This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Taco: Oh god, please no direct refences to the Bible. Doing so would no doubt ignite a flamewar.
Epiblast: I noticed this:
has this as its main trope..."
Pardon my ignorance, but are these stories actually fanfiction of anything? I mean, they're obviously amateur online fiction, but not all of that is fanfiction. I've read through the entire text of the stories and the description that goes with them, and there's no hint that they're fanfiction of some other work. Initial searches elsewhere have revealed nothing. Does anyone know something relevant that I don't? I'm not going to change the term from "fanfiction" to something else just yet; I'm just bringing this up to check.
EDIT: It's been a few days and there have been no replies. If no one answers this within a week, I'm just going to go ahead and change "fanfiction" to "short story".
Narvi: Isn't that Bible fanfiction?
Epiblast: Possibly, but due to the way stuff from the Bible gets used everywhere, that would make just about any fictional works that prominently feature elements of the Bible's cosmology "fanfiction" of it. I mean, would you consider Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade to be Bible fanfiction? Along similar lines, there are a lot of modern fictional works that use pre-Christian European cosmologies as settings, especially the Ancient Greek cosmology. Are these fanfiction? For that matter, these works, the Indiana Jones movies, and the subject of this discussion weren't necessarily made by fans of the religious/mythological settings in question; they just used the settings. (The author of this series, for instance, appears to be rather the opposite of a "fan" of the Bible, in fact.) While I think one could reasonably argue that, by some broad definitions of fanfiction, this story series (and all those other works I just mentioned) can be called fanfiction, I also think that in practice it's very misleading to give such stories that label.
Epiblast: I'm going to go ahead and remove the word "fanfiction". If you think it should be reverted, it's easy enough to do so, since the original form of the phrase is right here.
S6x: About this entry:
While I'm normally all for total inclusion, should unwritten ideas be included? I could absolutely swamp pretty much any page on the wiki with the ideas I've had but never put into concrete form. I'm not going to delete it, just thought I'd mention it.
Mounting Holes: I love the Father Maxi quote, but a discussion between Chef and Stan is so good that I'd swap it in right now, if I didn't think it was, perhaps, too long. I'll leave it to the good folks here in discussion to decide...
Seth: It is good, but as you say too long. Plus i prefer the maxi quote.
Mavado: What about this one by Richard Dawkins?
I've had it deleted twice now, with no reason given by 68.151.125.228, care to tell me why? Should it be listed as literature rather than religion seeing how it's a non-religious interpretation of the bible, are you just afraid it might offend someone or is it just that it offends you?
Generic User Name: I have kept removing it because this is not an example of this trope; that would be Alternate Character Interpretation. If you want to add it to that entry, go ahead and do so. However, I would not because the quote is just another cheap shot from Richard "I have a religious mission in life to dispel all religions" Dawkins.
lee4hmz: The trope name is God Is Evil, and the quote is saying just that, so it fits. If you want to complain about Richard Dawkins, take it elsewhere.
Lale: How does the equation work? Wouldn't Satan be out of the picture?
Nezumi: That varies. In some, he's just a different form of evil. (Spawn's Malbioge falls into this, although he's not technically Satan, as does Shin Megami Tensei 1's Lucifer) In some, he's actually the good guy. (Shin Megami Tensei 2 suddenly shifted to this) It's also worth noting that some sources, such as Shin Megami Tensei, prefer to use the older interpretation of Satan as an angel serving God, making Lucifer or The Devil separate.
Seth: One of my Title Bin names got used :D
Lale: Where's the God Is Good flip side?
Ununnilium: That's the default. We already have a trope for that; it's called God.
- Mavado: You know, as a non-Christian I strongly object to the biblical god being referred to as good (especially when you actually read the source material).
Anyway, I'm pulling out:
- One of The Oldest Ones in the Book: The gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology more or less resembled bored, spoiled children who saw everyone on Earth as their Cosmic Plaything to torture, turn into animals, or rape (or any combination thereof).
...because a.) that's different, in that polytheist pantheons usually have at least one evil god, and b.) it's a lot more complex than that in the actual myths.
Oh, and I'm not sure the Heinlein spoiler is right; it's been a while since I read it.
Roland: About the Greek gods- actually, there isn't really a single 'evil god' among the major Olympian pantheon. You worshipped them all mostly because they had power, not because of any morality involved, and worship was more of a communal thing.
