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"True Blood makes teen drama Twilight look like an after-school special on the Lifetime network. It's...for grown-ups, with enough plot twists and turns to shock your brain into overload."
examiner.com

True Blood is a Supernatural Soap Opera produced by HBO and created by Alan Ball and intended as a Sunday Evening Drama Series. It is set in an alternative universe where vampires not only exist, but have recently publicized themselves through an event commonly referred to as The Great Revelation, and are now trying to coexist with humans. This has become possible with the invention of a special drink — the eponymous TruBlood — developed as a safe means to replace human blood.

Public opinions concerning vampire rights vary: some idealize vampires, others scorn them, the rest would rather mind their own business. The anti-vampire movement is also fueled by the fact that vampire blood is extremely addictive to humans and is known on the black market as the drug V. As a result, there exist drainers — people who earn their living hunting down vampires and exploiting them for their blood. Lest you think that Humans Are Bastards, the vampire spokesmen are uniformly corrupt and secretly dine on human blood, as TruBlood tastes revolting — and is overpriced, to boot.

The protagonist is Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a young bar waitress from the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps. Sookie has telepathy and has suffered Power Incontinence, leading to an extremely loud mental environment and the occasional distrust of those around her. Meanwhile, in the Back Story, vampires came "out of the coffin" two years ago, and one finally visits Bon Temps: Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), who lived here as a human about 100 years ago. Vampire minds turn out to be unreadable to Sookie, and the two begin to fall in love as Bill attempts to "mainstream" into living society. But vampires are the subjects of Fantastic Racism, and the first season's Story Arc turns out to be the hunt for a Serial Killer who is targeting people who are close to vampires.

Like many shows set in small towns, True Blood has an Ensemble Cast of vivid and memorable supporting characters, many of whom begin to lead their own plot lines:

And that's just the first season, before we start introducing Heralds like Rev. Steve Newlin (Michael McMillan) and his wife Sarah (Anna Camp), leaders of the Fellowship of the Sun, the local Christian-themed anti-vampire Knights Templar; or Maryann Forrester (Michelle Forbes), a philanthropist and eccentric who knows something about Sam's secrets; or even Jessica Hanby (Deborah Ann Woll), a 17-year-old girl kidnapped from a restrictive, conservative family and turned against her will, struggling to figure out the three most confusing things in the world: her newfound freedom, her vampire powers, and boys.

True Blood is based on The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries; each season is loosely based on a single novel. The show differs greatly from the books however, adding a lot of adult content such as graphic violence and explicit sex, as well as a more diverse cast and a quirky, black-comedic atmosphere also shared by Ball's previous series, Six Feet Under. Also, certain story elements are drastically changed from the books, to keep both readers and non-readers constantly wondering what will happen next.

To tie-in with the series IDW published Comic Book series including:

  • True Blood (2010)
  • True Blood: Tainted Love (2011)
  • True Blood: French Quarter (2011-2012)
  • True Blood (2012-2013)

True Blood has examples of:

