Crossover Cosmology: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:Age of Mythology 9872.jpg|link=Age of Mythology|thumb|300px|Left to right: [[Norse Mythology|Odin, Thor,]] [[Greek Mythology|Zeus,]] [[Egyptian Mythology|Isis and Ra.]]([[Jesus Taboo|They didn't invite]] [[Jesus]].)]]
 
 
{{quote|'''Wonderita:''' So isn't it weird for two people of conflicting theological origins to hang out all night?
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So, it turns out that [[All Myths Are True]]; you can have breakfast with the God of Thunder, [[Pals with Jesus|chat it up]] with the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] [[The Sandman|of Dreams]], or even have a heart to heart with [[The Grim Reaper]]. All the while remaining totally un-conflicted about remaining faithful to the [[God|Big Guy Upstairs]] or whichever major religion the characters follow; even [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]] can hang with the [[Powers That Be]] and get a high five.
 
A '''Crossover Cosmology''' is different from [[All Myths Are True]] in that many of the cosmologies involved are themselves mutually exclusive either in world view, history, philosophy, or all of the above. The issue becomes especially thorny when polytheistic religions with large pantheons are mixed with monotheistic religions and reincarnation-based belief systems. It's rarely inadvertent, either. Black Adam getting his power from the Egyptian gods whereas his successor Captain Marvel gets them from the Greek gods (and one Biblical figure) wasn't a slip-up; neither was making both Hercules and Thor superheroes. Writers have no problem doing this to "pagan" gods, and outside of Western culture (or the mainstream in Western culture, for that matter) they don't have much trouble doing it to [[wikipedia:Abrahamic religions|the Abrahamic God]] either.
 
This can be justified from the characters' viewpoint by having them point out that there's no reason they should believe that, say, Thor is a god in the same sense Yahweh is, when there are people who are flying around and summoning lightning, or are even [[Immortality|immortal]], who are plain old [[Mutants]], [[Meta Origin|metahumans]], or [[Human Aliens|aliens]].
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See also [[All Myths Are True]], [[A Mythology Is True]], [[The Multiverse]], [[Lowest Cosmic Denominator]], [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]], [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]], [[Fantasy Pantheon]], [[Gods Need Prayer Badly]] and [[Magical Underpinnings of Reality]].
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Saint Young Men]]'', which stars Jesus and Buddha as roommates in Japan while they take a break from their divine duties. One of the chapters has them participating in a Shinto festival, where Buddha worries that they'll be laughing stocks in Heaven if the god of the Shinto Shrine they're carrying finds out that they're there.
 
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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* ''The Red Seas'' currently involves a group of [[pirate]]s who were made immortal by Odin attempting to resurrect the Greek gods to prevent Satan from unleashing [[Eldritch Abomination|Lovecraftian horrors]] upon the world.
* The backstory of ''Harry Kipling (Deceased)'' involved every single one of humanity's gods suddenly returning. [[Crapsack World|And they're not nice]].
 
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* The setting of the [[Mega Crossover]] shared-world story ''[[My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character]]'' includes both the [[Norse Mythology]] and ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' versions of the Norse cosmology, alongside various spirits from [[Aztec Mythology|Aztec]] and [[Native American Mythology]], and the [[The Hecate Sisters|three goddesses]] from ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'', with guest appearances by gods from [[Classical Mythology]], [[Egyptian Mythology]], and [[Japanese Mythology]].
* ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' is set in a multiverse where all gods and demons known to mortals are are essentially "skins" over various members of a group of twelve-dimensional beings, and that virtually all mythology involving them is either true or [[Inspired By]] actual events.
 
== [[Film]] ==
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* This is inverted in the ''[[Discworld]]'' universe, where there are multiple gods and anthropomorphic personifications (the kind that exist only because [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|people believe they should exist]]), and the Omnians are portrayed as odd in their insistence on a monotheistic belief system. It is often stated that several gods appear in more than one Pantheon - for example, many religions have different Thunder Gods, but they are actually all the same god, wearing different hats (He used to be separate gods, but apparently they merged as people started believing them to be the same god with a different name). The book ''Small Gods'' explores in detail the process by which gods are created and rise to be powerful.
** [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|Or fall because people no longer believe in them.]]
** It's also parodied in ''[[Discworld/Pyramids|Pyramids]]'', where the Djelibeybian religion never gets rid of a god in case it comes in useful, and Dios is high priest of ''all'' of them.
{{quote|And Dios knew that Net was the Supreme God, and that Fon was the Supreme God, and so were Hast, Set, Bin, Sot, Io, Dhek, and Ptooie; that Herpentine Triskeles alone rules the world of the dead, and so did Syncope, and Silur the Catfish-Headed God, and Orexis-Nupt.}}
*** At one point in the book, the various sun gods are seen fighting over the sun.
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* Alan Garner's ''[[The Weirdstone of Brisingamen]]'' does this for a mixed bag of Celtic, Nordic, Irish, Welsh and English myths including The Morrigan, King Arthur, Merlin, Ragnarok and the Norse svart-alfar and lios-alfar.
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* In the ''[[Stargate SG-1|Stargate]]'' universe, there's a different group of [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]s behind a great many belief systems. The villainous Goa'uld seem to have the biggest piece of the pie (they're the Egyptian, Greek, ''and'' Babylonian gods, and one of them even impersonates Satan.)
* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' and ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' eventually expanded from Greek mythology into demonstrating the literal existence of any and every religion's deities, including the monotheistic God and Hindu gods.
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* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' has done similar gags; God and Jesus Christ are real beings, but Vishnu sits at the center of the Earth, Buddha also dwells in heaven, Col. Sanders sits at the Lord's right hand tossing popcorn chicken into His mouth, and ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' is an apparently manic deity.
* [[Samurai Jack]] has featured appearances of members of the Egyptian (Horus), Norse (Odin) and Hindu (Indra) pantheons although it's hinted that they might be [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]]. Also the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|is the outgrowth of a remnant of a [[Cosmic Horror]] that looked an awful lot like Azathoth.}}
* ''[[South Park]]'' has [[Jesus]] refer to his Chinese younger brother, an obscure [[Shout-Out/Animation|Shout-Out]] to the instigator of the Taiping Rebellion. The instigator of the Taiping Rebellion claimed this relationship for himself.
** There's also the Super Best Friends, whose ranks include Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Joseph Smith, and Muhammad.
*** [[And Zoidberg|Don't forget Sea-Man!]]
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