This page is for tropes that have appeared in The Terror (the series, not the novel).
For the rest:
- Accidental Murder: During the Carnivale fire in episode 6, Hickey cuts through the tent to free some trapped crewmen and ends up stabbing Dr. Macdonald through the fabric. This is notable for being perhaps the only death he didn't intentionally cause.
- Actor Allusion: In the first episode during dinner, Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies) tells a story about his heroism during the Opium Wars, remarking to Sir John (Ciarán Hinds) that he "felt like Caesar crossing the Rubicon". Hinds was Caesar crossing the Rubicon in Rome, where Menzies was Brutus.
- Later when the crew are putting on a masquerade as a morale-builder, Fitzjames is looking through the costume trunk. The outfit he settles on? A Roman costume that is extremely similar to Brutus's. Possibly combining this with foreshadowing — it's almost a copy of what Brutus is wearing when he dies.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Fitzjames, to an extent. He is much more of an open Glory Hound here than he is in the book, boastful of his abilities and disdainful of Crozier (particularly his alcoholism and joylessness), but he is also far more prone to delivering (narratively justified) What the Hell, Hero? speeches at Crozier.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Many of the characters have undergone notable changes, although they are still very much recognizable as the book characters. In some cases, such as Fitzjames and Goodsir in particular, this is because of more recent research on the Real Life Franklin expedition that was published after the original novel on which the miniseries was based.
- Sir John Franklin's most negative traits are downplayed, the extremes of which are divided among other characters: Lady Jane gets his ambition and haughty snobbery, Dr Stanley gets his virulent racism, and Lt. Irving gets his self-righteous religious fervor.
- Hickey is less outwardly psychopathic in the first few episodes, and there are clear attempts to present him as possibly an alright guy before his mental state begins to deteriorate. These moments — and Hickey's true motivations — are often ambiguously depicted and open to interpretation, at least at first. It is eventually revealed that Hickey is a very realistically-portrayed sociopath, and his Pet the Dog moments have been a facade. However, he is definitely more nuanced as a character than the novel's version.
- Fitzjames is less of a Flat Character, and his relationship with Crozier exhibits Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. He is also revealed to be desperately overachieving for having been born a possibly mixed-race (by Victorian standards, at least), all but abandoned illegitimate child, saddled with a mean-spirited pun of a name hinting at this.
- In the novel, Lady Silence was very much The Stoic, rarely showing any kind of emotion aside from an occasional smile. This was aided by the fact that she was mute from the get-go in the novel, having sacrificed her tongue to the Tuunbaq years before the expedition even arrived. In the series, she is angstier and is openly afraid of the Tuunbaq.
- The monster in the novel was a Super-Persistent Predator that was hunting the crew mostly For the Evulz. In the series, it's attacking the crew in reprisal for them accidentally killing its shaman and gives up the hunt after it gets wounded by cannon fire. At least, until Hickey murders a group of Inuit. Then it comes back with a vengeance.
- Irving is characterized as somewhat uptight and prudish, as opposed to his novel counterpart, who is an expert seducer.
- Adaptational Villainy: Multiple members of the crew side with Hickey in his mutiny that remained loyal in the book, including Tozer, Des Voeux, and Mr. Hoar, Fitzjames' steward.
- Adaptation Deviation:
- Unlike in the book, Crozier, Blanky and Dr Macdonald can speak a little of the Netsilik language, with Goodsir doing his best to learn (in accordance with later research turned up after the novel's publication that revealed the real life Goodsir was attempting to compile a dictionary), and 'Lady Silence' still has her tongue when she first appears, so they're better able to communicate.
- Between the publication of Dan Simmons' book and the premiere of this series, the wrecks of both the Erebus and the Terror were discovered; what archaeologists have learned from the remains has been incorporated into the series, altering the book's climax. (It was believed for many years that the ships never moved again once they were stuck in the ice. Discovery of the wrecks showed that they in fact moved down the coast of King William Island a fair distance. Thus, in the show Crozier leaves a skeleton crew behind to pilot the ships in case they ever see open water.)
