YMMV / Robin Hood

YMMV in general:

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Contemporary works have now commonly adopted an In the Hood look for Robin Hood, both to play off his name and because Rule of Cool — a hooded cowl just looks a lot cooler than a dopey little hat, and oftentimes even pair with the idea that he gained the last name "Hood" primarily because of his penchant for wearing one. Though this is often dismissed as anachronistic, hoods were a common item, and the last name "Hood" did in fact originate as a surname given to people who wore them. In other words, this isn't just an attempt to avoid a Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames style "explanation" for his moniker, but is actually a very plausible origin for him being called that.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation:
  • Naturally, adaptations of Robin Hood have a Pop Culture Osmosis effect where most people are only aware of the tale via whichever adaptation(s) they're familiar with, rather than any of the original ballads. This actually lead to a self-referential effect, where subsequent adaptations have taken to adopting ideas first invented by earlier adaptations, and subsequently made relatively modern ideas (most prominently, the inclusion of a Moor or Saracen Muslim Merry Man) become cemented as part of the canon.
  • Two-fold affect with Maid Marian. Firstly, her inclusion and role in Robin Hood's ballads are far more well-known than her original role as the May Queen/Lady May, personification of the May Day festivities, stories completely unrelated to Robin Hood's ballads. Secondly, her depiction in the Robin Hood ballads after she joined them, where she was a fiery Action Girl who could fight Robin to a stand-still, was subsequently displaced by the 19th Century literary version of her, who was more of a passive Designated Love Interest. Even contemporary works which have tried to restore her Action Girl qualities oftentimes still stick her as a Damsel in Distress and Faux Action Girl.
  • Even the ballads themselves might be a case of this, since it's clear from the way the oldest surviving ones are presented that they are not the first references, and the folklore of the character is apparently much older. As some mythologists believe that Robin's association with the May Games and May Day holiday derive from an association with older pagan folklore, there's even the possibility that "Robin Hood", the Outlaw bandit of the ballads, is a Demythification adaptation of Beltane's "Green Man" or "Robin Goodfellow", a pagan nature spirit, with Maid Marian herself descending from "The Maiden", the contemporary of said spirit in this folklore.
• Awesome Ego: Part of Robin Hood's popularity is how his entire character more-or-less runs on Rule of Cool. He's the Lovable Rogue outlaw leader of a Band of Brothers, a Karmic Thief who uses his unparalleled archery skill and wits to outsmart and defeat the corrupt local authority (be it the Sheriff of Nottingham or Prince/King John), and he does it all while being a dashing, charismatic chap who's completely aware of how awesome he is. Even back in the original ballads to modern contemporary works, Robin tends to be a brash, cocky arsehole - and you just can't help but root for him.
• Common Knowledge: "Maid Marian wasn't in the original ballads" has started to become this, as more people are aware of a (highly simplified) view on this, to the point it's made out that Marian was added centuries later (with some even speculating/accusing it of being to dispel the Ho Yay implications of the stories). It's true that there are no surviving references to Marian in any ballads or Robin Hood plays, literary appearances, or the like, until at least 1500^note which, it should be noted, is when a literary reference to the two is made, indicating they were already associated with one-another before this time, but the oldest surviving ballads date back only to 1450, so it's only a space of 50 years. She's not a "late addition" so much as "wasn't in the first handful of ballads", and this is without getting into Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, the May Day plays, or Robin and Marian's role in the latter descending from traditions that go back to Ancient Rome.^note May Day as a holiday originates in Ancient Rome and Greece as a celebration of Flora/Cloris, a minor goddess of summer, and her lover Zephyr; in medieval England, this evolved into Beltane, where it became about another summer deity, "The Maiden", and her lover, "the Greenman", who is also oftentimes identified as the figure Pan, or Robin Goodfellow. When May Day plays became about Robin Hood, the Robins got merged and the Maiden became Maid Marian.
• Designated Hero: The concept of "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor," since Robin Hood and his Merry Men basically mugged people who travelled through Sherwood Forest and gave their belongings to those who they thought deserved it more. Of course, in nearly every story they are asshole victims (and their wealth is being given away to the people they are keeping in abject poverty), and this keeps it sympathetic. In some versions, Robin doesn't just randomly mug people but instead robs the nobles who are deliberately levying taxes in their own names (illegally) and giving it back to the people who rightfully owned the money in the first place.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The "secondary" Merry Men, particularly Will Scarlet, Much the Miller's Son, and Allan-a-Dale, are quite well liked and popular, despite being nowhere near as well-known as Robin Hood himself, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian, and not even always making it into the adaptations.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While Robin Hood started as a figure of English folklore, he is popular around the world, as are the many adaptations of his stories.
• Ho Yay: Robin and Little John, and really their entire all-male band. Though the term "Merry Man" used to just mean "a willing associate of an outlaw or criminal", nowadays it carries quite a bit of innuendo due to "merry" being synonymous with "gay" which underwent its own shift, but even in the original ballads, there's a lot of implication about how Robin apparently asked every man he came across to run away with him and join his crew.
• Magnificent Bastard: Robin Hood himself. See his entry here.
• One True Pairing: Robin and Marian across most versions; ever since their stories got entwined, they've steadily became a solid Super Couple, and the heart of many stories is their love for one another. It's telling that no attempts to give him an alternate love interest have worked out.
• Spiritual Successor: The source of many. For as many "official" adaptations there are of Robin Hood, there are just as many works that are more-or-less adapting the premise of Robin Hood's folklore but to different settings.
• Values Resonance:
  • The "Rob from the Rich and give to the Poor" thing, not to mention Robin Hood's Lovable Rogue and anti-authority leanings, aren't really views one would expect to see in ballads coming from such a conservative time period; but they line up well with modern liberalism and, to a lesser extent, more radical schools of leftist thoughts.
  • Likewise, Marian's Action Girl depiction in the original ballads, as well as much of her independence and the depiction of her and Robin's relationship being one of equal dedication and support, is something that is particularly popular with modern feminist views. Some would be surprised that Marian's recent trend of Xenafication is not a modern invention, but rather Character Rerailment.
