Lowest Cosmic Denominator/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.



Basic Trope: Religious terms are replaced with vague neologisms.

  • Straight: The Prophet of Higher Dimensions contains many obvious parallels to Christianity, only instead of Heaven and Hell they're talking about Higher and Lower Dimensions, and so on.
  • Exaggerated: The Trueconduit of Higher Dimensions even opts out of words like "spiritual" and "sin" and "forgiveness", among numerous others.
  • Downplayed: The Prophet of Heaven is thinly disguised Christian fiction, with God as "Theos", Jesus as "Son of Theos", and Mary as "Virginal Mother".
  • Justified: The story is set in a fantasy world that very definitely is not our world.
  • Inverted: Interpretatio Graeca. Or, to make an example of that, The Prophet of Olympos is an Antique Greek epic poem set in the 20th Century American Midwest where all the Christian references have been changed to their closest Greek mythology equivalents for the benefit of the Greek audience.
  • Subverted: The characters talk in neologisms, but the wise old mentor tells them to drop the New Age stuff and use the correct terminology. The characters thereafter stick to Christian terms.
  • Double Subverted: Then it turns out that the universe isn't deep down Christian at all, only vaguely similar. The neologisms are the only accurate descriptors.
  • Parodied: A highly recognizable Jesus with a halo and stigmata and all descends from the clouds. The supernatural investigators refer to him as a Dimensionite and describe his appearance in bizarre technical language. Jesus interrupts and tells them to speak like normal people.
  • Zig Zagged: The story follows two groups, one of which speaks in neologisms while the other is explicitly Christian all the way.
  • Averted: The story does not mention religion.
  • Enforced: "We don't want Christians or Hindus or anyone writing angry letters and claiming that their religion was misrepresented."
  • Lampshaded: "This episode was brought to you by the Generic Assemblage of the Non-Denominational Higher-Dimensional Thingy."
  • Invoked: "To keep harmony in our planned human/Martian/Venusian task force to protect the solar system from other-dimensional threats, we must resolve to use language that does not favor anyone's personal religion"
  • Exploited: "Now that our binding contract is sealed, I might mention that a Dimensionite is not the same thing as an angel. You should have paid more attention when they went through the list of approved ecumenical neologisms on your orientation day."
  • Defied: "I don't care about your desire for an ecumenical task force! I will not use a made-up term like "Dimensionite" to refer to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior!"
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "How many people would really stop watching this thing if they stopped tip-toeing around the fact that the Brightness Dimensionite is blatantly God?"
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