Jerkass Gods: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Kami-sama in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' frequently doles out unnecessarily harsh punishments and will wipe out an entire planet to preserve the integrity of the Yggdrasil with little hesitation.

* The gods in ''[[Saint Seiya]]'', unsurprising considering they're based on the Greek Pantheon. Poseidon wanted to [[Utopia Justifies the Means|drown the world to fix it]] (well, it worked [[The Bible|the first time]], didn't it?), Hades just plain wanted to kill everyone "[[Motive Decay|Just]] [[For the Evulz|Because]]", ditto Abel/Lucifer and Apollo. The big exception is [[Messianic Archetype|Athena]]. Lesser non-evil gods are Odin (whose avatar-priestess was corrupted by Poseidon's men) and Artemis, being more a [[Lawful Neutral]] type devoid of her peers' narcissistic megalomania. Poseidon also gets an honorable mention as being not so evil that, even though he was [[Sealed Evil in a Can]], helped thwart Hades' plot.

* The Beast Gods of ''[[Fushigi Yugi]]'' really do only care about prolonging their existence by absorbing the souls of their priestesses.

 

* In ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'', God is an aloof and dickish meddler. As is Lucifer, who wants nothing more than to be his own creation.

** Part of this is caused by the filter we see things through. When God finally shows up he's more out of touch than anything else.

* God (and Lucifer) in ''[[Crimson]]'' are surprisingly moral individuals, the prior spending time doing good deeds and giving the latter a standing invitation to get his old job back. The archangels on the other hand are all over the slippery slope, with a few being downright sadists. Driven home when they put Alex on trial in a diner... after first killing the occupants ''painfully'' for their sins. (God resurrects and forgives the victims when the angels aren't looking.)

* Zeus in ''[[Incredible Hercules]]'' justifies this by claiming that gods ''need'' to be jerks so that humans have someone to blame when everything seems to be going wrong.

 

== Fan Works ==

* The Dalns gods in ''[[With Strings Attached]]''. Although the one time a god actually appears it's entirely benign, and they seem to be the only force that gets Baravadans to do anything useful, the Fans mention that the Dalns gods are responsible for trashing C'hou in the past.

 

== Film ==

* Calypso of ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', goddess of the sea, fell in love with a mortal man, who was then offered the position of captain of the Flying Dutchman. The conditions of the captaincy are that you do the job for ten years, and if, after that time, your love is waiting for you when you get your one day on land for the decade, you can go free and someone takes your place; otherwise you've gotta keep doing the job until someone kills you. Calypso didn't wait and Davy Jones was stuck being the captain of the Flying Dutchman. She claimed that Davy shouldn't have expected anything else from her because she's the embodiment of the capricious and treacherous sea.

* Loki in ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'' and ''[[The Avengers (film)|The Avengers]]'' hopes to [[Disproportionate Retribution|exact revenge]] on his [[The Unfavourite|brother Thor]] by first taking over the throne of Asgard and then [[Big Bad|subjugating the entire population of Earth.]] Along the way, he causes a lot of chaos and manages to make pretty much everyone really angry on a [[It's Personal|personal level.]]

 

== Literature ==

* Most ''[[Discworld]]'' gods, who have a habit of going to atheists' houses and throwing rocks into the windows, and consider lightning bolts to be the answer to any theological debate. They also play games with the lives of men, but first they have to get the board out, and look all over the place for the dice.

*** Though granted, it's implied most of the absurd Abominations are mere echos of Nuggan's will since it's stated he's ''dead''.

*** This is only in Borogravia, mind, where he can't thrive because his followers now worship the religion rather than the god (this is also what happened to Om, see below). Elsewhere on the Disc he's alive and kicking, as a minor god of paperclips, small things in their correct places in desktop stationery sets, and unnecessary paperwork.

{{quote|A Tsortean God of the Sun did not even bother to look round.

"That's what they're for," he said. }}

* ''[[Chronicles of Chaos]]'' explains this trope thusly: in this universe, moral laws and destinies have supernatural weight, and breaking or bending them carries penalties. [[Classical Mythology|Olympians]], however, have the power to change those moral laws, which mean they aren't bound by them. At all.

