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House of Anubis (2011-2013) is a mystery series airing on Nickelodeon, based on the Flemish-Dutch series Het Huis Anubis by Studio 100.

The series tells the story of Nina, an American student who earns a scholarship to a fancy English Boarding School and becomes a member of the House of Anubis, believed to be the nicest house on campus. On the day of Nina's arrival, another student named Joy is pulled out of the school under mysterious circumstances, prompting her roommate, Patricia, to suspect that the school faculty are enacting some kind of conspiracy. First aired on January 1, 2011, as part of a two-night series premiere.

The second season began on Monday, January 9, 2012, following the story of Nina and her friends, now dealing with a curse-happy ghost after an ancient mask. The third season began January 3, 2013, focusing on the new character KT and her own mission at the House, being sent by her grandfather with a special key for unknown reasons.


Tropes in this series include:

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    A-E 
  • Aborted Arc: At the end of season two, Victor's fathers' ring is revealed to have contained a tear of gold which is an ingredient needed for the elixir of life. Once season three starts, the ring isn't even mentioned.
  • Absent Animal Companion: Though kept slightly longer than one episode, the cat Amber found and adopted in the first season vanished following the short arc where they assumed Victor stole it, killed it, and stuffed it. Though this led to Trudy being fired by Victor, the cat itself was never seen or mentioned again.
  • Academy of Adventure: The un-named boarding school, at least if you live in Anubis House. There are evil teachers, a lot of mysterious activity and secrets, and even ghosts!
  • Accidental Declaration of Love: After a period of Belligerent Sexual Tension, Eddie attempted to admit his true feelings for Patricia, only to be immediately shut down and insulted. However, in a later scene she wound up admitting to Joy that she has a crush on him and thinks he's cute and funny...but Can't Spit It Out. Unbeknownst to her, Eddie was listening from around the corner. This did backfire, however, as his later attempt to confront her about it led to her doubling down on her refusal to admit her feelings.
  • Acquaintance Denial: After a failed Twin Switch that culminated in both twins accidentally revealing themselves and humiliating a waiter, Mr. Sweet furiously states they both have some explaining to do. Patricia immediately claims that she has never seen Piper, her identical twin, before in her life. In a Funny Background Event, this was how Eddie was able to excitedly identify the ever-stubborn and sarcastic Patricia.
  • Adaptation Distillation: Season 1 can be considered to be this for the first season of the Dutch version. Not only is the plot streamlined by reducing the amount of tangential storylines and some of the soap series drama, but the various villainous characters introduced throughout the first season of the Dutch version are either rolled into a single character or given a more consistent role in the story.
  • Adaptation Drift: The show took a few liberties with the source material even back in season 1, from small changes (the protagonist being a Foreign Exchange Student) to larger ones (like merging two villains into a Composite Character to streamline the plot). However, it wasn't until the second season where HOA began to create a unique plotline rather than continue to follow the plot of HHA, with the story ultimately going in a completely different direction.
  • Advice Backfire: Happens to Patricia twice:
    • When Patricia tells Joy that Fabian likes Nina because they have a lot in common, Joy takes that as advice to pretend to have more in common with Fabian to win him over from Nina.
    • Mara asks Patricia for advice about what to do about Mick possibly moving to Australia. Patricia tries to reassure her by saying that Mara and Mick work as a couple so well despite their differences. Mara takes this as advice to make their differences more evident to Mick so that he'll break up with her before moving to Australia.
  • Alliterative Family: The Clarke family—John, Joan, Jerome...and Poppy.
  • Almost Kiss:
    • Fabian and Nina try to kiss when they reunite in season 2. They get interrupted by Jerome and Alfie walking into the room.
    • Eddie tries to kiss Patricia while she's blind. She pulls away. He later plays it off like it was an accident on her end.
    • Eddie and Patricia try to kiss after a dinner date, but they get interrupted by Victor's curfew speech.
  • Always Late: As a Running Gag in the first two seasons, Nina and Fabian would both often be scrambling into class late due to being held up by the mystery. They would both have to come up with excuses, with Nina apologizing to French-class professor Mrs. Andrews in perfect French at one point (impressing her enough to let them pass) and Fabian apologizing for forgetting his brilliant excuse in another instance when he was struck with a memory curse. For Nina in particular, her bad timing even extended to her being two weeks late for her first day of school — something that would cost her a lot of grief.
  • Ambiguously Absent Parent:
    • Amber, Mick, Joy and Victor have all had their fathers appear as characters; however, no mentions of their mothers have been made. With Victor, it's especially strange as we've seen flashbacks to his childhood. His father was present, but his mother was nowhere to be seen, and it's implied his father had full guardianship over both him and Sarah Frobisher-Smythe.
    • Fabian is the only major character who's parents have never been so much as mentioned during the series. While the lack of parents in general is justified due to the show taking place at a boarding school, the absence in his case is notable as he's the only character who's parents have never been confirmed to exist, and his only known family are a godfather and an uncle.
  • Amnesia Missed a Spot: Played with when Fabian gets his amnesia curse. At first, he is still able to remember enough, like who Nina is, even though it does take a little work to trigger these memories. Though, eventually he does lose his entire memory, including his name.
  • Anger Born of Worry: Nina gets like this a lot in season 2. She has a tendency to get mad at her friends for trying to help save her life, because it was putting themselves in danger, too.
  • Anti-Interference Lock Up: Sibuna tries to pull this off on Victor and Denby in order to stop the eclipse ceremony from taking place. While Fabian kidnaps Corbierre in order to lure and lock Victor in the boys' locker room, KT lures Denby into Anubis House to try and trap her in a room. It backfires; Victor manages to escape through a vent, and Denby winds up locking KT in the room instead.
  • Arc Number: Seven.
    • Anubis split the Cup of Ankh into seven pieces and The Chosen One was born on the seventh hour of the seventh day in the seventh month. Seven acolytes are necessary in order to tip the scales of life. Also, the Cup of Ankh can only be put back together once every 25 years. (2+5=7) Doubles as a Numerological Motif for the Cup.
    • In Season 2, there are seven chambers in the underground tunnels running underneath the house, as well as seven amulets needed for safe entrance.
    • By the end of the series, there are also seven core Sibuna members: Nina, Fabian, Amber, Patricia, Alfie, Eddie, and KT, although with Nina and Amber's exits in Season 3, the group never actually functioned as seven.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: After Patricia tries to steal Nina's locket, and then dumps water on Amber:
    Mara: You went too far. Plus, I was on cleanup duty.
  • Artistic License – Education:
    • The show takes place in the UK, but was broadcast for a largely American audience, so the portrayal of schooling is very much American-based and not UK-based, right down to The Movie taking place at the students' high school graduation... something that doesn't even exist in the UK, as they don't consider graduating from High School an achievement the same way Americans do. This was most likely done so the American audience could understand what was happening, despite it being unrealistic for the setting.
    • The headmaster, Mr. Sweet, is also the school's science teacher. In the show, this just means that he's either in his office doing headmaster work, or teaching the students in the science lab, with little emphasis being made about his dual role. In real life, this would be way too much work, as he'd have to do administrative work in addition to grading papers, giving tests, and actually teaching the class.
  • Ask a Stupid Question...: When Victor is padlocking the attic door, Trudy comes up and asks,
    Trudy: What are you doing?
    Victor: Baking a cake. What does it look like I'm doing?
  • Autopilot Artistry: Subverted in season 2. When Jerome is trying to find a better ping-pong partner than Alfie, he unhappily hits the ball across the table and sends it flying. Amber, without even thinking about it, hits it back to him with her mirror, and is confused when he asks about it. It seems like it's setting her up as an unknowingly talented player, but then she reveals that she's actually a 3-time ping-pong champion, and the accidental playing was just an extension of her raw abilities.
  • Awkward Kiss: The kiss between Eddie and Piper sure is awkward, as Eddie thought Piper was her twin sister and his girlfriend, Patricia, and Piper had no clue who Eddie was. The kiss appeared to be rather strange for both of them, as Eddie expected Piper to insult him like Patricia does, and Piper didn't even know what was going on.
  • Awkward Poetry Reading: At Gran's pestering, Fabian writes and tries to perform a poem for Nina. When he practices for Gran, he's stiff and afraid, and the poem's awkwardly short due to being a haiku. When he tries to actually read it to Nina, it goes even worse, because she's more interested in trying to tell him important news and storms off when he gets a little too insistent about the poetry reading, rendering him unable to even perform it for her.
  • Band of Brothers: Sibuna grows into this as the result of the constant danger they find themselves in. The group becomes incredibly loyal to each other, risking their lives for each other on a daily basis and being a close-knit group even outside of the mysteries.
  • Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Amber steps out of a bathroom stall just after hearing Mara tell Patricia that she's attracted to Mick. It goes over about as well as you'd expect.
  • Beast in the Building: When Jerome needs to send Mr. Sweet on a "wild goose chase" in order to retrieve the gem hidden in the suit of armor in the headmaster's office, Alfie takes it literally and gets an actual goose that they release into the school. The goose runs around, scaring everyone as Alfie actively sabotages Mr. Sweet's attempts to capture it in order to buy Jerome more time. After they finally capture it, Jerome and Alfie have to hide it in their room for a few more days, which is a problem because Anubis House doesn't allow pets.
  • Better Partner Assertion: When Jerome finds out that his crush, Mara, is trying to do long-distance with Mick, who he has a low opinion of, he brings up flaws like Mick being "a meathead" and living in a different country. She argues back that he's sweet and trying hard to make the long-distance thing work, and Jerome begrudgingly accepts, but tells her that if she does decide to date him it might be too late since has girls just "lining up".
  • Betty and Veronica: In the Nina/Fabian/Joy love triangle, Nina was the Betty and Joy the Veronica. Nina was Fabian's kind, heroic, and shy friend, who was most similar to him in terms of personality. Joy, meanwhile, was his former best friend and a near-perfect contrast to Nina, being extroverted, gossipy, cunning, and not nearly as interested in academics than Fabian is.
    • In the Mara/Mick/Amber love triangle, Mick was the Archie, torn between Amber's popular and spoiled, but loyal Veronica, and Mara's brainy and nerdy Betty. at the end, he chooses Mara, but Mara is then torn between Mick's Betty and Jerome's Veronica. Mara chooses Jerome.
    • Get ready for this one: In season 3, Jerome is the Archie, playing with the hearts of Mara's determined and intelligent Veronica, and Willow's ditzy and energetic Betty. He can't take the pleasure of choosing one of them, since they humiliate him in front of the whole school.
    • In season 3, Jerome is still the Archie, with Mara's Betty and Joy's Veronica. this case exists because Mara wants to take revenge on Jerome for hurting her, and asks Joy to seduce Jerome into liking her so she can proceed to breaking his heart. However, Jerome and Joy end up falling for each other, making Joy Jerome's endgame.
  • Birthday Buddies: Joy and Nina were both born on July 7th, which is a Significant Birth Date. Joy was believed to be The Chosen One because of her birthday, but wasn't born at the exact right time; this lead to the reveal that Nina, who had the same birthday, was the real Chosen One, being born at 7:00 AM. The two of them were, incidentally, born 12-hours apart.
  • Birthday Party Goes Wrong: Downplayed with Amber's birthday. Though the mood was ruined by Fabian screaming at and trying to attack Eddie just minutes into the party, Amber still managed to have a decent party thanks to the amount of gifts... most of which she'd bought for herself. She did, however, get frustrated when everyone seemed more concerned with what Fabian was doing, rather than focusing on the celebration.
  • Blame the Paramour: Early in Season 1, during Mick and Amber's "on and off" phase, Amber kissed Alfie on stage in a bid to make Mick jealous. It worked, but it simply made Mick fly into a rage, and he attempted to beat Alfie up before dinner that night... despite the fact that Alfie was just the recipient of the kiss.
  • Blind People Wear Sunglasses: When Amber is blinded by one of the chamber's traps, she spends the day wearing sunglasses, to the confusion of her non-Sibuna friends.
  • Blindfolded Trip: Played for Laughs. Patricia decides to kill two birds with one stone and use Eddie as an extra set of hands for a chamber task, but he must be blindfolded and convinced that they're on a date. She leads him around on a blindfolded journey, forces him to put up with various odd instructions and uncharacteristic actions, and finally brings him to their destination... which is exactly where they started, except now there's a picnic set up.
  • Boarding School of Horrors: While the boarding school isn't outwardly bad, being rather clean, comfortable, and fancy, the students in Anubis House face a number of scary or traumatizing events across the three seasons. Whether it be on the more mundane end of the spectrum (such as students being kidnapped and coerced into doing things they don't want to do, the constant threat of expulsion, and general abuse of authority) or something fantastical (like an evil ghost putting curses on people, or a teacher stealing people's souls), this school ultimately ends up putting the kids in danger on a constant basis.
  • Bonding over Missing Parents: Jerome and Joy managed to become closer by talking about their similar father issues. Jerome revealed he was still trying to get closer to his father, and Joy claimed to feel the same way about her own father.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: The show had many characters borrow Victor's famous pin-drop speech. Fabian did it once in the school play (where he was playing Victor, of course) and he did it again with Patricia and Alfie when they became sinners. The result:
    Fabian: It is ten o'clock!
    Patricia: You have five minutes...
    Alfie: And then I want to hear you all drop.
  • Borrowed Without Permission: At one point, Patricia was tasked with taking Nina's locket so that Rufus could inspect it. She'd planned to put it back, but despite insisting that she was only borrowing it when Amber caught her, nobody believed her as she'd been bullying Nina for weeks at that point.
  • Bringing Back Proof: As part of her Initiation Ceremony designed by Patricia to either scare her or get her into trouble, Nina is required to go into the attic at night and bring back something to prove she went. The next morning, while everyone is is praising and congratulating Nina for passing her test, Patricia snidely points out that she didn't bring back proof... and Nina pulling a book out of her bag makes Patricia storm off in rage.
  • Brush-Off Walk-Off: Mick attempts to help Mara become Class Representative by convincing the vote counter, Robbie, to stuff the ballot box while promising him a date with Patricia... who had never been notified about this. Robbie confronts Mick later, asking if he'd even spoken to Patricia. She overhears this and interrupts the conversation, leading Mick to ask if she's into "slimy, manipulative chess geeks in the year below". Instead of responding, she just gives Robbie a disdainful look and walks away, causing him to run off in humiliation.
