God



The Big Boss of the universe in monotheistic religions. The Alpha And The Omega, the Big Cheese, the Big Guy in the Sky, the Almighty, the Creator, the Capital G, the Ceiling Cat.

If all of existence is one big story, He's the Big Good.

Metaphysical human concept or not, he's got a pretty large chunk of humanity as believers and followers, thanks in part to best-selling books such as The Bible and the Qur'an which feature God as a prevalent character, if not the main character.

Using God as a character rather than simply referring to the Powers That Be or using terms without religious connotations is a dicey proposition, as it is just about the only thing you can do, other than a series finale Clip Show, that is 100% guaranteed to piss off a chunk of the viewers.

Shows in which God plays a major role tend not to last very long, regardless of their various good points. This is a major reason for Have You Seen My God? and Pieces of God. Since depicting God is attempting to portray an infinite divine being in human terms and ideas, this is problematic at best. Rather than giving God an explicitly defined human shape and face, most tend towards a human-like figure with an obscured face, one or two giant hands in the sky, or even nothing more than an ALL CAPS WORD BUBBLE.

God is also not always seen as the benevolent ruler of everything, hence why tropes such as God Is Evil exist. Some of this is Alternate Character Interpretation from The Bible (or other similar works), but some of it is authors liking to throw in a twist or subvert audience expectations. Works which feature Rage Against the Heavens often feature God being a jerk, if not outright malevolent, to his creation, though some would say he's more concerned with perfect justice than just being nice.

In pretty much every case, though, God is shown as being very powerful. Since God is believed by followers to be the driving force behind the entire universe, this also makes a good deal of sense. Also common is a portrayal of God as the ultimate Chessmaster, and capable of executing a eternity spanning Plan. This, of course, leads people to wonder why God doesn't just solve the problem of evil with a single metaphysical finger snap, but that's a discussion best left to theologians.

Possibly due to the influence of works like Bruce Almighty, God has been showing up increasingly often in media recently. Subversions and parodies are also increasingly common (see King of All Cosmos), but limited to Black Comedy - once you've turned God into a joke, it's hard to do anything else.

The danger of being burned at the stake leads to many writers choosing to thinly veil God as a Crystal Dragon Jesus or "The Light". Said God may even refuse the label for personal reasons.

The Maker is often a stand-in for God, if it isn't outright Him.

Also, had you been the first person to edit this article, you'd have seen the phrase "Describe God here." A daunting task, to say the least.

Anime and Manga

 * In Suzumiya Haruhi, a certain seems to possess godlike abilities, though Itsuki, the philosopher of the group, would not go so far as to designate them God (and later novels support him).
 * There's also a strong fan theory that.
 * Lain Iwakura may or may not be God. We're not quite sure. At any rate, even if she's not God, her power level makes the whole point kinda moot.
 * In Pani Poni Dash, God is a cat that changes colors every episode and lives in a vending machine.
 * In Code Geass, God . Charles and his brother want Instead, Lelouch, ruining their plans.
 * The Almighty One in Ah My Goddess. Father of Belldandy and Skuld, as well as Urd, who was produced by a tryst with Satan the Ruler of Demonkind. Theorized to be Baldur.
 * in Fruits Basket.
 * Angel Sanctuary of course. Features God Is Evil in a really, really nasty way. God not only forced an Original Sin down on his angels ( Yuck. That the fruits look like baby heads doesn't make it any better. ) - nope, he also considers all of his angels failed experiments and wants to end the world.   Neat one, Kaori Yuki - neat one.
 * Shaman King's Great Spirit is "God" and is every spirit manifested into a giant pillar of light.
 * The Truth of Fullmetal Alchemist starts his speech to anyone who dares cross into his domain (i.e. through Human Transmutation), by stating that he is "I am World. I am Universe. I am God. I am Truth. I am One. I am All. And I am also you!"
 * Deus ex Machina from Mirai Nikki. The story happens because Deus Interestingly, there appear to be a couple of limits on his powers:

Comic Books

 * The Lucifer comics depict God as sympathetic towards humans, but ultimately rather alien and willing to do terrible things in pursuit of greater goals. Indeed, at one point He is willing to destroy the entire universe, as He wasn't sure if it was really a successful experiment or not. Eventually, He was convinced to do nothing and let the inhabitants of his universe solve the entropy of the universe by themselves, an idea He didn't seem to have even considered and thus found rather amusing.
 * God is shown, face and all, in the Preacher (Comic Book) comics. Definitely not one of the kinder depictions of his power or personality.
 * Marvel Comics have an interesting relationship with God. The highest being in the setting and creator of the universe is [[http://marvel.wikia.com/One_Above_All_
 * The DCU has [[http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Presence_
 * Conan has Mitra, who's essentially the Judaeo-Christian God under a different name. His followers are strict monotheists (the only ones in Hyboria!), believe in Heaven and Hell and are sworn enemies of Set, the setting's serpentine Satan analogue.
 * Last Man Standing has Hex, who is by Word of God the God of The Verse.
 * Quino's works portray him as an old man with a triangular halo over his head.
 * Savage Dragon has an arc named "A Talk With God". Guess who shows up? Special mention to the fight between Him and Satan!

Film

 * In Star Trek V the Final Frontier, the Enterprise crew meets an evil alien playing at being God. It may be noteworthy that the original concept called for the being to actually be God.
 * Oh God and its sequels (starring George Burns as God)
 * Time Bandits with Sir Ralph Richardson, slightly hedged since he was billed as "the Supreme Being."
 * Bruce Almighty with Morgan Freeman.
 * Field of Dreams The Voice - unknown actor, listed in credits only as "Himself"... implication clear!
 * Monty Python and The Holy Grail goes all-out subversion of the usual delicacy about the Almighty with a Terry Gilliam-animated God who peers out of the clouds and issues orders to Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, while complaining about people being deferential to Him and how depressing the Psalms are. And all of this back in 1975.
 * In Dogma, God appears in two incarnations. First, He's a rather shabby and gentle old man who unfortunately gets the crap kicked out of Him by demonic underage murderers on rollerblades; second, she is Alanis Morissette in a silver tutu, and is fond of doing handstands. It's also mentioned that God is a Skee-Ball addict. Although it's implied that God's appearance as Alanis is because that was the form the protagonist needed to see most. It is also implied that God was once as vengeful and wrathful as He/She was portrayed as in the Old Testament (Sodom and Gommorah, the ten plagues, etc), but became less so as time passed. He/She no longer keeps an angel employed to fulfill His/Her wrath and gives His/Her Skee-Ball tickets to neighborhood children.
 * Monotheism seems fairly rare in the Star Wars Galaxy, but there is one notable exception, the Sunesi species, a devoutly religious race that believes in the Maker, an all-powerful deity who made the universe and all its inhabitants. The Force might be God or like God. Its interesting to note that the one Sunesi Jedi in the Expanded Universe believes that his ability to use the Force is "a gift from the Maker."
 * Humorously, the Narrator in George of the Jungle apparently is God (in the straight-to-video sequel, he drags away a villain who told him to shut up into Heaven - complete with heavenly music, cartoon cherubs, and screams of terror), and generally screws around with the villains who often get tired of his narrating.
 * God is played by none other than Paul Sorvino in The Devils Carnival.