 

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' the trickster demi-god from Tall Tales and Mystery Spot {{spoiler|also known as Loki and Gabriel}} is more of a jerkass demi-god. His victims, especially the Winchesters and definitely Sam, probably wish he was a lazy god {{spoiler|rather than an archangel.}}

* In the ''[[Farscape]]'' episode ''Prayer'', Aeryn mentions an ancient myth about how the ancient Sebaceans used to worship a goddess named Tenka Bru, until she suddenly destroyed the seven main planets they lived on. When her dying worshippers asked why she had done this after they did their best to honor her, she replied, "Because I can." Apparently, this is why the modern-day Peacekeepers refuse to believe in any religion.

* In ''[[Charmed]]'', [[Artistic License|the Greek gods were mortals who got turned into gods by a magical mist]]. True to the mythology however, it's stated that the old gods ''forced'' people to worship them. In fact, once Piper finally declares herself a goddess and realizes her full powers, she starts acting like it, causing a massive storm in order to vent her own personal problems out on the rest of the world.

 

* As mentioned under Anime, Sun Wukong, from ''[[Journey to the West]]'', was such a jerkass god that even the other gods (many of whom weren't exactly nice themselves—case in point, kicking one of their own out of heaven and turning him into a river-dwelling, man-eating monster because he accidentally broke one of the Heavenly Emperor's vases/teacups) went to Buddha and begged him to put a stop to the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|monkey business]].

* '''[[Classical Mythology|GREEK/ROMAN MYTHOLOGY]]'''. [[Trope Codifier]]s. The Greek gods are widely remembered today for being spoiled children with fancy powers at best and at worse total assholes. Part of this is due to [[Flanderization|flanderizing]] their jerk side and ignoring their benevolent side combined with [[Values Dissonance]]. They were held to different standards than humans and were the center of the universe instead of humans. The other reason is they often were just massive jerks because they could be. Even the best of them have one or two stories with few exceptions.

** Enlil caused [[The Great Flood]] because humanity annoyed him with their sounds.

* Freaking every single one of them in [[Aztec Mythology]] (except [[Token Good Teammate|Quetzalcoatl]], and even he had his moments). When your ''rain and fertility god'' likes his [[Human Sacrifice|food]] young and crying, and one of two rulers is literally the god of [[Magnificent Bastard]]s, there's little wonder why they thought it was a [[Crapsack World]].

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Khorne wants to see people fight battles, the bloodier and more gruesome the better. In the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] universes, simply being a god of war makes him a possible good guy, while the fact that ''your'' viscera would be just as pleasing to him as your enemies, makes him one of the bad guys.

** Slaanesh might want to help you to experience every positive sensation that you can, even turning negative sensations into new kinds of pleasure... but he '''definitely''' wants to ''force'' you to experience ''everything'', as a kind of torture-orgy.

* The Gods in ''[[Once On This Island]]'' are completely cruel to the humans for no apparent reason, except Asaka. Agwe likes to lash them with storms [[For the Evulz|for the hell of it]], Papa Ge is, well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a demon of death]] who also happens to be a complete [[Jerkass]], and Erzulie manipulates Ti Moune and Daniel solely so that she can prove that she's right. They were even worse in the original book - the musical tries to make them a bit more sympathetic, whereas in the book Agwe delivers a speech about how much humans deserve to die, and Erzulie kills a completely innocent woman.

* Athena (see [[Greek Mythology]] above) is one in ''[[Ajax]]'', causing the main character to go mad and slaughter sheep, resulting in his utter humiliation and downfall. The play opens with her gloating to Odysseus about it. Odysseus is put off.

 

== Video Games ==

* {{spoiler|Ashera}} from ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]''. While she isn't exactly an immature jerk like most examples, she proves to have an extreme view of how the world should be and {{spoiler|ends up turning almost everyone to stone when she awakens and sees the world doesn't match her vision.}} Ironically, she was considered a benevolent goddess before that event, while {{spoiler|her other half, Yune was considered evil, but ends up being much nicer and less extreme, though also a lot more emotional and childish}}.