  • Buffy Speak: Nina refers to the ghost that is haunting her as a "Curse-y spirit".
  • Calling Your Nausea: After eating gallons of creamed carrot on a bet, Jerome ended up in his room, exhausted and completely sick. When Mara comes in to talk to him, he is initially able to hold a normal conversation. But soon after, Jerome frantically asks Mara get him a bucket; she leaves to do so just seconds before he throws up.
  • Can't Believe I Said That: Patricia reacts in concern when she refuses to go down into the cellar while wearing a frilly, pink dress.
    Victor: Did you check the cellar?
    Patricia: Not in this dress! (Beat) Did I really just say that?
  • Catapult Nightmare:
    • Patricia catapults awake, screaming, after she has a Past Experience Nightmare about being kidnapped by Rufus.
    • After being cursed by Senkhara, Patricia and Alfie are both shown snapping awake and sitting up in bed.
  • Character-Magnetic Team: Sibuna seems to grow larger each season, either by gaining new allies or actual members. What started out as a Power Trio became a Five-Man Band, and eventually, by The Touchstone of Ra, everyone in the house had been involved at some point in Sibuna. Except Mick.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The blank phonographic cylinder that made the horrible screeching noise when Fabian and Nina attempted to play it. It was fake. It has a clue hidden inside it.
    • The stained-glass window in the attic wasn't just a pretty design; it was hiding one of the reflectors.
  • Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are:
    • Used twice by Rufus Zeno, both times to taunt the kidnapping victim of the season. Patricia tried to escape in Season 1 and he told her to "stop being a silly girl", and then when Jerome tried to escape him in Season 2, he casually stalked around looking for him.
    • When Patricia, turned into a Sinner, was stalking KT through the school grounds, she walked at a casual pace, and threw in a taunting "I'm coming to get you, KT."
  • The Comedy Drop:
    • Late into season 1, Fabian and Mick are trying to prepare for the prom, so Mick teaches Fabian how to dance. When the rest of the House sneak up on them to watch their dance cheer when they finish, they startle the two of them to the point where Mick drops Fabian and tries to brush off what happened. Fabian pops up from the floor a second later, embarrassed and shaken.
    • In season 2, Patricia and Eddie are helping to prepare for the Masquerade Ball by hanging up a banner, with Patricia being the one on the ladder. After she jokes about not feeling safe with Eddie, he rattles the ladder and she falls directly into his arms. When she angrily demands to let her go, he does — by pulling his arms away and letting her drop. This hurts her hand, but otherwise there are no serious consequences.
    • In season 3, when Eddie's rival Ben briefly stays in Isis House, things get tense as he begins to obsess over what he sees as Ben and Patricia flirting with each other. During a class trust exercise, Miss Denby notices this and puts Ben and Patricia together as a pairing... before letting everyone else choose their own teams. Eddie can't focus on working with Alfie because he's too distracted by the others, which leads to him completely ignoring Alfie when he attempts to do a trust fall, causing Alfie to land flat on his back.
  • Company Cross References: When Patricia suggests getting the help of their "favorite comedy double act" to protest Victor's cameras, Amber suggests SpongeBob and Patrick.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Nina did this to Fabian. The rescue? Saving her from falling into a bottomless chasm. The 'crime'? Accidentally kissing a girl he thought was her. Granted, it wasn't the smallest accident in the world, but he still didn't deserve to be yelled at for saving her life.
    Fabian: I...I saved you...
    Nina: Yeah? Well, why don't you save the other girl in this dress?
  • Composite Character: Rufus Zeno is a composite of two villains from the dutch version: Rufus Malpied and Zeno Terpstra. He also fulfills the role both characters had in season 1 of the dutch version. From season 2 onwards, he also becomes an Expy of Raven, the main villain of the second season of the dutch version, which means that at the end of Season 2, Rufus Zeno has become a composite of three separate villains.
  • Compressed Adaptation: Season 2 can be considered this with regard to the dutch version, as it combined elements of seasons 2-4 of the dutch version in a single season. The reason this falls under this trope instead of Adaptation Distillation is the fact that a significant part of the dutch version was lost in adaptation, including a plethora of important events and characters.
  • Compressed Vice: In season 2, the Sibunas all admit that they have phobias that make it hard to get through one of the tasks. For Alfie, his claustrophobia was brought up in season 3, and it was implied he still wasn't over it. Amber's fear of bugs, meanwhile, was hinted at beforehand. For Nina, Fabian, and Patricia, however, their fears never got brought up after the episode was complete; Patricia specifically had never acknowledged being afraid of feet after the single scene it was referenced in.
  • Conspicuous in the Crowd: In the finale of season 3, the entire student body was turned into sinners during an assembly. Everyone proceeded to make chaos...except for Willow, who sat around looking confused and troubled. It turned out that she managed to avoid being turned through the sheer luck of finding KT's key, and she temporarily teamed up with Eddie and KT to save the day.
  • Continuity Nod: Happens every so often, usually when referring to a past mystery. Some examples include:
    • Joy reminding Ms. Andrews that the teachers were the reason she missed so much of the last term.
    • Alfie mentioning "last year" to Jerome, who suddenly became quite nervous at the memory of Rufus and insisted that they were not an an "absurd, life-threatening situation anymore".
    • Fabian reminding Patricia of her quest for Joy and how alone she'd felt during it, in order to convince her to help him investigate Nina's disappearance.
    • Eddie's speech to Patricia at the end of season three, in an effort to get her to admit she still cared for him despite being a sinner, which included references to their first meeting, their first kiss, and the time she dumped milk on his head.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: After tricking the younger students into paying to audition for a school play and insulting and rejecting them all, Jerome and Alfie's punishment is putting on a performance for them dressed as sumo wrestlers in tutus, and paying them back with 50% interest going to charity.
  • Cop Hater: Downplayed. Following the discovery that police officer Sgt. Roebuck is a member of Victor's Secret Society, is therefore untrustworthy, and that he'd openly lied to Patricia about Joy's safety and whereabouts, Sibuna had developed a general mistrust of cops. On two separate occasions afterward, a newbie would make the suggestion to take the situation to the police, and would get immediately shot down by the more experienced Sibuna members.
  • Covering for the Noise:
    • The end of the second season had Nina trapped in a room under the school. Fabian was paranoid at first about whether or not she was okay, but quickly discovered he could speak to her from a grate in the headmaster's office. Unfortunately, said headmaster came wandering in while they were talking. When Nina asked Fabian if he was still there, he was forced to shout "QUIET!", only to cover it up with " Quiet a funny story, Mr. Sweet..."
    • When Jerome and Alfie are harboring a goose that had eaten Jerome's gem, Victor came looking for it. As the goose honked from their closet, both of them had to pretend the noises were something else; Jerome's bad stomach, and Alfie's cough.
  • Cracks in the Icy Façade: Jerome is initially introduced as an arrogant, manipulative Jerkass who joins Patricia in tormenting Nina for the giggles. But, when Amber thoughtlessly asks Nina why she wasn't raised by her parents instead of her grandmother, Jerome gets genuinely upset for a moment and mumbles that she's "the queen of tact". He's also shown to be horrified later on when Alfie is hospitalized, on the verge of tears when talking to Victor. These moments serve as early signs that he's actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with Parental Abandonment issues and legitimate, if grudging, concern for others — a side of him that Mara soon notices and works to help him show off more often, even if the rest of the House still sees him as a jerk.
  • Creepy Basement: The students aren't allowed in the attic or cellar, and both are plenty creepy. The attic is full of old belongings of the Frobisher-Smythes, including a strange doll, weird phonographic cylinders, and a creepy painting of Sarah. The basement, meanwhile, is where Victor does his alchemical work, and the secret society held their meetings.
  • Creepy Dollhouse: Downplayed. The characters discover an old dollhouse in the attic, and though it's rather innocent, it's considered creepy due to it being an exact replica of Anubis House, which is considered creepy enough as-is. Throw in the fact that the ghost of Season 1's Sarah Frobisher-Smythe ends up possessing it, giving clues often by moving the figurines around the house or making it light-up and smoke, it's just a bit unsettling.
  • Cultural Translation: The entire point of this shows existence is to be this to the show Het Huis Anubis. Can be noted by the American names of the characters (Nienke's name on the original show for instance, was replaced with the name Nina on the translation).
  • Curse of the Pharaoh:
    • The Frobisher-Smythes died after exploring an Egyptian tomb, leaving their daughter an orphan and their home in possession of the antagonistic and cruel Victor Rodenmaar Sr. When making a school play about this story, Nina wrote that the Frobisher-Smythes were cursed and killed by Anubis for desecrating a pharaoh's pyramid.
    • The plot of Season 3 revolves around Robert Frobisher-Smythe having actually been cursed by one of the Egyptian gods, forced into a deep sleep until he could be awakened by The Chosen Many- including the descendants of his archaeology team, who'd raided the tomb and been responsible for the curse.
  • Cutting the Knot:
    • In one episode, Sibuna is trying to figure out how to get the crocodile bridge over the chasm in the tunnels. Fabian suggested a complex counterweight lever system. Immediately after, Amber suggested they merely picked the bridge up on it's side and drop it over the hole.
    • In another episode they are trying to get past a dead-end, and Alfie suggests to just smash the wall down with their shoulders. He doesn't smash the wall, but he does disarm the pendulums swinging over the chasm bridge and finds the way across.
  • Custom Uniform of Sexy: Girls' blazers are more fitted and flattering than you would expect from uniform jackets.
  • Cyberbullying: Downplayed in season-two. When Joy is trying to chase Nina out of the school so she can get Fabian, she takes to the internet, and chooses to write a nasty, anonymous article about how much Nina sucks. All of it is done with the intention to cause harm, and her being anonymous was intended to keep her free from consequences...until she got busted, and everyone turned on her for it.
  • The Dark Side:
    • The Secret Society, who were behind Joy's disappearance and are opposing the students at every turn, soon bring in the newest teacher into their ranks leading to his Face–Heel Turn.
    • Season 3 has, what the heroes call, Team Evil. They eventually also start corrupting people into their team, by locking them into a sarcophagus and stealing their soul for the god Ammut to devour. They are even worse when you discover they take the soul of some Sibuna Members themselves. While this could be considered mind control, the members who had their soul lost openly admit that power feels good and are all glad that they lost their conscience, while the rest of them feel that way anyways.
  • Dartboard of Hate: Jerome and Alfie throw darts at a picture of Mr. Winkler, after he punishes them for their most recent scam attempt.
  • Defeating the Cheating Opponent: In season 2, as part of his gem-hunting subplot, Jerome needs to play ping-pong against a rival school in order to win back the shield that acts as the trophy. The rivals are Jerkass champions who show up beforehand to mock Jerome and judge his talent during practice. However, during the game, a cursed to de-age Alfie screws around and discovers that not only are the balls weighted, but the rival kept extra balls in his hat. Jerome and Alfie are given the chance to play one more round, and manage to win fair and square.
  • Demonic Possession: Robert Frobisher-Smythe is heavily implied to be possessed by Ammut, the Egyptian Devourer of the Dead, who plans to come into the mortal world. And then they need five more sinners to fully awaken their God, and end up with Victor, Mr. Sweet, Patricia, Alfie, and Fabian. All of the sinners have lost their conscience, and plan to bring a world of chaos and sin.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: One instance of this.
    Mr.Sweet: Your opponents have already set a match for three days time.
    Jerome: But that's only three days away!
  • Devastating Remark:
    • After Mara learns that Jerome had cheated on her, she becomes obsessed with hurting him back. In one standout moment, when she discovers her relation to a deceased lord and is eager to collect his money, he attempts to help her, only for her to coldly shut her down by calling him "the son of a thief" — despite having gotten to know and care about his father a year before that. Jerome leaves the room in shock and pain, while everyone else is stunned at her for going that far.
    • When Fabian gets turned into a Sinner, he loses any empathy for his friends and takes part in a few Kick the Dog moments. Most notably, when he and KT come across a heartbroken and crying Joy in the hallway, she requests his help and advice, needing some comfort from her best friend. He uses their hug to instead whisper cruel things to her, telling her that everyone hates her among other things. Joy is left as even more of a wreck afterwards, confused and hurt, as Fabian smugly leaves her there.
  • Dismantled MacGuffin: The Cup of Ankh. According to Fabian's book on Egyptian mythology, Amneris took the Cup and hid it inside the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Anubis was angered by this and split the Cup into seven pieces, preventing it's use. Rufus later explains that Anubis and Amneris reached an agreement whereby the Cup could be put together once every twenty five years at a certain hour, but only by a member of Amneris's bloodline.
  • The Dissenter Is Always Right: Patricia's Dislikes the New Guy tendencies became something of a Running Gag by the end of the series, always portrayed as her arbitrarily creating conflict with the new House resident and becoming friends with them later on. In "Touchstone of Ra", this gets flipped on its head when it comes to the issue between Sophia and Dexter. Dexter gets accused of stealing a priceless artifact from a museum and attempting to frame Eddie for it, with everyone else taking the side of Sophia the accuser... except for Patricia, who insists that Dexter is innocent and blames Sophia. It's at first portrayed as her just being irrationally jealous of how close Sophia and Eddie are, but she's quickly proven right for once when Sophia turns out to be not only the thief, but the Big Bad of the episode, whereas Dexter is innocent and heroic.
  • Divine Punishment: As the show is centered on Egyptian Mythology, there are a few moments where characters get punished directly by one of the Egyptian gods.
    • In season 1, the Anubis students are putting on a play that was written about Victor and Sarah's backstory. In the play, the Frobisher-Smythes were both given the Curse of the Pharaoh directly from Anubis, who also goes ahead and claims the life of Victor's father, instead of awarding him with eternal life as promised.
    • In the Touchstone of Ra, Sophia plans to use the touchstone to make it rain gold, however the plan requires a sacrifice. Because the chosen sacrifice is rescued before the ceremony can be completed, Ra doesn't provide gold as promised, and instead rains down on the students with lightning and turns Sophia to stone. He only stops when Eddie makes a Heroic Sacrifice, but Sophia remains a statue.
