The Tripods

The Tripods refers to a young adult trilogy-and-a-prequel series of Science Fiction novels written by British author John Christopher. This series of novels tells the story of the conquest and eventual liberation of Earth by alien invaders inspired by the Martians of The War of the Worlds.

The novels are:

  • The White Mountains (1967)
  • The City of Gold and Lead (1968)
  • The Pool of Fire (1968)
  • When the Tripods Came (1988), a Prequel to the first three books.

In The White Mountains, the Tripods have ruled the world for a hundred years, mankind having been reduced to a medieval state, and kept docile by "caps" which the Tripods surgically attach to their skulls around their fourteenth birthday. Will, an English boy, suspicious of the Tripods, and wanting to escape the mind-controlling Caps, flees with his cousin, Henry, to the eponyomous White Mountains, in Switzerland. En route, whilst in France, they meet up with Jean-Paul, known to them as Beanpole, an intelligent boy who fears that being Capped will stifle his curiosity, and who joins them on their quest for freedom.

In The City of Gold and Lead, Will and Fritz, a boy from the White Mountains resistance, compete in "the games", an Olympic competition the winners of whom are selected to serve in the domed, environmentally controlled cities of the "masters" who operate the Tripods. Having been selected, they infiltrate the Tripods' European headquarters, located in Germany, and learn valuable information about the masters' biology, and their long-term plan to terraform Earth to their standards (and eradicate humanity in the process).

In The Pool of Fire, The White Mountains resistance embarks on a race against time to free the world from the Tripods, in the few years left to them before the terraforming ship arrives.

When The Tripods Came tells the story, introduced in a flashback in the second novel, of how the Tripods invaded and enslaved the world in the 1980s, using television and the mass media to win popular support for themselves and to instigate war between the human governments.

Tropes used in The Tripods include:
  • Achilles' Heel: The Masters' sensitive spot between the respiratory and ingestive orifices. Also, they can detect any poisons in food, except alcohol.
  • Action Bomb: Henry.
  • An Aesop: Freedom to think for, and be, yourself.
    • Also, the need for humanity to put aside differences and work together.
  • After the End: At least, after the end of Modern civilization, for the first three books.
  • Alien Abduction: Inverted. The humans abduct an alien and experiment on him.
  • Alien Invasion: Type 2.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: Played straight with the Masters, who enslave humans with no regard for their well-being, and plan to exterminate the entire species.
  • Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: Although the Tripods have faster-than-light craft, they have no means of detecting light outside the visible spectrum, and have ho aircraft. Justified with regard to the latter, as the gravity and atmosphere of their planet was such that aircraft wouldn't work.
  • Aliens Steal Cable: How the Tripods are able to infiltrate Earth, after their failed invasion.
  • America Saves the Day: Averted. The human resistance in Europe is hiding in the Alps, because the Tripods avoid high altitudes with low atmospheric pressure (from what we see of the artificially maintained alien climate in their cities, their own planet seems to be vaguely swamp-like). The European resistance consists of people from all over Europe that fled there as uncapped children, but the main characters are from Britain. In The Pool of Fire, they make contact with a similar resistance group which formed in parallel to the one in the European Alps, but in the American Rockies. The protagonist, who has grown up in the rustic feudal-level society of the Capped humans with no long-distance travel, can't help but remark on how the Americans he encounters for the first time have an extremely bizarre accent. Ironically, despite having a well-organized and long-running resistance movement, their attack against the aliens fails, while the new recruits in Asia succeeded. The idea was to attack each of the three alien cities - one in China, one on the Rhine River, one in Panama - but the first two cities were able to send some sort of warning to the American city, so the attack failed.
  • Anachronism Stew: Justified, as humanity is artificially kept in a Medieval Stasis, with some relics from the modern world.
  • Ancient Artifact s : The "eggs"(grenades) left behind in a ruined human city.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: The result of the Bittersweet Ending.
  • Anti-Hero: Straddling the line Will is mostly type II, but they all go into type III.
  • Anyone Can Die: Including Henry. Subverted with Fritz, though.
  • Apocalypse How: Ultimately proves to be a Class 1. In The Pool of Fire, the resistance tries to avert a Class 5.
