| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dark_8.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:350:''Everything''.]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''The beginning is the end.'' |
| 5 | |
| 6 | ''[[JustForFun/DescribeTopicHere The question isn't how the topic will be described, but when.]]'' |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Welcome to the beautiful, quiet town of Winden, Germany, circa 2019. There's a 98% chance of rain in the forecast. The nearby nuclear power plant is still in operation. Children are disappearing. Again. The police have no leads. Again. [[BreadMilkEggsSquick And the birds are falling from the sky]]. Again. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | Jonas Kahnwald, a teenager struggling with his father's sudden and unexplained suicide, explores the forests and caves of Winden with his friends. But there's something else going on in the wilderness, and soon they will stumble into a conspiracy far darker than anyone could have imagined. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Meanwhile, it's up to chief of police Charlotte Doppler and investigator Ulrich Nielsen to figure out what's going on. And they can't help but think that the strange events happening around them in 2019 are awfully similar to what happened in Winden when they were kids in 1986. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | The first German-language Creator/{{Netflix}} series, ''Dark'' is a science fiction/paranormal thriller that shares likenesses with other shows such as ''Series/TwinPeaks'' and ''Series/StrangerThings''. The best way to go into this show is to look at it as the spiritual antithesis to ''Twin Peaks'', and an exercise in GermanicEfficiency. The show itself doesn't lie to you, but the characters might. Everything shown onscreen is true -- it's just piecing it together that's the hard part. Every single character and plotline has a purpose, every piece has a meaning, and as the poster says, "Everything is connected." |
| 15 | |
| 16 | The show premiered on December 1, 2017; its second season arrived on June 21, 2019. The series concluded with Season [[ArcNumber 3]] on June 27th, 2020. The creators reunited for ''[[Series/EighteenNinetyNine 1899]]'', which released on Netflix in November 2022. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Not to be confused with the video game ''VideoGame/{{Dark}}''. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | !!When are the tropes? |
| 21 | |
| 22 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 23 | |
| 24 | [[folder: A to F]] |
| 25 | * AboveGoodAndEvil: |
| 26 | ** [[spoiler: Adam definitely sees himself this way, as he monologues about it, lies, manipulates, and kills multiple times on screen, all in the name of his goal.]] |
| 27 | ** [[spoiler: Eva thinks this way as well; she manipulates others into assisting her, including her younger self, to ensure the survival of her child. (And she has her own death squad/[[TheDragon dragon]] in form of the time-looped Unknown.) She too is into monologues.]] |
| 28 | ** [[spoiler:Claudia keeps the StableTimeLoop going by letting everything happen as it always does, including Mikkel's and [[TheseHandsHaveKilled her father's]] death, to preserve the secret of time travel.]] |
| 29 | * AdamAndOrEve: [[spoiler:Adam, Jonas' older self, and Eva, the alternate Martha's older self. Neither bears much resemblance to the biblical characters, but a painting in Erit Lux's headquarters shows the original couple. Both names were assumed, perhaps inspired by the painting. Those two characters' plot function as the source of so much evil ties into the series' use of UsefulNotes/{{Gnostic|ism}} imagery. Furthermore, similarly to how the biblical characters were the ancestors of all of humanity, Adam and Eva's child is the ancestor of much of the family tree in both worlds. Their influence on the loop also means that some characters who aren't their direct descendants exist because of them]]. |
| 30 | * AerithAndBob: Most of the cast have common German names like Ulrich, Michael, Claudia or Franziska, but then there are characters with names like Magnus, Tronte or Bartosz that, while not unheard of, are comparatively rare, especially among teenagers. That most of these teens share a disproportionately large chunk of the show's screen time only makes their names stand out even more. |
| 31 | * AffairHair: In season 3, [[spoiler:Alternate Hannah gets suspicious of Ulrich when she finds a blond hair on his hoodie. She also notices a scent which she later confirms to be Charlotte's perfume. This scene mirrors another in Season 1, where Katharina begins to suspect Ulrich is cheating on her when she smells Hannah's perfume on his hoodie. Both women test their suspicion by hugging the woman in question - and in both cases Hannah brings something to eat over as an excuse to be around]]. |
| 32 | * AllLoveIsUnrequited: Applicable to many characters in Winden. |
| 33 | ** Initially, we have Jonas, Martha and Bartosz. Jonas and Martha were attracted to each other and had a brief romance, only for Jonas's friend Bartosz to start going out with Martha after Jonas suffers a personal tragedy and spends time in a psychiatric facility. And though Bartosz truly loves Martha, she still loves Jonas and eventually chooses Jonas over him. |
| 34 | ** Ulrich, a married man, and Hannah, a widow, are having an affair. Hannah has loved Ulrich since she was a young girl, but Ulrich never truly returns her feelings and is ultimately more devoted to preserving his family. [[spoiler: It's also revealed that Hannah even maintained her attraction to Ulrich while still in a loving marriage with her late husband Michael Kahnwald, ironically beginning her affair with Ulrich on the night Michael would commit suicide.]] |
| 35 | ** A similar case is Ulrich's father, Tronte Nielsen. [[spoiler:Tronte's wife Jana always loved him even after realizing that the woman he truly loved was Claudia Tiedemann. But even after a precocious romance in their preteens and an extramarital affair during adulthood, Claudia was largely dismissive of Tronte. Though Tronte spent years believing he was the father of Claudia's daughter Regina, it was actually Bernd Doppler, another married man who had an affair with Claudia.]] |
| 36 | ** Helge Doppler apparently harbored a schoolboy crush on Claudia Tiedemann from childhood to middle age. Claudia seemed to recognize this, but never acknowledged it or took it seriously. As a child, Claudia only had eyes for Tronte [[spoiler:and, unbeknownst to Helge, she eventually had an affair with his much older father, Bernd.]] |
| 37 | * AllThereInTheManual : Following the final season's conclusion, [[https://dark.netflix.io/en Netflix updated the show's website]] into [[spoiler:the entangled family tree connecting the four families together]]. The website provides some additional information on the characters not fully given in the show, and also names some characters who are {{Unknown Character}}s in the show, those being Ulla Schmidt (Helge's wife and Peter's mother) and Leopold Tannhaus (H.G. Tannhaus' father). |
| 38 | * AlternateUniverse: |
| 39 | ** Season 3 introduces a parallel version of the world the audience has come to know. Changes include: |
| 40 | *** Mikkel never [[spoiler:travelled through time, and as such never married Hannah and fathered Jonas (who doesn't exist in this timeline).]] |
| 41 | *** Hannah (who presumably was never married) ultimately managed to break up Ulrich and Katharina, and married him herself. [[spoiler:Only to have him cheat ''on her'' as well.]] |
| 42 | *** Peter is a minister instead of a psychiatrist, and Bernadette is a cisgender man known as Benjamin. The official website does state that they are still both [[spoiler:secretly in a relationship, however.]] |
| 43 | *** Charlotte [[spoiler:cheats on Peter with Ulrich]], while in Adam's world Peter was the one who cheated on her. |
| 44 | *** Franziska is the deaf Doppler sister instead of Elisabeth. |
| 45 | *** Regina [[spoiler:succumbed to cancer in 2019.]] |
| 46 | *** [[spoiler:Mads's time-travelling corpse was discovered by the kids and not the adults (and as consequence the enigma around his disappearance was uncovered a lot faster, since nobody actually tried to cover it up).]] |
| 47 | *** Helge didn't get his head caved in as a kid in 1953, but as an adult in 1986; and didn't lose his ear but his eye. |
| 48 | *** Other characters have noticeably different appearances as well. For example, Martha has dark hair and bangs, Magnus is also dark-haired, covered with tattoos, and is {{punk|rock}} instead of a [[TheStoner stoner]], Katharina wears glasses, Peter lacks a beard, Elizabeth has pigtails, Aleksander has a beard, Bartosz has longer, wavy brown hair, and Wöller didn't lose his eye to some undisclosed accident, but instead his entire arm. |
| 49 | *** [[spoiler:The passage in the Winden caves doesn't connect 1953-1986-2019, but instead connects 1986-2019-2052.]] |
| 50 | *** [[spoiler: The apocalypse occurs on November 8th, 2019 rather than June 27th. 2020; also, most of the main characters from 2019 are killed (excluding Bartosz, Hannah and Elisabeth), as opposed to Adam's world, where Martha was killed, but most of the kids, Hannah, Charlotte and Katharina survived.]] |
| 51 | *** [[spoiler: Instead of Sic Mundus, led by Jonas' future self Adam, the secret society manipulating events on this world is Erit Lux, led by Martha's future self Eva. Its members are Eva, Martha's middle-aged self, the young Martha, Noah, Claudia, Egon (who is seemingly not accidentally killed by Claudia), Bartosz and the Unknown.]] |
| 52 | *** [[spoiler:The post-apocalyptic Winden in 2052 is very different as well. In Adam's world, Winden and the surrounding area has been left a ruined, dull wasteland. However, many structures and trees are still standing, and survivors continue to live among the ruins. In the alternate universe, however, nothing is left except for a sandy, barren desert. The only things remaining are the caves, the bunker and Erit Lux's headquarters, and there is no life sans Erit Lux's members.]] |
| 53 | ** The finale introduces ''another'' universe, which is revealed to be [[spoiler:the original universe that was split into Adam and Eva's universes]]. Changes include: |
| 54 | *** [[spoiler: The Winden Nuclear Plant doesn't exist.]] |
| 55 | *** [[spoiler: Tannhaus' family is alive and safe.]] |
| 56 | *** [[spoiler: Jonas, Martha, Mikkel, Magnus, Ulrich, Mads, Tronte, Agnes, Noah, Silja, Charlotte, Elisabeth, Franziska and the Unknown don't exist due to the loop not existing. Bartosz doesn't exist as well due to Regina and Aleksander never meeting (which happened due to Ulrich's interference).]] |
| 57 | *** [[spoiler: Regina and Katharina didn't marry, but are alive.]] |
| 58 | *** [[spoiler: Erik Obendorf and Yasin survive due to never getting involved in the experiments.]] |
| 59 | *** [[spoiler: Hannah is friends with Regina, Katharina, Peter and Bernadette, is HappilyMarried to Wöller, and is expecting a baby, which she wishes to name 'Jonas'.]] |
| 60 | *** [[spoiler:Peter is in a relationship with Bernadette.]] |
| 61 | *** [[spoiler:The characters have different appearances as well. For example, Katharina has short hair, Regina wears her hair long, Wöller's eye is injured but not completely lost, and Bernadette is blond.]] |
| 62 | * AmbiguousEnding: The third and final season ends on the same note as the whole show: [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] ambiguity. [[spoiler:Jonas and Martha sacrifice themselves and their entire realities to break the temporal cycle of misery they live in and save Tannhaus's family, seemingly successfully. In the final scene we see some of the characters who weren't RetGone (Katharina, Wöller, Peter, Hannah, Regina, and Bernadette) leading seemingly much more adjusted and happy lives and having a cordial dinner together, with Hannah being pregnant. During the dinner, the lights go out (malfunctioning electric equipment being a common sign of time travel) and Hannah stares at a yellow raincoat exactly like Jonas's while talking about her dream of the end of the world. After the lights come back, Hannah states she wants to name her unborn son "Jonas". Were the lights going out sign of further time travel or just a power outage? Were the name "Jonas" and the dreams of the end of the world signs that the cycle has not been broken or just echoes of dead realities? Will Jonas get another chance or is the unborn baby a different person with the same name?]] |
| 63 | * ApocalypseHow: |
| 64 | ** Season 2 revolves around [[spoiler:Jonas's attempts to prevent an apocalyptic event in 2020 (which turns out to be a WorldWreckingWave of dark matter caused by the opening of the barrels in the power plant]]) that kills most of Winden's residents and turns Winden and much of the area into a barren, apocalyptic hellscape. It is elaborated in Season 3 that the event threw the earth's rotation off-balance, leading to global power outages, devastating tidal waves, and drastic climate change. [[spoiler:The apocalypse in Eva's world is shown to be even worse, turning what was once Winden into a seemingly lifeless desert]]. |
| 65 | ** In addition, [[spoiler:Adam's ultimate plan turns out to be nothing less than the eradication of the entire multiverse, and the series ends with two parallel universes being wiped out so that a third can continue to exist]]. |
| 66 | * ArcNumber: The number [[RuleOfThree 3]] is of great significance in the story. It even extends to a meta level, with the show itself having three seasons. |
| 67 | ** Three kids are kidnapped and experimented on to [[spoiler:create the prototype time machine, and the more advanced stages of the time travel device each have three extending cylinders]]. |
| 68 | ** Tannhaus notes that "nothing is complete without a third dimension" to explain his theory that a wormhole connects the past, the present and the future, and uses the triquetra symbol, which is composed of three intersecting parts, to illustrate this. [[spoiler:True to his claims, the wormhole in the Winden Caves connects three points in time, which, due to being in synch with the lunar-solar cycle, are 33 years apart]]. |
| 69 | ** Both Adam and [[spoiler:his alternate universe counterpart Eva]] claim that a person "lives three lives," of which the first ends with the loss of naiveté, the second with the loss of innocence, and the third with the loss of life itself. Fittingly, both of them, [[spoiler:as well as their son the Unknown,]] are seen as youths, as middle-aged adults, and as EvilOldFolks. |
| 70 | ** Season 3 reveals that [[spoiler:three versions of Jonas and Martha simultaneously exist due to quantum entanglement.]] |
| 71 | ** And finally, there are [[spoiler:three universes, of which only one survives.]] |
| 72 | * ArcSymbol: |
| 73 | ** The silver pendant featuring [[https://imgur.com/EBfusQH Saint Christopher]], the PatronSaint of travelers. It shows up with various characters across all timelines. |
| 74 | ** The [[https://imgur.com/CEGiflL triquetra]], which appears on the door of the gate in the Winden caves, the leather notebook, and the Emerald Tablet. |
| 75 | ** The Emerald Tablet, a famous alchemy text that contains the line "Sic mundus creatus est". It appears as a tattoo on [[spoiler:Bartosz's]] chest and Noah's back, on a print in the hospital in the 80s, and on an album cover in the teenage Ulrich's bedroom. |
| 76 | ** The infinity symbol, representing EternalRecurrence. |
| 77 | * ArcWords: |
| 78 | ** The words "Everything is connected", which represent the central theme of the entire show: how everything in Winden is connected. |
| 79 | ** Variations of the phrase "The question is not how/who/where, but when" are repeated whenever a character refers to time as the crucial element that binds everything together. |
| 80 | ** "The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end", referring to the [[spoiler:cyclical nature of time and the time loop that connects both worlds]]. |
| 81 | ** "We are a perfect match. Never believe anything else" is the overarching phrase for Jonas and Martha's relationship, and also [[spoiler:the last words he says to her AlternateSelf before both of them are erased from existence]]. |
| 82 | ** "Sic Mundus Creatus Est" ("Thus the world was created") is the religious creed of [[spoiler:the eponymous ApocalypseCult, who believe that by destroying the time loop, they will create a better world for humanity]]. |
| 83 | ** In Season 2, Egon is warned of the "White Devil" by young Helge and puzzles for decades about who this devil could be. It is eventually revealed that the White Devil is [[spoiler:his daughter, Claudia, who accidentally causes his death]]. |
| 84 | ** Season 3 has "We/You are wrong here" whenever someone [[spoiler:ends up in another universe]]. In addition, the words "[[spoiler:In your world as in mine]]" are repeated several times to underline that [[spoiler:key events in one universe also inevitably occur in the other]]. |
| 85 | ** And finally, the words that describe the idea that kicked off everything: "Man can do what he wants, but he cannot ''want'' what he wants. [[spoiler: This describes Tannhaus, who - despite originally merely being a humble watchmaker - after years of relentless work manages to accomplish the greatest feat in the history of science: building a working device that unravels the fabric of time and space, something which by all means should be utterly impossible. But he only did it because he had the insurmountable desire to undo the death of his family.]] |
