History Podcast / AliceIsntDead

* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: Alice tries to pull this in 3.03, [[spoiler: telling Keisha to go go on without her after a thistle man catches her and starts choking her. Keisha, of course, has had it up to here with Alice's over-protectiveness.]]

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Subverted in Part 2, Chapter 10, "Why Am I Alive?", Alice and Thistle have this exchange:
-->[[spoiler:'''Alice:''' You're all monsters.]]

-->[[spoiler:'''Alice:''' No, I mean you're actually monsters. You're not human. You're something, I don't know what... you're predators.]]

-->[[spoiler:'''Alice:''' Hmmph. Save your equivocating for someone you ''don't'' have handcuffed in an interrogation room.]]

** [[spoiler:Everything regarding the town of Charlatan, The Factory by the Sea, the black barge, the Praxis chain restaurants, the Tradewinds Tiki Motel, and the speakers connected to another world are removed, including the characters that revolve around them. Charlatan, the factory by the sea, and the black barge, however, get a small mention in a book later in the story.]]

** Due to the structure of the novel, certain plot points, while leading to the same ending, lead Keisha to different places. One of the biggest changes is [[spoiler:the Season 2 finale, the confrontation between Keisha and the police woman, which was moved from a Bay and Creek base to a library. As such, instead of learning that Bay and Creek and Thistle are the same from the police woman, she learns it from the notes of Cynthia O'Brian.]]

A [[{{Novelization}} novel adaptation]] of the podcast was released on October 30th, 2018, written by Josheph Fink, and an audiobook was released voiced by Creator/JasikaNicole.

** The Other Town. [[spoiler: There's a second thistle man. There's a whole ''[[UpToEleven town]]'' full of thistle men. The episode ends with the Narrator deciding she's completely outmatched and giving up.]]

-->'''Narrator:''' They were hungry, but she... she was smart.

''(radio cuts out, then back in)''\\

--> [[spoiler:'''Alice''']]: Who calls their wife by their actual name, right? Boring people, that's who.

* PreserveYourGays: Well, right there in the title it says that Alice, who is a lesbian, is not dead when the story kicks off. [[spoiler: Both Keisha and Alice survive all the harrowing events of the show to [[EarnYourHappyEnding EarnTheirHappyEnding.]]]]

-->“I want you to know that I chose this,” she said. “I could have gone another way, but I wanted this.” Then her face was gone, and there was only the empty black of the Oracle.

* WhamLine: The very end of "Go Home Again":
--> [[spoiler:Alice...Alice, ''is that you?!'']]

--> "Who do you work for?" "Who do ''[[TomatoInTheMirror you]]'' work for?"
--> [[spoiler:"Right. [[SequelHook You haven't even heard from me yet.]]"]]

--> [[spoiler:"You're only alive because you haven't died yet."]] Though it takes a little while for Keisha to fully understand the importance of this statement.

* BigGood: The Oracles turn out to be this, being the opposite number of the Thistle Men.

* ContemplateOurNavels: The Narrator has a habit of this.

* DeadGuyJunior: [[spoiler: Alice and Keisha named their daughter after Sylvia.]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'', being written by the same people and featuring one of the stars from that show.
** It also features the music of Disparition who also produces the series.

* TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf: Brilliantly played with, see the page image.

Contrast ''VideoGame/AliceIsDead''.

* SupernaturalRepellent: The smell of heather oil repels the [[HumanoidAbomination Thistle Man]], so when she goes to confront him The Narrator slathers herself in it and shoves some whole heather branches into his mouth.

** What Happened To Hank Thompson? [[spoiler: To answer the question posed by the title, Hank Thompson was such a horrible, violent, hateful human being that he slowly turned into a Thistle Man. According to an Oracle (who, incidentally, perceives time simultaneously à la [[ComicBook/{{Watchmen}} Dr. Manhattan]],) Thistle Men are not born that way, they were all human beings once, each so hateful and violent that it literally robbed them of their humanity.]]

** [[spoiler:Everything regarding the town of Charlatan, The Factory by the Sea, the black barge, the Praxis chain restaurants, the Tradewinds Tiki Motel, and the speakers connected to another world are removed, this includes the characters that revolve around them. Charlatan, the factory by the sea, and the black barge, however, get a small mention in a book later in the story.]]

** Due to the structure of the novel, certain plot points, while leading to the same ending, lead Keisha to different places, one of the biggest changes being [[spoiler:Season 2 finale, the confrontation between Keisha and the police woman, was moved from a Bay and Creek base to a library. As such, instead of learning that Bay and Creek and Thistle are the same from the police woman, she learns it from the notes of Cynthia O'Brian.]]

-->'''Narrator:''' I don’t know what this meant. I only know that it’s meaning does not include me. I am not necessary to it.