  • Arc Words: "Hail the Tripod!", in the prequel.
  • You Fail Linguistics Forever: In early editions of When the Tripods Came, the phrase "Hail the Tripod!" is translated as "Heilen dem Dreibeiner!, which, not conjugated, simply means "To hail the Tripod". Averted in subsequent editions. A bit curious, since "Heil" is a rather famous German word.
  • Artistic License Physics: The gravitational constant in Earth is thirty-two feet per second squared, not sixteen as described in the book.
  • Atmosphere Abuse: What the Masters plan to do.
  • The Bait: In order to capture one of the Masters, the protagonist rides a green-painted (to catch their attention) horse past one of their Tripods, and when it gives chase lures it into a hidden pit.
  • Benevolent Alien Invasion: Subverted. It often looks idyllic and it builds up a big shock when we learn that they plan to Kill All Humans.
  • Berserk Button: Never speak or act against the Tripods if someone Capped is around, unless you're well armed.
  • Bilingual Bonus: At least, when not using Translation Convention.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Of course, the Tripods are defeated, never to return. Unfortunately, Julius is voted out of power, the Conference of Man fails to achieve a consensus in uniting humanity, and there are rumors of war.
  • Black and Gray Morality: The Tripods are pretty bad, but the heroes can be downright Machiavellian at times.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Will and Henry, in the beginning.
  • Bothering by the Book: Will does this with Ulf, with unexpected results.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: The Capped. Not so much crazy, though, unless you start insulting or acting against the Tripods.
  • But What About the Astronauts?: Addressed in the story. The Masters on Earth are basically the first wave which will eventually end with terraforming the Earth to the Masters' biology. It's stated that the main ship is currently on-route, and more Masters still live elsewhere in the universe. When the ship finally does show up, it simply nukes the remains of the three cities (presumably to prevent any of the Masters' advanced technology from falling into human hands). It then departs, probably having decided Earth isn't worth the effort.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Laurie does this over his father's refusal to rescue Andy.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The "eggs" (grenades) in The White Mountains, and the hot-air balloons in The Pool of Fire.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Ilse in When the Tripods Came. Her nationality and parentage become very important to the plot.
    • Ulf. Just when you think you see the last of him in The City of Gold and Lead, he comes back in The Pool of Fire, and sets up a conflict with Will that has unexpected results.
  • Child Soldiers: The recruits of La Résistance.
    • This is of necessity, of course. Virtually no un-Capped adults exist outside of the Resistance--and the adult members of the Resistance were undoubtedly once Child Soldiers themselves.
  • Combat Tentacles: The Tripod's main weapon.
  • Competence Zone: Sort of. Most of the people who get things done are teenagers. At fifteen or sixteen, Beanpole has already become a head scientist, and Fritz soon after becomes a mission commander. Only partially justified by the fact that fourteen is the age of majority.
  • Crap Saccharine World: Most people live happily and the masters couldn't be bothered to actively control everyone; it is enough to put a mind block against resisting the the masters. In fact you think what's so bad about it? Until you realize that just to start with, it is not being able to think that is the matter.
    • Also consider that roughly one out of every twenty people that gets Capped is driven insane, becoming Vagrants. Vagrants basically have the mental capacity of a medieval Village Idiot, wandering around from town to town to beg. Most people feel both sorry for and ashamed of them, but none of the Capped people ever question why this has to happen.
  • Crazy Prepared: The resistance. But then, they have to be.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: The initial encounter between a Tripod and a Challenger tank in the prequel results in a crushing defeat.
  • Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Beanpole is generally quite level-headed, except when it comes to the technological artifacts they find in the City of the Ancients in The White Mountains. It gets rather complicated when they find a cache of grenades.
  • Days of Future Past: Upon conquering the world, the Tripods reduce humanity to a Medieval Stasis.
  • Deadly Euphemism: The Place of Happy Release.
  • Deus Ex Nukina : In The City of Gold and Lead we are told that a submarine launched an ICBM at a tripod city long ago.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: Will.
  • Disappeared Dad: Andy.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Will's removal of Eloise's turban is almost treated as some kind of sexual assault.