| 86 | * ArtisticLicenseGeography: In 1986, it is clearly established that Winden is a West German town, but [[spoiler:the ruins of the housing blocks in 2052 are clearly East German]]. |
| 87 | * ArtisticLicenseHistory: |
| 88 | ** Construction for the first nuclear power plant in Germany began in 1958, five years later than in the show's timeline. It seems the writers altered history a bit so that [[spoiler:it would fit the 33-year time travel cycle.]] |
| 89 | ** In 1986, Ulrich wears a shirt of the Swedish Metal band Morbid. The band was only founded at the end of 1986, and only achieved recognition posthumously, several years later, particularly for the involvement of their singer with the more popular and infamous band Music/{{Mayhem}}. There's no way Ulrich would have their shirt in 1986. |
| 90 | * ArtisticLicenseLawEnforcement: German police are the responsibility of the [[UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland Land]], not individual municipalities. While people may call the local police the "Winden Police", the uniforms would still show the Land's coat of arms, not Winden's. |
| 91 | * ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: A corpse is highly radioactive. The coroner attributes this to exposure to radiation, postulating that the person may have been an X-ray technician. Needless to say, X-rays, or even gamma rays, do ''not'' turn a person radioactive. That requires physical exposure and absorption of radioactive material. This may be an InUniverse error, as it's only 1954 and the coroner's knowledge of radioactivity may be spotty. |
| 92 | * ArtisticLicensePhysics: While it's hardly reasonable to complain about realism in a series about time travel [[spoiler:(invented in 1986 by a solitary scientist at that)]], the references to "the God particle" and "dark matter" are clearly intended to remind viewers of discoveries in contemporary physics and cosmology, but neither (probably) have much to do with time travel. Also, in reality, the "God particle" (the Higgs boson) is researched in huge, expensive, specialist particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider; a civilian atomic power station is unlikely to conduct research in fundamental particle physics, even by accident. |
| 93 | * AspectRatioSwitch: In the final two episodes, the aspect ratio switches to widescreen when [[spoiler:the origin world]] is focused on. |
| 94 | * AsTheGoodBookSays: Many lines from the script and names of episodes are references to passages from the bible. The 10th episode is named "Alpha and Omega", a reference to Revelation 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." |
| 95 | * AttemptedRape: [[spoiler:In post-apocalyptic Winden, Elisabeth almost gets raped by a burglar]] but her father arrives just in time to interrupt the assault. |
| 96 | * AutopsySnackTime: While dissecting a dead sheep's brain, the local coroner talks about a Yugoslavian dish his wife is preparing for the weekend. |
| 97 | * AwfulTruth: [[spoiler:The alternate Martha]] is visually shaken when Adam tells her that [[spoiler:she and Jonas are the cause of the apocalypse because of the child they conceived together which builds a bridge between both worlds. What Adam doesn't know at this point is that the real origin exists outside of their two worlds. He later gets his own awful truth served to him by old Claudia.]] |
| 98 | * BackAlleyDoctor: [[spoiler:Serial homewrecker Hannah]] gets pregnant by [[spoiler:Egon Tiedemann in the 1950s]]. Due to the hopelessness of the situation, she decides to visit a back-alley abortionist. However, while waiting for her operation, she [[GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion changes her mind]] upon talking to a young Helene Albers. |
| 99 | * BadFuture: |
| 100 | ** A major plot point in the second half of season 3 is that [[spoiler:both universes are diverged from an origin universe, and the apocalypse happens in both universes, unlike in the original world.]] |
| 101 | * BadHabits: Noah pretends to be a priest to have a reason to hang around at Sic Mundus' headquarters - which are under a church - in 1953/54 and 1986/87; the same is the case for [[spoiler:the Unknown]]. |
| 102 | * BaitAndSwitch: When both Charlotte and Peter are late to pick up Elisabeth, their younger daughter, from school, she decides to walk home by herself. Peter arrives to find her already gone, and Charlotte finds her fox hat on the forest path. She gets home fine, Noah just made her late by engaging her in a cryptic conversation and giving her a watch that used to belong to Charlotte. [[spoiler:Her friend Yasin, on the other hand, is not so lucky when he decides to walk to school by himself the next day, and ends up disappearing.]] |
| 103 | * BattleInTheRain: Bartosz and Jonas have a fight in the rain in the yard in 1888 [[spoiler:after Martha revealed that Jonas was Adam. This is a CallBack to their earlier fight in the rain in Season 1, after Martha confessed that she kissed Jonas while already with Bartosz]]. |
| 104 | * BetaCouple: In contrast to Jonas and Martha's spacetime-traversing romance and [[spoiler:eventual enmnity]] and the parental generation's topsy-turvy interpersonal relationships, Magnus and Franziska are always a pair and even [[spoiler:grow old together along with Adam from 1888 to 1921.]] |
| 105 | * BigBadEnsemble: [[spoiler: Adam and Eve in Season 3. While Adam wants to end the world and all existence out of frustration over his repeated failures to save Martha or anyone else, Eve wants to sustain the cycle (and all the misery it brings) simply because it's the only way how she can keep her loved ones alive at least for a while.]] |
| 106 | * BigDamnReunion: Between Mikkel and Ulrich in 1986 with the latter having endured [[TheSlowPath 33 years]] at an asylum to see his son again. The reunion is short-lived though as authorities quickly drag the old man back to the institution. |
| 107 | * BigFancyHouse: |
| 108 | ** Bernd Doppler and his family live in a huge, fancy mansion, befitting the guy who is responsible for opening the power plant, the lifeblood of the town. |
| 109 | ** Aleksander and Regina Tiedemann live in a large and fancy home made of stone and glass. They run the power plant in 2019 and the town hotel, respectively, making them likely the most successful couple in town. |
| 110 | * BigScrewedUpFamily: |
| 111 | ** The Nielsens, mostly. It all began with [[spoiler:Agnes ditching her son on her own to rejoin Sic Mundus]], as well as multiple affairs in each generation. Then it gets [[FromBadToWorse worse]]. |
| 112 | ** It's later revealed that [[spoiler:''all'' the four main families are interconnected by blood, and with the Nielsens, ''with an alternate universe'' as well, taking this trope up to eleven, as all major and minor antagonists eventually turn out to belong to the same family.]] |
| 113 | * BigSecret: |
| 114 | ** Pretty much any character who finds out about [[spoiler:TimeTravel]] starts behaving secretively and would sound crazy if they tried to explain, bringing them under suspicion of the child abductions and murders. Characters hiding this secret include [[spoiler:Tronte, Peter, the Stranger, Ulrich, Charlotte, and eventually most of the cast]]. In addition, many characters are hiding secrets that are unrelated or not directly related: |
| 115 | ** Tronte, Peter, and Ulrich are all hiding [[spoiler:extramarital affairs]]. |
| 116 | ** Ulrich, Peter, [[spoiler:Claudia]] and Tronte are hiding that [[spoiler:the body discovered in the forest is Mads's.]] |
| 117 | ** Bernd, Claudia, Aleksander, Torben, and Bernadette are hiding [[spoiler:barrels of nuclear waste from an unreported accident at the power plant]]. At least one of these characters is also hiding the fact that this secret enables [[spoiler:TimeTravel]]. |
| 118 | ** Franziska is secretly [[spoiler:selling hormones]]. |
| 119 | ** Hannah is secretly [[spoiler:seeking revenge on Ulrich for rejecting her, first by falsely accusing Ulrich of rape and later by blackmailing Aleksander]]. |
| 120 | ** Aleksander is hiding [[spoiler:his true identity, apparently having committed a murder in 1986]]. |
| 121 | * BilingualBonus: Winden is both the name of a real town in Germany, but can also mean "to twist" or "to wiggle". |
| 122 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Hannah has a mild personality to everyone's face, but she is extremely manipulative, conniving and spiteful throughout her life. |
| 123 | * BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Jonas and Martha rescue Tannhaus' family, preventing him from destroying the original world through discovering time travel, saving the world from the apocalypse and the characters from a never-ending loop of misery. However, this causes Jonas, Martha, and all other characters whose existence depends on time travel to cease to exist. The remaining members of the cast seem happier and better adjusted, and the final line implies that Jonas (and potentially other characters) might get another shot in this "fixed" reality]]. |
| 124 | * BloodFromTheMouth: Both [[spoiler:Noah and Martha]] have blood running from their mouth after getting shot in the chest in the Season 2 finale. |
| 125 | * BookEnds: |
| 126 | ** Season 1 begins with an overhead shot of the Winden forest and a bunker with photos of the characters, in what we later discover is the year [[spoiler:2052]]. The very last scene of the season finale is [[spoiler:Jonas arriving in the aforementioned bunker and discovering that he's in the year 2052.]] |
| 127 | ** The earliest scenes of Season 2 show us the post-apocalyptic Winden of the 2050s. The Season 2 finale ends by [[spoiler:showing us the apocalypse in 2020 that creates that Winden]]. |
| 128 | ** Season 3 begins with [[spoiler:Alternate-Martha bringing Jonas to her world (as is later revealed, under orders from Adam).]] The final episode has [[spoiler:Adam himself saving Jonas from the Apocalypse and bringing him to Eva's World, even using some of the same lines that Alternate-Martha spoke to the first Jonas.]] |
| 129 | ** The first actual scene of Season 1 [[spoiler:is set in the Kahnwald house in the PresentDay, with Michael hanging himself.]] The last scene of Season 3 [[spoiler:returns us to the Kahnwald house, albeit in an AlternateUniverse where new versions of some of the characters are having a dinner party.]] |
| 130 | ** A more character-specific example in the Season 3 episode "Life and Death". [[spoiler:We get to see a teenage Peter Doppler first arriving in Winden in 1987. The same episode also shows us his death in the post-apocalyptic Winden of 2020, bringing his story full circle.]] |
| 131 | ** Both the first and the final episode of the series end with {{Music/Nena}}'s "Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann." The first time, it's a case of SoundtrackDissonance, as the song's upbeat melody stands in stark contrast to the disturbing sight of [[spoiler:Erik being killed in a scientific experiment]]. In the final episode, [[spoiler:the song replaces the droning, gloomy end credits theme, with its hopeful lyrics underlining the story's BittersweetEnding]]. |
| 132 | * CassandraTruth: In season 3, when Martha [[spoiler:of Eva's World]] tries to confess to her brother about the impending apocalypse, he thinks she's gone mad. |
| 133 | * CatapultNightmare: Both Jonas and Martha do this when waking from bad dreams. |
| 134 | * CentralTheme: Determinism. Is it possible to alter past and future events? And do humans have free will or are we slaves to desires that are causally determined? |
| 135 | * ChildByRape: [[spoiler:Helge. His mother - who doesn't feel much love for her son because of that - implied as much when talking to Noah; and the information available on the show's website do confirm that Helge is indeed not the son of Bernd Doppler, but of Anatol Veliev (presumably a Soviet soldier who raped his mother towards the war 9 years prior).]] |
| 136 | * {{Cliffhanger}}: |
| 137 | ** [[spoiler:Season 1 ends with aged Helge going back to 1986 and driving his car into his past self to stop him working for Noah, incapacitating his past self and killing his present self in the process; Stranger Jonas's and Claudia's plan to cancel out the black hole failing for reasons that remain unclear; Hannah plotting to ''continue destroying Ulrich's life'' and blackmailing Aleksander/Boris with her knowledge of his true identity; and Jonas getting stuck in what seems to be 2052]]. |
| 138 | ** Season 2 ends [[spoiler:with the Apocalypse happening when a nuclear waste barrel is opened in the power plant and forms the God Particle portal that exists in the future; some characters being saved in the bunker and some arguably ''killed'' by the activation of the God Particle; Stranger/Future!Jonas taking Bartosz, Magnus, and Franziska to an unknown timeline to form Sic Mundus; young Jonas witnessing Martha die at the hands of his future self Adam, who needs Martha's death to occur to secure his own timeline; and another Martha from ''an alternative dimension'' taking Jonas with a new compact portable device]]. |
| 139 | * ClockPunk: Appropriately enough, devices built by clock-maker Tannhaus tend towards this aesthetic. |
| 140 | * ConceiveAndKill: In season 3 episode 5, [[spoiler: this is the fate of the Jonas who entered the alternate world. After having sex with and, what neither of them know yet, impregnating,this world's Martha, he [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness has fulfilled]] the purposes Eva needed him for, so he is promptly shot by a slightly older Martha. As the following episode shows, there is another Jonas who is alive however.]] |
| 141 | * ConnectedAllAlong: |
| 142 | ** Jonas is [[spoiler: related to the entire Nielsen family due to his father being Mikkel, Ulrich's youngest son who disappeared in 2019.]] |
| 143 | ** [[spoiler: Charlotte is Noah and Elisabeth's long-lost daughter]], and via the former as revealed in Season 3, [[spoiler: distant cousin to Jonas, Tronte and Claudia, due to Noah's mother Silja being Egon and Hannah's daughter.]] |
| 144 | ** In Season 3, it is revealed that [[spoiler: everyone in the 4 main families are connected to each other in family lineage as well, with the Tiedemanns being ancestors to the Nielsens and the present generation of the Doppler family, with Bernd Doppler directly being an ancestor to the all the four families on lieu of being Regina's real father.]] |
| 145 | * TheConspiracy: Adam [[spoiler:has spent a lifetime in various times building a cult dedicated to ending the world. Eve's faction is less tortuous, but still quite conspiratorial]]. |
| 146 | * ContemplateOurNavels: Adding up all the monologues about the intertwinement of past, present and future would probably amount to a full episode. |
| 147 | * CorpseTemperatureTampering: DiscussedTrope. On the 5th of November 2019, the police found the corpse of a teenage boy who died around 10 hours ago. [[spoiler: The policeman Ulrich Nielsen then begins to theorize that this might be his own brother, who has been missing since October 1986, and that the corpse was somehow conserved for 33 years. When he asks the coroner about how something could be possible, she shoots the idea down. As it turns out, it indeed was Ulrich's brother but little they knew that there was TimeTravel involved, too. And as season 3 shows, the same thing happened in the alternate world too.]] |
| 148 | * CosmicDeadline: In season 2, the number of characters who know about [[spoiler:TimeTravel]] rapidly approaches 100% during the week leading up to [[spoiler:the Apocalypse]]. |
| 149 | * CosmicHorrorStory: The series veers into this with the reveal that [[spoiler:the time loop predetermines each of the characters' actions and decisions, keeping them trapped in a never-ending cycle of suffering. The realization that there is no escape from this fate plays a huge part in Jonas's transformation into Adam and his desire to destroy time itself]]. |
| 150 | * CrapsackWorld: Winden is referred to multiple times as a "festering wound'', and it's telling when [[spoiler:the collapse of the space-time anomaly wipes out the town in the future]] and later, the [[spoiler: end of both Adam's and Eva's Worlds]] feel like a MercyKill. To delve into the specifics: |
| 151 | ** [[spoiler:In 1953 Winden is a hopeful young town with a nuclear power plant about to give its economy a major boost, but it's also a place where birds are falling from the sky, and children are showing up dead in construction sites.]] The townspeople still hold [[TownWithADarkSecret dark secrets]] among themselves. |
| 152 | ** [[spoiler:In 1986, a false rape case and]] a missing child have put the town on edge, turning the inhabitants against one another. Livestock and birds die in droves, and the power plant and the people still hold their secrets... |
| 153 | ** In the present day, Winden is a town full of depressed, pathetic, paranoid, secretive, violent, and spiteful people. Children go missing, and the power plant is rumored to be unstable. And then the conspiracy kicks off and sets everyone against each other. |
| 154 | ** [[spoiler:In 2052, the collapse of the space-time anomaly at the power plant has led to the devastation of Winden and seemingly much of the world as well. The surviving inhabitants are now scavengers straight out of ''Film/MadMax''. There are giant wasp nests everywhere, something that is predicted by global warming.]] |