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    A-C 
  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range:
    • Lorena Krasiki infamously falls under this trope.
    • The poor prostitute that Jessica calls to treat Bill instead gets maneuvered around by an unconscious Bill, who then exorcises all her blood out through her mouth.
  • Aborted Arc:
    • The werepanthers of Hotshot have not appeared since their failed attempt to turn Jason.
    • Arlene's entire "My baby might grow up to be a serial killer" arc gets dropped in season 4.
    • The entire Lilith arc counts as well: After Bill gives his blood to some vampires so they can walk in the sun (Long Story), he somehow reverts back to being Bill again despite the Fridge Logic behind it, and Lilith disappears from the story afterwards, never to be seen again.
    • Queen Mab is introduced as a possible antagonist for Sookie in her desire to round up all the faeries and half-faeries, bring them to the Realm of Faerie, and close the portals between their world and the human world to protect their kind. She only appears briefly in one episode in season 4, never appears again afterwards (nor has any bearing on Sookie's adventures in the later seasons), and her entire crusade to round up any remaining faeries gets dropped.
  • Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: The rule about vampires needing to be invited into houses is in place...except they can hypnotize people into doing it, and it works, making you question what the purpose of the rule is.
  • Abusive Parents: Sam and Tommy's biological parents. Especially Joe Lee. Better throw Tara's mother in for good measure. And also her father.
  • Accidental Murder:
    • Jessica to the redneck she bit at the end of Season 2.
    • In Season 6, three of Andy's hybrid daughters fall prey to her.
  • Activist-Fundamentalist Antics: The Fellowship of the Sun, a cult running on a quite scary flavor of silliness.
  • Actor Allusion: Petunia Dursley finally gets to be a witch. But don't you dare call her a freak!
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Inverted. Chow is described in the books as being very attractive, with long black hair and a body covered in rare tattoos. In the show, he's short and chubby with a short head of hair. Unusually for a vampire show, the ratio of human-to-vampire attractiveness tends to be about equal, even with a margin for error.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: In the TV series, Sophie-Anne is introduced at the end of the second season, which loosely adapts the second book in The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries series. Sophie-Anne wasn't introduced in the books until the fifth one; by time the series reached that point, she'd been killed off.
  • Adaptation Expansion:
    • While the books had Sookie as the sole POV character, the show has more of an ensemble cast, leading to characters getting bigger roles or changing completely, and minor subplots growing to major storylines. Depending on who you ask, this is done with rather mixed success.
    • Maryann's role in the show was greatly expanded from her role in the book, in which Callisto (the character Maryann was based on) is confined to a very small subplot. She attacks Sookie in order to make Eric aware that she's in town and demands tribute (which she receives). Later, she shows up at a sex party, revels in the drunken sexuality for a little while, and kills most of the people in attendance.
    • Tara, Sookie's best friend, was given a much bigger part, in addition to completely changing race, personality, and...well, everything else.
    • Jason also gets this as well. His relationship with Amy (who only appeared in 1-2 pages of the book), his foray into the Fellowship of the Sun, his role in defeating Maryann his dealings with the werepanthers, his relationship with Jessica..........all of this is either new material for Jason or stuff from the books that was expanded on.
    • Lafayette was a minor character in the first book and gets murdered at the beginning of the second. On True Blood, he's become a major character, in part because of his status as Ensemble Dark Horse.
    • Luna becomes a series regular after her introduction in season 4. Interestingly, her appearance in Living Dead In Dallas was exclusive to helping Sookie escape from the Fellowship of the Light, yet she has shares not one scene with Sookie in the show.
  • Adaptation Name Change: The last names of a few vampires were changed in the journey from page to screen: Stan Davis becomes Stan Baker, Lorena Ball becomes Lorena Krasiki, and Pam's last name of Ravenscroft becomes the even more elaborate Swynford de Beaufort.
  • Adaptation Title Change: The series is based on The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries, otherwise known as The Southern Vampire Series.
  • Affably Evil: Russell Edgington, the King of Mississippi. Unless his Berserk Button is on.
    • Maryann starts out as this, especially towards Tara, Sam, and the other residents of Bon Temps. As the show continues, this starts to slowly disappear, and she falls into Faux Affably Evil.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: A bar called "The Unfriendly Possum" shows up in the sixth season.
  • Agree to Disagree: Steve Newlin says this to Sookie when she's disgusted at his belief that God hates vampires.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • In-universe example: Amy Burlee, who is a vicious, conniving, V-addicted sociopath, but Jason still deeply mourns her death.
    • Maryann's excitement for her wedding and her tears of joy when she thought she'd finally be wed to her god had some viewers feeling extremely sympathetic for her when Sam finally ripped out her heart.
    • The expression on Daphne's face as she is murdered is quite heartbreaking.
    • Russell's heartbroken reaction to Talbot's death is quite moving...though also quite heavy on the squick.
    • The tears in Marnie's eyes as she screams "I am not a punching bag!" and the scene where she passes on to the afterlife.
    • Roman, for all his shouting and rage and ruthlessness, had dedicated his life to the idea of peace with humans. Subverted, as Roman was arguably a decent guy — except for his continual presentation as a Jerkass, with a near-constant stream of Kick the Dog moments. More of "Alas, Poor Antagonist."
  • The Alcoholic: Lettie Mae, Tara's mom, and Jane Bodehouse.
  • Alien Blood:
    • Part of the show's premise is that vampire blood has magical properties as a healing agent and psychedelic/performance enhancing/any other kind of drug when ingested by humans. This leads to frequent instances of humans attacking vampires and drinking their blood, inverting the traditional roles.
    • Maryann, and presumably other maenads, have black blood that is poisonous to vampires.
    • Blood from a fairy or halfling, while being mostly normal, can allow vampires the ability to daywalk for a variable period of time. In the case of Warlow, who was a fairy prior to his conversion, this results in the ability to daywalk permanently.
  • Aliens in Cardiff:
    • Shreveport, the third-largest city in Louisiana, serves most of the urban needs for the setting, in an attempt to avert the usual problem with fictional towns when they have more institutions and specialized businesses than their size would suggest.
    • Taken to a new extreme in later seasons, when it is revealed that the Vampire Authority, shadowy rulers over ALL vampire-kind across the entire world... are located in New Orleans, a short drive from our protagonists' hometown. This despite earlier references by high-ranking Vampires that indicated Louisiana was an unimportant backwater, far removed from the concerns of the Authority.
    • Eric's role as Sheriff and Russell Edgington's kingship of Mississippi also stand out, considering their age and power is easily on par with (if not far greater than) nearly every vampire in the series.
  • The Alleged Car: Sookie has a spectacularly hideous yellow Honda Civic that's older than she is.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: And how! Let's see...
    • While usually not that bad, Bill Compton is definitely darker than Sam Merlotte, and both vie for Sookie's affection. Guess who wins?
      • Inverted when Eric becomes a major character; Sookie's attraction to him is inversely proportional to how evil he's being at the time.
    • Alcide is a genuinely caring man, and it looked like his relationship with Debbie was going to be it. Then along came Cooter, an idiotic, V-juice addicted leader of a werewolf biker gang. Debbie decides to marry the latter. Later Debbie and Alcide get back together—only for her to cheat on him with the violent, unstable werewolf leader Marcus.
    • Speaking of Marcus, his ex-wife Luna admitted to being a cliche when explaining why she initially fell in love with him. She divorced him when he was unwilling to change his lifestyle for their daughter.
    • Jessica dumps loving, kind Hoyt for sexy-but-dumb bad boy Jason.
  • All Myths Are True: Discussed. After two seasons of telepaths, shapeshifters, vampires and maenads, werewolves turn out to exist. Sookie and Jason argue that Bigfoot might as well exist too. Or Santa for that matter.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Tara for Jason, Sam for Sookie, Eric for Sookie, Alcide for Debbie. Although most of them move on in one way or another.
    • In the second and third season, Lorena's "relationship" with Bill essentially embodies this trope.
  • All Myths Are True/ Fantasy Kitchen Sink: We've seen vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, werepanthers, fairies (also known as aliens), a maenad, witches (good and evil), a fire-demon, and a few ghosts so far.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: In the first season, most folks are wigged out by Sookie's telepathy and rationalize it that she's crazy or mentally weak. If they won't rationalize it, they use it as a reason to be cruel to her. They are also somewhat wigged out by Bill and vampires in general.
  • All Men Are Perverts: Except Hoyt, Terry and Alcide.
  • Alone with the Psycho:
    • In the season finale of season 1, Sookie receives a ride home from Rene, just as Sam and Arlene realize separately that he is the killer. The audience was given reason to suspect him earlier, when the Bon Temps police received an ignored fax with information on him under his real name. Sookie reads his mind and runs into the woods, with Rene following close behind.
    • Tara with Franklin Mott outside Merlotte's after she thought he was dead. Thankfully not alone for too long.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Zig-Zagged, Deconscructed and Reconstructed. In the beginning there was more emphasis on how vampires are basically cursed humans who still have the capacity to choose right and wrong, who are all still individuals, and who therefore have a case when they demand equal rights with humans. As the show goes on the moral ambiguities and murderous pasts of the heroic vampires come more into the fore, as does the fact that vampirism typically results in Transhuman Treachery; by later seasons, its pretty well-established that most vampires really are bloodthirsty monsters, that they really do think they are superior to puny humans, and that they are all biologically designed to experience violence and murder and sadism as Better than Sex and few of them see any problem with this. There are still some "good" vampires but they are a rarity, and it looks increasingly like the Broken Masquerade was all just a ploy to get the sheep to trust the wolves. At the very least, even if vampires are not inherently evil, vampirism pretty clearly is.
    • It might also be worth noting, however, that any vampires who seamlessly integrate into society wouldn't be the focus of the show. Dozens of perfectly pleasant vampires show up to Bill and Sam's mixer at the end of season 6.
  • Amnesiacs are Innocent: During his period as an amnesiac, Eric not only forgets who he is, but also what he is, and develops a much gentler, more innocent personality.
  • Amusing Injuries:
    • Priapism brought on by drinking vampire blood is amusing if the person it happens to is a womanizer who lets his dick get the better of him.
    • Lorena gets this a lot, thanks to Bill and whatever he can get his hands on. Most notably a flat screen TV.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: Truman Burrell, the Governor of Louisiana. Declaring that vampires have no rights, instituting curfews, shutting down their businesses and seizing their property, setting up a 'camp' to hold them, complete with lethal medical experiments by torture technicians...he all but brags about bringing the Final Solution.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: The Authority, though it is not so ancient, as it has been around only a couple hundred years.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Russell Edgington is burnt to a crisp, wrapped in silver, and buried in cement.
    • Setting up Season 4's major cliffhanger, considering the parking garage that he was silvered and buried in is now a glorified hole.
    • This is ultimately Sarah Newlin's fate at the end of season 7: She is held prisoner in Fangtasia by Eric and Pam while they whore her out to other vampires and charge them $100,000 a minute to feed on her to be cured (or just for the sake of it). From what we see, she's completely lost her sanity during this time and is in constant despair. Although YMMV on whether or not you feel bad for Sarah considering everything she did.
  • And This Is for...: Cooter kicking a chained up Bill in "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues" for killing some of his pack.
  • Anti-Hero: Pretty much the standard for all of the "good" characters on the show, Sookie included.
  • Anti-Villain: Also surprisingly common.
  • Apologizes a Lot: Sookie.
    • Terry... oh Terry... "Sorry I'm late." "You're 20 minutes early" "Oh. Right. Sorry... for being... sorry."
  • Arbitrary Skepticism:
    • Despite the fact that vampires have come out of the coffin, the majority of Bon Temps and the world don't believe in other supernatural entities. Werewolves, shapeshifters, and possibly some other groups are all deliberately encouraging this.
    • And the police think Tara's making things up when she tells them she saw a naked woman standing on the road with a pig.
    • Andy lampshades this trope, saying "And people thought I was crazy 'cause I thought I saw a pig."
    • It reaches truly ridiculous levels with the Ifrit in season 5.
  • Artistic License – History: Nobody from Logroño was burned at the Logroño witch trials of 1610. It was just where the auto-da-fe was held. The accussed witches were from around Zugarramurdi, on the French border, and spoke Basque, not Latin American Spanish.
  • Artistic Title: Opening credit sequence is one of the creepiest things ever. There's very little during an episode that would discourage a watcher from eating because it's all special effects, but the sped-up decomposing real animals crosses the line with some people.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • In the books, Maryann showed up to a sex party, checked out the scenery, uttered a few lines and was never heard from again. In season 2 of the show, she was the Big Bad.
    • Also, Lafayette appeared briefly in the first book and was dead by the end of it. He has a much larger role on the show and has become a real breakout character thanks to Nelsan Ellis' portrayal of him.
  • As the Good Book Says...: Sarah has a habit of using The Bible to seduce Jason. Lafayette and Lettie Mae quote scriptures to try and free Tara from Maryann's spell. Lafayette notes the irony when he tells Lettie Mae, "Just because Jesus and I have agreed to see other people don't mean we don't talk from time to time."
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Vampires are marginalized, discriminated against, mistreated, relegated to the fringes of society, and have few or no legal rights. Most of them are also evil assholes who have no qualms whatsoever about brutally killing humans, often for no reason whatsoever, and openly consider themselves superior to humanity. It can be pretty hard to feel sorry for them sometimes.
    • Uncle Bartlett from season 1. Considering he was a pedophile who molested Sookie as a girl, no one shed any tears when Bill killed him.
    • Franklin Mott in season 3. He was a serial rapist who had a history of abducting women, raping them, and then brutally ripping them apart when they rejected him. It was hard to feel bad for him when Jason killed him.
    • Felton Norris: Racist, sexist, homophobic, violent, abusive, and implied to be a rapist. He was also involved in kidnapping Jason, biting him multiple times, and tying him up to be raped. No tears were shed for him when Jason escapes and stakes Felton from a tree.
    • As of the series 7 finale, Sarah Newlin falls into this category too.
  • Attempted Rape: According to Stephen Moyer (who plays Bill Compton) in a 2009 interview, this is exactly what Bill tried to do to Sookie in the graveyard in season 1. It's even worse when you remember that Sookie was under the influence of Bill's blood, and that it's later revealed in season 3 that Bill allowed the Rattarays to beat Sookie to death precisely so he could drug her with his blood (which was a powerful aphrodisiac and a tracking device) and use that to manipulate her emotions and sexual feelings.
    • Sookie is almost raped by Gabe before Godric intervenes. By killing him. And again in 3x03. This time she's rescued by Alcide.
    • One could argue that Steve tried to do this to Jason in the season 5 premiere before Jessica intervened.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Played straight with Godric and Eric, but totally subverted with Queen Sophie-Anne, who apparently relies on luck more than anything. It's revealed in the third season that Eric was only letting her kick him around because of his respect for her rank; when he switches sides, Sophie-Anne is screwed.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: a literal example. The fact that Bill is covered in his predecessor's blood adds some flavour to the scene.
    "Then by the power invested in me by the one true Vampire Authority, whose wisdom and justice we hold sacred, I hereby pronounce you King William Compton of Louisiana."
    "Now go clean yourself up; you're covered in queen."
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • Jason and Sookie. Despite the problems they have and the way they started out in season 1, they ultimately care for each other deeply, with Jason going out of his way to risk his life for Sookie on several occasions (including acting as bait for two psychotic vampires who wanted to harvest Sookie) and Sookie helping her brother at different points in the series.
    • Terry and Andy. They have their problems, and there moments when Terry isn't happy with some of Andy's behavior, but they have a strong love for each other. Andy was the one that looked after Terry when he came back from the war and was struggling with PTSD, and Terry helped Andy with his V addicition in season 4.
  • Axe-Crazy: Woohoo, is this show full of them. From the sociopathic Rene, and Russell Edgington following Talbot's death to the subdued and apparently sane Lorena and Franklin. Before her reformation in Season 4, a V-addicted Debbie could count too. Even Steve Newlin happens to be this, willing to kill Sookie simply for loving a Vampire. Traitor to her race, indeed.
  • Babies Ever After: Played completely straight in the series finale.
  • Backstab Backfire: This is how Marcus Bozeman met his end.
  • Badass Crew: Bill, Eric, Pam, Jessica and a flamethrower, power-walking. It is as it sounds.
  • Badass Family: In season 5, the show starts to play up the idea of vampire bloodlines and lineage so the preeminent vampire family at this point consists of Eric, Nora, Tara, and posthumously Godric.
  • Bad Guy Bar: Lou Pine's, the werewolf bar. It's explicitly a bad guy bar because it is populated exclusively by werewolves who are loyal to Russell Edgington.
  • Batman Gambit: Eric for the entirety of Season 3. Bill tries the same thing by feigning allegiance to Russell, but it fails.
  • Bed Trick: When Tommy shifts into Sam, he doesn't seem too concerned about having sex with Luna, the woman Sam's been seeing. He initially resisted her advances, but, as soon as she took off her top, all bets were off.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy:
    • Louis Pasteur was a vampire, and the one who led the effort to synthesize the eponymous TruBlood.
    • Salome, mentioned in The Bible as demanding the head of John the Baptist and apparently a real person, is introduced as a vampire in Season 5.
    • Albert Einstein was (like Sookie) a half-fairy.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Bill and Eric. Even Sophie-Anne admits to Bill, "You two really should just fuck each other and get it over with. I could watch." Also counts as a Funny Moment.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Sookie doesn't like people talking trash about her to her brother. Just...don't.
    • Likewise, don't ever insult Sookie in Jason's presence. Or try to hurt her, for that matter.
      "DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT MY SISTER."
    • Lorena's is being told that Bill doesn't love her. She tried to kill Sookie for it.
    • "HOW DARE YOU SPOIL MY OFFERING!"
    • You better not criticize Godric in Eric's presence. Or compare him to Bill Compton. In fact, when it comes to Eric, do not mess with his maker, his two progeny, or his vampire sister unless you have a death wish.
    • "If Sookeh is hurt in any way because of you...I will not stop until I drive a stake through whatever semblance of of a heart you have left!" Jeez, Bill.
    • Tara lays the dreaded "we have to talk" on Franklin Mott (while pretending to be infatuated with him). His response: "Don't say that. Women say that, I black out and wake up surrounded by body parts." Okay, Franklin, so you're saying a Dear John letter is the better way to go...
    • Apparently, calling Sam Merlotte a pussy (or stealing from him) ain't so crash-hot an idea, either. See Beware the Nice Ones.
  • Better as Friends: Sam with Sookie and Tara, Eric with Sookie, and Jason with Jessica.
  • Better than Sex: Amy once described the high on the illicit drug made from vampire blood, V, as being better than sex. It's born out when Jason thinks that the two spent all night having sex while high on V, and she has to prove that her panties are still on before he believes they didn't.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Amy is generally an easy-going flower child...but when she wants her Vampire Blood...
    • Season 3, episode 9: When Sam snaps...he snaps hard.
      • Hell, he counts a demi-god among his kills. He had help, but still...
    • Sookie, for all her hang ups, is a genuinely nice person and will forgive the people she loves for a lot. But push her too far and she'll laugh maniacally as she shoves your husband's remains down the garbage disposal. And she’ll make you watch.
    • An evil example; Russell was, at first, quite pleasant and genial, and his relationship with Talbot was adorable. Even when he started getting sinister, he was still very much Affably Evil. Then Eric staked Talbot and he lost his temper in a very public fashion.
    • Nice Guy Hoyt sure knows how to hit the sore spots in his ex-girlfriend Jessica after half a season of being played about.
    • In season 6, Jessica eats most of Andy's half fairy children. It's an accident, and she suffers major guilt over this, but still.
