History Literature / IncarnationsOfImmortality

* NoSell: Every Incarnation has supreme authority in his own domain and possesses one ability that the other Incarnations cannot block (e.g. if Time stops time, it stays stopped; if Death refuses to take souls ''no one'' dies). This forces a certain level of cooperation and diplomacy... or at least, it's supposed to.

* NobleDemon: Pretty much [[spoiler: Satan]] in a nutshell. His reason for [[spoiler: the war against God is that the system for determining whether a person goes to Heaven or Hell is flawed, and he gets ''too many good people.'' He makes a deal with the Archangel Gabriel to keep the war from harming mortals. He is friends with ''JHVH'', the previous Incarnation of ''Good''.]]

* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage

* TakesOneToKillOne: A convoluted version of this, but the Incarnation of Death can only die by consenting to their death, since Death is supreme in its own domain as [[spoiler:Zane realizes at the climax of the first book]]. As the Incarnation of Death is guaranteed passage in heaven upon its death, an Incarnation of Death can subconsciously "consent" Death, out of wariness of the office. Zane's predecessor subconsciously consented to his Death when he got shot by Zane, as he was not wearing his [[MagicFeather cloak of protection]] properly.

* AuthorAppeal: Piers Anthony has been vocal in the past about his belief that sex between adults and minors isn't really as bad as it's made out to be. This is showcased in ''...And Eternity'' when Vita, a fifteen-year-old prostitute, falls in love with a judge in his fifties and they end up in a sexual relationship. It also appears in the description of the tanana in ''Being A Green Mother'', with girls as young as six performing it and Orlene musing that she can understand why many Gypsy girls are sexually active before puberty even sets in.

* RedHerring: The great deal of time in ''...and Eternity'' spent on developing him, his backstory, and his relationships with the other characters (especially the Incarnations) sets the reader up to think Judge Roque Scott will be the new God; this was in fact Orb's intention when she set Jolie to watching Vita (whom Fate knew would encounter him), and it's what all the other Incarnations think too, and even vote for. Even Satan is willing to elect him due to his sinful nature. But [[RefusalOfTheCall he turns them down flat]]--mostly to be with Vita, but also because he is too afraid of screwing up the cosmos as God. [[spoiler:Orlene is elected instead.]] Aided by the [[AlwaysMale built-in gender expectations]] for God (despite God [[NoBiologicalSex not explicitly having a gender]] in the Bible, the male pronouns are still used, after all), although having Nicolai become an Aspect of Fate should have been a big clue for other possible subversions.

*** Not to nitpick too much, but in your list, only 3 there follow your pattern. "On", "With", "For", and "Under" are all prepositions, not verbs. So the more common naming scheme would actually be [Preposition] [a/an/the] [Adjective] [Noun]"

*** Not to nitpick too much, but in your list, only 3 there follow your pattern. "On","With", "For", and "Under" are all prepositions, not verbs. So the more common naming scheme would actually be [Preposition] [a/an/the] [Adjective] [Noun]"

** Zane in ''On a Pale Horse''. Justified because of the logical paradox that is in play at the time: When he took the office of Death, his soul became temporarily balanced between good and evil. As such, if he were to die, Death would have to collect his soul...and he's Death. Since collecting his own soul is physically impossible, he can't die. Death in general has this. At the end of the book it's revealed that the cloak is more of a MagicFeather: Death can only die if he (at least subconsciously) desires to (Which can happen as Death is guaranteed entry into heaven). As such, the only way for Death to die is if he wants it (Essentially it requires Death to kill Death).

** Though Death moves on to the afterlife naturally, with some implication that he gets to go to Heaven as a reward for his service. The previous officeholder of Evil, however, immediately gets damned and can thus be called upon by his successor.

* BetterTheDevilYouKnow: Literally. After [[spoiler: Parry abdicates his position as Satan]], the vacant office automatically goes to the (current) most evil man in the world: a serial murderer, rapist, and pedophile. The other Incarnations agree that they vastly preferred Parry to his replacement.

* BetterTheDevilYouKnow: Literally. After [[spoiler: Parry abdicates his position as Satan]], the other Incarnations agree that they vastly preferred him to his replacement.

* ''On a Pale Horse''
* ''Bearing an Hourglass''
* ''With a Tangled Skein''
* ''Wielding a Red Sword''
* ''Being a Green Mother''
* ''For Love of Evil''
* ''Under a Velvet Cloak''

* StrictlyFormula: The first five books, and to a lesser extent the sixth, follow a rather linear path: We are introduced to the soon-to-be-incarnation, who because of some issue related to someone they are in love with, becomes an incarnation (often because they cannot be with the one they love). The new incarnation gets the run down of their office and the office's supporting cast. Meets the other Incarnations and Satan. Uncovers Satan's scheme, and narrowly averts it, usually by learning the full extent of their duty as an Incarnation, usually using it as a bluff or threat against Satan (Death threatens to kill Satan, War threatens to start the end of days before Satan can win, Fate threatens to cut the strands of fate of all of Satan's minions).
** Interestingly, the above plots even happen in the sixth book, where Satan is the protagonist. Instead of beating Satan, Satan needs to beat his successor to reclaim the office. The third book also mixes things up by having the whole thing happen twice - with Niobe first as Clotho then later when she returns as the middle aspect of fate, Lachesis.