| 155 | ** In the end, it turns out [[spoiler:there are ''two'' crapsack universes with so much suffering and misery at the heart of their very existence that the heroes agree that wiping them out and erasing most of the cast is the best course of action.]] |
| 156 | ** And yet, even after [[spoiler:the two universes are wiped out and the survivors manage to live out happy lives, Winden seemingly [[TheConstant remains a place]] that brings misery to its inhabitants. When one of the surviving characters wishes for "a world without Winden", everyone else quickly agrees.]] |
| 157 | * ADayInTheLimelight: The third episode of Season 2, "Ghosts", focuses primarily on Claudia and her relationships with her acquaintances and family members (particularly her father) throughout various time periods. [[spoiler:It also qualifies as ADeathInTheLimelight, as it ends with her old self being shot dead by Noah]]. |
| 158 | * DeadGuyJunior: In the finale [[spoiler: Hannah from the Origin World]] is pregnant and while experiencing some sort of resonance from [[spoiler:the erased universes]] muses that she likes the name [[spoiler:Jonas.]] |
| 159 | * DeadGuyOnDisplay: In 2052, Jonas walks through a forest where bodies are hanging from the trees. |
| 160 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: The scenes set in the 1950s contain some of this: besides vast amounts of smoking, and Egon Tiedemann and Daniel Kahnwald being casually sexist, there's the way the police discover [[spoiler:the bodies of 2019 timeline kids, one of them of Middle Eastern descent, and both wearing clothes labeled as "Made In China".]] The cops look like the only way they can wrap their heads around these details is to conclude they must be from some sort of BadFuture. Additionally, the coroner's description of one of the corpses is worded in a way that would make him appear like a hardcore racist in contemporary Germany. |
| 161 | * DiedInIgnorance: Over the course of season 2, Egon begins to understand that TimeTravel might exist and it's somehow connected to the caves. [[spoiler:When he tries to alert the police, he's interrupted and accidentally killed by Claudia, before he could learn that he really had the right idea.]] |
| 162 | * DimensionalTraveler: If all the TimeTravel stuff wasn't complicated enough, it turns out that there are [[spoiler:two different universes, each with their own slightly different chronology. Small spherical devices allow people to hop between the two dimensions. It's ultimately revealed that they're both offshoots of a third, original universe that can only be accessed through special circumstances]]. |
| 163 | * DontGoInTheWoods: Or you might end up [[spoiler:in another time period]]. The trope is more invoked by implication than anything else, but Winden ''is'' surrounded by a lot of woodland, as the camera periodically reminds us. This isn't a supernatural or especially dense forest, but characters are still forever wandering through it and encountering dark secrets and threats. Surprisingly, despite the fact that two children (Erik and Mikkel) have gone missing in the 2019 timeline and a dead one has appeared, the forest is still not made off-limits to children, leading to more abductions. |
| 164 | * DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest: [[spoiler: Zig-zagged with Jonas and the alternate-Martha. Jonas clearly seems to develop feelings for her, which culminate in them sleeping together. But its clear that the one he really wants to save and be with is the Martha from his world - a fact which angers alt-Martha. Nonetheless, in the series finale, a version of Jonas and Martha who had feelings for other versions of each other (Jonas for his world's Martha, and Martha for the Jonas who came to her world) share a tender moment.]] |
| 165 | * DoubleMeaningTitle: Season 1 episode 4 is called "Doppelleben" ("Double Lives"), referring to various instances of adultery, deceit, etc, occurring in Winden, but it is also the first episode to focus on the Doppler family -- the Doppler lives. [[BilingualBonus Non-German speakers]] [[LostInTranslation may not notice the pun.]] |
| 166 | * DramaticIrony: Too many instances to count with the time travel as people meet their relatives or associates out of chronology and react to them in unusual ways. One of the most prominent examples is seeing Katharina bully Mikkel in 1986 while she agonizes over his disappearance in 2019. |
| 167 | * DramaticNecklaceRemoval: Adam rips Martha's pendant from her neck [[spoiler:before using her to incite the apocalypse]]. |
| 168 | * DroneOfDread: Can be heard on the soundtrack during tense scenes in the forest or in the cave. |
| 169 | * DysfunctionJunction: ''Everyone''. Even the more reasonable characters like Charlotte and Jonas, have some sort of angst. Most of the rest have far worse problems than mere angst. |
| 170 | * EmergencyTemporalShift: |
| 171 | ** This is how some of the characters in the season 2 finale [[spoiler: evade the impending apocalypse.]] As season 3 shows, [[spoiler: Adult Jonas, Franziska, Magnus and Bartosz arrived in 1888, Katharina went through the passage to 1987 and Charlotte has been transported to 2052.]] |
| 172 | ** In episode 6 of season 3 likewise, [[spoiler: Erit Lux rescues Bartosz and Hannah that way from the apocalypse of their world, combined with the ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit that the golden orb time machines allow.]] |
| 173 | * {{Epigraph}}: A couple of episodes, like the pilot and episode 8, start with a famous quote. The Season 3 pilot starts with a title card reading "Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills." |
| 174 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: In the first episode, Franziska reveals that she's beaten the rest of the teens to Erik's stash, showing that she's bold and independent. Bartosz simply shoves her on her ass and steals the stash, showing that he's a dick. |
| 175 | * EternalRecurrence: Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence -- the idea that all events in the universe repeat themselves in never-ending series of cycles -- is referred to in a conversation between the Stranger and Tannhaus and turns out to be one of the series' central themes. |
| 176 | * EverybodyDiesEnding: [[spoiler:In the end ''at least two'' versions of every single character have been killed or erased from existence. Only the ones existing independently from the time loop are left, and only the versions of the original universe, the ones we followed for three seasons are erased with the rest of them.]] |
| 177 | * EveryoneIsRelated: To increasingly absurd degrees due to all the time travelling, this happens to the main cast. By the end of the series [[spoiler: it turns out that a huge part of the central four families is descendant of Jonas and a second version of Martha in two worlds. And the characters who aren't are still related by marriage or adoption. Unfortunately, this means that, in the universe where they don't exist, most of the characters we've come to know never existed either]]. |
| 178 | * EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: In spite of the felt SmallTownBoredom, the generation who were teens in 1986 seemed to universally stick around and raise families in Winden. Clausen notes how strange this is. |
| 179 | %%* ExistentialHorror |
| 180 | * ExpositoryHairstyleChange: In the third season, the major characters have subtly different hairstyles (or other appearance tics) to indicate [[spoiler:they are the alternate universe counterparts of the characters we've come to know]]. Magnus and Martha have dark hair, Aleksander has a beard, Charlotte and Bartosz have longer hair, and so on. |
| 181 | * ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit: [[spoiler: In the Season 2 finale, when the Apocalypse begins in Winden, an alternate version of Martha shows up to save Jonas, bringing him to the Alternate Universe that she originated from. However, it's later revealed that due to quantum entanglement -- which allows for the creation of overlapping Alternate Timelines -- Jonas simultaneously ''doesn't'' get rescued, but nevertheless survives the Apocalypse by diving into his basement.]] |
| 182 | * TheExtremistWasRight: [[spoiler: Adam in the end. Regardless of how insane his plan and how callous and villainous his actions may seem, his omnicidal goal to destroy the universe (and therefore the loop) for good was necessary, because the reestablishment of the original timeline depended on it - he just missed a few crucial details to make his plan work. Fortunately for him (and everyone else trapped in the loop), Claudia ultimately provided him with the missing pieces.]] |
| 183 | * FaceDeathWithDignity: |
| 184 | ** The older miner in the opener of Season 2 [[spoiler: knows that he's about to be killed but doesn't resist the attack by young Noah.]] |
| 185 | ** [[spoiler: Claudia knows she's going to die by Noah's hands, but isn't afraid and doesn't stop Noah from killing her.]] |
| 186 | ** [[spoiler: Michael doesn't hesitate when Claudia informs Jonas Michael has to die in order to keep the loop stable, knowing that [[PapaWolf it will ensure his son will stay alive]] and not be erased.]] |
| 187 | ** In season 3, [[spoiler: as the apocalypse goes down in the alternate world, Franziska and Magnus are sitting by the lake and facing the impact with serenity]]. |
| 188 | ** [[spoiler: All characters FadingAway in the finale do so in peace]]. |
| 189 | * FadingAway: Happens in the season 3 finale to [[spoiler: the characters from the two dissolving worlds]]. |
| 190 | * FalseRapeAccusation: [[spoiler:Hannah]] accuses Ulrich of raping Katharina after seeing the two of them having consensual sex, for no other reason than getting revenge on Ulrich for choosing Katharina over her. [[spoiler:And then she lets Regina take the fall for it.]] |
| 191 | * FantasticRomance: [[spoiler: Jonas and Martha. Jonas' first romantic overture towards Martha occurs when he travels back in time to the summer of 2019. Their relationship only begins because future Jonas already has feelings for her and initiates their relationship, creating yet another paradox. ]] |
| 192 | * FateWorseThanDeath: |
| 193 | ** [[spoiler: Ulrich travels to 1953 in search of his son, attacks the young Helge Doppler, and is kept by the police as the prime suspect in the case of the dead children. He gets beaten up multiple times in prison by the guards, then transferred to a psychiatric clinic where he is kept until his death. His escape attempt to save his son Mikkel in 1987 is foiled. He is visited by Hannah in 1954 who abandons him knowingly. In 1987 Katharina shows up, promising to save him before she is killed in trying to do so.]] |
| 194 | ** [[spoiler: Jonas tries to kill himself during Season 3 only for it to be revealed that he cannot die and must always become Adam. This is only changed after it is revealed that events can be changed during the Apocalypse moment, which Jonas and Martha use to eventually eradicate both time-looped worlds as this is preferable to all this suffering occurring over and over.]] |
| 195 | ** [[spoiler: Adam tries to eradicate pregnant Martha (and her offspring) from existence by focusing the energy of the Apocalypse in both worlds on her. Since the two universes constantly regenerate each other, it doesn't work as she is not the origin and cause of the time loop itself.]] |
| 196 | * FieryRedhead: Franziska Doppler is a strong-willed, aggressive and independent red-head. Even in [[spoiler:the second universe, where she's mute, she still has a forceful personality]]. |
| 197 | * FirstGirlWins: As well as the gender-flipped version. For some reason, the people in Winden seem to permanently end up with their partners (and be in fairly dysfunctional relationships with them) they were or started dating 33 years ago. It's the case for Hannah and Michael, Ulrich and Katharina, Regina and Aleksander, Charlotte and Peter, Jana and Tronte, and Magnus and Franziska. |
| 198 | * FlashSideways: Several characters experience this in season 3 when facing a character they would know in the concurrent timeline. |
| 199 | ** E.g., Martha expresses her feeling of familiarity with Jonas even though they never met before. |
| 200 | ** In the season 3 finale, Hannah recalls a dream from the previous night where she dreamt that the world ended. |
| 201 | * FleeingForTheFalloutShelter: |
| 202 | ** Over the course of season 2, it becomes evident that on the 27th of June 2020, [[ApocalypseHow the apocalypse]] is going to happen. [[spoiler: In the final episode of the season, most of the characters find refuge in the bunker or escape by [[EmergencyTemporalShift travelling to another time]].]] |
| 203 | ** However, episode 6 of season 3 reveals [[spoiler: that Jonas, who was previously shown as being saved by ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit, has been duplicated.]] The duplicate isn't saved by anyone else, and therefore has to find refuge anywhere he can; he runs for the basement of the house he is in. |
| 204 | * FoldThePageFoldTheSpace: Tannhaus uses a rolled-up sheet of paper to demonstrate time travel via wormhole to The Stranger. |
| 205 | * ForcedIntoEvil: |
| 206 | ** At the end of the first season, [[spoiler:Hannah blackmails Aleksander into ruining Ulrich's life by threatening to make public that he has been living under a false identity for the last 33 years]]. |
| 207 | ** [[spoiler:Adam attempts to do this to his past self, Jonas. Jonas doesn't accept it.]] [[spoiler: [[StableTimeLoop Not at first]], anyway.]] |
| 208 | ** [[spoiler:Noah's past self is another example, but only because Noah is killed by Agnes after [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he's fulfilled his purpose]]]]. |
| 209 | * ForeignLanguageTitle: It's a German production with an English title. The German word is ''dunkel''. Episode titles are in German, though. |
| 210 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: A key element throughout the show, mainly due to the fact it comes up afterwards as vital or a factor [[spoiler:in the time loops]]. |
| 211 | ** There are three [[spoiler:photos of characters that will appear in the series shown ''in the opening scene'' (except some those haven't been revealed yet, like Adam and Stranger!Jonas or Old!Ulrich), and there are two photographs for a few characters. It turns out there's a [[CharacterDeath reason for that]]...]] |
| 212 | ** [[spoiler:Claudia stresses to Jonas ''why'' he needs to exist in the grand scheme of things when he argues that bringing Michael/Mikkel back to 2019 would erase Adam from the timeline (even if it means ''he'' would stop existing), commenting that she's seen a reality where he doesn't exist and it's not a pleasant one. Cue the final episode of the second season revealing that ''alternative realities'' (later revealed to be an actual universe) will play a factor in breaking the cycle]]. |
| 213 | ** Tannhaus admits to Charlotte that [[spoiler:he wanted to turn back time to save his family who died the day Baby Charlotte was given to him to raise but didn't after deciding to focus on raising the baby. As the final episode reveals, the very reason the two worlds (and therefore the entire series) was created because of the paradox resulting from Tannhaus' attempt to save his family, which fractured his reality.]] |
| 214 | ** Adam ordering Noah that the apocalypse must happen is [[spoiler:this when it is revealed the apocalypse is the only way the Knot can be undone.]] |
| 215 | ** The heavy focus that the series gives to the number 3 (see the entry for ArcNumber above) foreshadows the revelation that [[spoiler:there's a third universe]], so even though there were very few obvious signs of this it makes sense. [[spoiler:Claudia mentions it was only by observing both universes she came to realise neither should have existed but that must mean they were created from another world that should exist.]] |
| 216 | ** In season 2, Wöller has a WhatDoesSheSeeInHim opinion of Hannah and Michael's marriage, expressing that Hannah was beautiful enough to land anybody she wanted. [[spoiler:In the season finale, he and Hannah are together and expecting a child.]] |
| 217 | * FreeRangeChildren: Everyone in 2019 is ''remarkably'' chill with kids running around all by themselves, even after multiple disappearances and one dead body. For example, when Elisabeth's school day ends early, there is no teacher watching to make sure all the kids get picked up safely, [[spoiler:which leads to Elisabeth walking home by herself and running into Noah.]] The same goes for 1953, with even worse consequences. |
| 218 | * FutureCopter: Seen patrolling the area around Winden in 2053. |
| 219 | * FutureMeScaresMe: [[spoiler:Adam is a middle-aged Jonas Kahnwald, a man who gave up on all his ideals and is behind the kidnappings and murders of children in Winden from 1986 to 2019, in order to break the StableTimeLoop plaguing the town which also basically guaranteed ''his own existence'' in the first place. Naturally, Jonas is ''horrified'' when he learns this.]] |
| 220 | * FutureSelfReveal: |
| 221 | ** Midway through the first season, [[spoiler:Jonas receives his father's suicide note in a package. Reading it, he discovers that his father, Michael, was no other than young Mikkel Nielsen, who unknowingly time-traveled back to 1986 on November 4, 2019 and never came back, growing up as Michael Kahnwald.]] |
| 222 | ** In the first season finale, [[spoiler:the grizzled, mysterious time-traveling stranger who has been popping up around Winden is revealed to be the future self of Jonas Kahnwald, who is taking steps to keep the StableTimeLoop in order. The latter is not happy when he is forced through things his future self has already lived.]] |
