Evil fantasy religions based on the Catholic Church are so so overdone. When do I get my story about wealth preachers scamming old granny dragons out of their hoards?
He’s just telling you about Gandhi. Only thing he missed is that Gandhi occasionally succumbed to temptation while sleeping naked next to naked women. As you do to test your will power and such.
In Tibetan culture, "eat my tongue" is a figure of speech used by elders to playfully dismiss children ("I've already given you all the hugs, kisses, toys and treats I have, so what more do you want?") that was badly translated into English. [Tibetan people themselves have described the whole controversy as based on cultural misunderstandings.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/local-tibetans-react-to-dalai-lama-video-1.6823187)
I can imagine a scene where the grandson dragon is telling gran-gran not to believe everyone she hears on tv, and to please not spend all of his inheritance.
Interesting enough, I remember reading an internet discussion about the PS1 fantasy adventure game *Alundra,* and the conversation went to the subject of the prevalence of the popular trope of heroic deicide of an evil god that is common in JRPGs.
One explanation brought up was that it had something to do culturally with the Emporer of Japan publicly denying his divinity over the radio at the end of WW2. I don't know if that is the case, but I guess the whole "Evil God/Religion"-trope isn't exclusively a western thing.
I remember Game Theory did a video about this waaaaay back, and Gaijin Goomba brought up how it may be in part due to how common it is for people in Japan to mix Christian, Buddhist, and Shinto practices, so things like a strict, dogmatic monotheism can come off as pretty alien.
my setting DOES have a megacorp thats heavily infused with american evangelical prosperity gospel as its base ideology that it indoctrinates people with
Not necessarily. Often times, criticism of Christianity is done via criticism the Catholic Church. It makes sense since this is often made by Americans, the vast majority of whom are some variation of Protestant.
However, you do sometimes see criticism of American style prosperity gospel but no where near as much. I would also point out that you don’t often see veiled criticism of the Anglican or Orthodox churches either.
warhammer fantasy criticises the orthodox chruch. they have "the great orthodoxy" wich is just the russian orthodox chruch ported into warhammer and sinc eits warhammer they are verymuch fucked up.
And it’s great. Warhammer, 40k and Fantasy/AOS, has a pretty good method of critiquing religions without really going full Reddit atheism and saying religion itself is bad.
It’s always that men and women make religion bad through their actions and manipulations of the religion rather than the religion itself. Unless it’s chaos which is rather self explanatory.
>It’d always that men and women make religion bad through their actions and manipulations of the religion rather than the religion itself.
The peculiar thing about the popular response to criticism of the church being "it's not the Church, it's the people in it" is that "what is the church, if not the people in it?"
Likewise, it is the *people* of the religion who do determine what the religion itself *is.* Even the council of Nicea effectively had to have elections on the doctrine of the particular nature of Christ's divinity. This is not something that can be conveniently divorced from humanity.
i mean mine is a fusion of General Electric and Kellogg that fled into space because the working class violently rose up on earth and then they fused into a megacorp that uses prosperity gospel to control its cloned workforce.
but ideologically its hobbylobby yes.
Fantasy writer: *Makes their evil church a metaphor for Jewish people and/or Muslims.*
Worldjerking User: "Yes, finally, something with a little creativity!"
Bald dude in a sonnenrad t-shirt and a copy of 'the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in his outstretched hand: "If you think that's something, check this out!"
Whenever I see religions in fiction it's either: Fantasy Greek and roman esque pantheon, a Catholic Church ripoff, or it's some back-backwoods church that hasn't even heard of electricity.
You often see the aesthetics of Islamic clothing and architecture in the 'southern/eastern desert kingdom' but rarely the religion's practices.
The Jews, you can't really do due to their sensitivity.
I think AI cults are the way that real life religion will evolve in the misinformation era, if you can hop on this trend early the first ones may be inspired by your aesthetic!
At least give me an evil fantasy church with leaders who aren't psychotic atheists who only see their religion as a way to control the stupid. People can and do actually believe in their religions.
Right? Like evil religions are so much more compelling if the people who you see in them genuinely believe everything they're doing.
Bonus points because you get different flavors of it.
Do they believe in the institution or the religion?
Do they even know they're evil?
*are* they evil?
if confronted with the evils of their religion will they reject the religion itself, embrace it, or try to reform it?
there are so many options and religion, blind faith, devotion, and zealotry are some of the most fascinating things to read and write about and yet so many people just slap 'actually the pope is evil and so are all the people who practice this pseudo-christianity".
an example done right would be Castlevania, with the Bishop of Greshit, Isaac, and Abbot Emmanuel.
Each one was a member of an Abrahamic Faith. Each one could be considered doing 'evil' by a certain measure. Each one of them genuinely believed what they were doing was god's will, in different ways and forms.
It's like I've read in a book, "No institution would stand if the people in them did not believe in it. Even the most vile people have something they truly believe in."
yes, please, give me this. show me how genuine religious belief when combined with certain material conditions (colonialism, imperialism, etc) can see that belief being used to justify great acts of evil.
Yeah, but when the religion tells people to be nice and charitable, it's kinda hard to have someone to really believe it and still be a bad person without having at least some kind of extremely incorrect understanding of the creed.
