This page is for tropes that have appeared in The Terror (the series, not the novel).
For the rest:
- Rewatch Bonus:
- At the very beginning of the first episode, when Ross is questioning the Netsilik leader about what happened to the Franklin expedition and is told Crozier's last words, someone sitting outside the tent gets up and walks away. In the final episode it turns out that person was Crozier, walking away from the prospect of returning to England and maintaining the lie he asked the Inuit leader to tell.
- During Morfin’s death scene, Neptune’s barking can be hear pretty consistently throughout the first half. Partway through, the camera cuts to Hickey stalking off, and shortly afterwards, the barking stops. Given what we see later in the episode, this is likely the moment where Hickey kills Neptune.
- Riddle for the Ages: When Crozier finds Lt. Little's party, their camp is in ruins, with bits of equipment and clothing strewn about the place, the half-eaten remains of at least one crewmember sitting in a pot, and the rest of the crew lying together dead. Little, still barely clinging to life, has pierced his face with gold chains. He lives long enough to mutter a cryptic "Close" to Crozier before expiring. Neither Crozier nor the audience learn how it came to pass. Even stranger, this part, down to the facial piercings, is true.
- Scavengers Are Scum: Episode 9 contrasts the heroic Crozier's refusal to allow cannibalism, even though the dying Fitzjames begs him to use his body to that end, with the villainous Hickey who murders a man and serves him for lunch as soon as he can't pull the boat.
- Seadog Beard: Blanky has a long beard befitting his status as a tough old salt who's seen it all.
- Secret History:
- The final episode reveals that Crozier joined the Inuit and purposely left tales that he had died to stop searches for him.
- In the show (but not in the book), Cornelius Hickey is actually a fictional character who murdered the historical Hickey and assumed his identity.
- Secretly Dying: Though the expedition as a whole starts taking awful damage from lead poisoning, scurvy, frostbite, and general lack of adequate medical care, Fitzjames and Blanky both try to conceal the grave extent of their personal injuries. Fitzjames is forced to give up the charade when he collapses on the haul; Crozier sees the blood staining Fitzjames’s clothes from his old war wounds reopening and gently but firmly insists that Fitzjames be placed in the whaleboats instead of walking. The jarring from the whaleboat itself causes Fitzjames to cry out in pain, and it’s clear from that point on that he doesn’t have much longer. Shortly after his death, Blanky in turn reveals that his stump leg has gone gangrenous and asks Crozier to let him go before he ends up in similar condition.
- Self-Immolation: Dr. Stanley, in an attempt to mass-Mercy Kill everyone during the Carnivale.
- Sergeant Rock: Solomon Tozer of the Royal Marines... until he joins up with Hickey. Sergeant Bryant is also an example of the trope until Tuunbag decapitates him.
- Shadow Archetype: Hickey becomes this to both Crozier (as an underappreciated, overworked lower-class Irishman) and Fitzjames. Both Hickey and Fitzjames received their positions on the ship through dubious means — Hickey performed a Kill and Replace on the real Cornelius Hickey, and Fitzjames, whose career in the Royal Navy began when his foster family glossed over his volunteer record to get him promoted to midshipman without his actually having done the prerequisite duty, received the appointment in thanks for paying to cover up a scandal involving an admiral’s son. Hickey proves to be almost totally amoral, while Fitzjames, uncomfortably aware of being a fraud, is ultimately a good man who does everything he can to try to deserve what he has.
- Shown Their Work: A lot of research went into making this show.
- Crozier and a few others are shown wearing tinted sunglasses. Just such a pair of glasses was found amid the traces found of the exepedition's futile attempt to go south and reach the mainland.
- After Peglar dies, his lover Bridgens wanders away, clutching Peglar's journal, until he lies down and himself dies. The scribbled remnants of a journal
, along with Henry Peglar's seaman papers, were found in 1859 with a body believed to not be Peglar's (because of his different uniform). - Near the end, Crozier finds the camp left by Little's party at Starvation Cove; among the detritus are several books, pages flapping in the wind. In Real Life the remains of several of Franklin's crew members were found with quite a bit of stuff that was useless for desperate men trying to make a forced march before they starved to death, like a copy of a novel, The Vicar of Wakefield.
- When Crozier finds Little the lieutenant is looking ghastly, with chains hooked into his face for some unexplained reason. The Inuk who witnessed the end of the expedition described finding just such a white man with chains hooked to his face.
- Fitzjames' entire backstory, including the war story he brags about at dinner as well as his confession of his origins, comes from a biography of his real-life counterpart by William Battersby, published a few years after Dan Simmons' novel. When the novel was written, not much was known about him aside from his then-present reputation as a cheerful, handsome war hero and a general assumption that he had "connections".
- The death of Sir John Franklin; some viewers wondered why he didn't surface as soon as possible after being dropped into the ice hole's waters. Currents notwithstanding, the sheer chill factor of that water would've caused his muscles to seize up within seconds, ensuring he'd sink like a stone and freeze to death shortly before drowning. Which is also foreshadowed in the very first episode, when an unfortunate crew member falls into the waters; it's less than a minute, on the surface itself, before he just gurgles and sinks with little more than ten seconds or less of mild thrashing.
- Significant Background Event:
- Lt. Irving, leading a hunting party consisting of him, Hickey, and Farr, spies a Netsilik family. Delirious with happiness, he goes to meet them, while Hickey and Farr remain in the far background at the top of the hill. As Irving greets the Netsilik, we see Hickey and Farr, still in the far background, disappear from the top of the hill. When Irving comes back, he and the audience find out that Hickey has murdered Farr.
- In "The Ladder", while Goodsir is making a daguerreotype of Franklin and the hunting party, some snow cascades down onto the hunting blind behind them, as if disturbed by something. The Tuunbaq attacks the blind from above minutes later. It was watching them the whole time.
