Western Animation / Huntik: Secrets & Seekers

aka: Huntik

An Italian Animesque series created by Iginio Straffi and produced by Rainbow SpA, a studio jointly owned by Straffi and Viacom. Straffi devised Huntik in 2006 as a Darker and Edgier Spiritual Successor to his previous Rainbow show, Winx Club, which he initially planned to finish in 2007. After Winx was extended for more seasons, Straffi was tasked with directing and producing both shows, and it's safe to say that the bulk of his attention was focused on Huntik.

The series centers on a team of four adventurers who belong to the Huntik Foundation, an alliance of Seekers with noble purposes who try to find and investigate magical artifacts. The team consists of Dante Vale, the Foundation's top operative; Lok Lambert, a teenager with a knack for puzzles; Sophie Casterwill, Lok's rich classmate; and Zhalia Moon, an orphan who was raised as a spy for the Foundation's enemy, "The Organization".

Season One kicks off after Lok and Sophie discover a journal belonging to Lok's missing father, alongside a mysterious amulet. Within mere moments, they are attacked by "The Suits", henchmen under the employment of The Organization. The two manage to drive away the suits with the help of Dante. Dante informs Lok of his destiny as a Seeker, a person who can use magic and bond with magical creatures called Titans. Now Lok and his new friends must use the knowledge contained within his father's journal to find other Titans and to keep them out of the world-domination-seeking hands of The Organization.

Season Two dwells more on the historical side of the Seekers, and expands on Sophie and the Casterwill family as a whole. The primary villains are a cult of sorts called The Blood Spiral Brotherhood led by none other than the previous season's Dragon, Rassimov. Teenage orphan Den Fears also joins Lok's group part way in.

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This series provides examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: It's more like 10 seconds. Anyway, during the climax of Den and Harrison's final fight at the end of Season 2, after Den muses to Harrison how Harrison has become strong enough to be the bully but not strong enough to be strong without being a bully, Den decides he isn't getting through to his brother by fighting him and gives up. This really doesn't last, though. Vigilante calls to Den, awakening a Powerbonded form that envelops Den with its Cindercloak ability, and Den gets back in the fight. Amusingly, Harrison does call Den out for fighting almost immediately after "giving up", but Den then remarks about Vigilante inspiring Den the will to keep fighting to get through to Harrison.
• The Ace:
  • Dante Vale, widely considered to be the Huntik Foundation's number one Seeker.
  • Huntik Foundation Chairman Metz was this when he was younger. He was also Dante's Seeker mentor.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Sophie becoming the leader to the Casterwill elders is viewed this way by the other Casterwill elders sans Nemue.
  • This even gets deconstructed a bit, since the pressure of being a leader, partly spurred on by the malicious visions of the future The Legendary Titan of Fate, Arc showed, causes Sophie to have serious doubts and fears about her future as a leader. It takes Lady Nimue performing a Heroic Sacrifice before confronting Kiel head on to finally help Sophie push past these fears.
• Achilles in His Tent: Lucas's team of Seekers, comprised of himself, Delix, and Lane, are noted by Lane to be one of the strongest Casterwill squad. Lucas's trauma-backed fear leads him to take overly cautious and oft times outright cowardly measures, even against the behest of his fellow teammates. When things look to be turning south in "The Spiral War", Lucas chooses to deliberate with the Elders on how to flee the situation, when Delix and Lane both want to fight. It takes Delix storming off, defying Lucas's orders, and Lane following suit before stopping to give Lucas a pitying, shame-filled stare before Lucas relents and joins. But not without being caustic to Lane not long after.
• All Myths Are True: So far, the series has shown that legends surrounding Gargoyles, Golems, and Thor, have all been based on reality, and that they have all been connected to Amulets and Titans.
  • Many of the famous legendary people of the past that accomplished massive feats like Jason and the Argonauts and Cortez are said to be ancient Seekers.
• All There in the Manual: The official Huntik website has details of the story—including the backstories of several characters—which either don't appear at all, or do appear but aren't made obvious.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The idea behind the Blood Spirals attacking the gathered Casterwills at the Fortress of Iron Will.
• Almost Kiss: Happens to Dante and Zhalia twice. They're interrupted by a mook the first time and by Lok the second.
• Aloof Big Brother: Lucas Casterwill towards Sophie. Sophie has called him out on this, and much of their animosity stems from Lucas thinking he's exercising his Big Brother Instinct when he's really just being a cowardly jerk.
• Ambition Is Evil: Wilder exhibits this to such an extreme that he doesn't take any threats from our heroes with anymore concern than a hand waving dismissal, even when those threats prove to be far more dangerous.
• Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: All the Amulets kind of fit into this, right down to the name. The Ancient Amulet of Will is the ultimate one.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Order of the Blood Spirals, harbingers of the Nullifiers, are first mentioned in season one. They appear in reality in season two.
• Ancient Tradition: Seekers have existed throughout history, and have included people like Joan of Arc.
• Animesque: The art style is somewhere between that of Japanese animation and American Saturday morning cartoons of The '80s.
• Arch-Enemy: The Casterwill family, descendants of the first Seeker Lord Casterwill himself, and the Blood Spirals, followers of Lord Casterwill's ex-friend known only as The Betrayer.
• Art Shift: Although season one is done in traditional animation style (for the most part), over half the episodes of season two are done in flash. The two styles generally alternate between episodes, with flash sometimes getting two or three in a row; this takes some getting used to.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: There's just something so cool about the name Dante Vale, in-universe and out-of-universe.
• Badass Cape: A few Titans have this.
  • An honorable mention goes to Metagolem who is paired with Dante, thus providing an usually awesome paired badass scenario every once a in awhile, and Vigilante, who's Powerbonded form is one of those with a set of blades for someone to wield.
• Bad Ass Longcoat: Dante Vale.
• Bears Are Bad News: Grier has Breaker, a Spikes of Villainy-bearing bear Titan.
• Beauty Equals Goodness:
  • Most readily apparent with the brothers, Den and Harrison. Den is conventionally attractive and sports a trendy haircut; he joins up with the heroes. Harrison is pale, lank-haired and sunken-cheeked; he throws in with the bad guys... until the end.
  • Also noticeable in the Titans used by either heroes and villains. While the Huntik Foundation and Casterwill Titans are Action Girls, armored knights and regal looking beasts among others, the Organization and Blood Spiral Brotherhood Titans are Big Creepy-Crawlies, Aborrent Reptiles, Monster Clowns, and undead and demonic themed Titans.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The show plays with this Trope in a nuanced and contemplative way regarding Sophie's drive to learn about her family history, as opposed to simply siding with the idea that her desire to do so is a bad, naïve one. And while there are plenty of moments that prove her quest has downsides (like leaving her vulnerable to falling into tailored traps, or birthing in her new insecurities and unearthing old traumas), said quest ultimately allows Sophie to self-actualize into a stronger and more fulfilled Seeker and person. Moreover, this desire of Sophie's is treated just as seriously by the narrative as Lok's desire to find and follow his father.
• Becoming the Mask: Zhalia, who goes from being a spy within the Huntik Foundation to an actual Foundation operative.
• Big Bad: The Professor, leader of The Organization, in season one.
  • In season 2, Rassimov, leader of the Blood Spirals, with The Betrayer being the true Big Bad of season 2
• Big Brother Instinct: Dante develops this toward Lok and Sophie. Den has this for Harrison and maintains it even after he starts having to smack Harrison around a bit later on. Den asserts this is because, despite the change in their respective circumstances, they still are actual brothers. Lastly, Lok develops this for Den pretty quickly, which Den appreciates after having had to always be the big brother for Harrison.
  • Particularly stand out examples of Dante's Big Brother Instinct towards Sophie can be seen in his willingness to protect and safeguard Sophie when she's dealing with the crux of her fear and anxious self-doubt. At least thrice we see Dante modify the current plan on the fly to shield Sophie from having to deal with Kiel. And when he's no longer able to stop Kiel from reaching Sophie in "The Spiral War", he verbalizes his hope that Sophie is ready to deal with Kiel.
