Grandpa God

Pull My finger.

"People often make God to be their father, and He ends up as a Big Beard In The Sky — because that's what your father is when you're five years old."

—Om, Small Gods

God, when given a visual appearance in media, usually appears as an old, bearded man with white hair and robes. He also has an undeniable air of wise authority, possibly glows or has a Holy Backlight, and has a booming, authoritarian, yet somehow understanding voice.

Grandpa God is a manifestation of how many people, at least in the West, like to view their Almighty Deity — pretty much as being the personification of their grandfather. Because let's face it — like it or not, when most people think of religion, particularly Christianity, they end up thinking of something old — as in, several thousand/billion years old. If God's been around telling us to do stuff this whole time, He simply has to look like an old family authority figure, or else how would we know well enough to respect Him?

There's also the fact that, well, God has to be visually depicted in some manner, and while something like a featureless glowing light or evershifting fractal are more accurate in that they convey sexlessness and the absence of an actual physical body, they are hard for viewers to get an emotional read on due to the lack of a face.

Of course, in order to keep from mistaking Him for one of those old people we like to make fun of, He needs all that other fantastic aura stuff, so even if He's old, He can still scare the bejeezies out of us if He feels like it.

This character is particularly popular in Art and Western Animation, or pretty much anything that's drawn instead of any work with actors. This live-action absence of Grandpa Gods is largely because finding a person in Real Life who looks like they could be God and can act like Him is incredibly difficult.

Some believe that this portrayal of the Christian God is taken from the Greeks' image of Zeus. Of course, it could also be that Zeus's portrayal came about from the same association of divinity with wisdom and age that motivated Christians to portray God as elderly. After all, this same association motivates more contemporary artists to create mystical old men like Santa Claus and Gandalf.

These days, odds are even that God will either be this or Divine Race Lift (if not both). Interestingly, Grandpa God seems to be treated with equal respect (by other characters) regardless of whether He is being used in a comedic or dramatic way. This is a character type that exists mainly because everyone can recognize who it is almost immediately.

This character usually, but not always, lives in Fluffy Cloud Heaven.

A Sub-Trope of God and often a way to show God Is Good by emphasizing wisdom and love. Contrast with You Cannot Grasp the True Form, a common way of depicting God in a non-physical way. Compare and contrast the King of All Cosmos. Compare Big Red Devil, a popular image of the Devil often used in works with a Grandpa God. Little Miss Almighty is an inversion of sorts. Contrast Hot God, for religions that like their deities a bit more on the sexy side.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• God as a cranky old man appears in one chapter of Akira Toriyama 's Doctor Slump. He looks almost exactly like Master Roshi in Dragon Ball, and acts almost like him too. (He lives in a small house in the skies, eats, watches TV, reads porn and so on). ^{Full confession} He is Master Roshi. Or Master Roshi is the God from Dr. Slump. Apparently Toriyama liked the character so much, that he redesigned him in Dragon Ball as the perverted Turtle Hermit. They're even voiced by the same voice actor in Japan (the late Miyauchi Kohei.)
• Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • Subverted: There's a bearded, white-haired, white-robed figure who calls himself Father...but he's the Big Bad and the closest thing their universe has to a Satan figure. He's trying to invoke this, though; he wants to become God. (He's also Ed and Al's brother by a technicality, not their grandfather.)
  • Notably, of the two religions we see in the setting, Ishbala apparently has an anti-idol ordinance in place, and Leto is a sun god with the robe and beard look. Both are monotheistic faiths centered around a male entity known for wisdom; the latter was at least partially hokum made up by a skillful shyster, presumably also drawing from the same tropes as the Homunculus of Xerxes for his tone. Seems to be the standard deific model of the region.
• In Death Note, the temple built to Kira features a depiction of him as this. What they don't know is that Kira is a handsome young man!
• In Another World with My Smartphone depicts God in a Japanese way, as an old bearded man wearing glasses and a kimono.