Literature

 * References to "the Creator" as the antithesis of the Dark One are everywhere in the Wheel of Time series through phrases like "the light of the Creator", but, Inquisition aside, there doesn't seem to be much religion involved, and the Creator itself never appears in the series (not even as a mysterious voice in the first book). The lack of religion has been explained by the fact that in-universe Creator and Dark One are very much real, and everyone knows that (for example, saying the Dark One's true name aloud will have dire(ct) consenquences). The Creator seems to be a very hands-off kind of deity. In one of the books, it's implied that he created all worlds, but doesn't particularly care if one of them dies in the way that a gardener plants all the flowers in a garden, but doesn't care if one of them wilts. The characters seem to acknowledge and accept this. That doesn't explain why prayers and catechisms are addressed to him, though.
 * An interesting take in DDD by Kinoko Nasu: The Multiverse being the way it is, even the phenomenon of "God" was most likely willed into existence by humanity's beliefs. However, while demons are incomplete beings (which is why they need humans to define their existence), if God was truly omniscient and omnipotent, then He would have no need to interact with human beings, since He only needs Himself.
 * Eru Iluvatar in The Silmarillion, also known as "The One".
 * The Creator in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is rather unusual in that while He is undoubtedly the creator of the Land (the setting for most of the novels), it is not so clear whether He is also the guy who made the "real world" where Thomas comes from. He seems benevolent, and unusually humble as gods go, frequently dressing as a hobo (with really bad breath). He's certainly not omnipotent: he can't defeat his enemy, Lord Foul (the Devil), without also destroying the world he created.
 * Agents of God are present in The Dresden Files, and the Man Himself is referred to as the "White God" by various supernatural entities. Other gods exist as well, though it's implied that most of them aren't very active any more.
 * Monotheistic religious texts, listed below. Some readings treat Him as the protagonist. Some treat Him as the author; Author Avatar may apply.
 * The Bible (Christian).
 * The Book of Mormon (Latter-Day Saints).
 * The Torah (Jewish).
 * The Qur'an (Muslim).
 * Bahá'í religious texts.
 * In the Dragons series, God
 * Never actually makes an appearance in Good Omens, but his plans and motives are speculated about a lot. His ineffable nature.
 * HP Lovecraft subverted the notion of an omnipotent god perfectly. He gives us many gods of varying unspeakable power, but the undoubtedly omnipotent one is Azathoth, who is not a loving, merciful creator who watches his beloved creations from on high, but is an incomprehensible mass of literal, mindless chaos that dreams up and devours entire realities randomly. The only reason we still exist is not because we're loved, it's because Azathoth is asleep.
 * Christ is a Death By Origin Story character via accounts of Thomas Didymus in Dirg For Prester John, but whether or not he was divine is unclear. God proper is highly debated through the series.

Live Action TV
"Castiel: There is someone besides Michael strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the apocalypse.
 * God appears in various forms as a major character in Joan of Arcadia.
 * Though Heaven, Hell, and a living personification of all evil exist in the Buffyverse, God is almost conspicuous in His absence. Buffy herself comments that there's "nothing solid" on the matter. However, there are The Powers That Be. They may be gods, but they're not God. It's implied that a divine miracle occurred in Season 3 when it snowed to prevent Angel from committing "Suicide by Sunrise." However, it's left ambiguous enough that it could also have been Santa Claus looking out for vampires with souls. The whole "White Christmas" thing being his entire shtick and all.
 * Or.
 * Cited as the prime mover behind Sam's inability to get home in Quantum Leap. (Or, more accurately, as the force which caused the Quantum Leap Project to go awry in the particular way that it did; the series finale heavily implies that Sam is subconsciously keeping himself from getting home.)
 * God appears inside Herman's Head once, taking the form of Leslie Nielsen to better meet Herman's expectations.
 * In the first season finale of The Sarah Silverman Program, the titular character meets, is saved by, sleeps with, and then dumps the Morgan Freemanesque entity which she refers to as "Black God." When God makes his first appearance, she asks him, consistent with her character's casual racism, "Are you God's black friend?" A later episode has them reconciling and briefly dating, and God is portrayed as clingy, emotionally insecure, and prone to coming on too strong.
 * The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica Reimagined is fairly explicit about God's existence in-universe, and while He doesn't exactly show up, we do learn some things about Him, like the fact that He is very much like the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God in that he is omnipotent and omniscient, but unlike the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God in that He doesn't much care for smiting and doesn't like being called "God."
 * Season 4 of Supernatural brought us Judeo-Christian mythology (with some amount of Islamic mythology added in regards to Lucifer's history), with the appearance of Castiel (an angel), who insisted that God did exist. At the beginning of season 5,

Sam: Who's that?

Castiel:. The one who began everything. God. (pause) I'm gonna find God.

'Dean: Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla."

"Suspect: (to Gibbs) It was the hand of GOD!
 * As the fifth season went on, various characters, including, told them that God was.
 * In 5x18, "Dark Side of the Moon," Sam and Dean are told by  that God.
 * A  in 5x22, "Swan Song," led many viewers to speculate that.
 * In St Elsewhere, Howie Mandell met God in an out-of-body experience. God was also played by Howie Mandell. As he explained, "I made you in my own image, didn't I?"
 * Gets a minor reference in NCIS:

Ziva: (watching) Can Gibbs arrest God?

