Bargain with Heaven

"Mist believed that by giving himself heroic memories, he could become too pure for hell, while still getting what he wanted. Caveat venditor. He did not realize what you have known for years: There is more than one being in the universe who desires souls."

— God, Fans!

This is an inversion of the Deal with the Devil trope.

A Bargain with Heaven can usually be distinguished from its more wicked Sister Trope by certain key elements:

1. The entity or entities that the character makes the bargain with are not evil and have no malicious intent toward the character.
2. There are few if any negative repercussions to the character or those around them. Breaking it, on the other hand...
3. Before/after the Bargain is struck, the character must perform some great and noble deed or accept some code of behavior in exchange for the power or rewards sought.
4. So long as the character upholds their side of the bargain, whatever that may be, they appear to be getting more out of it than they put in, and/or it is easy for them to get out of the bargain if that ceases to be the case.
5. The bargain is made with the character's eyes wide open to the benefits and drawbacks of the bargain, with good intentions on all sides.

Generally, to be an example of this trope, at least three of these conditions should apply, but there are exceptions, such as the "I am the Lord" loophole in western culture where any deal made with God/YHWH/Allah automatically counts and the one in eastern cultures where most deals with nature spirits also auto-qualify.

This trope is Implicit & Explicit in many Fantasy settings and especially in popular Role-Playing Games where Clerics and White Magician Girls often get their powers this way. In these settings, making a Bargain With Heaven is a fast way to Take a Level in Badass or earn several instant credits in asskicking.

During the Middle Ages this trope was also partially truth in storytelling, with priests of the Church bargaining away their right to have children and a sex life in exchange for lifetime job security and personal safety.

There are several examples of this in The Bible, making this trope Older Than Feudalism. One of these may be the Ur-Example but several other religions have examples at least as old.

The classic example is Samson and his deal with YHWH to never cut his hair (although interestingly, that deal was actually made for him by his mother).

Compare/contrast Deal with the Devil, which once upon a time was The Dark Side sub-trope of this but broke away and became even bigger than the original. It's also one of the Five Stages of Grief.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Black★Rock Shooter: In the OVA version, Mato decide to fuse with/become the eponymous character, in order to save Yomi from the Otherworld. In other versions, the eponymous character is... not quite so nice.
• A Certain Magical Index: In The Movie, A Certain Magical Index: Miracle of Endymion, the survival of almost all of the passengers of a crashing space shuttle is treated as this. But for the one who made the wish, Shutaura Sequenzia, it certainly feels like a Deal with the Devil, because the miracle cost the life of her father, the pilot of said shuttle.
• A very dark example happens when Impmon in Digimon Tamers was smooth-talked by Caturamon to receive the power of evolution from his boss Zhuqiaomon in exchange of becoming his final line of defense, turning him into Beelzemon who quickly goes into a Power High, kills of Leomon, traumatizes Jeri and nearly manages to kill every tamer off until Guardromon distracts him for Gallantmon to turn the tides. It's unclear if Zhuqiaomon ordered Caturamon to smooth-talk Impmon or he was just enabling his underling, not that he cares anyway since he merrily stroke his bargain with Impmon.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Dealing with the Truth starts out as a Deal with the Devil, what with its penchant for extracting payments in the form of bodily parts. But it's inverted right at the end of the series. Edward offered the ultimate price, his entire ability to perform alchemy, but Truth was absolutely thrilled at the offer, congratulated Edward for giving the correct answer, and granted him the ultimate prize in return: Alphonse's body, whole and unspoiled (except for some weakening from disuse).

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Multiple people bargain with the gods during Theros block. The most successful is probably Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, a Humanoid Abomination who gets a useful arrangement with Phenax, God of Deception. Elspeth had one until her divine patron, Heliod, stabbed her in the back after he realized just how dangerous she was after she killed a newly-ascended god.
  • This happens again in Theros: Beyond Death, where five mortals are transformed into demigods by the main gods of Theros in exchange for championing their cause in the ongoing divine war. This doesn't come free of strings, however, as becoming a demigod narrowly focuses a mortal's mind and desires to match their god's purpose.

Comic Books

• A Contract with God: Discussed and zigzagged. In the story, a Jewish man vows to be good and devout in exchange for a happy life, after he is told that it seems God favors him (this is the eponymous contract). However, after years of following God's ways, his daughter dies. He chooses to abandon his faith, at which point he becomes wildly successful... but he is miserable anyway. In the end, he goes to a group of rabbis to draft up a new contract...
• The Sandman (1989): In the story "Ramadan", Haroun Al-Rashid makes a bargain with the Prince of Dreams: he offers to sell him his kingdom, a magical version of Arabia straight out of Arabian Nights, that it might live on forever in stories rather than fade away in Real Life. Dream obliges and The Magic Goes Away. Rashid awakes in a mundane version of Baghdad, having no memory of his kingdom having ever been anything more than a mundane, ordinary one. Fast forward two thousand years and we learn that this story is still being re-told, keeping the magical kingdom alive in the manner Dream agreed to.
• Fine Print: Since cubi are a type of god and not a demon, a human's compact with them is closer to this, exchanging great sex in return for having their energy fed on to make the cubi's food.

