Web Animation / Nomad of Nowhere

Nomad of Nowhere is a 2D Western-Fantasy animated web series from Rooster Teeth, created by Georden Whitman and directed by Jordan Cwierz, the latter of whom took on the role of showrunner following Witman's departure from the studio.

The series tells the story of the titular nomad, an infamous magic user with no name that has gone unseen for over a century, with only legends of his great and terrible powers being known. As such, no one is sure if the Bounty Hunter Toth and her crew, the Dandy Lions, are on a wild goose chase or not... at least until Skout, Toth's loyal spittoon girl and admirer, casually stumbles across him in a bramble forest. And what she finds is not a scary monster, but a sad and lonely Cute Mute who only wishes to use his ability to animate inanimate objects to make friends. Thus begins a journey across the desolate wastelands of Nowhere, as the Nomad tries to recollect his past and find companionship, Toth and other bounty hunters endeavor to capture him for their own purposes, and Skout comes to terms with exactly what side of this whole mess she wants to be on.

The show premiered in March 2018, with the first season ending in September that same year. A second season was put into production, with script writing getting "pretty far along", before being halted due to Rooster Teeth's restructuring in the wake of the WarnerMedia merger, and writing and animation staff were moved to other projects at RT such as RWBY.

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Tropes presented in the series:

• Bait-and-Switch: In "Eagle Canyon", Gov. Toro warns Paragon that he will personally kill the latter if he interferes with Toro's men searching for the Nomad. Don Paragon does die at the end of the season due to a Nomad-related failure, but it's El Rey that commits the deed via a flock of crow familiars.
  El Rey: Well, I guess I was a little upset.
• Big Damn Heroes: Nomad rescues Toth, Skout, and the Dandy Lions from a forest fire in the first episode.
• Big Bad: Don Paragon is this for the first season, though he's really a Big Bad Wannabe in the grand scheme of things (as Governor Toro himself lampshades). However, El Rey is the true overarching villain for the series.
• Bittersweet Ending: Plenty of 'em.
  • In "Trouble on Purpose", Nomad, despite defeating the outlaw and saving Bliss Hill, is forced to leave by the sheriff who, while incredibly grateful for his help, doesn't want the attention a magic user would bring.
  • In "The Kindness of Strangers", the Nomad escapes the Undertaker's home alive, but not without losing two animated objects he befriended.
  • In "Eagle Canyon", the baby eagle finally hatches safely after all the shenanigans its egg was put through. But Toth and Skout part ways after a fierce argument.
  • In the season one finale, "Fiesta", Don Paragon has been defeated, and so the Oasis and other surrounding communities will no longer suffer under his tyranny. Furthermore, the Nomad being responsible for that has further broken his Hero with Bad Publicity reputation around Nowhere, with him and Skout now having the courage to take the fight to El Rey's bounty hunters and Governors. Unfortunately, El Rey is now very much aware of the Nomad, and Toth's relationship with Skout has quite possible been irrecoverably ruined by the latter siding with the Nomad over her.
• Blind Without 'Em: Played for Laughs with the Near-Sighted Bandits, whose name makes clear they should wear glasses but they don't. Though once one borrows a pair from a passenger, things get worse for Skout and the Nomad.
• Blind Mistake: One of the Near-Sighted Bandits mistakes the Nomad for one of their own because he's wearing a similar handkerchief.
• Book Ends: Episodes 1 and 10 have the bad guys setting a place on fire to corner the Nomad, with the Nomad saving Skout and the Dandy Lions in the first and Skout saving the Nomad and the Oasis in the last.
• Brick Joke: Skout points out near the start of one episode that Toth's packed a ridiculous amount of knives. Later, the Nomad uses his magic to animate something in Skout's backpack. An instant later, a bunch of animated knives cut their way out of the backpack.
• Butt-Monkey: Red Manuel, with other characters constantly mocking him for his inflated ego. At one point, the Dandy Lions expressed hope that he had somehow died after they went an extended time without seeing him. When he expresses frustration about the lack of respect he recieves, Skout points out it doesn't help that he's constantly a jerk.
• Call-Back: Red Manuel gets a sheet thrown over him in Episode 11 just like he did in Episode 1.
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • In Episode 1, the Nomad is incredibly upset when an animated broom gives its "life" shielding the Nomad from an attack. In Episode 10, we learn that the broom originally belonged to Melinda, the witch who he had been sworn to protect a hundred years ago, and is one of the last objects he has to remember her with.
