History ComicBook / Blackbird2018

* AstonishinglyAppropriateAppearance: Wikipedia describes iridium as "A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition [metal]". This is a perfect description of [[spoiler: Gloria's dress, physical appearance and character after ten years of transition to being the head of the Iridium Cabal.]]

* AstonishinglyAppropriateAppearance: Wikipedia describes iridium as "A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition [metal]". This is a perfect description of [[Spoiler: Gloria's dress, physical appearance and character after ten years of transition to being the head of the Iridium Cabal.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nina's mother, Gloria, died in a car accident while driving away from her husband, Enrique, because he was having an affair. Except [[spoiler: no, she didn't. Nina died in an earthquake and Gloria had her resurrected in a deal in which Gloria faked her own death in the car accident, leaving Enrique with the guilt of having indirectly gotten a member of his family killed. If Nina ''had'' died in that accident, it might be a fair exchange (Enrique has not been portrayed in anything like a positive light so far), but Nina was actually killed by falling masonry whilst huddling under a freeway underpass. Enrique had nothing to do with it, one way or the other. Gloria's parting shot, while probably more an act of supreme negligence rather than deliberate malice, left him with a decade of undeserved guilt over causing her death, greatly contributing to him being an bitter, alcoholic, absentee father — which effectively left Nina and her sister with ''neither parent''. And Nina is becoming an alcoholic herself.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The more Nina learns about the Paragon cabals, the more they sound like warring Mexican drug cartels. A superficially glamourous, heavily secretive world of warring cliques that treats everyone not a part of it with utter contempt, hordes power for itself, and runs through the distribution of a heavily guarded, crystalline substance that requires an unknown (but hinted to be ghastly) process to accumulate. According to the police detective, these cabals are responsible for more than four hundred innocent deaths in the past year ''alone'' (it is all but stated that if you belong to this society, sooner or later you ''will'' become a murderer) — and ten years of it has turned Nina's warm, caring mother into a cold, ruthlessly unemotional figure who seems to think that constantly gaslighting her daughter — and obviously ruining her life in the process — somehow merits her gratitude when she personally made it so that Nina can't even remember the one genuinely good thing that her mother did for her. Basically, there are no good guys in this world, and the longer you are a part of it the worse you become. The contrast between Nina's memories of her mother and how she acts in person are, to say the least, jarring.

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Subverted and played with. While Nina's mother did actually have the best possible reason for abandoning her [[spoiler: It was a necessary precondition for the process which would resurrect Nina from the dead]], her constant attempts to erase her memories of the event and to prevent her daughter from ever learning about the world she now inhabited utterly ruined her life. Alcholism, drug addiction, and an early grave were the most likely consequences of constantly gaslighting and mindraping her own daughter- a fact which does not seem to have registered with her or made her reconsider her [[spoiler: post-resurrection]] conduct toward Nina in the slightest. Even worse, when Nina's inevitable attempts to figure out what the hell is going on result in a chain of events that leads to the [[spoiler: intended-to-be permanent disappearance of Nina's own sister, whom Nina now relied upon to survive thanks to being reduced to such a gaslighted wreck]], Nina's mother has the gall to blame Nina herself for it. ''And she even tries to erase Nina's memory of her sister's existence''. For all intents and purposes, Nina's mother is the big bad of the series, because she can't admit how badly she fucked up and continues to fuck up Nina's life.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The more Nina learns about the Paragon cabals, the more they sound like warring Mexican drug cartels. A superficially glamourous, heavily secretive world of warring cliques that treats everyone not a part of it with utter contempt, hordes power for itself, and runs through the distribution of a heavily guarded, crystalline substance that requires an unknown (but hinted to be ghastly) process to accumulate. According to the police detective, these cabals are responsible for more than four hundred innocent deaths in the past year ''alone'' (it is all but stated that if you belong to this society, sooner or later you ''will'' become a murderer)- and ten years of it has turned Nina's warm, caring mother into a cold, ruthlessly unemotional figure who seems to think that constantly gaslighting her daughter- and obviously ruining her life in the process- somehow merits her gratitude when she personally made it so that Nina can't even remember the one genuinely good thing that her mother did for her. Basically, there are no good guys in this world, and the longer you are a part of it the worse you become. The contrast between Nina's memories of her mother and how she acts in person are, to say the least, jarring.