    • The depiction of the Trippy Show sounds like the controversy and moral panic surrounding various fads, including Pokémon, Harry Potter, and Twilight. And the Tripods trilogy predates them all by several decades.
    • In addition, in the Prequel, some of the reactions to Cappings, including the school assemblies warning against them, are reminiscent of anti-drug campaigns.
  • Domed Hometown: The Masters' Cities.
  • Easily-Thwarted Alien Invasion: Subverted, in that it only *seems* easily thwarted at first.
  • EMP: Implied to be used against the resistance aeroplanes attacking the Masters' city in Panama
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Masters, except for Ruki.
  • Even Evil Has Standards : Will is exploring other Vichy Earth states besides England. When he arrives in one he comments that English hang murderers because they can't think of what else to do and nobody likes it much. In one German state they have them hunted by tripods. In other words English capped may be Les Collaborateurs but they are not sadistic.
  • Fantastic Racism: The Masters think of humans as livestock or at best, as pets. Uncapped humans are, not surprisingly, not exceedingly fond of the masters.
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: Actually averted. The Master who owns Will tells him that the ship travels almost as fast as light, and that it will be arriving at Earth soon (i.e. within the next few years).
  • A Fate Worse Than Death: Will regards being Capped as this.
  • Feudal Future: Enforced by the Masters.
  • First-Name Basis: Julius and Martin to everyone.
  • Foregone Conclusion: If you read the original trilogy before the prequel came out, you know the Tripods win.
  • Foreshadowing: Henry's concerns toward the end of The Pool of Fire are awfully prescient, considering the Bittersweet Ending.
  • Funetik Aksent: We get "shmand-fair" for chemin-de-fer and (once) "Zhan-Pole" for "Jean-Paul."
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The description of the Masters' "fighting" sounds awfully like an Innocent Inaccurate description of sex. Although why the adults seemingly don't catch on is puzzling.
  • Go Out with a Smile: A very chilling example in the prequel.
  • Guilt-Free Extermination War: No one particularly worries about whether or not the Masters in the city are civilians. The Masters meanwhile wish to Kill All Humans.
  • Happiness in Slavery: Thanks to the Caps, at least.
  • Heavyworlder: The Masters.
  • Hey, You: Laurie calls his grandmother and his stepmother by their first names. Andy does so with his mother.
  • Hostile Terraforming: The Masters' plan for Earth.
  • How to Invade An Alien Planet: Cleverer than some. They are able to avoid, or work around the hazards of some of the obvious mistakes, but they have a critical weakness to alcohol, fail to realize that Caps can be faked until too late, and keep humans around as slaves (rather than killing everyone immediately) long enough for them to develop a resistance. At least they Know When to Fold'Em, and destroy their Cities in the process, preventing humans from reverse-engineering their technology or deciphering starmaps.
  • Humans Are Warriors : Subverted. The Alien Invasion comes off almost without a hitch. However it is explained that the planners of the invasion had feared that human military technology might make them difficult prey if the invaders were not unusually subtle about it.
    • Well, humans do all right in the beginning, as the Tripods aren't built to withstand missiles. Then the invaders break out the Mass Hypnosis ...
  • Humongous Mecha: The Tripods. They are twenty meters tall.
  • Hypno Trinket: The Caps.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Which includes accepting people's hospitality and stealing their children. Many of the parents would of course have been glad that their children were free-if they were in their right mind. But as they were capped it's awfully tough luck on them.
  • Idiot Ball: The Masters tracking Will in The White Mountains. Planting a tracking device on an un-Capped person, possibly acting suspiciously? Good idea. Using a great big hulking Tripod to check up on him and his friends, so they get suspicious? Not so much.
  • Ignored Expert: Dr. Monmouth in the prequel -- at least, for the Cordrays.
  • Inferred Holocaust: Realistically speaking, the fate of Hans in The City of Gold and Lead. He is alone and disabled on an island, that is NOT self-sufficient, with no means of traveling to the mainland. The Capped mainlanders have no reason to care about him or render assistance. It's painfully obvious that he will starve to death, and, given his expression as Will and Beanpole are leaving, he clearly knows it.
  • Instant Allegiance Artifact: The Caps.
