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[[File:st_osiris.jpg|frame|Osiris, followed by his two sons, Anubis and Horus]]
The Egyptians had quite a lot of deities, many of whom have "turned up" in fiction, especially in the [[Stargate Verse]] as Goa'uld. They show up in [[
▲The Egyptians had quite a lot of deities, many of whom have "turned up" in fiction, especially in the [[Stargate Verse]] as Goa'uld. They show up in [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]], especially in the book of Exodus, most of which takes place in ancient Egypt. <ref>Most of the early story involves the Hebrew god and the Egyptian gods trying to show each other up with bigger or mutually-exclusive miracles... guess who wins?</ref>
The history of ancient Egypt is reflected in the history of their gods. And of course, Egyptian Mythology contains the [[Older Than Dirt]] examples of many a trope. See the [[Egyptian Mythology/Characters|character sheet]] for a listing of the major gods and associated tropes.
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As with many other mythologies around the world there are different versions of many Egyptian myths, which results in a highly confusing mythology. Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt.<ref>That is, the kingdom in the South, which had a higher elevation and was ''up''stream on the Nile, conquered the one in the North.</ref> When the formerly-two kingdoms started to merge the pantheons into one things became a mess. Some deities were merged, renamed, or outright changed to try to keep the newly united kingdom's religion straight.
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{{creatortropes}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Many of the goddesses became one, particularly Isis, Sekhmet, and Hathor, plus Neith, goddess of war.
* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: Set, although an ambiguous deity in the earliest version of his myths, was worshipped like the other gods and protected Ra from Apep. After the division of Egypt, he became a [[God of Evil]] in the Lower Kingdom and even more so after the Hyksos invasion.
* [[A Date
** Some versions have it as both. It wasn't really a date with Rosie Palms, so much as a date with ... his own mouth.
* [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]]: For the most part, the followers of [[Egyptian Mythology]] understood that the various forms ascribed to their various gods weren't supposed to be how the gods actually were. Those forms were supposed to be symbolic of concepts and traits found in the gods, with the actual gods themselves being thought to exist as abstract forces.
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* [[Animorphism]]
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]
* [[Ax Crazy]]: When Sekhmet was sent to Egypt to punish traitors of Ra, she slaughtered half the population, mauling them and drinking their blood.
* [[Back
* [[Badass]]: Seth and Hathor qualify, as they are the only deities able to overcome the chaos demons.
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Thoth. The book of spells he wrote had to be dumped in the deepest part of the Nile, guarded by scorpions and an immortal serpent, and put inside a gold box inside a silver box inside an ebony/ivory box inside a wooden box inside a bronze box inside an iron box. The person who recovered it turned into a living god until Thoth wiped him out.
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* [[Bottle Fairy]]: Hathor, at times.
* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]: A lot. Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys were all siblings, who fell in love while still in the womb. This aspect of Egyptian mythology reflected on the marriage habits of the Pharaohs.
** Also, Nut and Geb were so much in love with other, that their children decided to put a stop to it by keeping them apart. ([[Just
* [[Canon Foreigner]]: Aten, the disc-shape sun god.
* [[Canon Immigrant]]: Bes, who is drawn in a completely different style than the other gods, and came from Nubia. It's also possible that Hathor's following originated further south as well.
* [[Cain and Abel]]: Set and Osiris. [[Ur Example|One of the few examples older than]] the [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Came Back Wrong]]: Less wrong than most versions, but Osiris came back ''green''. Some myths have this due to him turning into a vegetable or something. Also, he might be missing some bits, especially after that incident [[Groin Attack|with Set throwing a certain body part of his into the Nile where a fish ate it.]]
* [[Cessation of Existence]]: If a dead person's heart is heavier than Ma'at's feather, it's fed to the beast Ammit and the dead person ceases to exist. <ref>The very idea of a cessation of existence was one of the most terrifying things imaginable in ancient Egyptian religion, and even being forgotten after death is a big deal. One of the most common ways to strike at the legacy of a dead Pharaoh was to erase said Pharaoh's name anywhere one could find it, thereby invalidating their existence.</ref>
* [[Chaos Entity]]:
** Set or Seth is the god of deserts, storms, and chaos. He is considered one of the greatest gods of the Egyptian pantheon. He is also viewed as the god of foreigners and was equated to deities like Baal. The Greeks demonized him as evil, so he is regarded as antagonistic in later depictions. Set gets associated with the uncertainties and hardships of the desert, leading to his reputation becoming more ignoble. His conflicts with his mortal enemy, Apep, also lead him to be related to serpents. This is ironic because later interpretations led to him being seen as evil even though he is seen as one of the only gods who can defeat the chaotic serpent.
** Apep, or Apophis in Greek, was the snake god of chaos, evil, and darkness. He was often seen as a serpent but later became seen as a dragon. Apep is said to try to eat the sun from under the horizon where the Duat (the Egyptian Underworld) resides. He plagues Ra, tasked with raising the sun daily, but has guards, including his brother, Set.
* [[Continuity Snarl]]: Best describes the contradictory nature of Egyptian mythology.
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: Osiris once he became the god of death. Anubis as well, being portrayed as a black jackal.
