History YMMV / LeftBehind

* CriticalResearchFailure: Now has [[CriticalResearchFailure/LeftBehind its own page]].

* AntiClimaxBoss: The epic, awe-inspiring final battle between the LegionsOfHell and the armies of the Lord in ''Kingdom Come'', the world-shaking clash that the series has spent ''sixteen books'' building up to, can be measured in [[CurbStompBattle seconds]], with a quite literal case of DeusExMachina: Jesus arrives and annihilates Satan and his forces in seconds. The Book of Revelations that [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins are modeling their story on explicitly notes a final rout in Heaven's favor, and the entire series spends a lot of time beating readers over the head with the fact that [[YouCantFightFate the actions of everyone, good and evil alike]], [[BecauseDestinySaysSo are proceeding according to God's will]]. Though this continues on Christian traditions dating at least as far back as ''Literature/ParadiseLost'', readers who are expecting an epic battle will be disappointed.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Now has [[CriticalResearchFailure/LeftBehind its own page]].

* CriticalResearchFailure: Now has [[CriticalResearchFailure/LeftBehind its owwn page]].

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** The nature and functioning of the UN. Possibly the nature and functioning of humanity, considering the ease with which [[GlobalCurrency one world currency]] and, even worse, [[OneWorldOrder one world government and religion]] are instituted.
** How the Internet physically works. Tsion Ben-Judah is holed up in Petra, reaching a billion people with his website, and in three years nobody figures that they should simply cut the wires coming out of the fortified city.
** Orbital mechanics. The various comets that fall on Earth (e.g. Wormwood) are depicted as being of such size that the Earth as a solid planet would stop existing if they impacted.
** The often questionable interpretations of the Bible. For instance, the fourth horseman from the Book of Revelation, also known as Death, is said to apparently be the Antichrist by Bruce Barnes, the priest. Thing is, the word "Antichrist" isn't mentioned a single time in the Book of Revelation. In fact, opinions vary a ''lot'' on whether the Antichrist is supposed to be the name of a specific person or just an adjective, like "anti-communist" (as it is used in the Epistles of John). So having Bruce say that the fourth horseman is ''apparently'' the Antichrist is just stupid.
** The plotline about the recruitment of Rayford, a civilian airline employee, as pilot for UsefulNotes/AirForceOne. In case the '''name''' of the plane didn't make this clear, Wiki/TheOtherWiki has a list of all previous Air Force One pilots. All were military officers, none below Lieutenant Colonel.
** On top of that, Air Force One isn't really a single, specific plane. It's a shorthand for "Air Force plane that the President is currently using or about to use". Strictly speaking, there can no longer ''be'' an Air Force One, since the term only makes sense in a strictly American Air Force context.
** At the end of ''Tribulation Force'' and the beginning of ''Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist'', Nicolae ''finally'' does something properly evil by launching World War III. This takes the form of World War II-style bombing raids targeting such things as hospitals and airports... except that they use ''100-megaton nuclear bombs''. The largest human-caused explosion ''ever'' was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba Tsar Bomba]], which was a mere ''50'' megatons, but it still destroyed buildings hundreds of kilometers away from the test site. If even ''one'' 100-megaton bomb was dropped on a city, let alone several, that city would not look like London during the blitz (which is what is shown in the book) but a glass crater, and it wouldn't matter ''where'' it hit.
** [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins either do not know what a nuke does or don't know how many of them an "arsenal" is, when it's mentioned that Russia used "almost the entirety" of theirs (totaling more than 4,000, enough to destroy every country on Earth several times over) on Israel. Israel is roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. Overkill does not even ''begin'' to describe it. Granted, Israel does explicitly need a DivineIntervention to survive that (and fortunately for them, [[GodIsGood they get one]]), but one wonders what the Russian generals thought when their president ordered that kind of doomsday attack...
** Buck Williams receives an "exclusive" interview with the new U.N. Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia, which is scheduled for after Carpathia speaks to a number of other journalists. An "exclusive", as the name would suggest, is when an interview subject talks ''exclusively'' with one journalist or organization on a subject.
** Buck arrives at Penn Station in New York City, walks for miles and miles until he's ready to collapse from exhaustion, finds a bicycle, counts it as a blessing from God, rides it for several miles more, and finally arrives in Midtown Manhattan. Penn Station is located ''in'' Midtown Manhattan, so he was already there when he started his journey. What's more, the island of Manhattan is only thirteen miles long (with Penn Station being about three miles from the southern tip). There aren't many places in it that require traveling miles and miles and miles to reach, not to mention that Buck is supposed to be in really good shape, and should be capable of walking anywhere on the island and barely even feeling it.
** The Jordan River is presented as a huge, broad river with heavy boat traffic, rather than the unnavigable stream it really is. Many Americans, especially those influenced by spirituals, have a tendency to picture the Jordan like the Mississippi, but [=LaHaye=] has actually visited Israel and should know better.
** This one is relatively minor, but Israeli troops don't carry/attach bayonets, particularly not in the middle of Israeli cities.
** The number of people who disappeared in the Rapture is frequently referred to as "millions", which may or may not be an appropriate figure for the number of "true" Christians in the world, depending on how one views such things. The larger problem is that every child under twelve also disappeared, which would be more than a ''billion'' and reduce those taken because of their faith to little more than a rounding error. Being suddenly plunged into a world without children also seems to have had no effect whatsoever on the setting or the people in it.

