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The Gods Must Be Lazy: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:BugComic-The-God-
{{quote|''"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. The worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."''
|'''[[Woody Allen]]'''}}
▲{{quote|''"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. The worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."''|'''[[Woody Allen]]'''}}
In a setting where there are demons and angels or the equivalent forces of cosmic evil and good, evil will actually go out into the world and raze villages, kill people and destroy the countryside. [[God]], meanwhile, will be impotent and only exist as a symbolic force to inspire the heroes. Or they'll be the [[Powers That Be]], incapable or unwilling to stop the rogue [[God of Evil]]. Either way, they won't have a hands-on approach.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
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** Not to mention they did nothing in Trunks' timeline when the androids destroyed everything. Presumably, this happened because they did not threaten the existence of the whole universe, which is only when they can intervene.
** The standard seems to be that the various gods only deal with their specific duty and do not interfere with mortal activities unless they disrupt the actual workings of the universe itself. The Androids were a local threat, confined to Earth, and Frieza was acting solely within mortal realms in his actions. Buu, however, was used to kill several gods specifically; that was above a mortal's station and so demanded active interference.
* [[Slayers]]: There's the Shinzoku (the gods) and the Mazoku (the demons); the Mazoku often [[
* In [[Mind Game]], God is a constantly-shapeshifting [[Magnificent Bastard]] who would rather spend eternity channel-surfing cable tv and going on dates (presumably with women), rather than bother caring the lives of individuals, especially humans, who God admits were originally created purely for God's own amusement. Apparently, his only concession to the job is to greet the souls of the newly-deceased after death, where he explains that there is really no
== Comic Books ==
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** Lucifer left Hell because he felt like it, a far cry from his imprisonment back in Dante Alghieri's day. In ''[[The Sandman]]'', all God does about this is damn two more angels to look after the place.
*** The implication was that Lucifer was imprisoned in Hell, not by the power of God but his own pride that wouldn't allow him to admit that he wasn't there of his own free will. In ''[[The Sandman]]'' continuity this applies to everyone in Hell; anyone, damned or demon can leave the place at any time if they really want to, but most are too tied up with their guilt or hate to realize this. This also applies to Remiel, one of the two angels sent down in Lucifer's replacement, but not Duma who knows exactly what the deal with Hell is, but stays there anyway.
* Just take a look at some [[Chick Tract
** Sometimes God is not quite so subtle in Chick Tracts. There is one where Jesus punches the Anti-Christ through an upheld Bible. This instantly [[Defeat Means Friendship|makes the Anti-Christ convert to Christianity]].
* Taken literally in ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'', after {{spoiler|Johnny dies. He ends up in heaven and meets God, depicted as a balding fat apathetic little gnome in a recliner, who explains that he created the universe and now needs some downtime.}}
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== Film ==
* In ''[[Constantine]]'', God and the Devil have made a bargain to not interfere directly in the mortal world (the "Balance"). Lucifer's half-demons are constantly breaking this rule, but they aren't punished by God, angels or even half-
* Pretty much every film about demon possession or malevolent spirits.
* Invoked repeatedly in the ''[[Oh, God!]]'' movies. Whenever God is asked why He doesn't simply solve the world's problems with his omnipotence, He simply handwaves it as something people must do for themselves.
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** Which definitely qualifies them as [[Neglectful Precursors]]. Even Tolkien himself had to admit this, and try to write his way out of that accusation.
*** This is at least in part punishment for Feanor in particular and the Noldor elves in general. Had Feanor let the trees be restored, had the Noldor not taken up arms against the other elves and returned to Middle Earth to build kingdoms for themselves, everything could have gone so much better.
** In the very first version (''The Book of Lost Tales'') this was intended to be seen as a failing of the Valar. As the Silmarillion evolved and the Valar became less like morally ambiguous Greek gods and more like archangels, this was changed. In the final version, their first wars with Morgoth did so much damage (shattering continents, lifting up mountain ranges) that they could not release their full powers against him without causing
*** At one point in the story, Ulmo actually demands to know why they aren't doing anything to directly help Middle Earth. Mandos then decrees that the Valar may only intervene when emissaries from both Elves and Men request it. (Even more of a [[Jerkass]] move than it looks, since at this point the Valar have set up a cordon of islands and enchantments that make it all but impossible for any such emissaries to reach Valinor.)
** Eventually, faced with the corruption of the Numenoreans in ''Akallabeth'' by Sauron, they call on ''their'' creator to save the world from Sauron and Ar Pharazon, as they could not defeat them without destroying the world. Eru intervenes, moving Valinor away from the rest of the world (possibly limiting their influence to a significant degree) and sinking Numenor, a country perhaps as big as France, beneath the waves. It only delays things.
