10 Things That Could Happen If You Pretend to Be A God Power Grid By The Mary Sue StaffOct 11th, 2011, 12:34 pm You are seeing this message because you have javascript disabled. To use our slideshows you need to enable javascript. There's no cross domain hackery or tracking voodoo, it's just some sweet jQuery animations. Please, think of the animations. In the meantime, enjoy the html version below. I guess. If that's your thing. Allow Us To Explain So, the heroes have come across a desert island inhabited by a tribe of people with a completely unknown culture. They don't speak the language, they don't recognize the food, and they have nothing to trade or protect themselves with, but they can pretty reliably guess that those spears that are pointing at them... are really pointing at them. Sounds like sudden death, right? Wrong. Quickly enough, somebody notices that someone in the group shocks those primitive people with a display of skill or technology that would be completely mundane in their accustomed setting, or, a member of the hero's party bears an inexplicable and passing resemblance to the giant idol at the center of the village. The helpless newcomers are now proclaimed gods. You would think that religious fraud would be a touchy subject to experiment with, what with how defensive people can be about the legitimacy of their own various belief systems, yet we see the trope played for laughs in the silliest of family fare just as often as it is used (sometimes not even reluctantly) by heroes in serious drama. Only very rarely is it used to characterize villains, though we do have a few examples on the grid (but not Belloc from the very beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example, he didn't quite make it, along with Elan's hand puppet Banjo from Order of the Stick). Empires Overthrown Endor is a gas giant, the first planet out from the star Ibleam. The planet itself is uninhabitable, but it has nine orbiting moons, one of which is forested, watered, and populated by a race of three foot high, furry sentients known as Ewoks. Life on Endor's Forest Moon, as it is known, has historically been pretty quiet... except for the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin). Allow me to backtrack a moment and talk about Ewok religion. Ewoks believe in no less than twenty-eight recorded gods and spirits, many beings of the air but others of the trees, sky, and celestial bodies. Hexprak stood over all as the strongest, with the Great Spirit of the Forest as a creator figure, and other spirits behaving helpfully or mischievously according to their natures. (The Ewoks themselves believed that their race had sprung from the Great Spirit Tree, and that all life would eventually return to it.) Among these gods was the Golden One, about which little is known other than that Ewok prophecy held that he would one day appear in a physical manifestation. This was a very convenient belief for agents of the Rebellion, who had come to the Forest Moon with the goal of destroying an Imperial shield generator protecting the Empire's second Death Star. With Rebel forces thin on the ground against the mighty Imperial outpost, they found that one of their greatest assets was, in fact, a shiny yellow protocol droid called C-3PO. C-3PO's resemblance to the Ewoks' idea of the Golden One wound up saving the lives of several of the rebellion's leaders (though they had to overcome his protests that deific impersonations were against his programming), with the judicious use of Jedi telekenesis. Once the Ewoks accepted the forgery, not only did they abandon their plans to roast and eat several of the rebels in the Golden Ones honor, they were also inspired to take up the Rebel cause once the Golden One had told them all about his struggles with the Death Star, trash compactors, Sky City trash patrols, and Jabba the Hutt. Ultimately, the Ewoks were instrumental in the Rebels' efforts to destroy the second Death Star and kill both Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. The Rebel Alliance: not afraid to exploit the beliefs of aboriginal peoples if it'll get them to fight and die alongside them. Cannibalism Jack Sparrow. Excuse me, CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, was sailing off into the sunset when we saw him at the end of the original Pirates of the Caribbean. He had almost everything he wanted, namely the Black Pearl, but also lots of rum and that famous compass which points to that which one most desires - namely the Black Pearl. Perhaps Jack should have been thinking about his own hide more often, as it seems not doing so led him to a very peculiar island called Pelegosto, where all that glitters is not gold as the old saying goes. Captain Jack has gotten himself into some, shall we say interesting situations through the years. And those are only the ones we've seen. We know he's done things