Downton Abbey / Downton Abbey - Tropes G to I

This page is for tropes that have appeared in Downton Abbey.

For the rest:

• A to C
• D to F
• J to L
• M to P
• Q to S
• T to Z

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• Gaydar:
  • Mrs Patmore has it. Daisy doesn't.
  • Thomas's own Gaydar fails him spectacularly in Season 3, although that is mostly O'Brien's fault.
    Thomas: When you're like me, Mr Carson, you have to read the signs as best you can, because no one dares speak out.
• Gayngst: Thomas. In Season 5 he goes so far as to spend money on some quack treatment that is supposed to make him straight.
• Gayngst-Induced Suicide: Subverted. Thomas attempts suicide in the final season, but he is found in time and survives. Also, his suicide attempt is the result of him feeling alone and increasingly unsure of his place in the world, and his gayness is hardly the only reason for those feelings.
• George Jetson Job Security: One of the servants being in danger of sacking is almost a Once an Episode occurrence.
• Generation Xerox: Lady Mary caring for Mr Carson, the butler, as a Parental Substitute, translates years later into her son George caring in the same way for Mr Barrow, the new butler.
• Genre Blind: William makes a point of asking Daisy for her picture to take with him to the trenches.
• Genteel Interbellum Setting: Starting at the end of Season 2, all the boxes are ticked — on the surface. May count as an aversion or subtle subversion, as the social change of the '20s is definitely present — in the background most of the time, but sometimes (such as Season 3, Episode 8) the tumult comes to the fore.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: Branson's hatred of the institution of aristocracy goes out the window when Robert offers to use the old boy network to get the police off his back. He is motivated to agree so as not to drag Sybil down with him.
• Gilligan Cut: Carson admonishes the downstairs staff not to spread the word upstairs about the controversy surrounding Mrs. Patmore's bed-and-breakfast. The next shot is Anna and Lady Mary laughing hysterically about the "house of ill repute".
• A Glass in the Hand: When Tom compares Irish rule by the English to being ruled by the German kaiser, Carson smashes the glass he's holding in anger.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Between Lady Mary and Lady Edith. Lampshaded in the second season, when the sisters set side their differences in order to entertain the soldiers, much to the surprise of their family:
  Violet: Now I've seen everything.
  • Referenced again in Season 3, despite not having been in evidence for most of the season, when they discuss putting aside their differences in the wake of their sister's death. Mary states honestly that it's unlikely they'll ever get on, but it should be tried. (They apparently don't succeed, since their fighting gets even worse in Season 4 and 5.)
• Gold Digger: Plenty of them!
  • The Duke of Crowborough is interested in marrying Mary only if she inherits the estate.
  • Lady Edith wanted to marry Matthew so she can remain at the estate and inherit in Mary's place. Mary hedges about accepting Matthew’s proposal when it looks like he might not inherit Downton (influence by another, however).
  • Lady Rosamund points out that Mary is marrying Sir Richard solely because he is rich (which isn't entirely true).
  • The debt-ridden Lord Hepworth wants to marry Lady Rosamund so he can buy back the estates of his childhood home.
  • Mary is again accused of this in season 6 due to her hesitation over marrying Henry.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: After visiting a back alley clinic, Edith decides to keep her out-of-wedlock baby.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking:
  • Thomas and O'Brien smoke the cigarettes of evil. In one interview with Rob James-Collier he said he feels that was their common bond; stepping out for a cigarette would give them the chance to get out from under the watchful eye of Mr Carson and plot their schemes.
  • On the other hand, Lord Grantham enjoys a good cigar after dinner, in which he is sometimes joined by Matthew.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: The series' producers did an excellent job in this respect.
• Grande Dame: Violet.
• The Grotesque: Poor Patrick...Peter..."P. Gordon" — whoever he is, his war wounds have made him a mess.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: When the Dowager Countess and Martha Levinson appear in the same scene, the result is a fantastic battle of wit by the characters and acting by their actresses (whom, we should remember, are two of the greatest actresses of their generation).