  • Part of what makes these Season 2 examples stand out so much is because they directly contrast the attitude and demeanor of the newly-resurfaced and mostly obstructive Lucas Casterwill, Sophie's biological big brother. He clearly thinks he knows what's best for Sophie, when almost everyone else, including his own team at times, thinks otherwise.
• Big Brother Mentor: Dante is this towards newcomers Sophie and especially Lok. He also becomes one for Den in Season 2, to a more subdued extent, because...
  • Lok likewise later becomes this to Den after he joins the group. Den likes it and would do whatever Lok told him to compared to his Huntik Foundation teachers. He tells Cherit this is because, at the orphanage, he was the one who always had to look after his brother who was constantly bullied, so it feels nice to have someone looking out for him.
• Big Eater: Den, though nowhere near the usual levels of this trope, has more than once talked about getting food or getting seconds...or fourths. Maybe his orphanage was malnourishing their kids.
• Big Little Brother: While it's visually implied that Den and Harrison are the same age, Harrison, who is noticeably a bit taller than Den, has referred to Den as his big brother multiple times.
• Bishōnen Line: Some animalistic Titans become more humanoid upon Powerbonding.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Not to Mr. Wilder, at least, who is more than willing to openly call his intention to use the Professor's files on Rassimov to control the Blood Spirals through Rassimov blackmail.
• Bloodless Carnage: Blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but right after Powerbonding with Sorcerel and ordering her to attack Kiel with all her strength, the energy beam Sorcerel fires onto Kiel's chest causes a brief but noticeable spurt of... something as Kiel is pushed back. Of course, by the next scene cut, there's no sign of anything. This Trope is played straight in every other instance in the show.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Huntik Foundation member Montehue.
• Bond Creatures: Seekers and their Titans share a bond that becomes exponentially stronger if they're Powerbonded Titans.
• Breather Episode: "Gremlow Infestation!", which takes place immediately following a handful of episodes that culminated in the Huntik Team and the Casterwill Family's first decisive victory over the Blood Spirals, which included at least one implicit and one explicit Character Death. Lots of character growth to be had and tons of tension during those episodes. It's also followed by more tense, character-driven episodes immediately after that build up to the Season Finale. So in "Gremlow Infestation!", Sophie, Den, and Lok have to deal with a much more lowkey and isolated Seeker problem of a bunch of Rat-like Titans and an out-of-control magic mural. Unless you have a rat fear, this acts as a much needed break between what just happened and what's yet to come.
  • "Back Home", which takes place a half a dozen episodes later, acts as even more of a Breather Episode, and the last one before the Season heads to its climax. Lok finally makes good on his earlier offer to take Den to Ireland. The group rests and recuperates after their failed attempt to capture Rassimov costing them two of their Titans. Den gets to enjoy the benefits of being in a household with a loving mother like Sandra Lambert, who eagerly gives Den his fill of food and affection. It's enough for "tough-guy Den" to volunteer to help Mrs. Lambert clean up after breakfast. The biggest threat the team has to deal with is a magical Titan gauntlet trap in the nearby castle of Tir Na Nog. The Titans are normal fair, albeit pretty large, and the biggest thing holding the team back is exhaustion and Lok being in-between dimensions for short amount of time. And by the end of the episode, everyone else gets a much-need, hearty laugh at the expense of Den's boastful preening to Mrs. Lambert.
• Brick Joke: In "Gremlow Infestation", Den questions if there's any place to eat in Hamlin, where they're currently visiting. When they meet up with Guggenheim, Den sees the man polishing off the rest of a slice of pie, belatedly asking for some right when Guggenheim finishes it, leaving Den moody. By the end of the episode, when the group report their findings to Dante, Den is seen next to them fully engrossed and enjoying the slice of pie he finally gets to eat back at Dante's house.
• Broken Bird: Zhalia. While she does grow beyond merely being a Broken Bird with time, Season 2 shows that she still has to deal with this on occasion, especially during intense moments for her that stir up her traumas.
• Bystander Syndrome: Focauld Casterwill has this bad. When the Casterwill Elders meet to deliberate on Sophie's proposal of the Casterwills going on the offensive against the Blood Spirals, he rebukes it, saying they should focus on preserving themselves and let others like the Huntik Foundation take care of things. This flies in the face of what Nimue makes clear is the Casterwill duty: to protect the world and fight against evil.
• Can't Catch Up: In Season 2, Sophie has a lot more trouble in her fights than the others. Justified because she's not a combat specialist like Dante nor is she settling into the role of The Hero like Lok has since becoming The Champion of Casterwill, and yet her family history makes villains target her (and makes her determined to face up to them). Plus, Lok is so protective of Sophie that he rarely lets her finish her fights—but if he doesn't jump in she often wins anyway.
• Cain and Abel: Harrison grows apart from Den due to the power the Blood Spirals promise him being appealing because of his circumstance as a chronic victim of bullying trapped in an orphanage. After Den joins Lok's team, this puts the brothers on opposite sides and at each other's throats, though they do reconcile by the end.
• Calling Your Attacks: How the Seekers invoke Titans and cast spells. Strangely, Wind can do both even though he can't speak.
  • It becomes less strange when you notice that, periodically among the first and second seasons, a number of Seekers, including the main characters, have cast some spells without so much as mouthing the spell's name.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Mr. Wilder, the new leader of The Organization (or parts of it, as Grier never took orders from him) in season 2. Obsessed with control and Taking Over The World, he has quite a few Kick the Dog moments, the last of which happens right before Grier kicks his ass and brings him to his island to teach him what control really is.
• Cast from Lifespan: The Casterwill spell Soulburn. It sacrifices some of the user's lifeforce in order to allow them to use more powers and/or to supercharge their powers. It can even be cast when the user is too weak to heal themselves with Everfight. While there is a vague implication that Casterwills have naturally longer lifespans to some extent (when they're not being outright hunted, at least), Soulburn has only been seen fully utilized thrice between two different Seekers at two separate spans of their respective lives:
  • Sophie, who used it both times in climatic fights against overwhelming opposition, showing her resolve and, in the second case, decisively turning the tables against her opposition.^*She also almost used it a third time, when the Huntik team plus Scarlett were nearly overwhelmed by Tir Na Nog's Titan traps, in order to invoke Phoenix. Lok's Big Damn Heroes moment right after is the only thing that stopped her from doing so. She's still in her teens, so the practical effects of expending her lifeforce aren't evidently seen.
  • Nimue, who used it in serial conjunction with the equally dangerous spell Sacroblade. She does this to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, and to inspire hope and courage within Sophie, who was seriously struggling with the fear and anxiety of being a leader to all the Casterwills. This not only gives a short but vital reprieve from the swarming forces they were facing, it inspires Sophie's comeback and second use of Soulburn mentioned above. This costs Nimue, an older woman who just used two Dangerous Forbidden Techniques in a row, her life.
• Cast of Snowflakes: All the characters have unique appearances, including the Suit Mooks and random passersby.
• Character Development: The main group of Seekers and a few of the villains go through this, usually rewarded with Levels in Badass (or in Dante's case additional Levels in Badass)
• Character Overlap: Aurora's ice minions from Winx Club show up in "The Legacy of Thor", where they are summoned by Ymir against Dante's team.
  • Two of the nightmare monsters from the Winx Club episode "Cold Spell" appear in Huntik. The monster's first form appears as the Titan Impet (who first appears in "Memory Lane") and the monster's final form appears during a flashback sequence in "The Secret of Two Generations".
  • Although they're not meant to be the same character, the same exact crow model from Huntik (seen in episodes like "The Unseen Guide") is used when Winx Club's Headmistress Griffin is transformed into a crow during the sixth season.
  • Season 4 Winx Club villain Duman had the ability to transform into a multicolored version of The Professor's signature Titan, Nordrake.