to deserve several slaps and well...pirate. Needless to say, none of us were very surprised to see Will Turner and the crew of the Black Pearl find Jack on Pelegosto being referred to as a god. You’d think this would be right up Jack’s Jack-centric alley but as it turns out, the native tribe on the island are cannibals and plan to eat the embodiment of their god. Woops. That doesn’t mean Captain Jack is mistreated by the tribe, far from it, he’s treated like a king. He even gets a necklace of toes. How sweet. You’d think playing a god would suit Jack, and it might have until they tied him to a spit and left him to be cooked while they chased after the rest of the crew. At least it makes for one very unique escape scene, and gives them an excuse to kill off all crew members who weren't in the first film. It is important to note that Jack does indeed escape unscathed after running a gambit of hungry cannibals and treacherous cliffs. So, maybe he really is a god. Treasure Found What is the biggest problem with making an adaptation of Treasure Island with a predominantly Muppet cast? Keeping all that felt away from the salt water? No, obviously, it's finding a role for Miss Piggy in a book with literally one female character who is present for only about half the first act. Naturally you giver her one of only roles in the story that would, with judicial changes, allow her to still be Kermit's love interest and enforce her love of luxury: Ben Gunn. Benjamina Gunn, that is. Sure, Ben Gunn is a marooned sailor on the eponymous island, but he does manage to recover Captain Flint's entire stash, unwittingly keeping it from the clutches of Flint's murderous crew until the heroes can defeat them. But where does Piggy's love of pampering come into this? Naturally, with a tribe of savage, feather decked, loincloth-wearing, elephant training, blow gun wielding porcine island natives who speak in broken English and a terrified of guns, and think she is a goddess. Named Boom Shakalaka. (The emphasis lies on the second syllable of Shakalaka.) She also has a pet anteater named Flaubert. But I digress. Piggy's status actually accords the main characters very little, other than getting to watch her very impressive entrance scene. Since the pig tribe is easily intimidated by firearms, the pirates easily frighten them off until the climax of the movie when everyone is fighting everyone anyway. At most, Piggy's god-like status serves to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed in all the years she spent on the island after she left Kermit's Captain Smollett standing at the altar and shacked up with a dashing pirate captain who marooned her at the earliest opportunity. Obviously Piggy learned from this mistake and never played hard-to-get with Kermit ever again. Personal Luxury In this strange money-hungry sequel to Don Bluth's An American Tail, Tiger the Cat follows Fievel & Co. to the west from New York City because he's in love with Miss Kitty, who would like him to become more like a dog. No, really. This cat might have haz self-esteem issues. So, our anthropomorphic immigrant tale takes us to Arizona, where Tiger the Cat gets lost in the desert and while hallucinating, comes across a race of Native American mice, who begin to worship him. And, honestly, after getting lost in the desert -- where he is starving and dehydrated -- Tiger is clearly thinking to himself, "If someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES." So, he goes along with it. Why exactly do the mice believe Tiger is a god? Well, because the chief of the tribe says that Tiger resembles a very large rock. But the chief doesn't mention this until after the tribe of mice have Tiger trussed up on a spit because they want to eat him. [Insert "In Soviet Russia" joke here] So, while the savage Native American mice (hey, wait a minute...) feed Tiger all kinds of fruits and vegetables, which is very pleasing to a starving cat who just wants to be loved. Then Fievel shows up while the mice are in the midst of a sudden battle and ruins all of Tiger's fun. For some reason, none of the mice try to stop Fievel from kidnapping their brand new god. Maybe because they're too busy scalping white mice for wampum, or one of those other things that diminutive be-whiskered ethnic stereotypes of Native Americans are wont to do. Nothing, Apparently Storm, or Ororo Munroe, is the daughter of a Kenyan tribal princess N'Dare, herself descended from a long line of white-haried witch-priestesses; and a black American journalist named David Munroe. Born in Harlem and raised in Egypt until her parents' deaths in the Suez Crisis when she was only six-years-old (or at least it was the Suez Crisis when her backstory was first introduced in the '70s), she survived her childhood as a thief in Cairo, but in her late adolescence wandered the Sarengeti, is accepted by an indigenous tribe