| 223 | ** In the second season, [[spoiler:the mysterious, scarred old man seen in a luxurious house is revealed to be the future self of Jonas ''and'' the Stranger, Adam, who is manipulating both of them, as well as a host of other characters, to ensure his endgame.]] |
| 224 | ** [[spoiler:A downplayed instance of this is the man who young Noah kills with a [[PowerfulPick pickaxe]] in 1921]] at the beginning of Season 2. [[spoiler:Only in the penultimate episode is it revealed that this man was Bartosz, who is Noah's father. This reveal is never directly regarded in the show, however.]] |
| 225 | [[/folder]] |
| 226 | |
| 227 | [[folder: G to O]] |
| 228 | * GambitPileup: In the first season we get hints of conflicting factions trying to outsmart one another; this starts growing more and more and by the middle of the third season a flowchart explaining the plans would probably require a few square miles of paper. A big factor in this is the fact that many of the characters' goals are in direct conflict with the goals of their past selves, so they must deceive them (which is fairly easy considering they already had all the interactions from the other perspective), and there are several versions of each character. Adam and Eve in particular are so far ahead in the game that they are constantly lying to their subordinates/past selves to lie to other people and so and so in order to ensure their own existence, ''and then'' some more to further their plans. |
| 229 | * GardenOfEden: |
| 230 | ** [[spoiler:The machine Eva and her followers use to jump across universes and further their agenda against Adam looks like an apple]]. |
| 231 | ** Jonas and Martha [[spoiler:become Adam and Eva. Their relation across two alternate universes (and the child they have together) is the source of existence for all the people who did not exist in the original, third universe]]. |
| 232 | ** [[spoiler:Eva isn't subtle about this, either. The Adam and Eve painting by Cranach the Elder is the centerpiece of her evil lair]]. |
| 233 | * GoneToTheFuture: In Season 2 [[spoiler: when Claudia time-travels to 2020 from 1987, she discovers a world in which she disappeared mysteriously 33 years ago.]] In Season 3 [[spoiler: it turns out the same happened to Charlotte during the apocalypse: she traveled from 2020 to 2053.]] |
| 234 | * AGlitchInTheMatrix: Déjà-vus indicate the existence of time travel [[spoiler: and alternate realities]]. Jonas refers to a déjà-vu he had as "a glitch in the matrix" in reference to the Trope Namer, and in Season 2, [[spoiler: his older self uses the same phrase to confirm his identity to Martha. In addition, Season 3 reveals that Jonas himself and an alternate universe version of Martha are "glitches in the matrix" around which the time loop that connects their two universes revolves, and whose existence must be erased to restore reality to its natural state.]] |
| 235 | * GratuitousEnglish: |
| 236 | ** The series itself has a ForeignLanguageTitle: ''Dark''. |
| 237 | ** "My only aim is to take many lives. The more, the better I feel," lyrics from Kreator, a heavy metal band Ulrich likes. Egon quotes the line to Ulrich as part of his suspicion that he's part of the kidnappings, but only because [[spoiler:Ulrich said those words to Egon in 1953]]. |
| 238 | ** Magnus in [[spoiler:the second universe]] has a lot of English-language punk mottos displayed on his bedroom wall. |
| 239 | ** Season 1 features many instances of a 1986 TV commercial for Raider bars. Its German-language jingle includes the English line, "It's a powerful snack!" |
| 240 | ** Benni has neon signs reading "Welcome" and "Love" in English on her trailer. |
| 241 | * TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: By the end, [[spoiler: no one will know about the existence of 2 alternate universes, TimeTravel being real, and Tannhaus himself will never know he indirectly saved his family due to the witnesses being RetGone.]] |
| 242 | * HappyMarriageCharade: Charlotte and Peter's marriage has been slowly falling apart ever since Charlotte found out that Peter was seeing a transgender prostitute behind her back. However, they refuse to split up for the sake of their children, and outwardly pretend to be a happy couple (which, as pointed out by their daughter Franziska, only makes things worse for her and her sister). |
| 243 | ** Tronte and Jana in the [=80s=], due to the former's affair with Claudia Tiedemann. |
| 244 | * HardWorkMontage: Season 3 has a montage of Tannhaus in the 1970s building his lab in the bunker. |
| 245 | * HaveWeMetYet: |
| 246 | ** In Season 1 [[spoiler:an aged Helge in 2019 seems to recognize Ulrich and is terrified of him. After this encounter, Ulrich travels back in time to 1953, meets Helge as a child, and brutally assaults him... which explains why Old!Helge was so terrified of him during their earlier (from his perspective) encounter.]] |
| 247 | ** In Season 2 [[spoiler:both Jonas and Claudia meet versions of each other who have already met their future selves.]] |
| 248 | ** Another example from Season 2. [[spoiler:Middle-aged Claudia in 1987 meets an aged HG Tannhaus who already knows her, even though she's never met him...because, as seen in Season 1, her older self traveled back to 1953 and met his younger self.]] |
| 249 | * TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:In the GrandFinale, both of our main heroes Jonas and Martha as well as anyone whose existence is dependent on the time-knot [[KilledOffForReal ceases to exist because of its undoing]]]]. |
| 250 | * HistoryRepeats: |
| 251 | ** In Season 2, young Claudia in 1953 tells Tronte that she doesn't have a good relationship with her mother and proclaims that she won't do the same mistake with her children. Skip 33 years ahead, Claudia is now MarriedToTheJob at the power plant with an estranged daughter just like herself 33 years before. |
| 252 | ** In Season 3, it's revealed that [[spoiler: the four generations of Nielsen-Kahnwald heads, i.e. Agnes, Tronte, Ulrich and Mikkel/Michael have all slept with their ancestors]]. |
| 253 | * HoldingHands: Martha 2 does this with her boyfriend in their introductory scene in Season 3. Bartosz is giving this act a DisapprovingLook. |
| 254 | * HollywoodLaw: |
| 255 | ** By German gun laws, only the military and the police are allowed to possess and carry automatic firearms. The Winden nuclear power plant is privately owned, and if you had your private security wield submachine guns in plain view of a bunch of cops, their search warrant for your power plant would be the least of your worries, but the cops in the show don't bat an eyelid. |
| 256 | ** It is highly unlikely that Ulrich, a man with a rape charge on his rap sheet, would ever be allowed to join the police force regardless of whether the charge was later dropped or not. |
| 257 | * {{Homage}}: |
| 258 | ** Martha stars in a play called ''Ariadne'' and has a poster for it pinned to her wall. [[Recap/TheMetamorphosesMinotaur In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a princess trapped in her father's palace, under which was the original labyrinth]], while Martha and the rest of the characters are trapped in an endless loop in a place with caves underneath. The allusion is repeated musically in season 3, episode 4, which features Asaf Avidan's "The Labyrinth Song", which is addressed to Ariadne and has lyrics summing up much of the series: |
| 259 | --->''Can it be that all us heroes have a path but not a plan?'' |
| 260 | ** The whole series plot, and Adam's philosophy especially, seems to be an homage to UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} and Manichaeism, belief systems which saw the material world as an evil prison, to be transcended, which emphasized the conflicting duality of darkness and light, and in which material desires are a source of evil. |
| 261 | * HotMenAtWork: Season 2 starts with a presentable scene of two shirtless miners at work. |
| 262 | * IdiosyncraticWipes: The warp/pinch [[SignatureTransition scene transition effect]] used from season 2 on when [[spoiler:transitioning from one world in the knot to the other]]. |
| 263 | * IfICantHaveYou: Once Hannah realizes that Ulrich has no intention of leaving Katharina for her, she decides to completely destroy his life in retaliation. [[spoiler: Her counterpart in Eve's world does something similar when discovering that Ulrich (now her husband) cheats on her with Charlotte - she decides to destroy Charlotte's life.]] |
| 264 | * ImmediateSequel: Season 3 begins exactly where the {{Cliffhanger}} from the previous season left off. |
| 265 | * INeedAFreakingDrink: In season 3, Katharina's mother has to take a sip from a bottle after she [[spoiler:killed Katharina's older version and [[DisposalOfABody sank her body in the lake]]]]. She then [[TheseHandsHaveKilled looks at her hands in horror]] and [[ScrubbingOffTheTrauma frantically tries to wash the bloodstains off them]]. |
| 266 | * InSpiteOfANail: Zigzagged to hell and back in season 3 [[spoiler: without Mikkel going back in time many details change, Helge loses an eye instead of an ear, Wöller loses an arm instead of an eye, Ulrich has divorced Katharina to marry Hannah (and is cheating on her with Charlotte) instead of cheating on Katharina with Hannah etc. However, many things remain the same, including all the time loops that enable the existence of characters, and of course the apocalypse, although it happens earlier than in Jonas's universe.]] |
| 267 | * InterruptedSuicide: In season 3, when Jonas tries to [[spoiler: hang himself at the same spot where his father did, he is interrupted by young Noah who explains to Jonas that any attempt at killing himself would fail because his older self is alive and according to StableTimeLoop theory the [[YouCannotChangeTheFuture future cannot be changed]]]]. |
| 268 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Bartosz is apparently very hurt by the fact that Jonas stood him up for Bartosz meeting his drug dealer in the middle of the woods at night for a small bag of weed. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Martha is having a nervous breakdown in front of half the town over the fact that her brother is missing, and he's nowhere to be seen. |
| 269 | * ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In the final episode of season 3, Adam confronts Eve and she eagerly pulls the trigger of the gun he is pointing at her. [[spoiler: However, for the first time there are no bullets in the gun and she doesn't die which confirms the fact that the link between the two worlds has been broken.]] |
| 270 | * JigsawPuzzlePlot: The story features so many paradoxes and interwoven timelines that it is almost impossible to keep track of. The show begins in the present day, with several strange presences and events, and as characters begin to travel backward and forward in time, the audience gets to learn the causes of many of these events. |
| 271 | * KidFromTheFuture: Several characters travel back in time and meet their parents when they were younger. |
| 272 | * KidsAreCruel: Children and teens are shown to be just as messed up as adults. |
| 273 | ** Charlotte's young daughter Elisabeth steals from her older sister and bluntly admits that she doesn't care about Mikkel's disappearance, calling him "a showoff and an idiot." |
| 274 | ** [[spoiler:Hannah]] accused Ulrich of raping Katharina out of pure jealousy when the three of them were still teenagers in 1986. |
| 275 | * KilledOffForReal: [[spoiler: The ones whose existence is dependent on the time-knot cease to exist in the finale because of its undoing]]. |
| 276 | * KillingYourAlternateSelf: In season 3, [[spoiler:Claudia kills her alternative self with a BoomHeadshot in order to further Adam's plan of annihilating both worlds. She believed this was the only way to prevent the [[EternalRecurrence eternally recurring]] suffering for her daughter Regina.]] |
| 277 | * LightDarknessJuxtaposition: Both competing factions of time travelers state that there is a war between "the dark and the light," and that their own side is the LightIsGood side. This concept provides the title of the series. |
| 278 | * LightIsGood: The competing factions always refer to the other as the darkness or shadow, and themselves as the morally right light. The motto of [[spoiler:the second universe]]'s faction is ''Erit Lux'': "Let there be light." |
| 279 | * LoveTriangle: Each generation has one. |
| 280 | ** The teens of the '50s: Claudia, Tronte, and Jana. Claudia and Tronte have PuppyLove that grows into a relationship in adolescence while Jana moons over Tronte. Tronte grows up to marry Jana, but has an affair with Claudia. |
| 281 | ** The teens of the '80s: Hannah likes Ulrich, who becomes HighSchoolSweethearts with Katharina. In 2019 Hannah is TheMistress to Ulrich, who avoids definitively committing to her. [[spoiler:The alternate universe where Ulrich left Katharina for Hannah adds Charlotte to the mix as Ulrich's new mistress.]] |
| 282 | ** The teens of the 2010s: Jonas, Martha, and Bartosz. Bartosz is dating Martha, but she and his best friend Jonas had already consummated their feelings for each other before Jonas left. |
| 283 | * MamaBear: Throughout the series we see a lot of mothers go to extreme lengths to protect their children: |
| 284 | ** Katharina [[spoiler: goes to the '80s and stays there for months, refusing to go back home without her son.]] |
| 285 | ** Claudia's ultimate goal is to ensure Regina lives [[spoiler: she's so motivated by it that she is able to outsmart everyone (no easy feat in this story) and figure out the origin of the knot, finally leading to the destruction of the universes.]] |
| 286 | ** Eva's prime motivation to [[spoiler: perpetuate the Knot and the miseries that follow is to protect her son from his father, who is hell-bent on killing him to wipe out the two worlds.]] |
| 287 | * MaternityCrisis: Hannah is shown as near-term pregnant at the beginning of the third season. During the apocalypse, we see her with blood on her clothing, possibly indicating a miscarriage. Not that it mattered much at this point. |
| 288 | * {{Matricide}}: [[spoiler: In Season 3, Katharina attempts this, but doesn't finish the job properly and her mother kills her instead. Although, of course, since this is an adult Katharina who had time-traveled back into the 1980's, her mother doesn't know whom she killed. Also in Season 3, an older Jonas (who is in his early stages of becoming Adam) smothers his mother Hannah to death.]] |
| 289 | * MayDecemberRomance: [[spoiler: Claudia and Bernd. They have an affair at some point, and the result is Regina. In the origin world, Claudia and Bernd end up getting married and raising Regina together.]] |
| 290 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 291 | ** The name Winden taken as a verb means "to twist", which makes sense considering the show's endless twisting between [[spoiler: 1953, 1986, and 2019]]. If applied to a person it can also mean "to struggle," implying to be under duress, as most inhabitants of the town seem to be, or to be elusive in answering an uncomfortable question, also a common behavior in the series. |
| 292 | ** [[spoiler: Adam and Eva are not only pseudonyms Jonas and Martha took on later in life, their names also hint at the fact that many of the people in Winden are directly descended from them (like a biblical Adam and Eve), though in this case including themselves.]] |
| 293 | ** '''H.G.''' Tannhaus, like Creator/HGWells, is the creator of the time machine. |
| 294 | * MeanwhileInTheFuture: The show tracks the progression of time across multiple time periods, each 33 years apart, but generally tracks these time periods concurrently, so events in each episode take place on the same calendar day across the time periods. This means that what happened in 1986 in one episode takes place before what happens in 1986 in the following episode. Sometimes, however, this pattern gets broken, usually to reveal a new twist on something we've seen before. |
| 295 | * MidSeasonTwist: |
| 296 | ** Season 1: Michael Kahnwald [[spoiler: is revealed to be Mikkel Nielsen, the boy missing from the first episode.]] |
| 297 | ** Season 2: The series' BigBad Adam is [[spoiler: none other than a very old Jonas.]] |
| 298 | ** Season 3: Jonas and [[spoiler: Alt!Martha's kid is the Unknown, and the one tying both worlds. Their kid is also Tronte's father, hence the Nielsens are [[MyOwnGrampa their own ancestors]].]] |
| 299 | * MissingChild: The series begins with the disappearance of one boy, but it becomes apparent that Winden has a long, gruesome history of dead or missing kids. By the end of the first season, [[spoiler: six children across time have vanished, though Erik, Mads, and Yasin are murdered, whilst Helge, Jonas, and Mikkel were displaced.]] |
| 300 | * MistakenForInsane: Towards the end of the first season, [[spoiler:Ulrich Nielsen travels to 1953 in an attempt to kill the child self of Helge Doppler, the man he suspects of having been involved in child abductions and murders as an adult. Ulrich actually manages to severely hurt Helge and locks him in a bunker. Due to Ulrich's suspicious behaviour — he talks about changing the future, refuses to give his name, and insults a police officer — he is [[MistakenForMurderer Mistaken for a Murderer]] and arrested.]] Season 2 reveals that [[spoiler:he was been committed to an asylum and is still there 33 years later.]] |
