along with a brief World of Cardboard Speech.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: Lars, anyone?
- Death Ray: Just about every spark has made one or something like one — though no-one but Agatha redesigns the architecture with them during sleep.
- Didn't See That Coming
- Distressed Damsel: Zola, frequently. How much of it is an act is up to debate.
- Do Anything Robot: Dingbots!
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Gil and Agatha's rapid-fire exchange of ideas on how to cure Tarvek gradually get more breathless and excited as they go on, culminating in this strip. Mad science as foreplay, full-on experimentation for the sex. Oh, and did I mention Gil was shirtless the whole time?
- Dope Slap: Zeetha gives one to Gil here. It's also common for Maxim and Dimo to slap Oggie around whenever he's saying something stupid, but since they're Jägermonsters it tends to be very solid punches.
- Double Entendre: The Castle teasing Agatha about her attraction to Gil: "All the Wulfenbach Sparks are known for their over-sized machinery..." Also figures in about half the references to Death Rays. And almost every reference to toolbelts.
- Apparently, The Socket
Wrench Wench of Prague is pretty brutal in this regard.
- Drill Tank: The Deep 6 Model; also something of a Punny Name.
- Due to the Dead
- Dumb Blonde: Zola, though she sometimes has moments of Badassery before reverting to Distressed Damsel mode.
- Dysfunction Junction: The Sturmvoraus family. Dear God, the Sturmvoraus family. These people make The Sopranos look like The Brady Bunch.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Da Boyz, the Jägermonster trio, but also the freaking nyar spider, of all things.
- Possibly because the spider managed to get Zola to shut up...
- Entitled Bastard: The sneering Strinberg orders the Pink Airship to stay in Mechanicsburg Airspace. A subsequent order to dump useless objects overboard suddenly becomes most satisfying.
- Everyone Can See It: Mostly played straight, in that anyone who meets either Gil or Agatha and merely hears them talk about the other knows they're madly in love, but they know it too — they just refuse to admit it (though Zeetha finally got a confession out of Gil).
- Evil Albino: The Geisterdamen, an order of ghostly-white priestesses who are in the service of the Other.
- Evil Hand: May be a side effect of the Spark, as Agatha demonstrates.
- Evil Laugh: or sometimes, not so much an evil laugh as an insane one; basically every Spark at some point while they're in the Madness Place.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It happens in the not-quite-canon story The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon from Mars but nonetheless, ocean in a bottle anyone? "Truth in Packaging" indeed...
- Faking the Dead
- Face Fault: The reactions to Gil "admitting" to Zola that he's really a pirate.
- Famed in Story: The Heterodyne Boys. And how!
- Fanservice: So very, very much gratuitous Agatha-in-her-underwear. Also impressive bosoms on basically every female character. On the other hand, it is only ''Victorian'' underwear... Not that that especially matters.
- Fan Nickname: Dingbot Prime among others.
- This Troper likes to call the deadly illness which the main characters recently contracted "Exploding Disco Syndrome".
- Fantastic Racism: There is much prejudice against Constructs of all 11 varieties, and also against the Jägers whom we later find out are Constructs of a different sort.
- To be fair, though, the Jägers '''earned''' that hatred. No, they weren't just following orders; they make it clear they enjoyed the old days.
- Feed Me: It's bursting at the seams with mad scientists who are compelled, by their very nature, to go off on emphatic rants on how the fools DID NOT UNDERSTAAAND!!
- Filler Strip: Radio Theatre Breaks, Short Stories, Fairy Tale Theatre: Cinderella, and to a lesser extent, Heterodyne Boys Stories and "The Storm King Opera" synopsis, as the latter two contribute to the overall mythology.
- Five Man Band: The previous generation in the Heterodyne Boys stories:
- Flashback Effects: Sepia tones.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- Form Fitting Wardrobe: How does Agatha even breathe in some of those outfits?
- For Science!: Girl Genius would not exist without this trope.