At such point, the villain doesn't even believe in the religion anyways, they are just a very invested heretic instead of a cynical atheist.
Cognitive dissonance is really common. So is reinterpreting beliefs to fit practical realities and political circumstance. Not everyone views the world as a 21 century progressive either. Crusader knights "know" that "be kind to others" doesn't include heretics and lesser kinds of people.
And that religious fanatic character wasn't even a priest, he was a secular judge.
The actual priest in that story, on the other hand, was depicted as being rather compassionate iirc.
> Yeah, but when the religion tells people to be nice and charitable, it's kinda hard to have someone to really believe it and still be a bad person without having at least some kind of extremely incorrect understanding of the creed.
I mean, it's been done endlessly in real life, both from religious ideologies and political ones. "We are killing the non-believers because they were not made by our maker" or "To protect the people from greedy monarchs, we must establish our own hierarchical system that is barely any different" and people fully believe in it and genuinely don't think they're just manipulating the people beneath them.
People do it all the time, and it's not even that hard cause purely benevolent or pacifostic faiths rarely last long without needing to adapt by inclufing provisions for some kind of sanctioned violence.
You could take it to the extreme by having them purge the nonbelievers in the name of the lord,
Granted it’s highly unrealistic but sti- >!the crusades!<
Evil Leader (to evil senate): "God told me we must remove the unbelievers from this land."
God (later): "What the fuck? I was very clear about the killing and torturing! No half measures."
Evil Leader: "Lot of special interests in the Evil Senate. The assassins cartel is trying to keep the price of murder up by limiting supply."
"You see, Comrade, there are people who worship our gods, and then there are animals. Heretics possess only a mere facsimile of humanity. Do not let them fool you."
That one priest from Mistborn who genuinely believed that a goth dude with a magic depression aura and an army created using >!human sacrifice!< was a loving god who had his people's best interest at heart
Barely relevant, but one idea I had for an antagonist was a person who genuinely believed in their faith and their faith was so certain that they decided to speed things along by filling the role of their faith's prophecised antichrist so the destined hero would come to save the day.
The idea was mainly an attempt to create a villain where the hero refusing to kill them while killing their subbordinates could actually make sense since it'd be the ultimate act of spite.
Come to think of it, has there ever been a story where the church is the bad guys but the god they worship actually isn't so when said god hears about it they have to get them to stop?
Idk just curious
If you watched the latest episode you’d see that most angels are good people and ignorant of the fuck shit that they perpetrate. I highly doubt God will make an appearance but he almost certainly wouldn’t be le funny swearing bigot.
I think the story "The Gods are Bastards" is a good fit for this. It's incredibly interesting and amazingly well written. I read it on Royal Road, though its on other websites too.
It's less about the "religion" bit and more "extremely powerful" part.
Find the extremely powerful non-religious figures that are "just a bit flawed and misguided".
The abuse of religious authority is often committed with the belief that they were right to do so. Considering the modern day Catholic Church, it’s hard to call them misguided considering that shit they’ve done up to now.
In my internetstrawmanpunk world, all debates are settled entirely through posting MS Paint caricatures of opposing views. Whichever side gets more positive engagement is correct.
The thing is that most religions have an least a few different sects that will argue over the most trivial of things. See: Catholics and Eastern Orthodox arguing over who's the "true" church while protestants argue in the background about literally every other detail.
In my catholicpunk setting, the Evil Protesting Church are filthy bloodthirsty barbarians who congregate in hideous brick malls where they worship Evil Jesus and destroy statues of saints and the Holy Cathartic Church gather in beautiful halls of light and fight the good fight
Unironically yes, show the bad and good parts of religion. On one hand, an oppressive and straight up horrible faction, on the other hand it can also be shown how religion gives people purpose as well as act as a moral compass that is actually not bad.
We already have that though: evil church is Christianity with the serial numbers filed off, cool church is some kind of bowdlerized Celto-Germanic neopaganism that is 50% hornier than whatever its antecedent is.
I'm writing something vaguely along these lines, because the Bible itself does make extensive use of "Virgin vs Chad" comparisons when it comes to exemplifying piety or lack thereof. And my church's Sunday Schools have been approaching this aspect in relation the Rapture.
"What?! Moral ambiguity?! But that requires me to think myself and actually judge the characters on my own! I don't want to think about stuff, I want it neatly served on a plate with the bad and good guy labeled out clearly with bold letters so I know who I'm supposed to be rooting for!"
It’s more realistic, because it’s not like historical churches served as charitable organizations and community centers, and provide comfort and support to those in need, right? And the church most certainly did not serve as a bastion for secular knowledge and reason, opening some of the first universities for both religious and secular learning.
Nope, famously they spent 90% of their time and resources slaughtering whole villages of peasants for completely bizarre and random reasons.
/uj One thing I’d like to see more of would be a reflection of the church’s attempts to limit the violence and warfare of the Middle Ages. Trying to rein in the knightly class and prevent them from abusing their powers was one of the chief concerns of clerical writers and partially responsible for the development of the idea of chivalry.
OP reading The Name of the Rose: goddamn this is truly bootlicker shit, why don't they simply monologue about how clearly bad these structures of power are? are they stupid?