  • Don Paragon's Bad Boss tendencies were initially Played for Laughs in the earlier episodes, but Episode 6 reveals him to be a brutal sociopath who actually kills his own employees over ridiculously petty issues.
  • Red Manuel is mostly shown to be a hilariously boorish and incompetent idiot, but Episode 9 recasts his goofiness in a darker light when he has a genuine stroke of brilliance and simply follows the Champion of Toro to find the Nomad, and then tries to shoot Skout after he realizes she's helping the Nomad. Furthermore, Episode 12 reveals that his Jerkass tendencies are a result of him being tired of never getting any respect from anyone, which helps show him to be more pathetic than genuinely evil]].
• Cerebus Syndrome: Episode 5 quickly becomes incredibly dark, as the Nomad is nearly gutted by a demented cemetery keeper who callously destroys his objects brought to life in order to figure out necromancy. Episode 6 brings this further, with the resultant tone remaining as an undercurrent for the rest of the season.
• Circus of Fear: Subverted. It turns out the Twindleweed Brothers' Circus is composed of retired bounty hunters who capture the Nomad easily... but the only member who's actively evil is Twindleweed himself. The others are just desperate for money.
• Constructed World: The series takes place in "Nowhere," a mysterious world where magic seems to have disappeared for the last century and its inhabitants have had to "make do." The whole kingdom is ruled by the mysterious El Rey, with each quadrant of Nowhere administered by a different supernatural Governor. The first season takes place entirely in the Southwest region of Nowhere, which is primarily depicted as a harsh and vast desert. While there are cultural influences from Earth seen in the series (i.e., the use of Spanish by several different characters), the series also tries to emphasize this world being different from our own, with several examples like the existence of magic and presence of the Y'dala.
• Crown of Power: This is the backstory of the King El Rey, once centuries ago he was a warrior who discovered a mystical crown that granted him magical powers. Using it he ruled over the lands as a Benevolent Mage Ruler, until in his old age the crown's power began to fade. El Rey summoned a wizard to try to fix the problem, but instead the crown consumed the poor man, stealing his life and power to recharge. When El Rey put the crown back on, both his power and his youth was returned. Corrupted by the potential for power this gave him, El Rey became a tyrant and went onto consuming all the magic of Nowhere (save the titular Nomad) to ensure his dominion. It's even implied the crown itself is sapient, and very evil.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Episode 12 is ultimately one long battle between Don Paragon and the Nomad of Nowhere. The former gets his pampered butt handed to him on a silver platter.
• Cute Mute: Nomad can't talk. Not that you'd a expect a scarecrow without a mouth to be able to.
• Crapsack World: The southwestern region of Nowhere (where the first season takes place) is a harsh and bitter desert, with most of the natural resource wells finally drying up aside from Don Paragon's Oasis. Aside from our protagonists, virtually all residents encountered are either greedy and self-interested criminals/bounty hunters, or impoverished and desperate peasants. Those of the populace who don't fear or despise magic want to use it for their own ends, making it dangerous for a magic-user to stay in any place for too long. The rest of Nowhere isn't any better, as the whole kingdom is ruled by a magic-eating tyrant and the ruthless "Governors" he empowered to conquer the four quadrants of the known world.
• Creepy Crows: In "The Witch and the Knight" Melinda's father, a wizard, gets nervous and puts an end to the young witch's magic practice when he sees that there are crows flying in the air. In "Fiesta", El Rey appears before Don Paragon in the form of a murder of corvids, implying that these birds are familiars he uses to spy and talk to people.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The first episode hints that Nomad used to live with a young red haired girl similar to Skout, but something happened and now he's all alone. We learn in Episode 10 that said girl was a witch whom he was sworn to protect after her father died at the hands of El Rey's men. She wiped the Nomad's memories of her to prevent him from both ousting himself as a magic user and so that he wouldn't follow her in her attempt to battle El Rey.
• Deadpan Snarker: Null, of the Dandy Lions. He has no illusions about the nature of their job, tends to be the Only Sane Man of the trio that accompany Toth and Skout, and makes plenty of wry comments to both himself and others.
