ThunderCats (2011 series)/Tropes J-O

Tropes for ThunderCats (2011), J-O

J

• Jail Bake: How Lion-O and Tygra escape their cell when Locked in the Dungeon, via a key in some soup, placed by a Lizard mook whose life they had saved earlier.
• Just a Machine: The Soul Sever considers the little insectoid robot Flicker to be nothing but a bunch of wires and circuits without a soul. Flicker's Heroic Sacrifice at the end makes the Soul Sever wonder whether it's more complicated than that.

K

• King of Beasts: The royal bloodline and chain of succession belong to the Lions, something that Tygra is plainly jealous of, and Grune takes issue with.
• The Kingdom: How the Opening Monologue generously describes Thundera... but the reality is rather different.
• Know When to Fold'Em: Discussed by Grune, attempting to convince Claudus to surrender because he's outmanned and literally outgunned.

L

• Lady and Knight: Gender Inverted, with Lion-O as the Bright Lord championed by his White Knight, Cheetara.
• Land of One City: Thundera seems to function as a city-state
• The Last Dance/Like You Were Dying: Discussed by Lion-O in a Rousing Speech, based on a cultural misinterpretation of his friend Emrick's Aesop, that It's the Journey That Counts.
• Last Grasp at Life: In "Journey To The Tower of Omens" Panthro finds his friends reaching through a grating this way to escape a Drowning Pit.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Done for dramatic effect in Episode 17. In the flashback sequence for Tygra's childhood, Lion-O had yet to be conceived when Tygra was adopted into the Thunderan royal family. As a child, the queen would call Tygra her "handsome, little prince." However, upon telling Tygra of Lion-O's upcoming birth, she uncomfortably swaps out "prince" with "darling" when she's about to address him as such again, realizing that Tygra would no longer be first in line for the throne with Lion-O as their first-born heir.
• Last Stand: Lion-O's Rousing Speech in "Song of the Petalars" leads the Thundercats into a terribly one-sided battle that results in their announcing It Has Been an Honor and needing rescue by a Deus Ex Machina.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: In "Native Son" a Flash Back reveals that the king and queen of Thundera tried to have a child for years. It got so bad that the queen worried she might be infertile. Their concerns were put to rest when baby Tygra literally flew into their lives in a balloon. So of course just when the royal couple have gotten comfortable with Tygra inheriting the throne as crown prince, the queen became pregnant. Then she died in childbirth, so little Tygra lost his mother and the throne in one night.
• Law of Inverse Recoil: Averted for comedy in "Between Brothers", where Wilykat uses a discarded Lizard BFG on a Humongous Mecha. Three Lizards see him struggling with it and try to sneak up on him, only for the recoil to launch him backwards into them, knocking them out.
• Leaning on the Furniture: Tygra is introduced this way, leaning casually on the arm of his throne.
• Lecture as Exposition: During Lion-O's Rite of Passage, his father bellows a ritualized oral history of Thundera at him while taking swings with the Sword of Omens. Lion-O's stuck with a practice sword.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Lion-O starts off following this mentality, but he eventually learns the value of thinking ahead and using stealth.
  • The "sneak up on the enemy so we can take them by surprise" plan in "Into the Astral Plane" was working perfectly, until Wilykit drew everyone's attention by jumping up and yelling at the bad guys for threatening Ahburn.
• Leitmotif: The series has one based on the theme from the original show, along with several for characters like Lion-O, the Thunderkittens and Mumm-Ra.
• Lie to the Beholder: A Disguised Hostage Gambit is performed this way by Mumm-Ra while appearing as Panthro.
• Light Is Not Good: From the instant Lion-O leaves the upper-city's bright streets and the camera drops to the slums, the viewer knows something's rotten in Thundera
• Like Cannot Cut Like: In "The Duelist and the Drifter" Lion-O fights a duel with an interim sword crafted by the same blacksmith who made his opponent's blade. It breaks, since it took years to make the latter and an afternoon for the former.
• Lilliputians: The tiny Petalars.
• Limited Wardrobe: Played With. The cast wear the same outfits on consecutive days, but some get organic changes (Grune has an Evil Costume Switch, Lion-O and Tygra armor up, Wilykat and Kit steal clothes to replace beggars' rags). Walking the Earth and uniforms justify the cast's fixed outfits, but doesn't explain why younger versions wear identical clothes in Flash Back.
• Lions and Tigers and Aliens... Oh, My!: In "The Duelist and The Drifter" dozens of species of Non-Animal sentients are revealed in the crowds of the Swordsmans' Town. To Lion-O, it's an Unusually Uninteresting Sight. To the viewer, its akin to stumbling into Mos Eisley Cantina.
• Lizard Folk/The Reptilians: Slithe and all the Lizards.
• Loads and Loads of Races:
  • Or rather, "Species" of Humanoid Alien Petting Zoo People, all descriptively named and given Intelligent Gerbil characterization, with the generic term for "sentient being" being Animal. Actual species within a race are treated as subraces, like Lions and Tigers both belonging to the Species Cat.
  • As of "The Duelist and the Drifter" the inferred race count has exploded with the reveal of non-Animal sapients of all shapes and sizes. It's not just a World of Funny Animals anymore.
• Lock and Key Puzzle: In a Temple of Doom, the Thundercats are faced with this, and hundreds of hanging keys. While standing over a spike pit. Surely nothing will happen if they try the wrong key.
• Locked in the Dungeon: Lion-O and Tygra end up in the castle dungeons during The Siege, only to encounter a Lizard they saved from an Angry Mob.
• Lonely Funeral: Claudus' Viking Funeral has three people and a pet in attendance.
• A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away: The setting is both this and Constructed World, thanks to Sci Fi/Fantasy genrebending.
• Look on My Works Ye Mighty and Despair: The ultimate fate of hubristic Thundera, driven home by the sight of the castle's Sphinx decapitated, and Claudus' monument reduced to a pair of broken feet.
• Loophole Abuse: In Lion-O's trial for his life, he had to face against Spirit!Panthro and get him out of a circle. Near the end of his time, he has a Eureka Moment when he realizes as King and Panthro his General, he can order Panthro out. It works.
• Lost Colony: The Precursors to the all the sentient Animals of Third Earth are refugees of a command carrier crash.
• Lost Technology: To the point that many Thunderians believe technology to be a fairy tale for cubs. Lion-O believes otherwise...and the Lizards know so, much to the woe of Thundera.
• The Lost Woods:
  • In "Song of the Petalars" the Briar Woods is this for the Lilliputian Petalars, who have been trapped for generations after a cataclysm swept them away from their home.
  • "The Forest of Magi Oar" is a magical but hazardous place, inhabited by various discontentented, hostile Nature Spirits.
• Love Bubbles: Well, Love Lens Flare. Lion-O sees one around Pumyra in "Recipe for Disaster."
• Love Potion: Lion-O buys one Ponzi, a snake-oil salesman. It's taken by Tygra, making him love any and everything he sees. Including Mumm-Ra in a dinosaur body.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: Only Lion-O appears able to utilize the Sword of Omens' "Sight Beyond Sight" Though others may take custody of the blade, it's enchanted against "being touched by the hands of evil," which appears to be a failsafe against Mumm-Ra's using it.

