The Miracle Mob versus the Church of England
Existentially Challenged, released on December 2021, is the 6th novel written and read by notable internet personality "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Like its prequel, a print and e-book version will be released later.
The story continues from Differently Morphous where the public has knowledge of extra-dimensional entities and magic, and the consequences thereof; they have rights, and a law passes where fake magic is punishable if it's not real. The main plot follows a mystery regarding a faith healer, a young girl called Miracle Meg, who's cult, for want of a better term, has a large online following by livestreams hosted by the head priest, her father, Miracle Dad, and how she seemingly breaks the established rules of magic healing. She doesn't rapidly age with its use, and claims to be in dual-consciousness with an ancient without hideous deformities. They also come into conflict with the Christian Church.
Existentially Challenged provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: After being told not to compromise the DEDA's neutrality between Modern Miracle and the Church of England or her contract won't be renewed, Pavarti stalks off, and it's speculated that she's going to try something rash. She spends the rest of the novel sulking in her office.
- Abusive Parent: "Miracle Dad", even after learning the cost of healing magic, encourages his own daughter to use it at her expense. He later makes other people pay the price for her, but you can very well argue that encouraging her to murder other healers is just as abusive. At least he is is horrified when his younger daughter suddenly becomes a healer and accidentally kills herself in the climax.
- Ambiguous Gender: Leslie-Ifrig looks like Leslie was already fairly androgynous even before the usual dual-consciousness mutations. This makes their Foe Romance Subtext with Victor incredibly awkward because Victor is straight and not sure how to react.
- Ambiguous Situation: As noted in Backstory below, Elizabeth's explanation to Allison gives both her and the reader a lot of information about Diablerie and Nicholas Frisk, as well as events leading up to the current events of the story... all of which is conveniently unverifiable. While there are no clear threads to spot, there are two things worth noting: first, Elizabeth both HATES Diablerie and has been manipulating people into place since her first scene. Second, the narration itself never refers to Diablerie's non-magic self by any name whatsoever, denying the reader any objective verification that Elizabeth is telling the truth.
- Backstory: Elizabeth Lawrence's is revealed over the course of the book to Allison and the reader, which includes the Ministry over ten years ago when the Shadow happened, as well as what happened to her leg. She was shot in the kneecap by a ex-military contractor of the Ministry known as Nicholas Fisk when extracting the Swordkeeper, and became the man known as Doctor Diablerie.
- Blessed with Suck:
- Healing magic would be incredibly useful, if it doesn't kill the healer.
- To a lesser extent, both of Adam's and Victor's power are very beneficial to the Ministry. This pigeonholes them into specific roles. Adam laments being treated as little more than a radar on legs, while Victor doesn't much enjoy how he's only ever called upon for violence.
- Casual Danger Dialog: Diablerie is unfazed by a gun being drawn on him, both before and after it goes off.
- Cast from Lifespan: Adepts in Healing Magic can heal most injuries and illnesses instantaneously, but it takes using the user's life-force to use and can cause the user to suffer from Rapid Aging. It's for this reason why everyone in the Ministry thinks that Miracle Meg is a fraud. Severity of the injury seems to effect how much life force needs to be used, Meg aging to death the first (and only) time she uses healing magic to heal Victor from third-degree burns.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Victor, as was established in Differently Morphous, is one of the most powerful magically infused individuals known to the government, also being one of the most powerful pyrokinetics, capable of vaporizing thousands of gallons of ocean and salt. The only real threat he's faced thus far is Leslie-Ifrig, who given their possession by the ancient who gave Victor his powers, while a bit of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, can theoretically overmatch him in power use.
- Diablerie continues to be very capable despite being an absolutely ridiculous person, as he seemingly solves the mystery by himself, possibly even before they discovered the solution. Fitting for a man who is sometimes "Nicholas Fisk", someone who used to be the Ministry's fixer.
- Deadpan Snarker: Multiple characters. This is Yahtzee Croshaw after all.
- Deus ex Machina: A few, Doctor Diablerie saves Allison, and later he gets saved by the real Miracle Meg who had just shot him. Victor also gets saved by the fake Miracle Meg, Phoebe, who had manifested the same infusion as her elder sister. Everyone is surprised but Diablerie, who says there's a difference between unlikely and impossible.
- Did Not Think This Through: The Government wanted to deal with the rash of fake magic scammers (faith healers in particular) that were getting out of hand now that everyone knows magic is real. Unfortunately they wrote the law so broadly that they caught up things like party magicians as well.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: It's implied that not only is healing magic unfortunate for the healer to use because it's Cast from Lifespan, it also gives them an immense physical pleasure in doing it and makes it incredibly addicting to cast, not unlike doing drugs like meth or heroine. Even the Rapid Aging it causes can be likened to the long-term effects of heavy drug-use, albeit sped-up for emphasis.
- Exact Words: In the first chapter, when everyone notices Doctor Diablerie's absence, Allison says she thinks she's supposed to represent him. His exact words were for her to "act the Huginn and Muninn to his All-Father Odin as he sits astride his Throne of Intrigue, probing the Uncanny Realms of the Innermost."
- Fair-Play Whodunnit: Almost every clue Allison and Adam use to solve the mystery is presented to the audience. All the clues for the second mystery, which they failed to solve (or indeed notice) but someone else did are there as well.
- Faux Horrific: Miracle Dad's Viccar becomes an instant internet villain because he absentmindedly said his name on-air. This is treated as doxxing, which would be serious if his address wasn't on all his promotional material already.
