History WesternAnimation / Centaurworld

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Even though most of the story takes place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the series actually may not be as idealistic as you think. Despite its happy nature, the story focuses on some dark, heavy, horrific, and downright traumatizing themes, [[spoiler: like war, self-hatred, toxic upbringings, and suicidal ideation.]] It gets especially horrific [[spoiler: when we see the backstory of the Elktaur/The Nowhere King.]] Thankfully, the likable characters, heartwarming moments, and insightful messages help prevent this series from leaning too far on the cynical end. Overall, the series lies somewhere in the middle, tilting just a little further on the idealistic side.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Even though most of the story takes place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the series actually may not be as idealistic as you think. Despite its happy nature, the story focuses on some dark, heavy, horrific, and downright traumatizing themes, [[spoiler: like war, self-hatred, and suicidal ideation.]] It gets especially horrific [[spoiler: when we see the backstory of the Elktaur/The Nowhere King.]] Thankfully, the likable characters, heartwarming moments, and insightful messages help prevent this series from leaning too far on the cynical end. Overall, the series lies somewhere in the middle, tilting just a little further on the idealistic side.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Even though most of the story takes place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the series actually may not be as idealistic as you think. Despite its happy nature, the series actually focuses on some dark, heavy, horrific, and downright traumatizing themes, [[spoiler: like war, self-hatred, and suicidal ideation.]] It gets especially horrific [[spoiler: when we see the backstory of the Elktaur/The Nowhere King.]] Thankfully, the likable characters, heartwarming moments, and insightful messages help prevent this series from leaning too far on the cynical end. Overall, the series lies somewhere in the middle, tilting just a little further on the idealistic side.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Even though most of the story takes place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the series actually may not be as idealistic as you think. Despite its happy nature, the series actually focuses on some dark, heavy, horrific, and downright traumatizing themes, [[spoiler: like war, suicide, and the toxic influence of self-hatred.]] It gets especially horrific [[spoiler: when we see the backstory of the Elktaur aka The Nowhere King.]] Thankfully, the likable characters, heartwarming moments, and insightful messages help prevent this series from leaning too far on the cynical end. Overall, the series lies somewhere in the middle, tilting just a little further on the idealistic side.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Even though most of the story takes place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the series as a whole actually might not be as idealistic as you might think. Despite its happy nature, the series actually focuses on some dark, heavy, horrific, and downright traumatizing themes, [[spoiler: ''especially'' when it gets to the backstory of the Elktaur aka The Nowhere King.]] Thankfully, the likable characters, heartwarming moments, and insightful messages help prevent this series from leaning to far on the cynical end. Overall, the series lies somewhere in the middle, tilting just a little further on the idealistic side.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Despite most of the series taking place in a colorful, vibrant, and silly world, the show is not quite as idealistic as it may seem. There are even some brutally harsh and horrific elements in the story, [[spoiler: ''especially'' when it focuses more on the Nowhere King.]] Despite the brutality though, the series does lean closer to the idealistic side....but ''just barely''.

* SinisterSuffocation: When the [[spoiler:Elktaur's]] elk half is trying to reason with his human half of the mistake he made separating them into two different beings, his human half attempts to drown him in a nearby lake. Unfortunately, due to them being linked, his human half cannot kill him or they both will die.

* ILoveTheDead: [[spoiler:In the epilogue of the series finale "The Last Lullaby," Ched has hooked up with a long-decayed human corpse named Gary, and the two of them even have a child on the way.]]

* FreezeFrameBonus: In the Season 2 trailer during the scene where Rider is riding her new horse you can see someone running across the treetops in the background.

