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The Tall Dark Stranger

84 statements
15 feature instances
0 referencing feature instances

The Tall Dark Stranger	type	FeatureClass
The Tall Dark Stranger	label	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger	page	TheTallDarkStranger
The Tall Dark Stranger	comment	Who's that tall dark stranger coming to town? It's Satan! Well, not the traditional Christian Satan, but an American Gothic concept that's half the European character of Mythology and Religion who shows up in town to gamble for your soul over a game of tallywhackers, and half the native American concept of the Wendigo - a monster created or summoned by a community's greed, cruelty, or other evil. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Contrasted with the The Corrupter, who changes someone from innocent to evil, this character stirs up the existing-but-concealed evil in people, then often walks away once everything is wrecked and on fire. Often a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane character who is implied to be Satan, or sometimes a Came Back Wrong version of someone the town wronged in the past. Examples will often have Names to Run Away from Really Fast — or some variation of "Louis Cypher". Sub-Trope of Secret Identity and Mysterious Stranger. Contrast with Angel Unaware. Often a Badass in a Nice Suit, and a Man of Wealth and Taste. May sometimes be Tall, Dark, and Handsome, but often has a Red Right Hand or some other Uncanny Valley attribute. May present himself as The Drifter or the proprietor of The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })When a town is pretty on the surface but hides bad deeds underneath, in comes the Tall Dark Stranger to reveal their sins and punish those who have committed them. He (or she) generally does not directly punish, though. Instead, they work on the townfolk's worser impulses, until they reveal and destroy themselves. Note: The whole reveal of the Tall Dark Stranger or the underlying acts that summoned them is usually the twist of the story, so there will almost always be spoilers.
The Tall Dark Stranger	fetched	2020-03-31T20:03:08Z
The Tall Dark Stranger	parsed	2020-06-25T01:42:33Z
The Tall Dark Stranger	processingComment	Dropped link to Biopic: Not an Item - FEATURE
The Tall Dark Stranger	processingComment	Dropped link to NickCave: Not an Item - IGNORE
The Tall Dark Stranger	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_17479864	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_17479864	comment	Something Wicked This Way Comes: Mr. Dark, is one of the modern-day Trope Codifiers, and an acknowledged inspiration for Stephen King's Leland Gaunt. Mr. Dark rolls into town with his circus to offer people their heart's desire, but just ask the other circus folk how that turned out.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_22532d78	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_22532d78	comment	Lorne from Fargo, season 1. He comes to the outwardly pretty town of Fargo and the outwardly nice Lester Nygaard to generally up the murder count and encourage everyone's bad impulses. Says things like "I haven't had a pie this good since the garden of Eden." Somewhat subverted in that instead of waltzing off to the next town, the good people of Fargo kill him.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_3539a85f	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_3539a85f	comment	Needful Things: An example where the Tall Dark Stranger explicitly is the Devil or at least a demon. Gaunt shows up in a shop that wasn't there before, and gives the townsfolk of Castle Rock special little things in exchange for pranks. The little pranks eventually set the townsfolk against each other till everything's dead and on fire.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_48e57619	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_48e57619	comment	The Backwater Gospel: the undertaker (with his black shadow wings) comes to town which makes the pious townfolk believe that someone will die. So they all kill each other in an attempt to not be the one the undertaker comes for, and so they all die.
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The Backwater Gospel (Web Animation)	hasFeature	The Tall Dark Stranger / int_48e57619
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_4cb94f7f	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_4cb94f7f	comment	The Traveller in Black: Dressed in black, with many names but only one nature, the titular character travels from town to town, causing people's wishes to come true in ironically appropriate ways, leading to the downfall of the selfish and the proud.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_5153939c	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_5153939c	comment	Storm of the Century: Andre Linoge suddenly arrives on Little Tall Island, an enigma in a black coat and hoodie, who proceeds to torment the islanders and punishing them for their many transgressions. He's actually an ancient demonic sorcerer who is looking for an heir.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_51a7df31	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_51a7df31	comment	High Plains Drifter: The Stranger is the maybe-brother-maybe-ghost of the Marshal the town whipped to death in order to keep their secret gold. He's back to take advantage of the townfolk's cowardliness and greed by painting the town red, renaming the town hell, and inflaming their quarrel with the outlaws until everyone's dead and everything's on fire.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_6c1d09b3	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_6c1d09b3	comment	Fallout 3: Subverted with Mr. Burke. With his genteel manners and nice suit, he looks like he's going to be this for the post-apocalyptic frontier town of Megaton, but his idea of manipulation is to ask a stranger (the Player Character) to murder the local sheriff and set off the undetonated nuke in the middle of town square. Subtle.
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Fallout 3 (Video Game)	hasFeature	The Tall Dark Stranger / int_6c1d09b3
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_871c4f98	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_871c4f98	comment	Chilean comic book Diablo has the "Lord of Entropia", a Megane Man of Wealth and Taste who's dressed as a man in black and he was the one who made An Offer You Can't Refuse to Alex and so becoming in the Anti-Hero Diablo. Also counts for Vardan, The Dragon of Lord of Entropia, who dresses as him but he's a Long-Haired Pretty Boy instead.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_98375510	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_98375510	comment	Dogville: a twist on the concept in that Grace is far more Jesus than Satan, but her vulnerability still reveals the worst of the townfolk's natures, and by the end of it she decides that yes, everything in the town (except the dog) needs to be dead and/or on fire.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_caa848c3	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_caa848c3	comment	Chocolat: Inverted. Vianne uses her Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane chocolate powers to draw out the good in the townsfolk. Their passions, love for life and each other, etc.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_db339684	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_db339684	comment	The Dressmaker: Tilly comes back to the town that tormented her as a child and unjustly blamed her for murder. With her inhuman sewing abilities and TARDIS-like bag that contains infinite material and shoes, she dresses up the town in couture, and by the end of it multiple people are dead, arrested, in asylums, or otherwise ruined, the townfolk are humiliated in the local play competition, and Tilly has burned the town down.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_e85fe825	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_e85fe825	comment	The live-action versions of Ghost Rider presented both Mephisto and his son Blackheart as Tall, Dark, and Handsome persons in human form (Mephisto also being a Silver Fox), being the ones who made the deal with Johnny Blaze to eventually become Ghost Rider.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_ea4158ee	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_ea4158ee	comment	Blood Meridian: It's never made explicit if Judge Holden is the Devil, but a lot of evidence points to the possibility. A revivalist preacher that he falsely accuses of bestiality and child molestation (the latter of which seems to be a favorite pastime of his) calls him the Devil, he appears to leave cloven hoofprints on a climb to a volcano where he teaches the Glanton Gang how to make gunpowder in a direct allusion to Satan doing the same in Paradise Lost, is impossibly knowledgable and verbally sophisticated, and goads the gang into committing worse and worse atrocities.
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The Tall Dark Stranger / int_f1c84c54	type	The Tall Dark Stranger
The Tall Dark Stranger / int_f1c84c54	comment	Jack Reacher: In many of the novels, there is a Town with a Dark Secret and Jack, with his almost supernatural size, strength, fighting skills, and detective ability just happens to wander through and, upon receiving some sort of threat or attack by a town member, decides to stick around to find out just what's going on and bring everyone to justice.
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