- Friend or Foe
- Fridge Horror: Of the Quickthaw variety, and more Fridge Squick than anything else. Tarvek's devotion to giving his dying sister a new life in clank form is sweet, until you consider that the reason that she was dying in the first place is that her father tried to download the mind of Lucrezia Mongfish, a woman to whom he was sexually attracted, into his daughter's body. Given that she appears to return his interest, at least to the extent that she constantly objectifies Tarvek, perhaps it's best that he failed.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Pretty much all Sparks, but the Heterodynes were notable even among Sparks.
Von Mekkan: In my experience, a strong Heterodyne will take about two hours to truly warp the laws of nature.
- Geeky Turn On: And how.
- Generation Xerox
Klaus: Ah, I see history repeats itself.
- Genre Savvy: "What? They're in all the stories."
- Also Othar, especially in his Twitter updates, and Moloch.
- Gentle Giant: Punch, apparently, though most people who didn't know him assume he's just Dumb Muscle. Also possibly a Genius Bruiser, though the evidence for that comes from the Jägers who are... not the best at determining who's "schmott".
- Giant Spider: One of the many creepy albino monsters the Geisterdamen use for transportation.
- Also one more recently in Castle Heterodyne. Not quite as big, but...
- Gonna Need More Trope: "I don't think I've got one big enough."
- Good Is Not Nice: Gil; Agatha; Master Payne...
- Gratuitous French: Gil once started speaking French while delirious. Believe me, it was funny.
- Gratuitous German: Jägermonster = hunter-monster, Geisterdamen = ghost ladies, Sturmvoraus = storm ahead, Wulfenbach = "Wolf's stream" (not strictly correct, but German is dialectual and it's a place/family name)
- Of course, since this story is apparently set in a 19th century Central Europe not totally unlike our own, this is more of a Translation Convention, since German actually would be the lingua franca of the setting.
- There is one straight-up bit of gratuitous German when a Jäger uses "Jägermonstern" as a pseudo-German plural for his own kind. The German plural is in fact "Jägermonster", which of course sounds rather odd in English.
- Note also the writing in the last panel of this page.
- In the third panel of this page the warning sign is cropped on the right to read "Nein", presumably the first half of "Nein Eingang" — which although it literally means "No Entry" would be incorrect — the correct term is "Kein Eingang"
- Or it could just be saying "NO!"
- Holzfäller, the fake surname Gil used in Paris, translates as "lumberjack".
- I realized that Sturmhalten, the home of the Sturmvoraus familiy (see above), literally means "to keep storm", a.k.a. Storm Keep. This matches with Mechanicsburg, burg being old germanic for "castle". Wulfenbach started as a smaller house, so their fortress is just Castle Wulfenbach.
- Hair Raising Hare: the Weasel Queen's Lapinomorphs.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Agatha about Gil. All the time.
- A consequence of it can be seen here with Violetta.
- Hell Bent for Leather: Von Pinn, and how.
- Hellish Horse: The aptly-named Monster Horse Beastie.
- Herr Doctor: A large portion of the sparks.
- Hero Antagonist: Othar.
- Heroic BSOD: SHOWTIME!
- Hidden Elf Village: The Lost Kingdom of Skifander, where Zeetha comes from.
- His and Hers: Parodied here.
- Hobbes Was Right
- Homicide Machines: Virtually every piece of advanced technology can be used as a dangerous weapon no matter what it was meant for originally.
Gil: What about this one? It looks like a toaster.
Agatha: Well, it is a toaster. Sort of.
Gil: Sort of?
Agatha: Oh, yes. It could toast the whole town.
- Honest Advisor: Baron Wulfenbach says early on that he would rather his men criticize him rather than fear him too much to tell him important information — in fact, the first time we see him, he's testing Gil to see if he'll tell him he's wrong. It's one of the many signs that he's not your average Evil Overlord.
- Gil and Agatha seem to prefer advisors like this as well.
- Hostage Situation: Gil volunteers for one. Agatha doesn't want it.
- Ho Yay / Foe Yay: Gil and Tarvek, in recent comics. Semi-naked, snarky, and walking arm-around-arm? Oh yes.