  • The Dreaded Toilet Duty: Victor's most common punishment for the kids is toilet duty. With toothbrushes. It's something they dread, and though in most cases they have to just do the House toilets, one case ended up with every resident punished- and forced to clean every bathroom in the school.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Nina's parents died in a car crash when she was young and her Gran was nearly killed by an evil ghost. Fabian's godfather was The Mole, Amber's father is cold and strict, Alfie's parents are overbearing, Jerome's mother doesn't care for him and his sister and his dad was in jail for theft, Eddie's father is one of the villains, Joy's father kidnapped her for reasons related to the mystery, Patricia's parents seem to favor her twin, Mick and Mara's parents are both rather pushy, KT is an orphan and her great-grand father is the big bad of season 3. And that's just the families.
  • Dying to Wake Up: Senkhara has the power to trap the kids in a Shared Dream, and she uses this ability once to threaten Nina's life. She, Amber, and Fabian all have a dream about the Masquerade Ball being set up by the school, which starts out normal before Nina finds herself in the tunnels under the school. She is then shoved into the chasm by Senkhara, and wakes up immediately after, revealing that it was All Just a Dream. Amber and Fabian also woke up after Nina died, but they're relieved that Nina's death wasn't real. Until the dream starts to play out in real life.
  • Eating Lunch Alone: Eddie ends up being ostracized by the other students during lunch after it's revealed that his father is Mr. Sweet. Patricia attempts to join him, but as he blames her for it, he's having none of it. Instead, he just snarkily acts like he's fine with the extra space, but also bitterly notes that nobody even wants to know him anymore.
  • Embarrassing Relative Teacher: Mr.Sweet happens to be Eddie's father. With Eddie being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold bad-boy from America and Mr. Sweet being known primarily for his dorky nature, Eddie was all too eager to keep their relationship a secret. When Patricia accidentally reveals the truth to the whole school, The Freelance Shame Squad that greets them proves Eddie's fears correct, though the embarrassment eventually subsides as the two grow closer.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • Downplayed in Season 1, when Nina agreed to help Patricia despite the way she'd been treated. By the time they'd actually, properly, teamed up, Patricia had become her friend, not an antagonist.
    • At the end of "Touchstone Of Ra", Sibuna teams up with Victor to save the world. Though this isn't the first time he'd ended up helping them, this was the first time it was made official.
  • Equivalent Exchange: The Cup of Ankh will grant immortality to the person who drinks the Elixir of Life out of it, but someone else will die to replace the life that would otherwise have ended eventually.
  • "Eureka!" Moment:
    • Happens often, usually thanks to Amber.
      Amber: Don't try and confuse me with your fancy words.
      Patricia: It's in the dictionary, Amber, it isn't fancy.
      Nina: (suddenly jumps up) Dictionary... of course! (The riddle was "where yesterday always follows tomorrow.")
    • Or,
      Fabian: (reading riddle) "Inside the core of my enemies' pride is where the final relic hides..."
      Amber: Core... core...
      Patricia: You sound just like Corbierre [Victor's stuffed raven], Amber. Coo... coo...
      Nina: Patricia, Amber! Geniuses...
      Amber: Thank you! Wait, why are we geniuses?explanation 
  • Everyone Can See It:
    • Fabian and Nina spend most of season 1 being in denial that they like each other, but the other students catch on almost immediately. As a result, they are forced to deal with teasing from their friends for the entire season until they finally decide to start dating.
    • Almost everyone recognizes that Patricia and Eddie are into each other, but it takes much longer for the two of them to actually acknowledge it for themselves. Otherwise, they turn on the denial and double down on their bickering to hide how they actually feel.
  • Exercise Excuse: One episode saw Sibuna having to practice a specific series of movements in order to cross through one tunnel safely. However, the routine was one that looked very odd out of context. When caught by their teacher, Alfie quickly told her they were just doing an interpretive dance, and then performed a dance for her. This got her to awkwardly move on and leave them be.

    F-K 
  • Fake Danger Gambit: Early in season 1, Jerome tries to help Alfie win over Amber by making her into a "damsel in distress" who needs saving. They do this by setting up smoke bombs, and Amber's goes off when she's in the middle of patching things up with Mick. Alfie then tackles her to the floor in order to "save" her, which means she's not impressed or even grateful at all — she just blames him for ruining her chances at getting back with Mick. Jerome, meanwhile, had tried to impress Ms. Robinson and score a Teacher/Student Romance, by taking charge when the smoke started filling the room... and she wasn't impressed, either.
  • Fake Faint: In one episode, Nina needs time to get a clue out of the hallway chandelier. To help distract Victor and Trudy, Amber pretends to faint and Nina runs to get everybody to help her, then gets the clue. As soon as Nina's done, Amber hops back up as if nothing ever happened.
  • False Start: Fabian kept trying to ask Nina to the prom. He got interrupted about four times before finally managing to ask at breakfast once Nina told him to hurry and ask before something else stopped it from happening, and they were still almost interrupted by Patricia.
  • Finale Movie: The series was concluded with a Made-for-TV Movie titled The Touchstone of Ra.
  • First Kiss: It is revealed that Patricia kissing Eddie was actually Patricia's first time kissing anybody, leading for her to avoid Eddie after it happened. Her own best friend was shocked to discover this.
  • Flashback B-Plot: Not entirely told through flashbacks, but it's heavily centered around them: One season 1 episode focuses on the students seeking treasure and having their usual drama, but involves a subplot about Victor and Sarah remembering moments from their childhood, told through flashbacks, in order to give more context about their complex relationship and Victor's quest for eternal life.
  • Food Coma: In one episode, Eddie talks Jerome into a bet that involves Jerome eating several gallons of creamed carrot, all in one sitting. After a montage of Jerome forcing himself to choke down the food and nearly throwing up at the end, we next see him lying down in his bed, feeling sick and exhausted.
  • Food Fight:
    • Alfie and Jerome start throwing food at each other and their housemates in the first episode, which Fabian claims happens every meal. It doesn't escalate too much, but Patricia uses it as an excuse to drench Nina in water.
    • Patricia starts one when Eddie accidentally gets some creamed carrot on her shirt. Amber notices Patricia throwing food at Eddie and makes them stop until she safely gets out of firing range. By the time it's done, she and Eddie are both covered in the stuff.
  • Food Slap:
    • Pouring a drink on someone Patricia's favorite ways of getting revenge—she does it at least once every season, and it's been lampshaded on a few occasions. To elaborate, she did it in the premiere to Nina, when she was trying to get information out of her, and in another episode to Amber when she told on her for trying to take Nina's locket. She poured milk on Eddie in season two for only dancing with her on a bet, and then in Season 3 she threw juice at KT and finally, poured juice over Willow. ( She was a sinner in the latter case, however.) She also threatened to do this to Jerome in Season 3. In the finale movie, she TRIED to do it twice, but was stopped on both occasions.
      Nina: (to Eddie, after Patricia poured milk on him) Yeah...she does that.
    • KT once threw her cereal at Patricia, in response to Patricia throwing juice at her.
  • Forged Message: Eddie, with KT's help, forged a break-up letter for Fabian claiming it was written by Nina. Fabian didn't fall for it, however, because he knew that the letter was written in a way Nina didn't write. Eddie didn't do it to be malicious; He DID have a letter from Nina for Fabian, but lost it, so tried to make his own instead.
  • The Freelance Shame Squad: In one episode, Eddie and Patricia are having a private talk in the headmaster's office about their relationship, including the various secrets Eddie had been keeping from her. Unfortunately, she accidentally sits on the intercom when she gets to the part about his father being Mr. Sweet. By the time they leave the room, everyone was gathered to start mocking and laughing at Eddie.
  • Fresh Clue: When Nina and Amber go to rescue Patricia from Rufus, they end up in the warehouse but can't find her there. They instead find a burger that's still warm, proving they only just left. In fact, they hadn't even left yet- Rufus was in the process of escaping with Patricia at that exact moment.
  • Friendlessness Insult: When the sinner-turned Fabian is asked to comfort an already-heartbroken Joy, he pulls her into a hug before whispering nasty things to her, telling her that everyone in the House despises her. This being a far-cry from Fabian's usually kind-hearted personality, it served both to shatter Joy further and to establish just how evil he was now.
  • Friends Turned Romantic Rivals: At the beginning of season 1, Amber was dating Mick and her best friend, Mara, had a crush on him. The drama gets started pretty quickly, as she gets jealous when Mick wants Mara's help as a study partner and later gets her the same bracelet she got him. Despite briefly making up, the rivalry started again as soon as Amber got confirmation that Mara liked him. They spent most of the season fighting and competing for Mick, until Amber finally decided that she and Mick weren't compatible anyway and made the effort to patch things back up.
  • Funny Background Event:
    • While Jason is describing the acting exercise of using subtext to make the words "I love you" have different meanings, and Jerome and Mara are talking, Fabian and Mick can be seen in the background quickly backing away, and then later awkwardly doing the exercise.
    • In another episode, while Patricia and Eddie are having a small argument, Sibuna's shocked faces in the scene make it hilarious. The fact that they all react in perfect unison sells it.
  • Funny Photo Phrase: During the Touchstone of Ra, one of Willow's extra credit jobs is to take the senior class photo. She makes everyone say "Squee" for it, which they do... until the camera falls mid-picture, anyway.
  • Ghost Butler: Inverted in the first episode of the show: When Nina arrives at the house for the first time, the door opens to let her in without her touching it. This happens again in season 2, when she's going up to the attic with Patricia and Amber. It swings open for them, freaking them out slightly.
  • A Gift for Themselves: In season 3, Amber celebrates her birthday and has a huge pile of gifts. Some of them came from her friends and father, but a majority of them were ones she purchased for herself, because she knew the gifts everyone else got for her wouldn't cut it.
  • Godhood Seeker: In season 2, all of the characters are looking for an artifact called the Mask of Anubis. While Sibuna needs it to break a curse that had been placed on them and Victor just wants immortality, the villains Rufus and Senkhara are after it because it can take the wearer to the Egyptian afterlife, where they'd rule as if they were Gods. This doesn't work out for either of them; Senkhara is banished before she can possess Nina and use her body in the afterlife, and Rufus is Dragged Off to Hell for his impure heart.
  • Gross Gum Gag:
    • While blackmailing Mara, Jerome forces her to do a variety of chores. Aside from doing his table-setting duty, we see her forced to scrape chewed gum off the bottom of his shoes. She questions how he could possibly step in so much gum, and he claims he was just unlucky... seconds before Alfie walks in, notices some of his missing gum, and resumes eating it, much to Jerome's amusement and Mara's disgust.
    • Downplayed when Mara takes on her "bad girl" persona. She comes into class chewing gum, which isn't allowed. After being berated, she rolls her eyes and puts the gum behind her ear, which creates some grossed-out reactions from her classmates.
  • Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty:
    • In late season 3, Eddie has a vision that warns him of one of his friends pulling a Face–Heel Turn. KT ends up being accused as the culprit thanks to a fingerprint-scanner Fabian had, and this causes the rest of Sibuna to isolate and bully her. She was innocent, but no matter what she did she couldn't get them to believe it wasn't her. She was only proven innocent, and thus trusted again, once everyone realized the actual traitor was Patricia, albeit with her soul stolen. It was a bit late by that point though, as KT almost ditched them, and Fabian ended up getting turned soon after.
    • In "The Touchstone of Ra", the touchstone gets stolen from the museum and put into Eddie's bag. The freshman Dexter is Mistaken for Thief, because he was interested in the touchstone and even fell asleep in the same room as it. The only person willing to believe his innocence is Patricia, but nobody else trusts him until it's discovered that the true culprit was Sophia.
  • HA HA HA—No: Fabian does this to Jerome in the first episode, following a remark Jerome made.
    Jerome: Fabian, tell me, does it ever get boring always being the one to say 'that's not right' or 'cut it out' or 'fun is bad.'
    Fabian: [laughs.] No.
  • Haplessly Hiding:
    • Alfie and Jerome snuck into the cellar to scare their friends, who were going down there daily. After realizing he left his mask behind, Alfie has to go back to save it while Jerome stands guard. Jerome is forced to leave and Alfie gets trapped; he hides in a cupboard over night, and witnesses a creepy ceremony that leaves him in a state of shock for an entire episode.
    • After Jerome screws with Alfie's Sibuna mission and tricks the others into leaving, Alfie is alone when Victor walks by. He hides in the sarcophagus, and Jerome locks him in over night.
  • "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: Willow briefly adopts two wild hedgehogs and cares for them in secret. Joy and Mara try to convince Willow to release them by pointing out that wild hedgehogs don't make great pets, with Mara having to stop Willow from feeding them milk because they can't digest it.
  • Head Desk: Jerome repeatedly smacks his head against the wall in season 2 whenever he's frustrated about his gem quest.
  • Hearing Voices: Nina can hear the house talk to her, and at the end of Season 2 Eddie starts hearing a voice in his head, telling him how to defeat Senkhara.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Following season 1, most of Victor's society have ditched the plan of becoming immortal. They find Victor's obsession concerning, and care more about being good teachers.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • Fabian becomes incredibly upset and unfocused when something stressful or traumatizing happens to him. This occurs when Jasper lies to him, and he gets struck for even longer when Nina disappeared.
    • Jerome went into a state of frozen shock when he discovered Rufus returned. He was unable to move or react until Jasper snapped him out of it.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Joy takes a bolt of lighting from a possessed Nina in order to protect Fabian. Victor gives up the last tear of gold to save her.
    • Nina tried to make one by allowing Senkhara to take her to the afterlife in exchange for removing the curses from her friends and her grandmother, but Eddie, the Osirian was having none of it.
    • Eddie willingly chose to sacrifice himself to stop Ra's attack in "Touchstone of Ra", but survived, only with the "Osirian" dying.,
  • Hey, You!: Eddie almost always calls Patricia by an insult, "Yacker." This insult takes on a different meaning when they start dating.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight: Robert Frobisher-Smythe hid the Mask Of Anubis this way. It was actually quite brilliant: He placed the Mask in the tunnels and protected it with a series of tasks designed to keep people away from it. Anyone would assume that the Mask he'd gone to so much trouble to protect must be the real one, but when they reached the end of the tasks, they would discover that the Mask in the tunnels was a replica and that the real one had been donated to a museum disguised as a replica.
