God: Difference between revisions

Using God as a character rather than simply referring to the [[Powers That Be]] or [[The Lowest Cosmic Denominator|using terms without religious connotations]] is a dicey proposition, as it is just about the only thing you can do, other than a series finale [[Clip Show]], that is 100% guaranteed to piss off a chunk of the viewers.

 

 

God is also not always seen as the benevolent ruler of everything, hence why tropes such as [[God Is Evil]] exist. Some of this is [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] from [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] (or other similar works), but some of it is authors liking to throw in a twist or subvert audience expectations. Works which feature [[Rage Against the Heavens]] often feature God being a jerk, if not outright malevolent, to his creation, though some would say he's [[Lawful Good|more concerned with perfect justice]] [[Good Is Not Nice|than just being nice]].

 

 

Possibly due to the influence of works like [[Bruce Almighty]], God has been showing up increasingly often in media recently. Subversions and parodies are also increasingly common (see [[King of All Cosmos]]), but limited to [[Black Comedy]] - once you've turned God into a joke, it's hard to do anything else.

 

Also, had you been the first person to edit this article, you'd have seen the phrase "[[Describe Topic Here|Describe God here]]." A daunting task, to say the least.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Pani Poni Dash]]'', God is a cat that changes colors every episode and lives in a vending machine.

* In ''[[Code Geass]]'', God {{spoiler|is the collective will of every person that has ever lived (and maybe ever will live, they're not too clear on it)}}. Charles and his brother want {{spoiler|to kill it.}} Instead, Lelouch {{spoiler|geasses it}}, ruining their plans.

* {{spoiler|Akito}} in [[Fruits Basket]].

* [[Angel Sanctuary]] of course. Features [[God Is Evil]] in a really, really nasty way. God not only forced an Original Sin down on his angels ( {{spoiler|when growing in their tubes they live from their own Mother, Adam Kadamon; during her captivity in Eden Alexiel also is made to Eat fruits from the Tree of Enlightenment. Which grows from Adam Kadamon's eye.}} Yuck. That the fruits look like baby heads doesn't make it any better. ) - nope, he also considers all of his angels failed experiments and wants to end the world. {{spoiler|Oh, and he's a computer program.}} Neat one, Kaori Yuki - neat one.

 

* The ''[[Lucifer (Comic Book)|Lucifer]]'' comics depict God as sympathetic towards humans, but ultimately rather alien and willing to do terrible things in pursuit of greater goals. Indeed, at one point He is willing to destroy the entire universe, as He wasn't sure if it was really a successful experiment or not. Eventually, He was convinced to do nothing and let the inhabitants of his universe solve the entropy of the universe by themselves, an idea He didn't seem to have even considered and thus found rather amusing.

* [[Marvel Comics]] have an interesting relationship with God. The highest being in the setting and creator of the universe is [[http://marvel.wikia.com/One_Above_All_<!-- 28Supreme_Being29 The One Above All]], best known as the being who gives the Living Tribunal his marching orders. However, there is also [[http://marvel.wikia.com/Yahweh_(Earth-616) Yahweh]], the God of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, who may or may not be distinct from the One Above All and who is a peer of [[TheMightyThor Odin]] and [[TheIncredibleHercules Zeus]]. They're both really nice guys, by the way. -->

* The [[DCU]] has [[http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Presence_<!-- 28New_Earth29 The Presence,]] [[IHaveManyNames also known as The Voice, The Hand, and The Source]] who plays essentially the same role. His most directly visible role is being the source of power behind the Specter's abilities, since the Spectre is, technically speaking, a Fallen Angel who repented, and as such gets micromanaged a fair bit more than usual just in case. As The Source, meanwhile, it shows up as a giant burning hand in the NewGods stories, and as witnessed by [[GreenLantern Krona]] created the Universe in that form (the "Big Hand" theory). -->

** Or {{spoiler|Jasmine. Could be Jasmine, saving her future grandfather. Which would explain a lot of stuff behind Angels motivation in season five}}.

* Cited as the prime mover behind Sam's inability to get home in ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]''. (Or, more accurately, as the force which caused the Quantum Leap Project to go awry in the particular way that it did; the series finale heavily implies that Sam is subconsciously keeping ''himself'' from getting home.)

* In the first season finale of ''[[The Sarah Silverman Program]]'', the titular character meets, is saved by, sleeps with, and then dumps the Morgan Freemanesque entity which she refers to as "Black God." When God makes his first appearance, she asks him, consistent with her character's casual racism, "Are you God's black friend?" A later episode has them reconciling and briefly dating, and God is portrayed as clingy, emotionally insecure, and prone to coming on too strong.

* The re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' is fairly explicit about God's existence in-universe, and while He doesn't exactly show up, we do learn some things about Him, like the fact that He is very much like the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God in that he is omnipotent and omniscient, but unlike the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God in that He doesn't much care for smiting and [[Do Not Call Me Paul|doesn't like being called "God."]]

* ''[[Dragonlance]]'' has the Highgod, who created the lesser deities but has only intervened in Krynn's history to prevent its destruction. Chaos is the entity that opposes the High God, and it is from Chaos that the universe was created.

* In [[Forgotten Realms]], the Overgod Ao (who created the universe Faerun inhabits) is visited by his "boss" in the Avatar Trilogy. He is described as a "being of pure light" and is strongly implied to be the Judeao-Christian God.