- Hyperspace Mallet: Not actually a mallet, but just about every other gadget that a well-equipped Mad Scientist might require.
- I Am Who?
- I Can Still Fight
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Said by Agatha, in the beginning. Othar thinks the entire idea is hilarious.
- Indy Ploy
- In the Name of the Moon:
"Schtop! Hyu horrible monster-y ting of Evil!"
- Although that was an intentional delivery of a Large Ham as well...
- The Igor: Basically the entire populace of Mechanicsburg.
- Infernal Retaliation: Here.
"Great. Now the crowd is trapped by the stalagmites while the flaming monster advances."
- Instrument of Murder: Sleipnir O'Hara's "Hot Pipes".
- Ironic Echo: Agatha quoting Moloch Von Zinzer back at himself here demonstrating that the tables have indeed turned.
- Is That What They're Calling It Now?
- It Makes Sense in Context:
Gil: I've changed my mind! Let's just kill him!
Agatha: Stop it. We're going to kill him properly.
- It Was a Gift: Agatha's ring.
- It Was His Sled: Agatha Clay's real surname is Heterodyne.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: And how! Chekov's Guns that were put on the mantle in books 1, 2, and 3 are being taken off and fired years later. Gil and Tarvek also indulge in some Lampshade Hanging when they discuss a bunch of convoluted noodle incidents.
- Kill It with Fire: The Torchmen, Sleipnir's pipes... guess you can't start a fire without a Spark.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: Gil gives Moloch von Zinzer a poison pill upon his departure to Castle Heterodyne, underestimating the degree of von Zinzer's Action Survivor skills and Genre Savvy.
- Les Yay: Zeetha and Agatha during certain moments of training.
- Literary Agent Hypothesis: The entire comic is postulated as a course on the life of Agatha Heterodyne, as taught by the Professors Foglio at Transylvania Polygnostic University ("Know enough to be afraid.") They stick mostly to the truth — though this very admittance means that it's possible that, in the "real" universe where this story takes place, not every woman has the Most Common Super Power.
- Living Labyrinth: Castle Heterodyne
- Living Motion Detector: The clank in this comic.
- Love Triangle: Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek.
- Possible Minion Love Triangle in Moloch, Violetta, and Snaug. Although, Violetta denies romantic interest in Moloch, and he's smitten by Sanaa Wilhelm.
- Mad Artist: The tailor clank in the "Revenge of the Weasel Queen" fillers.
- Make My Index Live: This mythos is a major part of the premise.
- Emperor Scientist: The entire world is run by these. Baron Wulfenbach is an especially fine specimen.
- Mad Scientist: "Sparks", whose erratic genius has literally reshaped the world. Practically half the cast are mad scientists of one sort or another, though the ones that come closest to the classic villain type are probably Prince Wilhelm Aaronev and the late Lucrezia Mongfish.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Several, most notably those belonging to Baron Wulfenbach and Prince Aaronev. And all of the ones in Castle Heterodyne.
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Lucrezia Mongfish is officially referred to as "The Villain's Beautiful Daughter" in the stories told about Agatha's parents. Agatha herself is arguably one, and she's already run into at least two Mad Scientist's Handsome Sons.
- Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!) actually asks Agatha if she's one of these.
- The current storyline is hinting broadly that Zola is Lucrezia's daughter as well, or at least a member of the Mongfish family tree.
- And most offspring of mad scientists are mad scientists themselves.
- Science Related Memetic Disorder: The Spark condition. Though even non-Spark scientists and engineers are a bit off-kilter, probably because that's how everyone expects them to act.
- Weird Science: All over the place.
- Magnetic Hero: Any and all Sparks; their manic vision pulls normal people into their service.
- Malevolent Architecture: Castle Heterodyne
- Malicious Slander
- Mama Bear: Von Pinn, and how.
- Mauve Shirt: Sergeant Scorp of the Baron's Vespiary Squad. Also an unquestionably Cool Old Guy, right down to the superb facial hair.
- Maximum Fun Chamber: Also Castle Heterodyne.
