History Main / DemiurgeArchetype

Simple: take a page from UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} and make it so that the evil God is akin to the Demiurge -- [[NotQuiteTheAlmighty not the true God]], but a villainous pretender. In Gnostic thought, the God of the Bible (or at least the Old Testament) is not the true God, but an imposter known as Yaldabaoth who [[AGodAmI falsely believes himself to be the true God]] and keeps humanity, his creation, in the dark of the truth to torment them and lord his power over them. As such, the Demiurge Archetype will be worshipped as the god of the setting, and may very well have created humanity and/or the physical plane, but is only posing as the true god. They will use their power to torment and oppress humanity, keeping them from achieving true ascension/spirituality/enlightenment, and will likely be the god of a CorruptChurch and/or TheTheocracy that they use to enforce their will.

* ''[[Manga/FullMetalAlchemist Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood]]'': In keeping with the narrative's gnostic overtones, [[BigBad Father]], a.k.a. the [[EldritchAbomination The Dwarf In The Flask]], is a relatively localized version [[GodhoodSeeker with aspirations to legitimize his divine status]]. In the literal text, he's the secret founder of Amestris and the ShadowDictator of the corrupt Amestrian government with direct control of both the nation's propaganda and all alchemy performed within its borders. (Which, since Alchemy is everywhere, basically gives him absolute control of the citizens' lives.) Symbolically, he's also both the father of the SevenDeadlySins (the Homunculi) and the source of all the problems that the characters face in one way or another, many of which he obfuscates with various lies and illusions. [[spoiler: In practice, though, [[NearVillainVictory he only momentarily succeeds in usurping Truth]], making his tenure as the literal version of this trope quite brief.]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'': Yu Yevon, the god of the Church of Yevon, was once a human summoner who ruled the city-state of Zanarkland and destroyed himself in a war with Bevelle. Becoming a strange bug-like creature, he creates a false world, Dream Zanarkland, trapping the survivors inside, and becomes the god of the Church of Yevon, a religion which he uses to keep the rest of Spira in a MedievalStasis, keeping his followers in line by regularly attacking them with his literal [[TheDragon Dragon]], Sin, and demanding pilgrimages that are essentially {{Human Sacrifice}}s. Like the Demiurge, Yevon rules over a false world and will do everything in his power to keep his subjects trapped within.

* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' has the Exarchs, who are like a Demiurge all-star review. Back when humanity had direct access to the source of magic and could easily Awaken to the miracles of the universe, the Exarchs supposedly crafted a Celestial Ladder that would allow them to ascend to the heavens... and then kicked it down so no one could join them, effectively ripping open reality and creating the Lie that separates the masses from Awakening. Their greatest servants, the Seers of the Throne, are tasked with making reality ''just shitty enough'' that nobody has the time or desire to pursue the truth behind the scenery.

** In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', an effigy of Yaldabaoth himself is the GreaterScopeVillain. This iteration of him was a GodOfOrder manifested through [[TheHeartless the collective human consciousness' desire for stability]], creating a KnightTemplar determined to bring societal order at any cost. He pulled a CaptureAndReplicate on the ([[VideoGame/Persona1 interim]]) BigGood Igor and [[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs took over the Velvet Room]] to manipulate Joker/Ren into doing his bidding before enslaving mankind and declaring himself to be God. Once the Phantom Thieves manage to escape his prison, they then defeat him through ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve with Joker's Persona evolving into [[SatanIsGood Satanael]] [[RageAgainstTheHeavens to kill him]].

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'', YHVH is an arrogant, vain dictator who perpetuates a ForeverWar to keep the universe under his control forever, and contemplates replacing humanity with "more obedient servants" when the party confronts him. However, The Axiom, a SentientCosmicForce, is actively working against him by creating Messiahs (the protagonists) capable of doing so. It should be noted that The Axiom is ''not'' the Great Will from earlier games, and whether or not YHVH has this kind of relationship with the Great Will there is ambiguous.

!!IMPORTANT NOTE: A character being this is often a twist, so ''expect unmarked spoilers''. Also, as with SatanicArchetype, this only applies to characters who are an {{Expy}} of the Demiurge, ''not characters who are the literal Demiurge itself''.