Fairy Tales

• "Godfather Death": Death gives a poor man's son the ability to see at once whether a sick person will live or die, plus the ability to cure anyone who is not destined to die. This makes the godson a famous physician, but when he uses his gifts to cheat Death despite Death's earnest warnings to do so, Death takes his life in exchange for the ones he saved.

Fan Works

• Absolute Trust: When the Gaang visits Wan Shi Tong's library, Alec is respectful and upfront with the spirit, who knows his secret. Citing the near-extinction of the Air Nomads and the prospect of the same thing happening to the Earth Kingdom, he convinces the owl to agree to a deal. Alec receives a full catalogue of the works that Zhao destroyed, promising to persuade the new Fire Lord to replace them after the war. In exchange, and with the proviso that Alec never asks for his help to win a war again, Wan Shi Tong permits the Gaang to seek out the knowledge they need to defeat Ozai.
• The Blood of the Covenant: In exchange for sparing the heavily wounded Lu Ten's life, the Great Spirits want for Iroh to help to stop the current war and restore balance to the world.
• Bring Me to Life: While in the Higher Realms, Cordelia makes a deal with the Powers to wipe her memory to prevent Jasmine from manifesting on Earth.
• Chasing Dragons: On the eve of the showdown between Robert and Viserys' forces, Ned invokes the Old Gods to enact revenge on his enemies. While the exact details aren't known, it seems to be that in exchange for the battle strength for Ned's forces to win, Ned himself has to die.
• Child of the Storm has Lily, who accidentally invoked, then struck a bargain with, the Phoenix Force, explaining the pyrotechnic tendencies of Harry's protection. The finale of the first book gives us the actual details of this bargain: in exchange for the Phoenix protecting Harry, Lily became Her avatar, the White Phoenix of the Crown.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami actually blackmails the Light gods after she incapacitates their Avatar; they are mostly amused by her achievement. In the end, they settle on non-aggression while she's on the Avatar Islands, and a crystal ball being delivered to Earth to allow two-way communication, in exchange for freeing the Avatar and letting the Light have a copy of her research notes about modifying Dungeon Hearts.
• Final Stand of Death: The Spice Girls make this deal as they had suffered in Deathbowl '98. The Mythological deities felt they deserve to be returned in order to deal with Marilyn Manson.
• Foxfire: In exchange for sharing Li's future memories to gain new knowledge, the Wan Shi Tong will give any information he asks for. If Li rediscovers the lost Firebending style Dance of a Phoenix and protects the Knowledge Seeker, Zenko the Wan Shi Tong will grant Li his protection and help him recover his past and true name.
• Heaven's Light: Gothel makes one with Lord Soleil, the Coronan solar god, exchanging the extra years of life she has taken to bring Rapunzel back to life after she briefly dies of smoke inhalation on the stake.
• In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium, Nobody Beats G.I. Joe!: When the Earth of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero gets transported to the Warhammer 40,000, its governments make deal with a number of native supernatural forces to protect the Earth from the forces of the Warp... including the gods of ancient Egypt (whom G.I. Joe encountered in "The Gods Below").
• Transcendence: After Ichigo's bankai heavily damages his body, the Spirit of the Wilds agrees to heal him in exchange for Adelina's help in the future. After the heroes help stop the elemental invasion in the Desolace, Druantia asks Adelina to repay her by using her druidic powers to germinate a Great Tree at Ethel Rethor.

Films — Animated

• Turning Red has one in the backstory. In a time of war in ancient China, when all the local men were dead or gone to war, the wise-woman Sun Yee appealed to her gods for a way to protect her daughters and her village from bandits. They responded by giving her the power to transform into a huge mystical red panda, large and powerful enough to defeat the bandits singlehanded. All of Sun Yee's female descendants, including the movie's modern-day protagonist Meilin Lee, have inherited this power — but not the knowledge of how to control the transformations.
• Watership Down has Hazel try to strike one of these with the sun god, Frith, but is told no dice. What is, is what be must be.

