Yggdra Union



"Even with the Holy Sword, things are going wrong. It may be true that the Holy Sword is sacred... but, that doesn't change the fact that it's just a weapon. Those who wield it are bound to deliver justice. We are bound to strike down the unjust. But, the Holy Sword is still a sword... It can only wound."

- Princess Yggdra

Yggdra Union is a Turn-Based Strategy game which is part of Sting Entertainment's Dept. Heaven cycle. The Game Boy Advance and PSP Updated Rerelease were both handled in North America by Atlus.

Chronologically the first of the Dept. Heaven games, Yggdra Union takes place during a war between the Kingdom of Fantasinia and the New Bronquian Empire. Gulcasa, the Emperor, has just defeated most of the Royal Army and slain the king, but Princess Yggdra (the only surviving member of the Royal Family) escapes her captured city with her family's Ancestral Weapon and goes about gathering allies to take her country back--and get revenge. It doesn't hurt that said Ancestral Weapon, the Gran Centurio, is a national symbol of justice. Whatever Yggdra and her army do, it's obviously the right thing.

Isn't it?

Except that our heroes slowly discover that Emperor Gulcasa and his villainous minions are a bit more morally ambiguous than they first bargained for, and that everyone they fight seems to be fighting for the justice they believe in. And that maybe there's more going on across the continent than they could have imagined.

Yggdra Union, in short, is a deconstructionist game about war, ideals, and the true nature of "justice".

An interview with the game director and artists can be found here; be warned that there are spoilers up through the end of the PSP version. See also Yggdra Unison, the Alternate Universe cellphone/DS spinoff.

A prequel called Blaze Union concerning the events of the Bronquian revolution was released in May 2010.

"Gulcasa: Is that all you came here to say? What an arduous journey, for such a ridiculous request. Even were I to believe you, we would never accept your terms...We razed your Kingdom, . How are we to extinguish our flames of hatred now? This fighting cannot end until one of us can fight no more!"
 * Active Royalty: Played straight for both sides with Yggdra and Gulcasa.
 * Aerith and Bob: Mostly on the Aerith side of the spectrum, with only a few "normal" names like Russell, and Monica
 * Aesop Amnesia: suffers this towards the end of the game; it's also prominent in two of the possible endings.
 * Ahoge: Averted--Yggdra and Nessiah each have one, though neither is a particularly silly character.
 * All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Gulcasa not only pulls it off in the prologue, he flattens the former Royal Army doing it. This is what essentially sets the main storyline in motion.
 * Amazon Brigade: Any unit led by a female.
 * Or certain Imperial divisions in general, like the Special Forces and Scarlet Riders.
 * Ancestral Weapon: Yggdra's BFS, Gran Centurio.
 * Anyone Can Die: And the majority of the cast does.
 * The Archer: Played straight with Elena and Zilva, but subverted in Mizer and Cruz, who are more childish characters.
 * Arc Words: "Justice lies with the Holy Sword", chapters 1-3. "A ruler's duty to his/her people" and "There is no single absolute justice", chapters 7-8.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Yggdra is a lot more powerful after her Awesome Moment of Crowning. On the other side, Gulcasa is That One Boss.
 * Awesome Moment of Crowning: Yggdra has hers before the game actually ends, and thus spends the last third of it ridiculously overpowered.
 * Badass Army: The Imperial Army is what every Ragtag Bunch of Misfits wants to be when it grows up. By the end of the game, the Royal Army is on its way to becoming one, too.
 * Berserk Button: Gulcasa's is
 * And if you don't believe us, have his (furiously shouted) response to Yggdra's request for a cease-fire :