  • American right-wingers (Republicans, conservatives and libertarians namely) like Robin Hood too as they view him as a hero fighting back against excessive taxation and an overreaching government.

YMMV for the 1973 Disney film:

Now has its own page.

YMMV for the 2006 BBC version of Robin Hood:

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Guy of Gisborne's perceived characterization can range from anything between misunderstood woobie to sadistic killer.
  • This even happens within the show itself to some degree. After three series of snapping from one characterization to the other like a light switch, most of the fandom just shrugged and picked whatever interpretation they liked best.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: In a show with this many anachronisms, the average viewer might be forgiven for rolling their eyes when Prince John appoints Isabella as the Sheriff of Nottingham. However, Prince John (after he was crowned King) was actually responsible for appointing a woman in the position of Sheriff in Lincolnshire.
• Angst Dissonance: Throughout Series 1 Robin is haunted by his memories of war in the Holy Land, struggling with nightmares, post-traumatic stress, and survivor's guilt. At the end of Series 2, his beloved Marian is stabbed through the stomach and dies in his arms, something that is only intermittently referenced in Series 3 - even though she dies in the Holy Land, the source of his entire first-season angst.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • After Marian's murder, Robin goes on a vengeance-fuelled rampage. Then... he gets over it. He's back to his cheerful old self by the next episode, in which he meets his new Love Interest.
  • As it turns out, he's always been this way. In the Whole Episode Flashback, he's shown as a child, smiling and laughing amidst a group of cheering peasants... approximately five minutes after his father's apparent death.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Although Prince John was played by Toby Stephens, which automatically makes his entire performance a Funny Moment, it was also true that John was less menacing than the Sheriff of Nottingham and just as easily bested by the outlaws. Foppish and cowardly, Prince John is eventually run out of Nottingham with his tail between his legs.
• Ass Pull:
  • The canopies (sun visors?) on the parapets of Nottingham Castle that never existed until Robin needed one to use as a hang glider.
  • The writers needed a conduit to narrate the Whole Episode Flashback that introduced the existence of a shared half-brother between Robin and Guy. Their solution was to usher out Robin's never-before-mentioned father, who was living as a hermit in Sherwood Forest for the entire duration of the show without anyone noticing. He conveniently pops up to explain Robin and Guy's backstory to them, and then disappears just as abruptly, never to be seen or spoken of again.
• Base-Breaking Character: There was always some of this in play regarding Robin (and the show's Protagonist-Centred Morality that justified pretty much everything he did) but it took on new dimensions in Series 3. Plenty of people were left furious that he moved on so quickly from Marian and initiated not one but two romantic relationships with other women. Was he horribly shallow, or just grieving in his own flawed way? Others pointed out that as soon as either Isabella or Kate asked for a serious commitment from him, he immediately ran cold (refusing to run away with Isabella, and not responding when Kate asks him to say he needs her). He notably can't bring himself to kiss Kate goodbye after he's been poisoned, and on seeing Marian's spirit coming to fetch him, the first thing he says is "I knew I'd find you again," in a tone of profound relief, suggesting that he was only ever marking off time before he could be with her again, and never felt particularly invested in his interim Love Interests. The way he then calls her "my wife" in a tone of complete adoration seems to confirm this. Much came in for some of this as well, with some finding him interminably annoying and whiny, and others appreciating Sam Troughton's explanation that he was playing the character as "an innocent who has lost his innocence" — in other words, a Manchild who is also a Shell-Shocked Veteran. It also helped that the whininess was toned down after Series 1.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Robin invents hang gliding. Kate invents CPR and then successfully administers it to a person whose injuries don't actually require it.
• Cargo Ship: In Series 1, the Sheriff asks Guy if he's jealous of Marian's horse. The two men are watching her from a window as she grooms it.
• Catharsis Factor: Guy's death. If you hated him, he dies regretting pretty much every decision he made in his life. If you loved him, he dies with a sense of pride and peace that he finally did the right thing.
• Complete Monster: Season 3: Prince John, the younger brother of King Richard, took control of the throne in his brother's absence and plunged England into tyranny. When Prince John visits Nottingham, he individually orders Sheriff Vaizey and Guy of Gisbourne to kill the other to prove their loyalty to him. When asked by peasants to bless a wedding, he follows up by burning down the church where the wedding is held, while peasants are still inside. In a bid to make the people love him, Prince John cuts off the people's water supply during a drought, so that he could supply them with barrels of water for them to purchase. He orders Gisbourne to kill his own sister Isabella for being a traitor, and when Gisbourne fails, Prince John has him fired and branded an outlaw. In a final scheme to be crowned king, Prince John uses a wax replica to fake Richard's death so he can be coronated. Callous and cruel, while deluding himself into believing he is benevolent, Prince John proves himself to be the vilest character on the show.
• Creator's Pet: Kate managed to be this even before her introduction in Series 3, when promotional materials put her front◊-and◊-centre◊ of all the cast photos, describing her as an "indispensable" member of the team, with a profile that inexplicably listed "her imagination" as her weapon of choice and stating that "she has her sights set on Robin". Once she appeared in the show itself, she was given an insane amount of focus and shilling by the writers, with at least three villains and four outlaws being overtly attracted to her; she was the centre of no less than three Love Triangles, Easily Forgiven after selling out Robin to save her brother, always proven to be irrefutably correct in her judgment calls, and generally treated as the most amazing person to walk the earth, despite the on-screen depiction of a dim-witted, unpleasant and narratively pointless village girl. The actress even got the And Starring billing at the end of the credits!
• Cry for the Devil: Guy and Isabella in the Whole Episode Flashback are portrayed as socially awkward and ostracized kids. In the finale, Guy strokes his sister's hair, and later Isabella casts a regretful glance over her brother's body, reminding the audience that (as Isabella said earlier) they loved each other once.
