Literature / 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

"That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?"

— Ecclesiastes 7:24, The Bible

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a 1869 French adventure novel by Jules Verne. It has a strong focus on technology, existentialism, and marine biology.

During a visit to America, Professor Aronnax, a famous French marine biologist, is invited to join a US Navy expedition in the hunt for a mysterious sea monster (believed to be a giant narwhal) that has attacked and damaged two ships. Once they find the narwhal, it attacks, causing Aronnax, his trusty manservant Conseil and Ned Land, the ship's Canadian harpoonist, to fall overboard (well, Conseil jumped, to rescue the Professor). They clamber onto the only dry spot in the sea, namely the narwhal's back, expecting to drown as soon as it dives. Then a hatch opens...

The mysterious narwhal is in fact not a whale, but a high-tech electric submarine known as the Nautilus, owned and designed by the mysterious and eccentric Captain Nemo. While refusing to put our heroes ashore, he lets them live, and takes them on a fantastic journey under the seas of the world, showing them the many wonders of the world beneath the waves. Aronnax finds himself torn between his passionate interest in marine biology and his desire for freedom—should he try to escape with his comrades or stay and find out why Nemo sails around the world?

The novel has a sequel, The Mysterious Island, which tells Nemo's Back Story.

Fun fact that people sometimes forget: the title refers to the distance the Nautilus travels horizontally over the course of the book, not the depth it dives to. 20,000 leagues vertically would be impossible, being 80,000 kilometers,^note Verne used the metric league, which is 4 km or twice the circumference of the Earth. The translation is partly to blame; a closer translation would be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the 'Seas', which is sometimes used in more modern translations. A Saturday Night Live sketch with guest host Kelsey Grammer as Nemo lampshaded this misconception.

The book is now out of copyright, and the original French text can be obtained from Project Gutenberg here. This English translation, done by Verne scholar Frederick Paul Walter, is a modern, highly accurate translation of the book, free of the errors that many other editions of the book have. Alternatively, check out the most common edition here. This translation, done by the Reverend Lewis Page Mercier, is widely considered to be the worst translation of the book; it is riddled with errors and censorship, as well as incorrect numbers (for example, the density of steel is given as .7 to .8 times that of water, while Verne really wrote 7.8 times that of water, which is the correct value). Sadly, it is also the most common translation—check your bookshelves for this version!

This also allowed life-long fan and mini-submarines builder Pat Regan to publish a sequel (mostly inspired by Disney's movie), titled Vulcanium.

The best-known adaptation of the novel is without much doubt the 1954 live-action film by Walt Disney Pictures. Atlantis: The Lost Empire, also by Disney, is very inspired by the novel.

