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Wonderita: So isn't is weird for two people of conflicting theological origins to hang out all night?
So, it turns out that All Myths Are True; you can have breakfast with the God of Thunder, chat it up with the Anthropomorphic Personification of Dreams, or even have a heart to heart with The Grim Reaper. All the while remaining totally un-conflicted about remaining faithful to the Big Guy Upstairs or whichever major religion the characters follow; even Crystal Dragon Jesus can hang with the Powers That Be and get a high five.
A Crossover Cosmology is different from All Myths Are True in that many of the cosmologies involved are themselves mutually exclusive either in world view, history, philosophy, or all of the above. The issue becomes especially thorny when polytheistic religions with large pantheons are mixed with monotheistic religions and reincarnation-based belief systems. It's rarely inadvertent, either. Black Adam getting his power from the Egyptian gods whereas his successor Captain Marvel gets them from the Greek gods (and one Biblical figure) wasn't a slip-up; neither was making both Hercules and Thor superheroes. Writers have no problem doing this to "pagan" gods, and outside the mainstream they don't have much trouble doing it to God either.
This can be justified from the characters' viewpoint by having them point out that there's no reason they should believe that, say, Thor is a god in the same sense Jehovah is, when there are people who are flying around and summoning lightning, or are even immortal, who are plain old Mutants, metahumans, or aliens.
When taken to the extreme end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism it may result in a Cosmology where local deities are weak and irrelevant and Eldritch Abominations and other ancient nasties can and do casually traipse over any local deities' shrines and followers. Even in more optimistic portrayals, one has to wonder at the fairness of a universe that allows Galactus, Darkseid, Anti-Spirals, and Imhotep to exist.
Some belief systems work like this; the term "henotheism" exists to describe the belief that all gods exist, but one's particular god is superior. Of course, most people who ascribe to this don't have said gods playing croquet in their backyard.
Note this was how most non-Judaic religions worked. The Romans believed in Jupiter, and the Egyptians believed in Ra, but the Romans didn't think believing in Ra was wrong, just not for them. They experienced some amount of confusion in this regard when trying to take over Israel Judaea. The Romans also occasionally claimed other peoples' gods were their gods under different names, hence for example, the "Gallo-Roman" god Apollo Sucellus (combining the Roman sun god with a Gaulish god of agriculture), or Tacitus writing that the Germanic tribes worshipped Hercules (Donar) and Mercury (Woten).
See also All Myths Are True, The Multiverse, Lowest Cosmic Denominator, Clap Your Hands If You Believe, Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Fantasy Pantheon, Gods Need Prayer Badly.
Examples
Comic Books
Film
- In the Brendan Fraser version of The Mummy, Imhotep has god-like powers and is able to recreate the ten plagues, even though in the Biblical account of the Exodus story the Egyptian gods could only replicate the first two. The group of warriors who fight him, and whose ancestors gave him his power, are Muslims. And the Scorpion King in the sequel earned his powers and army from Anubis.
- In Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, there is no mention of what religion and/or philosophy the Chinese characters embrace, but the Dragon Emperor is a master of the Five Elements (used in a way, he seemed to come out straight from an episode of Avatar); we get some glimpses of Shangri-La, which is a Buddhist paradise (look at the statues); and Zi Yuan uses a book of magic which was already ancient at the time she cursed the Emperor and his army, written in Sanskrit. Something for everyone, really.
- There are traits of this in Pirates Of The Caribbean, with influences from Aztec mythology (the coins from the first movie), Greek mythology (Calypso) and nautical myths (Davy Jones, the Flying Dutchman, the Kraken). Non-Christian deities are referred to generally as "heathen gods".
- Indiana Jones: the first movie deals with Judaism, the second has Shiva (poorly), the third Christianity and the fourth deals with Pre-Mayan civilization gods, which are actually extraterrestrials.
Literature
- This is inverted in the Discworld universe, where there are multiple gods and anthropomorphic personifications (the kind that exist only because people believe they should exist), and the Omnians are portrayed as odd in their insistence on a monotheistic belief system. It is often stated that several gods appear in more than one Pantheon - for example, many religions have different Thunder Gods, but they are actually all the same god, wearing different hats. The book Small Gods explores in detail the process by which gods are created and rise to be powerful.
And Dios knew that Net was the Supreme God, and that Fon was the Supreme God, and so were Hast, Set, Bin, Sot, Io, Dhek, and Ptooie; that Herpentine Triskeles alone rules the world of the dead, and so did Syncope, and Silur the Catfish-Headed God, and Orexis-Nupt.
- This is a justified trope in Steven Brust's Taltos series, which takes place on a world inhabited by both humans and [[Elves Tolkienesque elves]] called Dragaerans. The gods of this universe are merely Sufficiently Advanced Dragaerans, who while worshiped by humans are treated casually/disdainfully by members of that race. In fact, one of the main Dragaeran characters is the daughter of the major goddess of the pantheon worshiped by humans.