- McNinja: Introduced with the followers of the Way of Smoke. May not be as good as they think they are.
- Then again, Violetta readily admits she sucks at her job, and Veilchen seems quite competent, so there's likely a pretty wide range of skill level.
- Memento MacGuffin: Agatha's ring.
- Meaningful Name: Word Of God has it that Theopholous DuMedd was originally "doomed" to be killed off in volume 3, but the Foglios so enjoyed him that he stuck around.
- Most likely Sleipnir O'Hara wasn't supposed to be kept around either. Agatha needed a roommate to introduce her to the world of the Baron's flying castle, so the Foglios gave her someone to "sleep near".
- The town of Mechanicsburg is integrated with the mechanical Castle Heterodyne.
- The Medic: Mamma Gkika, and, although we haven't seen this happen yet, the Heterodynes to the Jägers.
- Mental Time Travel: Othar, in his Twitter.
- Midair Repair: Gilgamesh and Agatha while testing Gil's flying, or rather falling, machine.
- Mini Mecha: Agatha's Dingbots, particularly Dingbot Prime.
- Minion Maracas: Agatha demonstrates the proper technique.
- Minion Shipping: There's been strong fan support for Violetta/von Zinzer,
minions retainer/NOT-minion of Tarvek and Agatha, respectively. Shipping a snarky McNinja who hates her job with a world-weary ex-soldier just works.
- Mobile Maze: Castle Heterodyne. "We're doomed! The door we came through -- it never led HERE before!"
- Moment Killer: Damn you, Merlot!
- Monochromatic Eyes: The geisterdamen have all-white eyes.
- More Hero Than Thou: Tarvek and Gil have a brief exchange about who gets to be this.
- More Than Mind Control: Sparks' "command voice" makes them almost irresistibly charismatic.
- Has anyone other than Lucrezia and Agatha been seen to have one, though?
- All Sparks have the capacity to be intensely charismatic, but only Lucrezia and Agatha have the "command voice".
- Most Common Superpower: Every female character, notably Agatha, Zeetha, the white spider women, and Mama Gkika.
- I think it's more... extreme... that the Muses and Clank Anevka have pretty darned voluptuous figures.
- The only two exceptions are Grantz, the immensely strong monster hunter and Daiyu, the doctor's daughter.
- My God What Have I Done: Specifically Aaronev Sturmvoraus and his dying daughter, though certainly said by others in this world.
- Basically the Fatal Flaw of every Spark in the world. Entering "The Madness Place" grants them incredibly powerful focus, but it makes them entirely oblivious to the potentially disastrous results of their creations.
- Myth Arc: One of the best webcomic examples. The foreshadowing starts with the fourth strip of the first chapter, with hints about the phenomenon scattered over many, many volumes — and a full explanation has still not been given.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Practically half the cast: Klaus and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Lucrezia, Master Payne, Von Pinn, and probably several more. Possibly subverted with Moloch.
- Naughty Tentacles: "Impertinent mechanical squid!"
- Necromantic
- Never Found the Body: A plot point has significant individuals from the past killed by a machine made from "farm machinery and pork products" which turns them into a string of sausages. Hard to confirm that.
- Nice Hat: Case in point.
- Only a man whose bowler has granted fantasy adventurers super-powers could create a culture like the Jägers, whose attitude to this trope is close to a religion.
- Noodle Implements: One wonders what part a tea cozy has to play...
- Norma Bates: Anevka to a degree.
- The Nose Knows: Jägermonsters
- Not a Game: The Castle warns Agatha that claiming to be the Heterodyne is "not a game!"
- Not So Harmless: Zola
- Not yet. Both Gil and Tarvek believe this is the case, and it certainly makes sense, but we've yet to see if there's any truth to their conjecture.
- The Nudifier: The Wacky Weave Destabiliser.
- Number One Dime: A.k.a. said Nice Hats.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: A lot of people. Some of the Jägerkin are considerably smarter than they appear, the circus pretends to be simple performers when in truth they're mostly Sparks, and most especially Zola.
