Other character pertinent to the Cycle.
All spoilers are unmarked.
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Haven
Miles Everence
Appears in:The Touch of Heaven
A young man who works as a minor bureaucrat in Haven, serving as one of Tango's best friends.
- Beware the Nice Ones: As patient and understanding as he is, Miles is frighteningly aggressive to Celia when her actions endanger Tango, and he later up and proclaims he wouldn't mind if Jango up and killed Celia when her selfish behavior ends up putting the entire town at risk. Tango even notes it's an unsettling departure from his usual behavior.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Miles' father was killed during a security failure when he was still a young child, which ended up traumatizing him into becoming a paranoid mess.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Miles' final words before he dies of his wounds during the attack on Haven are a pained “I love you” to Tango – words he'd been meaning to get out since the beginning of The Touch of Heaven.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Miles dies taking a few tendrils of the Never-becoming meant for Tango.
- Nervous Wreck: Miles is comically paranoid to the point of listing off a dozen safety precautions he's taken for the simple act of driving outside Haven's barriers – although it does become somewhat less funny in the wake of the reason for his neurotic behavior.
- Nice Guy: Soft-spoken, concerned for the health of others, and unhesitatingly kind and supportive to Tango and Mint. Celia proves it's extremely unwise to get on his bad side, however.
Jango Marley
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven | Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell and The Radiance of Heaven)
The leader of a gang of infected raiders who live outside Haven.
- Affably Evil: For a given definition of evil, Jango is undeniably ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants, but he's also calm, soft-spoken, civil to Tango and Miles while he has them as hostages, and immediate to stress the fact he doesn't actually want to have to barter with their lives. Unfortunately, this completely disappears after he's corrupted by the Never-becoming.
- Anti-Villain: Jango's only a villain because he's been forced into desperate measures by the Association's oppressive, extremist policies towards the infected, hoping to use Celia's blood and knowledge of Hell into gaining means to destroy the Association and anyone else who gets into his way. Adding to this, Jango has clear loved ones that he's completely unwilling to put into harm's way in his quest. Jango ordering Haven to be massacred at the end is the first sign that he isn't himself and that the Never-becoming he's allowed to infest his body in pursuit of his goal have taken over, and once Tango frees him of these beings, Jango drops the “villain” part and switches sides for the rest of the series.
- The Atoner: In Heaven & Hell. After he's freed from the Never-becoming's control, Jango still feels responsible for the horrific massacre he was forced to carry out and is utterly horrified at what he's done, feeling that being damned to an alternate Earth devoid of all life, potentially for all eternity, is fitting recompense for his actions.
- Big Bad: For the first half of The Touch of Heaven – until Alice hijacks the conflict.
- The Comically Serious: Jango generally remains as stern and stoic as ever in Heaven & Hell all while he's busy cuddling a trashy stuffed bear for comfort and arranging a prank on Tango with Maxine for laughs.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: One of the quickest indicators Jango isn't as nasty as he seems at first is the fact he has a partner and daughter he immensely cares for.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Jango is forcefully morphed into this by the Never-becoming in the climax of The Touch of Heaven; while it's made clear that he does have a motivation and clear scruples at first, the Never-becoming damage his mind to a point where Jango becomes a snarling animal and a vessel of the Never-becoming with no more drive or motivation of his own.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Jango normally keeps the lower half of his face hidden under a bandanna at all times – but once it's pulled down, Jango is revealed to have horrible facial scarring that's turned the entire lower half of his face into a mess of exposed muscle. Jango ditching his mask in the final battle of The Touch of Heaven is a tip-off he's gone completely over the edge.
- The Heavy: For The Touch of Heaven. While Alice robs him of the position of Big Bad a little over halfway through the story and the Never-becoming assures he never retains enough agency to take it back, Jango directly drives all of the conflict of the story from beginning to end and serves as the last obstacle to be defeated after Alice's defeat.
- Heel–Face Turn: After Tango plunges him into Hell and frees his mind from the control of the Never-becoming, Jango keeps them alive for a full month-and-a-half in gratitude after Tango falls into a coma and becomes a firm ally once they finally wake up.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: A completely involuntary example, uniquely enough; Jango starts off as a man who firmly professes that while he is willing to take a life, he's much, much keener on finding alternative solutions. Once the Never-becoming take over, Jango's slowly driven off the edge until he loses his sanity to a point where he orders Haven itself totally massacred.
- Motive Decay: Goes from a firm Well-Intentioned Extremist into a screeching monster willing to slaughter an entire town for no reason whatsoever the further the Never-becoming steal his mind. By the time of The Touch of Heaven's final battle, Jango no longer has any agency of his own.