- Seen in American Gods by Neil Gaiman. But he shied away from most references to Judeo-Christian theology, except for the Queen of Sheba. And maybe Shadow once meets Jesus.
- There's also that extended scene with the djinn, which comes from Islamic tradition.
- Everworld: every god of every mythology decides to make a parallel universe where they could all have a sphere of influence.
- In the Whateley Universe, an awful lot of cosmologies seem to be there. Great Old Ones have been banished from this realm, by the ancient Sidhe (who were shredded in that war). One mutant has been given religious powers by a sacred ring of the Catholic Church, and when she heals people she spends several seconds in Hell, being tortured by Satan (or someone who says he's Satan). There are demons and devils, which are actually different kinds of entities. The Tao is actively working in mysterious ways, partly through one of the protagonists and her mentor figures. Certain students at Whateley Academy are playing hosts to some of the obligatory Greek gods (Word Of God has confirmed this, although the original author of their backstory hasn't been heard from in some years), there's a catgirl-paladin of Bast (in her capacity as a Lovecraft-inspired Elder Goddess, though the link to Egypt is bound to still be there) and the Circe is one of the Mystic Arts instructors at the school.
- Lampshaded in John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos (which features nearly the entire Greek and/or Roman Pantheon) when a character is asked something along the lines of "How can you be a Christian when you know the Greek gods exist?" Interestingly enough, the answer made sense.
- It's also mentioned in Titans of Chaos that other pantheons do exist but that most of their members were destroyed in the war with Chaos.
- In Christopher Moore's Coyote Blue Anubis is Coyote's older brother. In other books set in the same universe we meet Jesus, a human who has become the god of a cargo cult, the Celtic goddesses Babd, Macha and Nemain as well as angels, demons and djinn.
- In Glen Cook's Petty Pewter Gods, not only do multiple pantheons of deities exist in the same world, but they compete for worldly prestige in order to maintain their claim on temple real estate in Tun Faire's Dream Quarter. As the gods' traits and looks are dictated by their followers' beliefs, this means that the senior deities of two rival pantheons look virtually identical, because their idols were commissioned from the same craftsman, who used the same mold to cast figurines of both.
Live Action TV
- In the Stargate universe, there's a different group of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens behind a great many belief systems. The villainous Goa'uld seem to have the biggest piece of the pie (they're the Egyptian, Greek, and Babylonian gods, and one of them even impersonates Satan.)
- Xena: Warrior Princess eventually expanded from Greek mythology into demonstrating the literal existence of any and every religion's deities, including the monotheistic God and Hindu gods.
- Many Hindus were not happy about this, because their gods were depicted as fictional characters alongside Zeus, Hera, and Ares. As one of them said, "Only a fool would worship a fictional god."
- Alan Moore would disagree. He worships a (by his own admission) fraudulent (though historically "real") god known as Glycon.
- Lampshaded in Rome, when the very religious Vorenus asks Pulo to show some respect toward the Egyptian gods because "They where powerful long before Rome was born"
Mythology
- One story in mythology claims that Helen of Troy was spirited away to Egypt for her safety, where Ra extracted her ka (identical spirit double), which was taken to Troy with Paris unbeknownst to him (so, yes, the entire Trojan War was fought over a very pretty doppelganger). The Greeks and Egyptians involved took care to draw parallels between their chief deities (Zeus and Ra respectively) during conversations. Being, you know, ancient Egyptian and Greek, they make this Older Than Dirt.
- Many demons in modern Christian mythology are thought to have originally been the gods of the Hebrews' neighbor cultures. As the Hebrews gradually went from the henotheism that was the norm in those days to monotheism, they also went from "God tells us not to worship other gods, because he is jealous" to "God tells us not to worship demons, because they are evil". Baal (originally many different gods) is probably the most famous example of this phenomenon.
- That's a very biased interpretation. If the Bible is true, then the various gods worshipped could very well have been demons from hell masquerading as gods. Also, the Bible describing God as "jealous" does not mean that he is jealous or petty like humans, but rather that he makes the justified statement that he is the only true God.
- Whose is a biased interpretation?
- It's not a biased interpretation. It's simply an anthropological one. For the purpose of studying Hebrew history one cannot make the judgment, one way or another, that The Bible is true. Therefore, it's only reasonable to interpret it through a cultural lens rather than a scientific or religious one. We can't prove that Baal is a god or a demon. But we can show that Hebrews thought of him as a demon while the neighboring Phoenicians thought of him as a god. That's not biased at all. it's good history and religious reconstructionism. It's also, of course, worth mentioning that it is very definite that this is how late antiquity and early medieval Christians saw the Greco-Roman gods - as demons. They didn't deny their existence but simply said they weren't gods.
