Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,612
edits
Death of the Old Gods: Difference between revisions
BSG link
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (put examples sections in correct order; fixed pothole texts) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (BSG link) |
||
| (3 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 3:
''No shelter has Apollo, nor sacred laurel leaves''
''The fountains are now silent; the voice is stilled.''
''It is finished.''
|The Oracle of Delphi to Emperor Theodosius}}
A common fantasy trope where the polytheistic pagan gods are slowly giving way to a single unified Christian god (or the [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|nearest fictional approximation]]), although giving way to new polytheistic gods or no gods at all is not unheard of.
Line 11 ⟶ 12:
The fading gods and their worshipers are normally portrayed sympathetically, but there are normally underlying messages that their time is up and they should accept their fates.
Sometimes the result of a [[War in Heaven]]. Contrast [[Gotterdammerung]], where the gods go out with a bang instead of a whisper. While the [[The Old Gods|old gods]] will [[Physical God|interact with the mortals on a common basis]], the [[Have You Seen My God?|One True God will rarely make appearances despite his new found popularity]] ([[Painting the Frost on Windows|perhaps he's too busy keeping things running?]]). This is generally seen as an improvement [[Jerkass God|compared to their predecessor]] however.
{{deathtrope}}
{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
Line 24 ⟶ 26:
== Film ==
* ''[[Beowulf (film)|Beowulf]]'' laments that his people have abandoned "the Gods of might and power for a crying martyr" in the recent{{when}} animated film.
* The film version of ''[[The Egyptian]]'' draws parallels between Akhenaten's worship of the sun god Aten and later Judaeo-Christian monotheism. The end of the film implies that even though the priests of Amon-Re were able to quash to new religion, it would come again in a different form. It's very interesting to watch this film back-to-back with ''[[The Ten Commandments]]'' for this reason.
* The miniseries ''[[Merlin (TV miniseries)|Merlin]]'' has Merlin attempting to defeat the old gods (and put an end to magic itself) by spreading Christianity.
Line 45 ⟶ 47:
* Part of the backstory of ''[[Arcia Chronicles]]'' includes the Seven [[Light Is Not Good|Lightbringers]] physically destroying all the Old Gods of Tarra. This returns to bite Tarra mightily in the ass nine thousand years later when the Lightbringers leave and a bunch of [[Cosmic Horror]]s show up to devour the now completely defenseless world.
* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[The Broken Sword]]'', this has yet to happen to the Norse Gods, but the young hero met up with a satyr who recounts the fall of Olympus.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[
{{quote|''"What gods?" he muttered.
"The nameless, forgotten ones. Who knows? They have gone back into the still waters of the lakes, the quiet hearts of the hills, the gulfs beyond the stars. Gods are no more stable than men."'' }}
Line 54 ⟶ 56:
* This is how the ''[[Books of Swords]]'' end. As humanity ceases to dream of the gods, they lose their power and fade from existence. As the last of them, Vulcan, dies, he senses the presence of some new power, or perhaps a [[God|returning old one]], come to claim or reclaim the earth.
== [[Live
* [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|The new ''
* An episode of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' has two pagan gods eating humans around the Christmas season and one of them reflects on how Jesus is the big new thing.
** "Hammer of the Gods" has a bunch of the "old gods" telling Sam and Dean to deal with Lucifer because they don't want the word to end when it's no longer theirs. By the end of the episode, most of them are dead. Like the earlier pagan gods, they seem to subsist on human flesh where once they subsisted on faith. Despite the fact that [[Hindu Mythology|Ganesh and Kali]] are among their numbers, so apparently, India must've converted to Christianity at some point in the Supernatural-verse.
Line 65 ⟶ 67:
* The BBC version of the Arthurian legends, ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'', can't seem to be able to make it's mind up about the 'Old Religion' (the pagan religion that existed before Christianity and, despite the show's claims, did not involve priestesses using pygmy hydra to control peoples' minds): after three years of portraying these old ways as almost uniformly evil, Series 4 begins with the royal court of Camelot celebrating the feast of Samhain, briefly mentions Ostara and ends as they prepare to celebrate Beltane. All of which are fire festivals celebrated by the aforementioned 'Old Religion'. To confuse matters further, King Arthur (in this same series) "swears to God" at least twice.
==
* Most modern re-tellings of the [[King Arthur|Arthurian legends]] have this going on at least in the background.
Line 71 ⟶ 73:
* The main idea behind [[John Milton]]'s poem "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity."
== [[Tabletop
* In ''[[Pendragon]]'' the Christian religion is replacing the old nature gods of Britain.
* Averted in ''[[Scion]]'', where [[All Myths Are True]] and each newly risen pantheon gets the divine equivalent of a fruit basket from the old ones. The reality of the Abrahamic religions are left up to the Storyteller, but they don't seem to have done any damage to the old gods (most of which don't really care about having worshipers, since Fate ''loves'' to screw with them via those links).
Line 93 ⟶ 95:
[[Category:Religion Tropes]]
[[Category:Tropes of the Divine]]
[[Category:
[[Category:God Tropes]]
| |||