Affably Evil: Played with. The Nowhere King is outwardly psychotic and cruel, with little redeeming qualities other than his alleged soft spot for the Mysterious Woman. However, somewhere in his mind, the Elk (a manifestation of his conscience) has many genuinely good or fun traits, despite being a part of the Nowhere King. He's rather polite to Horse, somewhat friendly, and has the quirk of fawning over food memories.
All for Nothing: When Horse learns that the War all started because the General's treatment towards the Elk created the Nowhere King, she's devastated that everything she ever fought for was a lie. If anything, it might've never happened in the first place if only the General had accepted the Elk's proposition they reunite.
Unto itself, the Elktaur's efforts to fit in with human society and become a human were all unnecessary. He may have done it for the love of a Princess, but the problem is, she didn't even mind he was a centaur. Many years later, as the Mysterious Woman, she sadly spells it out for him that she would've loved him as the Elktaur he was.
And the Adventure Continues: The series as a whole ends with the herd setting out on new adventures, aiming to help mend the relationship between the two worlds.
Armor-Piercing Question: During their meeting, the Elk and the General have a heated discussion about whether or not they should fuse together again. The General refuses, because as far as he's concerned, his bride only loves him. The Elk's response is a grim and sober "How much will she love you when she knows the truth?"
Armor-Piercing Response: "Look around: that is not what love looks like!" This is Horse's response to the General's argument to the woman that his wrong-doings was out of "love". This prompts the Woman to look upon the wounded Rider and at the desolate, war-torn landscape caused by the war that was born of the General's so-called "love".
Bloodless Carnage: Even when Rider gets stabbed through the stomach, no blood can be seen.
Body Horror: The Elk's gradual transformation into The Nowhere King as a result of the key's radiation was quite the nasty one. Black ooze started leaking from his body until it became his body, his body and antlers became deformed and his flesh melted away, leaving him as just as a skull.
Brick Joke: Stabby's room with posters (which was first mentioned in "My Tummy, Your Hurts") can be seen inside Glendale's portal tummy, alongside a bunch of characters stolen by her throughout the series.
Broken Pedestal: After seeing the Nowhere King's memory (as the Elk) of being betrayed, nearly killed and captured by the General, Horse doesn't take it well to learn what this implies about the General. If he and the Elk's life forces were linked, then the countless lives lost by the Nowhere King's war are on his hands. Now it dawns on Horse that they were fighting a war created by a monster born of the General's selfishness. And it doesn't help matters when he later stabs Rider to keep her from killing the Nowhere King.
Deadly Euphemism: The first half of "The Last Lullaby" has the Woman (and the Elktaur) use several of these just as she's about to execute her former husband. However, once she has her Shut Up, Hannibal! moment, she makes it clear in no uncertain terms that the Elktaur will die for his crimes.
Death Song: 'Last Lullaby Part 1' becomes this for the now re-fused Elktaur as he meets his end at the woman's hands. 'Last Lullaby Part 2' however is a subversion for Rider as it turns out, she ends up surviving.
The Elktaur's backstory is one big deconstructed variation of the "Beauty and the Beast" storyline. He was a half-animal creature who had self-loathing for what he was, she (the Princess) was a beautiful woman. He fell in love with her and (unknown to him at the time) the feeling was mutual. But his self-loathing got in the way of accepting that love, to the point where he banished his animal half (the Elk) just to have a happy ending as the changed human suitor (the General). The problem is, the Elk still loved the Princess, and the General locked him up so as not to risk losing his "Happily Ever After". This set off the domino effect of the Elk becoming a manifestation of the Elktaur's self-hatred, leading to the war that ruined the lives of both Centaurworld and humankind. Not to mention how the Beauty-stand in turns cynical at learning her husband lied to her and essentially abused his animal half.
