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  • Adaptation Displacement: The novel is much better known than the original TV series, in a very rare reversal of the norm. All later adaptations are credited as being based on the book, rather than the series, even though the stories of both are largely identical.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Messires Croup and Vandemar, the Old Firm, are the resident monsters for hire of the story and easily two of the most twisted and dreaded creatures of the fantastical London Below. Croup is an erudite sadist who waxes on the incomparable beauty of a piece of fine Tang dynasty porcelain before gleefully devouring it, while Vandemar is a grim, savage, man-eating beast, but both are equally sadistic and cruel. Croup cheerfully admits he and his partner have no redeeming qualities and no moral standards whatsoever, which they prove time and time again by slaughtering entire monasteries, savagely murdering their own minions, torturing the Marquis de Carabas to death, and taking the lives of Door's entire family.
    • Islington, Croup and Vandemar's mysterious employer, is an angel drunk on its own glory and vanity. A vain and unbelievably narcissistic entity beneath its serene façade who has "traveled so far beyond right and wrong [that it] couldn't see them with a telescope on a nice clear night", Islington was tasked with watching over Atlantis. Islington instead destroyed the entire civilization as a testament to its unbelievable ego, shrieking that they got what they deserved when it's exposed. Pretending to be the heroes' enlightened ally in the present day, Islington is the one who commissioned Croup and Vandemar to murder Door's family and manipulated Door in joining it so she could open the gates of Heaven, allowing Islington to conquer its kin and exact revenge out of nothing more than spite for its exile.
  • Heartwarming Moments: At the very end, Richard scratches a door in a wall and asks for Door and the Marquis to let him return to London Below. He hears nothing and prepares to leave. Cue the Marquis appearing, with the drawing becoming real, and asking if he's coming. This moment in the TV show is even better, because the Marquis is smiling as if thinking, "I knew you couldn't stay away forever".
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: When Islington declares that it will "reward the worthy and cast down those who are hateful in my sight" upon its return to heaven, Richard overhears it mutter "Bloody Gabriel, for a start." About two decades later, Neil Gaiman would write the script for the adaptation of his novel Good Omens, and who would be included in it but the Archangel himself! To that story's main angel, Gabriel is an affable but condescending boss at best, and a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing at worst, but Islington is still miles worse.
  • Ho Yay: The fact that the Marquis draws a crossbow on Hunter on seeing she betrayed Door and him, looking colder than he ever has and telling Richard that it's dangerous to have her in the rear. Later, he's the one who welcomes Richard back to London Below, with a big smile in the miniseries.
  • Les Yay: Hunter and Serpentine are implied to have been lovers in the past — a time apparently remembered fondly by both women.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • The Marquis de Carabas is a ruthless, brilliant man of the London Below who deals in favors and manipulation. Tricking others to place them in his debt, the Marquis participates in helping Lady Door and Richard Mayhew due to a debt to Door's late father, who even considered him "a bit of a monster" himself. Proving to be loyal, if cagey and dangerous, the Marquis approaches the monstrous assassins Croup and Vandemar, knowing they will kill him, but he's smarter than to throw his life away so easily, having left his life and soul with Old Bailey to later recover since he knows Croup won't be able to resist bragging about the entire plot to a soon-to-be-dead man.
    • Hunter is a skilled warrior whose greatest desire is to kill the "Great Beasts" of the world. Having already slain several of the Great Beasts, Hunter sets her sights on the Beast of London next, becoming the bodyguard of Door for supposedly benevolent reasons. In truth, she's serving as a spy for Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and Hunter leads Door into a trap, betrays all their allies, and obtains her payment in the form of a powerful spear from Croup and Vandemar, with which Hunter intends to kill the Beast. Even when taken hostage by the Marquis de Carabas, Hunter leads him and Richard into the Beast's lair and sacrifices herself to help Richard kill the Beast, dying satisfied that her life's mission has been completed and offering Richard advice and power both as she passes.
  • Moral Event Horizon: See Villainous Breakdown on the main page. Also explicitly stated by Croup — "He's travelled so far beyond right and wrong he couldn't see them through a telescope on a nice clear night."
  • Nightmare Fuel: Neil Gaiman the Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant strikes again. Croup and Vandemar in particular.
    • The fate of poor little Anaesthesia comes to mind. Although, oddly, the possibility she may return someday is discussed.
    • Richard's Ordeal of the Key.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Malcom Tucker (or, if you prefer, The Twelfth Doctor) as The Angel Islington, Alan Johnson/Connor Mason as the Marquis de Carabas, Lydia Rodarte-Quayle as Door, and Fran Katzenjammer as Lamia.
  • The Scrappy: Jessica, Richard's girlfriend at the beginning of the book, is very disliked for being a very controlling woman and trying to fix Richard for marriage, and for browbeating him. No one is sad when he doesn't get back with her.
  • Special Effects Failure: The miniseries' Beast of London bears a striking resemblance to a cow with a fur rug thrown over it, which Gaiman acknowledges on the DVD commentary.
  • The Woobie: Anesthesia. She never had a father, her mother went insane, and she was raped by her aunt's boyfriend. On her eleventh birthday, she told the aunt, who didn't believe her. She ran away and wound up in London Below, but even there, the Master rat-speaker considers her expendable. Eventually, the dark takes her, just as she's getting to be friends with Richard.

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