[[caption-width-right:350:''"You made it to Centaurworld / Join our herd of centaur boys and centaur girls!"''[[note]] Clockwise from top: [[KindheartedSimpleton Durpleton]], [[GrumpyBear Ched]], [[NervousWreck Glendale]], [[FishOutOfWater Horse]], [[TeamMom Wammawink]], and [[InTouchWithHisFeminineSide Zulius]].[[/note]] ]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:The Nowhere King, an ancient, slimy EldritchAbomination that seeks to conquer/destroy both the human world and Centaurworld.]] Season 2 reveals an additional BigBad: [[spoiler:The General, who is actually the other half of the Nowhere King. He drove the Nowhere King into his current spiteful, violent state just to prevent him from jeopardizing his relationship with the Old Woman, and actively sabotages his own troops because he knows killing the Nowhere King will kill him as well.]]

* CallForward: The flashback of The Woman and the General singing their wedding song involves him saying he'll always forgive her, and her saying love is a spark.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: During [[spoiler:the Mysterious Woman's]] {{Villain Song}}, she briefly pulls Glendale close to her with her magic. If you look closely as Glendale is flung away, [[spoiler:you can see her steal the key back from the Mysterious Woman.]]

*** It also helps that Parvesh Cheena, Lea Salonga, and Donna Lynne Champlin (the respective voice actors for Zulius, the Mysterious Woman, and the Prairiedogtaur) all previously played characters on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Sunil, Aunt Myrna, and Paula Proctor, respectively).

** One of the horsetaurs is monochrome and grainy like an old cartoon. The Duchess mentions this is apparently an in-universe disease called "grayscale".

* ChekhovsGag: Early episodes of Season 1 show that Glendale breathes in a bag when she is stressed out. In Season 2, she has a whole number called "Breathe in a Bag", where she teaches this technique to the anxious and afraid coldtaurs, which helps them join the army.

* TheCorruption: [[spoiler:The elk begins using the key for an evil purpose to create a minotaur army. Each time he does he loses a piece himself, eventually becoming the Nowhere King.]]

* ExistentialHorror: The Centaurs all appear to have the ability to shoot little versions of themselves out of their hooves. All tiny versions suffer the horror of existing and question their purpose while running around, screaming. WordOfGod is that [[https://twitter.com/sketchshark/status/1431300315387621379 they all have memories of being the original centaur]], meaning from their perspective choosing to create clones suddenly made them a clone. Some are seen possibly committing suicide by jumping off of cliffs. This is PlayedForLaughs. [[spoiler:A decidedly non-comedic version of this is the Nowhere King's backstory, with his self seperated into two sapient entities with only one getting a life of privilege and the other stuck as an animal.]]

* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler:The General is revealed to be the human half of the Nowhere King, who was once an elktaur. He is the one who provoked the Nowhere King to start his war, first by attempting to kill him and, upon realizing killing one half kills the other, locking him in a dungeon for 10 years. He now sabotages his own war efforts, since he knows that killing the Nowhere King will kill him too, even though that's the only way to end the war.]]

* MesACrowd: One of the many magic powers the Centaurs share is the ability to summon tiny versions of themselves from their hooves. The clones are fully independent, and prone to having an existential crisis and running away in a panic.

** Centaurs are the natives of Centaurworld, a parallel dimension, and have the bodies of multiple kinds of animals; the first ones introduced have the bodies of various ungulates, but other centaurs have the bodies of every animal in existence, including bird centaurs (which fly by flapping their arms), insect centaurs, and even non-animal centaurs - the ''vegetation'' themselves are centaurs as well. In general, no normal wildlife actually exists -- every organism in Centaurworld is a centaur. Their humanoid bodies typically include parts of their associated animals, such as zebra ears or giraffe necks. On top of that, they know magic and can use it for silly means. There are also "taurnadoes", tornadoes with funnels arranged like four legs, a body, and a neck.

* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: They're just another type of taur, being specifically the ones with aquatic animal parts. Wammawink thinks that they resemble traditional mermaids, with glossy chest hair, rippling neck gills, and the males laying giant scaled eggs ([[PerverseSexualLust but sexily]]). She's disappointed by the reality when she meets Sunfish Merguy (who's really just an ocean sunfish with a human face and arms and a patch of human skin, complete with liver spots and hairs), but still finds herself attracted to him. A large number of more traditional ones are later seen with the lower bodies of fish and shrimp, and the last shaman herself is a colossal Whaletaur.

