The Salvation War: Difference between revisions

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The Salvation War is a [[Web Original]] trilogy that premiered online in the beginning of 2008, asking a simple question: what if God announced that everyone's time was up, and that Lucifer was coming to claim the bodies and souls of everyone on earth?

** The massive demonic army, too. The author has even stated that the sheer demonic numbers and the enhanced physical toughness of each demon might have still prevailed over humans with [[World War One|World War I-era]] technology and may even have given early [[World War Two]]-era militaries a desperate run for their money. For what it was worth, they definitely chewed up (in some cases literally) U.S. soldiers in urban combat, pushing them back three defense perimeters before finally being relieved by Apache helicopters... and suicide bombers.

* [[Badass Boast]]: Uriel's introduction, when he speaks with Jude

'''Uriel:''' “I am more than anything you have ever known, Jude, son of Gregory. I am the sword, the scythe of the One Above All and in my passing entire nations have wept bitter tears. The first born tremble at my name.” }}

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Humanity as a whole is this, compared to the demons, but [[Word of God|author's word]] has explicitly said [http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3330269#p3330269 this] about GEN David Petraeus' presence on the Four Star Badass entry:

* [[Bait the Dog]]: Throughout ''Armageddon???'' Michael-Lan is clever and funny, snarking at Yahweh's ineffectual rages and running the show behind the scenes. Then at the beginning of ''Pantheocide'' he's shown pushing drugs to further his plans. The specific example we see is Maion, a young angel hooked on heroin, who ends up a dancer and prostitute in his club to support her habit. He then uses her to {{spoiler|co-opt his buddy, Inspector Lemuel}}. Then {{spoiler|she's tortured and crippled at Belial's concentration camp, which was a part of Michael's machinations.}} Granted, he didn't realize the conditions at the camp and he states internally throughout the book that he likes them and is ultimately trying to benefit them, but that's still not cool, man.

* [[Bastard Understudy]]: Michael-Lan shows himself to be one in ''Pantheocide''. {{spoiler|He is actively yet subtly plotting to take over Heaven by making multiple angels dependent on him for secretly-supplied drugs and decadence while he takes advantage of the war with the humans to get rid of the less controllable angels by having them sent to die in the front lines, effectively on suicide missions, without telling anybody it's suicide to attack the humans head on.}}

* [[Big Applesauce]]: Lampshaded by Michael - the last Bowl of Wrath gets poured on New York precisely because it's the city that always gets attacked in fiction.

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: the defense at Hit, which is protecting one of the flanks of the human army during the first human-demon battle, has gone down to the last defensive perimeter. A suicide bomb car manages to break the demons for some time, and insurgents join the battle with [[RPG|RPGs]]. Then...

“It’s the Apaches!” }}

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: Pantheocide ends like this. The economy is so focused on war production it would collapse if it stopped. A demonic insurgency, led by Belial, is rising in Hell. The dead are taking little chunks out of the economy, dust storms and hurricanes devastated vast regions of America. And there's always the possibility that the other pantheons aren't nearly so defenseless/technologically behind (or if they are, that they'll quickly learn the recent lessons and upgrade).

** When asked as to whether or not they had recon units at the Eternal City without informing HEA central command, the head British officer replies: "I can honestly say that Her Majesty's Armed Forces have no covert operations groups stationed ''outside'' The Eternal City." (bolding ours, in order to further emphasize the bleedin' obvious)

** Also used by Michael himself.

'''Michael''': {{spoiler|"Most everybody thinks you killed him. Oh, not you personally, you humans. He was in command of the Incomparable Legion of Light when it was nuked. The Host is certain that he died there."}} }}

* [[Explosive Overclocking]]: The ''USS Normandy'' (CG-60) turned up the power to max while targeting {{spoiler|Uriel}}, severely wounding him and mission killing itself, and the [[Frickin' Laser Beams|YAL-1]] prototype skirts this trope, not by overclocking its laser mechanisms, but by taking insane turns, well outside parameters, to stay on target. {{spoiler|It proves too much for the airframe, and it, uh. Explodes.}}

* [[Fish Out of Temporal Water]]: Ori (a samurai) and Aeneas (a Spartan), picked up by a team in the Seventh Circle, and Julius Caesar, leader of the homegrown rebellion.