• Diesel Punk: The Ranch Hand in Episode 3 has a mechanical arm that needs to have a cord pulled to be started like a lawnmower. His claim that he got it from some place called "the Iron Border," along with other background details, implies that the Iron Border is full of this kind of tech.
• Didn't Think This Through: Toth tries to burn the forest down in the first episode while she and the Dandy Lions are still inside, despite Skout’s objections, nearly getting them all killed.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Played with. The Nomad that Skout meets in Episode 1 is clearly the one and only, but Skout (initially) believes it isn't him, since he looks nothing like his Wanted poster. Throughout the episode, she spends time with the Nomad she knows as "Friend", without a clue that the "Dreaded Nomad" is a misunderstood loner.
  • In "End of the Line", the civilians believe that the Nomad has caused all sorts of trouble, such as driving an undertaker insane and causing a circus to go bankrupt. All of those events were the result of the Nomad fixing more serious problems.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Episode 5 has an Undertaker with a rather morbid sense of humor. When he uses one of his puns on a visitor and they don't laugh, the visitor admits that they understood the joke; they're just offended by the unprofessionalism of it.
• Dying Race: The Y'dala. They may have longer lifespans than humans, but they need magic to survive. Thanks to El Rey taking most of Nowhere's magic for himself, there is little left for them. Hence why Toth is so desperate to find the Nomad. If she can bring him to Don Paragon, then he might agree to help Toth's people obtain some magic.
• Especially Zoidberg: When Toth insists that all the knives they've packed are needed for "stabbing."
  Skout: [holding up something that isn't so much a knife as a spiky corkscrew] Even this one?
  Toth: Especially that one.
• Failed a Spot Check: Skout when she first meets the Nomad. Averted in “End of the Line”, where she instantly sees through the Nomad’s attempt at a disguise and outright tells him that no one would ever be fooled by it.
• Fantasy World Map: "El Rey" shows a glimpse of a map depicting Nowhere and the known world. It also helps show the different biomes making up Nowhere, with the North being a mountainous alpine region, the West being a rocky desert, the South being a savannah, and the East being forests and grasslands along with the home of the "Iron Border."
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Southwest region of Nowhere is heavily evocative of The Wild West, though Don Paragon's Oasis and its related members bear a closer resemblance to the Spanish Empire than anyone else. From what little that we see, General Toro and his "Killosseum" are reminiscent of ancient Sparta. The Y'dala are treated in a similar fashion to Native Americans during the Wild West, especially in how the government takes their land and resources away from them and tries to take away their cultural heritage. The Y'dala's general fashion, however, is more evocative of the Middle East during the Medieval Era.
• Foreshadowing: You might notice that compared to other characters, the Nomad moves more floppily and kind of like a rag-doll. He's really a sentient scarecrow brought to life by a wizard.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Right as the Nomad is shot in the chest in Episode 9, and right before the Smash Cut to the credits, you can see the brief flash of white that's previously been seen when he does a good deed. The good deed in question? Taking the Bullet for Skout and saving her life.
• Gaia's Lament: Flashbacks in Episode 10 show that Nowhere was a lot greener in the past, but as time went on and El Rey took more and more magic users, the land became more desolate, to the point that multiple episodes have implied that the Oasis is the only major source of water left in the Southwest. Given that the Y'dala are said to need magic to survive, it's probably not a coincidence.
• Genre Mashup: The show combines numerous Western tropes with Fantasy tropes.
• Gilligan Cut: Don Paragon says that the Nomad can't have gotten far, as the harshness of the desert would have slowed him to a crawl. Cut to the Nomad merrily strolling across the desert, completely unaffected by the heat.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Toth and Skout fall into this when talking to civilians, but this is far more a consequence of their respective personalities than a deliberate act on their part.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Toth has a faint diagonal scar on her face.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: In contrast to Camp Camp, Nomad's language is much cleaner. Still, there is a disguised swear when Manuel is covered by a white sheet and yells "Oh sheet!"
• Gratuitous Spanish: Characters sprinkle in Spanish words here and there, like "huevos" and "vamonos". Red Manuel is especially prone to this. Amusingly enough, Don Paragon's habit of doing this ticks them off and they view it as uncomfortable.
• Greater-Scope Villain: El Rey is this for the entire series, as it's eventually revealed his crown corrupted him and started devouring magic users while appointing brutal Governors to rule over Nowhere in his stead, all of which has helped Nowhere devolve into a harsh desert by consequence.
