Henry Stickmin Series / Tropes S to Z

Henry Stickmin Series Trope Examples
A - F | G - R | S - Z

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S

• Sadist Show: A good part of the game’s humor are the FAILS in which usually involves Henry and/or other characters dying.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Who Henry chooses to call at the "Phone a Friend" point in Complex determines who he sided with in Airship: the Toppat Clan or the government (Charles, at least). In the Remastered version, who he can call outright depends on which endings he got in Airship; you're not gonna be able to call the Toppats if you didn't get the Executive ending before moving on, for example.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A bio for one of the prisoners in Complex (Peter Waylands) states that he was jailed for pulling this scheme. True to the Trope Codifier, he was stopped by some meddling kids and their dog.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Near the end of the Just Plain Epic route in Diamond, Henry decides that the museum has gotten way too dangerous, and runs away while leaving the diamond behind. By pure chance, once he's out of danger, the Diamond is blasted out of the museum and right next to him.
• Seesaw Catapult: In the "Undetected" route of Diamond, Henry uses a plank halfway stuck in a box to silently launch himself past two guards.
• Sequel Escalation: Each game in the series is bigger than the last. This is most readily apparent in the number of endings (1 in Bank, 3 in Prison and Diamond, 4 in Airship, 5 in Complex, and 16 in Mission) and FAILs (5 in Bank, 18 in Prison, 40 in Diamond, 60 in Airship and Complex, and 164 in Mission).
• Sequel Snark: One of the FAIL screens in the Thief/Allies route when Ellie fails to catch Henry states how he won't be in Henry 7.
• Shout-Out: Oh, so many…
• Showdown at High Noon:
  • Henry can get into one with Chief of Police Ed Robberts in Prison, where they have to shoot after a certain time, complete with typical western music.
  • Henry will attempt to initiate one in the Toppat King route with a bunch of Government soldiers if he opts to pick the Revolver, but they are still moving in normal speed and thus quicker to the draw than Henry this time.
    FAIL Screen: Were you waiting til High Noon-Thirty to shoot?
• Side Quest: In all the games, you can earn medals for doing extra tasks, like finding all the donuts in Prison or clicking on all of the paintings in Diamond. Airship has a more detailed side quest in which you find Biggoron's Sword. Here's how you do it: when using the Grapple Gun to enter the ship, you can pick up a key found next to the computer to free Dave, who you run into later. This in turn allows you to pick up a flash drive he drops, which reveals a code if you select it once you get to the last choice of that route. Then, when playing through the Earpiece route, you can use this code to open a door, which you can enter while playing through the Cannonball route, leading to Henry finding the sword.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: In-Universe. In Airship, one of the ways to fail is by clicking on a computer. Henry will go and try to download secret incriminating documents, but will get sidetracked by Civilization V, and play it for so long that he ends up getting caught.
  FAIL Screen: Just one more turn?
• Single-Season Country: In a combination of Russia and Canada always being depicted as snowy and cold; The Wall from Complex is located in a snowy landscape. All the guards talk with Russian accents, and invokedWord of God stated the Wall is located in Canada.
• Slow Doors: Downplayed in Airship. When Reginald is chased by Henry down a hallway, he tries to close the blast doors to escape. The trope is played straight in that the doors close one after the other rather than all at the same time, but averted in the speed with which they close; if Henry does not do something to speed up, he will not make it past them.
• Smurfette Principle: Ellie is the only major female character in the whole series, and prior to Mission, she was the only female character with any lines at all.
• So Much for Stealth: In Mission, Henry can attempt to sneak past the first guard, but will be foiled when the guard notices Henry's sneaking UI.
• Spanner in the Works: Henry frequently disrupts larger schemes with his larceny.
  • Bios reveal that the Tunisian exhibit was all a prelude to Mayor Fredrickson's own plans to steal the diamond, which was foiled by Henry stealing it first.
  • Several routes of Mission involve Henry robbing the Toppats blind, without a care for their space station plans being screwed in the process.
• Squashed Flat: The assault-rifle wielding guard at the end of the "International Rescue Operative" ending for Complex is flattened by Charles when he lands on the helipad.
• Stable Time Loop: In Completing the Mission, after unlocking the endings and FAILs, there is the Multiverse Correction ending. Choosing this secret causes the Center for Chaos Control to detect an "anomaly" from all the failures the player has encountered across all the games, and while correcting this, it causes a mysterious package, addressed to Henry, to appear in Escaping the Prison, which will become the spark that instigates all the events across the series.