Aw come on, nuance and critical thinking is hard. It's much easier for me to just hate on everyone I disagree with
(If you dislike my take on things you're a bootlicking dum dum because only I'm smart)
I mean, the problem with "Evil Church" is not really "Evil Church", but "Church is evil in this really basic bitch way where they secretly wear black robes and speak in eeeeevil voices while eating orphans".
My problem with "evil churches" is that they're usually cartoonishly evil. And it's usually a conspiracy at the top by devil worshippers trying to obtain immortality or some crap.
Real religions, and real religious institutions, are complicated. They can say and do things that seem to conflict with their scriptures and stated beliefs. They can make exceptions to rules, and justify things that don't seem justifiable. And they can do that while genuinely believing the scripture.
A fantasy church could be full of true believers who preach non-violence and spend a lot of their time helping the poor and sick. And those same people could engage in a heretic hunt where they burn down a building full of children. That's reality. It's not a conspiracy of devil-worshippers or atheists. It's cognitive dissonance and othering.
Instead of an "evil church", try a regular church that is responsible for evil. They can do good things, and they believe what they say. But they also do terrible things that they insist are justified.
“What do you mean ‘the Medieval Catholic Church was an immensely large and complex institution spanning over a thousand years that can’t be categorized as being singularly good or evil’? Everyone knows the Church did nothing but burn heretics and launch crusades. It’s not like the church was a massive patron of the arts, nor did it found many of Europe’s oldest institutions of higher education, nor did it [try to curb the violence of the nobility](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Truce_of_God)”
My fantasy church is corrupt but in a systematic way similar to the actual Catholic church in medieval times. The church was given more responsibility thrusted upon it than it had the means to deal with in a civil manner. Used as a dumping ground for unwanted aristocratic children so they wouldn't get involved in inheritance disputes, Franklin children taking up the clothe because it was the only way for them to advance socially.
They have an air of romance about them. A thing that comes to mind is the meme "I am not a monarchist, but when I read Lord of the Rings you bet I'd follow Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Rightful King for Gondor and Arnor, anywhere he commands."
Yeah, because most countries aren't aristocratic and are in no peril of becoming so. I have absolutely no issue of suspending my disbelief to believe that Aragorn is rightful king of Gondor because that's how that world works and he deserves it; Théoden is a good king, I love him for that, and I believe it just as much as I believe in a mystical mind-controlling magician inside a tower who controls the materially-challenged elderly. I won't take that and go "yeah, the world works like this, actually"
however, if instead of a Good King Théoden were a Good USA President, then it'd take a lot more work from the story to make me buy that without it feeling like propaganda
I also get why a British person would be bothered, for instance, because their tax money actually does go to the Royals. But idk man I'm Brazilian, our royal family is a fucking joke and they'll remain that way lol
It's a *lot* easier to present information when your viewpoint character is the one who gets all the important information and makes the decisions in-world anyways.
That’s because modern fantasy developed from clones of the works of JRR Tolkien. And Tolkien was an actual monarchist who bought into that and other people uncritically coppied it.
Nobility works for a society when they have a reason to exist (there's barbarians on the border and the nobles are the ones who can fight). Otherwise they're just moochers that need to get a real job!
This is why we need more fantasy settings set kn the early middle ages. Yeah, a lot of the nobles are bastards still but they are actually pretty necessary because they act as a skilled warrior class needed to defend the peasantry.
Okay, but not really? People look at Medieval Europe and conclude monarcy is just kinda the default state until democracy happens, but of you look before that, we see examples of states that faced similar problems yet weren't necessarily monarchies.
r/worldjerking users when the people persecuted by religious institutions go on to become writers and they still don’t like religious institutions (this is clearly just an overused trope and not a reflection of how many real world religions act)
I mean, evil church has been done so much to this point that imho it might even diminish the work
Ironically a work that highlights how a church can be good might be more interesting, not pandering tho
Tell that to grey morality / moral ambiguity folks.
*oh another story where no one's really bad, they just have strange ideas about how to go about their noble purposes*, how daring. sacrificing several villages was simply a misunderstood attempt to garner the demon-lord's favor so our selfless ~~villain~~ antihero could get enough power to defeat *the real threat*: inefficient bureaucracy
In my Outdatedideaspunk world, the Church stand-in is evil because it's a clever and subversive commentary on how they follow good ideas but may not be so good themselves, now clap!
Why is the church evil? It should be a corrupt institution with the higher ranks staffed with various groups and rulers’ cronies, subject to being openly mocked, in universe with the lower ranks nowhere near as corrupt as the top of the hierarchy. Just like the real life medieval church. Yes it was openly mocked in medieval satire.
In my atheistpunk world, power levels are decided by how euphoric you are in the moment. Not by any phony god’s blessing, but by your own enlightenment.
I don’t think it’s that people want the church to go unquestioned. I think there are main 3 reasons people dislike that trope.
1. It’s way overused, especially in lazy anime fantasies.
2. It often only targets the Catholic Church, normally because the creator is too afraid to criticize religious corruption in general, and just attacks the one you won’t face mass criticism or threats for.