• Chekhov's Gun: The goddamn Hammer of Thor: recovered in a first season episode, is strong enough to one-shot the biggest Titan ever seen on screen, but wasn't used anymore due the need for two Seekers to spin the thing before launching it at the victim and its size (as tall as a man) making it difficult to transport where needed (like when you're fighting The Professor and his Legendary Titans). Then in the last episode of the second season, during the final battle between the whole Huntik Foundation and the Blood Spiral Order, the Blood Spiral summons an enormous flying Titan (Shakrit) that can easily take down the Foundation's Cool Planes... And when Montehue reaches one of the planes to help, the pilot gets him to help with using the Hammer, even commenting it had been a good idea to bring it with them. Wind, the Seeker in control of the flying Titan, has barely the time for an Oh, Crap! face before said Titan is one-shotted.
  • Lok's Dad's Holotome, which he and Cherit find in The Professor's Castle at the end of season one. Turns out that it was planted there by Rassimov on his master The Betrayers's orders. All the clues the group gets from that Holotome, including any projections of Eathon Lambert that appeared from it, was actually The Betrayer himself guiding the team meticulously throughout the second season. Yes, that also includes the group getting the Legendary Titans they got (except Quetzalcoatl).
• Children Are Innocent: A point is made to show Den in this light. Harrison and the other boys at their old orphanage, too, though to much lesser extents. With Den in particular, though he had a rough upbringing that forced him to be vigilant in order to protect Harrison from the tormentors around him, which has lead Den to come off cold and quick to acerbic attitudes, as he spends time with Lok, Sophie, Dante, and Cherit, opening up to them, we see that Den is very much a kid at heart. He's very playful and fun-loving, always up for games and even sibling-level pranks, and he's very receptive to the genuine shows of care, love and affection that he gets from the people he begins to interact with, especially Lok and Mrs. Lambert. When the group meet and discuss with Grier on Sutos Island, we even get to see a heartwarming moment of Den and Cherit whimsically playing in the sunset-lit beach's ocean.
• Combat Compliment: A subverted example that was used to set up a distraction. While Tantras does admit that Dante's martial arts are better than his own, after Dante proves just so, he does so out of frustration and not flattery. He also uses the chance to have the two up-to-then unaccounted for orphan Spiral trainees distract Dante so he could ensnare him within a Skingrip. With Dante's back turned and the trainees equally ensnared, he launches a powerful Bladewave that's only narrowly guarded by Sophie's Honorguard.
• Comet of Doom: The Red Comet, needed to call the Nullifiers on the longest night of the year. It first appeared after the group retrieved the Willblade. After it showed up, the Blood Spirals started coming out of the woodwork. It's still there at the end of season two.
• Com Mons: Certain Titans are very common: Freelancer for the Huntik Foundation, Icarus and Feyone for the Casterwills, Redcap and Mindrone and a few others for The Organization, and Marauder and especially Harlekin for the Blood Spirals.
• Continuity Nod: In the second season episode, "Boys Will Be Seekers", the gondola rower that gets knocked into the water is the same one that got knocked into the water in the first episode. Both times courtesy of Lok escaping from some Mooks.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Season 2's Tantras to Season 1's Klaus. Both characters have a lot of parallels to each other that form a thematic connectivity between them, Zhalia, and the Fears brothers. Both villains have recruited orphans from the same orphanage in Rotterdam, and both form favored attachments to at least one of those recruits who grow attached to them in turn. Klaus is a Mad Scientist Seeker and Tantras is a major cult figure. However, Klaus does prove that Even Evil Has Standards and Loved Ones in a way that more callous Tantras does not. It's no coincidence that Tantras' attachment to his charges, especially Kiel and Harrison, is treated as being much more unambiguously darker than Klaus's was.
• Cool Big Sis: Character Development evolves Zhalia into this towards Lok and Sophie. She also instantly becomes this to orphans Den and Harrison Fears, even to the point of looking out for Harrison all the while she was infiltrating the Blood Spirals. Harrison even admits she is like a sister to him and that she is his only real friend, other than his brother.
• Cool Sword: The legendary Willblade. It was used by the first Seeker, Lord Casterwill himself, to seal the Spiral Mark that can be used to call the Nullifiers. After it is found, Lok begins using it as his weapon in every episode thereafter. The Betrayer tricks Lok into unsealing the Spiral Mark with it under the pretense of destroying it.
• Cosmopolitan Council: The various leaders of the Huntik Foundation, led by the Italian Metz.
• Curse: Curses and traps are a staple in the Seeker world, to ward off intruders and keep the unworthy at bay.
  • The plot of the first season revolves around lifting one: Dante's mentor Metz and the Professor removed each one of the Legendary Titans' from their resting place without wearing the Ancient Amulet of Will, so both of them were afflicted by a curse that would slowly kill them. Both of them tried to stave off the effects of said curse, the former through medicine, the latter by binding his lifeforce to that of the Legendary Titan he took. The Professor also created the Organization as a way to find the other two Legendary Titans and use them to undo the curse (though he very likely would have used them to conquer the world afterwards).
  • The Casterwill family has an entire branch called the Rue Guardians who are dedicated to laying curses and traps that safeguard coveted Casterwill secrets. Rue Guardians are noted by Nimue to be quite unforgiving, and the Casterwill magical traps and tests the Huntik team face are oft-commented on their arduous and harrowing nature.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Harrison's joining of the Blood Spirals must have been hazy since he blames Zhalia for "taking his brother away" and stopping him from joining as well, even though Den made the final decision himself.
• Deadpan Snarker: Zhalia most of the time. Also Sophie in relation to Lok. Even Dante himself is not immune to some deadpan delivery once in a while.
  • New team member Den as well, which seems to be a coping mechanism for him.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Zhalia in season one. Den, as a male example in season two, though to a much less extent than Zhalia.
• Didn't See That Coming: The Professor has a dog named Eathon. Said dog is also a Seeker who gave Dante and Zhalia a desperate run for their money.
  Zhalia: Don't tell me that dogs can be Seekers.
• Dirty Coward: While not explored in the same direct manner as Sophie's own traumas and their resulting challenges, it's clear that the trauma of losing his home, parents and sister at a young age and being forced to live a rougher life than the relatively stable one Sophie would go on to live under LeBlanche's care has left Lucas wracked with fear. And this fear, in turn, entreats cowardice and a controlling nature within Lucas. Even his own Seeker team note and are frustrated by this, especially Delix, who openly disregards Lucas's wish to plan for an escape and instead joins his fellow Casterwills in fighting the Blood Spiral, ultimately convincing Lucas to do the same.
  • A big point and perhaps the thesis of Mr. Wilder's character is the fact that he is a Dirty Coward. Lok calls him out on this early in Season 2 when he blasts Sophie in the back while she was hesitating getting the Willblade. Grier and Sophie both call him out late in Season 2 when they make their final confrontation with him and his faction. It is routinely noted that Wilder is strong, strong enough to be referred to as a master Seeker in his own right. Yet it is Wilder's ego and cowardly nature that leads him to pull dirty tricks and be distracted when he should be decisive. Sophie even goes deeper, giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech that reads Wilder's fear of getting hurt and not being able to fulfill his ambitions as the impetus for the Dirty Coward acts he pulls. His cowardice, Sophie posits, is the big reason his Ambitions Are Evil. This directly contrasts with Grier and how he's been living out his own ambitions.
• Disappeared Dad: Lok's father, Eathon Lambert. Lok's character arc in the first season is him trying to find out why Eathon went missing, as Lok follows in Eathon's footsteps.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: During the storming of the Organization's headquarters, Zhalia and Dante had to deal with two Undergolem Titans, with no Seeker around and the Professor's dog looking and barking. It's then revealed that the dog was the Seeker: the Professor, just in case, had used magic to give him the ability to summon those two Titans and trained him as a guard dog.
  • Dante's face expressed that This Is Gonna Suck when he and his team returned there halfway in season 2 and the Organization sicced the dog on him. Dog!Eathan is just that good at commanding those Undergolems...
