Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / The Heaven Cycle Heaven And Hell

Go To

Beings native to Heaven and Hell.

All spoilers are unmarked.

    open/close all folders 

Heaven

    Uriel 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell and The Radiance of Heaven)

The lord of the archangels, commander of Heaven's forces, and the chief emissary of the Gods.


  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Assumes this during his first physical appearance, a guise Tango manages to see through due to their evolved mind.
  • Angelic Beauty: To untrained human eyes, Uriel is described as having the grace of a “Greek statue” and looking like a beautiful man – but Tango quickly realizes this is just a cover for his horrifying true form.
  • Archangel Uriel: Depicted, instead of a wise and patient angel, as a sneering, contemptuous asshole who banishes Tango and their friends to the deserts of Hell because they backtalked him.
  • Archenemy: Considers Azazel, lord of Hell, to his greatest foe. After Azazel dies this gets shifted to Abaddon.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He's an archangel. You don't get that rank out of a cereal box.
  • Ax-Crazy: Under that angelic veneer of serenity, Uriel is nuts and eager to massacre everything around him at the slightest provocation.
  • Bad Boss: Insults his fellow archangels on a good day, slaughters unfathomable amounts of lower-ranking angels on a normal one, and incinerates hundreds of them in a brief bout of impatience.
  • Dirty Coward: The moment he realizes Naberius has him outgunned and is making him look incompetent, Uriel turns tail and runs.
  • The Dragon: To 'the gods'...Uriel is the top enforcer in heaven and the commander of their forces.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: Despite being the Dragon to the gods, Uriel has the closest to full authority.
  • Dystopia Justifies the Means: Willing to do anything to establish a hideous kingdom for himself, with endless pain and terror for all others.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Averted. He is angry at Azazel's murder of Michael...but only because he hates Azazel and considers Michael a pathetic weakling who got what was coming to him.
  • Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Ironically, his preferred form is a beautiful man, much like the classical angels. Under that, he's an utterly insane tyrant and sadist.
  • Fantastic Racism: Are you a human? Then be exterminated as you deserve you filthy ape.
  • The Heavy: The most prevalent threat of the Heaven Side.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Looks like the stereotypical benevolent depiction of an angel, but... decidedly isn't.
  • Jerkass: Uriel isn't just horrible, malicious, and arrogant; he's a pure and utter asshole who can't go two words without utterly demeaning and insulting every single thing around him.
  • Knight Templar: Utterly obsessed with the order and glory of heaven. Not so much with the betterment of anyone or anything, but just that extreme order.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Credit Uriel this: he does know when Naberius has him dead to rights and gets while the getting's good.
  • Lack of Empathy: To not only the life on Earth he proudly boast of having destroyed thousands of times over, but to his own fellow angels as well, having countless numbers of them killed for every minor transgression to his system.
  • Light Is Not Good: Being an angel comes with all the shininess this entails, but Uriel is a petty, egotistical monster thoroughly unconcerned with wiping out all life on Earth thousands of times over, seeing all life as below him and the other Archangels.
  • Oh, Crap!: Subject to this when Nestor takes him out in a suicide attack.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Casually capable of vaporizing huge chunks of cities just by fighting someone.
  • Pride: Defined. Even compared to the other archangels, Uriel is haughty and arrogant enough to "humble Lucifer."
  • Smug Snake: Uriel talks a good game, but he's extremely arrogant, and something of a coward when the chips are against him.
  • You Have Failed Me: Come home victorious or don't bother. It'll be better than what Uriel will do to you if you come home empty handed.

    Raguel and Saraqael 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)

The angelic lawmakers of Heaven.


    Mebahel 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)

One of the archangels.


  • Dropped a Bridge on Her: Mebahel appears briefly in the beginning of the war against Heaven and Hell, possessing the Statue of Liberty to fight Tango, Mint and Nestor. Tango proceeds to annihilate her with one single blast of Mint's Godly energy.
  • Meaningful Name: Mebahel is the angel of liberty. Fittingly enough she possesses the Statue of Liberty.