"Mistel: Oh dear! I don't think your body can handle so much rage..."
 * Kylier's is Yggdra. Or, well... Milanor acting friendly with Yggdra, to be precise.
 * Her attitude is justified later on, since it turns out that
 * Betty and Veronica: Yggdra and Kylier, in regards to Milanor. Reversed in that Kylier, despite being the character with darker coloring, is the Betty (she's Milanor's childhood friend) and Yggdra, despite being the fair-haired character (and the heroine!), is the Veronica. Also subverted in that
 * Big Damn Heroine: Kylier
 * Big No: There are quite a few of them, but the most notable are and.
 * Say what you like about the English voice acting, but they were wise to cast an actor for Milanor who knows how to scream.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Bokukko: Emilia. Though, since she's the Princess of Bronquia, who's going to tell her not to?
 * Bolt of Divine Retribution: Wielded by
 * Bowdlerization: Yggdra's "Crusade" attack was originally called "Jihad."
 * Breakable Items
 * Cassandra Truth: For those who made it to Ending D, would like to inform you that he told you so.
 * Celestial Bureaucracy:
 * Chained by Fashion: Nessiah.
 * Creepy Cool Crosses: The ankhs. Also the crosses seen at Lost Aries.
 * Christmas Cake: Mistel. Lampshaded--she gets furious when Milanor calls her "Obasan" (she technically won't qualify for two more years!), and she flirts heavily with Durant and Roswell. (Though, the last is likely due to .)
 * And then she turns around and calls Eudy Christmas Cake to her face.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Pamela.
 * Costume Porn
 * Crap Saccharine World
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Of the extremely depressing variety, upon.
 * Cute Bruiser: Emilia
 * Cute Witch: Pamela. Rosary too, maybe.
 * Cutscene Boss: Despite all the misery she gives you, you can't kill Eudy with your own hands, and the battlefield where she presumably dies in is scripted.
 * Deadly Upgrade: and  each get one.
 * For . He puts himself in this condition.
 * And in case,  demands more than her body is capable of, and so.
 * Mistel calls her on the deadliness of the upgrade, though doesn't seem to care.