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The novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea shows examples of the following tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo: The Nautilus crew's armament of choice is an air-rifle that fires a glass bullet containing a small capacitor. When the glass shatters, the capacitor unleashes its charge, instantly killing the target.
• Above Good and Evil: Captain Nemo claims to be outside of and done with society as a whole, and his submarine grants him unlimited power. However, his compassionate nature prompts him to stick to numerous rules of society despite no longer applying to him anymore, making this a subversion.
• Absent-Minded Professor: Aronnax has this a few times. One chapter has him declare a book he's been engrossed in for several hours as utterly brilliant, which Conseil is bemused by. When Aronnax asks what's so funny, Conseil tells him to check the spine to see who wrote it... turns out, it was Aronnax himself, and he'd completely forgotten about it.
• Adapted Out: This is often the fate of Conseil in adaptations after the 1954 Disney version. Even in that one, he isn't very much like his book counterpart. In more recent adaptations, Conseil is often replaced with an original character who may be a Token Minority (often with Politically Correct History thrown in). Sometimes, the replacement character is Conseil In Name Only. Whatever the case, this replacement character is typically not just a servant to Arronax, but rather his (or sometimes her) own person. This may have to do with Values Dissonance. ^note To be fair to the original, Conseil is like a student apprentice to Arronax which justified his servitude. Modern day STEM graduate students may find a parallell or simply the fact that Conseil in the book was given little characterization other than his encyclopedic knowledge of zoology and his devotion to his master Arronax.
• An Aesop:
  • Technology Is Evil because Humans Are Bastards: Just Think of the Potential! to do good with a Cool Boat like the Nautilus! But before that, It will be used by Submarine Pirates as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
  • A Weapon of Mass Destruction is an Artifact of Doom. No Man Should Have This Power and if he does, he becomes an Übermensch.
  • No matter what a wholesome Nice Guy you genuinely are, if you become an Übermensch because you have a Weapon of Mass Destruction, for a time you will be The Anti-Nihilist, but slowly but surely you will become a Nietzsche Wannabe.
• Affably Evil: Deconstructed by Captain Nemo, who is a genuinely noble Nice Guy who has access to technology enjoyed by none else. How can a truly good man cross the Moral Event Horizon? Because he is slowly but surely losing his sanity through the novel, and in the end he becomes a Death Seeker.
• All-Loving Hero: Professor Aronnax is a humble Wide-Eyed Idealist scientist that already had won the Undying Loyalty of Counseil before he comes to the Nautilus, he also makes Ned Land do a More Expendable Than You sacrifice when they are in the Pole, and he is ultimately the reason why Captain Nemo gets his Villainous Breakdown when Aronnax discovers the Nautilus is a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
• Ambiguously Gay: Professor Aronnax. He never mentions women (in fact, there's barely any mention of women at all in the book) and is clearly smitten with Captain Nemo, calling him a magnificent specimen and becoming so infatuated with him he delays his group's intended escape by several months in favour of exploring the sea with Nemo. It's commonly accepted that Aronnax had Stockholm Syndrome towards Captain Nemo, which is only broken when Aronnax witnesses Nemo committing unforgivable atrocities. The ambiguity comes in the actual intent of these compliments.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: When the Nautilus is trapped under the Antarctic ice. Verne, however, did his research. Oxygen is not a problem, due to the Nautilus having plenty of electricity and water around, but without caustic potash to bind the carbon dioxide the heroes are screwed anyway.
• The Annotated Edition: In 1976, American playwright, poet, and critic Walter James Miller produced an annotated English translation of this book that took the standard English translation (the Lewis Mercier translation mentioned above) and ripped it to shreds, pointing out and correcting every error committed by Mercier.
• Anti-Villain: Nemo. His hatred of the British is perfectly understandable, given his Back Story. However, attacking civilians for happening to be on a ship flying the wrong colours...
  • And the fact that he is holding everyone captive at that. He's pretty much a crystal clear Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Artifact of Doom: The Nautilus is this for Captain Nemo: by using it as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, Nemo discovers that With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
• Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction: It contains all three — The Nautilus is a technological marvel described in loving detail (some of which haven't stood the test of time, having been extrapolated from what was the cutting-edge of science), allowing the exploration of the seas more closely than any other method, and the implications of a rogue submariner running around sinking British ships in revenge for their colonial mishandlings.
• Atlantis: Captain Nemo shows Professor Aronnax the ruins of Atlantis.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Discussed. When Nemo is telling Aronnax about his vast riches, extracting gold from seawater is mentioned, but it would cost so much as to turn little, if any, profit. Especially when using advanced diving suits to get it from sunken wrecks is so much easier.
• Battle Butler: Conseil.
• Beard of Evil: Nemo is depicted with a beard in the 1954 Disney film version (probably the most well-known adaptation) and pretty much every adaptation afterwards.
  • He had a beard before that as well, in the 1916 black and white silent adaptation (which merged it with the sequel, The Mysterious Island into one story, as if the events all took place simultaneously, though the sequel was supposed to be many years later), Nemo has a beard, as well as wearing Blackface.
  • The beard already appeared in the original illustrations of the book, since the artist used Colonel Charas as a model—fitting as Charas' life was somewhat similar to Nemo's, and he may also have been Verne's inspiration for the character.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Lampshaded when Wide-Eyed Idealist Aronnax uses physiognomy to justify that a stocky character is a fool and the good–looking man is someone good, but rethinks this theory when the good–looking man (Captain Nemo) left him starving with their companions in a cell. Also Deconstructed later on when Aronnax begins seeing just how dangerous Nemo is...
  A disciple of such character–judging anatomists as Gratiolet or Engel could have read this man's features like an open book. Without hesitation, I identified his dominant qualities—self–confidence, since his head reared like a nobleman's above the arc formed by the lines of his shoulders, and his black eyes gazed with icy assurance; calmness, since his skin, pale rather than ruddy, indicated tranquility of blood; energy, shown by the swiftly knitting muscles of his brow; and finally courage, since his deep breathing denoted tremendous reserves of vitality.