  • Beware the Superman: Let's just say that blood-drinking undead people with Super-Strength, Super-Speed, and Hypnotic Eyes are not exactly safe to be around.
  • Big Bad: The show follows the seasonal-big-bad formula.
    • In season 1, it's a serial killer who preys on women who sleep with vampires. In the end the killer is revealed to be Rene Lenier, whose real name is Drew Marshall.
    • Season 2 has Maryann Forrester, the maenad. For most of the season its a Big Bad Ensemble between Maryann and the Fellowship of the Sun, however, the Fellowship are defeated a few episodes before the finale and Maryann assumes the role of the Final Boss.
    • In season 3, it's Russell Edgington, the 3,000+ year old king of Mississippi and serial interferer with mortal affairs. At first glance, he comes off as Dandy-ish and a bit effeminate. However, between his bizarre hold over the Weres, his Trophy Collection, his age, and his work over the centuries, he's shown to be much more unpleasant than he appears.
    • In season 4, it's Marnie Stonebrook, a somewhat-pathetic witch who empowers herself by being possessed by Antonia, the ghost of a witch from the Middle Ages who was raped and burned at the stake by vampires infiltrating the Catholic Church. She was presumably drawn to Louisiana because of Luis, the vampire who brutalized her. When Antonia attempts to leave after seeing innocents killed in their crusade, Marnie firsts lectures her into staying and then outright stops her from leaving. After being shot, Marnie possesses Lafayette and causes a little more mayhem that way.
    • In Season 5, its Salome Agrippa, a chancellor of the Authority who becomes its Guardian. She digs up Russell Edgington and plots with him to kill Roman, the then current Guardian. After she succeeds into doing so, she becomes the Guardian and turns the Authority into Sanguinstas, a cult who worships Lilith, the very first vampire. She ends up turning Bill dark and using him as her Dragon turned partner. Half way through the season, Lilith comes in and becomes a Big Bad as well, when she manipulates the Authority members and pits them against each other by telling each of them they are chosen. Back in Bon Temps, the Big Bad is Sweetie Des Arts, a character from season 1, who wants revenge on all supernaturals.
    • In Season 6, its Sarah Newlin and Macklyn Warlow. At the start of the season, it's Warlow, but when he finally appears he isn't all that bad and actually becomes friends with Sookie. At this point, Sarah enters the picture and takes the role. She works with Truman Burrell, and they begin to kidnap vampires and infect them with Hep-V, a virus that slowly kills them. Shortly into the season, Bill kills Burrell and Sarah takes the role solely, up until episode 9, when the vampires are broken free and Sarah is defeated, fleeing the scene. After this, Warlow becomes the Big Bad again and takes on the role of the Final Boss of the season, planning to make Sookie his bride.
    • In Season 7, its Sarah Newlin. She doesn't really do much this season herself, but Hep-V (spread by her) is the biggest threat of all, killing many beloved residents and indirectly causing others to die as well. Hep-V is also the reason behind the seasons Little Bads, the Hep-V vamps. She is also the primary focus of Eric and Pam's attention.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: The series occasionally has these:
    • Season 2: Steve and Sarah can be sort of be considered this, although, they end up as Disc-One Final Boss.
    • Season 4: Marnie and Antonia. Antonia takes possession of Marnie and begins killing vampires, making her seem to be this seasons Big Bad, until Marnie reveals that she has always had control over her own actions, meaning it was a Big Bad Duumvirate all the while. Ultimately Antonia has a Heel–Face Turn after Marnie has the vampires slaughter many people and leaves the body.
    • Season 5: Salome and Bill. For most of the season its just Salome, with Bill as sort of a Dragon. But by the end, Bill has become just as crazy and manipulative as Salome.
    • Season 6: Sarah and Governor Burrell, until he becomes a Disc-One Final Boss, leaving her as the sole Big Bad.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Subverted in season one. Bill wakes up to discover Sookie is very near death. Despite it being midday, he decides to try and save her, but ends up a smoking pile of charcoal instead. He gets better, though.
    • Jason rescuing Sookie and Eric in 2.08, then again in 2.10, plays it straight.
    • Then subverted again when Jason and Andy try to go and kill Maryann only to make it barely through the crowd where both are almost immediately turned into zombies.
    • Jason arrives just in time to save Tara from Franklin. And it was awesome.
    • Sam rescuing Sookie and Hoyt from Sheriff Dearborne and the 'Obamas' and damn near keeping them under control until Jason and Andy show up. Bonus points for doing it completely naked.
    • Jason and Niall successfully jump in at the last moment to save Sookie from Warlow.
  • Big Eater: Maryann. She ordered the entire menu when she went to Merlotte's. She also has a seemingly endless supply of tropical fruit and exotic food. Her favorite secret ingredient for her recipes also seems to be a human heart.
  • Big Fancy House:
    • Russell Edgington, the King of Mississippi, has one of these. It literally has a crown on top of it.
    • On a more modest scale, you have Bill Compton's plantation house.
  • Big "NO!": Sookie has one when she hits Cooter with energy from her hand.
    • When Russell senses that Talbot has been killed.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Norris werepanthers.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • When Sookie reads Maryann's thoughts, she hears "Hekas, o hekas, este bebeloi!" which means "Let the profane ones depart!"
    • In Season 3, we get a German Bilingual Bonus
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
    • Lafayette saw through Maryann's facade within seconds of first meeting her. "I don't know what you is, but I'm feelin' you; and you's a soulless bitch."
    • That bitch Daphne was working with Maryann all along.
    • There's also Nan Flanagan, spokeswoman for the American Vampire League. She seems nice enough on television (especially compared to the Newlins), but in person, she's ice cold.
      Jessica: You are nothing like you are on TV.
      Nan: Aw, thanks.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: Due to five seasons of establishing that vampires really have no boundaries when it comes to what kinds of horrible things they are willing to do to humans if they feel like it and that any benevolence they exhibit is strictly arbitrary, the show has to literally tap into Nazi tropes in order to make the government look like the bad guys for going after them in season six.
  • Black Comedy: Eric's apparent death in the season six finale. One minute he's sunbathing naked on top of a mountain in Sweden... and the next his immunity to the sun wears off and he burns alive while screaming at the sun. Honestly, if you didn't know better, you'd think it was a Dream Sequence.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Mostly averted when Jason is raped by the werepanther women. The sole exception is that one woman brings Jason flowers, and after raping him cries proclaiming that "you're the best I've ever had."
  • Black Eyes of Evil: "That's Maryann's energy inside of them!"
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • Poor Jessica. She soon discovers that her hymen is going to keep regenerating no matter how many times she has sex. So every time will be like her rather painful (but later pleasurable) first time.
    • Vampires in general have superhuman abilities, as well as KryptoniteFactors. And older, more powerful vampires become increasingly vulnerable to sunlight, a millennia-old vampireburns to ash within seconds of getting hit by sunlight.
    • Being a medium can be useful, since you can talk to and listen to spirits. If you aren't able to keep them from possessing your body whenever the mood strikes them, however, it's much more of a curse than a blessing.
    • Pure blooded fairies have nifty powers but they are so delicious to vampires that any encounter between them ends with the fairy being drained to death, no matter how "nice" the vampire normally is. Most of them live in self-imposed exile in a desolate dimension for this reason, despite wanting to live on Earth instead. They are very concerned about vampires gaining access to their dimension as well.
    • And of course, there's Sookie herself, living her whole awkward life before meeting Bill unable to date men because she can't block out their perverted (or secretly gay) thoughts. Also growing up a telepath in a small town can lead to the double whammy of the entire town thinking you're crazy AND being able to hear that very thinking.
  • Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Sarah Newlin
  • Blood-Splattered Warrior / Blood-Splattered Innocents: Tends to happen a lot when vampires get staked.
  • Body Horror: From Lorena's infamous Exorcist-esque sex scene to the face of a cursed Pam being rotted away, to the point where she peels a lump of flesh off her cheek, not even mentioning all the usual creepy stuff happening in a setting filled with supernatural monsters...Safe to say sooner or later, something's bound to either disgust you out or scare the pants off you.
  • Bond One-Liner: Season 4, a Brainwashed and Crazy Eric is about to twist Bill's head off and says, "Here comes death." Sookie distracts Eric long enough for him to let Bill go, Bill turns around and says, "Not for me!" and shoots Eric and two other vampires sent by Antonia to kill him.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: In a rare protagonist instance of this trope, Bill Compton tosses Eric Northman in wet concrete in an attempt to encase him forever, but leaves before the concrete dries, giving Eric a chance to escape.
  • Brainless Beauty: Jason.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Everyone under Maryann's influence. Also, quite a few members of the Fellowship Of The Sun act that way, especially Luke.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Jessica at the beginning is a vampire version, making it especially scary. She gets better.
  • Bridezilla: Maryann in the second season finale. "YOU brought this upon everyone!"
  • Bring My Brown Pants: An unfortunate police officer soils his uniform after a close call with Bill.
  • Break the Cutie: Jessica: For the first few episodes after she becomes a vampire it seems like she just has one horrible experience after another. (Though this is Played for Laughs in a way.)
  • The Bro Code: In "Spellbound", Jessica realizes she is not cut out for a monogamous relationship, what with being a vampire with a nuclear-powered sex drive, and breaks up with Hoyt. Hoyt rescinds her invitation to his house. She then goes to Jason and basically throws herself at him, only for Jason to say that "Hoyt's my best friend" and also rescind her invitation to his house. Of course, this is Jason we're talking about, and they get it on by the next episode.
  • Broken Aesop: Especially in the first season, the show presents vampires as a metaphor for marginalized human groups, especially homosexuals, down to bigoted signs saying "GOD HATES FANGS" and an episode where Bill asks Sookie to marry him in Vermont. The trouble is that vampires really are dangerous to humanity, regarding them at best as sympathetic inferiors who will never understand them and at worst as mindless walking snack food. Vampires do in fact "recruit" humans and occasionally force them to become vampires, a state from which there is no returning. Vampires possess immense resources in the form of a powerful centralized government devoted to the personal welfare of their kind. And this is leaving out the magical powers.
    This is downplayed in later seasons, perhaps because the writers realized that the Aesop was broken, or because they all along had intended to gradually reveal the darker side of the vampires.
  • Broken Pedestal: Sookie's parents, who were planning on murdering her to keep her from Warlow. And apparently, her mother thought her as creepy as a child.
  • Brother–Sister Incest: Avoiding this is Crystal's reason for abandoning her fellow were-panthers. in the season finale she gets back with her brother, Self-Made Orphan Felton, to save Jason.
    • Also played with in the relationship between Eric and Norah, who, while Not Blood Siblings, were both turned and fostered by the same vampire. They keep referring to each other as brother and sister, even when having passionate sex.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
  • Buried Alive: Eric and Bill do this to Russell at the end of season 3. Bill also tries to do this to Eric, but he is freed by Pam.
    • Apparently five years of living burial is the usual penalty for a vampire who kills another vampire. Given that this doesn't kill them but causes them to desiccate and go insane, there is some overlap with And I Must Scream.
  • The Bus Came Back: When you make a show about the supernatural even a character that's Killed Off for Real can come back. Gran and Rene pop up in the Season 4 finale.
    • So does Steve Newlin, who wasn't Killed Off For Real—but the manner of his return is still surprising.
    • Hoyt returns in season 7 after having left the show around season 5.
  • Butt-Monkey: Andy Bellefleur ends up being one a few times, most notably when he's saddled with four fairy babies.
    • Ginger claims this title, however. After being glamored so many times she can hardly remember her name, is smacked around by Pam, held hostage by vampires and humans alike, her only reward seems to be a promise of one day having sex with Eric.
  • But Not Too Gay: Lafayette does not get a boyfriend until season 3 and has never had a sex scene. Similarly, the idea that most vampires consider gender a footnote at best when picking sexual partners was hinted at throughout the series but never overtly depicted until Season 3.
    • Finally averted in the final season when Lafayette gets a new boyfriend, vampire James Kent. However, this trope was at work behind the scenes, as James' actor in the previous season quit the show because he did not want to do a same-sex romance.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Sam gets to do it to both his biological parents after he discovers they force his brother who's also a shapeshifter into dog fights.
    • Sookie also does this to her dead dad after he possesses Lafayette.
  • Camp Gay:
    • Lafayette combines a Camp Gay wardrobe with a Hard Gay personality. He manages to be just one of the guys on the road crew and as a short order cook, often while rocking guyliner.
    • Averted by Talbot, King Russell's consort. He's clearly the "femme" partner in their relationship, but he behaves more like a politician's hard-nosed wife than a mincing, limp-wristed Camp Gay. The actor based his performance on his Greek mother.
    • Reverend Newlin after he becomes a vampire.
  • Cartwright Curse: Jason's girlfriends in Season 1 have a high mortality rate.
  • Cassandra Truth: Andy for the second half of season two. If only he hadn't spent season one and the first half of season two ruining his reputation. His descriptions could use a bit of work too.
    • Lafayette's mother Ruby Jean tells him "You've got power, boy. That's why they're coming for you." This may be Infallible Babble, but she also once told him he could breathe underwater.
  • Catapult Nightmare: Jason in "I Hate You, I Love You".
  • Catchphrase: Inadvertently, Bill's pronunciation of Sookie's name.
    • Lampshaded by Sookie herself in Episode 3x02.
  • Cat Fight: Sookie Vs. Debbie.
  • Celebrity Paradox / Mythology Gag / Shout-Out: In "If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'", Sookie is shown reading a Charlaine Harris novel.
  • Characterization Marches On: In the first two seasons Jason Stackhouse was extremely stupid. In the third season he was just pretty damn stupid. After Joining the Sheriffs department and being forced to look after a Hotshot for a little over a year he has been forced to mature and is now fairly intelligent. (He still comes off as a bit dim every now and again but watching season 1 Jason vs season 4 Jason it is almost stunning to see the difference in character.)
    • As of season 5 Jason is probably the most well-developed character on the entire show with the possible exception of Sookie. He is beginning to question his womanizing ways and is becoming surprisingly introspective.
  • Chainsaw Good:
    • Jason, as he turns road construction equipment into an impromptu arsenal. Subverted in that the chainsaw doesn't do him much good.
    • Subverted again with Jessica in S3. When she gets the chainsaw, there is no corpse anymore.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Maryann's statue. According to Maryann, the reason Sam is "the perfect vessel" is because he appeared to Maryann a naked virgin drawn to the statue, which represents the rebirth of Dionysus.
    • The Greek mythology book Bill was seen reading in a flashback becomes integral in Maryann's defeat.
    • The gloves Bill stares at that he later uses to free himself from a silver chain.
    • The shotgun with wooden bullets given to Jason from the Fellowship of the Sun's vampire-killing arsenal in Season 2 is later used by Jason to kill Franklin in Season 3.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin:
    • Debbie in season 3 when she goes to kill Sookie.
    • Maryanne is frequently seen sporting one of these.
  • The Chessmaster: Bill has an uncanny ability to manipulate people.
  • Chew Toy:
    • Jason Stackhouse is a particularly tasty example of this trope.
    • Sam doesn't get a break the entire second season.
    • Poor Pam in season 4. Let's see, there's the rotting spell, losing her maker to amnesia, the painful and gross waxjob, the unpleasant "Vampire Botox" she has to inject in a half-dozen places every night for all eternity, and having to bind herself in silver just like every other vampire in Louisiana to avoid being forced by the witches to walk into the sun, all piled on the fact that she didn't want to sacrifice Eric for Sookie and tried to blow through the witch wall, which caused Eric to basically disown her. Girl just can't catch a break.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: In "Frenzy", Sophie-Ann explains to Bill that maenads started off as ordinary humans, but gained immortality and other supernatural powers through sheer belief in their god. She goes on to say that the only way to kill a maenad is to thoroughly convince it that it is time for it to die; in Maryann's case, the time to die is the arrival of Dionysus, who she believes will ravish and devour her. Sophie also espouses the theory that all supernaturals came into existence through the power of belief. In that same episode, Maryann explains to Tara that even though Miss Jeanette was a fraud, she was still able to unwittingly tap into supernatural forces just by performing the rituals; it was Tara's "exorcism" that summoned Maryann to Bon Temps.
  • Classical Movie Vampire: Russell Edgington, King of Mississippi, though he is perhaps the only one so far.
  • Clear My Name:
    • Jason is accused of crimes he didn't commit in the beginning of season one.
    • And Sam's got in on the action, as well. The police in Bon Temps sure seem to be a gullible bunch, don't they?
  • Cliffhanger: Many, if not all episodes end with Sookie getting into a situation she is woefully unable to handle all by her little human self. Both the first and second season have also ended with a cliffhanger.
    • Taken even further in the season 4 finale. The plot wraps up halfway through, and the entire second half is spent killing off half the cast, and putting the others in terrible danger.
  • Cloudcuckoolander:
    • What most of Bon Temps thinks Sookie is.
    • Iraq war vet Terry Bellefleur, who is genuinely off a bit due to PTSD.
    • Maryann comes off as a cloudcuckoolander to those who don't know what she really is. In "Release Me", she comes into Sookie's house covered in dirt and blood with unruly hair and a damaged dress, holding a dead rabbit. Tara comments to Eggs that she's "so fucking weird".
  • Combat Pragmatist: Pam sprays a mix of water and silver particles on Bill's face, getting the upper hand in their fight. This is noteworthy, as Bill's only concern in a fight with another vampire is age, not tactics. And you can bet that even among vampires she just pulled a dirty trick.
    • Sam attacks Crystal's father while the guy's back is turned, with a coffee pot no less.
  • The Comically Serious: Eric Northman is usually the terrifying Mr. Fanservice but damned if he doesn't have some of the funniest lines in this show. His progeny Pam is no slouch either.
  • Comic-Book Time: The first three seasons took place over what can't be more than about two months, and the entire series in less than two years, eighteen months of which is in timeskips between or at the end of seasons. This certainly puts things like the Sheriff's reaction to yet another murder in his county and Sookie's fatigue about the constant violence in her life since she met Bill in a rather startling perspective when you think about it.
  • Composite Character:
    • TV Holly is clearly based on her namesake from the books. But she is also meant to represent Halleigh Robinson, Andy's eventual wife, as Holly is the one who gets engaged to Andy in the series.
    • Godric is a composite of both Appius Livius Ocella, Eric's actual maker in the books, and Godric/Godfrey.
  • Continuity Nod: In season 3 Terry mentions he rescued an armadillo and is now caring for it. This wasn't referenced again until season four, when Terry and Arlene are standing outside their recently burned down home and Terry is holding him.
    • This gets another Call-Back in season six, when Sam is clearing out Terry's cubby and finds an armadillo keychain.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Partially averted. The supernaturally tough vampires can withstand a rocket-propelled grenade detonating a few meters away with no visible injuries. Jason, on the other hand is blinded, severely burned, and would probably have been a goner if not for Jessica.
  • Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: There are occasionally a few stray thoughts that don't give Sookie exactly what she's looking for, but they still almost always fall into line with what we expect the character to think ("this jerk better leave right now" "Doesn't she look like a tasty little meal" etc..) and never anything random like "did I water my plants?" or "what a cute skirt, I could use one like that."
  • Cool Old Lady: Grandmother Stackhouse. She's an old Southern lady, proper and prim, but she's also very sweet, funny, and doesn't take shit from anybody.
    "You will burn in hell!" "Alright, same to you, buh-bye now!"
  • Country Matters
  • Cradle of Loneliness: Russell does two grisly variants.
  • Creator Cameo:
    • Charlaine Harris, the author of the Southern Vampire Mysteries book series, makes a brief appearance in the season two finale talking to Sam at the bar. He was apparently telling her what had been happening in the town, because she says "I certainly never expected anything like that to happen here."
    • In the first episode, there are pictures posted behind the bar at Merlotte's, one of which is of Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball.
    • Harris reappears in the series finale as the director of Pam and Eric's commercial.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Jessica. That smile of hers...it's overpowering!