M

• MacGuffin: The Book of Omens
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: A very rare Inversion. Captain Tygus goes to great lengths to obtain the Warstone for his commander, only to have it snatched away by Leo and Panthera. Thanks, Tygus.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • The penultimate, shocking Superweapon Surprise dealt by the Lizards, and the literal ruination of Thundera.
  • Seen again in Episode 12, "The Forest of Magi Oar", as Lion-O, riding on top of the forest guardian Viragor, dodges explosive paper missiles tossed by Zigg.
  • The new and improved ThunderTank has this in its arsenal now.
• Made a Slave:
  • In "Omens Part 2", the unfortunate fate of the Lizard scavengers who were caught by the Cats. Seems to be standard practice in Thundera.
  • In "Berbils", the Berbils are attacked by slavers, a routine occurance due to their peaceful nature and lack of citywide defenses.
• Magic Feather: Lion-O's temporary replacement sword, needed to win a duel, is not the perfect talismanic object he first assumes, but simply a vehicle for him to employ newly learned skills, as he's made to realize when the blade breaks in half while he's pressing his advantage.
• Magic Knight: With a strong dash of Kung Fu Wizard to boot. Jaga and his clerics combine combat with sorcery to perform super-feline feats.
• Magic Mirror:
  • The Sword of Omens functions this way when paired with the Crystal Ball mechanism of the Eye of Thundera, with visions visible in the Blade Reflection.
  • Mumm-Ra has a scrying pool within his Futuristic Pyramid.
• The Magic Versus Technology War: So the Cats have a magic sword with a magic stone and some magic clerics, and the Lizards have loads and loads of technological superweapons... and The Dreaded Evil Sorceror who is infamous as a foe of the Cats, and would really like his magic stone back now. These odds are looking really stacked.
• Magitek: Some of the Lost Technology fits this, especially the Book of Omens.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Subverted on the battlefield with Panthro, Grune seems to wait and aim a catapult at Claudus in hopes of killing him while he was fighting Lizards. It's merely a ploy to wipe them out in a One-Hit Kill and attract Claudus' attention for their valor, but serves as an Establishing Character Moment nonetheless.
• Malevolent Architecture: "Journey to the Tower of Omens" has a video game-style Temple of Doom that Thundera's Clerics created to guard the Book of Omens so that no one else would access it. (hence the gratuitous sharp objects) Anyone else would have a hard time not getting ground into hamburger.
• Man-Eating Plant: The Ramlak, as it appears based partly on a cactus flower.
• Manly Tears:
  • In "Song of the Petalars" Lion-O sheds some while grieving a fallen Petalar.
  • In "Berbils" Panthro of all people sheds these after the Berbils fix up his Thundertank.
• Meaningful Funeral:
  • During Claudus' Viking Funeral, Wilykit unwittingly provides accompaniment on flute somewhere in Thundera's ruins, while Lion-O carves the royal emblem at the base of his father's destroyed monument and eulogizes him with "Rest now to rise again, father." Tygra adds "May your next life show you peace."
  • Petalars may have time to deliver a Final Speech, while their people encircle them and form an Ethereal Choir.
• Medieval Stasis: Thundera, which has magical swords and clerics, but really hasn't put much thought into moving beyond your standard ancient siege engines.
• Merciful Minion: When Locked in the Dungeon, Tygra and Lion-O see that a Lizard they saved from a lynching is serving them soup. Lion-O rants about his betrayal, while the Lizard, head low, mumbles that he's cooked a "special" meal
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Everyone seems to get one.
  • Cheetara gets a magic extendy-rod
  • Lion-O gets a new Magic Rock
  • Kit and Kat get hover boards.
  • Panthro gets robot arms
