History WesternAnimation / InfinityTrain

* CanadaEh: The protagonists of this book, Ryan and Min-Gi are Asian-Canadians (Japanese and Korean, respectively) who grew up in Lake Powell, British Columbia, [[https://www.prpeak.com/living/storyboard-artist-from-powell-river-flourishes-at-cartoon-network-3745869 based on the real-life town of Powell River]]. Min-Gi works at an {{expy}} of a "[[https://www.humptys.com Humpty's]] restaurant, one of the songs they sung as kids was about animals wearing toque hats, higher education is referred to as "uni" rather than college, and they make jabs at the bizarre recipes in post-WWII American cookbooks.

* AnAesop:
** "[[Recap/InfinityTrainS1E2TheBeachCar The Beach Car]]" teaches the moral that you should know who your friends are. Tulip selfishly gives One-One away to the Cat after she offered to help Tulip get back home, even though Tulip has no way of knowing if she can trust her. In the end, Tulip realizes that she prefers getting off the train with One-One by her side instead of gambling the chance with his life.
** "[[Recap/InfinityTrainS1E5TheCatsCar The Cat's Car]]" effectively tells the message that one should accept reality as it is and trying to sugarcoat one's memories and/or victimizing themselves leads to a skewed worldview.
** "[[Recap/InfinityTrainS1E6TheUnfinishedCar The Unfinished Car]]" tells a simple moral: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." One-One feels like it's his responsibility to "fix" the Turtle Car, not realizing that his attempts to change things only irritate them, [[StatusQuoIsGod since they are used to the way things are]]. [[spoiler:Trying to make major changes only causes the near-apocalypse.]]
** In the end, the biggest lesson of the first season is that [[spoiler:if you let your trauma take over and let yourself want to recreate the past, you never get anywhere. This is the fate that the Conductor/Amelia has to go through]].
** In the third season, the aesop is that [[spoiler:ultimately, you must learn and grow from trauma experiences or else they will turn you into someone you don't want to be. Similarly, it also teaches that some people are beyond saving unless they themselves decide that they want to change and some people may not want to.]]
** Season 4 has "PoorCommunicationKills" and "don't run away from the consequences of your actions".

* AnAesop:
** [[spoiler:Things in our lives change and often those changes are simply beyond your control. Treating those things like they are your responsibility and trying to fix them will cause needless stress and only lead to more problems. The only solution is to try to adapt to life's changes.]]
** [[spoiler:Failing to properly process trauma and the negative emotions associated with it will only cause you to fall further and further into them, and trying to live in the past before it happened will do nothing but make things worse. The only way to recover is to process your trauma and move on.]]

* BigSisterInstinct: Grace develops this for Hazel as the season continues. [[spoiler:When Hazel decides to leave her and Simon in the penultimate episode to go with Amelia, Grace is completely devastated to lose her.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:On the positive side of things, the Apex has been more-or-less disbanded. Grace and the children are now working to figure out how to move forward and help each other get off the train, Grace's number has gone way down (from millions in the beginning of the season to only a few hundred by the end) and Grace herself now has a denizen partner in an origami bird. However, getting to that point forced Grace to deal with the death of a sapient denizen she was slowly growing attached to, being mercilessly rejected by a child she had grown to earnestly care for as an adoptive sister and will now never see again, almost getting killed by her best friend, and then watching said best friend die himself by literally crumbling into dust. And even ''if'' Grace fulfills her mission, she will forever live with the fact that everything she did was all her fault, and she will return home to a family who may have all but forgotten her and a world she must adapt to with little to no resources and education at the ready. To say nothing of how the children she's indoctrinated will adapt back into society themselves or the fear that their families may have forgotten about them too.]] No wonder the final shot is [[spoiler:Grace giving them all a melancholic and uncertain smile.]]
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Oscillates between this and GrayAndGrayMorality. [[spoiler: While Simon ''is'' an incredibly broken TragicVillain, he is still a vile pathological narcissist who commits horrific crimes while refusing to see the wronghood in his ideology. However, Grace's hands are far from clean as she guided him into the ideology to begin with along with having killed hundreds of Denizens at this point.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:On the positive side of things, the Apex has been more-or-less disbanded. Grace and the children are now working to figure out how to move forward and help each other get off the train, Grace's number has gone significantly down (from millions in the beginning of the season to only a few hundred by the end) and Grace herself now has a denizen partner in an origami bird. However, getting to that point forced Grace to deal with the death of a sapient denizen she was slowly growing attached to, being mercilessly rejected by a child she had grown to earnestly care for as an adoptive sister and will now never see again, almost getting killed by her best friend, and then watching said best friend die himself by literally crumbling into dust. And even ''if'' Grace fulfills her mission, she will forever live with the fact that everything she did was all her fault, and she will return home to a family who may have all but forgotten her and a world she must adapt to with little to no resources and education at the ready. To say nothing of how the children she's indoctrinated will adapt back into society themselves or the fear that their families may have forgotten about them too.]] No wonder the final shot is [[spoiler:Grace giving them all a melancholic and uncertain smile.]]

** Starting from "The Color Clock Car", [[spoiler:Tuba's hand [[KilledOffForReal no longer appears]] and Hazel's now [[TomatoInTheMirror reflects her turtle transformation.]] And whereas Hazel's hand was happily waving in previous episodes, [[BreaktheCutie it now quivers uncontrollably]]]].

* EasilyForgiven: PlayedWith. [[spoiler:In the final episode, Kez finally apologizes for all the trouble she's caused for the angry mob that's been chasing them through the train cars, leading the cow creamer to incredulously ask if she really thought that would solve things... only for everyone sans Judge Morpho to happily accept the apology, saying they'll work out the details of how Kez can make-up for the damage she'd caused later.]]

* DramaticIrony: The Apex raid the Unfinished Car in the first episode... the car made by the Conductor they just so happen to worship. In fact, ''everything'' Grace and Simon tells about the Conductor to Hazel in "The Debutante Ball Car" is just filled with this and the "drama" being in that it's ''hurting'' than helping.

* HardTruthAesop: Sometimes people you love, who need help due to childhood trauma will [[RedemptionRejection continually reject help]] even though they deserve redemption, dying without ever getting a chance to turn their life around.
* HonestyAesop: Grace learns that [[spoiler:her lies and bluff that she ''totally'' knows the Train all those years ago led to numerous children brainwashed to hurt people, be separated from their families just for ''her'' amusement and ultimately ended with Tuba dead, Hazel's innocence destroyed and Simon dead. All because she couldn't suck up her pride.]] Lesson learned: if you don't know anything, ''never'' give people false hope by being a KnowNothingKnowItAll or else they'll be completely convinced that that truth is the ''only'' truth and you'll have to see everything you created be turned to ash in a heartbeat.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: The Apex are convinced that higher numbers are better and equal power, despite it not being possible for that to be further from the truth. [[spoiler:"The Origami Car" reveals that this started when Grace met Simon and acted like she got it that high intentionally rather than admit to being clueless.]]

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