and... you guessed it! When her mutant powers activate, she is worshipped as a goddess. Storm isn't even the only X-Man to be mistaken for divine (or demonic) forces. Are we starting to sense a theme here? What is it with our literature and believing that if we play our cards right as "advanced" or "special" specimens of the human race that we can expect people to worship us so long as they are sufficiently ignorant of our actual mundane status? It isn't as if this trope is simply a silly invention of fiction with no parallel in actual human behavior. If I may insert a real life example, here's an excerpt from Edmund S. Morgan's article on Christopher Columbus for Smithsonian.com: He had been there only two days, coasting along the shores of the islands, when he was able to hear the natives crying in loud voices, 'Come and see the men who have come from heaven; bring them food and drink.' If Columbus thought he was able to translate the language in two days' time, it is not surprising that what he heard in it was what he wanted to hear or that what he saw was what he wanted to see—namely, the Indies, filled with people eager to submit to their new admiral and viceroy. Yet here the trope is, not just in popular modern fiction but also in some of our most treasured literary masterpieces, and only about half of the time does it result in ill fortune for the characters who take advantage of others' beliefs. Empires Born Unlike most of these blurbs, where masquerading as a god appears quickly in a narrative to solve a plot hurdle for the heroes and then disappears just as quickly, the masquerade here is actually a core facet of the setting, the fundamental lie that created much of the history of the His Dark Materials trilogy. There is no known creator in Phillip Pullman's universe, but there is a church, both in our reality and in the first alternate universe Earth we are shown: the steampunk flavored world of Lyra Belaqua's Oxford University, with an institution of the Church known as the Magisterium that is a world power in and of itself, capable of toppling governments and infiltrating both high and low society with spies. This Church is essentially Christian, having been set up by the last Pope, John Calvin, before the papacy was dissolved. Little mention is made of Christ, but the world is permeated with Christian (or formerly Christian) ideas of Heaven, Hell, absolution, Original Sin, and even plenary indulgence. Angels and a hierarchy of heaven seated in the city of god is commonly voiced assumption. As we learn later in the books, these assumptions are not unfounded. Angels do exist, and they have a leader, a being to which they all bow. However, we learn even later that this being, the Authority, is not the creator of the universe. His only claim to great respect is that he was the very first sentient creature to evolve, on any Earth, anywhere, throughout the multiverse; and he convinced all the other angels who came after him that he had in fact created the multiverse. It is unclear whether the Authority did this out of hubris, malice, or naivete (believing that since it was the first, it had created everything around it). But eventually the Authority delegated much of his power to a second in command, Metatron; enough that Metatron was able to imprison the First Angel and rule in his stead. In order to oppose Metatron and the Authority, rebel angels created sentient biological creatures throughout the multiverse. In response, Metatron seeded monotheistic belief in his power among these creatures, in order to maintain control of them. By the time the main characters catch up with the Authority, they don't even recognize him as such: he has wasted away in his clear crystal prison, and upon being released happily accepts rest in death. Metatron meets his own bloody end at the hands of one of our Badass Couples, having ruled a universe-spanning empire for thousands upon thousands of years, and leaving a legacy on the multiverse's belief systems that will last for thousands of years more. Inspired Realizations About the Nature of Diety After being accidentally shot into space, Bender floats around aimlessly until a tiny alien race -- the adorably named Shrimpkins -- lands on him and starts believing he is their Mighty Metal Lord. And who is probably the worst robot on whom to land and then start worshipping? One that is power-hungry, stupid, and usually kinda drunk. In other words, Bender. He starts using his newfound power to reign over the innocent and desperate Shrimpkins, causing nothing but sorrow and disaster. And they still continue to depend on him to provide them with everything they need. And then Bender starts trying to actually help them, and that only makes things worse. It's mostly a scale issue -- when Bender cries, his tears cause tidal waves. When he gives an impoverished part of the community (which is actually