History Main / DeathOfTheOldGods

* In Talamancan mythology, the universe used to be inhabitated by the Sórbulu who were ruled by Sórkula, when his grandchild was born, he tried to kill Him because he was afraid of losing his authority, but He escaped with the help of His Mmother and Áksula (the king of termites). Then, he grew up among the ants and went back to kill Sórkula [[SelfFulfillingProphecy for trying to kill Him when he was a baby]].

* In Talamancan mythology, the universe used to be inhabitated by the Sórbulu who were ruled by Sórkula, when his grandchild was born, he tried to kill Him because he was afraid of losing his authority, but He escaped with the help of His Mmother and Áksula (the king of termites). Then, he grew up among the ants and went back to kill Sórkula [[Self-FulfillingProphecy for trying to kill Him when he was a baby]].

* ''Film/WonderWoman2017'': All of the Greek Pantheon sans Ares [[spoiler:and Diana]] are dead. [[spoiler: By the end, only Diana is left]], which leaves room for the incoming New God Steppenwolf in ''Film/{{Justice League|2017}}''.

** By the third game, you get to see the consequences of this in action. Gwyn, Nito and the Witch of Izalith are barely remembered as old gods and no one knows what happened to Gwynevere. Of Gwyn's pantheon, only three gods remain. Gwyndolin [[spoiler: is devoured by Aldrich and you're just too late to save him]], the Nameless King is heavily implied to be Gwyn's firstborn, and you can fight him in a clash for the ages, and in the DLC we meet Gwyn's last child, Filianore, [[spoiler:who doesn't even talk before a bright flash transports you forward in time until she's nothing but a dried husk.]]

** Subverted in that according to Christians and Messianic Jews at least, that Jesus rose again, ''defeating'' death's grip.

* ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'': In ancient times all but one of the Gods-From-Stone, the primordial [[EldritchAbomination Hours]] that predate mankind, were slain by the [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Gods-From-Blood and Gods-From-Flesh]]. The Flint was shattered by [[UltimateBlacksmith The Forge of Days]], [[MadGod The Moth]] usurped The Wheel from within and stole its skin, [[LoveGoddess The Grail]] drank The Tide, and two mortals arose to become [[PoisonIsEvil The Mother of Ants]] and [[SufferingBuildsCharacter The Colonel]] after slaying [[SnakesAreSinister The Seven Coils]]. The Egg Unhatching's exact fate is unclear, but it seems to have also died. The only one that survived was [[BarrierMaiden The Horned Axe]], who was convinced not to pursue revenge, but only after a great deal of argument and compromise with the other Hours.

* ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'': In ancient times all but one of the Gods-From-Stone, the primordial [[EldritchAbomination Hours]] that predate mankind, were slain by the [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Gods-From-Blood]]. The Flint was shattered by [[UltimateBlacksmith The Forge of Days]], [[MadGod The Moth]] usurped The Wheel from within and stole its skin, [[LoveGoddess The Grail]] drank The Tide, and two mortals arose to become [[PoisonIsEvil The Mother of Ants]] and [[SufferingBuildsCharacter The Colonel]] after slaying [[SnakesAreSinister The Seven Coils]]. The Egg Unhatching's exact fate is unclear, but it seems to have also died. The only one that survived was [[BarrierMaiden The Horned Axe]], who was convinced not to pursue revenge, but only after a great deal of argument and compromise with the other Hours.

* Unreformed pagans in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings II'' are more easily converted by Abrahamic missionaries, have a harder time of winning converts of their own from those religions, and are very prone to splintering amongst themselves. If no single leader arises to reform a given pagan faith into an organized religion, it's quite likely that that faith will wither away under the pressure of holy wars and missionaries.

* ''Webcomic/YetAnotherFantasyGamerComic'' [[spoiler:the final act ends with the death/banishment of Ranna, who devoured all the other gods]].

** Norse mythology states that at Ragnarok, most of the older generation of gods will somehow die, and most humans. Only a few are left to restart.

** Subverted in that according to Christians and Messianc Jews at least, that Jesus rose again, ''defeating'' death's grip.

** [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Gilgamesh]] was created by the ancient gods of Mesopotamia who foresaw this possible end. He was intended to act as a keystone binding the fates of God and man together. When he rebelled against that role and chose to rule humanity for his own reasons in 2200 BC, it marked the second key end as the "seperation".