** This trope is why {{spoiler|Robert E. Lee, who offered his service to the U.S. flag again}}, won't be leading forces into battle again. In fact, in Chapter 62 of ''Pantheocide'', the fantasy is [[Reality Ensues|shattered forever]]:

"Sir, for a week, I have been attempting to understand how your army works. With the aid of a very skilled and patient tutor. Sir, I regret to say ''I have failed completely. I am not fit to command and I must recognize that as a fact''. One day, perhaps, but not now." }}

** [http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3226934#p3226934 Guillaume, dammit, Guillaume]!

** After some discussions about George Washington's [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Public_Law_94-479 rank and seniority]), GEN Petraeus may be looking at either a seventh star or a rather convenient reading of the relevant law, considering that he ''is'' the ''de facto'' "Supreme Allied Commander, Earth ''and'' (parts of) Hell"...

** Major General (and thus Three Star Badass) Asanee, inspired by a real-life person, who pretty much headbutts the Thai Third Army into shape in a matter of minutes with her sheer badassery, and ''only'' playing second fiddle to GEN Petraeus.

** Subverted ''hard'', almost tragically in the case of {{spoiler|former General Robert E. Lee}}.

* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]: The weapon used to take down {{spoiler|Uriel}} is the YAL-1A plane originally designed to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

* [[Gunship Rescue]]: In demonic wars, sometimes a Duke would hire some of Belial's particular breed of [[Our Dragons Are Different|wyverns]]. It is specifically mentioned that even a few of Belial's wyverns could fulfill this trope. [[Foregone Conclusion|They don't help much against humans.]]

** Earlier in the war, human infantry forces at Hit are just barely holding their ground against a demonic [[Zerg Rush]]. [[Moment of Awesome (Sugar Wiki)|Cue the Apaches.]]

* [[Healing Factor]]: Both demons and angels show a limited ability to heal and survive from ''very'' serious wounds, up to the point that they can (barely) regrow missing body parts. However, it can be disrupted if the bullets/shrapnel isn't removed. Memnon's wings didn't grow back properly until the shrapnel in them was removed, and Michael and Uriel had to undergo surgery to remove the bullets and missile fragments they were riddled with.

** "Second Life" humans also heal very quickly and well, They need to, given the torments they got subjected to by the demons.

* [[Humans Are Bastards]]: Subverted. On the battlefield, according to the demons, human are ruthless killing machines. They just won't stop until the opposing army is ''annihilated''. Still, they're also incredibly nice with their prisoners of war, by demonic standards of course. However, Micheal fears that humanity will not be so forgiving to Heaven, since Yahweh basically betrayed them. He figures that the humans didn't really like the Baldricks, but they ''hate'' the angels. The author's said that Michael, aware of lower angelic fertility, fears that angelic casualties on the level the demons suffered during the Curbstomp War would be an extinction event.

* [[Humans Are Cthulhu]]: The above, however, fails to encompass {{spoiler|Abigor's}} opinion after seeing the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

* [[Humanity Is Infectious]]: Played straight with Memnon informing a doctor treating {{spoiler|angels with shattered wings that removing them and allowing them to regrow might just be the trick.}}

* [[Humanity Is Superior]]: The war against Hell is pretty close to being a [[Curb Stomp Battle|Curb Stomp War]], thanks to the human advantages of science (as an acknowledged, non-proscribed concept), engineering (ditto), critical thinking ("thirded"?), and military firepower (thanks to the former) available to the humans. Add to that how they treat their prisoners and the defeated with such incomprehensible kindness by Demonic standards that to them, they rival Yahweh himself.

* [[Humans Are Special]]: Both the demons and some of the angels concede that there's something about humans that makes them special, such as their equal capacities for destruction and forgiveness, their desire to adapt, their habit of asking how things work rather than taking them for granted, and the fact that they don't just fight to "win," but to ''completely annihilate the enemy''. Mildly subverted within the story, as the difference was cultural, though this is huge. The demons could and indeed did adapt several times throughout ''Armageddon''... they just had no chance to bridge the gap in time. Amusingly, the succubus "Luga" almost mistakes science and engineering for human religions.

