Hi
Thanks for starting this, Larkmarn; I'll close the IP thread.
It's supposed to be Our Gods Are Different, but with a "clever" name. I vote to just change it over to that. The various Our Monsters Are Different tropes have proven to be very effective at encouraging tropers to write about what exactly is different, thus averting ZCE's.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
As I recall, the Our Monsters Are Different tropes are supposed to be about "what are the common attributes for creatures called X in this work".
If so, I'm not sure if the proposal to switch the page to Our Gods Are Different means to make works explain:
- Creatures in workname that can (list main attributes) are called gods.
- The (name in work) of workname can (attributes in the definition).
Personally I always thought this was sort of gods of various theologies exist or are used to fit a theme of a work, they usually end up fighting each other but that is not always the case.
And example would be Persona 4 gods from over 30 theologies are used as personas to help the characters. Or in Highschool Dx D heaven and hell exist, when they have an anti terrorism conference they invite the Norse pantheon to attend.
I think that is what this should be.
edited 16th Apr '15 2:44:44 PM by Memers
Memers, you're welcome to make that as a new trope, but it's not supported by the name, the definition, the examples, or the sistertropes.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
We already have that trope, anyway: Divine Conflict. I see no reason that it can't cover pantheons fighting each other as well as more internal squabbles.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Exactly what is so different about that from the way it is now? This page covers a crap ton off stuff, it literally is various god or gods appeared a work. The only real difference from now is it would exclude fictional gods, which would probably need another page.
Coming at this with a different angle in, What about splitting this into a tree?
- Overall page about differences in godly portrayals and fictional religions in general, no examples.
- Public Domain Gods aka gods that people actually believe or believed in appearing in a fictional work, accuracy of the portrayal varies.
- specific pages about said pantheons, if there are enough examples of uses.
- Fictional Gods
- Godly Kitchen Sink
- Public Domain Gods aka gods that people actually believe or believed in appearing in a fictional work, accuracy of the portrayal varies.
Why would fighting be required?
edited 16th Apr '15 9:31:20 PM by Memers
I assumed you wanted a trope about gods fighting.
Ahh nah, they just often do fight. Honestly the name 'Gods Are Greater' sounds like they do fight.
I wouldn't mind expanding Divine Conflict to have a subtype about pantheons fighting other pantheons or 1 v 1 mashup fights.
edited 16th Apr '15 9:26:11 PM by Memers
@Memers: I think the trope you're thinking of — i.e. 'Deities from different theologies exist in the same work' is already covered by Crossover Cosmology.
The name is recognizable as belonging to the Our Monsters Are Different family, but only for people who know that some of them have a "funny" replacement for the word "different."
I support switching with the redirect Our Gods Are Different.
Ahh, well that is a page that needs to be pimped especially with this one.
So thoughts on post 8?
edited 18th Apr '15 10:24:33 PM by Memers
I like Our Gods Are Different a bit more. The reason why that snowclone pattern is not actively fought against is because research back in 2010/2011 indicated that it doesn't attract ZCE as much as plain named tropes.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I agree. With the name Our Gods Are Different, entries are (hopefully) more encouraged to actually explain how a pantheon in a given work are "different" from other portrayals of deities. The suggestions in @8 feels way to broad, and I'm quite certain that people would use it as simply "there are deities in this work".
Right now it is being used as 'any gods in a work' with bonus points for having more than one.
But even Our Gods Are Different would break down 'any gods in a work' as well though as portrayals of deities are never consistent even with the exact same deity. It would probably end up needing to divide each deity by some kind of category.
My idea was dividing it up by theology like having a folder or page for each pantheon and talk about how they specifically are portrayed in works and wicks for appearances. But now that I think about it they are not consistent at all, like the Shiva from Final Fantasy is nowhere close to the Shiva in Shin Megami Tensei they arnt even the same gender and the latter is pretty accurate to the religion and the former isn't always portrayed as a deity. That kind of thing is probably another trope I guess.
That isn't really the only way to divide it up though I guess, we could folder them by different qualities like exactly how powerful they are? A breakdown like 'truly omnipotent > Superhero Gods > normalish person > completely powerless > long dead > never actually real'
Edit: also a being a deity in a work is completely a character trope, although it would be nice to label them as a more specific type of deity.
edited 19th Apr '15 7:43:43 AM by Memers
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
That's why I'm not sure if the proposal to switch the page to Our Gods Are Different means to make works explain:
- Creatures in workname that can (list main attributes) are called gods.
