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  • Abandon Shipping:
    • Bill/Sookie got hit with this hard around season 3 when it was revealed that not only had Bill been sent by Queen Sophie Anne to procure Sookie for her, but that way back in season 1, Bill stood by and allowed the Rattarays to beat the shit out of Sookie so he could pretend to be a hero, drug her with his blood (which was both a tracking device and a powerful aphrodisiac), manipulate her into falling in love with him, and then later tried to cover it all up by murdering Eric and Pam when they discover what he did. All the while, he was gaslighting Sookie into thinking he had her best interests in mind when, in reality, he never wanted her to find out about the truth so she wouldn't break up with him. Many fans were disgusted with Bill's actions, with some even going as far as to declare it a Moral Event Horizon for the character. It doesn't help that Sooric (Eric/Sookie) was becoming popular at the time (especially since it was a key relationship in the books), with fans expressing interest in seeing that relationship adapted to the screen. In recent years (especially for those who go back and re-watch the show) many fans have soured towards the Bill/Sookie relationship, with some seeing it as toxic, abusive, and seriously dubious at best considering what Bill did to get into that relationship with Sookie.
    • Franklin/Tara. Any interest in this relationship for many people vanished when Franklin kidnapped Tara, took her to a plantation, proceeded to rape her, and planned to turn her into a vampire against her will. Tara spells this out for Franklin later on, making it crystal clear that he is a monster for what he did to her, and that she would rather be dead than with him.
    • Sam/Daphne. They had fans briefly due to both of them being shapeshifters. The ship got abandoned just as quickly when Daphne betrays Sam and reveals she willingly works for Maryann.
    • Downplayed in the case of Hoyt/Jessica. While the relationship still has its fans, there were people who were put off by Hoyt's behavior towards Jessica in seasons 4-5, and stopped shipping them as a result. A key moment that caused people to abandon ship entirely was when Hoyt joins a hate group in season 5, said hate group captures Jessica for Hoyt to kill, and Hoyt has a debate about whether or not to murder her while pointing a gun at her head when she's not in a position to fight back. This left a really bad taste in people's mouths because of how nasty, entitled, and misogynistic Hoyt's behavior was. The fact the show glosses over this in season 7 in favor of getting Jessica and Hoyt back together did not go over well with certain fans.
  • Accidental Aesop:
    • Don't put minority groups on pedestals, and don't claim to speak on their behalf when you have very little understanding of their culture and current issues. Sookie spends the earlier parts of the show constantly defending vampires and assuming that people who don't like them are bigots. It's only after some pretty traumatic experiences on her part that she eventually realizes there are uglier aspects to vampire culture that can't be defended and there are valid reasons outside of bigotry for why humans don't like and don't trust vampires (especially when it comes to vampires who have kidnapped, tortured, raped, drained, and killed humans for centuries). It doesn't help that the vampire government is shown to be just as corrupt and self-serving as human governments, or that most vampires are just as bigoted to humans as humans are towards them. Likewise, in season 6, Nicole and her human activist group want to unite supernatural creatures in the name of racial harmony, even if it means forcing them to reveal themselves to humans regardless of how they feel about it. When she tries to film Alcide's werewolf pack without their permission, they retaliate by slaughtering her friends and forcing her to go on the run.
    • There are many characters on this show who have abusive upbringings and traumatic experiences that explain why they became the way they did, but it does not excuse them when they intentionally inflict harm on others. Both Crystal and Tommy are introduced in season 3 as coming from abusive households where they were used by their families to the point it psychologically damaged them. At the same time though, their later actions (i.e. Crystal subjecting Jason to a gang-rape and Tommy raping Luna) are so vile and unforgivable that it destroys any sympathy the audience could have for them. Lorena is revealed to have become twisted and evil because of the abuse she suffered under her maker, Istvan. In spite of this, it doesn't remotely justify the pain and misery she inflicted on others for centuries after she left him. In season 4, Marnie tries to rationalize her behavior multiple times by claiming she's been a victim of bullying for years and that she's standing up for other witches who've been persecuted by vampires. However, as her actions continue to get other people killed, it becomes harder to sympathize with her because of how power-hungry, selfish, and petty she reveals herself to be. Salome is established as having been a victim of rape when she was a girl and getting demonized over the centuries for what happened to her, but her choice to inflict her anger on the world by becoming Lilith's follower, taking over the Authority, and waging a war against humans for the purpose of enslaving them is so heinous that it makes her a far worse monster than the people who abused her when she was human. Warlow is revealed to have been turned by Lilith into a vampire against his will, and later spent centuries alone after he slaughtered his family in his bloodlust and murdered Lilith in revenge. Regardless, it doesn't excuse his actions years later when he deliberately murdered the Faeries at Hot Wings to prevent them from interfering in his relationship with Sookie, or when he turned into an attempted rapist who planned to force Sookie to become his faerie-bride because he felt entitled to have her based on a contract that Sookie did not consent to. In other words, having a traumatic past is NOT a free pass to committ evil acts against others.
    • Don't take people's appearances at face value. Those who may seem like Jerkasses on the surface (such as Eric, Pam, Jason, Andy, etc) may have more redeeming qualities and sympathetic traits than initially shown. Likewise, people who first appear friendly or charming initially may actually have ulterior motives and reveal themselves to be more manipulative than they let on, which turns out to be the case with Amy Burley, Maryann Forrester, Sarah Newlin, Bud Dearborne, Bill Compton, Daphne Landry, Franklin Mott, Macklyn Warlow, etc.
    • Just because someone is initially a Nice Guy doesn't mean they aren't capable of becoming a Jerkass later on, especially in the right circumstances.
    • Religious extremism of any kind is wrong and it is never okay to use religion as a way to justify bigotry towards other people. Both the Fellowship of the Sun and the Sanguinistas are prime examples of organizations that cause a lot of grief and damage to others because of this mentality.
  • Adaptation Displacement: Many of the characters get this view. Eric Northman, for example, is much more noble in the books and possessed of a strong personal code of honor. Yet, even fans of the books have started to view him as something of The Stoic and The Chessmaster.
    • Likewise, the Sookie Stackhouse of the books is considerably more hard edged.
    • Sookie is a bit of a Hidden Badass, as shown when she beat the shit out of Debbie, a werewolf, laughed maniacally as she poured Talbot's remains down a sink, and lured the second oldest vampire in the world who is already after her into a position where she can threaten him with her anti-vampire fairy nuke.
    • Pam is basically Sookie's best friend in the books. In the show, they despise each other.
    • Sookie and Jason's relationship is significantly different. In the books, their relationship is much colder, with Sookie barely liking her brother and Jason being a Jerkass to her at different points. In the show (despite starting off badly in season 1) Sookie and Jason are much closer as siblings, with Jason having a Big Brother Instinct for Sookie, Sookie looking to Jason for comfort at different points on the show, and both Sookie and Jason supporting each other through their struggles.
  • Alas, Poor Scrappy:
    • Whether you like Sookie or not, her near drowning at the hands of her OWN father and finding out her parents were willing to kill her is a hard enough pill to swallow. It's hard not to feel sorry for her when she yells fuck you Mom and Dad at their own graves.
    • Despite the hate Jason gets sometimes, it's hard not to feel bad for him when he is viciously gang-raped in season 4 by the very tribe of werepanthers he spent a year taking care of. It really is heartbreaking to see them betray him like that in such a cruel and unforgivable manner. It gets even worse in season 5 when we find out that he was raped by a teacher when he was a teenager and it caused him to develop an addiction to sex that he's struggled against.
    • He may have been a pathological asshole, but Tommy didn't deserve to die like that. The fact that he put himself in harm's way for his brother's sake along with a death wish for murdering his parents makes it somewhat heartbreaking. It's no real surprise that Sam swears revenge.
    • Arlene's near death experience in Season 7 is this. Even if you outright hated her, her happy expression when she see's Terry's ghost welcoming her to the afterlife can be all sorts of tear jerking.