  • The Thundertank gets twice as big and even more firepower.
  • Tygra gets a new whip
• Mirror Monster: Lion-O's vision in the Blade Reflection of the Sword of Omens takes this form, as he sees a sudden, frightening image of Mumm-Ra's red eyes and fanged face.
• Mirror Scare: Inverted. Silhouettes playing across the reflective surface of a geode are meant to startle the viewer after Snarf finishes pulling faces at himself and wanders off.
• Missile Lock On: Lizards place beeping devices on pillars and Claudus' monument. They're remote homing beacons.
• The Missing Faction: With Thundera's ruination, the Cats are no longer major political players, with Lion-O's tiny group of Thundercats more immediately concerned with Mumm-Ra's defeat.
• Mix-and-Match Critters:
  • Thunderian... "horses" are blue horse-shaped-and-maned cats with bird-like heads and vocalizations.
  • Hybrid Monster the Ramlak appears to be a cross between a sea anemone and a cactus flower that behaves like a Giant Squid.
• Moment Killer: In "Song of the Petalars" Lion-O and Cheetara sit at a small fire, and she takes his hand to comfort him in his pessimistic depression. Snarf picks that exact moment to fly into Lion-O's lap, who informs him that this had better be very important! Later in the same episode, the Thundercats freak out the Petalars in the middle of a community Rite of Passage ceremony.
• Monumental Damage: The Siege of Thundera leaves Claudus' monument as a pair of feet, and the great Sphinx's head lying smashed by its body.
• Mooks: The generic Lizards of Slithe's Evil Army.
• Motivational Kiss: In "Into the Astral Plane," before Lion-O begins his journey, Cheetara gives him a peck on the cheek for luck. Tygra is noticeably upset.
• Motive Rant/Screw You, Elves: A stockaded Lizard prisoner bristles while giving Lion-O a Freudian Excuse for scavenging the Cats' crops: They have little land and resources of their own, thanks to the Cats' expansionism and strongarming. They scrape by while Thunderians throw lavish feasts.
• Mounted Combat: Depicted with Thunderian troops, mounted on peculiar beasts.
• Mugging the Monster: In the slums, some Alley Cats pick exactly the wrong Prince Incognito to mug.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The ancient history of the Thundercats as related by King Claudus roughly mirrors the plot of the original series. The Lizard's weaponized giant robots evoke those of the original.
  • In "Song of the Petalars," a Lizard notes "you can't fight what you can't see," quoting the original's Ninja verbatim.
  • In "Old Friends", Panthro tells Lion-O, "You're standing on my samoflange." Shortly thereafter, Tygra asks, "What's a samoflange?" referring to the infamous outtakes reel from the original series, which includes a similar (but considerably more profane) exchange.
  • In "Old Friends," after he proves his mettle, Lion-O asks Panthro if he can drive the Thundertank, only for Panthro to reply with, "Not a chance." Lion-O wasn't allowed to drive it in the original series either.
  • In "Journey To the Tower of Omens," Tygus' ship is a redesigned Feliner from the original series.
  • In "Berbils," Conquedor shows off a pale blue sabre-toothed cat from Hook Mountain that he captured for the slave auction. This is Snowmeow, the companion and battle steed of Snowman of Hook Mountain from the original series.
  • In "Berbils", Lion-O completely messes up trying to say "berbil" the same way he did in the original series.
  • In "The Trials of Lion-O" near-death Lion-O faces against images of the Thundercats to prove his worthiness much like he had to in the original series' Anointment Arc.
  • Mount Plun-Darr is very reminiscent of Castle Plun-Darr from the original series, tall and menacing with a giant winged creature.
  • In "The Forever Bag", the password to enter the bag is "Rankin-Bass!" Rankin-Bass is the animation studio that distributed the original series from 1985.

