Religion Of Evil - Television Tropes & Idioms

Most often, although not exclusively, a Fantasy trope, the Religion Of Evil is a religion that has no pretenses of being anything other than... well, evil. Quite often it'll be a Card Carrying Villain that refers to itself as evil; sometimes it won't say that magic word itself, but its tenets and actions will be such that its followers pretty much have to be Always Chaotic Evil. Anyone whose idea of temple decoration is the skulls of their human sacrifices being used as lanterns probably qualifies.

Expect black robes, the aforementioned human sacrifice (especially of the virgin kind, and usually in a painful manner), and dark plots to destroy or conquer the world. Don't expect much of a detailed, coherent religious philosophy beyond "serve the God of Evil in return for power (or to keep him from smiting us)" and perhaps a bit of Might Makes Right.

This religion tends to come in two forms: either a small cult, or the state religion of Mordor or The Empire. In the latter case, most of the time the masses will follow the religion out of fear rather than any genuine religious devotion. Somewhat more rarely, it will openly exist as a legitimate religion in a "good" state as the worshipers of the evil member of a pantheon.

This trope is usually seen as unrealistic, as no or very few examples of anything close to it exist in Real Life. (At least, outside the writings of people about their enemies.) However, the actual existence of evil gods in the setting can go a long way toward justifying it.

Contrast with the Saintly Church. Contrast with Path Of Inspiration, where an evil religion masquerades as a more ordinary faith. If a genuinely "good" religion is being twisted into evil, it's the Corrupt Church.

Examples

Anime

Naruto has Hidan, a follower of the Jashin ("evil god") religion, which among other things requires that he kill all of his opponents.

Comic Books

The Church of Crime in The DCU.
- At least they do it smart, with four branches that focus on four sins: the Deceit wing gets people to learn the religion by claiming that the whole thing is a hoax that they're seeking to expose, the Lust wing runs brothels and either slowly corrupts or outright blackmails repeat clients into Church membership, the Greed wing plays up just how much money there is to be made in crime, and the Murder wing... well, that's for people who already like killing. Hey, sometimes you gotta preach to the choir.

Film

The Kali worshippers in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, based on the Real Life Thuggee cult.
- Though the real Thuggees believed that they could stave off the apocalypse by murdering people, which is more Utopia Justifies The Means
  - And also, it was nowhere NEAR as dramatic as in the movie. The word "Thugee" means "hidden", because the members of the cult would join a group of travellers, strangle them all in their sleep, and move on, without being discovered.
  - And thirdly, the Thuggees were first and foremost a secular criminal organization, whose killings were for the purpose of robbery. There was a cult within them who ascribed religious motivations, but there's little evidence it was very popular with the membership. There were irreligious members and even Islamic Thuggees who certainly had no truck with the cult.
The evil, machete-wielding cult in the MST 3 K movie: The Final Sacrifice. (It's implied though, that they were corrupted by the villain, whose influence was destroyed upon his death.) Servo and Crow parody the whole Religion Of Evil trope in the last host segment of the episode, where they dress up as machete-wielding robed cultists. However, instead of doing evil, they prefer to bake muffins and watch Sisters episodes. This freaks Mike out so much that Servo sighs and promises that they'll do "proper" cult stuff like worshiping evil emanations and lopping people's heads off for fun. Mike is satisfied.
The Sith in Star Wars. Like Warhammer 40K Chaos, following the Dark Side seems to pretty much turn you into Always Chaotic Evil.

