Jerkass Gods: Difference between revisions

== Film ==

* A borderline case appears in ''[[Oh, God!]]''. While God ([[George Burns]]) is not particularly malicious, He also doesn't seem to care about the difficulties that His messiah Jerry (or his family) goes through in delivering His message.

'''God:''' "Lose a job, save a world. Not a bad deal." }}

* ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'': In the original, the gods are fairly true to their mythical inspirations. In the remake, they're possibly even more dickish than in the myths.

*** 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.

** In ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'', Om, who's had his consciousness raised, points out to some of the other gods that a lot of people are going to get killed in the battle that's shaping up.

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

He really regrets saying that.

** Daizyujin is pretty much based on the gods of a lot of religions, being better than the ultimate evils that are around but wouldn't know the meaning of the word "fair." In Burai's case, {{spoiler|Burai was only needed to awaken Dragon Caesar, and, though they could probably save his life, which is [[On Borrowed Time]], they don't because "it is not needed for him to survive."}} This is far from the only instance of Guardian Beast [[Jerkass|Jerkassitude]] in the series - the fact that the Rangers were working for such [[Bad Boss|Bad Bosses]] is responsible for most of the dark aspects of an otherwise [[Lighter and Softer]] series.

* This is how God comes off in the ''[[West Wing]]'' episode "Two Cathedrals", especially in the wake of President Bartlett's tirade in the National Cathedral.

* 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.

 

** It's never stated that goblins are [[Always Chaotic 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:

'''Jirix:''' But then he added "no pressure though," which I thought was nice. }}

* [[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".

* Parodied by [http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1924722 this] recent ''College Humor'' video.

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

* Used [http://anaheyla.livejournal.com/1175.html here] towards the end. The main character renounces his god and the first thing that god does is try to kill him and over fifty thousand of his people, succeeding in the latter case.

* From various profile in ''[[The Monster Girl Encyclopedia]]'', we can conclude that while the Chief God really loves humans, she hates monsters. It's possible that she created them with the intent of having an enemy for mankind to fight. On the other end, we have the Fallen God who believes in pleasure above all other things, and forcefully converts both human women and angels into its followers the same way as a succubus, causing them to desire the ultimate "reward" of being locked in eternal coitus with their mate in Pandemonium. Finally, the cyclopes were once deities, but fellow deities cursed them into monsters simply because ''they have only one eye''.