Generally, the Elktaur is a heavy deconstruction of Insecure Love Interest. All this began because he became infatuated with the Princess. But he was too self-conscious about ever confessing his feelings for her because he didn't think someone like her could ever like a centaur. As such, it set off the Elktaur separating his elk half from his human half. This was the cataclysm that would lead to years of war and conflict. And the worst part? It's many decades before the (former) Princess has to spell it out for him that she would've loved him as himself.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Elktaur is shown to have extreme self-esteem problems and wants nothing more than to be human. While attending a human gathering he's without his antlers and seen wearing a hat. When the Woman asks about his antlers the Elktaur tries to pass it off as seasonal shedding. In the next scene, there's a full shot of the Elktaurs antlers on his worktable with a handsaw near them.
Disney Death: Rider seemingly dies from her injury, but it's ultimately a fake-out.
Dramatically Missing the Point: The Woman frames the Elktaur's motives as this during their last confrontation. From where she stands, if only the Elktaur had understood just how much his beloved would've wholly loved him regardless of his centaur heritage, he might not have separated his human and animal halves. And it wouldn't have set off the chain events that lead to the very war that caused so much grief (including the Princess learning her husband liedto her).
To build on this, back when she was a princess, the Woman commented on how she liked the Elktaur's antlers and thought they were cute. She was disappointed he no longer had his antlers, but politely accepted his hat was a nice change too. The Elktaur misunderstood that she really did prefer him without any elk or centaur features.
Dramatic Irony: The wedding scene becomes this in hindsight. The Woman and the General are exchanging wedding vows about their love. What the Woman didn't know is, the missing half of her husband (the Elk) was hiding in the shadows, vowing his undying love for her.
Dying as Yourself: Before she executes the final blow on her foe, the Woman requests the magic unite the General and the Nowhere King, so she may see the Elktaur as he was one last time. The Nowhere King obliges, allowing her to see the Elktaur as a whole before she goes in for the kill.
Earn Your Happy Ending: The war has ended. Horse has become a Shaman, she and Rider can spend the rest of their days together and with the Herd, and they're off to explore Centaurworld. Even for having to slay Elktaur, the Woman too receives reprieve from her pain when she finds friends of her own with Beartaur and Becky Apples. In between both Centaurworld and the human world can start to heal from the war and live in harmony.
The End: The episode ends with "The End," with each letter of the phrase resembling a member of the herd similar to the contorted centaur letters in the opening title.
Extra-Long Episode: This episode is over an hour-long in length (70 minutes), due to it originally having been three separate episodes.
Fantastic Racism: In the flashback that shows the interactions between the human world and Centaurworld, humans aren't shown to have a high opinion of the centaurs. This doesn't seem to bother the centaurs, for the most part, then again our focus is largely on the Elktaur.
Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Elk informs Horse early that he's just a part of the Nowhere King, but the way he walks her through his memories (and how Horse's backstory magic usually works) lures the audience into thinking that he's in charge. He isn't, and warns Horse again a short moment before the Nowhere King himself startles her.
The Elk: He knows you're here now.
Foreshadowing: When the Elktaur travels to the rift to perform his experiment to remove his centaur-half, the way he carries his equipment up the stairs obscures his back legs, making him look human. This establishes the Elktaur's intentions of becoming a human.
Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: From the very moment she entered his backstory, this trope was Horse's intuition about the Nowhere King. True, his self-hatred drove him to split his Elktaur self into the Elk and the General. True, it was tragic circumstances that the Elk was an intelligent being who couldn't marry the Princess or integrate into society the way the General did. And sure, the Elk's steady transformation into the Nowhere King was born from a place of hurt that drove him to believe he didn't belong anywhere. But at the end of the day, Horse won't take any of it as a sound excuse for what he's done. As much as she sympathizes with the pain of ever being separated from a loved one, no amount of sympathy can change how his machinations have destroyed many innocent lives in the long run.
Gory Discretion Shot: When the General pulls his sword out after backstabbing Rider, all that the audience gets to see is the characters' black silhouettes on a brown background. However, something liquid is clearly ejected in the blade's motion.
