History Main / UnderTheDome

* TotallyRadical: The "good" teenagers tend to use hilariously outdated slang, thus differentiating themselves from Junior Rennie and his evil posse. Joe [=McClatchey=] even ''says'' "totally rad" at one point.

* StrawmanPolitical - Did you notice that Big Jim Rennie is conservative? Really, really conservative? It's subtle, but it's there! Given the situation, it's pretty unlikely that a more moderate Republican or Democrat would voice any kind of political opinion at all. Being trapped and fighting for your life are circumstances that aren't very conducive to debate on healthcare reform. Considering King himself is a liberal, though, it's pretty telling that the only main character to express a political opinion is the villain, who expresses extremely exaggerated conservative beliefs?
* StuffBlowingUp - [[spoiler: The meth lab explosion at the climax of the book]].

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:The alien children who set up the dome.]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: At the end of the book, after everything's come to pass, the main characters stop to ponder the fact that [[spoiler: pity may not be as good as love, but sometimes it's all you get]]. That's pretty much the last line of the book.

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:The alien children who set up the dome.]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: At the end of the book, after everything's come to pass, the main characters stop to ponder the fact that [[spoiler: pity may not be as good as love, but sometimes it's all you get]]. That's pretty much the last line of the book.

* ManipulativeBastard: Big Jim. If you're not getting the pattern yet, [[{{Understatement}} he is not a nice guy]]. About five days into the Dome ordeal he has [[spoiler:instigated a riot, framed one of the few men who could save the town for murder, burnt down the newspaper offices and effectively turned the whole town into a police state.]]

*** To put it in perspective: [[spoiler:Chester's Mill had a population around two thousand when the dome dropped. There are less than thirty survivors all in all.]]

* [[spoiler:{{Almost out of Oxygen}}: A giant fire is consuming the entire town and, due to the fact that there is very little oxygen intake into the dome, it becomes very hard to breathe.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: And how! [[spoiler: on the cusp of baring Big Jim's machinations to the town, the dearly-departed police chief's wife is summarily choked to death by Big Jim himself. Andrea Grinnell is gunned down in a town meeting. Most jarring, perhaps, is the gradual erosion of the Dinsmore family due to various and sundry Dome-related maladies: by accidental suicide, quite purposeful suicide, and another quite purposeful suicide; the remaining son survives. Barely.]].

* BodyguardBetrayal: At the end [[spoiler: in the Town Hall's bomb shelter, Carter turns on Big Jim in order to preserve oxygen. Didn't turn out the way he planned]].

* {{Blown Across the Room}}
* BreakTheCutie - Julia after [[spoiler: Her newspaper along with her apartments were destroyed]] And then there is a certain incident in her childhood which she forced to re-live...
** Early in the book Sammy stated that she will not [[spoiler: commite suicide]] because she is ""not that kind of mom"". Guess what happened with [[RapeAsDrama her]] [[TearJerker later]]...
** During the events of the book Ollie lost his brother, than his mother and finally his father. He decided to stay at their farm. Soon it was destroyed and Ollie spent the rest of the book being very close to death

* [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's Gunman]]: [[spoiler: Sam Verdreaux and Carter Thibodeau are the town drunk and corrupt cop, respectively. By the end of the story, Thibodeau has become {{the Dragon}}, and Sam comes up with up with the plan to get Barbie and Julie to the box, sacrificing his life to do so.]]
* CompleteMonster: Big Jim Rennie.

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Barbie deliberately antagonizing Junior in order to save Rusty's life, despite the fact that Junior had a gun and Barbie was trapped, almost totally defenseless, in a jail cell.]]
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: Visitor's Day. Too bad it soon [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel went to hell]]

** For This Troper, the [[spoiler:Carolyn Sturges]]'s death was just depressing. King spent a decent amount of time developing her character, what with her coming to grips with taking care of [[spoiler: Aidan and Alice, and even deciding that she'd give them up to their original parents, if they were still alive]]. On paper, this isn't as bad until you take into account that she only went to the town meeting because Aidan and Alice begged her to take them to it, resulting in them getting a front-row seat for her death. The worst part about it is that it came out of nowhere, as she's murdered for absolutely no good reason. Would double as a Crowning Moment of Sadness if the reaction period wasn't so brief.

* [[spoiler: EverybodysDeadDave]]: While it doesn't [[spoiler: rack up the body-count of King's "civilization-enders" like ''TheStand'' and ''{{Cell}}'',]] the book [[spoiler: wipes out the entire town's population, plus all the passengers on a jumbo jet]].