** Note: [[spoiler: As dying is necessary to become a paragon, Gloria would have to have died at some point herself to become a paragon. However, it is unclear whether that took place years before and she resumed her status, or if she took part in the ritual to become a paragon after Nina was revived. In the afterlife waystation of the Grand Oasis Diner, Nina's soul encounters a much younger version of her mother, indicating that it was probably the former.]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:It turns out that Nina's mother's death in the car crash was this. Gloria did not die in the wreck. Nina did, and Gloria insisted that she be brought back to life in a partial version of the paragon ritual. In return for this, Gloria's own death was faked in her place, and all memory of Nina's actual death was erased. Gloria was initiated as a paragon and promptly abandoned her family, which she claims was for their own good to keep them away from magic.]]
Note: [[spoiler: As dying is necessary to become a paragon, Gloria would have to have died at some point herself to become a paragon. However, it is unclear whether that took place years before and she resumed her status, or if she took part in the ritual to become a paragon after Nina was revived. In the afterlife waystation of the Grand Oasis Diner, Nina's soul encounters a much younger version of her mother, indicating that it was probably the former]].

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nina's mother, Gloria, died in a car accident while driving away from her husband, Enrique, because he was having an affair. Except [[spoiler: no, she didn't. Nina died in an earthquake and Gloria had her resurrected in a deal in which Gloria faked her own death in the car accident, leaving Enrique with the guilt of having indirectly gotten a member of his family killed. If Nina ''had'' died in that accident, it might be a fair exchange (Enrique has not been portrayed in anything like a positive light so far), but Nina was actually killed by falling masonry whilst huddling under a freeway underpass. Enrique had nothing to do with it, one way or the other. Gloria's parting shot, while probably more an act of supreme negligence rather than deliberate malice, left him with a decade of undeserved guilt over causing her death, greatly contributing to him being an bitter, alcoholic, absentee father- which effectively left Nina and her sister with ''neither parent''. And Nina is becoming an alcoholic herself.]]

* DisproportionateRetribution/NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nina's mother, Gloria, died in a car accident while driving away from her husband, Enrique, because he was having an affair. Except [[spoiler: no, she didn't. Nina died in an earthquake and Gloria had her resurrected in a deal in which Gloria faked her own death in the car accident, leaving Enrique with the guilt of having indirectly gotten a member of his family killed. If Nina ''had'' died in that accident, it might be fair (Enrique has not exactly been portrayed in a positive light so far), but Nina was actually killed by falling masonry whilst huddling under a freeway underpass. Enrique had nothing to do with it. Gloria's parting shot, while probably more an act of supreme carelessness rather than deliberate malice, left him with a decade of undeserved guilt over causing her death, greatly contributing to him being an alcoholic, absentee father- which effectively left Nina and her sister with ''neither parent''. And Nina is becoming an alcoholic herself.]]

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Nina discovers that [[spoiler:her mother knew about the world of paragons, when she encounters her sister as a paragon and discovers her mother is alive and the head of the Iridium Cabal. She is ''not'' happy because of the years she's spent having her stories of magic dismissed, as well as being called "crazy baby". When they still call her this out of habit as they are standing right in front of her as living embodiments of the world they hid from her for all those years, Nina becomes utterly livid. In fact, it is one of the big reasons she joins a cabal that opposes her mother's.]]

Note: [[spoiler: As dying is necessary to become a paragon, Gloria would have to have died at some point herself to become a paragon. However, it is unclear whether that took place years before and she resumed her status, or if she took part in the ritual to become a paragon after Nina was revived. In the afterlife Diner, Nina encounters a much younger version of her mother, indicating that it was probably the former]].

