History Literature / Neverwhere

* JediTruth: Mr. Croup's claim that he, Mr. Vandemar, and Door are siblings. "All men are brothers."

The story began life in 1996 as a television series for the Creator/{{BBC}}, co-developed with Creator/LennyHenry. While the end result was reasonably well received, Gaiman felt that it was not entirely true to his vision due to ExecutiveMeddling and budget constraints, and wrote a novelization to reflect the story as it was in his imagination, indirectly launching his career as a novelist.

* DarkSkinnedRedhead: Hunter, in the book.

* UltimateEvil: Not a big part of the plot, but it's still pretty creepy.
--> '''Richard:''' There are ''no'' shepherds in Shepherd's Bush. I've been there. It's just houses and stores and roads and the BBC. That's all.
--> '''Hunter:''' There are shepherds. Pray you never meet them.
** They do actually show up in Literature/HowTheMarquisGotHisCoatBack -- and Hunter was rather understating things.
** Knightsbridge. It's stationary night in the middle of a bridge, a place of utter darkness it's unwise to pass through, and the bridge will occasionally take its toll in flesh.

** Taken UpToEleven in the radio adaptation as he's played by Creator/AnthonyHead.

''Neverwhere'' is an UrbanFantasy story by Creator/NeilGaiman about an UnluckyEverydude named Richard Mayhew, whose life is going uneventfully until one day he stops to be a GoodSamaritan to an injured young homeless woman named Door. He discovers that Door is being targeted by two assassins named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and is trying to escape them with the help of the eccentric Marquis de Carabas. As a result, Richard finds himself pulled into the DarkWorld of London Below, populated with a colorful and often deadly cast of characters with strange ties to London and its environs, as he struggles to protect Door and find his way back to his own reality.

* ThemeNaming: Door's family are all named after words for entrances to buildings (Ingress, Arch, Lord Portico and Lady Portia), the Black Friars are named after synonyms for the color black or adjectives describing darkness, and most of the other characters (including the Black Friars' order itself) are named after buildings or neighbourhoods in London -- or rather, buildings or neighborhoods in London have been named after most of the other characters.

* CulturalTranslation: For the original U.S. edition, Gaiman cut a lot of British references and humor that his editors thought American audiences wouldn’t get, and added several thousand words of new material to make up for it. The two versions were eventually synthesized into an “Author’s Preferred Text” for the 20th anniversary edition.

''Neverwhere'' is an UrbanFantasy story by Creator/NeilGaiman about an UnluckyEverydude named Richard Mayhew, whose life is going uneventfully until one day he stops to be a GoodSamaritan to an injured young homeless woman named Door. He discovers that Door is targeted by two assassins named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and is trying to escape them with the help of the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas. As a result, Richard finds himself pulled into the [[DarkWorld parallel world]] of London Below, populated with an eccentric and often deadly cast of characters, as he struggles to protect Door and find his way back to his own reality.

The story began life as a television series for the Creator/{{BBC}}, co-developed with Creator/LennyHenry. While the end result was reasonably well received, Gaiman felt that it was not entirely true to his vision due to ExecutiveMeddling and budget constraints, and wrote a novelization to reflect the story as it was in his imagination. It was later adapted by Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry as a miniseries for Creator/VertigoComics. (The series was explicitly based on Gaiman's novel, rather than the BBC's televised version.)

There have been several stage adaptations, most successfully a 2010 adaption by Robert Kauzlaric, which has been performed by several professional theaters.

''Neverwhere'' is a story by Creator/NeilGaiman about an UnluckyEverydude named Richard Mayhew, whose life is going uneventfully until one day he stops to be a GoodSamaritan to an injured young homeless woman named Door. He discovers that Door is targeted by two assassins named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and is trying to escape them with the help of the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas. As a result, Richard finds himself pulled into the [[DarkWorld parallel world]] of London Below, populated with an eccentric and often deadly cast of characters, as he struggles to protect Door and find his way back to his own reality.

A movie version has been in DevelopmentHell for a while now.

In 2010, Lancaster University Theatre Group performed the first stage adaptation, adapted for stage by Peter Slaney.

''Neverwhere'' is a story by Creator/NeilGaiman about an UnluckyEverydude named Richard Mayhew, whose life is going uneventfully until one day he stops to be a GoodSamaritan to an injured young homeless woman named Door. He discovers that Door is targeted by two assassins named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and is trying to escape them with the help of the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas. As a result, Richard finds himself pulled into the [[DarkWorld parallel world]] of London Below, populated with an eccentric and often deadly cast of characters as he struggles to protect Door and find his way back to his own reality.