- Noble Demon: Jango's a ruthless raider and a known murderer more than willing to use the lives of innocent people as bartering chips to get what he wants, but he's also an honorable family man and a dedicated leader to the raiders he's taken under his wing who doesn't want to resort to the methods he does.
- No Sense of Humor: Doesn't seem to be one for jokes and even seems confused on the subject when Maxine lectures him on the subject — although he does join Maxine in pranking Tango.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jango is one of many, many infected people left to rot by the Association – so Jango decides to turn to unscrupulous means to better himself and other infected people, with the intention of toppling the Association and giving infected people a future outside of the murderously extreme policies of the Association. Once Tango manages to save him from a fate worse than death after his own actions result in him involuntarily decimating an entire town, Jango drops this and follows Tango out of loyalty for saving his life, now simply more preoccupied on getting to Earth to reunite with his family.
Mayor Piper Pleasance
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven
The jovial mayor of Haven.
- Alliterative Name: Piper Pleasamce. Mint even remarks it's fun to say over and over.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Jango spikes him with enough tendrils of the Never-becoming to turn him into a “black pincushion,” leaving the resultant corpse punctured with a hundred different holes.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: After one chapter of screentime, Pleasance is very suddenly and unceremoniously killed by Jango and almost never mentioned again.
- Meaningful Name: True to his last name, Pleasance does seem to be a very pleasant person who does his best to seem civil and approachable. Mixed results for him.
- Perpetual Smiler: Pleasance is a cheerful person who's always wearing a smile up until the moment of his death.
Tiffany
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven
A mailgirl who Mint befriends in Haven.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dry and quite sardonic, although she's nowhere near as scathing as she could be.
- The Gadfly: Shows Mint a screamer for the sole sake of seeing their scared reaction.
- Uncertain Doom: Unlike almost every other named citizen of Haven who are conclusively shown to have lived or died at some point, not one mention is ever made of Tiffany's fate after the slaughter of Haven, leaving it ambiguous if she was among the casualties.
Lt. Donald Jones
See here for details regarding Jones.
Flashback and Past Characters
Scott Niles
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell)
A human trafficker Alice befriended in their past.
- Arc Villain: Essentially serves as this to Alice's flashback arc during The Ambition of Hell, with his actions framing a large portion of the conflict and eventually serving as the greatest threat to Alice themselves.
- Attempted Rape: Attempts to rape Aice in a drunken stupor one night. Oddly enough, Niles stops himself instead of being halted through other means – although why is never clarified.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Alice puts a knife in his throat while he sleeps one night after the “attempted rape” debacle and holds it there until Niles drowns in his own blood. Given his previous actions, this almost seems too kind to him.
- Ephebophile: Niles hastily insists this when Alice insinuates he's attracted to children like Ash. Given that he tries to proposition Alice when they're thirteen, this runs into some problems.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Zig-zagged; while Niles seems to draw a line at actually sexually abusing children himself (if him quickly correcting Alice over one of their comments about him being into kids is any indication), Niles outright states he has no qualms with selling said children to other pedophiles like Ash to be horrifically raped and tortured, only musing that it “seems like a waste of a good product.” Likewise, Niles stops mid-way through raping Alice himself – but never spells out why and doesn't ever acknowledge the incident himself.
- Evil Mentor: Alice fashions him as a teacher teaching them the ways of totally controlling other people — an art which dealing with human trafficking and slavery demands full mastery of.
- Gonk: Niles is an ugly, ugly man, with an unappealingly obese body constantly drenched in fluids, a face riddled with ugly pimples and spots, and poor taste in fashion.
- Fat Bastard: Enormously girthy, and an utterly heartless human trafficker who's corpulence is only outweighed by his cruelty.
- Hate Sink: One can admire Azazel's brilliance, find something darkly charismatic in Chayne's grandiose plotting, and even Naberius has his own sense of charisma...Niles has nothing like this. He's a sick, twisted scumbag whose only act in making the world better was unwillingly leaving it.
- Pragmatic Villainy: His only problem with Ash's treatment of his slaves is that it is a waste of product. He also get mad at Ash for killing someone in public, having no problem committing brutal acts behind closed doors.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Niles is one of the most sickening and disturbing characters around for that reason. He's a twisted rapist and it's played for as terrible as it should be.
- Villainous Friendship: Shares one with Alice, treating them as a full equal and even propositioning them at one point. It becomes clear that Niles' feelings for Alice go far beyond mere “friendship,” however, feelings he later tries to act upon by almost drunkenly raping Alice himself one night.
- Would Hurt a Child: Niles' charges do and have consisted of children before, and Niles brutally beats an eight-year-old child to death himself with a towel rack after he learns he's sick.
Andrew Sharpe
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell)
The illegitimate son of Ashton Sharpe.
