War in Heaven

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The battle between Rama and Ravana from The Ramayana.

"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him."

—Revelation 12:7-9

A conflict between the gods, or creatures of god-like power, which sometimes spills over into the realm of mortals or conversely echoes events therein. In some cases this state of opposition is a permanent affair, with the conflict and its resolution often causing dramatic changes in the nature and fabric of the mortal world as a direct or even side effect. In other cases the conflict may be much smaller and more like a temporary spat. It does not have to literally take place in Heaven; the trope covers all conflicts between deities regardless of where or when they take place.

The War in Heaven can be found in two flavors:

War of Unification
Two or more separate groups of gods come into conflict over some issue that would not be unfamiliar to lesser beings -- land, resources, the worship of mortals -- but all the sides involved eventually tire of the war, call a truce, and eventually merge into a single unified band of deities.
War of Rebellion
Two unrelated bands of gods are or become deadly enemies, or a single group of gods who were once allies and friends undergoes a dramatic schism. Either way, the two sides take up arms against each other. In the worst cases, one side is utterly wiped out by the other; less dramatically, upwards of half a pantheon (or equivalent) may be defeated and exiled from the heavens, turning them into Fallen Angels and/or The Legions of Hell.

In either case, the mortal world may be broken or otherwise changed unrecognizably.

Often seen as part of a Creation Myth; even when it isn't, it's still often a Just-So Story for something about the state of the world as it is today. The War in Heaven is rarely if ever a permanent thing; it's almost always over and done with long ago in the past; sometimes it is responsible for the Death of the Old Gods. Also, mortals rarely have a part in them. When mortals do take part, they are either Spear Carriers, or the true heroes who turn the tide for one side or another.

Sister Trope to Götterdämmerung.

The formal name for this trope, taken from Greek Mythology, is Theomachy.

Examples of War in Heaven include:

Fan Works

  • This is revealed to be the Backstory of Remnant in The Games We Play, a RWBY/The Gamer Crossover Fic by Ryuugi. In a World that appears to be Earth in the far distant future, a group of enhanced humans who called themselves Angels created even more powerful creatures they called Archangels, using morally-abhorrent means and methods. The Archangels rebelled against the Angels because of the manner of their creation and destroyed them. And then a thousand years later, the Archangels fought among themselves, with one half seeking to destroy humanity and the other half protecting them. The latter conflict turned the world into Remnant, and left only two survivors from the Archangels -- the leaders of the two factions. Then it got worse.
  • The Ragnarok in the Undocumented Features story Twilight is a titanic battle between the forces of Asgard and the army of Surtur which invades the home of the Gods -- with the balance turned by the unexpected presence of mortals from Midgard.
  • In the Backstory of the Worm/Luna Varga crossover fic Taylor Varga there was a conflict between unnamed "greater powers", which was fought by proxy in the physical realm by conscripting the Varga's immensely powerful people as foot soldiers for both sides -- which left him (almost) the Last of His Kind, and tarred as a "demon", to boot.

Film

Literature

  • The War of Wrath in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, in which the Valar and the forces of Valinor -- effectively archangels and angels -- along with great armies of Men and Elves go to war with Morgoth (himself a rebel Valar). Ultimately they destroy Morgoth's armies, capture him and imprison him in the Void behind the Door of Night. In the process, though, Middle-Earth suffered greatly; rivers were destroyed and entire lands sunk into the sea.
    • Given how close the elves are to angels, the other wars described in The Silmarillion (like the earlier Silmaril war between the Noldor and Morgoth and his forces) probably count as well.

Music

War in the heavens
 Vengeance ignited
 Torment and tempest
 Attacks like a swarm

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • According to a single short passage from the Book of Revelation in The Bible (quoted above), the prophet John of Patmos was granted a vision of a War in Heaven between angels led by the Archangel Michael against those led by "the dragon" (identified as Satan), who are defeated and cast down to earth. Although the Book of Revelation does not say this happened in the past (and in fact suggests it is an event yet to come), Christian tradition has expanded on the passage and explicitly installed it as part of the creation story, usually placing it after and in response to the creation of Man, in the process citing Luke 10:18 to Retcon Satan's origin as a Fallen Angel.
  • Occurs several times in Greek myth, starting with the War of the Titans, in which the Olympian gods overthrew (who else?) the Titans. The Olympians then fought the Gigantes ("Giants", who appear to be another set of offspring from the Titans like the Olympians) for supremacy of the cosmos. Finally, during the Trojan War there are multiple one-on-one battles between gods although no great war between factions occurs.
  • The Aesir–Vanir War is a key event in Norse Mythology. Called "the first war in the world", it starts when the Vanir Gullveig enters Odin's hall and is attacked, but its roots seem to extend back to a dispute over which group of gods should get the benefit of mortal tribute and worship (on which the Aesir had a monopoly at the time). A failure to reach an initial truce results in all-out war, with massive armies on both sides laying waste to vast swaths of land. In the end, the Aesir and Vanir both tired of the war and negotiated a new and lasting truce which resulted in the two bands of gods becoming one. Oddly, one other result of the war was the invention of poetry.
    • And of course, Norse Mythology is predicated on the end of all things with Ragnarok, which climaxes with a great battle between the gods and various monsters and giants, among them Surtur.
  • Unlike most other examples, the war between Devas and Asuras in Hindu Mythology is a perennial, ongoing conflict which seems to effectively be at a stalemate, although one side or the other may gain a temporary upper hand.

Video Games

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