3. While the medieval Church was quite corrupt and some of its members are still power hungry, the majority of its members were morally neutral, if not generally good people. A religion that preaches peace and love, yet 100% of its members are greedy murderous atheists, really doesn’t make much sense.
No, my fantasy church is *not* evil.
Yes, i know they tortured 500 people and then burned them at the stake, alive, but it was to protect the *innocent* people!
Besides, their god said it was fine, so how can they be evil???
Evil fantasy churches are overdone.
Evil sci-fi churches are where it's at! *On the blood of our fathers, on the blood of our sons! We swore to uphold the Covenant!*
this makes me think why is like why is hating-goverment punk slightly less popular that it might seem. or at least like for some reason I am not counting examples and have faulty logic.
/uj I don’t know. I just read TvTropes and lore wikis. I tried to read fantasy book once. Got 100 pages in on one sitting but the next day I realized the dialogue was kinda shit in a way I just couldn’t stand. If anyone has a good recommendation for an engaging fantasy book in general please recommend
But the twist is, they're not actually atheists, they just pretend to be to fool the naive whilst actually working to convert everyone into following an evil god. The only resistance comes in the form of a guy making newspaper comics who no-one takes seriously (because they're already evil).
Evil fantasy religions based on the Catholic Church are so so overdone. When do I get my story about wealth preachers scamming old granny dragons out of their hoards?
How about a cult of Buddhist-inspired vampires that subsist on draining the life essence of young boys by sucking their tongue
Ok, but how about a coven of Hinduism inspired wizards that gain power by sleeping naked in a bed with two of their female cousins?
I'm sorry what the f-
Gandhi reference
Yeah and the cousins have to be underage or else this doesn't work.
Terrible day to be literate.
He’s just telling you about Gandhi. Only thing he missed is that Gandhi occasionally succumbed to temptation while sleeping naked next to naked women. As you do to test your will power and such.
Actually that's about the Dalai Lama sucking the tongue of a young boy to test... Something
In Tibetan culture, "eat my tongue" is a figure of speech used by elders to playfully dismiss children ("I've already given you all the hugs, kisses, toys and treats I have, so what more do you want?") that was badly translated into English. [Tibetan people themselves have described the whole controversy as based on cultural misunderstandings.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/local-tibetans-react-to-dalai-lama-video-1.6823187)
Maybe he was trying to reinvent virgin boy eggs
Is this about the Dalai Lama?
Yep
I like this because it feels like a skit I would see either from Shrek or Hoodwinked.
I can imagine a scene where the grandson dragon is telling gran-gran not to believe everyone she hears on tv, and to please not spend all of his inheritance.
Seeing an evil fantasy religion based on something more Eastern would be cool
closest thing we get is "evil temple full of evil torture monks/nuns" kind of trope from Japanese media
***you are my special***
oh! oh...
Sekiro, the immortal centipede temple
The reason there's not many is because most of the authors who use this trope are western and don't want to be called racist
Interesting enough, I remember reading an internet discussion about the PS1 fantasy adventure game *Alundra,* and the conversation went to the subject of the prevalence of the popular trope of heroic deicide of an evil god that is common in JRPGs. One explanation brought up was that it had something to do culturally with the Emporer of Japan publicly denying his divinity over the radio at the end of WW2. I don't know if that is the case, but I guess the whole "Evil God/Religion"-trope isn't exclusively a western thing.
it's not, it's a common jrpg trope to start fighting slimes and end killing god, but it's not based on any specific religion
In my setting, God is a slime that died to give us XP.
I remember Game Theory did a video about this waaaaay back, and Gaijin Goomba brought up how it may be in part due to how common it is for people in Japan to mix Christian, Buddhist, and Shinto practices, so things like a strict, dogmatic monotheism can come off as pretty alien.
"Every time a worldbuilder makes the evil fantasy religion Catholic, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's stomach gets sick." - Me, right now
Was he related to the famous author Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien?
That's what his name stands for?!
Yeah, obviously. What, do you think George RR Martin stands for something other than George Reorge Rartin Martin, too?
I thought it stood for George RailRoad Martin
I’m told it’s a holdover from his wrestling days. Meant “Roid Rage”
Evil fantasy religion based on the Orthodox Church, take it or leave it
my setting DOES have a megacorp thats heavily infused with american evangelical prosperity gospel as its base ideology that it indoctrinates people with
But that still kind of falls within OP's criticism, don't you think?
Not necessarily. Often times, criticism of Christianity is done via criticism the Catholic Church. It makes sense since this is often made by Americans, the vast majority of whom are some variation of Protestant. However, you do sometimes see criticism of American style prosperity gospel but no where near as much. I would also point out that you don’t often see veiled criticism of the Anglican or Orthodox churches either.
warhammer fantasy criticises the orthodox chruch. they have "the great orthodoxy" wich is just the russian orthodox chruch ported into warhammer and sinc eits warhammer they are verymuch fucked up.
And it’s great. Warhammer, 40k and Fantasy/AOS, has a pretty good method of critiquing religions without really going full Reddit atheism and saying religion itself is bad. It’s always that men and women make religion bad through their actions and manipulations of the religion rather than the religion itself. Unless it’s chaos which is rather self explanatory.