  • Hidden Villain: The Collector, the Big Bad of Season 2, only used his nickname, and only ever appeared wearing a mask and using a voice-changer. Revealed to be Rufus Zeno.
  • Hijacked Destiny: In the third season, there's a plot to awaken the sleeping Robert Frobisher-Smythe, involving roles passed down through the generations, awaiting the fated eclipse. Robert's "Keeper", Harriet Denby, had her role (and identity) forcibly stolen by her adopted sister, Caroline, who wanted the glory of being involved in the ceremony. Because of this, and Caroline's general impure nature, Frobisher-Smythe woke up evil.
  • Historical In-Joke: Robert Frobisher-Smythe was part of Howard Carter's famous expedition into King Tut's tomb.
  • Hooked Up Afterwards: Fabian and Mara kiss in the last scene "Touchstone of Ra".
  • I Am Spartacus: Happens in the tenth episode after Alfie's head is stuck in a stag's head. Everyone tries to take the fall for Nina after she returns the spare attic key. Victor is unable to harshly punish all of them, so he just grounds them all and leaves.
  • I Broke a Nail: Spoken word for word by Amber:
    Eddie: You're a couple of strong, 21st century women. What do you need my help for?
    Amber: I broke a nail...
    Eddie: Go sisterhood!
  • Iconic Item:
    • Nina's locket, so much so that when Fabian and Patricia see that Eddie has her locket in Season 3, they jump to the conclusion that Eddie and Nina were secretly dating over the summer, since Nina wouldn't give her locket to just anybody.
    • Victor's pin, which is a big part of his catch-phrase, a reason the other characters use to make fun of him, and is always referenced by anyone who is trying to imitate him.
  • Identical Grandson:
    • Patricia's, Alfie's, Joy's, and Jerome's great-grandparents apparently looked exactly like them.
    • Victor looks exactly like his father. They also have the same name, to boot.
  • Identical Twin Mistake: When Patricia's polar opposite twin Piper arrives at the house, this trope is in full force. Apart from their Twin Switch, Piper is mistaken for Patricia multiple times. This leads to Eddie kissing her, Alfie thinking his crush on Piper is a crush on Patricia, and the Sibunas thanking "Patricia" for getting rid of the stolen oxbow before the teachers checked her bag. Strangely, they did have an Identical Twin ID Tag with their necklaces. After Piper gives Patricia hers before leaving, Eddie then mistakes Patricia for Piper.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode has been titled "House Of _____", except the final special "Touchstone of Ra".
  • Idiot Ball:
    • Sibuna is usually pretty smart about how and when they reveal secret information, but there are moments where they slip up out of stupidity to let the plot progress:
      • In season 1, they put on an entire play about Sarah's backstory while playing Victor's father as the villain. This is information they know needs to be kept secret, and they don't want to let Victor know they're onto him, but the play goes on without anyone considering the potential backlash. Of course, Victor and the other teachers are deeply concerned about this, and it results in them trying to through Sibuna off the scent.
      • In season 3, Eddie and the others are talking about the bracelet the adults need for the ceremony — the bracelet they already know Victor has been violent and cruel over, which means that if they're caught with it, they risk expulsion or worse. Eddie casually flashes it in the middle of the hallway, and Mr. Sweet notices, which means his father is able to go through with a plan to steal the bracelet from him.
    • Jerome and Joy, after spending two seasons being involved in the mystery and knowing full well that their friends have the tendency to end up in bad situations, still for some reason choose to ignore Patricia and Alfie's warnings about the eclipse. They openly mock them for getting paranoid and treat their best friends as liars who just want to bully a teacher, which results in the four of them not getting to escape before the ceremony. Though they catch on by the time the ceremony starts, it's too late by then. Alfie lampshades this:
    Ceremonies, bad teachers, great evil, does none of this ring a bell to you?
    • Fabian is meant to be The Smart Guy of Sibuna, despite his small moments of gullibility. This didn't shield him from trusting Robert Frobisher-Smythe, the guy he knows is evil. He follows him to the tank room, where he knows people get turned into sinners, and suspects nothing until Robert begins to drop the act. From there, Fabian apparently seems to believe that "shame" is one of the sins and declares that he's proud of himself, allowing Robert to steal his soul.
    • KT holds the ball for a short time when she believes Fabian (the sinner) over Alfie (who is trying to protect her). She brushes off Alfie's point about Fabian being cruel to Joy by insisting she saw the entire thing, not realizing that the only person who could've told Alfie about this was Joy herself.
  • If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Mara pulled this on Jerome, warning her that she'll go after him if he ever breaks Joy's heart. Justified in that he had cheated on Mara herself earlier in the season and she didn't want to let Joy get hurt. Jerome was good natured about it and agreed with the threat.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Happens between Eddie and Patricia when Patricia is turned into a sinner. He begs her to try and remember how she felt about him, because she still had all of her memories, but none of the feelings. They ended up kissing, but it is unknown if the real Patricia actually slipped out, or if it was all part of the plan to get Eddie and KT to accidentally unleash Ammit.
  • Immortality: Eternal life is obtained if you drink the Elixir of Life from the Cup of Ankh. But someone else will die if you do.
  • Immortality Seeker: Victor and his society are all after the secret to eternal life, as well as Rufus Zeno. Victor's father had been after it as well, which meant Victor's basic goal was to finish his father's dream. Other members of the society had different goals as well; While most were selfish, it is known that Jason was dying of a degenerative illness, and would have died young unless he obtained the immortality. It is unknown what Rufus's larger goal was, but he was certainly more ruthless about it, willing to kill people if it got him what he wanted.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: After the slanderous article about Nina is published, Fabian confronts Joy about it, because as the paper's editor she'd know about it. Joy claimed to not have read it, only to then directly quote it. This is what tips Fabian off to the fact that Joy wrote the article herself.
  • Insidious Rumor Mill: Toward the end of Season 3, Sibuna was revealed to have a traitor among them in the form of a member turned into a sinner. KT was falsely accused of being said sinner, which caused the rest of Sibuna to ostracize and bully her, thanks to the machinations of Patricia—the actual sinner. Every time KT attempted to prove her innocence, Patricia would swing it back around on her and make KT seem even more guilty.
  • Intentional Mess Making:
    • At one point in the third season, Sibuna needs to get themselves into detention to get papers from their teacher. To accomplish this, they proceed to start trashing the hallway.
    • The modus operandi of The Sinners is to spread as much chaos as possible, and one common tactic involves making a mess of things- ranging from sticking a cookie on the mirror, to writing on the walls, to outright destroying everything.
  • Impeded Communication:
    • Late in season 1, Alfie helps out the Sibuna gang by going into the cellar, while the others converse with him over walkie-talkie. He leaves the walkie behind and Jerome picks it up, pretending to be Alfie, which gets Alfie into trouble when the others think he's done and leaves while he's still down there. Jerome then uses this to manipulate Alfie into helping him.
    • In season 3, Nina has disappeared without warning, and Fabian is a mess trying to figure out why. He discovers she sent Eddie a letter, and he goes to get it...only for this letter to have been written by Eddie and KT. Fabian realizes it immediately, and it only makes him get angrier, coming to the conclusion that Eddie and Nina had an affair over the summer. Eddie, however, wasn't doing it maliciously, but because he really lost the original letter.
    • When Alfie notices that Amber has been getting calls from her dream fashion school, he tries at first to keep her away from her phone, so that she doesn't talk to them and get into said school. When he realizes how selfish this is, however, he tells her the truth.
  • Improvised Imprisonment: Toward the end of season 3, Sibuna temporarily believed that KT was working for Team Evil and needed to get her out of the way. When ostracizing her failed, and they believed she attempted to go after Patricia, she was instead locked away in her bedroom alone, with a sign on the door warning people that KT was "dangerous" and "crazy". This failed for two reasons: Patricia was the actual Sinner and had successfully turned everyone else against KT, and Willow let KT escape without even knowing what was going on. By the time they all realized they were wrong about KT, it was too late to fix everything.
  • Inappropriate Hunger: Happens once with Alfie:
    Amber: Alfie, how could you possibly be eating at a time like this?
    Alfie: I always eat when I'm scared. Or nervous. Or...happy, come to think of it.
    Amber: Or any day with a 'y' in it...
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Two within the same episode!
    Amber:(to Mick after breaking up with Mara) Trouble in Maradise?
    Alfie:(after security footage shows Victor cleaning his nose hairs) Show another tape, it seems you've got a nose for comedy!
  • Inevitably Broken Rule: When Nina first arrives, Victor lays down the two main House rules for her- no staying up past the 10:00 curfew, and no going into his office, the attic, or the cellar. When the plot gets rolling, these rules get immediately broken; Sibuna has to habitually sneak out at night for a shot at getting anything done, the keys to the cellar and attic are in Victor's office, and the attic and cellar is where a good chunk of the Season 1 clues are found. The rules were only in place because of the big mystery anyway, as Victor needed the kids to not snoop around and discover his secret plans.
  • Initiation Ceremony: Patricia's fake initiation ceremony for Nina included both having to steal from their house father, to sneaking into the forbidden (and rumored to be haunted) attic at midnight, with the goals of getting Nina scared, humiliated, and into trouble. In the end she even locked Nina up there. Nina passed, but was still terrified.
  • Intra-Scholastic Rivalry: In the third season, we get introduced to the houses besides Anubis, with Isis House specifically taking a decent focus as characters reference it quite a bit while Willow lives there for much of the season. All of this serves as buildup for the school sports tournament, where each house is competing in a game of dodgeball. Anubis sees Isis as their biggest rival due to how athletic the people of Isis are. This is not helped by Eddie's old rival, Ben, staying in the house and even stopping by to intimidate the Anubis residents. The only one who really takes this rivalry seriously is Eddie, however; the other Anubis students are irritated with his obsession with winning, and Ben soon proves to be a Graceful Loser who values fair competition.
  • Invisible Writing: Sibuna find an old dictionary but when they open it, nothing is written in it. Later it turns out the text was in invisible ink, and the heat from the flashlight made the words appear.
  • Is It Always Like This?: It happens a few times in the show:
    • After Patricia brushes him off and gives him zero help in finding Victor:
      Eddie: Is your friend [Patricia] always so..?
      Joy: Yep.
    • After Patricia torments Nina one morning:
      Fabian: She's [Patricia] not always like this, you know.
    • After KT and Eddie eavesdrop on Miss Denby, who they find suspicious:
      KT: What are we going to do, follow her? (Beat) We're following her, aren't we?
      Eddie: You're starting to get the hang of how things work around here.
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One:
    • Played with in Season 1. Joy is removed from school and has no means of contacting her friends without getting sneaky, and is being coerced into performing a ceremony she doesn't care for. However, it turns out she's not the chosen one at all — Nina is, and Nina was having a much better school year in comparison.
    • Played straight in seasons 2 and 3:
      • Nina gets haunted, cursed, and tormented by an evil ghost that demands she collect the Mask of Anubis for her. This task involves going through deadly chambers and having to compete with Victor, while her friends get cursed for helping her. She's then asked to sacrifice herself so Senkhara will leave her friends alone.
      • Eddie, who discovered his Osirian powers the term before, is now trying to protect the world from some vague "great evil". He suffers from deeply intrusive visions, is forced to fight against his own father, and struggles to lead Sibuna. In the "Touchstone of Ra", he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to stop Ra from destroying the world, and nearly dies in the process.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
    • After a season of pining for Fabian, Joy finally settles on being his friend and encourages to get back with Nina.
    • Mara, despite still being conflicted over Jerome and struggling with the idea of Joy dating him, ultimately decides to allow the two to be together — though not without threatening Jerome first.
    • Patricia spends the bulk of season 3 believing that Eddie prefers KT over her, not helped by Patricia having spent weeks as a sinner trying to ruin the world while KT was helping him out. She tells Eddie that he can date KT if he wants to. Luckily for her, he insists she's the one he wants to be with.
  • Jar of the Bizarre: When Eddie and KT break into the Gatehouse to investigate Denby for the first time, they discover a few creepy jars filled with dead insects and frogs. They're both appropriately freaked out that she owns them, and it's never explained why she has them. It's used to establish early on that Denby is hiding some unsettling secrets behind her Cool Teacher facade.
  • Jaw Drop:
    • Alfie's jaw drops, and remains dropped, when he sees Joy's new look in season 3. She eventually closes his mouth for him.
    • Fabian, Amber, and Joy all share a simultaneous jaw drop when they're listening to Patricia and Eddie argue.
  • Jealous Romantic Witness: These moments are common in the series, though they're usually subtle moments of characters misinterpreting a platonic interaction. Some of the more standout examples, however, left the characters feeling hurt for several episodes:
    • The most notable moment in the Nina/Fabian/Joy Love Triangle is when Joy kissed Fabian while disguised as Nina, causing Nina to run off in tears while a confused and distressed Fabian had to run after her. Nina was bitter for several days.
    • As part of an Operation: Jealousy, Eddie spent a lot of time in season 2 flirting with Mara to make Patricia jealous. She usually got angry at these interactions, even halting a Sibuna meeting to shout at them from under the floor to "turn the lights on". Season 3 would then have him spending a lot of time with KT, which again made her jealous, though Character Development eventually made her attempt an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy moment- believing he really wanted to be with KT over her as a result of all these scenes. Eddie himself was on the receiving end of this when he had to watch his rival Ben flirting with her, such as being her partner in a blind trust-exercise. His jealousy made him and Alfie fail the exercise, and put strain on his relationship with Patricia from then on.
    • Mick is the victim of this twice. First, Amber wanted to make him jealous to win him back, so she gave Alfie an impromptu kiss during a line-reading of Romeo and Juliet. Mick nearly attacked Alfie over it, despite him only being the recipient of the kiss. Later on, when he came Back for the Finale of season 2 just to talk to his then-girlfriend Mara, he had his heart broken when she wound up kissing Jerome that same night. This was his last appearance in the show, as he was walked off-screen by a sympathetic Alfie.
