YMMV / Second Apocalypse

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Whether Kellhus is a hero or a villain is left a bit ambiguous, allowing the reader to make their own judgments.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Several key examples in the story.
  • The confrontation between Kellhus and Moënghus, after having so much buildup in the first trilogy, is pretty anticlimactic.
  • In The Unholy Consult, Kellhus's battle against the Consult's leadership is pretty one-sided.
• Complete Monster: Iskiak, better known by the name of "Aurang", prince of the Inchoroi and bad even by their standards, was one of the final Inchoroi after their wars with the inhuman Cûnoroi, or "Nonmen". Desiring to escape his own damnation, Aurang participated in the annihilation of entire worlds before the Inchoroi arrived on Earwa. At the end of the war with the Nonmen, Aurang assisted in giving them immortality, but also introduced a plague to kill every female of their species, leaving the Nonmen to look forward to nothing but eventual madness and extinction. Later forming the Consult, Aurang initiates the Apocalypse by unleashing the No-God. As the Horde-General of the Consult, Aurang takes the field, committing countless atrocities and massacring entire cities with his and his people's own creations the Sranc, beings so filled with lust and rage they can only interact with other species by killing and raping them to death. Aurang is also a Serial Rapist, boasting of this to Kellhus, and manipulates the Holy War to help bring about the deaths of all but a fraction of beings on Earwa to not only keep himself from hellfire, but to continue the monstrosity that damned him to begin with.
• Epileptic Trees: Fan theories on the nature of the No-God can sometimes veer towards this, as well as many about Kellhus.
• Fan Nickname: A few characters.
  • Anasûrimbor Moënghus is usually referred to as "Moënghus the Elder" to distinguish between him and Kellhus's adopted son. Sometimes more playfully, Big Moe.
  • Anasûrimbor Moënghus II is usually referred to as "Moënghus the Younger" to distinguish between him and Kellhus's father. Sometimes more playfully, Lil' Moe.
  • Shaeönanra, the Grandvizier of the Mangaecca is usually shortened to just "Shae" in fan parlance.
  • Aurang and Aurax are sometimes jointly referred to as the "Inchie Bros." A dark parody of Mario Bros.
  • Kellhus' unnamed grandson is called "Crabicus" by some fans.
• Genius Bonus: All over the place. One has to be well-versed in all manner of philosophical schools, literature, Antique and Medieval history to understand all the esoteric references and allusions Bakker crams into the series.
• Ho Yay: Moënghus and Cnaiür, which resulted in Cnaiür killing his father. This is the reason why there is latent Ho Yay between the adult Cnaiür and Kellhus.
• Iron Woobie: Cleric and Achamian.
• It Was His Sled: It's hard to read the first trilogy without having accidentally encountered some details from the second series.
  • Mimara isn't actually dead. Esmi sold her into slavery and she becomes a main character.
  • The Inrithi win the Holy War by conquering Shimeh and Kellhus is declared Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas.
  • The Hundred exist.
  • The Consult are working to escape damnation by exterminating enough ensouled humans in existence to seal away the Outside.
  • The Inchoroi and Dragons are aliens from a different world. The evil, dark "fortress" of the antagonists is actually their spaceship, impacted in the surface of Eärwa.
• Magnificent Bastard: Anasûrimbor Kellhus is a powerful Dûnyain monk who implants himself in the Holy War in opposition to the monstrous Consult. Scheming and manipulating all in his path, Kellhus engineers his own death and supposed rebirth to be seen as a great savior, eventually rising to utterly dominate the Three Seas as the powerful Aspect-Emperor and prepare the world to fight the Consult. Manipulating almost everyone he meets, Kellhus heads the Great Ordeal, a grand crusade to completely break the Consult and even allies with a deadly God to destroy their conspiracy for good, vowing to conquer even damnation itself.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Ever are men deceived" is a canned expression used in fan parlance to refer to the series' existential themes. It's treated as a common phrase in the series, but only actually appears once.
  • The expression "death came swirling down" is used so often in almost every battle sequence that it reaches memetic levels.
• One-Scene Wonder: Rather humorously, the orange tabby cat is considered quite the memorable one-off character, despite only being a POV character for one page before being killed by the Wathi doll.
• Squick:
  • The Inchoroi are a self-described "race of lovers", wholly obsessed with sexuality, sexual violence, and rape of all sorts. And it only gets worse from there on. As a reviewer aptly put it: "Scott Bakker's books are not dark and gritty. They're pitch-black and sticky."
  • Incest between Emperor Xerius and his mother — especially when she gets a teenage sex slave for him, and Xerius makes his mom stay and teach the girl how to "properly pleasure" him.
  • A scene where the Mother-Supreme of Yatwer's cult smears blood from her period in the faces of male worshipers, "a red line of hatred", after having sex with them.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The Warrior Prophet is where the series grows the beard.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: This series is unrelentingly dark and negative. Every character hates everybody else, they all live in a Crapsack World and there's no humor at all, not even of the gallows variety. After a while you wonder why you should care if any of these characters live or die. This is, appropriately enough, supported In-Universe, as almost every single named character (and most people, really) are damned to Hell upon their death. The only reason that Rooting for the Empire is avoided is because the Consult wants to end Damnation precisely because they're just that horrifyingly monstrous, and thus more than truly deserve it.
• Wangst: Achamian has this at first.
• Woobie: Too many to count - almost everyone in the books has a Woobie moment at some point or another.
  • Achamian is the biggest one in the series, hands down.
  • Cleric who used to be the last Nonman king, Nil'giccas also qualifies as the most tragic character of them all.
  • Serwe has crap heaped on her by the truckload while having done literally nothing to deserve any of it.

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