** The only one giving any info on the subject are [[Unreliable Narrator|the same demons who hate God's guts]], so the proverbial grain of salt is necessary here...

* In ''[[KULT (Tabletop Game)|KULT]]'', he's called the Demiurge, and [[God Is Evil|is evil]]: Humans were immortal superbeings before he took all our powers away and made us what we are.

* God is one of the many, many, ''[[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|many]]'' things that will show up in ''[[Scribblenauts]]'' if you type him into the game. He's {{spoiler|strong enough to beat up the Kraken and Cthulhu (at least with the aid of a shotgun and skateboard), but not strong enough to kill Death}}.

* "Creator" is the final boss of the first ''[[Final Fantasy Legend]]''. Said deity can also be killed via [[Chainsaw Good|Chainsaw]] due to [[Good Bad Bugs]] it is also explained in [[Romancing Sa Ga]] as a legend of a man who challenged a god, and said weapon is usable by characters in [[Romancing Sa Ga]] [[Guide Dang It|If you can find it.]]

* God is a [[Bonus Boss]] in ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]''. The greatest power of the Supreme Being? [[Useless Useful Spell|Terrible jokes.]]

* [[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]] has U-DO, God in the very [[Useful Notes/Gnosticism|Gnostic]] sense, a sort of manifestation of the collective unconscious in a single rather <s>malevolent</s> [[Blue and Orange Morality|alien]] consciousness.

* Similarly, ''[[Xenogears (Video Game)|Xenogears]]'' has U-DO's more-or-less equivalent, the Wave-Existence.

* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' calls him The Maker. But there's no doubt that it's Him, with his church being modeled heavily after the Catholic ''and'' the Eastern Church, and the story of his Prophetess being an amalgam of Jesus, Mary, Mohammed, and Joan of Arc.

* ''Bayonetta'' surprisingly has something like this. Her, yeah, her, name is Jubileus, and in order to reawaken her, the Left Eye and Right Eyes of the world need to unleash their power and quite literally go inside her eye sockets. If one is removed she will go berserk and destroy everything not because she can recreate the universe, but because she is unbalanced... but she is not the hardest boss. That title goes to Rodin.

* Random soldiers in ''[[Metal Gear]] Solid: Peace Walker'' will occasionally claim they had a vision of God in the back of a truck. If you choose to investigate, you can find God and ''recruit him to MSF''. He has the highest Intel stat in the game, but apparently E-rank cooking skill. {{spoiler|He's actually [[Hideo Kojima]] himself, foreshadowed somewhat by a minor character being named [[Meaningful Name|Cosima Caminandes]] (written in kana as 'kojima kaminandesu', or "Kojima is god").}}

* God (or some form thereof) also appears infrequently the ''Tales'' series.

** In ''[[Tales of the Abyss (Video Game)|Abyss]]'', we have Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the Seventh Fonon which has a Christianity-like religion centred around it (complete with a Jesus parallel, although it's a little different in that she's female). The game is a little unsure on whether or not it's actually ''the'' God equivalent of the ''Abyss'' world or a [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]].

* ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]'' features three gods {{spoiler|although two of them are effectively magic rocks... it's complicated}}, but only one of them is a true "God" parallel. {{spoiler|She}} is also a ''massive'' [[The Woobie|woobie]], to the extent that if you aren't close to tears in the ending there is something seriously wrong with you. {{spoiler|L'Arc, [[You Bastard]].}}Very well.

* The {{spoiler|Golden Spider}} from ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'', is a [[Big Bad]] example that spins the threads of all of existence, allowed the Deities of the game to use [[Ki|Mantra]] and made the gohma attack to test the Deities' resolve.

** His real name is {{spoiler|Chakravartin}}, which means {{spoiler|Ideal Universal Ruler}} in [[Hindu Mythology]]. Unfortunately, [[God Is Evil|He's evil]], and doesn't really fit the Benevolent part that being an Ideal Universal Ruler comes with being.

 

 

== Web Original ==

 

* In the ''[[Mr. Deity]]'' series of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzf8q9QHfhI on YouTube] shorts, God is interpreted as Mr. Deity, a Hollywood Executive type who, although essentially well-meaning, is a bit vague, thoughtless and temperamental, with a slightly alarming tolerance for various evils and unpleasantness. He also bears a startling resemblance to George Lucas.

* [http://twitter.com/OCriador O Criador] ("The Creator"), a popular Brazilian [[Twitter]] account.

** God is also depicted as every other stereotypical male; drunk, hits on the women, and loves to party.

* In ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'', also by MacFarlane, God is depicted as... [[Angelina Jolie]]. Though it should be noted this was just a form taken to keep Steve's (limited) attention. Looking into the "rack of infinite wisdom" turned Steve into a prophet, who had a solution to all conflict in the Middle East. In a later episode God is depicted as... well, he looks a bit more like [[Sean Connery]].<ref>Probably the most believable portrayal of God in all of fiction</ref>

* God doesn't actually show up, but in an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', Hawkgirl and Diana are fighting monsters/demons in Tartarus/Hell and all of a sudden the demons back off and Hawkgirl realizes why.

{{quote| Hawkgirl: That's right, I'm an ''[[I Lied|angel]]''. You can mess with me if you want to, but I don't think you want to mess with [[God|the Boss]]. '''*Points up*'''}}

[[Category:Tropes of the Divine]]

[[Category:God]]