    • And now with Tara, the biggest Base-Breaking Character on the show getting a HOW COULD THEY?! response after the finale of season 4.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Sophie Anne Leclerq. After the season 3 finale made it look like she and Bill were going to fight to the death, season 4 reveals that Bill was just stalling until human guards hired by him came to his aid. After briefly taunting Sophie Anne, Bill orders the guards to shoot her and she dies anticlimaticly.
    • Roman Zimojic. A Surprisingly Sudden Death mid-season at the hands of Russell Edgington, who'd have known? Especially considering how prominent the actor playing him is and how much of a fuss they made of casting him.
    • Salome Agrippa. She was older and stronger than Godric, the political mastermind of the Authority, and a Manipulative Bitch of literal biblical proportions. She was tricked effortlessly by Bill performing a Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo of sorts and staked immediately thereafter. Somewhat Justified in that she's a 2000 year old vampire, and any attempt by the other characters to take her on in a fight would have resulted in them losing.
    • Russell Edgington. Twice. The first time he is defeated, it's because Eric tricks him into drinking Sookie's blood and going out with him into the sun. Russell gets burnt to a crisp after Sookie's blood wears off, and is weakened severely enough that all Eric and Bill have to do is silver Russell and bury him in concrete. The second time happens in season 5 when he gets drunk on the Elder Faerie's blood and is so intoxicated that Eric is able to take him by surprise and easily stake him. Russell's Last Words ("Well....fuck") only drive this home.
    • In season 6, Truman Burrell. Ripped apart by Bill halfway through the season despite being set up as the biggest threat against vampires yet to be faced.
    • Mr. Gus. Despite being set up as the Big Bad of Season 7, he was largely confined to Eric and Pam's sub-plot and was dispatched by them with no help needed from the rest of the cast.
  • Ass Pull:
    • The revelation in season 4 that Bill was hired by Nan Flanagan to work as a double-agent for the Authority. Unlike the twist in season 3 where Bill was sent by Sophie Anne to procure Sookie, which at least was foreshadowed at different points in the previous seasons (to say nothing about how that twist came directly from the books), this revelation about Bill's character comes out of nowhere. It's never once hinted at that Bill had any association with Nan Flanagan or the Authority prior to season 4. What makes it egregious is both Bill and Nan had a scene together in season 2 at the Hotel Carmilla and the show never implies during that scene that either of them knew each other on a personal level. The only reason this twist was introduced was to give an explanation for how Bill became king and to keep his character relevant to the main story after Sookie breaks up with him.
    • Throughout the series, Lettie Mae had been portrayed as a terrible mother. She scared Tara so much that she would regularly run away to the Stackhouse's home, and she even smashed an alcohol bottle over her head in the first season. Even after she gets sober, she becomes an ungrateful, self-righteous prig who deliberately leaves Tara in jail after she's arrested for DUI. This is after Tara had bailed her out countless times when their roles were reversed. In the very last season, it's revealed that she used to be a good mother, until her abusive husband left her. Given how much Lettie Mae's abuse shaped Tara, and how many problems she causes Tara throughout the series, it's pretty hard to believe that the fact that she was a decent parent until one particular incident wouldn't have come up at some point in the six previous seasons.
    • Tara's father gets this treatment too. We're supposed to believe that he was so outlandishly petty that he abandoned his family rather than celebrate his daughter's birthday.
    • The way the Billith arc is resolved: From the end of season 5 through-out most of season 6, a lot of emphasis is placed on how Bill is no longer the same person anymore since he drank Lilith's blood, and has now become a powerful and dangerous entity to be reckoned with, which is bad news for everyone else. Nora makes a huge deal about how Warlow (Lilith's progeny) is the only one who can stop Billith, and it seems like the show is setting up Billith as the Big Bad with Warlow having some kind of role in defeating him. However, what ultimately happens is Warlow almost gets drained by Eric for his blood (which takes him out of commission), and Billith later goes to the Vampire Camps and allows several vampires to feed on him so they can walk in the sun, which..........somehow makes Lilith's blood disappear from Bill entirely and reverts Bill back to his normal self. No logical explanation is given for how this works, especially since Bill is suppose to have Lilith's blood in his veins after he died and got reincarnated as her, or whether or not the vampires who drank from Bill are also experiencing Lilith's hallucinations (since one drop of her blood is powerful enough to affect vampires), and Lilith and her sirens quietly drop out of the story at this point and are never seen again. Furthermore, Warlow's connection to Lilith ultimately goes nowhere, and the entire prophecy about him being chosen to save the vampire race amounts to nothing, especially since season 7 demonstrates that Hep-V killed way more vampires and humans combined than the white room ever did.
    • The way the Hep-V arc in season 7 is resolved: It's revealed that Sarah Newlin has the cure inside of her blood when she drank the antidote during Eric's rampage of the Vamp Camps. This was not seen or foreshadowed at all in season 6 (nor was there any hint that there was a secret cure out there prior to this revelation), and it's pretty much a lousy Retcon introduced in the last few episodes of the season to wrap up the story.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: This is a show where Anna Paquin gets naked. A lot. And has lots of sex with her hot vampire boyfriend who has a weird way of pronouncing her name. And a tall, blonde vampire having sex at warp speed with a hot Estonian dancer... who also has sex with Pam. And said blonde vampire having sex with his hot sister (she's not his biological sister). And Ryan Kwanten being naked a few times. And Karolina Wydra having two topless sex scenes and some lingerie scenes. And pretty much most of the cast having nude scenes.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Eric and Sookie having sex in a snowy dreamland.
  • Broken Base:
    • The show's decision to make changes from the books (and eventually split away from them by season 5) has received a polarized reception from fans:
      • Those who haven't read the books tend to be a little more forgiving towards the show and the direction it went in later seasons.
      • Book purists on the other hand absolutely HATED the changes, with some even going as far as to declare the show garbage while holding up the books as superior.
      • Some books fans were okay with the changes the show made, and even liked some of them because they believed it improved on the books (Lafayette's expanded role, the introduction of Jessica, Godric being Eric's maker and NOT a child rapist, Sookie and Jason having a closer sibling relationship, the Lafayette/Jesus relationship, etc).
      • Some books fans liked certain changes but hated others (like the way the werepanthers, werewolves, and faeries were handled).
      • Some fans were fine with the show making changes here and there, but were not happy when season 5 deviated from the books completely, and were deeply critical of the Lilith, Warlow, and Hep-V stories.
      • Some fans were okay with the Lilith and Warlow stories and didn't think they were terrible.
      • Some fans like both the books and the show despite their flaws, and recognize that the show was always going to be it's own thing, and therefore hold them up as two separate adaptations while judging them on their own merits.
      • As for the people who haven't read the books (or just didn't care for them), they either were much more accepting of the later seasons, or they had their own issues with certain storylines, characters, etc.
  • Cargo Ship: After Talbot's death, Russell takes to carrying his remains around in a cut crystal urn and talking to them. He caresses it constantly...
  • Complete Monster:
    • Seasons 1 & 2: Maryann Forrester is a maenad, a hedonistic creature devoted to bringing about the god Dionysus, and enjoys spreading violence and lust in her wake with ritualistic orgies and mass brainwashing. Posing as a caring and wealthy social worker, Maryann takes Tara in from her mother, trying to keep Tara dependent on her and brainwashing her into an abusive relationship with her other patient Benedict, who has been unwittingly brainwashed into killing people and carving out their hearts at Maryann's behest; Maryann would then bake these hearts into her food and serve them to her guests. Years ago, Maryann raped a teenage Sam Merlotte, and in the present sets her sights on him as her sacrifice. Maryann sends a shapeshifter named Daphne to get close to Sam and lure him, but when she fails, Maryann has her killed to frame Sam. Maryann uses her influence to brainwash all but a few of the town of Bon Temps into a hedonistic cult. When Sookie and her friends arrive to save their town, Maryann deflects a bullet intended for her into her henchmen Karl's head, dismissing his death before brainwashing Sookie's human friends. Maryann tries to use Sookie to lure Sam to her, and when Sookie foils the ritual, Maryann tries to sacrifice all her followers and kill Sookie in a mad rage.