''Neverwhere'' is a story by Creator/NeilGaiman about an UnluckyEverydude named Richard Mayhew, whose life is going uneventfully until one day he stops to be a GoodSamaritan to an injured young homeless woman named Door. He discovers that Door is fleeing from two assassins named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, and is trying to escape them with the help of the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas. As a result, Richard finds himself pulled into the parallel world of London Below, populated with an eccentric and often deadly cast of characters as he struggles to protect Door and find his way back to his own reality.

Creator/NeilGaiman was asked to do a television series for the BBC. Creator/LennyHenry helped, too. Unfortunately, [[ExecutiveMeddling they fiddled with it]], and while the end result was good, it was not entirely true to Gaiman's vision. So he went home, and used his days off to write the story he wanted to tell.

It was later adapted by Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry as a miniseries for Creator/VertigoComics. The series was explicitly based on Gaiman's novel, rather than the BBC's televised version. It was fairly well-received by critics, but fans took issue with the artwork's radically different depiction of several characters, particularly the Marquis de Carabas.

There is also now a short story in the same universe, ''Literature/HowTheMarquisGotHisCoatBack''.

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Possibly. Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar are described as merely "human shaped, two arms, two legs, one head," by Door, are functionally unkillable, and run on AnimalStereotypes so strongly that "the Fox and the Wolf" may not be mere nicknames. They are also [[ImAHumanitarian not above making accomplices who fail them disappear in a flurry of teeth, claws and small knives]]. Borders on OurGhoulsAreCreepier and OurDemonsAreDifferent. What they are is never made clear. Whatever they are, it ain't human.
* PerceptionFilter: Normal people are unable to notice those from London Below except in very extreme cases.

* RaceLift: A peculiar variant occurs in the comic with the Marquis de Carabas. Unlike every other version of the story, where he's black in the conventional sense, the comic portrays him as having absolutely black skin, but otherwise has European features.

* RedPillBluePill: Richard spends most of the story striving to find the way to get back to his old life. [[spoiler:When he does, he regrets it.]]
* ReplacedWithReplica: After the protagonists [[spoiler:get the key the villain is after, Door makes a copy and gives the original to Richard, so that when they are captured, the villain can take it from her without getting the real thing.]]

* ResurrectionGambit: [[spoiler: The Marquis de Carabas does this, hiding his life force in a SoulJar that is then left in another's safekeeping, so that he can allow himself to be caught and murdered by Croup and Vandemar, all so that he can find out who their employer is.]]

** '''Croup''': Oh, Mr Vandemar, if you cut us do we not bleed?

* RuleOfThree: Getting the key from the Black Friars requires passing three tests - and coincidentally, there are just three people in Door's party by then. Also [[spoiler:the requirements for Islington to be freed from its prison; as Islington describes it, "A key. A door. An opener of the door.]] There must be the three, you see: a particularly refined sort of joke."

** Somewhat forgotten in the comic; Door's clothing is still somewhat hodgepodge, but it's at least in some sort of noble style.
* SacrificialLamb: [[spoiler: Anaesthesia's death serves to show how high the stakes are, and serves to motivate Richard]].

* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Door's sister, who Islington left alive.]] Though [[WordOfGod Gaiman says]] he "doesn't do sequels", another book in the same universe is entirely possible - see ''Literature/AmericanGods'' and ''Literature/AnansiBoys''.

* SewerGator: Hunter in a BadassBoast says that she killed the biggest of the New York sewer gators.

** [[Literature/{{Neuromancer}} "The sky was the perfect blue of a television, turned to a dead channel."]] And played with, since the quote in the original work was meant to evoke a grainy grey colour, but then [[TechnologyMarchesOn TV Technology Marched On]].

*** Mr. Croup asks Mr. Vandemar, "if you cut us, do we not bleed?", paraphrasing Shylock's famous quote from Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''. To which Mr. Vandemar answers, "[[HumanoidAbomination No.]]"
*** Richard says "Lead on, Macduff", a [[BeamMeUpScotty common misquotation]] [[invoked]] from ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', at the end of chapter eleven. After he leaves, Brother Fulginous notes that it's actually "Lay on, Macduff", but he "hadn't the heart to correct him. He sounded like such a nice man."
* ShrineToTheFallen: The Black Friars maintain one of these for "those who failed" to win The Ordeal. It's essentially a colossal corridor filled with hundreds of pictures and portraits that seem to span back centuries.
* SingleStrokeBattle: Hunter vs. the Beast of London. [[spoiler: She lost]].
* SingleSubstanceManipulation: Door and her family have a talent called opening; they can unlock any door or lock by focusing on it, but it can be broaded to opening ''anything''. in an extreme example, Door uses it on an attacker's ''heart'', which gets real bloody real quick).