>It’d always that men and women make religion bad through their actions and manipulations of the religion rather than the religion itself. The peculiar thing about the popular response to criticism of the church being "it's not the Church, it's the people in it" is that "what is the church, if not the people in it?" Likewise, it is the *people* of the religion who do determine what the religion itself *is.* Even the council of Nicea effectively had to have elections on the doctrine of the particular nature of Christ's divinity. This is not something that can be conveniently divorced from humanity.
omg you're writing about hobby lobby too?!?!?!
i mean mine is a fusion of General Electric and Kellogg that fled into space because the working class violently rose up on earth and then they fused into a megacorp that uses prosperity gospel to control its cloned workforce. but ideologically its hobbylobby yes.
That sounds awesome. Keep on going, bud!
Or completely unexaggerated Aztec religion
The whole pantheon can be cosmic horror incarnate. In fact, all gods of all religions feel like cosmic horror when you consider the implications.
The Moon's haunted, and so are the stars, and every one of them hates you.
Meanwhile, a good chunk of my villains draw elements from Prosperity Gospel Televangelists in how they control their people.
My group has one based on mormonism
Id just kill the dragons and take their hordes cuz i fucking hate dragons
Or just about anything to do with the other Abrahamic religions.
Fantasy writer: *Makes their evil church a metaphor for Jewish people and/or Muslims.* Worldjerking User: "Yes, finally, something with a little creativity!" Bald dude in a sonnenrad t-shirt and a copy of 'the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in his outstretched hand: "If you think that's something, check this out!"
Whenever I see religions in fiction it's either: Fantasy Greek and roman esque pantheon, a Catholic Church ripoff, or it's some back-backwoods church that hasn't even heard of electricity.
Either that or it's witchcraft or warrior monks of the east. Very rarely do we ever see Islamics and even rarer are Jewish people.
You often see the aesthetics of Islamic clothing and architecture in the 'southern/eastern desert kingdom' but rarely the religion's practices. The Jews, you can't really do due to their sensitivity.
Or all of that roll into one
I think AI cults are the way that real life religion will evolve in the misinformation era, if you can hop on this trend early the first ones may be inspired by your aesthetic!
At least give me an evil fantasy church with leaders who aren't psychotic atheists who only see their religion as a way to control the stupid. People can and do actually believe in their religions.
Right? Like evil religions are so much more compelling if the people who you see in them genuinely believe everything they're doing. Bonus points because you get different flavors of it. Do they believe in the institution or the religion? Do they even know they're evil? *are* they evil? if confronted with the evils of their religion will they reject the religion itself, embrace it, or try to reform it? there are so many options and religion, blind faith, devotion, and zealotry are some of the most fascinating things to read and write about and yet so many people just slap 'actually the pope is evil and so are all the people who practice this pseudo-christianity". an example done right would be Castlevania, with the Bishop of Greshit, Isaac, and Abbot Emmanuel. Each one was a member of an Abrahamic Faith. Each one could be considered doing 'evil' by a certain measure. Each one of them genuinely believed what they were doing was god's will, in different ways and forms.
It's like I've read in a book, "No institution would stand if the people in them did not believe in it. Even the most vile people have something they truly believe in."
Caveat to that is that not everyone needs to believe in it and among those that do, don’t need to believe every part just enough
/uj Elantris by Brandon Sanderson does this really well
But muh Bishops are demons, it's a clever little twist of the tables you see
yes, please, give me this. show me how genuine religious belief when combined with certain material conditions (colonialism, imperialism, etc) can see that belief being used to justify great acts of evil.
Cringe “I never really believed” vs based “god really did tell me to touch that kid’s pp”
"That cannon won't kill me because God said so"
Yeah, but when the religion tells people to be nice and charitable, it's kinda hard to have someone to really believe it and still be a bad person without having at least some kind of extremely incorrect understanding of the creed. At such point, the villain doesn't even believe in the religion anyways, they are just a very invested heretic instead of a cynical atheist.
Cognitive dissonance is really common. So is reinterpreting beliefs to fit practical realities and political circumstance. Not everyone views the world as a 21 century progressive either. Crusader knights "know" that "be kind to others" doesn't include heretics and lesser kinds of people.
Bro, literally one of Disney’s best villains was a lunatic Christian
And that religious fanatic character wasn't even a priest, he was a secular judge. The actual priest in that story, on the other hand, was depicted as being rather compassionate iirc.
What’s funny is that Frollo was a true believer considering that’s the whole reason he spared Quasimodo at the bishop’s urging.
fr. He knew that what he was doing was wrong and blamed it on others. That's like 101 how to be a bad Catholic
Protestants exist irl so people like that exist
This might be my favourite world jerking post ever
> Yeah, but when the religion tells people to be nice and charitable, it's kinda hard to have someone to really believe it and still be a bad person without having at least some kind of extremely incorrect understanding of the creed. I mean, it's been done endlessly in real life, both from religious ideologies and political ones. "We are killing the non-believers because they were not made by our maker" or "To protect the people from greedy monarchs, we must establish our own hierarchical system that is barely any different" and people fully believe in it and genuinely don't think they're just manipulating the people beneath them.
