History Series / The10thKingdom

Not the WickedStepmother's potion, but the 2000 Creator/{{NBC}}/Hallmark miniseries ''The 10th Kingdom.''

* AssholeVictim:
** [[spoiler: Relish the Troll King. Sally Peep is a downplayed example.]]
** The Gypsies are also portrayed as this, because...[[AcceptableEthnicTargets they're Gypsies]]. (And, to be fair, because of the {{Curse}} they cast on Virginia.) Not to mention they traffic in [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman sentient creatures.]] Plus their matriarch insists on giving Virginia a fortune telling when she tries to politely decline and drags out some painful memories.

** The [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent half-wolves]] of ''Series/TheTenthKingdom''. Granted, wolves are predators and are traditionally viewed as evil and vicious ([[CyclicTrope at least sometimes]]). But the at-times over-the-top words and actions of the Little Lamb Villagers (and Wendell) can leave one feeling a bit ill. (Which was surely the intended effect--just an example where the writer did their work a bit too well.) Choice examples:

Not the WickedStepmother's potion, but the 2000 Creator/{{NBC}} miniseries ''The 10th Kingdom.''

Virginia Lewis, a down-on-her-luck UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity waitress, and her ne'er-do-well janitor father Tony, are accidentally dragged out of their boring, miserable lives when they cross paths with a golden retriever (actually an enchanted prince) and an ex-convict werewolf (actually, half-wolf) -- one fleeing his stepmother the Evil Queen, the other working for her (sometimes). Complications and hi-jinks result, as magic spills over into New York (the Tenth Kingdom of the title), and soon the foursome end up via magic mirror in the world of the Nine Kingdoms, where fairy tales are real but "Happy Ever After didn't last as long as we'd hoped." Pursued by vengeful Trolls and their odious father, and Creator/RutgerHauer as a typically villainous but effectively chilling Huntsman, they must chase after the magic mirror and wend their way in and out of the lives of many fairy tale characters (always with a twist) in order to find their way home again.

** The fairy tale universe has some interesting cover-ups for swearing. The Trolls are fond of the phrase “Suck an elf!”, the phrase “What in the fairying forest?” is heard at least twice, and Mrs. Merrypip uses "Fruit of the forest!"

* SneezeOfDoom: How the Huntsman catches Virginia.

* AmbiguousDisorder: [[spoiler:We never learn what was really wrong with Christine, Virginia's mother. All we're told is that she was mentally ill and that she tried to [[OffingTheOffspring kill her daughter]] for some reason. It certainly doesn't help her case when she's taken to a fantasy world and rules as the Evil Queen.]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: The original Evil Queen. In addition to her role in the tale of Snow White, [[spoiler:she was the one who drew Christine Lewis to the Nine Realms and mentored her into becoming her successor so Christine could finish her work.]]

* ForWantOfANail: About half way through the second episode Tony interrupts Wolf when he's talking to the Queen in a mirror. If Wolf hadn't managed to turn the mirror over he and Virginia would have known about Wolf's conflicted loyalties far earlier. And if he got a good look at the Queen's face it's very possible he would have have recognized her as [[spoiler:his ex-wife and Virginia's mother]]. Assuming he told Virginia straight away this would have probably lead to them breaking off their quest for the mirror and confronting her far earlier. Virginia would have wanted to see her... if only to to get answers to all the questions she had about why she left and how she ended up in the Nine Kingdoms.

* ForWantOfANail: About half way through the second episode Tony interrupts Wolf when he's taking to the Queen in a mirror. If Wolf hadn't managed to turn the mirror over he and Virginia would have known about Wolf's conflicted loyalties far earlier. And if he got a good look at the Queen's face it's very possible he would have have recognized her as [[spoiler:his ex-wife and Virginia's mother]]. Assuming he told Virginia straight away this would have probably lead to them breaking off their quest for the mirror and confronting her far earlier. Virginia would have wanted to see her... if only to to get answers to all the questions she had about why she left and how she ended up in the Nine Kingdoms.

* FelonyMisdemeanor: The three Troll children, thanks to their love of shoes and leather, consider it [[SeriousBusiness a terrible crime]] when shoes are "very badly cared for--scuffed and cracked and neglected", and Blabberwort tells Virginia so. Lampshaded in the {{Novelization}}, first when Virginia notes Blabberwort's tone "suggested she had committed mass murder" and then when she decides they weren't "bent on destruction, only on defending shoes".

* RichBitch: Or, rather, a rich ''son'' of a bitch -- Prince Wendell, that is. And for most of the miniseries, that's quite literal.

* CatchPhrase: Wolf has two: "Huff Puff" when he's excited or surprised and [[OhCrap "Oh, Cripes!"]].

* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Played with. It is apparently Virginia's destiny to stop the Evil Queen, save all the monarchs of the Kingdoms, and restore Prince Wendell to his rightful throne, but the whole reason she is able to do so is because [[spoiler:the Queen is her [[MysteriousParent long-lost mother]]]], so thus she has a special advantage; this might even be seen as her responsibility, a personal problem she must clean up after. She is also receiving help from her SpiritAdvisor, Snow White, and at least part of her motivation in doing so is simply so [[ItsAllAboutMe she can get to the Traveling mirror and go home]]. Yet to judge by the Gypsy Queen's fortune she has "a destiny that stretches way back in time", and Snow White tells her that Wendell "needs you to save his kingdom, we all do," so you get the feeling there's something rather arbitrary about all this. The fairy godmother does do a very good (if slightly anvil-on-head) job of comparing her life to Virginia's to explain why she "found the right person." On the other hand, Virginia would never have come to the Kingdoms if Wendell hadn't [[ContrivedCoincidence knocked over the mirror]] when running from the Trolls and Wolf, then gone through it, there is no indication how or why the mirror ended up in the basement of a prison, and [[spoiler:Christine becoming the Evil Queen]] was made possible by the Swamp Witch having a mirror which opened to New York. So clearly some sort of organizing principle seems to have guided the plot. By the end, after [[spoiler:killing her mother in self-defense [[KarmicDeath with the poison comb]]]], when Wolf tells her it was not her fault, even Virginia seems to buy into it by saying the fateful words: "It was my destiny..." One possible [[WildMassGuessing explanation]] as to how the mirror ended up in the basement of a prison is that the [[BigBad Evil]] [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen]] mentions to fake!Wendell that Snow White's EvilStepmother once had five castles, and one of the prison guards mentions that the stuff in the basement of the Snow White Memorial Prison is from ''before'' the SWMP was a prison. It's possible that the prison was one of her castles, and that it was turned into a prison after her exile. Not only would that explain why a magic mirror just happened to be in the basement, it would also make for delicious irony that the Swamp Witch's apprentice was imprisoned in her mistress' former castle.

* {{Jerkass}}: Prince Wendell, at the beginning (he [[BreakTheHaughty gets]] [[CharacterDevelopment better]] through his time as a dog), and plenty of minor characters encountered throughout the kingdom. The Troll King also.

* LiteralAssKissing: Because of his wish, [[{{Pun}} Butt]] [[ButtMonkey Monkey]] Tony has his boss follow him around and continually try to do this. Tony ends up having to shoo him away frequently. The rest of Murray's family eventually shows up and ends up giving him the same treatment. It doesn't help that at least one of the Murrays must have been something of a brown-noser already, since he insists on kissing Tony's ass repeatedly. (Or could that also have been covered under the "and be my slaves forever" part?)

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Virginia frees the magic birds from the Gypsy camp, so they won't get eaten and used in youth and beauty spells--and what does she get for her troubles? [[GypsyCurse A curse]] of hair that never stops growing, which ends up getting her captured by the Huntsman. Sure, taking away the Gypsies' livelihood after they had shown the travelers hospitality ([[SecretTestOfCharacter sort of]]) wasn't a wise move on her part, but [[DisproportionateRetribution it certainly doesn't seem fair]] to punish her for being sympathetic to a TalkingAnimal. Of course the Gypsies immediately get LaserGuidedKarma courtesy of the Huntsman...but so does the young wolf-boy, [[ChildrenAreInnocent who never]] [[InnocentBystander did anything wrong]]. Grim, indeed.
* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere: In an odd variation, despite living in the BigApplesauce, Virginia thinks to herself (in voiceover narration) on the way to work at the beginning of the miniseries that she knew "nothing exciting was ever going to happen" to her and "some people just lead quiet lives". Cue her running into a golden retriever on her bicycle [[FreakyFriday who is actually a transformed prince]] [[FracturedFairytale from the world of fairy tales,]] [[CallToAdventure and...]]

* SwampsAreEvil: The [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Deadly]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Swamp]]. Not only is it the home of the Swamp Witch (Snow White's WickedStepmother), it has [[TheFairFolk mischievous fairies]] that enjoy being "naughty" to travelers and [[MushroomSamba magic mushrooms]] which tempt people to eat them...after which they fall asleep and are [[ToServeMan consumed by the swamp]].

* BalefulPolymorph: Both Human and Dog Wendell are transformed into the other by the Queen's magic, and both are unhappy about their respective new forms.

* CourtroomAntic: A rather amusing version has Virginia exclaim, after Wolf has practically incriminated himself while being grilled by the Judge, "Your Honor, my client is suffering from post-menstrual tension!" Not to mention Wolf's memorably existential self-defense: "Ohhhh, I'm twisting everything I'm saying!"

* MainliningTheMonster: The series has rather literal fairy dust, as in the dead remnants of a fairy, which is recreationally snorted by trolls.

