History Literature / ThePretenders

* DisabledLoveInterest: Carmen, sort of, but the disabling--her losing her hearing--only happens ''after'' [[spoiler:Tony leaves her and dies by suicide]].

* HistoryMarchesOn: Filipino national hero Andrés Bonifacio is characterised as an “almost illiterate labourer”. In reality he was not. He studied with a private tutor because his parents died and he couldn’t finish proper schooling, as he needed to support his siblings. Later he worked several middle-class jobs (including warehouse manager and poster-maker for several firms). To be fair, though, he (and indeed most everyone) would be considered ''relatively'' illiterate, especially against the cosmopolitan and erudite ''ilustrados'', who could afford to study abroad.

* HeatWave: Manila in May—and this was in TheFifties! Causes Mrs Villa to go on a [[RantInducingSlight rant about]] [[FirstWorldProblems getting her airconditioning fixed]].

* FamousLastWords: [[spoiler:“I’ll be a mess.”—Tony, shortly before the train hits him.]]

* UrbanSegregation: Insanely glamorous and tree-lined Pobres Park (an {{Expy}} of Forbes Park) as well as the Villas' affluent Sta Mesa district, versus overcrowded slum Antipolo Street, beside the railroad tracks. TruthInTelevision.

* DeanBitterman: Dean Lopez turns down Tony’s aspirations to the Socrates Club (an exclusive academic society), fuming at the thought that Tony might be after ''his'' job.

* StepfordSuburbia: Pobres Park, for all its expensive cleanliness and massive walls, presents no defence against the personal problems of the Filipino ruling class. (Note that in the Philippines, “suburbia” usually refers to very upper-class walled villages, unlike American middle/upper-middle-class suburbs.

* UrbanSegregation: Insanely glamorous and tree-lined Pobres Park (an {{Expy}} of Forbes Park), versus overcrowded slum Antipolo Street, beside the railroad tracks. TruthInTelevision.

* WrongSideOfTheTracks: Antipolo Street, which literally runs alongside the Philippine National Railway tracks.
* YourCheatingHeart: A fact of life in Manila’s upper-class, but Tony can’t handle it when Carmen does it to him [[spoiler:with Ben de Jesus]].

* ManInWhite: Don Manuel’s EstablishingCharacterMoment. (Instead of a white coat and tie, though he wears a white ''barong Tagalog''[[note]]the Philippine national dress for men, an untucked embroidered shirt[[/note]], though technically it’s likelier to be translucent).

->''"… They were bright young men who knew what money meant. But though they were rich and were educated in the best schools of Europe, their horizons were limited and they knew they could never belong to the alien aristocracy which determined the future.… They cried for reforms, for wider opportunities, for equality. [[OccupiersOutOfOurCountry Did they plead for freedom, too?]] And dignity for all Indios — and not only for themselves who owed their fortunes and their status to the whims of the aristocracy? [[FullCircleRevolution Could it be that they wanted not freedom or dignity]] [[MeetTheNewBoss but the key to the restricted enclaves of the rulers?]]"''

* MajoredInWesternHypocrisy: Much is made of Tony's Harvard degree. It was common for aspirational Filipino intellectuals and power elite to finish their higher education in the lands of their colonisers; by Tony's generation, in roughly TheFifties, this would mean studying in the Ivy Leagues and other elite universities in the (neocolonial) American metropole. He and Carmen also later discuss possibly sending their own would-be children to European schools.

* MajoredInWesternHypocrisy: Much is made of Tony's Harvard degree. It was common for aspirational Filipino intellectuals and power elite to finish their higher education in the lands of their colonisers; by Tony's generation, in roughly TheFifties, this would mean studying in the Ivy Leagues and other elite universities in the (neocolonial) American metropole,. He and Carmen also later discuss possibly sending their own would-be children to European schools.

* MajoredInWesternHypocrisy: Much is made of Tony's Harvard degree. It was common for aspirational Filipino intellectuals and power elite to finish their higher education in the lands of their colonisers; by Tony's generation, in roughly TheFifties, this would mean studying in elite universities in the (neocolonial) American metropole. He and Carmen also later discuss possibly sending their own would-be children to European schools.

* HeatWave: Manila in May—and this was in TheFifties! Causes Mrs Villa to go on a [[RantInducingSlight rant about getting her airconditioning fixed]].

* IronicName: Pobres Park. “Pobres” = Spanish for “poor people”.

* MultinationalTeam: The list of investors into the Villas' steel mill. Besides Don Manuel himself (who, as an oligarchic Filipino, is some undescribed mix of indigenous, Chinese and Spanish blood), there's the Chinese (but naturalised-Filipino) Johnny Lee, the Japanese Saito-san, and the white American Alfred Dangmount. Then there's Senator Reyes, their legal counsel for the whole enterprise, who with his darker skin is implied to be ethnically more indigenous-Filipino relative to Don Manuel himself.

* GratuitousSpanish: Expected within Manila’s upper class, as most of them are descended from Spanish-era elites. Senator Reyes talks with a restaurant owner in Spanish, for one, snatches of which Tony understands. The Spanish song which is [[spoiler:the last thing Carmen ever hears]].

* AltumVidetur: Tony's long-dead grandfather's writings are in Latin, and upon discovering them in the church of Cabugaw town in Ilocos Norte (where Eustaquio Samson, [[spoiler:formerly Salvador]], once apprenticed), Tony and the local parish priest take turns trying to read some lines.

* GratuitousSpanish: Expected within Manila’s upper class, as most of them are descended from Spanish-era elites. Senator Reyes talks with a restaurant owner in Spanish, for one, snatches of which Tony understands.
** Case in point: the Spanish song which is [[spoiler:the last thing Carmen ever hears]].

* MultinationalTeam: The list of investors into the Villas' steel mill. Besides Don Manuel himself (who, as an oligarchic Filipino, is some undescribed mix of indigenous, Chinese and Spanish blood), there's the Chinese Johnny Lee, the Japanese Saito-san, and the white American Alfred Dangmount. Then there's Senator Reyes, their legal counsel for the whole enterprise, who with his darker skin is implied to be ethnically more indigenous-Filipino relative to Don Manuel himself.