* ''Curse of the Dead Gods'' is a RogueLike based on the premise of exploring the single [[MayIncaTec Aztec]] temple where their gods still have power since Cortez destroyed their faith. They have just enough power left to 1) sustain TheHorde of UnDead guading their treasure, and 2) curse any explorer searching for it. Of course, curses are subjective...

* The original ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' trilogy actually subverts this. After the Cataclysm, a world-shattering disaster visited on the world by the gods as punishment for a variety of sins, humanity decides to find itself a new pantheon, and the dwarves and elves seem to be less interested in worship generally speaking. It's later revealed, however, that the old gods were around all along; it was people's loss of faith in them that made them believe the old gods had departed. And, interestingly, it winds up being the goddess of evil who becomes active again in the world first.
** Then they left ''again'', and some schmuck calling himself the One God showed up and started the War of Souls. [[spoiler: Turns out the old gods didn't really leave, the world was stolen from them by said goddess of evil, who has disguised herself as the One God.]]

* Creator/NeilGaiman's ''Literature/AmericanGods'' is about a war between the Old Gods, who embody traditional myths and are [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly running out of faith]], and the New Gods, who embody things like television and the Internet and are rising in power but perhaps only as passing fads (like the railroad). The trope is played with in that the Current Gods are uninvolved and completely unchallenged by both groups, who are basically fighting over scraps.
* In the ''Literature/MerryGentry'' series, the many of the Sidhe were [[strike: worshiped as]] well-known Pagan gods, but lost their worshipers to Christianity. This marked the beginning of their decline in power. It is explicitly stated that Sidhe draw power from such worship, and are therefore forbidden to set themselves up as gods as part of the treaty with Jefferson. Furthermore, the older Sidhe have referred to the Elder Gods and Firblogs, which implies that there may have been even ''Older'' Old Gods, that the Sidhe didn't just PutOnABus to AnotherDimension, but actually KilledOffForReal.

* In ''[[Literature/JackelianSeries The Court Of The Air]]'', the modern inhabitants of Jackels have long adhered to a godless, benign philosophy called Circlism, scorning the ancient deities of their ancestors. This isn't because they stopped believing that gods ''exist'', but because those ancestral gods, the half-insect/half-{{Mayincatec}} Wildcaotyl, were complete and utter scumbags into enslavement, HumanSacrifice, and summoning up their ''own'' CosmicHorror deities to destroy all reality.

A common fantasy trope where the polytheistic pagan gods are slowly giving way to a single unified Christian god (or the [[CrystalDragonJesus nearest fictional approximation]]), or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanomachy titanomachy]] where the elder, primordial pantheon gives way to the new polytheistic deities - or perhaps to no gods at all, which is not unheard of.

Normally their departure is a result of [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly people no longer believing in them]], although it's not unknown for them to [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence simply lose interest in the affairs of mortals]], or to die out for other reasons. In a few rare cases, the interloper takes their place after [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority beating]] or even [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt killing]] their predecessors in a fight.

* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfWonderWoman2016'': The Olympians' "game" has been restarted due to their fear of dying out due to lack of worshipers as their powers and reach fade away. In the end [[spoiler:Gaia does die by fading away after using the last of her powers to imbue Diana with superpowers of her own and is an even older god than the Olympians]].

* ''FanFic/ThousandShinji'': Several deities from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' sacrificed themselves to create the New Chaos Gods so that the C'Tan can be defeated.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12489955/1/Hanks-Orthodoxy Hank's Orthodoxy]] that main reason why Hank abandoning Methodist/Protestant faith into Eastern Orthodoxy is worried that Christianity in the United States is slowly dying.
* This happened in the world visited during the Lighting the Darkness Arc of ''Fanfic/EquestriaAcrossTheMultiverse'': Queen Equinox, their deity and Goddess of Light and Darkness, sacrificed herself to save the world from a meteor...and was gradually forgotten and faded into obscurity. This was a ''bad'' thing as one of the villains she sealed away, a demon named Lord Yomi that her worshipers had previously kept performing rituals in her name to keep locked away escaped, and no one remembers how to exploit HolyBurnsEvil against them anymore. The end result is Yomi and his army easily conquering the world until the Mane Six arrive and reintroduce magic, as well as free Antiquity from Yomi's curse, who rediscovered Equinox and CAN exploit HolyBurnsEvil against them. [[spoiler:Sunny Days and Moonlight eventually ascend and become the new gods in Equinox's place, destroying Yomi with the Mane Six's help.]]

* In the 2007 ''WesternAnimation/{{Beowulf|2007}}'' animated film, Beowulf laments that his people have abandoned "the Gods of might and power for a crying martyr."

