History Series / TheSopranos

** Even more than AJ, Tony has big dreams for his daughter Meadow. In talks with Dr. Melfi, he often expresses his wish that she'd be a doctor, maybe even a pediatrician, something far removed from his own life of violence and crime.

* HomophobicHateCrime: The murder of Vito Spatafore by Phil Leotardo and his men was motivated by Leotardo's homophobia and the homophobic culture of the Sicilian mafia in general. This one's especially wrenching because of the cold-blooded way the whacking is carried out and the look on poor Vito's face when he realizes that he is going to die.

* ConflictBall: Tony's gambling addiction in Season 6B. While he was gambling before that point, it wasn't shown nor implied to be this bad until then, and he effectively gets over it once the mob war with the Lupertazzis goes in full swing.

* AgeGapRomance

* AssholeVictim: "College", has a rather famous invoked example. It was the first episode in the series' run that actually showed Tony Soprano committing a murder on-screen; before it, he had always left the dirty work to his underlings. Being an early episode, though, network executives at HBO still had their doubts about whether or not the show could sustain an audience in the long-term, and they argued that viewers would drop out in droves if they had to see the show's protagonist remorselessly killing an FBI informant without consequences. First, they tried to convince David Chase to write an alternate version with Tony letting the informant live, or just having Christopher kill him instead. When that didn't work, Chase compromised by agreeing to make the guy as unsympathetic as possible, writing in additional scenes where he's seen peddling drugs to local teenagers.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: All of the capos and bosses in the mob are either capable fighters and killers, or they used to be in their younger days before they rose so high that they no longer need to get their hands dirty.

* EndOfAnEra: The series takes place in the waning days of the Mafia. Various Mafiosi lament that things used to be different back in the mob's heyday.

* ForWantOfANail: Ralphie's cruel joke about Ginny Sacrimoni resulted in a lot of headaches for everyone. A war nearly started when John found out, and Ralphie, Paulie, and even John himself came very close to being killed over the fallout.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Towards the end of Season 4, Paulie suffocates an elderly woman to death while trying to steal her money. However, she was a snobby bitch who was mean to Paulie's mother for picayune reasons, and Paulie (at first) had no intentions of killing her. [[AssholeVictim No one even rose an eyebrow after she died]].

The show had a significant impact on the American television industry. It is commonly credited with ushering in the (current) [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Television_(2000s%E2%80%93present) Golden Age of Television]], is considered one of the most influential artistic works of the 2000s, and served as a turning point for the legitimization of serial television as an art form on the same level as feature films, literature, and theater. [[FollowTheLeader In the show's wake]], TV entered an age of complex, no-handholding storytelling centered around morally dark protagonists; examples include ''Series/{{Breaking Bad}}'', ''Series/{{Mad Men}}'' and ''Series/{{Boardwalk Empire}}'', all of which were directly inspired by ''The Sopranos'', with the latter two programs having showrunners that also worked on ''The Sopranos''. The series helped establish HBO as producers of critically acclaimed and commercially successful original television series, and became the first cable program to be both nominated for and win an UsefulNotes/EmmyAward.

* PacManFever: "Meadowlands" has Tony coming in to find A.J. playing ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'' and then joins him in the race. We get the correct sounds, there is a cartridge in the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 and they consistently stay on the same track (Luigi Circuit); A.J. does a bit of button-mashing, but not too egregious. A.J. does mention to Tony that he should "watch out for the ghosts" and, while ghosts are one of the weaker items (and a non-avoidable one), they do at least exist in the game. To really nitpick, they complete all three laps of Luigi Circuit in some 20 seconds (though the time shown on the screen shows a more realistic 2 minutes 27 seconds)! All in all a pretty faithful representation of ''Mario Kart'' on TV. Oh, did I mention that Tony holds the N64 controller one-handed, using the central grip, only moving the analog stick?

** When J.T. attempts to pawn his UsefulNotes/EmmyAward in order to pay Chris what he owes him, the dealer only offers him $15. "Maybe if it was an Oscar, you know, an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward... but TV?"