- Fitzjames gets an entirely new backstory relative to the book, drawn from a biography of the real Fitzjames published a few years after the novel that was the first serious attempt to figure out who he was and what his life had been like before the expedition.
- The series excises the Babies Ever After ending, leaving the fate of the one survivor much more pesimistic.
- Hickey is revealed to actually be a criminal playing Dead Person Impersonation. This was apparently introduced by the series because the writers were troubled with gratuitously depicting the real Cornelius Hickey as a monster like the novel did.
- Adapted Out: Apart from the Tuunbaq, almost all the supernatural elements of the novel were removed. The lack of a spring thaw and strange storms are explained as natural events and even the Tuunbaq is treated more as a strange bear rather than the full-on Eldritch Abomination in the novel. Crozier doesn't have psychic abilities, while Lady Silence seems to have a psychic link with the Tuunbaq as she did in the novel, but it's much more downplayed. The biggest removal was the novel's implication that there was something even worse than the Tuunbaq lurking in the Arctic.
- The Alcoholic: Captain Francis Crozier. Apparently he'll use any excuse to open up his liquor cabinet, and keep it open as long as possible. In this, he is the polar opposite of Franklin. In "First Shot A Winner, Lads" he realises how unsustainable this is, and makes an effort to go cold turkey.
- All for Nothing: Hickey is actually an impostor that murdered the real Cornelius Hickey and took his place on the ship. As Crozier snarks, he "could have just joined up."
- All Trolls Are Different: The Tuunbaq is a gigantic, cannibalistic bear with curiously humanoid features, which may have provided the inspiration for the malevolent Jötnar of Scandinavian folklore.
- Anachronism Stew:
- Sir John Ross would not have been able to warn Franklin about being unprepared for his expedition, as he was appointed British consul to Sweden in 1839 and wouldn't return to Britain until 1846, one year after the expedition left.
- Mr. Goodsir opens a food can with a lever type can opener that wasn't invented until 1855.
- Fitzjames is said to have sailed "the coast of Namibia", which wasn't known by that name until 1990 (the very concept of Namibia as a defined location was created by the Germans when they established their Southwest Africa colony in 1884).
- Artistic Licence – History:
- The doomed expedition is real, as are most of the British characters. The story, however, is about what happened after they went missing, and while it incorporates information from archaeological remains and sightings, it is a largely fictional tale with supernatural elements.
- The claim that Crozier was given the name "Aglooka" in his earlier expeditions to the Arctic, and the Netsilik man identifying him from his daguerreotype are both fictional (though the latter is likely based on
a Inuit hunter who claimed to have met a commander of the Expedition while they were still on the ships, and produced two spoons with Crozier's initials as evidence). - Surprisingly, while the 19th century identification of "Aglooka" with Crozier is kept, the same does not happen with the identification of his companions "Doktook" and "Toolooah" with MacDonald and Tozer. Here, MacDonald dies in the carnival before deserting the ships, and Tozer gets Adaptational Villainy.
- Stanley has a daughter in the show. In reality he only had a stepson by a woman he married ten days before the expedition departed.
- In the series, Lt. Gore is killed by the Tuunbaq before Sir John and the latter writes an eulogy for him. However, the historical 1848 note refers to the former as "the late Commander Gore", implying that he took Fitzjames's position as Commander of Erebus after Fitzjames became Captain in the wake of Sir John's death, and only died later.
- The creators made a deliberate decision to "promote" MacDonald to head surgeon of Terror due to his knowledge of Inuit language, rather than depicting him as the assistant surgeon that he was.
- None of the actual Inuit testimonies of encounters with the Franklin expedition (and there are several, unlike in the show) claim violence against the Inuit.
- Neptune was also a gift from Lady Jane (like Jacko) and traveled with Franklin aboard Erebus, not Terror.
- Neptune is killed by Hickey and turned into meat as soon as the retreat party makes it to dry land. However Inuit testimonies make a strong case that the dog returned to Erebus and was with the very last survivors in Utjulik Bay and the Adelaide Peninsula many years later, in 1851.
