How Episodes are Categorized

 

Dead to Rights

The phrase “Dead to Rights” means “caught in the act of doing something wrong; red-handed.” And that certainly applies to this category. There’s shenaniganry afoot. However, most of the time I use this category title quite literally. Someone’s rightful inheritance is being usurped or someone is out to kill someone else — and most likely both at the same time.

Enemies to Lovers

The main characters start off as enemies and wind up as lovers. This seems to play out more often than not in Scottish historicals where one party is English, but not always. This is not the same as the main characters having an ordinary dislike for one another.

Fairytale Retelling

What it says on the tin.

Faking It

While we all know the main characters are going to end up together, sometimes they are more than just adamant that they aren’t. A good number of books start out with the leads deciding to fake being in love to either win a bet or get a troublesome mama off their back or just for the fun of causing scandal. Many a marriage of convenience starts this way, with the couple inevitably breaking down and doing the deed on their wedding night, sealing that they aren’t really faking it after all.

Games & Gamers

Either a main character or the plot itself relies on some sort of game. He’s a gambling addict, she’s a former crossdressing chess player, he won the Lairdship in a game of cards, she’s reenacting “She’s All That” to win a priceless painting, both of them play non-stop practical jokes on one another. This isn’t about a one-off scene of a game of Whist. It has to mean something more to the plot, if not be the plot itself.

Hidden Identity

The main character is secretly a spy, parading around as a fake aristocrat, going undercover as a maid, on the run from dubious and deadly relations, etc.

Holidays

Please don’t make me explain this one.

Kilts

Scotland. Even if nobody actually wears a kilt, somebody somewhere is wearing a kilt. If it takes place in Scotland or one of the main characters is Scottish, it gets labelled “Kilts.”

Looks Aren’t Everything

There is something unconventional about one of the leads. He has a noticeable limp, she has a scar on her face, she’s a little overweight, he… Well, the guys don’t get shafted with this trope much. But, if they did, it would end up here.

Love Triangle

Let’s get the rant out of the way. The “love triangle” doesn’t really exist. At the best of times it’s a V because there isn’t a third connection point. Lucy might be in love with Tom and Brad, but if Tom and Brad don’t also harbor a secret tendre for each other then where’s the triangle? Though usually they hate each other, so I suppose it could be an “emotional triangle” instead. Just like that trope, not all books labelled “Love Triangle” are only about love. If one lead can’t marry because they feel they have too extensive of obligations to someone else that have to be overcome or maybe one of the leads is otherwise engaged to someone they don’t love, the story also belongs here.

Opposites Attract

Distinctly different from “Enemies to Lovers,” this trope is relied upon heavily in books that tend to have the word “wallflower” in the title. One character is staid and the other carefree, penniless and rich, bookish and athletic. While this is true of almost every pairing to some degree, only the most blatant cases get labelled “Opposites Attract.”

Pregnancy

Whether or not it’s by accident, whether it’s before marriage or after, even in one case whether or not it’s the main male character’s child at all, if the main female character ends up pregnant the book gets this label.

Progressive

The ideals of at least one of the main characters is too far outside either the historical context or their station. She believes women should vote in the 1700s, he distributes handbills encouraging fair labor practices even though he’s a Duke, etc.

Rags to Riches

Someone uncovers their rightful inheritance and is suddenly catapulted to a new station, a marriage of convenience gives a lead the capital to pursue an erstwhile out of reach dream, the dowry saves the farm. There was no money and now there is money and the money or lack thereof is a plot point, not just window dressing.

Runaway Bride

It’s not always the female main character and it isn’t always from the wedding, but one of the main characters runs away at some point. This isn’t about “running away” from their feelings, either. Someone legitimately exits stage left. Usually — but not always — to be hunted down by the other lead and convinced they belong together.