    • Seasons 5 & 6: Lilith, the primordial vampiric "god", is the personification of the evils of vampirism. Believing vampires to be above humans, Lilith's followers commit atrocities in her name to prevent peace with humans, with Lilith directly influencing members of the Authority to her own ends. Under Lilith's influence, the Authority has massacred numerous people and committed terror attacks on Tru Blood factories, abducting and imprisoning hundreds people to feed on in an effort to start a war. Lilith appears to members of the Authority convincing them they are to be her vessel, with Bill killing all of them before she possesses him. When Godric's spirit reaches out to Eric and Nora to warn them of Lilith's true nature, Lilith appears and decapitates Godric. Lilith has Bill conduct experiments with fairy blood to further empower the vampires; it's revealed Lilith's previous attempt was when she seduced and turned Mackyn Warlow into a vampire and the monster he is today. When Bill's experiments work and he's successful in saving captive vampires, Lilith sends her sirens to try to kill him, now that he fulfilled his purpose. Despite claiming to be above other vampires and morality, the characters who see through her, see her as a devil figure with Bill blaming her for the misery of their world.
    • "Me and the Devil" & "I Wish I Was the Moon": Don Santiago was a vampire who infiltrated the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the 15th century. A sadistic monster who abducted suspected witches, Santiago would feed from them, torture them and rape them along with his allies and progeny before killing them or having them burnt alive. With the witch Antonia, Santiago murders her coven members and has Antonia tortured and violently raped by his own progeny Luis before sentencing her to the pyre as well.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • Ruby Jean, Lafayette's mother. Most of what she says is horribly offensive (She introduces Jesus by saying "He's a Mexican, but he ain't raped me yet") but because she seems to be speaking partially out of insanity and because she's so casual about it you can't help but laugh.
    • The Authority sanctioning a human trafficking ring? Horrifying. A man being tied down to the main table for the Chancellors to feed on? Disgusting. Russell sarcastically asking if they should say grace while Steve offers a mocking prayer before they eat the guy? Funny. Both Salome and Nora looking irritated at their sacred religion being mocked? Hilarious.
  • Designated Hero: The vampires. All of them. Bill Compton murdered many people with Lorena and has deliberately murdered people even in the present day. Just about every vampire we've met we know for a fact have killed at least one human, and many of these vamps we know have killed more than that. Even "saintly" Godric murdered Eric's two best friends before turning Eric. And thanks to Jessica killing a man soon after she became a vampire, there's now no vampire we can definitely state has never killed a human. The Authority might be seen as a benevolent influence...except as their Arbiter they appointed a nasty "humans-are-inferior-to-vampires" bigot who regarded the fact Bill killed a vampire to save the life of a human as making Bill's crime of killing the vampire worse, not better, and as punishment had a terrified teenaged girl (Jessica) forcibly turned into a vampire by Bill. And we're supposed to be rooting for the vampires and their integration with humans why, exactly?
  • Designated Villain: Steve Newlin and Marnie Stonebrook. They lose sympathy points for being genocidal maniacs, but on the other hand, they and their respective followers were simply humans trying to fight back.
    • With Season Five, Steve has gone from being a genocidal human wanting to wipe out vampires to a vampire member of the Sanguinista movement, which wants to enslave all humans for food. This loses him even more sympathy points. At least as a human, he thought he was fighting evil and that his victims deserved what they got (which, in some cases, was true); as a vampire, he knows his human victims are innocent and couldn't care less. He's cheerfully participating in things that make Eric uncomfortable, to put it in perspective.
    • Governor Burrell in season six. Given everything the Vampire Authority pulled in the previous season, it's hard not to feel his anti-vampire legislation is completely warranted. He proceeds to go absurdly far off the deep end of prejudice, to the point of performing sadistic Nazi-esque experiments on captive vampires, just so we can see him as the villain. Even then, it's hard not to see it as vampires getting their just deserts.
  • Die for Our Ship: Eric/Sookie shippers bashing Bill non-stop.
    • And vice versa. So very much vice versa.
    • Jessica/Hoyt fans towards Tommy.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Franklin Mott, the sexually psychotic vampire who shows his love by tying women to beds and raping them before tearing them apart when they don't love him for it. In spite of all that, some fans find him sexy.
    • Essentially all of the vampires receive this sort of treatment from their fans—none of them are decent people, and all of them have spent decades (or centuries) torturing, murdering, and raping innocents. Arguably part of the appeal of True Blood is that they're all pretty bad, and fans learn to accept that. But there are those who don't, and downplay all negative or evil aspects of their favorite characters.
    • Eric needs some special mention here. The guy can do absolutely anything, no matter how violent or petty, and the fans adoration will only continue to increase. He seems specifically created in a lab to be the world's greatest Draco.
    • Downplayed in the case of Bill Compton. While Bill’s popularity as a character has taken a hit in recent years thanks to a combination of Values Dissonance, being viewed as The Scrappy by a good chunk of the fanbase, and his relationship with Sookie falling into Romantic Plot Tumor, that still hasn’t stopped hardcore fans of Bill from painting him as this tragically misunderstood character who is always the victim (no matter what he does) and who genuinely wants to be a decent person. This is ignoring that he’s committed some pretty heinous crimes (rape, torture, murder, human trafficking, terrorism, etc) that should have gotten him sent to prison, or at least executed. It also ignores that he’s intentionally gone out of his way to hurt and kill other people while proceeding to either make excuses for his behavior or try to find someone or something to blame for how he acts. To give a recap: He spent 70 years with Lorena raping, torturing, draining, and killing innocent women and men while getting a hard-on from the carnage he caused. After 70 years pass, he asks Lorena to release him because he doesn’t want anymore “bloody beds” or “cruelty for sport,” and yet once she complies with his request, he immediately goes to join a nest of vampires (Diane, Liam, and Malcom) and proceeds to participate with them in their sadistic escapades. He then works for Queen Sophie Anne for 35 years as her personal procurer (which by definition is someone who obtains another human as a prostitute for a client), and it’s pretty much stated that he was employed by her, which means he got paid to bring her humans to feed on, rape, parade around as her pets, and then callously dispose of once she was done with them. And then there’s his entire relationship with Sookie: Despite the insistence that Bill really fell in love with Sookie, it doesn’t change the fact that he got into this relationship by allowing Sookie to get beaten to death by two dangerous psychopaths so he could pretend to be a hero, use the situation to drug Sookie with his blood (which was both a powerful aphrodisiac and a tracking device), and use this to manipulate Sookie for 3 seasons straight. All of this was done so he could procure her for the Queen. And despite having multiple opportunities to come clean to Sookie about this, not only did he try to keep his actions a secret, but he later tries to murder Eric and Pam when they find out what he did, and also tries Gaslighting Sookie into believing he was a wonderful boyfriend with her best intentions in mind. This also includes the instances when he attempted to control her, when he assaulted her, when he manipulated her, and when he kept secrets from her for self-serving reasons. Bill only gets worse in the later seasons after they break up, and one particularly vile act he commits is when he tries to target Jason (Sookie’s brother) by bullying Jessica into turning Jason into a vampire without his consent. And yet, in spite of all of this, you will still find Bill fans who either insist that Bill isn't at fault for his choices, or that Bill really loved Sookie in a selfless way and that his behavior towards her (and towards other people) wasn’t abusive at all.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Lafayette was a minor character in the books, however, his popularity lead to him not being killed off.
    • Eric, to an extent. He did come with a build-in fanbase from the books, but the TV version managed to steadily gain supporters despite appearing for only a few minutes per episode in most of Season 1 and 2.
    • Jessica, a very popular character who doesn't exist in the books. She even has an occasionally hilarious videoblog on HBO's website.