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* This was a specific agreement-breaker in [[Eoin Colfer]]'s ''[[The Wish List]]'': an angel and devil both promised not to interfere with goings-on on Earth. The angel kept his end of the bargain; Beelzebub not so much.
* Averted in ''[[Good Omens]]'' where both good and evil have forces on earth, but neither side is particularly effective. The demon Crowley even comments to the angel Aziraphale at one point that it's a ''good'' thing that both of them are so incompetent; otherwise, Earth would have been utterly wrecked by their forces.
* This is the main theme of many of the ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' books. The characters assume [[God]] isn't acting because he's following the rules, except it turns out that God is not acting because he's busy admiring his own magnificence, and that all of [[Satan]]'s [[Evil Plan
* The two fairly benevolent faiths of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', even the one with [[Psychic Dreams for Everyone|actual power]], never seem to do anything for their followers. Meanwhile, the faiths with a high emphasis on human sacrifice, particularly the church of Rh'llor, are out destroying wombs, toppling kings, reversing death, and otherwise shoveling extra manure into the [[Crapsack World]] that is Westeros.
** Although given how most of Rh'llor's miracles work, it is possible that a lot of it is [[Black Magic|blood magic]].
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*** Lampshaded and/or subverted, however, in the Tamuli, where one of the high-ranking members of the church of the Elenian god muses to himself that they might not have had to go outside their faith to other gods to begin with if they had just thought to ask their own god if he could grant similar powers in the first place.
* In The ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'', the universe of The Land will pop like a soap bubble if the Creator tries to act on it.
* ''[[Dragonlance]]''. The gods of evil are always up to something, while the gods of good are strangely non-active and non-vigilant. They're apparently not asleep or distracted from the state of the world or anything, but they curiously do absolutely nothing to stop the forces of evil or alert the good races that something's up before [[The Empire]] has nearly conquered the world. Heck, they don't even step in to tell the elves to stop being racist
** One particularly painful example of this from the original trilogy: At one point, Paladine, arguably the most prominent god of good in the setting, who has in fact been quietly helping the protagonists along in disguise, shows up to sternly lecture a silver dragon for... well... basically trying to do much the same thing. Never mind that the oath she broke in the process was made by the good dragons a) under duress b) to the forces of evil who c) had just stolen all their ''eggs'' to blackmail them into staying out of the fight and d) never actually bothered to ''return'' said eggs afterwards. (Which, as we find out not too long after, was because e) {{spoiler|they were too busy using those eggs to breed new minion monsters for their own armies}}...) Thus, this probably also makes a fine example of [[Lawful Stupid]] behavior on Paladine's part.
** Perhaps they were a bit too gunshy about giving the good guys too much support after the Kingpriest?
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** ''[[Insomnia (novel)|Insomnia]]'': {{spoiler|One of the Bald Men actually says that "Purpose" prefers to have people deal with the problems instead of taking care of them itself.}}
** ''[[The Stand]]'': {{spoiler|This trope comes and goes. There is someone who looks a little like the counterpart to Flagg, but in the end she seems to be condemned for the sin of pride, whilst Flagg is preparing to attack the good guys. Then in a literal [[Deus Ex Machina]], the nuke Trashcanman returns to Flagg is detonated by some sort of divine manifestation, when Flagg uses his powers in serious reality violating ways}}.
* The gods of ''[[Discworld]]'', with occasional exceptions {{spoiler|(like Offler and post-''Small Gods'' Om, who've acquired some wisdom)}}, aren't lazy so much as clueless. Gods don't need to think, they have worshippers to do that stuff for them. Playing dice with the
* In ''Between the Rivers'' by [[Harry Turtledove]], every city is ruled by its own god, and the city of Gibil is ruled by a god whose main characteristic is his laziness. This means that the men of Gibil have much more freedom, and have to do much more thinking and working for themselves, than all the surrounding cities, which are ruled by gods who are more interventionist.
* [[The Chronicles of Narnia|Aslan]]. If he leaves Narnia, there's a fair chance that things will go to hell. Doesn't stop him going AWOL, though. In ''Prince Caspian'', although he comes to help the good guys, he spends a fair amount of time playing faith tricks on the four protagonists (you should have trusted in me, Peter) rather than taking a stand against the enemy. Also, although he later helps muster the good guys' army, he doesn't take part in the fight.