• Damsel Scrappy: Kate. Kate. A hundred times Kate! She's pushy, loud and generally useless, where in contrast Marian was an Action Girl who at least had the dignity to be right when she was pushy, and was never louder than was needed. And yes, true to the trope, all of Kate's numerous kidnappings were due to her inability to keep up, defend herself, or know when to keep her mouth shut. In her capacity as a "damsel" scrappy, she was captured by guards more times in one season than any of the other outlaws were in three. The words "Where's Kate?" could be a drinking game.
• Designated Hero:
  • Robin got worse as the seasons went on. His "no-kill" policy was chucked in Series 2 when it became apparent that he was prepared to kill in the name of King Richard (even if it meant shooting unarmed priests and mentally-deranged spies), and by Series 3 he was shooting guards in the back whilst still insisting that he only killed when he needed to. He also treats his outlaws like crap (especially poor Much), starts a relationship with a girl he was barely interested in despite knowing that his best friend likes her, attacks a frightened woman in her own bedroom after she's had to kill a man in self-defense, and shoots dead an executioner who was just doing his job (and then having the gall to tell the aforementioned woman that not only is she "a murderer" for killing a man who was threatening to rape/strangle her, but that he only kills when he absolutely must).
  • Series 3 also introduced Kate, who was shilled as brave, compassionate, and altogether wonderful even though she was never anything but rude, nasty, and shrill to everyone around her, and once demanded that a terrified woman be left to be raped and strangled by her sadistic husband, stating that "she doesn't deserve our help."
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Whether Marian was better off with Guy or with Robin is a debate that still rages in forums to this day, despite the fact that all three characters are now dead. And that Guy murdered Marian.
  • There was also some squabbling over the Will/Djaq/Allan Love Triangle, and who was the best partner (if any) for Kate.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Guest star Carter, a crusader looking for vengeance... then redemption (which unfortunately came in the form of Redemption Equals Death).
  • Also Meg. Also killed.
  • Will and Djaq managed to survive the carnage by being Put on a Bus.
    • In fact, many - if not most - of the one-shot guest stars ended up being more popular than many of the main characters, including Matilda, the German Count, Meg, Carter, Queen Eleanor, the Fool, Benjamin Palmer, Davina, Eve, and Sir Jasper.
• Epileptic Trees: Believe it or not, there was actually serious speculation within fandom that Kate was badly written on purpose as a silent protest against how Marian had been treated in the season two finale, the logic being that the writers collectively decided “we’re going to make sure nobody ever measures up to Marian”. This is deeply unlikely since all but one of the Series 3 writers were completely new to the show and so would have had no emotional investment in Marian, and probably weren’t in the business of deliberately endangering their jobs by driving away audiences. Apparently she was written that atrociously entirely by accident, though it’s interesting to note that Kate’s introductory episode (which establishes most of her odious character traits) and the Grand Finale (which is filled with Take That, Scrappy! moments aimed directly at her) was written by Simon J. Ashford, the only writer who did write for the show previously.
• Estrogen Brigade: A lot of female viewers in the fandom were very open about the fact that they were only watching for Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many ignore everything after Series 1 which is a fairly self-contained story due to Series 2 ending with Marian being brutally stabbed to death by Gisborne and Series 3 being even worse due to introducing new love interest Kate, having Robin begin a relationship with Gisborne's married sister, revealing that Robin and Guy share a half-brother called Archer, and turning Allan-a-Dale's character arc into a Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Robin Who? - Robin, in reference to fans who tend to overlook/ignore him in favour of Guy of Gisborne.
  • Robin Hoodie - also Robin, a dig at his modern-style "hoodie" jacket (and the many other anachronisms in the show).
  • Bobbin - Robin again, this time an affectionate nickname.
  • Maz or Mazza - Marian.
  • Will Harlot - jokey nickname for Will Scarlet, who's something of a Launcher of a Thousand Ships in the fandom.
  • Team Leather - Sheriff/Guy. Also included Allan and Isabella at different points of the show.
  • Gisabella - The Gisborne siblings, Guy and Isabella. Sometimes used as a name just for Isabella herself.
  • Braid-Face - Kate, referring to her silly hairstyles◊. As The Scrappy, she was also known as "the Scofula Skank" (long story), "faux-Marian", and S.U.K. (Stupid Useless Kate).
  • Preachy and Screechy - the combined force of Tuck and Kate.
• Fanon: As per a lot of adaptations, Marian is often given the name "Fitzwalter" throughout fandom, while Kate often given the last name of "Potter" (pertaining to her livelihood). Very little is known about Djaq's past, but due to her bearing, education, and personality, a lot of fans assumed she was Secretly Wealthy and write her as such in their fics.
• Fight Scene Failure: When Marian punches out Guy of Gisborne at the altar, her fist clearly doesn't connect with his face. Other fight scenes amongst the outlaws were rather clumsy, particularly whenever Robin blocked a sword-blow from an opponent with his bow. It's made of wood, people! And the fight between Robin and Guy in "Tattoo, What Tattoo?" involves both actors obligingly lining themselves up for the other one to more easily punch them.
• Franchise Original Sin: The moment that the writers became more interested in Guy of Gisborne (and specifically, his volatile relationship with Maid Marian) than with every single other character on the show. This led to more and more screen-time being devoted to Guy and Marian as a potential couple, until the point where the writers (presumably) realized that they'd gone too far with it, and needed to derail it pronto. Their solution was for Guy to stab Marian to death in a jealous rage at the end of Series 2. There are plenty of reasons why Series 3 is considered terrible, but it's mainly that without Marian, the story had absolutely no emotional center. There was simply nothing left to care about, or to look forward to.
• Growing the Beard: Series 2 is generally considered to be of a much higher standard than the first, with a more consistent tone between episodes and better character development.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In an early Series 1 episode, reluctant hero Allan-a-Dale asks: "What is the point of all of us dying?" as a way of getting out of a rescue mission. In Series 3 he dies the most pointless, meaningless death imaginable.