* EveryCarIsAPinto

* FourLinesAllWaiting
** YourMileageMayVary. A) Please, there are like, [[HypocriticalHumour 10 lines minimum]]? B) Due to good writing and better editing, the pace manages to be breakneck for over 1000 pages.
* FoxNewsLiberal: Julia Shumway is described as a Republican, although she drives a hybrid car, attends the liberal church, and never expresses any sort of conservative opinion. Dale Barbara often says things like, "Are you sure you're a Republican?", usually after she says something implying that she doesn't blindly follow Big Jim's authority, which seems to be the book's main qualification for a Republican. Which would just be a sign of Barbie's own personal biases, except that she never once responds to him with a coherent reason why she ''is'' one.
** You are aware liberal Republicans exist? Julia Schumway is simply a more moderate, level Republican as opposed to the fanatics like Big Jim.
*** Except she doesn't have a single, recognizable Republican trait. She drives a Prius. Anytime she does anything sympathetic, it's immediately met with Barbie's, "Are you sure you're a Republican?" And in the novel, every other Republican is treated somewhere in between Hitler and Ed Gein. It's clear some politics is slipping in on King's part.
*** Perhaps a bit of TruthInTelevision: Maine's two Senators in real life are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins: both Republicans that are left-of-center.

* {{Good Feels Good}}: Junior of all people experiences this, when he[[spoiler:rescues the Appleton children. As a consequence, protecting them even becomes his final goal in life (after killing Barbie and his dad, that is) - although by the time he decides on this, he's gone [[AxCrazy completely mad]] and the safest place for the children would be as far away from Junior as possible.]]
* GoshDarnItToHeck: Jim Rennie all the way.
* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: the whole [[spoiler: fire under the Dome]] sequence. And Henry's bus. Also the last few minutes of [[spoiler: Jim Rennie's]] life: alone in the dark, with ill heart, running out of air, surrounded by ghousts of his victums...

* HoYay: [[spoiler: Andy Sanders and Chef Bushey share a kiss in their final moments, before they blow up the drug factory and themselves.]] To this troper it was very, very unexpected.
** This troper also saw buckets of subtext between Private Ames and Ollie Dinsmore. [[spoiler: Ames sits near Ollie at the side of the Dome for hours, watching the boy slowly asphyxiate due to the poisoned air. He becomes very, very protective of Ollie and his mind is set only on the imperative of keeping him alive. When the Dome lifts, Ames rushes in to save Ollie. Ollie's last memory before passing out is Ames kissing him. Take that as you will.]]
* ICallItVera: [[spoiler: Chef Bushey names his AK-47 "God's Warrior". When Andy Sanders ends up joining him at Holy Redeemer and becoming his meth-smoking buddy, he takes another AK that Chef had stored, and names it "Claudette", after his wife, who died in the plane crash at the start of the book.]]
* InfantImmortality: Played straight with Joe, Norrie, Walter, Alice, Little Js and Ollie. Others (like Rory, Benny and Aidan)were [[TearJerker not so lucky]]. Oh and did I mention a scene in which a woman trying to flee from the fire, run over another woman ""who is fleeing with her infant in her arms... and baby Steven is crushed to death beneath her""?

* {{Jerkass}}: The youths who have been recruited as temporary police officers—Frankie, Junior, Georgia, Mel, and Carter.

** One of the Army soldiers outside the Dome keeps watch on Ollie Dinsmore, [[spoiler: who, in addition to being the only one of his family left alive (stresses of Dome life and what-not), clings to life while huddled under a pile of human bodies and busted up flora]]. When the Dome [[spoiler: dissipates]], the soldier is the first one to save him.
*** Of course, the soldiers aren't portrayed as being bad to begin with. They do everything within their power to destroy the Dome [[spoiler: and even plan to use a tactical nuclear weapon to save about a dozen people]]. Even though they're initially secretive about the situation, they later [[spoiler: schedule a press conference and allow the family members of those trapped inside to come as close to visiting them as is possible]].

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:'Sloppy' Sam Verdeaux]] makes up for [[spoiler:his]] part in [[spoiler:starting the Food City riot]] by [[spoiler:driving Barbie and Julia through toxic air to the box generating the Dome. He lets them have the tires to breathe from, and dies shortly after of a punctured lung.]]

* {{Squick}} - Junior Rennie's "girlfriends." [[spoiler: Two girls he kills. Then he stuffs them in a pantry. And then has sex with their dead, decaying, dead, corpses.]] Repeatedly.
* ShoutOut - Cox mentions a couple of times that one of the female police officers comes highly recommended by Jack Reacher.