Films — Live-Action

• In Cabin in the Sky, God will keep Lucifer's minions from taking Little Joe's soul as long as he stays on the right path (i.e., quit doing sinful things). If he doesn't keep his end of the bargain, he'll get taken to Hell.
• Averted in Constantine (2005). Constantine wants this sort of deal, fighting demons in exchange for access to Heaven, but Heaven doesn't work that way — selfishly trying to get into Heaven, no matter what deeds you try to exchange for it, is impossible.
• Harriet kicks off with Harriet Tubman proving to her "master" that she ought legally to be a free woman. When he rips up the letter from her lawyer and sends her back to the cabins anyway, she tearfully begs God to either change his heart or, if that's impossible, to strike him down. Guess who dies in the middle of the night, not long after?
• The Sacrifice: Alexander promises God he'll give up everything he owns, including his home and his family, if God will avert the impending nuclear holocaust.

Jokes

• An atheist is lost at sea, floating in a life preserver during a terrible storm. What's worse, a shark is circling around him. In a fit of panic, the atheist shouts out, "God, please help me!" Suddenly, everything stopped—the rain, the wind, the waves, the shark, all frozen in time. The clouds parted and a shaft of light shined. God's voice boomed out "You are an atheist. Why should I help you?" The atheist pleaded, "I'm sorry, God, but that's how I've always believed. If you won't help me, then how about making the shark religious? He may show compassion and not eat me." God pondered it for a moment then said, "Okay. I'll make the shark religious." The clouds closed back up and everything was set in motion once again. The shark circled around a few times then swam up to the atheist. He came up and looked the atheist in the face. The shark then put his fins together, bowed his head and said, "Dear God, thank you for this food I am about to partake..."