- In the last episode, Ross mentions a number of Arctic explorers looking for the lost expedition from different sides, giving the impression that they were all acting in concert. In reality, they were doing it independently. Furthermore, the only evidence to the expedition's whereabouts found in 1850 was the wintering camp at Beechey Island. It wasn't until 1854 that John Rae made the first report, based on interviews with the Inuit, on what happened to the expedition after it deserted the ships.
- A Taste of the Lash: Crozier has Hickey, Manson, and Hartnell flogged for insubordination.
- Badass Long Coat: Crozier and Fitzjames wear fur lined overcoats with brass buttons.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Generally averted. By the end of the series, even the best-looking of the men (such as Jopson and Fitzjames) look pretty rough, primarily due to a combination of cold, scurvy, and lead poisoning. Of course, makeup and good acting can only do so much. In Real Life the sailors would have looked more like concentration camp victims when in the last extremities of starvation.
- Based on a True Story: While most of the plot of the series is pure dramatic speculation, the Franklin Expedition really did vanish without a trace — from the point of view of the Western world, anyway. In reality, while the exact order of events is still a mystery, a member of the expedition popularly believed to be Crozier was spotted by local Inuit multiple times as late as 1858. A group of around 12 white men were reported living around Back Fish River in the mid-'50s, and a linguist visiting the area in 1937 met a group of mixed-race Inuit who stated they were the descendants of three white men who had come from two ships trapped in the ice nearly a hundred years prior. One of those three men was, from his description, very likely James Fitzjames — who had apparently led a long life with a large, happy family among the Inuit and died peacefully in his mid-80s. However, as none of this is yet proven or disproven, and the show does an impressive amount of Shown Their Work for what is definitively known, the artistic license is fully justified.
- Bears Are Bad News: The Tuunbaq resembles a gigantic polar bear with a humanoid face.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Of the Call-Forward/Dramatic Irony variant. After sending a diver to remove ice from the ship's propeller, Franklin expresses his curiosity about the underwater world and his wish to see it in the future. The Tuunbaq throws him under the ice.
- Big Bad Slippage: As his sanity slips into nothing (and he wasn’t exactly well-adjusted to begin with), Hickey becomes increasingly unhinged and becomes the real Big Bad of the series.
- Big Friendly Dog: Neptune, Crozier's pet Newfoundland.
- Blatant Lies: Little suggests leaving the sick men at camp, saying they will come back for them when they find help. Everyone seems to know this is bullshit; he means to leave them to die.
- Book Ends:
- The first episode begins with James Ross and his interpreter learning that all the men on the Franklin expedition are dead, and Crozier's final words were "Tell them we are gone. Dead and gone." In the final episode — very nearly the final scene — we learn that Crozier survived and asked the Inuit leader to say this, but was actually sitting outside the tent while this was happening, and he walks away from any chance of return to England as his final words are repeated.
- The series begins and ends with men suffering dying hallucinations.
- In the first episode, Young hallucinates Lady Silence's father warning him to run away.
- A heartbreaking, soul-crushing scene in the final episode involves a dying Jopson pleading to no avail to not be left behind by the crew, which he thinks Crozier is a part of. He hallucinates a feast with Crozier seated at the head of the table, completely oblivious to him. Jopson proceeds to crawl on the table, knocking everything off in an attempt to get Crozier to notice him. But then the scene cuts away and we're shown that he's only been crawling on sharp rocks, a little ways from his tent.
- Break the Cutie: The story has this in spades, from Goodsir to Jopson to Hartnell to Peglar...
- Call-Back:
- In his first scene, Fitzjames is bragging about the bullet he took in China. In a later episode, the bullet wound reopens due to scurvy and becomes infected.
- Early in the series, Jopson remarks on how close they are to breaking out of the ice, to which Crozier shoots back, "'Close' is nothing. It’s worse than nothing. It’s worse than anything in the world." At the end of the series Crozier finds Lt. Little at the point of death, with everyone else already dead. Little can only gasp out the word "Close?" before he dies.