    ”God”/"Major Tom" (MAJOR UNMARKED SPOILERS

Alison Witzenberg/"Mint" (Prime)

The mysterious eldritch horror lurking in Heaven later revealed as the first version of Mint. See here for details regarding them.

Hell

    The Preceptor/Belphegor 
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven | Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell and The Radiance of Heaven)

The tulpa who initially greets Tango in Hell to tell them of their role in the upcoming divine war, serving as their mentor for the rest of the series.


  • Cain and Abel: The one Abel among a gigantic legion of Cains, though Naberius stands as a special one to him.
  • Cool Old Guy: Positively ancient and rather chill for a Tulpa.
  • Innocently Insensitive: Occasionally dips into this towards Tango, being eons more evolved than them to start.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Preceptor is his only known name for a vast part of the series, until he's casually name-dropped as Belphegor by the Sect. Naturally, Tango's pissed off he apparently didn't even trust them enough to tell them his actual name.
  • It Has Been an Honor: His final words are to tell Tango it has been an honor being their teacher.
  • Manipulative Bastard: The Preceptor manipulates Tango up until the first part of Heaven and Hell to goad them into helping him save the world by lying that Tango is The Chosen One. When Tango exposes the Preceptor, he does frankly seem guilty about it (which turns out to not mean much anyways as Tango is such a Plucky Girl they decide to try and stop the war anyways).
  • The Mentor: To Tango, teaching them Mylotheian techniques to help them get used to their new abilities while they (or rather, their Shade) are in Hell.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Suffers the fate of many a mentor at the claws of Naberius.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Seems somewhere between a goat and a pug, with odd hands — one furred, and one scaly, with lion-like claws.
  • Mr. Exposition: Since his role is primarily to introduce Tango to the bizarre, lengthy lore of Heaven and Hell and the powers of Mylotheia, the Preceptor serves this role in the series for the more fantastical elements.
  • Only Sane Man: Nestor notes he's the only Tulpa who's reasonable and sane.
  • Token Good Teammate: To the tulpas. Belphegor is still unintentionally callous to humanity at times, but truly has the best interests for everyone in mind, including humanity — whereas the rest of Hell could not be bothered to care less.

    Azazel 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)

The Lord of Hell, Erebos' tulpa mentor, and one of the strongest tulpas in existence.