Literature

• Zig-Zagged in The Angel of Khan el-Khalili — Aliaa goes to Seeker, a creatures that calls herself an "angel" and claims to be serving god, in order to obtain a miracle that can heal her mortally wounded sister. But Seeker and other supernatural creatures like her aren't officially recognized as servants of the divine by human religious authorities(from a whole spectrum of Abrahamic religions, for a host of reasons), and Seeker's price for this miracle includes painful confessions on Aliaa's part. It's never made clear if Aliaa is actually bargaining with an agent of heaven, or if the self-proclaimed "angels" are something else. Seeker openly admits to taking "a bit" of Aliaa's soul in their bargain, which seems more along the lines of a Deal with the Devil — though Aliaa does come away with the miracle she wanted, and seems little worse for the wear.
• Animorphs: The Ellimist (an omnipotent-yet-limited Sufficiently Advanced Alien who serves as the Big Good of the series) gets Tobias to help a pair of fleeing Hork-Bajir. Tobias agrees, but demands to be made human again, having been in a Shapeshifter Mode Lock as a red-tailed hawk since the beginning of the series. At a crucial moment (a wing broken and about to be eaten by a raccoon), the Ellimist fulfills his end of the deal... by making Tobias able to morph again (stunning the raccoon and healing the injury) but keeping his hawk body as his base form, which allows Tobias to participate in missions again, which is what he truly missed, even if he didn't know it. The Ellimist does briefly send Tobias back in time to acquire his human body as a morph, technically keeping his end of the deal.
• In Beka Cooper, Goodwin is a loose Dog who takes a bad shipment and winds up dying in a ditch. She tells the Goddess that if she lives, she'll go straight. The Goddess spares her, and she keeps her promise, becoming one of the best Dogs in the Lower City and Beka's mentor.
• The Belgariad: There are several, justified within the work because the Gods all have a physical presence in the world.
  • The clearest example occurs at the climax of book five, Enchanter's End Game, when Polgara (a powerful sorceress) directly begs Aldur (a God) to restore Durnik (a normal mortal) to life, because she loves him^note Let it also be noted here that Durnik has been deeply in love with Polgara basically from the moment he clapped eyes on her. and would marry him. Aldur agrees to try to convince the other Gods to go along with it, as long as Polgara agrees "to live out the rest of her life with no more power than Durnik has" and she willingly consents even while she recognizes that these terms mean that she will lose all of her powers. Except that's not what the Gods do. Instead, they give Durnik sorcerous power equal to hers. They don't mention that part to her and she spends the last fifty pages or so thinking that she's powerless and trying to become accustomed to it, before she finds out the truth in the last few pages.
  • The negotiations have an additional bargain in them — the god Mara, whose people (the Marags) were exterminated, refuses to accept until Belgarath informs him that there is one still alive. Mara is stunned for a moment and, on hearing that the survivor is attracted to the Ulgo Relg, he asks Ul (whose people the Ulgos are) for the rights to have the two marry so his people can be restored. Once the deal is made, he gives his approval for the resurrection.
• Beware of Chicken has the Pact of Shennong. If a cultivator chooses to give his qi to the earth freely and without thought of reward, then he may attract the attention of a nature spirit who will bond with him, strengthening him even as he strengthens it. This pact grants vast power (including a number of techniques specially effective at countering other cultivators), long life, and the feedback cycle with the nature spirit will ensure that the land the cultivator works is rich in all the gifts of the earth (including Spirit Herbs and other qi-invested resources). But the nature spirit can revoke the bond if the cultivator strays. And more importantly, to make the Pact of Shennong is to bind your soul to the mortal world, forever abandoning the quest for ascension and immortality.
• The Blood Ladders: The founder of humanity's predominant religion offered her life to angels to save her kingdom from a demonic invasion; they gave her magic instead. Later, Almond takes a sword meant for Morgan and an angel offers to either save her life or remove the curse binding the elves' magic so they can defeat the current demonic invasion. She chooses the latter. Later on, the angels also make her magically-engineered species viable.
• A Dark version happens in The Saga of Tanya the Evil where the main character was actually reincarnated into an alternate reality as the titular Tanya Degurechaff as a test to see if putting her through "Dire Straights" she could awaken faith in God: whom Tanya had viewed as neither a God or a Devil: only as "Being X". Though as the story progresses, Tanya goes from being an atheist to full-on misotheist with some maltheist philosophy, because of all the constant fighting and pressure that Being X did in manipulating the entire world into creating a World War: just to try and get Tanya to pray to them.
• Divine Misfortune: Blessings and miracles don't come cheap after all. With modernization kicking in and the Court of Divine Affairs corralling all of the gods of the Earth, people can willingly choose what god they can worship, with the terms of one's religious affiliation laid out beforehand. It also gives the gods the right to smite their followers if they violate that pact, though the "smiting" can be anything from death, getting Dragged Off to Hell or just giving them a really shitty day.
• Dream Park: In The Barsoom Project, Yarnall is a game actor who becomes "stranded" in a live-action adventure game due to sabotage. He makes a bet with the Game Master that he won't be killed out by the end of the day, and the Game Master seals the deal by sending a (holographic) heavenly arm to reach down from the clouds so they can shake on it.
• The Dresden Files: The Knights of the Cross, in exchange for their services smiting evil, get amazing luck, their families protected from the forces of evil by literal angels, and (presumably) a good afterlife if not retirement.
• The Faraway Paladin: It is a common practice in-setting for individuals coming of age to make an oath with one of the gods, gaining a level of protection and power equal to the strength of the oath. Will, the namesake paladin, swears an especially powerful oath to his deity, the goddess Gracefeel.
• High School D×D: Angels and other forces of Heaven occasionally lend their aid to mortals and even devils to help them with their desires. Considering the series leans very heavily on God Before Dogma and Jesus Was Way Cool, it treats the only real difference between Heavenly forces granting prayers and Hellish ones as the Heavenly aid is free-of-charge, whereas a devil will charge you some set price for their help (usually nothing more than common currency).
• In Insomnia, Atropos gives Ralph a Sadistic Choice: either stay out of his way and let his plan to end the lives of an entire convention die, or he'll kill Natalie. Ralph quite literally screams at the heavens that he is perfectly willing to let Atropos win unless they step in and do something about it because he refuses to trade other people's lives for the "long lives'" destinies. He offers his life in exchange for hers and, in a huge aversion to Devil, but No God, a booming voice answers and agrees. In the end he's allowed to interfere with the forces of The Purpose and The Random, normally something that's never allowed, and shove Natalie out of the way of a car and be killed in her place.
• One Nation, Under Jupiter: The belief in the pax deorum, that the gods will protect Rome in exchange for proper religious practice, is still alive and well.
• "The Miraculous Countdown" by Ogden Nash tells of Dr. Faustus Foster, a well-meaning but incompetent scientist who thought he had made a Deal with the Devil after his latest experiments failed. Suddenly his discoveries went to work for the betterment of mankind. As Nash revealed in the poem's final stanzas:
  "Faustus, clumsiest of men,
  Had butterfingered the job again.
  I told you his head was far from level,
  He thought he had sold his soul to the devil,
  When he really sold it by mistake
  To his guardian angel, for heaven's sake!"
• In Pact and Pale, practitioners gain power by making deals with Others, offering them amusement or other things that may suit their goals. While many Others are malevolent in some way or another, some, such as Isadora the Riddling Sphinx, are more benevolent. The Others one may deal with also vary in power from tiny goblins and wispy spirits all the way up to gods and forces of nature.
• Reflections of Eterna: The Guardians of Sunset are an order of supernatural warriors defending the known multiverse against the continuous onslaught of otherworldly evil. Before their main citadel, the eponymous fortress of Eterna, fell, they bolstered their ranks by scouting out the toughest badasses of the multiverse and offered them a deal: Ageless Immortality and powers of a Physical God in return for an (eternal) life of service to the multiverse. The main caveat is that by agreeing, the future Guardian must give up all memories of their mortal life, so he can devote himself entirely to his new duties.
• The Secret of Platform 13: With less than an hour for her kidnapped son to return before the gump will close for nine more years, the Queen promises God that she'll never do anything bad again if he returns. The narration notes that she'd never done anything bad before anyway.
• Simon R. Green: The title of "The Walking Man" is granted to someone who swears himself to God's service and becomes the living Wrath of the Almighty on Earth.
• In Void City, Jean-Paul Courtney, a devout Christian knight who was bitten by a vampire, prayed to God for his vampirism to be cured and was granted a deal whereby his curse was lifted in exchange for the next seven generations of his descendants serving Heaven. Unbeknownst to him, he wasn't actually bargaining with the Christian God, but Scrythax; a demon who was previously worshiped as a god by various pagan religions and who has enough of a fondness for humans that he decided to answer his prayers when God wouldn't. Scrythax was purely benevolent in his intentions and completely upheld his end of the bargain, so Jean-Paul and his descendants never realized the truth.
• Watership Down: One of the Tales of El-ahrairah told by Blackberry has the Prince of Rabbits seek out the Black Rabbit of Inlé to save his warren from a siege being made by all the animals he's managed to tick off. The Black Rabbit tells El-ahrairah that there is no bargain to be made, but does allow the Prince to stay in his warren and try to convince him to help. Ultimately, after losing several body parts to games of chance with Inle, El-ahrairah decides to steal one of the Black Rabbit's plagues in an attempt to save his people. He fails due to lacking ears, but his obvious desperation is enough that the Black Rabbit apparently removed the siege around his warren.
• Young Wizards: This is how one becomes a wizard. The Powers That Be decide who gets to be a wizard, and offer those mortals the choice. Those who accept recite the Wizard's Oath, swearing to only use wizardry in the service of Life, and thereafter are granted the powers of a wizard. A wizard who later violates the oath not only loses their powers, but also all memories of having been a wizard. ^note But it has to be a serious violation. Minor violations are dealt with via Laser-Guided Karma, and moderate violations are dealt with by being disciplined by more senior wizards.