* [[Depending
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Many works of fiction revolving around Egyptian mythology tend to get the role of Anubis ''way off''. He's usually referred to as "the Lord of the Dead" or as "the God of Death," when that title in fact refers to his father, Osiris. Anubis ''was'' a deity whose role revolved around the dead, but he was actually more of a guardian of the dead than the [[Grim Reaper]] type figure often shown. More [[Egregious|egregiously]], he is often, in addition to being referred to as a god akin to Hades from [[Greek Mythology]], misconstrued as being [[Everybody Hates Hades|an evil or malevolent god]], sometimes even serving as the Egpytian stand in for Satan. In reality, the Egyptians considered him to be an all-around pretty cool guy.
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Ra (or Aten, sometimes) fights Apep every single night. However, Apep eats souls, so he's dangerous to humans as well. The solution? [
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Apep, or Apophis, a gigantic serpent-demon that embodied chaos and darkness. Every night it tried to eat Ra as he passed through the underworld. Prior to the demonization of Set, Apep was considered the ultimate evil. Set's punishment for murdering Osiris is to guard Ra's sun barge from Apophis and kill him twice a day until his punishment is fulfilled.
* [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]: Anubis, in more modern times. For the common layman he may be the only Egyptian god they can name. This is despite the fact that although he was always among the major gods in ancient Egypt he was by no means the most widely worshipped.
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* [[God of Evil]]: Set, though he wasn't always: originally, he was the god of the desert and storms. He was [[Designated Villain|designated]] as evil after Egypt was invaded by a people who favored him. He even helped Ra fight against Apep the serpent every night (which doesn't change the fact that he ruthlessly killed Osiris). ''Apep'' on the other hand was the god of [[Obviously Evil|darkness and chaos]] but is oddly never really used in fiction as much as Set.
* [[Going to Give It More Energy]]: Sekhmet is let loose (in the form of a lioness) upon a sinful population. She gets out of control and the gods, taking pity on the humans, show them the way to stop her: they exploit her insatiable thirst for blood by flooding a nearby field with bloodred wine. When the crazed goddess passes by on her way to eat more people, she pounced on the lake of "blood" and drank it all. This results in the most severe hangover ever -- Sekhmet passes out and wakes up as a cow. This peaceful form of her is named Hathor.
* [[Hell Hound]]: Egypt was in ''love'' with these: Anubis is the most well-known, but there were also [[
* [[I Ate What?]]: During the battle between Horus and Set, Horus does something [[A Date
* [[I Love the Dead]]: Isis and the corpse of Osiris.
* [[Kill All Humans]]: In one myth Ra becomes angry with humanity for disrespecting him, so he turns Hathor into Sekhmet (depending on which version of the myth you're reading) and sends her on a bloody rampage. She nearly wipes humanity out before Ra decides she's over-doing it and sends Thoth to lull her with tales and blood-colored wine. When she becomes drunk she reverts back to Hathor again, and the Egyptians celebrated this every year during the Festival of Hathor by getting really drunk.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: Whoever's heart doesn't weigh the same as the Feather of Truth on the scales in the afterlife gets their heart fed to Ammit, after which the person the heart belonged to ceases to exist.
* [[Lost Forever]]: Nobody knows what kind of animal Set's head was based on. One might say its form is no longer [[A Worldwide Punomenon|Set in stone]].
* [[Mix
** Contrary to popular belief, hippopotamuses are in fact '''very dangerous'''. ''They can kill lions.'' [[Crocodile Hunter|Steve Irwin]] was recorded as saying that the one time he felt close to death was when he was working with wild hippos. They are very aggressive and responsible for a considerable amount of deaths in Africa each year -- something the Ancient Egyptians would have been aware of (their entire civilization being on a river and all...)
** Some of the protection gods were also made of the scariest bits of the scariest animals. Made it easier to frighten those evil spirits away.
** One possibility of what the [
** Another [
* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Nut does this literally, as the goddess of the sky.
* [[Necromantic]]: Isis trying to resurrect Osiris.
* [[Off
* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: Sekhmet doesn't care who or what you are. If she sees you, you're dead.
* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: The primary division of the Ancient Egyptian religion was not [[Balance Between Good and Evil|Good versus Evil]], but Order Versus Chaos. The concept of balance, or Ma'at, was the central theme of the whole religion with the Pharaoh as the "Lord of Ma'at." Depending on the version of the story, several gods such as Ra, Osiris, Thoth, Anubis, and [[The Phoenix|Benu]] were all considered beyond the concepts of good or evil; instead, their main responsibility was to keep the universe from spiraling into chaos.
* [[Petting Zoo People]]: The deities with animal heads and human bodies.
** Though the Egyptians didn't actually believe those deities had animal heads; the animals symbolized aspects of the deity or were sacred to them, as the ibis to Thoth.
* [[Resurrective Immortality]]: The Egyptian gods are immortal in this way. Although they are depicted as being killed, and aging, in several myths, they always come back to life. Re dies each and every evening, and is reborn every morning. Though the evidence isn't entirely clear, it appears that all gods were thought to age, die, and resurrect.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: In some versions, Seth murdered Osiris as revenge for having slept with his wife.
* [[Shapeshifting]]: Nearly all the gods and goddesses could do it.
* [[Spell My Name
* [[Twincest]]
* [[Twin Switch]]: Apparently this is how Anubis was conceived; Nephthys disguised herself as Isis and slept with Osiris. Though after everyone found out Isis and Osiris never seemed to hold it against her. Indeed, Osiris treated Anubis as a second son and co-ruler of the Underworld. Set, however, disowned Anubis.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Useful Notes]]▼
[[Category:Useful Notes/Egypt]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Egyptian Mythology]]
▲[[Category:Useful Notes/Religion]]
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