Grand Finale: For the series, complete with a "The End" title card.
Grief Song: 'Last Lullaby Part 1' is this to the woman just before she kills the reformed Elktaur, lamenting that she would've loved him the way he was, but now she has to kill him for his sins and finally end the war.
Happy Birthday to You!: The original (formerly) copyrighted song can be heard being sung to the King of Leaves while Gebbery ends up in Glendale's portal. Doubles as a Brick Joke as he previously declared it was his birthday just before Glendale stole him in her backstory.
Hypocrite: During "Once Shattered, Now Whole", the General's wedding vows to the Princess involves him saying he'll never hide from his bride, whilst his elk half stands by hiding from the woman he loves. In a way, the General has already broken his vow: he is hiding from her, hiding that he's a centaur.
I Was Quite the Looker: In the present day, the Mysterious Woman is rather miserable-looking and unkempt. But many decades before the war even began, the Woman was but a lovely young princess.
Ironic Echo: Played with. The Nowhere King's lullaby previously was a song to herald him and give the story an ominous feeling whenever he entered the scene. In this episode, it's sung differently by the Mysterious Woman and Elktaur. But rather than a completely opposite mood, it's sung to be a bittersweet and even tragic ballad duet about the Mysterious Woman executing the Elktaur.
Inverted with "Once Shattered, Now Whole". When it was first song in the series, it was sung as the Mysterious Woman stepped forward to bring down the killing blow on the Nowhere King. But chronologically, the very first time it was sung was at a wedding between her and the General, a cheery and romantic song about their union. In other words, the version the audience first heard is actually a Dark Reprise of a wedding song.
Irony: "Once Shattered, Now Whole" is a wedding ballad between the General and the Princess, celebrating their union as husband and wife. While that's fitting unto itself, it's being sang while the Elk stands in the shadows, heartbroken that he'll never get to be with the Princess and vowing to love her forever. The cherry on top is how the General's marriage to the Princess was only made possible because the Elktaur separated his animal and human halves, henceforth he was "Once Whole, Now Shattered".
In the past, when she only visited Centaurworld for short outings, the Woman (once a Princess) was happy and cheerful and open-minded to centaurs. In the present, she's lived in Centaurworld for many years now, yet she's a miserable and cynical Broken Bird who sees the herd as fools.
Last Episode, New Character: An odd variation. This episode is the first appearance of the Elk and the Elktaur, but in all technicality, they were already present in the series as the Nowhere King and the General.
The Last Title: The episode title itself, "The Last Lullaby," also the last episode.
Logo Joke: The Sketchshark Productions logo has Comfortable Doug (who had been narrating the closing credits) take the place of the shark.
Love Makes You Evil: Defied, so so much. When the General tries to reason with the Woman he lied to her and prolonged the war (on top of causing the war as the Nowhere King) because he loves her, Horse tearfully remarks that this is not love. Despite his insistence to the Woman that everything he did was "for love", her response to such an excuse is to make Becky Apples kick him off a cliff. Later, "The Last Lullaby" has the Woman declare that despite her previous belief that love causes so many horrible things, her lyrics imply that she now recognizes it wasn't "love" if he had to lie to her and hide his true self.
Meaningful Echo: As opposed to the last time she sang "Who is She", Horse finds herself singing the song while she's trapped within the Nowhere King's backstory, as a Heroic Sacrifice. This time around, she uses the song as both an affirmation of her identityand an understanding that no matter what she looks like, it's not as important as her loved ones.
Mood Whiplash: While exploring the Nowhere King's backstory, Horse and the Elk are treated to a sobering memory of when the Mysterious Women (known then as the Princess) freed the poor Elk from his 10 year imprisonment. The memory ends on a sad note of the two parting ways as quickly as they reunited. ...before Horse is quickly treated to a rather light-hearted memory of the Elk scarfing down a moldy basil sandwich as though it were the king of foods.
