History Literature / IronDruidChronicles

* HarmfulHealing: This is the reason why druids only practice healing magic on themselves. Healing magic can easily harm the subject before making them better and if you use druid magic to directly harm a living, sentient being the magic will kill you instantly. Only the druid's own body is an exception to the rule so druids have SuperHealing for themselves but cannot even try to heal even the simplest cut on someone else without risking death.

* AnythingThatMoves: Zeus expresses interest in Hel, despite the left half of her body being a disgustingly putrescent rotting corpse.
--> '''Zeus''': "She's not half bad."

--> '''Jesus''': Now go and stake some vampires. Especially the [[Literature/{{Twilight}} sparkly emo ones]].

* RunningGag:
** "You know, X would be a great band name. Think of the merchandise possibilities!" So far, we have: The Algae Shirts, Handsome Phantoms, Emo Douchebags ([[TakeThat It's already the unofficial name of more bands than I can count]]) and Beefy Hairy Women. {{Subverted|Trope}} by Sasquatch on a Leash: Oberon thinks it makes a better name for a musky cologne. "Sasquatch on a Leash: Control your smelly beast."

** Thanks to ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve, anything that enough people believe in becomes real, though not necessarily to the point where they can appear on Earth.
*** Odin explains that the comic book version of [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] can't manifest at all. There's supposedly several levels of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve in universe. Apparently plenty of people know about him, and spend time thinking about him, but because nobody ''worships'' (or believes in the existence of) Marvel's Thor he has so little power he can't even manifest a body. He may have one on his own plane, but he can't come to Earth.

* BystanderSyndrome: As mentioned, Atticus doesn't like getting involved or trying to put down any sort of crime unless it affects him. He had to be blackmailed into helping Coyote kill a demon, and was willing to let the Bacchants do their thing before learning they were walking {{Emotion Bomb}}s that would have devastated the city.
** As he explains in ''Staked'', this is in large part due to 2000 years of dodging Aenghus Og, who would detect his use of magic, encouraging him to keep a low profile.

* CharacterDevelopment: Compare the selfish (but entertaining) jerk Atticus was in the first couple of books to the guy who [[spoiler: crosses swords with freaking Brighid to stop her from killing the treacherous Fand and then continues to calmly give Brighid advice on how to proceed]]. Similarly, look at Brighid who, after that, realizes that [[spoiler: her obsession with the Morrigan made her blind to everything else and resolves to become a more deserving leader]].

* ColdIron: Especially [[ThunderboltIron Meteorite Iron]]. It's antithetical to magic, so is the best imaginable [[AntiMagic protection against it]]. It's also outright poisonous to beings of pure magic (TheFairFolk). Makes spellcasting extremely hard, though. Atticus' mastery of ColdIron earned him the title of the [[TitleDrop Iron Druid]]. However, iron of any kind pretty much cancels out magic under normal circumstances, Atticus's own magic being the exception, (It is possible to combine the two if the smith is talented enough) resulting in the Iron Age pretty much bringing an end to magic in the world.

* DoomMagnet: Pretty much Atticus' raison d'etre. His actions have, directly or indirectly, caused most of the disasters that pop up in the series, most notably [[spoiler: Loki's being freed from imprisonment and trying to start Ragnarok.]] Only the vampires have no direct beef with his actions; they're working on a grudge against all Druids in general.
** As a result of this tendency, in ''Staked'' [[spoiler: Werner Drasche kills Hal Hauk and Hal's pack terminate Atticus' relationship with Magnusson and Hauk and threaten to kill him if he ever comes onto their land again.]]

* FullFrontalAssault: Druids can do all manner of things to metals and natural fabrics, like binding them to the ground, so nude is the only way one would want to face off with them before synthetic fabrics were invented.

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Challenging a death goddess to a sword fight turns out to be one of Vidar's less intelligent decisions in ''Tricked''.

* HurricaneOfPuns: Atticus [[PungeonMaster really likes puns]], so he uses them for names for various tea blends. There's Virus Immuni-tea, Humili-tea, Mobili-tea and Immortali-tea among others.

** Before that, Aenghus Óg first kidnapping Oberon and Hal, then drawing power from the Earth to open a portal to Hell, which killed the surrounding land for about twenty square miles. Both ''huge'' no-nos in Druidic law, and a personal blow for anyone intimately connected to the Earth (as all Druids are).