** Michael as well, maybe. He's a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] who {{spoiler|overthrew Yahweh}}, but his main goal was protecting angels, not humans, and he definitely could have made it easier for them if he wanted. He also completely [[Break the Cutie|screwed over]] [[Kick the Dog|several friends]] in the process, and carefully engineered things to avoid blame. His punishment in the end is... {{spoiler|an admonition not to let power go to his head. It's coming from ''Jesus'', so it has to be taken seriously, but still, Michael got off easy.}}

* [[Klingon Promotion]]: Predictably, it's standard procedure in Hell (as noted by Abigor):

* [[The Lancer]]: Former-Lieutenant -- now Colonel -- Keisha Stevenson, who ended up as GEN Petraeus' go-to field commander.

* [[Large Ham]]: As expected, both Satan and Yahweh are this, but both their sides generally have this going for them.

* [[Mushroom Samba]]: Michael-Lan reveals that the [[Book of Revelation]] came about via him inducing one of these... which bites Heaven in the ass because Yahweh's been following the prophecies within to the letter, and Heaven doesn't have any fire to rain down for the Fourth Bowl of Wrath. Subsequently remedied when {{spoiler|Michael passes off his Return-to-Sender act on the nuke-in-a-drug-cart and the nuking of Tel Aviv}} as the Fourth Bowl.

* [[My Friends and Zoidberg]]: After Karl Rove makes a '''very foolish''' comment during a White House meeting{{spoiler|, essentially suggesting that the destruction of Detroit might cause Michigan to swing Republican in the next election}}, he gets this treatment.

* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: Michael after a first-hand look at the Hell-like prison camp he convinced Belial to build (tricking him into thinking Yahweh had given the orders).

* [[Name's the Same]]: There is British General Sir Michael Jackson. No, not it's not a silly [[Shout-Out]] to ''that'' [[Michael Jackson]]. And, yes, he's a [[wikipedia:Mike Jackson|real person]].

* [[Noodle Implements]]: "Iron chariots had caused them problems once before, problems that had required a succubus, a peasant girl and a tent peg to sort out." A reference to Judges 4:21.

** Pantheocide c54 "get a crowbar, a bicycle pump and a plate of asparagus." Oh, Asanee, how much you rock...

I was hungry. }}

* [[No One Gets Left Behind]]: First done when they rescue Richard Dawkins from Hell. Then minds start to wonder who else is there in hell...

* [[Not Using the Z Word|Not Using the D Word]]: In ''Armageddon???'', the denizens of Hell are almost universally called Baldricks rather than demons or devils. They get called demons more often in ''Pantheocide'', but it turns out "devils" are a whole other type of creature that the demons fought in the past.

* [[Number of the Beast]]: On Chapter 5 of the first book:

** Moreover, Hell has a total of 6666 legions, each consisting of 6666 troops; most of these are reserves, save for 999 of them as a standing (and usually fighting each other) army.

* [[Number Two]]: Number One from the submarines.

* [[Nuclear Weapons Taboo]]: Surprisingly holds up through most of ''Armageddon'' for "economy of force" reasons, then averted in ''Pantheocide'': first a nuke is used in an attempt to assassinate Michael {{spoiler|but gets "returned to sender"}}, then GEN Petraeus, Human Expeditionary Army (by way of US Army) is actually given release authority over the HEA's nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal for the purposes of use in Heaven -- to prevent modern human military casualties who might then defect to {{spoiler|Gaius Julius Caesar's New Rome}}. Finally, the author revealed that ''[[Nightmare Fuel|only air filtration (for aircraft) prevented humanity from simply nuking Hell]]''.

* [[Nuclear Option]] / [[Nuke'Em]]: One of several contingency plans for attacking Satan's palace, but as {{spoiler|the imprisoned Abigor}} learns, far from the most devastating:

** The humans managed to slip a nuke onto the cart containing Michael's last drug shipment. {{spoiler|He figures it out just in time to kick it back through another portal.}}

** In Chapter 43 of Pantheocide, a [[The Quisling|Quisling]] Israeli nuclear submarine operator fed false information to his fellow officers on orders from an angel, causing a five-missile launch at Baghdad, Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, and Tel Aviv... unfortunately, there's only four interceptors, meaning three Arab cities plus either the last one or Tel Aviv. To prevent the newfound human alliance from falling apart, the Israeli prime minister [[Heroic Sacrifice|chooses to save Cairo]]. Fortunately, it seems that an Arab liaison at the command center in Tel Aviv was able to get word of this out before the last missile's payload initiated.