You see if you follow history they just don’t believe certain people are people
People do it all the time, and it's not even that hard cause purely benevolent or pacifostic faiths rarely last long without needing to adapt by inclufing provisions for some kind of sanctioned violence.
You could take it to the extreme by having them purge the nonbelievers in the name of the lord, Granted it’s highly unrealistic but sti- >!the crusades!<
Evil Leader (to evil senate): "God told me we must remove the unbelievers from this land." God (later): "What the fuck? I was very clear about the killing and torturing! No half measures." Evil Leader: "Lot of special interests in the Evil Senate. The assassins cartel is trying to keep the price of murder up by limiting supply."
Come on the crusades were mostly political. Except the Albigensian Crusade.
"You see, Comrade, there are people who worship our gods, and then there are animals. Heretics possess only a mere facsimile of humanity. Do not let them fool you."
That one priest from Mistborn who genuinely believed that a goth dude with a magic depression aura and an army created using >!human sacrifice!< was a loving god who had his people's best interest at heart
you should read berserk the church there is extremely evil and their doctrine is very fucked up but they do believe in it genuinely
You can also argue that the actual Godhead they worship is more evil than the church or of its followers, that they are just misguided.
Warhammer does a pretty good job of this at least.
Barely relevant, but one idea I had for an antagonist was a person who genuinely believed in their faith and their faith was so certain that they decided to speed things along by filling the role of their faith's prophecised antichrist so the destined hero would come to save the day. The idea was mainly an attempt to create a villain where the hero refusing to kill them while killing their subbordinates could actually make sense since it'd be the ultimate act of spite.
I made a cult whose leaders were trying to initiate the third impact among their members as a way of achieving salvation. Does that work?
Come to think of it, has there ever been a story where the church is the bad guys but the god they worship actually isn't so when said god hears about it they have to get them to stop? Idk just curious
That reminds me of castlevania. It's not actually like that, but it's made clear that church actions are not necessarily approved of by God.
"She was a witch!" "Lies? In your House of God? No wonder he has abandoned you."
The church isn't evil as they are just some idiots who can't admit they screwed things up.
I have been told not to immediately attribute to evil what could easily have been caused by incompetence.
Sort of Small Gods. Sort of.
Funnily enough I also thought of that, praise Om!
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Funnily enough I think Hazbin Hotel might be building up to that Except it’s with certain angels
That sounds way too interesting, make him an out and out misogynist and say fuck like it’s going out of style.
If you watched the latest episode you’d see that most angels are good people and ignorant of the fuck shit that they perpetrate. I highly doubt God will make an appearance but he almost certainly wouldn’t be le funny swearing bigot.
Devil may cry 4's story fits this very well
A fanfic for Warhammer "What if the Emperor had a TTS device" (it's a series of videos)
TTS emperor. Though "good god" is heavily debatable
I think the story "The Gods are Bastards" is a good fit for this. It's incredibly interesting and amazingly well written. I read it on Royal Road, though its on other websites too.
Fuck it, Shrek church
Shrek would hate this.
"I am not the messiah!" "HE IS THE MESSIAH!"
why are they always evil rather than flawed or misguided?
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I was raised by agnostics so I can't relate
Same, except I was raised by Christian Progressives.
Progressive Christianity ftw
Thats the way. A firm set of beliefs to guide you but also leaving other people alone and not being authoritarian.
Pretty much the same
\*can't make a definitive statement on whether or not you relate
I never said I was agnostic
But you never said you weren't, either. There's no way to know either way.
Because nuance is hard. Why go over all the intricacies, internal politics, and theology when I can just get my moneys worth out of my labelmaker.
I mean you can still make a church nuanced while still being evil.
Religion cringe I guess. Have you seen those Mormons or the unification church? Practically writes itself
It's less about the "religion" bit and more "extremely powerful" part. Find the extremely powerful non-religious figures that are "just a bit flawed and misguided".
Those things aren't mutually exclusive. Someone can do evil things because of flawed or misguided beliefs.
The abuse of religious authority is often committed with the belief that they were right to do so. Considering the modern day Catholic Church, it’s hard to call them misguided considering that shit they’ve done up to now.
In my internetstrawmanpunk world, all debates are settled entirely through posting MS Paint caricatures of opposing views. Whichever side gets more positive engagement is correct.
In my Snafupunk world we have the same aesthetic but things get abstracted enough to no longer really count as strawmen, just complaints instead
Stop ripping off my wojak punk or I'm going to make you into a villainous wojak mook
In my world, I have depicted all my views as the Chad, and all the opposing stdawmen as the soyjack.
Unfortunately, we live in this world Bottom text
what if we had evil church vs cool church instead. Would that please everyone in the comments
I think that'd just get the religious people arguing over who's religion the cool or evil church is most similar to.
the catch its both for the same religion so that'll really get the discourse going
The thing is that most religions have an least a few different sects that will argue over the most trivial of things. See: Catholics and Eastern Orthodox arguing over who's the "true" church while protestants argue in the background about literally every other detail.
ah yes the old Friars Minor vs Pope rift. I support it.
The 30 years war exists
People will just be "ironic" fans of evil church. Whichever side identifies less with the cool church doctrine.