  • Jerkass: Will can be this way, at times. So can Henry, in the beginning, but he quickly grows out of it.
  • Jossed: Some readers theorized that the trilogy was an Alternate Continuity of War of the Worlds. Then, Christopher wrote the prequel.
  • Kick the Dog: In the prequel, when a Tripod first appears, it abducts a farmer, demolishes said farmer's house with his wife still inside, and, sure enough, picks up their dog and flings it to its death.
  • Kill All Humans: What the Tripods ultimately plan for humans.
  • Know When to Fold'Em: What the aliens ultimately do once Earth is freed.
  • La Résistance: The White Mountains group, along with some others.
  • Leave Your Quest Test: In The White Mountains, Will faces one of these when he faces the prospect of being welcomed into the Count's family and he thinks life with Eloise.
    • In When the Tripods Came, Laurie faces one of these when he fears his father has abandoned him.
  • Les Collaborateurs: The Capped, not that they really have a choice.
  • Loves the Sound of Screaming: The Masters. They program their slaves to shriek and howl when they are beaten, for the Masters' enjoyment.
  • Mass Hypnosis: How the Masters take over the world. Firstly, they use television signals that aren't universally effective. Later, they use mind-controlling Caps on the victims of hypnosis, and (once they get a foothold) everyone else.
  • The Master: The Masters, of course.
  • May Contain Evil: The Trippy Show.
  • Medieval Stasis: Enforced by the Tripods.
  • Mind Control Device: The Caps.
  • Mind Rape: The reason for Vagrants.
  • Missing Mom: Laurie, and soon, Andy.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Or nonindicative nickname: Wild Bill Hockey. "He didn't look wild, and his name wasn't Bill."
  • Not Himself: Laurie's first clue that there is something seriously wrong with his Uncle Ian.
  • Not So Different: The humans' overconfidence in When The Tripods Came parallels the Tripods' overconfidence in The Pool of Fire. Both pay dearly for this.
  • Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Conference of Man in the end, foreshadowed by Pierre in the beginning of The Pool of Fire.
  • Obfuscating Insanity: Ozymandias
  • Obliviously Evil: Even Will's "good" Master sees nothing wrong with preserving human girls as stuffed specimens.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Beanpole, for most of the books. We only see his real name in print when he is introduced (to the reader), or once when Julius refers to him.
  • Only One Name: Julius.
  • Overnight Conquest: Played largely straight, once the Mass Hypnosis sets in.
  • Path of Inspiration: Hinted at in the prequel, but most explicitly done in The Pool of Fire, in the Middle East, where Tripod worship has supplanted Islam.
  • People Jars: In the second novel, Will wonders why no women are seen in the Tripod city. Then his Master takes him to a place were human females are kept preserved like butterflies.
  • Perfect Pacifist People: What the Capped claim is the Tripods' plan for humanity.
  • Prequel in the Lost Age: When the Tripods Came.
  • Properly Paranoid : Invoked. In When the Tripods Came the Swiss are shown as having a nationalism that verges on fascism, including a distasteful hatred of outsiders. The father says that under the circumstances that could give them a better chance for surviving free of the Tripods. As it happens they don't and are conquered by the French and German capped. But they do have an offstage Dying Moment of Awesome at least.
  • Ragnarok Proofing: Despite a worldwide civil war and a century of abandonment, a great deal of equipment and knowledge is salvaged from deserted human cities.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Julius. Also, Fritz, briefly.
  • Released to Elsewhere: Eloise's ultimate fate.
  • The Reveal: The Masters' plan to destroy life on Earth to make it habitable for their own species.
  • Riddle for the Ages: The meaning of the Sphere Chase. Just an alien game, or something else?
  • Ruritania : Germany at this time.
  • Rule of Three: Anything to do with the Tripods. Three initial landings, three waves of the invasion, thee-tentacled robots, three Cities, aliens with three legs and three tentacles.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Masters, in The City of Gold and Lead.
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens:
  • Schmuck Bait: Double-subverted by the "DANGER: 6,600 VOLTS" sign in the beginning of The White Mountains. The reason for the warning sign had long since become a non-issue, "but the notion of danger, however far away and long ago, was exciting."
