Basic Trope: Satan may be evil, but the Big Guy isn't any better.
- Straight:
- The Legions of Hell are invading earth, but God and his angels don't seem to care about the collateral damage fighting them, leaving The Hero to try to save humanity caught between the armies.
- Elysium the Creator enjoys her tyranny until Malucia the Light Star decided to act as The Starscream, something which didn't go well. Many years later, they still locked in an Evil Versus Evil War, with Alice and Bob acting as the Heroes who will try and stop them before they destroy the world.
- Exaggerated:
- Both Heaven and Hell are Fates Worse Than Death.
- Malucia is burning down orphanages while Elysium the Creator just ordered the angels to exterminate every last human.
- World of Jerkass From Bad to Worse.
- Downplayed:
- God and Satan both make all of humanity into their Cosmic Playthings.
- Elysium the Creator and Malucia may be jerks, but they have standards.
- God and Satan are both jerks, but one of them is A Lighter Shade of Black.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality. Both God and Satan are deeply flawed beings who act the best they can.
- Justified:
- Cosmic Horror Story, with God and Satan as both evil or simply operating outside of normal human morality.
- Elysium the Creator is an evil tyrant and Malucia is an ambitious rebel seeking to claim supremacy in her stead.
- Humans have crossed the Moral Event Horizon, and God has decided "Screw This, I'm Outta Here", leaving humanity completely defenseless against the genuinely evil Satan.
- Good and evil are just words anyway - the Powers That Be don't give a damn.
- God and Satan are quite human in behaviour, and with all that power, they're assholes.
- God and Satan have a quarrelsome and antagonistic friendship.
- Inverted:
- God and Satan both genuinely care about humanity, and everything they do is ultimately in their best interests.
- Elysium the Creator and Malucia are just buddies that care all about humanity.
- God Is Good, Satan Is Good, but Humans Are the Real Monsters. God and Satan are both convenient scapegoats to blame about human miseries, all while humans portray themselves as the innocent victims, continuously slandering both sides of evil things they aren't thinking of.
- Subverted:
- God or Satan has a change of heart, and later refuses to abandon humanity to the evils of the other.
- Both Elysium the Creator and Malucia decided to make a Heel–Face Turn and help humanity.
- Elysium and Malucia aren't gods at all; they're mortals who overthrew the truly benevolent queen of the gods, Faye.
- Double Subverted:
- But then they just backstab the human race anyway.
- However Elysium the Creator and Malucia backstab them and are having a good laugh about it.
- Parodied: Satan passes out free tickets to Metallica concerts while God hands out opal rings.
- Zig Zagged: God and Satan compete for who's Eviler than Thou, leaving the humans caught in the middle unsure of where to turn or what to do.
- Averted: If a God and a Devil exist at all, one will be a staunch ally to mankind while the other a deadly enemy.
- Enforced: "Hmm... having an almighty, benevolent God rule a world where demons regularly fight humans would just confuse the audience too much. Let's make Him or Her a Jerkass too!"
- Lampshaded: "So Let Me Get This Straight...... You're saying that the Guys Upstairs AND Downstairs are out to get us?! ...crap."
- Invoked: "Hey Mike, the humans' constant battle with Satan's gotten boring. Tell Gabe to mess them up while I create some popcorn - those little buggers will totally flip!"
- Exploited: Elysium is Malucia, with all that implies, and the apparent conflict between the two was engineered to keep the forces of Good and Evil busy, and mortals too afraid to act, while she works towards some hidden purpose.
- Defied:
- "Hey, Mr. Up-In-The-Sky! We can't BOTH oppress humans! If you start blasting 'em, I'll just give 'em first aid kits!
- Malucia decided to talk some sense into Elysium the Creator into becoming a good ruler instead of acting as The Starscream.
- Discussed: "Demons torched a hospital, and all the angels did was take a piss in the flames. Hmmm... think I'll quit my weekly Devotionals..."
- Conversed: "God and Satan have been portrayed every which way in the media, so it's only natural that they'd both wind up evil in some works."
- Deconstructed:
- The Hero realize that, since God AND Satan have it in for humanity, they have no greater power to turn to. This won't end well...
- God and Satan reveal to humanity that their pain and suffering for thousands of years was predestined, and sending all of them to hell was actually God's divine plan all along.
- Reconstructed: But after days of Level Grinding and Save Scumming, The Hero, and his/her Ragtag Bunch of Misfits decide to take on both the forces of Heaven And Hell. They win, freeing humanity from their oppressors once and for all.
Since this is supposed to be a reconstruction: The Hero then proceed to become just as bad as God and Satan had been, because it turns out that somebody has to do the jobs, and the nature of the job (particularly Humanity) is such that anybody who holds it will be a jerk, eventually, or quit. - Played For Laughs:
- God and Satan both wander around annoying the other characters with their asinine behavior.
- Elysium the Creator and Malucia are just jerks who pulls pranks on people and go so far as to trolling them.
- Played For Drama: The Heroine, wounded and hopelessly outnumbered by Satan's minions, heaves a sigh of relief when a squad of angels arrive. As the demons scatter, The Heroine rushes to thank her saviors. But then they draw their swords. The Heroine begins to scream...
- Implied: Satan is the Big Bad and clearly evil, but God doesn't seem to help the protagonists out that much, while the angels that occasionally appear are Good Is Not Nice at best.
Back to God and Satan Are Both Jerks.