- I seem to recall that the only angels (and here I use "angel" to mean this sort of spirit in general, so demons are included) in the Bible mentioned by name are Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer. Maybe it's because I'm Protestant and there are some books we don't consider part of canon; I'm not sure. Thus, while I guess the Hebrews could have labeled neighboring gods as demons (which hey they could have been; I wasn't there) that doesn't necessarily mean that they were really thought of as anything except "other gods." I do know that it is probably very very unlikely that Satan would appear as we tend to draw him (because he's supposed to trick us into doing evil and well nobody's going to be fooled by that look); that probably originated while Europe was being turned Christian and paganism, as a sin, was considered to be of the devil. Therefore, it is logical that he would have been drawn in the form of a pagan god, so maybe the one we think of is just the one that caught on.
- Satan and Lucifer were seperate entities in the Tanakh. As for whether the ancient Hebrews considered Baal a demon or a rival god (indeed there's evidence that he was originally the son of Yahweh) it should be noted that Christian editions of the Bible would have changed him iinto a demon regardless of the original belief.
- Also, the Devil's appearance was appropriated from the Celtic Horned King.
- Also his domain, Hell, was derived from the Norse goddess of the dead Hel
- Technically, the Bible (and the Hebrew) just uses an older concept of "jealous": zealous guarding. Today, we mostly use the word as a synonym for envious, but the words used to be roughly opposites.
- It's likewise worth noting that at the part of the Bible where God calls himself jealous, the Hebrews hadn't yet started to consider him the only true God in existence, but the only God for their tribe. Monotheism was a concept that developed slowly across many stages, rather than an instant innovation. Consider it the world's largest Cosmic Retcon.
- In the ancient world, honoring another nation's deities was considered a friendly gesture. Cyrus of Persia, for example, paid homage to Marduk, a Babylonian god, while allowing the Jews to rebuild a temple to their own god.
- A great many stories in the Bible have crossovers with other civilizations' mythologies. Most obvious example: The Flood. In Jewish/Christian tradition, God grows angry at humanity, decides to flood the world, tells Noah to save two of every animal (plus some extras for food and sacrificing) and his family and friends, etcetera. In the epic of Gilgamesh, there is a character named Utnapishtim who tells Gilgamesh virtually the exact same story, even down to the specific number of extraneous animals, as well as the story of the birds used to find land (in the Bible, a Raven is sent third and does not come back, indicating it found land. In the Epic, a Raven is sent first and does not come back, indicating it found land.
- As well, there are hints that the opening chapters of Creation were influenced by Babylonian myth
 . In the phrase "and darkness was upon the face of the Deep", the Hebrew word for "Deep" is a mishy-moo Hebrewnization of the Babylonian word for "Tiamat"—Tiamat being the water-serpeant slain by Marduk, and from whose corpse, Marduk created the world. There is reference in a later Biblical passage of God slaying a great watery lizard. Marduk is said to have slain Tiamat by blowing wind into her, then piercing her with an arrow. God is said to blow wind into people to kill them, as he kills Moses by blowing wind into his mouth (no puns).
Role Playing Games
- The original game lines in The World Of Darkness all had creation myths specific to the supernatural monster they talked about (werewolves, mages, vampires, fairies, mummies, wraiths, demons) which were at times hard to reconcile if not mutually exclusive. Some were specifically Judeo-Christian, others were paganistic or had cosmologies unrelated to either. In some cases they had world views and game mechanics that said all other supernatural creatures should not exist, or that they ("they" usually being "mages") could do anything... except cure vampirism or lycanthropy.
- Mage having Clap Your Hands If You Believe as its key principle goes a long way though and combined with some alternate realities link the various game lines fairly well... except the vampires who are sometimes called Cainites and throughly linked with The Bible for their Back Story to being literally cursed with God. Albeit even that is dissmissable as superstistion and most "facts" in the World of Darkness were presented from a specific and unobjective point of view.
- The new World of Darkness is even more inconsistent, the werewolf and mage backstories being particularly egregious in their incompatibility. Therefore, it cheerfully (as cheerfully as Wo D gets, anyway) ignores this fact. They even lampshade the problem in the Changeling book, which contains an "Arcadia" which is a truly nasty place; the discussion of this mentions that no one knows whether it's the same "Arcadia" that Acanthus mages use to get their power.
- This isn't quite the same though, since there is never significant evidence that the mage and werewolf backstories are anything other than mythology (since technically the cosmology of the worlds from the mage and werewolf perspectives is mostly the same).
