History Series / Will

** Anne for Alice

* TheMuse: [[spoiler: Alice for Will, Emerson for Kit.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: Will breaks Alice's heart at her mother's request, thinking that it would prevent her from throwing her life away for their affair. It actually drives her right into Father Southwell's dangerous cause and leads her to convert to Catholicism, eventually getting captured and tortured by Topcliffe. Then, she decides to leave her family and the theater to flee the country with Father Southwell. Definitely not the effect that Will or Mrs. Burbage had in mind.]]

* OneTrueLove: Will considers [[spoiler: Alice]] to be this to him.
* ParentalSubstitute: [[spoiler: Will to Presto]] during the last few episodes.

* PurelyAestheticEra: Mixes 1970s glam rock/punk music and aesthetics with the Elizabethan era in similar manner as ''AKnightsTale''.

* RevengeBeforeReason: Presto declares that he will [[spoiler: kill Topcliffe after he murders his sister]], despite the fact that it would probably get himself killed. Will talks him out of it, and then proceeds to [[spoiler: do the [[{{Hypocrite}} exact same thing]] when he finds out that Alice was tortured. Luckily she convinces him to stick with his plan to discredit Topcliffe instead.]]

** Southwell for Will

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In real life, Robert Southwell was a Jesuit poet who was eventually captured by Topcliffe, tortured, imprisoned for years, and martyred without betraying his fellow missionaries. All that's really known about his connection to Shakespeare is a letter in which he criticizes the poetry of a "W.S." for not being focused enough on God. In the series, Southwell is a manipulative, cowardly, selfish hypocrite who not only treats his cousin Will cruelly when he refuses to [[spoiler: risk his and his family's lives by getting involved in the Catholic underground movement,]] but also [[spoiler: regularly lets people die for him with little effort to prevent it and even sacrifices Alice to save himself when their safe house is raided by Topcliffe.]] Oh yeah--and the real Southwell is also a canonized saint.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Topcliffe is disgraced and the theater is back in business, but Alice flees the country with Southwell--effectively ending her romance with Will.]]

* ArrangedMarriage: Alice's parents try to set her up with Keenan, the theatre's beer provider.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: Will breaks Alice's heart at her mother's request, thinking that it would prevent her from throwing her life away for their affair. It actually drives her right into Father Southwell's dangerous cause and leads her to convert to Catholicism, eventually getting captured and tortured by Topcliffe. Then, she decides to leave her family and the theater to flee the country with Father Southwell. Definitley not the effect that Will or Mrs. Burbage had in mind.]]

* GetTheeToANunnery: Played with a lot. For obvious reasons.

** The players at The Theatre have weekly bets on the amount of [[The Plague plague]] victims that week. [[spoiler: It's less fun once one of them is among the numbers.]]

* [[Foreshadowing]]:

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Admiration and envy color Will and Marlowe's interactions -- each playwright (seemingly) has something the other desires.

* CreatorBreakdown: [[spoiler: Marlowe]] goes through an epic one. He eventually [[CreatorRecovery recovers]].

* CueTheRain: Things are not going too well for Will in episode 3 -- as a bonus he also runs into Marlowe in what could be called an interesting subversion of RomanticRain.

* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler: Baxter, who spends the first episode sneeringly trying to one-up Will as a playwright, dies because Marlowe considers him to be the "lesser of two poets."]]

* EasyEvangelism: Father Southwell manages to convert [[spoiler: Alice]] to Catholicism rather easily considering the fact that English Catholics were illegal at the time and given traitors' deaths, and [[spoiler: especially since Alice had previously criticized Will quite sharply for getting involved in the movement.]]

* HellSeeker: Marlowe, in the most literal way possible.
* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Marlowe takes Will to an [[spoiler: occult ritual]] to try to achieve this effect, hoping it will inspire him or allow him to glimpse hell. It goes about as well as you would expect.

* TheMuse: [[spoiler: Alice for Will, Emerson for Marlowe.]]

* YouAreWorthHell: [[spoiler: Marlowe to his lover, who he simply calls "my king".]]

* DramaticIrony: "Who would want a play by William Shakespeare?"

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: After some goading from Kit (channelling his inner [[DoctorFaustus Mephistopheles]]) slightly drunk Will grabs him by the shirt and and throws him on the table, getting right in his face. Kit, being Kit, ''loves'' this while Will appears to have something of a [[AmbiguouslyBi sexuality]] [[StupidSexyFlanders crisis]].

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: After some goading from Kit (channelling his inner [[DoctorFaustus Mephistopheles]]) slightly drunk Will grabs him by the shirt and and throws him on the table, getting right in his face. Kit, being Kit, ''loves'' this while Will appears to have something of a [[AmbiguouslyBi sexuality]][[StupidSexyFlanders crisis]].

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: After some goading from Kit (channelling his inner [[DoctorFaustus Mephistopheles]]) slightly drunk Will grabs him by the shirt and and throws him on the table, getting right in his face. Kit, being Kit ''loves'' this while Will appears to have something of a [[AmbiguouslyBi sexuality]][[StupidSexyFlanders crisis]].

* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn: After some goading from Kit, channelling his inner [[DoctorFaustus Mephistopheles]], slightly drunk Will grabs him by the shirt and and throws him onto a table and gets right in his face. Kit, being Kit ''loves'' this while Will appears to have something of a [[AmbiguouslyBi sexuality]][[StupidSexyFlanders crisis]].