Literature

Quite a few examples in various Conan The Barbarian works, by Robert E. Howard and other authors: Golden Peacock, Hanuman the Accursed, Set, Tsathoggus, Yama, Yezud.
- Some in Fritz Leiber's Nehwon stories, too: Earth God, Gods of Trouble, Hate, Rat God, Spider God, Tyaa.
- In fact, these are quite common in Sword And Sorcery, even relative to their frequency in Fantasy generally. Convenient Obviously Evil villains.
In S.M. Stirling's Nantucket novels, the sadistic Dr. Alice Hong starts a cult in Bronze-Age Achaea (Greece), with herself as the avatar of the Lady of Pain, to be worshipped by torture and sacrifice. This cult actually has official status within the Sacred Collegium, as Hong is the senior wife and lieutenant of William Walker, King of Men.
- Stirling also introduced the Cult of Malik Nous, the Peacock Angel, in his alternate history novel The Peshawar Lancers as a particularly nasty creed. It is the prevalent religion in the remains of tsarist Russia following a meteor shower that destroys most of the northern hemisphere and involves the worship of the Slavic dark god Tchernabog, cannibalism and virgins who can tell the future (who are allegedly raped and killed when their prophetic powers start to drive them insane).
  - The name Malik Nous sounds uncomfortably like Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel of the Yazidis...
  - Yup, that's the one, all right.
The worship of Torak in the Belgariad, a prime example of the case where only the Grolims (priests) have any real faith and the masses follow out of fear. They keep the faith into the Mallorean, even though Torak is now dead. At the end, it's implied that Eriond's first act as a god will be turning the Grolims towards a less vicious path.
The Faith of the Pannion Seer in Steve Erickson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen is a particularly nasty example, most evident in its conversion of the combat capable population into cannibal fanatic shock troops (through implied Mind Control) and the rest into their supplies.
The Yuuzhan Vong from the Star Wars Expanded Universe have an entire priesthood devoted to genocide and non-consensual bio-forming.
Worship of Liart in The Deed of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon.
Pretty much any group of worshippers of an Eldritch Abomination, such as those found in HP Lovecraft and his imitators' works. "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!"
- "Phn'glui mgl'wnafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
- "Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods With a Thousand Young!"
In the novel Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Persia is tired of worshipping Ahura Mazda and getting nothing for it; a cult that worships his enemy, the evil Angra Mainyu kills the leaders of the country and takes over. It seems to pay off, as the members of this cult, who describe themselves as evil, actually do gain supernatural power, but it scares the hell out of everyone else, gods and humans alike.
The Sisters of the Dark in the Sword Of Truth series have it as their stated goal to unleash the Keeper (read: Satan) on the world and end all life. (Except theirs; they believe that they will be granted immortality for doing so.)
In the Whateley Universe, the Cult of Kellith. Kellith, the grandchild of Shub-Niggurath and also a direct descendant of Cthulhu, has been foretold to be the parent of a race which will wipe the earth clean of humans. Supposedly, the cult currently has about 100,000 members worldwide. The person who is supposed to be The Kellith is one of the ~~heroes~~ protagonists.
The Satanists in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens lampshade and parody this concept, with a coven of secretly Satanist nuns who are doing their best to fulfill the prophecies leading to the conception of the Antichrist, but are otherwise just decent people following the tenets of the religion they were raised in, not that different from anyone else.
Played with in the Discworld. There are a few demon-worshipping cults, and Evil Harry Dread has occasionally run a temple of evil, but most people who've compared Discworld demons to Discworld gods have decided the main difference is PR. The worshippers of Bel-Shamharoth, the Soul Eater, on the other hand, are clearly insane. And mostly very, very dead.
- It should be pointed out that there is a "Young Men's Reformed Cultists of the Ichor God Bel-Shamharoth Association", or "YMPA" in Ankh-Morpork...
The thinly-disguised version of Islam in The Chronicles Of Narnia. C. S. Lewis does his bit for ecumenicalism by saying any Tash-worshipper who isn't evil is actually worshipping Aslan unknowingly.
- A polytheistic version of Islam? That's a pretty thick disguise, actually. But it's a religion of evil all right.
Robin Jarvis has three of these in his two Deptford trilogies; the cults of Jupiter, Hobb (and his co-gods Mabb and Bauchan), and Suruth Scarophion. All of them practice sacrifice of their fellow sapient animals, since there are no human characters, in gruesome manners. Jupiter eats his sacrifices, Hobb's followers skin their victims alive in a process referred to as the "bloodybones", and Scarophion's cult (known as the Scale) poison their victims with his blood, which dissolves the victim into a puddle of tar. In books aimed at children. Frankly this troper is amazed they're not more popular.
- Humans are present in the setting- the Jupiter prequel is set during the reign of King Charles II- The Plague and the Great Fire feature in it.
The Order of the Moonless Night from The Lonely Winds. The basic stance of the religion is “vampires are better than everyone and everything else, so let’s express it by torturing and killing mortals and generally being vicious bastards.”
The Inheritance Cycle features that batshit insane religion at the evil mountain, which really looks like it was just put there to have an evil religion. And if one looks closely, it has some Christian and Jewish themes to it.
- This is strange, as the Paolini seems to portray religion as a bad thing (check the argument between Arya and the dwarf on it), but the seemingly atheistic elves and humans have some rituals that rely on having a religion. Maybe he just Did Not Do The Research.