* The film version of ''Literature/TheEgyptian'' draws parallels between Akhenaten's worship of the sun god Aten and later Judeo-Christian monotheism. The end of the film implies that even though the priests of Amon-Re were able to quash to new religion, it would come again in a different form. It's very interesting to watch this film back-to-back with ''Film/TheTenCommandments'' for this reason.

* ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'': All of the Greek Pantheon sans Ares [[spoiler:and Diana]] are dead. [[spoiler: By the end, only Diana is left]], which leaves room for the incoming New God Steppenwolf in ''Film/{{Justice League|2017}}''.
* ''{{Film/Mythica}}'': Szorlok succeeds in destroying the gods prior to his death at Marek's hand. Teela believes they may reemerge someday though.
* Seems to be starting in ''Film/{{Dragonslayer}}''. Although a newly arrived Christian priest attempts to defeat the dragon using the power of God's word alone, King Casiodorus has still sent a team to fetch Ulrich, a well-known sorcerer, to defeat the dragon. With [[spoiler:the loss of Galen's amulet,]] it's implied that a lot of (but not all of!) the old-school magic that once permeated the land is gone, clearing the way for Christianity's rise.

** It's important to note that the Old Gods faith was never organized, they lack priests, temples, scriptures, and so on. This probably contributed to the faith's decline.
** Ironically the First Men originally had several named gods before the Pact with the Children. Part of the Pact was abandoning their "old gods" for the ones worshipped by the Children. The only regions where this didn't happen were the Iron Islands, the Frozen Shore, and the Sisters Islands, all regions where weirwoods don't grow.
** People outside the North don't seem to reject the existence of The Old Gods, as evidenced by saying like "by the old gods and the new." The current generation of the Starks worship both sets of gods.
*** Later books reveal that there are some fundamentalists of the Faith of the Seven who see alternate religions like the Old Gods and the Drowned God as a threat (though they're more focused on the growing worship of R'hllor) and want to convert the whole continent.

* Robert Graves' ''Greek Gods and Heroes'' concludes with a chapter titled "The Death of the Olympian Gods", in which, upon the death of the Emperor Julian, the three Fates advise Zeus that the reign of the Olympians has ended. Zeus destroys the Olympian palace with a thunderbolt and the gods retreat into obscurity. The full text of the chapter [[http://majorolympians.com/demise.html can be found here.]]
* In the ''Winds of the Forelands'' series there is a monotheistic god, Ean, that's getting steadily increasing worship and the favor of most of the aristocracy, but the religion of the old gods isn't out of the fight yet.
* Creator/JulietMarillier's ''Literature/TheBrideiChronicles'' series has this, it's set in Scotland and England during their conversion from paganism to Catholicism.

** Comprehensively, horrifyingly subverted in the Franchise/CthulhuMythos. The [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]] have died/vanished long ago, and nothing really stepped in the power vacuum left... [[WhenThePlanetsAlign But soon the stars shall be Right again]], and they shall rise once more [[CosmicHorrorStory and all of Man's works shall be torn tasunder as anthills under the tread of giants]]. And [[DevilButNoGod there's nobody else to really stop them from coming back]]. Or so [[UnreliableNarrator their worshippers]] would have you believe, anyway. In practice, just how many of the various [[GoMadFromTheRevelation sanity-blasting horrors]] of the Mythos even "vanished" in the first place is debatable, considering how easy it seems to be at times for people who puzzle out [[ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow the correct rituals]] from demented rantings in [[TomeOfEldritchLore old crumbling books]] to still get in touch with them...and yet, strangely enough, so far the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt ''hasn't'' come. In the original works by Lovecraft they explicitly ''are not'' gods, but rather alien beings whose knowledge of the physical world [[ClarkesThirdLaw seem like magic to ignorant primitives like us.]]

* {{Literature/Apollos Grove}}: A play dealing with the last Oracle of Delphi and the end of the old religion. The page quote serves as the emotional climax of the story.

* Subverted in ''Literature/WhiteAsSnow''. While Christianity is spreading, even the priests dance in the woods with the pagans at full moon.
* Two of the oldest pantheons in [=TunFaire=], the Godoroth and Shayir, compete for control of the grungiest temple in the Dream Quarter in ''[[Literature/GarrettPI Petty Pewter Gods]]'', without which their dwindling faiths will die off entirely.
* ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'' has this in a weird way--mythological figures exist as {{Physical God}}s, but they're currently being threatened by [[EldritchAbomination Ka Anor]], an alien deity who eats other gods (and [[ScaryDogmaticAliens whose followers]] want to eventually kill everyone else). Both sides are also threatened by [[spoiler:[[TokenEvilTeammate Senna]]]], who has plans for godhood too.
** Furthermore, the pagan deities left our world right around the time Christianity was on the rise, so there's probably some kind of correlation.