the entire community, much to the greedy robot's dismay) a coin when they ask for riches, he squashes them. And when the farmers need sunlight for their crops, it, uh, destroys the crops by burning them. (And the farmers.) So there is a bit of a problem with trying to make everyone happy, but mostly, Bender realizes that every time he tried to intervene, it only causes more damage, so he stops helping. That, and for some reason, he can't communicate with the Shrimpkins on his ass, who eventually plunge the entire Shrimpkin world into war -- while they continue to pray -- believers war against non-believers and before he knows it, Bender has caused the destruction of an entire alien race. And an adorable one at that. Bender soon floats close to a massive cosmic entity (that we're meant to believe is God) who tells Bender that he can't offer a whole lot of assistance; he's backed off helping everyone who prays to him -- the same conundrum Bender experienced -- and tries only subtle ways to help believers, or sticking with a "light touch." When Bender asks to be sent back to Earth, the entity doesn't know where Earth is, and neither does Bender. Fry's wish to see Bender again prompts the entity to hurl Bender back across space to his friends, where Bender tells everyone that no one can depend on God, they'll have to get things done on their own. (Like saving the monks who were locked in the closet by Fry and Leela when they trekked to a monastery to search the universe for Bender.) In the end, after Bender has been reunited -- something thought to have been impossible -- God says, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." A good point, but another point worth making is if you are believed to be a supreme deity of a race, don't cry on them. They'll drown. Crucifixtion Oh, Brian. Brian Cohen. The guy who was born close to Jesus of Nazareth, and his birth was just the beginning of all the confusion. Brian was really never the most notable fellow and, like many others, wasn't too fond of the Romans. But after a brush-up with the Empire, he was stuck in their sights. He was able to escape them for a while, until he started sticking out like a sore thumb because, well, just like the day he was born, he was accidentally mistaken for the Messiah. Whoops! All because of an unfinished -- but still rather deep -- sentence that surely must have been heading in a very Messiah-like direction. And all he was trying to do was escape the Romans, blending in with the other soothsayers/crazies in town. But now, he has a mob of people after him, and he wants nothing to do with them. They can claim all the miracles they want, they can anoint his magical gourd. But Brian is just not having it. And seriously, it's not going to help him hide from the guys who are after him. So, could everyone please, like, just … stop that? All that chanting, and following, and lauding, and all that stuff that's drawing way too much unwanted attention? But honestly, have they checked the hut next door? Because when it comes to the location of the actual Messiah in relation to the mistaken one, chances are that they guy you're looking for is there. In fact, if you see Brian, and he says he's Brian, and you think he's the Messiah, maybe look two guys to your left, and someone who is actually very willing and able to be a Messiah will provide you the Messianic services that you seek. But please leave Brian alone. He's pleasant as a person, but useless as a savior. The End of the World C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle is, as a book in its entire, is one of the preachier selections of the Narnia series, which even fans must readily admit was frequently used by Lewis to tell the parables of a converted atheist. While his drinking buddy and mutual editor J.R.R. Tolkein crafted a fantasy world expertly designed to be an open ended allegory by drawing on (or at the very least not minding its own similarity to) numerous mythic sources, Lewis was open that his was a fantasy world in which Christianity, or at least the forces that he believed were at its source, existed. It's not that Aslan is a metaphor for Christ or God, it's that Aslan is the Christian god, or how Lewis supposed such an entity would choose to appear in the mostly-animal-populated world of Narnia. Which brings us back to a book that even as an elementary schooler I recognized as depressing and unsatisfying in a way that the author seemed unaware of. The Last Battle takes place in an old Narnia, that is, one that is aging. We are introduced almost immediately to Tirian, who is introduced explicitly as the Last King of Narnia, and the story is framed from the beginning (and the title, obviously) as the cap on the entire series. Lewis's Narnian mythology is at its most heavy handed here, with a selfish, unbelieving Ape browbeating a Donkey into pretending to be Aslan in order to