Series / The Quest

The world of Everealm is under threat from the evil warlord Verlox. Their own armies quickly prove unequal to the task of defeating him, forcing them to turn to help from a whole other world. That would be ours, where twelve people discover messages declaring that they have been named Paladins, and they must journey to Everealm and the Kingdom of Saenctum as one of them is destined to save it. Upon their arrival, they are set to a series of tasks to determine who will be the land's savior, while those who lose will be sent back to their own world.

It might not seem like it from that description, but The Quest is a 2014 reality show from the creators of The Amazing Race, as well as producer Mark Ordesky of the Lord of the Rings films. Twelve contestants are sent into a scripted fantasy story with the help of a troupe of actors and quite impressive special effects, where they are set several tasks that will whittle them down in typical reality competition fashion until one winner is left.

A revival for Disney+, with 8 teenage contestants instead of 12 adults, was released on May 11th, 2022. Hundreds of years after Verlox, Everealm is under threat again by a sorceress named Tavora and her Dark Legion. Even Sanctum^note [sic]; the name lost the silent "e" between seasons has fallen, with the king's children taking refuge in the neighboring kingdom of Oraa. Once again, the Fates call upon people from our world to save the realm.

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This show provides examples of:

In General

• Ascended Fanboy (and Fangirl): The Paladins, who were all fantasy fans before coming to Everealm.
• Doing It for the Art: Unlike most reality shows, there is no prize for the winner, meaning all the contestants are truly there just for the experience. Although it's implied that the winner of the ABC show got to take the Sun Spear home because they were carrying it outside the castle when leaving Everealm.
• Practical Effects: Costumes, animatronics, and projectors made up most of the special effects. The flying dragon in the ABC version was CGI, but everyone knows the reason for that. Though the Disney+ version is a little freer with the CGI flourishes, mainly in scripted scenes that don't involve the Paladins.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Averted. Probably one of the primary reasons there's no prize. Having supposed saviors and heroes plot against each other and backstab each other in the name of money and prizes would sort of hamper the intended feeling of them being heroes. Some of it happens anyway, of course - some of the women in the ABC version showed an interest in supporting other women over the men, for example - but it's discouraged. The Disney+ version encourages teamwork even further by doing away with the eliminations that the ABC show used.
• Storming the Castle: Both seasons end with the Big Bad having taken over the castle, leading the Paladins to work their way in and liberate it.
• Summon Everyman Hero: The Paladins are, for the most part, normal people from our world rather than ones already equipped to handle a war. The Disney+ series gives justification for the "summon" part; corruption on the part of previous rulers of Everealm had broken the bond between its people and the Fates, so when they need to choose champions the Fates are going to turn to outsiders.
• Trapped in Another World: Implied; the Paladins are, after all, normal fantasy fans in a fantasy realm. Subverted in that none of them express any desire to go home.