    • A rather dark example comes at the end of season 3. Alfie, who was just turned into a sinner, dumped Willow in a cold-blooded Kick the Dog moment. As icing on the cake, he proceeded to flirt with Mara and Joy just seconds later, in front of a heartbroken and sobbing Willow. This moment devastated her for the rest of the season, and he, once turned back to normal, had to give her an apology gift before she even considered taking him back.'
  • Jokers Love Junk Food:
    • Alfie, the house's resident Class Clown, is also known as a Big Eater obsessed with sugary, fatty foods. Everyone is well aware of his love of chocolate cake, even to the point of the villains trying to exploit that craving to further their plans. He once chose Trudy's cookies over a Sibuna meeting, to the amusement and irritation of his friends. He's even known for attempting to smuggle sweets when people aren't looking.
    • Eddie in season 2 is introduced as a rebellious bad boy and jokester who provides much of the season's comic relief. He's also a messy chef and eater who creates massive stacks of pancakes, creates a sandwich stuffed with spaghetti Bolognese, and downs whipped cream directly from the canister.
  • Kansas City Shuffle: Frobisher-Smythe shows up on the floor of Fabian's room, claiming that he's dying and needs help. Fabian, ever gullible, trusts him and tries to help. When Fabian goes up to the tank room with him, Frobisher keeps up the act until the last minute, when he reveals his true colors. Fabian deduces that he was tricked, and that Frobisher wanted to turn him into a sinner, but assumes that the goal is to get him for shame, and instead proclaims how proud he is of himself — with pride being the actual sin he was being tricked into expressing. This gets Fabian captured.
  • Kick Them While They're Down: Joy was completely heartbroken by Jerome dumping her in front of the entire school during a play and turned to Fabian, her long time best friend, for advice. He instead hurt her even worse, because being a sinner, he had no sympathy for her and instead tore up her self-esteem when it was low to begin with.
  • Kidnapper's KFC: While Rufus has Patricia held hostage in an abandoned warehouse, he brings her dinner at one point in the form of a simple, undressed burger in a Styrofoam container, which she refers to as being "better than that moldy old sandwich" she had for breakfast. The burger becomes a Fresh Clue when Nina and Amber arrive looking for her, as the fact that the food was still warm meant that Patricia and Rufus hadn't been gone for long.
  • Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: Subverted. It's first believed that Victor Rodenmaar Sr. killed the Frobisher-Smythe parents before becoming Sarah Frobisher-Smythe's new guardian. This wasn't helped by his abusive nature to both Sarah and his son, with him only raising the girl as a means to find her father's treasure. Sarah herself outright suspected his involvement. In a School Play about these events, Nina even went with this interpretation, portraying him as a murderer. However, the claims were never actually proven true; Victor Rodenmaar Jr. is appalled by the accusation, and we eventually learn that Robert Frobisher-Smythe was actually cursed and sent into a sleep state for decades.

    L-P 
  • Lampshade Hanging: The The Touchstone Of Ra had a lot of these moments.
    • After finding out the class field trip was to an Egyptian museum, Jerome remarked, "Why is it always Egypt?"
    • After Victor dropped his pin, Dexter excitedly said, "That's like his Catchphrase!" Jerome responded with, "Dude, we know."
    • Patricia's tendency to pour drinks on people was lampshaded by her two attempts to do it to the new students, and how she was automatically stopped both times.
  • Last Day of Normalcy: In the first episode, we see scenes of the original Anubis House students living their normal lives and goofing around, with Establishing Character Moments abound. It changes gears as soon as Joy is removed from the school without warning and Patricia finds Nina on her friend's old bed, kicking off one of the main mysteries of the first season and shaking up the house's dynamic forever.
  • Last-Second Photo Failure: In "The Touchstone of Ra", Willow is tasked with setting up the senior year class photo for extra credit work. She makes everyone squee and runs over to join the image, but as the picture's being taken, the camera collapses. This means that the class photo shows a toppled camera and everyone reaching out in a panic to fix it.
  • Light and Mirrors Puzzle: One of the chambers protecting the mask involved having to find various reflectors and stand in specific spots in order to reflect a beam of light that opens the next chamber. In this instance, the reflectors couldn't just be any mirror or glass object; they had to be specific items marked by a Horus symbol, forcing the characters to hunt them all down first.
  • Light Is Not Good: A very small subtle example: In the Season 2 finale, we see a very bright light, which implies to lead into the Egyptian afterlife. But Nina is heading toward it, with Senkhara possessing her... if she'd actually succeeded in going in, they'd never see them again.
  • Locker Mail:
    • In the second season, Amber and Fabian slip notes into Patricia and Alfie's lockers to ask them to meet in the Sibuna Clearing after school. This was done to keep it secret from Nina, who was against inviting Patricia and Alfie back due to the risk that they could get hurt.
    • Played for Drama in season three. Denby invents a fake "love letter" that she then claims that someone was trying to give to Eddie in class, all as part of her effort to fuel Patricia's insecurities. When he ditches it in class, she stuffs it into his locker so that it looks as though he'd kept the note.
  • Love Triangle:
    • In Season 1, Amber and Mara both had feelings for Mick, who had previously dated Amber, and then started to date Mara. At the same time, Jerome started developing feelings for Mara, a plot that continued into Season 2, with a Mick/Mara/Jerome triangle.
    • In Season 2, the main romantic plot involved a Nina, Fabian, and Joy. Nina and Fabian started the series as a couple, hampered by Joy's repeated efforts to win Fabian's affections. There was also a minor love-triangle between Amber, Alfie, and Piper, as once Amber and Alfie broke up, Alfie had temporary feelings for Piper, which Amber was upset by.
    • Downplayed in Season 3, where Patricia still had feelings for her ex-boyfriend Eddie, and was struggling with her jealousy over his friendship with KT, who did have feelings for him as well- but didn't act on them, knowing about Patricia's situation.
  • Loyal Phlebotinum: The necklace only works for Nina the Chosen One, as well as Eddie, the Osirian.
  • MacGuffin Blindness: After an entire season of risking their lives and battling both Victor and Rufus to get to the Mask of Anubis, the Mask doesn't work even when used by Nina. It turns out the real Mask of Anubis was the thought-to-be-fake mask on display at the artifact exhibition, having been seen by all the characters but dismissed as a replica.
  • Malingering Romance Ploy:
    • When Amber is temporarily cursed with blindness, Alfie frantically tries to help her by carrying things for her and the like. She exploits this by continuing to fake blindness even after she recovers, and when he catches her reading a magazine, she spins it as him just being so good at helping her.
    • In the first season, while visiting a hospital-stricken Alfie, Jerome grew attracted to his hot young nurse and started pretending to have a fever to get her attention. She claimed that he had a horrible illness that required being given an injection with a Giant Medical Syringe, forcing him to admit he wasn't sick... and leading her to admit she was just messing with him because she knew what he was attempting.
  • Mirror Reveal: When Amber is cursed to turn old, she first only gets a personality change and complains about things like joint-pain or hearing problems. Then Nina catches her in her room, and is shocked by what she sees; Amber is forced to check the mirror to find that she's now covered in wrinkles.
  • Mistaken for Flirting: Eddie repeatedly makes a fool of himself around KT when they first meet, due to his having a prophetic dream about her and wanting to know why. Certain lines he uses, like calling her "the girl from my dreams", makes everyone, including KT, think that he's hitting on her.
  • Mistaken for Insane: Patricia's obsession with finding Joy at the beginning of the series led to the rest of the House thinking she'd gone nuts, with some of them mocking her for it. This leads to her falling deeper into the rabbit hole, as she becomes isolated from everyone else and snaps at people when they attempt to help her. Eventually, however, her friends discover that she was right to be so paranoid, and help her to find Joy.
  • Mistaken for Thief: In "Touchstone of Ra", the students go to a museum themed around ancient Egypt. Somewhere along the line, an artifact gets stolen and put in Eddie's bag, where the teachers find it. Eddie's friend Sophia was the culprit, but Eddie blames Dexter because the latter liked the stolen object. The only person who believes Dexter is Patricia, but only because she doesn't like Sophia.
  • Moment Killer: Aggravatingly often, usually something mundane. It's a favorite trick of the writers, and has happened to basically every pairing on the show at least once. Lampshaded by Nina in the season one finale, just before Fabian asks her to the prom.
    Nina: Now hurry up before there's an earthquake, or a swarm of locusts, or anything else that stops you from asking!
  • Moral Disambiguation: The first season involved morally ambiguous teachers chasing immortality but not wanting to hurt the students, and a villain that stood out specifically for actually intending to cause harm, while the students ran the gamut from being normal heroes to anti-heroes, and anti-villains. By the third season, Sibuna was entirely morally good, and the villains were trying to cause an apocalypse, raising the stakes but removing the grayness.
  • More Experienced Chases the Innocent: Eddie was a flirty "bad boy" who quickly developed a crush on Patricia because of their constant bickering. While Patricia liked him back, she refused to admit it at first, which was initially just played as her being a tsundere... until she kissed him and then began to avoid him entirely, becoming quite anxious because it was her First Kiss ever and Eddie was the first guy she ever attempted to be romantic with. Her failure and stress in the romance department continued to make their relationship difficult even after they got together, with their temporary Offscreen Breakup happening because Patricia panicked again.
  • Mutual Envy:
    • Patricia and Piper both learn during an argument that they're jealous of each other. Patricia envies her sister's intelligence, talent, and charisma, while Piper envies her sister's freedom, friendships, and confidence. This revelation allows them to patch up their troubled relationship and bond more strongly.
    • Eddie and Benji discuss the aftermath of the dodgeball tournament, where Benji is forced to explain to Eddie that he was always jealous of the things Eddie had — such as the awesome school, his great friends, and most importantly his relationship with Patricia. Eddie, meanwhile, was jealous over Benji's athletic prowess, and his ability to seemingly win at everything.
  • Mythology Gag: A couple to the original Het Huis Anubis:
    • Amber and Nina becoming roommates in Season 1 reflects the fact that their Dutch counterparts were roommates.
    • Early in Season 1, Victor gives his "pin drop" speech, then shouts "I can still hear something!" Alfie runs by and responds "We still have three minutes." This was a Running Gag in the Dutch version.
  • New Kid Stigma: Every new American student at the House briefly has to deal with being ostracized due to how they shake up the dynamic and arrive just as someone else leaves:
    • Nina came in unexpectedly on the same day Joy vanished, immediately putting her on Patricia's bad side. Aside from Fabian, everyone else is rather cold to her, and only Fabian attempts to stand up for her when she's being mistreated. She goes to school early the next morning, which Fabian argues is an effort to get away from all of them because none of them were very welcoming. It takes her besting a fake Initiation Ceremony to get on most people's good side, which only leaves Patricia hating her for several more episodes.
    • Eddie arrived a day after Mick left, but before moving into Anubis House, he'd already had an argument with Patricia at school. He got off on the wrong foot with most everyone else when he introduced himself at breakfast, annoying the other boys due to flirting with all the girls, and immediately causing trouble by talking back to Victor, tormenting Jerome during "Donkey Day", and keeping Fabian up with loud music. It doesn't take very long for him to become accepted, though.
    • KT comes in after Nina has disappeared, which meant she was entering when the house was in a tense state. This mirrors how Nina herself was treated when she first arrived, except that instead of Patricia bullying her and everyone else being distant, Fabian is the one who takes the lead on distrusting her due to some concerning factors, and ropes Patricia in as part of his desperation to find out where Nina went. Meanwhile, while many are friendly to her, the only one who really hangs out with her is Eddie... which makes Fabian and Patricia even more distrustful. It takes a while for her to be fully accepted by the rest of Anubis House, as even after joining Sibuna, Fabian and Patricia still don't trust her until they're forced to.
  • New Season, New Name: For the third and final season, the show was rebranded as "House of Anubis: The Reawakening".
  • New Transfer Student: Nina in Season 1, Eddie in Season 2, KT in Season 3. All of them came to the school from America, and struggled to fit in, as their arrival changed the house's dynamic.
  • Next Stall Shenanigans: This happens twice in the first season:
    • In one episode, Nina is trying to study a strange clue she and Fabian had found and hides in a bathroom stall to do it. Then it turns out Amber was in the stall next to her; she rises over the wall to ask Nina what she's up to and threatens to tell Mr. Sweet that Nina is "doing something weird and (she) doesn't know what it is" if she doesn't.
    • Toward the middle of the season, Fabian is in the boy's bathroom deciphering a clue by repeating the riddle out-loud to himself and then determining that it's pointing to the living room clock. It's then revealed that Alfie overheard this as he starts poking fun at Fabian's strange behavior from the next stall, throwing Fabian into enough of a rush to leave that he drops the artifact and accidentally fuels Alfie's suspicions about what he and his friends are up to.
  • No MacGuffin, No Winner:
    • Sort of. The McGuffin is used once, but the accompanying elixir necessary to use it turns out to be fake, so it doesn't work. The end of the series has the McGuffin buried under the house, with only the heroes, (and possibly only one of them), knowing where it is.
    • At the end of Season 2, Presumably, the Mask of Anubis will now leave the house with the rest of the Egyptian exhibition, putting it out of reach of both sides. Even if it doesn't, the only person in the house who can use it has no intention of doing so.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Happens in Season 3. Miss Denby catches Patricia sneaking around by the gatehouse with Denby's bag. In the next scene with them we see Denby and Patricia were simply 'having a nice tea' while Denby was interrogating Patricia in the nicest manner possible. Patricia was visibly horrified the entire time, because who knows what Denby would have done if she really tried to flee or fight?
  • No Name Given: Just where do these kids go to school?
  • Non-Residential Residence: One episode involves the Anubis House students having to sleep in the school's lounge due to a pest problem at the House; this was part of a plan by Victor in order for him to easily search for and steal the puzzle pieces Sibuna were hiding.
  • Noodle Incident: A non-comedic example from Season 3: Patricia and Eddie broke up for an unspecified reason. All we know is that, apparently, everything went to Hell when Patricia went to America.
  • Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Jerome does this when everyone is leaving the sit-down strike, and Victor threatens to expel them. At least the other students had genuine reasons why they didn't want to stay.
    Mick: Thing is...it's this sports scholarship. I need a good...reference from the school...
    Mara: And there's a class on sea-cows I really want to take. Sorry, Patricia.