lord over a selection of Talking Animals and dwarves, and eventually all of Narnia itself. Heroes in The Last Battle are constantly flummoxed by the willingness of their enemies to use persuasive lies to keep Narnians within their thrall, and frustrated by the fact that their counter truth (this is not the true Aslan because the true Aslan would never ask you to do such painful things) has the same weight as their enemies statements: without an appearance from the real Aslan they both rest on the evidence of "because I told you so." This isn't meant to be a kind of post-modern look at the thing, and we're not encouraged to see things from the point of view of anyone but those who keep faith in an absent lion-god. Lewis characterises those unwilling to make firm judgements about god worship in the face of contradictory evidence as cowardly, stubborn traitors who can't see heaven when sitting directly in it. It's clear that he's working out some of his born-again guilt, and in the light of that it's either heartbreaking or creepy to see the way he treats anyone who doubts Aslan, whether or not they have evil intentions at heart. Shift, the Ape, is devoured by Tash, Aslan's divine negative reflection. The atheistic Calormenes that scheme beyond even Shift's imagining are given much the same treatment. Ginger, a colluding Tomcat, has his ability to speak revoked and becomes a dumb animal. Puzzle, the donkey, is forgiven because he had only his love for the ungrateful Shift (and later fear) at the heart of his motivations. Believers in other gods get a pass to heaven if they accidentally lucked into worshiping them with the same intent as believers of Aslan (as kindly as it is patronizing). He punishes former hero characters for losing faith in the famously mercurial Aslan, and this is all aside from some of the more, ah, dated descriptions of the cruel, Tash-worshipping Calormenes as "darkies" with clearly different skin tones from "good white Narnians." But, ultimately, the whole pretending-to-be-Aslan debacle becomes part and parcel of the End of Narnia, as the door to Puzzle's stable becomes the door to Narnia's afterlife (a "realer" version of Narnia that I thought was somewhat phoning it in even as a kid), and a dividing line between those characters who followed Aslan and are allowed entrance to heaven, and those that didn't. Violations of the Prime Directive The Prime Directive was created for a reason. Individuals in Starfleet are not supposed to interfere in the social development of a species, let them know there are other planets or even talk about space at all because, well, they could take it the wrong way and that’s putting it mildly. Take for instance, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Who Watches the Watchers. In it, the crew of the Enterprise heads to a planet inhabited by a Vulcan race still fairly on in their cultural development. There’s a Federation outpost on the surface charged with studying the people without letting themselves be known, but on a simple supply and repair mission a pair of the inhabitants find the outpost and are more than shocked by what they see. One is harmed in the process and Doctor Crusher must take him back to the Enterprise (directly in opposition to the Prime Directive) to be healed and mindwiped. Unfortunately the wipe doesn’t quite stick and the Vulcan remembers a being called “the Picard” which he now believes is their god. And what does our heroic Captain do to prove otherwise? He takes an arrow wound to show his mortality. There was also a time when Picard had to play the part of a god to get the Enterprise out of trouble. In the seventh season episode Masks, the ship begins exploration of a comet believed to be over 87 million years old. What they didn’t realize initially was the comet held a structure within and was beaming information back to the Enterprise. This began to cause artifacts, created by the replicators, to take over the ship. Data begins displaying multiple personalities that are somehow connected to the artifacts, one of which is the sun goddess Masaka. Picard must find the corresponding symbol, one for a moon god name Korgano, in order to subdue him. Although those are two TNG references, I’m pretty sure just about every incarnation of Star Trek has featured some mistaken-god-identity situations. The original series’ The Paradise Syndrome is a prime example and Voyager’s False Profits another. I can’t even begin to imagine what Q gets up to in his spare time with the power he possesses but it’s clear intergalactic space travel lends itself to these kind of occurrences, even with the Prime Directive in place. Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com Filed Under: FuturamaHis Dark MaterialsPirates of the CaribbeanStar Trek (franchise)Star Wars (franchise)X-Men (team) Follow The Mary Sue: Previous PostNext Post Previous PostNext Post