    D-F 
  • Damsel Fight-and-Flight Response: Sookie does this to Rene in the first season. She tries to shoot him with a shotgun, only to find he's preemptively removed the ammo. She clubs him once, then runs away instead of loading, tossing her only weapon into the bushes as she runs.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Pretty much most of the characters have them. Sookie, Jason, Jessica, Jesus, Sam, Terry, Eric, Pam, and so on. One of the biggest themes in this series is that each of these characters have trauma that they're trying to work through.
  • Darker and Edgier: Though they both deal with the same general themes, the books have a lighter feel to them than the show, for which many of the characters from the books were given Darker and Edgier "make-overs."
    • In the books, Russell Edgington is described as a "gay Hugh Hefner" and is a rather laid-back vampire, although notably his people attempted to kill Bubba, as they didn't realize that he really was Elvis. On the show? Holy. Shit. He's a magnificent bastard with designs on taking over the vampire kingdom of Louisiana, with a pack of werewolves strung out on his 2,810-year-old blood as his bruisers.
    • Calvin Norris in the books was the noble patriarch of a backwoods Southern family and had a normal and successful blue-collar job. On the show he is a violent, white trash meth dealer.
  • Daywalking Vampire: Sunlight is usually very dangerous to vampires, but they can resist the sunlight temporarily if they are pumped with fairy blood. Also, Warlow, who is a fairy who was turned into a vampire. His fairy nature makes him immune to the effects of sunlight, unlike all human vampires.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Pam and Tara.
    • Eric and Kenya are not too bad, either.
    • Talbot was well loved by fans for his snarky comments.
  • Death by Adaptation: Calvin Norris, We Hardly Knew Ye.
  • Death by Irony: Maryann cut out the hearts of her victims as offerings to Dionysus; Sam defeats her by ripping her heart out.
  • Death by Origin Story: Eric's father, mother and little sister were all killed at Russell's behest. Interestingly, subverted with Eric himself.
  • Decadent Court: Vampire society is largely modeled after feudalism in Medieval Europe. First, there's the common vampire citizen, followed by the Sheriffs who control certain areas in a kingdom. Above sheriffs are vampire monarchs who spend most of their time indulging in their luxuries, accumulating treasure, feeding on humans, or attempting to take control of territories owned by other monarchs (either through force or political marriages). Overseeing all of this is a shadow government known as The Authority. As shown in season 5, it consists of Vampire Chancellors who control certain parts of the world, and are perfectly okay backstabbing each other as long as they get to keep their power.
  • Decapitation Presentation: The governor of Louisiana, courtesy of Bill.
  • Deceptive Legacy: Numerous times in the series with people discovering their pasts and families are not what they believed.
    • Sookie and Jason learn their parents were massive racists against the supernatural who openly hated Sookie for what she was.
    • Sam discovering how dark his birth family truly was.
    • While under demonic influence, Hoyt's mother reveals that his father committed suicide and she made up the story of him killed by a burglar to cash in on the life insurance.
  • Decomposite Character: In the books, Tara owns a clothing store called Tara's Togs. In the series, Tara is a radically different character, and someone else called Tracy owns the store, which is now called Tracy's Togs.
  • Deconstruction:
    • Franklin is a Hot Vampire, cool calm and collected figure, bat-themed detective, has a mysterious past, his own theme music, and is a psychopathic, socially-retarded, psychologically-damaged man-child with severe Yandere qualities. Makes you rethink how romantic the phrase "we'll be together forever" really is.
    • The show in general, the standard Vampire Romance genre. While the show will gleefully sexualize vampirism, it's not as quick to romanticize it. Every now and then, you are hit over the fact that they may be pretty, they may be smooth, but vampires are still, first and foremost, blood hungry predators.
    • Hoyt serves as a deconstruction of the Manchild: Hoyt grew up under a mother who was bigoted in every sense of the word (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc) and smothered him well into adulthood in an attempt to keep him in her life after her husband committed suicide. The result is that Hoyt is emotionally stunted. While he's physically a 28 year old, he's mentally a kid because of the way Maxine's treated him for most of his life, which has impacted how he's able to relate to the world. While he's initially nice and means well, this mentality is ultimately a handicap for Hoyt because it makes it hard for him to process hard truths and disappointments in life without reacting in an extremely childish manner (like when Hoyt finds out what really happened to his dad, or when Jessica ends their relationship). When that happens, a nastier side to his character comes out that's a lot like a little kid throwing a temper-tantrum. Except in this case, it's a grown-ass adult who's doing it. The result is he falls into a Never My Fault mentality where it's easier to blame others for things that go wrong in the same way his mother does. This is ultimately taken to the extreme at the end of season 5 when instead of choosing to learn anything from his recent experiences, Hoyt opts to glamour all his memories out of his head. And while it's unpleasant to watch, it does make sense Hoyt would behave like this considering how he was raised. It's also implied that part of the reason Jessica lost interest in their relationship by season 4 is because she felt like she became a Replacement Goldfish for Hoyt's mom in that he expects her to do the stuff Maxine used to do for him, and Jessica was having none of that.
  • Deep South: The show manages to delve into many issues plaguing the American South — poverty, racism, homophobia, drug abuse, child abuse, and religious extremism — without demonizing the setting or the people therein.
  • Deflector Shields: The magical kind - Marnie creates a light-based one around the entire block Moon Goddess Emporium is situated. It fries vampires on contact and is able to protect against a rocket-propelled grenade. Holly casts one around herself, Sookie, and Tara, as the three of them try to rescue Bill and Eric.
  • Demonic Possession: Ghosts can possess people, but only if they're already magical in nature. Antonia does it to Marnie, and Mavis to Lafayette.
  • Devil in Plain Sight:
    • It took quite a while until anyone in Bon Temps apart from Sam noticed that Maryann wasn't just a slightly kooky, bohemian social worker.
    • Rene was just a friendly local face until the very end when Sookie figured out that he was actually Drew Marshall. Even then, only Sookie knew about him being the serial killer until after he'd been shoveled in the neck.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: Arlene holds Terry while he dies.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: From the episode 39 commentary, Jason getting gang-raped by the women of Hotshot is supposed to be comeuppance for him objectifying women. Because, you know, you totally deserve THAT for being a horndog.
  • Disney Death: Tara gets one in the season five premiere — Pam tries to turn her and Sookie breaks down thinking the transformation failed. It did not, and the consequences may be quite severe.
  • Distant Finale: A few years after Bill's death in the final episode, we're shown the Bon Temps residents (and all children born in the interim) gathering at Sookie's for Thanksgiving and Eric and Pam's successful business venture.
  • Domino Revelation:: Vampires appear first, then shifters, goddesses, fairies, and werewolves.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: Russell breaks into a newsroom and rips out the news anchor's spine to show the world what vampires are really like before turning it over to the weather.
  • Doomed Hometown: Somewhat. Bill, Sookie and Jason return from Dallas to find Bon Temps in utter chaos due to Maryann.
  • Double Agent: Bill spied on Sookie for Sophie-Anne (revealed in the Season 3 finale "Evil Is Going On") and was later revealed in season 4 to have been hired Nan Flanagan and the AVL to "sow the seeds of discord" within the vampire monarchies.
  • Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Surprisingly averted on several occasions.
    • When Arlene realizes that she and Terry had sex during the black-out caused by Maryann's spell, she becomes deeply concerned that she may have coerced him (Terry had previously avoided physical intimacy because of his PTSD), saying "I think I might have done something terrible."
      Tara: Are you telling me you date-raped Terry Bellefleur?
    • Also averted with Crystal and every nubile female in "Hotshot", as they line up for their turn with Jason, who is wounded, feverish, strapped to the bed, and under the effects of Viagra. The show depicts this as straight up gang-rape and the scene is disturbing. Unfortunately, this gets underminded by how the director of the episode, David Petrarca, and Alan Ball have basically said that he deserved it.
    • Maryann's first encounter with Sam when he was 17 years old is depicted as rape since she's the one forcing herself on him and he looks terrified of her.
    • In season 5, it's revealed that when Jason was 13-14 years old, he had a sexual relationship with a teacher named Mrs. Steeler. The show is very clear that what happened to Jason was statutory rape, and it illustrates how much this relationship messed up Jason well into adulthood.
  • Downer Ending: Several of the season finales end this way:
    • The Season 2 Finale "Beyond Here Lies Nothin:" Maryann is defeated by Sam, but things still continue to get worse for the characters. Sam decides to look for his biological family, even though he's warned by his adopted parents that they are horrible people. Eric is revealed to be selling V on Sophie Anne's behalf. Jessica (who is still emotionally disraught after her break-up with Hoyt) goes to feed on a trucker driver and accidentally drains him because she can't control herself. Eggs gets his memories back due to Sookie and, unable to let go of his guilt of what he did under Maryann's control, tries to provoke Andy into arresting him by threatening him in the parking lot outside of Merlottes. Jason, misreading the situation, shoots Eggs to protect Andy, killing him. Andy covers for Jason and pins the blame of Maryann's murders on a deceased Eggs, leaving Tara emotionally disraught. Bill and Sookie go to a restaurant where Bill proposes to her. While Sookie is in the bathroom contemplating her choice, Bill gets kidnapped by an unseen assailant, and Sookie comes back to find Bill gone.
    • The Season 4 Finale "And When I Die:" Marnie is defeated again, but not before she manages to kill Jesus and take his magic, which is now stuck inside Lafayette. Jason confesses to Hoyt about having sex with Jessica, and Hoyt beats Jason up and ends their friendship. An old war buddy named Patrick comes back to see Terry, and Arlene is warned by Rene's ghost that demons from Terry's past are coming back to haunt him and that she needs to run. Sookie ends her relationship with both Bill and Eric, leaving all three of them devastated. Jason is visited by Steve Newlin, who has turned into a vampire. Alcide finds out that Russell Edgington has escaped from the cement and is on the loose. Sam is confronted by angry werewolves after Alcide killed Marcus in the previous episode. The Authority issues the true death on both Eric and Bill because of the witch war fiasco, which forces both of them to go on the run. Debbie breaks into Sookie's house because she blames her for Alcide abjuring her in the previous episode, and she attempts to kill Sookie. Tara gets shot in the back of the head by Debbie, and Sookie manages to wrestle the gun from Debbie and shoot her. The episode ends with Sookie cradling Tara's body while she screams for help, and Tara's fate is left uncertain.
    • The Season 5 Finale "Save Yourself:" Humans declare war on vampires after the video of Russell Edgington and Steve Newlin massacring college students is released. Jason starts having hallucinations of his dead parents who encourage him to hate vampires after everything they've done, which results in him ending his relationship with Jessica. Luna accidentally shifts on live TV and reveals to the world that the Authority is keeping human prisoners. Sam manages to kill Rosalyn, but Luna collapses from having skinwalked and her fate is uncertain. The Authority is destroyed, but Bill completely goes off the deep end, refuses Eric and Sookie's pleas to reform, chooses to drink Lilith's blood to absolve himself for all his crimes, and ends up collapsing into a puddle of blood. The episode ends with Bill rising from the blood as the reincarnation of Lilith (aka Billith) with Eric and Sookie being forced to run for their lives.
  • The Dragon: Gabe for Reverend Steve Newlin. "Eggs" for Maryann.
    • Roy for Marnie in season 4.
    • Subverted with Salome and Roman in season 5. It seems like Salome is this for Roman (despite being 1500 years older than him) until it's revealed that Salome is a Sanguinista with her own agenda, and has no problem betraying Roman by using Russell to kill him.
    • Subverted again with Russell and Salome in season 5. Salome sees Russell as this since she rescued him from being buried under concrete and uses him to kill Roman and convert the other Chancellors into becoming Sanguinistas. However, it's pretty clear that Russell is only playing along as long as he's entertained. When he becomes bored with the Sanguinista regime towards the end of season 5, he ditches them after giving Salome and the remaining Authority members a huge Reason You Suck speech.
  • Dramatic Drop:
    • In S1 Jason drops a vase on walking in and discovering Dawn is dead.
    • Pam in 4x03, upon hearing Sookie tell her that Eric seems to have amnesia, drops the phone and is gone from the room leaving Sookie to call "...Pam?" over the now-abandoned phone.
  • Dramatic Wind: "Lo, lo, Enorcheeeeeees..."
    • Exaggerated during Antonia's spell to force all vampires to Meet the Sun.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him:
    • Russell Edgington was killed in the first five minutes of season 5 finale.
    "Oh, fuck!"
    • Tara, a major part of the show since Day 1, is killed offscreen in the opening minutes of the final season. Even worse, Sookie barely seems to care about it, only shedding a single tear before going back to business as usual.
  • Drowning My Sorrows:
    • Tara, with regard to her alcoholic mother.
    • Andy on being basically kicked off the squad for being the only non-idiotic person in the entire town.
    • Sookie in Season 5 after coming to realize that everyone in Bon Temps hates her.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Especially vampire blood used as a drug. And season two gives us metaphysical ecstasy...
    • Jason has a *ahem* little problem after taking a little too much V.
    • Bill threatens a ditzy college coed within an inch of her life
    • Let's not forget the oft mentioned runaway drug addict/long lost Stackhouse cousin Hadley, who eventually appears as a member of Sophie-Anne's court.
    • Lilith's blood makes vampires trip balls.
  • Dumbass Has a Point: When Jason is being interrogated in connection to the murder of a woman he was videotaped having sex with. The tape shows the woman faking her death, Jason freaking out and running away, and then the woman laughing once he's gone. When the cops suggest that he came back later and killed her for real, using the tape to fake his innocence, his defense, which the cops accept? "I'm not that smart!"
  • Dump Them All: In the finale of True Blood season four, Sookie turns down all three of her love interests. In the case of Bill and Eric, it's a classic "I'm not picking either of you" ending to a Love Triangle. Alcide gets a gentler "sorry, but I don't feel that way about you" rejection.
  • Drunk on the Dark Side:
    • This happens to Marnie when she's invites the spirit of a 400 year old necromancer to possess her. However, we already see shades of this during her first couple of appearances; after purposefully hijacking the coven's circle for an experiment into necromancy (briefly resurrecting her dead bird) she immediately seeks to bring back a human being. Lord knows where (or how) she intended to acquire a body...
    • Bill and Salomé, after drinking from Lilith's blood.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Good lord, if it wasn't before then it certainly is by season 4. As of now there's not a single relationship on the show that doesn't involve one of these: lies, cheating, accidental incest or one of the parties having questionable sanity.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: After more than a little hardship in most cases, the non-antagonists that survived to the final episode were granted theirs (arguably even Bill, who chose to die). Every romantic pairing standing or newly-established in the latter stages of season 7 was still shown to be going strong years later (see Distant Finale).
  • Embarrassing Hospital Gown: In "Somebody That I Used to Know", after Luna accidentally skinwalks into Sam while he's in the hospital, and she comically sashays out of the room with the backless gown, flashing Sam's butt to a weirded out Kevin. She later then makes sure to steal the clothes of another male patient, in order to be able to leave the hospital without attracting attention.
  • Emotion Eater: Maryann feeds on the lust, anger and pride generated by those around her.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Fellowship of the Sun, despite being strawman embodiments of bigotry, have at least one African-American family amongst their ranks. Fear of bloodsucking fiends crosses all races and religions!
  • Erotic Dream: Basically, everyone who ever drank directly from a vampire and is halfway important: Sookie of Bill and Eric, Lafayette (reportedly) of Eric, Tara of Franklin, and Sam... of Bill. Got turned around once, when Eric had one of Sookie. Jason has one of Jessica.
  • Eternal Love: Russell and Talbot. Maybe also Bill and Lorena, depending on how you define their relationship.
  • Evil Feels Good: It's shown that vampires are by nature wanton, gluttonous murderers who actually feel extreme physical pleasure (described as "even better than sex") when feeding directly from a living human, rather than pre-drained blood. True Blood is typically shown to range from unpleasant to revolting, with most vamps finding a blood type or mix that is "at least drinkable". The only reason that ANY of them are willing to drink it exclusively (or only from willing humans) is because they're tired of pretending they don't actually exist. Or because it lets their long-term goals proceed more smoothly.
  • Evil Is Petty: The vampires and other baddies are all selfish to the extreme when it counts. Including the nicer ones.
  • Evil Laugh: Surprisingly, Sookie as she garborates Talbot's remains in front of Russell.
  • Evil Matriarch: Stupid and bigoted, Maxine Fortenberry oppresses her adult son, and plots with Summer in order to destroy his relationship with Jessica.
  • Expansion Pack Past: Sam.
  • Exposition of Immortality: During Season 1, Bill is invited to speak at a Church meeting for descendants of Civil War families, since he actually fought in the American Civil War. A photo from the period has been turned up that's of Bill and his mortal family.
    • Talbot hissy-fits over the tapestry that gets used to put out Lorena after Bill throws burning oil on her because it's centuries old.
  • Eye Scream: In the season 1 finale, we get treated to a close-up of Bill's eyes BURNING.
    • Pam sprays water containing silver particles into his eyes in season 3.
    • Arlene has a blood vessel in her eye burst, apparently telekinetically, by her baby, Mikey.
    • Jason in season 4 when Pam fires a rocket at Marnie, it backfires, and completely blinds Jason. He quickly recovers when Jessica gives him her blood to heal.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Tara flirts with this in Season 4, but ultimately changes her mind.
    • BILL
    • Bud Dearborne, retired former sheriff of Bon Temps turns out to be the leader of a gang that aims to target and kill all supernatural beings, even young Emma.
  • Faceless Goons: Nan Flanagan's "gay stormtroopers".
  • Fallen Hero: Bill in the latest season. Unlike Eric, he becomes a full follower of Lillith and starts the entire planned takeover of the world.
  • Fan Disservice:
    • Bill has rapey-sex with Lorena and then breaks her neck and turns her head 180 degrees!
    • A female vampire is brought before the Authority wearing only trousers, a bra and an iStake. Judgement is passed, the iStake is activated, and she implodes into a gory mess.
    • Andy's bare ass combines this with Naked People Are Funny.
  • Fanservice:
    • Eric's fanservice was off the charts in the Season 3 opener. His first appearance featured him completely naked having wild sex with a tied-up woman and then calmly discussing Bill's abduction with Sookie, while still completely naked and then he has a conversation with Pam with a robe he decided not to close all the way. Female Gaze, anyone?
    • The fanservice is kicked up several more notches, by Alexander Skarsgård confirming in Rolling Stone that he was genuinely naked in every nude scene.
    • Alcide is a werewolf, which means, of course, he has to be naked before and after transformations.
    • Being shifters, Sam and Luna also get a lot of nude scenes after transforming back to human form.
    • Pam's tight vinyl and leather outfits.
    • Sookie, so many times. The black wig and leather outfit for the werewolf bar springs to mind, although her Merlotte's uniform alone makes many, many folks break out into a cold sweat. And, of course, her Lingerie Scenes.
    • Jason, more or less all of the time. That he is such a successful ladies' man is no surprise. The shaving scene with Ben adds some Ho Yay in just for the fun of it.
    • Subverted when Sam wakes up from his vampire blood-induced wet dream of Bill (It Makes Sense in Context) right before they kiss. Damn it, I demand to see dailies from that shoot!
    • Crystal, Sophie, Lorena — do we need to say any more?
    • Jessica's Little Red Riding Hood costume when she goes to see Jason.
    • Jessica spends most of an episode wearing just her bra and panties.
  • Fanservice Extra: Several, most notably Playboy Playmate Tiffany Taylor as the spectacularly-gorgeous nude woman that Nan Flanagan is cavorting with in the back of a limo in Season 3.
  • Fanservice with a Smile:
    • The waitresses at Merlotte's wear very tight, skimpy uniforms.
    • Also, the existence of a shirt on Lafayette is questionable at best in some of his scenes in the kitchen, so there's something for the ladies and some of the dudes.
  • Fang Thpeak: Intensity varies by character. Jessica's bad for it.
  • Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: In addition to being an addictive psychoactive stimulant/steroid/win-button, vampire blood can be ingested by injured humans to bring them back from the brink of death.
  • Fantastic Racism: Sam doesn't mind the idea that vampires can have rights; he just doesn't want them in his bar. He is actively insulted, though, if you call him a werewolf.
    • Vampires say that humans "do not feel pain as we do" to justify mistreating them; never mind that they were all human once themselves. This is probably intended as a parallel to how humans treat animals, with the same (false) justification.
    • The Fellowship of the Sun is a religious movement that can't condone killing vampires but sure does cheer when it happens.
  • A Fate Worse Than Death: Russell's fate: after being sunburned to near death and listen how the remains of his lover are drained and shredded, he winds up incapacitated with silver and buried in concrete by Eric, Bill, and Alcide.
  • Faux Action Girl: Sookie. She runs headfirst into any problem boasting that she can take care of herself, but the number of times Sookie has gotten herself out of a mess she put herself in or got into by accident can be counted on one hand. People are constantly saving her and yet she still acts like the sassy Action Girl she believes herself to be.
  • A Fête Worse than Death: Maryann's sacrificial rituals consist of orgy raves. Her attempted sacrifice of Sam plays out like a festive white wedding.
  • Fetus Terrible: Arlene's baby with Rene survives a Magical Abortion and seemed to give her nightmares afterwards. Then things got even weirder and creepier, and Arlene worried that the baby was being possessed by the ghost of its father. It turned out that there was a ghost communicating with the baby, but it wasn't Rene, and all of the trouble it caused was unintentional.
  • Fiery Redhead: Hi there, Jessica.
  • Fingore: Jane Bodehouse cuts off her own finger under the influence of Maryann. Then she holds up her maimed hand and shows off a mad grin. She eventually gets it sewn back on once Maryann is killed.
  • Five-Man Band: In the season 5 finale.
  • Flanderization: Tara's never-ending bad luck. In the beginning she just had a tough relationship with her alcoholic Mother but was also hired by Sam almost instantly when she walked out of her hardware store job and by comparison Sookie and Jason both went through worse in season 1... then Mary-Ann happened. Fast-forward a constant agonizing cycle of Hope Spots and From Bad to Worse and she was not only the sole Season 1 lead not to make it to the final episode, she died indignitarily off-screen at the start of Season 7 and the other characters were mostly too busy to really mourn her.
  • Flashback: Lots of Sookie thinking on her past. And Tara on hers. Sam gets a bit in season 2. Bill and Eric had some both as humans and as vampires, and both Bill and Lorena have been reminiscing more or less fondly about their mutual past.
    • Eric and Godric also had a few.
    • Season 5 has Pam meeting Eric — it seems that before she was a vampire she was a madam in 1905 San Francisco.
    • In season 6, we get Ben (Warlow's) flashbacks of being turned by Lilith.
    • Often seen in season 7. We see Bill's life before being turned, including his first meeting with his future wife, and his fears over heading out to fight in the Civil War. Eric and Pam's past dealings with The Authority and the origins of Fangtasia get a look in. Flashbacks to Tara's childhood also form part of a minor plotline.
  • The Fog of Ages: Largely averted; Eric can remember his family getting butchered by Russell a thousand years ago, and Salome can remember King Herod's court two thousand years ago. Apparently played straight when, after Vampire Tara's horrible mother forsakes her, Pam promises that Tara won't remember her in a hundred years.
  • Food and Body Comparison: Jason Stackhouse drinks an entire vial of vampire blood to dispose of the illegal substance. Since it's a potent aphrodisiac (you're supposed to only take a drop before sex), Jason has far too much blood rush to his groin and has to go to the doctor. When the doctor sees his penis, he compares it to an eggplant due to its engorged shape and discoloration.
  • Foreshadowing: A lot of things from later books have already shown up.
    • In season 1, before Sam's reveal, even to the audience, he and Sookie talk. Once Sookie leaves the room, the focus switches from Sam's face to a painting in the background. The painting shows a dog guarding a helpless, attractive, blond woman.
    • In the season 1 finale, Hoyt says he'd marry a nice vampire girl if he could find one. In the series finale, he ends up marrying Jessica.
    • After Miss Jeanette is killed, Tara's mom tells her "There's something evil out there that wanted her soul. If you're not careful, it'll come for yours." Right then, Maryann shows up and pulls Tara into a hug.
    • In episode 2 of season 3, Terry and Sookie are looking for a man who Sookie saw watching her outside of Merlotte's. His footprints have disappeared, leading Terry to comment that it's impossible for him to have done that, unless he turned into a bird and flew away. "Or a wolf," says Sookie knowingly. Then Terry makes a comment that a coyote or panther is more likely, because he's never seen a wolf around. It comes off as a joke at first because, come on, panthers? In Louisiana? Later in the season, we find out that there's a family of redneck werepanthers living nearby, and suddenly his comment makes a lot more sense.
    • While most of season 3 is focused on the Russell plot and introducing us to the Weres, in some of the later episodes it begins setting up Jesus and Holly as witches, which were the focus of season 4.
    • Bud's sudden and frustrated resignation from his post as Bon Temps sheriff due to the sudden uptick of supernatural-related violence could be seen as such for what he's later revealed to be involved in in season 5.
  • Four Lines, All Waiting: Apart from the main plot of the season, there are several (often intersecting) subplots involving the rest of the cast.
    • Season 5, so far, is stretching this about as far as it can go. So far, we have Eric and Bill vs. The Authority; Sam, Luna, and the shifters; Terry and his past; Debbie, Alcede, Pam, Lafayette, Sookie and Tara; Jason and Jessica; and The Sheriff vs. the Fairies... with very minimal cross over between plots. Each plot gets about 10 minutes (or less) per episode.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampires:
    • Eddie, Jessica, Isabel, Tara in season 5, Molly, Willa, James, and Keith are all examples of this.
    • Present Day Godric is probably the most friendly vampire on the show. He's a complete pacifist, only killing when it's necessary like when he killed Gabe to protect Sookie, who Gabe had beaten and nearly raped. Judging from Eric's origin flashback, that used to be different back in the day.
  • From Bad to Worse: Most of the story arcs on the show involve a situation that starts out as moderately horrible and then gradually escalates to such a point that you're surprised the characters come away from it without post traumatic stress disorder.
    • What's worse, the audience usually sees the bad things coming before the characters do, making watching the show a little like watching a suspensful horror movie.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: Sam and Luna after shifting back to human form to attack the hate group in "Everybody Wants To Rule The World".
  • Functional Genre Savvy: Bill, surprisingly: "I am a vampire. I am supposed to be tormented."
  • The Fundamentalist: Steve Newlin, and, by extension, the entire Fellowship of the Sun church.
    • Maryann takes her devotion to Dionysus *very seriously* .
    • Season Five introduces the "Sanguinistas", a cult of vampires devoted to fanatical and literal interpretation of the bible. No, not that one, the VAMPIRE bible. The original one. The one that shows God made Lilith (the first vampire) first and made humans to be her food; their endgame is no less than the her reincarnation and the restoration of vampires as rulers of the world and human nothing more than "talking cattle". There's implications that this might not be so literal as they believe, especially when Dieter claims he knew the man that wrote it, and that he was was on mushrooms at the time.
  • Fur Against Fang: Subverted. Werewolves and vampires just generally dislike each other, which makes sense since they are both disliked by the other species anyway. Some werewolves are addicted to vampire blood but their boss, and main supplier, is a vampire.