Tropes exclusive to the ABC version

• Action Girl: Leticia, who in the "Battle Dome" episode manages to take down both Shondo and Andrew. Jasmine's performance in the mounted combat test also qualifies her. And then there's Lina, who ends up being the One True Hero, taking down Verlox.
• All There in the Manual: The Fates are never named on screen but according to the credits, they're Karu, Talmuh, and Solas. (Their names are later openly spoken in the Disney+ series.)
• Ancient Artifact: The Sun Spear, the only weapon that can defeat Verlox. It is initially split into twelve pieces with one for each Paladin, which they hand over upon being banished.
• Armor-Piercing Question: To Andrew in Episode 5 when having to choose to banish among whom is his friend Christian but whom has been consistently up for banishment, among other things.
  Andrew: This is not about friendship. This is about the Quest.
  Lina: Do you understand that?
  (Cue Quieter Than Silence moment)
• Arrow Cam: Shows up in the first episode's Scorpion challenge, as tiny cameras are attached to the arrows that the Paladins launch at the army of practice dummies.
• Back for the Finale: The completed Sun Spear summons the banished Paladins back to help fight the final battle. Sir Ansgar also appears out of nowhere in this scene, after he was last seen at the mercy of the enemy.
• Big Bad: Verlox is the one the folks from our world must fight to defend Everealm.
• The Big Guy: Shondo and Patrick double up on this role in the group. As in many cases, they're also the last ones to fall before the Lancer and the Hero finish the quest.
• Cliffhanger: Most episodes end with one, setting up the story for the next episode.
• Clingy MacGuffin: Inverted; there's basically nothing preventing a piece of the Sun Spear from falling out of the pocket of the paladins. The fact that it can combined with the fact that it's such a crucial part of the quest means that Ansgar individually calls out a paladin who loses theirs during a challenge and eventually all the paladins start calling out for a 'piece check' whenever they're going somewhere.
• Confession Cam: One of the only standard reality tropes still present in the show. We mostly see the ones where they talk about the story like it's real, but there is the occasional line like Shondo saying Jim should be kept because he gets into the story the most.
• Cynical Mentor: Sir Ansgar fits this as he was not too thrilled with having to mentor a bunch of ordinary 21st century Americans to be powerful warriors capable of defeating a dark lord and he acted like a jerkish and sometimes unsympathetic mentor to them. This trope subverts over time as he starts to warm up to the paladins, as first shown when he likes the song Bonnie wrote about him, which eventually leads to him opening up on his past personal life to them.
• Damsel in Distress: Queen Ralia fits this as she was poisoned in the end of the second episode and needed to be cured of it by the paladins in the third episodes, which Andrew manages to do. She is subjected to this trope multiple times including being captured by the Rana, and being kidnapped by The Grand Vizier and Verlox. The latter is subverted because the person who rescues her is also a girl.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Ansgar is the chief NPC warrior on the side of good but has black hair, black beard and dresses entirely in black.
• Death by Pragmatism: Christian's strategy in the siege challenge was to set his own team up for failure while stacking the other team with his allies, figuring that this would keep him safe from banishment. In practice, though, this tactic was the final straw that turned his supporters against him during the vote.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sir Ansgar, who introduces himself to the Paladins by saying he fully expects them to fail, but since they're all Everealm has, he's going to do his best to whip them into shape and starts as Drill Sergeant Nasty. Over subsequent episodes, though, he shows genuine concern for his charges and becomes a Sergeant Rock.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Downplayed and Played for Laughs. There's nothing conventionally feminine about Christian save for his long hair, yet the Grand Vizier still mistakes him for a woman at one point.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone calls the Grand Vizier... well, the Grand Vizier, especially since we don't know his actual name. Really, what more do you need?
• Evil Chancellor: After Castle Saenctum falls, the Paladins start to suspect the Grand Vizier of being one. They're especially suspicious of the amulet he gave the Queen without explaining why, but they also note that he's been present when enemy forces were at work within the castle. He is.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Verlox, the show's Big Bad speaks in a deep, booming voice.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Happens in Episode 6 when one Paladin, seeking a hidden item outside the castle walls, wanders around a pile of sacks and barrels in an otherwise overgrown hedge without ever looking in the pile.
  • Andrew suffers from it twice in the final challenge, sealing their fate.
• Feminist Fantasy: Many of the lady Paladins are determined to enforce this. And pays off when Lina becomes the One True Hero despite being the only woman to make it to the final four.
• Find the Cure!: The plot of episode 3, as the Queen had been poisoned, forcing the paladins to find an antidote to help her recover.