| 301 | * MistakenForUndead: Katharina ends up on the receiving end of this, in a really nasty way. [[spoiler:Long story short, during a visit to the past she tries to mug her own mother for an access card to the asylum she worked at. Helene, harassed by a middle-aged woman who refers to her as her mother, unlimately figures this is the ghost of her long-aborted child who's come to torment her from beyond the grave.]] |
| 302 | * MisterSandmanSequence: More subtle than in other stories, but still present: |
| 303 | ** When Erik awakens in a mysterious room, the first clue that [[spoiler: he has time-traveled]] is [[spoiler: the TV playing "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive, a quintessentially 1980s song]]. |
| 304 | ** The opening scene of episode 3 is a TV ad for Raider, a candy bar that changed its name to Twix after the 1980s. Later in the same episode, Mikkel walks into school while gawking at the 1980s fashions while a New Wave song blares on the soundtrack. |
| 305 | * {{Montages}}: Usually at least OncePerEpisode, reminding the viewer who the characters are and what they are up to. The montages are overlaid by either a sad song, or a narration by (in series 1) H.G. Tannhaus or Ariadne or (in series 2) Noah or Adam. They often come at a DarkestHour and include themes such as ContrastMontage, FailureMontage, HappierTimesMontage, HardWorkMontage, LostLoveMontage, LovedOnesMontage, MontageOut, OpeningMonologue, ProgressiveEraMontage, ReallyDeadMontage, RightNowMontage, SadTimesMontage, SexMontage, TravelMontage, etc. |
| 306 | * MostWritersAreAdults: The kids and teens in the series talk too eloquently for their age. Some of their lines are stilted as you would expect from a ClassicallyTrainedExtra in a Shakespeare drama. (Ironically enough, the school seems to have a robust students' theater programme to provide the Classical training.) E.g., this is Franziska in the gym's changing room who TalksLikeASimile when lamenting about her parents being DeadSparks: |
| 307 | -->"Their marriage is over, but no one will say it. Instead, this big fat secret is always with us at the table. It eats our bread rolls, the butter and the homemade jam. It gets fatter and fatter until there's no space left in the room. Until you can't breathe." |
| 308 | * {{Mundanger}}: Despite all the paranormal elements, the show leans heavily into realistic fears. Marital breakdown and infidelity show up frequently, and it doesn't get much worse than your children disappearing without a trace, possibly to be abducted, mutilated, and killed by fanatics. ([[spoiler:Especially if they end up back in the past 33 years ago, alive if they're lucky, dead and mutilated if not.]]) |
| 309 | * MurderInTheFamily: Due to the nature of the show having the worst and most convoluted BigScrewedUpFamily in TV history, it runs the whole gamut from {{Matricide}} and {{Patricide}} to OffingTheOffspring and also includes lots of betrayal and antagonistic relationships, partially over multiple generations and with the people involved not even being aware of their relations to one another. |
| 310 | ** [[spoiler: Hanno kills his father Bartosz in 1921. ]] |
| 311 | ** [[spoiler: Jonas kills his mother Hannah in 1911. ]] |
| 312 | ** [[spoiler: Claudia kills her father Egon in 1987. ]] |
| 313 | ** [[spoiler: Katharina's mother kills Katharina in 1987. ]] |
| 314 | ** [[spoiler: Noah kills his grand-nephew Mads in 1986 due to time-travel experiments.]] |
| 315 | ** [[spoiler: Egon locks up his descendant Ulrich (via his illegitimate daughter Silja -> Agnes -> Tronte -> Ulrich) and ''[[TangledFamilyTree also]]'' (Claudia -> Regina -> Bartosz -> Agnes -> Tronte -> Ulrich) in an asylum where he ultimately dies at some point after 1987. ]] |
| 316 | ** [[spoiler: Noah kills his great-grandmother/aunt Claudia in 1954.]] |
| 317 | ** [[spoiler: The Unknown kills Bernd Doppler (among others) in 1987, who is his ancestor (via Claudia -> Regina -> Bartosz -> Agnes -> Tronte -> Ulrich -> Mikkel -> Jonas) ]] |
| 318 | ** [[spoiler: Tronte kills his great-grandmother Regina in 2020 (Regina -> Bartosz -> Agnes -> Tronte).]] |
| 319 | ** [[spoiler: Technically, both Adam and Eva killing each other's younger version counts as either since they both are their own ancestors as well as descendants. ]] |
| 320 | * MyFutureSelfAndMe: Due to the inversion of NeverTheSelvesShallMeet, various characters do this with their past and future selves. |
| 321 | ** Helge [[spoiler: from 2019 to his 1986 self when trying to talk him down from obeying Noah.]] |
| 322 | ** The Stranger [[spoiler: actually adult Jonas, when helping or guiding young Jonas to navigate through the StableTimeLoop.]] |
| 323 | ** Noah [[spoiler: regularly interacts with his teenage self from 1921 as a mentor.]] |
| 324 | ** Claudia [[spoiler: talks to her 1987 self that she helped Gretchen come back to her, and requests her to stop Adam.]] |
| 325 | ** Adam, the leader of Sic Mundus Creatus Est [[spoiler: is truly Old Jonas, ravaged by his reckless TimeTravel, when explaining to his younger selves about the necessities of the Apocalypse, and tries to convince them to join his side for good.]] |
| 326 | ** "Unknown" [[spoiler:Jonas and Martha's son]] always acts as a three-man team: his childhood, adult and elder selves. |
| 327 | ** Katharina [[spoiler: briefly confronts her teenage self in 1987 when she and Ulrich mock the old man ([[DramaticIrony Ulrich himself]]) for attempting to kidnap Michael.]] |
| 328 | ** Bartosz [[spoiler: in Eva's world is saved by his adult self from the impending Apocalypse.]] |
| 329 | ** Charlotte and Elisabeth [[spoiler: from 2053 help in the former's kidnapping when she was a baby from her parents, due to orders from Adam in the year 2041, in order to let Tannhaus in 1970s take care of baby Charlotte and in order to let her grow up with her 'future' peers Ulrich, Katharina, and others, to maintain the StableTimeLoop of Elisabeth's and her sister Franziska's births, which would have not been possible otherwise, and to fool Noah into looking in the wrong years.]] |
| 330 | * MythicalMotifs: |
| 331 | ** An ouroboros ring is present in the Winden caves near the wormhole, fitting with the show's theme of EternalRecurrence and the liminality of time. |
| 332 | ** In season 1, Martha stars as [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Ariadne]], the heroine of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, a story that has strong visual and thematic resemblances to the plot. Similarities include the labyrinth, lives lost over a regular interval, and a red string meant to show the way. |
| 333 | ** A medallion of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, is a recurring motif for the various time travelers. |
| 334 | * MyOwnGrampa: There are two families in Winden that are essentially closed ancestral loops. [[spoiler: Normally, both would be ontological paradoxa; however, the ending of the show implies that they're just the result of Tannhaus dabbling with time travel -- the original universe (and actual reality) was split in two, and both "bloodlines" (and the three people who form their respective cores) came into existence, presumably to replace those three people Tannhaus had lost.]] |
| 335 | ** [[spoiler:In Season 2, its revealed that Elisabeth Doppler is not only Charlotte's daughter, but her ''mother'' as well. This means that the trope literally applies to both of them.]] |
| 336 | ** [[spoiler: Episode 4 of Season 3 ("The Origin") reveals that this applies to the entire Nielsen line. Jonas and an alternate version of Martha have a child, who in turn fathers Tronte Nielsen - Jonas' great-grandfather and Martha's grandfather. This means that the nameless child, Tronte, Ulrich, Martha, Mikkel, Jonas...all are their own ancestors.]] |
| 337 | * NeverARunaway: The series begins with the teenager Erik Obendorf being missing without a trace for weeks. Ulrich Nielsen, the local police chief, seriously doubts that actually a crime happened and Erik just ran away, as he has already done that a few times before. Only after Ulrich's own son is missing too and the corpse of another boy is found, he and the police in general start investigating seriously. As it turns out, [[spoiler:while Ulrich's son is still alive, but traveled to 1986, Erik actually was abducted and died in a failed time travel experiment.]] |
| 338 | * NeverGiveTheCaptainAStraightAnswer: |
| 339 | ** In 1888, when Martha asks Bartosz if they told the old Tannhaus about being time travellers, he says he has to show her something and leads her to the secret study room. |
| 340 | ** Towards the end of season 3, when Aleksander Tiedemann leads Charlotte [[spoiler: in the second universe]] into the power plant to show her the barrels, she asks what this was all about to which he replies she'd better see for herself. |
| 341 | * NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: |
| 342 | ** [[spoiler: Most of the plot of the series is based on time travelers meeting their past or future selves and exchanging information with them, even killing each other on occasion. (Also they become each other's ancestors.) In spite of this, people stranded in the past often seem to die conveniently before meeting other versions of themselves or their time-traveling friends - which keeps the time loop stable.]] |
| 343 | ** [[spoiler: Partially played straight when Charlotte in 2020 and Elisabeth in 2053 touch through the god particle portal which triggers the Apocalypse. They are different people but they are each other's mother. It is not explained why this paradox triggers the Apocalypse when so many others do not.]] |
| 344 | * NextSundayAD: |
| 345 | ** The "present" timeline in the show is set in 2019, two years after the show was actually created. The reason for this seems to be the [[spoiler:33 year lunar cycle informing the show's time travel plot, as the previous year in the loop is 1986, the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Chernobyl acts as an important background event to several of the scenes taking place in that year.]] |
| 346 | ** And in Season 2, released on June 21 2019, the "present" timeline is set in June 2020...beginning ''exactly'' one year after the date of release. |
| 347 | ** Season 3 was released on the day of [[spoiler:the Apocalypse i.e. June 27, 2020.]] |
| 348 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 349 | ** [[spoiler:Ulrich's venture into 1953 ends in a complete disaster, as he's arrested by the police after trying (and failing) to kill a young Helge in order to prevent the future murders. To make things even worse, it's implied that the brain damage Helge suffered from Ulrich's attack is what made him more susceptible to Noah's influence]]. And it's implied that Egon hates Ulrich ''so much'' that he came close to jeopardizing Mads Nielsen's case as well as [[spoiler: Hannah's FalseRapeAccusation]] by framing Ulrich as the perpetrator in both cases was because [[spoiler: he has already met Ulrich once before, where Ulrich all but convinced the law enforcement that he was a child murderer, and wanted to subconsciously stop him before he could get around to committing those deeds]]. |
| 350 | ** Noah claims Stranger's [[spoiler:a.k.a. Future!Jonas']] attempt to [[spoiler:destroy the TimePortal]] is what led to its creation in the first place. [[spoiler: In addition, Katharina choosing ''that exact moment'' to call Ulrich's phone (which had been repurposed by Tannhaus to control the Apparatus) may have been what disrupted Jonas' plan to destroy the wormhole.]] |
| 351 | ** Jonas's attempt to [[spoiler: go back to 2019 to stop Michael from committing suicide ''gave him'' the idea to commit suicide, as Michael had no suicidal thoughts at all despite being stuck away from his true timeline for 33 years, but Michael decides to do this anyway to prevent Jonas from getting RetGone.]] |
| 352 | ** At the end of Season 3 we learn that [[spoiler: Tannhaus destroyed the original world while trying to develop time travel to save his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter from dying in a car accident.]] |
| 353 | ** It's ultimately revealed that [[spoiler: each and every single action taken by every character except Claudia, including all actions taken to try and change the timeline inevitable lead to the perpetuation of the same timeline and the only way to stop it is to scrap both universes completely.]] |
| 354 | * NominalVillain: This can apply to [[spoiler:any character who has [[WellIntentionedExtremist the intention]] to either end the suffering inside the knot or save their loved ones, in particular Noah, Claudia, Adam and Eva. All of them are okay with deceiving and murdering people for their goals but don't show other motivations like cruelty. Even the Unknown is just doing what he and his mother consider necessary to keep [[StableTimeLoop the loop stable]] and doesn't act out of personal malice.]] |
| 355 | * NotHelpingYourCase: After being arrested by Egon Tiedemann [[spoiler: in 1953]] while covered in blood, [[spoiler: Ulrich]] proceeds to make himself look as crazy as possible, ranting about [[spoiler:time travel]] and even quoting the lines of a song that talks about [[ItMakesSenseInContext how much he enjoys killing.]] |
| 356 | * OffingTheOffspring: |
| 357 | ** [[spoiler:In Season 3, a time-traveling Katharina is killed by her mother, Helene Albers -- though the latter was completely unaware of their relationship.]] |
| 358 | ** An interesting example of this is [[spoiler: Adam killing the alternate-Martha and her unborn child, again in Season 3. Biologically speaking, he's the father of the child, though the child was actually fathered by another version of him. Also, he both does and doesn't succeed in fulfilling this trope, since another version of alternate-Martha continues to survive, and the child is eventually born.]] |
| 359 | * OneNightStandPregnancy: [[spoiler:Martha 2 and Jonas share a BigDamnKiss in the third season in Martha's room and NextThingTheyKnew they conceived a child in a one-night stand]]. Adam later calls this moment the "Origin". |
| 360 | * OneWomanWail: Can be heard on the soundtrack during emotional scenes. |
| 361 | * OneWordTitle: ''Dark''. |
| 362 | * OpeningACanOfClones: Many characters die but don't actually stop appearing due to alternate selves in different timelines, thus we still get to see more of them. Some examples include [[spoiler:Helge, Jonas, Martha, Egon, Claudia, Bartosz and Noah]]. |
| 363 | * OpeningMonologue: The first episode opens with a monologue informing the audience that time is not linear. Many other episodes also begin with different monologues by various narrators. |
| 364 | [[/folder]] |
| 365 | |
| 366 | [[folder: P to Y]] |
| 367 | * ParadoxPerson: [[spoiler:By the end, it turns out that no less than ''fifteen'' of Winden's residents [[labelnote:specifically]] Jonas, Martha, Mikkel/Michael, Tronte, Ulrich, Mads, Magnus, Bartosz, Silja, Agnes, Hanno/Noah, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Franziska and [[NoNameGiven The Unknown]][[/labelnote]] were never meant to exist in the first place, and do so only as a result of the temporal anomaly caused when H.G. Tannhaus tried to change history in order to save his family, inadvertently splitting the universe in two, dooming both sides to destruction and the town's inhabitants to an endless cycle of misery [[SelfFulfillingProphecy caused by their own]] [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast efforts to prevent it]]. Ultimately, Jonas and Martha manage to change history so that Tannhaus' family survive, preventing the anomaly from occurring and saving all those not "part of the knot", but do so knowing that [[HeroicSacrifice they]] and all the others will be eliminated from existence. Effectively (because things aren't complicated enough), every ParadoxPerson falls into one of the following four categories:]] |
| 368 | ** [[spoiler: Group 1: Generally possible (just doesn't exist in the original timeline): Only one person is in this group: Bartosz. He ''could'' exist in the original timeline, since nothing fundamentally speaks against Aleksander and Regina ever running into each other - his absence in the ending implies that this just never happened.]] |
| 369 | ** [[spoiler: Group 2: Impossible, but not an ontological paradox (1st degree): This group consists of Silja. While she's the product of the union of two people who are part of the original timeline (Egon and Hannah), the two meeting and having children together hinges on the existence of time travel.]] |
| 370 | ** [[spoiler: Group 3: Impossible, but not an ontological paradox (2nd degree): Agnes and Hanno are in this group - they are those characters whose existence not only hinges on the existence of time travel, but also on the existence of people who are the product of time travel. In their case it's their parents Bartosz and Silja, who never existed in the original timeline in the first place.]] |
| 371 | ** [[spoiler: Group 4: Impossible ''and'' an ontological paradox on top of that: This are all those people who are the products of closed genetic loops, i.e. the descendants of Jonas and Martha, and those tied to the Charlotte/Elisabeth-dyad [[labelnote:specifically]] Elisabeth, Charlotte, Franziska in one group and Jonas, Martha, Mikkel/Michael, Tronte, Ulrich, Mads, Magnus, and [[NoNameGiven The Unknown]] in the other[[/labelnote]].]] |
| 372 | * {{Patricide}}: |
| 373 | ** [[spoiler: In Season 2, Claudia inadvertently does this when she knocks her father Egon to the floor during a struggle, and then makes the decision to let him die rather than call for medical help, in order to preserve the secret of time-travel.]] |