Live-Action TV

• In Game of Thrones, Catelyn Stark never liked her husband's illegitimate son, Jon Snow, because he is Ned's son by another woman. When Jon was still a baby, she prayed to the Seven to take him away but then Jon catches a fever as a young child and a guilt-ridden Catelyn is horrified at herself for wishing the gods to take away an innocent child because she was jealous of his mother. Catelyn stands vigil by Jon's bedside, making a prayer wheel for him, and prays to the gods again to spare him, and she would have him legitimised and love him as one of her own. She remained by Jon's bed until he got better, but Catelyn couldn't keep to her word. Now the Starks are scattered, and her husband is dead. Catelyn feels she is responsible for everything that has happened to her family because she didn't follow through on her part of the deal for an innocent, motherless child. Though in the end, Jon is recognized as a Stark by the other lords of the North and is named King in the North after he defeats Ramsay Bolton and retakes his homeland.
• M*A*S*H: The episode "Mad Dogs and Servicemen" has Radar get bitten by a dog thought to be rabid. When the dog's test for rabies comes out negative, Radar is informed and he won't have to get any more shots:
  Radar: (Looking up) A deal's a deal, Sir. No more "hells", "damns", and especially not the big one.
• The Musketeers: A downplayed version with Aramis in the second season finale. Having been arrested and awaiting execution with most of his loved ones either arrested and facing death, fugitives, or in some other danger, the devout Aramis prays to God to spare them. While he doesn't initially expect God to save him, he promises to resign from the musketeers and become a monk if God lets him live too. After they've all survived Aramis keeps his promise and quits. The first episode of the third season involves him trying to keep his promise after his friends show up and he has to utilise his musketeer skills again to save lives.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: At the climax of "Sacrifice of Angels", Sisko bargains with the Prophets to wish away the fleet of Dominion warships traveling through the wormhole to reinforce the fleet. The Prophets tell him there will be a penance exacted:
  Prophet!Dukat: The Sisko is of Bajor, but he will find no rest there.
  Prophet!Kira: His pagh [soul] will follow another path.

Music

• Kate Bush 's song "Running Up That Hill" essentially involves the singer to make a deal with God to swap places between women and men (according to an interview it's because a deal with God is more powerful than one with the devil). The song title was actually originally going to be "Deal with God" until the executives caught wind of that... and it's still listed as "Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)" in the album.