    • Jesus Velasquez is another example of a character who wasn't in the books, but became popular with fans due to his kind and nurturing nature, as well as his heartwarming relationship with Lafayette.
    • Pam is an extremely popular character, which lead to her increased prominence from season 3 onward.
    • Russell was every fan's favorite villain back in Season 3. To this day, he is often cited as one of the best villains in the entire show.
    • Godric takes this to epic levels. The writers manage to bring him back as a non-corporeal spirit every season because of fan demand while he originally appeared in only a couple episodes and was killed off at the end of season 2.
    • Adorkable Fangtasia employee Ginger has a substantial fanbase as well due to her being part of most of the shows Crowning Moments of Funny.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: There is a significant chunk of the fanbase that likes to pretend season 7 never happened for a variety of reasons: Tara and Alcide's unceremonious deaths (which angered many fans), the deaths of previously known characters (Kenya, Kevin, Rosie, Maxine, etc) for shock value, the widely disliked Hep-V story, the reliance on Out of Character moments and Idiot Ball to keep the story going (Sookie throwing away her phone and not telling other people about it, characters taking 4 episodes to realize the human hostages are at Fangtasia, etc) Bill's Heel–Face Turn (which many fans felt was contrived, unearned, and also turned Bill into a Karma Houdini), the increased focus on Bill's flashbacks (which fans found to be boring and time-consuming), the consistent Retcons, Plot Holes, and Series Continuity Errors that began popping up, the rush to pair off couples (Jessica/Hoyt, Jason/Brigette, Arlene/Keith, Sookie/Faceless Man, etc) without giving them the proper development they deserved, the increased focus on characters (Lettie Mae, Violet, Sarah, The Yakutza, etc) who were Base Breaking Characters at best and Scrappies at worst, the lack of Character Development that some characters experienced by the end of the series (Sookie, Hoyt, Bill, etc), and the universally-panned series finale (which to this day is still regarded as one of the worst finales in TV history.)
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite the fact that they barely even get to speak between their affair in the first season and their hookup at the end of the third, the pairing of Sam and Tara generates much more squee than either does with their other Love Interests.
    • Ever since "Escape from the Dragon House", fans have been dying to see Sooric (Sookie x Eric) happen. Recently though the fanbase seems to be divided on whether Bookie should be reintroduced, or if it's Sooric all the way.
      • To make matters worse, there's also Alcide who a large section of the fandom (And TV Guide) ships Sookie with
    • The pairing of Pam/Tara (Para) has progressively become very popular since the beginning of season 4. Humungous amounts of squee erupted after the season 5 finale.
    • Lafayette/Jesus. Even people who have issues with the later seasons of the show have admitted this relationship is a highlight for them. The fact that it's one of the few positive LGBT+ relationships on the show certainly helps.
  • Escapist Character: Sookie can pretty much get every hunky guy in the show to fall in love with her. And which woman wouldn't love to be THIS desired? The supernatural powers are a bonus.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The scene when Maxine visits Sam at Tommy's grave and tells Sam that he's part of the family is so much harder to watch after Season 7 when it's shown that Maxine would sooner kill Sam with pure glee after finding out he's a shifter.
  • He Really Can Act: While the werepanther arc in season 4 is widely despised by fans, Ryan Kwanten's acting is the one saving grace as he perfectly manages to capture Jason's pain, disgust, and terror as he's being raped by Crystal and her werepanther tribe. Likewise, the scene where Jessica finds Jason on the side of the road after he escapes the werepanthers and gives him her blood doesn't feature any talking on Jason's part, and yet he still manages to convey subtle emotions of relief and gratitude for Jessica for saving his life.
  • He's Just Hiding: While the faeries at Hotwings aren't exactly Ensemble Dark Horse material, plenty of fans like to hope that some of Claude's sisters aren't there when Warlow kills everyone present at the club in season 6.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The fact that Fiona Shaw, known for playing Muggle and magic hating Petunia Dursley plays a witch on this show. Even moreso when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows revealed that young Petunia was jealous her sister Lily was a witch and even wrote to Dumbledore hoping she could attend Hogwarts despite not being magical. So one could see this show as Aunt Petunia getting her wish!
    • Sookie's actress Anna Paquin previously portrayed Rogue, a Southern woman with special powers. Her real-life husband Stephen Moyer would be cast in The Gifted (2017), a show where his character had children who have powers.
    • Eric is revealed to have been a Viking prince prior to becoming a vampire. Alexander Skarsgård would later go on to portray Amleth, another Viking prince, in The Northman. Bonus points for "Northman" also being Eric's last name.
  • Ho Yay: Lafayette doesn't hesitate to flirt with other male characters. Recently, he's fed from Eric, and Eric stroked his shoulder and winked at him after releasing him from his dungeon. Their actors have said these signs of sexual tension were intentional.
    • There has been speculation about Eric's relationship with Godric even before we learned that Godric is his Maker. Unfortunately, Alan Ball has jossed any romantic subtext between Eric and Godric. (Although, watching their scenes, one wonders if he neglected to tell the actors, and directors, and possibly, the other writers).
    • When asked about a possible sexual relationship with Lafayette, however, Ball ambiguously stated that Eric is intrigued by him and might have some plans for him in the future. Indeed, there is sexual tension, as Lafayette has admitted to having some very kinky dreams about Eric since ingesting his blood.
    • The Season 3 opener has Sam getting into the act as well. See Erotic Dream above.
    • Eric is now flirting with both Russell Edgington and Talbot.
    • There are subtle hints that Steve Newlin is gay for Jason in season 2. In the season 5 premiere those suspicions are confirmed as a newly-vamped Steve declares he's a 'gay Vampire-American' and proclaims his love for Jason. Michael Mc Millian even stated in an interview that he played Steve in season 2 like he had a crush on Jason.
    • Jason has a blatantly homoerotic dream after Benlow gives him his blood to heal him and wakes up a bit excited.
    • Likewise, having received blood from Eric for the same reason, Jason has an even more homoerotic dream about him. This time it goes beyond just sexual and the fantasy includes the idea that he and Eric were in some kind of relationship! Humorously, Jason has this dream while falling asleep in church.
  • Iron Woobie: Jason really gets put through a lot of shit when you think about it: He loses his grandmother and girlfriend to a serial killer that he once considered a friend and gets blamed for it despite not having done it. He's indoctrinated into a cult, and almost gets killed because of it. He's led to believe his sister is dead for almost a year before she returns. He takes care of a werepanther tribe for a year, and he is repaid for it by getting gang-raped by Crystal and the other women of Hotshot. In the aftermath, he's left blaming himself for what happened to him, and gets no comfort or sympathy for it (Hoyt even makes an insensitive comparison between Jason's gang-rape and his girlfriend problems with Jessica). Then, we find out later that not only was Jason raped by a teacher when he was a teenager, but his parents were killed by a vampire who wants Sookie all to himself. All through this, Jason is forced to suck it up and push through.
  • Les Yay: Back in season 1, Pam helps Sookie clean up after she is nearly killed by Longshadow, she lingers while extracting a piece from Sookie's cleavage. She then smiles and says "I'm beginning to understand the fuss everybody's making over you." Cue the awkward pause.
    • When Daphne told Maryann how much she'd missed her.
    • Queen Sophie-Anne drinking from Hadley's thigh while receiving visitors.
    • After Sookie walks in distraught in a lavender dress:
    Pam: How did you know that lavender was my favorite color?
    Sookie: I'm in no mood for lesbian weirdness tonight, Pam!
    • Nora passionately kisses Salome in Season 5 Episode 11.
    • Violet plants a big one on Sookie upon meeting her.
    • Tara and Pam practically oozed this in all of their interactions even before The Big Damn Kiss in the season 5 finale.
  • Memetic Mutation: "I wanna do bad things with [favorite actor on the show]."