- Early in the series, Fitzjames the suck-up says that Franklin loves his men "more than God loves them." Much later, after many terrible things have happened, Crozier tells Fitzjames that they will leave food behind in their camp, just in case any of Hickey's mutineers change their minds and want to come back. Fitzjames, moved at Crozier's generosity, mutters "More than God loves them."
- In episode 4, Hickey mentions seeing Lady Silence striking a certain pose during what he believed to be her attempting to control the Tuunbaq. In episode 10, during his own attempt to take control of the beast, Hickey strikes a similar pose.
- In the first episode, Goodsir consoles the dying Young and promises to deliver his ring to his sister in London. In the last episode, he finds the ring with Gibson and asks Crozier to deliver it.
- The Captain: The Eeyore Crozier and Gentleman Adventurer Franklin are captains of their own ships, but Franklin is the one leading the expedition. Commander Fitzjames later has to assume the role when Crozier is Going Cold Turkey and isn't feeling well enough to lead.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Hickey murders his compatriots and frames the Inuit purely to save his planned mutiny, even though not doing that would have vastly improved everyone's chance of survival. Later he murders his supposed best friend and lover the moment he stops being useful (in Hickey's mind), showing that he never cared for and was just using him.
- Cool Boat: The two ships of the expedition are the most advanced of their time, with heavily reinforced hulls, locomotive engines installed to provide power and heating, and a propeller instead of the paddlewheels normally seen on early steam warships. Not that it does them much good in the Arctic...
- Cool Sword: Fitzjames carries an ornately engraved saber.
- Cool Old Guy:
- Brave Scot: Sir John Ross personally leads a mission to find the two lost ships.
- Blanky certainly qualifies as this by virtue of being a complete badass.
- Cutting Back to Reality: The final episode has Thomas Jopson, in the last moments before his death, hallucinating a feast with Captain Crozier seated at the head of the table, completely oblivious to him. He proceeds to crawl onto the table, knocking everything off in a desperate attempt to get Crozier to notice him — but then the scene cuts away and we see that he was only crawling on sharp rocks a little away from his tent.
- Dated History: The show (and book) follow earlier literature in assuming that the "Aglooka" mentioned by native witness accounts was the same man and that his identitity was Crozier, which would mean he survived long after the ships became trapped and was among the last survivors. However it's been pointed out that the "Aglooka" encounters are inconsistent enough to presume that different bands of Inuit met different groups of Franklin Expedition survivors and gave the "Aglooka" name to a different man each time ("Aglooka" was likely the Inuktitut word aglukaq, meaning "long strider").
- Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: A variation: In episode 7, the sun glinting off of the icy peaks affects Fitzjames badly enough when he takes off his snow goggles that he spends about ten entire seconds squinting, blinking, and rubbing his watering eyes in obvious pain. This is one of the first signs that he’s much sicker with scurvy than he lets on. Light sensitivity is a major symptom.
- Doomed Moral Victor: Blanky finds the highly sought Northwest Passage while waiting for the Tuunbaq to kill him.
- The Dragon: Tozer to the Big Bad Hickey and The Brute Manson after the mutiny.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Dr. Stanley burns himself and tries to do the same to as many members of the crew after realizing they are all doomed.
- After Peglar dies, Bridgens deserts the party and walks into the horizon until the day ends, then lies down and waits for his death from hypothermia.
- Goodsir poisons himself after being forced by Hickey to cut a human body for lunch.
- Depraved Homosexual: Deliberately averted with Hickey (in contrast to the book, where he exploits a severely mentally disabled man for sex). He's definitely depraved, and definitely homosexual, but these factors never cross streams except in that he's also something of a clingy jealous guy to the unlucky and commitment-averse Gibson — he's not a bad guy because he's gay, he's simply a very bad guy who happens to be gay.
- Diabolus ex Machina: The Tuunbaq strikes again after a long period of absence just as Hickey and Tozer are about to be hanged.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The crew manage to wound and fend off the Tuunbaq after it sets its sights on Blanky. This is the first indication that, unlike in the book, the Tuunbaq has a consistent corporeal form. And if it can be wounded...