Tarvek: What? No! That was that idiot from the Island of th... She is good.
- Oddly Visible Eyebrows
- Odd Shaped Panel
- Of Corsets Sexy: Usually on Agatha.
- Offhand Backhand: Used by both Wulfenbachs and Wooster.
- Oh Crap: "This must be how my father feels -- ALL THE TIME!"
- Omnicidal Maniac: Castle Heterodyne. Or rather, it would like to be, if only Agatha would let it.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Omnidisciplinary Mad Scientists. Some seem to specialize, but it appears that most of the big "sparks" can stitch a living being out of spare body parts as easily as they can build a mechanical AI... or design an electric death ray or a giant airship.
- Only Sane Man: Von Zinzer. Good news is, he has a lot of experience dealing with Sparks, which also gives him lots of Genre Savvy, though he's also somewhat fatalistic — he's resigned to the fact that having to work for Sparks means he could be blown up, eaten, ripped apart or otherwise brutally killed at any time.
- Orphans Plot Trinket: Agatha's locket.
- OT3: This has been suggested as a potential outcome of the Love Triangle by some of the Shippers On Deck. Given how the Cinderella digression turned out, the Foglios may actually be planning this.
- Our Hero Is Dead: and buried, complete with digging up the body and cloning a replica to make sure it's really her. The corpse was doctored to make it look like Agatha, but the cloning gave the deception away, as the cloned body was not hers.
- Parody Sue: Maria Antonia Fantasia Philomel, and her mother, Raven Moonsdaughter.
- Pass the Popcorn: Snaug enjoys watching Gil and Tarvek fight.
- People Jars: Dr. Beetle in Beetleburg put criminals into giant glass jars to perish.
- Playboy Bunny: During the Weasel Queen omake, Zeetha and Agatha evoke this trope with their "rabbit costumes".
- Politeness Judo: Getting Moloch to help in the kitchen.
- Poor Communication Kills: Subverted. Agatha's possession by the Other is set up as a big secret that could cause all sorts of problems; but Zeetha goes out of her way to mention it to Gil at the very first opportunity.
- Played straight as far as the Baron goes, though, at least so far.
- Power Limiter: The Heterodyne locket Barry gives Agatha is meant to subdue her sparkyness. She eventually outgrows this, and the locket has found a new use in keeping the Other contained.
- Power Perversion Potential: I'm just sayin', Sparks gotta have some interesting bedroom toys, given their tendencies when building anything else.
- Princesses Prefer Pink: Invoked by Zola as part of her role as a fake Heterodyne and by the Castle in its fantasy memory of Agatha's orders.
- Psycho Electro: Anevka. She's more sadistic than psychotic, but if the trope fits...
- Psycho Serum: The waters of the River Dyne.
- Rage Against the Author / Self Deprecation: In this filler strip, Agatha can't be convinced that Phil and Kaja Foglio have legitimally earned the Hugo Award, suspecting some mind control at work.
Phil Foglio: Maybe we just won.
- Rebus Bubble: Bangladesh, when her jaw is broken. "Gil = nut?"
- Religion of Evil: The Geisterdamen worship the Other.
- Replacement Goldfish: Anevka
- Restraining Bolt: Agatha's locket.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Agatha's little clanks she builds as assistants, practically the unofficial mascot of the comic.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand
- Right in Front of Me
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The Sturmhalten guides' description of "normal" sewer rats.
- Possibly inverted with the mimmoths (mouse-sized wooly mammoths), which are viewed as little other than annoying pests.
- Science Hero: Damn near everyone.
- Screw Gun Safety: Panel 4.
- Seen It All: Moloch Von Zinzer, Carson Von Mekkahn
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Tarvek & Gil
- Shippers on Deck: Moloch (and practically everyone else) ships Agatha/Gil, Violetta ships Agatha/Tarvek, and Castle Heterodyne appears to ship 'em both.
- Shoulders of Doom: Zeetha approves.
- Shout Out: Loads of them.
- Show Some Leg: Here, though apparently subverted on the next page.