  I might add that this was a man of great pride, that his calm, firm gaze seemed to reflect thinking on an elevated plane, and that the harmony of his facial expressions and bodily movements resulted in an overall effect of unquestionable candor—according to the findings of physiognomists, those analysts of facial character.
  I felt "involuntarily reassured" in his presence, and this boded well for our interview.
• Berserk Button: Ned Land discovers that he must never surrender to The Empire while Nemo is The Captain of the Nautilus.
• Big Eater: Ned Land, whose only interest in an any wildlife species seems to run entirely in a culinary direction.
• Broken Ace: Captain Nemo is a Renaissance Man to the extreme, a brilliant engineer, handsome, able to inspire incredible loyalty from his crew, and has the wealth of the ocean in his hand. Yet he holds a deep loathing for humanity, guilt over his actions, and is driven down a self-destructive spiral.
• Broken Pedestal: After spending the novel swimming in Stockholm Syndrome for Captain Nemo, Aronnax sees him performing a terrible Kick the Dog moment. And yet...
  I returned to the saloon, fearing and yet hoping to see Captain Nemo, wishing and yet not wishing to see him. What could I have said to him? Could I hide the involuntary horror with which he inspired me? No. It was better that I should not meet him face to face; better to forget him. And yet—
• The Butcher: Ned Land accuses Nemo of this when Nemo Kicks The Cachalots in a massacre.
• Canada, Eh?: Although the narration constantly reminds us that Ned Land is Canadian, he actually doesn't fit the modern stereotype in that he's loud, arrogant, and rather meatheaded (and whistles "Yankee Doodle"). It's entirely possible that he's a transplanted American who ended up living in Canada one way or another. Although for a Canadian harpoonist it fits, lumberjacks and fishermen aren't the shy ones even in Canada (even Yankee Doodle kind of make sense given how the culture between both countries were open even back then)
• The Captain: Deconstructed with Nemo, he is so charismatic a captain and so loved by his crew that nobody notices his Villainous Breakdown.
• Character Filibuster: Arronax tends to go off on long digressions about various species of marine life he's observed, interrupting the adventure story of which he's one of the main characters.
• Chromosome Casting: Almost the entire book takes place on the Nautilus, which has only male crew members.
• Claiming Via Flag: Captain Nemo, whose advanced submarine the Nautilus enables him to go places no one else can manage, arrives at the South Pole and sticks a gold-and-black flag in the ice. When Arronax asks him in which king's authority he's claiming the area, Nemo retorts that he's claiming it for himself.
• Closed Circle: Even when the Nautilus travels around the whole world, Professor Aronnax,Conseil and Ned Land are confined to the submarine. They only talk with Captain Nemo (all the other crew talk a secret language).
• Completely Unnecessary Translator: A variation occurs when Professor Aronnax, Conseil and Ned Land failing to understand the language used by their captors, try to talk to them in their respective native languages (French, German (Conseil is Dutch, but presumably uses German because Dutch is a very rare language outside of The Netherlands) and English, respectively). When their captors didn’t react, Aronnax attempted to speak Latin without success. In a second interview, the man that later presented himself as Captain Nemo told them:
  ...After some moments of silence, which not one of us dreamed of breaking, "Gentlemen," said he, in a calm and penetrating voice, "I speak French, English, German, and Latin equally well. I could, therefore, have answered you at our first interview, but I wished to know you first, then to reflect..."
• Conlang: Subverted because even when the Nautilus crew uses a language that Professor Aronnax cannot recognize, Verne didn’t bother himself making any words of it except "Nautron respoc lorni virch." that Aronnax thinks must mean: "There's nothing in sight.". Aronnax describes the language like this:
  "... a language I didn't recognize. It was a sonorous, harmonious, flexible dialect whose vowels seemed to undergo a highly varied accentuation".
  • Given that the Nautilus crew is a N.G.O. Superpower, it makes sense this language is a Conlang Completely Original, designed to substitute all the other “continental” languages that were original to each of the crew countries that the crew has abandoned. Aronnax observes that just moments before his death, one of the crew forgets to use that Conlang and ask for help in French. A hungry Ned Land also theorizes:
  "Don't you see, these people have a language all to themselves, a language they've invented just to cause despair in decent people who ask for a little dinner! Why, in every country on earth, when you open your mouth, snap your jaws, smack your lips and teeth, isn't that the world's most understandable message? From Quebec to the Tuamotu Islands, from Paris to the Antipodes, doesn't it mean: I'm hungry, give me a bite to eat!"
• Conspiracy Theorist: Played for Laughs with Ned Land: As a professional fisher, he doesn’t believe in sea monsters (giant narwhales or octopus), but he believes that his captors could be cannibals, that the language spoken in the Nautilus is a conspiracy to let him die of hunger (see Conlang) and in Artificial Human:
  "Haven't seen or heard a thing!" the Canadian replied. "I haven't even spotted the crew of this boat. By any chance, could they be electric too?"
  "Electric?"
  "Oh ye gods, I'm half tempted to believe it!"
• Cool Ship: The Nautilus, which has a greater range than any existing non-nuclear submarine.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Conseil can rattle off any animal or plant's exact order, class, phylum, genus and species, but only once he's told their name, being unable to actually identify a single one.
• Death Seeker: As Nemo's mental health deteriorates through the course of the story, he becomes more reckless.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: In-Universe: Ned Land asks Captain Nemo’s permission to hunt some whales. Nemo denies it and he accuses Ned of being an Egomaniac Hunter. Next they see some cachalots and Nemo destroys them using the ''Nautilus''’ spur. When Ned accuses Nemo as being The Butcher, Nemo answers that the cachalots were mischievous creatures and the Nautilus is his weapon. Verne shows us that no matter how much mistaken is the philosophy of Great White Hunter, they will never do the damage that the Ubersmench can do using science.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Conseil and Arronax geek out over a seashell that twists left-handedly instead of to the right. When a lucky shot from one of the attacking natives shatters it, Conseil promptly picks up a gun and shoots the man.
• The Dividual: Arronax believes that Ned and Conseil together would have made a remarkable naturalist (the former can identify most of the sea creatures they see, the latter can classify them in seconds).
• Driven to Suicide: Discussed when Conseil is concerned Ned Land is going to try to kill himself after months of being isolated from civilization aboard the Nautilus. This is also an interpretation of Captain Nemo sailing for the Maelstrom right after his Villainous Breakdown after breaking Arronax's trust in him.
