Winx Club / Tropes G to L

Tropes A-F | Tropes G-L | Tropes M-R | Tropes S-Z

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Winx Club provides examples of:

G

• Gadgeteer Genius: Both Tecna and Timmy qualify since they both create rather useful devices.
• Gecko Ending: Necessitated in an episode through dub editing.
• Gene Hunting: Bloom's main goal in the early seasons, upon learning she was adopted, is to find her missing birth parents Oritel and Marion, and find out what happened to them.
• Generic Cop Badges: Whenever the girls visit Earth, policemen are depicted wearing blue uniforms with yellow or gold shield-shaped badges that have no inscription whatsoever.
• Girl Posse: The Trix - Icy, Darcy, and Stormy. Icy being the leader, or aka the Alpha Bitch, of course. Mitzi's friends. Chimera's friends.
• Glowing Eyes:
  • Since the 2011 revival, Bloom's eyes glow amber when she uses her strongest magic. The Trix also get these often when they steal her Dragon Flame.
  • When the Trix are turning against Riven in Season 1 Episode 19, their eyes turn completely orange (purple in the remake) as they hover around him.
  • Roxy gets glowing red eyes when possessed by Nebula.
• Go Back to the Source: In Season 5, once the Winx have earned all the gems to obtain Sirenix, their quest is not yet over and they must find the Source of Sirenix, which can only be found if they "look within themselves". Upon realizing the riddle, Bloom summons her Guardian, who tells them the Source is in the same place where their quest began: Lake Roccaluce.
• Gold Digger: Countess Cassandra and Chimera try to marry into Stella's family to gain the influences and power of Solaria.
• Go Out with a Smile: Before Nabu died, he smiled at Aisha while telling her that he would always be with her and that he loved her.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Fairies normally wear multiple bright and vibrant colors, while witches wear darker, more muted colors.
• Good-Guy Bar: The Frutti Music Bar for the Winx Club.
• Gratuitous English: All the fairy transformations are based on English words, as is the word Winx itself (from "wings"). Then there's the main character Bloom and minor things like "Love & Pet" in season four.
• Gratuitous Princess: Most of the main characters are some kind of princess:
  • Stella is the princess of Solaria. Aisha is the princess of Andros. Bloom is revealed to be the princess of Domino at the end of season 1. Roxy is revealed to be the crown princess of Tír na nÓg at the end of season 4.
  • Musa is not a princess, but 4Kids incorrectly called her one, so when her not being a princess became important, her dad was stated to be a former prince. Flora is not a princess, despite her saying she is the princess of Linphea in Magical Adventure. Tecna was originally a princess in the comics, but this was retconned later on. They all spend most of their time at school or on some adventure so their titles are rarely relevant.
  • There is also princess Diaspro of Eraklyon, who is a major Jerkass and occasionally evil.
• Green Aesop: The Villain Of The Season five is a merfolk monster mutated from absorbing pollution in the water. Furthermore, there are several instances where the Winx have to fix ecological disasters — both accidental and caused by the villain. In the first episode, they even magically conjure a green-energy central to replace an oil-extracting station.
  • To a lesser extent, season seven.
  • A mini arc in the second half of season four involving Diana, a powerful fairy who unleashes her wrath on humans for destroying nature, also qualifies.
• Green Thumb:
  • Flora, the fairy of nature. She controls plants and many of her attacks involve wrapping her opponents with vines.
  • Ninfea, the leader of the pixies at Pixie Village, uses nature powers in her fight against Icy.
  • In the fourth season, there was also Diana and her warrior fairies.
• Grid Puzzle: In "The Phoenix Revealed", the copied Codex pieces allow the Winx & co. an entrance to the dimension where Darkar and Dark Bloom are doing the ritual to open the Realix. For that purpose, however, there's a puzzle that involves some floating, colored tiles. Nobody can figure out how to solve it until Stella tries her hand at it. Being a Genius Ditz when it comes to fashion, she color-coordinates the tiles into a skewed grid of sorts; opening the portal as a result.
• Guess Who I'm Marrying?: Stella's dad to Chimera's mom.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The Winx girls usually blast their opponents with magic while the Specialists have to fight with swords and other weapons.