    Alfie: Yeah, my parental units would kill me if I got expelled from yet another school.
    Jerome: I'm out too. It was a dumb idea anyways.
  • Obviously Not Fine: In one episode, after a long time of Fabian and Joy having a complicated relationship, with Joy experiencing Unrequited Love and trying to compete with Nina for his affection, they finally got to talking. Fabian ended up making it clear that he really did still love Nina and, at the same time, managed to convince her to drop an article that was being written for the school's newspaper. A shaken Joy sits crying while he starts to leave; when he turns around to see if she's okay, she gives him a strained smile and says "Of course, I'm Joy."
  • Odd Name Out: The Clarke Family goes as follows—John Clarke, Joan Clarke, Jerome Clarke, and...Poppy Clarke.
  • Official Couple: Nina and Fabian start finally having a stable relationship in Season 2, after tons of teasing and, tons fan's waiting for it. Then Season 3 happened... though writer Diane Whitley suggested it was possible they rekindled things after the series, with Fabian reuniting with Nina in America.
  • Offscreen Breakup:
    • Happens to Patricia and Eddie. As such a beloved couple, the fans were outraged and confused when they broke up over the summer with no given explanation. It's speculated that Patricia broke up with him because the relationship was moving too fast, but it was still jarring to the fans.
    • There are also some breakups that might not have even happened at all. The characters just moved on to other people without actually splitting. Mara, for example, started dating Jerome, before it was confirmed she and Mick were done.
  • Ominous Clouds: Ammit's arrival is signified by the arrival of black clouds, which would've turned into an apocalyptic storm if Eddie and KT hadn't stopped her.
  • Only the Pure of Heart:
    • The Mask of Anubis works this way, allowing the pure-hearted Chosen One to "weep tears of Gold", while punishing evil-doers who try and use it.
    • Only the pure of heart may lift the sleeping curse off of Robert Frobisher-Smythe, or he'll wake up evil.
  • Only the Worthy May Pass: Anyone who wears the real Mask of Anubis will go to the afterlife, but they must be pure of heart to enter. When Rufus wore it, he was immediately deemed unworthy, then he and Senkhara were dragged downward through a hellish portal.
  • Operation: Jealousy: Happens twice.
    • Mara and Jerome (who of course, had an insane crush on Mara) started to fake date to make Mara's ex jealous. This ex happened to have moved to Australia and was wrongly quoted to have had a new girlfriend, and of course he did not and was actually talking about Mara. In the end Mara claimed she was just dating Jerome because people were teasing him for not having a girlfriend, leading to Jerome's confusion and annoyance.
    • The second time is when Eddie started to get really close to Mara to make Patricia, who was still his girlfriend, jealous until she explained why she had been mad at him that whole time. He later admitted he was glad when she got jealous because it proved she liked him back.
  • Outclassed at the Gym: Happens on a group scale when Anubis House is preparing for the dodgeball tournament. Their rival house, Isis House, is demonstrated to be not only incredibly unified, but also far more athletically capable than Anubis House, who happens to rank last in every single sports tournament. Simply watching them do their group exercises demoralizes the Anubis students, while Willow acknowledges that when she lived there, their motto was "win or die trying". This inferiority gets worse when Ben notices Eddie's efforts to coach his team and attempts to offer advice, which Eddie stubbornly shoots down.
  • Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Mara hears Amber talking to Mick's father, with Mick's father saying he'll remove Mick from the school. She warns Mick, and both assume the worst. Then it's revealed that pulling Mick out of the school was just a lie to scare Mr. Sweet into removing the cameras and getting Trudy re-hired.
  • Pair the Dumb Ones: Brainless Beauty Amber and Dumb Jock Mick were a couple at the beginning of the series; however, despite sharing their ditzy personalities, they still ended up breaking up when they realized they had no common interests.
  • Parental Betrayal: Done by Mr. Sweet, Eddie's father. A bit of dramatic irony, too, as the viewers and the rest of Sibuna knew that Mr. Sweet was a member of Team Evil but nobody told Eddie, and when he found out he was completely devastated. Gets even worse after Mr.Sweet starts proactively manipulating Sibuna to further the plans of his own team- and knowingly hurting Eddie in the process.
  • Personalized Pledge: in episode 1.03 "House of the Black Bird": Patricia accuses Alfie of being the person behind a prank that really scared her. He frantically insists he didn't do it by swearing on his dog's life. She begrudgingly accepts that it wasn't Alfie, and storms off. After she leaves, Alfie admits to Jerome that he lied—he doesn't have a dog, he's allergic to them—making it a Subverted Trope.
    Patricia: You swear?
    Alfie: Yes, I swear! On Sprocket's life!
    Patricia: Who?
    Alfie: Sprocket, my dog! I swear on his life I didn't do it!
    [...]
    Jerome: I did not know you had a dog.
    Alfie: Nope—allergic.
  • Pictorial Letter Substitution: The logo for House of Anubis uses half of a stylized eye of Horus as the "A".
  • Please Dump Me: In an effort to get Mick to go to Australia, Mara decides to play up the differences between the two of them to turn him off. She starts dressing and acting like a much more stereotypical nerd, performs an embarrassing cheerleading routine for him (with an unwilling Patricia roped into the performance) and then pretends to not care at all about whether or not he's choosing to leave. Mick eventually becomes convinced that she doesn't care, but she can't handle avoiding him forever and explains the situation when they finally say goodbye.
  • Prefers Proper Names: Victor, being the old-fashioned character he is, refers to all the students either with their full names ("Nina Martin") or with honorifics ("Miss Martin"). When he first met Eddie and referred to him as "Edison", Eddie's request to be referred to as Eddie was immediately rejected, and the very fact that he'd even asked for Victor to call him by his nickname shocked the other students. The one time he didn't use a student's full name was in the Season 2 finale, where his referring to Nina as simply "Nina" was played as a show of warmth and affection.
  • The Power of Friendship: This seems to be the main reason Sibuna keep winning. Fabian makes a speech about it in season 2, even, claiming that while the teachers have more of the advantages, they have the team, and they'd win because they wouldn't let each other fail.
  • Prophecy Twist: In The Touchstone Of Ra, there is a prophecy about, well, the touchstone of Ra—whoever touched the stone will be turned into stone themselves, unless the Osirian makes the ultimate sacrifice- their life. Eddie was ready to die and save his friends, but when it was over, it instead turned out that he had instead lost his powers- The Osirian did die, as in there would be no more Osirians, but Eddie survived.
  • Puzzle Box: In season 3, Sibuna comes across an odd capsule with moving parts, each depicting a different image. They figure out that they need to solve some sort of combination, but have no idea how... until Fabian suddenly discovers that Robert Frobisher-Smythe, who built this capsule, has synesthesia; a condition he passed down to his great granddaughter, KT. They open it by having her dull her other senses until she can make out the colors of the rainbow, which allows her to solve the combination and open the capsule.

    R-Z 
  • Rash Promise: Played for Laughs. At the end of season 1, Alfie seems to be dying from Rufus's immortality ceremony, so Amber frantically promises that if he survives, she'll do anything... including be his girlfriend. At the start of season 2, he holds her to that promise, and the other Sibuna members all agree that she did, in fact, promise him they would date.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Nathalia Ramos decided to take a break from acting to go to college, so Nina didn't return for Season 3.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • Ms. Denby from Season 3 is quite fond of tearing into Victor for his failures, openly calling him incompetent and foolish, among other things. She even refers to him as just being the caretaker, and gives him chores to do.
    • Fabian, as a Sinner, delivered two of them, to Joy and Alfie respectively. To Joy, he had whispered to her that nobody liked her, and she should just shut up and be glad anyone was stupid enough to date her...this was when she had come to him seeking out comfort after her recent heartbreak. To Alfie, he taunted him for thinking he could stop him and rescue the unknowing KT, and claimed:
      "You always get it wrong, Alfie. You're the joke of the group. I will always be two steps ahead of you."
    • Alfie then shot back with:
      Alfie: What are you going to do, attack me? Yeah, umm, you're not exactly the most sporty person ever. Maybe that's why Nina left you.
  • Recut: Sort of. Nick ran all of the episodes again, but with some new lines of dialogue added in.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Those possessed by Ammit sport red eyes during important moments, or in surges of extreme emotion.
  • Relative Ridicule:
    • Early in Season One, Patricia shows off her antagonism by listening to Nina's story about dead parents and being raised by her Grandmother, something even Jerkass Jerome took seriously, by snarking that since Nina was now in a boarding school in a different country, her Gran probably wanted to "get rid of her".
    • Jerome's big subplot in season 2 was reconnecting with his jailed father and going through major Character Development, helped by Mara's support throughout it all. However, when he wound up cheating on her in season 3, Mara turned on him completely, and wanted nothing more than to hurt him. Because of this, when everyone discovered she was distantly related to a Lord, she used that fact as an opportunity to point out that he's "the son of a thief", an act even her own best friend thought was too far.
  • Reminder Failure: As Fabian, struck with the amnesia curse, gradually begins to forget more and more about his life, he starts making notes to himself whenever he needs to remember something, only to forget about the notes he wrote immediately after writing them.
  • Replaced with Replica:
    • The elixir of life in the season one finale was replaced with the fake elixir discovered by Sibuna earlier in the season. Rufus Zeno drank it and ran off, thinking he succeeded in becoming immortal.
    • In the second season, Sibuna and the teachers were in a race to find the mask of Anubis, which was believed to be hidden behind a series of puzzles, many of them deadly. In the end, however, the mask found in the tunnels didn't work; the true mask was posing as a fake in an exhibition, and the fake mask was put in the tunnels.
    • At one point, in order to get into the tunnels, Victor found and stole the spare amulet hidden in Nina and Amber's room, replacing it with a carefully made replica. Patricia used this replica amulet when hers got lost, and ended up being blinded by the first trap. This replica amulet would later be used to trick the teachers during Alfie's "failed" magic trick, being smashed in place of Victor's real one, which he'd stolen back in the process.
    • When Jasper was tasked with stealing the gem Jerome had spent all season finding for his father, he'd had to replace it with a fake. Mr. Sweet bought it, but Jerome didn't, and this was made worse when Mr. Sweet hired Jasper to examine the gem for them. Of course, Jasper claimed it was real, which only made Jerome more suspicious of him.
  • Request for Privacy: Towards the end of Season 1, Fabian is trying to ask Nina to the prom, but they keep being interrupted. His final attempt is in the dining room, where Patricia walks in just as he's trying to ask. He awkwardly asks her to leave the room so he can ask Nina, which she's annoyed by at first, but gladly leaves after catching on. She returns as soon as they're done with the conversation, telling them that they're adorable, and she's starving.
  • The Reveal: The Collector is Rufus Zeno.
  • Revenge via Storytelling: Played for Drama. As a result of being cheated on, Mara makes it a personal goal of hers to ruin Jerome's life. She writes a school play designed around humiliating him. His character is portrayed as a huge, manipulative loser with no redeeming qualities, and he gets his heart broken at the end- with the ultimate plan being having Joy dump him on stage in front of everyone. Jerome realizes the character is based on him and takes it in stride, but is crushed when he learns about the full plan and breaks up with Joy before she can break up with him.
  • Romantic Candlelit Dinner:
    • Mick, after his temporary absence and his rocky relationship with Mara, decides to take her on a fancy candlelit dinner date...in his bedroom. Jerome takes advantage of this by telling Victor about the fire-hazard, leading to the candles being snuffed, but Mick and Mara just end up laughing about it.
    • In Season 2, Nina and Fabian attempt to have a date in the attic, complete with two small candles. When the moment is ruined, however, Fabian is forced to angrily blow out the candles and pack up. Later, his dream of dating Nina includes a large, lit, candelabra on the table.
  • Roommate Drama: This happens a lot thanks to rooms being swapped around on occasion:
    • When Nina first arrives, she's put into Patricia's room in place of the disappearing Joy. Patricia assumes that Nina had something to do with the disappearance and starts to bully Nina relentlessly, helped by the fact that they're living together.
    • After Amber leaves the House, a spot opens up in Mara's room and is taken by Willow. Due to their clashing personalities, Willow's Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies drives Mara insane, and then later, Mara's overzealous studying habits drives Willow insane, too. When Jerome tricks Willow into changing rooms, Mara is overjoyed.
  • Running Gag:
    • Patricia dumping drinks on people when she's angry.
    • Characters being late for curfew and thus getting yelled at by Victor.
    • Sibuna characters being late for classes, and having to make up an excuse.
    • Alfie freaking out about some imaginary threat.
    • Each season has their own, as well.
      • Season 1—Patricia asking where Joy is, Nina stating the fact that she's American, Jerome walking in on Sibuna meetings, Nina trying to lie.
      • Season 2—Fabina failing to have an actual date, Eddie and his love for pancakes, Patricia failing to be romantic, Fabian being teased for being a nerd.
      • Season 3—Alfie interrupting Jerome and Mara, KT stating that she's at the school to "stop a great evil", Willow "Squee-ing", Eddie claiming he's the Osirian.
      • Touchstone Of Ra—The new kids interrupting things, characters making fun of Patricia's dress, lampshading.
  • Sadistic Choice: Joy and Fabian are given a choice at the end of season 2 - the mask or their trapped friends. They chose their friends.
  • Safe Behind the Corner: The Sibuna gang manages to pull this off a few times. The most notable examples are:
    • Nina managed to hide from Victor, while they were both in his tiny office, just by hiding on the other side of the desk.
    • When watching the teachers hold their ceremony in the cellar, the students were somehow unseen...despite peeking around a corner and staring directly at the teachers, who would've seen them easily in real-life. When Victor came to check, they hurriedly hid behind the corner...and he stopped just before seeing them, because he decided the noise came from a rat, instead.
  • Secret Circle of Secrets: Victor's aptly-named "secret" society. They even have hooded cloaks and Ominous Latin Chanting, to boot.
  • Secret Pet Plot:
    • In season one, this is downplayed when Amber tries to care for the cat they found in the cellar. She fakes sick to care for it, but when it escapes, she panics and tries to tell Trudy, who only sends her back to bed. This is the catalyst for Sibuna going back down into the cellar, seeing a taxidermized cat, and believing that Victor was a cat-killer, which makes them distrust him even more than they already did.