* JerkJock: Thor pretty much personifies this. He is a bully who will do as he pleases and only seems to obey Odin. He likes to play cruel practical jokes and sees nothing wrong with killing humans and supernatural beings for petty reasons. [[spoiler: The reincarnated version is this, and thanks Atticus for killing off his previous self, who'd veered into JerkWithAHeartOfJerk territory]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Thor is this according to WordOfGod, not that you would know from looking, since the jerk part is all that is shown and talked about (and there is rather a lot of it) which makes Thor come across as a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk despite the tales of him being one of the friendlier gods to humanity. [[spoiler: The heart of gold becomes visible when he reappears, having been resurrected at Ragnarok, and thanks Atticus for killing off his previous incarnation, who'd veered into JerkWithAHeartOfJerk territory.]]

* MasterOfYourDomain: Atticus has gotten very good at this over the years. Morrigan teaches him a useful related technique in the third book.

** Atticus is part of a group that goes after Thor for his crimes against them like murdering their families, pets, making fools of them or just generally being a murderous thug who destroys innocent lives. Yet, they show no reservation at invading his home, killing his family and friends and their pets. One member, Leif, confessed that at least he himself to having killed innocents during his time as a vampire. None of them care. By the end of ''Hammered'' Atticus is a thief, having stolen golden apples from Idunn, and Odin's spear (which, to be fair, he did later return), a murderer, having killed several members of the Norse pantheon who had nothing to do with Thor's actions, and technically an animal abuser too, since he killed Sleipnir and one of Odin's ravens, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a liar]], having claimed to have been sent by the dark elves and to be Bacchus, thereby risking a war between the Norse and Roman and Greek pantheons. He also willingly [[spoiler: agrees and allows the goddess Freyja (who has committed no crime) to be kidnapped by Frost Giants knowing full well they are going to rape her]] and blames the whole mess on Thor for not fighting the group despite said group not even announcing who they are or why they are attacking (although on that point, they assumed that Thor would remember. [[ButForMeItWasTuesday He didn't]]). All Atticus feels is a little bad about the whole mess and a little sorry for [[spoiler: Freyja]] - and pleased she escaped.
*** This is later semi-subverted - the [[spoiler: Freyja]] part, at least - when Atticus cops to the fact that it was pretty awful in the face of Granuaile's horror and [[spoiler: Freyja's]] justified fury, and doesn't hold a grudge when [[spoiler: Freyja ends up lopping his arm off in exchange]].

* NoodleIncident: "You never want to be a Nigel in Toronto." It eventually gets explained in ''Staked''.

* PersonaNonGrata: After the Kennedy's Grove incident, a couple of formerly friendly [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf packs]] finally got fed up with all the [[RevengeByProxy splashily vengeful]] enemies Atticus has been making lately, and banned him from their territories on pain of fanged death.

* {{Psychopomp}}: Several show up, but the main one is the Morrigan who made a deal with Atticus that she will never choose him and take his soul beyond which no longer applies [[spoiler: now that she's dead.]]

* RunningGag: "You know, X would be a great band name. Think of the merchandise possibilities!" So far, we have: The Algae Shirts, Handsome Phantoms, Emo Douchebags ([[TakeThat It's already the unofficial name of more bands than I can count]]) and Beefy Hairy Women.
** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by Sasquatch on a Leash: Oberon thinks it makes a better name for a musky cologne. "Sasquatch on a Leash: Control your smelly beast."

--> '''Apple Jack''': I don't understand why you're in charge when you are incapable of making decisions in your own self-interest. "Oh, look!" you say. "A slain human! Instead of running away from this obviously [[TitleDrop perilous chapel]], I think I'll stick my neck in and see if it gets chopped off!"

* UnstoppableRage: Bacchus, being the Roman god of madness. Doesn't help that Atticus took a hammer to his BerserkButton.

--> '''Jesus''': "Now go and stake some vampires. Especially the [[Literature/{{Twilight}} sparkly emo ones]]."

* NoPronunciationGuide: Mercifully averted. As the series makes heavy use of Irish (and later, Old Norse) words and names which are not pronounced anything like they look to English-speakers (For instance, Atticus' original name is Siodhachan O'Suileabhain, pronounced roughly "Sheeyahan O'Sullivan.") the author provides a translation guide for most of the non-English names at the start of the book.

*** Odin explains that the comic book version of ComicBook/{{Thor}} can't manifest at all. There's supposedly several levels of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve in universe. Apparently plenty of people know about him, and spend time thinking about him, but because nobody ''worships'' (or believes in the existence of) Marvel's Thor he has so little power he can't even manifest a body. He may have one on his own plane, but he can't come to Earth.

