Line #30 Literature/InvasionCycle


1	[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magic_invasion_9966.jpg]][[caption-width-right:280:From the [[http://www.wizards.com/magic/expert/invasion/magicinvasion/welcome_menu.asp Invasion comic]]]]
2	->''”This is where we belong. There is no vessel I’d rather sail, and no crew I’d rather command. There is no enemy I’d rather fight, and no world I’d rather defend. We took the fight to our enemy’s command post, and then his stockpiled fleet. Now it seems he is returning the favor. Now our home is under attack, or more specifically, my home – Benalia. Phyrexia comes to our world in force. Their goal is no less than the destruction of all nations and the extinction of all species. The invasion has begun!”''
3	-->-- ''Gerrard Capashen''
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5	Consisting of ''Invasion'', ''Planeshift'' and ''Apocalypse'', the ''Invasion Cycle'' by J. Robert King is the GrandFinale of the Weatherlight Saga. Returning to Dominaria after their adventures on [[Literature/RathAndStorm Rath]] and [[Literature/MasqueradeCycle Mercadia]], Gerrard and the rest of the ''Weatherlight'' crew find their homeworld under attack by the Phyrexians. They are the first line of defense in a global war against the invaders, while Urza assembles a team of nine planeswalkers to infiltrate and destroy Phyrexia itself.
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7	After this cycle, ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' largely returned to shorter storylines, usually spanning only a single block. The first such story is the ''Literature/OdysseyCycle'', taking place a century after the events of the ''Invasion Cycle''.
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9	!! Tropes in the ''Invasion Cycle'':
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11	* AlienInvasion: Ish, as the invading Phyrexians are actually [[spoiler:a severely altered form of the Thran, an ancient and now extinct race originally native to Dominaria]].
12	* AnyoneCanDie: This trilogy’s body count is extraordinary. It would be easier to count the characters who survive than those who die. In the end, [[spoiler:Takara, Hanna, Thaddeus, Barrin, Tsabo Tavoc, Agnate, Dralnu, Kristina, Daria, Tevesh Szat, Taysir, Greven il-Vec, Rhammidarigaaz, Crovax, Ertai, Commodore Guff, Bo Levar, Eladamri, Lin Sivvi, Urza, Gerrard and Yawgmoth]] all bite the dust.
13	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Karn becomes a planeswalker at the end.]]
14	* AxCrazy: Tsabo Tavoc and Ertai are both missing a few bulbs from the chandelier, but Crovax out-crazies them both by orders of magnitude (and wields an ax in battle for good measure).
15	* BattleCouple: Eladamri and Lin Sivvi become this over the course of the trilogy.
16	* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler: Eladamri and Lin Sivvi jump into lava when Yawgmoth approaches.]]
17	* BigBad: Yawgmoth is the lord of Phyrexia and the ultimate Big Bad behind not just this trilogy, but the entire near-decade long Weatherlight/Urza story as a whole.
18	* BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything: Tsabo Tavoc's philosophy. Her defeat convinces the Phyrexians to ease off the plague ships and witch engines in favor of more blunt force.
19	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Phyrexians are destroyed, but Dominaria is in ruins and many, ''many'' people have died.]]
20	* BlindSeer: Urza disguises himself as one to advise the Weatherlight's crew without the baggage that would come with revealing himself to them directly.
21	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Commodore Guff rather infamously does this.
22	* TheBusCameBack: After being introduced in ''Literature/TimeStreams'' and being MIA in ''Literature/BloodlinesMagicTheGathering'', the dragon Rhammidarigaaz returns here and by ''Planeshift'' is upgraded to {{Deuteragonist}}.
23	* CessationOfExistence: Lich lord Dralnu claims this happened to him when he died.
24	* CombatSadomasochist: Tsabo Tavoc combines this with HiveMind for a truly disturbing pathology. How pathological? She'll throw thousands of her ''own troops' to their deaths, just to enjoy the sensation of it.
25	* DespairEventHorizon: Losing his daughter Hanna drives Barrin to sacrifice himself and his island homeland of Tolaria, an event depicted on the card ''[[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=23098 Obliterate]]''.
26	* TheDragonsComeBack: In ''Planeshift'', renegade planeswalker Tevesh Szat guides dragon leader Darigaaz to resurrect the "Primevals", five legendary dragons that ruled the world twenty thousand years ago. [[spoiler:As it turns out Darigaaz himself is actually the first dragon, whose resurrection makes it possible for the other four to be revived]].
27	* EarlyBirdCameo: The cards for the five Primevals were released in the ''Invasion'' set, even though four of them don't actually appear until ''Planeshift''.
28	* EldritchAbomination: After being hyped for several years, Yawgmoth finally makes his triumphant appearance in ''Apocalypse''... as a malevolent, planet-sized FogOfDoom. Readers weren't exactly impressed.
29	* EndingMemorialService
30	* EvilIsPetty: Not long after Yawgmoth finally makes his triumphant return, it becomes clear that several millennium of godhood haven't changed his core personality. Underneath the grandiose statements and divine powers he's still a narcissistic, self-absorbed, jilted ex-lover.
31	* FaceHeelTurn: While Weatherlight crew member Crovax already completed his descent into villainy back in ''[[Literature/MasqueradeCycle Nemesis]]'', here BlueMage Ertai follows him, having been broken by the death of his lover Belbe and subsequent forced servitude to Crovax.