    • In season two, Jerome and Alfie are setting up a literal "wild goose chase" to retrieve a stolen gem from the headmaster's office. Afterward, they have to care for the goose in their bedroom for long enough to have it "return" the gem that it had inadvertently swallowed. Because Anubis House doesn't allow pets, all of the students get locked up in the living room when Victor discovers the pet food Alfie ordered, and he initiates a search for the goose, forcing them to break the rules in order to hide it in their closet.
    • Mara, Willow, and Joy care for two secret pets in season three:
      • They have to secretly care for Letdown, Mara's dog, which she inherited from a deceased lord. She grows very attached to the dog, but when Joy allows Sibuna to take him for a few minutes, they accidentally let him get captured by Victor, who is once again enforcing the "no pets" rule. This helps to strain her relationship with Mara, until everyone manages to get Letdown back, though Mara has to send him to her parent's house. In this case, all of the students knew about Letdown, and it was just the teachers who were in the dark.
      • After being dumped by Alfie, Willow is crying in the kitchen with Joy and Mara, when she notices a wild hedgehog wander in. She decides to secretly care for the hedgehog in the bedroom and names him after Victor. Trouble ensues when Mara and Joy accidentally lose it, requiring Jerome's help to get a new one, only for the original hedgehog to return, which makes Willow care for two at once. Unfortunately, she's caught when the hedgehogs spread fleas to the students, and Trudy forces her to get rid of them.
  • Secret Room: In season 2, the students discover a secret antechamber in the cellar, which not even Victor or the teachers knew existed. This antechamber leads to a series of trap-filled tunnels guarding an important treasure, but the antechamber is treated as a separate place in-and-of-itself, a secret study room for Frobisher-Smythe.
  • Self-Deprecation: In-universe example:
    Nina: I guess I am a little scared. The last time I felt like this, I threw up on my kindergarten teacher.
    Driver: No, that'd just be my driving.
  • Self-Punishment Over Failure: In the third season, Alfie lies to Amber about her receiving a call from a New York fashion school because he doesn't want her to leave. After breaking down from the guilt, he tells her the truth and she's upset at him for a while. When they meet up in the hallway, she's holding a glass of milk, and he dumps the milk on his head as a self-punishment.
  • Senior Year Struggles: Downplayed in the finale movie, The Touchstone of Ra. The students are preparing for their graduation day and most of them have their paths figured out, but Willow's subplot is about not having enough credits to graduate unless she does extra credit work for the graduation. Meanwhile, they have to deal with four freshmen living with them at the same time, interrupting their celebrations. The students get nostalgic at the end when they realize they're all leaving the school they've lived at for several years.
  • Settle for Sibling: In season two, Eddie brings this up when he thinks Patricia and Alfie might be into each other, stating that it might be what Alfie is thinking.
    Eddie: Well, he was into Piper, maybe you're just the next best twin!
  • Shared Dream:
    • Nina, Fabian, and Amber all receive an ominous dream about an upcoming dance, which ends with Senkhara pushing Nina into the tunnels' chasm. They all discover the next morning that the dream was a shared experience, and soon learn that everything in the dream is coming true.
    • Senkhara's Dream Weaver abilities allow her to trap people in very realistic dreams. These dreams often wind up being a shared experience for all the people within it, and they all wake up at the exact same time once the dream is over. One example is when she came to seek The Osirian, appearing to Fabian in a dream. Eddie wound up with the same dream, because he can see ghosts as a natural Osirian ability, but Fabian denied having a dream once they both woke up.
  • Shipper on Deck:
    • When Nina and Fabian reunite, all of Anubis house surround them, clapping and hugging.
    • Amber is definitely this for Nina and Fabian. Not only did she start to ship them by the second episode, she made them a couple's scrapbook, made them prom king and queen, and basically did everything in her power to get the pairing together.
    • Joy could also be considered this for Patricia and Eddie. While she was not exactly pushing as much as Amber was, she did try and get Patricia to be with Eddie.
  • Shout-Out:
    • In the first scene, Nina says she "feels like Harry Potter." Later she also mutters "Welcome to Hogwarts." Eddie even calls Patricia "Hermione".
    • One scene has Alfie get a deer head stuck on his head. He says that the half animal thing might be a hit with the ladies, then comments that "It seems to work for that Jacob Black dude and Amber loves him."
    • The thick-as-thieves pranksters, Alfie and Jerome, have the last names of Lewis and Clark, respectively. Victor sequentially makes mention of their last names twice, so it's more than likely not a coincidence. note 
    • In House Of Cameras:
      Nina: We're going to need a little help from our favorite comedy double act.
      Amber: Spongebob and Patrick?
    • Amber says Nina and Fabian are just like Scooby and Shaggy.
    • Jerome's dad says that "He knows he hasn't been the best dad" and Jerome answers "Darth Vader has nothing on you."
    • Fight Club reference:
      Amber: The first rule of Sibuna is you do not talk about Sibuna!
    • In "House of Sarcophagi", Fabian says "I see dead people".
  • Shouting Free-for-All: One scene in season 1 involves the characters trying to make themselves breakfast, with disastrous results. Besides the kitchen being an absolute mess, everyone's yelling at each-other and getting in everyone else's way, until Fabian finally puts a stop to the chaos and they all speak calmly.
  • The Show Must Go On:
    • Downplayed in Season 1. Mara and Mick run off just before the first scene, leaving Patricia in a scenario where she has to frantically improvise, especially after she unwittingly notices and calls attention to Joy being in the audience. Then, when Nina's not back in time to start her scene normally, Jason has Amber (as a cactus) and Jerome and Alfie (as a camel) dance to pad out the show.
    • In Season 3, the play Mara is trying to put on turns into absolute chaos due to a number of factors, from the in-universe Troubled Production (including lines being added and changed at the last minute) to multiple people not showing up for their scenes or leaving halfway through. The actors that do stick around have to try and salvage it... and then Jerome dumps Joy on stage, forcing it to end on a dark note.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss:
    • Patricia does this to Eddie when Eddie is trying to get a reaction out of her and he didn't know she was cursed and made mute.
      Eddie: C'mon, you're killing me! What do I have to do to get a reaction out of— (Patricia kisses him) That'll work...
    • Eddie also does it back to Patricia when she is yelling at him, angry that he 'stood her up' when in reality he was kidnapped.
      Eddie: Sorry I stood you up, Yacker.
      Patricia: It's okay...
  • Significant Birth Date: The Chosen One is born on a specific day at a specific time once every 75 years. Joy Mercer was believed to be it because she was born at 7:00 PM on the 7th day of the 7th month. But it was really Nina, as she was born on the true 7th hour- 7:00 AM. Sarah Frobisher-Smythe, the former Chosen One, was born on 1:00 on the 1st of January.
  • Significant Name Shift: Throughout season 2, Eddie was struggling with his conflicting feelings over his father, Mr. Sweet, exemplified by how he called him "Eric" and lashed out against him at any opportunity. When they finally made up, the change was signified by Eddie calling him "Dad".
  • Sisterhood Eliminates Creep: The aptly named "Anubis Sisterhood" was a group made for the girls of the house to overcome their problems, especially male related ones, and have girl time. So, when it was revealed that Jerome had cheated on Mara with Willow, they, along with Joy, worked together under the name of the sisterhood to get their revenge on him. First, they simply humiliate him, but Mara insists on more punishment and makes Joy pretend to love him in order to break his heart later on. Ultimately ends up a bad thing; Jerome, having truly fallen for Joy, is utterly crushed when he hears this, and Joy herself had become the mask, ending up crushed as well.
  • Sleight of Handiness: Alfie reveals himself as an amateur magician in season 2. Sibuna decides to use his skills to trick Victor and get their amulet back during a performance. He goes a step further and tricks everyone into thinking both the fake amulet and real amulet had been smashed, by pocketing the real one and smashing two fake ones, making it seem like his trick failed.
  • Slipping into Stink: One of Victor's cruel detention chores for Patricia and Eddie is to make them shovel a pile of manure on the flower beds. After only a few seconds of doing so, Eddie playfully trips Patricia into the pile, getting her shoes dirty. In retaliation, she outright shoves him into the pile, getting it all over his clothes.
  • Smart Jerk and Nice Moron: The duo of Jerome and Alfie, who are best friends and pranking partners, has this dynamic. Jerome is intelligent, manipulative and a Jerk with a Heart of Gold at best, using his brains for trickery and amusement. Alfie, meanwhile, is a lot less intelligent by comparison, but also less mean, getting along more easily with the house members and being the one manipulated by Jerome rather than an equal partner.
  • Smile of Approval: At the beginning of the show, Patricia was an outright bully towards Nina, which included forcing her into a fake initiation ceremony. Part of this ceremony involved stealing the attic key from Victor, which Nina pulled off. However, a few episodes later, Victor noticed the key was missing, and demanded the culprit confess. Nina stepped up and admitted she took the key to avoid anyone else being punished, after which an I Am Spartacus ensued. Patricia joined in, despite her rocky relationship with Nina, and gave Nina a smile afterward, showing she respected and appreciated her willingness to take some blame.
  • Snark-to-Snark Combat: Patricia and Eddie do this a lot as part of their Belligerent Sexual Tension. The best example, though, has to be when they first met:
    Patricia: (after she accidentally walks into his legs, which were hanging off the arms of a couch) Stick your feet in, will you?
    Eddie: You woke me!
    Patricia: Yeah, well, student lounges are for lounging, not sleeping. Clue's in the name?
    Eddie: Okay, look. I was on a plane for eight hours and then I was on a train for four more. And now I'm in Boresville, UK and don't need a lecture, 'kay Hermione? (Joy gasps)
    Patricia: Great, that's all we need, another patronizing American whose only reference to the UK is Harry Potter. Who are you anyway?
    Eddie: Who are you?
    Patricia: I asked first.
    Eddie: (scoffs) Really? (laughs)
    Patricia: Next time you trip someone up, remember it's considered polite to apologize in this country.
    Eddie: Do you ever stop talking? I should call you Blabs. Or Yacker. Yeah, Yacker.
    Patricia: And how bout I call you, a cab back to the airport?
    Eddie: Oh.(claps sarcastically) Devastating.
    Patricia: As much as I'd love to stay here and trade stereotypes, I think I'm gonna go hang somewhere else. Come on, Joy. (walks away)
  • Sneaking Out at Night: Because of their strict ten O'clock curfew, the students were expected to not only be inside at night, but inside their rooms, with plenty of potential punishments if they leave for long periods. In the premier, Nina's midnight Initiation Ceremony features most of the students sneaking out of bed but trying to be quick so Victor won't catch them, and then failing; by the finale movie, every senior-year student is so used to sneaking out that they have a picnic in the cellar to celebrate their upcoming graduation.
  • The Soulless: The sinners, who get their souls taken away by Ammut, and become sociopathic-versions of themselves, committing evil acts with no remorse or conscience.
  • Speak of the Devil: In the Season One finale, Jerome says he's "never going anywhere near Rufus again", only to promptly be texted by him.
    Jerome: Speak of the devil. Literally. I'm surprised my phone didn't burst into flames.
  • Squee: This has basically become Willow's catchphrase, as she can't help but literally "squee" when excited by something, such as moving into Anubis House.
  • Squick:
    • The entire 'Goose ate a gem, and they need it back' incident, in-universe and out-of-universe. Let's just leave it at that.
    • Victor and Vera as well. Especially in-universe, disgusting the kids whenever they catch the two flirting.
  • The Stinger: In "House of Eclipse", Eddie, Fabian and KT stop the ceremony just in the nick of time, stopping Robert Frobisher-Smythe from waking up evil. However, at the very end of the episode, hours after this happened... his eyes snap open, and his pupils shrink inward.
  • Stargazing Scene: Nina and Fabian share a small moment together in season one admiring the night sky from Fabian's bedroom window. In addition to being another moment of Ship Tease for the pairing, this moment also allows them to figure out the meaning of the next clue, which turns out to be tied to a downstairs telescope.
  • Stereo Fibbing: When Joy catches Sibuna searching the downstairs hallway, she asks what they're looking for. Nina, Fabian, Amber, and Alfie all frantically respond with something random.
    Joy: Everything okay? You're looking a bit frazzled.
    Nina: Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just, um... I'm looking for my uh... Phone.
    Amber: Headphones.
    Fabian: Toothbrush.
    Alfie: Shoes!
    Joy: Right... Well, I'll look out for all those things.
  • Stock Series Finales: The Movie, Touchstone of Ra, took place during graduation and is the finale, with all the students graduating from the Academy of Adventure after one last mystery.
  • Students' Secret Society: The Sibuna Club is a group of students from Anubis House who decided to attach a proper name to their little mystery-solving endeavors, complete with an initiation ceremony, an oath of club loyalty, and an extreme desperation to keep the club a secret from everyone else around them. The club's goal changes with the season, but always involves solving a mystery about the House and hunting down a specific MacGuffin before anyone else can. Ironically enough, in the first season the group that Sibuna was opposing was another Secret Society... but one made up of teachers and other important adult authority figures.
  • Suspicious Missed Messages:
    • Patricia is already a bit suspicious about Joy's disappearance when she first discovers she's gone, but her paranoia doesn't really set in until Joy won't answer her texts, a strange situation because she and Joy are best friends.
    • Inverted later on in Season 1; when Patricia gets kidnapped, her friends become concerned because she hadn't called them yet, which she'd have done if she wasn't in trouble.
    • When Jerome gets kidnapped by Rufus, nobody has any concerns until he won't respond to any of Mara or Poppy's attempts to contact him.
    • Nina's disappearance from the House was already considered worrying, but the fact that she'd responded to none of her friends' messages over the summer were what really made her friends scared.
    • Played for Laughs and downplayed in season 3. When Amber fails to respond to any of Willow's friend requests, Willow immediately jumps to the conclusion that Amber might be dead. Patricia resolves the issue in seconds, by picking up the phone and actually calling Amber to confirm she's still alive.
  • Take That!: Fabian's comment that "just because it doesn't have Robert Pattinson on the cover doesn't mean it's not worth reading" sounds like a Take That! to the Twilight books, but is actually a Take That! to celebrity magazines.
