Left Behind/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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* [[Smug Snake]]: Nicolae is pretty clearly supposed to be seen as a purely evil but still scarily charismatic and competent [[Magnificent Bastard]] (not unlike [[Star Wars]]' Emperor), but he ''actually'' comes off as trying too hard without really knowing what he's doing. (Then again, if someone is charismatic enough to make a recitation of UN trivia riveting, maybe they ''do'' deserve to be a [[Magnificent Bastard]]...) His subordinates, namely Leon and Peter Matthews, are more deliberate [[Smug Snake|Smug Snakes]].

** To a large extent, the protagonists themselves tend to come across as this. They are seemingly aware of their [[Canon Sue]] status and not inclined to doubt it while everyone else [[Creator's Pet|sings their praise]]. They may not speak every smug thought they have, but the reader gets to see a lot of their internal reactions to things. To quote Fred Clark:

{{quote| "For LaHaye & Jenkins, hubris doesn't precede a fall. They regard it, instead, as a sign of godliness."}}

{{quote|"For LaHaye & Jenkins, hubris doesn't precede a fall. They regard it, instead, as a sign of godliness."}}

* [[So Bad It's Good]]: Considered this by many people.

* [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]]: Done right, a story set during a Rapture-like event could have been quite potent character-driven [[Religious Horror]], if the plot, the premise, and its implications were well-thought-out and the characters were sympathetic. Unfortunately, none of that is the case.

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* [[Took the Bad Film Seriously]]: You've got to hand it to Gordon Currie, who played Carpathia in the movies. He might have been a B-List actor in a B-List movie series, but he swung for the fences in every scene, making him perhaps the most engaging actor on the cast and portraying Carpathia as a far more intriguing villain than he ever was in the books.

** Rayford is remarkably much more human and sympathetic in the movies, reacting reasonably to what is going on as much as the script allows and showing much more genuine loss and regret about his wife and child. Fred Clark sums up:

{{quote| "On one side are Irene and Jamie, who are cheerful born-again Real True Christians. On the other side are Chloe and Rayford, who are portrayed by legitimate actors."}}

{{quote|"On one side are Irene and Jamie, who are cheerful born-again Real True Christians. On the other side are Chloe and Rayford, who are portrayed by legitimate actors."}}

* [[Unfortunate Implications]]: Some of the more obvious things, such as the [[Anti Christ]] being [[Has Two Mommies|the child of two gay men]], is actually a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], since those implications were [[Values Dissonance|fully intended]]. However, other things, such as God smiting the unbelievers and torturing them in hell for eternity simply for being ignorant or wanting to support global peace, tends to imply that [[God Is Evil]], which was not the author's intention.

* [[Values Dissonance]]: The books are written with a particular religious demographic in mind as their intended readership. Said demographic has a very particular set of values, which are not necessarily widely shared outside of it.