• The Dragon: Rassimov to The Professor. His true loyalty lies with The Betrayer, only to eventually lie with himself.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: The Ring of Arc, home to the Legendary Titan of Fate - Arc, puts anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with it into a dream-like trance where it shows visions of the future of its victim. And they're always scary, stressful, and just straight up bad. It happens to Lok and Sophie in season one, and the gang willingly put themselves through this in season two with the hope of freeing one of its other victims.
• Dwindling Party: How the trap on Medea Island worked. The Huntik team, Cherit included, were each compelled by an island woman or girl to follow their deepest yearnings that allegedly could be fulfilled on that very island. First Dante is led away to find medicine for Metz, than Sophie to learn about her family's history and secrets. A little later on, Lok is led off by a girl claiming to have a puzzle left behind by Lok's father, Eathon Lambert, and finally so is Cherit when he's asked to help watch and teach small island kids for another islander. Zhalia is the only one left to do anything about it, since she denies the old woman tempting her with a powerful weapon. It takes her over two days before enough of a fire is lit under her for her to begin figuring out what's going on.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Lane and Dellix appear on the roof of the Casterwill library, observing the visiting Sophie, and only have a line or two each in "Memory Lane". Near the beginning of season two, they appear for real, as part of Lucas Casterwill's team.
  • Similarly, three episodes before the first season ends, Rassimov secretly confers with Shauna and Wind, who are riding a Titan (Shakrit) of the latter, saying they'll get their revenge on the Casterwills soon enough. Come Season 2, all three are revealed to be part of the Blood Spirals, a conspiracy the Casterwill's have opposed since ancient times who are now back in the open.
• Easily Forgiven: Zhalia gets it after her position as the Organization's mole is out. Den also easily forgives Harrison in the final episode when he Heel Face Turns, though Den wanted nothing more than to be with his brother again, so it makes sense.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Nullifiers mentioned in season one are said to be this and bent on destroying all life. In season two, we are shown one of their scouts, and the thing◊, aptly named Void, even resembles Chtulhu. The stylized imagery of the creatures as a whole is no less eldritch, considering they're not even humanoid.
• Establishing Character Moment: The main characters usually get one that show their important traits:
  • Lok asks a newly met Sophie to help with his history homework. She says no since he just slept through history class, so Lok bets he can finish the Crossword Puzzle she is struggling with in 2:00 minutes in exchange for her help. Since he's good with puzzles, he completes it in under 90 seconds without scratching anything out, much to Sophie's surprise. This not only succinctly establishes Lok's affinity for solving puzzles, but it also showcases how well he works under pressure (something Sophie would remark on in a future episode) while simultaneously revealing Lok's penchant for thinking outside the box to solve problems (asking for Sophie's help to study and playing to her sense of pride to convince her, all in order to get around having slept through the review for their class's final exam).
  • Dante's Establishing Character Moment happens right outside his house. Lok is looking for Dante's house while being pursued by Organization suits. He can't find it, and is quickly cornered, as fate would have it, at the front of Dante's house right when he returns with groceries. He immediately summons Caliban, then later Solwing, and single-handedly^note with a little help from Lok who uses a wooden stick to knock out a suit that would have Augerfrost-ed him in the back takes down the three suits and their two Redcaps and one Mindrone, with witty banter and everything. He thus cements himself as The Ace and a badass, a characterization that follows him throughout all of both seasons.
  • Sophie starts off as this snobbish rich girl, but when Lok is targeted by the Organization, she pulls an "I Am Your Opponent" so he can escape, points him in the direction of Dante, and then defeats both suits. When more show up she says "My name is Sophie Casterwill, and I am not alone!" Yes, she's a rich snob, but she's a heroic rich snob.
  • Zhalia show up as a beautiful, yet mysterious young raven-haired woman seen walking down the street. Just then, suits attack our not-quite-team in their hotel in Prague. Zhalia breaks down the door (along with the surrounding wall) with her Titan Gareon. She then beams two enemies out the window and leaps toward said window, summoning up Strix who gets rid of the lasts two Titans. When things calm down, she says she just walked by and ''overheard'' that some suits were attacking their room. Never mind she just took a receiver out of her ear and crushed it before bursting into their room. This establishes Zhalia right off the bat as a woman not to be messed with, and perhaps not to be trusted either...
  • Den and Harrison Fears also get theirs in their first appearances in season two. Harrison's when we see two bullies playing keep away with himself, showing his resentment and setting up for his eager joining of the Blood Spirals when they recruit him. Den's when we see him positively owning the two bullies who were pushing his younger brother around, even using small manifested Seeker powers on his last punch. Even Zhalia, who's watching near by, seems impressed.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Lok's group, particularly Sophie, tries this with Mr. Wilder's faction at least twice, in the hopes that they would work together with the Huntik Foundation in battling against the Blood Spirals. He declines both times, saying he'll find a way to control the Blood Spirals and make them work for him, even though he had already sent his loyal member Stack in to infiltrate their ranks and he failed.
  • Although they aren't really enemies any more, they also try this with Grier and his faction. It fails because Grier says he needs to stay and protect his island nation, that he needs to atone for the things in his past he's not proud of... and clean up the mess that Wilder made of the Organization, since he's the only one who can competently take over now.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In the episode "An Ally from the Organization", when Sophie reads Wilder's cowardice for what it is, in an attempt to get him to gain some self-understanding and do some self-reflecting, Wilder laughs it off as Sophie lying to try and distract him. Sophie lets Wilder know she was telling the truth and to think about what she just said. Wilder instead invokes Incubane as an actual distraction for Sophie before running off.
  • There's something to be said about the most fanatically devoted among the Blood Spiral Brotherhood. They glorify chaos but tend to not really understand concepts like hope and peace. For example, when Lady Nemue sacrifices herself to, among other things, inspire hope within Sophie, the far-reaching light radiating from the epicenter confuses Harrison and the onlooking Silent Soldiers. Harrison can only articulate the light making him feel strange before the more worldly Tantras explains the feelings that light is emanating — hope, courage and life.
• Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: Parodied in a tongue-in-cheek way when Den and Lok jump out of moving airplane on BMX bikes, landing safely with Featherdrop. They and Dante, as well as Wilder's pursing suits, are all rider motorbikes of some kind and wearing helmets while doing so.
  Dante: At least you wore helmets while jumping out of a moving airplane.
  Lok: (taps helmet) Safety first.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Sophie's outfits tend to have this element.
• Foreshadowing: All the visions that the Ring of Arc shows the group come true, though not always in the way the ring depicts. It's kinda sadistic actually.
  • In the fifth episode of season one - "Crawling the Catacombs" - Dante mentions that for a certain trap, Joan of Arc would allow only 'the pure of heart' to pass. Everyone gets by with no problems, but the moment Zhalia tries, there's a minor cave-in, hinting at her at-the-time true loyalties.
    • Blink and you'll miss it, but DeFoe is looking at Zhalia in episode 3 when the group is trapped and in episode 6, both him and another agent are shown to know who she is. An undercover agent.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Lok (sanguine), Sophie (choleric), Dante (phlegmatic) and Zhalia (melancholic).
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Guggenheim, head of the Huntik Foundation, has a Q&A page on the official Huntik website.
• Full-Name Basis: DeFoe always refers to Dante this way. In fact most people seem to; his name is that cool.
• Fusion Dance: Powerbonded Kipperin envelopes onto Lok as a sort of armor that he has full control of that flies and can attack. Powerbonded Vigilante also has an optional Cindercloak ability.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: Episode 11 features an island where all 4 of our heroes get introduced to a woman who offers them something they're after. But as time goes on, holes are spotted (the puzzle Lok was given is boring, Sophie's 'family tomes' are fake), revealing that all but one of these women are illusions generated by a Titan (who was the one woman who wasn't an illusion).
• Golden Super Mode: Powerbonded Titans get a golden armor (or golden armored parts) as part of their new look.
• Golem: Metagolem, who is the same as the Prague one, among a few other golem and golem-like Titans.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Season 2 has this dynamic. Lok and his friends are the Good, Wilder and the Organization's remnants are the Bad, while the Blood Spiral Brotherhood is the Evil.
