Gods Need Prayer Badly: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"They were Gods once, but their worshipers either died out or were converted to the worship of other Gods. They wail and flutter around the edges of reality without substance or even thought. All they have is need. ... We go out of fashion, Sparhawk--like last year's gowns or old shoes and hats. The Powerless Ones are discarded Gods who shrink and shrink as the years go by until they're finally nothing at all but a kind of anguished wailing."''

 

In the world of [[Fantasy]], it is a largely accepted fact that the power of any given deity [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|is proportional to the amount of belief]] in them or the amount of worship they are currently receiving.

 

{{examples}}

* Very important in ''[[Kannagi]]''. As traditional faith dwindled the sisters have been losing their powers to the point where they are fighting over the remaining faith power. Nagi's sacred tree which once sustained her has been cut down, and Zange's is inside a church, further dwindling / altering their powers and conditions. Zange has been taking on Christian aspects and resorting to setting herself up as a pop star to gain "faith" in the form of fans. The more believers they get, the more powerful they become.

* In the end of ''[[Pita-Ten]]'' it is revealed that angels' and demons' existence depends on human faith in them, and once some entity is forgotten it ceases to exist which is a way to kill demon or angel, however if memory is restored it is possible to revive a dead demon or angel. Strangely enough these virtual creatures have quite strong real powers and can manipulate human memory as well.

* One chapter of ''[[Franken Fran]]'' shows the point when the [[Flying Spaghetti Monster]] finally gets enough worshipers to become real because of this trope. FF being [[Body Horror|the kind of manga it is]], it manifests by absorbing several of its followers into a single hideous mass.

 

* Very, ''very'', '''very''' [[Depending on the Writer]] in both [[The DCU]] and the [[Marvel Universe]]. Sometimes the gods complain about this, sometimes they draw plenty of power from the ideas they're embodiments of even if people don't know about the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]s as people, sometimes they flat don't care.

** In general this applies more to DC than Marvel. In Marvel the abstracts are not usually called gods and transcend them. More traditional gods like Thor and Ares have not been worshiped on a wide scale for centuries. They don't complain about loss of power or seek out new worshipers. They show no loss of power over time. Some writers have shown a connection between mortals and gods, but generally this is more a cultural connection that allows gods to interact on Earth instead of a dependency on faith.

* ''Harry Kipling (Deceased)'' works this way, with some creative upshots from Simon Spurrier. For example, since Klux was made from Kipling's tissue, Klux considers Kipling to be his creator and thus a god. Gaining a single worshipper means that Kipling is technically a god, and thus is able to kill other gods. Also, the [[Flat Earth Atheist|New Atheist Militia]] realise they can destroy gods by massacring their followers, and their denial ultimately manifests as an anti-god which operates much like any other deity.

 

* There's a ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fic that deals with the gang visiting a realm that serves as a home for the forgotten gods to seek help from Ares. While there Ares comments that two of the gods don't really belong there since they seem to have plenty of followers, a South American god still worshiped by natives, and even more strangely, a [[The Mighty Thor|Norse god]] who seems to have gained power in the last century.

* Discussed and generally averted in ''[[Undocumented Features]]''. Corwin, a recently ascended [[Physical God]], seems to have no need for anyone to worship him, but that doesn't deter Chip, his self-proclaimed first worshiper, from doing so. Corwin's complaints of [[Stop Worshipping Me!]] have gotten to the point of gentle admonishment/[[Running Gag]].

* Averted in ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' -- the gods are twelve-dimensional beings who live in their own ecosystem and society, and don't seem to ''require'' anything from mortals, let alone prayer, but there are mentions of an undefined Covenant between gods and mortals which lays out benefits both sides get for agreeing to it.

 

* In ''[[Q – The Winged Serpent]]'', the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl is prayed back into existence and begins terrorizing New York City in the form of a giant flying snake-bird thing with four legs. [[Did Not Do the Research|Incidentally]], Quetzacoatl was one of the more benign Aztec Gods.

* While God, angels and demons in ''[[Dogma]]'' apparently exist independantly of humans, they are still influenced by the way humans believe in them. This is made more explicit in some of the deleted scenes.

* In ''[[Freddy vs. Jason]]'', Freddy needs people to fear him to be able to infiltrate their dreams, so he became powerless when the inhabitants of Springwood systematically eradicated any trace of his existence. He uses Jason as a pawn to reinvigorate the locals' belief in him so he can return.

 

* The [[Dresden Files]] use this with a few unique ripples. Spiritual entities need some level of recognition to operate on Earth. Thus the various old gods (with a little 'g') have very little ability to act on their power. This is laid out in info concerning {{spoiler|the Venatori, who fight the Oblivion War, trying to get all memory of magical entities removed from the human psyche, and therefore cut their connection to the material world. Need-to-know basis doesn't even begin to describe it. But now ''you'' know, so now they have to kill you. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Smooth.]]}}

** Also evidence suggests that this doesn't apply God (with a big 'G') and His assorted Archangels.

* ''[[American Gods]]'' uses this as a central plot point. There's some major [[Fridge Logic]] (or perhaps [[Fridge Brilliance]]) at one point given the slighting way one of them refers to Jesus. Given that deities are powered by belief, he (probably along with Vishnu) would likely be the most powerful god around at present.