• Handicapped Badass: Bates.
• Hands-On Approach: Thomas teaching Jimmy how to wind up the clocks.
• Happily Married:
  • Robert and Cora, with some bumps in the road that are always smoothed out.
  • Rosamund and Marmaduke were, according to all press pack material, happily married until his death.
  • Violet and her husband Patrick, fifth Earl of Grantham, were this too. Violet gets tearful twice in Season 3 over the mention of his death, so it was a happy marriage until he died.
  • Sybil and Branson, after a few hiccups in Season 3 due to Tom's actions with an arsonist group that get them kicked out of Ireland are fairly happily married... until, yes, you guessed it Sybil dies in childbirth. There's a pattern here. See it?
  • Yet again with Matthew and Mary, who after a very long and rocky beginning are quite blissful until a freak car crash kills off Matthew. It makes the ending even more of a Tear Jerker, since his death immediately follows after they welcome their son into the world.
  • And yet again with Bates and Anna until her horrifying rape in Season 4 drives a wedge of secrecy and trauma between them. Things get better for them by the end of the series.
  • As of the end of season 6, Rose and Atticus, Carson and Mrs. Hughes, Mary and Henry, and Isobel and Lord Merton.
• Has a Type:
  • Robert has been in a committed, loving relationship with his wife, Cora, for thirty years. He has a brief dalliance, that never goes beyond stolen kisses, with a housemaid who, like his wife, is a brunette with piercing blue eyes and devoted to her family.
  • Thomas also has a type—and unfortunately for him, his type is selfish, manipulative, unattainable Pretty Boys like the Duke of Crowborough, Kemal Pamuk, and Jimmy.
• He Knows Too Much: Daisy.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Gender-Inverted with Jimmy the handsome footman, who gets the downstairs ladies, the upstairs ladies and Thomas to all light up with interest, and causes a disapproving Carson to say that hard work and industriousness is more important than being handsome.
• Heir Club for Men: None of the Earl's daughters can inherit, only his male relatives.
• Held Gaze: Bates and Anna. Matthew and Mary. Matthew and Sybil, oddly. Sybil and Branson. Robert and Jane.
• The Help Helping Themselves:
  • Thomas Barrow helps himself to the estate's wine cellars, then pins the blame on the valet who catches him in the act.
  • The kindly maid Phyllis Baxter's Dark Secret is she was coerced into stealing jewelry from her former mistress and spent three years in prison for the theft. She confesses it to Lady Grantham rather than let Thomas continue to blackmail her; Lady Grantham is shocked but decides to keep Phyllis on.
  • Queen Mary's Royal Dresser Miss Lawton is revealed to steal small valuables from every house the Royal Family visits. Anna the housemaid catches her and blackmails her into helping out with some tailoring, but Miss Lawton is unrepentant, given the huge privilege her "victims" enjoy.
    "Doesn't it ever worry you that on each table in this house there's an ornament you couldn't buy with a year's wages?"
• Hidden Depths: Mrs Hughes may be the kindly, practical Team Mom, but she is anything but naive (she was not at all shocked by Thomas' sexual orientation, even mentioning that he was not the first gay man she had ever known), or timid (she confronted Mr Green and told him to his face that she knew what he did to Anna). As she herself puts it,
  Mrs Hughes: I may not be a woman of the world, but I don't live in a sack.
• High-Class Gloves: The various actresses wear these throughout the series in scenes where they're dressed in formal outfits, starting from episode 1 where Cora is seen putting on a pair of long black gloves while dressing for dinner. (Very much Truth in Television, as properly dressed men and women of the middle and upper classes were expected to wear gloves as accessories to almost everything except bathing suits and sleepwear during The Edwardian Era.)
• Hired Help as Family: The serving staff often have personal connections to the noble Crawley family. And if it's not personal, the Crawleys are shown to respect them or appreciate them as their employees, while the staff are usually loyal and hard-working.
  • Carson is a butler, very much respected by the whole family. The eldest daughter Lady Mary is his particular favourite and he remembers fondly what a sweet child she was. Lady Mary is rather proud of her beauty and her blue blood, but she always respects Carson and appreciates his loyal service, seeks his opinion and approval.
