History Literature / WelcomeToNightVale

* AdultFear:
** Few children in Night Vale make it to adulthood, either through TimeyWimeyBall or the number of anomalies that kill people.
** Diane has a FreakOut when Josh disappears with her car. He doesn't respond to her texts or phone calls, because [[spoiler:he reveals that he never got them]]. The Secret Police can't help, the [[spoiler:King City Police can't help, and the mayor wants to use him, a child, to fix his town.]] For a good reason she calls out the latter for [[spoiler:"taking her child"]].
** For Jackie's mother, it's the fact that [[spoiler:Jackie has faint memories about her, doesn't remember her childhood, and is doomed to stay the same age.]]

* InsaneTrollLogic: Diane calls her insurance company in an attempt to get stolen property replaced: The insurance agent asks if she can see it, and when she says she cannot, they counter that if she can't see it, it isn't there, and you can't replace something that doesn't exist.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: The Voice of Night Vale Chapters shift the narrative from that of an omniscient narrator, to that of Cecil Palmer, and aren't even counted in the overall chapter numbering system. To make them even more different, in the audio book version, they are produced like a podcast episode instead of like an audio book[[note]]Complete with ambient background music in an otherwise purely narrated medium[[/note]], while in the printed version, they're written with a distinct font.

** Also [[spoiler: Troy]], who means no harm and in fact is trying to be a better person, but is doing such a bad job at it that everyone ends up worse off for it.

* AntiVillain: The man in the tan jacket aka [[spoiler:the mayor of King City.]]

** A lot of the Night Vale weirdness in general. When something is actually explained it's just as likely to be Night Vale weirdness as it is a completely unrelated Night Vale weirdness, or even just something completely normal that sounded like Night Vale weirdness. [[spoiler: For example, the Sheriff's Secret Police's origin is surprisingly mundane and really was a desired and welcomed change to the Night Vale Police force. While only half of Jackie's Pawn Shop rituals were standard weird[[note]]like washing your hands while chanting[[/note]] and the other half were added on as a result of broken time distorting Jackie's memories and thus were actually arbitrary.[[note]]She only falsely proposes the price of $11 for everything because it happened to be the value given to an item when she was first learning how to watch the shop. She retained the action but not the reason so she just does that for everything before the real value comes to her.[[/note]]]] It's just all a part of Night Vale always keeping you on your toes.

* GeniusLoci: The Crayton house is capable of thought.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Diane calls her insurance company in an attempt to get her stolen [[spoiler: car]] replaced: She's asked if she can see it, and when she says no, they counter that if she can't see it, it isn't there, and they can't replace something that doesn't exist.

** Diane considers asking Carl to [[spoiler:give her and Jackie a flamingo to get to King City, but he's looking out for the well-being of the town and thus wouldn't do such a thing]].

* AntiVillain: The man in the leather jacket aka [[spoiler:the mayor of King City.]]

** A lot of the Night Vale weirdness in general. When something is actually explained it's just as likely to be Night Vale weirdness as it is a completely unrelated Night Vale weirdness, or even just something completely normal that sounded like Night Vale weirdness. [[spoiler: For example, the Sheriff's Secret Police's origin is surprisingly mundane and really was a desired and welcomed change to the Night Vale Police force. While only half of Jackie's Pawn Shop rituals were standard weird[[note]]like washing your hands while chanting[[/note]] and the other half were added on as a result of broken time distorting Jackie's memories and thus were actually arbitrary.[[note]]She only falsely proposes the price of 11$ for everything because it happened to be the value given to an item when she was first learning how to watch the shop. She retained the action but not the reason so she just does that for everything before the real value comes to her.[[/note]]]] It's just all a part of Night Vale always keeping you on your toes.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Sheila, who's mind is teleported back to her birth when she touches a flamingo, forcing her into an endless loop of her life repeating up to the point where she touches a flamingo, who had hidden in the community radio building trying to break the loop, [[spoiler: dies when she falls into a pit that was being used to bury all the flamingos, subsequently touching hundreds of them in the process, splitting her consciousness into hundreds of versions of her infant self, all very much aware that her real self has died]].

* EldritchAbomination: The Librarians get their most detailed description yet. They are giant mass of shadows with giant mouths, pale white tentacles, and can shoot acid.

* ClingyMacGuffin: The "KING CITY" papers cannot be gotten rid of; no matter what is done to them, they will reappear in their owners hand in pristine condition, and also consume their owner's minds with thoughts of King City.

* BrickJoke: Throughout the novel, people comment on both Diane and Jackie having migraines, which the two of them both deny. Near the end of the book, Cecil reminds everyone that last month the definition of migraine has been changed to mean "a giant scorpion on the hiding on back of your neck that you would have no awareness of until someone points it out".

** At the end of the novel, the Man in the Tan Jacket's suitcase full of flies is explained; [[spoiler: he moonlights as a fly salesman]]. [[spoiler: Old Woman Josie]] successfully [[TheCloudCuckoolanderWasRight guessed the secret]] in the Man in the Tan Jacket's ''very first appearance''.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Cecil is upset when someone [[spoiler:actually Diane and Jackie]] break into Carl's lab to [[spoiler:touch a flamingo and get to King City.]]

** Diane has a FreakOut when Josh disappears with her car. He doesn't respond to her texts or phone calls, because [[spoiler:he reveals that he never got them]]. The Secret Police can't help, the [[spoiler:King City Police can't help, and the mayor wants to use him, a child to fix his town.]] For a good reason she calls out the latter for [[spoiler:"taking her child"]].