This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Can anyone explain to me why is this page listed under "Truth in Television" if there are no Truth in Television examples???
{Georgie}: Well if I had to guess, I'd say that the person who listed it there believes that this is more or less how [all/many/some] real world religions got started and/or operate. Personally, I'm in agreement. And I can just imagine the edit war we'd have on our hands if we were any more explicit about it than that on the trope-page itself.
Tanto: Seems like I've been calling for a lot of lumps lately...this is not distinct enough from Corrupt Church to justify its own trope. Yes, I read the justification, and I don't find it sufficient.
Mister Six: I dunno, I think it's a different enough concept to leave alone. There's a whole different story to a church that's always been a cover for evil than a church that turned to evil.
Tanto: Eh, not really. To the heroes it's the same (Villain with Good Publicity, mass public support, Ancient Conspiracy), to the Muggles it's the same, the methods are the same, the storytelling tricks done with it are (usually) the same. The precise origin seems like a very minor detail that could very easily be folded into Corrupt Church, which needs to some fleshing out anyway.
Ununnilium: Personally, I support lumping here as well. From a storytelling standpoint, it doesn't make a lot of difference, except that a church that didn't start out this way is a lot easier to have sympathetic members of.
Pteryx: Of course, you don't fight corruption, even pervasive corruption, in a legitimate church quite the same way as you fight a church designed as a front in the first place. In the former case you have the true teachings of a legitimate religion to revive; in the latter, the issue of trying to get people to support something completely anathema to them. In this way, it is different for those who interact with it. The motivations of the villains are often different as well. Still, I'll deal if you keep the distinction, a la the old and new versions of Mighty Whitey.
Mister Six: Does it have to be an ancient religion? I can think of at least one example of a young church that's also evil at heart.
Pteryx: With the kind of unquestioned-except-by-the-resistance mass penetration I'm trying to get across here?
Mister Six: Well it's literally a single church, but the unquestioned thing applies.
Pteryx: Then it fits.
sawblade: I don't think that the Magic quote is rellevent. Granted, it isn't obvious from the card game, as the church is very very old at this point. But it did have humble origins.
Ninjacrat: New best typo ever:
fleb}: How... how do you get from "prevents" to... wow.
Vampire Buddha: Removes natter and cruft (15:15 GMT, 16/5/2009):
- In a way, it's subverted. The faith itself is Lawful Neutral. The quori though are mostly Evil.
- Not really. LN is the most dangerous of all alignments. LN can be used to justify an awful lot. The Inquisition, for example.
- The fact that the Orzhov are both Ravnica's most powerful religion and their foremost financial syndicate should give parishioners pause.
- They also run organized crime in Ravnica.
- Umm... in the only 30th century comics I've read, Guardians of the Galaxy, they still follow the same dogma, being responsable for subjagating a thousand worlds looking for a messiah, who they then genetically engineer as the most powerful superbeing ever made. They also hold a 'to the death competition' to decide who the child's surrogate mother is going to be and torture the protaganists who they capture.
- In a way, it's subverted. The faith itself is Lawful Neutral. The quori though are mostly Evil.
— The Church of God Awaiting from the Safehold series might better fit Corrupt Church than this. It was set up for a secret purpose, but not really an evil one: the goal was to keep humanity low-tech so the alien empire wouldn't notice and crush them. Most of the really bad aspects seem to be due more to later corruption than the original setup.
- The Immaculate Faith from Exalted. Its effects on the world are decidedly mixed, and it was created for good reasons. Yes, it props up the often very corrupt Realm, and discourages mortals from rising above their station. But it also encourages the Dragon Blooded to act compassionately, and displaces the often even more corrupt religions that surround it.
- Of course the Immaculate Faith is in fact essentially accurate in most of its proclamations. Gods should NOT engage in 'Prayer for Product' relations with mortals. Promotion by reincarnation does work as they describe. The meditation and other spiritual disciplines that they promote can lead to enlightenment (and the concomitant kick-ass martial arts). Dragon Blooded ARE superior to mortals both in obvious fact and in the unseen cosmic hierarchy. It's only in some of the unfortunate details about history, exaltation and who the most powerful and important gods are that it lies.
- Not to mention that a lot of the more villainous Dragon-Blooded characters either only pay lip service to the Immaculate Faith and ignore its deeper teachings, or are so fanatically gung-ho about it that it irritates even other Immaculates. That said, the faith is STILL an example of the first kind of Path of Inspiration; it was specifically created by the Sidereals to give them an in-roads into the Realm's belief system, make it easier for them to hunt down returning Solars and Lunars, and generally make sure that the Realm developed along the lines they wanted for the most part.
- The Freemasons are suspected by some outsiders to be one of these.
- Which is odd, considering that they hand out memberships to almost anyone that's done enough charity work, regardless of faith denomination.
- Almost every religion in the world is (usually incorrectly) suspected to be this by conspiracy theorists, actually.