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** The other gods tend to be pretty lazy too, though to varying degrees. The Greek gods, for example, are one of the most powerful pantheons, but most of them just lounge around or bicker like house cats, even when [[Edritch Abomination|Ka Anor]]'s army is at the foot of Mt. Olympus. It takes Athena and the protagonists quite a while to convince them that they need to ''do'' something other than just "show favor" to mortal heroes.
** Merlin notes that while [[God of Evil|Huitzilpoctli]] is terrifyingly powerful when he's hungry for [[Human Sacrifice|human hearts]], once he's full all he can pretty much do is sit there and wait until he's hungry again. War gods tend to be pretty dull, apparently.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan]] stories, Conan knows perfectly well not to expect anything from Crom, even though he regularly swears by him. Crom isn't precisely ''lazy'', per
* Zeus/Jupiter of [[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]] is like this mainly due to pride. He prefers to sit on his throne and ignore a problem until left with no choice but to act. The others are more mixed. Some have the sense to fully act at least when their own interests are on the line by aiding heroes and others like Hades have full time jobs. Its been stated that the Fates and various rules prevent the gods from necessarily intervening more.
* In the [[Star Trek: Millennium]] trilogy, the pah-wraiths are far more proactive than the Prophets. This is actually justified - the Prophets' best bet for protecting the universe is to keep their distance and remain apart from the mortal/temporal realm, while the pah-wraiths want to bridge the distance and reunite the two celestial temples, even though it means destroying creation.
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** Of course, among the multitudes of gods (both Celestial and Terrestrial), there are quite a few who really ''are'' just lazy (or terribly corrupt). Quite a few gods are more active in messing around with Creation than the actual demons are.
** The [[Sourcebook]] ''Glories of the Most High'' goes into detail on the character and motives of the Incarnae, including sections detailing how they continue to deal with their duties and their responses to prayer.
* The Chaos Gods of ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' versus any other possible deity in the setting.
** It seems like the 'good' gods are just more subtle; even characters in the setting have noted that ridiculously powerful heroes are always born at exactly the right time to be around to barely beat Chaos again. The Chaos Gods are supposedly at the brink of winning, but they have been for THOUSANDS of years. They aren't exactly shirking, either.
** The black library book ''Liber Chaotica'' gives a fairly reasonable explanation for why the regular Gods and Goddeses are so less apparent than those of Chaos; unlike the Chaos gods who tend to favour individuals and have the obvious advantage of control of the chaos gates at the poles, the other Gods have countered this by dispensing their favour upon their followers as a gestalt whole. Therefore while Chaos has singular champions who can slaughter hundreds, the forces of Sigmar, Ulric the Lady etc give out favour in smaller amounts to all those who fight for them, thus giving the armies of the Old World the courage and strength to hold back the hordes of the North. Singular champions appear vary rarely, i.e. Valten, but when they do they're damn powerful.
*** They're probablty wary of what happened the elven king Aenarion, who destroyed his soul by allowing ''two'' gods to possess him.
** This is so common that it seems to come right back around to this trope. When the Chaos first showed up they were operating out of a fully open warp gate. The elven gods then gave the elf king Aenarion so much power that the elves stopped cowering and began an offensive that didn't stop until they'd mostly closed the warp gate, reducing Chaos' power in the ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' world to a fraction of what it was, and since then have done nothing. Maybe [[It Only Works Once]].
*** Actually, the problem with granting power to Aenarion in the case of Asuryan (king of the elven gods) and Khaine (elven god of war) was that by reducing Chaos' power in the world, they would also be reducing their own power. In fact, it is stated outright that the reason why Aenarion refused the idea of creating the Vortex on Ulthuan to begin with was because Asuryan's will was overriding his own by that point. While the torrent of Chaos was eventually stopped, the price was that while Chaos had a reduced influence on the world, so too did all the "good" gods, since the source of their power (the Warp) was the same.
* ''[[Scion]]'' averts this. What are the Gods doing as their children battle the Titans and their minions in the World? Fighting the Titans and their minions in the ''Overworld''.
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* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'', the influence of the Daedra is usually much more apparent than that of the nine gods. However, not all Daedric Princes are evil, some are good or neutral (Azura and Sheogorath respectively, just to name 2). Similarly, the Daedric Princes are limited in their ability to intervene directly, usually requiring mortal help or agents. Just like the divines.
** This is similarly acted on in ''Morrowind''. The walking gods of the Tribunal are weakening, and the 'devil' Dagoth Ur is getting stronger. Two of the three in the Tribunal have seemingly gone insane, and the third, Vivec, has to put all his divine power into sustaining the Ghostfence to stop Dagoth Ur's army of monsters wreaking havoc (not very effectively, though, they managed to tunnel under it, and long since managed to fly over it).
