History YMMV / TheDeathGateCycle

* TearJerker: [[spoiler: Bane's death, though you feel far more sorry for the mother forced to execute her own son than the psychopath-in-training who really had it coming]].

* BaseBreaker: There are basically no neutral opinions about Zifnab (much like his counterparts in other W&H works). He's either [[TheScrappy dreadfully unfunny]], [[FourthWallObserver constantly breaks suspension of disbelief]], and [[CreatorsPet way over-pushed]], or he's [[CloudCuckoolander charmingly daft]], desperately needed [[PluckyComicRelief comic relief]] in a [[GrayAndGrayMorality dark]] story, and [[Literature/{{Dragonlance}} pleasantly nostalgic]].

* MagnificentBastard: Sang-drax is one in ''Hand of Chaos'' when he first appears; he unfortunately comes off as more of a (literal) SmugSnake in the last two books. Kleitus is also one to a lesser extent, at least before he gets turned into an AxCrazy undead.

* BaseBreaker: There are basically no neutral opinions about Zifnab (much like his counterparts in other W&H works). He's either [[TheScrappy dreadfully unfunny]], [[FourthWallObserver constantly breaks suspension of disbelief]], and [[CreatorsPet way over-pushed]], or he's [[CloudCuckoolander charmingly daft]], desperately needed [[PluckyComicRelief comic relief]] in a grim story, and [[Literature/{{Dragonlance}} pleasantly nostalgic]].

* CriticalDissonance: While popular with the Weis & Hickmab fanbase, certain critics seemed to have it in for the series. ''Publishers Weekly'' in particular got increasingly scathing and vitriolic with each entry.

* CriticalDissonance: While popular with their fanbase, certain critics seemed to have it in for the series. ''Publishers Weekly'' in particular got increasingly scathing and vitriolic with each entry.

* CompleteMonster:
** Sinistrad

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: The lazar are ''made'' of this trope. They can never escape their own suffering, but have apparently taken the saying "misery loves company" to heart. Possibly the tytans as well. All they want to do is go home. When no one can tell them how to get there, they [[AxCrazy don't respond well]].

* MotiveDecay: Xar goes from wanting to build a better future for the Patryns to wanting to lead the Patryns to conquer the universe because it's their birthright to wanting to conquer the universe for his own benefit. This is spelled out in [[TearJerker tear-jerking fashion]] in ''The Seventh Gate'' when he wonders exactly ''how'' he got from "Save my people" to "EvilOverlord". —And then hears the sound of Sang-drax's laughter in his mind...

* TooDumbToLive: One family member of the elven main character of ''Elven Star'' is this, as she's so fixated on running the family business that she repeatedly dismisses alarm horns as drills and even with omnicidal, giant magical creatures practically at the house's doorstep just thinks everyone else is being crazy. Unsurprisingly, she dies.

** The Dragon-snakes/Serpents, who are billed as the literal incarnations of chaos and evil in this 'Verse and more than live up to their reputation.

* CompleteMonster: Sinistrad

* CompleteMonster: The serpents. There is nothing remotely sympathetic about any of them. They are literally evil given physical form.
** Sinistrad too. Bane was a CompleteMonster in training [[spoiler: but was killed before completely realizing that potential]].
** The blood dragons of the Labyrinth are immensely powerful and almost as evil as the serpents. Unless you have an army with you (or are Xar) an encounter with one of these things should be treated as "run or die (slowly and painfully)".

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: In rough descending order of freakiness, the Lazar, the serpents, and the tytans.

** {{YMMV}}. Alake is of age in her culture, and Haplo isn't that much older. [[spoiler:Besides, nothing actually happens.]]

* NightmareFuel: In rough descending order of freakiness, the Lazar, the serpents, and the tytans.

* TrueNeutral: The Kir monks of Arianus. They worship death and see life as (at best) an illusion or (at worst) a prison, and as such are phenomenally uninterested in the world around them. They'll treat you pretty good if you're a corpse in need of your last rites, but have neither compassion nor malice for the living.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: The lazar are ''made'' of this trope. They can never escape their own suffering, but have apparently taken the saying "misery loves company" to heart.