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Played with. Tony Soprano cites UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud (whom he learned about in his "semester and a half" of college) to explain to Melfi that he understands therapy "as a concept", but the show deals with psychology a lot, and it really isn't here. Often called the most accurate fictional depiction of what ''actually'' happens in therapy. Tony however is diagnosed with a compelling FreudianExcuse and Freud coined the UsefulNotes/OedipusComplex, one of the {{Freudian Excuse}}s mentioned often by Melfi despite Tony's repulsion. Ultimately subverted since at the end of the series, [[spoiler:Melfi decides that FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse and fires Tony, deeming him to be an irredeemable sociopath.]]

* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: Jackie "The Chemo-sabe" Aprile Sr.is a realistic example, until the cancer finally kills him.

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Played with. Tony Soprano cites UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud (whom he learned about in his "semester and a half" of college) to explain to Melfi that he understands therapy "as a concept", but the show deals with psychology a lot, and it really isn't here. Often called the most accurate fictional depiction of what ''actually'' happens in therapy. Tony however is diagnosed with a compelling FreudianExcuse and Freud coined the UsefulNotes/OedipusComplex, one of the {{Freudian Excuse}}s mentioned often by Melfi despite Tony's repulsion. Ultimately subverted since at the end of hte series, [[spoiler:Melfi decides that FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse and fires Tony, deeming him to be an irredeemable sociopath.]]

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: Played with. Tony Soprano cites UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud (whom he learned about in his "semester and a half" of college) to explain to Melfi that he understands therapy "as a concept", but the show deals with psychology a lot, and it really isn't here. Often called the most accurate fictional depiction of what ''actually'' happens in therapy. Tony however is diagnosed with a compelling FreudianExcuse and Freud coined the UsefulNotes/OedipusComplex, one of the {{Freudian Excuse}}s mentioned often by Melfi despite Tony's repulsion.

* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Tony gets very angry when his daughter dates a boy who is half African American and half Jewish.

* MoreHateableMinorVillain: The show presents us with a relatively unusual and peculiar example in the particularly minor antagonists Jesus Rossi from "[[Recap/TheSopranosS3E4EmployeeOfTheMonth Employee of the Month]]" and coach Don Hauser, as both are not even in TheMafia; however, they compensate by being particularly despicable rapists with no redeeming traits. It's telling that in a series where even the most brutal mobsters of the show were humanized to a degree, [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rape is depicted as the lowest of the low]], a crime none of the main cast (not even ''the most despicable members'' of the [=DiMeo=] Crime Family) committed throughout the series.

* BleachedUnderpants: The creators made sure to be prepared to bleach their own underpants for syndication. They would frequently record alternate versions of scenes where a nude character (often the strippers in the club) would be in bikinis or lingerie, and occasionally a scene would be recorded with softer dialogue to avoid Hong Kong Dub later.

* CoolGuns: Tony Soprano uses a Beretta Cheetah 85 BB on several occasions in The Sopranos, befitting his Italian heritage.

** Paulie and his cronies pointlessly bully Christopher and disrespect his daughter. In turn, the evoked sympathy is lost when Chris [[spoiler: kills Dolan, his sponsor and [[HeKnowsTooMuch only friend]]]] as a consequence of said disrespect.

* TheStoic: This is what Tony would like to be and sometimes laments that Americans - including himself - have gone soft, always whining, complaining, and dominated by their emotions. His role model is Creator/GaryCooper; the strong, silent type.

** Tony is a fanboy of ''Creator/GaryCooper'', "The strong, silent type". Tony seems to blur the lines between reality and fiction with ''Film/HighNoon'' and the film appears in his dreams. Funnily enough, he also loves its SpiritualAntithesis ''Film/RioBravo'', especially the song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ssbgThljU My rifle, my pony and me]]."

* BeingEvilSucks: Though the series has a DoNotDoThisCoolThing element, it does also show the Mafia to be an insecure life of murder, violence, threats, paranoia, betrayal, and relentless police investigations, that often ends in a sudden and violent death. It is suggested, particularly by Dr. Melfi, that Tony's business is actually the cause of his health problems.

* KavorkaMan: Despite being a criminal prone to violent outbursts and not being particularly attractive in terms of appearance (he's middle-aged, balding, and noticeably overweight), Tony finds himself in relationships with several women throughout the show in addition to his wife, Carmela. EvilIsSexy and AllGirlsWantBadBoys working in his favor, no doubt. As does [[SleepingWithTheBoss wanting to get ahead at the Bing.]]

** [[spoiler:Paulie and Patsy are the only ones not shown to have anything bad happen to them immediately, so [[KarmaHoudini make of it what you will]].]]