* AliensInCardiff: For being a comparatively small city, Tempe Arizona has a druid, a pack of werewolves, a coven of witches, a powerful vampire, and occasional Celtic and Native American deities (among others) that show up from time to time. Justified: werewolves are all over the world, the druid is specifically there because its unlikely to attract attention, and while some of them (like Coyote) tend to wander wherever their worshipers are, including Tempe, the deities tend to be drawn to the town by the druid, rather than anything specific about the town itself. [[spoiler: As was the vampire.]]

* AliensInCardiff: For being a comparatively small city, Tempe Arizona has a druid, a pack of werewolves, a coven of witches, a powerful vampire, and occasional Celtic and Native American deities that show up from time to time - though the deities tend to be drawn to the town by the druid, rather than anything specific about the town itself.

* ContemptibleCover: Has shades of this at times, particularly ''Trapped,'' whose cover art could probably be mistaken for a stereotypical romance novel at first glance. The fact that all the novels are paperbacks doesn't help.

** The degree to which gods are shaped and empowered by believers is kind of inconsistent. In ''Hammered'', despite apparently having no believers, Perun's weather control powers rival Thor's while in Asgard of all places, who is explicitly described as being much stronger because his is still remembered thanks to the Prose and Poetic Eddas. The Morrigan matches Freya effortlessly in ''Two Ravens and One Crow'' and outright kills Vidar in ''Tricked''. In the former case, it's pretty much a case of scale. A Goddess of death, even one that's largely forgotten, would still probably have more power than a goddess who is most frequently conflated with Frigg in modern minds. And in the latter, Vidar directly submitted himself to her sphere of influence by challenging her to a fight over the ownership of a weapon that belonged to the Tuatha Dé Danann.

* HiddenDepths: The Morrigan, while outwardly not too far off from your average JerkassGod, secretly hated being one and made numerous attempts to change that about herself. [[spoiler: When she finally decided she wasn't capable of change, she [[SuicideByCop allowed herself to be killed]] by Artemis and Diana]].

* MenUseViolenceWomenUseCommunication: Granuaille derides Atticus' tendency to resort to violence as "how men solve problems" then immediately goes straight to her step-father's office and beats the crap out of him and several security guards [[{{Hypocrite}} explicitly out of spite]].

** Coyote is a bit of a mix. He's definitely good towards the Diné ([[TheTrickster even if they don't believe it]]), but he's indicated a lack of compassion towards non-Diné, only intervening to stop a demon when it attacks one of ''his'' people.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Hell is evil, most gods are jerks (if they don't cross the MoralEventHorizon), the viewpoint character is kind of a jerk, [[BystanderSyndrome who tends to not get involved unless he's forced to]].

** The Morrigan accurately predicted [[spoiler: her death at the hands of the Olympians ''two thousand years'' before it happened, and put Owen on a Time Island with a message for Brighid to ally herself with the dark elves against Loki.]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: A lot. Lampshaded by Atticus' narration that literally describes the morality of the Tuatha Dé Danann as "[[MightMakesRight Bronze Age]]" and his own as "Iron Age". While he understands modern sensibilities, at times he's fairly transparently acting the part just to blend in, and consequently creeps out his young apprentice several times with his callous disregard of said sensibilities. One particular case of this [[spoiler: (Atticus being willing to let the Frost Giants have Freyja, in order to secure their aid in the raid on Asgard - mercifully, she escapes)]], revealed to said apprentice (now graduated) in the last book, leads to her genuine horror, [[spoiler: the end of their romance and the two of them separating for the foreseeable future]]. In this case, though, he cops to it, and doesn't even hold the fact that [[spoiler: Freyja chops his arm off]] against the insulted party.

* DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal: Judging from her IntimateHealing stunt [[spoiler:the Morrigan]] seems to buy into this, even if her victim's reaction was less than [[ThisIsGonnaSuck enthusiastic]].
* {{Druid}}: Atticus is the last remaining mortal Druid ([[spoiler:until ''Trapped'' where his apprentice graduates, and then ''Hunted'' where it's revealed his own Archdruid is still alive.]]), thanks to a Roman-led pogrom against them back in the day.

* HiddenDepths: The Morrigan, while outwardly not too far off from your average JerkassGod, secretly hated being a JerkassGod and made numerous attempts to change that about herself. [[spoiler: When she finally decided she wasn't capable of change, she [[SuicideByCop allowed herself to be killed]] by Artemis and Diana]].