• Standard Snippet: In the remastered version of Complex, one of the FAILs in the Ghost route has Henry take an elevator, where the music is the overture to La Gazza Ladra.
• Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly:
  • The Epic route of Diamond starts with Henry sneaking into the museum, but then he gets his hands on a Mega Mushroom and goes on a giant rampage, followed by the Center for Chaos Containment sending in a giant robot that wrecks the museum.
  • The Thief route of Airship starts with a stealthy infiltration of the airship's vault, but then Henry sets off an alarm, the government launches an all-out attack on the airship, and chaos ensues. Once again, the Center for Chaos Containment gets involved.
  • The Allies route of Complex starts with Henry and Ellie stealthily sneaking out through the storage room... and then Henry accidentally opens all the cells and causes a prisonwide riot. While the CCC doesn't intervene in this one, one of their members gets a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo during the route.
  • The Executive/Dead route of Mission starts with Henry infiltrating the Government's advance base... and then Henry sends their big prototype tank "Big Boy" on a rampage. The Center for Chaos Containment once again gets involved.
• Start X to Stop X: The Center for Chaos Containment's main strategy for containing chaos. Lampshaded in one of the fails in Mission
• The Starscream: Picking the Toppat Clan route in Complex leads Henry to stage a daring escape on his scooter to the Toppat's Airship. Just when it looks like he's going to make it to safety, Reginald catches him and announces he'd rather have his old job as the leader of the Clan back before dropping Henry into the ocean below.
• Stealing from Thieves: In some games, Henry can steal property from the Toppat Clan, which is an international crime syndicate with a huge profile of stealing super valuable items such as large jewels.
• Stealth Expert: FAILs aside, every game does have a route in which stealth is what carries the day for Henry. Prison has Sneaky Ending/Sneaky Escapist, Diamond has Undetected/Unseen Burglar, Airship has Government Supported Private Investigator, Complex has Ghost Inmate, and finally, Mission has Cleaned 'em Out (which fittingly, is the ending of the Government/Ghost route).
• Stick Figure Animation: The series' trademark art style is stick figures with defined hands and feet.
• Stock Scream: One of the night guards in Diamond utters the Wilhelm Scream when he is attacked by a Pterodactyl that Henry accidentally caused to hatch from an egg.
• Story Arc: Across 15 routes in Mission, there are 5 different arcs in total and what arc you get is depending on the endings you choose from the previous two games.
  • Government: Henry sides with the government and helps them stop the launching of the Toppats' space station.
  • Toppat Clan: Joining the Toppat Clan, Henry must defend the launch of their space station from the government.
  • Heist: Without any alliances, Henry simply does what he does best; steal things, this time from the Toppat Clan.
  • The rise of the Toppat clan: The Toppat Clan has successfully launched their orbital space station, and Henry has multiple scenarios to deal with this.
  • Revenge: The only arc that has little to nothing to do with the Toppats' space station plan. Following the aftermath of Complex, either Henry or Ellie manages to swing back and attempts to fight back against whoever betrayed them: Henry vs. Reginald and Ellie vs. Henry himself.
• Story Branching: Multiple times during the game the player is offered several choices, mostly about what kind of action Henry should take or what object he should use. Mission uses a interesting variation of this trope as it allows you to pick two endings from both Airship and Complex to combine with before you launch the mission.
• Straight for the Commander: The idea behind the "Cannonball" route of Airship is to take Reginald Copperbottom (the Toppats' leader) alive. Whether Henry takes him alive and hands him over to the Government or joins the Toppat Clan is entirely up to the last choice.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The Downgrader from the Government/Allies route of Mission. When used, it severely reduces the animation and art quality of the entire world. Guns are unusable since they're turned to squiggly lines, and of course, since the Downgrader also gets downgraded into "just a dot", the process cannot be reversed, causing a Fail.
  • Some of the FAILs are errors typically seen in 3D games like the infamous black and neon pink missing textures and Henry outright glitching out of the map with it visible behind him, all in a completely 2D hand-drawn artstyle.
• Sunken Face: In the Bounty/Operative route of Mission, Henry can choose to do a Dance-Off at every choice option. The third time he can do this, the Right-Hand Man punches his face in, leaving a smooshed mark and causing a FAIL.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A FAIL in Diamond involves throwing a bomb from the museum at a guard. It doesn't go off, because (as the fail screen points out) a museum wouldn't be dumb enough to keep a live bomb on display. A similar result happens if you try using one of the firearms: They were obviously decommissioned long before being sent there.
• Swap Teleportation: Henry uses the Swapper in Government/Rescue to swap his position with a Toppat.

