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  • Base-Breaking Character: Hayden. Some people hated her for being a completely unsympathetic Jerkass who repeatedly screams, torments, and insults many of the main characters. On the other hand, lots of fans absolutely love her because of this, finding her to be an incredibly entertaining and interesting villain to watch.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The robbery/shooting at the end of "Piggy, Piggy".
  • Captain Obvious Reveal: Tate being the Rubber Man. The scene where he takes the mask off in episode 8 feels like it's supposed to be a big revelation, but it was pretty obvious after we saw him wearing the suit on Halloween.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Tate is still immensely popular with fans. See the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds entry below, and then look up Evan Peters' picture, for reasons why.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse
    • Adelaide has a large fanbase.
    • "Rubberman" (as in the persona, not Tate himself) is considered this as well, especially for those immensely are into latex or BDSM. It also helps that he comes off as Evil Is Cool, so much so that he made a semi-return in American Horror Stories.
    • Young Moira certainly has her fans as well, considering that she ticks off every box off the "sexy maid" list (even if The Reveal about her true nature is a deconstruction of such a character). Pretty much every news article about every later major role her actress Alexandra Breckenridge had (such as The Walking Dead, This Is Us, and Virgin River) made sure to remind people that she was the actress who played the sexy maid in American Horror Story's original season, the fact that Breckenridge also appeared in a later season going almost completely unnoticed.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Brohst (bro-ghost) for Travis, Constance's boyfriend.
    • Frankenbaby, for the... creature in the basement from the first episode, AKA Nora's returned-from-the-dead child.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "There's not going to be X you stupid slut!"
    • To a lesser extent: "GO AWAY TATE!"
  • Misaimed Marketing: For whatever reason, F/X decided to promote this show as being from "the creator of Glee". Sure, that's probably Ryan Murphy's most well-known show, but that's not an ideal way to get fans who might be interested in something like American Horror Story hooked.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Constance crossed it by killing Moira for "stealing her husband from her" even though her husband actually tried to rape Moira. If that wasn't bad enough, she continues to verbally bully Moira after her death.
  • Narm:
    • All over the place, but one thing stands out. The line about Ben burying his sorrow "in some twenty one-year-old's pussy" was clearly intended to be dramatic; there's a reason why it is listed on the Funny subpage.
    • The show's attempts at overt sexuality while still not being allowed to show nudity leads to some hilariously awkward scenes.
    • The revelation that Tate, being a ghost, getting Vivian, a human, pregnant leads to the friggen Antichrist caused some groans from a lot of fans, especially with the final episode having Constance casually be okay with Vivian's Satanspawn son murdering her housekeeper.
    • Ben is shot, and decides to not seek medical attention for it because it was just a "through-and-through".
    • The way Constance's poisoned cupcake keeps getting passed around is meant to raise tension about who will finally eat it, but seeing it ping-pong back and forth is more funny than anything.
  • Narm Charm: The show seems to intentionally play up its similarities to old horror movies and indulge in some of the soap-opera-esque ridiculousness that was present in Dark Shadows (the series upon which it is presumably based).
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • "Violate" for Violet/Tate.
    • "Hotgomery" for Billie Dean Howard/Nora Montgomery.
  • The Scrappy: Those horrible twins aren't particularly well liked, as there doesn't seem to be much point for them, other than them showing up and being rude and smashing things.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: There are a surprising number of fanfics for Billie Dean Howard and Nora Montgomery around the internet, even though the two never meet and are only in the same place in a total of one episode. This is actually because the following seasons would have their actresses play very popular ships and so they are included as sort of Ship Mates. Apocalypse didn't help by having Billie Dean reference knowing Nora.
  • Squick: After explaining that her mother had always recommended it during the first trimester of pregnancy, Constance instructs Moira to feed Vivien pig organs. She later drops off a brain, which looks disturbingly human. Vivien devours it raw. Even Vivien herself seems squicked by how readily she ate it.*
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The theme songs sound very similar to the bass line in the song "Guns of Brixton" by The Clash.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: In the first few episodes, basically none of the principal cast are presented as remotely likable, and for something that markets itself as a horror property, the absence of any characters to root for the survival off can be a massive turn-off. It doesn't help that basically everyone is killed at the end of the season, if they weren't already dead.
  • The Un-Twist: The origin of the rubber suit. We're told early on that it belonged to Chad and Patrick. Then we get a whole story explaining its backstory. And it turns out that... Chad bought it. And not even in a strange way, he just went to a store.
  • The Woobie:
    • Moira, who was almost raped by Constance's husband, only to be shot when found in that position and is trapped in the house/verbally tortured by Constance, who considers Moira to be a "whore". When her body is found only to be promptly covered with concrete, Constance cruelly taunts Moira by telling her that since her body can never be moved now, that she'll be trapped in the house for all eternity.
    • Poor little Addie, who wanted nothing more than to be a pretty girl for Halloween, and gets run over by a car while trick-or-treating. The person directly responsible for that? Constance, who kept hiding her from the world for her own selfish reasons and didn't watch her that night, even making her wear the mask that made it hard for Addie to see clearly. She'd been hiding her appearance on purpose for years.
    • Nora. Yes, she starts out as a Rich Bitch who belittles her husband and only cares about her status, but having her baby kidnapped, mailed back to her in jars, and having her husband transform their child into some sort of abomination, leading her to kill husband and herself? You can't help but feel a bit sorry for her.
    • Violet. Not only does she feel neglected by her family, she's surrounded by unexplainable craziness and dangerous ghosts, finds out that her boyfriend is the ghost of an unstable mass murderer and a rapist who impregnated her mom, dies young of an overdose and can never again leave the house, struggles to keep her parents from finding out, and is stuck in the same house with aforementioned boyfriend's yandere spirit even though she doesn't love him anymore. Her reaction to finding her own decomposing body hidden in the house — with her sobbing and whimpering, unable to even form words — was truly heart-breaking.
    • And then there's Ben, who had to outlive his entire family before getting murdered himself. The scene where he desperately tells Vivien to live on so they can continue their life together followed by the him sitting alone with her dead body was a real Tearjerker. Add to that how often he gets shit on by those around him — especially Vivien's guilt trips and Moira's sexual harassment. And he still keeps on apologizing for what he's done wrong (hilariously highlighted when Vivien accuses him of never owning up to his mistakes).
    • The Westfield High shooting victims who confront Tate as ghosts on Halloween. They were killed in a terrifying manner at young ages and are left vainly searching for answers years later about why Tate killed them. Additionally, Amir's Facial Horror keeps him from being able to talk, even as a ghost, and Chloe's parents divorced due to grief from her death, causing both of them extra stress.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Tate. He doesn't seem that perturbed by most of his more "questionable" actions (e.g. shooting up his school, brutally murdering Chad and Patrick, raping his love interest's mother with plans to steal the resulting baby), but he's a seriously disturbed man whose actions in the series are driven by a compulsive need to please the ladies of the house (due to a Freudian Excuse stemming from his own abusive mother). His later interactions with Violet serve to further woobify him by showing his suffering and that he does love her. At the end of the series, she rejects him completely upon realizing that he's a monster, though he still has feelings for her and still hopes to make her happy, whether it's by winning her back or killing some other boy to keep her company as a ghost.

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