Mission from God

"They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God."

— Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers

Whether or not one believes in a god or gods, there is no denying that religion can be one heck of a powerful motivator.

Sometimes a character or group of characters are (or come to believe that they are) chosen for a specific mission by their god. Sometimes they are called upon to help people in need (or maybe just bring members of a band back together), or to unite a divided country. But sometimes their mission takes on a more violent form, with the characters kicking ass or even killing for their god.

Whether or not the mission is justified depends largely on the fruits of their work, but it's worth knowing that it takes a special kind of person in order to avoid becoming so caught up in one's religious fervor that they lose sight of what they are actually doing to the world and take things too far, becoming Well Intentioned Extremists, or at worst, Knights Templar.

This is a case of Truth in Television, as people from all over the world have gone on Missions From God, both in real life and in fiction, changing the world both for the better and for the worse. Who was right and who was wrong concerning such missions is a subject of much controversy, and while good examples of such missions definitely exist, we are more familiar with misguided missions that take things too far, such as witch-hunts and past and present-day holy wars.

See also Church Militants, who are always on a mission from God.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Michel from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has been convinced that killing humans and turning the world into Mordor is a Mission From God. His actual purpose, planted by a Man Behind the Man, is far different.
• Kaitou Saint Tail has Saint Tail be a Phantom Thief who assists "lost lambs" who come to the confessional to seek help, and her Mission Control Seira considers them to basically be carrying out God's work. As such, Meimi will pray to God for forgiveness before she takes on the Saint Tail persona, and she acts the part of helping answer people's prayers and inflicting divine retribution on evildoers. The problem is, she's not actually an agent of God, and not only does Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist Asuka Jr. know this and initially consider her to be a blasphemer, the burden of pretending to be an agent of God starts internally destroying Meimi because everyone credits Saint Tail's deeds to a vague concept of divine retribution instead of her as a human being, causing her sense of self-worth to completely collapse. In the end, Asuka Jr. gets her to stop for her own good by metaphorically "arresting" her and reminding her that the actual God is watching, which is supported by the fact a potential divine miracle had led her to him as if telling her to live for herself for once.
  • A manga bonus chapter also addresses the fact that Seira's actions aren't part of a true Mission from God, either; she'd just convinced herself that this was how she had to go about it, and her being a Creature of Habit meant she'd never considered whether there were other ways to approach her devotion. Like with Meimi earlier, a suspiciously well-timed vision leading her to Sawatari suggests that God himself had been trying to teach Seira a lesson that she was never asked to do any of this.
• Hellsing even has the phrase painted in the organization weaponry. ("We Are On A Mission From God!")
  • Their Catholic counterpart Iscariot believes this as well.
• Phantom Thief Jeanne is all about this, with Jeanne being tasked with restoring God's power by sealing demons. Except that's a lie, and the Mentor Mascot who'd given her the task was actually working for the Devil the entire time. The ones she'd thought were her rivals working for the Devil were the actual ones sent from heaven... to stop her. Fortunately, they help her carry out an actual Mission from God after everything is revealed.
• Everything made by everyone in Saint Seiya is in the name of some God.
• In Amakusa 1637, it looks like the six Time Travellers were Trapped in the Past via God's will so they can prevent a massacre. Seika, one of the girls, says this openly, but the others aren't fully convinced.
• All of the mandates to eliminate ghosts in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt literally come directly from God himself. Of course, the Anarchy sisters, being the bitches that they are, are always less than reluctant to carry them out, even though there was never really any retribution for not doing so.
• The eponymous robot from The Big O was "cast in the name of God."

Comic Books

• Jei in Usagi Yojimbo thinks he's been chosen by the gods to free the world from evil; unfortunately, he and his gods have views on what is evil which do not mesh with just about everyone else's.
• The 1980s comic Evangeline, about a secret agent/commando nun in the 23rd Century, had the tagline, "She really is on a mission from God."
• Wonder Woman is on a mission from her gods to bring Amazonian peace to the Patriarch's world.
• The post-Flashpoint Doctor Fate, Khalid Nassour, is charged by Egyptian goddess Bastet with preserving the maat, the cosmic order, and healing the world.
• God Loves, Man Kills: Stryker is firmly convinced God tasked him to kill all mutants.