• Guile Hero: The Nomad is an interesting example of this despite being a mute, as he often resorts to trickery and "thinking outside the box" in order to defeat his enemies.
• Heart Light: The Nomad's chest lights up when he does a good deed. No one, not even the Nomad, knows why this is. It also lights up when he's shot, but it might be because of the good deed he did in pushing Skout out of the way.
• Here We Go Again!: The Lions act this way to Toth’s speech in Episode 1.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The Nomad is the nicest being that you're likely to meet, but he has a really bad reputation. Heck, Skout didn't recognize him at first mainly because she couldn't reconcile the almost demonic visage on his wanted poster with the actual guy.
• Identical Stranger: Skout looks almost exactly like Melinda, the girl the Nomad was created to protect.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Living alone in the bramble has caused Nomad to be rather desperate for some form of companionship, even using his magic powers to give life to rocks and flowers.
• Improvised Golem: The Nomad can create living beings from inanimate objects like rocks or knives. The show has established some limitations on this power. He can't re-animate any formerly living thing (at least formerly living animals, because he does animate a wooden broom), he can't animate anything under the direct control of another being, he can't seem to keep large objects under control, etc. There's also some question about how much agency the things he animates have.
• Informed Ability: Supposedly Don Paragon's Dandy Lions are ruthless, cunning and are the finest soldiers in any of the Four Corners. Only Toth fulfills that description, and most of the rest are whiny, simpering idiots, with Red Manuel being a boisterous simpering idiot.
• Irony: The Undertaker wonders why the Nomad is upset whenever the former kills an animated object. "Do you feel responsible for them? Do you feel the need to protect them? Unless... they're here to protect you." For all his curiosity and theorizing, he never guesses that the Nomad is himself an animated object tasked to protect.
• Jerkass Realization: Red Manuel starts to go through one in Episode 12, as he starts to realize that the reason he never gets any respect is because he's such a prick all the time. It's unfortunately cut short when he gets flung halfway across the city by a cannon being fired.
• Just Following Orders: Played for Laughs by the Dandy Lions in Episode 1.
  Santi: These moral quandaries are above my pay-grade.
  Jethro: I concur. (proceeds to burn down the forest on Toth's orders)
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • The Undertaker in "The Kindness of Strangers," with him being the first legitimately terrifying threat encountered in the series.
  • He in turn is superseded by El Rey who makes his appearance by brutally executing Don Paragon for his failure.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • The Underkeeper's rambling over the Nomad's magic in Episode 5 and its possible "rules"/applications sounds more than a little like a viewer theorizing about how the Nomad's magic works.
  • Once the train Skout and the Nomad are in gets robbed in Episode 8, she asks "Why is it that every time we almost catch you a third party intervenes?!"
  • The guards around the room where the Nomad is captured in Episode 11 talk about how uncomfortable Don Paragon's use of Spanish makes them, especially since he's not from their region of Nowhere. Don Paragon's awkward and downright appropriative (for lack of a better word) use of it has been consistently noted by the fans across the season.
• Lighter and Softer: Moreso than most of Rooster Teeth's other fare; while there's still some darker moments, the overall tone leans more toward lighthearted comedy and adventure, and the series doesn't have as much swearing.
• Luminescent Blush: Skout does this a few times around Toth, cluing the audience in on Skout’s crush.
• Made of Incendium: The house and forest of the Nomad burn in seconds when exposed to fire.
• Made of Iron:
  • Big Jib took a shovel strike to the back of the head followed by repeated shovel strikes from the Undertaker, but all it does is knock him out for a few hours.
  • Both Skout and the Nomad survive a fall into an abandoned mine in Episode 9 with only minor injuries.
• The Magic Goes Away: Apparently there used to be a lot of magic in the world, but something happened after El Rey came to power that eventually left the Nomad as the last known being of magic. This is because of El Rey, who consumed the world's magic users after his crown corrupted him.
• Mildly Military: The Dandy Lions aren't particularly disciplined, frequently talk back to their boss, are whiny, and one is openly gunning to usurp his superior's position.
• Miles Gloriosus: Red Manuel. He thinks and acts as though he's Zorro, but in practice he's more like Wile E. Coyote.
• Morality Pet: Skout is the only one that Toth shows her softer side towards, like defending her when Manuel mocks her and saving her from a burning branch in Episode 1.