H

• Half Empty Two Shot: The first season's credits feature an official art of each girl alongside a miniature of the boy they're going to be romantically paired. However, Flora only gets a pumpkin with eyes as if suggesting that either pumpkin is her Love Interest or she won't get one this season. The trope is ultimately subverted after Mirtha is turned into the exact same pumpkin as the credits' miniature. Initially, it was meant as foreshadowing for the romantic undertones of the two girls' friendship.
• Halloween Episode: In season two, the Winx are invited by Alpha Bitch Mitzy to her Halloween party in a ruined mansion. The Winx use their fairy transformations as costumes and impress everyone, even outshowing Mitzy, who also goes as a fairy. Later, a mystery plot typical of a Horror Movie (the guests start disappearing and a supernatural force is thought to be involved) starts. In the end, is revealed to have been a joke from Mitzy to humiliate Bloom.
• Harmless Freezing:
  • For the most part, people frozen by Icy are merely immobilized and are only slightly cold when they get out.
  • When Valtor froze Bloom, the Winx had to save Bloom quickly before she died, but otherwise she was fine afterwards.
  • Icy can easily break herself out of being sealed into ice and sent to the Omega Dimension. Justified because controlling ice and cold is her power.
  • Subverted with Valtor: he was frozen in the Omega Dimension for 17 years and seems no worse for the wear when he's freed. Keyword: seems: it's repeatedly pointed out he's far weaker than before being sealed into ice, and needed the Sun of Solaria to bring himself back to full power (after losing it in the second-to-last episode of season 3, him going One-Winged Angel in the last episode has him weaker than in human form in the rest of the series).
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: The Light Haven is a re-education facility inside an inescapable Pocket Dimension where criminals are taught to live a peaceful life. It works wonders with "normal" delinquents, but woe to Trix style villains and other kind of darksider that these monks get their hands on! With these, they show their Knight Templar side: turning them good is not enough, but they will try to reeducate every bit of darkness out of them, by any means. Cue Cool and Unusual Punishment, Good Hurts Evil-style^note Lounging in bright and colorful arcadia-style meadow while an intercom encourages thinking happy thoughts. The Trix didn't burst into tears for no reason when they were told that they would be brought there again at the end of season 3.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Riven has two. In season 1, he grows frustrated with the Winx and his fellow Specialists, and eventually abandons his group, starts dating Darcy, and feeds the Trix information about Bloom. But, after his Break the Haughty moment, he joins back up with the good guys and tries to make amends for his mistakes. In the first movie, he joins briefly with the villain due to being Brainwashed and Crazy, but snaps out of it when Musa is injured by Mandragora.
  • Knut, Trix's ogre, in Season 1. When the Trix took over the Magical Dimension, he realizes that they are mad and are dangerous and decides to flee with Pepe to Red Fountain. He becomes Alfea's new janitor.
  • All the witches (sans the Trix) after season 1.
  • Morgana has this in season 4. After Bloom defeats Nebula, she agrees to put her revenge against humanity to the side for Roxy's sake.
  • Griffin. In Season 3, it is revealed that as a young witch, she had once teamed up with Valtor to work for the Ancestral Witches. By her own admission, she wasn't willing to cross the line to mass genocide and planetary destruction.