Tony: I dunno... it's like the Thing trying to take in The Hulk."

Tabletop Games

 * Dragonlance has the Highgod, who created the lesser deities but has only intervened in Krynn's history to prevent its destruction. Chaos is the entity that opposes the High God, and it is from Chaos that the universe was created.
 * In Forgotten Realms, the Overgod Ao (who created the universe Faerun inhabits) is visited by his "boss" in the Avatar Trilogy. He is described as a "being of pure light" and is strongly implied to be the Judeao-Christian God.
 * God is a major character in the Demon: The Fallen background fluff, although not so much in the actual game campaigns. All the Fallen have known God personally at the dawn of time, but ever since their Rebellion and incarceration in the Abyss came to hate Him (except the relatively small Reconciler faction). There are also indications that in oWoD, God is actually female and that She has sacrificed Her life to save the world centuries before the Fallen broke free from the Abyss.
 * The only one giving any info on the subject are the same demons who hate God's guts, so the proverbial grain of salt is necessary here...
 * In KULT, he's called the Demiurge, and is evil: Humans were immortal superbeings before he took all our powers away and made us what we are.

Video Games

 * The Shin Megami Tensei games have an... interesting (but there are occasional exceptions) relationship with God to say the least.
 * In Shin Megami Tensei I he makes no direct appearance, but everyone on his side is working to build a kingdom on Earth where all men and demons shall fall prostrate before him for eternity, even completing a massive Cathedral that will serve as his Terrestrial Throne, and from all appearances, even though he doesn't show up, God approves of the above. We also learn that he long ago sealed away all the other demons and deprived them of the right to meddle in Man's affairs, but now they are back and aren't leaving without a fight.
 * In Shin Megami Tensei II, He is specifically named as YHVH and is a vain dictator who has created the universe in such a way that it will be subjugated under him forever. He essentially states that He exists because people believe in Him, making humanity the real source of all evil.
 * In Shin Megami Tensei III it is heavily implied that and that He is the "true enemy" of all who live.
 * In Strange Journey it is implied that the evil God from the other games has been broken into pieces in the games backstory and that his pieces have got a life of it's own. The game also reveals, albeit subtly
 * In the first Devil Survivor, he's not seen, but implied to be, as opposed to his other appearances, very reasonable, and even though his angels wanted to subjugate the Earth as soon as demons came back, he was the one who decided humanity should have one last chance to save themselves and decide their fate.
 * God is one of the many, many, many things that will show up in Scribblenauts if you type him into the game. He's.
 * "Creator" is the final boss of the first Final Fantasy Legend. Said deity can also be killed via Chainsaw due to Good Bad Bugs it is also explained in Romancing Sa Ga as a legend of a man who challenged a god, and said weapon is usable by characters in Romancing Sa Ga If you can find it.
 * Final Fantasy XIII.
 * God is a Bonus Boss in Dragon Quest VII. The greatest power of the Supreme Being? Terrible jokes.
 * Xenosaga has U-DO, God in the very Gnostic sense, a sort of manifestation of the collective unconscious in a single rather malevolent alien consciousness.
 * Similarly, Xenogears has U-DO's more-or-less equivalent, the Wave-Existence.
 * Dragon Age calls him The Maker. But there's no doubt that it's Him, with his church being modeled heavily after the Catholic and the Eastern Church, and the story of his Prophetess being an amalgam of Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, and Joan of Arc.
 * Also a case of Have You Seen My Maker? as He got fed up with humanity's sins and left them to rot after they executed His Prophetess. Or so His Chantry says.
 * Bayonetta surprisingly has something like this. Her, yeah, her, name is Jubileus, and in order to reawaken her, the Left Eye and Right Eyes of the world need to unleash their power and quite literally go inside her eye sockets. If one is removed she will go berserk and destroy everything not because she can recreate the universe, but because she is unbalanced... but she is not the hardest boss. That title goes to Rodin.
 * Random soldiers in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will occasionally claim they had a vision of God in the back of a truck. If you choose to investigate, you can find God and recruit him to MSF. He has the highest Intel stat in the game, but apparently E-rank cooking skill.
 * God (or some form thereof) also appears infrequently the Tales series.
 * Tales of Eternia makes God (or Seyfert as He's known here) into a total dude. He gives you the Infinity Plus One Skills needed to defeat the Big Bad.
 * In Abyss, we have Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the Seventh Fonon which has a Christianity-like religion centred around it (complete with a Jesus parallel, although it's a little different in that she's female). The game is a little unsure on whether or not it's actually the God equivalent of the Abyss world or a Crystal Dragon Jesus.
 * Arc Rise Fantasia features three gods, but only one of them is a true "God" parallel. is also a massive woobie, to the extent that if you aren't close to tears in the ending there is something seriously wrong with you. Very well.
 * God is the final boss in The Simpsons Game. As if that wasn't crazy enough, you get to fight him in  !
 * In The Binding of Isaac, God calls to Isaac's mother to make a sacrifice using her son, thus starting the game's events.
 * The  from Asura's Wrath, is a Big Bad example that spins the threads of all of existence, allowed the Deities of the game to use Mantra and made the gohma attack to test the Deities' resolve.
 * His real name is, which means   in Hindu Mythology. Unfortunately, He's evil, and doesn't really fit the Benevolent part that being an Ideal Universal Ruler comes with being.
 * This being Asura's Wrath, though, there's only one logical end to the entire tale.