* StealthPun: The Radio 4 production signifies the "Black Friars" by having them all played by actors of African descent.

* {{Stripperific}}: In Neil Gaiman's audio commentary on the DVD release of the miniseries, one of his complaints is that Hunter was ''meant'' to be stripperific and she didn't turn out that way due to the aforementioned ExecutiveMeddling.

* StrangerInAFamiliarLand [[spoiler:Richard realises that his old job and fiancée mean nothing to him and returns below]]
* SuicideDare: When Richard is doing the trial, various billboards suggest throwing himself in front of the train would be a good idea.
* TerrifyingPetStoreRat: Gaiman wanted The Beast Of London to be a wild boar but the people who were sent to the boar farms said they were too friendly and they ended up using a Highland cow.
* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler: The Marquis arranges his own death at the hands of Croup and Vandemar, in order to profit from the inevitable EvilGloating. He had also arranged to return from the dead afterward.]]
* ThemeNaming: Door's family are all named after entrances to buildings (Ingress, Arch, Lord Portico and Lady Portia), the Black Friars are named after synonyms for black, and most of the other characters (including the Black Friars' order itself) are named after buildings or neighbourhoods in London - or rather, buildings or neighborhoods in London have been named after most of the other characters.
* TimeAbyss: The Labyrinth of the Beast of London is said to have lain there under the site on the Thames before the legendary King Lud himself founded the first village. It was built to keep a SealedEvilInACan. Though the Beast only arrived in the 17th century.

* TruceZone: The Floating Market functions as one of these. While sparring is apparently permitted if you're auditioning bodyguards, no-one - not even ''Croup and Vandemar'' - dares any real violence.

*** They do actually show up in Literature/HowTheMarquisGotHisCoatBack - and Hunter was rather understating things.
** Knightsbridge. It's stationary night in the middle of a bridge - a place of utter darkness it's unwise to pass through.
* UnfazedEveryman: Richard. Even down to being given an [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Arthur Dent]] shout out with "Richardrichardmayhewdick."

** We see Croup and Vandemar's plan to get Varney installed as Door's bodyguard fail. [[spoiler: However, they offscreen made a plan to have Hunter become the bodyguard, which succeeded]].
** The marquis' plan [[spoiler: to get info from Croup and Vandemar went exactly as planned, right down to being killed]]. However, to the audience it looks like it went horribly wrong.

** London Below is apparently inhabited totally by these; the ones who fish through the sewers and have the smell to match, the various bodyguards, the "Shepherds of Shepherd's Bush", the Renfair nuts who live on the Earl's Court train...

* WainscotSociety: London Below and its counterparts in other cities are well-developed if chaotic hidden societies.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Richard's fears are heights, blood, and rats. All of which play rather important parts in the story.
* WickedCultured: Mr. Croup's efforts to acquire an exquisite porcelain statuette look like this at first. [[spoiler: And then he ''eats'' it with terrifying glee. He simply loves to destroy precious and beautiful things.]]

* YouNeverAsked: When asked why he never warned them that [[spoiler: freeing Islington was a horrible idea]], the Abbot only said it wasn't his responsibility (even though he dreaded the possibility).

* AfterlifeExpress: An [[{{Squick}} especially gruesome]] variant in the form of a subway car filled with the rotting corpses of suicides.
* AllWishesGranted: Neil Gaiman freely admits to cribbing from The Wizard of Oz. Everyone gets their wish. Door learns who killed her family and avenges them. Richard gets a way home. The Marquis is owed a significant favor by Lady Door. Even Hunter got her wish, which was the chance to hunt the Beast of London Below.

* AnachronismStew: Clearly intentional. It's described a fair bit in the book and is especially evident in the TV series.