  • At the Climax of Season 6, Selina realizes that she was wrong in following Acheron and helps the Winx seal him away in the Legendarium.
• Heroes Wear Tights: The Specialists are heroes in training and their Red Fountain uniform is a really tight body suit that outlines their body and muscle contours, with each of them having well developed V-Shapes (broad shoulders, slim waist) complete with a cape.
• Heroic Build: The Specialists are heroes in training and when they are in their skin tight Red Fountain uniforms, they all look like very sculpted young men (Timmy after season 3).
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the fourth season Nabu, already proven by single-handedly defeating Duman, exhausts himself to close the dark abyss, and dies as a result.
  • This is generally how Enchantix is earned in the third season. To earn it, the Winx have to rescue someone from their home worlds (or in Tecna's case, the whole universe), and it would require great risk for themselves. Bloom is the only exception to this, earning hers through pure force of will, thus resulting in it being incomplete. This lasts until she saves Domino at the end of the first movie.
• "Hey, You!" Haymaker: In the final battle of season 1, Icy encased Bloom in an ice boulder and shattered it to the ground, laughing cruelly at supposedly killing her foe. Her laugh was cut off by Bloom's own giddy laugh when she suddenly appeared behind her, in which Bloom smacks Icy into the lake.
• Hidden Depths: Stormy of all people is revealed to be a talented dancer.
• Hive Mind: The comic mentioned under Ungrateful Bastard below hints that the Trix are mentally connected in some way.
• Hope Spot:
  • Near the ending of S4 episode 24 Nabu manages to close the dark abyss that the Fairy Hunters had created to seal away the Earth fairies, but dies in the process. Bloom reminds Aisha that they still have the Black Gift, which can be used to bring Nabu back to life. However, as soon as Aisha takes out the Black Gift, Ogron steals it and wastes it on a dead flower.
  • In the Season 8 finale, Icy uses one of the Prime Stars to turn Sapphire human, but its power wasn't strong enough to break the curse, and she reverts back to fox form seconds later.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Twice. Bloom lets the witches take Stella's ring in S1 to save Stella, and the Winx let the season's Big Bad take a magic box in S3 to save a guy who's interested in Aisha, who later turns out to be Nabu.)
• Hoverboard: The Specialists use these to fly around when they need to.
• Human Aliens: Almost everyone.
• Hypnotic Eyes: This is one of Darcy's powers.
• Hypocrite: Icy calls out on Flora, Musa, Tecna, and Aisha ganging up on her (after she had snuck-attacked Bloom seconds earlier). Never mind the fact that she, Darcy, and Stormy had ganged up on Bloom A LOT in the past when she was alone, one of those times Bloom wasn't even able to fight back. Tecna also calls Icy out on this, saying a convict like her has no right to gripe about fairness when she fights dirty anyway.
• How Did We Get Back Home?:
  • In the second season's final episode, "The Phoenix Revealed", the Trix sisters are stranded in the Realix dimension, which can only be accessed by reuniting the pieces of the Codex. Since the portal closed and they don't have the pieces on the other side, it's practically impossible for them to return to the Magix dimension. Come the next season and they are shown being transported to a high-security prison without any explanation given.
  • In the sixth season's finale, "Winx Forever", Bloom traps the Trix in the Legendarium's Pocket Dimension. It's explicitly stated there's no way for them to come back now that the aforementioned book has been sealed forever. Yet, they appear mid-season seven just like that.

