History Main / DevilButNoGod

* In [[DragonAge Dragon Age: Origins]] a rage demon the PC fights with the help of a[[ChurchMilitant templar]} laughs at the templars declarations of faith, taunting him that the god he worships and the heaven he hopes for simply don't exist, but that there are demons. He then attacks the party.

* Prevalent in the {{ElderScrolls}} series, with the supposed conflict between (the adherents of) The Nine Divines and the Daedra Lords. The Daedra Lords, while not universally evil (some are, in fact, quite decent people, and all tend to hold up their end of a bargain), tend to be amoral, unpredictable, sadistic and, on occasion, prone to attempting world conquest. They are universally reviled as 'evil', and their worshipers are considered misguided at best, and dangerous lunatics at worst. They ''are'', however, very much present in the world. They speak directly to their worshipers, sometimes even appearing in a physical form, and are perfectly willing to offer immediate, tangible rewards for those that choose to do their work. The Nine, on the other hand, do absolutely jack, apart from supposedly granting blessings and healing diseases, but any semi-competent spellcaster could pull ''that'' off.

** [[ElderScrolls Oblivion]] and {{Morrowind}} drop huge metaphysical bombshells on this subject. As it turns out [[spoiler: the world as you know it is probably Lorkhan's daedra realm, therefore men, elves, the missing dwarves and all animals or monsters, you're probably all daedra. Daedra have unearthly and demonic connotations, but only because people are ignorant of the fact that they and the animals or monsters that live around them are likely the metaphysical equals of the 'demons' that live in other realms. Hell, there are extremely "human" daedra and the magic of men and daedra are not only equivalent but work based on the same fundamental rules. The "gods" or Aedra do exist, or at least one of them does, and the story goes that most were daedric servants who rebelled against the realm's trickster creator god.]]

* In Marvel Comics, Satan was a recurring character in the Son of Satan series. God, Jesus or the Angels never appeared or interfered. Later, it was {{RetCon}}ned that Satan was being impersonated by demons such as Mephisto, and that the true Devil had NEVER appeared in a Marvel story. Recently in Ghost Rider Angel;s and even heaven have shown up.

* {{Redwall}}, the picture provider, has several bad guys mention "Hellgates", and one of them drops the name of Vulpuz, some sort of evil diety. The good guys have an afterlife, Dark Forest, and earlier in the series at least the appearance of having actual religion, although it was never discussed.

*** In Season Four, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the Vorlons aren't the good guys, they're almost as bad as the Shadows, and they only appear to be angels because they genetically and telepathically manipulated the younger races.]] Even Lorien, the oldest and most powerful being in the galaxy, refers to the universe itself as the creator of life.

*** In Season Four, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the Vorlons are just as bad as the Shadows, and they only appear to be angels because of genetic and telepathic manipation of the younger races.]] Even Lorien, the oldest and most powerful being in the galaxy, refers to the universe itself as the creator of life.

*** Most of the religion in the Devil May Cry series revolves around worshiping demons, with Dante's father being a good demon messiah. Also, there are demons that appear to be angels. It seems as if in this universe, that instead of demons being fallen angels - [[HeelFaceTurn angels are demons who fell up.]]

* Prevalent in the {{ElderScrolls}} series, with the supposed conflict between (the adherents of) The Nine Divines and the Daedra Lords. The Daedra Lords, while not universally evil (some are, in fact, quite decent people, and all tend to hold up their end of a bargain), tend to be amoral, unpredictable, sadistic and, on occasion, prone to attempting world conquest. They are universally reviled as 'evil', and their worshippers are considered misguided at best, and dangerous lunatics at worst. They ''are'', however, very much present in the world. They speak directly to their worshippers, sometimes even appearing in a physical form, and are perfectly willing to offer immediate, tangible rewards for those that choose to do their work. The Nine, on the other hand, do absolutely jack, apart from supposedly granting blessings and healing diseases, but any semi-competent spellcaster could pull ''that'' off.
** This is mentioned by the Oblivion NPC Else God Hater, a [[spoiler:Deadra Lord worshipper.]] "The gods don't do a damn thing. Do they even exist? How could anyone tell? Daedra Lords, sure. They exist. They do things. Bad things, mostly, but things you can see. The gods? They don't do a damn thing. So why do we build big chapels and sit around and mumble, and ask them to save us from this and that? It's stupid. And chapels and priests and folks groveling on their knees, they're stupid, too."

* ''{{Berserk}}'', which has the "God Hand", a group of five powerful demons as the closest thing to gods. The only other set of deities, the Four Elemental Kings, are said to be loving and protective of humanity, but only seem to help out if consciously summoned.

* ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'': [[CrapsackWorld Miseryville]] is practically {{Hell}} (in the original pitch, it ''was'' Hell, no question), with Lucius obviously a stand-in for {{Satan}}. Yet we never hear anything for the opposing side. In the original pitch, Jimmy was there on accident, which begs the question as to why God (if he exists) hasn't done anything.

* {{Bone}} sort of seems to have The Lord of the [[spoiler: [[ChekhovsGun Locusts]]]] as an example of the trope because he is a formless being who appears to have a lot of powers and influence on the real world, and [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu he actually ''killed'' the closest thing they had to a God]]. Sort of. ''[[{{Prequel}} Rose]]'' implies that the God figure was responsible for her own death, not the Satan figure. Either way, she's dead for the majority of the story.

* [[http://bogleech.com/mortasheen.htm Mortasheen]], as it usually does, does this in a weird way. There are no gods (unless you count [[OlympusMons The Ultimates]]), mainly because the creator, [[WordOfGod who said it himself]] is an "agnostic science nut". However, there are [[OurDemonsAreDifferent the equivalents to demons]] The Devilbirds, birds charged in the egg with negative psychic energy to cause and feed off of negative emotions, usually in a HighOctaneNightmareFuel manner. But, there are no angel equivalents. There [[http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=Necromon&order=9&offset=48#/d4p0bm were]] [[http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=Necromon+Celestials#/d7psvh once]] when Mortasheen was still called Necromon, but the creator couldn't come up with any re-designs for them that he liked, so he scrapped them. AndThatsTerrible.

* Subverted in ''{{Mistborn}}''. [[BigBad Ruin]] is the only actual deity acting in the setting (and actually refers to himself as [[GodIsEvil God]] on occasion) and it gradually becomes apparent that Ruin's counterpart Preservation is dead. [[spoiler: Then it turns out that Preservation's XanatosGambit was still playing out, and at the climax the heroine is elevated to take His place]].

* In one {{Persona 3}} [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4324241/1/Shin_Megami_Tensei_Persona_3_RES fanfiction]] Mitsuru ponders why there are ultimate evils (Lucifer, Satan) but no ultimate goods. Turns out [[spoiler: God had sacrificed himself to give humans the ability to save themselves and to seal The Reaper away. His knowledge and powers were spread all along the Multi-verse, completely averting GodIsEvil.]]

** While not in Oblivion, in the previous game, [[{{Elder Scrolls}} Morrowind]], you did in fact meet what is implied to be avatars of the Nine Divine (Stendarr & Mara in sidequests, Talos during the Main Quest), who reward the hero/heroine according to the action they take.

Another alternate explanation is that in most cases He knows [[TheHero the hero]]es [[OmniscientMoralityLicense don't actually need His help]], so He doesn't give it. Another reason is that God might easily become the ultimate BoringInvincibleHero or DeusExMachina, so the writers need to [[DeusExitMachina get rid of him]]. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] if [[RousseauWasRight people are significantly harder to make bad than good]].