The Demiurge Archetype is NotQuiteTheAlmighty as a key element, but another important element is that they actively deceive their creations and/or [[BelievingTheirOwnLies themself]] into believing that they are the true God in order to control their creations. They are also frequently an example of LightIsNotGood, appearing as a benevolent god of light to fool their followers. This character usually comes with a [[ControlFreak need to control everything]], and deviations in their plans can cause [[VillaniousBreakdown meltdowns]]. Occasionally the Archetype in question is imitating a different entity of similar extreme power or authority; think FakeUltimateHero taken to the logical extreme. In reference to the Demiurge's inability to perceive or influence anything beyond the material plane, the Demiurge Archetype will often be portrayed as a glorified DomainHolder; they are unable to hold any power over their creations once the latter manages to escape their little bubble, so they do everything in their power to keep them imprisoned within. Other times this can be the logical endpoint of a GodhoodSeeker or particularly dangerous [[AGodAmI complex]]. The Archetype might be able to back a lot of their claims up, but in the end they're still a fake.

The Demiurge Archetype is NotQuiteTheAlmighty as a key element, but another important element is that they actively deceive their creations and/or [[BelievingTheirOwnLies themself]] into believing that they are the true God in order to control their creations. They are also frequently an example of LightIsNotGood, appearing as a benevolent god of light to fool their followers. In reference to the Demiurge's inability to perceive or influence anything beyond the material plane, the Demiurge Archetype will often be portrayed as a glorified DomainHolder; they are unable to hold any power over their creations once the latter manages to escape their little bubble, so they do everything in their power to keep them imprisoned within.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'': The Pale King is a divine Wyrm who wrested control of bugkind from [[GodOfLight the Radiance]] long ago, creating the civilization of Hallownest and becoming its ruler while {{unperson}}ing any mention of the Radiance. However, in a twist, he is a rare ''benevolent'' example of this trope -- [[LightIsNotGood the Radiance]] was a purely evil and controlling goddess who kept her followers locked in a HiveMind, and the Pale King had sought to grant them free will instead. When an idol of her is rediscovered deep in Crystal Peak, the jealous Radiance returns to spitefully destroy Hallownest with "[[MysticalPlague the Infection]]", forcing the Pale King to take extreme measures to seal her away and protect his people.

** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'': Zanza is a malevolent deity who is the true source of all life on the titanic [[TurtleIsland Bionis]], and serves as its soul. Once a human scientist named Klaus accidentally destroyed the previous universe in an experiment to create a new one, he became the new world's god along with his partner Meyneth, who instead became the soul of the Bionis's mechanical counterpart and rival. Zanza views his creations as nothing more than vessels and a food source to extend his own life with, and because he is unable to survive without them, he makes sure to wipe out all life on the Bionis and create it anew the moment it evolves enough to be capable of abandoning their world. The true god is Alvis, supposedly one of his disciples, whom he and Meyneth have been borrowing power from.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' has a variation where the world's puppetmaster involuntarily makes ''someone else'' a false god. Mithos Yggdrassil turned his dead sister Martel into a goddess figure that both the worlds of Sylvarant and Teth'eala worships, sending TheChosenOne on a world-saving quest actually meant to resurrect her, while enabling the racism-fueled ForeverWar between humans and half-elves to continue. When Martel is finally resurrected, the first thing she does is [[UnwantedRevival chew out her brother]] for how he spent the centuries.

* ''ComicBook/{{Venom}}'': Knull is a primordial god of darkness who came into being in the primordial Void before the universe was created, and was enraged when the Celestials intruded into what he saw as his domain to create the universe. He created the symbiotes and their ilk to wage war against the Celestials and their creations, first seeking to destroy and later to corrupt all of existence; seeing himself as the one true God and the other deities and cosmic entities as "lights" for him to snuff out or blacken. To drive the point home, Carlton Drake calls him the "Klyntar Demiurge" in ''ComicBook/{{Venom|EwingAndRamV}}'' (Vol. 5) #3.

* ''ComicBook/CliveBarkersNextTestament'': Wick, who employs a [[BrightIsNotGood color motif]] instead of a [[LightIsNotGood light motif]], actually ''is'' the Abrahamic God but only as part of a triune, two of whom turned on him around the time of the New Testament. All the atrocities committed in the Old Testament, the slaughter of the firstborn, the torture of Job[[note]]Done for laughs[[/note]], death for those who criticized him and his prophets, the real turning point was Abraham being ordered to kill his son. That's when his brothers[=/=]peers turned on him and, as they are collectively greater than him, imprisoned Wick away from people. Notably, Gnosticism is in part a reaction to the evil actions of the Old Testament God, interpreting them so that a "real" benevolent god could exist, which Wick and his brothers embody well.