** There's also the implication that each nation has localised versions of gods: the American Kali mentions that there is a much more powerful Indian Kali, the protagonist briefly meets an Icelandic Odin and a powerless Jesus in Afghanistan is mentioned.

* [[David Eddings]] uses it in the ''Elenium'' and ''Tamuli'' trilogies (the source of the page header quote). At one point, the goddess Aphrael becomes ill because her worshippers are being killed.

* [[Douglas Adams]]' ''[[The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul]]'': Old gods who have fallen out of belief become powerless destitutes, while a new god is actually spawned as a critical mass of Guilt builds up through the book.

* In ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', [[Hollywood Atheist|Oolon Colluphid]] says that the Babel Fish was used to prove the existence of God, but since God Needs Faith Badly, the concrete proof of his existence [[Puff of Logic|immediately caused his nonexistance]].

* [[Terry Pratchett]] uses this one a bunch throughout ''[[Discworld]]''. The Discworld is lousy with small gods, most of them just "a pinch of existence," barely sentient and incapable of much more than disturbing dust or influencing the minds of animals. But the right minor miracle in the right place at the right time...

* This is the prominent plot point for [[Margaret Weis]] and [[Tracy Hickman]] in the ''[[The Rose Of The Prophet]]'' series.

* The gods of the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting don't die without worship, but getting it does make them more powerful.

{{quote|'''Eros''': "My [[Classical Mythology|mom and dad]] are [[Love Goddess|Lust]] and [[The Brute|Violence]]. This is L.A."}}

 

* [[Xena: Warrior Princess]] implies this, rather than it being outright stated. The Olympian Gods (the primary pantheon dealt with on the show), were shown to have a reach and influence as far as the middle east, and were considered the greatest of any gods in the show, while others were shown as powerful, but not nearly on the Olypmian scale. The show attributed it to less worship, and Ares even remarked to Kal once that his (Kal's) temple, and power had gone down hill since "those tributes stop[ed] coming in".

* The initially conventional Christian-themed horror series ''[[Brimstone (TV series)|Brimstone]]'', in which a damned policeman is given a second chance at life by [[Satan]] in return for tracking down 113 souls who had escaped from Hell, undergoes a dizzying [[Genre Shift]] when {{spoiler|the LAPD policewoman who had been his inside track with Earthly authorities is revealed to be the ringleader of the souls, a dead Canaanite priestess who had engineered the escape from Hell by seducing Satan. (The policeman had, unwittingly, been helping her to eliminate members of her "gang" that had gone rogue.) Her plan is to systematically eradicate belief in the God of Abraham from human culture, thereby causing God, Heaven, and Hell, to all blink out of existence. The protagonist realizes that Satan had been desperate to retrieve the escaped spirits, not out of some altruistic desire to restore the [[Cosmic Balance]], but because if the priestess were to succeed in her agenda, Satan, being part of the Abrahamic mythos himself, would blink out of existence as well.}} Naturally, just as the series [[Too Good to Last|threatened to actually become interesting]], the network [[Screwed by the Network|pulled the plug]].

* ''[[Heroes]]'' season 4 [[Big Bad]] Samuel Sullivan is a super whose [[Dishing Out Dirt|geokinetic powers]] become stronger if he is surrounded by other supers who believe in him. In theory he could ''break the world'' if he had a large enough crowd of supers nearby. His brother Joseph hid the true nature of Samuel's power from him and deliberately limited the size of their super carnival to prevent Samuel from becoming too dangerous {{spoiler|and Samuel killed him when he found out the truth}}. Samuel is eventually defeated when {{spoiler|his fratricide is brought to light, causing his fellow super carnies to lose faith in him, and Hiro teleports them away.}} Samuel is left all alone in an empty carnival as a powerless, broken, shell of a man.

 

* A Greek myth/folktale likely written in Christian times by Plutarch times tells of the death of the god Pan when people start thinking of him as only a made up story. One might wonder about the rise of Neo-Pagans, who have begun worshipping of Pan again. Have they resurrected him, or is their belief going unheard?

* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] ''hard'' in the [[The Bible|Judeo/Christian religions]] as seen in [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2050&version=NLT Psalm 50]:

** To put it more bluntly, many of the Aztecs' neighbors, and particularly the less pious ones, saw them as a mixture of [[The Empire]] and The [[Religion of Evil]], seeing as the Aztecs had a habit of capturing whole villages for sacrifice and then moving into the vacated homes.