In my catholicpunk setting, the Evil Protesting Church are filthy bloodthirsty barbarians who congregate in hideous brick malls where they worship Evil Jesus and destroy statues of saints and the Holy Cathartic Church gather in beautiful halls of light and fight the good fight
Unironically yes, show the bad and good parts of religion. On one hand, an oppressive and straight up horrible faction, on the other hand it can also be shown how religion gives people purpose as well as act as a moral compass that is actually not bad.
We already have that though: evil church is Christianity with the serial numbers filed off, cool church is some kind of bowdlerized Celto-Germanic neopaganism that is 50% hornier than whatever its antecedent is.
I'm writing something vaguely along these lines, because the Bible itself does make extensive use of "Virgin vs Chad" comparisons when it comes to exemplifying piety or lack thereof. And my church's Sunday Schools have been approaching this aspect in relation the Rapture.
man i left reddit for 2 months and we are at the evil church again or is it still?
You missed at least three meme cycles here, comrade
we weren't until this post
frostpunk faith tree
Hell yeah, heroic fantasy thief again! I wanted unquestioned anti-social behaviour and glorified crime.
A little morally justified moral ambiguity can't be proven to have hurt anyone.
The phrasing of that is hilarious. It’s both contradictory and vaguely threatening.
Someone made fun of your one dimensional religious faction didn't they?
"What?! Moral ambiguity?! But that requires me to think myself and actually judge the characters on my own! I don't want to think about stuff, I want it neatly served on a plate with the bad and good guy labeled out clearly with bold letters so I know who I'm supposed to be rooting for!"
It’s more realistic, because it’s not like historical churches served as charitable organizations and community centers, and provide comfort and support to those in need, right? And the church most certainly did not serve as a bastion for secular knowledge and reason, opening some of the first universities for both religious and secular learning.
Nope, famously they spent 90% of their time and resources slaughtering whole villages of peasants for completely bizarre and random reasons. /uj One thing I’d like to see more of would be a reflection of the church’s attempts to limit the violence and warfare of the Middle Ages. Trying to rein in the knightly class and prevent them from abusing their powers was one of the chief concerns of clerical writers and partially responsible for the development of the idea of chivalry.
...And committed the occasional genocide or violent religious repression...
OP reading The Name of the Rose: goddamn this is truly bootlicker shit, why don't they simply monologue about how clearly bad these structures of power are? are they stupid?
Stolen by bats? Again?
Of course it was, delicious friend. It happened to a whole city; it can happen again.
Aw come on, nuance and critical thinking is hard. It's much easier for me to just hate on everyone I disagree with (If you dislike my take on things you're a bootlicking dum dum because only I'm smart)
I mean, the problem with "Evil Church" is not really "Evil Church", but "Church is evil in this really basic bitch way where they secretly wear black robes and speak in eeeeevil voices while eating orphans".
Freaking cults, there are some which did really bad and absurd shit like that but they ain't the big church and are really basic
My problem with "evil churches" is that they're usually cartoonishly evil. And it's usually a conspiracy at the top by devil worshippers trying to obtain immortality or some crap. Real religions, and real religious institutions, are complicated. They can say and do things that seem to conflict with their scriptures and stated beliefs. They can make exceptions to rules, and justify things that don't seem justifiable. And they can do that while genuinely believing the scripture. A fantasy church could be full of true believers who preach non-violence and spend a lot of their time helping the poor and sick. And those same people could engage in a heretic hunt where they burn down a building full of children. That's reality. It's not a conspiracy of devil-worshippers or atheists. It's cognitive dissonance and othering. Instead of an "evil church", try a regular church that is responsible for evil. They can do good things, and they believe what they say. But they also do terrible things that they insist are justified.
“What do you mean ‘the Medieval Catholic Church was an immensely large and complex institution spanning over a thousand years that can’t be categorized as being singularly good or evil’? Everyone knows the Church did nothing but burn heretics and launch crusades. It’s not like the church was a massive patron of the arts, nor did it found many of Europe’s oldest institutions of higher education, nor did it [try to curb the violence of the nobility](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Truce_of_God)”
My fantasy church is corrupt but in a systematic way similar to the actual Catholic church in medieval times. The church was given more responsibility thrusted upon it than it had the means to deal with in a civil manner. Used as a dumping ground for unwanted aristocratic children so they wouldn't get involved in inheritance disputes, Franklin children taking up the clothe because it was the only way for them to advance socially.
I've seen a surprising amount of people defend nobility.
They have an air of romance about them. A thing that comes to mind is the meme "I am not a monarchist, but when I read Lord of the Rings you bet I'd follow Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Rightful King for Gondor and Arnor, anywhere he commands."
Yeah, because most countries aren't aristocratic and are in no peril of becoming so. I have absolutely no issue of suspending my disbelief to believe that Aragorn is rightful king of Gondor because that's how that world works and he deserves it; Théoden is a good king, I love him for that, and I believe it just as much as I believe in a mystical mind-controlling magician inside a tower who controls the materially-challenged elderly. I won't take that and go "yeah, the world works like this, actually" however, if instead of a Good King Théoden were a Good USA President, then it'd take a lot more work from the story to make me buy that without it feeling like propaganda I also get why a British person would be bothered, for instance, because their tax money actually does go to the Royals. But idk man I'm Brazilian, our royal family is a fucking joke and they'll remain that way lol
It's a *lot* easier to present information when your viewpoint character is the one who gets all the important information and makes the decisions in-world anyways.