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • When it comes to vampires on this show, there is a startling amount of fans who go out of their way to make excuses for their vile behavior (including for serious crimes like rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, abuse, etc) on the grounds that "it's just their nature" and "they don't have the same consciousness as humans." This is ignoring how one of the main themes of the show is that, in spite of drinking blood, vampires and humans are Mirroring Factions in many ways: They are sentient, they do possess consciousnesses similar to humans, they have the ability to feel emotions like love, guilt, and empathy, they can form relationships, they were once human (and still retain human memories), and they have the ability to understand morality and the differences between right and wrong. It also ignores how those vampires who claim it's their nature to rape, torture, hurt, and kill humans are usually framed by the show as ones who are trying to justify their evil behavior without having to change. Bill even points out in season 4 that those excuses have not only caused vampires to be hated and feared by all, but they have also led to humans like Antonia to take revenge on vampires for the atrocities they've committed. On top of that, the show is pretty clear that being a vampire is NOT the same thing as being a rapist, and that Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil still applies to vampires. This is best demonstrated in season 6 when vampire James refuses to rape Jessica and tells his captors that while he is a vampire, he is not a rapist.
    • Franklin kidnaps Tara, rapes her, abuses her, and threatens to tear her to pieces if she tries to leave. And people love and adore this character? And think Tara is crazy for hating him? Not to mention all the unfortunate racial implications in that he's a white man raping and abusing an African-American woman on a plantation in the South.
    • An interesting case has arisen with Violet and Jason: While most people recognized this as an unhealthy and abusive relationship (with Violet being the abuser), there is a small part of the fandom that unironically thinks Violet was a great girlfriend for Jason and that there was nothing abusive about their relationship. This is ignoring some pretty ugly context regarding Violet's behavior, and the way she and Jason came into a relationship in the first place. For one thing, Violet "claimed" Jason in a prison when he was not in a position to say no to her, and told him he belonged to her forever and that she would feed on him and fuck him whenever she felt like it. The way Jason reacts indicates he's NOT okay with this, but doesn't feel like he can refuse her because of the circumstances he's in. For another, even when they do get out of prison, there are several instances where Jason verbally expresses that he's scared of Violet during their relationship but never gets taken seriously by anyone until it's almost too late, which leads to some Unfortunate Implications regarding her treatment of Jason. It doesn't help that she demonstrates Female Misogynist tendencies (one example of this is when she belittles Jason and calls him a girl when he expresses a desire for a family), that's she's possessive and controlling, and that she's nasty towards other characters like Jessica and Tara whom Jason had friendships with. This article here sums it up best:
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Rene (Drew Marshall) a.k.a "The Bon Temps Strangler" crossed it way before season 1 ever happened when he murdered his sister for being a fangbanger.
    • Malcolm, Liam, and Diane crossed it with their sadistic killings of both Jerry and Janella. Truth be told, from the type of vampires they were, they probably crossed it years ago with the body count they developed and the cruel, disgusting way they treated humans. It's hard to feel bad for them when they get burned to death midway through season 1.
    • Maryann crossed it prior to season 2 when she raped Sam when he was a teenager. In fact, everything she does during season 2 is pretty much a contest to see how many Moral Event Horizons she can cross.
    • Gabe (Steve's right-hand man for the Fellowship of the Sun) crossed it when he tried to rape Sookie after Jason beat him up. Nobody shed any tears when Godric snapped Gabe's neck.
    • Luke crossed the MEH when he bombed Godric's nest and killed innocent humans and vampires.
    • Franklin crossed the MEH when he kidnapped Tara, took her to Russell's mansion, proceeded to RAPE her, and then planned to turn her into a vampire so she'd be enslaved to him forever. He arguably crossed it way before he met Tara since he's a serial rapist who has a history of kidnapping, raping, and killing women.
    • Russell crossed it centuries ago when he murdered Eric's family in cold-blood just to provide his wolves with two goats.
    • Lorena already crossed it years ago with all the rapes, murders, cruelty, and misery she inflicted on others. Her attempt to drain Sookie is the cherry on top of how vile she was as a vampire.
    • Queen Sophie Anne was already a nasty piece-of-work to begin with, being a vain and greedy narcissist, but what makes her irredeemable is how she had humans procured for her for decades, forced them to become her prostitutes, whored them out to vampires who visited her, paraded around as her pets, and then callously disposed of them (i.e. killed off) once she was done with them. She's someone who doesn't care who she hurts as long as she gets what she wants, which is all kinds of despicable.
    • Don Santiago and his followers, including Luis Patino (who worked for Bill as Sheriff of Area 3), crossed it back in the 1600s when they infiltrated the Catholic Church and used their power to rape, torture, and feed on prisoners who were being held there. One of these prisoners was Antonia Gavilan de Logrono, whom they drove to become a vengeful spirit because of what they did to her.
    • Crystal, Felton, and the rest of the werepanthers took a flying leap over the MEH when they captured Jason, tied him to a bed, bit him multiple times against his will to turn him into a werepanther, fed him Viagra by telling him it was medicine, and proceeded to gang-rape him. There was no way for them to come back from that.
    • Tommy was already hard to like as a character since he was a pathological asshole to pretty much everyone, but the moment he truly crossed the MEH was when he raped Luna by disguising himself as Sam and proceeding to have sex with her without informing her he was actually Tommy. When Sam finds out what happened, he is so disgusted with Tommy that he throws him out for good.
    • Marnie for the most part had her moments where she was sympathetic (especially in comparison to the vampires who had grown increasingly unsympathetic during the show), but that completely disappears in the second-to-last episode of season 4 when she kills Casey, casts a binding spell that prevents Antonia from leaving her, and tries to murder Sookie when she interferes with her attempts to drag the vampires into the deadly force-field). As if that wasn't bad enough, after she dies, she possesses Lafayette and uses his body to murder Jesus in cold-blood for his magic. At that point, any remaining sympathy for her character is gone.
    • Pam tried to blow up everybody in the Moongoddess Emporium—including Sookie—in order to take Marnie out. Even Eric hates her afterwards.
    • In season 5, the anti-super hate-group gunning down Sam's friends, and then trying to gun down Emma, an eight-year-old girl.
    • JD crosses it when he tries to feed V (a highly addictive drug) to Emma.
    • Salome crossed the MEH when she had Russell dug out of the ground, provided him with humans to drain and kill, and then used Russell to kill Roman so she could take over the Authority and convert the remaining Chancellors (as well as Eric and Bill) into becoming Sanguinistas who worshipped Lilith.
    • All of the Chancellors in the Authority (including Bill) practically leapt over the MEH in season 5 when they orchestrated the bombings of the True Blood factories to force vampires to feed only from humans, sanctioned a human trafficking ring in the Authority where humans were kept naked in cells to be fed on, raped, and then disposed of, ordered vampire sheriffs to turn as many humans into vampires against their will, and pretty much planned to start a war with humans to enslave them so that vampires could rule over the world. Their actions not only caused catastrophic damage, but it also completely destroyed vampire/human relationships and caused humans to turn on them.
    • When Sarah kills Ms. Suzuki, the human TruBlood executive, when the latter finds the vampire concentration camp and threatens to blow the whistle on the whole thing. It's the first time Sarah directly kills someone, a human at that, and it's clear that she has gone off the deep end, since she says "Thank you, Jesus" afterwards.
      • And for those who still weren't convinced that Sarah Newlin is evil, the final season reveals that she has a sister who's a vampire, and whom she bribes with cases of TruBlood to stay out of the public eye so as not to ruin Sarah's ambitions. Naturally, she made sure to send her sister one of the tainted cases.
    • For all of Warlow's attempts to make himself look sympathetic, he pretty much crossed the MEH when he went out of his ways to massacre all the faeries at Hot Wings so they wouldn't interfere with his plans for Sookie. And for those who don't think that was enough, he crosses it again in the season 6 finale when he takes Sookie hostage, plans to turn her into a faerie-bride against her will, and takes away Sookie's ability to consent to this relationship (which arguably makes him an attempted rapist).
