History Podcast / TheHiddenPeople

* AncientEvil: [[spoiler:More than a few characters in this show fall into this category. The Magister and Lilliana are the most prominent, feared, and immediately dangerous of them in the first season, but Black Annis is even older, and the Highland Vough's age is unknown but it predates The Magister's rule over The Hidden People.]]

** and [[spoiler:Lady Lilliana, whose powers include complete invisibility and even interfering with the powers of other Hidden, and who said she was capable of bending nature to her will]].

* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler:Lady Lilliana]] turns out to be this, having turned on [[spoiler:The Magister and the Unseelie Court and having Mack, a halfling daughter]].

* EleventhHourSuperpower: [[spoiler:Mackenna gets this in her final battle with the Magister as a final gift from her mother Lilliana.]]

** [[spoiler:Eventually averted, big time. Mackenna Thorne's heightened powers are revealed to be the result of being the halfling daughter of Lady Lilliana. The Magister does... not take this news well.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: Like the DeadpanSnarker trope above, it's harder to name a member of the main characters' inner circle that ''didn't'' take a level in badass. [[spoiler:Shaylee's was in the past after a year of training in Arcadia, Mackenna had a few but most notably when she inherited the powers of Lilliana, and all the human allies are more than eager to risk their lives to help Mackenna and help her prevent an unnecessary death.]]
* TragicVillain: More than a few examples; as the Storyteller puts it, there are good people forced to do bad things and monsters who are sometimes right. [[spoiler:Fack and all fetches like her who are driven to reclaim are this from abuse by the Unseelie Court. Shaylee and other changelings chosen as trainers by The Magister are bound to continue their work, even if they can't stand it. Lilliana's history isn't really delved into, but the compassion she shows for Mackenna, her disdain for The Magister, and her willingness to sacrifice herself to save her daughter speak volumes about what kind of inkling of goodness she may have had in her.]]

** The final two episodes of the season also count. [[spoiler:Shaylee and Dane are killed by Fack and The Magister, Mack makes a deal with The Magister for Shaylee's resurrection by pretending to take Lilliana hostage, the Hidden People's Revel is sabotaged for the first time in history, Mackenna learns she's actually a halfling and Lilliana's daughter, Lilliana kills herself to bestow power to Mackenna and Mackenna kills The Magister. Lastly, Mackenna, Nissa and Alfie were all in the collapsing building after The Magister's corpse explodes, and all of their fates are left completely unknown.]]

* {{Narrator}}: The entire series is framed as a story being told by a mysterious figure called The Storyteller during a trial [[spoiler:overseen by The Unseelie Court]], who interjects in the audio on occasion or when actions need to be described in detail.

* DaChief: Chief McIlveen

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Alfie is the the ineffectual, goofy comic relief member of the main cast who frequently steps into butt monkey territory. This leads to quite a bit of a shock in [[spoiler:the season finale when he tells Lilliana "fuck you" and theatens to beat her and her husband to death with a fireplace poker if she doesn't help them save Mack's life.]]

-->'''Nissa:''' I can count exactly zero times that Mackenna has baked anything outside of home-ec, and what she baked then? You couldn't ''pay me'' to eat it again.

* LovableJock: Thomas was the quarterback of Conly's football team and also the most polite, respectful, and skilled homebody you could ever meet.

''The Hidden People'' is an audio drama podcast created by Dayton Writers Movement, centered around the adventures and trials of Mackenna Thorne, a twenty-seven year old who's felt uncomfortable in her own skin her whole life, and has spent her adult years living an emotionally walled-off, repetitive life in her hometown of Conly, Ohio. Then her parents are killed: her father by a pack of giant black dogs, and her mother by a killer with a giant polearm that eludes the police. As her family and friends try to cope with what happened, and Mackenna tries to feel like a person, a series of increasingly odd events leads Mackenna and her circle of people to realize that their entire world is very different and much more bizarre than what they believed it to be.

* DaChief: Chief MacAlvene

* TurnInYourBadge: Ultimately what happens to [[spoiler:Detective Mulligan, though a little more apologetic than most examples.

* ChangelingTale: Turns out to be the plot of the whole first season.

** The final two episodes of the season also count. [[spoiler:Shaylee and Dane are killed by Fack and The Magister, Mack makes a deal with The Magister for Shaylee's resurrection by pretending to take Lilliana hostage, the Hidden People's Revel is sabotaged for the first time in history, Mackenna learns she's actually a halfling and Lilliana's daughter, Lilliana kills herself to bestow power to Mackenna and Mackenna kills The Magister. Lastly, Mackenna, Nissa and Alfie were all in the collapsing building after The Magister's corpse explodes, and all of their fates are left completely unknown.

* Hammerspace: One of the primary [[spoiler:Hidden tricks is to trick containers into holding more than they normally would.]]