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The more Nina learns about the Paragon cabals, the more they sound like warring Mexican drug cartels. A superficially glamourous, heavily secretive world of warring cliques that treats everyone not a part of it with utter contempt, hordes power for itself, and runs through the distribution of a heavily guarded, crystalline substance that requires an unknown (but hinted to be ghastly) process to accumulate. According to the police detective, these cabals are responsible for more than four hundred innocent deaths in the past year ''alone'' (it is all but stated that if you belong to this society, sooner or later you ''will'' become a murderer)- and ten years of it has turned Nina's mother into a cold, distant figure who seems to think that constantly gaslighting her daughter- and obviously ruining her life in the process- somehow merits her gratitude when she personally made it so that Nina can't even remember the one genuinely good thing that her mother did for her. Basically, there are no good guys in this world, and the longer you are a part of it the worse you become. The contrast between Nina's memories of her mother and how she acts in person are, to say the least, jarring.

* MissingMom: Nina's mother died in a car accident not long after the earthquake. [[spoiler:It turns out their mother is alive, a paragon, and a member of the Iridium Cabal.]]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:It turns out that Nina's mother's death in the car crash was this, although in a variant she really ''did'' die. She was initiated as a paragon and promptly abandoned her family, which she claims was for their own good to keep them away from magic.]]

* FridgeHorror: The process of becoming a paragon [[spoiler: requires that a person die and be resurrected in a magic ritual, which is strongly hinted to have some sort of dehumanizing effect on the personality of the person subjected to it. Nina's sister is kidnapped by a monster sent by her long-presumed-dead mother. Then, a mere few days later, she reappears as a full paragon, with a remarkably cold attitude toward the sister who tried to save her. The only possible way she could become a paragon is if, in those few days, Nina's mother killed her own daughter and resurrected her.]] Later all but directly confirmed by Gloria herself.
** Even more Fridge Horror: Either "for Nina's own good" or else simply to maintain the masquerade,[[spoiler: Gloria is hell-bent on erasing all memory of herself and eventually, even Nina's own sister, from Nina's mind. It is entirely possible that she is doing something quite similar to Nina's sister, as the logical outcome of her plans to uphold the masquerade are that the two sisters will be separated for the rest of their lives]].
* FridgeLogic: When forced to initiate one of her daughters as a paragon, [[spoiler: Gloria specifically chooses Nina's sister (who is not ready for it, and would have to be murdered in a magic ritual before being resurrected as a paragon) over Nina (who has already died and been resurrected in a partial version of the same ritual) because, as Gloria rather cold-bloodedly states, Nina was her "favorite" daughter and she could not bear the thought of killing her to complete the paragon transformation. But Nina ''already died'', and in her case that necessary precondition for paragonhood has already been fulfilled]]. Whatever Gloria's real reason for not wanting Nina to be a paragon, that ''cannot be it''. there is something else going on here.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Nina discovers that [[spoiler:her mother knew about the world of paragons, when she encounters her sister as a paragon and discovers her mother is alive and the head of the Iridium Cabal. She is ''not'' happy because of the years she's spent having her stories of magic dismissed, as well as being called "crazy baby".]]

** Even more Fridge Horror: Either "for Nina's own good" or else simply to maintain the masquerade,[[Spoiler: Gloria is hell-bent on erasing all memory of herself and eventually, even Nina's own sister, from Nina's mind. It is entirely possible that she is doing something quite similar to Nina's sister, as the logical outcome of her plans to uphold the masquerade are that the two sisters will be separated for the rest of their lives]].