Religion and Myth

• Islam: Muslim tradition has the Prophet Muhammad literally Bargain with Heaven (or rather in Heaven with God). During the Night Journey (to Jerusalem and Heaven), Muhammad meets the prophets and God, exchanges greetings, etc.... and then God tells him (more or less): "Now to business. These are My commandments regarding prayer..." one of which is "pray fifty times daily." Muhammad says (more or less) "Sure, why not," and goes down, where Moses intercepts him and asks, "So... uh... what did He ask of you?" "Fifty prayers a day." Remembering the pain his own people had keeping 613 mitzvot, Moses said, "That's a bit much. Go up and ask Him to cut it down a bit." And Muhammad does, and then comes down to Moses, who keeps sending him up, until they're down to five prayers a day. Moses tells Muhammad to keep going after that; Muhammad says, "You know what, I'd rather not" and goes home.
• A similar bargain happened in the Book of Genesis with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Originally, God would only have spared the cities if a hundred good people could be found within, but Abraham eventually bargained Him down to sparing both cities if even only ten good people could be found. Since the cities were destroyed anyway and only Abraham's nephew Lot and his daughters were spared. Apparently finding ten good people total out of the population of both cities was too much to hope for.
• One of the tenets of Judaism is that the Israelites made one of these with God, who promised them the Holy Land, peace, and prosperity in return for obeying God's commandments.
  • The story of the prophet Samuel starts with one of these. As his mother was barren for many years, and came to pray at the tabernacle for deliverance from her pain. When the high priest Eli offered God's grace for this prayer, she did conceive a son, whom as per her terms, she gave up to God.
• Vestal virgins, in theory. They'd serve the goddess for twenty years, getting high social status and more political power than any other woman had in return, and then could leave and live a comfy life. The downside was that, if things went wrong, the politicians would look for a vestal virgin whom they could accuse of having violated the rules, and bury her alive. (But from the point of view of believers, the goddess would of course protect her faithful virgins from wrong accusations...)
• Christianity: Catholic nuns in the Middle Ages. Get engaged to Jesus, trade the option of marrying a mortal man for a decent education, next to zero risk of death in childbirth and improved safety from sexual violence. The latter two being problems that still persist today. Overall, a pretty good deal.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • In theory, this is how you get to be a paladin — you promise a deity to keep their code, champion their cause and preach their worship, and in exchange you're given divinely-granted power and the ability to call for direct Divine Intervention.
  • The game also features lots of vows and oaths that are usually exceptionally powerful options with a balancing drawback. In third edition, the Vow of Poverty required you to give up all your possessions but gave you enough abilities to mostly balance it out (which is a lot considering how much the game is balanced on the assumption of characters acquiring powerful magic items.)
  • The 3rd Edition Fiendish Codex II introduced the hellbred as a new playable race. These were people who did enough evil during life to end up sentenced to the Nine Hells when they died, but underwent a Heel–Face Turn at literally the last possible moment, too late to be accepted in the Upper Planes, but right before being fully damned. While the powers of good are willing to rescue the hellbred and give them a second chance (as well as a lot of Dark Is Not Evil powers related to their brush with hell), they need to undertake a Redemption Quest to prove they aren't merely trying to get out of their rightful punishment. Despite their best efforts, most hellbred are truly damned, as only the most epic of good deeds is enough to earn their salvation after their lifetimes of sin.
  • The 5E Warlock Celestial patron has this as the default, being good beings of the Upper Planes providing power under the terms of a pact to the warlock. It does have the same qualifier as the Deal with the Devil Fiend pact, though — there's nothing saying the warlock can't have conned the patron into a pact that provides power without actually requiring anything of the warlock, in terms of actions or soul-ownership.
  • This is a twist to a Scarred Lands story — a man sold his soul to a stranger to become a sorcerer, and then used the sorcerous power to be as good a person as possible, on his deathbed telling the stranger to come to claim him and that he'd done his best to make certain others wouldn't have to damn themselves the same way he did. The stranger chuckles and says the world would be a much darker place if fiends were the only ones who heard desperate prayers, enveloping the man in white wings...
• In GURPS, the Pact limitation on an advantage is most likely either this trope or a Deal with the Devil. It gives a character an advantage (or several of them) in exchange for said character following a code of conduct (represented by self-imposed mental disadvantages), and serves as a discount on the point cost of the advantages it applies to.
• Pathfinder: In addition to the ways found in its parent game, Pathfinder also includes the Celestial Bloodline for sorcerers, which is a counterpart for the Infernal and Abyssal Bloodlines that made pacts with the other ends of the alignment scale. One of the ways a character can get the Celestial Bloodline is making one of these deals with a Good-aligned outsider. There's also the possibility that such a deal was made by the sorcerer's ancestor, which can result in a Light Is Not Good scenario.
• Princess: The Hopeful: This is how Sworn are created, though with the twist that the supernatural entity in the relationship will often be a fellow Player Character. A Princess who knows the proper Charm can grant a willing mortal a small fragment of her own Inner Light, endowing the mortal with some limited supernatural abilities.
• Changeling: The Lost: This is the basis for all the titular Changelings' powers. A Changeling can sculpt fire with his bare hands because he made a contract with Fire to allow such shaping, or hide from sight because he made a pact with Light to keep his secret. Similarly, the four Seasonal Courts exist as contracts with the Seasons themselves: If the changelings pay the Seasons the proper respect and ritual, the Seasons will impose geases that limit what the Gentry can do against the changelings.
• Hunter: The Reckoning: Ordinary humans who accidentally get a glimpse behind the masquerade are typically chow, but a rare happenstance is that they are lent extremely minor divine powers (by the Ebon Dragon and the Scarlet Queen, the avatars of Yin and Yang and arguably the last untainted angels on earth), on one condition: don't run. Those who turn tail or hesitate lose access to the powers permanently, while those who act in any way get to keep the powers for the duration of their (short) hunting career.
• Warhammer Fantasy: A strange version with The Evil Prince Apophas, who murdered his entire family as they were between him and the throne, upon which he was Buried Alive by his outraged people. Apophas' ghost made a deal with the Nehekharan God of the Dead Usirian (who is not exactly nice, but still opposes the gods of Chaos), who agreed that if Apophas could bring him a soul equivalent to Apophas' own, the replacement soul would undergo Apophas' deserved afterlife of torment in his stead while he went to the good afterlife. What Apophas didn't (and possibly still doesn't) know is that no two souls are alike, meaning he'll never enter paradise.