T

• Tactical Withdrawal: The end result of the "Toppat Civil Warfare" ending. With only Henry, two loyalists, and a freed security guard, there's no way they can face the rest of the clan on their own turf, so they pile into an escape pod to escape and regroup. As a bonus, they manage to kill Reginald and the Right Hand Man on the way down by accident, greatly leveling the playing field.
• Taking You with Me:
  • In Complex, if you choose to arm Henry with a grenade and Ellie with a crossbow, the crossbow bolt pins the grenade to a guards face to which the guard responds with a small, "Ow." Then, realizing what just happened, the guard says, "Uh oh!" This is followed by the guard charging at Henry while shouting, "Never!"
    FAIL Screen: If he goes down he's taking you with him!
  • At the climax of the "Revenged" route, Henry staples Reginald to the wall of the Toppat airship, which is about to crash. When Henry turns round to leave, Reginald produces a gun from under his top hat and shoots Henry, gloating that they'll be going down together. While both survive the crash, Reginald dies shortly after, and it's heavily implied that Henry does too.
  • In that same choice option, Henry can fly Reginald to the rocket, then hold him in place as the Airship crashes into them.
• Take That!:
  • In Mission's Bounty/Rescue route, every time you get to choose something, the fourth option is always "Dance Off", which has Henry perform the default dance from Fortnite. However, this never, ever works, and it'll end with Henry getting shot, punched, or having a tank dropped on him. If that was too subtle, the FAIL screen gets progressively angrier whenever you pick the option, culminating in a caps lock demand for you to stop, making its dislike of your choice quite clear.
    First FAIL Screen: Do not.
    Second FAIL Screen: Cease.
    Third FAIL Screen: No.
    Fourth FAIL Screen: STOP IT!!!!!
  • The Walkthrough FAIL in Mission is one towards Youtubers who spend more time plugging sponsors and their social media pages than actually playing the game, don't pay attention to the game's details (the in-game player can't even be bothered to remember Charles and Ellie's names), and go on tangents that add nothing helpful to what's supposed to be a walkthrough.
• Take That, Audience!: One of the fake options in Mission is called "Your Suggestions", and features a picture of a trash can with a smiley face.
• Take a Third Option: In the final choice of the Thief/Allies route, Henry and Ellie can join the Toppat clan as they originally intended (though Henry will have to give up the Ruby to do so), throw their lot in with the government who Henry had previously went rogue against to obtain the Ruby, surrender to the Wall (obvious bad choice), or to join none of them. Subverted, with the "None" choice leading to the duo making a defiant leap down the rocket which ultimately leads to their demise when Ellie's knife gets them stuck too far up the rocket to drop safely.
• Take Your Time: Zigzagged. Most of the time, the player doesn't have to hurry with their choices and can carefully examine them. However, there are also situations in which not making a choice within a matter of seconds will automatically result in failure. Complex introduces a timer in the top of the screen which indicates how long you have to make up your mind in these cases. Then there's one segment (in Complex) that slowly adds options as the timer ticks slowly to 0. However, the answer is to allow the timer to run out; all other options end in failure.
• Talking Is a Free Action: An aversion forms the basis of a Failure in Mission. Because Charles spends so much time discussing his plan with Ellie and Henry, the rocket they're on is outside Charles' reach by the time they agree.
• Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: In Prison, the wall in Henry's cell has these. He's been in prison for 33 days at this point.
• Teleporter Accident:
  • The Teleporter's reliability is finicky, only working as intended two times out of six usages of the device.
  • A FAIL in Airship is due to Charles trying to teleport a platform into the Airship so Henry can cross a pit; unfortunately he teleports the platform into Henry, causing him to fall into the ship's gears below him.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Ellie (see Smurfette Principle above) and every female character are differentiated from the boys by their hair.
• Thanking the Viewer: In The Henry Stickmin Collection, you can unlock an additional bonus scene by achieving 100% completion of every single game. In this scene, it's revealed just who sent that package to Henry in Prison; you, the player. Then, it cuts to a black screen, with the following...
  Thank you for enjoying the Henry Stickmin games all these years.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: One of the background characters in Mission is Henry Stickman, who, after constantly getting mistaken for our criminal protagonist Henry Stickmin, decided to go ahead and become a criminal by joining The Toppat Clan.
• Third Time's The Charm:
  • The infamous teleporter, which only works properly in Diamond; the third game it appears in. It then fails in each of the next two games before working again in Mission.
  • Asking Charles to help Henry in Airship and Complex leads to failure, but in the Government/Dead route of Mission, it actually works.
• Throwing the Distraction: One of Henry's few tricks that consistently works (probably because it's so mundane).
  • He distracts a guard by throwing a penny in Diamond and runs past the guard when he looks at it.
  • In Complex, he throws a guard's hat past some guards, which causes them to go investigate and arrest the hiding other inmates in the process, allowing him and Ellie to use the elevator they were in.
  • Henry uses a similar trick in a different route in Complex, where he throws a whoopie cushion tied to a rock. The sound makes each guard think that the other farted, which leads to them fighting each other and allowing Henry to pass unnoticed.
• Time Master: In Mission's Revenged story, both Henry and Right Hand Man have "Spirits" that affects time. Right Hand Man's "Bottled Time" can slow down time once enough sand has filled up the bottle and can stop it completely if it's full. Henry's Reference can toss a person into a alternate timeline and changes them into their alternative self.
• Time Stands Still: One of the options chosen by a guy in Chaos Containment in Mission lets him do the ultimate freeze, which freezes time and shows the game is paused in the top right corner. It ultimately doesn't lead to anything but a FAIL, though.
• Title Drop: At the beginning of the Government/Allies route in Mission, Charles says, "With the three of us, we'll have no problems… Completing the Mission."
  Ellie: Why did you say it like that?
• Too Fast to Stop: In Complex, Henry can put on Speed Shoes, but that makes him run so fast he crashes into a wall. He can also run straight into several walls in fails if the player isn't good enough at quicktime events.
  • In the Thief/Dead route of Mission, when Henry stops and asks a guard to let him through, the guard agrees, only to later realize his mistake. The guard claims that henry was too fast to stop.
• Totem Pole Trench: In Complex, Henry and Ellie can try this to get past a pair of guards. It doesn't work.
  FAIL Screen: I don't see how being taller was supposed to help.
• Train Job: The Bounty/Allies route in Mission has Henry and Ellie team up to raid the Toppat's train convoy and steal their money car, while the Bounty/Dead route has Henry pull off the job himself. Subverted in the Government/Ghost route, where Henry instead uses the train to infiltrate the Toppat launch site and pull off a job there. Averted entirely in the other routes, where the train is visible at the launch site, very much intact.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction:
  • The eponymous Tunisian Diamond from Diamond is colossal; just as big as Henry himself. In the Unseen Burglar route, he exploits this by dropping the diamond on the head of an unsuspecting guard.
  • In Airship, the Pure-Blooded Thief scenario involves Henry finding and stealing a ruby of identical proportions to the diamond (known as the Romanian Ruby) from the Toppats.
  • The Thief/Ghost route of Mission has Henry complete the set by taking another gem of the same size owned by the Toppats, the Norwegian Emerald. Throwing it like the diamond at the Right-Hand Man doesn't work at all due to both being on the same level.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: While there's a tendency for more mundane objects to be the correct option, there's no guarantee that a certain type of item will always be the right choice, either due to outside interference or Henry himself messing it up. There are also occasions where the crazier or more outlandish options are actually successful due to sheer luck or Toon Physics suddenly coming into play. What keeps this acceptable is the game instantly puts you back at your last choice and many of the failures are hilarious.
• Trojan Horse:
  • In Bank, the only choice that doesn't end in a FAIL is hiding inside a money bag and letting the guards take it into the vault. Unfortunately, upon leaving the bag Henry sets off an alarm and cannot escape the vault, let alone with its contents in hand.
  • You can try this in the Government/Ghost route of Mission, in an obvious Call-Back to Bank, but this time it fails simply because the guards can't be bothered to actually load Henry onto the train, and just leave him there.
• [Trope Name]: Taking a jab at how the various dubs of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure change Stand names that refer to copyrighted bands and songs, Henry's stand (or "spirit" as it's called) in the option parodying it is simply called "Reference."
  • The fake options in Capital Gains represent standard formats of options throughout the rest of the series, possibly bar "Your Suggestions".
• Two-Keyed Lock: In the Executive/Allies route of Mission, the Toppats' rocket requires two people (in this case Henry and Reginald) to start a five-minute countdown for the rocket.