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'':

** In the [[Forgotten Realms]], a god's power is determined by his/her number of worshippers, and needs at least one worshipper to maintain Divine status (albeit at a demigod level). The only exception is the overdeity Ao, who needs no worshippers to maintain power because he rules over all of the universe. This is a relatively recent development, as the deities were independently powerful before the Avatar Crisis, when Ao got fed up with nobody doing their duties or taking care of their worshippers any more.

* ''[[Over the Edge]]'', here it's part of [[All Myths Are True]], one character in a splatbook takes a drug that allows humans to commune with the gods. {{spoiler|Hecate scolds him and tells him to go back to church and let her "sleep"}}

 

* This one is [[Older Than Feudalism]] - in ''The Birds'', the Greek gods lose power because the prayers they were offered couldn't reach them because of a great wall built in the sky. (Actually, it was not prayers that were intercepted - it was rather more physical smoke of animal sacrifices.) The gods did not immediately lose power - rather, they suffered from hunger, although they turned out to have some stockpiles of smoke and rationed the smoke. It was a plot point that not only Greek gods suffered - non-Greek gods were also starving and did not have stockpiled smoke. They accordingly threatened to attack Greek gods unless they made terms with Nephelokokkygia that would lift the blockade.

 

== [[Toys]] ==

* [[Physical God]] Mata Nui of ''[[Bionicle]]'' fame would have ''died'' if the Matoran people had stopped doing their jobs. And this trope was applied with good reason—he was a [[Humongous Mecha]], and the Matoran kept him functional by doing essential work inside him.

 

* This ends up becoming a gameplay mechanic and a key plot point in [[Hyperdimension Neptunia]]. Goddess party members gain stat points when the shares of their homelands increases, usually by completing dungeons there. {{spoiler|Arfoire, the villain, spends most of the game spreading rumors of a fake overlord with monster attacks and heretics, using the fear and belief of the people to gain power. It's how she kept reviving and getting stronger each time.}}

* ''[[Alundra]]'': The villagers of Inoa pray to Melzas, who is (unknown to said villagers) actually evil. Also Nirude, a giant god, lives off the prayer of midgets.

** It should be noted that though hatred sustains Hazama/Terumi's existence, thus making it necessary for him to be the worst kind of [[Jerkass]] possible in order to stay alive, he is still as far from sympathetic as one can get. He has ''no'' shades of [[I Did What I Had to Do]], and has even openly admitted that he ''loves'' ruining other people's lives [[For the Evulz|for the sheer hell of it]].

 

* In ''[[A Moment of Peace]]'' the gods of the universe eat human emotions to survive, like baked cheer or gruel made of sorrow.

* [[Played With]] to an epic extent in the (now completed) ''[http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/ Indefensible Positions]''. It took this to its logical extreme by having EVERY [[Me Me]] being a god powered by people's thinking about them. {{spoiler|One of the characters becomes a small god after her death this way.}}

* In ''[[Parallel Dementia]]'', most nightmares (read: supernatural beings) gain power from belief. This also works for human, as demonstrated by a legendary assasin who faked her death who still gains power from people believing in her former name, Mistress of Blades.

 

* Seen in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' with the New Olympians. After escaping imprisonment (by whom hasn't yet been revealed) into the modern world, the old gods of Olympus find themselves greatly weakened and without worshippers to draw power from, and end up having to take mortal hosts. Who in the present day form their own loose school clique at Whateley Academy...

** It's also been mentioned in the canon background material that even simple spirits (basically considered randomly occurring self-motivated 'knots' of magical energy) may be able to evolve into 'gods' over time if given a source of worship to draw on.

** In the original [[Metamor Keep]] setting, where the gods are at the height of their power, they draw power from faith and actions done in their name. Though aside from the priesthood most worshipers only pray when they need something, and such favors often have a significantly higher cost.

 

* While negotiating a system of catacombs as [[This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself|part of a ritual ordeal]] in ''[[Thundercats]]'', Lion-O discovers a beautiful, brightly-lit room full of treasures. A mysterious figure, clearly terrorized by his presence, attacks him but is too weak and decrepit to put up any resistance. After Lion-O assures him that he is not a thief, the creature introduces himself, explaining that millennia ago he was a much-renowned god, but that his power has withered to virtually nothing after enduring many centuries without having been worshipped. He goes on to explain that ''anyone'' can become a god, but few attempt it as without worshippers this is certain doom.

* In the ''[[Care Bears]]'' episode "Share Bear Shines!", Princess Starglo explains that stars are powered by belief and wishes, but so few people believe in her or wishing on stars that she doesn't have much power left, which leads to her [[The Stars Are Going Out|turning off all the stars in the sky]] (including the sun). By the end of the movie, she nearly fades away, but is saved by a burst of belief from the Care Bears. (One would imagine that seeing all the stars go out would be a powerful reason to believe, but there you go.)

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Urban Fantasy Tropes]]