I

• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • The climax of Season 2 has the fight against Dark Bloom, in which Sky tries to talk Bloom back to her senses just as Darkar is close to winning. For a moment it appears to fail, but just as Darkar is trying to absorb the power he was after, Bloom manages to use her healing powers on herself to return to normal and prevent Darkar from absorbing the Realix power.
  • The fifth episode of Season 5 has Nereus try to talk his mutated twin brother Tritannus out of trying to take over the ocean, telling him that he knows Tritannus' heart is still the same. Tritannus simply responds that yes, his heart is still exactly the same and then proceeds to turn Nereus into one of his monster slaves.
  • Bloom tries this with Selina during their duel in season 6, telling her she believes Selina still has goodness inside her. It doesn't work, as Selina responds by ripping a piece of the Dragon Flame from Bloom.
• I Surrender, Suckers: The Wizards of the Black Circle's surrender and show regret for their past actions — in part because they are afraid of punishment. However, in the second half of the season, it's revealed to be all a plot to ultimately cast a spell that could seal the Earth fairies forever. Nabu stops this but pays a high price.
• Ice Queen: Icy, taken to its literal extreme, both has powers over ice and is a very cold person. In the sixth season, she literally becomes (for two episodes) the mythological Snow Queen thanks to the Legendarium, a magical artifact.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In the climax of the first movie, Mandragora is destroyed by Sky stabbing her through the chest with the Sword of Oritel, followed by Bloom zapping her with her Dragon Flame to finally finish her off.
• Important Haircut: Inverted. In the third season, Musa gets an important hair growth.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: All of the Winx (and most female characters) have really wide hips supported by narrow waists. Their hips get even wider from seasons 5 onward, when the show shifted to Flash animation.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: In the first movie, the Ancestral Witches blackmail Bloom by showing a supposed live feed image of Mike and Vanessa, unaware of Mandragora looming behind them ready for the kill. Bloom was at first horrified that her adoptive parents were unknowingly being held hostage, but then calms down when she noticed something off; Mike was seen petting Ron the cat without any problem. If that really was them, Mike would've had an allergy attack from being near Ron, thus exposing the bluff.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Used constantly with Stella, as her eyes constantly change their hue. Either they're bright gold, pale gold, or dark brown depending on the animation.
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • The Cinélume English dub correctly referred to Bloom's home world as "Domino" for the first 3 seasons, but switches to "Sparks" for season 4 to match the 4Kids English dub, which had been calling it that from the beginning. In addition, the Dubbing Brothers USA dubs of the first two movies also use "Sparks". Since it was overseen by Iginio Straffi himself, the Nickelodeon English version fortunately ignores all this, and just calls it "Domino".
  • In the first season of the Norwegian dub, the witch/fairy Mirta was called "Mista", but in season 2 they started referring to her as Mirta.
  • This also happened in the Cinélume English dub in the episode where Mirta was introduced. It was fixed afterwards.
• Incredible Shrinking Man:
  • "Mini Winx!". Once the Winx gain their Enchantix, they are able to use their Miniaturization power except Bloom (whose Enchantix was incomplete since she gained it out of her will, not by saving someone) until season 4.
  • The Winx’ Tynix Power allows them to shrink and explore the MiniWorlds.
  • Whenever the Winx use their Mythix power to enter the Legendarium World, they become smaller. This is shown when Bloom gets the Fantasy Emerald which is much bigger than her hand when there, yet when the Winx return to the real world the emerald is the same size of her hand.
• Insult Backfire:
  Mirta: You're mean!
  Icy: Just mean? Try diabolical!
• Invisible to Adults: When the fairies travel to Earth in one episode and take their pixies along, we learn that on Earth, only children and animals can see Pixies.
  • This is inverted in later seasons, as when magic returned to Earth, magical beings like the pixies became visible to everyone regardless of age.
• Introductory Opening Credits:
  • The season 1 opening shows all the girls and their names, one by one, in a coloured background followed by a scene for each of them (oddly enough, the protagonist, Bloom, is the fourth Winx introduced out of five). This was removed from season 2 onwards.
  • The alternative Nickelodeon opening theme also shows all the girls and their names in a coloured background for the first three seaons. This was removed from season 4 onwards.
• Ironic Fear: Early in season 2, Stella is shown to be afraid of heights, despite being a fairy. Later, she seems to overcome it.
• It Only Works Once: The third Gift of Destiny, the Black Gift, which has the ability to resurrect the dead, can only be used once.