"Royal Army: Yeah, so Yggdra's raring to kill Gulcasa and all, but she'll be fine, let's let her do her own thing for a while! Messenger: We found Gulcasa! I think we should tell the person who wants revenge the most, instead of everyone together! Yggdra: SCREW ASKING EVERYONE FOR BACKUP I CAN DO THIS BY MYSELF BRAAAAH
 * Decoy Protagonist: Taken to Beyond the Impossible levels. You start off playing as Milanor, who is set up as the hero with Yggdra in a traditional Damsel in Distress role. Two and a half battlefields later, Yggdra becomes the player character, and Milanor is firmly established as her Sidekick, losing nearly all plot significance except the ability to attract Kylier when the Royal Army has dug itself into a hole and the default commander seat when Yggdra is somewhere else. The game is explicitly about Yggdra's Character Development and growth as a ruler as she learns to balance hot-blooded idealism with compassion and an understanding of how the world works. Then the universe of episode II started expanding, a certain antagonist's backstory and true motivations got lots more attention, and made off with Yggdra's hero seat. On top of all this, the character in the episode II games who is the most important to the 'verse is none of the above--it's actually, the antagonist, about which Word of God and the side materials are very clear. Up to Eleven, indeed.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Nessiah. He tends to get away with it in the Japanese because he's just so darn polite. The English script... not so much.
 * Deconstruction: Of The Empire, Tsundere, Omniscient Morality License, and La Résistance.
 * Draconic Possession
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The battles against.
 * In, this is a matter of
 * For Then again, you can use (overpowered) Fanelia in this fight...
 * Dramatic Irony: wants revenge on the gods, who disappeared at the end of Ragnarok. As said character wasn't around for the end of Ragnarok, there's no way for him to know this.
 * Dressing as the Enemy
 * Dub Induced Plot Hole: Gulcasa's title was changed from "Blazing Emperor" to "Emperor of Carnage" for the English version for whatever reason. This still makes some degree of sense--Fantasinia doesn't like him, so they wouldn't be calling him anything that sounds friendly--until you hear his people, who wholeheartedly adore him, calling him the same thing... and Theme Naming starts to show up when Imperial landmarks turn out to have fire-based names, which are also altered ("Gates of Carnage", anyone?). Then it just starts sounding rather awkward. It will probably become a much bigger problem if Atlus ever localizes Blaze Union, where Gulcasa's fire motif is even more important.
 * Dying as Yourself:.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: In a subversion that can be downright heartbreaking,.
 * Elegant Gothic Lolita: Emilia.
 * The Empire: Subverted so hard with Bronquia,
 * Establishing Character Moment: The barely-two-minute-long scene at the start of Battlefield 42 hands you everything you need to know to understand what kind of person Gulcasa really is.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses
 * Extreme Doormat: #367.
 * Eye Scream:
 * Eyes of Gold: Gulcasa and Emilia.
 * Fantastic Nuke: The Ankh Cannon. The Ankhs themselves could possible render an area uninhabitable for many years, as lampshaded by some of the cast.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: There are a few countries like Embellia and Nyllard that don't have a distinct one, but most of the others do--
 * Fantasinia is representative of western Europe and America.
 * Verlaine is specifically tied to France--"Verlaine" comes from the name of a French poet, and Roswell's name is explicitly French.
 * The Vanir are reminiscent of Native Americans, particularly considering their relation to Fantasinia (and the name of their race). Most of them are dark-skinned ( being an exception) to make it even more obvious.
 * Lombardia strongly resembles the historical role of the Holy Roman Empire.
 * As for Bronquia, their counterpart is Japan.
 * Fetish: Rosary is the only character to get a Morale boost from being given such items as shackles and blindfolds.
 * And then there's Roswell and his thing with bananas...
 * Field of Blades: The pictures on the Dragon Killer and Oblivious Dawn cards.
 * Foe Yay: Yggdra and Gulcasa, in spades. Complete with Innocent Innuendo commentary from Emilia towards the end of Chapter 4.
 * Foreshadowing: As it's part of Dept. Heaven (and is thus far the chronologically earliest game in The Verse) this is to be expected for the Metaplot. Additionally, ties very neatly into the Arc Words; in at least one case, some things that look like other tropes turn out to be rather excellent Foreshadowing.
 * Example:
 * Giggling (anti?)Villain: This is the sound of sanity being strained beyond its bounds. It manages to be both creepy as hell and pity-inspiring.
 * Godiva Hair
 * Go Out with a Smile:
 * Grey and Gray Morality
 * Guide Dang It: Just try to get all bonus items in each stage without a guide.
 * Hero Antagonist: The Imperial Army. So much. The only exceptions are Leon and ; all the others are explicitly portrayed as good people who just so happen to be fighting for a different cause.
 * Heroic Resolve: Every deployed unit gets this in Battlefield 42 Milanor is probably the best example of it, though.
 * He does it again
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hide Your Lesbians: There's a fair amount of subtext between Zilva and Elena, none of which amounts to much due to . In addition to this, there was definitely something going on between according to Yggdra Unison and Blaze Union.
 * This is also a case of.
 * Honorifics: Yggdra and Elena always use them. Nessiah uses them for everyone but Gulcasa.
 * When Kylier calls Yggdra "Oujo-sama", the -sama is often written in katakana to show that she's being sarcastic.
 * The fact that Nessiah is the only character on good terms with Gulcasa who doesn't use some kind of suffix with him caused quite a few raised eyebrows, since First-Name Basis is a way of showing that two characters are very close. Certain fans likely had a field day with it.
 * Matters are not helped at all by the fact that Gulcasa doesn't use suffixes with Nessiah, either. Though Gulcasa hardly uses them with anyone.
 * After her Awesome Moment of Crowning, Yggdra insists that her troops keep calling her Princess (Yggdra-oujou) instead of Queen (Yggdra-ou). She'll only accept the title when the war is over, she says.
 * Gulcasa continues calling her -oujou to be rude.
 * And, of course, Nessiah still calls her "Yggdra-ou".
 * Hot Springs Episode: One of the rare cases the North American version shows more than the Japanese.
 * Humans Are Bastards: Almost every Embellian Undine subscribes to this viewpoint, mainly because some jerk human stole their means of survival. They use this as their justification for attacking completely unrelated humans to try to use their blood for eternal youth potion.
 * Also interesting to note is that, none of it actually forced anyone to do anything evil. The Undines were tempted to use their loss as justification to vent their Fantastic Racism on humans, the Feuding Families in Verlaine were tempted to start a war over shiny toys, and Fantasinia and Bronquia were tempted to keep fighting, but in the end it was always the rulers' own decisions that caused bloodshed, and if they had risen above the ugliness of human nature, everyone probably would have been fine. (Not to say that tempting them in the first place was a nice thing to do, as it wasn't.)
 * 100% Adoration Rating: . This is played for all the tragedy it's worth when . Although it's nowhere near to the same degree, Yggdra is also very popular with her people, which is remarked upon a few times early in the game.
 * Idiot Ball: The entire cast spends Battlefield 18 passing it around. (See also the Just Bugs Me page.)
 * 100% Adoration Rating: . This is played for all the tragedy it's worth when . Although it's nowhere near to the same degree, Yggdra is also very popular with her people, which is remarked upon a few times early in the game.
 * Idiot Ball: The entire cast spends Battlefield 18 passing it around. (See also the Just Bugs Me page.)