* PortalStatuePairs: The Rift portal connecting the human world and Centaurworld is flanked by two statues of human women on the Centaur side. (On the human side, it's flanked by statues of two centaur women.)

* TradeSnark: The first episode of Season 2 introduces the Horsetaurs, rich elitist snobs that successfully sued to trademark the term "centaur" to solely refer themselves. They're derisively known as Centaurs™ because of this.

* WeirdWeather: Centaurworld doesn't just get tornadoes, it gets ''taur''nadoes. They're half-horse half-tornado, which means a horse-shaped (i.e. partially horizontal) funnel cloud after touching down, complete with rearing on the hind legs, also suggesting some level of response to its environment as they actively try to suck people into themselves.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Ultimately subverted with the Minotaurs. They initially appear to be single-minded monsters, but [[spoiler:when one falls into Centaurworld at the end of season 1, he is revealed to be capable of complex thought and eventually naturalizes to Centaurworld. When the heroes encounter the Minotaurs again, he explains that the Minotaurs have no free will of their own and are psychically controlled by the Nowhere King. The epilogue shows that more Minotaurs have been rehabilitated by moving them to Centaurworld.]]

* ArtShift: While the world Horse comes from is depicted in a detailed {{Animesque}} style, Centaurworld is in a more cartoony ThinLineAnimation style. Horse herself looks more {{Disneyesque}} than the rest of the cast, though [[spoiler:after episode 7, her [[ToonTransformation design changes to match the cartoony style of Centaurworld]] due to [[FisherKingdom how its magic is affecting her]]]].

* ChekhovsGag: Early episodes of season 1 show that Glendale breathes in a bag when she is stressed out. In season 2, she has a whole number called "Breathe in a Bag", where she teaches this technique to the anxious and afraid coldtaurs, which helps them join the army.

* FisherKingdom: When Horse first arrives in Centaurworld she's surprised to discover she can suddenly talk and spell. Shortly after she expresses brief anxiousness at also being able to gesture with her hooves. As seen in episode 5, [[spoiler:the longer Horse stays in Centaurworld, the more silly and cartoony-looking she gets]]. WordOfGod is that characters don't change their appearance based on how long they stay in Centaurworld, but how they let the world change them.

** Spoofed in "Horsatia Wighair Beansz?", where [[ItsAllAboutMe Zulius]] describes the horsetaurs as incredibly self-absorbed and full of themselves... and quickly clarifies, "But not in an endearing way," like him.

** At the end of the first season, [[spoiler:Rider]] stabs a Minotaur in the back to save the herd. This proceeds to become a RunningGag, as the Minotaur is revealed to be NotQuiteDead; throughout season 2, characters repeatedly retrieve the knife from his back and then use him as a sheath by stabbing him with it ''again''. [[spoiler:After his ToonTransformation, he becomes able to do this on his own with seemingly no consequences.]]

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The entire episode with the birdtaurs ("All Herd All The Terd") is this. They all criticize, praise or ask questions of the cast as if they were watching the show, which to them, they were. One of the birds is even called Mouthpiece.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: In episode one, [[spoiler:Rider is last seen face down at the edge of a cliff, sword still in scabbard, with countless enemies bearing down on her and cutting off her only line of retreat, including one in the process of swinging their weapon at her back]]. Towards the end [[spoiler:she shows up again, apparently having survived that encounter without obvious injury. However she did that, it was definitely awesome.]]

** A common feature they all seem to share is the absence of a nose or nostrils or any kind, as seen in the more realistically rendered [[spoiler:elktaur and minotaurs with centaur components.]]
* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: They're just another type of taur, being specifically the ones with aquatic animal parts. Wammawink thinks that they resemble traditional mermaids, with glossy chest hair, rippling neck gills, and the males laying giant scaled eggs ([[PerverseSexualLust but sexily]]). She's disappointed by the reality when she meets Sunfish Merguy (who's really just an ocean sunfish with a human face and arms and a patch of human skin, complete with liver spots and hairs), but still finds herself attracted to him. A large number of more traditional ones are later seen with the lower bodies of fish and shrimp, and the last shaman herself is a colossal whaletaur.