K

• Kick the Dog: The Trix fake helping Lucy cheat in the Miss Magix beauty pageant by spelling her to be "physically attractive". In truth, their plan is to cancel the spell at the very last moment, when Lucy is being crowned, so she gets publicly humiliated and disqualified.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • As far as villains go, Lord Darkar in season 2, Valtor in season 3, Duman in season 4, and the Ancestral Witches in Magical Adventure, though there is debate if the last is canon or not.
    • Promos of season 8 show that Valtor is back and is going to antagonize the fairies again.
  • Nabu in season 4, where he pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the Wizards of the Black Circle. He shows up in Magical Adventure for some reason even though it though it supposedly happens after season 4, but season 5 confirms that he's still dead.
• King Incognito: Prince Sky and his squire were living each other's lives until the middle of Season 1.
• Kissing Discretion Shot:
  • The first "real" kiss between Bloom and Sky in the Season 2 finale.
  • At the very end of Season 4, Episode 13, Bloom and Sky share a tender moment on the beach and lean in to kiss, but then Belle arrives and blocks their faces with a photobomb as the camera clicks.
• Kneel Before Frodo: The other Earth Fairies kneel to Roxy in gratitude for freeing them.

L

• Last Day of Normalcy: The first episode begins with Bloom having a normal morning in her hometown before discovering that she's a fairy and deciding to study magic at Alfea. The opening scenes establish her dissatisfaction with her boring, average life in contrast to the magical adventures she'll later have.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: In season 3, viewers expected that Chimera being a fairy studying at Beta Academy would become important, and complained about plot waste when it proved otherwise. During the same season, Aisha briefly mentions that some places still have Arranged Marriages, and later she discovers that she's been placed into one.
• Lethal Joke Characters: The Patchamen, Techno ninjas with no magic hired to kidnap Diaspro on Eraklyon.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Notably used repeatedly in the Sirenix quest arc of season 5 (to the point it became a subplot in and of itself), presumably to better divide the spotlight among the six main characters and keep two parallel storylines running concurrently.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • In episode 22 of the third season, Riven mistakenly believes that Nabu (at the time using the fake name Ophir) is trying to steal Musa from him due to a Not What It Looks Like situation, and when he arrives at the Red tower where the others are, everyone but Nabu has been knocked unconscious after a fight with the guardians of the Red tower, and Riven assumes that Nabu was responsible for that as well. Before Nabu gets a chance to explain what is going on, Riven attacks him and Nabu has to fight back. Luckily, the others regain consciousness, stop the fight, and clear up the misunderstanding.
  • Also in the third season, Valtor creates illusions that make the various schoolmasters fight one another, to everyone's shock and confusion.
• Light 'em Up:
  • Stella's power source comes from the sun and moon (though most of her spells are sun-based), and can cast spells relating to types of light.
  • Cosmix, a new transformation that made its debut in season 8, allows the fairies to use light-based magic for attacking opponents and restoring light cores.
• Light/Fire Juxtaposition: Bloom and Stella are the Fairies of the Dragon's Flame and the Shining Sun, respectively. While Stella is a hammy Drama Queen, Bloom is more grounded. Stella can come across as an insensitive jerk sometimes while Bloom is very empathetic. Stella's backstory is that of an initially socially awkward, now popular princess with a broken family. Meanwhile, Bloom's backstory is that of an ordinary, unpopular girl with a loving family that later learns she's a princess. Furthermore, Stella is the crown princess of her planet while Bloom is not.
• Like Goes with Like: Averted with Aisha's Love Triangle in season 6. She ended up choosing Nex, who is light-skinned, instead of Roy, who is dark-skinned.
• Limited Wardrobe: Although everyone's single casual outfit did change some time in season two; subverted in season four.
• Lip Lock: Because the characters' lip-syncing in the original season is synced to the Italian voices, the various English language dubs from that time went out on a limb at times. Characters will go off on random tangents mid-sentence to match the Italian enunciation, or state the obvious when their intended line turns out to be too short (i.e. the Cinelume dub has Flora and Musa's reactions to Layla's Enchantix transformation be: "Wow, look at her! She's reached her last fairy form! Yes, this is her highest transformation!"). Averted as of Nickelodeon's revival where the lip-syncing is now redone to match the American voice cast.
