* Despite the gratuitous amounts of outright awesome he shows later, Lu Tze's best moments are when he achieves his goals with minimal effort, like in this book where he changes the history of the entire continent by sabotaging a small lever so it will break at a critical time.
** He also turns over the tortoise at one point (after Vorbis turned it on its back just to watch it struggle).
** And he set off the whole chain of events (which the previous two items merely kept on course) by sweeping dung into a pile in just the right place, at just the right time.
* Didactylos taking a stand after seemingly selling out to Vorbis:
-->"Nevertheless, the turtle moves!"
** Made doubly awesome by the fact that he manages to hit Vorbis squarely in the head with his lantern...despite Didactylos being ''completely blind''.
* After nearly half a book of Vorbis being an intimidating, unstoppable villain, the Tyrant of Ephebe absolutely steamrolls him in peace negotiations and shoots down his every attempt to gain the moral upper hand. It's just one ShutUpHannibal after another.
* The bit towards the end when Brutha makes ''his own god'', who he acknowledges could kill him at any time, yield to him through ''moral authority.''
--> '''Om:''' '''You can't use weakness as a weapon!'''\\
'''Brutha:''' [[SmiteMeOhMightySmiter It's the only one I have.]]
** Especially cool because we find out later that those words -- "In a hundred years, we'll all be dead, but HERE AND NOW, WE ARE ALIVE" go on to become one of the founding rules of his new religion.
* Om gets one too: "I think, if you want thousands [of followers], you have to fight for one."
** Which he does. First by, while in the body of a tortoise, forcing an eagle to carry him to Brutha's execution and killing Vorbis, and later by beating most of the Dunmanifestin pantheon into preventing a war.
* Om ''crashes'' through the Discworld God's pantheon, ''beats up'' all the other "High Gods" and ''FORCES'' them to come down and tell the humans "Life is not a game". This is the first time a Discworld God has ever fought for his people rather than vice versa. The way he made all these formerly too-good-for-you gods his bitches. He even got them reciting the same damn message!
-->I. THIS IS NOT A GAME.
-->II. HERE AND NOW, YOU ARE ALIVE.
** And Brutha notices "Om was in the throng, standing right behind the Tsortean God of Thunder, with a faraway expression on his face. It was noticeable, if only to Brutha, that the Thunder God's right arm disappeared up behind his own back in a way that, if such a thing could be imagined, would suggest that someone was twisting it to the edge of pain." Yes, Om has beaten into submission the highest ranking god of Discworld.
** Made more awesome when you remember the Omnian Empire accounts for 10 percent of the Disc's population, going to war against a large alliance of nations, Om and Brutha basically stop a world war which would have lasted, according to the History Monks, a hundred years and would have kickstarted the use of science and industry in warfare with all the implied mass destruction potential.
** There is a more subtle one here, Om is capable to do all of this because virtually all of the population of Omnia starts to believe fervently in him again, as mentioned before this represents only the combined faith of just a minor fraction of humankind, channelled into one god through his prophet, yet it manages to beat down the supernatural order of Discworld, the book states human minds could not sustain such faith for long, but is nevertheless impressive to see how strong it is while it lasts.
* And then there's Death's semi-threat to Vorbis after his death, when he is sitting alone in the endless desert.
-->'''Death''': [[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: You have perhaps heard the phrase that Hell is other people? ]]
\\
'''Vorbis''': Yes. Yes, of course.\\
'''Death''': [[/folder]]

[[folder: In time, you will learn that it is wrong. ]]

** Leading to Brutha's SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: When Brutha finds himself in the Afterlife Desert he find Vorbis still huddled, terrified, on his rock (note that this is many ''decades'' later). Death reminds Brutha of who and what Vorbis was, to which Brutha answers: "I know, he's Vorbis. And I'm me." Then he takes his would-be nemesis by the hand and together they walk towards whatever awaits beyond the Desert.
--->[[/folder]]

[[folder: Judgement lies at the end of the desert. ]]
\\
"Which end?"
** The fact that Vorbis ''willingly follows'' Brutha suggests that, in the end (or after it at least), even '''he''' acknowledges that Brutha was the true holy man.
* By the moment of his death Brutha and his followers have managed to turn Omnia from a warmongering police state into a peaceful nation with a progressive set of civil rights and socioeconomic investment, there is not only freedom of religion but Omnia has started to produce their own philosophers, this is, scientific development.
* Earlier in the book:
-->Brutha was aware of feet running up the steps, and hands pulling at the chains. And then a voice:\\
I. ''[[WhamLine He is Mine.]]''
* Brutha, tortured, death imminent, barely able to speak:
-->Vorbis? You're going to die...
** And actually ''feeling sorry for Vorbis'' when he says it.
* Whenever patient, always believing, never violent, seemingly dumb always kind BRUTHA gets fed up with his god in the desert, and informs him that a tortoise shell would be excellent for carrying water. An empty threat, because Brutha is BRUTHA, but still the guts it took, and the fact that Brutha has learned to think for himself and not follow blindly, but to lead... is brilliant.
* Brutha's speech about death:
-->"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."
* A DeusExMachina in an unconventional sense...
-->Vorbis looked up at the sky, just as two pounds of tortoise, travelling at a rate of three meters per second, hit him directly between the eyes. Some of those watching said that his expression ''just'' had time to change before it hit.
-->It was a revelation.
* There's one that happens entirely inside Brutha's head, but it's still pretty awesome, because it marks the point where he finally stops being a timid novice and starts being a real prophet. It happens right before the climax of the book, when he's going around and around in his mind trying to figure out why Vorbis is both rewarding and threatening him, and what Vorbis wants:
--> "You're a bishop now, for being good. And here's a torture device, in case you're bad." Because...
--> [[EurekaMoment ... because there were two people wandering in the desert, and Om only spoke to one of them]].
--> Brutha had never thought about it like that before.
* Brutha giving a subtle display of the open-mindedness that will make him a great prophet in his very first scene, noting that for all he knows, ''all'' tortoises talk, and they just never do it when he's around.
* The Omnian sailors of the vessel ''Fin of God'' go down with their ship. The captain is unsure what course to set, but after noting that foreign unbelievers not only have better lives but better ''afterlives,'' they go sailing off to see what they can find - the ghosts of men, the ghost of the ship, and ghost dolphins trailing behind.
* CMOHO Dhblah gets a small one by, upon seeing his God reborn and newly omnipotent, going up to him and asking for a business opportunity.
* Simony and the other soldiers working together to dig people out of the wreckage when the storm hits. Despite the fact that they were about to go to war a minute ago. And that they are literally walking with Death.
* You know that part about "In a hundred years, we'll all be dead."? Note that in the epilogue, Brutha is still alive a hundred years later, and dies almost immediately after being informed that it is the hundredth anniversary. Brutha apparently used pure force of will to live long enough to prove Om's statement fully incorrect.