• Dumbass Has a Point: In all of the book, Ned Land opines Captain Nemo is a despot and the trio of heroes must attempt the Great Escape as soon as possible. Professor Aronnax and Conseil are impressed with Nemo and their incredible voyage, and it's not until they see Nemo's more villainous actions before they realize Ned was the Only Sane Man.
• Dumb Is Good: Ned is the only non-intellectual among the heroes. Thus, unlike Conseil and Arronax, he can see through Nemo's games and tells his companions they must leave Nautilis as soon as possible.
• Dysfunction Junction: There are only four principal characters in the novel due to the Closed Circle: Conseil has so much Undying Loyalty that he considers himself an extension of his employer. Professor Aronnax practically swims in Stockholm Syndrome, Captain Nemo is having a slow Villainous Breakdown, and Ned Land slowly goes mad from the isolation.
• Egomaniac Hunter: Captain Nemo accuses Ned Land of being one when Ned ask him permission to hunt whales only because he wants to.
  "And to what purpose?" replied Captain Nemo; "only to destroy! We have nothing to do with the whale-oil on board."
  "But, sir," continued the Canadian, "in the Red Sea you allowed us to follow the dugong."
  "Then it was to procure fresh meat for my crew. Here it would be killing for killing's sake. I know that is a privilege reserved for man, but I do not approve of such murderous pastime. In destroying the southern whale (like the Greenland whale, an inoffensive creature), your traders do a culpable action, Master Land. They have already depopulated the whole of Baffin's Bay, and are annihilating a class of useful animals. Leave the unfortunate cetacea alone. They have plenty of natural enemies—cachalots, swordfish, and sawfish—without you troubling them."
• Egopolis: Captain Nemo displays a variant when he claims an entire continent for himself, acting like a sovereign (but see Exactly What It Says on the Tin below):
  ...Well now! In 1868, on this 21st day of March, I myself, Captain Nemo, have reached the South Pole at 90°, and I hereby claim this entire part of the globe, equal to one–sixth of the known continents."
  "In the name of which sovereign, Captain?"
  "In my own name, sir!"
  So saying, Captain Nemo unfurled a black flag bearing a gold "N" on its quartered bunting. Then, turning toward the orb of day, whose last rays were licking at the sea's horizon:
  "Farewell, O sun!" he called. "Disappear, O radiant orb! Retire beneath this open sea, and let six months of night spread their shadows over my new domains!"
• Enclosed Space: Subverted because Nemo let the three heroes explore land where an escape would be more dangerous than Nemo's hospitality in the Nautilus.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Aronnax at one point finds Nemo privately weeping in front of a portrait of (what is implied to be) his dead wife and children.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: While the earlier English translations tend to mess up many of Verne's measurements, the original French version is an account of a journey of 20,000 lieues, which is translated into English as "leagues". As is common with many early measurements, the exact definition of a "lieue" or "league" varies, but there is internal evidence in the story that Verne was using a metric lieue of 4 kilometres. (On multiple instances he gives distances in both lieues and nautical miles, which correspond exactly, if a "lieue" is 4km.)
  • Nemo reclaims the South Pole in his name. That means that no one owns the South Pole.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: A two-person variant. Aronnax is describing to Ned a real-life discovery of a giant squid, and after one point, Conseil begins describing the creature's details with disturbing accuracy, ending by saying that if the creature just outside their porthole isn't the same squid, it's a close relation.
• Expy: Captain Nemo is an expy for Odysseus: A great sailor, The Captain of a ship who commanded a Red Shirt crew, that claimed he was “No One”, who fought against beings he cannot defeat (Nemo against The Empire, Odysseus against Jerkass Gods) motivated by You Can't Go Home Again.
• Fantastic Firearms: The crew of the Nautilus use compressed-air guns loaded with elecrified pellets, since gunpowder won't work underwater. The bullets' High-Voltage Death properties are to compensate for their lack of kinetic stopping power.
• Fiction 500: Captain Nemo brags to Professor Aronnax that he is so rich, he could pay France's entire national debt. Later Aronnax discovers this is the truth in Vigo Bay: The superior tech of the Nautilus lets Nemo reclaim all the treasures lost to man in shipwrecks, before any other treasure hunter.
• Food Porn: Verne spares no detail in describing the food that the characters eat. Aronnax's Long Lists of marine life frequently indicate which specimens make particularly good eating. . . or particularly bad eating.
• Foreign Queasine: Subverted: The food served ship-side is fish and seafood only, and the heroes are somewhat reluctant to try lightly grilled sea-cucumbers and dolphin-liver ragout. However, Nemo's chef is apparently something of a genius and can crank out very tasty meals of whatever he is given to work with.
  • Ned Land, however, still prefers red meat, and goes hunting on land at every opportunity.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The first time he sees Captain Nemo, Aronnax instinctively trusts him because Beauty Equals Goodness, but later reevaluates his beliefs when it that same man is going to leave them starving in a cell. Cue the finale of the novel…
  • Looking at the marvels of the South Pole, Ned Land says that These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know… in just the next chapter, the Nautilus is Almost Out of Oxygen.
  • Ned Land is ashamed when Captain Nemo Kicks The Cachalots in a terrible massacre. At the end of the novel, Nemo will Kick the Dog again…
• For Science!: While Captain Nemo's motivation is For Revenge, Professor Aronnax is willing to sacrificing his freedom for the rest of his life For Science!. Thankfully, he is not willing to sacrifice his friends’ freedom.
• Freudian Excuse: Nemo. His wife and children were executed by the British because he fought on the losing side during the Sepoy Uprising.
• Freudian Slip: Aronnax, whilst having a discussion about oysters and pearls shortly after being informed that they were going shark hunting, says that some larger oysters have been claimed to contain up to 150 sharks.
• Freudian Trio: Conseil (superego), Professor Aronnax (ego), Ned Land (id).
• From My Own Personal Garden: Captain Nemo informs his prisoners that everything they are eating was taken from the ocean. Exaggerated because everything there is in the Nautilus is from the Ocean: the energy, the clothes, the cigars...
• Giant Squid: The crew of Nautilus (and Ned Land) fight half a dozen giant squid, one having wrapped itself around the submarine. It is the most recognisable point after Nemo and the Nautilus themselves and is a standard fixture in any adaptation, albeit most reduce the number of squid to one and some replace the squid with another giant sea beast altogether.
• Gilded Cage: Captain Nemo explains to Aronnax:
  "You said that we should be free on board."
  "Entirely."
  "I ask you, then, what you mean by this liberty?"
  "Just the liberty to go, to come, to see, to observe even all that passes here save under rare circumstances—the liberty, in short, which we enjoy ourselves, my companions and I."