Live Action TV

The Wraith worshippers in Stargate Atlantis are mostly in it for the benefits (not getting eaten).

Tabletop Games

Most Dungeons And Dragons settings have one, if not dozens of these; the followers of Lolth from Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk and Takhisis from Dragonlance are only the most prominent examples.
- Subverted in Eberron with the death/ancestor worship of the Aerenal Elves. Plenty of trappings that would be red flags in most settings (skull motifs, efforts of worshipers to look more dead, fallen troops remaining on duty) but they are as benevolent (if somewhat less universalist) as the Silver Flame.
  - ...And then played straight with the Blood of Vol. Uncharacteristically, the setting information tries to be fair to those guys, despite their obvious black-hat practices like human sacrifice, necromancy, and immortality experiments. The cult's guiding moral philosophy is explained at great length and often from a sympathetic perspective; the faithful truly believe that this life is a torment and undeath is an acceptable escape. It's almost too bad the cult was founded by a diabolically evil lich who is using it for her own nefarious ends.
  - Played even more straight with the Dark Six. A classical pantheon of evil deities cast away from the main pantheon.
- Planescape's Factions throw a wrench into this. There are quite a few of them who follow a belief system most of us wouldn't hesitate to describe as "evil" if we came across it in reality, but Planescape does its best to portray them from a detached, non-judgmental standpoint, often with inspiration from real life. The ridiculously callous and selfish Fated justify themselves based on, essentially, the writings of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. The Dustmen, who have all of the trappings of a Religion Of Evil (decorating things with skulls and wearing black robes and using zombies and such) ultimately worship death because of their philosophy that true life can only exist in a perfect world outside of this one, a la the Gnostics or Vedanta Hindus. The Doomguard has a philosophy closest to cartoonish Destroy The World villain philosophies, but even they get the opportunity to argue for their beliefs, and in a world like Planescape's accelerating the apocalypse might not be the worst thing. Importantly, all these potential Religion Of Evil beliefs are defanged by the nature of the Planescape setting, where the nature of reality is arcane and abstruse enough that few of them actually get to put their beliefs into practice in ways we would consider meaningful. It's heavily implied that one wouldn't find the Doomguard so friendly if one met them anywhere other than Sigil.
  - Actually, not all the Doomguards want to fasten the apocalypse. Some of them want even to delay it as much as they can, others just want to use entropy to improve the word around them. The only thing they need to believe as the Doomguards is that the destruction cannot be stopped in any way and everything will inevitably end.
- Interestingly enough, in the default D&D cosmology evil people generally still go to the so-called Lower Planes (assorted hellish afterlife dimensions, although only one group is considered 'Hell' proper) after death to be tortured by the local denizens. Since the game also provides magic that can bring the dead back to life and presumably report their experiences in the hereafter, one may well wonder why this doesn't seem to discourage anybody...
  - Because it's not a punishment. They go where their alignment fits the most. In one of the adventures, the players can meet some thuggish petitioners from the Abyss who doesn't think they ended up too bad. Yes, it's dangerous, but if you're sharp and tough, you can survive and even become more powerful. Most denizens of the Lower Planes don't even envision themselves in any other place - with a notable exception of Carceri, where anyone want to escape from.
  - Fiendish Codex II notes that most evil people are egotistical - they don't look at lemures or dretches (bottom-of-the-barrel devils and demons, respectively) and think that will be their afterlife. They think they'll shoot to the top of the infernal hiercharchies immediately. In addition, resurrection magic doesn't generally leave the revived with memories of where their soul ended up, so nobody has firsthand information as to what happens after you get killed.
- Oddly enough, it's been implied that the upcoming fourth edition of D&D is making this a little more realistic. The evil gods who actually have large (rational) followings aren't typically seen as "evil" (non-evil worshippers of Bane might just like his policy of tyranny as an ideal form of government, or find demoralizing foes an effective tactic, and Nerull might just be worshipped as a personification of Death without the evil overtones).
In the new World Of Darkness game Vampire: The Requiem there's Belial's Brood, a covenant of vampires that are debauched and cruel even by vampire standards. And this is a Darker And Edgier Sick Sad World where being a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire is a pipe dream. So trust me: "Debauched and cruel by vampire standards" means they aren't so much at the bottom of the barrel as outside of it holding up a liquor store while raping the dog. Their cults seek nothing so much as the deconstruction of the practitioners' humanity, taking their Karma Meter as low as monstrously possible in a bid for power from their inner "Beast".
Enter worship of any of the Gods of Chaos in Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 and you hit Religion Of Evil levels very quickly. Each Chaos God has their own angle: Slaanesh worshipers pursue emotional excesses, Khorne worshippers seek only to spill blood in Khorne's name, Nurgle worshippers spread disease and despair, and Tzeentch worshippers are fuelled by ambition and seek to evolve and change. The downside is that there is a roughly 99% chance of getting possessed, sacrificed, burned by witch-hunters or simply turning into a screeching, frothing, mindless mutant abomination with four heads that vomit blue fire. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but only Chaos gives you eyes inside your mouth.