** Even more Fridge Horror: Either "for Nina's own good" or else simply to maintain the masquerade,[[Spoiler: Gloria is hell-bent on erasing all memory of herself and eventually, even Nina's own sister, from Nina's mind. It is entirely possible that she is doing something quite similar to Nina's sister, as the logical outcome of her plans to uphold the masquerade are that the two sisters will be separated for the rest of their lives.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The more Nina learns about the Paragon cabals, the more they sound like warring Mexican drug cartels. a superficially glamourous, heavily secretive world of warring cliques that treats everyone not a part of it with utter contempt, hordes power for itself, and runs through the distribution of a heavily guarded, crystalline substance that requires an unknown (but hinted to be ghastly) process to accumulate. According to the police detective, these cabals are responsible for more than four hundred innocent deaths in the past year ''alone''- and fifteen years of it has turned Nina's mother into a cold, distant figure who seems to think that constantly gaslighting her daughter- and obviously ruining her life in the process- somehow merits her gratitude when she personally made it so that Nina can't even remember the one genuinely good thing that her mother did for her. Basically, there are no good guys in this world, and the longer you are a part of it the worse you become. The contrast between Nina's memories of her mother and how she acts in person are, to say the least, jarring.

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Subverted and played with. While Nina's mother did actually have the best possible reason for abandoning her [[spoiler: It was a necessary precondition for the process which would resurrect Nina from the dead]], her constant attempts to erase her memories of the event and to prevent her daughter from ever learning about the world she now inhabited utterly ruined her life. Alcholism, drug addiction, and an early grave were the most likely consequences of constantly gaslighting and mindraping her own daughter- a fact which does not seem to have registered with her or made her reconsider her [[spoiler: post-resurrection]] conduct toward Nina in the slightest. Even worse, when Nina's inevitable attempts to figure out what the hell is going on result in a chain of events that leads to the [[spoiler: intended-to-be permanent disappearance of Nina's own sister, whom Nina now relied upon to survive thanks to being reduced to such a gaslighted wreck]], Nina's mother has the gall to blame Nina herself for it. For all intents and purposes, Nina's mother is the big bad of the series, because she can't admit how badly she fucked up Nina's life and is still actively doing so.

* DaddyHadaGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Subverted and played with. While Nina's mother did actually have the best possible reason for abandoning her [[spoiler: It was a necessary precondition for the process which would resurrect Nina from the dead]], her constant attempts to erase her memories of the event and to prevent her daughter from ever learning about the world she now inhabited utterly ruined her life. Alcholism, drug addiction, and an early grave were the most likely consequences of constantly gaslighting and mindraping her own daughter- a fact which does not seem to have registered with her or made her reconsider her [[spoiler: post-resurrection]] conduct toward Nina in the slightest. Even worse, when Nina's inevitable attempts to figure out what the hell is going on result in a chain of events that leads to the [[spoiler: intended-to-be permanent disappearance of Nina's own sister, whom Nina now relied upon to survive thanks to being reduced to such a gaslighted wreck]], Nina's mother has the gall to blame Nina herself for it. For all intents and purposed, Nina's mother is the big bad of the series, because she can't admit how badly she fucked up Nina's life and is still actively doing so.

* DoesThisRemindYouofAnything: The more Nina learns about the Paragon cabals, the more they sound like warring Mexican drug cartels. a superficially glamourous, heavily secretive world of warring cliques that treats everyone not a part of it with utter contempt, hordes power for itself, and runs through the distribution of a heavily guarded, crystalline substance that requires an unknown (but hinted to be ghastly) process to accumulate. According to the police detective, these cabals are responsible for more than four hundred innocent deaths in the past year ''alone''- and fifteen years of it has turned Nina's mother into a cold, distant figure who seems to think that constantly gaslighting her daughter- and obviously ruining her life in the process- somehow merits her gratitude when she personally made it so that Nina can't even remember the one genuinely good thing that her mother did for her. Basically, there are no good guys in this world, and the longer you are a part of it the worse you become. The contrast between Nina's memories of her mother and how she acts in person are, to say the least, jarring.

* UnwittingPawn: [[spoiler:The end of the first volume reveals that the Polaris Cabal manipulated some of the events of the episode specifically to drive a rift between the Zon and Iridium Cabals using an unwitting Nina as part of their plans to claim the Hollywood truce zone.]]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler:It turns out that Nina's mother's death in the car crash was this. She was initiated as a paragon and promptly abandoned her family, with only her ]]