* BigDamnHeroes: Pulled off in "Thistle" when [[spoiler:the narrator is saved from the remaining Thistle Men by an armed, uniformed group... Who happen to work for Bay & Creek Shipping, the same company as the narrator]].

!!Contains examples of:

--> [[spoiler:"You're only alive because you haven't died yet."]] Though it takes a little while for Keisha to fully understand the importance of this statement.

* AttendingYourOwnFuneral: {{Inverted}} in "The Factory by the Sea," where Praxis Industries employee Jack has the unwitting but cooperative {{Narrator}} join him to bear witness to his funeral, a BurialAtSea. [[spoiler: She helps him, still living, into his coffin, and pushes it off to sea as though it were a boat, while he shuts the lid on himself.]]
* TheBadGuysAreCops: In "Nothing to See," the {{Narrator}} learns the hard way that she'll get no help with her search for Alice or against her HumanoidAbomination pursuer. Not only does a DirtyCop ignore her complaints and treat her as a nuisance, [[spoiler: he does so due to open familiarity with the Thistle Man, and chides her to do as he says.]] Later, she realizes the scope of the corruption as she endures an IncrediblyObviousTail by police car.

* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: Bay & Creek Shipping, the trucking company for whom the {{Narrator}} now works to {{Exploit|ed}} the job's mobility in her search for Alice, featured most heavily in Alice's scattered documentation of TheConspiracy. It hauls thoroughly mundane cargo like travel-sized deodorant and paper products.
* DangerTakesABackseat: In "Nothing to See," the {{Narrator}} is troubled by the sound of footsteps in her trailer, only to check it twice, find nothing and ''still'' hear noises, [[spoiler: until the third check, where the Thistle Man reveals himself, then makes a point of attacking her ''in public'' to [[ExploitedTrope display]] how easy it is, and how no one will help. The police, as it turns out, are in his pocket.]]

** Season 2 seems to be going the darker route as well. The {{Narrator}} compares the new BigBad to the Thistle Men, saying

* EpistolaryNovel: Though ''Dead'' takes the form of a CaptainsLog, it's also a monologic epistolary. In her logs, the {{Narrator}} speaks throughout as though she's addressing her wife, Alice, occasionally adding commentary that implies she expects Alice to listen through them if they reunite.

* FauxlosophicNarration: {{Discussed|Trope}} and PlayedForDrama by the {{Narrator}} in "Omelet", as out of nowhere, she begins a long, ambivalent digression on the pointlessness of ascribing traits to the night sky, which is a void of nothingness. Though she self-deprecatingly notes that the listener can ignore her, she says that humans are also nothing. Abruptly, she reveals that she witnessed a HumanoidAbomination casually murdering a man, which gives her prior nihilistic musings context as a coping mechanism for her fear.

-->'''Narrator:''' I snorted and shook my head. "Sylvia, I am an adult, okay? I am an adult woman with a job, and that job says that I have to go to the distribution center, not drive a teenager hundreds of miles to a town I've never heard of, for reasons that that kid won't even tell me. I am a responsible goddamn adult!"
-->''(radio cuts out, then back in)''
-->'''Narrator:''' Swansea is not the most bustling of towns...
* GoingInCircles: In "Alice" a power of mobile VanishingVillage Charlatan, which appears four times in different locations, forcing the {{Narrator}} to drive through it to bear witness to a physics-defying GroundhogDayLoop.
* GroundhogDayLoop: ZigZagged in "Alice" where the truck-driving {{Narrator}} repeatedly encounters the mobile, looping VanishingVillage of Charlatan, where residents are perpetually reenacting the same motions, but in increasingly bizarre and disturbing contexts. First they behave normally, [[spoiler: then stay frozen in their places while covered in muck, then exist in a total inferno while burning to death, then finally compulsively weep in a normal environment,]] but in the final visit, one of the townsfolk attempts to escape. In a peculiar variation, the {{Narrator}} isn't able to make sense of the loop's cause, or understand what triggered her own escape.

* InMediasRes: The story starts after Alice's supposed death, and in the midst of the {{Narrator}}'s flight from her stalker. She spends the bulk of the first episode recounting her first meeting with him. Also, some of her recordings are cut off by other recordings.

* RapidAging: When The {{Narrator}} first meets Jacky in "The Factory By The Sea" he is no more than eighteen. After she follows him inside the factory, he ages—first into his thirties, then into his fifties or sixties—and says he is Jack, hasn't been called Jacky in a long time. By the time they get to the beach, he's at least in his late seventies. Then as he drifts out to sea [[spoiler: in the coffin she helped him build]], all she sees is a tiny, frail hand, suggesting he is now 90 or more. All this takes place over just a few hours.