Towards the end of the Wedding memory (which unto itself is sobering), Horse gives a rather saddened acknowledgement that while she does understand the Elk's pain of being separated from his loved one, there's little they share beyond that. Mysteriously, the Elk remarks that may not be so... but then goes on a random tangent about how he'd like to explore the memory of the time he ate a beignet. Horse lampshades that he can't just say they're not so different and then just trail off without explaining why he thinks they're alike.
Mr. Exposition: The Elk's purpose is basically to explain the backstory of the Nowhere King.
As the Elk, he sneaks into the General and Princess's wedding and can't help but slather over the wedding cake and lick it. And this is despite that he normally comes off as rather solemn and dignified in Horse's company. Even as Mr. Exposition, he practically enthuses over the cake-eating memory as his "favorite part".
Not So Similar: The Elk compares himself to Horse in how alike they are being separated from someone they love by circumstances. That may be so, but from the start, Horse knew they had little else in common. What ultimately sets the apart is that Horse still cares for Rider, even when she was slighted by her not believing her for being "just a horse". This is in contrast to the Elktaur, who used every means to avoid any possible rejection from the princess instead of facing it head on.
An indirect one comes up later. When the Nowhere King is trying to thwart Horse's efforts to leave his mind, he tries to invoke this trope in order to break her resolve to leave. He tells her that she belongs nowhere, unwittingly like he told himself he belonged nowhere when he became the Nowhere King. In response, she declares that she does belong, with Rider and her centaur herd.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: At one point during "The Last Lullaby", the Woman sings a gentle variation of this in the ballad, unwilling to accept that everything the Elktaur did (whilst the Nowhere King and the General) was ever "love".
The Woman: Quiet! I am now ready to silence / all of this poison you fed me / thinking I'd never grow wise.
Technical Pacifist: The centaurs are opposed to killing the minotaurs in their frozen state, calling it a "war crime". However, they are not opposed to burying them alive.
Durpleton: When you dig a hole with your friends, it's a way to avoid committing murder!
Tempting Fate: During their wedding song "Once Shattered, Now Whole", the Princess sings her vows to the General (her groom) of how she "will never part from [him]". Come ten years later, and during their last confrontation, the Princess uses magic to destroy the key and close both doorways to the rift. In the process, she is separated from both halves of her husband (the General and the Nowhere King) for many decades.
One of the lyrics to the Elktaur's song "Draw out the Beast" is hope that perhaps his Elk half may "find a way of its own". Following this, the Elk does not "find a way of its own", as he can't fend for himself in the wild and can't even attain food outside of dumpster diving (lest panhandling for food oust him). On top of that, he deems himself the Nowhere King for having nowhere he belongs.
Thanking the Viewer: Comfortable Doug speaks over the closing credits, thanking the viewer for having watched Centaurworld and sticking around to listen to him (assuming they actually did so).
Triumphant Reprise: Downplayed. On one hand, "Battle Round" has a bittersweet undertone, as Horse mourns her wounded Rider. On the other hand, each member of the Herd sings about how their character arcs have come full circle. Wammawink sings "Fragile Things" to embrace that while she can't keep everyone from facing danger, she can protect herfamily this time around. Glendale sings "Breathe in a Bag" to utilize her panic attacks into just that, an attack against the minotaurs. Durpleton and Stabby sing about their teamwork and relationship as an adopted family, signifying how Durpleton's made peace with his troubledpast. Zulius's "I don't know him" reflects he's putting his rivalry with Splendib to rest. And Ched's song is about his dream to be a Tulip Stepper being realized.
"We won the War", though it's just as bittersweet. It's Rider's Lullaby, but as opposed to its original tune (a bittersweet ballad entwined with lyrics about fighting), it's a song about Horse coming to terms that the war is over and their existence doesn't have to be about fighting. If anything, this is a solemn celebration that Horse and Rider can be friends in peace, instead of being friends in the midst of war.
Wham Shot: Elk shows Horse the moment where he split himself into an elk half and a human half, revealing that his human half is the General.