* ''Winds of the Forelands'' series there is a monotheistic god, Ean, with steadily increasing worship and the favor of most of the aristocracy, but the religion of the old gods isn't out of the fight yet.

* This is particularly notable in Irish mythology. The Mythology is largely based of the pre-Christian religion, and was first written and documented by Irish monks (who stripped them of their religious connotations). Many of the tales were edited to foreshadow the coming of Christianity or include Christian characters specifically. For example in the tale of Clann Lir (*Children of Ler*) the children are freed from their curse after meeting a Christian monk who baptises them. They then die as Christians.

* Partially averted in ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'', where AllMythsAreTrue and each newly risen pantheon gets the divine equivalent of a fruit basket from the old pantheons. The reality of the Abrahamic religions are left up to the Storyteller, but the ''Scion Companion'' mentions a certain "Sumerian storm God" becoming the One and only God of the Israeli pantheon, then Roman pantheon, and so on; recruiting various pagan Scions as angels and saints as Christianity and Islam spread across the globe. Most of the old gods don't really care about having worshipers, since Fate ''loves'' to screw with them via those links. [[spoiler:As does the Order of Divine Glory, missionaries of the One God who use fatebinding to place agents in foreign pantheons. They're responsible for co-opting pagan rituals to fit in with a monotheist agenda, such as altering Christmas to replace the Winter Solstice.]] Also, having too high of a Legend Rating ''forces someone out of the physical universe,'' which is could explain [[HaveYouSeenMyGod how the One God seems absent]].
** Some fans go for YHWH as being driven insane by three different religions and countless splinter version of them all fighting over what he really wants. Jesus and the Saints locked him away for his safety and others. They would help him heal and recover but TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt has put a damper on things.
** Other fans have made stats for YHWH and Jesus as leaders of just another pantheon, albeit an extremely successful one. Fitting with this trope is that the Abrahamic pantheon outperforms of all others, so instead of an actual family, they constantly recruit scions (as angels or saints) to handle their vast hoards of worshipers.

* In ''Discworld/SmallGods'', the god Om is on the verge of succumbing to this trope, and reminisces about past rival gods he'd driven into extinction long ago. With his own survival on the line, their fate doesn't seem so funny anymore...

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanomachy Titanomachy,]] a war between the Elder Gods and Younger Gods, is a common theme amongst Polytheistic cultures, and it is today understood as an allegory of the elder, primordial, Animistic deities being replaced with true Polytheism and its Olympian deities, and unorganized Animism being superceded with organized Polytheism. Similar theme can be also found in Norse mythology, Semitic mythology and Hinduism.

** ''Literature/{{Changes}}'' reveals some of the Old Gods, specifically {{Mayincatec}} ones, to have actually been very powerful, very old [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires of the Red Court]], called [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Lords of Outer Night]]. However, from the same book there is indication - or at least speculation on Dresden's part - that the gods really did exist, and the Red Court leadership stole their names. Considering that Aztec mythology includes a god of blood, death, and sacrifice called Camazotz who greatly resembles a Red Court vampire, and is mentioned as having many children, this theory may have legs.

-->-- '''The last Oracle of Delphi to a representative of the Emperor Julianus'''

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' plays with this - like Marvel, the older pantheons were forced by the Celestials to step aside and not overtly interfere with human development, though here there is the caveat that this is until humanity grows up (which it is now doing, with references made to Thor's line from ''[[Film/AvengersAssemble The Avengers]]'' about mankind being ready for a higher form of war). Like ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', gods need at least some belief/awareness that they exist to have a foothold on Earth (which is used to explain the power disparity between Thor and Loki in the early MCU and their more comics derived versions here). Most of them are suggested not to care all that much. However, with the events of Book 1, which unleashed Chthon, the Elder God of Chaos, on the world, the rise of [[spoiler: the Dark Phoenix]], and the threat of Thanos, the collected pantheons are starting to pay attention again. In other words, the Old Gods Stepped Aside, [[TheMagicComesBack but increasingly, the Old Gods Are Back.]] And they aren't alone...