| 374 | ** [[spoiler: Season 2 begins with a younger version of Noah killing an unknown older man in 1921.]] In Season 3 [[spoiler: we learn that this unknown man was the future version of Bartosz, and that he was Noah's father, making the killing an example of this trope.]] |
| 375 | * PlaceBeyondTime: [[spoiler: When Martha and Jonas want to access the Origin, they end up separated in a place beyond time and space, including meeting younger selves of each other looking at them through the cellar door and the dresser, respectively. Sound seems to travel poorly in this space, it seems to be entirely composed of particle trails, and when they walk backward they bump into each other at the junction between the three worlds.]] |
| 376 | * PlotArmor: It's explicitly stated in season 3 that [[spoiler: since Adam exists, Jonas cannot die. Any attempt on his life, even from himself, will inevitably fail. It simply cannot be done]]. [[spoiler:Quantum-entangled versions of Jonas are fair game, though.]] |
| 377 | * PlotTriggeringDeath: |
| 378 | ** Jonas initially thinks his father Michael's suicide, [[StartsWithASuicide seen in the opening]], is the trigger that caused all this mess. He attempts to travel back to stop it, only to realize that [[spoiler:it's another facet of the StableTimeLoop -- Michael, formerly Mikkel Nielsen, realizes his death is necessary for Jonas to continue existing, and decides to take his own life.]] Indeed, [[spoiler:the alternate universe where Mikkel never traveled back and Jonas doesn't exist is still trapped in the loop.]] |
| 379 | ** Season 3 reveals that the real plot trigger was [[spoiler:Tannhaus's son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter dying in a car accident in the origin world. Their deaths motivated Tannhaus to build a time machine that split his world in two. When Jonas and Martha avert said accident, the knot is broken and they cease to exist.]] |
| 380 | * PoliceAreUseless: |
| 381 | ** Even in 2019, Ulrich is still bitter about the fact that the police were unable to find his missing brother 33 years ago, blaming it on former chief of police Egon Tiedemann's [[TheAlcoholic drinking problem]] and general incompetence. Subverted in that, unbeknownst to Ulrich, Egon really was trying his hardest to solve the case and actually came pretty close to identifying the culprit, but obviously had no way of knowing that [[spoiler:time travel]] was involved. Further subverted in season 2 when [[spoiler:a retired Egon finally starts getting enough puzzle pieces to start putting them together, but is KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade]]. |
| 382 | ** Ulrich's partner Charlotte fares a bit better: she's able to [[spoiler:figure out the time travel conspiracy along with her husband, but this isn't enough to stop the apocalypse.]] |
| 383 | * PoorCommunicationKills: |
| 384 | ** Franziska and Martha both complain about the townfolks keeping to themselves instead of coming forward with whatever leads they had to solve the mysterious disappearances. |
| 385 | ** Katharina couldn't inform her children about the truth [[spoiler: behind Mikkel and Ulrich that they're actually stuck in 1987 after time-travelling, because Martha and Magnus are immensely angry on her due to withdrawing herself from them.]] This prevents [[spoiler: Martha and Magnus from finding and bringing them back into 2020, even missing each other in 1987 by that much.]] In Season 3, [[spoiler: this later leads to Katharina's death by her mother in 1987 once she takes up the reins, and Ulrich's death in the asylum as a sad old man.]] |
| 386 | ** A particularly horrific example happens in Season 3:[[spoiler: because Noah only told Charlotte that he is her father, but not that Elisabeth is her mother, Peter believes that the younger Noah, who will kill three children in his future, wants to hurt Elisabeth, and forbids him harshly to be around them or even follow them. If Noah had been with them, the situation that ultimately leads to Peter's death likely would have turned out very differently.]] |
| 387 | * PortalToThePast: The Winden caves can take one back or forward in tme. |
| 388 | * PoweredByAForsakenChild: [[spoiler: It turns out that the kidnapped children are being used as guinea pigs to test a prototype time machine]]. |
| 389 | * PretentiousLatinMotto: The arc words "Sic Mundus Creatus Est", which are also the name of the ApocalypseCult which seeks to free humanity from the constraints of time. It's a line from the Emerald Tablet, indicating that [[spoiler:Heinrich Tannhaus, the original founder of the group]] was especially interested in alchemy - something that was [[TruthInTelevision true]] for a lot of secret societies [[spoiler: in the 19th century]]. |
| 390 | * PrimeTimeline: [[spoiler:The final episode reveals that there is one, with its ButterflyOfDoom being the deaths of Tannhaus's family. The finale involves Jonas and Martha going back to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.]] |
| 391 | * ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: [[spoiler: While a lot of it happens off-screen, it is implied during much of Season 2 and 3 that Jonas will inevitably evolve into Adam/Old!Jonas. Season 3 even shows Adult!Jonas having basically turned into Adam. The older he gets, the more expendable the lives of others become to him. Season 3 fills in most of the gaps of this arc towards the end before finally breaking this evolution so that two versions of 2020!Jonas never become Adam after all.]] |
| 392 | * RageAgainstTheHeavens: |
| 393 | ** Adam claims that this is his motivation: by building a time machine, he hope to rewrite the laws of the universe, creating a world in which humans are no longer at the mercy of forces beyond their control. By the point he is telling this to Jonas, he is lying: by now, he only wants to destroy everything to end it all. [[spoiler:Only Claudia persuading him that there must be a third world where all their suffering can be avoided in the series finale moves him to stop his actions and concentrate on helping his younger self and Other Martha to get to this third world.]] |
| 394 | ** Claudia, Jonas, Noah, and Martha [[spoiler: and before them Heinrich Tannhaus and H.G. Tannhaus]] all have the same motivation at various points in the story - and they all do because they want to save their loved ones. |
| 395 | * RaincoatOfHorror: Jonas, the ''de facto'' protagonist, wears a conspicuous yellow raincoat (which even gets featured prominently on the promo poster). |
| 396 | * RandomlyReversedLetters: The season 3 title sequence shows "DARK" with reversed D and R. |
| 397 | * RedHerring: Woller's mysterious injuries and the revelation that he's Benni's brother both ultimately have nothing to do with the story. They're just there to make you think that they might. |
| 398 | * RedRightHand: Zigzagged, given that many characters have distinguishing marks to help identify them across dimensions, but certain deformities are used to imply that someone is unsavory or villainous: |
| 399 | ** Helge has a scarred face, and it turns out that [[spoiler:he helped Noah kidnap the kids]]. |
| 400 | ** The Stranger [[spoiler:(adult Jonas)]] has many scars on his body and seems ambiguously evil through the first season. |
| 401 | ** Adam [[spoiler:(elderly Jonas)]] has a horrifically scarred face, and he's presented as the villain through much of the series. |
| 402 | ** Eva [[spoiler:(elderly alternate Martha)]] has a slash across her cheek from the corner of her eye, and she seems to be Adam's counterpart. [[spoiler:She gave the slash to herself]]. |
| 403 | ** Unknown has a cleft palate and is seen murdering many people. [[spoiler:He's just doing what his mother told him]]. |
| 404 | * RemovedFromThePicture: |
| 405 | ** In the first episode, Ines has been torn out of a Kahnwald family photo because she and Hannah don't get on. |
| 406 | ** In the first episode of the third season, Ulrich has been torn out of the Nielsen family photo, because [[spoiler:he left Katharina for Hannah in the alternate world]]. |
| 407 | * RescueRomance: Aleksander rescuing Regina from Katharina's clutches in 1986 leads to them dating and later marrying. They wind up being the only HappilyMarried couple in Winden in 2019. |
| 408 | * TheReveal: Several. |
| 409 | ** Mikkel Nielsen [[spoiler: is revealed to be Michael Kahnwald and Jonas's father.]] |
| 410 | ** Ulrich [[spoiler: caused the child murders to happen when attempting to prevent it in 1953.]] |
| 411 | ** The Stranger [[spoiler: is revealed to be Jonas's older self.]] |
| 412 | ** Adam is [[spoiler: revealed to be an even older Jonas.]] |
| 413 | ** Jonas [[spoiler: caused Mikkel's suicide as well as disappearances, initially as an attempt to prevent both of them.]] |
| 414 | ** Claudia is [[spoiler: the titular White Devil.]] |
| 415 | ** Elisabeth is revealed to be [[spoiler: Charlotte's mother as well as daughter, making herself [[MyOwnGrampa her own grandmother.]]]] |
| 416 | ** Another [[spoiler: universe exists within the causal loop, with Martha (as Eva) being its prime resident.]] |
| 417 | ** Jonas and Alternate!Martha [[spoiler: are their own ancestors and descendants due to their child being the Unknown, who will go on to father Tronte in both the universes.]] |
| 418 | ** The Apocalypse [[spoiler: caused TimeStandsStill in both universes, which due to the cause and effect breaking can allow change for a short while. Jonas and Alternate!Martha are therefore both alive ''and'' dead in the same resultant timelines.]] |
| 419 | ** Throughout the series, there's been a long question of what was the origin that created the Knot in the first place, and while it was at first believed to be [[spoiler: Jonas and the Other Martha's creation of their child aka "The Unknown"]], it's revealed that the reason of the Knot's existence is [[spoiler: H.G. Tannhaus' attempt to bring back his deceased family lead to the creation of both universes, creating the Knot in the first place.]] |
| 420 | * RevisitingTheColdCase: As the plot progresses, the ties to the Mads Nielsen case from 1986 become stronger until Ulrich decides to fetch the old files from storage and review them for clues to the current case. |
| 421 | * RewatchBonus: Going back through the series with the knowledge that [[spoiler: the Stranger is Jonas from the future]], [[spoiler: Adam is an elderly Jonas]], [[spoiler: Noah is Bartosz's son]], [[spoiler: Charlotte is Noah's daughter]] as well as [[spoiler: Adam (as his younger self) has met Martha/Eva]] and most importantly, [[spoiler: Claudia has already figured everything about the true nature of the 2 worlds]] put a lot of the conversations and scenes in a different light. |
| 422 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: |
| 423 | ** Fed up with everyone pretending Mikkel will just "walk in the door as if nothing happened," Martha angrily declares that he is dead. [[spoiler:And she's right, though not in the way she thinks. Mikkel went back in time and eventually became Jonas's father Michael, who had indeed committed suicide before the start of the series.]] |
| 424 | ** Noah is completely correct when he [[spoiler: blames Jonas for his daughter's disappearance. His only mistake was he should have suspected Adam, Jonas's older self who actually ordered the kidnapping, not Adult Jonas and Claudia.]] |
| 425 | ** Adam is also [[spoiler: correct in his goal to destroy both universes. His sole mistake was he believed the Unknown was the Knot tying both universes. Later it's revealed that these are the offshoot of a third, intact universe and thus can't be undone without the inciting incident being removed from existence.]] |
| 426 | * RomanticRain: |
| 427 | ** Season 1 has a kissing scene between Jonas and Martha in the street while it's pouring. Only partially romantic as he knows at this point [[SurpriseIncest how wrong this move was]]. |
| 428 | ** Season 2 gives us Ulrich and Hannah making out outside the house after getting caught in a rain shower. |
| 429 | * RoomFullOfCrazy: The Stranger has his room at the Waldhotel pinned up to the brim with notes about time travel. Regina is not amused when she visits the room later. |
| 430 | * RunningGag: |
| 431 | ** A very understated one, considering the relentless grimness of the show, but Ulrich and Katharina seem to be unable to enjoy their sex life without someone or something getting in the way one way or another. |
| 432 | ** The story behind Wöller's injuries. [[spoiler: Every time he tries to reveal it, a sudden event prevents disclosure, including in the final scene of the series, leaving the audience hanging when promising to resolve it.]] |
| 433 | * SanDimasTime: The time portals have a constant distance to each other, so someone spending a day in the past is gone for a day in the present. Those using a time machine do not have that problem. |
| 434 | * ScarsAreForever: Helps to identify TimeShiftedActors. E.g., Martha's scratch [[spoiler: from the barb wire fence in Season 3]] marks her forever. Same goes for Jonas' wound mark around his neck which he got from getting nearly hanged in the future. [[spoiler: Adam has the same scar.]] |
| 435 | * SchoolPlay: In season 1, Martha is starring in a school production of ''Ariadne'', apparently based on [[Recap/TheMetamorphosesMinotaur the mythological figure]]. |
| 436 | * ScrubbingOffTheTrauma: |
| 437 | ** Claudia desperately tries to wash off the blood from her hands after the [[MurderByInaction not-so-accidental]] death of [[spoiler:her father.]] |
| 438 | ** In season 3, [[spoiler:after Jonas gets killed, Martha desperately tries to wash his blood off her hands]]. It leads to her cutting her blood-stained hair as well. |
| 439 | * SearchingForTheLostRelative: Charlotte as a teenager in the 1980s would like to know who her parents are, but the one she asks about, [[spoiler:her non-biological grandfather]] H.G.Tannhaus doesn't know it either, and by the time we see her in 2019, she seems to have settled with never learning about them. As it turns out, [[spoiler:Charlotte was born in 2041 to Noah and Elisabeth, which makes Charlotte [[MyOwnGrandpa her own granddaughter]] and subsequently brought by her adult self and the oldest self of Elisabeth to 1971 and grew up there as Tannhaus's "granddaughter".]] |
| 440 | * SentimentalMusicCue: The second-to-last scene of most (if not all) episodes features an emotional song underscoring a MontageOut. |
| 441 | * SequelEscalation: |
| 442 | ** Season 1 mostly happens in 2019 and 1986, then adds [[spoiler: 1953 and a BadFuture during the sequel hook.]] |
| 443 | ** Season 2 moves everything about half a year forward, so June of 1954, 1987 and 2020, confirms the future as 2053 and features scenes in 1921. |
| 444 | ** And Season 3 adds [[spoiler: an AlternateUniverse with the years 2019, 2052 and to lesser degree 1986. In the familiar world, events now take place in 1888 too.]] Episode 7 has scenes between the 33 years cycle and episode 8 [[spoiler: finally shows the origin world.]] |
| 445 | * SequelHook: |
| 446 | ** [[spoiler:The first season ends on Jonas arriving in the desolate, post-apocalyptic-looking future. A scarred girl tells him 'Welcome to the future' before she knocks him out with her rifle.]] |
| 447 | ** Season two ends [[spoiler: with Jonas being rescued from the destruction of Winden at the last second by an alternate version of Martha, who claims to be from another universe entirely (not just another time period).]] |
| 448 | * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Future Jonas' goal is to prevent the BadFuture from happening which he unwittingly helped to create in the first place. |
| 449 | ** Season 3 reveals that [[spoiler: the whole nexus of causal loops were triggered by H.G. Tannhaus' attempt to do this. In the original timeline, Tannhaus' family was killed in a car crash in 1971. He spent the next 15 years building a time machine to go back and prevent their deaths. But when he activated his machine in 1986, it ended up splitting his world and creating the two [[AlternateUniverse alternate universes]] in which the events of the series took place. Ultimately, it is Jonas and Martha who SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by going back and stopping the deaths of the Tannhaus family, thus removing his reason for inventing time-travel and creating their worlds in the first place.]] |
| 450 | ** [[spoiler: Claudia's motivation for messing with the timeline is to prevent Regina's death.]] |
| 451 | ** [[spoiler: Jonas first tries to prevent his father's death, then Martha's.]] |
| 452 | ** [[spoiler: Martha tries to prevent the death of her friends and family.]] |
| 453 | ** [[spoiler: Adam tries to destroy existence itself to prevent anything from happening or have happened, he even kills Martha at least three times to do so: Shooting 2020 original world Martha, shooting Eva, and blasting pregnant alternate world Martha out of existence.]] |
| 454 | ** [[spoiler: Noah tries to bring about Paradise with Adam, or at least find this lost daughter.]] |
| 455 | ** [[spoiler: Katharina tries to retrieve Mikkel from the past, and when failing to do so, tries to retrieve an older version of her husband Ulrich.]] |
| 456 | * ShamefulStrip: In 1953, Helge's mother makes him strip to his underwear as punishment for making his clothes dirty. |
| 457 | * ShootTheRope: In 2052, when Jonas is subjected to [[spoiler:a PublicExecution for treason, Future Elisabeth shoots the rope to save his life.]] |
| 458 | * ShoutOut: |