Video Games

The worshipers of whatever ancient deity you pick in Eternal Darkness.
The Cult of the Damned in Warcraft.
- And the followers of the demons of the Burning Legion from the same series.
In Mass Effect, the Geth religion basically comes down to the total extinction of all organic life in the galaxy - unfortunately, the gods they worship - The Reapers - are quite real...
- And in an expansion of the trope The reaper Sovereign sees them as so inferior that it is insulted by the geth's worship of it.
"Los Illuminados" from Resident Evil 4 have a massive army of Black Cloak monks, cannibalism, institutionalized child murder, and colossal Body Horror.
In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there's the Mythic Dawn, a cult lead by the Big Bad, who, among other things, require you to offer 'red drink' to Mehrunes Dagon (the god they worship) in order to join. There's also the Dark Brotherhood, who are a combination of a Religion Of Evil, a Murder Inc, and Knight Templars.
- Also, in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, there is the Dagoth Ur cult whose followers first start seeing things and then turn into semi-sentient monstrosities who can only do their master's (the Big Bad) bidding and are to be killed on sight.
The Chzo Mythos series of games concerns The Order of Blessed Agonies, a cult whose members worship the eponymous Chzo. The cult has prayer books, religious texts, a symbol, a founder, and a fairly clear objective. Chzo is referred to as a "pain elemental", and appropriately, all of the order are masochists.
- You might also call them a "religion of idiots", because they hadn't got a clue that their objective was completely wrong. They were also being fooled by their "god". Chzo just wanted a new prince, and the order were just a whole bunch of Xanatos Suckers.
At first glance, the Order of the Harvest Moon from the adventure game Harvester seems like a slightly skewed Brotherhood Of Funny Hats. Of course, once you've passed the final step of their initiation ritual, which involves navigating an Evil Tower Of Ominousness, killing horrible monsters, and having sinister and nihilistic conversations with really nasty people, you've discovered their true colors... and their true intentions.
Lampshade Hanging in Star Control II: the Ilwrath are theocratic self-declared worshipers of Evil and Death, but if the player confronts them over this ("If your actions are judged by your society as correct, aren't you, in fact, good?") they tie themselves into a logical knot before deciding to attack the player for being annoying.
A bit of a subversion in Dead Space, as the Church of Unitology seems like this as you go through the game, what with them wanting bring the Marker back to Earth and turn everyone into Necromorphs, but you'll find somewhere in the middle of play that there are Unitologists that didn't think turning into Necromorphs was all that of a great idea, but Mercer killed them. Played straight in that this really seems to be how the Church and most Unitologists are.
Towards the end of Persona 3 as the end of the world approaches, a number of doomsayers and supposed prophets begin extolling the virtue's of preparing the world for Deliverance. In other words, making everything nice and clean for Nyx to muck it all up. The problem is that Nyx's approach inspires feelings of hopelessness and futility, and a lot of people start believing that it's true, adding to the hopeless feelings of the protagonist's Nakama.