Royal Army: OH NOES. WHATEVER SHALL WE DO, THERE'S A RIVER IN THE WAY, IT'S NOT AS IF WE HAVE ANY UNITS THAT CAN SWIM!

Gulcasa: Sure it's weird for to request to handle his plans by himself, but there's nothing suspicious about this, nope! I can totes trust him, we're tight like that. Let's go home, guys!


 * You all exist to make my life more difficult and I hate you. see you later!"

": Someone took our Ancient Artifact without which our race will die! Yggdra: burning that city, and we just  . Surely they'll still honor their treaty obligations to join me in my fight against The Empire! Durant: We don't need to travel through their base and the whole reason we came here was to find allies, there's no real reason why we can't just leave,"
 * Some of the forced-upon-you conflicts involve at least a minor game of Idiot Ball, such as
 * YOUR DESIRE TO RESOLVE OUR CONFLICTS THROUGH MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION IS SILLY!

"Milanor: Lowly humans!? I don't think I like your attitude. What makes you so different from us?"
 * Idiot Hero: Subverted a bit with Milanor. He's actually quite intelligent tactically, but incredibly dumb about people. Especially girls.
 * Immortality Seeker: Ironically, her quest for Immortality seems to have been inspired by.
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Gulcasa is a Hero Antagonist until, and by that point there is no making him unsympathetic. As for , he's just immensely screwed-up. As Yggdra Union is intensely anti-war, this is kind of the point.
 * Inferred Holocaust:
 * It Has Been an Honor: . Also, at the very end of Chapter 8,.
 * Jade-Colored Glasses:
 * Japanese Pronouns: The only way Nessiah ever --despite always using polite Honorifics, he has a pronoun drop with characters who aren't in positions of authority (like Yggdra).
 * Kansai Regional Accent: Kylier actually has a fairly thick Kansai accent in the Japanese script (though this troper doesn't know enough to tell whether it's Osaka-ben or Kyoto-ben).
 * Keigo: Elena uses it. Lampshaded in that Milanor recognizes this as abnormal and tries (but fails) to get her to be less formal.
 * Kill It with Fire: Gulcasa loves doing this. For the Royal Army's version, there's the Flame card (which actually gets you Grilled Griffon and Dragon Steak if you kill a unit that rides each creature with said card).
 * Kick the Dog:
 * Kleptomaniac Hero: Milanor. He is a thief. And goes around "liberating" goods from enemies and villagers alike...
 * Knight Templar Big Brother: Gulcasa. See Berserk Button above.
 * This has actually been spoofed in a few of the gag 4koma and one-page comics in the Yggdra Union Comic Anthology book.
 * La Résistance
 * Lady of War: Yggdra and quite a few others.
 * Last Of Her Kind: Princess Yggdra
 * Also
 * Leitmotif: Every character in the Royal Army has his or her own battle theme, as do Gulcasa, Nessiah, Aegina, and Nana-chan. Other enemies just have generic music according to their rank. As of Blaze Union, pretty much everyone in the Imperial Army has their own battle theme as well, leaving Inzaghi as pretty much the only recurring character without his own theme.
 * Lethal Joke Character: Mizer becomes this in the PSP version.
 * Long-Lost Relative:
 * Loveable Rogue: Milanor
 * Magi Babble: The most notable example is the tutorial sequence where Roswell explains how Ankhs work, although it comes up a few other times in the game.
 * Mai Nakahara: Yggdra's seiyuu.
 * Meaningful Name: Lost Aries. So named by the human world because
 * Mermaid Problem: Solved. The Undines live forever until killed and do not reproduce. How they came to be is a mystery.
 * So, what you mean to say is, they die when they are killed? What actually happens is that they are immortal due to a magic gem that revives them whenever they are killed for real.
 * The Messiah: Yggdra gradually becomes one over the course of the story.
 * Multiple Endings: A Bittersweet Ending (canon), two variations of a Here We Go Again Downer Ending, and a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Gulcasa, the Emperor of Carnage? What a charming name! I wonder if he'll be my friend.
 * Worth noting is that his title in the Japanese script, 焔帝 ("Blazing Emperor"), is not quite as overtly sinister.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: What really puts the "bittersweet" in Ending A? Nice job breaking it, Yggdra.
 * Even worse? Great work there, Royal Army.
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Ironically, the female mermaid named "Nietzsche" is the only one who isn't this trope at all. In fact, the only insane people in the game are also the people who act sane.
 * Nintendo Hard: The game will PUNISH the player for playing poorly. To the point of becoming Unwinnable.
 * Norse Mythology: The original translation of the game had several references to it, like the names of certain items and the name of Kylier's race; the updated translation added a lot more of them, since by then Atlus had realized that Yggdra Union and Riviera: The Promised Land were part of one series. The story itself also contains a reference--the side materials explain that one of the antagonists once sacrificed an eye in exchange for knowledge, similar to Odin.
 * Not So Different:  Or . This becomes clearer when.
 * Also,
 * Lampshaded in Battlefield 49. A lot, with irony, by multiple people.