Ununnilium: Oh, yeah. But also, there wasn't a presumption of good in the first place (as you implied), so it doesn't fit here anyway.
fleb: (Much, much later...) It looks like that example is back, and seven bullet points have grown back in its place. It's the Lernean Example.
TravisWells: The Heinlein spoiler is almost right. The Greater-God (over God and Satan) isn't the creator. God DID create the world, but he did it for jerky reasons (to be worshiped, something Satan calls something like "perverse"). I can't figure a way to phrase that elegantly. I'll reread the book and get some sleep and try again :)
Ununnilium: Replacing with "Supreme Being", how about that?
TravisWells: That works. Although I finally realized we got the name of the book wrong. Fixed!
Red Shoe: That's basically, um, uh, the Albisignian Heresy (And it's got some overlap with neoplatonism and gnosticism): the Creator-God (Usually called the "Demiurge") is a lesser being than the "proper" God, because creation is not a good thing (the creator-god's motives don't enter into this; it's just a matter of the platonic notion that being all physical and stuff is bad, and being an abstract non-physical form is good). As I recall it, Old Testament God is the Demiurge, who creates the physical world, which is bad, and he's a bit of a bastard. New Testement God is the real Supreme Being, who is good, and gives us Jesus as a way out of being stuck in the lame-ass world of matter and physicality.
Ununnilum: IIRC, Job's cosmology is a bit different, but I think the word "demiurge" does pop up. (I got the book out of the library the other day, now I just have to read it...)
Burai: The Death Note example seems out of place, since (as I understand it) Light isn't a capital-G God but just a mortal suffering a bout of A God Am I; this list gets a lot longer if we have to count every bad guy who just happens to say "I am God!". ;-)
Although, its true shinigami might count, insofar as they subvert the usual literary expectations of The Grim Reaper as an agent of reluctant cosmic necessity.
Ununnilium: Agreed on Death Note, pulling it out.
- In Death Note, Yagami Light goes about making himself 'God of a new world' by killing off all the criminals in the world with the Death Note. When best-detective-in-the-world, L, gets on his case, Light begins to use some morally dubious tactics to prevent himself from being caught.
Seven Seals: "A particularly memorable Fan Fic this writer recalls has this as its premise..." OK, people, I hate it when you do this. If you can look up what it was so we can all enjoy it, do that, if not, then please leave it out. Going into fine detail about how one particular story that you can't name is a good example of a trope just doesn't help anyone, and it irks me in particular because you're making me curious about something I can't have. *pouts*
Ununnilium: YES! Please stop it. Cutting it now:
- A particularly memorable Fan Fic this writer recalls has this as its premise; God not only approves of and encourages all that the stereotypical religious fanatics preach about, He actually sent his Son Jesus to Hell for preaching the complete opposite before his crucifixion. Satan, on the other hand, is a lot more caring and altruistic towards the billions of souls wrongly thrown into his domain every day, taking advantage of a little loophole in his contract with God about dispensing due punishment to the damned to make the first two levels of hell (where a good majority of the "damned" souls are sent) as close to what heaven should be like as possible... though with a sick, sadomasochistic, and oddly pleasurable and enjoyable twist.
Deus Ex Biotica: Not to seem petty, but why was Gnosticism under "Literature" and in the past tense?
Ununnilium: Cutting:
- In Lucifer, God actually leaves the universe itself because he knows that his omniscience "fixes" the future into a specific shape and that the universe cannot properly live without him. Slightly subverted since the main character is a lot worse, and that God isn't so much evil as alien and aloof.
...because, well, how is that evil!?
Lale: Isn't a Religion section stretching for applying Media tropes?
Deus Ex Biotica: Not at all. Mythology is one of the oldest media. And don't try to teel me that the Old Testament doesn't have dozens of these things in evidence. (Card Carrying Villains? One-Winged Angel? The Messiah? Cant Get Away With Nuthin? The list goes on and on.)
Fast Eddie: Religion, politics, and sex. All flamebait. Thing is, you can't talk about stories without talking about one of them.
Lale: Thank you, Linus van Pelt.
Deus Ex Biotica: Lucky for me that out of those three, I only have politics.
Deus Ex Biotica: Moving the intentional works of fiction based on the Book of Job up to literature.