* LoveIsInTheAir: The entire purpose of the ludicrous [[TastesLikeDiabetes Kissing Town]], which makes this trope quite literal, since not only are there magical hearts floating everywhere around every happy couple getting married, but every time Virginia seems ready to dismiss Wolf as a love interest, in swoop the hearts to change her mind and turn her into a hopeless romantic. [[{{Anvilicious}} They even form a gigantic heart over the pair's heads when they share their first kiss]].

** Wolf also says this in regards to asking Virginia to drop her RapunzelHair so he can climb it.

* ImprobableHairstyle: Ironically Virginia's RapunzelHair is completely justified - a GypsyCurse that prevents it from being cut and makes it grow at an accelerated rate. However the short hair she ends up with raises a few questions. Since it was cut with an ''axe'', it's surprisingly even. And Wolf acts as if getting it that short was an accident - yet to get it that way he'd practically have to be dangerously close to beheading Virginia. Virginia should also have been well able to cut the hair herself so one wonders why she got Wolf to do it. (Perhaps this is intended to show that this axe is razor sharp and can be operated like normal razor, this way it is a bit heavy for Virginia, of course. And Wolf tried to get his fingers as close to her head as possible, no doubt).

* QuirkyMiniBossSquad: The Troll children.
* RapunzelHair: Virginia gets to deal with the realistic consequences of this at one point.

-->'''Tony:''' What ''is'' it with you people? What kind of twisted upbringing did you have? Why can't you just say, "Oh, that'll be a hundred gold coins"? Why is it always "Not unless you lay a magic egg, or count the hairs on that giant's ass"?

* BigBad: The Queen.
* BiggusDickus: Sally Peep mistakes Wolf as one of these when she sees the bulge in the back of his pants caused by his tail.

* ButtMonkey: Tony.

* DesignatedHero: For almost the entire show, the main protagonists show no heroic traits at all, and are only 'the good guys' by comparison to the forces trying to capture them. [[spoiler: Wendell-dog]] is stupid and spoiled, Tony is lazy and greedy [[spoiler: not to mention the rape implications of the mind control wish]], and Virginia just wants to get home. They're happy to lie, cheat, and steal their way across the Kingdoms and don't care how much chaos, death, and destruction they cause for others. They have no heroic goals - even when Virginia hesitates to [[spoiler: go through the mirror in the Queen's castle without seeing the Queen first, it's because she wants to confront her mother, NOT because she wants to save the kingdom from her.]] Only at the ''very'' end do they have any interest in stopping the Evil Queen

->''"I'd like to say that Wolf and I lived happily ever after, but our lives were almost immediately interrupted by another crisis in the Kingdoms. But that's not this story, this story is done. And, when you live every day with all your heart, then you can be "happily ever after" even if it's only for a short time. My name is Virginia...and I live on the edge of the forest. And this is the end of the First Book of the 10th Kingdom."''

* KnightsAndKnaves: Parodied, lampshaded, and otherwise completely hung out to dry. Oddly enough this is still completely in the spirit of the original, since the puzzle as presented here contains a logical contradiction[[note]]the guardian explains the rules then ends with "I always lie"[[/note]] and ''cannot'' be solved normally.

* AddictiveMagic: The magic shoes. The Troll King appears to already be suffering from a crippling addiction to them at the story's outset, and Virginia falls under their spell very quickly. Somewhat deconstructed as well: the Troll King has an established shoe fetish and Wolf thinks Virginia just has a strong desire to be invisible, shrugging it off himself. Played with and lampshaded in that one of the pieces from the soundtrack is [[InvokedTrope actually entitled]] "Addicted to Magic"...but instead of playing during anything to do with the magic shoes, it appears when Wolf tempts Tony with the magic bean, during the Dog Prince's UrineTrouble scene, and when the magic mushrooms are tempting Tony to eat them in the Deadly Swamp.

* ForWantOfANail: About half way through the second episode Tony interupts Wolf when he's taking to the Queen in a mirror. If Wolf hadn't managed to turn the mirror over he and Virginia would have known about Wolf's conflicted loyalties far earlier. And if he got a good look at the Queen's face it's very possible he would have have recognized her as [[spoiler: His ex wife and Virginia's mother]]. Assuming he told Virginia straight away this would have probably lead to them breaking off their quest for the mirror and confronting her far earlier. Virginia would have wanted to see her... if only to to get answers to all the questions she had about why she left and how she ended up in the Nine Kingdoms

* RightInFrontOfMe: While defending Wolf in court, Virginia gets a seemingly bright idea. The real criminal is a man who was wearing a wolf mask for the village festivities the day before; the victim's shouts of "Wolf!" were directed at him. Virginia proceeds to call the 'criminal' all sorts of names... until she is told that the judge was wearing the mask and her argument falls flat.

* [[spoiler: LukeYouAreMyFather]]: [[spoiler:Virginia has to tell the Evil Queen that she is her long-forgotten daughter.]]