YMMV for the novel
- Complete Monster: Sgorr is a psychotic and sadistic deer who loves nothing but power and pointless killings. Once a member of the Herne's Herd, Sgorr one day became fascinated by violence after having observed the human world. Wanting to commit an evil act himself, he kidnapped a human infant, then brutally killing him and eating his heart. He admitted that he believed that by killing him he would be stronger then humans. After having been banished by the Herd, Sgorr teams up with Drail, the leader of a rival herd, becoming the chief of the Draila, an infamous military unit. When he finds out that Rannoch, the newborn son of his longtime rival Brechin, carries a prophecy who could lead to Drail's downfall, Sgorr sends the Draila to kill him. While Rannoch menages to escape, Brechin is killed while his mate Eloin is forced to become part of Sgorr's private harem. After having discovered that Drail is more interested in ruling, Sgorr, who prefers conquest and bloodshed, kills him by pushing him off a cliff, before ordering all of Drail's sons to be killed as well. Under his commands, the herd starts conquering other herds by force and killing anyone who tries to oppose. His last act of evil is trying to kill the now grown up Rannoch by crushing him with a boulder.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: After Sgorr is defeated, Rannoch orders all the deer to stop using reason like humans and to split back into separate herds, so not only are they going to keep fighting amongst themselves, they will have no defense against the humans. Then again, since it's set in the past, and humans know nothing of all the fantasical elements, this is likely justified.
- Tear Jerker: Holy crap.
- Peppaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
- Wangst: Yeah, Rannoch gets this. The "I'm not a changeling!" arguement just stops working after a while, almost veering into Suspiciously Specific Denial territory.
YMMV for the StarKid musical
- Anvilicious: Criticism of religious faith has shown up in StarKid works before, but it manifests here in the entire character arc of Ducker, a dim and selfish shaman who attaches himself to any delusion he can to enhance his own privilege culminating in Alien Among Us Chorn flatly telling the tribe that there's no such thing as "God". Whether it's a well-executed skewering of organized religion or a hamfisted over-simplification of spirituality is up to the viewer.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Even though it's integral to understanding the plot, a whole bunch of audience members were very confused by the sudden appearance of Chorn as an alien at the very end of the show, and the Langs report that they got a lot of feedback writing it off as pure random humor, which may have actually negatively impacted the show's reviews, forcing them to hastily rewrite the ending to fix this. (See Viewers Are Geniuses on the main page.)
- Fridge Brilliance: The high female-to-male ratio in the tribe is exactly what you'd see if you wanted to preserve the tribe's future population growth while selectively culling as many babies as you could for eating. This is exactly why male livestock are slaughtered in greater numbers than female, and hunters selectively target male game. (See Men Are the Expendable Gender.) May double as Fridge Horror.
- Genius Bonus: The sexual attraction between humans and neanderthals. Genetic evidence has found this to be historically accurate.
- Audience members who know that flint was used by ancient humans both as spearheads and as firestarters may be able to predict the resolution at the climax.
- Zazzalil's insistence there must still be mammoths out there they haven't killed hilariously mirrors an opinion famously held by Thomas Jefferson, who was fascinated with North American mammoth fossils and refused to believe on principle a species could ever go extinct.
- The shadow puppets in "The Night Belongs to Snarl" — a song about humanity living in fear and ignorance — reference Plato's metaphor about the shadows in the cave.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Zazzalil' s eagerness to kill and eat Trunkell, considering Lauren Lopez's character's reaction to being forced to hunt in The Trail to Oregon!.
- For people who remember Meredith Stepien rather than Bonnie Gruesen as Hermione from the live touring shows or from A Very Potter Senior Year, the ending of this show is the ultimate vindication for Draco/Hermione shippers.
- And for those who instead remember Starship, this show is vindication for the Mega-Girl/Taz shippers.
- Additional hilarity for The Trail to Oregon! fans now watching McDoon and Slippery When Wet fall in love after she was last seen telling him to "go stick your pecker in a cactus".
- Memetic Mutation: "I don't really wanna do the work today, I don't really wanna do the work today, I don't really wanna deeewww the work today..."
- Years later, someone uploaded the behind the scenes video of this show to YouTube, setting off a memetic explosion of people quoting Brian Holden's backstage Catchphrase from this production, "SATAN IS A REAL MAN". (Which was a joke response to a possibly joke ask about Team Starkid being a satanic cult.)
- The opening bars of "Backfire" (the cruel reprise of "What If?" that begins "What if I tried something new... and it BACKFIRED?!") went viral out of context on Tiktok in 2019-20.
- Smurfette Breakout: A meta one for Starkid; Meredith Stepien and Lauren Lopez, long considered fan favorites, finally get to carry a show themselves as lead rather than supporting players.
- Strangled by the Red String: Jemilla and Zazzalil go from being at each other's throats (albeit with some grudging respect) to Happily Married a bit too quickly. Luckily, this isn't too much of a problem since Meredith Stepien and Lauren Lopez's excellent chemistry makes the relationship enjoyable to watch. The play is ultimately a comedy, not a romance so lengthening it could have distracted from the rest of the plot.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Zazzalil's line, "I bet if we burn enough things, we can change the climate permanently." The trailer makes it out to be a mission statement, but in the actual show it's more of a throwaway line. Similarly, when Keeri expresses a concern that bees are dying out, Zazz retorts, "Fuck bees!", alluding to the current, very serious ecological concern that Earth is, in fact, running low on bees.
- The musical came out one year after Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, and the scene where Jemilla anachronistically proposes to Zazzalil with a diamond engagement ring seems particularly pointed in this light.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: The Snarl and Trunkell puppets are a major leap forward in sophistication in puppet design for Starkid, especially Snarl's glow in the dark eyes. Also, the shadow puppets for "The Night Belongs to Snarl" are a whole new form of storytelling for Starkid and very effective.
- The Woobie: It's Starkid. They're pretty freaking good at making every character a Woobie.
- The most obvious is Grunt, with his gem of a line about how in a clan of coyotes preventing the weakest among them from eating a rabbit... he's the rabbit.
- Zazzalil. At one point, Molag manipulates the audience into feeling extra sympathy for her by pointing out that she's played by fan favorite Lauren Lopez. "Why she gotta be so mean to Lauren?"
- The entire tribe upon discovering that all of their religious beliefs were invented by Molag to keep them in line. This especially applies to Ducker and Tiblyn, whose entire jobs were based on those lies.
- Tiblyn again, for being obsessed with romance and not having a lot of options. Also for having been lied to her whole life about needing to hold up the sky.
- Emberly for being a cutie-pie Meganekko, whose job is to find out what is and is not edible.
- Keeri, for freely admitting that she's not too good at thinking for herself, but being conflicted over whether following Jemilla or Zazzalil is the right thing to do.
- Jemilla herself, first for being less prepared than she thought for the burden of leadership, and again when she gets kicked out of the tribe.
- Finally, just to make sure the whole cast is included, Jaime Lyn Beatty opined on the behind the scenes video that Schwoopsie, of all people, has a deep inner darkness, going with the stereotype of the standup comedian as a Sad Clown. Note that, much like Britta on Community, her own name/catchphrase means a humiliating failure that's funny to people who observe it. Also note that she was apparently married to Jemilla for the whole first act but their relationship had so little passion no one noticed, and Jemilla unceremoniously dumps her for Zazzalil by the end of the play. In fairness, Schwoopsie did try to mobilize the tribe to eat her with zero incitement, but still.