Art

• Trope Codifier is found on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo Buonarroti's elderly, bearded portrait of God emphasizes the Creator's wisdom and has solidified the tradition of representing the Christian God as an old man.
• Raphael Sanzio:
  • The Creation of Adam and Eve portrays God as a bald, grey-bearded old man like many other portraits, but here, God has a frazzled, slightly messy beard, and lacks the musculature of many similar depictions of God. Still, God's face is one of grandfatherly love, perhaps because God's glad that his son Adam is going to get set up with a nice girl.
  • Raphael Rooms: "The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament" differentiates God the Father from God the Son by displaying God the Father as a man with a long grey beard and hair down to his shoulders, presiding over God the Son's throne.
  • The Vision of Ezekiel shows God looking like your typical wise grandfather with a flowing grey beard, except his open red robe shows off God's rock-hard abs, which indicate omnipotence.
• Medieval artists needed to show Baby Jesus was truly divine, so they tapped into the "wise old man" trope to show his infinite wisdom. What this means is that we have dozens of paintings and tapestries of Mary holding a weirdly old-looking baby, sometimes even with a beard. You can see a lot of those examples early in this video on Baby Jesus's depiction.

Comic Books

• In Persepolis, when Marjane speaks to God, He takes on this form. The prophets, however, all take on the specific caricatures of the people who they are based on.
  • In The Film of the Book, she has a dream sequence after attempting suicide in which she speaks to both God and Marx. Marx's bearded appearance at least is justified since that's what he actually looked like.
  • In the comics, when she learns about Marxism for the first time, she even mentions that Marx looked like God except with a curlier beard. God comments on this when he next "speaks" to her. Interestingly, her image of God came before she learned about Marx so it's not like she modeled Him after that.
• In Lucifer, God appears in several forms, from a being of pure light to taking the forms of others. Elaine eventually asks him to take a form she doesn't know, leading him to take on the appearance of... an old, grandfather aged British gentleman.
• God of the old God Comics. He's surprisingly badass for a guy of that age.
• The Highfather from New Gods is an archetypal Grandpa God, with some Obi-Wan thrown in for good measure.
• In Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil, when Billy is first taken to the Rock of Eternity, he kneels before the white-robed, long-bearded Wizard and meekly asks if he's God. Shazam replies no and tells Billy to stand up; you're not supposed to bow to wizards.
• One of the panelists at the "Cereal Convention" in The Sandman (1989) is a tall, wild-haired, thick-bearded man whose table-tent name plaque reads "God".
• Played straight in the underground comic God Nose. God is depicted as an elderly male with a long white beard and even a Cool Crown.
• Wonder Woman: After the Golden Age of Comics ended and the Greek pantheon started to show up in the book Zeus was, is and always has been depicted as an older man with grey hair and a beard, even though his older sisters all look like they're twenty at most.
• In Marville, when Al and Lucy use their Time Machine to travel to the beginning of time, they encounter a man "who may or may not be God" who appears differently to both of them. To Lucy, he appears very much as this archetype, while Al sees him as a Superman expy of all things, leading to the two squabbling about the "true" appearance of God. This leads to a rather questionable moment of Lucy saying He "looks exactly as he does in the Bible", and that "I know a flowing white beard and a wise Caucasian brow when I see one!"

Flims — Animation

• Hercules: Zeus is depicted as one in this film.
• King Triton from The Little Mermaid (1989) is a merman variation of the trope. He is actually based on Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, so this is expected.

Films — Live-Action

• Done in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Bizarrely, the God here is also W.G. Grace, an English 19th-century cricket player. In a joke that only those on the British Isles could possibly understand, for cricket fanatics, this man pretty much is God.
• The Matrix somehow managed to pull this off while simultaneously Lampshade Hanging Divine Race Lift in the Architect (older white man) and the Oracle (older black lady). The ruling intelligence of the Machines takes the form of a baby. Word of God (pun unintended) claims that this is a deliberate subversion of the "god is old" trope.
• Oh, God!, although George Burns doesn't have a beard.
• In Dogma, God's human form on Earth is revealed to be that of an elderly bearded man. After His mortal body is killed and He returns to heaven, He comes back to Earth in another form to fix things up — as a young, pretty, rather goofy woman played by Alanis Morissette.
• Morgan Freeman's portrayal of God in Bruce Almighty and its sequel Evan Almighty is probably inspired by this trope... although that doesn't make it any less awesome.
• Much as we'd like to forget it, the crew of the Enterprise met a Grandpa God in Star Trek V (naturally "He" turned out to be an Ax-Crazy phony). However "God" makes it clear he's taking A Form You Are Comfortable With because I Have Many Names.
  Bones: Is this the voice of...God?
  "God:" One voice, many faces. (the faces of godly effigies appear until we get to Grandpa God) Does this better suit your expectations?