- Shutting Up Now: Two-part example involving Agatha and Moloch, in this strip.
- Sigil Spam: The Wulfenbach family signs everything.
- And the trilobite symbol of the Heterodynes is pretty much ubiquitous in Mechanicsburg.
- Signed Up for the Dental: The lapinohemoths in the Weasel Queen filler.
- Skewed Priorities: Locking children in vats and letting them out only for Christmas is a terrible thing, but only if you let the control group out.
- Slasher Smile: The Jägermonsters' mouths open literally from ear to ear and are full of very big fangs.
- Smooch of Victory: Agatha's idea of a fine way to celebrate exploding a giant writhing slug. In any case, Gil approved.
- The Speechless: Punch ("Adam"). An early construct of the Heterodyne Brothers, he was unable to speak. Until Gil extensively repaired both Punch and Judy, granting Punch speech.
- Squeee!: The sound made by Gil's assistant in the second panel of this strip.
- Steam Punk: Everywhere. The authors prefer to call it "gaslamp fantasy", because of the presence of Frankenstein-esque constructs as well as clanks.
- Stop Helping Me: Agatha to Moloch, as seen in the fourth panel here, almost word-for-word.
- "THANK YOU. For your HELP." "I-I'll just..." "Shut up..?" "Yes..."
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Othar, by Klaus (and various other incidents here and there — this is a world run by mad scientists, after all).
- Tarvek and Gil have to be strapped to a table in this recent strip.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Sooo much shrapnelly goodness...
- Super Soldier: The Jägermonsters, who were created by the old "bad" Heterodynes as shock troops but then had to obey the "good" Heterodynes due to
a loyalty imperative that was built into them the oath of loyalty they take very seriously (though are still capable of breaking; look at Captain Vole).
- And don't forget Von Pinn.
- Or else.
- Interestingly, the Jägers aren't artificial, they are humans mutated by exposure to the Dyne river, Jäger-draught, and other unspecified stuff. The Heterodynes have also been mutated by the Dyne river. It is strongly implied that Gil and the Baron have at least some Jäger properties.
- Synchronization: Gil and Tarvek, thanks to the Si Vales Valeo procedure.
- Take a Third Option: Try an incredibly risky procedure with only stuff made for killing someone or take him to another hospital, which may or may not have the requisite stuff anyway? Alternatively...
- Take Our Word for It: The titillating plot of The Socket Wench of Prague.
- Take Over the World: Baron Wulfenbach has already taken over the world — or at least the bulk of Europe, where the story is set — by the time the story starts, and he never wanted to. There's a conspiracy that seems to be trying to do this for themselves, using Tarvek as figurehead.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Gil takes a panel to rant about not being taken seriously — in the middle of his fight with Vole.
- Tear Jerker: Barry giving Agatha the locket.
- Tempting Fate: Many instances here and there, but recently (April 2009):
- "It's just one little clank."
- "Somebody's coming out! To surrender, I imagine."
- Tenchi Solution: Now that not just Gil and Tarvek but Agatha also is getting hot, this is the only possibility. Sadly, I'm talking about "hot" as in "caught an illness that will incinerate them".
- Thirty Xanatos Pileup: Agatha's arrival in Sturmhalten causes everyone to set off their master plan at once.
- This! Is! SPARTA!: "What. Do. You. WANT."
- Throw a Barrel at It: Although it isn't technically "thrown", this is proof that even a Barrel can be Axe Crazy.
- Too Much Information: Tea cozy... only one spoon...
- Translation Convention: Word of God and incidental writing in the background says that everything is actually in German and Romanian, translated for the benefit of the audience.
- Trope Overdosed: Just look at the length of this page. And it's still growing.
- Truth in Television: Moxana is based upon the Mechanical Turk, an eighteen-century chess-playing automaton. The Turk was a hoax, operated by someone inside it, but Moxana is a real version.
- TV Tropes Wiki Drinking Game: Today's (November 2th) issue features Egregious Heterodyne. No, really.