  It was evident that we did not understand one another.
  "Pardon me, sir," I resumed, "but this liberty is only what every prisoner has of pacing his prison. It cannot suffice us."
  "It must suffice you, however."
• Go Mad from the Isolation: After seven months of not talking with any other human being except Captain Nemo, Professor Aronnax and Battle Butler Conseil, the independent and Book Dumb Ned Land, not interested in submarine investigation, is slowly going insane.
  I'll also mention that the Canadian, at the end of his strength and patience, made no further appearances. Conseil couldn't coax a single word out of him and feared that, in a fit of delirium while under the sway of a ghastly homesickness, Ned would kill himself. So he kept a devoted watch on his friend every instant.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Empire that slaughtered Nemo's family, the hunting of whom is a large part of what drove Nemo to become the dangerous man he is. The sequel confirms them to be the British Empire, whom Verne's predominantly French audience would have largely thought of as a Greater-Scope Villain in much of Real Life, too.
• Great Escape: Aronnax, Counseil and Ned Land are prisoners in the Nautilus. To regain their freedom, they must attempt a successful Great Escape because there will not be a second chance.
• Great White Hunter: Ned Land.
• Green Aesop: There are passages talking about how important marine life is. . . well, certain kinds of marine life, based on the old idea of "useful species." In particular, Aronnax at one point has a fairly long speech about overhunting of manatees and related animals choking rivers with kelp whose decay causes disease. That this is interspersed with scenes of the Nautilus crew engaged in massive fishing to sate both curiosity and hunger and the occasional wholesale slaughter of pods of sperm whales may seem schizophrenic to today's audience, but at the time, there was a clear divide between what was seen as "useful species," necessary for maintaining natural equilibrium (and thus, human comfort), species which were "mischievous" or malevolent and should be killed with impunity, and everything else, which can live or die at whim. Modern understanding of how interconnected ecosystems are somewhat undermines the point, but there's still a strong message of oceanic conservation in the text.
• Handshake Refusal: Professor Aronnax gets this treatment with Captain Nemo. Nemo doesn't distrust Aronnax, it's just to show how far Nemo has been subject to Madden Into Misanthropy:
  I thought the commander would offer me his hand, to seal our agreement. He did nothing of the sort. I regretted that.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Goes along with the Stockholm Syndrome and the Ho Yay. For example;
  This man was certainly the most admirable specimen I had ever met.
• Heel Realization: After Captain Nemos Kick the Dog moment, Wide-Eyed Idealist Aronnax realizes the true price of his travels with Captain Nemo:
  "He had made me, if not an accomplice, at least an eyewitness to his vengeance! Even this was intolerable."
• He Who Fights Monsters: Captain Nemo Majored in Western Hypocrisy and wants revenge against The Empire. He creates an N.G.O. Superpower with a Oddly Small Organization with her own Conlang, he claims a continent in his name, creates the Nautilus to conquer the sea and to use it as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, insists in only using sea related products, and the prisoners he considers valuable are placed in a Gilded Cage but those who not are mercilessly destroyed. Trying to destroy The Empire, he ends creating a society very much like it.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason Aronnax, Conseil and Ned Land will remain prisoners of the Nautilus and cannot come back to Civilization. Ever. (Captain Nemo lets them abandon the Nautilus and explore land, but it is always on uncivilized shores). Captain Nemo explains:
  "... You came to surprise a secret which no man in the world must penetrate—the secret of my whole existence. And you think that I am going to send you back to that world which must know me no more? Never! In retaining you, it is not you whom I guard—it is myself."
• Hidden Depths: All of the main characters, from Ned Land (who is unsurprisingly knowledgeable about marine life as befits a master harpooner despite his Book Dumb personality) to Nemo (see Wicked Cultured) show this at times.
• Historical Domain Character: Captain Farragut is named after the real-life Union admiral David Farragut, has the same job and manages to keep his ship from sinking in spite of poor odds, like his model during the Battle of Mobile Bay.
• Humans Are Bastards: Captain Nemo adheres to this belief:
  "Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of the reach of sharks."
  "Yes, sir, of sharks and men," gravely replied the Captain.
• Hunter of Monsters: Ned Land accuses Nemo of being The Butcher after observing him massacring the cachalots. Captain Nemo claims to be hunting dangerous plagues.
  "Well, sir," replied the Canadian, whose enthusiasm had somewhat calmed; "it is a terrible spectacle, certainly. But I am not a butcher. I am a hunter, and I call this a butchery."
  "It is a massacre of mischievous creatures," replied the Captain; "and the Nautilus is not a butcher's knife."
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Conseil, at least when it comes to cataloging wildlife.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: After Nemo Kicks The Cachalots and asks Ned Land his opinion, Ned claims to be a hunter and not a butcher.
• I Am the Noun: Captain Nemo:
  "I am the law, and I am the judge! I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor!"
• Idiot Hero: Verne's writing constantly informs us (and Conseil and Aronnax repeatedly lampshade) that Ned Land is a Hot-Blooded, Great White Hunter, Big Eater Real Men Eat Meat Book Dumb badass who is from Canada. Ned Land's personality also makes him the Only Sane Man capable of resisting Captain Nemo's charisma.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Ned Land (jokingly) threatens to eat Conseil if he doesn't get something other than fish to eat soon.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Nautilus's primary weapon is a ramming spur. Nemo has no compunctions about using it against wildlife he doesn't like or against shipping that's flying the flags of nations he doesn't approve of.
• Instant Death Bullet: Nemo's electric bullets kill anything in one hit except cephalopods, where it just goes right through.
• I Owe You My Life: Ned Land saves Nemo from a shark early on, and later is saved in turn from a giant squid.
• Ironic Echo: When the Nautilus is stranded, Nemo refers to it as an incident, not an accident. When trapped beneath the ice in the South Pole, Arronax asks again, only to be told this time it's an accident.
• Ironic Name: Conseil (Advice or counsel, in French) never gives advice, be he asked to or not.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Stock line from Ned Land, whose only interest in wildlife is culinary.
• Just Between You and Me: Subverted because Nemo never shares the evil part of his Evil Plan with Aronnax, just because he is ashamed of it. However, Nemo is constantly sharing all the information about the Nautilus and his scientific investigations about the Sea with Professor Aronnax, not because he will kill him, but because Nemo pretends that Aronnax will never abandon the Nautilus.