Fan Works

• Absolute Trust: In Chapter 15, Alec meets the spirit responsible for bringing him to the Avatar world and making him a firebender: Lady Ài, the Love Spirit. She sets him four love-related tasks to accomplish:
  One: Save Tui, so that she is not parted from La. Accomplished in Chapter 16.
  Two: Ensure that three couples get together and stay together: Aang and Katara, Sokka and Suki, and Zuko and Mai.
  Three: Find Ursa. A more difficult task considering that bringing Alec to the world caused ripples in its events, offsetting the canon events from The Search; everything that happened to Ursa up until her banishment was still correct, but the rest is not. Accomplished in Chapter 35, when he contacts the White Lotus to find Ursa, and it turns out that their chief information broker, The Source, is Ursa herself.
  Four: Find his soul mate. The story summary gives away that it's Ty Lee. Accomplished in Chapter 28: after she defects, both of them already attracted to each other, he tells her everything, and after a successful first date the following night, they become boyfriend and girlfriend. Much later, in Chapter 42, Alec proposes to her, and she gleefully accepts.
• Ashes of the Past:
  • Ash literally IS on a mission from Arceus, who charges him with stopping Cyrus from recreating the world in his own image.
  • Ritchie is on another one due to his destiny entanglement with Ash.
• In Blackkat's Reverse, Fuji treats helping Kurama, the Nine-tailed Fox who gave kitsune sentience as a divine mission to help her god. Since her appearance is a Deus ex Machina in Kurama's favor, she's not wrong.
• In Cissnei's Path, a Final Fantasy VII fanfic, Aerith's duty to protect the Planet as the last Cetra is framed as such. Shiva mentions that Minerva (the Goddess of the Lifestream) has explicitly given the Summonings that they use a connection to it so that they can think and act in whatever way would best serve to aid her in the task.
• Happens often in stories set in RPG worlds such as Dungeons & Dragons with active patron deities.
  • In The Tabula Avatar Universe quests by Shar and Talona to characters like Viconia and Chantry set up a lot of the action, sometimes being rewards in and of themselves. Shar and her friends occasionally also take active roles, rather than just being the quest givers.
• The enemy Elf Ragnar from Power Rangers GPX believes his genocidal campaign is this. He's opposed by an atheist as Red Ranger, which makes him mad.
• Supper Smash Bros: Mishonh From God is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — God sends Sara to the world of Super Smash Bros to save it from Satan.
• Swinging Pendulum: The Spirit King rescues Ichigo from prison when he's at the lowest point and sends him to the past with the goal of preventing Soul Society from drowning in its prejudice and save the Visored, Arrancar and Quincy.
• Played straight in a minor way, and massively subverted and played with in With Strings Attached:
  • It's played straight with the Hunter, who is instructed by his god to escort the four to the Twisted Temple. The practical effect of this is to force him to travel with people he can't stand (and the feeling is mutual) in the hope that they'll fight one another.
  • The subversion comes with the main plot of the book. The four find themselves empowered and approached by three formidable figures who give them the Vasyn quest. The reader already knows that the three figures are actually alien students (one is a gamer) who found themselves empowering the four more or less by accident, and they don't present themselves as gods. However, the students were instructed to give the Vasyn quest to the four by the actual gods of C'hou, though they can't tell the four this. The subversion is that the gamer actually set the whole thing up, playing the gods himself via messages, because he wanted to see the four in action. Oh, and he was also playing the Hunter's god too. And in a twist, the other two students, who were not in on this scheme, contacted the real gods to let them know what was going on... and they approved of it all, and made it possible for the students to send the four home at the end.

Films — Animation

• In Tokyo Godfathers, Miss Hana does say something like this about the baby. With Blues Brothers-like Deus ex Machina in the movie, it does seem likely.

