A lot more muddled than a new trope should be: Hollywood Satanism

This is a new trope fresh from YKTTW, and I think it has a great, novel aim: To highlight misuse of the terms "Satanism" and "Satanic" in media and fiction to mean the exact same thing as "Devil Worship."

However, devil worship itself, as it appears in media and works, doesn't necessarily have to be called "Satanism" or be described as "Satanic," and several examples on the page already do not specify where and how devil worship is being incorrectly called "Satanism" or "Satanic" in a work. Other examples, including Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" and Sam And Max, seem to only be tropers themselves using the words incorrectly to describe said works; the song "The Number of the Beast" itself, in fact, makes no explicit references to the terms "Satanism" or "Satanic" in describing the dark rituals of a group of devil worshipers (although it does make reference to The Devil himself as "Satan").

I only believe that it should be made more perfectly clear that the mere existence of devil worship in a work itself does not equate Hollywood Satanism and wish to promote that examples on this page more clearly show how characters in a work itself are incorrectly using the terms "Satanism" and "Satanic" when they only mean "Devil Worship."

Very good point.

Bumping this.

If no one objects, I'll move all examples that don't explain how the exact words "Satanism" or "Satanic" are used to in a work to convey the activities of a Religion of Evil to the trope's discussion page and ask for clarification. At least one or two other examples will be cut entirely for not actually using those words to describe a Religion of Evil.

I honestly think the trope description is not written well.

"Satanism" isn't a religion. It's the name of many "religions".

I do support what you're doing here.

edited 2nd Dec '10 9:25:58 PM by melloncollie

You're going to have a bit of a time with that; it'll probably be highly debatable which references to Devil worship in ANY work (set in the real world, that is) can be considered definitively seperate from 'Satanism'.

^As I already said in the OP,

I only believe that it should be made more perfectly clear that the mere existence of devil worship in a work itself does not equate Hollywood Satanism and wish to promote that examples on this page more clearly show how characters in a work itself are incorrectly using the terms "Satanism" and "Satanic" when they only mean "Devil Worship."

This should just be a trope about the use of the words and terms "Satanism" and "Satanic." If a work of fiction contains a Religion of Evil that worships the antithesis of the God of Abraham but does not make any use of the words "Satanism" or "Satanic" as a name for said Religion of Evil or as a descriptive term for it, then it's simply not an example.

edited 6th Dec '10 2:41:22 PM by SeanMurrayI

Just a probably-unrelated note: in reality, Anton La Vey's school of philosophy (source of most actual real life "satanists") is called "The Church of Satan" for shock value, they do not actually worship the Christian antagonist deity.

So, we doing something with this?

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