History PlayingWith / TheGodsMustBeLazy

** The Divine Ones grew too powerful from millenia of worship. Any direct creation or destruction would include entire continents and any creation far enougj away to send help would take millenia to actually show up.

* '''Downplayed''': The Divine Ones step if the threat is to the [[OmnicidalManiac universe as a whole]].

** The Divine Ones personally involving themselves would result in MutuallyAssuredDestruction. So they act through proxies like in the ColdWar.

* '''Subverted''': They might seem lazy at first, but do something helpful later on.

** The gods of the setting ''are'' helping out, only on cosmic levels of being, like revitalizing dying or ravaged dimensions, infusing them with new matter and energy, or fending off Eldritch Abominations before they can threaten earth.

* '''Enforced''': HowToStopTheDeusExMachina

* '''Downplayed''': The Divine Ones only fight if the BigBad is a OmnicidalManiac.

* '''Double Subverted''': This ''something'' is delivering a HolyHandGrenade. Its still up to the mortals to actually ''use'' it.

* '''Zig Zagged''': In one battle the Divine Ones help, but the next they don't, the following one they're more advisors then actually helpers but in the fourth they do everything.....

** The gods get off their divine butts and actually do something helpful.

* '''Exploited''': The GenreSavvy BigBad launches his plan on the presumption that the Divine Ones will not interfere.
* '''Defied''': [[WrongGenreSavvy He's]] [[OhCrap wrong.]]
* '''Discussed''': "Are you sure we won't get in trouble for us?" "Of course not, the Divine Ones are lazy."

* '''Deconstructed''': The inactivity of the Divine Ones results in the worshipers gradually decreasing in number until, eventually, [[LaserGuidedKarma they are completely forgotten]], and [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly they start starving]].

%%* '''Reconstructed''': ???

* '''Inverted''': The Divine Ones are so effective at battling evil that the mortal heroes sit back and watch

* '''Parodied''': The Divine Ones are sitting on couches and watch the PunyHumans fight from the sidelines, [[PassThePopcorn with popcorn]]

** The Divine Ones don't want to babysit their creations

* '''Justified''': The Divine Ones live by self-imposed rules against meddling in the mortal realm any more than what is absolutely necessary.
** The Divine Ones don't want to baby their creations

* '''Parodied''': The Divine Ones are sitting on couches and watch the PunyHumans fight from the sidelines, [[PassthePopcorn with popcorn]]

* '''Averted''': The gods get off their divine butts and actually do something helpful.

'''Basic Trope''': The higher power(s) who created the universe are conspicuously absent, sometimes even in situations where His/Her/Their intervention would seem to be most urgently needed.

* '''Downplayed''': ???

** The Divine Ones don't actually exist at all.