    G-L 
  • The Gambling Addict: Sophie-Anne. Her success seems to vary — she sucks at scratchies, and cheats at Yahtzee.
    • Sophie's gambling was supposed to show her terrible financial situation, which is why she had Eric selling vampire blood for her.
  • Genetic Memory: Both Jesus and Lafayette receive and share visions of their magic-using ancestors after doing some V.
  • Genre Savvy: Sookie, to a degree. She thought silver only worked on werewolves.
    • In season one, Sam Merlotte wishes that Buffy and Blade were real — because vampires are.
  • Genre Blindness: Sookie getting out of the car all huffy so she can go running alone through the dark woods. Of course, the Plot Armor saved her.
  • Gilligan Cut: Season Five sees Eric and Bill faced with the choice of either showing their loyalty to the Sanguinistas by drinking what they're told is the Blood of Lilith, or being executed. Bill asks Eric if they're really gonna do it, and Eric dismissively says "It's vampire blood. We're vampires. It's not gonna do anything." They drink it, and then the scene quickly cuts to a crowded street during Mardi Gras with everybody who drank the blood, Bill and Eric included, wandering around acting stoned out of their minds.
  • Go Through Me: See Stupid Sacrifice below.
  • A God Am I: Maryann. Or, at least, that's what her little suck-up Daphne thinks.
    • And now Bill after drinking all of Lilith's blood.
  • Going Commando: Sam, Alcide and other weres. Word of God is that shifters don't wear underpants for practical reasons (these reasons don't seem to stop female shifters from wearing bras, though). Also sometims done by Eric.
  • Gone Horribly Right: In season 4, the recently appointed King Bill attempts to get revenge on Eric for breaking up his relationship with Sookie by sending Eric to a meeting of Wiccans who are believed to be practicing necromancy. While Bill claims he's doing this to protect vampires (since necromancy can be used to control/enslave them), the reality is Bill wants Eric to be compromised (i.e. have a spell cast on him) so he can have a reason to have Eric executed. Needless to say, Eric goes to the meeting and gets a spell placed on him that erases all of his memories and gives Bill the opportunity he wanted. However, what Bill didn't count on is that said witch (Marnie) who casted the spell did so in a panic and ends up summoning a 400 year old Vengeful Ghost named Antonia who wants to exterminate vampires from the face of the Earth. When Antonia fully possesses Marnie's body with her permission, she begins a campaign against Bill and his kingdom. By the end of it, 4 out of 5 of Bill's sheriffs are dead, the Festival of Tolerance (which was a PR occasion to celebrate peaceful relationships between vampires and humans) ends in disaster, a bunch of vampires and humans either end up dead or seriously injured, and Bill ends the season on the run from the Authority because they blame him for the entire fiasco. The irony is Bill doesn't even execute Eric despite having the opportunity to do so, which means he brought this entire mess on himself for nothing.
  • Go Seduce My Archnemesis: Maryann uses Daphne in an attempt to lure Sam in.
  • Gorn: Vampires drinking the blood of humans is not pretty. Usually there is at least a little bit of blood dripping down the human's neck. And that's if they are being civil. Then there are the times when vampires get staked and pop like bloody balloons.
    • In Season 5 we're treated to the sight of a werewolf pack eating the rotting corpse of one of their own.
      • And the exploding head of Rosalyn Harris
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Royce's death at the hands of Eric.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Sookie, although she has dropped several precision F-strikes, usually avoids swearing. She even uses "fudge" as a euphemism. She has also called Eric a "big, lying A-hole".
  • Green Rocks: Vampire blood has traces of that. It not only heals, it sharpens your senses, makes you stronger and occasionally gives you erotic dreams of the vampire it came from. It also can be used as a drug and an aphrodisiac. The effects any specific character receives from "V" seem to depend on what the writers want it to do that day.
    • Justified in that drugs will affect any person differently.
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: In a few cases, there are only one or two differences between the "good guys" and the "bad guys."
  • Groin Attack: Eric performs a rather gruesome one on Dr. Overlark in season 6.
  • Hate Plague: In order to manipulate Tara into letting her stay with her, Maryann uses her powers to cause a brief Hate Plague at Merlotte's.
  • Hate Sink: Several characters fall into this.
    • Gabe in season 2. He's a Drill Sergeant Nasty working for the Fellowship of the Sun who slut-shames Sookie and gets his ass kicked by Jason. In revenge, he later tries to rape Sookie when she's being held captive by him and reveals himself to be a Dirty Coward when Godric stops him and he shamelessly pleads for his life.
    • Sam's biological parents, Joe Lee and Melinda Mickens. They are both disgusting individuals who are Abusive Parents to Tommy, who leech off of Sam, and who are Jerkasses in almost every scene that they're in.
    • Felton Norris, Crystal's brother/boyfriend. He's abusive, racist, homophobic, violent, stupid, and also implied to be a rapist. He cares for no one but himself, and falls into Too Dumb to Live.
    • Crystal becomes this in season 4 when after disappearing for a year while Jason was left to take care of the werepanthers, she comes back, has Jason captured and tied to a bed, bites him multiple times to turn him into a werepanther against his will, drugs him with Viagra, rapes him when he is unconscious, and then has the other women of Hotshot rape him so the tribe can get more cubs. All the while, she expresses no remorse for what she puts Jason through.
    • Zig-Zagged with Tommy. While the show presents him as a Jerkass Woobie because of how abusive his upbringing was, it doesn't change the fact that he's a pathological asshole to almost everyone, and attempts to screw over multiple people (including his own brother Sam) for selfish reasons. His lowest moment on the show is when he rapes Luna by performing a Bed Trick on her. When Sam finds out what Tommy did, he is furious and cuts Tommy out of his life for good.
    • Downplayed with Sophie Anne Leclerq. While she has a few fans thanks to Evan Rachel Wood's performance, she still falls into this trope because of how awful she is. She spents years having humans procured for her and forcing them to become her blood prostitues/sex slaves and used Bill for 35 years to accomplish this. She's callously dismissive of Godric's death to Eric's face ("Sorry about your maker. That blows."). She constantly tries to assert her dominance over Eric, and at one point sexually assaults him by grabbing his crotch. When Bill disappears in season 3, she tells Eric to "let him rot" despite Bill being in QSA's employment. She had no issue letting Eric and Pam take the fall for selling V on her orders when the Magister comes to investigate. Even her relationship with Hadley turns out to be one-sided as she's perfectly okay letting Eric drain Hadley to protect her own secrets. Basically, she's a vain and greedy narcissist who cares for no one but herself, and doesn't have any redeeming qualities outside of her looks and wardrobe choices.
    • Luis Patino and Don Santiago: They were part of a group of vampires who infiltrated the Catholic Church in the 17th century during the Inquisition, and posed as priests to capture women and witches so they could toture, rape, and feed upon them. Even in the present day, when Luis is working for the recently appointed King Bill as his sheriff, he expresses no remorse for his crimes. It's why nobody mourns them when Antonia kills both of them.
    • The Dragon Sweetie Des Arts who leads the Hate Group in season 5 that's responsible for targeting innocent supernaturals like Sam and Luna. Their reasons for doing what they do are bigoted and petty, they plan to start a war to allow humans to come out on top so they can legalize killing other supernaturals, and they're a Dirty Coward who flees the moment things go wrong for them.
    • Bill Compton is an interesting case. The show initially presents him as sympathetic, but as the seasons go on and more secrets are revealed about him (like his 35 years as Queen Sophie Anne's personal procurer or the fact that he lets the Rattarays beat Sookie to death so he could drug her with his blood and manipulate her), that sympathy slowly starts to go away. However, he fully crosses into this terroritry in season 5: After drinking the Lilith blood, Bill gets appointed as Chancellor in the Authority (a high ranking government position in vampire society), and he commits numerous crimes against vampires and humans. Some of the highlights include ordering the bombings of the True Blood Factories, sanctioning and participating in a human trafficking ring, ordering sheriffs and other vampires to turn as many humans as possible, bullying Jessica into turning Jason into a vampire against his will, becoming an Abusive Parent to Jessica when she stands up to him, trying to murder Sam when he accidentally discovers what's going on, betraying Eric and Molly when they try to escape, murdering Molly (the only mainstreaming vampire left at the Authority) in cold blood, and later destroying the Authority which likely killed all the humans who were being kept in prison cells.
    • The townsfolk of Bon Temps weren't exactly endearing characters (being bigoted, judgmental, and close-minded), but most of them (especially Vince) become this in the last season. They blame Sookie for the destruction the Hep-V vamps are causing, even though that wasn't Sookie's fault, and they later form a mob to not only kill vampires, but anyone who is supernatural. This includes Sookie and Sam. It doesn't help their case that they're all portrayed as holding the Idiot Ball, which makes them much more grating.
  • Head Smashes Screen: Lorena, one of the nastier vampires, is bashed over the head with a flatscreen television in one episode, allowing Bill, her vampire captive, to escape. As she's a vampire, this doesn't kill her, but it does really piss her off.
  • Healing Factor: Vmapires possess one, naturally. Their blood is also able to quickly heal injuries for those that drink it. Unlike in the books, though, shifters and weres do not heal abnormally fast.
  • The Hedonist:
    Maryann: We need to be out of control. We crave it."
    • In "I Will Rise Up" she's on the verge of tears when Tara and Eggs comment that the followers of hedonistic religions were crazy.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Bill must get dizzy in that thing.
  • Hemo Erotic: it is a show about vampires.
  • Hesitation Equals Dishonesty:
    Sookie: Did you kill my uncle?
    Bill: [...] He...hurt you...
  • Heteronormative Crusader: Parodied. The intro features the infamous Westboro Baptist Church slogan "God hates fags", modified to "God hates fangs" and vampires serve as a stand-in for the LGBT. However, this also leads to something of a Broken Aesop, as many vampires really are dangerous in a way very similar to what militant homophobes claim about actual LGBT people (screenwriter Alan Ball, who's gay, protested this on precisely that basis, but to no avail).
  • He's Dead, Jim: The majority of murder victims thus far have the glassy, sightless stare. Some even have way more blood than the human body should hold pooled around them.
  • Historical In-Joke: According to this post-mortem feature, the vampires were behind the 2008 financial crisis.
  • Homoerotic Dream: Lafayette for Eric, Sam for Bill, and Jason for both Ben/Warlow and Eric.
  • Honey Trap: A male case with Eric seducing Talbot so that he'll let his guard down.
    • Bill is one for Sookie.
    • Lorena for Bill.
  • Horny Vikings: Eric. Duh.
  • Hotter and Sexier: The show includes HBO's usual touches.
  • Hot Men at Work: Jason, Lafayette and Hoyt work on the road crew.
  • How's Your British Accent?: Stephen Moyer famously struggles to manage an American Cajun accent. It must have been a relief when a flashback scene puts Bill in an English punk rock bar, and he is able to speak in something pretty close to his natural voice.
  • Human Sacrifice: Well, not literally human. Attempted by Maryann with Sam Merlotte and by the Fellowship of the Sun with Eric.
  • Human Traffickers:
    • One of the things that's mentioned about vampire monarchs in the show is that they regularly have humans procured for them, and that they hire other vampires to do this on their behalf. Procuring by definition is when you obtain someone as a prostitute for a client. And considering that vampires have a history of taking humans against their will (either through glamouring or kidnapping), and that when vampires feed on humans, sex usually goes with it regardless of whether or not the human can consent..............this leads to some icky implications.
    • In season 3, it's revealed that Bill has been a procurer for Queen Sophie Anne for 35 years and was tasked with sampling humans before bringing them to her. Russell Edgington later hires him to procure a woman from a strip club, and the results are not pretty.
    • In season 5, the Authority (now under command of the human hating Sanguinistas) start a human trafficking ring where humans are brought to their headquarters and kept naked in cells until they are brought out to be fed on, raped, and then disposed of. Once again, Bill not only is a part of this, but also sanctions it.
  • I Feel Guilty; You Take It: Sookie gets a big inheritance—but A)she never liked that relative and B)she feels responsible for his death, because Bill killed him after she told Bill her uncle hurt her. She gives the money to Jason, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Ignoring by Singing: Played for Laughs in one episode: Sookie is a psychic, and one of her friends wanted to keep a secret from her. When the psychic tunes into her friend's thoughts, all we hear is "LALALALALALALALALALALALALALA".
  • I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Played for Laughs with Bill and Jessica. Things get better once Bill starts taking his role as Jessica's maker more seriously.
    • Willa and Eric in season 7.
  • I Have a Family: The unfortunate woman that Salome presents to Bill for dinner in "Somebody That I Used To Know" tries this. It does not work.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Sookie regarding her power, which forces her to constantly hear all people's nasty dirty little secrets and ugly emotions. Her grandmother is the only one who sees it as a gift. But only that when it's useful.
    • In "In the Beginning" Sookie learns that her fairy power is finite, and starts actively draining it,
    • Bill has this attitude due to being forcibly made vampire by Lorena.
    • Sam regarding being a shapeshifter. So what if he can change into any animal of his choice? He just wants what every man wants. A good life, a good woman.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Jason discusses this with Jessica one night. She points out to him that someone as gorgeous and athletic as him is special in Bon Temps.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title is also the name of a song featured in the episode, often during the end credits.
  • Idiot Ball: Everyone gets a turn with it in each season. It's not even worth listing specific examples.
  • I Have Your Wife: After Eric's attempt to glamor the Governor of Louisiana fails (thanks to new glamor-blocking contact lenses) he decides to abduct his daughter.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Jesus to Lafayette in the Season 4 finale.
  • I Love You, Vampire Son: Bill and Lorena as seen in their flashbacks. Godric and Eric. Eric and Pam. Bill and Jessica platonically, after she gets past her teenaged vampire angst.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Maryann feeds Tara and Eggs a "hunter's soufflé" made with a human heart. However, Tara and Eggs are unaware of the soufflé's special ingredient...
  • Important Haircut: Tara in the season 3 finale.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Jason displays these on the Fellowship of the Sun's shooting range. Even more impressive is that he nails every target while in a fast-moving quad, not to mention hitting Steve right between the eyes from a long way away with his Paintball Gun of Awesome. And then he nails Eggs right between the eyes at the end of Season 2 and hits Franklin right in the heart in Season 3. On top of all that he was one hell of a quarterback in high school. Word of God suggested in an interview that, while Sookie gets mind-reading powers, Jason got a little bit of Super-Aim for himself.
  • Improbable Chopsticks Skill: Sookie once uses chopsticks as weapon, stabbing a vampire with them.
  • Informed Ability: Sookie and Jason seemingly remember their parents being very loving. Yet every flashback of them either being confused or outright scared of Sookie in particular. It doesn't help when the only real action we've seen of them was an attempt to drown Sookie to "protect" her from Warlow.
  • Insubstantial Ingredients: "Your blood tastes like freedom." (Sookie's blood allows vampires to walk in sunlight, at least for short periods.)
  • Interrupted Suicide: Tara attempts to kill herself, shortly after Eggs is killed. Lafayette is only just in time to keep her from swallowing several bottles of pills, and he has to force her to spit them back out (and may have made her take some ipecac to get her to throw up any that she did swallow). It may also qualify as Driven to Suicide, since she only tries it after her mother brings in a preacher to try and console her (who ends up slamming Eggs, due to not knowing enough about the whole situation).
    • She tries it again early in season 5, after being turned into a vampire. Again, Pam comes just in time and uses her powers as a maker to stop Tara from trying it again.
  • I See Dead People: Lafayette seems to develop this.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: The sheriff arrives on the scene of Miss Jeannette's murder, discovered left in Andy's car. He tries to get Andy to go home (despite Andy's protestations), claiming he wouldn't be any good as Andy is overworked, and also extremely drunk. Andy's response is "I am NOT overworked!"
  • It Runs in the Family: Arlene fears Rene's baby will also be a psycho like daddy.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Bill lets Eric go partly because he realizes that killing him would not make Sookie happy, and that an amnesiac Eric might be able to bring happiness to Sookie in a way he couldn't.
  • Jedi Mind Trick: Vampires are constantly using "glamour" on humans via eye contact, everything from rewriting memories to making them obey commands. Some humans are more resistant than others while Sookie is totally immune to it. In later seasons, humans finally wise up and start selling special contact lenses that block the effect.
  • Jerkass:
    • Eric, both doing his job and occasionally, in his spare time. Naturally, not everyone agrees with this categorization. He's a polarizing character.
    • Jason in Season One. He gets better though.
    • Jason's rival Luke. Although it could be argued he's more Brainwashed and Crazy.
    • Many of the vampires, especially in their behavior towards humans.
    • Andy Bellefleur in Season One and early Season Two. Good Lord, Andy. Constantly dribbling an Idiot Ball, he's convinced that he is a good cop even though he's actually a drunk who likes to jump to conclusions and genuinely make an ass out of himself, especially after he gets fired and then continues to interrogate people without a badge. On the positive side, he's one of the few Bon Temps residents not prejudiced against Bill, even defending him against the Sheriff, and he later teams up with Jason to save the town from Maryann.
    • Tommy Merlotte. It's a bit low to act like a dick to the one member of your family who looked out for you, and double so AFTER HE SAVES YOU FROM A DOG FIGHTING RING. He turned his dickish tendencies up to eleven later, when he complimented Sam for nearly murdering a man, flirted shamelessly with an obviously not receptive Jessica, taunting Hoyt, and MAULING HIM after getting punched in the face. Disproportionate Retribution much?
      • Possibly explained by Freudian Excuse given in the series 3 finale. Either way, it's a rough fate.
      • And the first time he shifts into a human being—his brother Sam, who just saved him from prison — he succeeds in both firing Sookie AND being a total douche with Sam's girlfriend that he just fucked. Hardly justified, even with his Dark and Troubled Past.
    • Arlene. She antagonizes Jessica basically for being in the same room with her, takes weeks to tell Terry that her baby isn't his, and, worst of all, wants to abort her baby despite Terry's excitement and promising to love the child that he knows belongs to Arlene's serial-killing ex.
      • Slightly justified as it's hinted that the baby will be evil like Rene, or at least influenced by him.
    • Sam towards the latter end of series 3 becomes this, in the shows attempts to give him and Darker and Edgier backstory
    • Tara is loyal to Sookie, but in general she is a very unpleasant person.
    • Maxine Fortenberry with her Fantastic Racism, good god. To her, it doesn't matter who you are or how nice you are, she hates anyone who isn't human or white for that matter. Gets even worse in Season 7 when she joins the rioting townsfolk in trying to kill anything not human.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Bill does this during his season five character arc.
  • Karma Houdini: Marnie. All that death for pitiful, selfish reasons and she gets to move on to the afterlife?
    • Bill, Eric and Pam arguably count as well. They never got any comeuppance for attacking and terrorizing Marnie back before she had any villainous intentions — even the curses that Eric and Pam received were removed.
    • Bill gets hit with this trope hard by the end of season 6: Regardless of whether or not you think he was Brainwashed and Crazy during seasons 5-6 or had some degree of agency and made choices on his own accord, the fact is that Bill committed a number of punishable offenses (murder, rape, terrorism, human trafficking, etc) that should have resulted in the FBI showing up at his front door to arrest him and Bill being put on trial for his crimes. Some of the highlights include ordering the bombings of the True Blood factories when he was Chancellor, sanctioning a human trafficking ring in the Authority (where humans were kept naked in cells until they were brought out to be raped, drained, and disposed of), ordering sheriffs to turn humans into vampires to increase their ranks, plotting with the other members of the Authority for vampires to conquer humans, later killing Chancellors like Salome and Kibwe to get his hands on Lilith's blood, trying to force Jessica into turning Jason into a vampire against his will, refusing to help Sam when he comes to rescue Emma and even attempting to murder Sam in cold-blood, destroying the Authority (which was the heart of the vampire government) and killing anyone else who remained in the building, murdering an innocent blood prostitute in an extremely gruesome manner, luring Andy's 4 young faerie girls into his house to experiment with their blood (which indirectly leads to 3 of their deaths), killing the governor of Louisiana (who was an Asshole Victim, but was still a high-ranking government official regardless), and was largely responsible for the deterioration of vampire/human relationships by the end of the show. Even prior to what happened in seasons 5-6, Bill had committed some extremely evil acts, which included torturing, raping, draining, and killing humans with Lorena for 70 years, being a part of a sadistic nest of vampires (Diane, Liam, and Malcolm) for an undisclosed amount of time, working as Queen Sophie Anne's personal procurer for 35 years (which leads to some icky implications about what his job entailed), and pretty much getting into a relationship with Sookie by allowing two psychos to beat the shit out of her so he could pretend to play hero, drug her with his blood, manipulate her into falling in love with him, and later attempting to murder Eric and Pam to cover up his secrets so that Sookie would never find out what he did. Not only does Bill not face any consequences for his actions (nor does he face any legal repercussions for the damage he caused and the lives he destroyed), but he gets Easily Forgiven by the show and by the other characters while getting back into a relationship with Sookie despite everything he did to her.
  • Kick the Dog: When Hoyt breaks up with Jessica, he scathingly throws in her face all the things she'll never experience as a vampire, like having children or sex without a hymen.
    • This may be Kick The Son Of A Bitch for some, she did cheat on him after all. And later when she did the right thing and admitted it to him, she crossed another line when she responded to his rather justified outrage and inclination to leave her by glamouring him into forgetting everything she just told him and thinking everything was perfect.
    • When you take a step back and think it over, there actually isn't a single character in the show that never kicked any puppies. Lies, thinking with your dick/ovaries, overly violent reactions at the most inappropriate times, manipulation of emotions, getting away with evil shit, murder when it's convenient and adults acting like annoying, selfish children.
  • Kill It with Fire: Bill attempts this on seeing Lorena at Russell's house.
  • Kiss of the Vampire: Though by Sookie's reaction, the bite hurts. She says the pain was only temporary though. It's implied these vampires don't have the supernatural ability to make their bites pleasurable, but some people still enjoy it because they like a little pain.
  • Klingon Promotion: As of the season four premiere, Bill has killed Sophie Anne and is now king.
    • Although not quite in the same order, Sheriff Andy Bellefleur shoots his predecessor.
  • Large Ham: "Who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?"
    • Bill however is easily the most consistently hammy of all the main characters, with shining examples such the notorious "Sook-eh", and "Jason mah blood can save her!".
    • Don't forget, "STOP... Sook-eh is mahn!" Also, when Bill confronts Lorena about how she "deprahved me of mah freedom... mah home... mah humaniteh! I will nevah. evah. love you!"
    • Franklin has his moments, especially before his death, his best examples probably being: "You would have mmmourned mmmmmee", "SHUT UP SHUT UP", "You do realize, I'm a vampire?".
    • Also for Franklin is his "Look how fast I can type 'motherfucker'! Look at that!"
    • Russell. His is the TRUE face of VAM-PIAHS!
    • And DO NOT DEFY HIM! HE-IS-YO-KHIANG!
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia:
    • Vampire glamour can excise specific memories, and is performed often. Sookie's telepathy seems to be able to revert this, and she can bring back any memories glamoured away with varying amounts of success.
    • Antonia's spell on Eric wiped him of almost all his memories; however, he seems to not only know that he's a vampire, but about vampiric feudalism - he is basically an obedient little puppy to Bill once he is informed that Bill had assumed the mantle of King of Louisiana.
  • Law of Conservation of Normality: Sookie may help the vampire population of Louisiana whenever summoned, but when they don't need her, she's got to go to work and pay her bills and worry about money like everybody else.
  • Leitmotif: This is the music that plays when Eric and Sookie get romantic with one another in season 4.
  • Leno Device:
    • Nan Flanigan is introduced in the first episode being interviewed on Real Time with Bill Maher.
    • In the season 6 finale, Bill goes on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.
  • Lesbian Vampire:
    • Queen Sophie-Anne. Technically, she's bisexual, but she hasn't enjoyed sex with men since the Eisenhower administration.
    • Eric's right-hand woman, Pam, who also seems to prefer the ladies, usually. In a miniepisode involving casting for a dancing position at Fangtasia, Eric practically has to force Pam to leave before "enjoying the show" with a hot Russian dancer. Before she leaves, however, she mentions that she'd like a more private audience with the girl. She gets it in the series proper. See also the development of her relationship with Tara at the end of season 5, who's bisexual too.
    • It seems that all the vampire women, the oldest ones more specifically, are bi, but show much more interest in other women than men.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Despite the aforementioned character development, Jason Stackhouse is still a generally not-very-serious and mostly incompetent character. But when he puts on his sunglasses and black beanie hat he becomes an incredibly capable badass.
  • Light 'em Up: Fairies (including part-fairy Sookie) have the ability to blast light out of their hands.
  • Lighter and Softer: Show Godric is quite a bit nicer than his book counterpart. And that includes his flashback self.
    • He's actually got two book counterparts — Godfrey and Appius Livius Ocella—and he's significantly better than both of them combined.
    • Although not much has been revealed about Sophie-Anne's background story, it's obvious she wasn't turned at twelve like her book counterpart.
  • Lingerie Scene: Quite a few of them. Jessica has one with her Little Red Riding Hood getup and comes to see Jason, and Sarah Newlin does the traditional "lingerie under trenchcoat" for Governor Burrell. The Governor isn't having any of it, but Jason gladly takes up the slack.
    Sarah: When a woman comes to you in black lingerie, you unwrap her!
  • Love Hurts: Sookie gives up a little on Bill when he leaves her with no promise to return. And because he tends to do things without explaining to her.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: Tara's affection for Eggs causes her to pick up the Idiot Ball late in the second season, and in the beginning of the third season, when she attempts suicide after his death.
    • Sookie and Bill tend to bring the stupidity out in each other, their single-minded devotion to each other apparently leaving little room in their brains for any coherent, let alone reasonable, thoughts.
  • Local Hangout: Merlotte's. Sam in fact mentions that he is rather grateful that there are so few places to drink in Bon Temps that his bar is the default place to go get one.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Sam finds out his birth-parents are still alive, and heads off to find them at the end of season two. Turns out he has a brother too. His relationship with them as well as their... shall we say "curious" family dynamic is the Sam plot of season 3.
    • In season 6, Sookie and Jason's fairy great-grandfather many times over comes out of the fairy realm on the hunt for Warlow.