** Door's family home is an "associative house", a hodge-podge of rooms stolen from forgotten buildings of completely different eras that are all linked by portals that only her family can travel though. [[spoiler: Or so they thought...]] Her father's study also contains a 17th century steampunk video journal.
** Door makes a passing reference to a group of Roman Legionnaires camped out by the Kilburn river.
** The Earl holds a medieval court on a tube train with his courtiers armed with both [[SchizoTech crossbows and assault rifles]]. Banquets and toasts are had with fizzy drinks and chocolate bars from vending machines.
* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler: Assuming Richard didn't just go nuts at the end.]]
* AnimalStereotypes: Croup and Vandemar are described as giving very clear impressions of "a fox and a wolf". The Ratspeakers are sneaky and live in the sewers with the rats they serve. Lady Serpentine is, well, serpentine. Hunter is often compared to a lioness. The Marquis de Carabas is generally described in catlike terms, even being compared to a panther at one point. And, of course, his name comes from ''Literature/PussInBoots''. And [[spoiler: he has more than one life, in a fashion.]]

-->The stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling; the leather-bound books, an astrolabe, convex and concave mirrors, odd scientific instruments

** Hunter has slain the [[SewerGator great alligator who lives in the sewers of New York]], the bear that lurks beneath Berlin, and several others before going after the Beast of London.

** One by [[spoiler: the Marquis. He goes to see Croup and Vandemar for information, knowing they'll kill him and gloat. However, he has arranged the means for his revival, meaning he got potentially valuable information from them]].
** A second by [[spoiler: Islington. This began by killing Door's family, thus making her on the run, keeping pressure on her so she'll be desperate and planting evidence showing him as trustworthy]].

* BazaarOfTheBizarre: The Floating Market is a major, if transient, hub in London Below, where almost anything can be traded for almost anything else: information for a handkerchief, an iron rose for a bag of cheese, a choice corpse for three quarters of a bottle of Chanel N°5, a Hand of Glory ("Guaranteed to work") for some junk and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent a somewhat alive guide]] for... unspecified LiquidAssets, among many others. There's also some great curry.
* BeastInTheMaze: The Beast of London is an archetypal mythical creature comparable to the alligators in the sewers of New York. It takes the form of a gigantic boar and prowls a maze far, far, beneath the city where it also incidentally guards the prison of the angel Islington.

* TheBlacksmith: Hammersmith.
* BodyguardBetrayal: Croup and Vandemar approach Varney and order him to become Door's bodyguard for this express purpose. Fortunately for Door, he loses the spot to Hunter. [[spoiler: Who it turns out does the same anyway, as she was also in their employ]].
* BoisterousBruiser: Well, as I live, breathe, and defecate, good old Hammersmith fits this trope! Har har har!

* BrainsAndBrawn: Croup is a [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness sesquipedalian]] schemer, Vandemar is TheBrute. Both of them are very skilled assassins, though.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: The Black Friars. In both versions.

* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler:The subtlety of Hunter's sexuality wasn't enough to save her from this trope, apparently.]]
* ButtMonkey: Richard.
* TheCameo: Neil Gaiman plays the Fop With No Name and Mr. Figgis the security guard in the BBC radio production.
* CaptainObvious : Richard Mayhew, when Door awakes. Lampshaded: he thinks about how much he hates saying obvious things, but can't help it.
* CharacterNameAlias: 'The Marquis de Carabas' isn't his real title - he says he got it from a "lie in a fairy tale", a reference to ''Literature/PussInBoots''.
* ChekhovsGun: The quartz crystal.
* [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's Gunmen]]: [[spoiler:Old Bailey and Hammersmith.]] That's all we're sayin'.
* ChoosyBeggar: After being forgotten by the surface world, Richard is failing to use an ATM when he's approached by a vagrant named Iliaster, begging for change. A frustrated Richard hands him his debit card and says there's several hundred pounds on it if he can get to it. Iliaster snorts, "That and fifty pence would get me a nice a cup of tea," and tosses the card back to him.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Vandemar's response to Croup's knife-throwing practice. "What's so clever about that, then? You didn't even hit ''one'' finger."
* CoolGate: The door that the key opens. And the Angelus.
* CoolKey: The key kept by the Black Friars: as the "key to all reality", in the hands of an Opener it can make them an outright RealityWarper. It's never described in the text aside from being silver, but is shown in the comic as an elaborate SkeletonKey.
* CrazyPrepared: The Marquis ''always'' seems to have something handy available. Including, oddly, a large piece of fruitcake.

%%* DarkIsNotEvil

* DarkWorld: Right after Richard ''notices'' and saves Door and thus involves himself in the mess of Neverwhere, he suddenly finds that his ATM card no longer functions and people in his life act as if he was missing or never existed at all. And while a good deal of ''Neverwhere'' does take place underground, there are moments where it's clear that aboveground London has activity that's unseen by the average human being in the 'real world', especially on rooftops. Near the end, once Richard returns to the 'real world,' his ATM card is shown to function normally once more and those same people who forgot about him at the beginning recognize him and welcome him back from vacation.