* TheWoobie: Cendrillon Jospin goes to Hell, despite having spent most of her career lovingly looking after children.

** People are raptured without their clothes - thus, the raptured leave behind piles of empty clothing. So the first sign of the end of the world was a field of underpants.

** The Other Light members: Deluded fools who want Satan to defeat God, helpless pawns of fate since they are prophesied to do that (and lose), or heroic freedom fighters?

** The first book features a pretty genuinely scary moment where a pregnant woman having an ultrasound together with her husband see their baby disappear from her womb. The scene could have left it there and wound up with some decent AdultFear NightmareFuel - but the wind completely goes out of it when the wife immediately afterwards proceeds to [[AngstWhatAngst tell her husband she's divorcing him]].

* FirstInstallmentWins: The first book is the best-selling and most famous.

** [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins either do not know what a nuke does or don't know how many of them an "arsenal" is, when it's mentioned that Russia used "almost the entirety" of theirs (totaling more than 4,000, enough to destroy every country on Earth several times over) on Israel. Israel is roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. Overkill does not even ''begin'' to describe it. Granted, Israel does explicitly need a DivineIntervention to survive that (and fortunately for them, [[GoodIsGood they get one]]), but one wonders what the Russian generals thought when their president ordered that kind of doomsday attack...

** [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins either do not know what a nuke does or don't know how many of them an "arsenal" is, when it's mentioned that Russia used "almost the entirety" of theirs (totaling more than 4,000, enough to destroy every country on Earth several times over) on Israel. Israel is roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. Overkill does not even ''begin'' to describe it.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The epic, awe-inspiring final battle between the LegionsOfHell and the armies of the Lord in ''Kingdom Come'', the world-shaking clash that the series has spent ''sixteen books'' building up to, can be measured in '''[[CurbStompBattle seconds]]''', with a quite literal case of DeusExMachina: Jesus arrives, annihilates Satan and his forces in seconds, and presumably rollerskates back to Bethlehem in time to catch that night's Lakers game. End of series. Of course, it's not like this is much of a surprise, [[ForegoneConclusion the outcome was as predetermined as can be]]. The Book of Revelations that [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins are modeling their story on explicitly notes a final rout in Heaven's favor, and the entire series spends a lot of time beating readers over the head with the fact that [[YouCantFightFate the actions of everyone, good and evil alike]], [[BecauseDestinySaysSo are proceeding according to God's will]]. Hell, the subtitle for the book is "Kingdom Come: ''[[SpoilerTitle The Final Victory]]''. But readers who are expecting a good post-apocalyptic war epic or thriller tale can easily be misled into a expecting last-minute twist in favor of Satan's armies (or at least ''something'' to level the playing field to make the odds [[VillainousUnderdog not seem so stacked against the bad guys]]) that [[TheUntwist ultimately never arrives]].