- Abusive Parents: Ash is a monstrously awful parent to have, treating the kid to rape and beatings daily and forcing him to maim the slaves he purchases as well. It’s little wonder Andrew snapped as hard as he did.
- Bastard Bastard: Downplayed. Andrew takes after his father’s violent behavior and randomly shot a bunch of protesters on one occasion, but Ash’s abuse twisted the poor kid’s mind into such.
- Child by Rape: All but explicitly stated, and Chayne figures this is the case.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Andrew is ‘‘disgusted’’ by the human trafficking his father indulges in and further unimpressed by Alice’s casual attitude toward it.
- Freudian Excuse: Having Ash as a father constitutes as one all on its own.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Like Father, Like Son. Andrew snaps earlier than Alice intends when they start to lecture him and they nearly get pummeled into the ground for it.
- Parental Incest: Unwillingly inflicted upon him toward Ash.
- Rape as Backstory: With Ash as a father, well...
- Hannibal Lecture: Gives a particularly pronounced one to Alice once their own attempt at a Breaking Speech to Andrew fails, telling them off that even though Alice thinks they’re in total control of the situation, they have no power over the world — and the kind of world they’ve consigned themself too will assure their fall soon and hard. It’s enough to rattle even Alice for a while.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Andrew’s fate past the P.A.R.A.D.I.S.E. program is unexplored, and no mention of him is ever made after Ash is defeated.
Betty and Hilson Winters
Appears in: Before Heaven
The parents of Jackson Winters, a producer couple dubbed the "Ice Couple."
- Abusive Parents: Both are, at the least, heavily neglectful of Jackson, possibly even physically abusive if Jackson's nightmare is taken into account.
- Attention Whore: Both of them are media personalities who soak up every inch of their fame. The only reason they signed up Jackson in the first place was to gain more attention and fame than they already had.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: A minor example. They're still active in the present day, but we never get any indication they ever land in hot water after the disappearance of their son — which is noted to have been a high-profile disappearance but one they're never regarded to have any concern over.
Sheldon and Mary Witzenberg
The parents of Alison Witzenberg.
- Abusive Parents: Sheldon Witzenberg was a physically abusive beast to both Mary and Alison, brutalizing the both of them regularly and even being implied to have extorted sex out of Mary by threatening to murder Alice. It's little wonder Alice ended up poisoning him.
- Asshole Victim: Sheldon is all but explicitly stated to be dead as a result of Alice slipping poison into his coffee before they escaped.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sheldon's monstrous abuse constitutes as Alice's Freudian Excuse — and said abuse ends up warping Alice into a paranoid Control Freak who kills thousands of people.
Darius Sawyer
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)
The man who rallied the lynch mob that tried to kill Aria Summers.- Small Role, Big Impact: Darius' role is limited to a single appearance in the last section of Radiance, but he's revealed to be the cause of Chayne's Start of Darkness in the first place. Literally the entire series can indirectly be laid on his feet.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The single biggest in the entire series. If Sawyer had never attempted to kill Aria? Chayne never would have gone mad, and the Heaven Cycle never would have started.
Unaffiliated
Naagol
Appears in: Heaven and Hell (The Radiance of Heaven)
A horrific, ancient Eldritch Abomination who has existed since the beginning of the Cycle.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Sees itself as an audience to a game, and only goes out of its way to help Tango stop the Cycle because a change in the game is amusing to it. All the conflict of the setting proper doesn't even register to it.
- Eldritch Abomination: Even by the standards of Heaven and Hell, Naagol qualifies. It's a timeless, ancient entity wholly unconcerned with the Cycle, with even the form it assumes to Tango being utterly revolting — and its true form being unspeakably worse.
- Time Abyss: One of the oldest creatures in the setting, being sixty trillion years old at least, and possibly even older.
The Necrosis
Appears in: The Touch of Heaven | Heaven and Hell (The Ambition of Hell and The Radiance of Heaven)
The hungering personification of non-existence lurking outside the borders of all reality.
- Eldritch Abomination: It doesn't exist. Yet the mere concept of thinking of it makes it exist — and draws it closer, and closer. It's a force, not a sentient being, but it still hungers. It is utterly incomprehensible, as Belphegor notes it is literally impossible to think of the form and shape of nothing.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Of the entire series. Nobody, not Heaven, not Hell, not Chayne herself, hold a candle to the apocalyptic threat the Necrosis holds, and it's the threat of it breaking into all reality and rendering all reality as nothingness that drives the urge to stop the Heaven Cycle once for all before the war starts.
- Ret-Gone: The literal personification of it. Once it breaks into reality? Everything will no longer exist, never will exist, and will never have existed in the first place.
