Loophole Abuse in Religion and Mythology.
- The Bible:
- "The wages of sin is death", which is unfortunate because sin is not just about humans do, but what humans are- inherently imperfect beings descended from the fallen Adam and Eve. It is flat-out impossible to live up to the unfallen standard of goodness (which includes, among other things, never having a disobedient thought, and intuitively understanding not only the letter of the Law but the spirit with which it was intended). But... no one ever said it had to be the sinner's death. Hence the tradition of animal sacrifice. Or that it had to be a physical death, and not the metaphorical death that truly repentant sinners experience when they change their ways and turn to Christ. There isn't a rule saying that people can't be resurrected after death, or decreeing how they have to act (beyond "love the God who saved you, and your fellow creations").
- Egyptian Mythology justifies the reason for 365 days in a year because of this trope via the sky goddess Nut and earth god Geb. Fearing the power of their children, Ra had forbidden them from bearing children on any day of the year. Nut, however, got the god of wisdom Thoth to gamble with moon god Khonsu and won enough moonlight to create five new days. As these five days were not part of the year in which Ra forbade Nut to give birth, Nut had Osiris, Set, Isis, Nephthys and Horus the Elder. This led to Ra punishing the two lovers by having their father Shu keep them forever apart.
- Mahabharata:
- Vritra obtained a promise from Indra that he would not be attacked by the god with anything made of stone, wood, or metal, nor anything that was dry or wet, nor during the day or the night. Indra subsequently slew Vritra with a weapon made from the foam of the ocean at twilight, neatly bypassing all three of these restrictions in doing so.
- In Norse Mythology, Loki once made a bet with the dwarves Brokk and Sindri that they couldn't impress the gods with new, amazing treasures and weapons and wagered his own head for the bet. When Brokk and Sindri win, Loki weasels out of decapitation by saying that he only wagered his head, not his neck. Of course, as the dwarves swiftly noted and equally swiftly demonstrated, this still left a lot on the table; they opted to sew his lips together, which delayed Loki in his subsequent swindling by, ooh, several hours at least.
- One version of Tristan and Iseult features one on Isolde's part. Once caught by King Mark (Isolde's intended husband), Tristan and Isolde are made to face King Arthur's judgement. Since Mark recognizes that the situation is no one's fault (Tristan drank the Love Potion intended for Isolde so she'd love Mark), he agrees to a compromise where Isolde will be with him half the year and with Tristan the other. Specifically, the half of the year where trees have no leaves. Isolde then points out that evergreen trees are a thing, and so may stay with Tristan the rest of her life. It still ends badly, because Tristan feels guilty about the whole thing (Mark being his uncle and near-adoptive father) and tries his hardest to get himself killed in battle until he succeeds.
- The Ramayana:
- Ravana demanded as reward for his long tapasya that no deva, asura, or rakshasa (basically no god, devil, or demon) be able to defeat him. Knowing he would use this immunity to evade justice for his many future crimes, the gods said, "Okay", and then incarnated the god Vishnu in a human body to defeat him. They also created the vanara- a species of humanoid semidivine monkeys- to serve as Vishnu's army. Ravana was so arrogant that he couldn't imagine humans or animals ever being a threat to him, so he didn't include them in his request.
- Japanese Mythology has, in one version of the Yuki Onna story, the titular creature spare a man because he was just so damn handsome but she made him promise to never ever reveal this to anyone or she’d kill him. Years later the man meets a woman, gets married and is enjoying a wonderful life, but finds it hard to keep quiet about his encounter. One day he reveals to his wife that he survived an encounter with Yuki-onna, only for the wife to reveal to him that she is, in fact, her. She spares him again as he technically didn’t break his promise, but she threatened to come back and kill him if he ever mistreated the children she bore with him.