Films — Live-Action

• Neil Patrick Harris believes he's on one in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Harold and Kumar aren't convinced.
• The Spaniards in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. They see the Fountain of Youth as a whole as a blasphemous insult, as only God could truly grant eternal life (and they had a point, considering how the Fountain worked), and seek to destroy it in His name.
• The Blues Brothers go on a mission to reunite their old band for a gig to raise the money to save the old Catholic home where they grew up. For obvious reasons, the brothers consider this to be a mission from God, as seen in the quote above. (Or as Aykroyd keeps pronouncing it, "Mission from Gaaahd.") And a number of miraculous (or nearly-so) events work in the Brothers' favor, along with nobody dying despite all the car crashes and at least one building-wrecking explosion, strongly suggesting that someone upstairs really is helping them. For example, their Cool Car performs stunts that should be outright impossible and survives every possible pratfall and mishap right up until they don't need it anymore, at which point it immediately falls to pieces. Then, at the exact moment the Brothers complete their mission and receive a receipt for the tax payment, their divine Plot Armor disappears, and they face the consequences for all the laws they broke in the course of the mission.
• The protagonist of The Book of Eli. ("And you did all this because a voice told you to?" "I know what I hear, I know what I heard, I know I'm not crazy, I didn't imagine it").
• The Boondock Saints is about two Irish Catholic brothers who believe they are on a mission from God to kill evil men and become vigilantes.
  • This belief appears to extend to the neighborhood by the second movie.
• The kung-fu priest from Peter Jackson's zombie comedy Braindead certainly qualifies: "I kick arse for the Lord!"
• Dogma. Not the angels but pretty much everyone trying to stop them. Interesting in that this particular Mission from God doesn't actually come from God, who is missing at the time, although it does come from the voice of God, Metatron. More of a Mission For God.
• In Frailty, Matthew McConaughey's family is commanded by God to destroy demons. One of the kids sees "destroy demons" to mean "kill people," hence the drama. And then it gets weird when the kid and father, who think they are destroying demons, turn out to be right.
• In From Dusk Till Dawn, during the height of the protagonists' siege by vampires, bank robber Seth Gecko turns to Jacob Fuller, minister with a crisis-of-faith, and asks him if he's a "faithless preacher or a mean motherfucking servant of God?" He responds that he's a "mean mother...hmmm hmm servant of God".
• Harriet: Over time Harriet comes to believe that God is guiding her in freeing slaves based on visions she has. The film depiction supports this, and the real Harriet Tubman believed it too.
• An extreme example would be the So Bad, It's Good Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter. Jesus' second coming happens in part because God wants him to fight sunlight-immune vampires that prey on lesbians.
• Deconstructed in Kingdom of Heaven by the Hospitaller. He says that throughout his life he's seen various madmen and killers proclaim their actions as the will of God, and he also observes a short way into the movie that even though a number of Templars are dying for what the Pope would command them to do, Jesus probably wouldn't want them to do it.
• The Last Heist: The Windows Killer heard the voice of God telling him to save souls. Which is why he kills people and saves their eyeballs, the windows to the soul.
• Life Blood: God charges Rhea with killing evil people on Earth in Her name. Rhea only gets around to killing her girlfriend Brooke, who turns evil after both are made vampires.
• Somewhat disillusioned by the Catholic Church, Harvey Keitel's Charlie seeks his own redemption for his sins by looking after his friend Johnny Boy in Mean Streets.
• The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc is one of many movies concerning the life of Saint Joan of Arc, who believed she was on one.
• In Miss Nobody, Sarah Jane believes that St. George is guiding her exploits. Considering that she's a Serial Killer who murders her co-workers to create job openings for her to fill, she might just be insane. Her commentary over the final scene implies that, at the very least, she certainly didn't have St. George's favor.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a comedic telling of one of the best-known Arthurian legends, in which the protagonists are on a mission from God (literally) to find the Holy Grail.
• Done literally in the first two Oh, God! films, with John Denver and Louanne Sirota selected to be God's messengers.
• Ruth's father in Paul, believing the eponymous hero to be a demon, declares that he is on a mission from God to rescue his daughter.
  Agent Haggard: Tell him you failed. [shoots him]
• This is what drives the plot of Season of the Witch.
• In Super, the main character Frank believes he's on a quest from God to stop evil. Whether or not he is or is just crazy is left for interpretation.
• Sweetwater: Josiah firmly believes that he's God's prophet on Earth, meant to set up a polygamist community he'll rule.
• 13 Minutes: Elser states he believes God has tasked him to kill Adolf Hitler (as did the real man).

