YMMV / Theatre of Tragedy

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is "Machine" a science fiction tale about robots, AI and how they're Just a Machine? Or social commentary about the exploitation of the workforce under capitalism?
• Awesome Music: Most fans will agree that their first three albums are masterpieces and are often considered among the most important albums in the entire Gothic Metal genre.
• Base-Breaking Character: Liv Kristine. Literally: she did everything in her power to break the base and turn it against the band once she got the boot. Looks like that's her go-to strategy every time that happens.
• Broken Base: Basically at every step:
  • Younger fans won't probably remember that back in its days, even Aégis, now considered their signature album and a seminal one for the genre as a whole, was contested by part of the fanbase for being more atmospheric and less doom-oriented than the first two albums.
  • The synthrock era of Musique and Assembly is a high point of contention.
  • The firing of Liv Kristine damaged the base beyond repair.
• Contested Sequel: The two albums that came out after Aégis, which saw the band leave their traditional roots and go into more of an industrial/synthetic style. Some fans felt this led to a great change, others felt that this was the death knell of the band.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Guitarist Tommy Olsson is fondly remembered for giving fan-favourite Aégis its distinctive sound.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fans of Nell tend have lots of sympathy and solidarity for Elina Siirala and her fans, since Liv's fans gave her the same treatment as Nell for the high crime of replacing Liv Kristine as lead vocalist on a band.
• Gateway Series: Some metalhead fans are fond of Musique and Assembly for pushing them to give electronic music a chance.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While having decent success in their home country, they had even more commercial success in Germany and South America.
• Growing the Beard: Velvet Darkness They Fear and Assembly did a great job at polishing the sound of their respective eras and taking it to the next level.
• Narm:
  • To some, the Early Modern English lyrics on the first three albums.
    "Hah! – for thee even a hound holdeth the throne.
    Unwanted child of mother! Plague of plagues!
    Father of leprous children!"

    — "Hollow-Heartéd, Heart-Departéd", from Theatre of Tragedy
  • Many of the deliberately vapid lyrics on Musique and Assembly. Raymond went a little overboard in trying to distance himself from the seriousness of the first three albums.
    "You are the anti-fashion statement
    In a blue suit and orange pullover
    'Cause you look like my old dog Rover"

    — "Image", from Musique
• Replacement Scrappy: Fans are very divided as to whether or not Nell Sigland was a good replacement. Some never even gave her a chance just because she was not Liv Kristine. She even got some nasty hate mail because of that in her early days.
• The Scrappy: On the other side of the fence, while Liv Kristine is generally beloved within the genre, her Wounded Gazelle Gambit when she got fired from the band, which was specifically aimed to tarnish their reputation, irked quite a few fans and left them with a less than pleasant memory of her.
• She Really Can Sing: Personal preference aside, the Last Curtain Call live album and DVD showed beyond doubt that Nell is a very competent singer in her own right when it comes to technique, expressiveness and stage presence.
• Signature Song: "Der Tanz Der Schatten" and "Venus".
• Special Effect Failure: The shots of Lorentz clinging to a rope above the eye of a cyclone in the "Storm" videoclip look very, very bad.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: One could charitably say that most of the lyrics on Musique and Assembly were not very substantial, often to the point of deliberate Stylistic Suck; Storm and Forever Is The World on the other hand, where Raymond shared writing duties with Nell, tackle much deeper, more topical and relatable themes, ranging from emotional to social, in a much more tasteful way. Arguably, while the first three albums are a stylistic pinnacle with the Early Modern English poetry, the actual content of the lyrics on the last two albums goes even deeper than that.
• Tear Jerker: "Forever Is The World" from the Last Curtain Call DVD: it's the final song performed by the band, and the fans in the audience are visibly distraught. Even Nell herself sings through her tears towards the end.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Happened twice, first when they changed genres, then when they changed female singers. Needless to say the fans are quite split about these changes.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Aside from the aforementioned cyclone bits, the rest of "Storm" videoclip looks quite decent for the shoestring budget it was made on.
• Win Back the Crowd: Storm went back to Gothic Metal (albeit modernised) and pleased many fans who disliked the synthrock phase (and didn't mind the change in vocalist).