YMMV / Half World

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Empathy Vampire only appears very briefly as Foreshadowing but otherwise isn't important to the story, it comes out of nowhere, since there was no hint that such a thing existed, and is never mentioned again.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The ending to Darkest Light has the protagonists defeating Illana and sending her back to her cycle. While this supports the moral of "people need to face their past traumas and learn to overcome it", Illana has made it very clear that she does not want to accept her cycle and move on to Spirit. As with Karu, it's heavily implied that this acceptance is necessary for moving on. Sending her back is basically condemning her, and who's to say she won't return some day, even stronger and more terrifying due to being trapped in Half World for longer?
• Fridge Brilliance: It's implied that Mr. Glueskin is responsible for the separation of the Realms, being the first to free himself from his trauma and extend his cycle. His Half Life consists of him being born and immediately dying, since he was killed when his mother was trying to birth him. He's being born in a Realm that has no true birth, similar to Melanie. And like Melanie, this is why he can affect change. That is how he separated the Realms.
• Fridge Horror: If people enter Half World in the state that they died in, then how the hell did the girl covered in leeches die?
• Fridge Logic: If the Empathy Vampire preys on people by pretending to be their loved ones and luring them in, then why didn't it go after Melanie, who's frantically searching for her mom, in the first book?
• Funny Moments: At one point in Darkest Light White Cat gets angry at Gee and bites his leg. Gee rolls up his pant leg to check for injuries, to which Cracker responds by stroking his leg.
  Cracker: Do you shave?
  Gee: (drops pant leg) Excuse me!
• Nightmare Fuel: Since we're dealing with a purgatory where everyone is stuck reliving their most traumatic moment over and over again until they've worked through their troubles and get ascended to Spirit, this is a given.
  • The fact that, since the Realms are separated, people have been looping through their pain for so long they turned into Body Horror Mix-and-Match Critters with I'm a Humanitarian tendencies.
  • The five girls in the archive in Darkest Light. Their skin is described as being overblown and too loose, like there's too much water underneath and they're rotting from the inside. One of them has gaping empty eye sockets, the other is covered in bloodless cuts, and the last girl is covered in leeches. Coupled with their childishness and what their Half Life consists of... brrrr...
  • Ilanna's Half Life consisting of her getting thrown overboard by her lover, drowning while all kinds of sea creatures tear her apart and eat her, and this happens on repeat.
• Squick: Many descriptions of the environments and Half World denizens can get real gross real fast. From the sounds, the smells, to all the different bodily fluids on the ground...
  • It's implied that Illana and Mr. Glueskin have... been together before.

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