  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: You're not Lord of Hell unless you can back it up and Azazel damn well can.
  • Batman Gambit: Azazel sits by and watches as Tango goes into Solomon to fetch the "Menhir" — only to reveal the Menhir was fake and the entire mission was a set-up by Azazel to lure Naberius to Solomon and deal Heaven a crippling blow even before the war starts.
  • Cain and Abel: He and Naberius have....differing priorities now. However, a rare example where Cain and Abel are as monstrous as one another. He also considers Uriel his 'once brother'...but same issue there.
  • Demonic Possession: Engages in this liberally with Erebos to speak to the others, saying Erebos' body is as much Azazel's as it is his own.
  • Evil Mentor: To Erebos, having ingrained his Blue-and-Orange Morality firmly into him. Unfortunately, Erebos isn't quite as converted as Azazel may think when he's shown another perspective by Tango.
  • Faux Affably Evil: He's vile and willing to use and manipulate even his own disciples, but he takes a calmer approach to it than Uriel and he smugly thanks Tango after they end up playing right into his hands.
  • Foil: To Uriel. They're both godawful, horrible beings, but they approach it in different ways. Uriel is loud, bombastic, incredibly arrogant, and utterly and openly condescending towards everyone and everything that isn't himself. Azazel, by contrast, is understated, manipulative, subtle, and is much better at pretending to be civil.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Azazel's Complexity Addiction finally gets the better of him, and wanting to drag out Tango and Erebos's defeats results in his obliteration.
  • Hypocrite: Says part of his motivation in destroying Heaven is to keep his own safe, but casually sacrifices his own talented warriors as the "cost of doing business" and morbidly punishes those who defy him.
  • It Amused Me: As he says, the only reason he's kept Tango alive is sheer amusement.
  • Karmic Death: Obliterated by godly power, the same type he wanted to take, by the lower beings' he looked down on for so long.
  • Kick the Dog: Revealing all of Erebos's life was just part of his grand little project is damned low.
  • Lack of Empathy: One of his similarities to Uriel in terms of their mindset towards Earth; Azazel has a innocent couple horribly killed by turning their apartment into a Mad Room... to get Mint and Tango's attention. Turns out he's even this to his own followers, too; across each Cycle, Azazel founds a cult of immunes loyal to Hell solely for the purpose of leading the loyal among them to their death and picking out the few that rebel for their resolve — and turning them into agonized warrior-slaves by means of "transfiguration", bloating them up with the blended essence of demons to keep them under his control and swell up their power.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Towards even his own disciples. Azazel lies and manipulates Tango in his first introduction to coax them into a Deal with the Devil, then led them on a false flag mission to retrieve a Menhir solely to get Naberius' attention and have him deal Heaven a powerful blow.
  • Oh, Crap!: When Sarie channels Mint's power against him, Azazel is dumbfounded and frozen stiff.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Anything not one of Hell's side? To be erased. Even the gods.
  • Out-Gambitted: Azazel's one of the most brilliant, manipulative villains in the plot who anticipates any and all defiance against him, even exploiting it for his own benefit in the case of Solomon and the transfigured Shades. Azazel thinks he's dismantled Erebos' attempt at rebellion in Tartarus only for Erebos to reveal that wasn't his true plan, ending with Sarie coming to the rescue and Azazel out-conned for the first and last time as he's subsequently obliterated in his moment of dumbfounded vulnerability.
  • Parental Substitute: He raised Erebos. Which explains so much.
  • Pet the Dog: He rescued a baby Erebos from Naberius's evil pleasures. Subverted in that it was done in cold, hard pragmatism.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The only type he practices.
  • Satanic Archetype: He's the Lord of Hell, a Manipulative Bastard and is out to take over existence. It just so happens God and Satan Are Both Jerks here.

    Abaddon 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)
Azazel's right hand Tulpa, and a powerful monster in his own right.
  • Combat by Champion: In the great war, he ends up engaging Uriel in single combat.
  • Deal with the Devil: Ironically, as lord of Hell, but he still treats with Chayne to keep Hell existing.
  • Defiant to the End: Just before Uriel crushes his skull, Abaddon simply sneers and tells Uriel that he'll reunite with his beloved master in oblivion — but Uriel will have nothing waiting for him.
  • Dirty Coward: Dives out of the way of a blast when he realizes it's targeting Azazel to save his own hide.
  • The Dragon: Azazel's right hand, who has spent every cycle helping to wipe out the world at the side-and upon the shoulder of Azazel.
  • Dragon Ascendant: Rises to become the leader of Hell with Azazel's death.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Of all the main villains, Abaddon takes his death the best, to be sure.
  • Fantastic Racism: Oh, he really dislikes angels and humans.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Considers the way Azazel was trapped and destroyed to be dishonorable even for demons.
    • Even he is utterly disgusted by Naberius and his excessive atrocities.
  • Moral Myopia: He takes a very myopic view on things...anything a demon does? Fine. But if humans trick demons? Dishonorable bugs. He also has nothing but contempt for Naberius and his pleasures.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Erase everything that isn't a Tulpa. It all must die.
  • One-Winged Angel: Usually assumes the form of a small bird on his master's shoulder. During the war, he shows his full power.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Just him clashing with a being of equal power vaporizes huge swaths of a city.
  • Undying Loyalty: Oddly loyal to Azazel his anger at humanity? Is for the death of his 'beloved master.'