  • Second Hand Storytelling: Infuriatingly done at the beginning of The Pool of Fire. While Will and Fritz are wandering over Europe and the Middle-East starting resistance cells, Beanpole heads an effort to rediscover as much technical knowledge as possible and get it weaponized. At the same time another group sails ACROSS THE FRIGGING ATLANTIC to North America and makes contact with another resistance group!
  • She Is the King: Straddles the line between Types 2 and 3. In When the Tripods Came, during the stopover in Guernsey, the narrator comments that the islanders hail the Queen as the Duke of Normandy, which, according to The Other Wiki, is her correct style despite her gender.
  • Shout-Out: The Tripods were a deliberate one to H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Definitely on the cynical side.
  • Spiritual Successor: To War of the Worlds.
  • Spoiled Brat: Angela in the prequel.
  • Square-Cube Law: The Masters are bigger than humans, and come from a higher-gravity planet. One would think that, because of the square-cube law, higher gravity would necessitate them being smaller. However, they do need to consume much more than humans to survive.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Will and Eloise.
  • Starfish Aliens: The Masters.
  • Stern Teacher: "Wild Bill" Hockey, in the prequel.
  • Stuffed in The Fridge: Eloise.
  • Sub Story : Alluded to. Some of the last bits of the formal human military forces to be subdued were submarines. These had to be sunk rather then having their crew capped and one almost managed to destroy a tripod city.
  • Suicide Attack: How Henry manages to destroy the final City.
  • Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom: The Place of Happy Release.
  • Swiss With Army Knives: Had a Last Stand in When the Tripods Came.
  • Teen Genius: Beanpole
  • Terra Deforming: The Masters' Plan for Earth.
  • |The Masters
  • Title Drop: All three books of the trilogy.
  • Trilogy Creep: First, it was a trilogy, then the author added a prequel.
  • Tripod Terror: Of course.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The setting of the prequel. Given that it was written in The Eighties, some amount of Zeerust, particularly because of The Great Politics Mess-Up.
  • Unfavorite: Laurie in When The Tripods Came.
  • Vichy Earth: In the aftermath of the invasion, the world is divided into feudal states, ultimately controlled by the Tripods.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Thanks to Aliens Steal Cable, the Tripods.
  • Villainous Valour: In the backstory the Masters voyaged far away from their homeworld and then decided to top that by conquering, well, us.
  • Wax Museum Morgue: In The City of Gold and Lead, Will's Master takes him to this place, where he finds Eloise.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Even tiny quantities of alcohol render the Masters completely unconscious for hours and they are unable to detect it. However, actually getting the alcohol into the masters water supply proves exceptionally difficult.
  • We Will Have Euthanasia in the Future: At least, in the Masters' Cities.
  • Wham! Line: In When the Tripods Came, the growing cult of humans who have been hypnotized into worshipping the Tripods (the "Trippies") is progressively getting worse, and they've started using the (early, removable) Brain Cap which allows them to be controlled all the time. The main character looks at three military jets flying through the sky, and spends a long moment calming himself by pointing out that the authorities still have the might of our entire military and civil infrastructure against what are basically hypnotized rioters...then two of the military jets shoot down the other one. Although he never knew which side each plane was on, this is the terrifying moment when the protagonist realizes that the Capped humans have taken over at least part of our frontline military units, and we are truly no longer in control.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite Jack's capping being the catalyst of Will's journey, he isn't mentioned at all in The Pool of Fire when Will discusses his trip to visit his parents.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Laurie gives one of these to his father when Andy is captured.
  • Wicked Cultured: The Masters appreciate beauty. So they have the Capped humans hold beauty contests for young girls. They take the "winners" and kill them, perfectly preserving their bodies forever, like butterflies under museum glass. They honestly don't have any moral problem with this, any more than a butterfly collector who doesn't realize he's killing what he claims to appreciate.
  • Won the War, Lost the Peace: The end result of the liberation of Earth.
  • Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The manner of speech affected by Ozymandias, as part of his disguise. Justified in that he is pretending to be brain damaged.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When the slaves in the Cities can no longer work, they go to the Place of Happy Release.
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