* AncientEvil: [[spoiler:More than a few characters in this show fall into this category. The Magister and Lilliana are the most prominent, feared, and immediately dangerous of them in the first seasons, but Black Annis is even older, and the Highland Vough's age is unknown but it predates The Magister's rule over The Hidden People.]]

''While spoiler tags have been used to hide any of the details pertaining to major twists in the series, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers trope names have been left unmarked.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.''

* Cloudcuckoolander: [[spoiler:Black Annis]]

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Anyone who's near the top of the [[spoiler:Hidden]] food chain is this by default. This is enforced by power being descended by lineage, with children attempting to murder their parents to inherit their power. Special cases at the top of the food chain include:

* AGodAmI: The Magister, a claim he's backed up by killing The Hidden People's previous god and making himself unassailable.

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.''

* TheAce: Thomas when it comes to conversation, home economics, and people skills, and Shaylee is this when it comes to technical fighting and lore on the Hidden People.

* AdultFear: Every last facet of The Hidden People's society is this. The Unseelie Court is essentially a giant human trafficking operation, kidnapping dozens of babies a year, using them as slaves, emotionally abusing them, and finally gaslighting some into hating and killing their birth family and the changeling that replaced them for the Hidden's ''amusement''.
* TheAgeless: Implied to be the Hidden's standard. A few, notably Black Annis, appear elderly, but this was mentioned to be because of a curse laid on her by the younger Hidden following the civil war.

* AncientEvil: More than a few characters in this show fall into this category. The Magister and Lilliana are the most prominent, feared, and immediately dangerous of them in the first seasons, but Black Annis is even older, and the Highland Vough's age is unknown but it predates The Magister's rule over The Hidden People.
* AssholeVictim: The "dude-bro" that the Thorne killer stabs to death in the episode. Lampshaded and invoked by spoiler:Alfie to try to justify why Mackenna would kill anyone.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Anyone who's near the top of the Hidden food chain is this by default. This is enforced by power being descended by lineage, with children attempting to murder their parents to inherit their power. Special cases at the top of the food chain include:
** Wodan, a long-dead literal GodOfEvil who led the Hidden People to slaughter entire civilizations;
** The Magister, the PhysicalGod king of the Hidden People whose word is divine law and who personally killed Wodan to be the uncontested ruler; **and Lady Lilliana, whose powers include complete invisibility and even interfering with the powers of other Hidden, and who said she was capable of bending nature to her will.

** Season One: The Magister.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: As Shaylee puts it in season one, The Hidden People can't be described as evil as they are an older and unfathomably more alien culture with different values, though they are still incredibly ruthless and willing to take advantage of people who think of them as misunderstood.

* ByTheBookCop: What Samantha Mulligan is for the most part, holding tightly to due process and procedure while pulling out all the stops in solving the Thorne murders. Ron Sitwell takes over this position after Sam realizes that by the book will lead to the wrong person's arrest.

* ChekhovsGun: The iron church bell that first hurts Mack and Shaylee in the first season is [[spoiler:what ultimately helps Mackenna kill The Magister in their final confrontation]].
* ClearMyName: What a lot of the plot in season one is about for Mackenna Thorne, following the midseason reveal.
* Cloudcuckoolander: Black Annis
* ColdIron: The one main weakness of the Hidden People and their constructs. Constructs can get poked by a piece of iron and explode into leaves; in order to glass a full Hidden, you have to strike them in a spot that would kill a normal person.

* CreepyDoll: The eyeless dolls Black Annis has as security constructs in her bower.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Every last one of Alfie's claims, including that Mackenna would be on the run from the law, that the villain was a horrific stalker with a personal link to the Thornes, and that Mack herself was the killer all turn out to be true. His first guess that Mack and Shaylee teleported away also turned out to be true, and he was the quickest out of all the supporting cast to unflinchingly believe in the magical world.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The Unseelie Court

* DontThinkFeel: Eventually how Mackenna learns most of the forms of magic she uses. Invisibility, slowfalling, unmaking constructs, [[spoiler:stepping sideways]], all of them are consequences of instinct. Her luck being brought on by the "power of positive thought" might also qualify.
* DonutMessWithACop: Lampshaded when the evening news flounces the Conly police for being apparently inept. Then played straight by Sam and Ron after failing to get past Arcadia's mental wards.
* {{Doppelganger}}: Played straight, but the usual roles are switched. The original is the attacker, and the copy is the protagonist.
* EleventhHourSuperpower: Mackenna gets this in her [[spoiler:final battle with the Magister as a final gift from her mother Lilliana.]]
* EvilSoundsDeep: The Magister.
* EyelessFace: None of Black Annis' dolls have eyes, but they can still sense intruders.
* FairFolk: The Hidden People, the true masterminds of the plot and the villains of the series.
* FlatWhat: Sam does this to Thomas after he tells her that Mackenna is innocent, when he was the one who identified Mackenna as his attacker.