U

• Unfriendly Fire:
  • In Airship, Charles tries to use a gatling gun to blast open a door. It results in Henry and a Toppat Clan mook getting mowed down... and the door is completely undamaged.
  • In Complex, in a standoff with some guards, Henry can choose the sniper rifle; if Ellie chooses the crossbow, Henry will attempt a 360 no-scope and accidentally shoot Ellie, who is standing next to him.
  • Another in Complex, where Henry can tell Charles to shoot the guard in front of him. Charles mistakes Henry for the guard and shoots him.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In the Government/Allies path of Mission, Henry's plan to stop the Toppat's space station before it reaches orbit is the one we get no details on, and it's the only one that succeeds.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: During the "Betrayed" route in Complex, apparently none of the guards in the Wall notice the Toppat Airship just outside the Cafeteria until the Toppats attack them.
• Unwinnable by Design:
  • Bank is intentionally designed as this: every single option results in a fail, and the one option that "works" ends with Henry getting arrested.
  • The Sticky Hand route in Airship. Both options lead to a fail, with the ball and chain leading to a Kaizo Trap disguised as an ending.
  • If the player only obtained the "Pure Blooded Thief" ending in Airship, they will be unable to continue from the "Phone a Friend" scene in Complex.
• Updated Re-release: The Henry Stickmin Collection features all five previous entries with updated graphics and a new, final sixth entry. Even the prototype game in the series, "Crossing the Pit", gets a nod.

V

• Victory Fakeout:
  • In Airship, it's possible to get an early ending, "Lightning Quick Larcenist", except that the item that Henry stole turned out to be a teddy bear in a large safe. This results in the music trailing off, and Henry about to be shot by a frustrated soldier.
    FAIL Screen: A winner is you!
  • If you choose the Thief/Allies route of Mission, Henry and Ellie can team up with the Toppats to defeat the government forces and Dmitri. The Toppats welcome Henry and Ellie aboard, their rocket takes off, and the "MISSION COMPLETE" text starts to appear — but gets no further than "MISSION" before Dmitri attacks Henry from behind. Once he's dealt with once and for all, the "MISSION COMPLETE" screen appears for real and the credits start to roll.
  • In the Thief/Dead route, Henry can choose to accelerate the rocket to full speed in order to escape the Right Hand Man's tether. It seems to work, and the "MISSION COMPLETE" text appears on screen… and then the rocket's engines stop and it falls to earth.
    FAIL Screen: Outta gas.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Choosing to help Ellie in Complex after she helped Henry escape will give you a partner that can help Henry escape and ultimately leads to one of the most heartwarming endings in the entire series when they finally escape together. On the other hand...
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can also choose to leave Ellie behind instead right after she helped Henry escape, complete with an "Ellie will remember that." message from the game itself to really drive it home.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Abandoning Ellie bites Henry hard in Mission if you take the Executive/Ghost path; Ellie sneaks onto Henry's transport back to the Toppat airship, calls Henry out for his selfishness in front of the clan, and usurps his position as leader.
• Violation of Common Sense: A large number of correct choices. Often, the FAIL screen for these choices will either point out the obvious flaw in your logic, or flat-out ask you what on earth you were hoping to achieve.
• Villain Protagonist:
  • In the first few games, Henry Stickmin is a burglar, willing to take out pretty much anyone who gets in his way, be they evil goons, police officers or museum night guards. But starting with Airship, his morality becomes more dependent on the choices made by the player.
  • Ellie Rose also counts as she is a criminal like Henry. And just like him, her morality is dependent on the choices made by the player if she is tagging along with him.
• Visual Pun: When Henry dies in "Build" option in Mission, one of the few items he drops is a stick, which makes sense since he's a stick figure.