• Mustache Vandalism: When he sees a noticeboard covered in his own wanted posters, the Nomad reacts by grabbing the nearest pen and covering all of them in slightly different mustaches. They're still like that when Toth comes through later in the next episode.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Early in his travels, the Nomad comes across Bliss Hill, a village that’s been cut off from their water source ever since their water wheel stopped working. He brings the water wheel to life, but the mayor’s overt hatred of magic angers it. Before the Nomad can stop it, it destroys half the village and runs away. This also attracts someone after the bounty the Don's placed on him, who decides to take a kid hostage to force the Nomad to come to him. Thankfully, the Nomad comes back and helps sort everything out.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: The Nomad is almost completely indestructible due to being a sentient scarecrow, with only fire being seen as something that can actually kill him. Otherwise, even if he's cut to ribbons, he'll just sew himself back together.
• Origins Episode: Episode 10, "The Witch and the Knight", where the Nomad recovers his memories.
• Our Elves Are Different: Toth and Null are part of a people called the Y'dala, who have Pointy Ears, are Long-Lived, and apparently are endangered by the magic going away, all of which are common traits of fantasy elves. They're also Ambiguously Brown, have significantly higher strength and stamina than ordinary people (though that admittedly might be just Toth), and the two we've seen have red or orange eyes. In a flashback in Episode 10, they're even called elves directly.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Episode 8 has the Nomad board a train wearing a purple bandanna as a disguise. Skout immediately sees right through it and even lampshades on how obvious of a disguise it is.
• Pet the Dog: While Toth may be dead-set on capturing/killing Nomad, despite it being obvious he is not dangerous, she also is very protective of Skout.
• Pilot: "Sir Knight of Nothing" technically counts as this, being an old animated short Georden Whitman did in college that eventually inspired the series. The Nomad wears knight armor in Episode 10 as a Call-Back to this.
• Pointy Ears: Toth. Seems to be a trait of the Y'dala people, as another Y'dala Dandy Lion, Null, has them too.
• Poor Communication Kills: Toth almost gets the Nomad to come with her willingly, saying she needs to help her people. Problem is, the Nomad needs to save a bird before he can go with her, and Toth takes it as a sign of him trying to run away, igniting a brawl and putting them right back where they started.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: After the Champion of Toro says he'll always know where the Nomad is, Skout says "But you don't know where I am!" before pushing a mine cart onto him.
• Punny Name: Don Paragon sounds like Dom Perignon, a kind of champagne.
• "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: Parodied in the first episode. Everyone mocks Skout for the books she tries to use to learn how to survive in the wilderness, and while the information within is useful, the books don't actually help her and end up being dead weight that gets destroyed over the course of the episode. She even has to destroy the last one on purpose to save her team. That said, her "book-knowledge" allowed her to identify a poisonous plant Red Manuel stupidly touched, right after he threw away her book on plants.
• This Is Reality: In Episode 12, Skout tells it straight to Red Manuel's face that being a jerk won't win him the respect he craves.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • The Nomad is apparently over 100 years old, or at least, that's how long it's apparently been since anyone saw him before Episode 1.
  • The same goes for El Rey. He obtained his power and crown well over 100 years ago, and continues to rule over Nowhere thanks to his crown granting him youth with each magic user it consumes.
• Redhead In Green: Skout, who dresses in a park ranger outfit of sorts.
• Rhino Rampage: "El Rey" has an armored, electrical rhino attack Toth and Skout as they search for the Nomad in a sandstorm.
• Riding into the Sunset: The Season 1 finale ends like this, as a Western setting just calls for it.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The living rocks and pretty much every other object that the Nomad brings to life, thanks to their huge, googly eyes.
• Rousing Speech: In the first episode, Toth gives the Dandy Lions one before they head into the Bramble Forest. Subverted, as she's given that same speech so many times before that her men are no longer pumped, and just exasperated.
• Rubber-Hose Limbs: Every object the Nomad gives life to gains both these and big cartoony eyes.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • In "The Kindness of Strangers", the Undertaker wears spectacles throughout the episode. Near the climax, his spectacles are askew. By the end, he's missing his spectacles. This is a very telling indication of the Undertaker's sanity (or what little he had to begin with).