Nezumi: Removing the direct link to the Bartleby Tales fics, as this site tries to remain at least somewhat family-friendly, and a direct link to adult fanfiction doesn't really fit that. People who really want to read them can search.
Ununnilum: Eh. Personally, I'd reinstate the link; it follows the one-click rule, in that you can't directly jump from TV Tropes to "adult" material in one click.
SynjoDeonecros: As the editor of the Batleby Tales submission, I'm confused at this: first, I'm told to put a link to the story in, lest the edit gets deleted, and now I'm told the link's being removed (even though I clearly marked the link NSFW). Make up your minds, people. (BTW, I agree with Ununnilum's assessment, especially considering the link takes you to a list of chapters in the story, and thus would require an extra click to access any of them (and they're clearly marked with what kind of content they contain, so anyone not wanting to read them can just click out).
Nezumi: Eh, I don't always agree with Un, but this is definitely a case where his greater experience as a troper has to take precedence. Reinstating the link.
Citizen: I wanted to list Higurashi's Oyashiro-sama as a subversion, but since this page is about the God... meh.
Ronfar: I think Final Fantasy X is more of a case of a Corrupt Church than God Is Evil. I'm removing it.
Nezumi: I'm reverting The Bad Dog's edit to the Gnosticism example, as, judging by the Wikipedia article, it only refers to a specific Medieval sect that had some Gnostic elements while, TMK, the previous version was more accurate regarding generalized Gnostic beliefs. I'll add the new information as a subexample, minus some parts that are entirely irrelevant to this trope.
Darktalon: Reinstating the Religion section unless whoever deleted it without discussion convinces me not to.
Anon: Isaac's near-sacrifice is not a good example of this trope, since the story has an angel stopping Abraham's striking hand in the nick of time, and a ram appearing as an alternative sacrificial victim (a Deus Ex Machina par excellence)
Anon: Also, I can't help but feel that someone has a grudge against God and is showing it—the many instances of 'God is a dick' for one. Job is technically not a good example either since it was Satan who proposed the idea in the first place. And losing wife (who left on her own accord, by the way) and children can sort of be justified by meeting again in heaven. Sort of.
Dancingrage: Irregardless of God's dickness or lack thereof, my inner Grammar Nazi has determined that anything having to do with the Book of Job needs some cleaning up, as it looks sloppy. Needs neatening up and if that argument on the main page keeps going the section may go back into the void from whence it came, or may get fed to Cosmic Horrors of Unusual Size.
Lord Seth: Removed:
- See also the biblical book of Job, in which God allows Satan to pretty much ruin a perfectly nice and devout guy's life and the lives of people around him in order that he may test Job's loyalty to him. Later, once Job has proven himself, God rewards him by returning his former wealth in double the original amount. (But of course, the disease and the loss of money are easy enough to fix, but God also killed all of Job's children. There's an attempt to fix this by giving him new children. This editor is not the only person in the world that thinks this is stupid; see some of the other examples.)
- Also, in the editor's eyes at least, God did nothing to regain Job's love besides showing him the things he's created, such as the Leviathan. Knowing God created a big fish seems to outweigh the fact that God killed his children, his wife, everyone he ever came in contact with, cursed him with boils, and generally made his life worse than Hell.
- Well, the end result of the story is Job says "WHY?!" and God says "YOU DON'T GET TO KNOW", which is a pretty good life lesson, I think, but take from it what you will about how good or evil God is.
- Seemed more to this troper like "I CREATED YOU SO I OWN YOU SO BEND OVER AND TAKE IT!"
- This could be counted as God's Rape The Dog moment, or as an extreme case of Values Dissonance (wife and children as replaceable property).
- I was always informed, upon raising the question, that resurrecting Job's dead family would have been even MORE dickish, because Earth is like Hell by comparison to the Heaven that Job's righteous actions almost inevitably led to. So he was given children and a wife because he was better off with them, rather then to replace his old set.
- God didn't just allow Satan to screw with Job, it was God's idea in the first place.
- Actually, Satan approached God with that idea and God allowed it. Whether it's an example of God Is Evil or not is up to anyone.
- Excuse me; but this troper would just like to point out that (a) the story of Job is allegorical — i.e. not literaly true. I base this on the fact that the book is from the Jewish scripture, and the Jews do not believe in Satan — Satan in Job is an anthropomorphic personification of a 'sa-taan', which is the Hebrew word referring to a religious obstacle. Secondly (according to the vast majority of sources), the sacrifice of Isaac was a test in the form of seeing whether Abraham would do the right thing — i.e. NOT kill his son. He failed.
