Everybody Loves Zeus examples kinda misses why it was named like that

It does seem to be specific to monotheism, though.

Aye, and moral judgments are very different between a setting with multiple gods, which may not be morally equivalent, and a setting with just one. These merge motions are really far-fetched, really. Besides, Adaptational Heroism is a very broad (and probably overused) concept, not something we want to carelessly shove stuff into.

I think the idea of "top god portrayed as good" is workable, but this trope right now just boils down to "portrayals of Zeus where he's not a serial human rapist dickhead". Additionally I don't think he was ever a god of light. If anything, that's Apollo.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 5th 2024 at 12:58:39 PM

Is it really that different? God Is Good already has plenty of examples (like from DC and Marvel comics) that are of works with multiple gods in them, so it's not really that far-fetched.

Well, god of lightning, but that means also being associated with stormclouds.

Zeus is the head god, and acts as judge for other gods. Basically he is king of the gods, so Zeus represents the gods and so this could be said to represent gods are good.

It should be noted that Hades in the Greek myth is a bit of an outsider and sometimes comes into conflict with the gods of Olympus.

Yeah I don't think God Is Good is limited to monotheism.

It's sure written as if it is...

Even the trope makes a "or God's equivalent in the setting", so one could infer Zeus, Ra, etc. are like that.

Except it's entirely inaccurate to say that Zeus, Ra, etc. are the equivalent of God. God is a very specific concept; it doesn't simply stop at "god who controls the heavens" or "the top of the hierarchy". Zeus wasn't some equivalent to the monotheistic God.

That line is referring to things like Arceus — characters that take direct inspo from the biblical concept of God.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 7th 2024 at 8:43:08 AM

I'm in favor of turning Everybody Loves Zeus into the polytheistic equivalent of God Is Good. That would necessitate renaming the trope and revising its description.

It would also be good to check out how valid the examples of God Is Good that come from works with multiple gods are.

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Jan 7th 2024 at 9:45:26 AM

Sounds like a valid suggestion.

In philosophy God is usually defined as being who is all knowing, all powerful, all wise and morally perfect. That is a Western idea, although I think that other ideas of the divine, from polytheism to belief in a chi like energy tend to see the divine positively.

Though the Greek Gods were more or less just kinda... people. Very flawed, very dangerous people.

I am pretty sure that from a ancient Greek perspective, he was lawful good. After all he did things like protect travellers and answer prayers.

I am also not sure how Greeks saw the stories about them. Herodot talks about the poets versions of things, which suggests that Greeks knew that they poems weren't 100% true. I think that there must have been a difference between the mythology and religion of ancient Greece. The Priests of Zeus probably talked about Zeus differently than the poets and playwrights. The day to day of Greek religion was praying and sacrificing to the gods, and that probably gave them a different perspective than we have.

One thing to keep in mind is that the writings we have of the time come, inevitably, from the literate elite, and while open atheism was rare, there were plenty of agnostics and covert atheists among them, far more than in the wider populace.

Here is a blog from a classisist who dicusses atheism and Plato. http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/04/socrates-1-did-socrates-die-for-this.html?m=1