* GenreShift: After a period of character development and subtle foreshadowing, the series goes from a murder mystery thriller to an action urban fantasy in the course of a couple episodes.

* HalfHumanHybrid: Not tolerated by the Unseelie Court under any circumstances. The last time the Hidden were allowed to have children with humans, the halflings with human morals banded into the Seelie Court out of shame and outrage at what the pure-blooded Hidden were doing. The only known halfling is Dane, who's one-sixteenth Hidden and has absolutely no magical ability.

* Hammerspace: One of the primary Hidden tricks is to trick containers into holding more than they normally would.
* TheHeavy: Fetch-Mackenna is this for all of season one to The Magister.
* {{Hellhound}}: The Barghests.

* MacGuffinGuardian: The Highland Vough, an ancient and immortal water spirit guarding the well of Mimsbrunnr.
* {{Masquerade}}: One specifically enforced by The Hidden People.

* TheNamesake: The title ''The Hidden People'' refers to the eldritch FairFolk who act as the main threats once the series shifts into urban fantasy.
* {{Narrator}}: The entire series is framed as a story being told by a mysterious figure called The Storyteller during a trial overseen by The Unseelie Court, who interjects in the audio on occasion or when actions need to be described in detail.
* PowerEchoes / VoiceOfTheLegion: How Hidden People or anyone who lived for a significant period of time in Arcadia speak, justified as the realm's accent.
* RetiredBadass: Black Annis of the past was the matriarch of a great fey witch's coven, who rained destruction and slew powerful beings in the time of the oldest known human civilizations. Black Annis of the present has been reduced to a forgetful and decrepit hag hiding out in an English bower.
* RulesLawyer: Bending rules and forging social contracts are the Hidden People's most valuable magical skills.

* TheStoic: Mackenna Thorne, full stop. She's not a full-on EmotionlessGirl, she feels shock and anger even if the emotions are muted, and while she does love her family, especially Thomas, her way of showing it is walled off at best. Following learning that she's a changeling, her personality starts getting more vibrant and she acts on her emotions more often.

* SupernaturalElite: The Hidden People are this to humanity.

* SwitchedAtBirth: See ChangelingTale up above.
* SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: Detective Mulligan is this very briefly between pinpointing Mackenna Thorne as the killer and realizing she's hunting the ''wrong'' Mackenna Thorne. Her partner Ron remains this for the rest of the season.

* TragicVillain: More than a few examples; as the Storyteller puts it, there are good people forced to do bad things and monsters who are sometimes right. Fack and all fetches like her who are driven to reclaim are this from abuse by the Unseelie Court. [[spoiler:Shaylee and other changelings chosen as trainers by The Magister are bound to continue their work, even if they can't stand it. Lilliana's history isn't really delved into, but the compassion she shows for Mackenna, her disdain for The Magister, and her willingness to sacrifice herself to save her daughter speak volumes about what kind of inkling of goodness she may have had in her.]]
* TrainingFromHell: [[spoiler:Changelings who become trainers undergo a year of this in Arcadia]]; fetches who are chosen to reclaim undergo this almost their entire lives.
* TurnInYourBadge: [[spoiler:Ultimately what happens to Detective Mulligan, though a little more apologetic than most examples.]]
* UndeathlyPallor: It's how Black Annis gets her name.

* WakeUpCall: Mackenna thought the murder of her parents was going to be this for her, but it ended up not being the case. Eventually played straight, however, after finding she's a changeling in a world of magic, and taking to it very well.

** All three episodes of the mid-season finale are individual wham episodes that culminate in a complete GenreShift. First, everyone investigating the Thornes' death get direct confirmation that Mackenna Thorne is the killer. Then, Mack has to flee after a SWAT team raids her home. Then, she encounters the black dogs and... herself, and the events during and immediately after that encounter cement the change from murder mystery to urban fantasy.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: A variation on this is always somewhere in the forefront of the series, and it's split on who suffers more. On the one hand changelings are definitely not human, and usually get little or no affection from their parents before losing them in a reclamation but otherwise can live out pretty normal lives, while human fetches are 100% human but have been raised in bondage in Arcadia for so long they have no concept of human society and would have an incredibly hard time adjusting to a normal life. In this regard neither are truly human and neither are really in the wrong.

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] Administratrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.''

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] Administrativia/YouHaveBeenWarned.''

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] [[Administrativia/YouHaveBeenWarned]].''

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] Administrativa/YouHaveBeenWarned.''

''Due to the amount of spoiler tags needed to hide the series's major tonal shift, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers most tropes and spoilers referencing all events except the last few episodes have been left unmarked.]] YouHaveBeenWarned.''