- Dead Person Impersonation: It is eventually revealed that Cornelius Hickey is not the real one, but another man who murdered him and stole his identity.
- Dead Star Walking: Sir John (Ciaran Hinds) is dead by episode 3 of 10.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Crozier and Hickey are discriminated against for being Irish. Crozier's repeatedly had his proposal for Sophia Cracroft's hand turned down (partly on her uncle's urging) and feels he's been unable to advance further in the navy due to his nationality. Hickey congratulates him for showing that a 'mick' can make it.
- Fitzjames speaks proudly of his heroics during the First Opium War, today probably considered one of the most immoral wars of Imperialism.
- A flashback shows a theatre piece about the conversion of the Mohawks and Iroquois to Christianity. Sophia chuckles that it is a Downer Ending, because they are converting to Catholicism. Anti-Catholic sentiment is referenced again when Hodgson reveals that he had two crypto-Catholic aunts (Catholic worship was banned in Britain until 1791); he still refers to them as "papists".
- Two of Terror's crew are caught having sex in the ship's hold. Homosexual activity was a punishable offense in the Royal Navy of the 19th century (though technically only for the first 90 days out of port).
- There is also the use of "Esquimaux" (the period spelling) and "Eskie" to refer to Lady Silence and her father. While "Eskimo" is still used today as an ethnic descriptor, particularly by the Yupik people of Alaska, it has been regarded as a pejorative term by aboriginal Canadian peoples and dropped out of official use.
- Fitzjames is illegitimate and was raised by an adoptive family. This is treated as an immense Dark Secret, worth desperately protecting and covering up for decades, rather than fairly incidental as it would be in the modern day. He also fears discrimination for possibly being half-Portuguese; no one would bat an eyelid at such heritage today, but in the Victorian period it would be considered almost being mixed-race.
- Double-Meaning Title:
- Terror is the name of Crozier's ship in the expedition, but it is also an apt descriptor of the Tuunbaq and the sentiment it strikes on the men.
- The episode "Gore" serves as a reference to the Nice Guy Lieutenant Gore, as well as the violent end he meets.
- "The C, the C, the open C" is the name of a poem written by Peglar and it also refers to the characters finding ice-free waters.
- Downer Ending: As you would expect from a real life centuries-old tragedy. Everyone on the mission, save one, dies in various gruesome and heartbreaking ways, with Goodsir in particular driven to suicide and then cannibalised. Silence/Silna, now that the Tuunbaq is dead, must go into the Arctic wilderness by herself to spend the rest of her life in exile; her fate is left uncertain. Crozier survives but had to abandon his ship and loses the crew he tried so hard to keep safe, all his friends (both old and new), his left hand and any hope of a life back in England, particularly with Sophia. Lady Jane and Sophia will spend years searching for the expedition to little or no avail, and will never learn the specifics of what happened to Captain Franklin or Crozier. Even the death of the Tuunbaq is rather sad, as the Inuit people have lost a protector from British imperialism and Western colonization. The only bright spot is that Crozier is accepted by the Inuit village he's joined and can make a new life for himself, but even then he's so emotionally broken that there's really not much left to him.
- Dramatic Irony: In "Punished, As A Boy", Lady Jane is desperately trying to get the Admiralty to send a rescue party after her husband, who died near the end of the previous episode/several months earlier.
- Dutch Angle: However, the angle is motivated by the fact the ship is tilted, so not only is it unnerving for the viewer, but it was inconvenient and unnerving for the sailors In-Universe, too.
- Dwindling Party: A crewman drowns before the first episode has hit the 15-minute mark; Dr. Stanley mentions three others buried on Beechey Island before the series began; Young dies of some form of tuberculosis. And that's only the first episode. The monster then starts picking off the crew of the ships, with the body count per episode increasing rapidly. Special mention goes to episode 8, Terror Camp Clear, in which the Tuunbaq attacks the camp and kills off a whopping 32 men in one go.
- Dumb Muscle: The Manchild Manson is big and strong, but cognitively delayed.