• Fish People: Subverted with the Rana, who look like the progeny of the Creature from the Black Lagoon but live in a forest. They were deceived by the Grand Vizer into being enemies of the Paladins.
• Flynning: Not being professional stuntpeople, the Paladins were trained mostly in a basic diagonal slashing maneuver against an opponent's raised sword. There were some examples of more chaotic fighting by professionals and during the finale, but with dull swords and plenty of padded armor.
• Genius Bruiser: Patrick. One look at him, you figure he's probably some sort of athlete or other physical profession-type similar to Shondo. Nope, he's actually a math teacher.
• Good Is Not Nice: Sir Ansgar specifically calls out the Paladins in the fourth episode for being too nice to each other, as it's blinding them to each others' weaknesses and not being able to assess each others' capabilities accurately can get them killed. Unintentionally, it serves as Foreshadowing about Christian's 3-time save from elimination and confidence that he could do it a fourth time. As it turns out, everyone else learned the lesson well and stopped putting up with Christian, making this trope cause his banishment from the game.
• The Heart: Bonnie became this in the third episode after writing and singing a song about Everealm and the Quest. Lampshaded by several players in the fifth episode when they're discussing who to banish. When she does get banished, it's with the most touching send-off thus far, including many flashbacks of her earlier exploits.
• Hidden Depths: Sir Ansgar, as of Episode 6.
  Sir Ansgar: I had a wife once. She was about to give birth. Things...did not go as they should have. But I have my sword, and my queen. It's good.
• The High Queen: Queen Ralia is the one ruling Everealm and the queen of Castle Saenctum...except she's sometimes subjected to potentially hazardous threats to her wellbeing. And then, Verlox seizes her castle...
• Horned Humanoid: Verlox, when he finally appears. A shock to the Paladins, who were expecting someone human, and came face to face with... that.
• Jerkass: The jury's out for most of the season on whether or not the Vizier is an Evil Chancellor (He is), but he's this at the very least.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": All the Paladins are fantasy/superhero fans, so naturally this trope crops up a lot.
• The Lancer: Andrew ultimately serves this role - they are the runner up, but they also demonstrate a lot of the inverse qualities that the One True Hero had.
• Mid-Season Twist: Once half of the Paladins have been banished, Verlox and his forces seize castle Saenctum, forcing the Paladins, Crio, Sir Ansgar and Queen Ralia to flee and take refuge in the forest.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Ogres appear now and then. Sir Ansgar goes up against one, and the Paladins encounter one when they first arrive in Everealm.
• Quirky Bard: Bonnie writes and sings songs, is self admittedly hopeless in physical challenges and is a bit of a ditz.
• Railroading: The Paladins might participate in the story, but they have essentially no control over its course. They only rarely got to do anything during the scripted scenes, and the plot-integrated tasks lacked a meaningful time limit.
  • Even a well-founded attempt to convince Ansgar that the Grand Vizier was a traitor could not derail the plot. However, the Paladins did cause some minor changes in the story's script as evidenced by the reactions of Queen Ralia, Sir Ansgar, and Crio when they find out that the Grand Vizer did really betray them.
  • Particularly notable is when they're given the task of assembling a ballista when an ogre attacks. It's actually a scripted sequence where Ansgar defeats the ogre on his own, and the producers revealed that the Paladins weren't given all the pieces they would need to prevent them from finishing it (and launching an arrow at the actors).
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Queen Ralia turns out to be one, being quite upset at how the Paladins have been treated since they arrived.
  • Sir Ansgar also proves to be one; he just has to invoke Good Is Not Nice at times in order to do his job.
• Rule of Three: The three Fates. And at the end of each episode, it's typically three Paladins who face the possibility of elimination.
• Seers: Crio is one who can see the present and the future.
• Sequel Hook: After the Paladins leave Everealm, someone busts the Vizier out of jail.
• Smug Snake: Christian who assumed that even when he lost his friends would keep him in the game. Unfortunately for him he crossed the Moral Event Horizon in game when when he deliberately picked a team he thought would lose for the siege test. Even Andrew, his best friend, decides that enough is enough.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Ansgar definitely softens towards his charges in later episodes, especially after Bonnie writes a song dedicated to him.
• Tsundere: Sir Ansgar is this because he acted mean and cynical towards the paladins but he has a huge soft spot to the paladins. He became nicer to them, opened up about his personal life to them, and even supported them in their quest.
• Turn in Your Badge: Eliminated Paladins have to return their piece of the Sun Spear.
• World of Ham: All the scripted actors have a grand old time dramatizing nearly every line they have.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Christian insists on playing the game like he's on Survivor.
  • To a lesser extent, in the final episode Andrew realizes he was concerned too much with his own pride to be the One True Hero.