** In Chapter 69 of Pantheocide, the initiation of a Glickem cruise missile above a large Angelic army led by "Jesus" is described in minute detail. In case you didn't quite get that, the HEA ''nuked "Jesus" and his army''. Just to be clear, by "described in minute detail", we're talking about "each and every process of a nuclear reaction described, elaborated on, and given in a way that could theoretically be used to make a replica, it's that detailed. It has been simplified by the omission of some key steps and components (standard practice when speaking of such things) .. he's since suggested it would be better if readers not try and add the bits missed out:

* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are masters of this trope, and then-President Bush even invokes it to himself when succubi [[Double Entendre|try to have their way with him]].

** {{spoiler|"Jesus" -- or rather, Elhmas -- pretends to be a stoned, laid-back hippie around Michael and his compatriots, but becomes notably sharper and smarter when he's with his own subordinate}}.

* [[The Power of Rock]]: Literally. {{spoiler|Both Yahweh and Michael draw power from the ability of minds to synchronize while listening to music.}}

* [[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner]]: Jade "Broomstick" Kim, one of the first soldiers who died in the war against Hell, has this to say after her and the soldiers she's leading receive military supplies:

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: The word "fuck" is used as an expletive once and once only in each book. In Armageddon {{spoiler|A woman who has just pumped seven .32 caliber rounds into a raging Baldrick without causing it any discomfort}} replies with "I need a bigger fucking gun" when asked by a journalist how she feels. In Pantheocide {{spoiler|A Navy nurse (rank Lieutenant) whose carrying blood extender that's desperately needed to save Maion's life}} tells a general to "Get out of the fucking way".

* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: "Just doing my job" is a fairly good excuse for most of the demons and angels. An interesting subversion appear however when some demons or angels {{spoiler|particulary Uriel}} begin to ''really'' hate the humans because they just refuse to do what was expected, laying down and die.

** Lakheenahuknaasi believes in [[James Bond]]... but not in nukes.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Michael delivers {{spoiler|one against Yahweh. And it is ''awesome''.}}

''' Michael:''' {{spoiler|"Oh no, no I don't. If I wanted to go too far I would call you a apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte." That would be going too far. But I'm not going to call you that Yah-yah. I'm just going to point out that even Fluffy and Wuffles couldn’t stand the sight of you."}} }}

* [[Red Baron]]: When Humanity's modern military's overwhelming power really sinks in Hell, the nobility starts to fearfully give Humanity the moniker, The Lords of War.

* [[Retired Badass]]: The centenarian Chinese Korean War vets who manage to fend off a demon attack on their village despite the obvious ravages of age.

* [[Right Under Their Noses]]: The SAS got into the Eternal City by ''walking in through the front gate'' -- the guards just assumed they were servants.

* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: Nope, many bronze tridents won't beat one M1 Abrams. And there's still people surprised by the following [[Curb Stomp Battle]]...

** General Petraeus puts it best:

** The ''point'' of this story is about averting this trope (mostly), although there are a few exceptions. For example, a form of this is what saves {{spoiler|Uriel}} from four RIM-156 surface-to-air missiles: he's so slow and lacking in 'stealth technology' (at least, his "radar cross section" is full size) that the missiles' proximity fuses, designed for supersonic and hypersonic tagets, cause the warheads to prematurely detonate, so he's ''only'' horribly maimed.

** However, played straight in that state of the art jet planes performed poorly in Hell since the polluted atmosphere literally destroyed their engines if they weren't properly filtered. The humans found that piston engined aircraft were not as adversely affected and relied heavily on those in the early stages of their invasion of Hell.

* [[Running Gag]]: Gaius Julius Caesar ''really'' likes radios.