W

• Waiting Puzzle:
  • Timed choices normally lead to automatic FAILs if Henry doesn't do anything in time, but to get the "Presumed Dead" ending in Complex, he has to wait until time runs out on the last choice and ignore the options that pop up as the timer slowly depletes.
  • The Thief/Dead route in Mission has a similar puzzle, where the correct option is to let time run out and allow Henry to plow into a pair of Toppat guards.
  • While not a winning ending per se, the most difficult part of getting the achievement in Diamond for seeing all unique FAILs is realizing that one of these FAILs requires waiting several minutes at the start of the Epic route for the security guards to finish a lengthy conversation. The remastered version of the game significantly cuts down the length of the conversation, and also adds a visible countdown.
• Walk the Plank: The Toppats and Ellie make Henry do this in the first choice screen of the Executive/Ghost route in Mission for his denouncement as leader. Remember that they're on an airship.
• Wardens Are Evil: The warden of The Wall Dmitri is a callous man who mistreats his employees and inmates alike, and only cares about his reputation.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Reginald asks Henry this at the end of the Executive/Betrayed route of Mission, just before he dies from his injuries. Henry doesn't respond.
• Watch Out for That Tree!: Err, pillar.
  • Early in Diamond's Epic route, Henry throws an airplane and knocks one of two guards down. The other one attempts to run and find help, only to meet a pillar face-first and KO himself.
  • Similarly, in Prison, if Henry dodges the wrong way during a chase scene, he runs face-first into a pillar.
  • The vehicular shootout in Complex can end in Henry crashing into a tree because he's too busy returning fire to steer the truck.
• Wave-Motion Gun: In the Jewel Baron route of Mission, the Toppat Space Station is revealed to be equipped with a giant laser cannon called "Supreme Dominance". As Henry uses the Norwegian Emerald to reflect its beam, it slices the Toppat Space Station and itself in half.
• Weapons That Suck:
  • In the "Earpiece" route of Airship, Henry can use a vacuum to suck up the hatch and the Toppat member guarding it to enter.
  • In Mission, Henry reaches the "Cleaned 'Em Out" ending by using a SuccPak to suck up all the Toppats' valuables and equipment, minus a car which he uses to escape.
• We Can Rebuild Him:
  • In the routes of Mission that follow Airship's Bounty and Executive endings, Right Hand Man has been brought back to life after his battle with Henry thanks to cybernetic surgery.
  • Henry himself is resurrected this way in the Executive/Betrayed route.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Inverted. If Henry survives but Charles or Ellie is killed, it still results in a fail, so he needs a loyal ally to live.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • In the Allies route of Complex, one of the options to get past the two guards is an impromptu dance routine. The distraction works a little too well, leading Ellie to get distracted as well.
  • In the Government/Allies route of Mission, Henry and Ellie get through a room full of Toppat members by distracting them with a wicked dance routine.
  • In the Government/Rescue route, Charles distracts another room full of Toppat members by hacking into a dancing robot named "Topbot" that, presumably, the Toppat Clan themselves have been using for this exact purpose. You also have the option of distracting them by playing a TV show on a wide-screen monitor outside the window, but that fails when Henry also gets distracted by it.
    Topbot: Look at me! I'm a dancing robot! Do not get distracted by other things!
• Wham Line: On the Betrayed ending of Complex, Henry makes a daring jump from his scooter and just barely makes it to the Toppat Airship thanks to Reginald catching him. Just when it looks like Henry's in the clear however:
  Reginald: That was a close one Henry! But I'm not going to pull you up.
• Wham Shot:
  • The MISSION COMPLETE text at the end of the Valiant Hero ending, indicating that Charles' demise isn't just some silly fail; he's Killed Off for Real.
  • The beginning of the Executive/Ghost path, where Henry makes a return to the Toppat airship after escaping his imprisonment in the Wall... followed by a brief shot of Ellie having hitched a ride on his pod.
• What the Hell, Player?:
  • The FAIL screen frequently calls the player out:
    • In Diamond, using Drop to jump down to steal the diamond doesn't work, as Henry injures himself from the fall, all while setting off the alarm
    • Choosing to have Charles help Henry in Complex will have the flavor text on the FAIL screen tell you "Not again! You should know better!"
  • In Airship, using the Teleporter results in Henry glaring at you for making him use it, knowing it has failed before.
• Wheel o' Feet: In Complex, Henry can use a pair of Speed Shoes to get away from a guard. It just slams him into a wall when he finds himself unable to stop.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Comes up in the Thief/Dead route of Mission, where all three options are "Hammer". The left option will have Henry hammer at the glass on the rocket's nose, but not get far before a sniper shoots him. The middle hammer will have Henry hit himself. The right hammer will have Henry hit the bullet back at the sniper.
• Whoopee Cushion: In Complex during the "ghost" route, Henry can distract two guards by throwing a whoopee cushion tied to a rock into the room. The two guards will think the other farted and fight each other, giving Henry an opportunity to sneak past them.
• Wingding Eyes:
  • Henry gets these during the introductory cutscene of Diamond, when he hears about the value of the titular diamond.
  • Dmitri gets one in Complex after being whacked in the face by Ellie with a stop sign. He's missing a few teeth and one eye is and X and the other is an @ all with a goofy, open smile.
• A Winner Is You: The Worthless Treasure Twist mentioned below has this as the FAIL text.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing:
  • The final solution to the Presumed Dead ending in Complex has Henry sit there and let Dmitri push him off a cliff. This allows him to fake his own demise and escape.
  • In the Thief/Dead route in Mission, Henry is charging towards the rocket on his scooter and must risk busting through a crate or making a jump off a ramp to progress, since Icepick and Sal Malone are in the way. Choosing the crate causes Henry to be stuck with at least a dozen proximity mines and explode, while choosing the ramp subjects him to the rules of Mario Kart and gets him nailed by a Spiny Shell. The correct answer is to do nothing, which gets Sal run over while Icepick is too self-absorbed in changing his signature hat to do anything about it.
• Worth It: One of the FAILs in the Government/Rescue path in Mission allows Henry to ignore Charles getting shot by a SAM turret to eat a cupcake.
  FAIL Screen: Worth.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: One of the scenarios in Airship ends with Henry stealing a vault from the airship, which turns out to contain nothing but a teddy bear.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Downplayed with Dmitri, who gets to see Henry as one in the Presumed Dead route of Complex, telling him that he's legitimately impressed Henry managed to break out of the supposedly inescapable Wall. In the Convict Allies route, on the other hand, he has a Villainous Breakdown over Henry accidentally achieving the similar accomplishment of causing a Prison Riot in the Wall.
  • Right Hand Man views Henry as a good rival in certain routes in Mission. Bounty/Ghost in particular has him personally track down and imprison Henry, and choosing the Nano-Suit in the cafeteria has him remark "impressive" when Henry manages to catch his punch.
• Wrench Whack: Subverted in the Government/Rescue route in Mission. Henry tries to break the engine to the Toppats' rocket by whacking at it with a wrench, only for the engine to suddenly get an upgrade.
  Sven Svensson: [over PA] Seems like the engine's ready sooner than we thought it'd be. Let's get out of here!
• Wrong Parachute Gag: In one of the route-specific choices in Prison, Henry can use a backpack labelled as "Parachute" in the option menu to fall down from the prison's roof, only to find out that it's just full of random things without the supposed parachute. The FAIL screen lampshades this:
  "I think that was just a regular backpack. See what happens when you assume?"