Web Original

 * Ceiling Cat.
 * In the Mr. Deity series of on YouTube shorts, God is interpreted as Mr. Deity, a Hollywood Executive type who, although essentially well-meaning, is a bit vague, thoughtless and temperamental, with a slightly alarming tolerance for various evils and unpleasantness. He also bears a startling resemblance to George Lucas.
 * O Criador ("The Creator"), a popular Brazilian Twitter account.
 * In the Journal Roleplay MS Elegante, Captain Redd is pretty much every deity rolled into one.
 * Shortly after 9/11, God made an appearance in The Onion.
 * In The Salvation War, God declares that the gates of Heaven are closed, and that everyone is going to Hell so they should just lay down and die. Humanity doesn't takes this very well.
 * On That Guy With the Glasses, a God-like stand-in called Santa Christ makes occasional appearances, usually doing something incredibly awesome and helpful (like erasing a reviewer's memories of a horrible movie) and then doing something else very nice for the reviewer (such as curing their diabetes or giving them a present). Everyone is always very happy to see him.
 * The Creator in the Whateley Universe is said to be the only entity more powerful than the Lovecraftian Outer Gods.
 * God in Messed Up Bible Stories on YouTube (see here), which is portrated by basically a speaking, glowing ball of light.

Webcomics
""He did not realized what you have known for years.
 * Muertitos depicts God and Satan as the patriarchs of two clans of feuding rednecks.
 * In this Loserz strip. For some unexplained reason, he hates the protagonist Eric so much that it makes his eyeballs bleed, probably to parody the phrase 'God Hates Me', by taking it literally.
 * This Perry Bible Fellowship strip has God depicted as the all-seeing eye. Hmm. A great eye that sees all? Sounds a bit like Sauron. That or the all-seeing eye on the back of the US $1 note.
 * God shows up periodically in Dinosaur Comics, represented by bold text spoken from the top of the panel.
 * In Breakfast of the Gods, God is.
 * God and Jesus make frequent appearances in Overcompensating. God is depicted in the typical old man with long hair and a long beard wearing a robe. However the robe is clearly a bathrobe and he dwells in a trailer park for some reason.
 * God talks to Jesus off panel in a Penny Arcade comic. Jesus makes frequent appearances.
 * God has appeared twice in Something Positive.
 * Like almost everybody else in the strip, God is portrayed as a Jerkass who especially hates Davan and Mike and ignores prayers to Him in lieu of watching shit happen to them.
 * He also made up the whole "Homosexuality angers God" business so that He could watch lesbian couples having sex with each other to spite Him. It's not made clear if the spite is needed in order to invoke His name so that He is allowed to watch, if invoking His name merely alerts him to the location the act is taking place, or if the spite is just part of His kink.
 * God pops up rather frequently in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal strips, in which He is depicted as a large yellow disk/sphere; basically, a halo from classical depictions of saints and Biblical figures. "Why do you look like a golden pizza?"
 * Although he doesn't appear directly, God is an indirect presence behind the scenes in Misfile, depicted as an all-knowing entity that lets his angelic bureaucracy handle the actual work...or does he?
 * Lord Cyrios, the creator of the Daily Grind universe, has never appeared directly in the comic, but the Fae claim to be will-less bodies inhabited by his spirit, and several dead characters--like Tharka's sister Benjamina and Jolene's mentor Stenni Eelstad--have shown up saying they work for him now.
 * Fans has God interfere with Rikk's making a Deal With the Devil to save his friends.