* ILetYouWin: [[spoiler: The Morrigan allowed herself to be killed by Artemis and Diana.]]

** Atticus himself often acts immature for someone of his age and life experience. Part of it is an act to make people think he is really only twenty years old. Often, though, it isn't - though in later books he undergoes significant CharacterDevelopment and starts actually acting like the immortal millennia old druid that he is.

* ImmortalityInducer: Atticus stays young thanks to drinking Immortali-tea.

** Before that, Aenghus Óg first kidnapping Oberon and Hal, then drawing power from the Earth to open a portal to Hell, which killed the surrounding land for about twenty square miles. Both HUGE no-nos in Druidic law, and a personal blow for anyone intimately connected to the Earth (as all Druids are).

* JerkJock: Thor pretty much personifies this. He is a bully who will do as he pleases and only seems to obey Odin. He likes to play cruel practical jokes and sees nothing wrong with killing humans and supernatural beings for petty reasons.

** Atticus is often an immature, selfish, irresponsible, rude butthole prone to petty abuses of power, prior to his CharacterDevelopment - and while a large chunk of it is an act, designed to make people underestimate him, a lot of it isn't. But he will sometimes stop truly vile things from happening and can be nice and caring to those close to him.

* KilledOffForReal: Subverted with [[spoiler: Thor and the other Norse who died in book 3. They're gods, and they're worshiped enough that they have the power to come back to life. The only reason they haven't is because Odin told them to lay low, just in case Loki can make Ragnarok happen, where they would really be KilledOffForReal.]]

* LastOfHisKind: Atticus is the last of the ancient Celtic druids. Only the Tuatha Dé Danann still follow the ancient traditions and they're gods. Atticus can train new druids but the training takes years and over the centuries none of his apprentices lived to complete the final rituals. [[spoiler:Except Granuaile, who becomes a full druid in ''Trapped''.]]

* LivingDistantAncestor: Atticus was patriarch of a large clan in Africa for a few centuries, though his attempts to share his immortality with his descendants didn't end well.

* MemeticBadass: Atticus is this in-universe. As the "iron druid" his touch is deadly to the Fae, creatures composed entirely of magic. Not only that but his mastery of ColdIron represents a direct challenge to Brighid's authority, even if he himself has no interest in usurping her.

** Atticus is part of a group that goes after Thor for his crimes against them like murdering their families, pets, making fools of them or just generally being a murderous thug who destroys innocent lives. Yet, they show no reservation at invading his home, killing his family and friends and their pets. One member, Leif, confessed that at least he himself to having killed innocents during his time as a vampire. None of them care. By the end of ''Hammered'' Atticus is a thief, having stolen golden apples from Idunn, and Odin's spear (which, to be fair, he did later return), a murderer, having killed several members of the Norse pantheon who had nothing to do with Thor's actions, and technically an animal abuser too, since he killed Sleipnir and one of Odin's ravens, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a liar]], having claimed to have been sent by the dark elves and to be Bacchus, thereby risking a war between the Norse and Roman and Greek pantheons, who willingly agrees and allows the goddess Freyja (who has committed no crime) to be kidnapped by Frost Giants knowing full well they are going to rape her and blames the whole mess on Thor for not fighting the group despite said group not even announcing who they are or why they are attacking (although on that point, they assumed that Thor would remember. [[ButForMeItWasTuesday He didn't]]). All Atticus feels is a little bad about the whole mess and a little sorry for Freyja - as well as pleased she escaped.
*** This is later semi-subverted - the Freyja part, at least - when Atticus cops to the fact that it was pretty awful in the face of Granuaile's horror and Freyja's justified fury, and doesn't hold a grudge when [[spoiler: Freyja ends up lopping his arm off in exchange]].

* NeverMyFault: Atticus usually tries to avoid any responsibility for his actions and only tries to fix things if strong-armed. He tries to skip town instead of dealing with the Maenads and only does when pressured to do so by the local coven. He blames the whole Asgard mess on the Norns and Thor, only admitting he handled things "poorly" when forced to confront Odin.

* NominalHero: Atticus fights because ItsPersonal, or because his [[MoralityPet loved ones]] are threatened, or because of mutual interests and old deals... and occasionally to deal out GaiasVengeance, but he makes no claim to being a hero. He spent two thousand years running away from a confrontation with Aenghus Óg, only finally deciding to fight after Brighid and Flidais conspired to force his hand, and even then he might not have gone through with it if Aenghus hadn't opened up a portal to Hell. Even ''that'' didn't do it; he only fought because opening the portal took so much power it killed a portion of the Earth outright.