** The HBO series ''Series/TheLeftovers'' also begins with a sizable population of Earth spontaneously disappearing. The series won critical acclaim for realistically delving into the ways society would try to cope with the trauma such an event.

* IdiotPlot: The series is meant to be a literal translation of The Revelation of St. John, as interpreted through the modern lens of the Rapture. Unfortunately, the Revelation of St. John wasn't written with anything resembling a modern story structure, much less [[CharacterDevelopment character arcs,]] and as a result the [[GainaxEnding story comes across as nonsensical]]. Characters react in [[CozyCatastrophe entirely]] [[EasyEvangelism unbelievable ways]], events happen for [[DeusExMachina seemingly no reason,]] and we are expected to root for (or against) characters [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality based entirely on which side they're fighting on]], [[MoralDissonance regardless of how they act]]. Is it any wonder that this book series isn't really liked outside of its target audience?

* MarySuetopia: Jesus Christ's Millennial Reign in ''Kingdom Come'' is a utopia for "naturals" [[ReligionIsRight as long as they obey God's laws]]. They have all the amenities of the technological world (Sort of: the book was written in 2007, but with a few exceptions the tech level is firmly stuck in the mid-90s), have eternal life, perpetual sunshine, no war or violence. Even non-believers can live for a hundred years in perfect health.

** [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation The "heroes"]] are supposed to be callous to the suffering at this point, as they have not been "saved" and are still unrepentant sinners. The problem is, even after they are saved and supposedly become model Christians, they [[IgnoredEpiphany still consider others' suffering to be a minor inconvenience]]. The only notes of genuine regret or contrition come from the supposedly un-saved.

** Jesus himself. After all, everything that is happening to the Earth during the Rapture and the Tribulation is directly caused by him.

** The number of disappeared people is frequently referred to as "millions", which is about right for all the members of the the authors' branch of Christianity (presented as the only "real" Christians). The problem is that supposedly every child under twelve also disappeared, which would be more than a ''billion'' and reduce those taken because of their faith to little more than a rounding error. Being suddenly plunged into a world without children also seems to have had no effect whatsoever on the setting or the people in it.

CriticProof: While the series has received mixed to mediocre reviews at best in the mainstream media, it is also extremely successful commercially, with some 80 million copies sold as of the author's death in 2016 and all of the books still in print.

** The fact that thanks to massive ValuesDissonance, GodAndSatanAreBothJerks, and like their minions have nearly the exact same goals: Nicolae wants to kill everyone who doesn't worship him, as does Jesus. Nicolae wants to take over the world and establish a one-world religion comprised of people who worship him. Jesus also wants this (and gets this in the 13th book in the series, ''[[Recap/LeftBehindBook13KingdomCome Kingdom Come]]''). The only difference between the two is power-levels, and it is a massive difference. Jesus is really powerful, while Nicolae is an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Rather than choosing Jesus out of moral conviction, it seems quite likely that anybody who joins the "good" side after the Rapture is simply joining the side that ''cannot lose'', which is hardly proof of virtue.

** The AntiChrist being [[HasTwoMommies the child of two gay men]] would seem like an ''accidental'' FamilyUnfriendlyAesop, but is actually an [[AvertedTrope aversion]], since those supposedly unintentional UnfortunateImplications were in fact fully intended. However, other things, such as God smiting the unbelievers and torturing them in hell for eternity simply for being ignorant or wanting to support global peace, tends to imply that GodIsEvil, which was [[GodIsGood not the author's intention.]]

* AngstWhatAngst: You'd think that the complete eradication of all kids under the age of ten would be a bit depressing, but people seem to take it in stride. Given how much disruption this would have on the global population, this approaches CosyCatastrophe levels.