  • Lord Grantham hires John Bates as his valet even if he isn't quite fit to fulfil all of his duties because Bates doesn't have any other place to go. He served under Lord Grantham in the Boer War as his batman, i.e. his military valet/gofer/bodyguard.
  • Lady Sybil is a socialist and she develops two meaningful relationship among the staff: she befriends Gwen the maid and helps her land her dream job, and she befriends and then falls in love with their chauffeur Tom Branson. She also wants to work as a nurse during war years, and she kindly asks the kitchen staff to teach her cook and she wants to learn how to take care of herself a bit, so that she doesn't look completely hopeless during the training.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Dr. Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of York and future Archbishop of Canterbury, appears in Series 3 to officiate Matthew and Mary's wedding.
  • Edward Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII, is an idiot that the Crawleys have to help out of a jam in the Season 4 Christmas Special.
  • Minister of Health Neville Chamberlain visits Downton Abbey while on an inspection tour of northern hospitals in Season 6.
• Historical In-Joke: While casting about for alternative ways to make money in the Season 3 finale, Robert mentions a chap in America who promises huge returns on investment, some fellow called Ponzi...
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Branson and Sybil are prevented from eloping when Mary and Edith, whom Branson taught to drive, chase after them in the car.
  • O'Brien's goal since the beginning of Season 3 was to make Alfred first footman, and decides to take revenge on Thomas when he tries to sabotage Alfred. In her plot for vengeance, O'Brien makes Thomas believe new footman Jimmy has feelings for him, which leads Thomas to enter Jimmy's room without permission and attempt to make advances on him while he is asleep in Season 3. The end result, though, is that Lord Grantham hands Jimmy the position of first footman precisely to keep him from reporting Thomas to the police.
• Holding Hands: Sybil and Branson have a bit of a moment of holding hands in episode seven and again in 2x08, after Robert gives his consent to their marriage.
  • By the Series 4 finale, Carson and Mrs Hughes are holding hands as they walk along the beach.
• Honor Before Reason: Several characters go this way, doing what they deem the most honorable conduct: Robert's unwillingness to contest the entail, against his daughter's best interest (and against the repeated advice of his own mother); Matthew's refusal of Lavinia's inheritance he believes himself unworthy of (in spite of Downton's financial problems); Bates is ready to protect the Crawley's honor at all personal costs when confronted to Vera's blackmail; and so on.
  • In Series 6, Bertie's mother gives her blessing for Bertie and Edith's engagement, despite Edith's confession that Marigold is her biological daughter, precisely because Edith valued honesty over the happiness and status she would gain from the marriage. Clearly Edith learned her lesson after not telling Bertie her secret backfired horribly.
• Hopeless Suitor:
  • Poor Molesley. He's got no chance with Anna, considering how desperately she loves Mr Bates. His interest doesn't last for long though.
  • For the duration of an episode, Edna is blatantly trying to win the affections of Branson, but eventually he admits that he can't consider loving anyone other than Sybil.
  • Larry Grey was this to Sybil in the past, as she admits he was sweet on her but she can hardly remember him. Yeesh. Suffice to say he doesn't take the fact that she fell in love with and married a servant instead of him very well.
• Hope Spot:
  • Cora getting pregnant... and then losing the baby. And then finding out that it would have been a boy.
  • Bates and Anna's engagement and subsequent happiness come crashing down when Vera appears.
  • Edith finally gets engaged to Anthony Strallan, only for him to leave her at the altar.
  • Sybil gives birth to a healthy daughter, only to suffer a violent seizure and die hours later.
  • Everyone is worried about probable complications with Mary's premature labour. She and the baby come out of it fine, everyone is ecstatic... and then Matthew is killed on the way home from the hospital a few short hours later.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Daisy, who gets tricked into revealing Mary's role in covering up Kemal Pamuk's death and blindly ropes herself into Thomas' scheme to get rid of Bates.