Literature

• Stephen King uses this several times:
  • In The Dead Zone, Johnny Smith's hyper-religious mother is convinced that his life was spared in the car wreck that put him into a coma because God has some great purpose planned for him. Johnny doesn't buy it, but when he sees a psychic vision of a nuclear holocaust and realizes the only sure way to prevent it is to assassinate Greg Stillson, the future President who makes it happen, he grumbles about why God had to make him do the dirty deed. Ultimately, while he still can't believe in the Christian God, he comes to accept that stopping Stillson is his mission from some higher power.
  • The novel Desperation is about a small child named David Carter being forced by God to destroy the evil entity Tak with the help of a group of strangers. Other characters point out how needlessly cruel it is for God to drag David out into the desert and get his family killed before asking him to do that.
  • In another King novel, Under the Dome, Chef Bushey and Andy Sanders believe that they are on a mission from God to keep a meth lab out of the hands of the 'bitter men' from town by any means necessary. Of course, they are actually just stoned out of their minds on meth, but that doesn't keep them from going through with it.
  • There's a lot of that going around in Under the Dome. Jim Rennie believes that the titular dome cutting off the town so that he can rule it with an iron fist is God's will. And Junior Rennie at one point decides that God will not allow him to die if he's taking care of a couple of young kids. The fact he intends to cut a bloody swathe through anyone who stands between him and the kids doesn't seem to enter into it.
• Sparhawk and his friends are on a Mission From Goddess in The Elenium trilogy of books. Done with a twist, because the goddess in question is not the deity they worship (the knights are members of the story world's equivalent of the Catholic Church, and worship a god), and they don't realize for a long time who's pulling the strings. It's actually something of a concert effort...sort of.
• Discworld by Terry Pratchett:
  • The Blues Brothers is repeatedly parodied in Soul Music, where the characters are "on a mission from Glod" (a dwarf), and they order "four whole fried rats and some coke"^note an actual chunk of coal. Hey, a troll has to eat something.
  • Done more literally with the Great God Om in Small Gods who, while trapped in the form of a one-eyed tortoise, went on a road trip with a minor acolyte from one of his temples. (From the back cover copy, "But what Brutha wants, really wants, is for his God to Choose someone else...")
  • Discworld looks at the whole Mission from God idea more seriously in Carpe Jugulum, where Granny tells a young priest that she's better off unconverted because if she ever did gain faith in a god, the next thing she'd do would be to start a Holy War and/or Inquisition.
  • Used in Monstrous Regiment, in which Wazzer is given a mission by the country's Duchess (who is not technically a goddess but might as well be) to lead the nation's armies, much like Joan of Arc.
• The titular FBI group of John Ringo's Special Circumstances series is this, more or less, kicking supernatural ass in support of Good (all varieties, not just the Judeo-Christian God).
  • In the sequel, it's revealed that the Vatican has a special forces team for countering supernatural threats.
• In the first two of Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion novels, the protagonists find that being given a Mission from the Gods is a rough ride.
  Ugemat: But you are the tool. You are not the work. Expect to be valued accordingly.
• In The Dresden Files:
  • Typically there are the Knights of the Cross, three paladins who each bear a holy sword. In the hilt of their sword resides one of the Nails from the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Swords are named Amoraccius (the Sword of Love), Esperacchius (the Sword of Hope), and Fidelacchius (the Sword of Faith). Each bearer will occasionally get strange feelings and intuitions as to where they are needed to be and what may need to happen. One Knight drives from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest United States on this feeling, and, as is typical, ends up being in the right place at the right time to do some major work. The Knights do not have to serve until their death and may retire at any time. As Nicodemus points out, Knights only lasting an average of three days isn't a reflection of their average lifespan. Rather, there have been many Knights who find the right blade in a time of their need, do the mission, and set it down^note According to the author two temporary knights are Saladin during The Crusades and a young George Washington who weilded Esperacchius the Sword of Hope during the Seven Years' War. It should also be noted being a devout Catholic isn't a prerequisite. While Michael is, others have included a Flat-Earth Atheist who received his Sword personally from an Archangel (though it's implied in later books that he's mostly sticking with the idea on philosophical grounds), a Japanese man who became a Baptist after misinterpreting what "Meet the King" meant (he wanted to meet Elvis), a semi-lapsed Catholic, and a Jewish medical examiner - who lampshades the irony.
  • After Harry Dresden redeemed the shadow of a Fallen Angel to the point she would take a psychic bullet for him, Archangel Uriel takes a key interest in Harry, appearing before him, and, while never one to issue orders, isn't above steering Harry to be where he can do the most good, but won't compromise Harry's Free Will to get this done. Harry, taking some issue with this, decides he should be paid and intends to send Uriel a bill. It doesn't work, mostly because both Uriel and Harry both know that he has an eternal case of Chronic Hero Syndrome.
• In The Traitor Son Cycle, Jean de Vrailly is convinced that he's communing with an angel who sends him on a mission to become the greatest knight in the world - and nab the throne of Alba in the process. Little does he know that his "angel" is actually a dragon who's this world's Satan equivalent.
• Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary is about a religious hermit ordered by God to deliver a message of grave importance to the king. The king's men, however, see Richard's affair as something suspect, so they harass him in the hopes of arresting his mission.
• Several characters in Rose of the Prophet are this at various times for various reasons. The books depict a battle for control of the cosmos fought on three levels (mortals, immortals, and the deities themselves) and when the deities wish work done on the mortal or immortal plane they will entrust it to those of that plane.
  • Quar sends Kaug on missions so consistently that it seems unlikely that the Efreet has time for much else. In addition to surprising the immortals of other deities, he actively supports and transports the mortal armies, waylays unwanted missionaries, collects information, and waits on some of Quars favored mortals.
  • Shortly after the book starts Ahkran assigns two of his Djinn to unify the clans they are serving in marriage and to remain in the wilderness until the Rose of the Prophet blooms there.
  • Auda is on a mission from his deity to save him from the moment we first see him.
  • Ariel ends up specifically assigned to keep Mathew alive.
  • Sond, Pukah, and Ariel are sent on a mission to find the Lost Immortals
  • Although Ahkran never explicitly states it, he definitely has an assignment for Khardan, Zorah, and Mathew for the final book and they understand it.
  • Mathew in general gets a lot of assignments from deities, though he's most often unaware of them until the end. He's Prometheus's arm on another continent loaned to Akran to give his people another perspective and be a Spanner in the Works against Quar, he smuggles a very significant fishbowl for Zhakrin, is intended to be an arm for Astafas and ends up instrumental in rescuing another deity.
• Not all of the Heralds of Valdemar are religious in the personal sense, but it is an objective, provable fact that the powers that be chose them and their Companions to help the world. Usually their work is more about general do-gooding than fulfilling one definite goal, but the Herald Lavan Firestorm was empowered to play a very specific role in a very specific place. One wonders what the Karsites — who liked to burn innocent people alive — thought when they saw Lavan's flames rushing towards them...
• In The Divine Comedy, Emperor Justinian says his codification of Roman law came about by direct inspiration from God. He was deemed worthy of this task upon accepting that Jesus has a human and divine nature.