  Is it indiscreet to ask how you discovered this tunnel?"
  "Sir," the captain answered me, "there can be no secrets between men who will never leave each other."
  I ignored this innuendo and waited for Captain Nemo's explanation.
• Kick the Dog: Captain Nemo is implied to have destroyed ships with civilians and military crew, but the act of following up an attack with the Nautilus observing the horrible death of all the unnamed ship's crew on purpose, without losing any detail, is when Nemo really does it.
  • Captain Nemo Kicks The Cachalots in a terrible massacre:
  ... The sea was covered with mutilated bodies. A formidable explosion could not have divided and torn this fleshy mass with more violence. We were floating amid gigantic bodies, bluish on the back and white underneath, covered with enormous protuberances. Some terrified cachalots were flying towards the horizon. The waves were dyed red for several miles, and the Nautilus floated in a sea of blood..
• Lightning Can Do Anything: The Nautilus runs entirely on electrical power, as do Nemo's guns, to Arronax's amazement. Modern readers, on the other hand...
• Long List: Arronax goes into long descriptions of the sealife he encounters. Also the exact course of the Nautilus, which precise geographical features it encounters and where in the ocean it is with precise latitude and longitude. Unless you have a map and a marine biology textbook to hand, you can be forgiven for glazing over some of these passages.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: When Aronnax calls out Captain Nemo about the cruelty implied in never letting them go out of the Nautilus, Captain Nemo answers:
  "What! We must give up seeing our homeland, friends, and relatives ever again?"
  "Yes, sir. But giving up that intolerable earthly yoke that some men call freedom is perhaps less painful than you think!"
• Majored in Western Hypocrisy:
  "You're an engineer, then, Captain Nemo?"
  "Yes, professor," he answered me. "I studied in London, Paris, and New York back in the days when I was a resident of the Earth's continents."
• Meaningful Name: "Nemo" comes from Latin Nemō ("no one").
  • Also Greek for "I give what is due".
  • Ned Land. He wishes more strongly than any of the other captives to return to terra firma.
  • Conseil is French for "counsel", meaning advice. Inverted because Conseil doesn't like to give advice. This is lampshaded by the Professor himself.
• Meaningful Rename: Captain Nemo gave himself this name after he left the land.
• Message in a Bottle: Captain Nemo plans to use one to assure his research is not lost:
  "Here, Professor Aronnax, is a manuscript written in several languages. It contains a summary of my research under the sea, and God willing, it won't perish with me. Signed with my name, complete with my life story, this manuscript will be enclosed in a small, unsinkable contrivance. The last surviving man on the Nautilus will throw this contrivance into the sea, and it will go wherever the waves carry it.".
• Milkman Conspiracy: Deconstructed by the Nautilus crew, a truly new society with N.G.O. Superpower status is composed of… less than sixty persons. Less than four years after its creation, their existence has been discovered by The Empire, all the Western nations have organized against them and are chasing them implacably, their numbers dwindle because of this and because of normal accidents on the sea, and their leader, charismatic Captain Nemo, not only is bitterly conscious that their days are numbered (he plans to use a Message in a Bottle so all his sea research could be found), but is slowly breaking down due to using a Weapon of Mass Destruction to Kick the Dog repeatedly.
• Mistaken Nationality: Subverted, The novel emphasizes the mystery of Captain Nemo hiding his nationality. Even when his eyes are black and his skin is pale, Aronnax lampshades that he is not sure invoking Interchangeable Asian Cultures:
  "I admit that the nationality of the two strangers is hard to determine. Neither English, French, nor German, that is quite certain. However, I am inclined to think that the commander and his companion were born in low latitudes. There is southern blood in them. But I cannot decide by their appearance whether they are Spaniards, Turks, Arabians, or Indians." ^note In The Mysterious Island, it's revealed Nemo was Indian.
  • Originally, the idea of Verne was to make Nemo a Polish noble, exiled by the Russian Empire. But at that time Russia was an ally of France, so due to the censorship the editor (Hetzel) rejected the idea. Verne, aggravated by this decision, resorted to not mentioning Nemo's origins.
• Mobile Menace: The power of the Nautilus: In 1869, a submarine can journey to any part of the seas and destroy any ship!
  Moving within the moving element! It was a highly appropriate motto for this underwater machine, so long as the preposition in is translated as within and not upon.
• Mooks: The crew of the Nautilus speak a language no one else can understand and are seldom mentioned in the text, let alone described. Their only real purpose in the plot is to explain why the three protagonists can't just leave the submarine whenever they want.
• Monster Whale: Cachalots are described as hulking monstrosities who are mostly teeth and jaws. Anyone not familiar with archaic species names might be forgiven for thinking that Jules Verne was describing mythical beasts rather than sperm whales. That being said, this is a bit of a deconstruction, as Nemo's wanton slaughter of them to protect a pod of baleen whales is not portrayed in a positive light: the professional harpooner Ned Land doesn't bother hiding his contempt over this, and the massacre serves as an early indicator of Nemo's less savory side. The message is clear: even if they are monstrous, that doesn't give humans the right to massacre them wholesale.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-Universe, the event that finally causes Arronax to agree that they need to bail is when they witness the Nautilus ramming an unidentified nation's ship. Nemo seems aware of it too, seeing as he sets sail for the Maelstrom soon after.
• More Expendable Than You: Played straight by Conseil and Ned Land when they give Aronnax some precious oxygen in the Almost Out of Oxygen situation, then conversed:
  "Good lord, Professor," Ned Land answered me, "don't mention it! What did we do that's so praiseworthy? Not a thing. It was a question of simple arithmetic. Your life is worth more than ours. So we had to save it."
• Motive Rant: Captain Nemo gives one to Professor Aronnax when he tries to convince him not to Kick the Dog, and could be considered the beginning of Nemo's Villainous Breakdown:
  "I am the law, and I am the judge! I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor! Through him I have lost all that I loved, cherished, and venerated — country, wife, children, father, and mother. I saw all perish! All that I hate is there! Say no more!"
• Mr. Exposition: Professor Aronnax and Captain Nemo take turns at it. Aronnax for the marine biology and geography, Nemo for the workings of the submarine and geographical features which only the Nautilus could discover. A rare case where, more often than not, one Mr. Exposition is expositing to another.
• Never Found the Body: Aronnax wonders if Nemo and his ship survived the maelstrom and still pursues his submarine vengence, or whether he and his crew did indeed perish.