  • The only reason O'Brien stuck around for so long was because Cora was blind to her flaws.
  • Lord Grantham keeps giving Thomas second chances even though he knows some of the terrible things he's done.
  • Branson did not expect Russia's new Soviet leadership would execute the royal family.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: William and Daisy.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me:
  • Daisy to Thomas (who, admittedly, isn't really into her).
  • Gender Swapped with Farmer Drake to Edith.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Isobel Crawley gives a speech to this effect to Dr Clarkson, without even realising that he intends to propose. She's citing this as the reason she doesn't want to consider remarrying at all.
• Idiot Ball: Come Season 3, it's seemingly taken up residence in Robert's brain. First he discovers he's lost Cora's fortune in an foolish investment (and wonders about reinvesting with "this chap called Ponzi"). Next it's revealed he's been mismanaging the estate for years. Then he refuses to consider Matthew's improvements, even though Downton could be lost again if he doesn't. Finally, he hires a useless doctor to treat Sybil purely because he's a knight, ignores Dr Clarkson's warnings about her pregnancy and overrides everyone else's advice to have a caesarean, leading to his own daughter's death.
  • It made a short outing to Thomas, who ends up outed after losing himself completely over his current crush — this after surviving at Downton for ten years. (Though much of the staff and family mutter awkwardly about having already been aware of his homosexuality.)
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Matthew to Richard Carlisle, if indirectly. In Episode 4 of Season 2, he tells Mary that if Richard Carlisle ever hurts her, he'll have to answer to him. Considering he's now serving as a captain in World War One, this is a warning not to be taken lightly.
• I Kiss Your Hand: Kemal Pamuk.
  • Also Thomas with the duke.
• I Know You Know I Know: How Mr Bates screws with a pair of thieves.
• I Lied: Vera Bates in Season 2. Karmically, the same trick is used against her by Carlisle, who makes her sign an exclusivity agreement and then doesn't publish her story.
• I Never Got Any Letters: Bates discovers that his and Anna's have been intercepted by the governor while he is in prison.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
  • Sharon Small (Marigold Shore), who guest-starred in the Christmas special, had previously starred together with Iain Glen (Sir Richard Carlisle) in Glasgow Kiss and also with Phyllis Logan, who guest-starred on The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
  • This is not the first time Hugh Bonneville (Robert) and Elizabeth McGovern (Cora) have played husband and wife. In fact, it's the third.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment:
  Lady Violet: You are quite wonderful the way you see room for improvement wherever you look. I never knew such reforming zeal.
  Mrs Crawley: I take that as a compliment.
  Lady Violet: I must have said it wrong.
  • And vice versa....
  Mrs Crawley: And must you always sound like the sister of Marie-Antoinette?
  Lady Violet: The Queen of Naples was a stalwart figure. I take it as a compliment.
  Mrs Crawley: You take everything as a compliment.
  Lady Violet: I advise you to do the same. It saves many an awkward moment.
• Idyllic English Village: The village of Downton matches this description, with its narrow streets, wide-open green, and lovely stone architecture.
• Impairment Shot: Matthew when he wakes up in a hospital bed in the abbey.
• Impoverished Patrician:
  • In the back-story. Lord Grantham married Cora, a rich American heiress, for her money to keep the estate afloat.
  • Robert also manages to impoverish the family again when he loses Cora's entire fortune after Canada nationalised the Grand Trunk Railway. Fortunately, Matthew's reforms rescue them from bankruptcy for more or less the entire series. Matthew is particularly vindicated when we learn in the Season 3 Christmas Special that the Flintshires will have to sell Duneagle because they haven't reformed.
  • Indeed, a large number of one-off characters, all friends and peers of the Granthams, are shown to suffer the fate that the Granthams only narrowly avoided. It's practically an epidemic among the aristocratic classes of the time, and the government even surveys them to find out how they stayed afloat.
• Inadequate Inheritor: At least to begin with. Matthew, the new heir, is a middle-class solicitor from Manchester.
