The Salvation War/YMMV: Difference between revisions

** In an odd way, Michael advising his archangel allies of the best way to survive if his plan fails. Seeing that he does genuinely care about some things after ruthlessly manipulating everyone around him for so long can be pretty touching.

*** Which is then topped when they ignore his advice and play the [[Big Damn Heroes]] when Yahweh proves too powerful for Michael alone.

{{quote|“So, you see Doctor, my blindness is nothing to be sorry for. What finer sight could I, Party Leader of Mai Xiao Village, treasure as my last than those ten old men saving our children by bringing down the monster with their bayonets?” }}

* [[Crowning Music of Awesome]]: Turns out {{spoiler|music is the big catalyst that makes magic work,}} due to being able to draw on so many minds matched up in perfect harmony. The reveal accompanies Michael making his coup against Yahweh backed up by the theme from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJun5ziotfw ''The Dambusters''.]

* [[Magnificent Bastard]]: Michael-lan. The plot of the second book is largely the result of a massive [[Batman Gambit]] by Micheal to depose Yahweh, take over Heaven, and save the angelic race from what he believes would be total destruction at the hands (or guns) of humans.

** And then {{spoiler|Elhmas}} completely shows him up in one shrewd scene at the end.

* [[Moral Event Horizon]]: Michael-lan gets a young female angel hooked on heroin. Then he gets her to be an exotic dancer to feed her addiction. ''Then'' it's on to prostitution. And that's ''before'' he has her {{spoiler|become the mistress of the subverted chief investigator of Yahweh's "secret police," get kidnapped, then sent to a concentration camp and tortured}}...

* [[Nightmare Fuel]]:

*** Kills entire human cities with just his ''mind''. Needless to say, this scares the hell out of a lot of humans, and he is marked as a priority target. The guided missile cruiser ''USS Normandy'' "sacrificed" itself (having to spend months in drydock) after its... particular way of wounding him, and in {{spoiler|the final battle over Los Angeles}}, target differentiation and even "avoiding other aircraft" becomes a secondary priority to his death.

*** Those he kills don't reincarnate in Heaven or Hell and may not reincarnate at all, even if there is another afterlife "above" Heaven and Hell. This terrifies Angels and Demons alike.

** The Leviathan in Stas Bush's side story ''Don't wake me while I'm quiet''.

** The writer doesn't shrink from describing exactly what modern weapons do to the people/beings they maim and kill. That was an editorial policy decision; if people want to see their favorite weapons used, they ought to be aware of what those weapons do to their victims. Case in point: the Russians breaking out sarin to take down harpies and nagas on the Phlegethon and dealing with the backfire on those troops whose chemical seals had been compromised beforehand.

** Belial's angel prison. You know something is bad when it makes ''[[Magnificent Bastard|Michael]]'' think [[My God, What Have I Done?]].

** {{spoiler|Chapter 70 of Pantheocide is completely terrifying in its depiction of the aftermath of a nuclear Initiation.}}

*** Some characters ended up either not being rescued, or actually were thrown ''into'' the Scrappy Heap in his [[Take That|Take Thats]], albeit much of his reasoning for his depictions of particular figures were in discussion outside of the story.

** Also rescued: James Randi and {{spoiler|Iraqi insurgents, Hamas members and even ''al Qaeda''}} who forget their local grievances in the interest of the war effort as a whole.

 

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[[Category:YMMV]]