    Adrammelech 
One of the strongest tulpas and Horace's former teacher. A major player in the war.

    Naberius (MAJOR UNMARKED SPOILERS
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell and The Radiance of Heaven)

A rogue tulpa banished long ago to the deepest parts of Hell for his uncontrollable demeanor even compared to the other creations of the Gods. Serves as The Dragon to the original Chayne Summers.

  • And I Must Scream: Inflicts this horrific fate upon countless beings; trillions in fact. Naberius forces them into endless, eternal toture with no respite of death.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Admits that the sob story Chayne dreamed up for him holds no weight, and when Aria tearfully accuses him of being no better than Chayne, Naberius elatedly posits that he's "ten times worse than she'll ever be!"
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Naberius has spent the entirety of the Cycle making this his specialty, having tortured countless people to death across thousands of Earths to entertain himself. Ironically, Chayne makes him the target of this as punishment for his failure to protect the second Menhir with a cool quip stating "so many centuries of dishing out pain — one would think you'd be used to it."
  • Deal with the Devil: Naberius brought Alice back to life under the clause they bring Aria back to him, and then forces that deal to Mint once Alice attempts to destroy the former's conscience in return for preserving Mint's conscience – while Mint is having their conscience chewed up by the Never-becoming.
  • The Dragon: Serves as this to the original Chayne Summers, having had a major part in kickstarting the Heaven Cycle and working behind the scenes in Heaven & Hell on Chayne's behalf.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Naberius' priorities clearly extend beyond Chayne, as he's willing to undermine and pilfer Chayne's Godly power for his own interests, and he ultimately reveals that, while he's willing to spare Nirvana, his priority after the Cycle ends is simply to amuse himself for the rest of eternity in a pocket dimension of tortured innocents
  • The Dreaded: Naberius' power is enough to dwarf even Uriel and Azazel, and his name is spoken in horror in both Heaven and Hell. As he demonstrates numerous times? The horror stories told about him may actually be downplayed to what he's truly like.
    "He knew he was a boogieman. He knew his name was still uttered in dread within Heaven's walls. He basked in that terror, and for once, I thought the stories had downplayed the reality of the monster before us."
  • Eldritch Abomination: A horrific amalgamation of body parts of animals, insects and human bits in a godawful shape.
  • Evil Gloating: Fond of engaging in this to his enemies.
  • Evil Is Petty: Naberius isn't just evil, he's something of a total dick, fond of insults and nasty, petty little touches.
  • For the Evulz: All that torture, 'collecting' and evil? He just enjoys it. Period.
  • The Heavy: Naberius is the most present threat, even with Chayne around.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Twofold:
    • Naberius, ironically enough, cannot handle pain dealt to him (doubly ironic as he was literally spawned from God's suffering). Tango exploits this by looking into the memory he has of Chayne torturing him and using that to literally rewrite his existence to experience nothing but suffering — which destroys Naberius' mind so thoroughly that he begs for death (which Tango grants a few minutes after).
    • Adding to this, what allows Tango to rewrite Naberius? Naberius has been sneaking Chayne's Godly power to reign over the Garden of Eden — and Tango promptly absorbs all of it from his own mind to give them the power necessary to get the upper hand on Naberius.
  • Ironic Echo: Free me!!!...just the same thing his little tormented 'pretties' scream.
  • It Amused Me: His explanation for his tortures and pettier actions.
  • Karmic Death: He's forced to feel endless agony-all the pain he himself had inflicted upon others, that utterly obliterates his mind before Tango snuffs him out.
  • Mad Artist: How Naberius seems to view himself, with his "craft" being the countless people he's tortured to death.
  • Made of Evil: Or of pain, rather. Naberius is the embodiment of the first God's rage, frustration, and anguish, a being who decided, instead of fading away, to embrace the way he was created and spend all his time gleefully savaging everything around him.
  • Nerves of Steel: To Naberius's credit, it takes a lot to even rattle him. Burles launching a powerful mental attack on him doesn't make him bat an eye.
  • Nightmare Face: Naberius' “face” is a horrifying mishmash of various body parts from humans, animals, and insects, twisted into a Picasso-esque picture of evil.
  • Noble Top Enforcer: Inverted. While Chayne is a monster responsible for trillions of deaths, she has borderline understandable reasons for doing it, utopian motives, and genuine loved ones. Naberius, by contrast, is the most evil tulpa ever seen in the series, having gleefully had a central role in kickstarting the Heaven Cycle for no other reason than spite and amusement and happily admitting he has none of Chayne's sympathies to Aria and he's happy to make her life a living Hell if she's fickle.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: One of the strongest in the setting and capable of doing massive amounts of damage.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Bizarrely enough for a character that otherwise embodies Chaotic Evil at its finest, Naberius realizes betraying Chayne would be a move that would result in his utter destruction and is fully intent on letting Nirvana go so he can amuse himself in his own pocket universe.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The sick fucker sets up people farms in his pocket dimension where he conducts forced breeding to never, ever run out of toys.
  • Red Baron: "The Fallen Savager."
  • Sadist: Beats out every character in the series when it comes to the sheer, unmitigated glee he gets when perpetrating atrocities, callously remarking that the concept of all of reality being snuffed out in an instant is "boring" and lacks a certain pizzazz when it comes to the various ways he's found to kill people. Naberius's ultimate plan is a pocket dimension of endless agony for trillions of souls.
  • The Starscream: Subverted. Naberius is a Dragon with an Agenda who's only serving Chayne out of mutual interest (as well as the immunity it gives him) who clearly seems to hint that he's ready to betray Chayne — until near the end where it's revealed that he has no intention of trying to backstab his master, making a point to avoid the suicidal arrogance of Azazel and Uriel and fashioning himself a pocket dimension full of lives for him to play with so he doesn't get bored once the Cycle ends.
  • To the Pain: He's a fan of elaborating every single gruesome detail of the tortures he intends to inflict on threats to him. Unlike Pluto, though, Naberius is completely and fully willing to fulfill every last detail of his detailed, macabre threats, and he's made an art of fulfilling all of them to the letter throughout the Cycle — with entire Earths turned into wretched hellscapes of agony by his hand.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: Tango's first clash with him in Hell ends with them curb-stomped and all the other experienced immunes massacred effortlessly by him, proving he and Chayne are an entirely different breed of threat from.
  • World's Strongest Man: Tulpa in this case. Excepting Chayne, who's divine, Naberius is the strongest bastard about.