    M-R 
  • Magical Abortion: Arlene believes that Good Girls Avoid Abortion, so she tries to have one of these instead (don't ask how it's any different—it's Arlene, she isn't that bright).
  • Magical Queer: Jesus. Lafayette is this in a literal sense, but he is a main character with depth and his own storyline.
  • Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Sex on a pool table is seen in the opening credits. The series also features people (like Sooki and Bill) doing it outside on the ground (later also with Eric).
  • Male Gaze: And Female Gaze too. Lots of shots of breasts and cleavage, but also several shots of shirtless men, or men's bare behinds, or clothed (and unclothed) crotches. Note that this isn't always necessarily erotic.
  • Male Frontal Nudity: The guy that the Authority is dining on in "Somebody That I Used To Know".
    • Eric
  • Manchild: Jason and Hoyt. Also Andy and and Talbot show some traits.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl. From what we hear about Debbie's and Alcide's relationship, she was a pretty dark version of this trope back then. By the time we see them, she's dumped him and gone even crazier. Also Amy in season 1, who is introduced as this but turns out to be a drug-crazed murderer which Jason finds out when she stakes Eddie.
  • Man, I Feel Like a Woman: A rare male version, and even rarer dramatic version happens when Mavis realizes she isn't alive, and is just possessing Lafayette's body.
    Mavis-in-Lafayette: *while grabbing his crotch* How I make the baby with this, me?
  • Manipulative Bitch: Maryann and Lorena.
    • Queen Sophie Anne counts as well since she's the one having Eric sell V to pay off her IRS taxes, only to betray him to the Magister later on.
    • Salome. She's part of the Sanguinista movement that's determined to enslave humans, and she's the one who orchestrates Roman's death and takes over the Authority by converting the other Chancellors to Lilith's religion
    • Violet also counts as well, considering her treatment of Jason.
  • Marriage to a God: Maryann's master plan is to wed herself to Dionysus by sacrificing the "perfect vessel". Said vessel happens to be Sam.
  • Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Luna Garza is subject to this from an unlikely source. She's a skinwalker, and in order to become one, a shifter has to kill one of their parents. Luna's mother died giving birth to her, and she's been a skinwalker ever since. So while no person blames her for the death of her mother, the magical forces that govern who becomes a skinwalker apparently do.
  • Meaningful Funeral: Terry is sent off with full honors.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Maryann's surname is Forrester. Maenads live in the woods.
    • Eric Northman is a former Viking. His name also indicates his age. He's from an time when all surnames were honest and sometimes blunt descriptions of you.
    • Crystal. Guess what kind of drugs her pounce is involved with?
    • Godric is a Messianic Archetype
    • Luna isn't a were, but her possessive ex-husband is.
  • Messianic Archetype: Godric. He killed himself for his sins.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Sookie hears a lot of things that she'd rather not.
  • Mind over Manners: Sookie can't help hearing the thoughts, but she's heroic and nice, and will defend even her brother.
  • Mistaken for Gay: A shop assistant sees Bill with Eric and comes to the wrong conclusion, somewhere at the start of season 2.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: In season 1, 96% of Bon Temps was convinced that Jason Stackhouse was behind all the recent, mostly-sexual-related killings, including the death of his own grandmother.
    • After an "anonymous" tip, Sam is discovered at Merlotte's by police minutes after finding Daphne's dead body. They think he's guilty, even after Andy Bellefleur tries to intervene on his behalf.
  • Mistaken for Racist: Arlene is stupid enough to use the phrase "you people" when talking to two black people (she meant religious types...maybe).
  • Modesty Bedsheet: Used rather blatantly after Sookie and Eric have sex. Borders on Fridge Logic since Sookie was on full display moments ago.
    • Arlene keeps her nightie on for sex in "I Hate You, I Love You".
    • Deborah Ann Woll obviously has a no-nudity clause in her contract. The measures True Blood takes to keep Jessica's nipples hidden in sex scenes while showing almost every other square inch of her body are heroic.
      • Possibly done because Jessica is supposed to be permanently underaged.
  • Momma's Boy: Jason's best friend, Hoyt.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: Mavis in season four.
  • Monster Mash: Russel's alliance with (some of) the Weres of Mississippi.
  • Mood Whiplash: Russel's speech to the world after he kills a news anchor on-air. See "The Reason You Suck" Speech below.
    • Eric is fantastic at this because he does it twice in "Evil is Going On". After Sookie has told off all the vampires in Fangtasia and Bill is glaring at Alcide, which prompts Eric to say: "Well, if you two are finished eye-fucking each other, we can go." The second time occurs in that same episode after Eric tattles to Sookie that Bill had manipulated her into falling for him and Sookie kicks him out of her house. While Bill lies on the ground, emotionally ravaged, Eric looks at him and says: "I want my phone back."
  • Mooks: The Vampire authority has an army of vampire guards. It's also mentioned by Nan Flanagan that they have humans who work for the Authority as well.
    • Likewise Russell's werewolves, who have the ability to turn into...ordinary wolves. They are not really at all impressive in actual fights with vampires. Nor do they have any special resistance to injury, leading to one case in which Eric literally has to take a bullet for one because Sookie shot at it and he wanted to interrogate the guy before killing him.
  • More than Meets the Eye: Bill of all people. Looks like a nice enough vampire who's gone home to mainstream. As of season three we learn from the Vampire of Mississippi that Bill is an upcoming player in vampire politics. And that he may or may not be a valued agent of the Vampire Queen of Louisana.
    • Season Four reveals that he has been working as an agent for the American Vampire League since the 80s and is part of a conspiracy to take over the vampire power structure
    • Lafayette, drug dealer, gigolo, overworked hedonist. Who has two legal jobs and an illegal one, to support and take care of his mother who may or may not have disowned him prior to her mental deterioration.
    • Eric's entire character is like this. Eric is actually an old and powerful vampire but does not have an interest in vampire politics or living extravagantly. This often leads to people making wrong assumptions about him which he is more than happy to subvert in a number of bloody ways. He is also very 'feudal' in his approach to loyalty which some might erroneously construe as weakness and subservience.
  • Morality Pet: Godric might be called that in regard to Eric.
    • Pam, though morally gray herself, has an awful lot of Pet the Dog moments with Eric in season 3.
    • Fittingly, Eric is possibly the only person who makes Pam show a more emotional side.
    • Talbot, for Russell.
  • Mr. Fanservice: In a subversion of usual Hollywood casting, there's only one average-looking man in the cast (Andy Bellefleur); the others are all muscle-studs, each with their fair share of admirers (even — especially — the more depraved ones like Eric and Franklin). The women, on the other hand, are slightly more ranged in appearance.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Almost every female in this show has appeared naked or at least half-naked on-screen at one point or another. That's the way of HBO. Of course, in some cases this is rather Fan Disservice than service.
    • Sookie (Anna Paquin) gets quite a few nude scenes, especially around the middle of the series.
    • Luna Garza (Janina Gavankar) and Rikki Naylor (Kelly Overton) are both gorgeous women who constantly end up in states of undress due to Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing. Danielle (Jamie Gray Hyder), who's very beautiful, also plays a werewolf woman, showing extended full frontal nudity.
    • Special mention to Jessica, while Deborah Ann Woll's no-nudity clause makes her one of the few characters to not do full frontal nude scenes on the show, she has plenty of Lingerie Scenes and dons a fantastic Red Riding Hood costume in season 5 too.
  • Mummies at the Dinner Table: Russell and what's left of Talbot.
  • Murderer P.O.V.: Sookie gets to see these in image flashes sometimes.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: From the second season finale during Sookie's exchange with Maryann.
    Maryann: Please don't be so negative. It is my day...
    Sookie: And you're in my house, and those are my friends. Plus...Jane Bodehouse.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • In the Season Three premiere, Jessica frantically tries to keep the trucker she fed on in the second season finale from dying.
    • Season Four has a quite surprising one: It's actually Antonia, not Marnie, who has this reaction when their plan to wreck the reputation of vampires results in numerous innocent people being killed, and Marnie has to Hannibal Lecture her into continuing to work together.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Anyone familiar with William Shakespeare, or perhaps The Dresden Files, should recognize that Sookie's in trouble the moment Mab introduces herself.
  • Neck Lift: Pam does this to Tara in "Cold Grey Light Of Dawn".
  • Neck Snap: Constantly done in the series, justified due to the strength of vampires. Beautifully subverted when Sarah Newlin ties it on a human woman in season six and her victim is more confused than anything at the pitiful attempt to turn her head around.
  • Never Given a Name: Andy's daughters were rapidly aged until they hit 18, and he tended to refer to them by numbers instead of names. It was only after three of them were killed that he gave them actual names.
  • Never One Murder: Bon Temps is a very dangerous place.
  • No Body Left Behind: When killed, vampires turn into a pool of blood and tissue. Fairies disintegrate into fairy dust.
  • No, Mr. Compton, I Expect You To Dine
  • No Seat Belts: Rather conspicuously, in the second episode of Season 7, as the cars drive back from the dead town, no one is wearing seat belts.
  • Not Really a Birth Scene: The scene where Jason has to get blood drained from his dangerously engorged penis is staged very much like a scene of a woman in a hospital giving birth.
  • Not So Sociopathic: Most vampires put up a front that they're violent, cold, and heartless. But...
  • Not What It Looks Like: Tara's mother says this when Tara catches her with Reverend Daniels, and the reverend tries to spin a story about how he accidentally spilled something on his pants.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Yvetta the Estonian dancer. Written off by Eric and Pam as an airhead gold digger, she's actually a cardiologist back in her homeland, which she reveals to Pam while chaining her to a stripper pole after freeing Sookie from Fangtasia's basement.
  • Oblivious to Love: Tara has been in love with Jason ever since he defended her against her abusive alcoholic mother when they were children. He doesn't realize that Everyone Can See It until Lafayette points it out to him.
  • Oh, Crap!: A quite subtle one in season three; after Tara bashes Franklin's head in with a mace and then runs out of the room. Sookie informs her in the next episode that vampires completely dissolve into blood when they die, leading to a blink and you'll miss it shot of Tara's reaction.
    • The spirit of Marnie coming back to possess Lafayette. Lafayette's reaction is priceless.
    • The look on Eric's face when Bill "evolves" and suggests blowing up Tru Blood factories.
  • Ominous Greek Chanting:
    • Maryann's Inner Monologue is constantly chanting in Greek, and she chants Greek incantations when she does her shaky-shaky maenad magic.
    • All of the Maryann zombies are chanting the various names of Bacchus.
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Authority. Until Season 5 that is, when we finally meet them and learn more about both their methods and their goals.
  • One Head Taller: Followed by most of the heterosexual couples on the show.
    • Reversed by Talbot (Russell Edgington's "husband") who, despite taking the more feminine role in the relationship, is taller than Russell.
    • Also reversed by Eric and Godric (depending on how you interpret their relationship); Eric is practically a giant while Godric, who is depicted as the dominant one in the relationship, is unusually short for a man.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
    • Bill often seems to resort to chewing the scenery to disguise Stephen Moyer's native accent.
    • While Jessica starts her tenure on the show with a Southern accent, Deborah Ann Woll gradually loses the accent as the series progresses, and by the end is using the accent she uses as Karen Page in Daredevil (2015).
    • Russell Edgington occasionally slips from his Deep South accent to a German accent in season 5 when he gets angry. According to Denis O'Hare, Russell was a Druid priest before he became a vampire, and his Southern accent is also brand-new because he's only been vampire king of Mississippi for 50 years.
  • Order Versus Chaos: The religious imagery (Order) and sexual debauchery (Chaos) in the opening. All mixed with images of animals, death and rebirth.
  • Our Fairies Are Different:
    • They look like very pretty humans. Claude claims that this is because fairies naturally adjust to the standard of beauty to whatever frequency they're channeling.
    • They seem to literally eat and drink light.
    • They have the ability to cast illusions the way Faerieland was depicted in season 4 or create dreams/hallucinations like Jason seeing visions of his dead parents after being blasted by faerie light in season 5.
    • They live in a sunlit realm full of trees and flowers and crystalline ponds. This is implied to be one of the few dimensions that they live in.
    • They enjoy sunshine, swimming, dancing, and being naked while doing any of these things.
    • As of season four, it seems that all of the above is an illusion created to keep the half-humans they've lured into the fairy realm under their control. Real fae are inhuman, angry, dirty, and live in a barren wasteland as a result of the vampires hunting them down. Their attitudes are more like The Fair Folk.
    • They can enter the human realm and interbreed with humans.
      • And some of them, at least, REALLY enjoy giving birth. Not the conception (though they may enjoy that as much as humans do), the actual giving birth.
    • Their blood is addictive to vampires, and as a result they hate and fear them.
    • They have some kind of odd force field powers, which can throw people and objects around, break chains, and even disintegrate people.
    • As seen by a pregnant Maurella and Niall during dinner with Sookie and Jason, fairies seem to really like consuming absurd amounts of salt.
    • In season 6, Niall reveals that the Stackhouse faerie bloodline has a special power where they can take the light and channel it into a ball of energy that will go supernova and kill all vampires within the area. However, this is only specific to Niall and Sookie.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different:
    • In the season two finale, Sam takes the form of a white Brahman bull to trick Maryann into believing she successfully summoned Dionysus. Then he impales her on his horn.
    • When Maryann transforms, she wears a ritualistic bull mask. Technically not a straight example of this trope since it's just costuming, but the effect is the same, giving her the appearance of a minotaur.
  • Our Vampires Are Different:
    • Silver burns vampires quite badly.
    • And how they must react when an invitation has been rescinded.
    • Vampires can appear in mirrors and are unaffected by crosses and holy water.
    • With some exceptions (Eddie, Godric, Isabel, Jessica, Tara, Willa, James, and Keith), the vampires treat humans like pets at best, and snacks at worst. They also view humans as inferior to them.
    • Apparently, the older vampires get, the more susceptible they are to sunlight: Bill, at 170, withstood the sunlight for several minutes, whereas Godric, at 2000, ignited in blue fire within a few seconds of exposure.
    • Vampires can be out in the sunlight for a brief period of time if they've consumed fairy blood. Eric and Russell (who were both 1000 and 3000 years old respectively) were able to briefly be in sunlight (although they did eventually turn crispy as the blood wore off). It's unknown how long fairy blood can stay in a vampire's system, or if it only dissapears from their system if a vampire comes into direct contact with sunlight. The only exeption to this is Warlow's blood (who is half-fairy/half-vampire) which gives the vampire who drinks from him permanent daywalking abilities (at least according to Word of God).
    • Vampires have some sort of psychic connection with people who drank their blood directly from the source — they sense their emotions and can find them anywhere and the person in question has Erotic Dreams of them.
    • Similarly, makers seem to have some connection with their progeny, which means they can find them, mentally call them — and feel when they die.
    • The bonds that makers have with their progenies differ from person to person.
      • Bill Compton's bond with Jessica Hamby is an exclusively father-daughter relationship.
      • Lorena Krasiki and Russell Edgington created progeny to prolong romantic and sexual relationships, and have spousal relationships with their progenies (Bill and Talbot).
    • Most vampires do not take becoming a maker lightly. Eric Northman produces only two progeny in a millennium (Pam and Willa). Nan Flanagan never reproduced, as she was far too ambitious with her career, and was not willing to take on the responsibility of being a maker (and then Jessica crying about her boy problems to her killed any remaining desires Nan may have had about that). Bill also had no plans to become a maker, but as an alternative sentencing for killing Longshadow, turned Jessica and became a committed surrogate dad to her. Pam is a notable exception; she created two progenies — both of whom she had no feelings for at the time — for rather shallow reasons. Her first stint as a maker, with Colin, was entirely out of curiosity; she abandoned her progeny within months. Her second progeny, Tara, was created in exchange for the chance to reconcile with her own maker Eric. Rosalyn Harris created 204 progeny in 211 years, so it is all but impossible for her to have had deep, personal relationships with all or even most of them.
      • A progeny may turn a vampire and become a maker him or herself while still bound to his/her maker. The grandparent/grand-maker has no mystical bond with the grandchild/grand-progeny.
    • The older a vampire, the less blood they require.
    • Some vampires can fly.
    • Vampires can do nifty mindtricks on humans, such as hypnotizing them, taking away their memories and even putting music in their heads. It seems to be a very intrusive procedure, though, and is harmful when done too often.
    • Vampires have extremely gory deaths when they are staked, vomiting blood and then dissolving into a giant puddle of blood.
  • Our Were Beasts Are Different: The werepanthers of Hotshot apparently don't know that they are different from standard Hollywood weres, since they try to infect Jason by biting him. It doesn't work.
    • Werepanthers (like werewolves) can also transform at will, even during the day.
    • Werepanthers can be staked, as shown when Jason jumps from a tree and kills Felton with a makeshift spear.
    • Like werewolves, werepanthers are highly suseptible to vampire blood.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different:
    • They can transform at will, even during the day.
    • Their body temperature is above the average of humans.
    • They are vulnerable to injuries and bullets.
    • A packmaster can influence the transformation of nearby fellow werewolves.
    • It's genetic, not a disease. According to Alcide, a were can't pass on the curse to another by biting.
  • Parental Abandonment:
    • Sookie and Jason were raised by their grandmother after their parents were killed in a flood.
    • After the first time Sam transformed (accidentally) into a dog, his parents packed up and left him.
    • Tara (to an extent) as her mother was a raging alcoholic.
  • Parental Substitute: Bill is Jessica's maker, and she considers him to be a better dad than her human parents ever were. She outright even calls him her father at several points.
  • Panthera Awesome: Werepanthers, The Norris family.
  • Pass the Popcorn: Some studies in Camp Burrell, like pitting two vampires against each other or the copulation studies serve a very loose scientific purpose.
  • Path of Inspiration: The Fellowship of the Sun.
    • The Authority under Salomé
  • Pet the Dog: Eric crying over Godric killing himself. He also has some very tender moments with Pam throughout the series.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: Most of Bon Temps under Maryann's influence.
    • Also played straight (more or less) when Sookie walks in on Eric in season three, although she seems to have a hard time trying to be entirely horrified.
  • Plucky Girl: Sookie gradually develops into this over the course of the seasons, arguably taking the bravery part of the trope a bit too far.
    • Somewhat deconstructed around the middle of season 5: after the inconceivable trauma and heartache that's basically been the entire show thus far, she reveals the fact that she's now once again stuck in the middle of some supernatural psychosis and is along for the ride whether she wants to be or not. "MUST BE THURSDAY!" The fact that this happened when she and Alcide were about to get frisky after a night of VERY heavy drinking before she puked on his boots on top of the fact that they were going after Russell Edgington, possibly the most threatening vampire in the WORLD that they all thought was dead except for the fact that Bill and Eric wanted him to suffer more really didn't help her normal go-get-'em attitude.
  • Police Are Useless: The show goes back and forth on this, but mostly Andy and other cops are just completely outclassed when dealing with supernatural entities, and sometimes, in Jason's case, a bit clueless.
  • Poor Communication Kills:
    • Not kills per se, but imagine if Sookie, Sam, and Tara sat down and compared notes on how their days went, and were up front about the supernatural stuff they ran into.
    • Andy acting as a witness to Maryann's orgy. "A bull! In a dress! With claws!"
    • Pretty much everyone who speaks out against the threat posed by vampires comes across as at best inarticulate, at worst racist bigots. The simple fact that prior to the invention of True Blood most vampires killed a lot of people as part of their regular feedings habits is commonly overlooked in favor of their (alleged) current diet of True Blood. Likewise, it is fairly common knowledge that vampires have Hypnotic Eyes, but suggesting that they might use them regularly (which they do) is implied to be seen as being paranoid.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: In-Universe, the transformed Bill is referred to as "Billith" by several people.
  • Power Perversion Potential: Jason speculates on the Power Perversion Potential of Sam's powers.
  • Product Placement: Oh, what a cruel hand fate has dealt me, for I can no longer see the light of day, or eat normal food. Thank goodness I have my Nintendo Wii to pass the time. Well, I used to.
    • Fresca!
    • Mountain Dew...
    • Yahtzee
    • Diet Pepsi Lime. Really, the product placement in this show seems to be becoming a Running Gag.
    • Abita Beer, a Louisiana microbrew, is mentioned at Merlottes, including a neon sign prominently behind the bar.
    • "Powers can't be traded like fucking Pokemon cards!"
  • Property of Love: The series at least until the third season has this as one of it's basic premises. Sookie have given herself to Bill out of love, without being hypnotized like so many other fangbangers. Also, being his makes her off-limits to other vampires.
    • When Bill is about to be tried for Longshadow's staking and sentenced to siring Jessica, the vampire preceding him is having his fangs torn out as punishment for feeding on a human belonging to another vampire.
    • In Season 5 Steve Newlin tries to buy Jason from Jessica.
  • Plot Armor: Sookie. She should be dead about fifteen times over by now.
    • Lampshaded by Lafayette in season 5, as well as why it's not always a good thing: "Oh, you'll survive, it's what you do. But you sure leave a trail of bodies behind. You're the fuckin' angel of death."
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: A core feature of the show. The main characters are effectively the "heroes" by default, most especially in the eyes of Sookie herself, who is literally willing to overlook or forgive murder so long as the perpetrator is somebody she likes. The vampires are often cast as being an oppressed minority fighting for equal rights, even though it is shown that they consider humans to be little more than food and slaves. Sookie tends to only get upset about this when it negatively impacts her personally or somebody she cares about.
  • Precision F-Strike: Sookie, as mentioned above. Also Maryann's outburst of "YOU FUCKING MORONS!"
    • The Magister at Bill's sentencing: "Back your shit down!"
  • Preserve Your Gays: The show kept Lafayette alive when the book actually killed him, his body would have been found at the beginning of season two if the show stayed accurate to the book. He ends the series alive, which is more than most.
  • Psycho Sidekick: Roy, one of the witches in Marnie's/Antonia's coven, who tries to goad Tara into shooting Sookie and gets excited when he sees Bill's commandos gruesomely killed by three vampires.
  • Punch-Clock Villain:
    • Eric, most notably in the third season.
    • At the end of season three, Bill is revealed to have been playing this trope pretty straight.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
    Godric: "Retract...your...fangs. Now."
    • Or Russell during his speech.
      Russell: "Why...would we...seek...equal...rights? You...are not...our equals!"
    • Who can forget Queen Sophie Anne and Eric when she needs him to move V-juice:
      Sophie Anne: (after screaming in rage, has Eric pinned to the wall) "With all due respect"? I am due A LOT more respect than that, Mr. Northman. And I'm sorry to compromise your manhood like this, but hell hath no fury like a vampire queen broke. Move. The. Blood.
  • Punny Name:
  • Put on a Bus: Hoyt is put on a bus to Alaska after he asks Jessica to glamour him into forgetting her and Jason. He comes back to Bon Temps in season 7 after his mother's death.
  • Questionable Consent: Sex with vampires in general is this for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's established that vampires have the ability to glamour (i.e. Mind Rape), and they frequently employ this as a means of having control over humans. For another, there's the question of whether or not the humans have taken any vampire blood, which has been described as a cross between a powerful aphrodisiac and a drug that can mess with a person's mental and emotional state. One of the most controversial moments in the entire series is when it's revealed in season 3 that Bill Compton intentionally let Sookie get beaten to death so he could drug her with his blood and use that to manipulate her. This was serious enough that it turned a lot of fans against his character and his relationship with Sookie. It's also stated that when vampires feed on humans, sex usually goes with it, and sometimes the vampires don't care about the human's consent since they view humans as inferior. There's also the revelation that vampire monarchs like Sophie Anne have humans procured for them, which by definition is when a person is obtained to be used as a prostitute for a client. Given that Bill has been procuring humans for Sophie Anne for 35 years (way before the human population found out about vampires) and that Sophie Anne was in a position as both a vampire and a queen to demand sex from the humans regardless of whether or not they were okay with it...it makes that entire situation icky for a number of reasons. There's also vampires having certain advantages over humans (super-strength, super-speed, sharp fangs, etc) that allow them to exert force over a human in a relationship, which is what Violet does to Jason in seasons 6-7.
  • Racist Grandma:
    • Hoyt's awful mother Maxine, who hates Methodists, Catholics, black people, and (more justifiably) vampires.
    • Terry and Andy's bitchy grandmother. She complains about Sookie's presence at Terry's funeral, calling her a weirdo, complains about all the 'Negroes' there, and openly asks if Lafayette is a boy or a girl.
  • Rape as Backstory:
    • Season 1 reveals that Uncle Bartlett molested Sookie when she was a kid. When Gran found out about his, she drove him out of the house and cut all contact with him.
    • Season 2 reveals Sam was raped by Maryann when he was 17
    • In Season 4, we see Luis and Don Santiago raped Antonia during the Inquisition, which contributed to her hatred of vampires.
    • In Season 5, we find out that Jason had a sexual relationship with a teacher (Mrs. Steeler) when he was 13 years old, which makes it a case of Statutory Rape.
    • In season 5, we learn that Pam was a prostitue in San Francisco where, given her profession and the way women were treated back then by men, it's most likely that rape and/or sexual assault happened at her brothel.
    • Also in season 5, Salome reveals that, as a teenager, she was wrapped in scarfs by her mother and given to Herod Antipas to have his way with her. She got villified by history for it, even though she was undoubtebly a victim of rape.
  • Rape as Drama:
    • Sam being raped by Maraynn when he was 17 and unable to fight back against her.
    • Franklin and Tara — in this case, Franklin is insane and has convinced himself completely the sex is consensual when Tara is only not fighting back because he's an insane vampire who can kill her without thinking about it.
    • In "Hotshot" with Crystal, Jason, and the other females wherein one bursts into tears when Jason fights her and tells her to get off him. She cries because it was the first time she'd ever had sex she enjoyed.
    • Jason gets this again in season 5 when it's revealed that one of his teachers, Mrs. Steeler, committed statutory rape by having sex with Jason when he was 13. Jason at the time didn't see it like that, but when he later reconnects with her, it hits him hard.
  • Really Gets Around:
    • Jason has had sex with almost every willing female to cross his path, except his relatives and Tara.
    • Human Eric seems to have been some sort of proto-Jason. The vampire version isn't chaste, either.
  • Really 700 Years Old: All the vampires except for Jessica and Tara.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Russell gives one to humanity in "Everything is Broken". Probably the best piece of writing the show's ever had, and worth quoting in full:
    Russell: Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Russell Edgington and I have been a vampire for nearly three thousand years. Now, the American Vampire League wishes to perpetuate the idea that we are just like you. I suppose in a few small ways we are. We're narcissists. We care only about getting what we want, no matter what the cost, just like you. Global warming, perpetual war, toxic waste, child labor, torture, genocide, that's a small price to pay for your SUVs and your flat screen TVs, your blood diamonds, your designer jeans, your absurd garish McMansions! Futile symbols of permanence to quell your quivering, spineless souls. But, no, in the end we are nothing like you. We are immortal. Because we drink the true blood. Blood that is living, organic, and human. And that is the truth the AVL wishes to conceal from you, because, let's face it, eating people is a tough sell these days. So they put on their friendly faces to pass their beloved VRA, but make no mistake. Mine is the true face of vampires! Why would we seek equal rights? You are not our equals. 'We will eat you. After we eat your children! [turns to the side camera]'' And now time for the weather. Tiffany?
  • Redemption Equals Death: The reasoning behind Godric's suicide-by-sunrise.
    • Also kind-of the case with Tommy Merlotte. His "skin-walking" shifting is pretty literally tearing up his insides every time he does it, but after realizing how much he's completely screwed up his life, and everyone else's lives that he's touched lately, he decides to do it one more time to encounter a surefire beat-down if not deliberate murder in his brother's place. Turns out they didn't actually want to kill him, just "kick the shit out of him", but Tommy was so messed up from the shifting that it was fatal anyway, and he asked to be taken back "home" to Merlotte's instead of a hospital, since he didn't want to keep living anyway.
  • Redshirt Army: It seems that werewolves are even less apt at taking on vampires than regular humans. Why they continue to pick that fight is something of a puzzle.
  • Regional Riff: The music is designed to invoke the American South.
  • Religion of Evil: Maryann's Dionysus worship. The Fellowship of the Sun might also qualify. Also, the Sanguinista Movement.
  • Retcon: Several of these pop up in the later seasons.
    • In season 2, when Lorena tells Eric that she hasn't seen Bill in over 70 years, Eric claims he hasn't seen Godric for much longer than that and is still fiercely loyal to him. However, in a season 3 flashback, it's revealed that Godric and Eric were together in 1945 in Germany tracking down werewolves loyal to Russell Edgington. This would mean it's been 64 years since Eric last saw Godric, which contradicts Eric's claim to Lorena.
    • Nora's age. In season 5, Eric claims he's been in love with Nora for nearly 600 years. However, when we finally see Nora's backstory about how she got turned into a vampire, it's revealed it happened in 1665, which makes her 345 years old as a vampire. While it might be a case of Writers Cannot Do Math, it's more likely they changed her age so they could set her backstory during The Great Plague of London.
    • Bill's Civil War flashbacks in season 7. In previous seasons, it's never once hinted at or mentioned that Bill was oppossed to joining the Confederacy or of the treatment of black slaves during that period of time. In fact, Bill claims he "knew little of the political or ideological conflicts" back then, and proudly talks about his time in the Confederate army, going as far as to call it "a destiny handed down to us above." Furthermore, in Episode 2 he's asked point-blank by Tara if he was a slave-owner when he's reminiscing about his time as a human, and all he says is that he personally didn't, though his father did, and then begins listing off the slaves owned, much to Tara's disgust. Tara even points out to Sam later that the very least Bill could have done was apologize to her and didn't, giving the impression he didn't see anything wrong with being a slaveowner. This gets retconned in season 7 where he is suddenly shown being opposed to getting in a war with the North (to the point he gets kicked out of a bar of pro-slavers and pro-Confederates) and him leading a poorly organized Underground Railroad for black slaves in broad daylight that predictably ends in failure.
    • The Yakutza in season 7. Unlike the Authority, which had several seasons of build-up and foreshadowing prior to their appearance in season 5, the Yakutza is this powerful organization that comes right out of nowhere and was never once hinted at in previous seasons. Oh, and apparently Eric's wanted revenge on them since the 1980s for killing his human lover at the time, even though this was never previously established as a motivating factor for his character.
    • The revelation that Sarah Newlin had a cure made for Hep-V and drank it during Eric's rampage of the Vamp Camps. There was never any hint prior to this revelation that there was a cure out there for the disease, or that the doctors at the camp had developed an antidote. It's a retcon specifically designed to wrap up the Hep-V story ASAP.
  • Reusable Lighter Toss: Used in a 5th season episode to light some corpses on fire.
  • Right Through His Pants: Averted throughout the series, to the joy of the female and often male viewers.
    • Hilariously played straight in season 7 when Eric finally agrees to have sex with Ginger and she appears to orgasm before Eric can even unzip his jeans.
    • With the exception of a scene between Bill and Lorena...
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Antonia wants to kill every single vampire in the world. Even amnesiac Eric.
    • Aka, the guy who set everything in motion when he attacked Marnie.
  • Rummage Sale Reject: The fae, who all seem to dress like they're going to a London revival of Hair.
  • Running Gag: Every time Ginger is there, she is guaranteed to scream.
    • Somebody asks Sookie "What are you?", and she replies "I'm a waitress".
    • Sookie needing to clean her house of blood or supernatural messes of some kind.