- In the first episode, while the Inuit are telling James Ross about what happened to the expedition, you can see a hooded figure sitting outside the tent listening, before eventually getting up and leaving. In the final episode, this turns out to be Crozier, deciding to abandon his life in England.
- Solitary Sorceress: White Magician Girl Lady Silence apparently lives apart from Inuit society, judging by her and her father being out on the pack ice in the first place, and her decision to stay near the ships after his death. In the end, the death of the Tuunbaq forces her to spend the rest of her life alone, apparently by her own unquestioned choice.
- Squishy Wizard: Lady Silence's father is The Beast Master who can control the Tuunbaq, but he can't stop a bullet any better than anyone else.
- Sword and Gun: Crozier carries a percussion pistol, and Fitzjames uses a musket when hunting the Tuunbaq.
- The Teetotaler: Sir John Franklin, in contrast to Crozier, who drinks like a fish.
- Thanatos Gambit: Goodsir commits suicide by drinking poison, but also slashes his wrists to hide that fact, knowing that Hickey will order his seditious men to eat him, thereby poisoning them as well. It works even better than he could have expected, as the Tuunbaaq is also poisoned to death after eating some of the poisoned crew.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Blanky gets to see the Northwest Passage before he dies.
- Time-Passage Beard: After abandoning the ships, Goodsir's muttonchops fuse into a full beard to show that time has passed and provide some insight into his mental state. Crozier wakes up with a beard after having recovered from his battle with the Tuunbaq, showing that at least a few weeks have passed, and he keeps it after the Time Skip to highlight how far he's separated from his old life.
- Toilet Humour: Whilst the rest of the crew attends Franklin's burial Hickey defecates in his ex-boyfriend Gibson’s bed and wipes his bum with a pair of ceremonial white gloves.
- Together in Death: Bridgens and Peglar, who are all but stated to be a couple. Given the era, neither of them could openly acknowledge their feelings, but it's made very clear how much they care for each other.
- Tongue On The Flag Pole: A rare non-comedic example. Due to the cold, the party are careful not to touch metal above deck with their bare flesh, otherwise they'll get stuck and lose several layers of skin trying to get free. Crozier (who really should know better) at one point makes the mistake of bringing a telescope too close to his eye, and nearly rips his eyelid off. Another man tears off most of the skin on his palm while preparing a cannon to fire at the Tuunbaq.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Goodsir, in spades.
- Touched by Vorlons: Hickey tries to become this after he realizes the Tuunbaq is more than just a mutant polar bear and that there’s a powerful spiritual dimension to the beast. It ends with him carving out his own tongue and the Tuunbaq mauling him to death in disgust at the very idea. To add insult to injury, Hickey’s soul is so unclean that the Tuunbaq chokes and dies on it.
- Tragic Keepsake: Bridgens keeps Peglar's diary after he dies — all the way until he dies himself.
- Trauma Conga Line: The entire show, for practically every single character, is an almost completely unrelenting version of this.
- Upper-Class Twit:
- Sir John is a well-bred and dignified gentleman, but over the course of the first two episodes we find out that he has a spotty military record and was far down on the list of ideal candidates for the expedition. Sure enough, he consistently makes the wrong choices.
- Subverted with Fitzjames, who initially seems like nothing but Franklin's preening yes-man, who supports his decision against Crozier in the first episode and seems more concerned with the men's personal cleanliness than running the ship. After that, though, it steadily becomes clearer that he's no twit — he has his men monitor Crozier's drinking problem after the latter becomes head of the whole expedition, successfully predicting that Crozier will hit the bottle and make things worse and personally calling him out on it. He ultimately becomes, if not a great leader himself, a brave and effective right hand man to Crozier after the latter has kicked his drinking habit And then, to hammer it home, it turns out Fitzjames is not even truly upper class, either.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Both the series and the book it's based on follow the the real life Franklin Expedition and depict the widely accepted account of events that caused the tragic failure of the expedition with reasonable accuracy. However, one major departure from real events is the inclusion of the Tuunbaq, which is a completely fictional embellishment.
- Villainous Rescue: Hickey is saved from hanging by the arrival of the Tuunbaq.
- When He Smiles: The characters don't smile often, but when they do, their faces light up and the mood is almost always just a little lifted.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Blanky is clearly Made of Iron because as soon as his peg leg is fitted he is back in action.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Or the cat, as it were. We never discover the fate of Fagin, the ship's cat. It's likely she was either eaten for food or starved to death on Terror when the vermin ran out.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Fitzjames has a blazing row with Crozier for risking the men's lives by sending them out to take whisky from the Erebus.
- White Mage: Lady Silence's father is a shaman whose job is to protect the Inuit people from the Tuunbaq. His job has apparently now fallen to his daughter.
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: The series starts out like this, with daily life aboard a Royal Navy exploratory expedition represented in surprising detail. Both vessels were originally built as mortar shipsnote , but were converted to exploratory ships, as their heavily-framed hulls built to withstand the recoil of a heavy mortar also made them capable icebreakers. Despair sets in amongst the crew after the third episode, however, and shipboard life goes out the window in favor of starvation, hypothermia... and a vicious monster.
- World Half Full: Surprisingly enough, despite the, well, terror the men live (and eventually fail to live) through, the series takes the ultimate position that above all else, it's important to bond and help each other in the face of tragedy, and that Hickey's vicious "adaptation" strategies only make things worse. Goodsir even says toward the end that even after everything he's been through, the Arctic is still beautiful to him, filling him with childlike wonder and curiosity.
- Your Tomcat Is Pregnant: When Sir John is gifted Jacko, his first remark is that the monkey is actually female, but he keeps the name anyway.