* [[Science Hero]]: ''Humanity''. Expressed in-depth during Luga's revelation in Chapter 35:

* [[Semper Fi]]: The U.S. Marines' main visible role in the Curb Stomp War was running search-and-rescue missions for military [KIAs] and deceased, and clearing Palelabor. (There's a few digs at the Marines' expense in ''Armageddon'' though.) After it's confirmed that the invasion of Heaven is a go, one Marine general directly alludes to the ending lines of the Marines' Hymn: "And it is in accordance with the prophecies." Those lines:

By United States Marines. }}

* [[Sequel Hook]]: The mysterious voice that appears in Memnon's head every now and then could be this. It isn't impossible that it was {{spoiler|Elhmas}} but it seems unlikely.

* [[Shoot the Messenger]]: The Greater Heralds who bore Satan's declaration of dominion over humanity generally got shot straight up (and even [[Talking the Monster to Death|talked to death]] in Russia). They still got off better than the messenger demons who have to deliver bad news to Satan and his generals, though: not having guns to work with, they just crush the messengers' skulls bare-handed (sometimes eating them afterward) instead.

** "Sometimes?"

* [[Shout-Out]]: There are several characters whose names reference members' screen names or actual names from the Stardestroyer.net forums (trolls and banned forumers "drafted" into the demonic ranks were commonplace as foot soldiers or lesser officers). Then there's [[Doctor Who|Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and pals]] assisting in the Sheffield evacuation...

** The most obvious [[Shout-Out]] is, of course, the dubbing of demons as [[Blackadder|baldricks.]]

** Private Joanna Cassidy, owner of "ample" breasts which were, according to Aeanas were: "unappealing things, the breasts of a peasant woman with a litter of babes to feed" just happens to have the same name as the actress who, among other things, voiced the infamously busty Jessica Rabbit.

** The description of Memnon as he attacks {{spoiler|a group of al-Qaeda members}} is a bit blatant...

** ...And ''Pantheocide'' has finally started paying off when it comes to puns about [[Portal (series)|Thinking With Portals]].

** [[Monty Python's Life of Brian|The People's Liberation Front of Hell]] might have been a coincidence. Then the introduction of the [[Life of Brian|Hell's People's Liberation Front]] removed all doubt.

** Then there's a certain [[The Culture|Banks]] who "writes science fiction and he's got a good notion of dimensional mechanics. Went to Stirling in the UK, never took any upper-level science."

* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: Michael-lan delivers this, almost literally, to {{spoiler|Yahweh.}} And it is ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome.]]''

* [[Sophisticated As Hell]]: Michael-lan, in a few cases.

** When he finally {{spoiler|confronts and challenges Yahweh}}, Michael unloads an alphabetical series of increasingly obscure and crude insults.

** There's also this gem:

** "Oh nameless one, Lord and God of all, Uriel-Lan has done well given there are so few to snuff out in the are that he resides. Why he will not go to richer pastures, I do not know." ''Because if he does, the humans will put a cap in his ass,'' thought Michael, ''but no need to say that.''

* [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]]: Yahweh seems to be following this to the letter, sending gradually more and more potent minions to Earth. Justified in that Yahweh is an idiot and he's being manipulated by Michael.

** The United Nations is often Lampshaded as being a completely irrelevant and powerless global entity.

** There's also the depiction of the Israeli military as both disturbingly incompetent and only appearing successful due to having mostly faced opponents that ''somehow'' managed to be even ''worse''. They manage not to cock up the raid that takes the Minos Gate (though unfortunately also killing Second-Lifers who had just arrived and had yet to regain consciousness), but in universe they also have a reputation for reckless both on the road and with their fire "discipline," and the Navy... '''oh boy'''. The cliffhanger that was the disappearance of the nuclear submarine ''Tekuma''? Sure, the ''Tekuma'''s communications officer is a traitor ''and'' the submarine's only human connection with the outside world, but on General Command Headquarters' end it turned out that {{spoiler|an earlier watch at GCHQ had not updated the submarine's contact report since early in their watch, so when the watch shift changed the subsequent staff removed it (as outdated) from the plotting board, but then when the shift changed again, the staff after them didn't realize that the ''Tekuma'' was no longer on the board}}. As the classically-trained but hapless [[Author Avatar|General Marosy]] put it:

** Abigor prowls some message boards and finds someone who had trolled the story's host site, arguing that a bullet to the head is not an efficient way to kill someone. The same message board had him wondering if [[Shout-Out|humans can really destroy a star]]...