32	* TheFinalTemptation: Yawgmoth tempts both Urza and Gerrard, [[spoiler:and is successful in both cases at that, driving Urza to betray his own planeswalker alliance and Gerrard to fight Urza to the death on his orders]].
33	* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Gerrard disembowels Tsabo Tavoc in ''Invasion'', and Crovax later kills her. Not only do both characters lose pure stat matches with her in the card game, it's completely impossible for either to do any damage to her at all thanks to [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=23321 her card's abilities]].
34	* GrandFinale: Of the Weatherlight Saga.
35	* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Gerrard and Urza both die.]]
36	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Rhammidarigaaz, Urza, Gerrard.]]
37	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: While preparing the destruction of Phyrexia, Urza comes to realize that he admires Phyrexia – so much so that he is unable to go through with his plan. [[spoiler: He snaps out of it after being beheaded by Gerrard.]]
38	* HiddenDepths: Squee, who gets put to work manning the Weatherlight's guns after discovering his innate marksmanship when he shot down Volrath's flagship in ''[[Literature/MasqueradeCycle Mercadian Masques]]''.
39	* HumongousMecha: Urza’s titan engines.
40	* ItCanThink: [[spoiler:The Weatherlight]] attains sentience shortly before her final HeroicSacrifice.
41	* LastStand: It’s even a [[http://magiccards.info/ap/en/107.html card]].
42	* LetsYouAndHimFight: [[spoiler:Yawgmoth]] seduces [[spoiler:Urza and Gerrard]] at the end of ''Planeshift'' and at the beginning of ''Apocalypse'' compels them to fight each other to the death to see who gets to serve him. [[spoiler:Gerrard wins, but realizes that the Hanna he is being tempted with is in fact Yawgmoth himself]].
43	* LosingYourHead: Urza spends most of ''Apocalypse'' as a disembodied head.
44	* MagicLibrarian: The planeswalker Commodore Guff, a librarian who knows the entire history of the multiverse and has a penchant for breaking the fourth wall.
45	* NatureSpirit: Molimo the Maro-Sorcerer, who is both sentient manifestation and guardian of the Llanowar Forest, making him a counterpart to Yavimaya's maro-sorcerer Multani.
46	%%* NightmareFetishist: Tsabo Tavoc.
47	* OffscreenInertia: This is what makes the fate of [[spoiler:Mishra]] so unsettling.
48	* PowerArmor: Urza builds [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=23222 Nine Titans]] for his coalition of planeswalkers to pilot during their assault on Phyrexian.
49	* ProphecyTwist: The Keldons have always taken the twilight prophecy to mean that their dead heroes would rise again to fight with them. Instead, they turn against the Keldons, allowing the ''true'' heroes of Keld (i.e. the living) to rise.
50	* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: A rare heroic example, as Gerrard attempts to warn his home nation of Benalia about the Phyrexians but is summarily arrested for desertion, having left his post to rejoin the Weatherlight and rescue Sisay back in ''Literature/RathAndStorm''.
51	* SadisticChoice: Tsabo Tavoc leaves the captured metathran general Thaddeus alive after torturing and partly dissecting him to force his comrade Agnate to choose between giving the man he is completely devoted to a MercyKill or living him alive in agony. [[spoiler:Agnate kills him, and is never the same after]].
52	* SaveTheWorldClimax: As noted before, the Weatherlight Saga started out with our heroes just trying to rescue their captain, but here they are indeed saving the world.
53	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Teferi decides the Invasion is unwinnable for Dominaria and phases himself and his homelands of Zhalifir and Shiv out of reality. This effectively has all the involved parties PutOnABus, one they will not return from for several years.
54	* SealedArmyInACan: The Kavu, a species of large quadrupedal omnivores that are awakened by Gaea to help the coalition fight off the Phyrexians. They're much more prominent in the cards than they are in the novels, but they are mentioned a couple of times.
55	* SeriesContinuityError: Barrin blows up Tolaria in ''Invasion'', even through the earlier book ''Literature/RathAndStorm'' established that Tolaria still existed long after the invasion's end. Later stories opted [[RetCon to go with King's take on things and keep Tolaria destroyed, though eventually a New Tolaria was established]].
56	* ServantRace: The Metathran, first introduced in back in ''Bloodlines'', are a servant race created from Phyrexian DNA from Urza for the sole purpose of fighting the Phyrexian invaders.
57	* TheStarscream: Tsabo Tavoc ''wants'' to kill her master Crovax and take the position of evincar for her own. Amusingly enough she's perfectly capable of it in the card set, but by the time she reunites with her boss she's already been trashed by the heroes and repaired with cheap materials as punishment for her failure. Crovax has no trouble at all backing up his words after declaring that YouHaveFailedMe.
58	* TortureTechnician: Tsabo Tavoc's hobby when she isn't ineptly commanding the Phyrexian forces.
59	* VillainHasAPoint: Ertai has definitely gone over to the dark side, but he's quite right to be sore at the Weatherlight crew for abandoning him after he helped them escape from Rath.
60	* WeHaveReserves: Tsabo Tavoc's attitud as a military leader, which ultimately gets her killed. Turns out that while the Phyrexian have forces numbering in the millions if not billions, even ''their'' reserves have limits.
61	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Primevals Treva and Dromar, whose final fates [[spoiler:after the other three Primevals are killed]] are completely unknown.
62	* WhereItAllBegan: The finale of ''Invasion'' takes place at Koilos, where Urza and Mishra [[Literature/TheBrothersWar first opened the portal to Phyrexia]].

Context Literature / InvasionCycle