* PaperThinDisguise: Glendale is a wanted criminal in the underground land of the Moletaurs, and adopts an extremely flimsy disguise: glasses, a moustache, speaking in Spanish, and claiming to be someone else named West Covina.[[spoiler:Subverted: that actually ''is'' someone else, who merely resembles Glendale, who was in hiding elsewhere in all but one of the scenes in which the Spanish speaker appears. West is arrested, as the moletaurs think she's Glendale.]]

* RepriseMedley: Season 2 opens up with Horse singing a song to recruit the people they've met through season 1, when they reply, they use their own songs to push back, like the Tree Shamans singing about the time Horse and Ched kicked and stole the key from them to the tune of "What You Want".

* SinisterSuffocation: When the [[spoiler:Elktaur's]] Elk half is trying to reason with his human half of the mistake he made separating them into two different beings, his human half attempts to drown him in a nearby lake. Unfortunately, due to them being linked, his human half cannot kill him or they both will die.

* TradeSnark: The first episode of season 2 introduces the horsetaurs, rich elitist snobs that successfully sued to trademark the term "centaur" to solely refer themselves. They're derisively known as Centaurs™ because of this.

* TunnelKing: Naturally all burrowing taurs, collectively known as "holetaurs", are capable of quickly digging tunnels, often getting into disputes over a standardized size. [[spoiler:To the point that they can [[DimensionalTraveler freely burrow paths between the two worlds]]]].

* BigDamnHeroes: Zig zagged beforing being ultimately subverted. [[spoiler:It looks like the Herd is going to pull this off during the Rift, even singing a collective one-chorus reprise of the first song they sang to Horse, but while they manage to hold off the Nowhere King from entering Centaurworld, they eventually get overwhelmed and fail to rescue Rider and Horse. Then the Woman, inspired by Wammawink's selflessness, gets a shot at a BDH moment, only to refuse to kill the Nowhere King when she remembers who he used to be. Finally, Rider and Horse grab the key/spear and seemingly kill the Nowhere King and save everyone, only for the Woman to reveal they didn't actually kill him and only managed to empower him with more hatred for both worlds.]]

** The first episode ends with "Hello Rainbow Road" as Horse convinces the Herd to set out on their adventure, with Wammawink nervously breaking the barrier and fearing for the future and Horse tearing off ahead with the others following. [[spoiler: The final song of the series, "The Next Thing", is a medley of various songs, but starts and ends with Hello Rainbow Road's melody and once again has the Herd set out from the Valley - this time though, Wammawink and Horse together dispel the barrier with confidence in their expressions and Horse keeps a perfect pace with the others to represent her closeness to them]].

** Horse's second version of "Who Is She" is mixing the first and "Hello Rainbow Road" to create a song where [[spoiler: she tries to commit suicide]].

* EldritchLocation: For all its candy-colored splendor and ostensibly child-friendly silliness, Centaurworld is a bizarre place. Absolutely ''anything'' in it can be a centaur, up to and including the place's geological features. Furthermore, its magic seems to grant animals that enter it human-level intelligence [[spoiler: as they slowly transform into creatures akin to the centaurs that inhabit it over time.]]

* ILoveTheDead: [[spoiler: In the epilogue of the series finale "The Last Lullaby," Ched has hooked up with a long-decayed human corpse named Gary, and the two of them even have a child on the way.]]

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: During [[spoiler: the Mysterious Woman's]] {{Villain Song}}, she briefly pulls Glendale close to her with her magic. If you look closely as Glendale is flung away, [[spoiler: you can see her steal the key back from the Mysterious Woman.]]

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: In episode one, [[spoiler: Rider is last seen face down at the edge of a cliff, sword still in scabbard, with countless enemies bearing down on her and cutting off her only line of retreat, including one in the process of swinging their weapon at her back]]. Towards the end [[spoiler:she shows up again, apparently having survived that encounter without obvious injury. However she did that, it was definitely awesome.]]