    • In season 7, the rioting townsfolk led by Vince beyond cross it when they decide to take matters into their own hand and kill anything not human. It's not just the Hep V Vampires, it's Sam, Sookie and the Vampires that tried to help. They become so bad, if not worse than the Hep V Vampires in the season.
      • Part of that group is Hoyt's mother Maxine. There was no going back for her when she shoots at Jessica, attempting to kill her.
  • Narm: While Lafayette's PTSD is treated seriously in contrast to the dark comic relief he normally provides, there's one scene where Lettie Mae (Tara's mom) has him at gunpoint and he has a flashback about Eric, and imagines Eric holding the rifle...while wearing her dress.
    • Narm Charm: It's Eric Northman! IN A DRESS! WITH A GUN!
    • The scene where Eric, Pam, Jessica and Bill walk out of a black van, armed with guns and black leather outfits...and then action music plays while they do a slow-motion walk.
      • Narm Charm Corollary: If you look closely, Bill is wearing his Civil War uniform. Classy.
    • In season 6 Sookie gives a speech about how fed up she is with her role as a Weirdness Magnet which could have been pretty awesome, if only she wasn't in her underwear.
    • It gets pretty darn hard to take Terry's funeral seriously when it's constantly intercut with some of the goriest scenes in the show's history as Eric brings down the vampire prison.
      • However, the scene where Old John sings the funeral song intercut with Jason taking down Sarah Newlin actually works quite well.
    • The writers apparently didn't realize that nicknaming a character "Eggs" tends to work against the dramatic tension of any serious scene involving him.
  • Older Than They Think: One subplot (which is most prevalent in season 5) is "traditional" vampires revolting against the idea of having to drink a poorer-tasting, factory-made blood substitute and live in harmony alongside humans, causing them to go to war against the vampires who favor living on artificial blood instead of the real thing while being led by a figure who has some Religion of Evil vibes. The B-Movie Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat used the same idea almost twenty years before the series (and over a decade before the first of the books the series is based on).
  • One-Scene Wonder:
  • Only the Creator Does It Right: For a number of fans, the quality of writing on the show went downhill after showrunner Alan Ball left at the end of season 5, and took most of the veteran writers on the series (Alexander Woo, Raelle Tucker, Mark Hurdis) with him. The result is that Brian Buckner took over, and brought in a new host of writers who weren't familiar with the show and began making changes/retcons to the story and characters, which didn't go over well with fans. It is believed this is the reason a lot of the story threads that were set up in season 5note  didn't get properly followed up on in the final two seasons. There's also the choice Buckner and his crew of writers made to absolve Bill for all the vile acts he committed in the previous seasons (thereby turning him into a Karma Houdini) and forcing him back into a relationship with Sookie despite how toxic and abusive it had become at that point. For many, this killed a lot of enthusiasm for the show, and caused many people to resent Bill in recent years.
  • OT3: Sookie/Eric/Bill
  • Realism-Induced Horror:
    • In spite of this being a show about vampires and other supernatural creatures, when you take a closer look at Bill/Sookie as a couple, it can be seen a portrayal of an abusive relationship with Bill manipulating and possibly gaslighting Sookie. Bill got into this relationship by standing by and allowing two psychopathic drug addicts to nearly kill Sookie so he could pretend to be a hero to her in that moment. He then fed her his blood, which in-universe has been described as a drug and an aphrodisiac that creates a powerful sexual attraction to the person you take it from. In other words, Bill allowed Sookie to get beaten up specifically so he could drug her and manipulate her feelings for him. Days after this, he took advantage of her grief over her Gran's death to get into her pants, and spent several seasons putting on the charm to convince Sookie he was a wonderful boyfriend and had her best interests in mind. At one point (according to Stephen Moyer in a 2009 interview), Bill even attempted to RAPE Sookie in a graveyard by forcing himself on her while she was still "under the influence" of his blood. All the while, it turns out that he had a file he'd been keeping on her and her family hidden away and had been lying to her and keeping secrets from her, which puts her in danger several times. And when push comes to shove and he's about to get exposed, he attempts to have Eric and Pam murdered when they discovered what he did in a desperate attempt to get control over his relationship with Sookie. Seriously, take vampirism out of the equation, and what you have is essentially an older man manipulating and abusing a vulnerable young woman while presenting himself as a wonderful boyfriend.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • Nicole, for Luna
    • Averted with James in season 7: While his relationship with Lafayette was criticized for being underdeveloped, many people were okay the pairing of Lafayette/James despite James being a replacement for Jesus.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Jessica, though still sometimes annoying, has gotten much more sympathetic since she visited her family. Not to mention her developing relationship with Hoyt is seven different kinds of cute. Others liked her better when she had more bite.
    • Jason got rescued in season 2 during the Fellowship of the Sun arc when he came to Sookie and Eric's aid while they were being held captive by Steve and his followers. His attempts to mend fences with both Sookie and Bill earned him the love and respect of fans. He also became popular during the Maryann arc when he joined with Andy in helping to save Sam from Maryann's followers and attempting to take back the town.
    • A strong case could be made that season 5 is this for Tara as the decision to turn her into a vampire, unpopular at first, seemed to pay off throughout the season specifically when it comes to her relationship with her vampire maker Pam. When one looks on the various boards there is a lot of Squee attached to her now. Then again...
    • For some fans, Nora got rescued towards the end of season 5 when she has a Heel Realization after Godric appears to her in a vision warning her about the destruction Lilith and her followers will unleash and ultimately chooses to side with Eric to take down the rest of the Authority.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ron the Death Eater: A certain faction of the fandom wants to kill off Tara in an extremely violent way. Never mind that Tara has some very solid reasons to be pissed at the universe. Vampires rape and torture her and almost kill off her new lover. And then she is turned into one herself by the very vampire that just ruined her last shot at happiness. That can't be good for your sanity. Even from the beginning of the show, it's understandable why she behaves the way she does: From a young age she was forced to grow up with an abusive drunk for a mother who never even cooked for her. Her only true friend was Sookie as they were both isolated from having friends their own ages (Tara for her mother being known as a drunk and Sookie for her telepathy).
  • Rooting for the Empire: The Fellowship of the Sun may have been religious fanatics and terrorists. But at the same time, a lot of their claims about vampires are true.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Sookie can get very grating to many viewers thanks to her constant Idiot Ball moments.
    • Arlene is this by many. From her total jerkass attitude toward non-human characters such as Jessica and Adilyn for even being in the same room as her, to her sub-plots being totally distracting to the main plot. Not to mention, her semi-racist remarks.
    • Tara's mother Lettie Mae was very hard to like. From her self-righteous attitude to her ungratefulness to Tara. The fans just wanted to slap her for all the crap she puts Tara through. Even in the last season, many fans were extremely unhappy when Tara got killed off just to further Lettie Mae's story and give her a half-assed redemption arc that was seen as a cheap attempt to absolve her for being an abusive mother to Tara. It didn't help that Lettie Mae publicly blamed Sookie for Tara's death, even though that wasn't Sookie's fault. It also doesn't help that Lettie Mae was indirectly responsible for her daughter dying since she refused to move when the Hep-V vampires came, which forced Tara to protect her and resulted in Tara being killed. She also proceeded to behave like a manipulative drug-addict through-out the season (attacking Willa with a knife for her blood, drugging Reverend Daniels, etc) which did not go over well with fans. The result is that many felt her so-called "redemption" was unearned.
    • Jason in season 1 for being a Jerkass man-whore. The fact that nearly every scene had him chasing the next girl to taking drugs didn't earn him many fans at first. Thanks to a ton of Character Development, he is now a fan favorite.
    • Jessica started out pretty unpopular, but most agree she's gotten better.
    • Tommy is definitely making headway into becoming this and has been since his first appearance. For many, his decision to rape Luna was seen as a point-of-no-return for the character.
    • Nobody likes Joe Lee and Melinda Mickens. In addition to being incredibly nasty and unpleasant, as well as Abusive Parents towards Tommy, many fans disliked how a lot of screen-time was dedicated to them in seasons 3 and 4 and wished Sam had never gotten involved with them in the first place.
