Belisarius Series: Difference between revisions

* [[The Empire]]: Both sides, only the Romans (and later, the Persians and Ethiopians) are the nice guys and the Malwas are firmly in the villainous variety of empire, {{spoiler|until the last novel.}}

* [[Enemy Mine]]: Rome and Persia put aside centuries of warfare to ally against the Malwa.

* [[Enemy Civil War]]: {{spoiler|Damodara's coup}}

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Narses refuses to assassinate the families of Damodara and Rana Sanga, but instead spirits them away to where they can be safe. It is not said whether this is out of standards or because he thought he might have [[Pragmatic Villainy|use for them later]]. Or maybe both. Or maybe he was just so disgusted with Malwan incompetence that he wanted to at least have an efficient master. It is hard to tell what lurks in his convoluted mind.

**An accidental version of this comes along when Eon almost blows his cover as a [[Royal Brat|Royal pervert]] by refusing to touch a girl who had been [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|war-raped into insanity]] and dumped into a [[Sex Slave|brothel.]]

* [[I Gave My Word]]:

** Belisarius, meanwhile, would never have betrayed his vows to Justinian, even to defeat Link and the Malwa.

* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Belisarius keeps thinking back to his original desire to become a blacksmith throughout the series, particularly while he is killing large numbers of people.

* [[Mugging the Monster]]: Several times, when some petty thug or other takes it into his head to win the unfriendly attention of someone above his pay grade.

** A friend from Antonina's old days is bullied by a would-be pimp. So she wheedles Belisarius into sending a couple of soldiers to beat him up. Although even Antonina ends up shocked at the overkill involved, as Belisarius' single toughest officer not only volunteers himself for that job but takes perhaps the two deadliest soldiers in the entire Roman army along with him.

** Three mercs handling security for Lady Damadora's escape tunnel decide there is better money in ratting to the authorities. They do this just in time for Rajiv Sanga -- a teenaged boy but the son of one of the greatest warriors in the world, and also trained by one of the only two men in the world who have survived fighting his father in single combat -- to find them. Rajiv takes all three on with a spade and a miner's pick and easily kills them all.

* [[My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad]]: Rajiv is ''very'' proud of how great a warrior Rana Sanga is.