* OurMinotaursAreDifferent: The forces of the Nowhere King, waging war against both the Human World and Centaurworld are made out of armoured minotaurs. Season 2 reveals that [[spoiler: the race was created by the Nowhere King fusing humans with various non-sapient animals using the power of The Artifact.]] Like centaurs, the term here is far broader than used normally, since minotaurs extend beyond bulls to virtually all kinds of anthropomorphic animals; the one we first see without a helmet, for example, is a LizardFolk.
* PaperThinDisguise: Glendale is a wanted criminal in the underground land of the Moletaurs, and adopts an extremely flimsy disguise: glasses, a moustache, speaking in Spanish, and claiming to be someone else named West Covina.[[spoiler: Subverted: that actually ''is'' someone else, who merely resembles Glendale, who was in hiding elsewhere in all but one of the scenes in which the Spanish speaker appears. West is arrested, as the moletaurs think she's Glendale.]]

** The lyrics to "Nothing Good" suddenly make a lot more sense and become a lot more significant [[spoiler: after TheReveal of the Nowhere King's backstory and why the two worlds were separated.]]

* ThereAreNoTherapists: A recurring theme is the people of Centaurworld trying to deal with the past traumas of the war the ravaged their land in the past, with varying results due to this trope. The Cataurs put on performances and compete to ignore it, the moletaurs are fiercely isolationist, and the Whaletaur shaman [[spoiler: devours the suicidal]] while Sunfish Merguy tries to distract people from her and their pain with an amusement park.

* TunnelKing: Naturally all burrowing taurs, collectively known as "holetaurs", are capable of quickly digging tunnels, often getting into disputes over a standardized size. [[spoiler: To the point that they can [[DimensionalTraveler freely burrow paths between the two worlds]]]].

When attempting to reach their allies, Horse and Rider are attacked. In the scuffle, the amulet starts to glow. Horse then wakes up [[TrappedInAnotherWorld stranded in]] a [[SugarBowl vibrant and joyous land]] named Centaurworld which is populated by colorful, singing [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaurs]] of every shape and size, and must find her way back to her best friend in a song-fueled voyage that will test her far more than any battle she's ever fought.

** The Centaurs are drawn in a ThinLineAnimation style, but they'll sometimes ArtShift their faces into an anime style as a visual gag. Wammawink is especially prone to doing this.

* ILoveTheDead: [[spoiler: In the epilogue of the GrandFinale, Ched has hooked up with the skeletal remains of a human named Gary, and the two of them even have a child on the way.]]

* FisherKingdom: When Horse first arrives in Centaurworld she's surprised to discover she can suddenly talk and spell. Shortly after she expresses brief anxiousness at also being able to gesture with her hooves. As seen in episode 5, [[spoiler:the longer Horse stays in Centaurworld, the more silly and cartoony-looking she gets]]. WordOfGod is that characters don’t change their appearance based on how long they stay in Centaurworld, but how they let the world change them.

* NamedAfterTheInjury: Durpleton adopts an injured humanoid lizard as his "son" and names him Stabby due to Rider knocking him out by throwing a [[InTheBack knife into his back]].

** The first episode ends with "Hello Rainbow Road" as Horse convinces the Herd to set out on their adventure, with Wammawink nervously breaking the barrier and fearing for the future and Horse tearing off ahead with the others following. [[spoiler: The final song of the series, "The Next Thing", reprises Hello Rainbow Road's melody and once again has the Herd set out from the Valley - this time though, Wammawink and Horse together dispel the barrier with confidence in their expressions and Horse keeps a perfect pace with the others to represent her closeness to them]].

* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The first season begins and ends with Rider and Horse being separated; it's just that the second time, it's on their own terms.]]

* SinisterSuffocation: When the elk half of The Nowhere King is trying to reason with his human half of the mistake he made separating them into two different beings, his human half attempts to drown him in a nearby lake. Unfortunately due to them being linked, his human half cannot kill him or they both will die.