Theatre

• Les Misérables: Jean Valjean was once a petty burglar who was caught after stealing silverware from a local bishop. Since he's already on parole and this could mean a much longer sentence back in jail, the bishop lies and tells the police the silverware was a gift. In doing so, he warns Valjean that he bought his soul for God and afterward, the guilt-stricken Valjean changes his ways and becomes an honest man. He mentions this bargain again later in the play during his epic song and Moment of Awesome, "Who Am I?"
  "My soul belongs to God, I know, I made that bargain long ago. He gave me hope when hope was gone, he gave me strength to journey on..."

Video Games

• Avencast: Rise of the Mage: In the backstory, the Kyranians were under threat of extinction due to meddling with Morgath. They were promised (by whom is left ambiguous) that if every remaining Kyranian met him on a single field of battle, Morgath would fall and at least some of the Kyranians would survive.
• Bayonetta: Much like how the Umbra Witches make a pact with the Demons of the Inferno, their light-based/masculine counterparts the Lumen Sages make a pact with the Hierarchy of Laguna, granting them enhanced physical prowess and White Magic on par with the Umbra Witches. When they die, their souls ascend to Paradiso where they are reincarnated as high-ranking angels in the Hierarchy.
• In The Binding of Isaac, it is possible to find Angel Rooms after finishing a boss battle. These are the "holy" version of the Devil Rooms and require you to ignore Devil Deals in order to reach them; if you take a Devil deal, Angel Rooms permanently stop appearing with a few exceptions⁺if you take Act of Contrition, or get the 'You feel blessed!' fortune from sacrificing hearts at a Confessional or a Sacrifice Room, though the fortune only works on the one floor. These rooms contain free exclusive items and play a crucial role in finding the way to Mega Satan. The Repentance DLC adds the Stairway, which guarantees an Angel Room at the start of a floor but requires money in exchange for the items that would normally be free. With 'A Pound of Flesh'^note a passive item that inverts shops and Devil deals: items in shops cost health, while Devil deals cost money, the Stairway's offers will cost health to take exactly like Devil deals normally go.
• In The Elder Scrolls series' backstory, St. Alessia formed one of these with the Aedra, the divine beings who sacrificed large portions of their power in order to create Mundus, the mortal plane. Alessia, whose people, the Nedes (human ancestors to most of Tamriel's races of Men), had been enslaved by the (primarily) Daedra-worshiping Ayleids prayed to the Aedra for aid. The Aedra answered her prayers and sent her aid, in exchange for adopting the worship of the Aedra as the official religion of her new empire. Following her victory, they gave her the Amulet of Kings as proof of her claim. Akatosh, the draconic God of Time and chief deity of the Aedra, mystically joined his blood with Alessia and her heirs, an act which maintained the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion, the realm of the Daedra.
• In For Honor, the Warborn (Viking) order of Valkyries made a bargain with the gods so that they can acquire glory for those who cannot earn it, thus allowing individuals of the Valkyrie's choosing to go to Valhalla.
• Nexus Clash: Every player character who becomes an Angel makes one of these, and the parallels with the Deal with the Devil that Demons make are very much intended. Angels get extraordinary supernatural power at the price of being bound to keep their Karma Meter in top condition for the rest of their days. Given that the god in charge of the Karma Meter defines goodness mainly in terms of killing his enemies, the catch becomes apparent rather quickly.
• Tales of Zestiria: There are "vows" which several characters make (and break) over the games. Vows are powerful ritual magics which require accepting a strong taboo or code of conduct in order to attain power. Few would argue that a vow isn't worth it - you can get otherwise impossible powers or even genuine immortality out of one - but their restrictions prevent the taker from using them most effectively. For example:
  • Lailah in Zestiria takes a vow that lets her grant the Flames of Purification to a Shepherd, so he can cleanse the spiritual impurity of malevolence. However, her vow forces her to provide a Cryptically Unhelpful Answer to any question about the nature of malevolence, Shepherds, and related topics — because as easy as it would be for her to provide all the answers and point the Shepherd at whatever needs to be cleansed, the Shepherd's resolve is everything and just handing him all the answers without understanding would leave him unprepared and likely to fall to malevolence himself.
  • The explorer Mayvin has a vow that grants immortality, in exchange also forcing him to act as a cryptic Eccentric Mentor for much the same reason: providing all the answers clearly and simply would make them meaningless (or worse, destructive) before someone is prepared to truly understand them. It's also implied, however, that sometimes someone genuinely needs true, clear answers, and his vow means he (and his successors) will be there to provide them at the key moment, even if it kills him afterward.
• How paladins, priests, shamans and druids get their powers in World of Warcraft. Paladins make a deal with the Light (or a specific being of the Light), shamans with the Elementals, priests make deals with a wide variety of different beings (or just, the Light and Void, depending on the race), and druids with a nature spirit (or a being of the Emerald Dream). Not making a deal (and simply taking the power by force of will) is shown to be possible, but incredibly painful and spiritually corrupting. Warlocks are also shown making deals with beings of the Twisting Nether, but this is more similar to Deal with the Devil (depending on the specific being, of course). Demon Hunters straight up make deals with the devil (sometimes literally), and often suffer horrifically because of it.