    Azrael 
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)

Aria's tulpa mentor, sealed away in Cocytus by Naberius.


  • Cool Old Lady: Takes the form of a wrinkled old lady made of light, and she's one of the few benevolent tulpas in the plot.
  • Not Quite Dead: Naberius sadistically gloats he killed Azrael to Aria's face when after she wakes up in Nirvana. Turns out she's not as dead as he'd hoped and is instead stuck in Cocytus, helping Jenny later when she finds herself marooned there.
  • Sole Survivor: When reality is restored following Prime!Chayne's defeat, Azrael is the only one left of her kind.
  • Token Good Teammate: One of two tulpas, alongside Belphegor, who isn't a monstrous Eldritch Abomination seeking the destruction of all humanity.

    The Never-becoming 
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven | Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell)

Half-formed thoughts that reside in a level of Hell representing unconsciousness, all of them driven by the urge to be something and forming in physical reality as nightmarish distortions.


  • Early-Bird Cameo: They're not named, but forces heavily, heavily implied to be the Never-becoming appear in the first Mad Room seen in From Heaven's Door before their proper introduction in The Touch of Heaven.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Nightmarish, abstract forces that personify the will of unformed thoughts capable of twisting reality, driving people to madness if not outright devouring their minds, and twist a man who was once a Well-Intentioned Extremist into a shrieking, insane animal fully under their control.

Top