• Never Trust a Title: Subverted. At first glance, you may think that the Nautilus somehow went 20,000 leagues below the surface of the sea, but in truth, it's the horizontal distance travelled, not accounting for the Earth's curvature.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Captain Nemo's organization, the crew of the Nautilus: the Nautilus lets him loot enough submarine treasures to put him in Fiction 500, he can finance political insurrections like the Cretan rebellion, he claims the South Pole in his name, he destroys the ships of an unnamed Imperialistic Nation with total impunity. His crew is composed of men who have no place in earth and they have invented their own language.
• No Name Given: Nemo's real name is not revealed... until the sequel, that is: his name is Prince Dakkar.
• Not So Stoic: Conseil gets it twice: when shocked by an electric ray, and when a native slingshot destroys an extremely rare seashell. Conseil shoots him.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Subverted: Arronax used to practice medicine and is asked to treat a crewman with a massive head wound, but all he can do is confirm that he'll be dead in two hours.
• "Number of Objects" Title: The title refers to the distance the Nautilus travels horizontally over the course of the book, not the depth it dives to. 20,000 leagues vertically would be impossible, being 80,000 kilometers^note Verne used the metric league, which is 4 km, or twice the circumference of the Earth. The translation is partly to blame; a closer translation would be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the 'Seas', which is sometimes used in more modern translations. This is also a subversion of Never Trust a Title.
• Ocean of Adventure: The story follows a submarine owned and operated by the mysterious Captain Nemo and its journey through the depths, battling giant squid, visiting the submerged ruins of Atlantis, and terrorizing the ships of the surface world, who think it's a sea monster.
• Oddly Small Organization: For an N.G.O. Superpower capable of helping the Cretan Insurrection, destroying The Empire's ships and with its own language, the Nautilus crew is small: we only see Captain Nemo, his Number Two, and two unfortunate crewmen that die in the novel. And because they have severed all contact with inhabited continents, there will be no more crewmen. Aronnax made a calculation about less than sixty people:
  "... Which is tantamount to saying that the air contained in the Nautilus would be exactly enough for 625 men over twenty–four hours."
  "625!" Ned repeated.
  "But rest assured," I added, "that between passengers, seamen, or officers, we don't total one–tenth of that figure."
• Old Retainer: Conseil may only be 30, but his devotion to "monsieur le professeur" is mildly disturbing.
• Omniglot: Nemo is fluent in French, English, German, Latin, the constructed language he and his crew use, and probably far more languages.
• Pet the Dog: Nemo has several such moments, including sending assistance to Cretan rebels, saving the life and giving some pearls to a poor fisherman and weeping over the memory of his dead wife and children. See Anti-Villain.
• Phlebotinum-Induced Steampunk: The Nautilus is powered by electricity, then a new and exotic power source. Unfortunately, Verne overestimated what electric power was actually capable of, so the Nautilus as described in the book wouldn't function. Presumably this is why it runs on nuclear power in the Disney version.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: This is the dynamic between Captain Nemo and Ned Land. Nemo is Affably Evil, and Ned Land doesn’t pass any chance to insult Nemo, no matter how petty.
• Polyglot:
  • Nemo is fluent in French, English, German, and Latin, and claims to speak many other languages. He also has a strange language of his own that he and his crew use.
  • Professor Aronnax speaks French, some English (though he defers to Ned when needed), some Latin, and can read and understand German, but not speak it.
  • Conseil speaks French, German, Flemish (presumably, as that's his stated ethnicity), and, given his training and profession, probably at least as much Latin as Aronnax.
  • Even Book Dumb Ned is bilingual due to his nationality.
• Professor Guinea Pig: In a variation, Professor Aronnax is willing to sacrifice his own freedom for the rest of his life for the rare chance to discover all the sea’s secrets in the Nautilus.
• Psycho Electric Eel: Done with an electric ray that shocks Conseil out of his Third-Person Person and Stoic demeanor. In revenge, he eats it for dinner (but as noted by the professor, solely out of vengeance, because it wasn't even that good).
• Race Lift: As explained in The Mysterious Island, Nemo is an Indian prince, but was originally envisioned as being from Poland (which the original illustrations portray him as).
• Rage Against the Heavens: Captain Nemo at times. See Freudian Excuse.
• Ramming Always Works: Why the Nautilus needs a custom-built prow.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Verne himself had been a supporter of the Jeune École—the political advocacy group which aimed to raise French naval power to global dominance by implementing newest inventions into smaller, cheaper vessels to leapfrog the need for untenable monetary investment into a fleet the size of the Royal Navy.
  • Additionally there was a very brief window in the latter half of the 19th century where naval armor outpaced naval firepower, rendering ironclad warships nearly invulnerable to enemy fire. This led to a revival of ramming as a naval tactic and an obsession with putting rams on warships despite their dubious value. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was published right in the middle of this ramming rennaissance.
• Real Men Eat Meat: A problem for Ned Land, who is a most manly man, and the Nautilus rarely goes even remotely close to shore. He does eventually get some pork... and promptly stops wailing about not having meat when they almost are murdered by natives.
• The Remnant: Nemo and the Sepoy Uprising.
• The Reveal:
  • There is no sea monster, it was a submarine.
  • The last part of the book shows us exactly what Captain Nemo was using the Nautilus for when he asked his passengers to be in their cells.
• Right Behind Me: In one scene, Aronnax is talking about a giant squid that had been sighted a few years earlier when Conseil, looking out the window, starts asking questions like, "Weren't its eyes prominently placed and considerably enlarged?"
• Ripped from the Headlines: It is speculated that Verne got its inspiration from the real life Nautilus, a diving bell presented by American inventors Samuel Hallett and Henry Sears in 1858 in France. Its tests were covered by the Le Musée des Familles magazine, in which Verne worked at the time. Another inspiration has been proposed to be Spanish inventors Narciso Monturiol and Cosme García Sáez, who deployed functional submarines in 1859 and 1860 respectively.
• Satire: Very Juvenalian, the novel satirizes Imperialism: The Nautilus itself is a parody of The Empire—an Oddly Small Organization that manages to be an N.G.O. Superpower, their members only consume sea products and speak only their own language, but we never know any of them; they are nothing more than nameless masses. The only one who matters is Captain Nemo (the Emperor), who claims an entire continent in his name and constantly does horrible things for no other reason than because he can.
  
