Basic Trope: A religious character loses their faith because of something bad that happened to them.
- Straight: Alice used to go to church every Sunday and pray regularly. But then she comes home one day to find that her entire family has been killed. She stops going to church and praying (other than a final Rage Against the Heavens), and even loses her faith in God, on the grounds that her family did not receive any divine intervention.
- Exaggerated: Alice loses her faith because she got a B in math, even though she prayed that she would do well on a test.
- Downplayed:
- Alice questions her faith while watching the news and hearing about all the bad stuff happening in the world.
- Alice loses her faith over time, not all at once.
- Alice just becomes lapsing in her faith, not completely renounces it. She makes the occasional prayer and calling out for God when scared/upset that swings in and out from because she believes in it and being reflexive, she has done the occasional confession and she does not likes it when people try to convince her to embrace true atheism (mostly because those guys are as pushy as the religious side). She still is in trouble with those who believe not going to Church every Sunday is an express ticket to Hell.
- Justified:
- All her life, Alice has been told that everything happens for a reason, it's God's will, etc. She cannot comprehend why a supposedly loving God would allow a tragedy to happen.
- Her family was killed while attending church, and Alice is the Sole Survivor. That dealt a huge blow to her faith.
- Alice has had encounters with the darker side of her faith.
- Alice knew the local deity personally, but when she needed help during her Darkest Hour, he mocked her for being "just" a mortal and not worth his intervention.
- Alice was always taught that if she did everything "right" and "played by the rules" (e.g. regular prayer, attending church and Bible study weekly, attending the monthly church potlucks, remaining a virgin until marriage and then giving up her career to raise boatloads of children, dressing modestly, keeping kosher even though she isn't bound to the Mosaic Law, abstaining from secular TV/music/etc., memorizing prayers and Scriptures, donating generously to charity, going on mission trips to Darkest Africa, etc.), that God would deem her "worthy" and offer her His protection and care. She's frustrated because she's done everything "right" and still experienced a tragedy that (up until now) she thought was reserved only for "heathens" and "bad people."
- Inverted: Alice, a Hollywood Atheist, suddenly takes up religion when something good happens to her.
- Subverted:
- Alice has a Crisis of Faith
- Alice died along with her family.
- Alice retains her faith, in spite of her huge loss.
- Double Subverted:
- But it's only a temporary one.
- Medical professionals were able to revive her, but the afterlife is not what she expected, and they also couldn't save her family members, so she still loses her faith.
- But another character questions how she could still believe after all that, and Alice starts to question and eventually lose her faith.
- Parodied: Alice loses her faith in God because she stubbed her toe.
- Zig Zagged: Alice wavers in her faith through good and bad times.
- Averted:
- Alice retains her faith no matter what happens to her.
- Alice has always been an atheist, and that does not change.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "You know, I used to believe you worked in mysterious ways, or protected good people. But I realized that you either don't exist or don't care."
- Invoked: Alice comes home to find everything she knows and loves destroyed.
- Exploited: The Big Bad (who may or may not be Satan, Depending on the Writer) wants Alice, the Token Religious Teammate to renounce her faith and join him.
- Defied: The tragedy, if anything, strengthens Alice's faith.
- Discussed: "So you're an atheist because of what happened with your family. I don't exactly agree with your conclusion, Alice, but I can't say I blame you."
- Conversed: "I can't believe they went with the 'character becomes an atheist because of a major loss' shtick that's been done a million times. Stuff like that happens all the time, so if a traumatic experience was enough to make a person lose their faith, wouldn't we all be atheists by now?"
- Deconstructed: Alice realises if her faith was so easily shaken, she never really took her Christianity that seriously to begin with.
- Reconstructed: Alice loses her faith after something terrible happens to her. However, after studying theology, theodicies, and a decade of self-reflection, her faith returns even stronger than before.
- Implied: Alice considered her faith a central pillar of her life, and talked about it often. After the loss of her family, she no longer attends services or talks about her faith.
- Untwisted: Alice has depression, which comes in the middle of (or causes) a Crisis of Faith.
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