- Foe Romance Subtext: Adam initially assumes Victor got a girlfriend. Then when he denies it, Adam guesses boyfriend, but Victor says that Leslie-Ifrig totally has arch-nemesis potential. Adam isn't too keen on this, given they had a pact to get an arch-nemesis together. Leslie-Ifrig pretty clearly has the exact same idea and treats it much more like courting than serious attempts to kill each other. They end up breaking up as nemeses, but stay enemies.
- Godzilla Threshold: Nicholas Fisk appears to have been one for the Ministry, to be employed only in dire times.
- Good Feels Good: Played for Horror in Meghan/Miracle Mum's death, aging to death with a smile on her face when she heals Diablerie's gunshot wound, implying that the use of healing magic is not unlike using drugs.
- Million to One Chance: Surprisingly averted. The ministry insists that the odds of someone being both a vampire and a healer are incredibly slim, as are the chances of this ability working at long range, as would have to be the case to explain every death via Adam's theory. While their alternative explanation turns out to be incorrect, they're right about this. The real culprit uses sleight-of-hand to make it seem as though they're actually healing someone when another person is really behind it, and one of the victims was killed by a completely unrelated being with vampiric powers.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Miracle Dad appears shaken and in disbelief when one (though really both) of his daughters dies, in stark contrast to his usual bumbling, talkative self. The audience also has a more minor case, as many of them feel responsible for goading on a healer for a show, which this time leads to her death.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampirism and magical healing are two sides of the same magical infusion, officially known as Life Energy Transfer A and B. A is healing, where the healer gives their life energy to a recipient, draining themselves and rapidly aging with use and B is vampirism where the reverse happens, no neck biting required.
- Power at a Price: Healing magic sounds amazingly useful, but turns out healers don't actually heal, but rather transfer their life force to another person, meaning the healer can very easily kill themselves using it. To make it even worse, the power is pleasurable, meaning not only can healers harm themselves, they are compelled to do so once they begin, which can often lead to their own death as they become unable to resist continuing to use their power.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Elizabeth is kinder to Allison in this book compared to the last, being willing to indulge her curiosities and at one point even giving her encouraging talks to boost her low confidence. At times, she seems almost like she's grooming Allison to be some kind of successor, herself acting as a kind of mentor.
- Richard Danver is generally steady and professional, aiming to do his job well and effectively and without unnecessary drama or risk. He chews Adam out harshly a few times, but always when Adam has legitimately made poor choices by his own volition. Even then, when Adam goes against direct orders in the ending to solve the case, while Richard does not let him get off without reprimand, he acknowledges how Adam solved the case when no one else could and disobeying orders allowed him to act fast enough to save the victim's life.
- Sequel Hook: While the mystery is solved, the book arguably begins more plot threads than it ends by the time the story finishes. Many unanswered questions and wild (seeming) coincidences remain regarding the mystery. The "Third Way Conspiracy" continues. Fisk plans to recruit Allison into the conspirator's ranks. The mystery of Elizabeth's and Fisk's backstory remains unanswered.
- Shout-Out:
- Again, Yahtzee reuses names from prior works, with Rajesh Chahal and Vicar Frobisher.
- Mogworld and Interstellar Bum Pirates once again get mentions.
- The Shadow discussed by Elizabeth may or may not be the Consuming one, or at least a variation on it.
- Slimeball: Several characters note that Miracle Dad gives off this vibe even though he's perfectly polite and never says anything remotely objectionable. Nita in particular gets the impression of someone who wants to end every sentence with a lascivious wink and smack on the butt, making her extremely uncomfortable around him. He's a conman and responsible for several deaths.
- This Is the Part Where...: Doctor Diablerie has strong opinions on how investigators should properly act in a Parlour Scene, which thanks to his sheer charisma rapidly degenerates into Got Me Doing It.
- Title Drop: During a discussion contrasting established religions with cults following known Ancients, Shgshthx uses the phrase "existentially challenged" in reference to religious gods.
- Too Dumb to Live: Beatrice and her camera operator/boyfriend Roger. When Allison asks them if they've followed people into the mysterious backyard cave behind the Miracle Mob house, they said no, their camera they set up in their van doesn't pan that far. Allison has to clarify followed physically, to which they reply, no, the van would be noticed too easily. Allison clarifies again, on foot. When they do follow someone on foot, they constantly address the livestream, and keep answering donor questions, explaining they have to cause they donated regardless of whether or not it'll blow their cover. Beatrice also ignores Allison's advice to not run for it when under attack by the pyrokinetic and runs screaming from cover.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Adam gets chewed out badly by Richard for failing to immediately report a killing, needlessly trying to prove his own theory regarding the case rather than working with his team and accidentally angering his friend, Victor, one of the most powerful pyrokinetics in the world, into quitting the Department, effectively kicking Adam off the team. Adam braces himself for another one for disobeying direct orders and going after the killer himself without backups in the climax, but Richard is more even-handed this time around thanks to Adam legitimately solving the case and saving lives.
- Xanatos Gambit: This was the plan in setting up an obscure American fundamentalist pastor as Modern Miracle's opponent in the faith healing contest. If he somehow wins, fine; the Govrnment is on the Christian side via the Church of England in any case. If he loses then the anti-Christian side can enjoy their win and the Christian side (especially the Church of England members) will immediately dismiss it as him not representing 'real' Christianity. Either way everyone will move on to the next thing, which is the main thing the Government wants.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In her own curt and cold manner, Elizabeth refutes Allison's belief that she is not naturally gifted to be a good investigator like the others, and indeed, Allison ends up solving both the mysteries she is tasked to solve, despite believing herself to be a side character in someone else's story.