- He is famous for deciding to enlarge a holy spring until it becomes a river. Quite appropriate for the name.
- A river whose waters have the ability to create Toothy Birds, such as the duck in the last panel.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Jeez, Agatha, just make out with Gil already...
- Unsound Effect: YOINK!
- Unusual Euphemism: Coprolitic, literally meaning fossilised dung, therefore an ancient piece of shit.
Professor Mezzasalma: Useless Inferior Coprolitic Components!
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: The Other does this, as fits her personality (but not Agatha's, providing a minor bit of hilarity).
- Villainous Breakdown: Dr. Merlot wasn't exactly the most sane individual in Volume 1. His little story in Volume 9 seems to indicate that he might be having some difficulties.
- Visible Silence: Appears often, but then four times in a row here.
- Visual Pun: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... Santa Klaus.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Gil and Tarvek. At each other's throats one minute, talking shop on espionage the next.
- Volleying Insults: Gil and Tarvek in the Cinderella story.
- Webcomic Time: Agatha has been trying to get into, or trying to repair Castle Heterodyne for at least two years now.
- We Need a Distraction: Gil and Tarvek help, in a fight scene incorporating many battle tropes.
- What Are You in For?: When our heroes come across Mr. Foglio in the dungeons of Prince Aaronev:
Maxim: Vot hyu in for?
Foglio: Bad storytelling.
Maxim: Ho! How hyu do dot?
Foglio: You put the Prince in the story.
- What Does She See in Him?
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: Volume Seven, Page 52. That must be good coffee.
- If coffee worked like that in Real Life, we wouldn't have so many heroin addicts. Just saying.
- What the Hell, Hero?: TRULY YOU ARE YOUR MOTHER'S CHILD!
- Considering the one calling Agatha out murdered her parental figures in cold blood, can you really blame her?
- Who Dares: The Dragon of Mars
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Gil and Agatha take turns saving Zola from dozens of incredibly deadly traps that she keeps falling into in Castle Heterodyne. That is, until they encounter a slightly-larger-than-average spider.
- Will They or Won't They: Gil and Agatha, most frequently impeded by terrible miscommunication and Gil's bad luck.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Sparks,
almost by definition; Baron Wulfenbach fights this off by pure force of will... usually. Every successful spark has at least one very level-headed keeper.
- The Heterodyne familly in particular. Apparently their unearthly strength and stamina comes from drinking from a spring famed for causing Insanity and Death.
- It's implied that the reason the Storm King was regarded as the greatest king of all time was because he was able to keep enough self-control to rule effectively. This may have been at least partially due to the influence of the Muses.
- World of Badass: Show us a character who's not Badass, and within a couple of strips they'll turn out to be one of the more dangerous characters seen yet.
- Wrench Wench: World of mad science with female main character.. So Yeah...
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Othar, sometimes.
- X Days Since: There's one sign counting the days since the last hideous death. Considering the castle's nature, this may be a way of keeping score.
- You!: Klaus' reaction to Zeetha.
- You Have Failed Me/Outlived Your Usefulness: Surprisingly, Agatha to Castle Heterodyne — see the last panel here for the announcement and this page for the result. Justified because the Castle's progressing mechanical failure and resulting insanity finally made it unyieldingly homicidal towards people Agatha cared about and, thus, the exact opposite of useful. Some readers have theorized that this was actually a Secret Test of Character and that killing the Castle was the "correct" response, demonstrating the ruthlessness and Screw Your Rules, I'm the Heterodyne! attitude that Agatha's twisted ancestors would have deemed necessary for recognition as a true Heterodyne.
Agatha: They are not replaceable. But YOU — you are! (Agatha activates the Castle-killing device) Castle Heterodyne: AAAAAHHHHH--*
- You Killed My Father: The reason why Agatha is not too keen on accepting Von Pinn's help.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: "Delightfully done my lady. Your enemy is thoroughly crushed. You are a true Heterodyne."
- Like Zola didn't deserve worse...
- Your Favorite: Wooster knows how Gil likes his tea.
- Zeppelins from Another World
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