Live-Action TV

• Eli Stone is about a lawyer who gets messages from God through a brain aneurysm. In the form of musicals that involve whoever's around him at the moment.
• Joan of Arcadia is given a Mission from God (for real) in every episode.
• Supernatural:
  • Dean Winchester appears to be one after his resurrection, or at least so the Angels say. It eventually turns out to be a subversion of the trope, because the angels are openly described (by both the show's creators and characters in canon) as dicks and none of them are answering to God throughout S4.
  • The villain in "Bad Day At Bad Rock" started thinking he was on one after he managed to track down Sam Winchester through a series of remarkable coincidences and believed them to be signs from God. It was actually just a Necro Non Sequitur caused by Sam's possession and subsequent loss of a Bad Luck Charm.
• Orphan Black: The conspiracy trying to kill the clones is made up of religious fanatics who think clones are unnatural, including one of the clones, who believes herself to be the original.
• Firefly:
  • Sort of used in the pilot, during the battle in Serenity Valley:
    Bendis: We're going to die. You know that.
    Sgt Reynolds: We're not going to die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so. Very. Pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.
  • Apparently, Bendis wasn't as pretty as Mal. He dies. Mal's faith failed to survive the battle, either.
• Paulo Odbelis, from the Key & Peele sketch Ultimate Fighting Match Preview, believes that he is an instrument of God meant to spread His teachings through his fights.
• Hand of God: Pernell believes he's on one to execute God's vengeance on sinners, with KD helping him.
• Root from Person of Interest. In her case, God is very real, a Benevolent A.I. known as the Machine. Unfortunately, an Evil Counterpart named Samaritan comes on the scene, and there are even more people ready to follow its commands in the belief that Humans Are Flawed and so need to be managed by a higher power.
• This is the premise of God Friended Me. After a hardcore atheist named Miles criticizes religion as a concept on his podcast, a Facebook account named "God" badgers him with friend requests. When Miles finally accepts, the account sends him friend suggestions of people who need help, usually in the form of emotional support. Despite the onslaught of coincidences that seem to scream "divine intervention", Miles and his friends refuse to believe it and the overreaching plot is about them trying to track down the person really behind everything.
• The Good Lord Bird: Brown firmly believes he has been divinely ordered to eradicate slavery.
• Fellow Travelers: Many people firmly believe that the anti-communist crusade is one, which includes Tim at first, and thus back McCarthy no matter what tactics he uses.

Music

• Curve have a song literally titled "Mission From God", though God isn't actually mentioned on the track itself.
  Life is just a series of relative disappointments
  But I will be waiting, and my mission is to help you
• Long Arm and Butchie from My Brother's Blood Machine are told by their deluded mother that they have a mission from God: To become Death. The thing is, they're not certain how to collect souls. So, they build a giant corpse-mangling apparatus called the Blood Machine.
• On Dream Evil's Dragonslayer album, the opening track of "Chasing the Dragon" mentions in the first verse that the hero has "a mission sent from God."
• Slim Shady frequently claims that he was sent by God to antagonise people and corrupt children.