  • Foz Allen and Dominic Minghella are on record for stating that Friar Tuck was omitted in Series 1 and 2 because they "didn't want a comic relief character". When Tuck is finally introduced, he ends up being utterly humorless.
• He's Just Hiding: There were quite a few "Marian's not dead" theories floated following the Series 2 finale.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Anyone who has seen The Vicar of Dibley will know that this is not the first time Richard Armitage has been punched in the face at the altar on his wedding day.
  • The audiobook The Siege has one of these, when Robin gets drunk. Consider what happened to Jonas Armstrong a year later.
  • Many of the actors featured in this show have gone on to work together in other projects, though in rather amusing circumstances. For instance, Anjali Jay and David Harewood never interacted with each other in Robin Hood, one having left the show before the other arrived. Coincidentally, they both ended up on Supergirl (2015): Harewood as cast regular Martian Manhunter, and Anjali Jay as recurring villain Selena — only to never interact there either.
  • Likewise, both Lucy Griffiths (Marian) and Lara Pulver (Isabella) became semi-regulars on True Blood, having never interacted on Robin Hood. Again, one had left the show before the other arrived, but they never ended up interacting on True Blood either.
  • Richard Armitage (Guy), Lara Pulver (Isabella), David Harewood (Tuck) all ended up as major characters on Spooks, where their characters — you guessed it — never interacted at all. In fact, Armitage's character is killed off in the episode just before Pulver's is introduced.
• Ho Yay:
  • There's quite a bit of homosexual subtext between the Sheriff and Guy of Gisborne. By Series 2, they must have known, as it features the Sheriff rolling onto Guy in bed, offering to kiss him, bathing in front of him, and so on. And if you think it's coincidence, his first line of the season is, with his arms spread wide, "Tell me you'd rather have a woman than all this!" He's actually referring to a map showing a large parcel of ill-gotten land, but still.
  • And Robin and Much in the new series are a bickering married couple, most notably when Robin cradles a sobbing Anti-Villain, after he realizes his personal reasons to want Robin dead are based on a lie, and Much complains, "You've never held me like that!"
  • Then there's Allan/Will, who were extremely close during Series 1 and almost eloped ran away together in the finale. Technically, both of them had crushes on Djaq, but the fact that she spent the entire season disguised as a boy certainly muddied the water a little bit...
  • Not to mention Guy/Allan. After a bout of torture (in which Guy throws a bucket of water over a shirtless Allan), Allan agrees to provide inside information on Robin and the outlaws. Guy then proceeds to change his clothing in front of Allan, dress him up in matching black leather, and have an erotic dream about him. Even the Sheriff catches on, referring to Allan as "Gisborne's boy" and remarking, "Kissing in the moonlight?" when he walks in on them together in the dark.
  • In Series 3, Allan (who by this stage is well and truly the fandom's Little Black Dress) is often paired with Much. Again, there was something of a Love Triangle between the two of them and Kate, but the two of them seemed far more interested in each other, and half the fandom speculated that if it didn't work out with Kate, they were more than likely to start making out with each other instead.
  • Finally, there's Robin/Guy. They're all the other ever talks about, Robin ditches his new girlfriend Kate in order to go on a field trip with Guy, and eventually Guy dies in Robin's arms. For a second there, it honestly looks like Robin is going to kiss him goodbye.
• Inferred Holocaust: The series ends with both Robin Hood and Maid Marian (and a couple of Merry Men) dead, and the remaining outlaws promising to fight on in his name and defeat Prince John. The show was cancelled after this, but since history tells people that in a few years' time the prince becomes King John, they obviously failed utterly (and may well have been killed in the attempt).
• It Was His Sled: Gisborne kills Marian.
• Jerkass Woobie: Guy of Gisborne stabs unarmed women, leaves babies in the woods to die, burns down houses, and sells his sister to a rapist. He's also arrogant, selfish, and has a vicious temper that causes mass suffering to him and everyone around him. And yet, whenever anyone shows him a shred of kindness, he blossoms like a delicate little flower in the sun... the fact that he's a Draco in Leather Pants doesn't hurt either.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains:
  • The Sheriff of Nottingham, Prince John, and Guy and Isabella of Gisborne each have a pretty extensive body count, and during their lifetimes uphold a tyrannical and unjust social regime that raises taxes, outlaws poaching, and leaves the poor to starve. At least one of them left a baby in the forest to die of exposure and lied to the mother about its whereabouts. Yet they were all popular characters due to their complexity, entertainment value, tragic backstories, and/or obvious attractiveness.
  • Kate, on the other hand, despite not murdering anyone and technically being one of the show's heroes, was universally despised by audiences on account of having a snide and obnoxious personality, being unnecessarily rude and hostile to everyone that came into her orbit, and nursing an It's All About Me attitude in her relentless pursuit of Robin that ran slipshod over the feelings of several other characters. It's something of an accidental example, since the writers appeared to be under the impression that they'd written Kate as nicer than she was (after appearing to consciously write her with an abrasive personality in earlier episodes), but this led to excessive Character Shilling that naturally only made her even more unpopular with viewers.
    • Regarding Guy of Gisborne, Kate actually had a completely justified In-Universe reason to hate him given that he stabbed her brother to death right in front of her; but pitting a whiny Jerkass against the Ensemble Dark Horse Byronic Anti-Hero at the tail-end of his Redemption Quest predictably did not pan out for her in the eyes of the fanbase.
• Memetic Mutation: Has magnified a lot of Kate's negative traits. It's particularly the case for the forehead braid (which she only had for three episodes) and the "e keeled mah bruvvah!" line (which she only said a couple of times).
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • A large portion (though not all) of the Guy/Marian shippers. Despite capitalizing on the actors' chemistry with some Ship Tease between Guy and Marian, the writers were very careful to ensure that Robin and Marian had a respectful and reciprocal relationship, whilst Guy's and Marian's was riddled with violence, threats, blackmail, intimidation, betrayals and hurt feelings. However, there is still a portion of the fandom that argue that Marian should have ended up with Guy, an opinion that can be divided into two distinct arguments: those that believe Guy was an accurate portrayal of a socially-awkward 12th century knight, who was therefore justified in everything he did regarding Marian (a view that requires steadfast denial of the show's Anachronism Stew), and those that paint him as a Draco in Leather Pants, who acted the way he did thanks to his Freudian Excuse, with Marian regarded as an ungrateful bitch for not appreciating him.