| 459 | ** Perhaps unsurprisingly for a series that revolves around TimeTravel and frequently shows characters interacting with different versions of themselves or their relatives throughout different time periods, there are various references to ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'': |
| 460 | *** While explaining the mechanics of TimeTravel to Jonas, the Stranger sarcastically remarks that it doesn't work like Doc Brown's time-traveling [=DeLorean=]. |
| 461 | *** In Season 2, Egon mentions "that movie [...] with the young man who has this car that can take him to the past" while talking with Claudia about time travel. |
| 462 | *** While as a clockmaker, H.G. Tannhaus has every right to sport a wall full of clocks running on time, it is also reminiscent of the opening scene of "Back to the Future". Tannhaus in the 1980s is also roughly the same age as Doc Brown, sports rather wild grey hair, and gets pushed further into working on time travel by a visitor from the future. |
| 463 | ** When Martha notes that she just had a deja vu, Jonas jokingly refers to it as [[Franchise/TheMatrix "a glitch in the Matrix."]] The phrase later recurs. |
| 464 | ** [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Freddy Krueger]] is referenced during an autopsy scene. |
| 465 | ** Tannhaus' initials, H.G., are a reference to Creator/HGWells, the author of one of the most famous time travel stories, ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''. In addition, his last name might be a nod to the TannhauserGate, which originated in ''Film/BladeRunner''; or the Tannhäuser from German mythology, who is best known for helping to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong in ''Film/HeartOfStone1950''. |
| 466 | ** The CreepyTwins from ''Film/TheShining'' can be seen in the background of a shot in the first episode of Season 3. |
| 467 | * SickbedSlaying: By order of Claudia, [[spoiler:Tronte kills bed-ridden Regina with a VorpalPillow in 2020]]. |
| 468 | * SistineSteal: During the climax of Season 2, Charlotte and her Elisabeth touch each other's fingertips through the portal which seems to initiate a TimeCrash. |
| 469 | * SmallTownBoredom: Ulrich from 1986 harbors this sentiment towards Winden. However, he decides to stay and join the local police force after his brother disappears in the woods. |
| 470 | * SmashToBlack: Season 1 ends with the Girl from the Future giving Jonas a TapOnTheHead with the butt of her rifle leading to a cut to black. |
| 471 | * SpiritualAntithesis: To ''Series/StrangerThings'', ironically given that the show was initially marketed to Creator/{{Netflix}} viewers as being quite similar. And on the surface, they are: both are about the disappearance of a young boy in a small town that turns out to be connected to paranormal phenomena and {{alternate universe}}s, with a group of townsfolk (including his friends, his grieving parents, and the local police chief) searching for him and at least part of the story being set in TheEighties. ''Dark'', however, can easily be seen as the NordicNoir version of ''Stranger Things'' (albeit German instead of Scandinavian) for its DarkerAndEdgier attitude, especially with its more cynical take on the {{nostalgia|Filter}} that ''Stranger Things'' embraces. Their respective opening scenes are a study in contrasts: both shows open with a man dying, but whereas on ''Stranger Things'' he [[MonsterMunch gets killed by a monster]] via a clicheed VerticalKidnapping, on ''Dark'' he [[DrivenToSuicide hangs himself]]. And as a twist, [[spoiler: the young boy who disappears is the ''same'' man who hangs himself in the opening.]] |
| 472 | * SplitScreen: Numerous montages show characters in split-screen. |
| 473 | * StableTimeLoop: So many and so complex that it could be called ''Stable Time Loop: The Series'', so they have [[{{StableTimeLoop/Dark2017}} their own page.]] |
| 474 | * StartsWithASuicide: Michael Kahnwald commits suicide at the start of Season 1 which kicks off the plot. |
| 475 | * StringTheory: Future Claudia has [[https://www.fluxfm.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/DARK_S01-EP01_0088368-1200x675.png photos of all characters]] pinned to the bunker wall with strings highlighting connections between them. |
| 476 | * SummerRomance: Jonas and Martha talk about "what happened last summer" in season 1. Episode 6 of season 2 shows it: [[spoiler: It was the Last Day of Normalcy before Jonas's father hung himself, when Martha and Jonas had Their First Time.]] |
| 477 | * SurpriseCarCrash: When Helge from 2019 [[spoiler:tries to kill his 1986 counterpart]] by t-boning his car at a junction. |
| 478 | * SurpriseIncest: |
| 479 | ** [[spoiler:Jonas and Martha are in love and have been consummating their relationship. Then it turns out they are nephew and aunt (due to Martha's brother Mikkel and Jonas' father Michael being the same person in different timelines)]]. |
| 480 | ** It gets weirder in Season 2 [[spoiler:with the reveal that Elisabeth is Charlotte's daughter...''and'' her mother. This means that Charlotte's husband Peter essentially slept with his granddaughter, as did Elisabeth's husband/lover Noah.]] |
| 481 | ** Also, in Season 2 [[spoiler: it is revealed that Noah is Agnes Nielsen's brother. Given that he is Fransiska's grandfather, this means that Magnus and Fransiska are related as well. It's a downplayed example since none of the characters seem to really be aware of this.]] |
| 482 | ** Briefly in season 3 we are led to believe that [[spoiler:Tronte is Regina's father, which would make him the grandfather of both Bartosz and Martha, who were dating at the start of season 1.]] |
| 483 | ** Late in Season 3, it is revealed that [[spoiler: Bartosz marries Silja, and they are the parents of Noah and Agnes. The problem? Bartosz is the great-grandson of Egon...who is Silja's father. Bartosz basically has children with his grand-aunt!]] |
| 484 | *** In retrospect, it also makes [[spoiler: Bartosz's crush (and temporary relationship) with Martha this, as he's her great-great-grandfather. And Agnes and Tronte's affairs with Doris and Claudia respectively, as Doris and Claudia are Agnes and Tronte's great-great-grandmothers!]] |
| 485 | ** A major reveal in Season 3 is that [[spoiler:Jonas and an alternate Martha have a child, who goes on to father Tronte and start the Nielsen line that both his parents are the product of. This reveal adds another layer to the Jonas-Martha incest since they are the great-great-grandson and great-granddaughter of their own child respectively! But it also renders a number of other relationships among the four families as incestuous, to varying degrees. For instance, Jonas is the great-great-grandfather of his own father Michael, making Michael's wife Hannah his great-great-great-grandmother! It also makes Hannah's affair with Ulrich incestuous, since she's his great-great-grandmother.]] |
| 486 | * SwissCheeseSecurity: When the apocalypse is about to go down in season 3, the Unknown and his two other selves are able to enter the power plant and initiate an ExplosiveOverclocking with no security around. |
| 487 | * TakeAThirdOption: The two factions battling for control over the events of the series have two extreme positions: [[spoiler:Adam of Sic Mundus wants to break the cycle by eradicating all of existence entirely to spare everyone from the pain it inflicts, while Eva of Erit Lux wants to perpetuate the cycle indefinitely to allow her child to live. Claudia, meanwhile, has learned how to fix the original timeline whence their situation arose, and plans to return all of creation to its original path, instead.]] |
| 488 | * TangledFamilyTree: The four central families turn out to all be related due to complicated time travel shenanigans. |
| 489 | ** [[spoiler:Mikkel getting TrappedInThePast in 1986 leads to a tangled relationship between the Kahnwald and the Nielsen family, with Jonas being Hannah's son and at the same time Katharina's grandson. And Hannah ending up sleeping with Katharina's husband and son]]. |
| 490 | ** In Season 2, it is revealed that [[spoiler: Noah is Agnes's brother and Charlotte's father, making Tronte Charlotte's first cousin (despite being born in different generations), as well as Magnus, Martha and Mikkel being related to Elisabeth and Franziska. It's also revealed that Charlotte is Elisabeth's ''daughter''.]] |
| 491 | ** Season 3 much afterwards reveals there's much to this: [[spoiler: Since Martha of Eva's world had sex with Jonas of Adam's world, the two ended up conceiving a child ("The Unknown" that Eva uses to ensure the events of the series occur) that ''goes off to start the Nielsen family line'', and in doing so, creates a very lengthy and complex family tree that encompasses ''half of the entire cast'', sans the ones who already existed before everyone else's creation (such as Egon, Peter, Hannah, Regina, Claudia, and Katharina).]] |
| 492 | ** It's also revealed that [[spoiler: Bartosz and Silja (who herself is Egon and Hannah's daughter, therefore half-sister of Jonas and Claudia) are the parents of Noah and Agnes. Which means Mikkel married ''his own ancestor'' and the Nielsens' affair was with their great-great-grandmothers.]] |
| 493 | * TentativeLight: Flickering lights are usually used to set the ominous scene in the early episodes. This is later revealed to be an indicator of time travel going on in the area. |
| 494 | * TemporalDuplication: More than you can shake a stick at. [[spoiler: The biggest instance is when Eva kills Jonas. Eva is there as the oldest Martha, then there is 2052 Martha, the 2019 alternate Martha who accompanied Jonas, and a slightly older version of 2019 alternate Martha, all in the same scene.]] |
| 495 | * TemporalSickness: Adam is CoveredWithScars as a result of frequent trips across time. Other characters travel through time with no injury, but they seem to be using safer ways. Adam's only method is a time machine that he spends years desperately trying to repair [[BlackBox without fully understanding how it works]]. His flawed attempts [[DentedIron leave a mark]], but [[{{Determinator}} he keeps trying]]. |
| 496 | * TheThreeFacesOfAdam: |
| 497 | ** Used to represent [[spoiler:Jonas at different points of his life]]. Jonas is the Hunter, a young man trying to understand the dire situation he's been thrust into. The Stranger is the Lord, an embittered but experienced man who tries to fix things. Adam is the Prophet, who has already lived through much of the plot, knows everything that will happen, and uses this to further his goal. Season 3 does the same with [[spoiler:Martha, in a rare female example.]] |
| 498 | ** In season 3, the Unknown appears as a boy, a middle-aged man, and an old man who act in tandem. |
| 499 | * TitleDrop: |
| 500 | ** Episode 10 has [[spoiler:Father Noah call Claudia "the Dark" while he is "the Light" in regards to her determination and plan to stop him]]. |
| 501 | ** [[spoiler:Season 2 reveals the time travel is fueled by a compound accidentally made at the power plant which was called "The God Particle", later revealed to be ''Dark'' Matter.]] |
| 502 | ** And, finally, in the last episode of the series [[spoiler:Claudia reveals to Adam her ability to manipulate events to force an end to the endless cycle they've all been living in, which necessitated her to force one final loop to take place, constantly keeping everyone 'in the dark' about her ability to affect an actual change. She uses the phrase twice: once for Adam, and once for the rest of the cast. In effect the whole series was Claudia's efforts to keep everyone 'in the dark' while she codified her changes to the loop.]] |
| 503 | * TimeCrash: |
| 504 | ** [[spoiler: Basically what causes the Apocalypses in both worlds.]] |
| 505 | ** [[spoiler:Revealed in the finale of the series to be the cause of the StableTimeLoop. The Origin universe split into two time-looped and entangled universes when H.G. Tannhaus switched his time machine on. The Origin universe is only accessible during the exact time of the original TimeCrash in 1986 (as opposed to travel between the entangled worlds).]] |
| 506 | * TimeIsDangerous: [[spoiler: Played straight with Adam who looks burned and scarred, and who specifically links this to his time travel experiments in the period between 1888 and 1921.]] [[spoiler: It's later revealed to be the result of Stranger!Jonas getting multiple scars over the years when constructing the Tesla God Particle machine seen in 1921.]] |
| 507 | * TimeshiftedActor: Different actors play the characters at different stages of their lives. |
| 508 | * TimeStandsStill: Claudia discovers that [[spoiler: this trope is in effect for a fraction of a second when the apocalypse occurs in 2020. It is the key to unraveling everything, as it is the only moment when changes can be made. Eva knew about it, but used it to preserve the timelines]]. |
| 509 | * TimeTravelRomance: |
| 510 | ** [[spoiler:Noah, a time-traveler from 1921, falls in love with Elizabeth from 2020.]] |
| 511 | ** [[spoiler:Hannah, from 2020, travels to 1954 and has an affair with Egon. Interestingly, as a child in 1986, Hannah met Egon as an old man.]] |
| 512 | ** [[spoiler:Silja and Bartosz, both of whom are time-travelers to the 1890s/early 1900s. Bartosz is from 2020, while Silja was born in the 1980s but grew up in the post-apocalyptic 2040s/early 2050s.]] |
| 513 | * TimeTravelersBaby: Quite a number of them: |
| 514 | ** The very first is [[spoiler:Jonas Kahnwald]], who learns about it in the fifth episode of season 1. [[spoiler:His father, Michael Kahnwald, is actually Mikkel Nielsen, who travelled from 2019 to 1986 and later married Hannah. Their son Jonas was born in 2003.]] |
| 515 | ** Episode 4 of season 3 [[spoiler:reveals that Jonas, who now has travelled not only between timelines, but also to another world, and the Martha of the alternate world are the parents of [[NoNameGiven the Unknown]]]] |
| 516 | ** In the same episode, we learn that [[spoiler:Agnes and the above mentioned Unknown, both already the result of time travels, are the parents of Tronte Nielsen.]] |
| 517 | ** And, still, Season 3 Episode 4 [[spoiler:shows that Hannah, who travelled from 2020 to 1954, had an affair with Egon Tiedemann resulting in her becoming pregnant. She decides against aborting and]] in the seventh episode of the season, [[spoiler:shows that her child is Silja.]] |
| 518 | ** The same episode shows how [[spoiler: Silja, after staying in the 2040s and 2050s as Elisabeth's second-in-command, she arrives in 1890 and starts a relationship with fellow time traveller Bartosz Tiedemann, who came from 2020, and have two children: Noah and Agnes.]] |
| 519 | ** And then, the probably most complex one, concerns [[spoiler:Elisabeth and Charlotte Doppler]], who are revealed in the final episode of season 2 to be [[spoiler:mother and daughter to [[MyOwnGrandpa each other]].]] As the final episodes of the third season depict, [[spoiler: Charlotte is born in the 2040s to Elisabeth and Noah -- who travelled from 1921 to 2020 -- only to be stolen as a child and brought to 1971 to be raised there. She later has two children with Peter Doppler -- Franziska and Elisabeth -- who will later give birth to Charlotte -- and so on.]] |
| 520 | * TimeyWimeyBall: |
| 521 | ** In the first two seasons, [[spoiler:YouAlreadyChangedThePast is very much in effect, and every attempt by characters to change the past simply results in a StableTimeLoop. Season 3 complicates this somewhat by introducing an AlternateUniverse, but its soon established that even the AlternateUniverse is part of the larger causal loop.]] |
| 522 | ** [[spoiler:Things start to get confusing starting with episode 6 of Season 3 ("Light and Shadow") which introduces the concept of 'quantum entanglement', which allows for two alternate versions of events to occur — namely, a reality where alt-Martha saves Jonas from the apocalypse on his world, and a reality where she doesn't save him and he survives himself. However, these two branches of reality are ultimately interdependent and part of the larger causal loop — effectively, Jonas and Martha are 'duplicated', with both pairs playing a key role in maintaining the StableTimeLoop. But then, in the series finale "Paradise", we learn that Claudia uses the same quantum entanglement 'loophole' to break out of the StableTimeLoop by feeding her younger self new information, and this ultimately culminates in Jonas and Martha being able to destroy the loop completely. It's unclear how Claudia was able to exploit the loophole in this manner.]] |
| 523 | ** [[spoiler:In the series finale, we learn that there was an origin world. Following the deaths of his family in a car crash, H.G. Tannhaus attempts time travel, which splits his world into Jonas and Martha's world, with the resulting tangle of causal loops. However, Jonas and Martha, armed with information from Claudia, travel to the origin world and prevent the deaths of Tannhaus' family. This attempt to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong succeeds, and they prevent the origin of their two worlds and are both erased from existence. However, this seems to contradict the theme of determinism that the show rigorously followed before this point, although the complexities of the determinism themes play by who controls what, and in the series's case, the minute an option was revealed, the characters took it.]] |
| 524 | * TokenGoodCop: |
