Line #31 Literature/AtPlayInTheFieldsOfTheLord


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/at_play_in_the_fields_of_the_lord.jpg]]
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3	''At Play in the Fields of the Lord'' is a 1965 novel by Peter Matthiessen. In 1991, Brazilian director Héctor Babenco made a [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] with a cast including Creator/TomBerenger, Creator/JohnLithgow, Creator/DarylHannah, Creator/KathyBates, Creator/AidanQuinn, and Music/TomWaits.
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5	Deep in Brazil's Amazon basin, American Christian missionaries try to save the indigenous Niaruna tribe, while mercenaries try to wipe them out.
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7	----
8	!!This work provides us examples of:
9	* AxCrazy: [[spoiler: Randy's wife]] ends up this way, although there's clear evidence earlier in the film that her sanity isn't long for the world. Guess who they got to play her? [[ActorAllusion Kathy Bates]], of course, who'd just done an Oscar-winning star turn as Annie Wilkes in ''Misery.''
10	* BadassNative: Moon
11	* DefectorFromDecadence: Moon
12	* DownerEnding: When the helicopters arrive to begin bombing the Niaruna Indian Village.
13	* {{Fanservice}}: Creator/DarylHannah has a nude scene.
14	* FanDisservice: So does Kathy Bates.
15	* GagPenis: When Randy asks Andie how she knew Moon wanted her, she says "Don't be such a child."
16	* AGodAmI: Moon takes on the identity of Kisu.
17	* HopeSpot: Randy gives the antibiotics to Moon.
18	* {{Loincloth}}: In the film version. The Niaruna wear "bellybands" in the novel. When Moon gets an erection, the bellyband hurts.
19	** An explanation might be required for the bellybands: In the Amazon, men bind their foreskins and tie the binding material around their waists.
20	* LostTribe: Theorized to be a lost tribe of Sioux or a lost tribe of Jews.
21	* LoveDodecahedron: Moon likes Andie. Randy likes Andie. Randy is married. So is Andie.
22	* MightyWhitey: Deconstructed, since Moon is a halfbreed Cheyenne. Further deconstructed since he accidentally starts an epidemic of the common cold, killing them all.
23	* MushroomSamba: Moon gets a lot of tropes.
24	* NakedOnArrival: Moon, to the Niaruna.
25	* NationalGeographicNudity
26	** Subverted by [[Creator/DarylHannah Andie]]'s SkinnyDipping scene.
27	* Myth/NativeAmericanMythology and all associated (or at least Sioux and Cheyenne) tropes.
28	* ANiceJewishBoy: Averted by Wolf, who is anything but nice.
29	* NoOneCouldHaveSurvivedThat: Moon
30	* NudeNatureDance: Played with, though the film version is definitely not fanservice, since it's Kathy Bates [[spoiler: and her character's basically gone nuts]].
31	* PottyFailure: [[spoiler:Billy wets his bed]] at one point in the film, but in this case it's meant as an ominous sign that his illness is worsening. Specifically, [[spoiler: his malaria is progressing to blackwater fever and his kidneys are failing.]]
32	* RapeAsDrama: Moon sees Andie naked. But he can't have her since she's married, so he goes home and rapes his wife, Pindi.
33	* ShaggyDogStory: Moon wants to help the Niaruna, but in the end, he gives them the flu, which kills them.
34	* ShoutOut: The Music/{{Sepultura}} album ''Music/{{Roots}}'' was inspired by the film adaptation.
35	* TitleDrop: "I'm at play in the fields of the Lord."
36	* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: [[spoiler:Billy.]]
37	* ValuesDissonance: An in-universe example. Young Billy is having a wonderful time with the Indian kids his age, running around as stark-naked as they are and making friends of sorts despite the language barrier; but when his mother finds him, he and his companions are [[spoiler:watching a pair of adults frolicking in a hammock]], and he's still completely undressed. This ends about as well as you'd expect given that his mother is a [[spoiler:sexually puritanical fundamentalist Christian with severe underlying issues of her own]], and Randy has to physically intervene when she starts ''beating up'' the Indians immediately afterwards. Afterwards he tears a strip off her for this, stressing the dangers implicit in her use of violence and her failure to understand that [[spoiler:the Indians don't share the missionaries' sense of morals (yet). Furthermore he tells her she risks giving her son a distorted and harmful view of human sexuality.]] When Randy's wife says "What if one of those things lays a hand on Billy?", Randy simply replies "He might like it."
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Context Literature / AtPlayInTheFieldsOfTheLord