  • In "The Witch and the Knight", the first three times the scarecrow comes to life is different times of the day, mid-day, twilight and night. The first time at mid-day is during a time when there's still green and plenty, as though representing that the age of magic is still on the rise. The second time at twilight speaks for itself, as the land is growing barren, as though ushering the twilight of the age of magic. When the scarecrow lasts comes to life at night, signifying that the age of magic has ended.
    • Notably, Melinda's father is different ages in all three times he brings the scarecrow to life, not only representing the passage of time, but also the beginning, middle and end of Melinda's childhood with her father. He's a rather young father the first time, an older father with thinning hair the second time, and a greying, balding father during their last meeting.
  • Towards the end of "Fiesta", El Rey has his crow familiars devour Don Paragon. During the feast, a single black feather flies off a crow and hangs over the full moon, creating the image of El Rey's baleful eye.
• Running Gag: Skout's books keep getting taken away or eaten in Episode 1.
  • The Nomad not realizing that his own wanted poster is of him, which admittedly is because it doesn't resemble him in the slightest.
• Save the Villain: While not exactly "villains", the Dandy Lions are not exactly the most heroic of people. Yet despite trying to capture him and burning down his house and most of his forest, the Nomad didn't hesitate to save them (though mostly he went to save Skout).
• Schizo Tech: Nowhere's tech base is very eclectic. Most of what we see is reminiscent of The Wild West, but a lot of the region has elements borrowed from The Middle Ages and even earlier (i.e., Toth is dressed like she came out of One Thousand and One Nights, and the Champion of Toro's armaments are evocative of ancient Greece). Furthermore, some other elements like the Ranch Hand's arm speak more of Diesel Punk than anything else, which seems to come from "the Iron Border". The dialogue of several characters like Don Paragon also alludes to advanced communication technology. Episode 10's flashbacks show that Nowhere used to be more of a Standard Fantasy Setting before El Rey rose to power, suggesting that the loss of widespread magic basically forced Nowhere to go through an Industrial Revolution.
• Ship Tease: For all of her grim and gruff attitude, Toth seems rather fond of Skout. In fact, threatening Skout when near Toth can be a very dangerous thing to do.
• Shrinking Violet: Skout, though somewhat downplayed. While she is opens up to the Nomad easily and is generally trusting, she has lots of self-trust issues and can rarely stand on her own or take important decisions (the exception being with Red Manuel).
• Shout-Out:
  • The Nomad being asked by the Sheriff of Bliss Hill to leave even after he helped save the town from the Ranch Hand is more than a little evocative of the ending to Fallout.
  • The eye on El Rey's crown bears a distinct resemblance to Sauron's eye in the film version of The Lord of the Rings.
  • El Rey's quest to the crown in Episode 6 appears to have been directly inspired by the creator's college short "Sir Knight of Nothing," which, funnily enough, is where the series draws its inspiration from. The creators have also claimed that the scene was heavily based on by the "Tale of the Three Brothers" sequence from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
  • In "End Of The Line," the train robbers call themselves "The Near-Sighted Bandits," prompting one of their victims to ask if "The Blind Bandits" wouldn't sound better.
• Silent Credits: In Episode 9, after the Nomad collapses following Taking the Bullet for Skout, the credits are silent save for ambient noise.
• Silent Snarker: The Nomad evolves into this over the first season's course as he gets increasingly frustrated with being Surrounded by Idiots. It's most obvious in "Fiesta," with him facepalming after the crowd initially misunderstands him calling out Don Paragon in front of the rest of the Oasis.
• Stealth Pun: The giant eagle in "Eagle Canyon" is covered in a coating of rocks. It's a roc.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In Episode 2, contrary to what Barty hoped, magic cannot solve your problems (or at least, the Nomad's magic cannot). In the case of bringing the Mill's wheel to life, it made things worse by destroying the homes of Bliss Hill.
  • Episode 3 follows up on this when the Nomad saves Bliss Hill from a bounty hunter and the townsfolk thank him, yet at the end of the episode, the sheriff asks him to leave again and never return. The reason? The Nomad's the only one who can do magic, and if word got out, it would immediately attract even more bounty hunters to Bliss Hill. So, while they're grateful, they can't harbor a wanted man of the Nomad's caliber.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • A broom the Nomad animates takes an ax strike from Toth in the first episode. Judging from the Nomad's reaction, the broom "died" from that.
  • Played literally in Episode 9, when the Nomad shoves Skout out of the way when Red Manuel tries to shoot her.
