Them or Us: Difference between revisions

* [[After the End]] and many of the subtropes, but especially [[Scavenger World]]. The few thousand people in Lowestoft make up half the population for the whole country, and the other half spread here and there across the land. 1/3 are not expected to survive the winter. {{spoiler|And the battle between Ankin and Hinchcliffe nearly wipes out everyone in Lowestoft.}}

* [[Atomic Hate]] - The bombs have stopped dropping, but the effects are still being felt by the survivors.

* [[Begone Bribe]] - Among other types of bribery.

* [[Betrayal Tropes]] - Everyone is looking out for #1, so there is plenty of betrayal going on. Most notably... [[Double Agent]], [[The Mole]], [[The Mutiny]], etcetera. And various instances of [[Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal]] to help motivate Danny into deciding which team he wants to help.

* [[Can't Kill You - Still Need You]] - Hinchcliffe to Danny

* [[Chase Scene]] - A car chase.

** [[The Oldest Profession]] - The woman is a prostitute, who has sex for food, and she gets double rations if she gets pregnant.

** [[Baby Factory]] - The scene takes place in a whorehouse, and the reason for the whorehouse is to repopulate society.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]] - Rona Scott. Also, Danny tries to be this.

* [[Death by Irony]] - A certain person with [[Incurable Cough of Death]] refuses cigarettes, proclaiming, "Those things will kill you." He's already showing symptoms of [[The Big C]].

* [[Despotism Justifies the Means]] - The mindset of the leaders.

* [[Determinator]] - Most of the Haters, especially the Brutes and children.

* [[Foe Yay]] - Hinchecliffe and Danny.

* [[Food as Bribe]]

* [[Gang-Bangers]] - Any given leader and the thugs.

* [[Get It Over With]] - Spoken by characters when facing what seems like certain death, as well as Danny's motto for any given task.

* [[Goal in Life]] - Now that the Unchanged are gone, most Haters don't have one.

* [[History Repeats]] - Danny's personal history, as well as socio-political squabbles, repeats themselves. Danny, so dissatisfied with his job and people in general in the first book, must cling to groups of people for survival and take on other dissatisfying jobs to remain in more groups of people, noticing many parallels, navigating socio-political games in order to survive. As before the war, he finds himself in cliques, bullied by people who have power over him. More hierarchy battles for leadership with the elite always oppressing everyone else. The leader often wants to be leader not because it's for the greater good, but rather because it secures the greatest chance for survival. Danny is as miserable as he's ever been because this all sounds so familiar, and life as a Hater seemed to offer a chance at being a really cool, primal badass, which was untrue.

* [[Infant Immortality]] - Semi-averted. Danny imagines a far-flung future where Haters have rebuilt society proper, and there is a hospital with a delivery room for women to have their babies. The room is divided down the middle with tape, with medical supplies on one side and weapons on the other. If the newborn is a Hater, it is nurtured and allowed to survive. If the newborn is Unchanged, it is killed. However, he shouldn't worry too much as no children ever seem to be killed directly by a Hater, but rather turned into [[Child Soldiers]]. {{spoiler|Near the end, some children are chased,}} but no kids are killed "onscreen". Though Danny has the rare ability to "hold the hate" (control his Hate to the point of not killing Unchanged) all Haters seem to have the ability to hold the hate when it comes to Unchanged children, especially since the Hater leader has demanded that none of the children be killed, so they can be brought to the Hater's lair to be experimented on by the local doctor so that Hater children won't be feral and Unchanged children won't be so cowardly. Danny finds their corpses later. They died of [[Parental Neglect]] thanks to their new [[Mad Doctor]] mommy Rona Scott, but not savagely attacked like the adults. At one point, Rona Scott throws a glass jar at a child, but purposefully misses and smashes it against the wall near the child.

* [[Just Following Orders]] - An excuse used by a few people, but mostly Danny.

* [[Just Like Us]] - In one of many tirades, some people try to point out that Haters and Unchanged are this as well as each other.

* [[Kick Them While They Are Down]] - Many times, most often by Hinchcliffe. Many people will mortally wound someone else, and then deliver a kick or kicks to a tender part of the body such as the kidneys or the face.

* "[[Kill'Em All]]!" - Spoken by Johanson.

* [[Meet the New Boss]] - [[The Big Bad Shuffle]] shows ruthless leader after ruthless leader, each killing the last for leadership, or savaging any threat to leadership, all of whom simply want to be on top in order to increase their own individual chance of survival by being on top.

* [[Mercy Kill]] - Danny's justification when he kills the last starving, infected, miserable Unchanged is to A) End their suffering, telling himself and others that, "It's better this way," and, "Don't delay the inevitable." And B) Get the war over with, to stop the fighting, because once the Unchanged are all gone, the Haters can live in a Peace & Love [[Utopia]]... flawed logic since all Haters do is bicker and squabble and backstab.

* [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]] - The Haters and their [[Final Solution]], especially the ones who do experiments on children.

* [[Not Quite Dead]] {{spoiler|Hinchcliffe pulls one of these.}}

* [[Paranoia]] - The paranoia was saved for the "other team" in previous novels, but now it's every man for himself. As Jonathan Maberry puts it: “David Moody spins paranoia into a deliciously dark new direction."

* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]] - Almost inverted when Hinchcliffe mentions that he'll kill anyone, even if that person is a "Black Lesbian Jew." Used to show that Haters don't care about any of the things that society has used for excuses to discriminate: Race, sexual orientation, or religion, for example. The only discrimination is reserved for Haters and Unchanged. Violence against Unchanged is business, violence against Haters is personal.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] - Delivered several times by Hinchcliffe to Danny.

* [[Reduced to Ratburgers]]

* [[Technical Pacifist]]

* [[Trilogy]] - It's the third book, following [[Dog Blood]], so this series is known as the [[Hater]] trilogy.

* [[War Is Glorious]] - Some people love it.

* [[War Is Hell]] - Or, as Danny calls it, a "purgatory."