** By and large Atticus ascribes to the position that the Earth and her servants (I.E. Druids, I.E. Him) trump most other concerns; if it's a choice between his life and the life of Bob Q Somebody, then Bob better update his will because if Bob dies no big deal in the grand scheme of things. If Atticus dies there's no one to protect the Earth and various GeniusLoci from evil sorcerers and suchlike. And in fairness, later events prove that Atticus isn't totally wrong about this (even if he is somewhat prone to abusing it).

* RelationshipUpgrade: [[spoiler: Atticus and Granuaile, almost as soon as she is a full druid.]]

* SacrificialLion: [[spoiler: The Morrigan]] is killed at the beginning of ''Hunted'' by Artemis and Diana.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles.'' While they share a similar premise, they approach this premise from different sides and in different ways, perhaps most notably in that while Harry Dresden is [[WeHelpTheHelpless altruistic]], Atticus usually [[NominalHero only goes out of his way to help people if he's forced to]], otherwise he's perfectly content to let things go their own way.

** Vidar, big time. Challenged the Morrigan, a goddess who can ''choose who dies in battle'', to a sword fight. You can imagine how well that went - and even his fellow gods think it was pretty stupid, with this observing outright applauding the Morrigan's technique.
** Gods in general are plagued by this. Brighid tries to kill Atticus with magic despite knowing Atticus has an amulet that makes him immune to magic (well, she thought she was strong enough to overcome it, but still) and a [[AbsurdlySharpBlade sword that can cut through anything.]] According to Perun, Thor tricked virtually every other thunder god, and by extension nearly every other god on the planet, to not have their stories written down in print, but in stone statues or oral traditions that are worn away or lost, causing them to be largely forgotten in modern day compared to the gods whose stories were written down like the Greek and Norse. Thor himself is repeatedly stated to be a brutish thug and moron.

* {{Druid}}: Atticus is the last remaining mortal Druid ([[spoiler: until ''Trapped'' where his apprentice graduates, and then ''Hunted'' where it's revealed his own Archdruid is still alive.]]), thanks to a Roman-led pogrom against them back in the day.

** Elephant headed Ganesha using his trunk as a straw. As Atticus observes, he's a PhysicalGod and they are talking in a dream, so it really doesn't matter if it shouldn't be possible.

*** Odin explains that the comic book version of ComicBook/{{Thor}} can't manifest at all. There's supposedly several levels of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve in universe. Apparently plenty of people know about him, and spend time thinking about him, but because nobody ''worships''(or believes in the existence of) Marvel's Thor he has so little power he can't even manifest a body. He may have one on his own plane, but he can't come to Earth.

--> '''Jesus''': "Now go and stake some vampires. Especially the [[{{Twilight}} sparkly emo ones]]."

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: A lot. Lampshaded by Atticus' narration that literally describes the morality of the Tuatha Dé Danann as "[[MightMakesRight Bronze Age]]" and his own as "Iron Age". He also creeps out his young apprentice several times with his callous disregard of modern sensibilities.

** Well, not really prayer. The mere fact of knowing and thinking about them is sufficient, but active worship is needed for them to manifest, and how they do so depends on how those praying view them. Jesus notably dislikes manifesting because he always ends up looking pretty horrifying.

** The degree to which gods are shaped and empowered by believers is kind of inconsistent. In ''Hammered'', despite apparently having no believers, Perun weather control powers rival Thor's while in Asgard of all places, who is explicitly described as being much stronger because his is still remembered thanks to the Prose and Poetic Eddas. The Morrigan matches Freya effortlessly in ''Two Ravens and One Crow'' and outright kills Vidar in ''Tricked''. In the former case, it's pretty much a case of scale. Goddess of death, even one that's largely forgotten, would still probably have more power than a goddess who is most frequently conflated with Frigg in modern minds. And in the latter, Vidar directly submitted himself to her sphere of influence by challenging her to a fight over the ownership of a weapon that belonged to the Tuatha Dé Danann.

* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: Played with in Atticus' case. He was already an old man when he first came across Airmid, who taught him the recipe for his Immortali-tea, which reduced his age to how he looked in his mid-twenties. In Shattered it is implied that it's merely a matter of dosing, as [[spoiler: the archdruid Owen]] chooses to only reverse his age to about his 40's, with the logic that [[spoiler: he'd always been Atticus's elder so looking the same age would be weird]]. Subverted with witches, as they use magic to hide their real age.