Visual Novel

• Fate/stay night: Archer made a pact with Alaya, the collective will of humanity, offering his service as a Counter Guardian^note Counter Guardians are a form of immune system to the Earth, basically permanently employed Time Police tasked with saving the human race from things that could destroy it or disrupt the natural balance. in return for gaining the ability to save a few people he otherwise couldn't have saved. While becoming a Counter Guardian has allowed Archer to save even greater numbers of people than before by effectively saving the world multiple times, the methods Counter Guardians are forced to use made it something of a backfire for him even if Alaya didn't have any malice in mind by giving them both what they wanted.

Webcomics

• Blood is Mine: As eldritch entities go, the tradesmen are fairly safe to deal with. They are honest, they don't exploit possible mistakes in the rituals that invoke their power, they always uphold their end of the deal, they make sure you fully understand the cost of the bargain before you make it, and if you don't like the cost, you can refuse the deal with no harm done. Their prices depend on how important is the information you seek: some smaller trades required giving away a favorite shirt or being unable to dye your hair a certain color. The tradesmen can even provide some information for free, albeit in a roundabout way, since it's good for business. Just don't try to intentionally fleece them, or they will eat your family.
• In The Emperors Partner, the protagonist makes a deal with God to see her sister one more time, and is Reincarnated In Another World, where she attracts the attention of the Emperor.
• In Fans!, with his loved ones about to be tortured to death, Rikk sells his soul to what he believes to be the Devil in exchange for their protection. It's only after the deal is done that he realizes he was actually talking to God.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: One character trying to pull a Rescued from the Underworld stunt gets caught red-handed by the Psychopomp and claims he needs the deceased Resurrected for a Job for a task that consists of fixing a Barred from the Afterlife situation over which the Psychopomp has no direct control. The Psychopomp's response boils down to "Okay, but you're on a timer at the end of which I'm expecting two people back no matter what".

Web Animation

• In Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged, upon meeting Red XIII, Barett tells him that when he was a kid, he'd pray every night that God could take his arm, his friends, and even the home in which he slept if He would grant him a talking dog best friend. He's since lost his family, home, and arm, but now has met a talking dog. Funny enough, this follows the "petitioner gets cheated somehow" subclause from the 0 to this trope's 1, as Barett and Red end up having a falling-out, although it is short-lived.

Western Animation

• John Callahan's Quads!: This manages to be played with twice.
  • The first is when Riley, who's already a quadriplegic, starts suffering erectile dysfunction as well. He pleads to the heavens and tries to make a deal with God, promising to go to church and even give to the collection plate (sometimes), if only God will cure it. When he gets no answer, his attention shifts to the ground and he says "Hey, if you're listening!" Cue rumbling thunder...
  • A later episode has Riley meet God during a Near-Death Experience and discovering, in spite of the plot of the above example, that Hell doesn't exist and it's just a ploy by God to scare people into being good and/or repenting. God immediately tries to cut a deal in exchange for Riley's silence, but just then Riley gets "recalled" to Earth and the deal's off because, obviously, nobody's going to believe his mad ramblings anyways.

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