Professional Wrestling

• Daizee Haze's feud with the Seven Star Sisters in SHIMMER was apparently started by an order from Mother Earth to destroy all inferior wrestlers and prove she was the best.

Tabletop Games

• Certain games, most notably Dungeons & Dragons, may use this as the basis for any number of plots. Whether it's a player-character paladin or cleric literally receiving a mission from his or her god, or the PCs undertaking a mission on the church's behalf in return for being healed or even resurrected, the Mission From God is a ready explanation as to why the players have to track down a specific MacGuffin or destroy The Dragon.
  • Eberron, which mostly has non-interventionist deities,^note even the setting's equivalent of angels will admit when pressed that they themselves haven't ever actually seen or spoken with a god, but just assume they must exist, still has examples of this, although usually it's missions from the priesthood or from a being or beings who are merely revered as a deity such as the Undying Court or Vol. Most destructively, Thalin of Thrane came to the conclusion that it was the will of the Silver Flame that he be King of Galifar and the appointment of his sister to the throne was an affront to his religion, which of course was the only true one because...well, fundamentally because it was his...and so open war against the other nations was the only righteous course. The Succession Crisis resulting from this and two other rulers deciding to rebel for their own reasons lasted for nearly a century and got a lot of people killed.
• In Exalted, more or less all the PCs are on a Mission From either a God, Omnicidal Maniac ghosts, Eldritch Abominations, or a giant robot who is also an Eldritch Abomination. Of course, they don't have to do what their patrons tell them (if they talk to them at all). They could just kill them.
• The hunters of Hunter: The Reckoning start their missions when the Messengers send them a direct message about the true state of the world and reveal the monsters lurking behind human guises.
• The protagonists of Scion are the children of the gods, who first truly receive their powers when their absent parents appear to them and draft them into the war against the Titans.
• The Lancea Sanctum from Vampire: The Requiem believes that vampires are damned by God for a reason — to scare mortals from the path of sin and harrow them back to righteousness.
• Warhammer 40,000: Crusades are routinely started by firebrand preachers to cleanse corruption and heresy. Not that there's any shortage of that, but Imperial authorities tend to frown on these due to the damage and unrest they can cause. And while they're usually sincere, some are manipulated into it by Chaos cults or genestealers to lower a planet's defenses against an incoming invasion.
• Warhammer Fantasy: Wulfrik the Wanderer is known as the High Executioner of Chaos, as he's tasked by his gods to seek out certain targets and defeat them in battle. He does this by insulting them (in their own language) in terms so crude they can't back down.

Theatre

• In Saint Joan, Joan believes God has given her a mission to drive the English out of France.
• Pilot Program is about a modern Mormon couple called to serve in the restoration of polygamy. The opening scene is the couple talking about it, after arriving home from the meeting with their Area Authority where its first asked of them.
  Abigail: It doesn't make sense, I know it doesn't. Forty-five minutes later, I'm tied in knots. I'm angry and confused and all over the place. But the moment that he asked, in that second, that breath hanging in the air between him and me— There was a blossom of warmth. A burst of— I don't know. Faith? Maybe it was the Spirit, maybe it was my imagination. But I felt it. That it—this—was the right thing. It was completely terrifying. And now I want to deny that it happened, but I can't. I can't.