| 525 | ** At least for the members of the 2019 police, that we are presented with, Charlotte Doppler fulfills this role. Wöller is a YesMan [[spoiler: and secretly works with [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Aleksander Tiedemann]]]] and Ulrich has strong RabidCop tendencies and his sanity goes haywire once his son disappears. Charlotte on the other hand comes very close to figuring out what is actually happening. |
| 526 | ** Season 2 then introduces the federal agent Clausen who [[SubvertedTrope at first]] appears to be at least competent, [[spoiler:but turns out to have [[ItsPersonal ulterior motives]] and [[CowboyCop no problems with rulebreaking]]]]. |
| 527 | * TookAThirdOption: Fittingly in season three of a show obsessed with three, the endgame involves [[spoiler:Claudia informing Adam that the solution to breaking the endless loop cannot be achieved by destroying the two worlds but only by saving a third. To that end Adam sends Jonas and Martha to stop Tannhaus from ever creating the origin of the loop.]] |
| 528 | * TownWithADarkSecret: Winden is a small German town with a history of unexplained disappearances. Its problems stretch at least as far back as 1953. |
| 529 | * ToxicWasteCanDoAnything: Radioactive waste from the power plant -- specifically, the [[spoiler:dark matter present in it]] -- can facilitate time travel. |
| 530 | * TragicTimeTraveler: Where do we begin? |
| 531 | ** Mikkel [[spoiler:never returns to the present after ending up in 1986 due to not-so-accidental time travel caused by Jonas. The only person he ever reunites with is his father, and only for a very short time.]] |
| 532 | ** Jonas, who is grieving for his dead father in the beginning, [[spoiler:has to endure a lot over the course of the series: being TrappedInThePast and the future more than once, barely surviving being hung, and having to watch Martha die make him slowly turn into the Stranger and later Adam, who are determined to finally break the StableTimeLoop to end their suffering.]] |
| 533 | ** Ulrich [[spoiler:attempts to prevent the death of his brother and the two other boys by killing young Helge in 1953, which not only is completely in vain, but also causes him to end up in a mental asylum for the next 33 years.]] |
| 534 | ** Noah appears as the BigBad of Season 1, until it's later revealed that [[spoiler:everything he did was only because his daughter Charlotte disappeared, and he believes that following Adam's orders can lead him to her. After shooting Claudia, he learns the truth about Charlotte and attempts to stop Adam, but is fatally shot by his own sister.]] |
| 535 | ** After the disappearance of her son and husband, Katharina [[spoiler:learns about time travel and is determined to bring both of them back. Mikkel is missing without a trace, but she at least meets Ulrich and plans to break him out. This never happens, as she is BludgeonedToDeath with a stone by her own mother in the end.]] |
| 536 | ** Claudia in 1987 [[spoiler:finds out about the imminent death of her father and her terminally ill adult daughter in 2020 -- both deaths she will cause. Later, though, she successfully deceives Adam, Noah and Eva and is the one who actually manages to find out how to break the knot.]] |
| 537 | ** In Season 3, Bartosz [[spoiler:can't adjust to living in 1888 (unlike adult Jonas, Franziska and Magnus, who escaped from the apocalypse with him), loses all hope after learning about Jonas turning into the one who will murder Martha one day, and is eventually murdered by his own son.]] |
| 538 | ** Martha, [[spoiler:the one from the other world, has to watch her new boyfriend die and is manipulated by her older selves who slowly turn her into them, as well as by Adam, whose plan is to brutally wipe her and her unborn child out. This is successful with one version of her, but changes nothing.]] |
| 539 | ** Finally, the Season 3 finale shows that [[spoiler:in a third world, H.G. Tannhaus attempted to construct a time machine. He finished it in 1986 and it destroyed his world and created the two entangled worlds instead.]] |
| 540 | * TrappedInThePast: |
| 541 | ** [[spoiler:Mikkel, who disappears from 2019, is stranded in 1986. He is adopted by Ines Kahnwald, is given the identity of "Michael Kahnwald", and eventually marries Hannah and fathers Jonas.]] |
| 542 | ** [[spoiler:Ulrich gets trapped in 1953 because he's incarcerated for murder. He spends the rest of his life in prison in that universe]]. |
| 543 | ** Season 3 reveals that this happened to [[spoiler: Adult Jonas, Bartosz, Magnus and Franziska. They are inadvertently transported to 1888 while trying to flee the apocalypse in 2020, and their time machine runs out of fuel. They are stranded in the past unintentionally for years as Jonas tries to build a new time machine. However, they continue to remain in the past voluntarily to fulfill their destiny as Sic Mundus, even after the machine is repaired]]. |
| 544 | * {{Troperiffic}}: For TimeTravelTropes. |
| 545 | * TVTelephoneEtiquette: Characters tend not to say "hello" or "goodbye" on the phone. |
| 546 | * TheUnReveal: |
| 547 | ** Ines is in possession of a letter to be opened at a particular minute on a particular day. When the right minute arrives and she finally opens it, the viewer doesn't yet get to see what is in the letter. [[spoiler:It is revealed later on, but by the Stranger's hands instead of Ines.]] |
| 548 | ** Woller is interrupted twice when he's about to explain how he lost his eye [[spoiler: which might be the same incident in which he lost an arm in Eve's universe]]. We can be fairly certain that it has no relation to the main plot since apparently [[spoiler:it still happens in the original universe, though not quite as badly]] |
| 549 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: |
| 550 | ** The origin of the never-ending loop and all the misery that results from it is [[spoiler: an attempt by Tannhaus to bring his family back from the dead with time travel.]] |
| 551 | * UnwittingPawn: |
| 552 | ** In season 3, Jonas and Martha 2 are made to believe that they were made to team up to [[spoiler:prevent the apocalypse at the power plant while the actual reason was to get them to sleep with another, creating The Unknown, who would afterwards create the entangled family tree of the Nielsens-Doppler-Kahnwald-Tiedemann lines]]. |
| 553 | ** Bartosz. [[spoiler: After Jonas vanishes, Bartosz does time-travel errands for Adult!Noah but isn't part of the conspiracy. Adam/Old!Jonas remarks how easy it is to play Bartosz, basically invoking the trope. When The Stranger/Adult!Jonas saves Bartosz before the Apocalypse strikes, he ends up in 1888 and eventually falls out with Adult!Jonas. The oldest Adam in the future sends back Future!Silja to become Bartosz' wife. They father Agnes and Hanno/Young!Noah (and become the ancestors of the incestuous Nielsen line). He eventually rejoins Adam's Sic Mundus conspiracy after Silja's death in childbed and helps excavate the time travel passage when he tells Young!Noah about his doubts regarding Adam's plan for salvation. Young!Noah then kills his own father. In the alternate world, Bartosz becomes a follower of Eva/Old!Martha instead.]] |
| 554 | * UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler:Noah believes that the creation of a world in which humans are free in their actions instead of being "slaves to time" justifies the brutal killing of several children in questionable scientific experiments]]. |
| 555 | * VisualPun: Combined with LiteralMetaphor: travelers between the [[spoiler:two ''mirror'' universes]] come out the other side as [[spoiler:mirror images of how they went in]]: most apparent when [[spoiler:the scar on Martha's cheek or the scars on the Unknown's lip(s) switch sides]], all without comment or explanation. It's noteworthy that this aspect has been an element in the [[spoiler:opening credits]] since the first episode, making it something of a RewatchBonus as well. |
| 556 | * VoidBetweenTheWorlds: [[spoiler: Jonas and Martha enter this zone in the final episode before traveling to the 1970s to prevent the Tannhaus tragedy.]] |
| 557 | * WalkingSpoiler: Several, in fact. Revealing anything about the Stranger, Noah and especially Adam beyond what they look like spoils pretty much the whole story. Just look at the number of spoiler tags in their respective chapters on the character page. |
| 558 | * WhamEpisode: |
| 559 | ** Episode 5 reveals that [[spoiler: Mikkel who couldn't get back to 2019, was adopted by Ines in 1986, and grew up to be Jonas's father Michael.]] As a result, this makes [[spoiler:Magnus Jonas' uncle and Martha (his ''love interest'') his aunt.]] |
| 560 | ** Episode 8 reveals that [[spoiler: Helge as a child had his face almost bashed in by Ulrich, who was attempting to kill him as a child to prevent his future child murders - but this is what led to Helge becoming recruited into the time-travel experiments that ended up killing the children.]] |
| 561 | ** Season 1 finale: [[spoiler: The Stranger is Future!Jonas, who doesn't want to interfere with his younger self's timeline so that he still grows up to form his current plan. He plans to cancel out the wormhole caused by the power plant in 1986, using a new time-travel device Tannhaus created on the instructions of Claudia (who is still alive despite being presumed dead in 2019). However, his plan backfires and actually turns out to be [[StableTimeLoop what sent his younger self off on his journey to become the Stranger]]. The episode ends with 2019!Jonas ending up in 2052]]. |
| 562 | ** Season 2 Episode 4 reveals that [[spoiler:the leader of Sic Mundus is actually ''Jonas'' from 67 years into the future, set on causing the apocalypse for his own unclear goals -- something to do with freeing humanity from the bounds of time or maybe just wanting to kill all of existence.]] |
| 563 | ** Season 2 Episode 6 reveals [[spoiler: Jonas is the ''cause'' of Mikkel/Michael's time-traveling and suicide, the two events Jonas had previously aimed to prevent. It turns out it hadn't even occurred to Michael to commit suicide until Jonas told him not to.]] |
| 564 | ** The Season 2 finale reveals (though it was hinted two episodes earlier) that [[spoiler:alternate universes]] might play a role in the events of the show, as in the final scene Jonas is [[spoiler:rescued from the apocalypse by another version of Martha, after having just witnessed Martha being murdered by his older self.]] |
| 565 | ** Episode 4 of Season 3, "The Origin" reveals what the true source of the timeline knot is: [[spoiler:Jonas and the other Martha having sex and leading to the creation of a child, tying both realities together]]. It's also revealed said child [[spoiler:is the three individuals with a cut upper lip seen throughout half the series attempting to keep the timeline secure, given the name "The Unknown"]]. This of course [[spoiler: is revealed to be a RedHerring considering what we see in the final episode...]] |
| 566 | ** Episode 6 of Season 3, "Light and Shadow" [[spoiler: reveals the Apocalypse fractured Jonas's world into alternate realities, one where he's ''not'' saved by Martha and he grew up as Adam, and another where he is saved by Martha and died in Eva's World. It is self-contained, meaning the alternate realities don't conflict with each other, meaning Jonas died in Eva's World after siring the Unknown, yet exists as an adult self, not meeting Martha at all till he travels to 1888. It's implied a similar event occurs in Eva's World as well, given as ''Adam kills alternate-Martha'' in the end of the episode, yet Martha grows into Eva. However, these two branches of reality are ultimately interdependent and part of the larger causal loop - effectively, Jonas and Martha are basically split into 2 realities, with both pairs playing a key role in maintaining the StableTimeLoop.]] |
| 567 | ** Episode 8 of Season 3, "The Paradise" [[spoiler: finally reveals the reason of the show's plot: H.G. Tannhaus, in his grief of losing his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter in a car accident, decided to create a time machine to prevent the accident, in doing so creating ''both'' the universes of the series. Adam, realizing it was never the other Martha's child created from the prime universe's Jonas, decides to finally take the opportunity to break the knot and lead Jonas and the other Martha into preventing the accident from occurring, even if it means destroying both universes]]. |
| 568 | * WhamLine: |
| 569 | ** Michael's suicide note in Episode 5: "The truth is a strange thing. You can try to suppress it, but it will always find its way back to the surface. We make a lie into our truth in order to survive. We try to forget until we can't anymore. We don't know even half of the mysteries of the world. We are wanderers in the darkness. This is my truth. [[spoiler: On November 4, 2019, I travelled through time to the year 1986. The boy from the future stayed, and in time he became a man. Mikkel became Michael, who never knew where he belonged."]] |
| 570 | ** "I am you" is said by multiple characters, most notably when [[spoiler:Adam is revealed to be an elderly Jonas]] in Season 2. |
| 571 | ** "You." [[spoiler: When 2020!Jonas asks him who took him away from 2019 to 1986, Michael/Mikkel replies Jonas this, as it was ''Jonas'' who made Mikkel go through the Sic Mundus tunnel.]] |
| 572 | ** The very last line of the first season: [[spoiler: "Welcome to the future". The scavengers are [[BrokenMasquerade aware of the existence of time travelers]], and are ''[[OhCrap not]]'' friendly to them.]] |
| 573 | ** Likewise the very last line of the second season: [[spoiler: "The question is not from what time, but from what world."]] |
| 574 | ** Also when [[spoiler: Eva]] monologues to Jonas regarding his role in the [[spoiler: apocalypse in the second world]]: "A man lives 3 lives. The first one ends with the loss of naivete. The second one with the loss of innocence. The third, with the loss of life itself. [[spoiler:Yours ends here and now]]." |
| 575 | ** At the very end of Episode 7 of Season 3: [[spoiler: [[BackForTheFinale "Hello, Jonas"]]]]. |
| 576 | ** Said by [[spoiler: Adam]] when [[spoiler: Claudia]] hints at the reveal of [[spoiler: a different way to break the Knot]]: [[spoiler: "There is a ''third'' world?"]] |
| 577 | * WhamShot: In Episode 6 of Season 3: [[spoiler: Jonas cradles Martha and promises her to make everything right, but unlike in the previous season's end, Martha does ''not'' appear to save him and take him to her universe. Jonas saves himself from the apocalypse.]] |
| 578 | * WhatYearIsThis: Standard question by anyone arriving in the past. |
| 579 | * WhenThingsSpinScienceHappens: The design of the time machine built by Tannhaus is based on ClockPunk imagery and has lots of cool spinning elements. |
| 580 | * WhereItAllBegan / WhenItAllBegan: |
| 581 | ** [[spoiler: In Season 2, Episode 6 "An Endless Cycle", Jonas travels to June 20th 2019, the day before Michael hangs himself (which kicked off the story of Season 1) in an attempt to prevent the suicide. He ultimately ends up [[StableTimeLoop causing it]].]] |
| 582 | ** [[spoiler: In the series finale, Jonas and alternate-Martha travel to June 21st 1986, the day the nuclear incident occurs on both their worlds, opening the time-travel cave passage and the cesium isotope that makes time-travel possible. They enter the cave and are in the passage when it opens. They use it to travel to November 8th 1971 in the origin world, on the night that Tannhaus' family dies in a car crash -- the event which caused Tannhaus to invent time travel and create both their worlds.]] |
| 583 | * WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: The police (and absence of Stasi) in the 1980s put it in West Germany, one (fake) area code puts it in western Hesse. The police cleverly avoids showing the [[UsefulNotes/TheSixteenLandsOfDeutschland Land]] by being the "Winden Police" instead of using the Land's coat of arms; while the whole thing was filmed in East Germany's Brandenburg, very identifiably by its sandy conifer forests. |
| 584 | * WildWilderness: The town of Winden is surrounded by dense, dark woodland, with a large system of partially unexplored caves beneath it. |
| 585 | * YouAlreadyChangedThePast: [[spoiler: In full effect. The fact that the various timelines are separated by exactly 33 years provides an at least reasonable justification of why various characters, in the future, won't remember having met in the past various characters who were actually time-travelling from that future]]. |
| 586 | * WithholdingTheirName: There's a reason the Stranger [[spoiler: and Adam]] are called as such since the reveal of their names is a huge plot point. |
| 587 | * YouCantFightFate: |
| 588 | ** [[spoiler: Actively invoked by several characters in dialogue, specifically mentioning that nobody escapes their predestined fate. This even happens in the parallel world in spite of events working out differently or Jonas not being present in it originally. People who have encountered their older selves already cannot even die (but definitely suffer).]] |
| 589 | ** [[spoiler: Ultimately subverted once Claudia reveals the loophole in the StableTimeLoop to make exactly this possible.]] |
| 590 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Eve orders older Martha to [[spoiler:kill Jonas with a shot in the guts after he served his purpose of impregnating Martha.]] |
| 591 | ** Similarly, Adam [[spoiler: blasts Alt!Martha out of existence after manipulating her to help his past self, in order to kill the Unknown and to break the StableTimeLoop.]] |
| 592 | [[/folder]] |
| 593 | ---- |
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