** This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''Oblivion'' with two god-hating [[NPC
*** Else God-Hater is actually an agent of the Mythic Dawn: she's not a reliable narrator.
*** No mention of ''Oblivion's'' ending? {{spoiler|In which, when the only plan to defeat the Daedric Prince has failed, Martin all but ''transforms into the chief god of the Nine Divines'' and stomps Dagon back to Oblivion}}.
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** Taken to ridiculous extremes in ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]''. {{spoiler|When Raiden and Liu Kang ask them to stop Shao Kahn's blatant rule breaking and Earthrealm invasion, the Elder Gods refuse to act, since he hasn't ''technically'' broken the rules. The only way to get them to act is for Raiden to ''surrender'' to Shao Kahn; when Kahn nearly kills Raiden anyway, the Elder Gods '''FINALLY''' step in, superpowering the thunder god so he can finish Kahn once and for all.}}
* Inverted in ''[[Bayonetta]]''. The forces of Paradisio (Heaven) are actually more active than the forces of Inferno, to the point where the only demon-characters we see have to be painstakingly summoned by our heroine.
* In ''[[Grim Grimoire]]'', the [[Legions of Hell]] have a unofficial representative in the school's Sorcery teacher, the devil Advocat. The school is also threatened by the return of the mighty devil Grimlet, who intends to conquer the whole kingdom and has the power to do it. The only Heavenly presence in the story is a homunculus created with an angel serving as her core ([[Our Souls Are Different|ie: soul]]), and she doesn't even remember being an angel in the first place; she even doubted whether or not she really was an angel. This disparity gets even worse if one considers the possibility that the angel didn't willingly ''consent'' to become the homunculus in the first
* Justified in ''[[Okami]]'': The gods have become very weak because they are [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|powered by the belief of the people]], and the people do not believe in the gods as much as they used to. Also averted, as the main character is the incarnation of the Japanese sun goddess, who fights to destroy the evil forces and return peace to the land.
** ''Okami'' is pretty much the antithesis of this trope, since not only does Amaterasu personally fix everything wrong in the world, from demon infestation to a woman not having a clothesline, but the only reason she took a break in the first place was being killed in the line of duty and taking a while to reincarnate. You really can't get much more active than that.
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** The Gods actually weren't lazy, it's just [[Death of the Old Gods|the general decline of everything supernaturals]]. For example, during the Age of the Gods, Kanako was actively fighting and subduing other deities and winning turfs (one of her victims was Suwako). She only recently regaining Faith from her new followers, just enough to empower her own [[Shrine Maiden]] Sanae; who then proceeds to kick major arses. This is in addition to her other projects, so she's definitely not a lazy person.
* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' has the [[Precursors]], a godlike race purported to be "the most powerful beings in the universe," relying on poor Jak to do ''everything'', including saving their ''entire race from destruction'' {{spoiler|though this is revealed to be a [[Red Herring]] by the Precursors to protect themselves, so...}}. And it's very likely, though not outright confirmed, that Jak somehow got his powers from the Precursors, either through being [[The Chosen One]] or [[In the Blood|having his ancestor given powers]].
* ''[[Zork|Beyond Zork]]'' featured the Implementors, obvious [[Author Avatar
* [[Unwritten Legends]]: So many times everybody's lost count. The gods won't usually help you unless the bad guys [[Berserk Button|destroy their temple]], no matter what's plaguing you, their loyal followers. Don't want to distract from their cosmic game of boggle, I suppose.
==
* Averted in ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', where Thor doesn't fail to rescue a village from the rampaging Surtur because he's prohibited from intervening. He fails, because he's distracted by a prayer for spells from the dwarf cleric Durkon: a request which takes so long to fulfill, Surtur devours everyone in the village before Thor can hang up the damn phone and get back to the action.
** Although the ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' gods do appear to be bickering, easily distracted (see above), none too bright and in the case of Odin, senile. Which may have pretty much the same effect.
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== Web Original ==
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], one of the main characters has been to what seemed like Hell, and was confronted by a being who claimed to be [[Satan]]. He tells the character (while he's torturing her) that God does exist, and that he and God play by these rules to keep ''things worse than Satan'' from invading our reality. He could have been lying about being Satan, or about the arrangement, or about pretty much anything... except that he ''does'' give her information that stops something [[Eldritch Abomination|horrific]].
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[God, the Devil and Bob]]''
* ''[[Futurama]]'': Bender meets a godlike being (who may be the actual God). God explains that if you do too much, people become dependent on you, and if you do too little, they lose faith. However, if a you do your job right, [[In Mysterious Ways|then nobody will be sure whether you've done anything at all]].
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