  The three prisoners personify a conquered nation's attitudes about The Empire: Aronnax is the high class, who tries to get all the knowledge he can from the Empire, Conseil is the middle class, who passively accepts his loss of freedom as something inevitable and doesn’t want to make a decision without the approval of the high class, and Ned Land is the lower class who rebels constantly and uselessly. However, after seeing Nemo’s Kick the Dog moment with his Weapon of Mass Destruction, the three classes agree that Nemo’s empire is as bad as any other.
• Science Is Bad: Subverted because the book shows us all the good things the Nautilus can accomplish. Only after The Reveal, Aronnax’s Heel Realization lets him know that those good things can’t justify the terrible violence. At the end of the day, however, the message is rather that science is not good or bad, but depends on how you use it.
• Series Continuity Error: Much of the information presented about Captain Nemo and his career in The Mysterious Island (at least the dates) doesn't make any sense at all when compared to the text of Twenty Thousand Leagues.
• Shout-Out:
  • At an early point in the book, the narration mentions a white whale named "Moby-Dick".
  • There's also a reference to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
  • The entire ending is likely to be a Shout-Out to another Edgar Allan Poe short story, 'A Descent into the Maelstrom', considering how much of an influence Poe was on Verne's writing.
  • Captain Nemo's name is a shout-out the The Odyssey, Nemo being the Latin translation of the name Οὖτις (Outis, "Nobody") used by Odysseus in his confrontation with the Cyclops.
• Shown Their Work: Holy crap, does Verne ever do this. The narrative reaches Moby-Dick levels of textbook-ness at times.
  • Leading to a lot of Science Marches On. A lot of the work, while reasonable from a nineteenth century perspective, is downright wrong.
• Spoiler Title: Aronnax wonders constantly when they might be able to escape, before mentioning how far they've traveled. Clearly they can't until they've gone 20,000 leagues.
• Start My Own: A lesser man would just become jaded and cut all ties with society, but Captain Nemo starts his own society recruiting other jaded men who hate The Empire, training them to build and operate the Nautilus, speak their own language, obtain all their resources from the sea, claim the South Pole, finance the Cretan Rebellion and converting themselves into an N.G.O. Superpower.
  "if I can trust my hunches, if I truly understand the captain's way of life, his Nautilus isn't simply a ship. It's meant to be a refuge for people like its commander, people who have severed all ties with the shore."
• Stockholm Syndrome: One of the rare non-romantic examples, outside of Ho Yay. (In fact, there are practically no women in the book at all.)
• Sub Story: The Trope Maker.
• Submarine Pirates: The Trope Maker.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Captain Nemo asks the three heroes to promise not trying to see… “something they must not see”, he could not phrase it without sounding sinister and exciting Aronnax' suspicions:
  It's possible that certain unforeseen events may force me to confine you to your cabins for some hours, or even for some days as the case may be. Since I prefer never to use violence, I expect from you in such a case, even more than in any other, your unquestioning obedience. By acting in this way, I shield you from complicity, I absolve you of all responsibility, since I myself make it impossible for you to see what you aren't meant to see. Do you accept this condition?"
  ''So things happened on board that were quite odd to say the least, things never to be seen by people not placing themselves beyond society's laws! Among all the surprises the future had in store for me, this would not be the mildest''.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Professor Aronnax is fascinated by Wicked Cultured Captain Nemo and his creation, the Nautilus, for seven months, and he certainly wants to delay the Great Escape to see more submarine marvels… until he sees Nemo Kick the Dog and and become far more ruthless.
• That Man Is Dead: Whoever Nemo was before he became "The Nameless Avenger", that man is so dead there is no reason to even mention him. He used to be an Indian prince, until the British slaughtered the entire royal court for their role in an Indian uprising. That included his wife and his child.
  "...I am dead, Professor; as much dead as those of your friends who are sleeping six feet under the earth!"
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Ned Land's opinion about the beauty of the South Pole’s icebergs (just before the Nautilus will be trapped by them).
  "It's a wonderful sight! Isn't it, Ned?"
  "Oh damnation, yes!" Ned Land shot back. "It's superb! I'm furious that I have to admit it. Nobody has ever seen the like. But this sight could cost us dearly. And in all honesty, I think we're looking at things God never intended for human eyes."
• True Companions: Captain Nemo claims (and the few interactions Aronnax had with the Nautilus crew never shows us any different) that this is the relationship between the crew:
  .."The Nautilus suffered a collision that cracked one of the engine levers, and it struck this man. My chief officer was standing beside him. This man leaped forward to intercept the blow. A brother lays down his life for his brother, a friend for his friend, what could be simpler? That's the law for everyone on board the Nautilus."
• Übermensch: Captain Nemo is an Unbuilt Trope: A Wicked Cultured Well-Intentioned Extremist who claims to be Above Good and Evil because he has done with the society and is practically above any law of the civilized nations thanks to the power of his submarine, the Nautilus. …However, he is a Deconstruction of the trope, because the contradiction between his unlimited power and his compassionate nature causes him a Villainous Breakdown. This dialogue between him and Professor Aronnax lampshade it 14 years before Also Sprach Zarathustra:
  "I have hesitated some time," continued the commander; nothing obliged me to show you hospitality. If I chose to separate myself from you, I should have no interest in seeing you again; I could place you upon the deck of this vessel which has served you as a refuge, I could sink beneath the waters, and forget that you had ever existed. Would not that be my right?"
  "It might be the right of a savage," I answered, "but not that of a civilized man."
  "Professor," replied the commander, quickly, "I am not what you call a civilized man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again!"
  This was said plainly. A flash of anger and disdain kindled in the eyes of the Unknown, and I had a glimpse of a terrible past in the life of this man. Not only had he put himself beyond the pale of human laws, but he had made himself independent of them, free in the strictest acceptation of the word, quite beyond their reach! Who then would dare to pursue him at the bottom of the sea, when, on its surface, he defied all attempts made against him? What vessel could resist the shock of his submarine monitor? What cuirass, however thick, could withstand the blows of his spur? No man could demand from him an account of his actions; God, if he believed in one -- his conscience, if he had one -- were the sole judges to whom he was answerable.
• Undying Loyalty: Exaggerated with Conseil, Professor Aronnax's servant. He risks his life to save his employer not once, but twice in the novel. When Aronnax talks with Ned Land about the Great Escape, Conseil considers himself one with his master's decision.
  "Your friend Conseil," the fine lad replied serenely, "has nothing to say for himself. He's a completely disinterested party on this question... He's in Master's employ, he thinks like Master, he speaks like Master, and much to his regret, he can't be counted on to form a majority. Only two persons face each other here: Master on one side, Ned Land on the other. That said, your friend Conseil is listening, and he's ready to keep score."
  I couldn't help smiling as Conseil wiped himself out of existence.
• The Unreveal:
  • Aronnax never discovers Captain Nemo’s true name nor nationality.
  • Aronnax writes the last chapter of his book in South Norway. Any form of Travel between upper Norway and the south is limited, and thus he still hasn’t discovered what was the nationality of the ship Captain Nemo sank.
  • Aronnax faints after he hits his head against the Nautilus, and apparently he never asked Ned and Conseil how they escaped from the Maelstrom.
  What happened that night, how the skiff escaped from the Maelstrom's fearsome eddies, how Ned Land, Conseil, and I got out of that whirlpool, I'm unable to say. But when I regained consciousness, I was lying in a fisherman's hut on one of the Lofoten Islands. My two companions, safe and sound, were at my bedside clasping my hands. We embraced each other heartily.
• Villainous Breakdown: Inverted: after Captain Nemo ends up kicking the dog too many times, he breaks down not because his plans aren't working but because he is not Above Good and Evil. He also could have voluntarily run the Nautilus into The Maelstrom (an enormous whirlpool).
• Wealthy Philanthropist: Captain Nemo is fabulously wealthy thanks to both his initial fortune and that he's the only one with the technology to loot sunken galleons, which he uses to both help the oppressed and any people fighting the British.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: At the state of technology in 1869, the Nautilus is this: a submarine could easily destroy any ship in the sea without possibility of being persecuted when submerged in the sea. Nemo’s Kick the Dog moment shows how terrible its destructive power really is.
• Wham Line:
  • "But by this point observing, studying, and classifying were out of the question."
  • A lesser example is during the fight with the giant squid, when a crewman desperately calls for help in French, his native tongue.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Aronnax, Counseil and Ned Land are informed by Captain Nemo that, from his point of view, they are simple mooks and he threatens to invoke this trope. (See Übermensch).
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Justified. Nautilus was designed by Nemo, all the components ordered from different companies in different countries and shipped by the Nautilus crew to a remote island, where all plans and traces of their shipyard were destroyed after the Nautilus was completed.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Professor Aronnax must be constantly reminded that other people are not as good as himself. He really doesn’t want to believe that Nemo is doing something sinister, and Ned Land must remind him that the war ship that is shooting the Nautilus is doing it on purpose.
• Wicked Cultured: Nemo isn't quite a villain, but if he were he'd fit the trope. He has a library of 12000 books, all of which he's read, a collection of marine curiosities that would put most museums to shame, an art collection, likewise, and a keen interest in good dining. He also plays a pipe organ.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The book subtly shows how Captain Nemo is slowly but surely losing his sanity by using the Nautilus as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Captain Nemo is an early example: he adopts the Ocean as his new homeland and finances the Cretan Rebellion because he hates despots. However, the Nautilus permits him to destroy any of The Empire's ships with total impunity (no nation could chase him to the bottom of the sea). His superior technology means that even the military is as helpless as ordinary civilians. To the land-bound empires, Nemo is no better than a pirate, which had about the same stigma that "terrorist" has now.

"Two men can answer: Captain Nemo and myself."

—Professor Aronnax on the Biblical quote above.

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