    S-Z 
  • Sanity Slippage: Sarah "Noomi" Newlin in Season Seven. Alone and on the run, knowing the True Blood corp and the vampires would want to get ahold of her, and only having one trump card left to play ...but can she play it before a vampire kills her? The visions she has of her ex-lovers pull her in different directions.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Tara is the most visible example, but basically all the black women who show up are like this, like Kenya and a sober Lettie Mae.
  • Schmuck Bait: Lafayette warns Jason that if he's using vampire blood for sexual purposes to have one drop, two at the maximum, or things will get "intense, and not in a good way". Jason, downs an entire vial (albeit panicking because he had it on his person while in police custody) and pays the price for it.
  • Screaming Woman: Ginger seems to scream for just about any reason at all. It is a running gag that virtually any scene involving Ginger will end with her screaming her lungs out, not to mention Eric being able to identify and find her by the sound of her scream alone.
    Eric: I know that scream.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: This is widespread among vampires on True Blood. Although their public relations campaign claims that they just want to be a part of normal human society, including having equal civil rights, they have no problem with breaking the law if they think they can get away with it. In particular they are not above using mind control on humans and/or feeding from people without their consent. E.g., in one episode, Bill even subverts the rule that vampires aren't allowed to enter a human's home without an invitation by glamoring one of them and having that person invite him. It's seen that many vampires murder humans for blood with impunity, and thus all the anti-vampire human fanatics (who don't distinguish them from the nicer vampires) aren't entirely wrong about them. It's really difficult to reign in someone with their powers and the vampires' own government doesn't care about that, only violence against other vampires.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: See And I Must Scream. Invoked when Eric mentions how Russell should be effectively contained for at least 100 years in concrete and silver, which Russell laughs off as "a nap" for him, swearing that he will get out. It takes him just over a year, but he does get out.
  • Self-Deprecation: During the final episode of season four, Arlene in a zombie costume mentions that "zombies are the new vampires". Zombie works had supplanted vampire ones in popularity at that time, most notably The Walking Dead.
  • Sequel Hook: Subtly done with Jesus and Holly revealing their magical abilities towards the end of season 3, implying that witches would be a significant factor in season 4.
  • Serial Killer: Rene had some issues.
  • Sex Equals Love: Hilariously subverted when Sarah Newlin is ready to leave her husband after two sexual encounters with Jason...and then thinks he's a spy sent to prey on her, and she can no longer justify what was really just lust.
  • Sex Starts, Story Stops: The numerous, mostly out-of-nowhere sex scenes are a trademark of the show .
  • Shaking Her Hair Loose:
    • Bill asks Sookie to take the clip out of her hair and shake it free before their first kiss.
    • Jessica in 4x02 when she arrives at Fangtasia.
  • Shaky P.O.V. Cam: Shows up in the first season finale when Lafayette is kidnapped.
  • Shape Shifter Identity Crisis: Tommy seems to be starting one, growing out of his self-loathing from having killed Joe Lee and his mother, and then from turning into Sam, and abusing Sam's position as owner of Merlotte's, then sleeping with Sam's girlfriend and kicking her out.
  • Sherlock Scan: In a flashback (s1,ep02), Sookie was examined by a psychiatrist, who rationalized that Sookie's "mind-reading" was actually an uncanny talent for reading body language. Sookie's mother didn't buy it.
  • Ship Sinking:
    • Tara and Jason after episode six. The ship resurfaces in season 3, with Jason saving Tara's life by killing Franklin, and Tara even thanking him for it and kissing him, but it gets torpedoed when Jason confesses to Tara that he killed Eggs.
    • While Sam was briefly attracted to Sookie, the show starts to move away from this after season 1. The Sam/Sookie ship finally sinks in season 6 when Sam get Nicole pregnant and rejects Sookie's offer to start a relationship with him.
    • Sookie/Alcide, due to Alcide being killed off in season 7
    • Sadly, this ended up being the fate of Eric and Sookie. After season 4, they never get back into a relationship with each other.
  • Ship Tease: After breaking things off with Bill, It looks as though the SS Sookie/Alcide was getting ready to set sail. But after fighting off some werewolves led by Debbie, Sookie and Bill have make-up sex on the spot.
    • Of course, now that Sookie knows the truth about why she first met Bill, and has broken up with him, seemingly permanently this time.
      • And as of S403, it appears Alcide is back with his ex...and then in S404, he strips naked to shapeshift RIGHT IN FRONT OF SOOKIE, who gets an eyeful.
    • Eric, Eric, Eric...oh, and Eric. So much more satisfying in the books.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Buffy — "I would love to just rip you open and wear your ribcage as a hat."
      • Also, when Jason, while "confronting" a vampire in a training scenario breaks a nearby flagpole in half in order to get a wooden stake, another trainee angrily asks him if he thinks he's "some kinda Muslim Buffy with a dick". Doubles as a Funny Moment.
    • The vampire hotel in Dallas is called "Carmilla" after the eponymous character in Sheridan Le Fanu's classic novella.
    • WWE a couple of times. When Jason's strength is temporarily enhanced by V, Arlene remarks that she watches Friday Night SmackDown with Rene and that nobody on that show, strong as they are, had ever done anything like what Jason just did. In the second season, Hoyt's seen watching Monday Night Raw.
    • In season 2 when Jason returns to Bon Temps and witnesses Maryann's turning the townsfolk into black-eyed zombies, he refers to it as "The oral history of the zombie war!"
    • There's a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula in Eric's office hilariously enough.
      • Probably doubles as a shout out to Charlaine Harris's own short story "Dracula Night" wherein Book!Eric is revealed to be a massive Dracula fanboi to the point of ridiculous self-delusion.
    • In season two, Sam interrupts Andy who is in the midst of watching Dirty Jobs when he needs a place to hide from Maryann.
    • Jessica walks in on Hoyt watching Oddities, conveniently featuring an ancient viking skull.
    • Apparently, the Vampire Bible includes a "Book of Vicissitudes".
    • In 'Sunset', there's a place suspiciously similar to the Black Lodge.
    • Tommy is restoring a 1958 Plymouth Fury, the same model as Christine.
    • Sookie is a fan of both Sabrina and Charmed, the latter of which the show rather resembled in the fourth season.
  • Silver Bullet: Silver bullets are useful for stopping vampires, but do not actually kill them. Wood bullets can, though, and some of them are made with silver cores. In the sixth season, UV-emitting silver bullets are used to inflict extreme pain on vampires to make them easier to capture.
  • Silver Has Mystic Powers: Silver hurts vampires and drains them of their energy while leaving bloody burns on their bodies. It also prevents vampires from healing as long as the silver is on their skin. Season 5 takes this up to eleven when The Authority uses a torture device to inject pure silver into a vampire's blood, which renders them weak and unable to move.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Two straightforward examples: Jessica with Hoyt and Arlene with Terry. Ironically, due to Fantastic Racism, the 2 women can't stand each other.
  • Sinister Minister: Reverend Newlin. He's a creepy little weirdo.
    • He reappears at the tail end of the season 4 finale. Now he's a creepy little vampire weirdo.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: Literally. After eating Maryann's souffle, Tara and Eggs begin to physically assault each other before having sex on the living room floor.
  • Sleazy Politician: Lafayette's client is not above doing V and having sex with men, but he opposes gay and vampire rights as a senator. Also Nan Flanagan: she lies when she says she survives solely on TruBlood.
    • That and what the public sees is revealed to be totally fake when she questions Eric on behalf of the AVL. Actually, she's a huge bitch.
  • Slouch of Villainy: Eric Northman is introduced with one of these shots, and he reprises the pose every time his ass touches a piece of furniture.
  • Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: Used hilariously by Sam when he addresses the 'God Who Comes'.
  • Snake Oil Salesman: "Miss Jeanette", who took Tara for approximately $1500 on exorcisms for her mother and herself. She even gave Tara "snake juice" to drink. Tara then found out she was a fake, and she more or less confessed to it. Nonetheless, Maryann's claim that she was called to Bon Temps due to Tara trying to exorcise her demon points to Miss Jeanette doing * something* right. Unfortunately, she got killed for it.
  • Social Darwinist: Russell Edgington's Motive Rant to the Magister in episode 3x07 has revealed him to be one.
  • Soft Glass: Averted; Tara's mother hits Tara over the head with a bottle and it doesn't break.
  • Something Else Also Rises: A vampire's fangs will come out when they get worked up.
    • When Sam and Daphne describe how shifting feels, you get the feeling they're really just talking about having an orgasm.
  • Southern Gothic: Much like its original source material, the show is set in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps and focuses on the town's inhabitants encountering vampires and other supernatural creatures.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Lafayette.
  • Spirit Advisor: In the third season finale, Godric is either that, or Eric hallucinates him.
    • Repeated appearances by both Godric and Lilith as spirits suggest that they are in fact real.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Lorena just can't accept that Bill has moved on.
    • Franklin is one of the most fully-realized examples of true stalker mentality in media. He's genuinely shocked and hurt that Tara thinks he tied her to a bed for any reason besides her own safety and is utterly convinced that she's in love with him no matter what her demeanor is.
  • Stealth Insult:
    Jason: You know I was sitting in that jail and thinking of all the stupid stuff I've done.
    Sookie: That must've kept you busy.
  • The Stoner: Holly enjoys smoking the occasional joint. She describes it as "Nature's valium".
    • Hinted at with Terry.
      Arlene: (smells burning sage) Smells like pot.
      Terry: Not really.
  • Strawman Political: The Fellowship of the Sun.
  • Stronger with Age: Subverted in that while many of their powers do increase with age, especially their strength and speed, their vulnerability to silver or being killed by wood through the heart does not diminish. Also, they become even more vulnerable to sunlight, which burns young vampires slowly, with older ones burning faster the greater their age.
  • Stupid Sacrifice: Roy says that if any vampire wants to get to Marnie, they'll have to go through him. One of the vampires he's addressing happens to be a very pissed off Eric Northman, who hates that Marnie stole his memories. Take a guess at whether Eric is reluctant to lethally go through Roy. Now take a guess as to how much his stand ends up helping Marnie. The answers are, respectively, "He really, really isn't," and "Not even a little bit."
  • Suicide Attack: After Godric is able to successfully talk down both the Houston vampires and the Fellowship Of the Sun out of massacring each other, Steve Newlin sends Luke into his lair as a suicide bomber, killing two humans and two vampires as well as himself
  • Suicide by Cop: One could argue that Bud Dearborne did this, after being ordered to drop his weapon, and refusing.
  • Suicide by Sunlight:
    • Godric faces the sun on a rooftop. This suicide by sunlight comes complete with weeping friends, inner peace and dissolving into the light.
    • In the fourth season, Marnie tries to make every vampire in Bon Temps do this. She succeeds with a few nameless extras, but most silver themselves down and render themselves immobile to avoid this fate.
    • Shortly after being made a vampire, Tara tries to commit suicide by tanning bed. As her maker, Pam is not pleased.
  • Supernatural Elite: The vampires operate on a feudal system. A Vampire King/Queen claims a territory and appoints sheriffs to administer it for him/her. Usually the most powerful and/or oldest vampire becomes the monarch, however, as Bill shows off, the position can be reached if a vampire is politically connected with the Authority who seem to be a governing council above the monarchies.
  • Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Fairy blood, for vampires.
  • Supernatural Sealing: Through being eaten, the Lumiere Fruit seals Fairies in a land where there is no perception of time lost.
  • Surprise Incest: Bill finds out too late that the Bellefleurs—including his would-be girlfriend Portia—are his descendants. She actually gives him a laundry list of reasons why their relationship is technically harmless—the two being consenting adults, several generations removed, and unable to produce children—but Bill still can't get over the fact that he is having sex with his granddaughter, and glamours her into breaking up with him.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • The way vampires are portrayed on the show: While they are immortal and have certain advantages (super-speed, glamouring, etc), that does not mean they are invulnerable or unable to make mistakes. Just like humans and other living beings, vampires have their weaknesses and can either be fended off or killed with the right tools and weapons. Most of the vampire deaths that occur on the show happen because the vampires in question were either arrogant enough to underestimate their opponents, or were caught off-guard at the wrong moment.
    • When vampires come out of hiding, they're unprepared for one key reaction: The IRS going after them for decades of unreported income and unpaid taxes. This is the main reason Sophie-Anne embarks on her selling of V, as she's currently in dept to the IRS and is also trying to keep up her lavish lifestyle.
    • Because of a lack of trust and Fantastic Racism on both sides, relationships between vampires and humans are very fragile and the slightest provocation from either side can cause problems. On the one hand, it's not like humans don't have valid reasons to dislike vampires, especially since many of them have spent centuries viewing humans as either food, pets, or disposable commodities, and some have a very ugly history of kidnapping, raping, draining, and disposing of humans. On the other hand, there are vampires who want to mainstream and genuinely integrate into human society, and the only way they can do this is by trying to convice the human public that they deserve the same rights as humans do, which is why organizations like the American Vampire League (AVL) are created and the Vampire Rights Amendment (VRA) is pushed fiercely. There are tensions from both species, and it causes most of the issues on the show: When Russell Edgington rips a man's spine out on Live TV during season 3, it causes the VRA to fail in Congress, and the vampire governments are forced to issue a crackdown on vampires who are caught on camera feeding or hurting humans. Likewise, in season 5, when the human-hating Sanguinistas take over the Authority and bomb the True Blood factories while also ordering vampires to turn as many humans as possible, it completely destroys vampire/human relationships, and causes the humans to declare war on the vampires.
  • Take a Third Option: Bill and Eric have repeatedly clashed over "ownership" of Sookie, who seems to be having trouble making up her mind. In a Season 4 dream sequence, Sookie suggests an interesting solution.
    Sookie: I'm proposing that the two of you be mine.
  • Take That!: In Season 4, Bill delivers a delicious one when he discusses how vampires have infiltrated and controlled powerful institutions throughout history, such as the Catholic Church in the 1600's, and in the modern day, Google and Fox News.
    • After Hoyt breaks up with Jessica, he throws a copy of Twilight (2005) into a box of her possessions labeled "For you, monster."
  • Tears of Blood: Vampires cry blood because they have no other body fluids.
    • So when a male vampire has an orgasm...
  • Terminal Transformation: For shapeshifters in this universe, prolonged Skinwalking (impersonating a human) can be fatal. This is what happens when Luna Skinwalks as Steve Newlin during a newscast; it ends up killing her.
  • Thank Your Prey: Blitzed on vampire blood and in the midst of sex with Jason, Amy turns and slurs that they ought to thank their supplier/kidnapping victim Eddie "for the gift he's given us." Eddie replies with a "Fuck you."
  • Theme Song: Jace Everett's "Bad Things". Which is awesome.
  • There Are No Adults: With cops and outside law enforcement agencies.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Debbie vs Sookie in season 3. "GET OUTTA MAH' HOUSE BITCH!"
    • Lafayette uses this occasionally, notably to Tara and Jesus. "Just you, bitch. Just you."
  • Time Abyss: While most characters believe that Russell Edgington is the oldest vampire in the world at just short of 3000 years in age, Warlow, a fairy who was turned into a vampire, has been alive for 5500 years. Although killed by the aforementioned character when he had just been turned, Lilith, the original vampire, is older than humanity and makes a handful of appearances in season six.
  • Time Skip: A small one at the end of the first season, with two weeks passing between Rene's death and the discovery of Miss Jeannette's body. There's a second one between the end of season three and the start of season four, with Sookie thinking she's only been in the fairy realm for a few minutes, when it's actually been over a year.
    • Another one of six months occurs about two thirds of the way through the season 6 finale.
    • And we get two at the end of the season 7 finale, first to one year and then 3 years.
  • Title Drop: "Tru Blood" is the blood substitute that vampires drink so they don't have to kill people. Russell Edgington delivers a Title Drop in exactly the opposite spirit (see "The Reason You Suck" Speech above).
  • Token Wholesome:
    • Lafayette Reynolds is not exactly wholesome, but he's the only character to not appear in a sex scene and is generally aloof to all the debauchery. But it's hard to tell if it's this trope or But Not Too Gay disguised as this trope.
    • Played with for Jessica Hamby, who doesn't have any full frontal nude scenes on the show due to Deborah Ann Woll having a "no-nudity" clause in her contract, but does have plenty of Lingerie Scenes and dons a fantastic Red Riding Hood costume in season 5 too. She also still does have sex scenes, but with her nipples covered through various means, though less than most main characters.
  • Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Despite being a small Louisiana town, a lot of crazy shit happens in the backwoods town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Queen Sophie-Anne even lampshades this in Season 2 by saying how random it is that a maenad would be there (It Makes Sense in Context, though she wouldn't have a way of knowing that).
  • Too Dumb to Live: Jason Stackhouse. Detective Andy. Tara (as of Season 2 and on).
    • Sookie also runs in fourth place to this trope because she constantly runs into danger without a plan, and worse, without a weapon. See Season 3, episode 2 where she runs blindly into the woods to find a werewolf who clearly intends to either kidnap or murder her and taunting him while she does so. Brilliant, Sookie.
    • Another notable example of Sookie's shining intelligence occurs in the third episode of season three. Perhaps it isn't a great idea to agree to go into a private back room alone with a werewolf that doesn't have the slightest concern about her welfare. Perhaps. However, her plan to get information out of the werewolf succeeded, despite how dangerous the conditions were. If Alcide hadn't been friends with the bouncer, not even plot armor would have been able to protect her against even one werewolf, let alone a whole gang of them.
    • This is a common trait of anyone mind-controlled by Maryann: Andy and Jason are able to convince a whole bunch of them that Jason is Dionysus with a bunch of flares, a gas mask, and a branch. In addition to being stupid, the mind-controlled people also have no sense of self-preservation, as Jason learns when he threatens to shoot a nailgun into Arlene's head. After a momentary pause, everyone except Terry starts laughing and urging Jason to do it because it looks like fun, including Arlene herself. Later on, Sookie walks in on Jane Boathouse chopping her finger off as her contribution to the idol sacrifice to Dionysus
    • Bill. Double-crosses Eric, binds him with silver, dumps him into a pit to be buried in cement... and then just walks away before it even covers Eric's head.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: It seems like most vampires eventually get a bit abrasive over time.