  • Though there are exceptions, the former group's fanfiction usually follows the basic "rape fantasy" scenario, in which Marian is forced to marry Guy against her will and then discovers that he's quite an acrobat in the bedroom; whilst the latter group either has Marian apologize for to him for her behaviour, then treat him to some Redemptive Sex, or cuts out Marian and pairs Guy with a self-insert character.
    • As for the show itself, it turned out that what the writers were actually trying to do was deconstruct the notion that the love of a good woman can redeem a Cute but Troubled Bad Boy. When Marian finally refuses to play along with Guy's demands and tells him that she's in love with Robin Hood, he stabs her to death, effectively sending the Guy/Marian ship to the bottom of the bright blue sea.
• Moral Event Horizon: Guy killing Marian. 'nuff said.
• Narm:
  • Oh. So. Much. Actually, much of the Narm in the first two series (both of which were rather tongue-in-cheek) would probably be considered Narm Charm; but after the intense Mood Whiplash of the Series 2 finale in which Marian is brutally impaled on a sword, the fact that many subsequent episodes still include ridiculous scenarios results in a veritable onslaught of Narmtastic scenes.
  • Special mention must go to Guy's "secret weapon" that he plans to use to kill Robin Hood. He's carting around a sinister-looking box, as Prince John's elite team of soldiers surround the outlaws. The box opens... and out comes the oldest, tiniest, mangiest, most worn-out lion you've ever seen in your life. The outlaws react with terror as the decrepit beast waddles toward them at a snail's pace, looking like it just wants to find a quiet place to lie down and die.
  • Robin hang gliding from the castle parapets. It's played for laughs, but it still destroys brain cells.
  • Whenever Kate has an emotional scene, especially if she has the forehead braid at the time.
  • The cringeworthy sight of Isabella and Kate, two grown women, getting into a Cat Fight (complete with hair-pulling and eye-scratching) over a man who doesn't really care about either of them.
• Narm Charm:
  • In Series 2, during the death scene of Marian. On the one hand, the build-up involves a confusing and contrived sequence of events, and the death scene itself is drawn out to an utterly ridiculous extent in which Marian has a sword in her stomach and yet is able to carry on a completely coherent conversation for several minutes. On the other hand, Maid freaking Marian is dying and the Emotional Torque is Over Nine Thousand and no one can believe it's really happening and it's the most horrible, devastating thing that's ever happened in any Robin Hood retelling ever.
  Robin: We have forever, my love.
  Marian: I hope we have forever in heaven, because we didn't get enough time on earth.
  • Topped only by their Together in Death scene at the very end of the series, which echoes their parting words:
  Robin: My wife...
  Marian: Now and forever, my love.
• Never Live It Down: Kate only wore the infamous forehead braid for her first three episodes, but the hairdo was so appallingly ugly◊ that she was stuck with the Fan Nickname "Braid-face" for the rest of the show. It remained her most memorable physical trait long after it was gone.
• Nightmare Retardant: The lion. Seriously, if the outlaws had wanted to kill it, all they would've had to do was kick it over. Gently.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The idea of Gisborne murdering Marian was one of the ideas for the cancelled fourth series of Robin of Sherwood.
  • Robin of Sherwood had Guy and Robin (actually the second one) as half-brothers. And the idea of a Middle Eastern outlaw started with that show.
  • This Marian likes to dress up in disguise and go gallivanting around the countryside; in one of the very earliest ballads that featured Marian, she dresses up in disguise and fights Robin to a standstill in Sherwood Forest.
• One True Pairing: Guy and Marian may have been the Fan-Preferred Couple, but not even death was going to prevent Robin Hood and Marian from taking this crown.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Charlie Brooker felt that the 24-year-old Jonas Armstrong was too young-looking to have fought in the Crusade.
    This Robin is so young-looking, I kept excepting him to whip out his camera phone during the battle scenes to take pictures for his MySpace page.
  • This was largely avoided with David Harewood as Brother Tuck, considering that other black actors had already appeared on the show as minor guest stars without much comment. However, there was considerable confusion at the casting of Joanne Froggatt as Kate, who was a thirty-year-old woman playing the part of a character that was seemingly written for a much younger actress. Though the actual age of Kate is never stated, there are various indications that she was meant to be a teenager (the casting of a mother who didn't look much older than she did, the way Robin refers to her as "young lady" when they first meet, the rather childish behavior she exhibits throughout), leading to the fandom theory that the character was originally conceived as a Tagalong Kid, only for the show to cast Joanne Froggatt (she being an already-established actress and perhaps considered something of a drawcard) and not bother to modify the scripts to suit her more mature age. This only added to the unpopularity of the character, who (on top of everything else!) now came across as an odd Womanchild that the outlaws really had no reason to keep around.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • In the leadup to Series 3, it was announced that a "feisty village girl" called Kate would be joining the outlaws, and fandom's hackles immediately went up. It soon became apparent that she was replacing not only Marian (as Robin's Love Interest), but also Will Scarlett (as a representative of the common folk) and Djaq (as the Token Girl of the gang, though with none of her predecessor's combat training or medical skills). And because Much immediately falls for her, she was technically also a replacement for Eve, a season one Girl of the Week that shared a sweet romance with Much after her High-Heel–Face Turn, and whom he promised to find once the fighting was over.
  • It was hard not to feel a little sorry for someone who had to fill the shoes of FOUR very popular and deeply missed characters, but then Kate debuted and... well, see The Scrappy entry below. Let's face it, any original female character who is brought in for the sole purpose of replacing the legendary Maid Marian as Robin Hood's love interest is doomed to be despised for the crime of not being Marian. Why did the writers even try?