    • Crystal Norris. She wasn't exactly beloved in the books, but the show somehow made her worse. She's a troubled woman Jason falls in love with who slowly reveals herself to be a Manipulative Bitch and a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. She causes no shortage of grief for Jason, from stringing him along, to lying to him constantly, to having an It's All About Me attitude which made her extremely unlikable. Season 4, however, is where she went into full Hate Sink territory: After disappearing for a year while Jason took care of the werepanther tribe on her behalf, she comes back, kidnaps Jason, ties him to a bed, bites him multiple times to turn him into a werepanther without his consent, lets him suffer from fever and injuries, feeds Jason Viagra under the pretense that it's medicine, rapes Jason when he's unconscious, and then has all the women of Hot Shot rape Jason as well. Even fans who don't like Jason were disgusted with Crystal's actions, and considered her irredeemable from that point onward. The hatred towards Crystal by fans is bad enough that she is often considered to be a contender for the most hated character in the series.
    • Nora in season 5. She was already off to a bad start because of her Canon Foreigner status, as well as her Brother–Sister Incest relationship with Eric which many people found to be Squick.note  She quickly became disliked because of her creepy (and irritating) religious fanaticism, her Fantastic Racism against humans, and for being the main reason that Eric was stuck at the Authority for most of the season. She briefly gets Rescued from the Scrappy Heap when she has a Heel Realization after Ghost Godric appears to her in a vision and warns her about the destruction that Lilith will unleash if she keeps following her religion and helps work with Eric to bring down the Authority. Depending on who you ask, this was either enough to redeem her, or it wasn't.
    • Nicole Wright. Her stupidity and the lack of overall point to her story in Season 6 is not generally appreciated by the show's fans. Also being Luna's Replacement Scrappy isn't helping matters at all. Made worse by her and Sam falling into bed and suddenly being in love not 72 hours after Luna's death and not 12 hours after Nicole's boyfriend's death.
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • Season 3 for a lot of people. Ever-increasing absurdity and weirdness, a confused and meandering main plot, subplots that barely connect with the main story, and Sam's Expansion Pack Past all contributed to this.
    • Season 4 has a mixed reception. While the werepanthers, werewolves, and Tommy's arc weren't well recieved, many people liked seeing Eric and Sookie get together and found the witch storyline to be engaging. It helps that certain subplots were finally dropped in favor of focusing on a tighter narrative.
    • Season 5 suffers severely from Four Lines, All Waiting, with almost every character stuck in their own equally slow moving story. And just when something actually starts to happen, it ends. Perhaps the most agreed-upon point in the show for the rot setting in as the pace slowed down dramatically and Alcide's wolfpack storyline began getting what many felt was undue attention.
    • Season 6 averts and plays it straight. While it's also criticized for some of the plotlines (mainly Alcide's and Sam's), the main storyline is generally liked and it addresses the biggest problem of the previous three seasons - too many characters by effectively trimming the cast, killing off Luna, Terry, Nora, Steve Newlin, and three out of the four Bellefleur hybrids, and putting Emma on a bus, setting up smaller, and potentially better Season 7.
      • It also helps that Anna Paquin's pregnancy forced the season to be cut to ten episodes, resulting in a much stronger narrative thrust than usual.
    • Unfortunately, Season 7 goes right back to it, with a Random Events Plot to put Season 5 to shame as the writers race to shove all of the characters into their designated end points in just ten episodes. And despite how you'd think they'd need every bit of screentime they could get to pull this off, we're also stuck with numerous dull flashbacks of Bill's past, shoved in seemingly at random and to no apparent purpose. It doesn't particularly help that Bill's relationship with Sookie had become a Romantic Plot Tumor by this point (see Why Would Anyone Take Him Back? below) or that Bill had become extremely unlikable to a good number of fans.
      • Not only that, but Season 7 seems to suffer from weak pacing, an unnecessary amount of attention dedicated to love triangles, the lack of a strong antagonist, and to top it all off, a series finale to give Dexter and How I Met Your Mother's much maligned final episodes a run for their money.
  • Special Effect Failure: Sookie's new glow power and Maryann's vibrations.
    • More a case of Photoshop Failure, but the frequently glimpsed photo of young Sookie and Tara with Grandma Stackhouse is a hilariously bad attempt at making Lois Smith look younger. The final result is more along the lines of a horribly grimacing plastic monster.
    • In season 3, when Sookie has a V-induced dream of Eric flying outside her window, it is painfully obvious that Alexander Skarsgard is being held up on strings, which makes the scene look goofy instead of serious.
    • Most of the time, real fire was used for practical effects, but there are a few instances on the show where it's clear that CGI was used for scenes involving fire.
  • Squick:
    • The show starts out with decaying animals during the theme song.
    • Maryann raping a seventeen-year-old Sam in a flashback.
    • Sookie's physical reactions to being clawed by some sort of creature in season 2.
    • And the orgy Maryann causes at Tara's birthday party. People were literally writhing on the ground eating soil while making out.
    • This show has a thing for squicky sex. In once scene, Bill crawled naked out of the ground, caked in dirt, and immediately got it on with Sookie. Infections much?
      • It's so much worse than that: Stephen Moyer described the graveyard scene in a 2009 interview as a "rape scene," like Bill's intent was to crawl out of the ground and rape Sookie in that moment. YIKES!
    • And the flashback of Bill and Lorena sadistically torturing, raping, draining, and killing a couple in Chicago 1926 and having sex covered in the dying woman's blood.
      • Same thing goes for the flashback in season 5 when a human Pam witnesses Lorena and Bill raping, draining, and killing two of Pam's prostitutes from her brothel. Bill is biting in between the woman's legs while Lorena glamours the poor woman into calling Bill "Daddy" in a sexual manner. Everything about the scene constitutes rape.
    • And the scene in season 4 where Crystal rapes Jason while he's tied up, unwittingly suped up on Viagra, covered in festering werepanther bite wounds suffering from a fever suffering a fever, and there's a line of other women who each take turns raping him. Disgusting isn't a good enough word to describe this scene!
    • Maryann feeding Tara and Eggs her Heart of Daphne Hunter's Souffle. Hell, the whole scene of her preparing it was squicky.
    • Longshadow getting staked in Season 1, complete with shots of Sookie completely covered in his blood.
    • Bill and Lorena's twisted rape scene in the third episode of season three. According to Stephen Moyer at Paleyfest 2011, this was intended to be rape on Bill's part because of how angry he was with Lorena in that moment.
    • Tara tearing a chunk out of Franklin's neck with her teeth. Yeesh.
    • The fact that, when killed, vampires don't just turn to dust. No, instead they collapse into gory mush, after projectile vomiting fountains of blood. This means that anyone who's in the immediate vicinity usually ends up drenched in the remains.
      • Also, rather than be instantly annihilated or set on fire by the sun, vampires instead slowly sizzle, gradually withering down to something that looks like a used-up charcoal briquette. This is a lot grosser than it probably sounds, especially when we see several of them still alive after "tanning" too long.
    • Russell staking a living male prostitute.
    • After the Royce vs. Eric No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, when Eric is talking to Lafayette and a torrent of blood is coming out of his mouth at the same time.
    • Hotshot, the werepanther community. Just everything about the place is Squick. The rampant rape/incest, children living in squalid conditions, everyone chowing down on raw meat, etc. You just feel like taking a bath every time the show goes there.
    • After escaping from Hotshot, Jason, in an attempt to hide his scent, smears dirt all over his freshly wounded body. As someone else said above, infections much?
    • Dr Overlark's groin being ripped out in season 6.
  • Strawman Has a Point:
    • All the vampire haters are portrayed as intolerant ignorant bigots, but they are right about the fact that most vampires are sociopathic murderers who like to kill humans. A lot.
    • Hoyt's mom might be an unpleasant hag with abandonment issues, but she has every reason to disapprove of him dating a vampire, for fear of his life.