Y

• You Are Fat: A Running Gag of the series. The fail screen frequently makes fun of Henry's weight whenever he accidentally breaks pipes, or fails to be carried by Ellie.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Zig-zagged in Mission; in most routes, stopping the Toppat Clan from launching their orbital station is Henry's primary goal, while in Bounty/Ghost, Thief/Ghost and Government/Dead, the launch has already succeeded and Henry has to bring it down from orbit. Then there are routes where Henry's goal is to ensure the launch succeeds, routes where Henry's goal is only tangentially related to the station's launch, and finally, there's the Executive/Ghost route, where the launch isn't mentioned at all.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Complex:
  • In the Ghost route, Henry convinces Ellie to give him a lift into the vents, and then abandons her to escape on his own. The game warns you that "Ellie will remember that", and it royally bites Henry in the ass if he chooses the Executive/Ghost route in Mission.
  • Subverted on the Allies route; Ellie rides away on Henry's bike once he's been tackled… to grab a stop sign and knock out Dmitri so Henry can also escape.
• Your Head A-Splode: Happens to Henry in Complex when trying to use the Sonic Pulse.
• Your Other Left: In the Government/Allies route in Mission, choosing Ellie's plan will have Charles be required to wait outside the forward left booster of the rocket with his helicopter, so Henry and Ellie can jump in before the engine explodes. This leads to a FAIL, since Charles assumed that Ellie meant his left.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Should the player choose the cannonball route in Airship, the Right Hand Man tries this twice with Henry in order to help Reginald escape from the latter.

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