Literature

• C. S. Lewis's apologetic book The Problem Of Pain points out that Christians aren't claiming that God is some kind of generic nice guy who just wants people to enjoy themselves. (And, it's obvious that the world isn't ruled by this kind of generic nice guy.) Lewis's label for this conception of God is "the Grandfather in Heaven," and sure enough, an unserious trope like Grandpa God does often consist of portrayals of the kind of benevolent geezer that Lewis was contrasting against his own more serious ideas about God.
• In Dragonlance, Fizban, a cranky old man, is one of the forms of Paladine.
• Odin appears in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul as the old, grey, one-eyed "Mr. Odwin". He sleeps a lot and considers clean linen to be the best thing in the universe.
• Terry Pratchett's works often sum up this trope as "the big beard in the sky". The Last Continent in particular features a god who takes this form because it's what the wizards expect a god to look like, but doesn't really understand why.
• The Belgariad:
  • Top God UL, father of the universe, takes the form of a kindly old man with a white beard and a nimbus of white light.
  • Aldur, god of magic, appears as a white-bearded old man in robes. His sorcerer acolytes try to emulate him, making him the in-universe source of the Wizard Classic image.
• The Left Behind series' depiction of God in the form of Jesus Christ, based on the Book of Revelation. Notably in the Dramatic Audio version of Glorious Appearing, it doesn't stop Naomi Tiberias from commenting on how handsome He is.
• Overlapping with God in Human Form, in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the old beggar man who appears at the beginning of the first and second trilogies and acts as The Chooser of the One is a kindly, white-bearded, grandfatherly figure who may or may not be the Creator. Interestingly, the Creator's antithesis, Lord Foul the Despiser, when forced by Covenant to take on a human form, also appears as an old bearded man, except that while the Creator is ragged but kindly, the Despiser is elegant and dignified, but coldly contemptuous.
• The animated adaptation of Der Münchner im Himmel depicts God as the usual long-bearded old man wearing a blue gown for a change.

Live-Action TV

• Lampshaded in Odyssey 5 (though the "old white guy" turns out to be a Sufficiently Advanced Alien taking A Form You Are Comfortable With instead).
  Sarah: I guess I should've expected it.
  Neil: What?
  Sarah: God is an old white guy.
• Crow makes a joke of pointing out the commander's resemblance to this in Mystery Science Theater 3000's take on Space Mutiny. "Sting, Debbie Reynolds, and God!"
• Averted in Joan of Arcadia. God comes to Joan in many unconventional forms, including a black school lunch lady.
• Lucifer portrays God as a black grandpa (played by Dennis Haysbert), in the same vein as Bruce Almighty.

Mythology and Religion

• In Norse Mythology Odin is always depicted as an old greybeard; how He may look in particular depends on the situation but He is always an old one-eyed man.
• Zeus is also usually shown like this, as in modern adaptations such as Clash of the Titans and God of War II. Even though he isn't exactly the same kind of deity, it's quite likely that his artistic portrayal ended up inspiring later images of the Abrahamic God, except for the Muslim one.
• Averted by Christian iconography^note One exception is Catholics, who interpret the ban on sacred images as a ban on false gods., in that it's forbidden to make an Ikon (an image with sacramental power) of any person of the Trinity except the Second (Jesus) (since He has a human nature as well as a divine one, and can therefore be depicted).^note Although a surprising number of unofficial depictions of the Holy Spirit show a dove. The bearded God? A metaphor.
  • Subverted with Jesus, who is believed to be God's human incarnation in Christianity (though of only one member of the trinity). The poor guy was killed in his thirties and he presumably stopped aging after his resurrection.