Video Games

• Age of Mythology loosely follows this trope. The hero, Arkantos, is on a mission for Poseidon at the beginning, then gets around to helping Osiris and Thor, before finally settling with Zeus. The twist here is that the Big Bad is also on a mission from a god — Poseidon and technically, Kronos. He also gets help from Set and Loki.
• Recruitable character Leliana of Dragon Age: Origins believes she's on one.
  • The entire continent believes the player character is on one in Dragon Age: Inquisition, regardless of how the character him/herself feels about it.
• This is more or less the premise of Darkstone, in which the player characters are on a mission to save their goddess (and world) from complete annihilation.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The Aedra, who are the et'Ada ("original spirits") who sacrificed large portions of their divine power during the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, have been left significantly weakened compared to the Daedra (et'Ada who did not sacrifice during creation) and thus, prefer a lighter touch in dealing with mortal affairs. At most, they typically empower mortal agents to complete tasks on their behalf, and even then, they rarely directly instruct the mortal agent, preferring to guide them silently. Any acts of direct Divine Intervention are typically reserved for dire circumstances, such as averting The End of the World as We Know It. To note prominent specific examples:
    • In Oblivion's Knights of the Nine expansion, the Nine Divines empower "Pelinal Reborn" with blessings and artifacts which will allow for the defeat of Umaril the Unfeathered once and for all. The "Prophet" who starts Pelinal Reborn on this path is believed to be Talos incognito.
    • Throughout history, Akatosh (the draconic God of Time and chief deity of the Divines pantheon) has empowered and sent those who are Dragonborn (mortals born with the immortal souls of dragons) to serve as "natural predators" to the dragons. The most impactful was his sending the "last Dragonborn" in Skyrim just in time to foil Alduin's taking over the world.
  • The Daedra, despite maintaining their full divine power, have metaphysical restrictions (established by the Aedra) preventing them from manifesting at full power on Mundus outside of certain rare situations. Because of this, they too prefer to accomplish their goals on Mundus by employing mortal agents. Even the most malevolent of the Daedric Princes still typically reward these agents with artifacts and abilities of great power.
    • A notable example is St. Veloth, the legendary Chimer mystic who led his people away from the decadence of the Summerset Isles to their new homeland in Morrowind. The "Good" Daedra (Azura, Boethia, and Mephala) sent him visions to influence him to reject the Aedra. Boethiah even "ate" the Aedric being Trinimac and took his form to convince Veloth to lead the exodus.
• Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy has this happen in all three installments of the "Lightning Trilogy":
  • Though not exactly gods, the Foci that the fal'Cie assign to humans-turned-l'Cie in Final Fantasy XIII are this trope in essence. That said, the l'Cie don't have much in terms of motivation for completing their Focus or not.
  • In the sequel Final Fantasy XIII-2, Lightning was given another one, this time from an actual deity, the Goddess Etro. Her mission being to protect Etro and the timeline from Caius Ballad, the villain of the game who seeks to destroy Etro and the timeline. It ends... badly.
  • Finally, in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning is given a final one from Bhunivelze, the Top God of the Fabula Nove Crystallis universe to save the souls of those still alive within 13 days before the Apocalypse destroys the last of humanity and the universe along with it and bring them to a new universe that Bhunivelze will create for them to reside in after the old universe ends.
• Final Fantasy XIV has the Warrior of Light given purpose by Hydaelyn, the goddess in charge of that particular world, which is the driving force behind the storyline. On the counter, it also has the Tempered, people who have been subjected to the whim of a Primal, or godlike entity / formation of Aether. The Tempered serve their god(dess) explicitly, and everything else in their life takes a backseat, forever.
• In Final Fantasy Tactics, having a party member with an extremely high Faith stat can have them leave your party with one of the reasons being that they must go on a mission from God and your group simply doesn't share the same ideals.
• Kratos was originally on a mission from the gods of Olympus. It...didn't go so well.
• Winifred from Natamin's Big Adventure seems to think she's been charged by the god Marr to reform trouble-making women, though it's more of an excuse for her to have fun "punishing" them. On the other hand, she always seems to be in just the right place and time to help the plot and wields prayer-based abilities in combat, leaving the whole thing a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane situation.
• NetHack's Excuse Plot is this. The god you get it from depends on the role you play.
• A couple different recruitable cohorts in Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Umoja, druid of Ubtao, and Soraevora Aeravand, favored soul of Angarradh) were ordered to help fight the Big Bad by their gods.
• Oracle of Tao, Ambrosia gets a mission from God. Reconstructed, as one of the key conflicts of her quest is whether or not what she is seeing (and in fact her quest itself), is caused by madness. Even the author doesn't know.
• OFF:
  The Batter: I have a sacred mission to fulfill. I must purify the world.
  • It's debatable, however, exactly if the Batter is telling the truth, seeing as how "purify" means "first wipe out all life in the world and reduce it to a blank, inhospitable state and then destroy it entirely".
• In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the player receives a mission from Arceus (essentially the Pokémon equivalent of God) to (what else?) catch 'em all.
• In Star Control II, you, the player, can pretend to be an alien race's god and send them on one of these, which gets them out of your way and allows you to get a Plot Coupon without any trouble.
• Many of the antagonists in the Silent Hill series go on the violent, rampaging sorts of missions.
  • Particularly Claudia from Silent Hill 3, who just can't seem to shut up about that wonderful God of hers.
• In Soul Edge/Blade, Sophitia is chosen by the Greek god Hephestus to serve as a holy warrior to seek out and destroy the evil Soul Edge, gifted with the holy Omega Sword to accomplish this. Soulcalibur 1 later reveals that she was one of multiple such holy warriors, with Aeon Calcos (later transformed into Lizardman) being another, wielding the Xi Sword.
• Valheim: The player character is sent to Valheim by Odin to judge their worth before entering Valhalla.
• Depending on which installment of the series is being examined, some of the Zelda games may qualify for this. The actual importance of the three Hyrulean goddesses on the plot varies from one game to another. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, however, consistently refers to Link as being "the hero chosen by the goddesses," suggesting that in that installment at least, he is on a Mission From Goddesses.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword turns it into a bit more of a Mission For Goddess, since Zelda is the living incarnation of the goddess Hylia.

