Should Gods be "real" ?

[Demesnedenoir]

Well, so much of this depends too on how you define "god". I have a pile of religions in the world with varying systems and pantheons. The "true" gods can no longer reach the stage, but oh how they want to! The overarching world plot is all about the gods wanting to return. In the past there was the Age of God Wars, where the gods could be brought to the world to battle other gods. There's a whole system to this setup.

Then, there are different "gods" who do still walk the world, but they might accurately be called beings people choose to worship. They are powerful, they can impart that power to worshippers, but they don't smite cities and destroy worlds... they aren't that kind of god.

So, gods can walk the world, it's just better if you escape the modern conception of what a god is.

 

[Devor]

In the story of mine that uses gods, there are six of them, and they used to try and micromanage the world and its people, but that didn't work out. Eventually they made a vow to stay out of the world, except that each of them runs a particular angle of the magic system and can adjust the rules of it from time to time. They also have left powerful artifacts in the world, and some other magical tidbits, from their earlier days that are still lingering about.

Only, things got so bad that one of the gods broke their vow. That one god came down and literally changed the landscape in an effort to fix things. But when he finished, he had to face the consequences of breaking his vow, and lose the bulk of his power.

The villain in the story is trying to wreck the world enough to convince the other gods to break their vows and lose their powers in order to stop him. He thinks the gods are unfair and unkind, and by using death and mayhem to goad them into breaking their vows, he can help end their reign.

 

[Annoyingkid]

Gods can run the gamut of being either just vague legend all the way to the main character. if you go down the route of making them actual characters then you can't stay vague anymore. They need the same as any other character. Wants, needs, worldviews, personalities, flaws, dramatic potential and so on. If you have them be legends and far off, never incarnate figures of worship, it's best to stay vague and be mysterious. In fact the most difficult way of writing gods is the kind where they're neither concrete characters or vague legends. When it's not clear what their role is. When they're in between and more like guides to the hero. You'd need some reason why the deity limits themselves to that role if it seems they can do more.

My story is basically elves vs. the creator of the universe and it works just fine.

 

[elemtilas]

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with hiding their natures. This is all power related.

In any event, you're making assumptions about the narrative based on facts not in evidence.

Well of course. Reason being, there are no facts in evidence!

But what if your story is about interactive gods walking the earth, and how that affects the development of mortal societies, mortal moralities, mortal worldviews, and like?

Then there's no issue with gods just being gods and getting on with things.

What if you're writing Lord of Light? What if you're somewhere in between--like in the Malazan books, where sometimes the gods hide their natures and sometimes they reveal themselves? I think in order to determine whether it is "best" for the story to hide the nature of gods or not have them, you first have to know what story you're talking about.

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves now. Depending on the kind of story, you could have the gods the gods themselves bow down and worship. You could have all the very minor and weak gods rising up against a particular bully. Gods and humans allying against an intruder god... whatever.

For the sake of argument, I chose to narrow the focus down to story types that involve human action rather than divine. After all, if the story is about gods, then the whole discussion of whether the gods should be real or not is rather moot!

 

[Steerpike]

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves now. Depending on the kind of story, you could have the gods the gods themselves bow down and worship. You could have all the very minor and weak gods rising up against a particular bully. Gods and humans allying against an intruder god... whatever.

So you're saying not having powerful or open and obvious isn't necessarily best per se but may or may not be best depending on the type of story you're writing?

I'm please to report that we are in agreement!

 

[elemtilas]

So you're saying not having powerful or open and obvious isn't necessarily best per se but may or may not be best depending on the type of story you're writing?

I'm please to report that we are in agreement!

Yay!

Context is what it's all about.

The OP asks about a setting where powerful gods might interact with ordinary people. I still stand by what I've said on that. Probably best to either leave the gods out entirely or send messengers or else find some way to curtail their powers. Especially given what's already been said about how the powers of the gods have already affected the world, its moon and the environment!

For the thousand and one other types of story one could write about gods, well, we could explore other "probably bests" for them when the time comes.

PS: It's not my intention to come across as all "do it this way and no other". That's obviously not constructive.