* JerkassGods: A few. Thor and Aenghus Óg stand out in particular. Most believe in MightMakesRight and would [[DisproportionateRetribution murder for rudeness]] (The Morrigan for example) if the culprit isn't on their power level. Lampshaded in the "Clan Rathskeller" short story, though in that case it was actually a subversion.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Thor is this according to WordOfGod, not that you would know from looking, since the jerk part is all that is shown and talked about (and there is rather a lot of it) which makes Thor come across as a JerkWithAHeartOfJerk despite the tales of him being one of the friendlier gods to humanity.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Atticus is often an immature, selfish, irresponsible, rude butthole prone to petty abuses of power. But he will sometimes stop truly vile things from happening and can be nice and caring to those close to him.

** Atticus' discovery of a loophole in the interaction of magic and iron resulted in his creation of a powerful amulet that lets him resist many types of magic. This makes him way more powerful than a normal druid and able to fight gods.

** A big part of why Atticus is so powerful is because he experiments with the rules of druid magic and was able to [[BeyondTheImpossible find solutions to problems that seemed impossible to the much older and powerful]] Tuatha Dé Danann

** Atticus is part of a group that goes after Thor for his crimes against them like murdering their families, pets, making fools of them or just generally being a murderous thug who destroys innocent lives. Yet, they show no reservation at invading his home, killing his family and friends and their pets. One member, Leif, confessed that at least he himself to having killed innocents during his time as a vampire. None of them care. By the end of ''Hammered'' Atticus is a thief, having stolen golden apples from Idunn, and Odin's spear (which to be fair he did later return), a murderer, having killed several members of the Norse pantheon who had nothing to do with Thor's actions, and technically an animal abuser too, since he killed Sleipnir and one of Odin's ravens, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a liar]], having claimed to have been sent by the dark elves and to be Bacchus, thereby risking a war between the Norse and Roman and Greek pantheons, who willingly agrees and allows the goddess Freya (who has committed no crime) to be kidnapped by Frost Giants knowing full well they are going to rape her and blames the whole mess on Thor for not fighting the group despite said group not even announcing who they are or why they are attacking (although on that point, they assumed that Thor would remember. [[ButForMeItWasTuesday He didn't]]). All Atticus feels is a little bad about the whole mess and a little sorry for Freya.

** Granuaille gets in on the action in ''Staked''. She attacks her step-father's business explicitly out of spite, rationalizing her actions as helping the Earth. She derides Atticus' tendency to resort to violence as "how men solve problems" then goes straight to her step-father's office and beats the crap out of him and several security guards. Despite acknowledging her hypocrisy in attacking him, she continues to beat him up anyway, once again trying to justify it as her striking back against a polluter. Afterwards, she worries about this being part of a potential StartOfDarkness.

* NationalStereotypes: The widow [=MacDonagh=] is terrified when she sees Atticus kill a man but becomes quite accepting when Atticus tells her the man was British. She is old school Irish about such things.

** By and large Atticus ascribes to the position that the Earth and her servants (I.E. Druids, I.E. Him) trump most other concerns; if it's a choice between his life and the life of Bob Q Somebody, then Bob better update his will because if Bob dies no big deal in the grand scheme of things. If Atticus dies there's no one to protect the Earth and various GeniusLoci from evil sorcerers and suchlike.
** Jesus pulls one of these when he warns Atticus not to go to Asgard. He even goes out of his way to specify that he knows better than Atticus what a humongous mistake it would be, but refuses to elaborate, citing incomprehensible forces and his belief that "that would be cheating".

* PalsWithJesus: In the third book, Atticus has lunch and drinks with Jesus. They briefly reminisce about [[Literature/TheDaVinciCode moving the treasure of the Templars and planting false clues.]]

* SeriesContinuityError: A number of these pop up with some being major and some minor. For example, Perun's lightning works fine in Asgard, but later Atticus doubts Zeus and Jupiter's lightning would work in another realm besides Olympus and Earth.
* ShapeshifterBaggage: According to the Morrigan, all the "Old Ways" have this, including druds, allowing them to disregard the Law of Conservatoin of Matter.

** Vidar, big time. Challenged the Morrigan, a goddess who can ''choose who dies in battle'', to a sword fight. You can imagine how well that went.