N

• Named Weapons:
  • The Sword of Omens, as well as the Sword of Plun-Darr.
  • "The Duelist and the Drifter" has many swordsmen who brag about the names and histories of their swords, the most relevant being the Duelist's current best blade, the Sword of Hattanzo.
  • Ratar-O wields the Rat Eye Daggers, though they aren't named within the show.
• Nameless Narrative: In-story, The Drifter tells Lion-O a tale of the Duelist's best sword, giving the characters in it no names, but only descriptors. "The Duelist and the Drifter" is itself an Homage to these types of narratives in the Western genre, with its careful avoidance and obscurance of proper names for people, places and things.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: One room in a Temple of Doom has a doorway with a Booby Trapped Lock and Key Puzzle, and hundreds of hanging keys to choose from.
• Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight: ...because Lion-O and Snarf can knock muggers flat with the power of fists and annoyance.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lion-O tends to do this. A LOT. Most notably in episode ten.
• Night Vision Goggles: Sported by some of the Lizard Nocturnal Mooks.
• No, I Am Behind You: A trick dodge the Drifter illustrates on Lion-O, which Lion-O later employs on the Duelist.
• No Ontological Inertia: In "Journey To The Tower of Omens" a tower crumbles and collapses when Captain Tygus steals its power source, the Warstone, alias the Eye of Thundera.
• No Theme Tune/Theme Music Withholding: The ten-second Theme Tune and Title-Only Opening was omitted from the hour-long premiere of "Omens" parts 1 and 2, debuting with "Ramlak Rising."
• Not Now, Kiddo: Inverted. Rather than dismissing Lion-O, Jaga is attempting to indulge him, allowing Lion-O to get back to a party and cheer himself up. Problem is, unbeknownst to either of them, Lion-O's information is very time-sensitive.
• Not So Different:
  • Inverted In "Legacy," though Leo's Commander notes the other Animals "...hate you, as much as they do me," Leo is actively working to change that, right under his nose.
  • In "The Duelist and the Drifter" Lion-O learns that the former wielder of the Duelist's sword was just as Hot-Blooded as him, not as a compliment, but a warning.
• Not What It Looks Like: Cheetara is using a Hands-On Approach to help Lion-O induce "Sight Beyond Sight" with the Sword of Omens, and Wilykit mocks Lion-O, making kissy noises.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • First in the series is the Fall of Thundera where the life Lion-O and the heroes knew was destroyed.
  • In "Birth of the Blades" Mumm-Ra gets the Sword of Plun-Darr. Lion-O tells the other Cats the war has shifted against their favor now.
• Nuns Are Spooky: The Clerics are The Voiceless, introduced with Con Lang Ominous Chanting. During the siege, they are likewise silent and efficient.