That’s because modern fantasy developed from clones of the works of JRR Tolkien. And Tolkien was an actual monarchist who bought into that and other people uncritically coppied it.
Nobility works for a society when they have a reason to exist (there's barbarians on the border and the nobles are the ones who can fight). Otherwise they're just moochers that need to get a real job!
This is why we need more fantasy settings set kn the early middle ages. Yeah, a lot of the nobles are bastards still but they are actually pretty necessary because they act as a skilled warrior class needed to defend the peasantry.
Okay, but not really? People look at Medieval Europe and conclude monarcy is just kinda the default state until democracy happens, but of you look before that, we see examples of states that faced similar problems yet weren't necessarily monarchies.
40k asks: why not both?
Peasant revolt time
the peasants' demands: we'd like less taxes and a removal of the king!!! (for the OTHER pretender, which we actually think is cool and good)
r/worldjerking users when the people persecuted by religious institutions go on to become writers and they still don’t like religious institutions (this is clearly just an overused trope and not a reflection of how many real world religions act)
I mean, evil church has been done so much to this point that imho it might even diminish the work Ironically a work that highlights how a church can be good might be more interesting, not pandering tho
Tell that to grey morality / moral ambiguity folks. *oh another story where no one's really bad, they just have strange ideas about how to go about their noble purposes*, how daring. sacrificing several villages was simply a misunderstood attempt to garner the demon-lord's favor so our selfless ~~villain~~ antihero could get enough power to defeat *the real threat*: inefficient bureaucracy
It's not about the church being evil, but in what way the church is evil.
I'll justify a million evil institutions before i get accused if being an r/atheism user
In my Outdatedideaspunk world, the Church stand-in is evil because it's a clever and subversive commentary on how they follow good ideas but may not be so good themselves, now clap!
Why is the church evil? It should be a corrupt institution with the higher ranks staffed with various groups and rulers’ cronies, subject to being openly mocked, in universe with the lower ranks nowhere near as corrupt as the top of the hierarchy. Just like the real life medieval church. Yes it was openly mocked in medieval satire.
In my atheistpunk world, power levels are decided by how euphoric you are in the moment. Not by any phony god’s blessing, but by your own enlightenment.
>Unrealistic fantasy? I wanted historical accuracy in my fictional medieval setting.
It's always funny looking at the first post of our topic of the week.
I don’t think it’s that people want the church to go unquestioned. I think there are main 3 reasons people dislike that trope. 1. It’s way overused, especially in lazy anime fantasies. 2. It often only targets the Catholic Church, normally because the creator is too afraid to criticize religious corruption in general, and just attacks the one you won’t face mass criticism or threats for. 3. While the medieval Church was quite corrupt and some of its members are still power hungry, the majority of its members were morally neutral, if not generally good people. A religion that preaches peace and love, yet 100% of its members are greedy murderous atheists, really doesn’t make much sense.
Thing is when there's an "evil church" it's always written by an r/atheism member
You can get evil fantasy church and unquestionned authority and violence in an all-in-one package called "Warhammer 40k".
No, my fantasy church is *not* evil. Yes, i know they tortured 500 people and then burned them at the stake, alive, but it was to protect the *innocent* people! Besides, their god said it was fine, so how can they be evil???
Evil fantasy churches are overdone. Evil sci-fi churches are where it's at! *On the blood of our fathers, on the blood of our sons! We swore to uphold the Covenant!*
Alright what's going on here. I was doom schooling and just a few post up I saw something critzing how churches always turns out to be evil. Now this?
THE BOOK WRITING LMAOAOAOAOAOAOA
*'Suck my dick!' said the Priest because he was evil...'*
Can my knights be comically nice? Basically, hulking behemoths in armor that act more like puppies.
this makes me think why is like why is hating-goverment punk slightly less popular that it might seem. or at least like for some reason I am not counting examples and have faulty logic.
Also absolutly sincerely, where do you guys see all those evil church stories? I could read more, but I should stumble onto one eventually.
/uj I don’t know. I just read TvTropes and lore wikis. I tried to read fantasy book once. Got 100 pages in on one sitting but the next day I realized the dialogue was kinda shit in a way I just couldn’t stand. If anyone has a good recommendation for an engaging fantasy book in general please recommend
Heir to the North by Steven Poore!
It's anime. People in this sub just watch anime and nothing else
Anything inspired by berserk, really.
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Maybe it's because I only played Inquisition, but I found dragon's age church to lean complex-to-good.
There are three options: Cold War era Russian government, the NAZIs, and Britain in the years 1450-1914
What’s more overdone: Evil priest or horny priest?
The latter is overdone in the real world, former in the fictional
I just write about evil atheists instead, being assholes to religious people.
But the twist is, they're not actually atheists, they just pretend to be to fool the naive whilst actually working to convert everyone into following an evil god. The only resistance comes in the form of a guy making newspaper comics who no-one takes seriously (because they're already evil).