Small Gods/Awesome

""Nevertheless, the turtle moves!""
 * Despite the gratuitous amounts of outright awesome he shows later, Lu Tzu's best moments are when he achieves his goals with minimal effort, like in this book where he changes the history of the entire continent by breaking off one lever.
 * Not even, he changes history by causing the breaking of one lever.
 * He also turns over the tortoise at one point (after Vorbis turned it on its back just to watch it struggle).
 * And he set off the whole chain of events (which the previous two items merely kept on course) by sweeping dung into a pile in just the right place, at just the right time.
 * Didactylos taking a stand after seemingly selling out to Vorbis:

"I. THIS IS NOT A GAME.
 * Whether it actually happened or not, that one was even more Awesome in Real Life. "E pur si muove."
 * The bit towards the end when Brutha makes his own god, who he acknowledges could kill him at any time, yield to him, through nothing more than the power of his words.
 * Om gets one too: "I think, if you want thousands [of followers], you have to fight for one."
 * Which he does. First by, while in the body of a tortoise, forcing an eagle to carry him to 's execution and killing, and later by beating most of the Dunmanifestin pantheon into preventing a war.
 * Fridge Brilliance, too, when you realize that Om learned everything he ever knew about being a leader from a shepherd. That had some downsides, sure (sheep are stupid, and need to be driven), but the book specifically mentions that he was *the kind of shepherd who had hundreds of sheep because he took the time to stop and hunt down one that had gotten lost."
 * The Great God Om walks calmly into the dwelling place of the Discworld Pantheon, grabs a weapon, and begins bludgeoning another God in order to save his people, the first time a Discworld God has ever fought for his people rather than vice versa.
 * Om crashes through the Discworld God's pantheon, beats up all the other "High Gods" and FORCES them to come down and tell the humans "Life is not a game". The way he made all these formerly too-good-for-you gods his bitches. He even got them reciting the same damn message!

II. HERE AND NOW, YOU ARE ALIVE."

"Death:
 * And Brutha notices "Om was in the throng, standing right behind the Tsortean God of Thunder with a faraway expression on his face. It was noticeable, if only to Brutha, that the Thunder God’s right arm disappeared up behind his own back in a way that, if such a thing could be imagined, would suggest that someone was twisting it to the edge of pain."
 * And then there's Death's semi-threat to Vorbis after his death, when he is sitting alone in the endless desert.

Vorbis: Yes. Yes, of course.

Death:"

"'Which end?'"
 * Leading to Brutha's Crowning Moment of Awesome: When Brutha finds himself in the Afterlife Desert he find Vorbis still huddled, terrified, on his rock. Death reminds Brutha of who and what Vorbis was, to which Brutha answers: 'I know, he's Vorbis. And I'm me.' Then he takes his would-be nemesis by the hand and together they walk towards whatever awaits beyond the Desert.

"Brutha was aware of feet running up the steps, and hands pulling at the chains. And then a voice:
 * Earlier in the book:

I. He is Mine."

"Vorbis? You're going to die..."
 * Brutha, tortured, death imminent, barely able to speak:

""No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.""
 * And actually feeling sorry for Vorbis when he says it.
 * Whenever patient, always believing, never violent, seemingly dumb always kind BRUTHA gets fed up with his god in the desert, and informs him that a tortoise shell would be excellent for carrying water. An empty threat, because Brutha is BRUTHA, but still the guts it took, and the fact that Brutha has learned to think for himself and not follow blindly, but to lead... is brilliant.
 * Brutha's speech about death:


 * 'Vorbis looked up at the sky, just as . Some of those watching said that his expression *just* had time to change before it hit. It was a revelation."