• Gravity Screw: At the start of Season 2's penultimate episode, when Den confronts Harrison at the base of the Blood Spiral's Throne of Lies, right before they fight, the chaos energy from the events of the longest night of the year causes the area's gravity to invert. This throws Den, Harrison, and Zhalia for a loop before the new gravity trajectory (where the sky if the Throne and the floor is the literal sky) settles in. Also, when Den knocks the Bazela's Hive Amulet from Harrison's hand, it falls "upward" to hover around The Betrayer's corpse's head. And it stays there until he awakens within it and invokes the Titan to help his side.
• Heel–Face Turn: Zhalia by mid-season one, and by the end of season two, Harrison.
• Heel Realization: Harrison has this when Zhalia reveals her identity to him. That's when he realizes just how selfish and blind he's been up to that point.
• Henshin Hero: Lok's Powerbonded Kipperin form and Den's Powerbonded Vigilante's Cindercloak ability envelop their Seeker in a way that gives of the visual style of a Henshin Hero. Powerbonded Kipperin Lok especially, as it even comes with a Transformation Sequence and Theme Music Power-Up (one of the two unique pieces Lok gains in the second season).
• Heroic BSoD: Dante, after handing over the Amulet of Will and the Legendary Titans to the Professor.
  • This happens to Lok in the second season, when The Betrayer reveals that he impersonated Eathon Lambert to lead him into breaking the seal on the Blood Spiral Mark.
• Heroic Resolve: Tends to crop up in moments that lead to either the gaining or mastering of a Seeker power and/or the bonding and especially Powerbonding of a Titan.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the battle at the Fortress of Iron Will, Lady Nimue Casterwill does this to inspire hope within Sophie. And of course Dante's at the end of the second season, though as the final episode title spoils, he comes back.
  • Titans with particularly strong, familial bonds with their Seekers have been known to protect their Seekers dearly, even ignoring orders to do so. Both Sabriel at the end of Season 1 and Soulwing in the latter half of Season 2 do this, getting destroyed destroyed in the process of doing so.
• He Who Fights Monsters: During their final fight, Den points out how Harrison went from being tormented by bullies to being a bully himself (and to a much greater scale).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Betrayer hates being "betrayed". Hmm, I wonder, what is a possible way to betray someone? Why, by stabbing 'em in the back of course! Doing so literally, Lok and his team are able to defeat The Betrayer once and for all.
• How Do I Shot Web?/Instant Expert: Huntik has an interesting dynamic when it comes to these two Tropes. Lore-wise, it is noted to Lok very early on by Cherit, Sophie, and to a lesser extent Dante that Seekers traditionally learn and master the powers they wield by pouring over ancient tomes and scripts, which is something we do see the good guys do on and off across the series. However, and likely due to pragmatic reasons, viewers are often shown Seekers functionally or literally master the use of new powers and Titans instantly. What makes the dynamic interesting is seen in the different ways the show presents it.
  • It is revealed through the course of the show that the main cast of characters — and a number of the adversaries — are very gifted individuals. As part and parcel of Dante Vale being widely considered the Huntik Foundation's number 1 Seeker, we learn that Dante mirrored Lok and also Sophie and Zalia growing up in how he tended to master skills, Seeker powers, and Titans at a prodigious clip. Den and Harrison Fears also fall into this category as well, as both of them are shown to be gifted Seekers whose respective progress excels tremendously in contrast to their youth and comparative inexperience.
  • In a broader expansion of the above, the modern-day lore of Huntik posits (and backs up this position) that the world is entering a new age of Seekers. This provides explanation for why so many Seeker-related activities are beginning to happen so clustered together, why these activities are getting bigger and more visible, and why so many Seeker prodigies (not to mention Seekers in general, who were historically lowkey in their numbers and sequestered in their presence) are turning up in such close proximities to one another all of a sudden. What seemed to be exceptional outliers like Ethan, Metz, and Simon and later the likes of Dante, Wind, Shauna, and Kiel were in reality foreshadowers and heralds of this dawning new age. This also explains why there are so many new and rediscovered abilities, powers and Titans, such as the concept of Powerbonded Titans.
  • While it may seem like Dante and his group of Seekers learn and master everything instantaneously, a closer inspection shows that not every episode or event happens explicitly serially. As relatively small and/or minor as they may be, gaps in time do pass by. It is often within these off-screen gaps that our heroes and their adversaries are implied and indicated to have been training, and what the viewers see is the on-screen fruits of this training in action. There are even multiple occasions where we see snippets of this on-screen, as is the case with both Den and especially Harrison in the Season 2 episode "Boys Will Be Seekers."
  • And yet another aspect that makes the interplay of these two Tropes interesting in Huntik. In the second episode, when Lok is told how most powers are traditionally learned (through careful, laborious research, study and practice), Cherit adds that the aid of an expert teacher can go a long way in streamlining and accelerating the learning process. With that in mind, Dante, Lok, Sophie, Zhalia and many others (including Tantras for Harrison and Kiel among the Blood Spirals) all work with the Seekers they directly or indirectly mentor to help them master their powers and Titans as fast as they do. (A really good example shown entirely on-screen is when Kumeyaay Seeker Teeg not only gifts Den the Amulet for Kaioh the Tracker, but also successfully teaches and coaches Den through how to bond with, invoke, and utilize said Titan flawlessly.) Combine this fact with the rapid emergence of Seeker prodigies in the modern day, and you get the perfect reason for why the Seekers in the show are general as up to snuff as they are.
• Hypocrite:In the final episode of season two, The Betrayer calls Den and Harrison traitors...seriously! Did he forget his own epithet just that quickly? This blatant hypocrisy doesn't escape Harrison's notice either.
• The Infiltration: Mr. Wilder's lackey Stack tries this on the Blood Spirals, but fails rather quickly; on the other hand, Zhalia is much more successful at this endeavor.
• Jedi Mind Trick: The spell SimpleMind works by befuddling someone into forgetting or ignoring something. However, it doesn't work as well on Seekers, and it's usually best for the weak-willed anyway.
• Jerkass: Lucas Casterwill doesn't want to help Sophie with her goals (which are the opposite of what he and their family generally think), period - it takes her seriously proving herself before he starts to come around, instead of trying to convince her to go into hiding. Focauld Casterwill the Elder of Knowledge, too; his untrustworthiness definitely doesn't win him many friends. Plus the Rue Guardians, and to a lesser extent, Sophie at first... It's not hard to see almost the entire Casterwill family as this sometimes, with few exceptions.
• Jerkass Gods: The Legendary Titan of Fate, Arc. By season two, the group abandons any ideas of trying to control and use this fickle Titan.
• Kick the Dog: In the Season 1 episode "The Scepter Deception", in one of the infrequent scenarios that sees Lok team up with just Zhalia, Lok brings up how Zhalia and Sophie always getting into spats with each other is getting old. Zhalia retorts that Lok's "fantasy" of finding his long lost father had gotten older. This visibly hurts Lok, which causes Zhalia to take back what she said. Lok, for his part, forgives her. This is part of what leads to her Heel–Face Turn a little later on.
• Killed Off for Real: DeFoe (via Grier), Klaus and various Suits (King Basilisk), Sabriel...though Klaus and Sabriel do come back later. King Basilisk's petrification is reversible and Sabriel was with Sophie the whole time.
  • In season two there's Stack, who's made an example of anyone who plays and/or betrays the Blood Spirals, Kiel, though it's implied; we don't know what happened, he just disappears, Lady Nimue explicitly in a Heroic Sacrifice, Tantras, also implied but more heavily so the with Kiel, Lindorm and Solwing via The Legendary Titan of War - Legion^note except Legion's later destruction freed the energy of all previously absorbed Titans back to Huntik, so they're certainly still alive - we just never learn whether or not Lindorm or Solwing would be able to return like Sabriel did, and Rassimov when his plan with the comet fails. Played with in regards to Dante's death. He really did die, he just used Copykind beforehand to mimic The Legendary Titan Phoenix's power to rise from the ashes.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Lucas Casterwill is this to Sophie. Guy's got a lot of unaddressed and directly unacknowledged hang=ups, and these lead him to be so fearful for the safety and security of himself, the Casterwills as a whole, and his sister in particular that he's gone through rather reprehensible means of coercing Sophie into hiding. Twice-over, Sophie is tested in Lucas's presence. She passes both times, but both times aren't enough to fully convince him that his way is fearful cowardice that underestimates and infantilizes Sophie. Zhalia and Dante prove to be much better older siblings to Sophie than Lucas ever truly does, even after the conclusion of "The Spiral War".