* Most of the Eastern Gods from the ''[[Izuna]]'' duology (especially their leader, Takushiki) are none too happy with Izuna and her clan trespassing on the sacred Kamiari Shrine, and take their frustrations out on the villagers by placing them under various [[curse]]s.

* One of the structures you can build in [[Bastion]] is a shrine containing idols representing the gods. You can invoke as many of them as you like, which makes your journey ''harder'' (but you get better rewards in turn; invoking all of them nearly doubles your spoils). Although in this case it's justified; before the cataclysm that kicked off the plot, your culture had lost most of its reverence for the gods, and turned them into toys and architectural decorations, so they're a little hacked off at you right now. On the other hand, if you should decide to reject them, they won't begrudge you that, because they think you're just pussing out.

* Dark Sun Gwyndolin from ''[[Dark Souls]]'' is the only god in the setting who managed to avoid suffering a horrible fate, and is in the best position to help fix the [[Crapsack World]]. Instead, he selfishly manipulates everyone else in a bid to increase his own power.

* Every single god and goddess in [[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]. Even [[Troll|Palutena]] isn't immune. {{spoiler|Dark Pit calls them all out on their selfish nature when they comment about how bad the humans are.}} Justified as all of the Gods are based on Greek Mythology listed above.

 

== Web Comics ==

** It's never stated that goblins are [[Exclusively Evil]]; it goes by the ''Monster Manual'', which says they are ''Usually'' Chaotic Evil. Likewise, the paladin killing kids example should be noted to take place from the POV of an [[Unreliable Narrator]], and [[Word of God|the author]] has hinted that it's not ''quite'' as bad as Redcloak makes it seem. This trope still applies in spades, of course.

** The Dark One (the [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|previously-mortal]] god of the goblins) averts this, sending a message back with one of his resurrected clerics:

{{quote|'''Jirix:''' "Don't screw this up."

'''Red Cloak:''' Well, as theological revelations go, I guess that's refreshingly direct.

* [[The Gods of Arr-Kelaan]] can sometimes slide into this, but there's a general consensus that as bad as the Traveler Gods could be they are still better than the old gods. The old Gods being Jerkasses is what kicks off the "God War".

 

== Web Original ==

* Zod from ''[[Open Blue]]'' is a drunken bastard who would rather fart up hurricanes, go on beer parties, and armwrestle with an expy of Cthulhu rather than answer the hundreds of millions of prayers directed at him.

* The ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' has these in spades. There are, of course, all the various Lovecraftian "gods". There's the Tao with its shamelessly invoked [[Omniscient Morality License]]. The Christian Heaven and Hell (or good facsimiles thereof) apparently exist and are locked in a [[Balance Between Good and Evil|carefully balanced stalemate]] with neither side actually ''trying'' to win too much, which works okay for the entity claiming to be Satan but casts a dim light on his counterpart. (Let's not even go into their respective treatment of Merry, later Petra, who by this point is a fully appointed knight of the Catholic church... even if she ''does'' also carry Sara's demon mark.) And the New Olympians school clique? Are some of the old Greek gods in new human host bodies, with at least some of them already up to their old tricks and none too happy that [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|nobody worships them anymore]].

* Although ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' does not contain examples of the trope, it does have a rather appropriate summary of it:

{{quote|"The root problem with Christianity is that their god is supposed to be all-powerful and benevolent. It sounds like an easy sell but when life turns completely to shit you have to come up with all kinds of whacked-out reasons for why kindly old Jehovah saw fit to run over little Timmy with a combine harvester and leave him in a state of vegetative limbless agony for eighteen years. Ancient cultures didn't have that problem; they knew their gods were a bunch of drunken lunatics who ran around boning their close relatives and turning their goolies into fruit-bearing trees. Consequently they tend to make for much more interesting stories."}}

 

== Western Animation ==

** And, of course, there are plenty of gods that make guest appearances, such as Eris, the goddess of discord and strife.

* Neptune of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' acts this way.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:Double Standard]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:The Jerk Index]]

[[Category:God Tropes]]