** The blackmail plotline itself reveals even more ValuesDissonance between the writers and a large chunk of contemporary society, namely that blackmailing someone about being a lesbian would even ''work''. Even in the mid-1990s, when the series started publishing, most professionals could live openly gay without fear of damaging their careers. A journalist in Boston would almost certainly have nothing to fear. [[SocietyMarchesOn This is even more true in modern times.]] Today, maliciously outing one's superior would ruin your ''own'' career.

** The first book features a pretty genuinely scary moment where a pregnant woman having an ultrasound together with her husband see their baby disappear from her womb. The scene could have left it there and wound up with some decent AdultFear NightmareFuel - but the wind completely goes out of it when the wife immediately afterwards proceeds to tell her husband she's divorcing him.

** Rayford Steele: Relatable everyman, and stand up guy? Or self important JerkAss?

** Irene Steele: Loving, caring, Christian who only wants the best for her family? Or selfish, self righteous, fanatic who gets antsy when people don't believe in what she believes?
** The Other Light members: Deluded fools who want Satan to defeat God, helpless pawns of fate since they are prophecied to do that (and lose), or heroic freedom fighters?
* AngstWhatAngst:
** You'd think that the complete eradication of all kids under the age of ten would be a bit depressing, but people seem to take it in stride. Given how much disruption this would have on the global population, this approaches CosyCatastrophe levels.
** If you happen to be a parent who never really wanted a child in the first place, that would seem to be a boon.
* AntiClimaxBoss: The epic, awe-inspiring final battle between the LegionsOfHell and the armies of the Lord in ''Kingdom Come'', the world-shaking clash that the series has spent ''sixteen books'' building up to, can be measured in '''[[CurbStompBattle seconds]]''', with a quite literal case of DeusExMachina: Jesus arrives, annihilates Satan and his forces in seconds, and presumably rollerskates back to Bethlehem in time to catch that night's Lakers game. End of series. Of course, there's not like this is much of a surprise, [[ForegoneConclusion the outcome was as predetermined as can be]]. The Book of Revelations that [=LaHaye=] and Jenkins are modeling their story on explicitly notes a final rout in Heaven's favor, the entire series spends a lot of time beating readers over the head with the fact that [[YouCantFightFate the actions of everyone, good and evil alike]], [[BecauseDestinySaysSo are proceeding according to God's will]]. Hell, the subtitle for the book is "Kingdom Come: ''[[SpoilerTitle The Final Victory.]]'' But readers who are expecting a good post-apocalyptic war epic or thriller tale can easily be misled into a last-minute twist in favor of Satan's armies (or at least ''something'' to level the playing field to make the odds [[VillainousUnderdog not seem so stacked against the bad guys]]) that [[TheUntwist ultimately never arrives]].

** How the Internet physically works. Tsion Ben-Judah is holed up in Petra, reaching a billion people with his website, and in three years nobody figures that they should simply cut the wires coming out of the fortifiedd city.

** The often questionable interpretations of the Bible. For instance, the fourth horseman from the book of Revelation, also known as Death, is said to apparently be the Antichrist by Bruce Barnes, the priest. Thing is, the word "Antichrist" isn't mentioned a single time in the book of Revelation. In fact, opinions vary a ''lot'' on whether the Antichrist is supposed to be the name of a specific person or just an adjective, like "anti-communist" (as it is used in the Epistles of John). So having Bruce say that the fourth horseman is ''apparently'' the Antichrist is just stupid.

** At the end of ''Tribulation Force'' and the beginning of ''Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist'', Nicolae ''finally'' does something properly evil by launching World War III. This takes the form of World War II-style bombing raids targeting such things as hospitals and airports...except that they use ''100-megaton nuclear bombs''. The largest human-caused explosion ''ever'' was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba Tsar Bomba]], which was a mere ''50'' megatons, but it still destroyed buildings hundreds of kilometers away from the test site. If even ''one'' 100-megaton bomb was dropped on a city, let alone several, that city would not look like London during the blitz (which is what is shown in the book) but a glass crater, and it wouldn't matter ''where'' it hit.