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Most Seekers are this since they fight using martial arts and their Seeker powers in tandem.
• Leitmotif: The music that plays when Seekers summon their Titans. The good and bad guys each have their set and certain characters and Titans have recurring jingles, though most are interchangeable in their respective sets. The "previously on" music also plays whenever a Holotome or its equivalents are being used, often accompanied by the group planning the details of the current mission.
• Lightning Bruiser: Dante is this most of the time, befitting an ace Seeker.
• Limited Wardrobe: The gang gets new/slight variations on their outfits in season two, usually in the form of jackets.
  • Lampshaded by Dante when Lok and Zhalia are both wearing one of his coats with the line
    "In this line of work you run through your wardrobe rather quickly."
• Locked Out of the Loop: Lok's sister, Cathy - while not stated, it's semi-implied Lok didn't want to disrupt her 'straight-A's' school life, and/or get her involved in something that might freak her out (as it did to him, initially).
• Long-Lost Relative: Sophie Casterwill's older brother Lucas Casterwill. Arguably, the entire extended family towards each other.
• Magical Native American: Teeg and Galen being Kumeyaay Seekers, though they don't really look the stereotypical part, especially Teeg.
• Magic Skirt: Sophie, most prominently - it extends toward any other women in skirts/dresses as well.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Betrayer. It's scary how thoroughly he manipulated the team.
• Mark of the Beast: All members of the Blood Spiral Brotherhood are branded with a Blood Spiral brand, including Den, his brother Harrison, and Fake Defector Zhalia. Den and Harrison seem to have a bond with their's that signal when one is hurt or when they're close to each other. They start becoming Achey Scars towards the end of the season when things start becoming really bad.
• Meaningful Echo: At the start of the penultimate episode of Season 2, "Lok and the Betrayer", right when Harrison senses Den's approach, the still undercover Zhalia asks Harrison if he misses Den. Rather than answer outright, Harrison once again claims Den abandoned him, with a clearly fuzzy memory of that day's events, and bitterly (and erroneously) cites a woman (Zhalia) "made Den leave." Then, at the start of the final episode, after Harrison has chosen to fight The Betrayer to protect the newly unveiled Zhalia alongside Den, Den asks Harrison the same question Zhalia asked him not long before. Slightly taken by surprise, Harrison finally openly admits that he did miss Den, reciprocating Den's feeling of having missed Harrison and leaving Den content and forgiving of past events.
• The Men in Black: The Organization Suits.
• Mad Scientist: Organization member Klaus. Much of his Establishing Character Moment is about showing off how creepy he is as a Seeker scientist, researcher, and inventor.
• Mirror Match: Dante has to face this in his "test of prowess". He fights three Mermen who summon 3 Caliban Ocean Warriors against his Caliban and 3 Coralgolems against his Metagolem. He solves the problem by summoning Behemoth, which has no counterpart.
• The Mole:
  • Zhalia first infiltrates Lok and Dante's team before joining for real. She later infiltrates the Blood Spirals in order to locate the whereabouts of the Spiral Mark, which was right under the Bloodsprial base the whole time.
  • The Holotome Lok and the gang find later turns out to be The Betrayer's Legendary Titan of Betrayal, Demigorgan.
  • In season two, Zhalia who infiltrates the Blood Spirals to learn of their secrets. She ends up looking after Harrison Fears while doing so.
• Moment Killer: Both Official Couples to-be experience this at least twice each. Dante and Zhalia first by an Organization suit and then by Lok. Lok and Sophie both times by Tersly.
• Mons: The Titans.
• Mooks: The Organization Suits. And the generic Blood Spiral Silent Soldiers who conveniently wear masks.
• Mr. Fanservice: Chiseled Chin? Check. Beard? Check. Broad Shoulders? Check. Long Coat? Check. Dante Vale is definitely Mr. Fanservice. At the very least, the look seems to work for Sophie and Zhalia.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Harrison Fears does eventually go through this once he realizes how blind and self-centered he's been. Also, Lok during his aforementioned Heroic BSoD.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The second season is FILLED with these. In order: by defeating the Professor in the way they did in season one, Dante and co. took down the most powerful weapon to defend the world from the Blood Spiral Order; to prevent Mr. Wilder from taking the Willblade, Lok takes it from its hiding place, freeing the Red Comet that allows the summoning of the Nullifiers; right after the Red Comet is summoned, Lucas Casterwill finally appears to explain how The Organization had stolen from him the Titan Void, that with the Red Comet and at the right moment can be used to summon the Nullifiers, with the recovery attempt leading the Blood Spiral Order to take it away exactly to summon the Nullifiers; in one of the last episodes, Lok hits the Blood Spiral Mark with the Willblade to prevent it from being usable to summon the Nullifiers immediately, only to find out he had been duped and that he had just broken the seal put on it by Lord Casterwill.
• No Name Given: Subverted with The Professor, who's real name is Simon Judeau, an old friend of Metz and Eathon Lambert. Played Straight with The Betrayer.
  • An odd case occurs with Annette and Billie, two Huntik Foundation operatives currently working in Nostradamus's Tower as museum personnel alongside Peter. Both characters are new to Season 2. The English version's closed captions and dialogue Name Drop Billie, but never indicate Annette's name at all. Conversely, the Italian version does Name Drop Annette, but not Billie.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Part of the Heroic Resolve Sophie shows in her final confrontation against Kiel. Kiel even questions, in a noticeably worried way, if Sophie is still afraid of him, sensing the tide of battle turning against him.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Lok is Irish, Dante is implied to be Italian, and Zhalia is implied to be Dutch; they all speak with American accents. Sophie on the other hand does speak with an RP English accent, though her background suggests she was raised in France...
• "Not So Different" Remark: In "Boys will be Seekers", when Lok goes after Den, who ran off into the Venice streets in frustration, he tries to bond with Den by remarking on their similarities with being being and having been new Seekers. Thing is, Lok doesn't really understand where Den is coming from, something that Den has to bluntly explain.
  Den: Do you know what it's like, having your own brother attack you?
  Lok: Hey, I-uh—
  Den: I'm no treasure hunter or hero, like you. I just want my brother back. That's all. (turns and walks off)
• Not So Stoic: In one bit of downtime, Dante and Lok exchange snarky wisecracks about how many trenchcoats Dante goes through... Which causes Zhalia to burst out in girly-sounding laughter that visibly surprises the other three.
  • In another example that's more sad: When The Betrayer proclaims that Dante "is no more", Zhalia immediately breaks down crying (despite being in her disguise).
• Official Couple: DanteXZhalia and LokXSophie is what's hinted at, pretty heavily. Since this is an Action Series, they don't go further than the level of occasional small-yet-telling signs - Almost Kiss, Holding Hands, Held Gaze, etc.
• Olympus Mons: The Legendary Titans, who's level of power can't be replicated by ordinary magic. Not invincible, but powerful enough to live up to their name, all of them.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Blood Spiral Brotherhood are purported to be this. They glorify chaos, and their stated goal is to summon back the Nullifiers to end civilization. The idea there is that only the Spiral faithfuls will survive to reign. That said, not every Spiral is strictly onboard with every aspect of this, including their acting leader, Rassimov, or even really understand what that type of omnicide would actually entail if it came to pass.
  • The Betrayer seems to be very much this. And in fact, part of his plan to carry out the return of the Nullifers included making sure every potential threat to said plan would get crushed by the Red Comet once the Spiral Mark was activated. This would includ the Huntik Foundation and Casterwill family Seekers that were headed to that location to back up the heroes, as well as anyone among the Spirals who'd prove to have a problem with the totality of the whole thing. When The Betrayer reveals this, many of the rank-and-file Silent Soldiers begin to visibly panic and even attempt to scatter. Not Shauna, though...