- There's also the story of Abraham and Isaac (or Ishmael), wherein God "tests" Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his only son. Apparently this is an acceptable request in God's eyes. Of course, it was all a test, but still, he asked. A man. To. Kill. His. Son. God is indeed a dick.
- Well, you can't say God's asking him to do something He wouldn't do Himself.
- That could be argued to be even more evidence of God being a dick.
- Considering that God had to sacrifice His Son, Jesus to save humans from eternal damnation, and Isaac was never meant to be killed anyway...no.
- Considering that God is really in charge of the whole eternal damnation thing, why couldn't He just forgive our sins himself? Guilt-tripping Jesus into being nailed to a plank of wood "because otherwise, everyone will go to hell and it'll be all your fault!" seems like a pretty dickish thing to do.
- Well, you can't say God's asking him to do something He wouldn't do Himself.
- One common view among creationists is that all the evidence for the conventional scientific view of the universe is the result of the Almighty dicking around with us in a similar way; somehow, though, they never quite make that final leap to God Is Evil. Other accounts attribute it to Satan or even a Government Conspiracy.
- I assure you that both there is a Jewish version of Satan (who operates more like a prosecuting attorney then a rebel leader) and that the vast majority of sources do not say Abraham was in the wrong there, although you are right that some of them do. And "satan" means "adversary", not "obstacle"; it needs to be referring to a living being.
- Everyone in every church I've been in seems to think Abraham passed the test.
Dancingrage: Lord Seth, did you feed the above to CosmicHorror as I suggested? Checked back and I'm glad to see this shipped off somewhere else.
Gideon Wells: I have a bug about the Breath of Fire's use of "disproportionate" amount of the final villains being the killing of god. The first three games is attacking the goddess, her son who picked up where she left up, and the "got better" goddess for the third game. The Goddess/God having a beef with each of the hero of that particular game's protagonist because of the previous heroes did.
Austin: While I respect this site's "No notability" policy, I think ideas alone are pushing it. Still, I think it's funny so I'll move it here.
"This troper has an idea that God is evil and the main characters go to kill him. However he is just a fill-in for God while God is on vacation. Needless to say when God gets back he is pissed and beats the ever living crap out of the fill-in. "
—-
Austin: " Describing her as a god is, to put it plainly, completely wrong, whatever Koizumi Itsuki may have told you. At best, she unconsciously generates Negative Space Wedgies and is an unwitting Barrier Maiden or MacGuffin Girl, but definitely not a goddess."
The original response to this pointed out that she could rewrite reality to her will, and has apparently already so. This is a pretty good definition of a God. Gods aren't necessarily the creators of the universe, nor are they necessarily omnipotent, but they are generally very powerful beings who can toy with reality, and Haruhi fits those standards, so I removed it. But not only was this put back in, it did so without acknowledging the counter argument. Restoring something that was removed for a reason without explaining why it's wrong is pointless and just plain inconsiderate. No, listing "your mileage may vary" isn't good enough. There needs to be specific reasons given as to why it should be removed, and if the show presents good enough reasons to argue both ways, then they need to be listed and left up for the individual reader to decide.
Blork: Regarding this line:
- Note the irony between this and the Corrupt Church. People have these as antagonists because nothing will happen to them.
Umm... as opposed to what? The vast majority of antagonists in fiction will not come after the author, largely because of the "fiction" bit". Do we need similar lines in every other villain trope?
One Month Later: Since there has been no justification for this line yet, I'm removing it.
Mr Brownstone: Meh. I changed the Stephen King quote for the John Milton one. Personally I think that diatribe is more in keeping with the Rage Against the Heavens theme mentioned in the description and goes some way to fleshing out the intentions of any author who likes to use the God Is Evil twist.
blueblaze94: I really don't know how to go about this,but according to the other wiki,"God" in the Shin Megami Tensei series isn't the Judeo-Christian god,it wasn't really clear,but just something REALLY close to him.I've never played the games myself,but if anybody knows for sure,can they change the article to reflect this?
semerl: I want to know who blanked the page, and remind it/him/her that sensitivity is not a positive trait.