 

[SMAndy85]

It seems that this thread is still going, even after I've decided on my deities. That's awesome, and so I'm happy to keep on going!

It seems that fundamental issues with this are as follows;

Deities that wander the Earth have issues that they are 1, immortal, and 2, all powerful. They have too much power to be wandering the world, and the path of the world's progression is entirely under the control of those deities. If they don't bend the world to their will, there needs to be a reason for it, or it won't be believable, and people won't find it interesting.

Deities that don't wander the world, but still shape it by their will essentially just have a pile of ants in front of them, and they're burning them with magnifying glasses for fun, and putting walls up in front of them to see what they do. It still curtails progression, and makes them the focus of the story. It's an overly convenient plot-hammer for how the hero decides to do something.


Deities that don't actually "exist" still have followers. People believe they are being spoken to by deities, and guided aren't really being, and then it's a politically intriguing story about religious people trying to get more power for themselves, when they've done nothing to really deserve it, and the hero is struggling against them.

It's about doing what is right for the narrative. If your story revolves around the gods, then the other characters are secondary by nature, and don't have the power to affect things as much.

Of course, one of the suggestions earlier that creating a physical form weakens them, and thus they still have to deal with the people.. but arguably, are they still then true Gods? This thread was originally about true gods that have the power to essentially do what they want. They just decide not to do the things that might destroy the world they look over. It would be incredibly disappointing to a reader if the end of the story was the gods deciding "screw this.".

 

[Annoyingkid]

It's about doing what is right for the narrative. If your story revolves around the gods, then the other characters are secondary by nature, and don't have the power to affect things as much.

No, not by nature, more like by definition.

I'm not sure what your argument is. Are you saying that it's impossible to write a compelling story with a infinitely powerful deity on the centre stage or just very difficult?

 

[SMAndy85]

I think consensus so far has been that if you're trying to write a story where a "normal person" is the main character, it becomes more difficult to write their story if there are infinitely powerful deities around as well. They are just too likely to either take over focus, act like plot mcguffins, or feel weakly implemented if they don't utilise their infinite power.

If your story actually revolves around the gods, then there's no problem with them being infinitely powerful, and wandering freely around, as there would be others to conflict with them.

It's down to your own story requirements as you write. I've made decisions on my original question based on things that have been said here, and opted for a mixture of all-powerful deities that don't take part in the world, and one that isn't all-powerful, but wanders the planet in the form of a normal mortal.

Treating it like a game, it's about balance. Lean it too far in one direction, and it may not fit so well. Likewise if you change the rules part way through, people will put it down and never touch it again. Unless of course, your story is about the serious underdog.

Disclaimer: this is personal opinion based on what has been said in this thread so far.

 

[Eden Lost]

I'm currently struggling with balancing the multilayers of my plot. I had some ideas for old gods vr. false/new gods backbone that could drive some of the motivation for the more surface actions. The story will span a few kingdoms but the source of conflict takes place in Cavalia. The kingdom has been through a long period of drought and famine as the new gods (triplet war gods, sons of the previous war god) killed nature spirits to absorb their powers and drove out the local deities that usually nurture the land. On command of these gods, the kingdom is using rituals to steal the nature spirits of other countries to rejuvenate their own land and further power the war gods. The failing fertility of the surrounding kingdoms drives some of them to raid Cavalia for their resources.

I worry that using a divine conflict as the fuel for human actions is unnecessarily complicated and cheapens the actions of the human antagonists. Human greed would also be a sufficient driving force for the plot (with some minor changes). Is there something to be said for streamlining a story down? Especially when active deities are not necessary for plot depth?

 

[TheKillerBs]

I dunno, I think divinely-backed antagonists are more threatening than just greedy antagonists. You can reason with greed. You can't reason with a religious fanatic. Especially not if the deity they believe in is a real entity.

 

[Eden Lost]

I hadn't thought of that aspect. That is an extremely compelling argument for a divine root for the antagonists and making the tension even higher.

 

[bestellen]

Where a temple exists, it is to both of these, since too much of one is seen to be deadly.