• Living Forever is No Big Deal: There's a handful of immortal characters throughout the series and all but two don't seem to mind their eternal lives, instead prioritizing their personal goals or simply... existing. The three Ancestral Witches were born a little after the Top God finished creating the dimension and have devoted millennia to track down said deity's power, the Dragon's Flame. The Shadow Phoenix, the Anti God, wants to hunt down the Great Dragon's Chosen Ones to combine their powers and enter the Realix dimension. The Council of the Elders, which includes the first fairy Arcadia, never complains about their duty of protecting the Water Stars. They as well as the Ethereal Fairies exist outside time, so it's dubious how they perceive its passage. Nonetheless, they are all happy sharing their wisdom and power (in the latter's case) with the heroines. The Great Dragon is an ambiguous example as it spends countless years bringing magic and life to the Magix dimension until it decides to just go to sleep in Domino. It's never mentioned how the Dragon feels about eternal life.
• Living Prop: The fairies of Alfea, especially in later seasons. They are used for classroom and big battle scenes, and not much else. Some of them, such as minor character Amaryl, are apparently still attending Alfea years after they should have graduated.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Bloom does not know about herself and her powers until the Trix mention it.
• Looped Lyrics: The theme used for the 4Kids dub: "We are the Winx! We are the Winx! Come join the club! We are the Winx! We are the Winx! We are the Winx! Come join the club! We are the Winx!"
• Long Runner: The show started in 2004 and is currently in its eighth season.
• Lost Voice Plot: Late into Season 6, Musa's voice is stolen by Rumplestilskin; to get it back, the Winx were forced to give him the Legendarium Key.
• Love at First Sight: In the very first episode it's clear that Bloom and Sky develop feelings for each other after their first meeting.
  • Musa gets the same later when first meeting Riven.
• Love Confession: Sky pulls one of these at the end of season two while fighting a brainwashed Bloom and trying to protect the Ultimate Power
• Love Triangle:
  • Mitzi in Season 4 falls in love with Brandon and attempts to ruin his relationship with Stella, but her efforts ultimately prove useless.
  • With Kiko of all characters. In season 4, he's the sign of affection for Aisha's Pixie pet, Milly the Rabbit, and Stella's Pixie pet, Ginger the poodle. More of a comical thing, though, as the two Pixie pets would fight each other for Kiko's attention.
  • After Nabu's death, Aisha is pursued by Roy and Nex. Nex wins.
  • Subverted with Flora/Helia/Krystal in season 5. At first, it seems like Krystal is coming onto Helia despite him being in a relationship with Flora but later clears up the misunderstanding with Flora, claiming she only sees Helia as a friend and never intended to get between them.
  • And, of course, there's the most obvious one: Bloom/Sky/Diaspro, which spanned multiple seasons.
• Love Dodecahedron: In season 1, Bloom and Sky fell in love at first sight, but Riven also briefly crushed on Bloom before she spurned his affections. He then began dating Darcy. Meanwhile, Musa was into Riven, but he had no interest in her. And meanwhile, Sky was lying about his identity AND his betrothal to Princess Diaspro, which became a Love Triangle for several seasons. Even Stella and Brandon's relationship was affected, because Brandon was pretending to be Prince Sky at the time. The only stable relationship was Tecna and Timmy's.
• Luke, I Am Your Father:
  • Roxy discovers that Morgana is her mother.
  • Subverted in season 1, where Bloom finds out she is not related to the ancestral witches at all.
• Live-Action Adaptation: Fate: The Winx Saga, a very loose adaptation of the animated series.
• Lyrical Dissonance: Heart of Stone (or "La Mia Cazone"^note Which just means "My Song" in Italian) is a upbeat pop-punk tune about a rocky relationship leading to a bitter breakup, specifically from Musa's POV with her already problematic relationship with Riven.
  • Interestingly enough, the Italian version is different, as it has nothing to do with a breakup, but more about Musa's failing relationship with Riven and her desperately wanting him to listen to her.

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