* DelusionsOfEloquence: Croup and Vandemar. Croup lampshades it.

* DraggedOffToHell: The final fate of [[spoiler: Islington, Croup and Vandemar - sucked into a vortex that could be anything from a Sun to a black hole.]]
* DramaticNecklaceRemoval: Inevitably, [[spoiler: Islington]] rips off the key Door had on a chain. She winces, but seems fine for all that it was made by a master blacksmith.

* DrivenToSuicide: How the Ordeal of the Key works.

** There really ''is'' a Knight's Bridge, there really ''is'' an Earl's Court, there really ''is'' an Angel Islington, etc. This is all a lot more potent if you know the station map, i.e., live in London.
** Also, guess what Hunter does for a living.
** Door opens doors. And sometimes [[IncrediblyLamePun chests]].

** In the comic, the Marquis gets Croup and Vandemar to give him half an hour's MercyLead - except they only promise not to ''touch'' him for half an hour. This doesn't mean they can't follow him, or tear a ladder off a wall while he's climbing it.
** "When the city of Atlantis sank beneath the waves, there was nothing I could do to prevent it." [[spoiler: ...because you deliberately caused it to do so]].

** Readers can also sense a bit of the Marquis in the cat from Gaiman's later book, ''Literature/{{Coraline}}''.
* TheFaceless: The Marquis de Carabas in the comics is an odd example: he has eyes and lips, but no other features, as the rest of his body is just a silhouette. He was described in the book as having extremely dark skin, and it is to be assumed the artist took it literally and gave him ink-black skin.

* FallenAngel: Reference is made to Lucifer being a fallen angel. Islington doesn't think highly of him. [[spoiler: Specifically, he thinks he's a thug and it's unfair that Islington is treated similarly]].
* FalseInnocenceTrick: The Angel Islington seems to be a trusted ally to the heroes and informs them that he is tasked with protecting London Below due to his previous failure to adequately defend his previous city, Atlantis. They should have asked more detail about that before helping to free him. [[spoiler: He ''destroyed'' Atlantis because he wasn't satisfied with their worship, and he's basically a FallenAngel in the tradition of {{Satan}} with AGodAmI pretensions, aiming to storm Heaven and declare himself God]].
* FantasyKeepsake: Used twice in different ways: during the Trial, Richard is able to rebuff the illusion that he's mad and homeless by finding a quartz bead from Anesthesia's necklace. Later, Richard keeps the knife given to him by Hunter after returning to London Above, although since it's just a knife, it doesn't entirely reassure him as to its reality. He also finds the feather given to him by Old Bailey, which again, isn't much proof.

** Also if you fail the test of the Black Friars. The test itself is no fun, either.

** Also [[spoiler: Islington after the reveal before his VillainousBreakdown. "I didn't kill your family, Door. I ''had'' them killed...]]"

* [[invoked]]FridgeLogic: In-universe - Door wonders, in a dream, ''who'' put away her father's journal after he was killed, but forgets this by the time she wakes. The answer turns out to be significant.
* FullBoarAction: The Beast of London. Other cities are stated to have had similar giant animals (a bear in Berlin, an alligator in New York). Note the ''"had"'' - they're mostly mentioned in the context of Hunter having killed them.
* GaveUpTooSoon: Door agreed to meet up with the Marquis at the floating market. They could have touched him, had they known where he was. [[spoiler: Dead.]] By the time he [[spoiler:got better]], they had already left.

* GrandVizier: Richard describes the Marquis as one, as the page quote demonstrates. He's [[spoiler: not evil,]] but this was definitely trope invocation.
* HandOfGlory
-->...a man thrust what appeared to be a child's severed hand clutching a candle toward him as he passed, muttering, "Hand of Glory, sir? Send 'em up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. Guaranteed to work." Richard hurried past, not wishing to find out what a Hand of Glory was, nor how it worked;...

* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Opening things. To ''anywhere'', whether there was a door there or not. And the first way we see Door use her power is to open up an assassin's chest.

** [[spoiler: Hunter]] distracts the Beast in order to give [[spoiler: Richard]] the opportunity to kill it. Although it's implied that [[spoiler: she]] was essentially dying anyway before doing so, so this may be more of a DyingMomentOfAwesome.

* HospitalSurprise: It ends this way.

* InelegantBlubbering: Door recalls someone doing this in flashback. And poor, poor Richard.