* AnachronicOrder: The {{Narrator}}'s audio diary entries appear disorganized and recorded over in places, with each switch signaled by the static of her CB radio. This results in MoodWhiplash when the recording abruptly shifts from her fearful recounting of terrible events to pleasant, philosophical musings on the scenery, then back again.
* AndShowItToYou: {{Inverted|Trope}} in "Omelet," when the Thistle Man slowly and casually inflicts a mortal injury on a hapless victim as a private "demonstration" for the {{Narrator}} after asking if she wants to "see sumthin' funny." [[spoiler: He bites off a chunk of a man's flesh at the site of an artery, and as his victim exsanguinates, keeps digging out flesh from the wound to eat, purely to show off.]]

* BeautifulVoid: ZigZagged as the {{Narrator}} vacillates in describing her surroundings with her shifts in mood. In "Omelet," the Narrator ambivalently [[FauxlosophicNarration meditates]] on the nature of the night sky, and whether it's more apt to describe it as "beautiful," or "nothing." In context, she's musing wistfully and nihilistically in the aftermath of being traumatized by a HumanoidAbomination stalker. Subsequently, she articulates a mild fear of particularly [[NothingIsScarier empty]] vistas like flatlands, until in "Nothing to See," she's actually ''relieved'' by the pleasant way Kansas grasslands offer "[[TitleDrop nothing to see]]." Then she hears [[DangerTakesABackseat noises]] from her trailer, and her fear and isolation are underscored yet again.
* BewareOfHitchhikingGhosts: GenderInverted and ZigZagged in "Alice," wherein an elderly man stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop which confines him to the mobile VanishingVillage of Charlatan [[InvokedTrope attempts]] an escape by manifesting in the cab of the visiting {{Narrator}}'s truck and silently pointing to the road out of town. The silence as he enters the truck suggests that he's [[OffscreenTeleportation intangible]], and may be a ghost. [[spoiler:The Narrator escapes the loop, but sees the man restored to his usual mark in her rearview mirror.]] The Narrator is unable to make sense of events, and never gets an answer as to the nature of the town or its people.
* BigDamnHeroes: Pulled off in "Thistle" when [[spoiler: the narrator is saved from the remaining Thistle Men by an armed, uniformed group... Who happen to work for Bay & Creek Shipping, the same company as the narrator]].

* BurialAtSea: In "The Factory by the Sea," the {{Narrator}} witnesses the strange, LonelyFuneral of Praxis Industries employee Jack, on a jetty outside the NightmarishFactory where he works. [[spoiler: She helps him into his coffin, and pushes it off the jetty. Then he shuts the lid on himself, and she watches it float away.]]
* CanOnlyMoveTheEyes: As recounted by the {{Narrator}} in "Omelet," under the effects of the Thistle Man's power, VictimizedBystander Earl doesn't so much as twitch or cry out when mortally wounded, only silently weeps.
* CaptainsLog: The story takes the form of the {{Narrator}}, a long-haul trucker, recording audio diary entries[=/=]letters to her wife Alice in the cabin of her truck, while fleeing a HumanoidAbomination stalker.

* BadAssGay: Our Narrator is driving a semi-truck while being stalked by a HumanoidAbomination [[spoiler: (which eats a live person in front of her as a "demonstration" in episode 1!)]] in order to find her wife, Alice. [[spoiler: In the first season finale she kills the Thistle man with nothing but her bare hands and sheer adrenaline. And some heather oil to block his mind control.]]

* BillboardEpic: PlayedForDrama in "Signs and Wonders," where the {{Narrator}}, on a long stretch from Florida to Atlanta, stumbles upon a series of old, minimalist black-text-on-white billboards that she initially takes for some defunct ViralMarketing. The first says "HUNGRY?" The rest are [[GottaKillThemAll names]]. Distracted by fatigue and some fresh evidence culled from Alice's laptop, the Narrator fails to comprehend what she's looking at until she thinks to google the names. When newer boards appear, she's forced to reckon with their implications. [[spoiler:The final board reveals both their source and their purpose.]]

--> [[spoiler:"Right. [[SequelHook You haven't even]] [[SuddenlyVoiced heard from me yet.]]"]]

* ChekhovsGunman: In season 1, "Praxton" only appears in one episode, seemingly bizzare filler of the same sort as "Alice." Season 2 has them come back- and if the hints are anything to go by, [[spoiler: Praxton may be the '''actual''' BigGood in the series.]]

Like its predecessor, ''Welcome to Night Vale'', ''Alice Isn't Dead'' balances humor and horror, though it aims to differentiate itself with a {{darker|AndEdgier}} tone and a pre-determined end date. It airs every other week on Tuesdays, and can be found on [[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/alice-isnt-dead/id1088978354 iTunes]], [[http://aliceisntdead.libsyn.com/ Libsyn]], and the [[http://www.nightvalepresents.com/aliceisntdead Night Vale Presents]] website. Part One ran in 2016 from March 8th through July 12th, Part Two ran in 2017 from April 4th through August 8th, and Part Three, the final part, aired in 2018 from April 24th through August 25th.