Webcomics

The Dimension of Pain demons in Sluggy Freelance worship the Demon King, who thinks the highest compliment he can give something is "How evil."
- The same goes for the cult of K'Z'K started up by Chilus.

Western Animation

The Uhluhtc worshipers in Heavy Metal.
Ezekiel Rage from The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest had the Book of Rage, a supposed bible from which all apocalyptic prophecies must come to pass, and which he worships fervently. Subverted in the fact that the book was actually empty, save for a picture of his dead family.

Real Life

The Aztec religion was long believed to be a Real Life example. Modern research has a somewhat more nuanced view: while human sacrifice played a major role in the religion, it was not as frequent as previously believed and some of the sacrifices may have been willing.
- In the RPG Shadowrun, the Powers-That-Be in Aztlan (formerly Mexico) have twisted this legacy into a really nasty cult/magical power.
- The mass sacrifices of the Aztecs were more about "we want your land, and are using our religion to justify killing you" than real religious faith.
  - Some think the entire military/religious system of the Aztecs was set up to distract young male aristocrats, turning them against other cultures so they wouldn't take over their own. The sacrifices were just another symbolic part of this system, showing that death for a higher purpose was a good thing. It was also a convenient fear tactic against the people they conquered, of course!
As were the (related) religions of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, with supposed sacrifices of children for their god Moloch. It is debated among researchers whether Moloch was a god or just a term related to sacrifice, and others debate just how common sacrifices were.
- It should be noted that most sources on these two civilization are Greek and Roman. One may wonder how much of this was propaganda akin to WWI tales of Germany.
  - Which does not make them neccessarily untrue (the German atrocities were certainly exaggerated and many were fabrications, but there was no smoke without fire.) Certainly archeologists have labeled a large childrens cemetery as the Tophet. As might be imagined the arguement over whether or not sacrifice took place has been politicised, making an unbiased study difficult or impossible.
Media portrayals of Satanism also tend to fall into this trope, especially during the so-called "Satanic Panic" of the 1970s and '80s.
- There is a real Church of Satan, propounding Neutral Evil values (to be followed by a self-selected elite, not the general public), but it does not practice human sacrifice or devil worship. What it's really all about is pride. Satanists do no worship Satan, they worship themselves.
  - The real life Church of Satan is not Neutral Evil, it is Chaotic Neutral pretending to be Chaotic Evil. And you are right, it does not actually even believe in Satan. It's really just badass agnosticism.
  - Actual Satanism (of the Satan Is Good Black Mass sort) exists, or at least existed, though it is extremely difficult to determine where fiction ends and the genuine religious practice begins.
The Scientology according to the Image Boards. Just google "project chanology" and see how the Internet has declared war (in the form of civil protest) against them!
- They have always been causing all types of trouble from making horrible movies to their inquisition like methods used by Catholics in the past.
Christianity and Judaism would occasionally turn rival gods into demons.
- Such as the Canaanite god Ba'al Pe'or who is probably the inspiration of the Demon Baal.
  - Or the Canaanite god Ba'al Zevul, "Lord of Heaven," who in The Bible becomes the demon Ba'al Zevuv (Beelzebub), "Lord of flies."
- There's also some Christians who think other Religions are lies taught by Demons.
  - It isn't modern day but I remember seeing a quote by a Crusades era person saying this about Islam.
  - To say nothing of the accusations tossed against the various denominations of Christianity itself throughout the years. Even now, there are people who don't consider Catholics and Unitarians (as examples) as "real" Christians and supposedly are "evil and immoral" because of it.
There is The Church of Euthanasia, which is founded on hatred of humanity and encourages its members to kill themselves.
The Druids, at least according to many Greek and Roman writers. There is, in fact, more evidence for the horrible human-sacrificing Druids than for most other views of them. On the other hand, it comes from the pens of their enemies.

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