%%* [[spoiler: LeavingYouToFindMyself: Possibly.]]

%%* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Islington]]

* MacGuffinSuperPerson: Door spends most of the book being chased by everyone in sight because a) [[MundaneMacGuffinPerson she's Lord Portico's daughter]] and b) she has the family ability to open doors. [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower This is a lot more valuable than it sounds]].
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: A few hints are laid down that all of Richard's experiences in London Below might really be a huge psychotic delusion, most especially [[spoiler: the Ordeal]], but this is not given special credence. The ending implies that [[spoiler: it's real after all.]]

** "Anaesthesia" is suspiciously similar to "Anastasia", especially considering that [[spoiler:she disappears. But she might be coming back some time after the book is over.]]

%%* TheMole: [[spoiler:Hunter.]]
* MurderInc: "Croup and Vandemar, the Old Firm, obstacles obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome limbs removed and tutelary dentistry."[[note]]"tutelary" = "to teach a lesson..."[[/note]] In the comic adaptation, this tends to get abbreviated to "Croup and Vandemar, bespoke violence."

** Hunter seems to have this sort of reputation in-universe - at one point the characters are each being made fun of in turn by a jester as they introduce themselves. When Hunter professes her name, [[StunnedSilence everybody gets really quiet]].

%%* NewWeird
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Mr. Stockton is a somewhat less abrasive version of Rupert Murdock.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: This is how Richard gets {{unperson}}ned.
* TheNotLoveInterest: While drunk on Atlantian wine, Richard and Door have an AlmostKiss, and that's it. Intentionally avoided by Creator/NeilGaiman, as he never did have Door's [[VagueAge age penned down when writing the miniseries.]]

* OhCrap: The first indication we get that [[spoiler: freeing Islington is not a good idea. After the trio leave the Black Friars upon winning the ordeal and the MacGuffin: 'We have lost the key. God help us all.']]

* OnlyTheWorthyMayPass: The only way to get the [[PlotDevice key]] is to go through the Ordeal.

%%* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Islington.
* OurDoorsAreDifferent: The doors are more or less mundane, but when opened by members of the Arch family, they can do anywhere. [[spoiler: The Door trapping Islington, however...]]

* {{Pluralses}}: Old Bailey asks for "shoeses and gloveses"
* ThePowerOfBlood: Type AB; blood from the Beast [[spoiler: confers the ability to navigate the Labyrinth upon Richard]].

* SpotOfTea: The Ordeal of the Key is preceded by the Nice Cup of Tea. Richard ultimately declines, preferring [[NothingIsScarier to get it over with]]. After he survives, he decides he'd like some.

%%
%%

* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:Islington]]

* TheMole: [[spoiler:Hunter.]]

* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Islington.

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Possibly. [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar]] are described as merely "human shaped, two arms, two legs, one head," by Door, are functionally unkillable, and run on AnimalStereotypes so strongly that "the Fox and the Wolf" may not be mere nicknames. They are also [[ImAHumanitarian not above making accomplices who fail them disappear in a flurry of teeth, claws and small knives]]. Borders on OurGhoulsAreCreepier and OurDemonsAreDifferent. What they are is never made clear. Whatever they are, it ain't human.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Croup and Vandemar. Never seen apart from each other.

* WainscotSociety: London Below and its counnterparts in other cities are well-developed if chaotic hidden societies.

->''"Dear Diary.''

->''There are hundreds of people in this other London. Thousands, maybe. People who come from here, or people who have fallen through the cracks. I'm wandering around with a girl called Door, her bodyguard, and her psychotic grand vizier. We slept last night in a small tunnel that Door said was once a section of Regency sewer. The bodyguard was awake when I went to sleep, and awake when they woke me up. I don't think she ever sleeps. We had fruitcake for breakfast; the marquis had a large lump of it in his pocket. Why would anyone have a large lump of fruitcake in his pocket? My shoes dried out mostly while I slept.''

->''I want to go home."''

-> --'''Richard Mayhew'''

** Lamia is named after Greek Demons which have a lot in common with vampires.

Administrivia/NeedsABetterDescription

* AnachronismStew / PurelyAestheticEra: Clearly intentional. It's described a fair bit in the book and is especially evident in the TV series.

* MisterXAndMisterY: Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar.

* AGodAmI: [[spoiler: Islington]] has issues.

* AnachronismStew / PurelyAestheticEra: Clearly intentional it's described a fair bit in the book and is especially evident in the TV series. "There's a lot of time in London, and it doesn't all get used up at once".