- The (name in work) of workname can (attributes in the definition).
I don't know maybe both?
Some examples that come to mind, how is this layout style?
- Dog Days has giant ageless dragon gods that seem to continuously shape the world around them, a trained priestess is required to communicate with them and protects them from demons.
- Record Of Lodoss War had all their gods die in the world's creation story, not a myth, worshiping and invoking them grants power. The gods are divided into greater gods like Falis the God of light or Kardis the God of destruction and lesser gods like Ganeed God of Thieves.
- The Shin Megami Tensei franchise has gods, angels, demons and everything in between from over a hundred real theologies around the world with powers that vary wildly between entries but only YHVH seems to consistently be in the 'omnipotent' category and evil. While other gods vary like Nyx, the Greek Goddess of Night, goes from omnipotent and omnipresent goddess who will destroy the world if she wakes up in Persona 3 to a moody bartender in a bar that serves deities and can be killed in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne.
edited 19th Apr '15 9:10:32 AM by Memers
I think Memers examples are the sort of things we're looking for. This trope is about gods appearing in a work and how the work uses them. It's not just for any time anything named after a god shows though. So Shiva, the aeon from Final Fantasy shouldn't be listed, but when the god Shiva shows up in Alice and Bob it should.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Usage of various public domain gods like say Thor in Marvel, Star Gate SG 1, Shin Megami Tensei, or whatever, whether they are actual gods or not in the work is a trope. Not necessarily Our Gods Are Different although I could see it commonly misused for just that especially with the whole possessive 'our' in the name.
I mean while there are gods in say Persona 4 Thor in it is just a Persona, an aspect of a person's psyche that takes on physical form that can transform into other gods likenesses as that person's psyche evolves. Not an actual god in the setting but completely looks the part.
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Maybe YKTTW that as a stopgap for misuse?
edited 19th Apr '15 7:01:32 PM by Memers
Yeah, I think that needs to be it's own separate trope.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
I think that makes three tropes, all distinct from each other, although they do all fall under the Super-Trope of "settings with different deities".
- Incarnations of Immortality has several "incarnations" of natural forces, such as Death, Fate, Time, and War. They all have supernatural powers beyond what humans possess, and have special powers related to their bailiwick, which makes them impossible to defeat in that one area. They all possess different forms of immortality. Some of them cannot relinquish their powers without finding a replacement.
- Detective Comics has the planet of New Genesis, where all of the "New gods" live. They are all more powerful than normal humans, and are locked into an eternal struggle against Darkseid.
- Marvel Comics uses the Norse gods and their home of Asguard for some of their storylines. Thor often visits Earth, which he calls Midgard.
I dont think there is 3 tropes here, 2 tropes certainly, What is the third?
Instead of Our Gods Are Different name how about Sliding Scale Of How Godly Our Gods Are?
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
From the Incarnations example I gave, there is the Christian deity as one of the incarnations. To fit that work under the "public domain deities" trope, it would be phrased this way:
- The Incarnations of Immortality include one incarnation as the representation of God for the world. This figure has been replaced several times, and while the current God is the Christian figure, the previous figure was called Yahweh, intended as the God from Judaism.
So calling a creature a "god" and having divine-level powers are not the same trope. The New Genesis example doesn't have people with divine powers.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Sliding Scales are bad things and should not be used unless it is to help explain how different tropes are related.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
This stems from this
Image Pickin thread. It was going swimmingly until people realized "we have no idea what the trope is here."
Based on the name and current image, people were operating on the assumption it's about Divine Conflict, or one pantheon coming into conflict with another.
Upon further reading, it seems that the trope here is "there are gods in this work." That just seems hopelessly broad. The Laconic says it's "Common attributes of gods in works" which does genuinely seem useful, but it begs the question... what of the examples? I don't get how any example could have proper context for a trope if the trope is about common attributes. I tried doing a wick check, and I technically couldn't find misuse, but mostly because the trope is so hopelessly vague ("there are gods") that I wasn't sure of anything that mentioned the word god or had godly characters was misuse.
Basically, there's no consistency with how this is used, other than a free pothole whenever someone is referred to as a god. Which seems troublesome to me.
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