Tropes exclusive to the Disney+ version

• Action Girl: Mila, the oracle chosen by the Fates, was a knight of Sanctum before its fall. She gets another chance to fight some of Tavora's soldiers during the rescue of Cederic.
• Ambiguous Situation: King Magnus appears to be killed by Tavora at the beginning of the series, but Dravus later seems to encounter him during a brief venture into the Deep. At the end of the show, Dravus is disintegrated in the same way King Magnus was, but is shown to be alive and trapped in the Deep alongside a Feral whose design raises the possibility that it is King Magnus, having actually been trapped in the Deep too and corrupted.
• Ancient Artifact: Where the ABC version had the Sun Spear, the Disney+ show has the Divine Crown and its jewels, the King Stone and the Gems of Virtue (Courage, Strength, Wisdom, and Resilience). The King Stone is also sealed away and needs to be unlocked by further artifacts, the Divine Scepter, Sword, and Torch.
• Big Bad: Tavora the Sorceress is the one the Paladins must battle to save Everealm.
• Colorblind Casting: The royal family; the heirs of Sanctum are two White princes and a Black princess. Justified mid-season when the heirs explain that when they were babies, the Fates gave them to the King of Sanctum to raise.
• Company Cross References: When the Paladins attend a royal dinner in the second episode, they're advised to "Try the grey stuff. It's delicious." — a line from "Be Our Guest" in Disney's own Beauty and the Beast.
• Confession Cam: Surprisingly averted. This version of the show has no moments where the paladins speak to the camera about their inner thoughts, not even as a voiceover.
• Continuity Nod: During the fourth episode, it is mentioned that the Celestial Dome that protects Oraa was built during Everealm's great war with Verlox the Darkness centuries ago. Verlox was the Big Bad of the original show.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: While Verlox was a demonic dark lord who only appeared in the finale, Tavora is a human sorceress whose actions and schemes are shown throughout the series. Also, where Verlox was a Generic Doomsday Villain, Tavora was shown to be discriminated against in her youth for her magic powers.
  • Likewise, there are significant points of contrast between the Grand Vizier of the original series and The Mole of this one. While both were formerly trusted advisors who sided with the Big Bad for their own gain, the Vizier was Obviously Evil from the start. Court mage Dravus also ended up selling out to Tavora, but ends up being presented as a Tragic Villain who was unappreciated by the heirs of Sanctum, making it easier for Tavora to tempt him with promises of power and respect. Even then, he still tries to negotiate for the safety of the heirs. And while the Vizier ended his run as a Karma Houdini being freed from prison by an unknown benefactor, Dravus ends up pulling an Heroic Sacrifice, getting the Divine Crown to the One True Hero at the expense of getting himself trapped in the Deep.
• Distressed Dude: Cederic has to be rescued by Mila and the paladins in episode 7.
• Evil Counterpart: This season introduces the Ferals, dark gods opposing the Fates.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three heirs of Sanctum fit into these roles. Strong and straightforward Cederic is the fighter, intellectual magic student Emmett is the mage, and the cunning and wily Adaline is the thief.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Ferals, evil beings that have been trapped somewhere called "The Deep". While not directly involved, Tavora uses their power in her conquest of Everealm.
• Lighter and Softer: In this version, there is still a competition between the Paladins to determine which one will be the One True Hero. However, while those who perform the best in various challenges are rewarded for their success, there are no eliminations, let alone having the Paladins vote each other out. Also, because the Paladins are teenagers this time around, the challenges themselves are generally less physically taxing.
• Mouth of Sauron: Mila acts as a heroic version, as the Fates appoint her their Oracle and often pass messages to her to give to the Paladins or the King instead of being there themselves.
• Out of Focus: The Paladins, to an extent. Their quest drives the plot, and they're still given enough screen time to get to know them a little, but most of the overarching story is shown in scripted scenes where the Paladins aren't present.
• Secret Test of Character: At the beginning of episode six, the heroes pass by a poor beggar woman. The princes and princess ignore her, but the Paladins offer to give her some food. The end of the episode reveals that the woman was a Fate in disguise, who calls out the royals for their lack of compassion and rewards the first Paladins to provide aid with talismans.
• Sequel Hook: Once the Paladins have gone home, Mila receives another message from the Fates, telling her that she and the royal family need to return to Sanctum right away. We're also shown that Dravus survived his apparent Heroic Sacrifice earlier, but is now trapped in the Deep alongside a Feral that may or may not be a corrupted King Magnus.
• Soft Reboot: While taking place in the same setting and a reference to Verlox confirms it's in continuity with the ABC show, the series is otherwise a new show with a new cast and plot.
• Succession Crisis: A major part of the story is that while the Paladins are working to put together the Divine Crown, there's an argument between the three heirs of Sanctum over which of them will wear it as the next king or queen. Since all three of them were delivered to the former king by the Fates, there's no clear order of succession, and while each of them possesses traits that would make them a good monarch, they also have glaring weaknesses. In the end, as each of the heirs have had a chance to recognize this fact, the Fates split the Divine Crown into three parts and decree that they will jointly rule Sanctum together.
• Threshold Guardians: The Fates test the Paladins by sending creatures called Gemkeepers; by facing the Gemkeepers' challenges they can collect the Gems of Virtue needed to stop Tavora.
• Wham Episode: The fifth episode, "Chaos", where practically all of the Paladins' prior victories are erased in one fell swoop thanks to Dravus' betrayal.

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