* [[Talking the Monster to Death]]: The messenger demon send to Russia gets shot up but survives, which is followed by a local politician starting to recite Putin speeches about how awesome Russia is. Even the military commander pities the messenger.

* [[Tower of Babel]]: Near the end of Pantheocide, Petraeus muses on how the Tower of Babel story where Yahweh cursed humans with multiple languages was an attempt to prevent them from uniting against him, similar to what they were doing right now.

* [[Tranquil Fury]]: The Soldiers in the PLFH (particularly Aeanas) experience this when they come across the [[Moral Event Horizon|demonic merchants who sell human children as delicacies]]:

* [[Uncanny Valley]]: A rather mysterious man only know as [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|the Targeteer]], notable for being creepy by the standards of {{spoiler|Abigor, a former Grand Duke of Hell}}. His level of creepiness is best summed here, after he just leave a room:

** While originally speculated to be an [[Author Avatar]], he was later revealed to be a tip of the hat to Don Brennan, a friend of the author, who managed to have his entire lawn die in 3 months. All of it. Hence the in-joke that he could kill a plant just by being in the same room with it.

* [[Unperson]]: Abigor is one for Hell from the moment he is sent on a suicide mission for his failure, and until the humans bring him to rule there.

* [[Values Dissonance]]: Most apparent between the demonic mindset (born of a brutally backward medieval and cannibalistic society where backstabbing is common) and the modern human mindset as noted by several characters in several different instances. Also present in the thoughts of Aeneas (a Spartan) and Ori (a samurai) regarding the fighting styles of, and presence of women among, the modern day soldiers who rescued them from Hellish torture. Another was Corporal (deceased) Tucker McElroy having to mentally fight down the instinctive prejudice he was raised with when he found out kitten was a [[Transsexual]]--he succeeds.

** This becomes a complication for the humans in Hell and has already gotten the Russians busy in ''Pantheocide''. It's led to a split between the living and newly dead as opposed to the rest of the dead, to the point that the Human Expeditionary Army is actually guarding the demons from their former victims:

** It's also a problem for those in charge of training the new demon auxiliary military units. Demons, used to marching in large infantry formations and a lifetime of backstabbing, have absolutely no concept of supporting fire. To demons, they don't see why they should stay behind and put themselves at risk to help a rival unit that can steal all the glory.

** Robert E. Lee experiences it when he tries to learn modern warfare techniques...from a black, female soldier. He often gets all his men wiped out in simulations, and between them can only plead his century and a half of torture in Hell be seen as sufficient penance for his [[My Country, Right or Wrong]] beliefs during the war.

** Also applies between modern humans and those who were so pious as to get into Heaven -- when COL Stevenson's new unit (Spearhead Battalion, 3rd Armored Division) kills off the resident angel in a village, the new "native chief" is one such human... who promptly requests to be allowed to carry out daily reverence to Yahweh:

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Against human weaponry, ''entire demonic legions'' suffer of this. {{spoiler|Abigor}} suffers this ''twice'', {{spoiler|once when his army is literally pulverized, then when he learns about nuclear weaponry}} but got better through the power of [[Heel Face Turn]]. Then we got {{spoiler|Beelzebub, who kinda gave up and let himself be torched by A-10 Warthogs, Belial who experimented the full effect of the [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]], and more recently Uriel, who was happy to find peace in death...}}

* [[Villain Protagonist]]: To a degree; [[Word of God]] says that Michael-lan is supposed to be the protagonist on the Heavenly side.

* [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?]]: Early in Armageddon, a chapter ends with some demons seeking out easily-seduced world leaders to sic their [[Horny Devils]] on. The next chapter begins with [[Bill Clinton|William Jefferson Clinton]] jogging to McDonalds. {{spoiler|Sadly for them, Bill isn't THAT gullible.}}

* [[Wiki Walk]]: Lakheenahuknaasi.

* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Really, both the guy downstairs and the guy upstairs borderlined sometimes on [[Cloudcuckoolander]]. Neither seemed to realize how bad the situation ''really is''.

* [[Woman Scorned]]: While Lemuel is not cheating on his mate, Onniel, she is violently pissed at how much he is neglecting her for his investigation.