"Milanor: So you're the big man around here, huh? Get ready! Gulcasa: We haven't been introduced, so I'll think of you as "Prey"."
 * Omake: The character designer, Kiyudzuki Satoko, wrote a series of fifteen 4koma entitled "Yggdra Universe" that are considered canon extras. There's a lot of Lampshade Hanging, and the 4koma also deal with a few series details that aren't brought up in-game.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: Gulcasa,.
 * One-Gender Race: Undines. They can't reproduce, although they can reincarnate through magic.
 * Our Angels Are Different, Our Dragons Are Different, Our Mermaids Are Different, oh my!
 * People Puppets: favorite way to mind-screw the Royal Army. The fact that it only works makes it all the more traumatic.
 * Plug N Play Friends: Two, and . The latter has an excuse, though.
 * Poor Communication Kills: This is what you get when you have a pair of ultimately kind and idealistic but very stubborn people leading opposing armies. Everything would have been settled much more quickly and with a lot less death if Gulcasa and Yggdra had just been willing to sit down and negotiate, but they're both too busy assuming that the other side is evil.
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Gulcasa gives us the antiheroic version of this trope, in spades. His first confrontation with Milanor is nearly Crowning Moment of Awesome status, and definitely his Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Gulcasa gives us the antiheroic version of this trope, in spades. His first confrontation with Milanor is nearly Crowning Moment of Awesome status, and definitely his Crowning Moment of Funny.

"Gulcasa: ARE YOU READY?!"
 * Not to mention this line from the PSP version when he is about to unleash Genocide.

"Most Japanese games that are based on some kind of mythology usually end up getting it wrong, but this is one of the most hilarious I've ever seen. Nietzsche (in real life) was a German philosopher who introduced the concept of nihilism. Nietzsche (in the game) is a cutesy little girl undine (mermaid) who pokes gently with her spear."
 * Proud Warrior Race: Bronquia.
 * Puni Plush: Every single character looks like they're in their teens, but most of them (in the PSP remake) have clearly adult voices.
 * Rage Against the Heavens:
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old:
 * The Reveal: Battlefield 47, which is where
 * Sadly Mythtaken : Nietzsche. To quote Hardcore Gaming 101
 * Sadly Mythtaken : Nietzsche. To quote Hardcore Gaming 101