    Shauna: Hahaha!! Bask in the true meaning of chaos!!
• Ordinary Highschool Student: ...Or college student, it's kinda unclear. (Though Focauld Casterwill does mention Le Blanche took Sophie to Venice for high school, after leaving it vague until Season 2, anyway.) Lok starts out this way, but it doesn't last long at all.
• Parental Abandonment: Sophie, Zhalia, Den, and Harrison are all stated orphans, while Lok has a Disappeared Dad and lives alone (though he seems to have good relations with his mother, as a few episodes show). It was never out right stated, but it's implied that Dante is also an orphan, since Metz was taking care of him and teaching him how to be a Seeker since he was a young boy. Eathon is likewise in a similar implied boat, with Simon being the person he was always around and closest to from boyhood through young adulthood.
• Parental Substitute: Going along with the Seeker penchant for implied or explicit lack of biological parents, there are many Seeker mentors who also act or are looked up to in some fashion as Parental Substitutes.
  • Simon appeared to be Eathon's caretaker growing up, and Metz is very much seen as Dante's father-figure. Combined with Big Brother Mentor, Dante passes this along to Lok, Sophie, and Den, who are either stated orphans or missing a parent.
  • Klaus is this for Zhalia and considers her his daughter. She never states it, but others and the narrative make it clear she reciprocates the relationship, complicated though it may be.
  • Paralleling Klaus, Tantras, a high-ranking Blood Spiral teacher and recruiter of orphans, comes to view Kiel and later Harrison as his own progeny, though he's considerably more toxic about it than even Klaus. Harrison is implied to share this sentiment, though, inheriting Tantras's strongest Titans and his position in the Blooded Circle with Tantras's blessings right before Tantras implicitly kicks the bucket.
  • And Sophie has had LeBlanche as a father-figure since the day she was sent under his care following Santiago and her fleeing Sophie's destroyed home. She also comes into Lady Nimue as a surrogate grandmother of sorts who eventually goes on to commit a Heroic Sacrifice in part to inspire Sophie to overcome her fears of the future.
• Passing the Torch: Happens frequently as a symbolic gesture, usually an unofficial form of initiation for new Seekers. This typically takes the form of a more experienced Seeker giving a Titan tp a newer Seeker to bond with. To prominent examples of this are when Dante gives Lok a Freelancer Amulet in the second episode, and the Call-Back to that moment where Lok gives that same Freelancer Amulet to Den in "Boys will be Seekers".
• Personality Powers: Similar to the interplay between How Do I Shot Web? and Instant Expert within the show, as detailed below, Huntik utilizes and plays with the Seeker powers and Titans used by the various Seeker factions throughout it.
  • The most fundamental way this is done is via coding certain powers as 'good guy' and 'bad guy'. You can tell this is done by noticing which side uses which powers, like antagonists' preference for Poisonfang. Furthermore, there often equivocal abilities used by a given side, such the good guys using Dragonfist and the bad guys using Thundercut. Nimblefire, Shadowspeed, and Cutrace also function in the same way as coding.
  • Huntik also likes to play with these tropes. Sometimes, a Seeker will utilize powers that on the surface seem like they belong to the wrong faction. And often when they do, the character using them are still just as heroic or villainous as they always were. Note how often Simplemind is used: it tends to be used more by the good guys, particularly Dante and Zhalia, then the bad guys like DeFoe.
  • And then there are the times when a character using strange or off-faction powers are meant to be narratively significant. Some prime examples of this include Zhalia's penchant for Shadowspeed, Mindsight, and Venomhand, alongside her using Strix, mark her allegiance to The Organization. Or how Rassimov's esoterically dark and destructive abilities that seemingly no other Seeker wielded before are huge red flags that indicate his eventually revealed position as leader of the Blood Spirals. Many of his powers are used by other Spirals, including in weaker variations, like his Darkvoid and the weaker Abyssalfall. Dark Pharaoh, the "new toy" he gives to one of The Organization suits he commanded, is also a Titan occasionally shown be used by Casterwill Hunters among the Spirals. Likewise, one of ways Harrison's Heel–Face Turn is cemented narratively is shown through his use of Dragonfist alongside Den's to blindside The Betrayer. Up to that point, he had only ever used the antagonistic Thundercut.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Sophie and Lok. Besides the color of their clothes, Sophie has the red background in the opening, while Lok has the blue one.
• Plant Person: Dark Dryad, a Titan summoned by Stack, has the ability to manipulate vines and roots and looks like a leafy, green dryad.
• Power at a Price: Umbra, Legendary Titan of Dimensions, has the ability to teleport - using it on just himself has no trouble, but adding any other living beings to that list permanently weakens the Titan; in fact, he was ten times more powerful in ancient times, before thousands of years of usage. Though Dante can sometimes get around this with Copykind, Umbra has only a few usages left, and the last one in the Season 2 finale has him fade away.
• Power-Up: When a Seeker and his or her Titan form a strong bond, it's possible for the Titan to become Powerbonded, which comes with new golden armor, a new summon sequence, and more streams of light as well as a new symbol projection from the Amulet. In addition, Seekers and Powerbonded Titans have a perfect Psychic Link. During season two, all the Main Characters plus the Anti-Villain get this, though how many and when differs.
• Put on a Bus: Grier following his promotion midway through the first season. He briefly returns in Season 2, putting Wilder in his place and taking control of the Organization, though results of this change in leadership happen offscreen.
  • Zhalia leaves at end of episode 17, out of guilt for her actions. She returns two episodes later, determined to make things up to them now.
  • Zhalia starts Commuting on a Bus a third of the way into season two. We see much less of her and her Titans from that point until the end of season two. She only shows up during Blood Spiral scenes and outings that include Harrison. She and Dante still communicate via their Logosbooks.
• Puzzle Box: Lok acquires Springer by solving a square puzzle akin to a Rubik's Cube. The solved puzzle then transforms into the Titan's amulet. Fittingly, the Titan in question is itself a master of locks and puzzles.
• Pyromaniac: Hot-Blooded Blood Spiral Kiel. He often declares gleefully "Burn everything!" when summoning his fire Titans, and he's fond of fire Seeker powers.
• Refusal of the Call: Lok after his initial encounter with Suits and Titans, due to this being his introduction to the Seeker world. Once he gets over the initial shock, and sees that this world may hold clues to finding his dad, he's all in.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: A number of Titans including Zhalia's chameleon Gareon (at first), DeFoe's small floating cobra Kreutalk, and Ammit Heart-Eater, an alligator-like Titan preferred by Rassimov and the suits under his command.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Tantras makes an example out of Stack for this. The same fate would have befallen Zhalia had she not erased Tantras's short-term memory with her newly Powerbonded Gareon.
  • Shauna certainly believes Rassimov's death is this.
• Saying Too Much: In Ethiopia, the Huntik Team and their then-guide Otto get split up in the desert. Otto and Zhalia end up running into the Professor and his men, and Otto, delirious and tired, accidentally tells the Professor he doesn't know Dante Vale. The latter points out that he never mentioned Dante's name.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: The exact competence level varies per individual and circumstance, but Seeker trackers are important assets to any Seeker teams who have them. Not only are they good at finding and sussing out whatever their target or goal is, but they're prolific at scouting and reconnaissance. One of the prime things Zhalia brings to Dante's Huntik team is her skills as a tracker and scout. Season 2 introduces Stack, one of Mr. Wilder's most loyal followers, and Marduk, Kiel's tracker as part of the Blood Spiral Casterwill Hunters. Marduk is probably the most Scarily Competent Tracker we see.
  • There are also Titans that are often employed as such, including ones meant specifically for tracking and searching, like Red Searcher and Kaioh the Tracker.