"Which is what, just to refresh my memory?

"There is more than one being in the universe who desires souls. I am not Satan. I AM THAT I AM!""

"Robin: ...why are you eating a chocolate Easter cross?
 * In Jack, God is a more-or-less constant presence behind the scenes, since the comic is essentially about the morality of the afterlife, and how to deal with it. When Sie finally showed up in the flesh, so to speak, Sie manifested as a sheep.
 * Sluggy Freelance had one (just off-screen) appearance by God, though this was a near-death experience hallucination and part of unreliable narration. Also, He urinated on Kiki's head. One reader on the forums was offended.
 * Shortpacked has God appear every once in a while, usually trying to get people to bring back Enterprise. Jesus has also shown up (though the one he appeared before had just had a nasty knock on the head), eating a chocolate Easter cross.

Jesus: Did you know they sell these at the grocery store? What the fuck dude?"


 * God in Planescape Survival Guide
 * In Sinfest, God appears as hands popping out of clouds holding signs or wearing hand puppets. He has a snarky sense of humor, enjoys poking fun at the main characters, and loves to make the Devil his Butt Monkey. He hasn't shown up as much in the last few years' worth of strips, although his influence shows up in more subtle ways.

Western Animation
"Hawkgirl: That's right, I'm an angel. You can mess with me if you want to, but I don't think you want to mess with the Boss. *Points up*"
 * One of the three main characters of the short-lived God the Devil And Bob.
 * In their usual style, South Park depicts God as a bizarre-looking and somewhat surly mandrill/hippo creature in "Are You There, God? It's Me, Jesus". And he's a Buddhist who only lets Mormons into Heaven.
 * God shows up in the Drawn Together episode "Gay Bash" to declare that, despite what Princess Clara says, he doesn't hate homosexuals, and he thinks fundamentalists are assholes (and homosexuals are adorable).
 * God and Jesus both show up from time to time on Family Guy, with God being depicted as a bit of a wannabe ladies man with a thing for sniper rifles, who is embarrassed when someone reads from the book of Job. Unlike in The Simpsons, God is shown full-body with, naturally, Seth MacFarlane's voice instead of the traditional deep bass.
 * God is also depicted as every other stereotypical male; drunk, hits on the women, and loves to party.
 * In American Dad, also by MacFarlane, God is depicted as... Angelina Jolie. Though it should be noted this was just a form taken to keep Steve's (limited) attention. Looking into the "rack of infinite wisdom" turned Steve into a prophet, who had a solution to all conflict in the Middle East. In a later episode God is depicted as... well, he looks a bit more like Sean Connery.
 * In the Futurama episode "Godfellas", Bender has an encounter with a galaxy-sized being that appears to be God (though, in a Shout Out to Star Trek, Bender theorizes that it's the remains of a satellite that collided with God). It seems to care about living creatures, but espouses a "light touch" philosophy to keep them from dependency. God also has a cameo in The Movie Bender's Big Score, wherein he makes a sound of surprise and coughs up a Timey-Wimey Ball in response to the speaking of the universal time code.
 * As said, God has shown up in The Simpsons. He's the only character with five fingers.
 * God doesn't actually show up, but in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, Hawkgirl and Diana are fighting monsters/demons in Tartarus/Hell and all of a sudden the demons back off and Hawkgirl realizes why.

Real Life

 * Chat with God online.
 * Has a Facebook too.