  • Talking in Your Sleep: Nina does this the night after she meets Sarah. She has a very confusing dream where Sarah continuously warns her to "beware the black bird." According to Patricia, Nina kept mumbling that in her sleep, and Patricia decided to cover her with black feathers so that Nina would freak out when she woke up.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: When Patricia loses her voice and types up stuff in advance on her tablet to show to Eddie in lieu of talking. The typed slides include things like, "You should apologize for whatever cheeky comment you just made" and "Don't pretend like you have a packed schedule." Which of course, he did.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Mara takes pictures of Mick innocently laughing with a teacher and then sends them in to the school anonymously, making it seem like this in House of Emergency.
  • Tears of Joy: A few times.
    • Fabian cries when he finds Nina, after an entire episode spent getting desperate and crazy searching for after he had sent her down the hole during Senet.
    • Mara tears up when she finds out that Jerome is putting someone—his father in this case—before himself for once.
    • Jerome starts to cry when he gets the gem back, and sees his father freed from prison.
    • Pretty much everyone is crying when Joy is saved from dying in the Season 2 finale. In a similar vein, everyone cries when Eddie doesn't die at the end of "Touchstone Of Ra".
    • Patricia seemed close to tears when she finally got to talk to Joy again.
  • 10-Minute Retirement: Nina quits the Sibuna club for all of one episode. Not even one episode, more like half of one. Even while she's trying to remain uninvolved, she can't help but solve the latest clue, and still sits in on a Sibuna meeting.
  • Terrible Pick-Up Lines: Alfie was slapped by a girl at the Halloween party after giving her a pickup line off-screen. When asked about it, it turned out to be the Incredibly Lame Pun of "Want a bite?" while showing off his fake vampire teeth.
  • Themed Tattoos: Discussed in season 2. When Nina and Fabian are cursed by Senkhara, they're both marked with a jackal symbol on their shoulder. After they show the marks to Amber, she initially assumes that they both got matching tattoos—right before they broke up, no less.
  • There Is Another: A version of this is done in season 2 where they discover Nina is not the only chosen person in the house, and there is in fact her Osirian, who is destined to protect her. It's Eddie.
  • Thrash Metal: In Season 2, Patricia is supposed to book a classical quintet to play at the Egyptian exhibition, but Eddie messes it up and gets a thrash metal band instead. Victor doesn't take it well, but luckily for Patricia, the band knows how to play classical music too.
  • Three Plus Two: Sibuna, in all three seasons:
    • What first begins as a club between three students, those being Nina Martin, Fabian Rutter and Amber Millington, eventually expands to include two other students: Patricia Williamson and Alfie Lewis. This happens again in the second season, as the original trio recreate Sibuna but only have Patricia and Alfie come in later when they really need the help.
    • Happens again in season 3, as once Nina never comes back and Amber leaves it's down to Fabian, Patricia and Alfie as the remaining original members, and the new trio, with the addition of Eddie Miller and KT Rush. Then, throughout Season 3, it becomes clear that the Nina-Fabian-Amber trio has been replaced by the Eddie-KT-Fabian trio, with Patricia and Alfie seeming like the added/background two.
  • "Too Young to Die" Lamentation: In an episode following Patricia's kidnapping and ensuing rescue, she has a minor PTSD freakout when the Sibunas get taken to and locked in Victor's office under mysterious circumstances. In response to Patricia demanding she be let out, Amber jumps on the bandwagon and claims she's "Too young and too pretty to die."
  • Toothbrush Floor Scrubbing: One of Victor's favorite punishment for the students is to scrub toilets with a toothbrush, to the point where once merely presented with the toothbrush, they already know what it is they're in for. One particular episode has the entire house get punished, forced to scrub every toilet in school with their toothbrushes.
  • Total Eclipse of the Plot: The big ceremony to awaken Robert Frobisher-Smythe happened during a solar eclipse, giving a clear deadline to Sibuna's efforts. When the descendants were doing the ceremony with the teachers, the scene was interspersed with clips of the other students watching the eclipse.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Mick and his bananas, Jerome and his apples, Joy and her cereal, and Eddie and his pancakes. The characters are shwon with their favorite food so often, they even became iconic with fans.
  • Transatlantic Equivalent: For the Dutch Het Huis Anubis. There is also a German version of the series called Das Haus Anubis. Both series are very successful, and the German version running for several years, while the Dutch version got a spin off called The House of Anubis and the Five of the Magical Sword that surrounds around a new set of students who have really active senses. The new landlords of the house are after their senses for their own use.
  • True Companions: The Sibuna gang, who always have each other's back, and care for each other, in and out of the mystery. Fabian even gives a Rousing Speech based on this.
    Fabian: So maybe Victor's luckier than us. But we're going to get to the mask first. Because we have something he doesn't have, and that's what we have. All of the Sibunas. And we're going to win, because we won't let each other give up, and we won't let each other fail.
  • Twin Switch: Patricia attempts this by having her twin sister Piper go on a date with Eddie for her to impress Mr. Sweet with her manners and music knowledge. Hilarity Ensues when she tries to go and hear what they're saying about her "behind Piper's back", and they catch her- so she has to play Piper playing herself.
  • Two Girls to a Team:
    • Inverted with the original Sibuna made of 2 guys and 3 girls. In season 3, however, it's played straight as Patricia and KT become the two girls on the team.
    • Also works for Team Evil, who (Ammit not included), in terms of the original sinners along with Victor and Robert, have Denby and Patricia as the only two girls on the team.
  • Unexpected Kindness:
    • Downplayed and subverted in the premier. After several days of being bullied by Patricia over an assumed and non-existent conspiracy, Nina was prepared to be tormented again when they spoke after class. Patricia shocked her with an apology and an offering to be initiated into the House, but this was all part of a ploy to prank her. As soon as the initiation begins, Patricia's back to her usual attitude.
    • It's later played straight when Patricia willingly jumps in to claim she was the one who stole the attic key when Nina's about to be caught by Victor, and sends Nina a Smile of Approval that gets returned with an astonished grin. This followed a scene of Patricia discovering that Nina considered her to be the "meanest person [she'd] ever met", so her moment of genuine kindness was a surprise to every other character in the room.
  • Universal Group Reaction:
    • When Sibuna is discussing their personal fears, the first ones mentioned are common things like bugs and small spaces, as well as skulls. Then Patricia admits to being scared of feet, which gets everyone to pause for a moment and look at her in confusion.
    • As a Funny Background Event in one episode, the Sibuna gang is watching as Patricia and Eddie argue. As Eddie claims that Patricia cheating on him with Alfie made sense because he was into her twin sister Piper, and now might've been trying to Settle for Sibling, the Sibunas all react in perfect unison, dropping all their jaws at once.
    • A non-comedic example: After getting rescued from Rufus's kidnapping, Patricia begins to have nightmares whenever she sleeps. One moment involved her having a nightmare during class, screaming, and running out the door. Without missing a beat, the entirety of Anubis House all got up and ran after her in shock and concern, and proceeded to look for her when she hid away to simmer in embarrassment.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Amber and Alfie. Alfie was well known for following Amber around like a lost puppy for all of season one and part of season two. They did date, but Alfie was still pulling most of the weight and they eventually broke up. Then, as Alfie fell for another girl...Amber grew feelings for him and was now the one chasing after Alfie.
  • Unseen No More: In season one, Nina's Gran was only mentioned in conversation, or in one case, heard over the phone, due to her being in America while Nina was in England. In season two, however, she became a recurring character, having gone to England on vacation.
  • Wham Episode: "House of Entrapment/House of Sisters" for its two reveals: Robert Frobisher-Smythe, founder of Anubis House is still alive and KT is his great-grandaughter.
  • Wham Line:
    • Not a specific line, but a moment: The scene where Nina's grandmother turns out to be Senkhara's "timepiece". Seriously no one saw that coming.
    • Towards the beginning of Season 1, while Nina, Fabian and Amber are listening to the recordings:
      Young Sarah: He's coming!
      Victor: It's ten O'clock. You have five minutes precisely, and then I want to hear a pin drop.
    • Towards the end of the first season:
      Jerome: (On the phone) Hello, is this Rufus Zeno?
    • The beginning of season 2:
      Vera: (on the phone) Hello? I'm in.
    • Jerome and Mara reading a letter from Trudy in the middle of season 2:
      Mara: Jerome, look! The first letter of each line.
      Jerome: ...Help Me.
    • The finale of season 2, discussing Senkhara wanting the Mask of Anubis, despite not having a body to wear it with:
      Patricia: She's not going to wear it. She's going to make Nina wear it.
    • The middle of season 3:
      KT: Why would Victor let me leave so easily, if they needed me for the ceremony?
    • Eddie having a vision in the middle of the season:
      Frobisher-Smythe: There's a viper in your nest.
    • The end of season 3, after Eddie and KT plant the Staff of Osiris to defeat Team Evil:
      Frobisher-Smythe: (laughing the rest of the sinners) I needed that staff to awaken Ammut, and you two just completed it for me!
    • Halfway through The Touchstone Of Ra:
      Fabian: Anyone who's ever held the stone...Turns to stone.
    • Season 3 gave us this:
    Eddie: "What are we supposed to do, kidnap the adults?"
    Fabian: "Eddie... that's brillant!"
  • What Does She See in Him?: Mick says this regarding Amber's supposed crush on Alfie.
    Mick: What on Earth does she see in him?
    Jerome: Well, they say love is blind, mate.
    Mick: It'd have to be blind and have no sense of smell.
  • "What Do They Fear?" Episode: The season 2 episode aptly named "House of Phobias" centers around Sibuna trying to conquer their fears in order to explore a tunnel that combines many of said fears. Amber and Fabian both have to learn to handle being around bugs and worms, while Alfie spends the day hiding in small spaces to combat his claustrophobia. The only ones who aren't shown practicing are Nina, who is organizing the aversion therapy for the others, and Patricia, whose fear is feet and thus exempt from the ordeal.
  • What Would X Do?: In one scene, Amber asks "What would Victoria Beckham do?"
  • When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Three instances of this:
    • The Cup of Ankh could only be assembled during a certain time on a certain date, and the time was of course midnight.
    • Nina's initiation took place at midnight, as it was the 'bewitching hour'.
    • In order for someone to be turned into a Sinner, he or she has to be dragged into one of the sarcophagi at noon or midnight.
  • Wicked Wastefulness: The Sinners perform a variety of petty acts as part of their goal to spread chaos. A common tactic involves ruining or wasting food. Patricia once throws KT's food in the trash, condemning her to go hungry just out of cruelty. In another instance, Fabian is shown ruining the milk at breakfast by contaminating it with jam.
  • Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: In the premier, Nina is rooming with Patricia, who's been bullying her. She has a nightmare and starts talking in her sleep, waking up to Patricia taunting her. When Nina asks why she's doing it, Patricia justifies it by pointing out that Nina was the one who woke her up in the middle of the night.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Amber says this during a discussion of Egyptian mythology in class, asking why someone would want to be immortal when they'd get all old and wrinkly.
  • Witch with a Capital "B": Fabian has called Joy and Patricia witches. The audience would have chosen another word.
    Patricia: Since when did you become her friend instead of mine, Fabian?
    Fabian: Since you became such a witch, Patricia.
  • Word Association Test: Fabian plays word association with Joy in a season 2 episode to help her remember where the old mosaic went after Trudy took it down from the hallway. He starts out by throwing random words at her (such as dog, throw, and rabbit) until saying "mosaic", which triggers an immediate response of "library".
  • Working Out Their Emotions:
    • When Mick is frustrated after a bad call with his dad, he tells Mara he's going out for a run.
    • Season 3 reveals that Mara, known for being an unathletic nerd, takes out her anger in work-out sessions in her bedroom. This comes as a surprise to the other girls, who find her furious weight-lifting to be rather funny and unusual.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Alfie pulls one off in House Of Agendas, pretending to have a sprained-ankle so that Amber will take care of him.
  • Wrong Bathroom Incident: There are a few cases in the first season where boys had to go into the girls' bathroom, though not for creepy reasons, and are instantly called out:
    • Fabian runs in to spy on the teachers, as one of the loose wall tiles in the bathroom acts as a peephole into the headmaster's office. Two girls walk in as he's spying, forcing him to very quickly put the tile back and then pretend that he came into the room by accident, before very awkwardly leaving.
    • Jerome spied on a conversation between Patricia and Mara, hiding in the next stall while the girls were talking. He reveals himself after Patricia leaves, getting a disgusted reaction from Mara, who shuts up as soon as he blackmails her. He does this again later to Patricia herself, but instead of being fazed by his presence, she just shuts his attempt down.
  • You Are the Translated Foreign Word: Justified. Mr. Sweet does follow up his Latin statements with their English translations, but only because he is speaking to students who don't know Latin and therefore wouldn't be reasonably expected to understand the untranslated statements.
  • You Must Be Cold: Early in season 1, Fabian and Nina are hiding in the attic from Victor. Fabian notices that Nina is shivering, so he, without prompting, silently removes his jacket and puts it on her.
  • You Were Trying Too Hard: The Sibuna gang agonize over how to open the puzzle box early in the series, only to have it open by itself when Fabian drops it and it turns to the correct combination. Something similar happens with a cube in Season 2, being dropped after episodes of confusion, and revealing it's true secret.
  • Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Happens when Alfie, turned into a sinner, is praising Jerome for breaking Joy's heart. An odd case, in which Jerome and Alfie are best friends, and Alfie is usually the nice one—Jerome didn't know he was evil then. Alfie explained how much Jerome hurt Joy, Jerome was ashamed and in shock.
    Alfie: You ripped her heart up into tiny pieces, then ripped those up too. Respect man, respect.
  • You're Insane!: In the Season 1 finale:
    Jason: You're insane...
    Rufus: Very observant.
  • You're Just Jealous: Mara to Patricia in House of Scares, claiming that the only reason she's against Mara dating Mick is that she's jealous. This is before Patricia's warning (that Mick wouldn't actually want to date her) becomes true.

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Fabian's Crush

Amber, Mick, and Mara all make fun of Fabian for his obvious crush on Nina (and her obvious reciprocation)

How well does it match the trope?

5 (4 votes)

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Main / EveryoneCanSeeIt

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