• Tap on the Head: Played straight when the Nomad takes a shovel to the head and goes out like a light. Subverted with Big Jib, as he's stunned when he gets the same shovel wrapped around his head, but it takes a sustained attack to knock him out entirely.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Throughout Don Paragon's and the Nomad's confrontation in Episode 12, this is the Don's response whenever the Nomad turns the tables. When he realizes he's just given the Nomad ample opportunity to clap, he snarks "Oh that's just..." before being interrupted. Then, when the Nomad brings rocks to life and turns them into armor, Don Paragon spits out an "I hate you!" before getting walloped. Finally, when Don Paragon is punched into the reservoir wall, giving it the last push needed to break, he can only remark "...Oh..." as the cracks start to leak.
• Title Drop: Every episode has a character say the episode's title aloud.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Toth and Skout seem to be on each side of the issue. On one hand, Skout is clearly troubled by the way things are, an example being people have to pay Don Paragon to have a decent drink of water. On the other hand, Toth, despite recognizing Skout's conflict, can only justify it by saying that "Rules are rules".
• Traintop Battle: Happens in "End of the Line" as Skout and the Nomad try running from bandits by running to the top of the train carriage.
• True Companions: Skout and the Nomad form this relationship over the course of the first season, and it's fully cemented in "Fiesta" when the Nomad "convinces" her to go Riding into the Sunset with him.
• Unrequited Love: Skout and Toth relationship may be this, as while Skout has a rather blatant crush on Toth, it's anyone's guess as to what degree the latter reciprocates. At the very least, Toth does care about Skout's well-being and opinions to a far greater extent than the rest of her men.
• Visual Pun: After the Nomad animates Toth's knives, Manuel pulls out his revolver. He literally brought a gun to a knife fight.
• Weird West: While primarily a Western, the show has plenty of elements non-traditional to the genre, including magic, a monarchical government, bizarre creatures, and Diesel Punk technology.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Toth is fervently searching for the Nomad so as to turn him in for El Rey because she can possibly get magic from El Rey to help save her people, the Y'dala.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 5 introduces us to the Undertaker, a sociopathic antagonist who tries to force the Nomad to teach him necromancy. Not only does he nearly try to gut the Nomad to see what makes him tick, but he eventually drives the Nomad to animate multiple objects in one clap.
  • Episode 6. And how! First, the Nomad (and the audience) discover that not only was El Rey once a good man corrupted into a tyrant, but is also the reason that Nowhere is a barren desert and why the Nomad's the last of his kind. Second, during Toth's battle with a sandstorm creature, we see blood shed for the first time when she stabs it in the eye. Third, it turns out Don Paragon is not above stabbing one of his own men for petty reasons. And Fourth, Toth ignoring a grateful Skout may imply that without the latter, she may grow more ruthless in her hunt for the Nomad.
  • “Compass” tops every previous episode. Skout undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and obtains a Magic Compass that can find the Nomad no matter where he goes. Toth, meanwhile, has become exceedingly violent in her search for the Nomad. She’s resorted to threatening civilians and even the Dandy Lions, who were previously depicted having Blind Obedience, get unnerved by Toth’s ruthlessness. Finally, the episode ends on a cliffhanger, with Red Manuel attempting to murder Skout and the Nomad getting shot instead. Even the end credits don’t have music.
  • "The Witch and the Knight" reveals that the Nomad was originally a scarecrow, magically animated by a magic user to protect his daughter Melinda, who also had magic, and that his own abilities weren't something his creator originally intended. Melinda, who looks almost identical to Skout, left the Nomad to confront El Rey, wiping the Nomad's memory of her in the process, and never came back. And Don Paragon finally has the Nomad!
  • The following episode, "The Red Carpet," has Toth leave Don Paragon's service, Skout nearly telling Toth that she loves her before deciding to do the right thing with the Nomad, and the Nomad himself finally fighting back.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The first season as a whole is one to Trigun, albeit being set in a Weird West infused with fantasy elements rather than being a Space Western.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: While it's easy to shrug off the Nomad's animated objects every time something happens to them, it's the Nomad himself who recognizes that them being alive gives them their worth as living creatures, and is (without fail) saddened whenever they're essentially killed. Probably because he's one of them as well.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: In Episode 9, Skout wonders if defeating Toro’s Champion makes her the new Champion.

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