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Meta example. Joanne Froggatt was never given the chance to rescue Kate from the Scrappy Heap, but she went on to portray the immensely popular Anna in Downton Abbey, a character that bears several passing similarities to Kate.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ironically, many of the regular actors from the widely-derided Series 3 are the ones that went on to greater success in other projects: David Harewood is now better known as Martian Manhunter on Supergirl (2015), Lara Pulver played Irene Adler in Sherlock, Joanne Froggatt is Anna on Downton Abbey and Clive Standen is better recognized now as Rollo on Vikings. Toby Stephens was already fairly well-established as an actor, though his best known genre roles have since become Captain Flint in Black Sails and John Robinson in Lost in Space (2018), and Richard Armitage went on to greater fame as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit.
  • Among the multitude of guest stars that appeared on the show, most recognizable is Holliday Grainger as Meg, who is perhaps best known now for playing Lucrezia Borgia on The Borgias and Robin in Strike (2017), though she’s appeared in dozens of British period dramas over the years.
  • Series 1 also features an early appearance from Nikki Amuka-Bird, now a well-established character actress.
• Romantic Plot Tumour:
  • Despite the abrupt nature of the Robin/Isabella hook-up, it at least served a purpose in providing Isabella with motivation to eventually turn on Robin and become the Big Bad of Series 3. But as for Robin and Kate...? Kate spends the greater part of Series 3 aggressively pursuing Robin, becoming a Clingy Jealous Girl whenever Isabella is around, and eventually interrupting missions in order to make her interest known. Little John urges Robin to hook up with her, Much gives his blessing despite liking Kate himself, and most of the penultimate episode is once again spent on the Isabella/Robin/Kate Love Triangle, with Isabella trying to trick Kate into believing Robin is still romantically attached to her. The writers seemed desperate for the audience to root for Robin and Kate, taking every available opportunity to shill her as the perfect match for him - and yet three episodes after their Relationship Upgrade, Robin is fatally poisoned, can barely even look at Kate when she angles for a Last Kiss, and promptly goes on to get a Died Happily Ever After scene with Marian. It's impossible to grasp just what the point of Robin/Kate was, especially given the vast amount of narrative space that was spent on trying to make it feel relevant.
  • Likewise, poor Much is instantly besotted with Kate, does little else in Series 3 but try to win her over, takes a 10-Minute Retirement when it becomes apparent she's interested in Robin, and then sadly accepts the Robin/Kate pairing with no further ado. Again... what was the point?
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • What usually happens to Robin in Guy/Marian fanfic. Amusingly enough, by making Robin a jealous, self-centred, possessive, egotistical, violent man in order to consolidate Guy/Marian, Robin ends up being indistinguishable from canon!Guy.
  • Due to her nature as The Load, The Millstone, and a Faux Action Girl, and general Scrappiness, fandom tends to blame Kate for several things that aren't really her fault. The shibboleth that she joins the outlaws "despite never actually being outlawed" was a popular one even though, despite the episode where she gets outlawed being arguably a little unclear, she is; she is blamed for ruining Tuck's peaceful protest in "Something Worth Fighting For" even though Isabella had already opened fire on them before she turned up; and King Richard's reinforcements not coming to the siege on Nottingham Castle tends to be painted as somehow being her fault, since she was the one who went to get them (and got captured on her return), when it was hardly her fault that Richard was kidnapped, and the fact that no help was coming was, even if not what they wanted to hear, important information the outlaws really needed to know.
• Rooting for the Empire: A lot of people enjoyed the antics of Team Castle over those of Robin and the outlaws.
• The Scrappy:
  • The woefully misconceived Kate. Already pegged as an unworthy Replacement Scrappy to Marian before her debut, she was ultimately a perfect storm of terrible characterization that earned her the seething ire and resentment of the fanbase: a Faux Action Girl, Damsel Scrappy, Satellite Love Interest, Territorial Smurfette, Clingy Jealous Girl, Creator's Pet and The Load (often veering into The Millstone), who was Too Dumb to Live and constantly Complaining About Rescues She Didn't Like, with an abrasive, self-absorbed personality and a firm grip on the Distress Ball. Bestowed with Moral Luck that justified her Irrational Hatred for the show’s only other female character, Informed Attractiveness that made her the object of desire to almost the entire male cast, and shoehorned into various storylines whether or not it made any sense, she had no real narrative purpose beyond being the Token Girl, Victim of the Week, and the focus of several pointless Love Triangles – including a Romantic Plot Tumour with Robin. Plus a ridiculous hairstyle◊ that nobody could take seriously.
  • Some things about her character just didn't make sense, like how Robin couldn’t recognize her as one of his own serfs despite being on a First-Name Basis with every other Locksley villager, or how she was seemingly written as a Bratty Teenage Daughter despite being played by an actress nearing thirty, or the insane levels of Character Shilling that were lavished upon her. Neither did the writers bother to give her any useful skills to contribute to the team dynamic, writing her as the Designated Victim in nearly every episode, undergoing endless kidnappings, injuries and hostage situations just to give her something to do. Often the attempts to make her less of a Damsel in Distress backfired just as badly, with ludicrous scenes in which she spontaneously invents CPR to save Robin's life, gets wildly overpraised for completing simple tasks, or overpowers an armored man on horseback by pushing him with her bare hands. Even her costume made no sense! If nothing else, she exists as the perfect case study of what NOT to do with a female character.
    • Tuck wasn't that popular either. Though he had least had the advantage over Kate of actually being in the legends upon which the show was based, it was abundantly clear that the writers introduced him without really knowing what they planned to do with him. After the first episode of Series 3 (in which he convinces Robin to return to the fight against injustice), he really doesn't do anything substantial. It might not have been so bad except that the writers would often focus on Kate and Tuck at the expense of the other outlaws (Much, Allan, John) who had been around since the beginning of the show and were now being shoved aside in order to accommodate the newcomers. Thus Kate and Tuck not only got two character-centric episodes revolving around them, but were made out to be the two most important and trusted members of Robin's gang (Tuck taking John's place as The Lancer, and Kate nudging out Much as Robin's Sidekick, as well as his new Love Interest) with no justification whatsoever.