• Chinese folk religion often depicts the Jade Emperor, the ruler of heaven, as an older, benevolent authority figure. One of his many titles is "heavenly grandfather." And in Confucianism, your grandfather isn't only someone you should respect - you have to.

Newspaper Comics

• The Far Side uses this basic model of God usually for jokes involving puns or certain eccentricities of Creation. Gary Larson specifically depicted God this way because it's "how most of us think He looks", and as such it was the form least likely to tick anyone off.
• In Frank and Ernest, God appears in this form, discussing creation with angels, or dealing with the dead.

Tabletop Games

• Pathfinder: Among the core pantheon of 10 gods, there are 2 who fill this position. Erastil is as old as hunter-gathering itself, appearing as an elderly stag-headed humanoid and preaching a return to the Good Old Ways. Meanwhile, Torag, the patron god of the dwarves and the forge, is just as old, serving as the wizened patriarch of the dwarves' racial pantheon. He's far grumpier and considerably more like a traditional War God than Erastil is.

Theater

• A famous promotional image drawn by Al Hirschfeld for the original Broadway run of My Fair Lady shows Eliza Doolittle being worked like a puppet by Henry Higgins being worked like a puppet by a Grandpa God on a cloud. God is a caricature of George Bernard Shaw, who wrote Pygmalion, the play on which the musical is based.

Video Games

• Ramuh in the Final Fantasy series often appears as a white-bearded man, emphasised by his signature attack being to strike enemies with lightning as 'judgement'. Most clear is in Final Fantasy VI, where Ramuh appears as a kind-hearted old man sitting in a chair and taking care of the sick Terra.
• Scribblenauts: Writing "God" creates a deity with white hair and a long beard.

Webcomics

• God in the world of Wigu / Overcompensating is the typical white-haired beardy, except that he lives in a trailer park and spends all his time in a monogrammed dressing gown.

Web Original

• The animated segments of the Crash Course episode "Christianity from Judaism to Constantine" use God's design from the Sistine Chapel, bearded and covered in flowing red robes, with the only major difference is that the animation allows them to show God's beard constantly shaking with power. Taking from the Sistine Chapel's depiction, probably the most famous image of God, helps to immediately show visual learners what's being discussed and also prevents distracting from the lesson with any of the creator's own unique theological visions of the divine.

Western Animation

• God's portrayal on Family Guy fits the exact basic physical description called for by this trope. The humor around the jokes involving God are based around Him cruising the bars, hitting on chicks, and generally acting exceptionally un-Godlike.
• In The Simpsons:
  • God's face is always obscured on the show, and He is portrayed as being a giant. Otherwise, He very clearly represents the image of a grandfather. In His first appearance on the show, Homer's description of Him is, "perfect teeth, nice smell, a class act all the way."
  • He's also not a half bad guy, even giving Homer his Frisbee back when he arrives in heaven, and agreeing to delay the Apocalypse when Homer pleads his case about loving his family more then he would enjoy heaven without them (He even Lampshades this by yelling "Deus ex Machina" when he does it. He also told Homer that religion was more of a personal thing, which lead him to starting his own theological path in life (Although that last one might have been a dream, since its implied an act of God torched the Simpsons home when he was too big of a dick about it).
  • One episode subverts this by having God appear just off-screen, and the other characters describe him as having, well, more body parts than us normal folk do. Namely, five fingers. Look closely.
  • Another has Him claim that omnipotence is the result of three eyes, and that a stolen eclair will go straight to His five thighs.
    Joan, give ME your dessert!
  • God appears in one couch gag segment, where we get to see His face for the first time...but only for a moment before He's sucked into oblivion with the rest of the cosmos.
• God, the Devil and Bob plays a funny twist on this one: here, God is a graying old man, and also a hippie. Aside from thinking Humans Are Bastards and wiping the whole universe from the face of existence that is.
• Veggietales features God on several occasions. In Moe and the Big Exit he appears as a tumbleweed that burns but is not consumed. In both Snoodle poems and (allegorically) The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything he appears as a Grandpa God.
• Tripping the Rift plays this trope straight, but God occasionally shows a wicked sense of humor (appropriate for the series).

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