    • For example, as of the beginning of the fifth season Jessica has gone from being a really sweet person to somebody who tells a roomful of humans who were partying with her, "Hey, you IDIOTS! You're boring me, go back to your human lives before I eat you!" And right before this particular moment, when one of them is drinking from a keg she is holding high in the air with one arm, she notices a girl starting to throw up. She abruptly drops the heavy keg so that it almost lands on the drinker, runs over to the sick girl with vampire speed, snaps at her "Not in the house!" and shoves her out the front door.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Lorena, in "It Hurts Me Too". After Bill pins her against a wall and tells her that he'll never love her, she kisses him. He does not react well to this, first going for her throat with his fangs, then responding to her urging him to make love to her by doing so extremely violently to the point that he leaves several cuts on her chest and twists her head around 180 degrees. Lorena loves every second of it, and dreamily says "Oh William, I so love you."
  • Took a Level in Badass: Jason Stackhouse definitely has his moments in Season Two.
    • And in Season Three Jason gets even better.
    • Jessica in Season 3. And Sookie to a lesser extent.
  • To Serve Man: Human hearts. Mm, mm, finger-lickin' good.
    Eric: We're always happy to serve humans here at Fangtasia — and I don't mean for dinner.
  • Trauma Button: Layfayette gets a blatant one after getting out of the vampires' dungeon. Terry, Iraq vet, gets an implied one after finding his wife covered in blood. Don't worry, she's okay.
  • Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Eric gets a Mind Wipe from Lafayette's coven in Season Four.
  • Trust Me, I'm an X:
    Sam: I'm not the killer, I swear. I'm a shapeshifter.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Lafayette is gay and black. Eddie is gay and a vampire. Jesus is gay, Latino, and a brujo i.e. witch.
    • Steve Newlin takes the cake: an anti-vamp-crusading fundie turned gay vampire apologist.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: Sookie and Bill, Sam, Tara, and Jason all have separate stories that intersect with each other every so often.
    • And Jessica as well, after being added to the main cast in season 2.
  • Undead Child: One of the members of the Vampire Authority council ("Authority Always Wins") was a boy of maybe ten years when he was turned.
  • Undead Tax Exemption: Subverted. Vampires have been legally declared citizens, more or less, in a not-even-remotely-veiled analog to the real-life homosexual rights movement ("God hates fangs").
    • The show also demonstrates the flip-side of this trope; namely, vampires do not consider themselves as equal to humans, but rather superior. In addition, the human justice system is nowhere near equipped to deal with them, and vampires in the show kill with relative impunity. One even torpedoes the in-universe constitutional amendment to grant vampires equal rights to marry, own property, etc. by killing a reporter on live television because he doesn't want to be equal.
    • By Season 5, the governor of the state of Louisiana has essentially invalidated the citizenship and rights of all vampires within the state: vampires seen outside their homes at night are breaking a curfew set for them, and subject to being shot on sight by SWAT teams and arrested (really sent to a special lab where experiments are done on them). The show never mentions how massively unconstitutional such actions would be.
    • Near the finale, Bill is told he's not able to leave his estate to Jessica, because as a vampire Louisiana law considers him to have legally died after he was turned and thus it goes to his nearest living kin. It is mentioned that this law's being challenged in court, but it'll take years for them to rule either way on whether it's constitutional. So for him to make sure Jessica and Hoyt are looked after, Bill leaves his estate to Andy, who had been earlier established to be a descendant of Bill's.
  • The Unmasqued World: Only for vampires, although in the fifth season finale a shifter reverts to her natural form on live television.
  • Vampire Bites Suck: Played with in the form of Fangbangers, whose personal kink is getting bitten and drunk from. But for the most part, anybody being bitten against their will is not going to enjoy it at all, and the vampires are usually shown ripping away chunks of flesh in the process of drawing blood.
  • Vampires Own Night Clubs: Eric owns one, named "Fangtasia".
  • Viewers Are Morons: Nan Flanagan is a firm believer in this. She has scientific evidence, too!
  • Villainous Breakdown: Eric has one after finding out his attempt to kidnap Bill was preempted by someone else kidnapping Bill first.
  • "The Villain Sucks" Song: "Hard Hearted Hannah", in the episode of the same name.
  • Villains Out Shopping:
    • Eric highlights his hair in between enforcing his own sort of order in his domain.
    • Eric actually runs into Bill at a shopping mall in Shreveport (admittedly because he was seeking him out).
    • Then there's Maryann popping by Merlotte's for some lunch.
    • Queen Sophie-Ann seems to spend most of her time playing children's board games.
  • Villains Want Mercy: Debbie begs Sookie for this after trying to kill Sookie with a shotgun, only failing because Tara pushes her out of the way getting shot in the process. Sookie does not give it to her and returns the favor instead.
  • Virus-Victim Symptoms: Inverted with Hep-V. It's a dangerous man-made disease for vampires that causes them to become extremely sick before slowly killing them.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Eric and Pam are Type 2.
    • Jason and Andy also count. They do trade barbs, but they ultimately care for each other and try to support one another in their own way.
  • Voice Changeling: Bill does a perfect imitation of Eric's voice in "Evil is Going On" when ordering Pam's assassination.
  • The Voiceless: Big John from Merlotte's kitchen.
  • Voice of the Legion: When Maryann calls upon the powers of Bacchus, her voice gets this deep echo.
    • Not so sure if its Evil Sounds Deep... more like 'someone stepped on a bag of mice'
    • Lampshaded when Jason acts as the god-who-comes to save Sam from being sacrificed. He also gives some pretty awesome imitation evil laughter, and the rest of the effect is provided by Andy with a flashlight. Amazingly, it works.
  • Voluntary Vampire Victim: In "Scratches", Sookie decides to walk the 20 miles home through the woods but doesn't get very far when she is attacked by a half-bull, half-man beast leaving huge gashes on her back. Bill comes to her rescue and lets her drink some of his blood but she still goes into spasm because she's been poisoned by the beast.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Tara, after drinking the "snake juice". Also, the waitress at the vampire bar after Longshadow got staked. Bill after trying to do in Maryann.
    • Tommy after taking advantage of having shifted into a Fake!Sam to sleep with Sam's girlfriend.
    • In season 4, Jason, at the roadside just before collapsing after escaping from Hotshot.
  • Webcomic Time: Despite airing from September 2008 to August 2014, the entire show covers only about two years, from 2009 to 2011.
  • Wall Bang Her: Bill and Salome.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Deconstructed in Roman's case. On the one hand, Roman's goals for obtaining peace with humans turn out to be a necessity as humans outnumber vampires and are developing technology that put vampires at a disadvantage. He is also correct when he mentions that vampires can no longer indulge in their savage behavior like they used to because it's setting them back and preventing them from evolving as a species. That's also including Roman's knowledge that humans are not going to put up with being mistreated by the vampires and will strike back if provoked too far, which is exactly what happens at the end of season 5. On the whole, his reasons for doing what he does are pretty understandable. There are two main problems though: The first is that Roman's methods for accomplishing his agenda are draconian in nature, and involve killing or punishing vampires who refuses to get on board with mainstreaming. The second is that he's basically trying to force an entire species of vampires to change their bigoted attitudes towards humans overnight, especially when they've spent centuries viewing humans as food or disposable commodities. It doesn't help that there are vampire groups like the Sanguinistas who see it as their God-Given right to esnalve, farm, and rape humans for their pleasure. The result is that Roman has isolated many vampires who are unhappy with mainstreaming, and some are angry enough that they want him dead. It's implied that the reason Chancellors like Kibwe and Alexander turned out to be Sanguinistas is because they were growing disillusioned with mainstreaming and Roman's "my way or the highway" attitude. All of this results in a coup orchestrated by Salome (who also is a Sanguinista) where she uses Russell Edgington to assassinate Roman and take over the Authority in an attempt to return things to the way they were, and everything goes to hell after that.
  • Wham Episode: The end of "Everything is Broken".
    • The season 4 finale, "And When I Die:" A dead Marnie returns, possesses Lafayette's body, and proceeds to kill Jesus to take his magic and seeks revenge against Eric and Bill. She almost succeeds in killing them until Antonia and Gran appear as spirits on Halloween night, put an end to Marnie's plans, and convince her to move on to the afterlife. Jason reveals to Hoyt that he had sex with Jessica, which prompts Hoyt to beat him up and end their friendship. Later on, Jason and Jessica agree to be Friends With Benefits. After Jessica leaves to feed on someone, Jason is visited by Steve Newlin who has been turned into a vampire. Andy confesses he's a former V addict to Holly and asks for a chance to begin a relationship with her, to which Holly consensts. Arlene is warned by the ghost of Rene that demons from Terry's past are coming and that she needs to run. Alcide finds out that Russell Edgington has escaped from being burried in cement, and is on the loose. Sam is confronted by Marcus's pack after killing Marcus in the previous episode. Sookie proceeds to end her relationship with both Eric and Bill. Nan gets fired from the Authority, and is later killed by Eric and Bill after making thinnly veiled threats against Sookie. Before that, she warns them that the Authority has issued the true death on both of them, which force Eric and Bill to go on the run. Sookie is attacked by Debbie, who ends up shooting Tara in the back of the head when she dives to protect Sookie. Sookie manages to get the gun to kill Debbie. The episode ends with Sookie cradling Tara in her arms, screaming for help while Tara's fate is left uncertain.
    • The season 5 finale, "Save Yourself" has so many game changing moments: Eric manages to kill Russell and save the faeries. Jason starts having hallucinations of his parents who encourage him to hate vampires. Warlow is coming to claim Sookie (and apparently Nora knows who he is). Humans officially turn on vampires after the video of Russell and Steve massacring the fraternity house is released. Alcide beats JD and becomes the packmaster. Luna morphs into Steve and accidentally outs shifters on live TV (while also informing the world about the Authority keeping humans prisoners) and is gravely injured from the skinwalking. Maurella gives birth to Andy's kids and then leaves them in Andy's care. Eric, Nora, Jason, Tara, and Sookie all storm the Authority with the intent of freeing Pam and Jessica and stopping Bill, and they manage to kill multiple guards while the Authority collapses. Pam and Tara officially begin a romantic relationship. Jessica tells Jason she loves him, but Jason rejects her because he's still being affected by the hallucinations. Bill poisons Salome to get Lilith's blood. Eric and Sookie try to dissuade Bill from drinking the blood, but are unable to. Bill drinks it and dies, but gets resurrected as Billith, which forces Eric and Sookie to run.
  • What Does She See in Him?: The whole town is scandalized when Sookie takes up with Bill, and Sam in particular wonders, well you know. For that matter, a lot of viewers aren't sure what she sees in him either...
    • It turns out that they were right to wonder, Bill intentionally let Sookie get beaten to death by the Rattarays so he could feed her his blood and manipulate her feelings for him.
    • It's stated in show that she finds being with Bill peaceful because she can't hear his thoughts. It would probably put you off your stroke to hear what your partner was really thinking.
  • What You Are in the Dark: Jason's justification to Andy as to why they're heroes for saving the town from Maryann, even though neither they nor the rest of the town remembers what happened.
  • Where The Hell Is Bon Temps: While the show generally treats it as a distant suburb of Shreveport, the contradictory specifics of its location and travel times to other cities tend to confuse Louisiana natives.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Godric and surprisingly, Maryann. And in season 7, Bill.
  • Who's Watching the Store?: Merlotte's sure seems to always have employees running off. Becomes a minor plotpoint in season 3, when Arlene, Terry and maybe Jessica are the only reliable employees at Merlotte's, and Arlene ends up forcing Sam to hire some more waitresses, because she is massively overworked and pregnant.
    • In seasons 5 and 6, Sam Merlotte barely even sets foot in his namesake restaurant even though other characters are actively working there, making you wonder which character is handling purchasing and payroll. In the season 6 finale it is revealed that Sam was elected Mayor of Bon Temps, leaving Arlene the bar.
  • Who's Your Daddy?: Variant 1: Arlene finds out that she's pregnant with Renè's child, and despite feeling immensely guilty about it, tells Terry that it's actually his. She actually never told him it was his, just didn't correct him at first. And she later DOES tell him.
  • Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: There is a serious question about why Sookie would ever take back Bill by the last seasons after EVERYTHING he'd done by that point: We find out in season 3 that he arranged for the Rattarays to beat the shit out of Sookie so he could pretend to be a hero to her, drug her with his blood (which was both a tracking device and a powerful aphrodisiac), and manipulate her into falling in love with him. When Eric finds out about what Bill did, Bill tries to have Eric and Pam killed in order to keep his secrets, and later tries to gaslight Sookie into believing he has her best interests in mind, all the while never planning to reveal to her his mission from Queen Sophie Anne or what he allowed the Rattarays to do to her. This becomes more egregious in season 5 when Bill betrays her again by not only allowing Steve and Russell to go after Sookie to harvest her (despite being a Chancellor in the Authority and having the power to stop it, but choosing not to because he didn't consider it a priority at the time), but also tried to bully Jessica into turning Jason (Sookie's own brother) into a vampire against his will just to spite Jessica for trying to defy him (which only fails because of Jessica's quick thinking), and later tried to have Jason killed at the Authority when he sicced the Authority guards on them and tried to destroy the Authority Headquarters (with Eric, Nora, Tara, Jessica, Pam, Sookie, and Jason inside) after becoming Billith. All of this should be grounds for Sookie cutting Bill out of her life and never wanting anything to do with him again. However, the show completely glosses over this in favor of getting Sookie and Bill back together in the last season.
  • Wolverine Claws: By covering her hands in soil, Maryann can transform them into bestial claws that produce a deadly neurotoxin.
  • The Worf Effect: Throughout the third season, and in every werewolf vs. vampire fight the werewolf (or 'wolves) has lost. Even fledging vampire Jessica managed to best one!
  • World of Muscle Men: The series seems to be inhabited entirely by underwear models.
  • Worthless Foreign Degree: Why else would Yvetta go from being a cardiologist in Estonia to a dancer in an American vampire bar?
  • Would Hit a Girl: Happens more than once.
    • Sam punches Daphne in the face before escaping from Maryann's rave.
    • Then there's Bill whacking Lorena with a plasma-screen TV. Twice. And setting her on fire and twisting her head around during their "love-making".
    • Eggs slaps Tara. Granted, he was under the influence of Maryann and probably didn't have a lot of control over his actions, but still......
    • Lafayette slaps Tara to try and snap her out of Maryann's hypnosis. It doesn't work.
      • He also tries to shoot Maryann in the head with a shotgun. Needless to say, that didn't work either.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Word of God described Andy Bellefleur as someone who thinks he's in a Cop Show. Other characters have commented on this from time to time.
  • Yandere: Lorena. Even after Bill tells her multiple times that he hates her guts and can't stand the sight of her, she still has the nerve to ask him "When will we see each other again?"
    • Franklin Mott is an excellent male example of this.
      Tara: We need to talk.
      Franklin: Don't say that. Women say that, everything goes black, and I wake up surrounded by body parts.
    • Violet. Jason takes it in his stride at first but soon becomes weirded out by her possessiveness.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Vampire Queen Sophie-Anne LeClerq, who outright states that she loves to see two men together.
  • Year Outside, Hour Inside: Sookie enters the fairy realm in the season three finale. At the start of season four, she realises that time passes more slowly in the fairy realm and she returns home to find she's been gone without a trace for a year. Her grandfather is also there, believing a matter of hours has passed when it's been twenty years in reality.
  • You Are Number 6: Andy hasn't thought of names for his fairy daughters, so he simply calls them Number One through Number Four. It seems to work.
  • You Are What You Hate: Steve Newlin and Tara as of "Turn! Turn! Turn!". Subverted in Steve's case, as he doesn't seem to have any problems with being a vampire.
    • Warlow is a fairy who was turned into a vampire — the beings he despises.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: At least prior to mainstreaming, turned vampires who had families basically had to try and forget them as best they could. Bill and Jessica when both first turned had disastrous reunions with their families which required their makers to glamor the families to forget they happened.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In "Release Me", Maryann has a zombified Eggs kill Daphne, right after kissing her on the cheek and sweetly thanking her for her service.
    • Karl getting shot in the head:
      Maryann: Awww, poor Karl... you didn't really advance much in this lifetime.
  • You Have to Believe Me!: Andy throughout season two. Granted, the things he's talking about would be hard to make sense of at the best of times, but he never even seems to consider how unhinged he sounds. "A bull! In a dress! WITH CLAWS!"
    • Although sometimes he's claiming something that's relatively legit. Ergo, "PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!"
    • And near the conclusion of season four it's happening to him again, after his encounter with a fairy.
    • All of this is being ironic, since this is a world where the supernatural is known to be real, the people of Bon Temps in particular have personal experience with it and know that it is not limited to just vampires. So one either needs to exercise conscious denial of what goes on, or else confront all the strangeness. Those that do the latter may be more realistic in their perception of their world, but are often regarded as crazy by those in denial.
  • You Killed My Father:
    • Steve's Freudian Excuse for becoming a Sinister Minister.
    • This becomes Jason's main motivation for hunting down Warlow when he discovers that Warlow killed his parents.
    • In the Season Three episode "Trouble", Eric finds evidence that Russell and his werewolves killed his father. And his mother. And his infant sister.
  • Your Vampires Suck: The very first scene of the show. A very goth gas station attendant tricks some tourists into thinking he's a vampire. After they leave, a redneck vampire shopping for a four-pack of Tru Blood tells him that if the goth ever impersonates a vampire again, he'll kill him. "You have a nice day now!"
    • Probably also counts as a Moment of Awesome for the redneck vamp:
      "Fuck me? I'll fuck you, boy! I'll fuck ya, and then I'll EAT ya! [bares fangs]"
    • This is an establishing moment for the series: Your Vampires Suck because ours aren't all decked out in goth attire, have some sort of ethnic accent, or are Large Hams; many of them can be normal folks who live unnoticed among us. The fact that the first vampire we see in this vampire-heavy show looks like an overweight Larry the Cable Guy may be a big part of what put the show on the map.
  • Zombie Advocate: Quite a few people, including Sookie herself. Indeed, despite having seen first hand (or having been the victim of) some of the more horrific things that vampires do, Sookie still has a tendency to think of them as being just regular, if undead, folks with unusual quirks.


 
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Russell Edgington's Speech

In what might be his crowning moment of the series, Russell highjacks a live new broadcast, to deliver one of these towards humanity.

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