* The DeadFic ''[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7096527/1/Deliverance Deliverance]]'', very loosely based on Literature/TheBible, portrays the Abrahamic God as an egomaniacal but ultimately pitiful figure who created the universe solely so that he could be worshipped and praised every second of every minute of every hour of every day, and [[HellOfAHeaven prohibits any other activity in heaven and brainwashes the inhabitants to be incapable of independent thought]], while sending anyone who refuses to worship him to hell. It’s implied (though the story was cancelled before it could be confirmed) that {{The Fundamentalist}}s are doing his will on Earth by [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans actively making the world a worse place through human rights violations and bigotry]]. However, he [[NotQuiteTheAlmighty is not omnipotent or omniscient]], having been powerless to stop the rebel angels, and can’t create life directly or change the laws of physics, only manipulate them to make life emerge faster. Yet it’s more likely that he’s not evil, just [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds really really messed up]], since he either does not know or does not care that his critics have [[AHellOfATime made hell a truer paradise than heaven]], since he still sends unbelievers there thinking it a punishment, when in fact [[{{Unishment}} it’s what they want all along]].

* In ''Series/Loki2021'', [[spoiler: "He Who Remains"]] is the omniscient and supreme leader of the Time Variance Authority, which he leads in conducting all manner of brainwashing, executions, and slavery to make sure only his timeline can exist. The kicker, though, is that he does this [[spoiler: to keep [[EvenEvilHasStandards even more evil versions of himself from taking power]]]].

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' has a variation where the world's puppetmaster involuntarily makes ''someone else'' a false god. Mithos Yggdrassil turned his dead sister Martel into a goddess figure that both the worlds of Sylvarant and Teth'eala worships, sending TheChosenOne on a world-saving quest actually meant to resurrect her, while enabling the racism-fueled ForeverWar between humans and half-elves to continue. When Martel is finally resurrected, the first thing she does is chew out her brother for how he spent the centuries.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'': Deconstructed in that Mithos Yggdrassil, a FallenHero of the past, turned his dead sister Martel into a goddess figure both worlds of Sylvarant and Teth'eala worships, sending TheChosenOne on a false quest to resurrect her, while enabling the racist fueled ForeverWar between humans and elves to continue. As a CatharsisFactor, when Martel is finally resurrected, the first thing she does is chew out her brother for how he spent the centuries.

* ''Film/FreeGuy'': Much like Christof above, Antwan created the video game ''Free City'' off of the stolen data of the game ''Life Itself''. So while the game is every multiplayer stereotype rolled into one, due to the advanced AI generating data of ''Life Itself'', all the NPCs are self-aware, and live repeating lives of mundane terror. When Guy learns he's an NPC after meeting the original creator Millie, the two struggle to stop Antwan from destroying everything when he replaces the game with ''Free City 2'', which would also kill all the NPCs. To add to the Demiurge motif, he is a bafoon of a businessman who would rather destroy the entire game than lose the profits of ''Free City''.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':
** Nobuyuki Sugou/Fairy King Oberon rules the online MMORPG Alfheim Online (AFO), which he and his company created from leftover data in the titular Sword Art Online (which they acquired when the original creators went bankrupt). As such, he is positioned as a pale imitation of the SAO creator Akihiko Kayaba (who serves as the [[HeelFaceTurn formerly malevolent]] god figure), and in his false god position, he manipulates the players to climb a rigged tree, tortures hundreds of imprisoned players, and sexually abuses one of them as a LustObject (who happens to be the LoveInterest Asuna). When Kirito gets the upper hand on him with help from [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Kayaba]], he even whines that he's the god of this world, earning a ShutUpHannibal from Kirito.
--->'''Kirito''': You stole everything in this world. Everything! Including its people! You're nothing but a king of thieves, sitting alone on your stolen throne!

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' has Amon, a fallen Xel'naga who abused the great power he was granted and artificially uplifted both the Protoss and the Zerg for his own ends. He hoped to use both to create artificial Hybrids to do his bidding and wanted to wipe out all of creation and remake it to his liking. He also created the hive mind for the Zerg and the Khala for the Protoss to seize control of their minds. An additional pointer is that two Protoss Templar may merge into a being called an [[OurArchonsAreDifferent Archon]] which are not necessarily subservient to Amon, but Dark Archons notably have MindControl that can capture individual beings permanently. He also doubles as a DarkseidDuplicate, needing to have a host body forged for him to inhabit so he can bring his full power to bear on the physical plane.