** Buck Williams receives an "exclusive" interview with the new U.N. Secretary-General Nicolae Carpathia, which is scheduled for after Carpathia speaks to a number of other journalists. An "exclusive," as the name would suggest, is when an interview subject talks ''exclusively'' with one journalist or organization on a subject.

** This one is relatively minor, but Israeli troops don't carry / attach bayonets, particularly not in the middle of Israeli cities.

** Both 'sides' in the series have exactly the same goals and use pretty much the same methods, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo everything that happens is part of God's plan]] and, as such, the characters have no free will and [[YouCantFightFate nothing they do at any point in the series makes any difference whatsoever]], so it's really rather difficult to root for them.
** The fact that thanks to massive ValuesDissonance, GodAndSatanAreBothJerks, and like their minions have nearly the exact same goals: Nicolae wants to kill everyone who doesn't worship him, as does Jesus. Nicolae wants to take over the world and establish a one-world religion comprised of people who worship him. Jesus also wants this (and gets this in the 13th book in the series, [[Recap/LeftBehindBook13KingdomCome Kingdom Come]]). The only difference between the two is power-levels, and it is a massive difference. Jesus is really powerful, while Nicolae is an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Rather than choosing Jesus out of moral conviction, it seems quite likely that anybody who joins the 'good' side after the Rapture is simply joining the side that ''cannot lose,'' which is hardly proof of virtue.
* DesignatedHero: Buck and Rayford. Most of their behaviour goes beyond even the standards of a SociopathicHero. One could argue they're supposed to be newly-converted Antiheroes, but this doesn't hold up since they never do anything for anybody.
** Even when they're not being violent, holier-than-thou jerks, they are ''utterly'' failing to accomplish anything heroic - even when they both have cushy jobs working for Carpathia, i.e. the ideal position to sabotage his whole operation. When the literal Antichrist both offers them jobs, they immediately take him up on his offer because, uh...It was God's will that they do so? Sure, they probably both assumed that Carpathia would promptly have them executed if they said no, but then again, this is obviously a sign of resisting temptation at incredible odds, and both of them ''know for a fact'' that God is real and they will at the very least go to Heaven for being His faithful servants.
** Buck is [[InformedAbility supposed to be a fearless]] IntrepidReporter. What's the first thing he does when he has factual evidence of a global conspiracy that killed his close friend? Run straight to the guy in charge and ''agree to squash his story in exchange for a bribe.'' You know your "hero" has problems when in any other book, his actions would be those of a [[AssholeVictim low-level henchman]] who gets [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness disposed of]] by the bad guy when he gets too big for his britches. The only reason Carpathia doesn't just [[VillainBall kill him anyway and keep it silent in that manner]] seems to be that God (or more accurately, [[PlotArmor the authors]]) is keeping Buck safe.
** The story treats the Tribulation Force like they're some kind of heroic [[LaResistance resistance movement]] against Carpathia's regime. Their [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything track record]] consists of ''one'' assassination attempt in seven years, and, rather than using their high-ranking positions to [[MoleInCharge sabotage Carpathia's organization from on high]], they spend most of the time [[PokeThePoodle pulling pranks on Carpathia and disrupting his television feed.]]
** The only reason that the forces of good win in the end is because the resolution is [[BecauseDestinySaysSo preordained]], Buck and Rayford ultimately contribute ''nothing'' to the Lord's Victory beyond mildly annoying Carpathia a few times when they were in a position to do serious damage to him.
** Jesus himself. After all everything that is happening to the Earth during the Rapture and the Tribulation is directly caused by him.
* EightDeadlyWords: Even if the good guys and bad guys weren't [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy largely indistinguishable]]
* EndingFatigue: The last several books of the Left Behind series suffered from this problem. After the Antichrist came back from the dead, killed people with fiery pillars from the sky, and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, there just wasn't anything more evil for him to do. And that was Book Eight of a 13 book series (not counting the three prequels). It doesn't help that anyone who will read that particular series through Book Eight already knows the ending (spoiler: [[spoiler:Satan loses]]) and is just slogging along to see exactly how they're going to get there.