    • Kate's mother Rebecca was also universally disliked on account of her constant complaining, illogical blaming of Robin for the death of her son Matthew, and her part in a time-wasting subplot in which Robin is Mistaken for Cheating due to her complicity in one of Isabella's machinations. However, the hate wasn't quite as vitriolic in her case, as she only appeared in four episodes and was obviously deliberately being written as an unlikeable scold.
• Seasonal Rot: A number of contributing factors ensured that Series 3 not only earned the hatred of the fans, but the cancellation of the show. The new writers apparently didn't bother to watch the previous two seasons, which resulted in multiple sins: the dropping of long-term storylines from the show; the complete lack of mention of Will Scarlett and Djaq (who were abandoned in the Holy Land); the reimagining of Tuck as a Magical Negro; the introduction of the horrid Kate as a love interest for Robin; the reduction of the outlaws into bit parts (whose only job was to babysit Kate and talk about how great she was); the abandonment of the "rob from the rich/give to the poor" premise; the painful introduction of Guy and Robin's mutual half-brother in an attempt to set up Robin Hood as a Legacy Character for a proposed Series 4; and finally, the mass exodus of all but two of the original cast members (who were removed via some of the worst deaths conceivable), who certainly weren't shy about voicing their displeasure at the direction the show had taken.
• Shipping Bed Death: Notably averted since the writers seemed to live in absolute terror of this trope. The Love Triangle of Robin, Marian and Guy is resolved when Guy murders Marian after finally learning that she loves (and has married) Robin. Will and Djaq are permanently written out of the show an episode after they become an Official Couple. Robin and Isabella are a couple for three episodes before it implodes. Robin and Kate's relationship lasts four episodes (which covers approximately three days, tops) before it too ends with Robin's death. The idea of portraying a committed and healthy relationship between two people for a sustained period of time was completely beyond the reach of this show.
• So Bad, It's Good: To some viewers. According to Dead Ringers:
  "And now on BBC One with a brand new series of Robin Hood: where we've taken a much-loved classic tale, given it a pithy 20th century makeover, and made it shit."
• Special Effect Failure: The lion (although to be absolutely fair, the director does try his best to work around the fact that it's the most harmless, half-dead specimen imaginable).
• Strangled by the Red String: Will and Djaq's relationship is given subtle foreshadowing throughout Series 2, but it leads to a declaration of love that was considered too sudden, too corny, and completely out of character for both of them in what is widely known as the Barn Scene of Ick .
  • Robin and Isabella's first meeting is accompanied by a musical cue that's about as subtle as an anvil drop, and the episode concludes in a Narmtastic scene in which Robin confronts her about the fact that she's Gisborne's sister. He grabs her by the face, pushes her back into a tree, and acts so betrayed and angry that looks as though he's angsting over a woman he's been dating for three months instead of someone he's known for approximately five minutes.
    • Much's immediate and inexplicable infatuation with Kate.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Robin decides to work with Isabella, resulting in a snide "She always gets what she wants" remark from Kate. Robin irritably snaps, "Just leave it, Kate!" Unfortunately, Kate is eventually proved irrefutably right in her insistence that Isabella can't be trusted, and gets to say "Maybe next time you'll listen to me" and "I told you so," as well as receive an influx of Creator's Pet-shilling when Little John calls her "a treasure" and Robin tells her that she's "brave, compassionate and beautiful" before making out with her. This is after Kate demands that Isabella be left to get raped and strangled at the hands of her abusive husband. Still, Robin's "shut up" was nice while it lasted....
  • Several episodes later, though, when Guy joins the team, he calmly informs Kate: "You don't have to like me. I don't like you."
  • In the Grand Finale, Robin discovers that he's been fatally poisoned. Kate attempts to give him a Last Kiss, but he deliberately turns his face away, and a few moments later is reunited with Marian. Kate has to settle for a one-armed hug, and when Robin leaves to die alone, he doesn't even look back.
  • In that same scene, there's something of a meta example. During his Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye, Robin exchanges words of thanks and encouragement with each of the remaining outlaws. But when he gets to Kate... she's not given any dialogue. Perhaps the writer didn't want her to spoil the moment by actually saying something.
    • The scene is also deliberately staged so that Robin farewells the outlaws in order of their importance to him, starting with Much and Little John, then Archer and Tuck. Kate is dead last.
• The Woobie: Guy sometimes, Djaq often, Much always.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Djaq was a Sweet Polly Oliver who played the Gender Flipped role of the Saracen, brought from Jerusalem to England as a slave. She disguises herself as a boy, takes her twin brother's persona, and decides to join Robin and his outlaws as The Medic. The potential here was breathtaking - not only could it been a great Fish out of Water story, but Djaq effortlessly took the place as The Heart of the group, had an intriguing dynamic with all her fellow outlaws (including a Love Triangle that was vastly more interesting than Robin, Marian and Guy forever whinging at each other) and an endearing superiority complex that was completely at odds with the actress's tiny stature. She almost instantly became the show's Ensemble Dark Horse... only for the writers to completely ignore her, throw her into an abrupt relationship with Will Scarlett, write her out of the show, and replace her with a jerk who was hated by all and sundry, but who got twice as much screen time in one series than Djaq did in two.