 * Sanity Slippage: Poor ...
 * Save the Princess:
 * Ship Tease: The game has two pairs of characters who are actually shown to be in love with each other. Two. It gets away with this by liberally dropping mild-to-moderate hints as to who the others may or may not have affections for.
 * Shoot the Dog:
 * Shorttank: Kylier.
 * Sinister Scythe: Gulcasa and Mistel, along with the Imperial Knights, use them. The impracticality is justified in Gulcasa's case; he wears padded gauntlets (take a good look at his art) and wields it from dragonback in order to get more force behind the blows. Mistel is a rare case of a farmer actually using a scythe rather than a pitchfork in combat; however, the design of her default scythe is very impractical for doing anything more than bludgeoning people and cutting grass.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Yggdra Union is one of those rare examples that starts out looking idealistic and then takes a turn for the cynical, plausibly.
 * Social Darwinist: Gulcasa is a mix of this and Blood Knight.
 * Spanner in the Works: The Royal Army, at the very end of the game.
 * Spoiler Opening: All the characters who join the Royal Army in Chapter 2 are shown, as are, , , , and . It also rather blatantly hints at.
 * Subverted, though, in that there is an event portrayed inaccurately (in the OP, Marietta crowns Yggdra; ) and that the new characters in the PSP Version do not appear.
 * Staying Alive:
 * The Stinger: Only in the PSP version's Battlefield 49. The game can end at Battlefield 48 with the Royal Army certain that and the world is saved, but if the Royal Army progresses, it's shown that
 * Then there are the extra books Sting released on the game after the Updated Rerelease, which explain that
 * Summon Magic: Of the Western variety.
 * Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: A rather complex one. There's the Fire Emblem-standard sword-axe-lance triangle, and those weapons beat bows, which beat magic, which beat the sword-axe-lance triangle again.
 * Then there're scythes, which are strong against the sword-axe-lance triangle, and have no weakness. Guess what is Gulcasa's Weapon of Choice?
 * And even worse, you have to get the PSP version to get a scythe-user on your side.
 * Not entirely. If you pick up the Stray Dragon item (which WAS in the GBA version), you can equip it to Durant, which changes him to Scythe user. Only lasts 3 maps, though. Too bad.
 * Gulcasa wearing you down? Rosary is essentially a huge cockblock - Gulcasa can't do much against her. Of course, she can't do much back.
 * Thematic Theme Tune: Hahen and patria, which are technically the game's themes though they're only actually used for the radio show. Both are commonly considered to be Nessiah's Image Songs due to their content, and Hahen was also used to advertise Baroque.
 * Third Person Person: Nietzsche. This troper believes it's to remind you she's in no way like that other Nietzsche.
 * Also Pamela, in the PSP Updated Rerelease.
 * Tsundere: Kylier, especially when Yggdra's around.
 * Twin Switch: Subverted with.
 * Unholy Holy Sword:
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Kylier initially appears to be this (perhaps because Milanor is the Idiot Hero and doesn't seem to know the first thing about women). Ironically--and tragically--Milanor realizes that he has feelings for her
 * Technically Kylier IS the Victorious Childhood Friend in a way, because Milanor never shows interest in any female but her.
 * Unstoppable Rage: Yggdra displays this while chasing after and trying to kill the (already-injured!) Gulcasa in Battlefield 18.
 * Unusual Ears: Made infinitely creepier because.
 * Unwitting Pawn: The Royal Army.
 * Useless Useful Spell: Medusa's Eye. You get no bonus's or experience and the units just get in your way.
 * Waif Fu: As compared to stronger-looking magicians with accurately low attack value, tiny, apparently frail Nessiah has a disproportionately high set of statistics and a overpowered weapon type and Skill, making him a rare male example.
 * War Is Hell
 * Weapon of Choice
 * What Happened to the Mouse?:
 * Also, where'd Eater go? Does her status as Optional Party Member have something to do with it?
 * All the new characters in Blaze Union leave the continent after that game, which is explicitly discussed in its epilogue. Eater in particular goes worldhopping.
 * What the Hell, Hero??: The heroes call themselves out on this when
 * Who Wants to Live Forever?:
 * As quoted Ouch.
 * Why Won't You Die?: The Royal Army's reaction to the way simply refuses to fall even after taking two to three severe beatings in rapid succession. Milanor in particular frustratedly demands to know how he's even still standing after so much blood loss and so many mortal wounds. The answer? Sheer willpower, though  can't have hurt.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity:
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: SO MUCH.
 * World of Cardboard Speech:
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: is crazy good at it.
 * Yangire:, so very very much.
 * The scary part?
 * You Are Number Six: #367, naturally.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: seems fond of this.  He also says the exact quote in battle against several characters,