- It is however subverted in Mage: the Awakening (specifically the Sourcebook Astral Realms) which has it that while every god ever believed in exists, they only do so in the Temenos (the collective human unconscious) and only have as much power as human regard affords them. Thus, a god like Anubis is powerful, though not nearly as powerful as he was, because even if he is not believed in, he is still a relevant cultural symbol. They also possess insights only into human matters (albeit to a great extent) lacking any understand of greater cosmic issues. It's pointed out that they still believe they are gods, and will not look kindly on any attempt to inform them of their true nature.
- In Scion, you play the offspring of a God, and have a whole bunch of different pantheons to choose from. Admittedly, they did it in a unified, focused way that makes some sense within the system and world.
- Several D&D supplements, such as Complete Priest's Handbook or the various editions of Deities & Demigods, discuss methods of integrating different historical pantheons into a campaign world. Options range from ruling that different pantheons' deities are inherently blind to one another's existence, to saying that all deities are part of the same mega-pantheon, with regional pantheons simply omitting gods who are less popular locally.
- In Rifts Earth, the mythological Pantheons each ruled directly over the civilizations that worshipped them, and clashes between the civilizations often included clashes between the Gods themselves. Most of them left the Earth a long time ago, but are starting to turn their eyes back towards their old territories, and the world at large... Except for the Egyptian gods, who are busy being the most powerful pantheon of a Medieval European Fantasy world.
Video Games
- Age Of Mythology. If that game isn't an example of this trope, nothing is.
- Since even the most basic of random monsters in the Shin Megami Tensei universe are taken from some mythology or other, it ultimately ends up with a cast numbering in the THOUSANDS, taken from everywhere and anywhere. Inclusions range from most of the Norse, Egyptian, Roman and Chinese pantheons, to Zoroastrian gods, patron spirits of obscure, African tribes, minor demons and angels from Catholic apocrypha, and even a variety of anthropomorphic personifications. And most of them don't like you much, either.
- World Of Warcraft's pantheon contains expies of the Cthulhu Mythos, Greco-Roman, Norse, Voodoo and Mayincatec gods, as well as Native American beliefs, the elemental lords and the dragon aspects. In addition, the original Warcraft game referred to the Judeo-Christian God, but that was retconnned later into the more vague "Light". The Naaru were later introduced as the physical manifestations of the Light.
Web Comics
- Gunnerkrigg Court mixes Native American mythology (Muut, Coyote, Glass-Eyed Men), French folklore (Reynardine and Ysengrin), Norse Mythology (Brynhildr appears briefly and she mentions "the old man" Odin), ghosts, fairies, and a wide variety of psychopomps.
- To a lesser (namely because of the updating schedule) extent, Dresden Codak. The Codakverse possesses, amongst other things, Egyptian gods and Toltec gods and a regular Fantasy Kitchen Sink of other absurdities.
- A plot point in Order Of The Stick, where the arguments between the different Pantheons, namely the Northern gods (based on the gods of Norse Mythology), the Southern gods (based on the animals of the Chinese Zodiac), the Western gods (based on the Babylonian pantehon), and the Eastern gods (based on the gods of Greek Mythology), who accidentally caused the Snarl, which wiped out the Eastern ones.
- Lampshaded in this strip of The Non Adventures Of Wonderella.
- The Gods of Arr-Kelaan has several pantheons existing together, though to be fair, many of those pantheons were actually the same gods.
Western Animation
- The animated Disney Hercules series frequently crosses over Greek mythology with others (especially Norse mythology); Zeus and Hera have dinner dates with Odin fairly often, Hercules stands in for Thor (right before Ragnarok is put into motion, unfortunately for everyone) and the three Fates also serve as Urd, Skuld and Verdandi.
- In Gargoyles, most mythical monsters and gods turn out to be real and either based on Gargoyles, or on the Children of Oberon. In addition, the New Olympians are an island of
misfit toys creatures from Greek myths descended from Echidna.
- Family Guy showed Peter thank Jesus, who is then seen to state that it wasn't him, only for Vishnu to come up and quietly state that he is used to it.
- The Simpsons has done similar gags; God and Jesus Christ are real beings, but Vishnu sits at the center of the Earth, Buddha also dwells in heaven, Col. Sanders sits at the Lord's right hand tossing popcorn chicken into His mouth, and Spongebob Squarepants is an apparently manic deity.
- Samurai Jack has featured appearances of members of the Egyptian (Horus), Norse (Odin) and Hindu (Indra) pantheons although it's hinted that they might be Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Also the Big Bad is the outgrowth of a remnant of a Cosmic Horror that looked an awful lot like Azathoth.
- Captain N: The Game Master was a variation on this theme, except that instead of all myths being true, the premise was that all video games were true. Thus, a kid from our world was able to hang out with characters from Castlevania, Mega Man, and The Legend Of Zelda, among others.
- South Park has Jesus refer to his Chinese younger brother, an obscure Shout Out to the instigator of the Boxer Rebellion. The instigator of the Boxer Rebellion claimed this relationship for himself.
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