  • Tuck. Prior to the airing of Series 3, actor David Harewood spoke of his character having "a dark backstory" and that a power struggle with Robin for the role of leader would take place. Neither of these stories materialized in the show itself, making you wonder what was left on the editing room floor. It was also pointed out throughout fandom that Tuck would have been in the perfect position to introduce the character of Archer to the show, if the writers had thought to insert him into the Whole Episode Flashback as the Merlin-like figure who hid him away as a baby, then giving him a season-long arc in which he could have easily been nudging Robin and Guy to work together to save their mutual half-brother. Instead this role goes to Robin's father Malcolm, a one-shot character who up until this point was assumed to be dead for the show's entire run, and who disappears without a trace after he's dumped all his exposition. Despite the character's promise, Tuck becomes little more than an extra very quickly into the third series.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: The entire cast in Series 3, bless them. What had been a silly, campy show for its first two seasons (and which somehow managed to pull it off, thanks to the dignity of the actors) was now asking to be taken deadly seriously... whilst still including ridiculous scenarios such as a lion so old that it couldn't even walk in a straight line and Robin hang gliding from the castle parapets. In fact, Allan-a-Dale's WTF reaction to the hang gliding is clearly the moment when the actor decided he was quitting.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: This sets in at the end of season two when Guy of Gisborne stabs Marian to death, leading to a Series 3 that is completely devoid of the show's moral/emotional center and which obliterated any chance of a happy ending. Not helping was that Will and Djaq, the youngest and most optimistic of the outlaws, were also written out at the same time. Series 3 attempted to maintain a light tone; but between Robin's bizarre Angst? What Angst? over Marian's death, Guy spiraling into an increasingly violent depression, the family dynamic of the outlaws all but completely absent, and the extremely distasteful decision to make a traumatized woman fleeing from domestic violence the show's Big Bad (especially egregious after Marian's brutal murder), audiences struggled to find a reason to care.
• Too Cool to Live: Meg, a smart, spunky girl who shows intelligence, compassion, and an endearing sense of entitlement that gets Guy of Gisborne to stop moping and rethink his priorities. Meg's counterpart Kate spends the entire episode sulking and moaning (as per usual) and tops it off by trying to manipulate a dangerous situation so that her romantic rival is killed off. Now, guess who dies and guess who survives the entire show.
  • Also, Legrande.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: For two episodes in Series 3 Guy of Gisborne was entirely absent due to Richard Armitage's commitments with Spooks. The Story Arc couldn't proceed without him, which led to the writers marking off time with two negligible episodes in his absence, first in which the outlaws try to rescue a copy of the Bible translated into English, and then in rescuing Kate multiple times from an evil tax collector. Excepting the contrivance of Kate joining the outlaws and some minor background for Tuck, neither episode adds anything to the arc of the season and can easily be skipped.
  • Kate's entire presence is one very long Trapped by Mountain Lions arc. Her scenes could be exorcised completely from Series 3 with absolutely no impact made on the overarching storyline. Her frequent kidnappings are padding, her love story with Robin is pointless, and the odd occasion in which she is allowed to be mildly useful involves her doing things that could have just as easily been achieved by another outlaw (like finding a MacGuffin or causing a distraction). There is nothing involving Kate herself (that is, something that only her character could have done) that in any way shapes the course of the season's Story Arc.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Isabella is clearly meant to be entirely unsympathetic by the end of the show's run, thereby justifying Robin and Guy's (successful) attempt to kill her. In that case, it probably wasn't such a good idea to have her backstory consist of Guy selling her into an abusive marriage to a sadistic rapist at the age of thirteen, or to have Robin constantly flip-flopping in regards to his attitude and behaviour toward her. Even her ordering the execution of Meg, which is meant to be her Moral Event Horizon, is somewhat understandable, considering that she frees Meg from an arranged marriage only to catch her releasing a prisoner who has already made at least two attempts on Isabella's life. Likewise, the fact that she is one of the few characters on the show to avoid carrying the Idiot Ball earned her extra points, and when she's insane she manages to be more competent than anyone around her.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • At the end of Series 2, Guy of Gisborne stabbed Maid Marian to death, sending his Character Development and Redemption Arc back to square one. Series 3 tried to turn him into a Heartbroken Badass, ignoring the fact that for a significant portion of the fanbase, he had already crossed the Moral Event Horizon when he stabbed Maid Marian to death and thus forfeited any right to the goodwill of the audience. Even the actor hated him.
  • The death of Kate's brother did not carry the emotional weight it should have done thanks to Kate's refusal to utilize common sense in her repeated attempts to rescue him. The writers were going for "headstrong" and "impulsive" in their characterization of Kate — unfortunately, all they really managed was "stupid." The ridiculous swinging between Wangst and trying to romance Robin didn't help her either.
    • And the cherry on top is the fact that Kate's brother was killed by Guy, resulting in a scene in which the audience has no reason to care about anyone involved.
    • And the cherry on top of that cherry is that depending on how you see it, Kate is at fault as well for the murder. He died because she got captured trying to get him out of the army and he died trying to save her. Some fans wonder if he might have survived had she just left him in the army.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Most viewers preferred Djaq's androgynous Series 1 appearance over her more feminized look in Series 2 (especially since it included what became known as the outer-bra).
• Viewers in Mourning: The backlash for Marian and Allan's deaths was not pretty, and the writer/co-creator responsible for the former's death left the show under rather murky circumstances once the episode had aired. There was less outcry for Robin and Guy, considering that their fates were sealed by the season two finale and were seen coming a mile away.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The explosion that destroys Nottingham Castle in the finale.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Particular "highlights" of the show's wardrobe include Marian's bright yellow cropped cardigan that looks like it was bought at Top Shop, the Sheriff wearing Birkenstock sandals, a soldier from the Crusades wearing modern camo-print trousers and the "assassins" dressed in halterneck, teal spandex jumpsuits.
  • On joining the outlaws, Kate opts to wear an ankle-length dress that featured fussy little tassels on the sleeves that could easily snag the undergrowth. The severely impractical length clearly made it difficult for the actress to navigate the terrain, and provided yet another example of her inferiority to Marian, who (despite some of her own dubious fashion choices) was at least intelligent enough to switch to pants on arriving in Sherwood Forest.
  • It's far less egregious than the trope usually implies (since it is at least a very beautiful costume, and the circumstances in which she wears it could be argued to justify its strange appearance) but many viewers noticed that Marian's otherworldly gown in the Grand Finale seemed to have been borrowed from the The Lord of the Rings set, earning her the Fan Nickname "Arwen!Marian".

YMMV for appearances in other works.

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