Rose and Thorn/Tropes


 * Actor Allusion: Chloe Bennet vouces Melinca. She previously played a superhero who was friends with a Melinda.
 * Adaptation Distillation: The first season is based on the Neil Gillman comics, but the first episode adapts the National Comics one-shot.
 * Adaptational Nice Guy: Granted, Thorn is still someone you don't want to mess with, but she's far less violent than in the comics.
 * Adaptational Villany: Detective Curtis Leland is still crooked in this show, and dosen't regret his actions.
 * Ascended Extra: Skye and Melinda from the one-shot National Comics issue are given recurring roles in the series.
 * Character Development: Thorn in season 1 lears to never let her past traumas define who she or Rose are, and that she is more than just Rose's pain.
 * Darker And Edgier: Thsn DC's other adult animated series Harley Quinn. While both deal with heavy themes and features great levels of gore and violence, Rose and Thorne takes itself far more seriously than Harley Quinn, while the gore elements come from realistic violence rather than Black Comedy.
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus: Rose's room features plush toys of both major and minor DC heroes.
 * Foreshadowing: One of Rose's plushes is of Green Arrow, whom she and Thorn would meet later in the series.
 * Funny Moments: In their diary, Thorn tells Rose to not to worry about how they will get to Star City. Cue Thorn holding on to a bus with her grappling hook while out of control.
 * Gilligian Cut: In episode 1, just as members from "The 100" claim nothing will stop them, the scene cuts to Rhosyn at school.
 * Jekyll and Hyde: Deconstructed. Thorn is initially presented as Rose's more ruthless side. However, this series potrays DID more realistically, and, as the show goes on, it turns out that the two are not that different. Not only that, but DID is a copying mechanism for trauma, meaning that Thorn isn't really an evil person in the first place.
 * Mythology Gag:
 * Thorn's surname in this show is an homage to Rose's original surname, Canton.
 * Green Arrow's appearance on this show is an homage to a Chuckie Dixon storyline in the Green Arrow comics featuring Rose and Thorn.
 * The ending of the first episode has Thorn revealing herself to Rose via a video, much like in National Comics' Rose and Thorn #1.
 * Some of Thorn's gadgets are plant-themed, alluding to her Silver Age incarnation's plant-controlling powers.
 * In the second episode's Cold Opening, a criminal asks Thorn who she us, to which she answers "I'm Thorn". The scene is a nod to Batman's "I'm Batman" and "I'm vengeance" moments.
 * Rose and Thorn communicate with each other partly througth a diary, an homage to the text boxes from Neil Gillman's comics.
 * Nightmare Fuel: The climax of "A Thorn at Her Side". While the beginning made us believe Thorn was an avid fighter, the climactic fight makes it clear she was able to fight those gangsters at equal grounds because she took them off-guard and armed. Here, she has no surprise, no guns, and a very dangerous opponent. The entire brutality of the fight feeld more in line with Daredevil than a regular animated show. Its clear she and Rose would have been killed by Amanda hadn't Thorn outsmarted her.
 * Role Reprise: Stephen Amell returns from the Arrowverse as Green Arrow.
 * Revenge Is Not Justice: Thorn's main arc througth the series is learning this.
 * Shout-Out:
 * While being attacked by criminals, Skye asks if "Rose" has been meddling with a Wilson Fisk-wannabe.
 * Green Arrow stealing from criminal and giving that money to poor people brings to mind Robin Hood.
 * Blackguard's first scene is a parody when Terminator first showed up in the past.
 * Split Personality: As in the comics, Thorn is this to Rose.
 * Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
 * Rose isn't too keen in following Thorn's revenge plans since A) Having just learnt she even has an alter, Rose is still procesing the info, and B) Going on a revenge mission would destroy her life in more ways than one.
 * Doubles with Shown Their Work. Unlike most shows whose leads have DID, Rose's Thorn persona does not turn their body into an ass-kicker upon fronting. Alters in real life cannot do anything the body isn't physically capable of doing. Thorn is forced to compensate this with weaponry and gadgets. She does note she has been training their body, but its still not enough to let them fight at the level of Black Widow.
 * When Rose tells Skye she isn't her friend but Thorn's, Skye assumes is becsuse of resentment towards her alter and her befriending her. However, Rose is quick to clarify she says it because she only really knows Thorn, not Rose.
 * Tearjerker: After Melinda and Skye confront Rose over her (and Thorn's) lies, Rose looks so overwhelmed by what us going on in addition to all of them being targeted by criminaks she looks in the verge of tears.
 * Tempting Fate: "Now, up to another wonderful day". Rose says this the day she finds out about Thorn.
 * Truer to Text: The series' lighthearted potrayal of Green Arrow is more faithful to the comics than the last time Amell played the character.
 * What You Are In The Dark: Thorn has the leader of "The 100" at her mercy and is aboutto kill him... but realizes killing him would make her just like him and instead knocks him unconscious abd is arrested by honest cops not under his payroll.
 * What Do You Mean Its For Kids?!: As expected from DC animation, this show is not kid-friendly. We have mob bosses, a realistic depiction of crime, and themes of trauma, loss of parents, and mental health. Oh, and we have an explicit, onscreen suicide in episode 2.