Memorable Gods

Now, gods in almost any literary work would be reduced to background exposition, a bystander character at best because of the potential for them to be a Game-Breaker in the plot.

But even so, which gods, by force of personality or power get stuck in your head as memorable characters in their own right?

My personal favorite is Nils Hansen from The Northworld trilogy (I'm cheating a bit because the said series specifically deals with the gods of Northworld and how they handle immortality.)

To him, he's just a cop. You give him godhood and he does what you'd expect him to do with it, try to bring order and peace to the world, no matter how difficult it will be. The problem being that he can't just snap his fingers and be done with it, if there is to be peace on Northworld he will have to achieve it without his powers, but he still has his immortality...

The one god who has a permanent spot in the back of my mind is undoubtedly Vishnu The Preserver from Hinduism. Now, granted this may be biased due to my facination with the religion but I can't help it. Everything about him just intrigues me: His role of maintaining the universe, his exploits during his lives on Earth, his very image is just an amazing sight to behold.

Th one thing I'll never forget though is his description of having the whole universe in his mouth. Think about it. That sounds like something you would expect to hear when refering to an Edldritch Abomination not the guy who holds the universe together.

Hephaestus is a very likable, very memorable god. I love that guy.

Hephaestus is a very likable, very memorable god. I love that guy.

Agreed. He gives hope to ugly people all over the world by constantly having his wife cheat on him and constantly being made fun of by his peers for his hideousness.

Disney's version of Chernabog. Seriously, when I first saw it I thought "So this it what Batman looks like to criminals...".

All culture figures: Athena, Hermes, Hephaestus has already been mentioned, Prometheus if he counts. These are the gods that really accomplish stuff.

I meant more of fictional/literary gods when i started this conversation, but this is good too :P. I've been interested in chinese gods for some time now (Court of Heaven and all that), but they never get much attention.

Tortoisified Om

edited 13th Sep '10 2:35:17 PM by storyyeller

All praise the Great God Om. *holy horns*

The hyena gods in Digger are interesting and engaging. I love the origin story of She-is-Fiercer: tragic but somehow believable in the context of gods.

The gods in David Eddings' early works, The Belgariad, The Elenium, and The Redemption of Althalus are all bloody fantastic... he does a great job incorporating the divine characters in with the mortals, making them believable (as believable as having a physical god can be, I suppose) along side their mortal compatriots, as well as giving a good glimpse into their limitations, why they have to employ these mortal heroes and all. Worth checking into, at least!

The Norse had the best gods. There are crowd-pleasers like Thor, loveable turncoats like Loki (I love the fact that he still hangs out with the other gods, who just acknowledge that they need him, and his guile does save the day numerous times), Heimdoll and the rest. Also, can you believe that we have so few cultural depictions of Ragnarök? It's basically the ultimate Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny with every god confronting his own Nemesis in the most dramatic manner.

Hindu gods also have a lot of originality going for them; Ganesha is obviously a winner; the Trimurti have their unique points: Brahman is cool just for being so neglected (can you name any other religion where the "creator" god is one of the lest popular?), Shiva for the whole destroyer and creator aspect and just general badassery, and Vishnu for his nine avatars. (And of course Indra is basically Da Chief to the pantheon even with those two hogging all the glory.)

Also while I have not actually read it, the Incarnations Of Immortality view of gods is pretty damn amazing. The Other Wiki has pretty good summaries, neat ideas there.

I wrote a variation of Hecate (self-insert alert!) once, who gives her godly power to humans (thus creating "magic"), thus bringing herself down to normal, falls in love with a human, is raped, loses the resulting child in birth, grows old and dies (to symbolize the deaths of the "virgin, mother and crone" aspects), gets stuck in the underworld (suffers the consequences of her death like a mortal, but cannot die due to immortality as a god — also a reference to her role as the goddess of ghosts), and shapes to become the series' Big Bad not unlike Sailor Moon's Queen Beryl. I though that was pretty clever. She wasn't quite a god — so it could be justified that there was a way to defeat her — but you could communicate a lot of information about what gods are like through her, which is normally difficult with human protagonists.

edited 16th Sep '10 11:53:52 AM by Vree

I'm a fan of The Winslow (all hail!), though it's from a bit of a different genre.

The greek pantheon gives us a lot of quirky memorable gods. Unlike most recent reperesentations of God, they had human flaws too: Greed, vanity, Arrgoance, Selfishness, adulterous, the list could go on. Thats what makes them pretty memorable dont you think?

^^^Seconded. Norse mythology is a personal favorite of mine, and Odin is the best of the best. Wise, powerful, and rockin' an awesome beard.

For more the Mythological side I tend to like the Norse gods. They just seem like they actually do something rather than sit around arguing amongst themselves like the Greek gods. (Don't be angry I like the Greek gods too, but IMHO they don't get out enough)

On the Literature side R'hllor is rather interesting considering his followers have a tendency to raise people from the dead (Kids don't try this at home), practice Blood Magic, and burn people alive if they even have a thought to oppose R'hllor's priests/priestesses.

I myself am fond of the Celtic pantheon, though they tend to overlap with The Fair Folk. Nordic gods are pretty rocking too though, I've always liked Notti and Loki myself.

As far as fictional gods go, the gods of Discworld, such as Om, Blind Io, Azreal, The Lady and of course, Death of Rats, all stand out to me in various ways, and are fairly involved with the plot at at least one point or another.

Because I'm an unapologetic JRR Tolkien fan, his gods and goddesses are easily remembered. I've always been fond of Mandos (his prophecies are just so concise) as well as the Lorien, the god of Dreams.

Finally (I swear I'll bugger off after this) Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe has a very memorable cast of pantheon. Mostly because they like to use the protagonists of the novels as pawns.

edited 19th Sep '10 6:06:12 AM by AwayLaughing

The Christian god (no real name, is there?)

Whether or not he is real, he has still been the most influential, earth-moving entity that ever existed. He is also one of the few gods that is depicted, in the Bible, as being omnipotent and omnipresent. If not for the theory of his existence, society may well be very different, and a lot of wars would not likely have occurred.

No no no. He has a name, it's just that the Levites - I think - considered it too holy for anyone to say, and so anywhere it has been recorded it was written without vowels.

He is also one of the few gods that is depicted, in the Bible, as being omnipotent and omnipresent.

Actually... He's the only god the Bible depicts as being omnipotent and omnipresent. :P

(Yes, I knew what you meant... after a few seconds.)