The Death Gate Cycle/YMMV


 * Complete Monster: The serpents. There is nothing remotely sympathetic about any of them. They are literally evil given physical form.
 * Sinistrad too. Bane was a Complete Monster in training.
 * The blood dragons of the Labyrinth are immensely powerful and almost as evil as the serpents. Unless you have an army with you (or are Xar) an encounter with one of these things should be treated as "run or die (slowly and painfully)".
 * Genius Bonus The discussion in one of the appendices of how magic works (by manipulating the "wave" that governs the probability of events) seems a fairly clear reference to/inspiration from quantum mechanics.
 * High Octane Nightmare Fuel: In rough descending order of freakiness, the Lazar, the serpents, and the tytans.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Sang-drax is one in Hand of Chaos when he first appears; he unfortunately comes off as more of a (literal) Smug Snake in the last two books. Kleitus is also one to a lesser extent, at least before he gets turned into an Ax Crazy undead.
 * Moral Event Horizon: It's impossible to have any sympathy for Sinistrad after learning how he used and abused his teenaged wife Iridal and son Bane
 * Motive Decay: Xar goes from wanting to build a better future for the Patryns to wanting to lead the Patryns to conquer the universe because it's their birthright to wanting to conquer the universe for his own benefit. This is spelled out in tear-jerking fashion in The Seventh Gate when he wonders exactly how he got from "Save my people" to "Evil Overlord". â€”And then hears the sound of Sang-drax's laughter in his mind...
 * Squick: The Haplo/Alake subplot in Serpent Mage. Not for the squeamish.
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The lazar are made of this trope. They can never escape their own suffering, but have apparently taken the saying "misery loves company" to heart. Possibly the tytans as well. All they want to do is go home. When no one can tell them how to get there, they don't respond well.