Secular Hero: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Picture an author at work, creating a hero. The notes and the drafts cover many traits: height and weight, the colour of his hair and eyes, what clothes he wears, where he lives, where he went to school, what family he has, even his favourite food and the playlist on his mp3 player. References to all these things and more are worked into the story, but one topic doesn't come up much: his religion. Not that he necessarily doesn't have one (he might or he might not); he just doesn't talk about it, and the world in which he moves, while it has one or more thriving religions, doesn't make a big deal of it either. Why is that?

== [[Literature]] ==

* [[Ciaphas Cain]] kinda lives in a setting where God-Emperor of Mankind is very observable, but he thinks he's too busy fighting the countless forces of Warp to care about him personally (though never misses jokes at Cain's expense)

* Despite the medieval setting and the presence of many clerical characters, some characters in the [[Deryni]] works are less than devout.

** Nigel Haldane: The opening quotation describes him preparing to have his nephew King Kelson trigger some of the family's arcane powers in him. Given that he's facing an unfamiliar arcane ritual that also makes him confront the unwelcome possibility that he may become king himself, he feels the need to pray: "A little awkwardly, then, he bowed his head and framed his thoughts in a far more formal petition than was usually his wont..."

* [[Defective Detective|Detective]] [[Knight in Sour Armor|Meyer Landsman]] of ''[[The Yiddish Policemen's Union]]'' is obviously culturally and ethnically Jewish, religiously agnostic. Landsman's personal issues, including his (lack of) religious identity, are a major subplot.

* Father Robert Koesler, of William X Kienzle's murder mystery series, lives a life largely of quiet faith, laughing at the more ridiculous rituals of the church and bending the rules where he feels it leads to a more harmonious conclusion.

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* Jeff, the main character of ''[[Community]]'', is agnostic and opts for not talking about religion to keep the peace in the study group, whereas all other characters have relatively strong religious or atheistic beliefs: "To me, religion is like Paul Rudd. I see the appeal and I would never take it away from anyone, but I would also never stand in line for it."

* ''[[Firefly]]'': Shepherd Book is a Christian preacher, and Inara is apparently Buddhist. The other characters don't have a problem with an open display of religion, but [[Big Damn Hero|Mal]] most definitely does. "You're welcome on my ship...God ain't." He's not an atheist<ref>at least according to Nathan Fillion</ref> or at least he didn't used to be (in a blink and you'll miss it moment during the Battle of Serenity Valley in the pilot, he's shown kissing a cross he's wearing around his neck); since the War of Independence he's just become either agnostic or angry at God (or both).

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

{{quote|'''[[Celestial Bureaucracy|Bureaucratic Deva]]''': Let me ask you something why did you never consider becoming a cleric yourself? You have halfway decent Wisdom and Charisma scores, you could have pulled it off.

'''Roy''': I mean. I guess my mom raised me to worship the [[Norse Mythology|Northern]] [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|Gods]], but I always figured as long as I don't actively offend any of them, they'd leave me alone. }}