O

• Offhand Backhand: Tygra to one of the slave buyers in Berbils.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: "Old Friends" shows Panthro and Grune being chased by a giant monster. Cut to them eating heartily as a giant piece of meat cooks on a spit, and its severed head sits nearby.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Where do they get all those wonderful toys?
  • It looks like all the high-tech lizard toys came from Mumm-Ra's pyramid, once he was released. Panthro also presumably found the Thundertank in the depths of the pyramid, but where he got his knowledge of engineering and mechanics is anyone's guess.
• Oh Crap:
  • In "Omens Part 2," there are several consecutive examples. Grune gets one when Claudus reminds him of Jaga's clerics. and again when Claudus goes after him in order to get to his friend Panthro It wasn't worth it.
  • There's also the Cats' en masse Oh Crap when the Lizards launch missiles at Thundera The Cats don't even think these things exist! The real life equivalent would be someone launching a fireball from their hands. which Mumm-Ra promptly does. And speaking of
  • The moment Jaga sees Mumm-Ra. The Cool Old Guy is visibly trembling and sweating.

Jaga: The day I have always feared has finally arrived.

• Ominous Chanting: A pseudolatin Con Lang, during Lion-O's Rite of Passage and Mumm-Ra's reveals
• Once Per Episode: Lion-O has to find himself in a sticky situation and mutter "Whiskers" every episode, often directly before a commercial break.
  • In "Trials of Lion-O Part 2," with Lion-O temporarily dead, Tygra says it instead.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • In "Omens Part 2" Mumm-Ra pulls off an impressive one with a Kamehame Hadouken, devastating the Clerics.
  • In "Old Friends" Grune and Panthro fast-track themselves to Captaincy by using a catapult to kill Lizards massing on Claudus.
• One-Woman Wail: Marks when Lion-O notices a Petalar dying as they travel through the Briar Woods.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The Eye of Thundera, the stone in the sword judges the worth of the candidate in a Rite of Passage meant to test if a candidate can see visions within it. The Sword of Omens is itself generally enchanted against "being touched by the hands of evil," much to Mumm-Ra's consternation.
• The Only Way They Will Learn: The Drifter keeps telling and showing Lion-O what he ought to do about or against the Duelist (as much as an eccentric trickster is able), but when it doesn't sink in, he relents and helps Lion-O by facilitating a rematch.
• Opening Monologue: One begins the series. Narrated by Jaga over an Epic Tracking Shot of Thundera, it describes a Golden Age, when Thundera's empire was at its height, but ultimately doomed. It's also full of Half Truths.
• Orchestral Version: The classic theme tune now gets as much sweeping grandiosity as can be crammed into ten seconds. Which is a lot, surprisingly.
• The Order: In addition to being a Church Militant Praetorian Guard, the Clerics are also members of an Ancient Tradition that receives the mysteries surrounding the Book of Omens.
• Out of Focus: Panthro received a spotlight episode with "Old Friends" but other supporting Thundercats have yet to get A Day in the Limelight.
  • Cheetara (and to a lesser degree Tygra) gets one in "Into the Astral Plane". Tygra has some more focus relating to his sibling rivalry in the final episode.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Most of Thundera's opinion about technology, which is fundamentally an aspect of their religion. It's dismissed as fairytales for cubs, and Lion-O is seen as immature and crazy for pursuing it. Then the Lizards invade.

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