* StrawmanPolitical - Did you notice that Big Jim Rennie is conservative? Really, really conservative? It's subtle, but it's there!
** So's Julia, her paper is described as completely Republican, but she is one of the most likable and main characters.
*** See FoxNewsLiberal above. Julia's Republicanism is an InformedAttribute; she never once voices an opinion that could be considered Republican, even something as mild and inoffensive as a preference for small government. Big Jim, meanwhile, shouts out so many random talk radio catchphrases that he sounds like a parody of a Republican.
**** Or, you know, like Glenn Beck.
** Given the situation, it's pretty unlikely that a more moderate Republican or Democrat would voice any kind of political opinion at all. Being trapped and fighting for your life are circumstances that aren't very conducive to debate on healthcare reform.
*** Considering King's a liberal, what does it say that the only main character to express a political opinion is the villain, who expresses extremely exaggerated conservative beliefs? StrawmanPolitical fits.
*** Remy wasn't the only one who expressed political opinions. Julia advocated for the continuity of her occupation (freedom of the press), thus Remy took her as a threat to his control.
**** A reporter arguing for the newspaper to continue? Not that political.

* TakeThat - Georgia Roux snarks on Sammy for being an avid reader of NoraRoberts and StephenieMeyer (authors that King ''[[{{Hatedom}} really hates]]'' and says that ''HarryPotter'' rules (King loves the series). [[spoiler: However, this is halfway to TakeThatMe, because Georgia Roux is clearly evil.]]

** Poor Sammy...

* TooDumbToLive - [[spoiler: Carter Thibodeau, at the very end of the book, when he decides to kill Big Jim Rennie so the air in the fallout shelter will last longer, gives Big Jim a chance to pray before he dies. Jim asks Carter to turn the lights off while he prays; Carter actually does it and realizes immediately afterwards that letting Big Jim out of his sight was a big mistake.]] Of course, this leads to Jim getting [[HoistByHisOwnPetard hoisted on his own petard.]]

* UnusualEuphemism: Big Jim Rennie. This troper was reminded of [[{{Misery}} Annie Wilkes]]...
** This troper would prefer Annie Wilkes to Big Jim any day. I sort of thought of Andrea as Annie Wilkes if she wasn't insane and murderous.

* Ho Yay: [[spoiler: Andy Sanders and Chef Bushey share a kiss in their final moments, before they blow up the drug factory and themselves.]] To this troper it was very, very unexpected.

* TakeThat - Georgia Roux snarks on Sammy for being an avid reader of NoraRoberts and StephenieMeyer (authors that King ''[[Hatedom really hates]]'' and says that ''HarryPotter'' rules (King loves the series). [[spoiler: However, this is halfway to TakeThatMe, because Georgia Roux is clearly evil.]]

* TakeThat - Georgia Roux snarks on Sammy for being an avid reader of NoraRoberts and StephanieMeyer (authors that King ''[[Hatedom really hates]]'' and says that ''HarryPotter'' rules (King loves the series). [[spoiler: However, this is halfway to TakeThatMe, because Georgia Roux is clearly evil.]]

* CompleteMonster: Big Jim Rennie and his son Junior Rennie. Although Junior at least has the excuse of [[spoiler: suffering from an undiagnosed malignant brain tumor]].

*** More moderate Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) probably wouldn't express their political opinions in an extreme situation like the one in ''Under the Dome''. The fact that she drives a Prius is forgivable, too, since some Republicans [[TruthInTelevision do drive them]] for various reasons (including gas prices and energy security, which are probably both going to be bigger issues in 2012 than they are today).

* PoliceAreUseless - Most of the nice cops are, anyway. Per WordofGod, ineptitude is a theme.

** During the event's of the book Ollie lost his brother, than his mother and finally his father. He decided to stay at their farm. Soon it was destroyed and Ollie spent the rest of the book being very close to death

* {{Almost out of Oxygen}}: A giant fire is consuming the entire town and, due to the fact that there is very little oxygen intake into the dome, it becomes very hard to breathe.

* {{Jerkass}}: The youths who have been recruited as temporary police officers—Frankie, Junior, Georgia, Mel, and Carter.

* MythologyGag: The symbol on the [[spoiler: box emitting the Dome vaguely resembles the symbol on the door to IT's lair in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine—another King haunt]].

* {{Jerkass}}: The youths who have been recruited as temporary police officers—Frankie, Junior, Georgia, Mel, and Carter.

* MythologyGag: The symbol on the [[spoiler: box emitting the Dome vaguely resembles the symbol on the door to IT's lair in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine—another King haunt]].

* TeensAreMonsters - Most of the teenage characters in the book are borderline sociopaths. [[spoiler: The worst ones are Frankie [=DeLesseps=], Melvin Searles, Carter Thibodeau, Junior Rennie, and Georgia Roux. Junior kills Angie [=McCain=] and Dodee Sanders, and makes the corpses his [[{{Squick}} "girlfriends"]]. Frankie, Melvin, and Carter take turns having their way with Sammy Bushey, and Georgia is essentially their rape cheerleader.]]