"Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse... and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum."
— Hermes, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters
They're godlike, they're (usually) all related, and they're stuck together. Since they're so powerful that none of them can significantly hurt the others (most of the time), the plot is mostly about their sibling squabbles and Big, Screwed-Up Family moments.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Any story of The Mighty Thor taking place in Asgard will inevitably turn into one of these, not that he is safe from the trope anywhere else either.
- Starting in Wonder Woman (1987) the Olympians became much more prominent in Wonder Woman, and much more like their mythological counterparts (previously they'd been tied to other planets and not definitively "gods"). After Ares' separate abode was destroyed they're all stuck together on Olympus and while they really do not get along they usually avoid outright war with each other. Diana herself ties in as extended family given that Ares is her maternal grandfather.
Literature
- The House of the Gods, Dunmanifestin, in Discworld, to the point where priests relay "revelations" that sound a hell of a lot like the plot of a soap opera.
- Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time trilogy involves immortal, terribly jaded superhumans dealt with in this way.
- The Greek gods in Everworld spend most of their time lounging around Mt. Olympus either partying or getting into sudden, violent arguments with each other so strong storms and whirlwinds suddenly appear from their anger. They keep this up even as the armies of a god-eating abomination are massing outside their house.
- Robert Sheckley's Godhome features gods who are mostly retired until a mortal manages to accidentally phone them—which stirs up old family squabbles and jealousies.
- Several of Tom Holt's novels:
- Expecting Someone Taller has Wagner's version of the Germanic Gods as one big, messed-up family.
- Odds and Gods has gods from multiple pantheons, mostly all living in a retirement home, and still all squabbling.
- Diana Wynne Jones:
- The main characters of The Game. Then again, they're all characters from Greek mythology, so...
- Eight Days of Luke takes a similar approach to the Norse pantheon.
- Archer's Goon covers an original pantheon.
- The Azathanai in the Malazan Book of the Fallen are a rather quirky lot, and not all on the best of terms. It's especially obvious in Fall of Light, where K'rul and Skillen Droe meet several of their Azathanai brethren on their journey. Of special note is the meeting with Mael, who refuses to part the sea for their passage, because Skillen once polluted his seas to make a flying mountain without asking first.
- The 1943 Belgian novel Malpertuis presents a peculiar version of it. The story starts out following a bourgeois extended family at the end of the 19th century going through fantastical and unexplained events, but the last chapters reveals that half of them are actually Greek gods trapped in human bodies by a 200-years old sorcerer.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians has hints of this going on in the background, whenever Percy deals with the Gods, who now have to live in the 21st century. For example, Hera and Zeus's marital squabbles are alluded to, Artemis and Apollo have Sibling Seniority Squabble going on, etc. The Trials of Apollo, which take place from the perspective of depowered god Apollo, mentions the myriad squabbles between the gods more frequently.
- Esther Friesner's Temping Fate has gods and anthropomorphic personifications (e.g. the Fates) like this, with rebellious teenage demigods, curmudgeonly elder gods, and so on.
- The royal court of The Chronicles of Amber pretty much qualifies. They're not gods per se, though they've convinced some shadow worlds they are...
- Alexei Sviridov's Tolkien parody novel, The Zwirmarillion, portrays the Valar like this and even directly calls them "our favourite comedy characters" once.
Live-Action TV
- In The Almighty Johnsons the Norse gods are greatly reduced in power and have moved to New Zealand. They can and do die, but then the god-spirit simply moves on to another descendant. Over the years since the original migration, the descendants of the gods (who are also incarnations of the gods) have lost track of each other, in part because gods (and goddesses) don't generally like each other very much.
- Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess have many humorous episodes where the Greek gods are portrayed as this.
- The Greek gods live amongst mortals as a dysfunctional family in the short-lived series Valentine.
Myths & Religion
- Any number of old-school pantheons. Quite a lot of stories about the lesser gods in Hindu Mythology come down to "Asuras do something the Devas don't like. Wacky hijinks ensue. Sometimes the higher gods get involved. At the end, Indra learns An Aesop."
- Norse Mythology: Loki makes a bet. Hilarity Ensues. Sometimes, he lost or risked something that belonged to another god (for example, in the origin of Sleipnir, where the other gods forced him to sabotage his opponent).
- Classical Mythology: Somebody gets furious because another god bedded a human (nine of ten times it happens it will be Zeus), or picked a champion, or just talked too loud. Cue retaliation through more or less direct means.
Video Games
- The Ten country from AkaSeka are populated by stand-ins for the Shinto pantheon, and these characters engage in comedic antics as well.
- Kamigami no Asobi: a Crossover Cosmology featuring gods from various pantheons in high school!
- The whole point of Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA- – Buddhist deities with wacky personalities leading lives full of hijinks in a modern society with all its advancements, though still having serious adventures and battles against evil.
- The inhabitants of Moriya Shrine in Touhou Project.
- Hades often turns into this between runs through the Underworld, as Zagreus chats up, romances, or engages in Snark-to-Snark Combat with the various residents of the House of Hades between deaths, sometimes with the very gods who just killed him.
Web Comics
- The Gods of Arr-Kelaan - Though the stories turn serious quickly.
- Rahball's hysterical The Pantheon
, begun in 2000, could be the original trope namer.
Western Animation
- Dexter's Laboratory: "Three of Earth's mightiest heroes... Gathered together under one roof... to face the challenge of everyday life! Ladies and Gentlemen, the Justice Friends."
- On The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, the episode "Dysfunction of the Gods" has Sam and Max trying to patch up Zeus and Juno's marital problems when their latest spat about Zeus's wandering eye nearly brings about The End of the World as We Know It.