    • Not that Steve's very good at expressing it, but vampires did murder his parents and younger sister. During Season 2, the Fellowship of the Sun storyline would sometimes crosscut to scenes of vampires doing despicable things, and not just random "evil" vampires, but the main cast. Like Eric torturing Lafayette or a Flashback of Bill helping Lorena brutally murder a married couple.
    • Season 6 begins with Governor Burrell giving a speech about how vampires have crossed the line and all humans should start arming themselves. Judging by others' reactions we're supposed to see this as evil, but given the events of season 5 he comes off like the Only Sane Man.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Sophie-Anne Leclerq. Bisexual, petulant, hammy vampire queen with an incredible sense of fashion played by Evan Rachel Wood of all people. Ends up getting unceremoniously splattered all over the floor at the hands of Bill Compton when he takes over as King, instead of escaping and plotting a coup to take her throne back which would have been an interesting storyline.
    • Salome and Dieter Braun. Salome is about two thousand years old and therefore on par with Eric. Both her and Dieter are branded to be political geniuses, and both of their actors put on disturbingly good performances. Bridges are sadly dropped on both of them.
    • Warlow. A vampire/fairy hybrid that's twice the age of multi-season baddie Russell Edgington and can walk in daylight... Who spends most of his time tied up in a graveyard and is easily staked halfway through the episode in his final appearance.
      • Also Billith... prophesied as some great "vampire savior," he loses his extra powers after giving a couple of random vampires the power to walk in daylight for a short period, without ever really living up to any of his potential.
    • Nora sadly gets hit with this in season 6: After pulling a Heel–Face Turn at the end of season 5 and helping Eric to take down the Authority, it seems like the show was setting her up for a Redemption Quest where she worked to stop the recently turned Billith. Instead, she ends up getting captured midway through the season before she can truly accomplish anything, gets infected with Hep-V, and dies in Eric's arms.
    • Niall Brigant. He is introduced in season 6 as Sookie and Jason's faerie grandfather and is played by Rutger Hauer of all people. Even though his reasons for finally showing up were about hunting down Warlow and killing him to avenge the death of his family, there was a lot of potential for his character, from him and Jason bonding as grandfather and grandson, and Sookie learning more from Niall about her faerie abilities and heritage. Instead, he disappears halfway through season 6, only shows up briefly in the finale to help Jason kill Warlow, disappears after that for six months for unexplained reasons, and then only makes a cameo appearance in one episode of season 7. The show never really explores his relationship with Jason and Sookie like it could have.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • How interesting would it have been if Sookie had met Adilyn Bellefleur or her sisters earlier? It could have been very heartwarming to see Sookie be the big sister figure to Adilyn and help her understand her mind reading ability so she wouldn't have to suffer the same trouble Sookie had when she was Adilyn's age. Instead, the two barely interact in any of their meetings. Between Seasons 6 and 7, they've only spoken to each other three times and all three are very brief.
    • At the end of season 5 Luna accidentally skinwalks on live TV, and warns the world about humans being held prisoner in the Authority. This could have been an interesting premise, with shapeshifters and weres having to deal with people finding out about them and the impact it would have on the world. However, this is given very little focus, and instead season 6 centers around whether or not Emma (Luna's daughter) will go with Alcide's werewolf tribe or not.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: With the main character being a bit of a base breaker and the vampires themselves being more villainous than the non-vampires that want to take the vampires out the only reason to even get invested is to watch scenes that involve any character that isn't Sookie or the vampires.
  • Too Cool to Live: Godric
  • Trapped by Mountain Lions:
    • In this case, it's werepanthers. Jason's dealings with a tribe of werepanthers in season 3 and season 4 hasn't done anything to further the main plotline (especially with Jason's fate in the books being averted). One could argue that it gave Jason some Character Development in taking responsibility for other people and working to be a more mature person by keeping his promise to Crystal. But aside from that, the werepanthers are ultimately dropped after season 4 and are never seen again.
    • This is one of the things that's constantly criticized about Alcide's arcs in seasons 4-6: They focus entirely on his involvement with a local werewolf pack. The problem is that a.) These arcs didn't tie into the main story, b.) Most of the werewolves are either Jerkasses, underdeveloped, or completely forgettable, which results in the Eight Deadly Words being invoked, and c.) The entire arc is rendered moot when Alcide chooses to leave the pack at the end of season 6. Because of this, it's hard to care about what happens, and it's commonly cited by fans as one of the few storylines they skip on rewatches.
    • Lafayette's brief fling with a gay senator in season 1 and his confrontation with him at the end of the season. Aside from briefly pushing the "Vampires as a metaphor for oppressed minorities" message (which had already been emphasized repeatedly through-out the season), it doesn't add anything to the main story and is just there to give Lafayette something to do.
    • Sam's arc in seasons 3-4 where he deals with his biological parents and brother Tommy counts as well. None of it ties into the main story, it ultimately gets dropped by the end of season 4, and it just comes off like it was added to give Sam something to do. It doesn't particularly help that both Tommy and his parents were extremely unpleasant and unlikable, which made it hard to get emotionally invested in them or in Sam's story.
    • Sam and Alcide's confrontation in season 6 over who gets to keep Emma is probably the worst example of this trope: It had absolutely NOTHING to do with either the Warlow story or the Vampire Concentration Camps, and could have been cut from the show without affecting anything. The only thing it succeeded in doing was turning both Sam and Alcide into Jerkasses and completely squandering a promising premise of what would happen to weres and shifters after the events of the previous season.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Instead of stylizing the characters, some of the comics' art styles tend to try to appear as realistic as possible and yet still manage to be cheap enough for a monthly production. The result is...not very nice to look at.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: As noted in this article, the entire show counts as a period piece because it takes place between 2009 and 2011, meaning there are certain references and elements in the show that are bound to be dated.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Has its own page now.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?:
    • Present-day Godric appears to be a thinly-veiled parallel to Jesus; he's around two-thousand years old, talks in a level, Buddha-like voice and is a pacifist who believes that vampires and humans should coexist as equals. He says humans are justified in their hatred of vampires because of the fact that many vampires are generally cruel and savage. The symbolism is made clearer by the fact that the Fellowship of the Sun planned to have him mounted on a crucifix and killed by the sunlight in front of the congregation. He even wears Jesus sandals in his last scene.
    • This is a stark contrast to the Godric who appears in Eric's flashback; he kills Eric's men - presumably because he just wanted one Viking, not three - then turns Eric into a vampire because he thought his fighting spirit was "beautiful" (admittedly, he kind of asks first if Eric is okay with that).
  • Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: There is a serious question about why Sookie would ever take back Bill after everything he'd done to her at this point: We find out in season 3 that he arranged for the Rattarays to beat the shit out of Sookie so he could pretend to be a hero to her, drug her with his blood (which was both a tracking device and a powerful aphrodisiac), and use that to manipulate her. When Eric finds out about what Bill did, Bill tries to have Eric and Pam killed in order to keep his secrets, and later tries to gaslight Sookie into believing he has her best interests in mind, all the while never planning to reveal to her his mission from Queen Sophie Anne or what he allowed the Rattarays to do to her. This becomes more egregious in season 5 when Bill betrays her again by not only allowing Steve and Russell to go after Sookie to harvest her (despite being a Chancellor in the Authority and having the power to stop it, but choosing not to because he didn't consider it a priority at the time), but also tried to bully Jessica into turning Jason (Sookie's own brother) into a vampire against his will just to spite Jessica for trying to defy him (which only fails because of Jessica's quick thinking), and later tried to have Jason killed at the Authority when he sicced the Authority guards on them and tried to destroy the Authority Headquarters (with Eric, Nora, Tara, Jessica, Pam, Sookie, and Jason inside) after becoming Billith. All of this should be grounds for Sookie cutting Bill out of her life and never wanting anything to do with him again. However, the show completely glosses over this in favor of getting Sookie and Bill back together in the last season.
  • The Woobie: Has its own page.

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