• Sequel Hook: In the first season, we have Rassimov being thrown defeated into a magical vortex and winding up 'somewhere' to say to two unknown people^note Shauna and Wind that everything is going according to the plan. In the second, after the final battle, Montahue wonders if the Blood Spiral Mark is deactivated for good... Only for the Mark to flash for a moment. The viewers are then shown that the red comet heralding the Nullifiers is still there.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Dante throws a suit from a train. The first episode opens with Lok having an Indiana Jones-style dream, and one of his classmates mockingly calls him "Indy" based on his fashion choice.
  • Can't forget the sound effect when a summon is triggered. You know, like, the very same one used for a Pokémon's retreat into its Pokéball.
  • A season 1 episode pulls double duty with its title "L'Inferno di Dante", that is both how most Italians refer to the first part of a very well-known poem and Italian for "Dante's Inferno".
  • When Klaus is freed from being a statue in season 2, and he learns of Zhalia's Heel–Face Turn, he incredulously states "I'm out of it for a little while, and everyone gets delusions of grandeur!"
  • When Den leaves Lok to take care of some Venetian thugs Den convinced were insulted by Lok, Lok uses a few powers to make short work of them. The pointy-headed one balks at Lok, asking if he thinks he's some superhero. Lok quips that maybe he is, before using Spidertouch to rope the guy up.
• Smug Snake: DeFoe, and by the end of the day, Mr. Wilder.
• Solar and Lunar: Lok's mom, Sandra Lambert, has two twin Titans named as such.
• Spanner in the Works: Eathon Lambert in season 2: during the season, he appeared to Lok a few times to advise him, but was revealed to have been The Betrayer all but twice. The first time (which is how The Betrayer knew to copy him) and the next to last, when Lok and Cherit were in a pocket dimension close to Huntik. That's when he told Lok how to neutralize The Betrayer's counter to Pendragon
• Spoiler Title: Of the final episode no less.
• Stock Footage: The animation for Titans as they are summoned, though they're kind enough to get little variations, and sometimes shortened sequences rather than the full stuff.
• Summon Magic: How the Seekers get their Titans out of the Amulets.
• Super-Empowering: Cherit, who can give other Titans and even Seekers a temporary boost.
• Taken for Granite: King Basilisk's attack. The victim's Granite status can and has been reversed on a couple of occasions.
• Team Pet: Cherit.
• Teeth Clenched Team Work: Sophie and Zhalia, though they get better as time goes on.
• Tempting Fate: A hilarious example in season 2, episode 14. Den distracts Harrison from the Buzzila's Hive Mother Titan he was guarding, and asks him why he left his post. Harrison replies declaring there are twenty Blood Spiral soldiers and that nobody can defeat them. The following scene shows Dante defeating the last five guards and keeping count.
  • During an adventure in The Castle of Tir Na Nog, Den and Sophie defeat one of a group of marauding Titans, and Den states "This is too easy.". He later laments his statement when three more are unleashed from stone, saying he really needs to stop saying things like that.
• Tentacle Rope: Various Titan and Seeker powers manifest themselves as this, constricting the gang until they break free. For some reason, this seems to happen to Sophie the most.
• The Chosen Many: The Huntik Foundation's Seekers.
• The Syndicate: The Organization
• Theme Music Power-Up: Accompanies the summoning of the Titans and the Bladecall for the Willblade. There's a set for the good guys' Titans as well as the bad guys'. Lok has a recurring one during the second season.
• Theme Naming: The Huntik Foundation council members are all named after famous museums from around the world:
  • Metz - the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or simply "The Met") located in New York.
  • Guggenheim - the Guggenheim Museums located in New York, Bilbao, Venice and Abu Dhabi .
  • Higgans - the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford located in England.
  • Momax - the Museum of Modern Art located in New York, Venice and Bilbao.
  • Nasher - the Nasher Museum of Art located at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, and the Nasher Scupture Center located in Dallas, Texas.
  • Teien - the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan.
  • Uffizi - the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
• This Is Gonna Suck: When the ambush Wilder's faction sets up begins to go awry in Cortez's Treasure Vault, a room filled to the brim with trap after redundant trap, Hoffman notes wearily that he's "seen this happen before" and that "It's never good."
• Timm Style: Based on the outlining of the characters and the typical body-proportions they have.
• Took a Level in Badass: Lok, after discovering his father may be dead due to the Organization. He throws them around pretty good.
  • Whenever a Seeker Powerbonds with a Titan.
• Travelling at the Speed of Plot: Lok and his friends visit his mother in Kerry, and then head off to Newgrange, in Meath. While they're there, Lok's mother turns up with a picnic basket. From Kerry.
• True Companions: Lok, Sophie, Dante, Zhalia, and Cherit grow into this by the first season's end. This includes Den as well in the second season, after a fashion.
• Villainous Harlequin: The Silent Soldiers of the Blood Spiral's seemingly favorite Titan, Harlekin.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Dante's plans are regularly revealed after the fact. Also The Betrayer is only revealed to have been influencing events towards the end of the second series.
• We Are Everywhere: The Organization is believed to be this at first, though we later learn this is an exaggeration. Though they did run deep enough to be a bit paranoid, like via their infiltration of the world's banks, this is no longer the case as of season two.
  • It's later revealed that this was intentionally invoked by the Professor, who used Araknos' Mind Control powers to recruit people everywhere, making it seem as though the Organization was much older and more widespread than it actually was.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Kiel and Tantras. Though they are implied to have kicked the bucket, they sorta just disappear after certain poignant episodes, especially Kiel.
  • A more straightforward example is Otto, a guide from Mek'ele, Ethiopia and an old friend of Zhalia's who helps the team reach King Solomon's Mines in their search for one of the Legendary Titans. He and Zhalia get separated during a desert storm ambush from The Organization, only to run afoul of Rassimov and than The Professor. After getting brainwashed by The Professor, he disappears from the show, not even showing up when Zhalia, Rassimov, and The Professor surround the Huntik team later. Otto's last scene is the flashback showing how he got brainwashed and how Zhalia got out of it. He's only mentioned once thereafter by Dante explaining that if Zhalia hadn't "turned them in a second time", Otto would have done so himself. His whereabouts and fate lay completely unaddressed.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Zhalia's usual form of disguise.
• The Worf Effect: Wilder seems to exist only for this: after spending the first few episodes giving the heroes a hard time, the Blood Spiral Order makes its debut by trashing him and his mooks. In a double subversion, he becomes even more dangerous after that before Grier asskicks him out of the show.
• Worthy Opponent: Grier for Dante and vice-versa.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Part of numerous character growth moments include other characters reminding the doubter in question that they are indeed better than they think they are.
  • Zhalia has a few. Probably the most poignant occurs during "Coming of Age", when Sophie lets Zhalia take the Test of Nobility rather than letting her take the Test of Intelligence as part of getting the Ancient Amulet of Will. Zhalia was sure she wouldn't be able to pass a test of nobility, even though Sophie knows better. In the end, Sophie's proven right and Zhalia thanks her for it.
  • Season 2 has a lot of moments for Sophie where she's left doubting her capabilities and potential and fearing for her future. Many characters remind and reassure Sophie of her strengths and capabilities, including Lady Nimue who performs a Heroic Sacrifice in part to inspire Sophie not to fear her future.
  • "Boys will be Seekers" establishes Den's frustration with the more rudimentary Seeker lessons he's been taking at the Huntik Foundation Venice HQ. He wants to get his brother back from the Blood Spirals, but the difficulty he's facing leaves him wracked with self-doubt. One of the reasons he claps back at Lok's attempt to empathize with him is that he knows Lok is a hero and fears he'll never be one, since he thinks only a hero can save Harrison now. Lok reminds Den that he's always been a hero, instinctively protecting his brother at the orphanage, and later proves this by letting Den bond with his Freelancer, saying it'll be a good fit for a hero like Den. Den does, and later musters the Heroic Resolve needed to face Harrison next they meet, even decisively beating him and his Hitokiri together with Freelancer.
• You Have Out Lived Your Usefulness: This is how DeFoe leaves the picture and how Grier is promoted .

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