** The moral axis of the universe is dominated by a form of Christian morality laid down in the first century. [[SexIsEvil Sex Is Largely Evil]], bastards are born halfway-damned already by Original Sin, and suicide is seen as grave sin instead of a psychological problem. [[spoiler: The crux of Satan's plan is to get a new God who is as evil as possible by the old standards and has suffered terribly from them while being, in fact, of unimpeachably good character, because that's exactly the kind of woman who can help ''fix'' the world's moral mess.]]

BrickJoke: [[OurGhostsAreDifferent Orlene]], when inside the body of one of the flying saucer hostages, has to tell the terrorists that the captain refuses to surrender control to them. The person she's possessing is too frightened to do so, so Orlene does it for her with the rather ballsy, "when God kisses Satan and the Incarnations applaud, maybe then". [[spoiler:And then it happens at the end, once she is made God(dess) and kisses Parry in thanks for him making it all possible.]]

* CoolHorse: Death's steed, Mortis. War's steed, Werre.
* CoolOldGuy: Nicolai and JHVH.
* CueTheFlyingPigs[=/=]BrickJoke: [[OurGhostsAreDifferent Orlene]], when inside the body of one of the flying saucer hostages, has to tell the terrorists that the captain refuses to surrender control to them. The person she's possessing is too frightened to do so, so Orlene does it for her with the rather ballsy, "when God kisses Satan and the Incarnations applaud, maybe then". [[spoiler:And then it happens at the end, once she is made God(dess) and kisses Parry in thanks for him making it all possible.]]

** Possibly subverted, as both Orlene and Jolie were transformed into a ''specific'' man (the grown version of Orlene's child) to show what his genetic affliction would do to him. [[spoiler: The purpose of this was ultimately to teach Orlene to show compassion even towards rapists, which is relevant to her future role.]]

-->'''Satan''': What do you want?
-->'''Norton''': Need you ask, sirrah? [[labelnote:Explanation]]This was the CatchPhrase for [[PrincessClassic Excelsia]], one of the actors in the mock-adventure serial/virtual novels Norton gets sent into to entice him into going along with Satan's plans, and keep him from interfering in various schemes of the Prince of Lies. (And who also, incidentally, [[BecomingTheMask had grown to love her role so much]] [[LostInCharacter that she believed she actually]] ''[[LostInCharacter was]]'' [[LostInCharacter Excelsia]], and thus urged Norton to do the right thing, [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy even if it meant leaving her to go fight Satan]].) In other words, Norton was doing a CallBack to the very thing which was supposed to make him Satan's pawn but [[HoistByHisOwnPetard had instead led to him coming back to be a hero]].[[/labelnote]]

* {{Retcon}}: Satan in the first four books appeared to be pure, irredeemable evil. In the fifth book, he gets cast more sympathetically, and after that he's a NecessarilyEvil [[PunchClockVillain Punch Clock]] AntiVillain. Re-reading the series later thus has some interesting effects, particularly in how the later characterization makes scenes common to all the books look when the reader sees them again from the Incarnations' perspectives.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: ''And Eternity'' has one of these, when Orlene asks Thanatos to give her the soul of an infant to repair the damage done to her baby's. He takes her to a dumpster where an abandoned baby is about to be crushed, and tells Orlene to take the infant's soul. [[spoiler: She refuses and instead asks Thanatos to save the baby, even if it means failing her quest. Thanatos saves the infant, then explains that the test was to see whether Orlene would value a soul for its own sake, instead of as a means to an end, and agrees to get her a soul from an infant who couldn't be saved.]]

* SinsOfOurFathers: It turns out the malady in Gawain's family which eventually dooms Orlene's baby came about thanks to [[KingArthur the original Gawain]] [[SexIsEvil giving in to temptation with Kerena]] and thus failing to be pure enough to obtain the Holy Grail. Her conversion to vampirism while pregnant doesn't help their child much, either.

* SympatheticPOV: The sixth book.

* VaporWear: Gaea (the one before Orb) and Lilah. Gaea because she [[InnocentFanserviceGirl doesn't really see the point in clothing]], Lilah because she's [[HornyDevils a succubus]].
* VillainousBreakdown: Satan in ''Wielding a Red Sword'' when [[spoiler: Mars threatens to start World War III and the Apocalypse early.]] Satan may have been faking, though.

* XanatosGambit: By the end, things end up arranged so that Satan gets what he wanted regardless of whether Good or Evil ends up in charge of the world. [[spoiler: If Good wins, God gets replaced by someone who is going to do the job properly. If Evil wins, Satan gets to take over. Either way, Hell stops getting souls who don't deserve to be there.]]

** In the original book, the office holder of Death is never called ''Thanatos''. The name only is given to him in the subsequent books, to match the fact that all the other Incarnations have a name based of Greek or Roman mythology.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: The moral axis of the universe is dominated by a form of Christian morality laid down in the first century. [[SexIsEvil Sex Is Largely Evil]], bastards are born halfway-damned already by Original Sin, and suicide is seen as grave sin instead of a psychological problem. [[spoiler: The crux of Satan's plan is to get a new God who is as evil as possible by the old standards and has suffered terribly from them while being, in fact, of unimpeachably good character, because that's exactly the kind of woman who can help ''fix'' the world's moral mess.]]

** The resolution of ''On a Pale Horse'' hinges on [[spoiler: an aversion. The climactic storyline was about Death being forced to [[DeathTakesAHoliday take a holiday]] to spare a single soul, but it turns out that Thanatos can choose to spare lives or let them end as he pleases, and even God and Satan can't stop him from doing so. It's probably no surprise that he develops into the CowboyCop of the Incarnations]].