• Inter-Class Romance: Thomas and the Duke of Crowborough in the first episeode. Branson and Sybil from Series 2 onward. Briefly in Series 2, there's Lord Grantham and Jane.
• If I Can't Have You…: Occupationally, O'Brien to Cora. Vera to Bates.
• Impaled Palm: So he can be discharged, Thomas intentionally lifts his arm out of the trenches holding a lighter and is shot through the hand.
• In the Blood: The Crawley sisters take after their father with their tendency to fall in love with people considered their social inferiors.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • Daisy's crush on Thomas in season 1. Becomes a Love Triangle when Thomas decides to exploit her feelings to humiliate William, who genuinely does like Daisy.
  • In Season 3, Thomas makes advances towards Jimmy, the very handsome new footman. Although Thomas's attraction to him ends rather badly, the two ultimately become friends.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: Cora bemoans that she thought having daughters would be like Little Women, but instead they're at each other's throats... which describes Jo and Amy in Little Women perfectly.
• Intrafamilial Class Conflict: This proves to be a recurring theme throughout the show, with Mary, Edith and Sybil's romantic partners all being sized up in terms of where they might fit in relative to the Crawleys' own wealth and social status.
• Irony:
  • Robert and William want to be soldiers, but they can't. Thomas and Lang dread participating in the war, but they can't avoid it.
  • The war brings new responsibilities and new purpose to Edith, Sybil, Cora and Isobel, but it leaves Robert feeling useless.
  • A bit of historical irony: The first three seasons are built upon the necessity of having Matthew marry Mary and produce a male heir to get around the entail and ensure the fortune and Downton remain in the family. Entail was abolished in England in 1925. Unless Robert were to randomly die at or before age 55, he could have left Mary everything but the title without any problems; Matthew (assuming he lived that long in the alternate universe) would get the title, but nothing else.
  • Lady Edith's problem with Mr Gregson has a future legislative solution; unfortunately, it comes in 1937 (allowing for divorce in case of desertion after five years' separation where one spouse has a serious mental illness). Poor Edith.
    • He could have also just spent six weeks in Reno, Nevada.
    • While still having to become a citizen, another country he could have gone to (and mentioned, along with Greece) was Portugal, which also allowed divorce for mental illness. Given that the reason which made Edith wary of him going was that the Germans were Europe's most hated country, why didn't any one of them remember the Treaty of Windsor?
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Mr Bates to Anna. She essentially tells him where he can shove it, and they get married anyway as she refuses to have no legal standing in his life, whatever happens.
• It Will Never Catch On:
  • "... About as likely as war breaking out." And the viewership winced as one.
  • An exchange in 1913:
    Joe Burns: Suppose they sell the estate?
    Mrs Hughes: Suppose there’s a tidal wave. Suppose we all die of The Plague. Suppose there’s a war.
  • Branson and the other servants are discussing politics. Branson thinks that the outbreak of war will be a good thing for dissolving class tensions. To prove this he points out the capturing of the Tsar and his family. The other staff look horrified.
    Branson: Don't worry; they won't hurt them.
  • On dinner jackets/black tie, November 1918:
    Bates: [to Lord Grantham] I'm not sure you'll get much use out of it when the war is over.
  • On holiday destinations, 1920:
    Mary: You couldn't be in Cannes in the summer, no-one could bear it.
  • On the new invention called "wireless", in 1924 (Season 5)
    Lord Grantham: It's a fad; it won't last.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • Repeatedly, from all three directions in the Mary/Matthew/Lavinia triangle, though of course an opportunist like Richard Carlisle wouldn't have so much decency. Lavinia even dies telling Matthew that now he can be with the woman he loves, and it's implied that in the last Ouija board scene it's Lavinia guiding Matthew and Mary to be happy together.
  • Bates tries this with Anna, telling her to "find a better man". She's not impressed.
  • Anthony Strallan pulls it off with Edith, claiming that not only is he too old for her but that he couldn't let someone so young and lovely spend their life as his nurse. The irony is that, as Edith's parents gloomily point out, she is likely to end up this way regardless (acting as a nurse for them in their old age).

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