Webcomics

• In The Order of the Stick:
  • Redcloak's actions are all based on a plan given to him by his patron deity, the Dark One, to blackmail the gods and improve life for goblinkind.
  • Then there's Miko, who thinks she's on a mission from the twelve gods. Even visibly losing her powers isn't enough to persuade her that she's in the wrong.
  • Durkon eventually receives one from his patron deity, Thor, to persuade Redcloak to adjust his mission and help save the world.
• Stanley the Tool of Erfworld believes that it is the will of the Titans that he gain all of the Arkentools.
  • On the other side of the war, Ansom's belief that royal privilege has been ordained by the Titans underlies his determination to eradicate Stanley.
• The One Electronic, Calabash, and Angel Eye from Rice Boy have been hired by a being who calls himself God to find the Fulfiller who will realize a particular prophecy, in exchange for eternal life.
  T-O-E: Well, Cal and I are... agents of God, or something like that.
• Played With in Dubious Company. The temple elder shoos the heroes out, claiming they are now on a mission for Phred. He really just didn't want them sponging off the temple.

Western Animation

• Optimus Primal in Transformers: Beast Machines believes he is on a mission from Primus to restore organic life to Cybertron. Tankor tampers with the Oracle to subvert this.
• Parodied in an episode of The Simpsons that tells the story of Joan of Arc, when Joan calls on God as witness during her trial.
  God: I told this maiden to lead the French to victory.
  English Soldier (Willie): Wait a minute, you two-timing spot of light. You told me to lead the English to victory!
  Joan (Lisa): *gasp* Is that true, Lord?
  God: Well, I never thought the two of you would be in the same room, actually. This is a little embarrassing. Goodbye now.
• In The Legend of Korra, Equalist leader Amon claims to be on a divine mission to supplant the Avatar and bring balance to the world by completely eliminating Bending. He seemingly proves this by demonstrating the ability to remove bending, which he claims was given to him by the spirits themselves. He's lying; Amon himself is a bender, and the removal of bending he displays is an extension of his bloodbending capabilities.
  • In the next season, Korra's uncle Unalaq is a deeply spiritual person and justifies many of his actions with wanting to respect and please the spirits. However, considering the spirit he's attempting to respect and please is the spirit of darkness and chaos, and his mission involves wiping out humankind as the world is overrun by dark spirits, this is not a good thing.

Real Life

• A remarkable case is that of the Quaker Mary Fisher, much persecuted in her native England and then in America for her beliefs. She walked 900 miles from Venice to Edirne to meet the Ottoman sultan Mehmet IV, believing that God wished her to carry a message to him. She was graciously received by the sultan, who listened to her respectfully and offered to take her back to Istanbul with him.
• The Crusades of course. The Pope tried to get the Normans off his doorstep and keep the Byzantine Empire ('the Shield of Christendom') from being torn apart by its Seljuk + other enemies by declaring war on the non-believers. It worked...ish... for a while. Of course, the Third Crusade ended inconclusively and then the Fourth Crusade got diverted into sacking Constantinople and toppling the Byzantine Empire (at the Venetians' behest). After that, it was all downhill, though there were a further three Crusades after that. The most successful crusades were the ones conducted in Europe, in the Reconquista, against the Baltic Pagans, and the notorious Albigensian Crusade against Catharism.
• Hong Xiuquan, a leader of the Taiping Rebellion in 19th Century China. He apparently suffered a nervous breakdown after failing the notoriously difficult Civil Service exams twice and had a series of dreams/visions that convinced him that he was the brother of Jesus and was tasked with making China a Christian nation. He managed to take over a decent portion of southern China before his rebellion was quelled. It ended up causing the worst religious war in history, lasting 15 years and with a death toll of around 30 million.
• Joan of Arc, a medieval French peasant girl who declared she had been called by God to have the legitimate king of France crowned and lead the country to victory against England during The Hundred Years War, which she did (or at least got it started, as the war continued after her death).
• Abolitionist John Brown believed himself to be "an instrument of God" to eliminate slavery from the United States, citing both The Bible and the Declaration of Independence as providing the justification for this. His conviction impressed even Frederick Douglass. His written words from just before his hanging were chillingly prophetic "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood. I had... vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done." Much like Joan of Arc, his mission was accomplished posthumously by others at least in part inspired by his example.

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