Is There a Right and Wrong Number of Gods?

Ruv Draba · Jul 15, 2008

'Too few' or 'too many' gods may be a sign that the religion and the culture don't mesh well. Bear in mind that the gods aren't just characters. They're also mythic beings whose personality and portfolio shape or reflect the cultures who believe in them.

A good mythic deity has interesting resonances and tensions between its personality and portfolio. Zeus for instance, is the thunderer and king of the gods -- that creates a nice portfolio resonance. But he's also proud, lustful and plays favourites -- and that gives you a tension. Zeus creates a lot of his own portfolio problems. Athena is wise and warlike - that's a nice resonance. But she's also vain and jealous - there's the tension. Gaia, the ancient fertility goddess was a generous but malign bitch who favoured snakes and demanded human sacrifice. Put them together and they reflect a culture that sees people as flawed, sees politics as shaping the world, and is conscious of its own emergence from barbarism. The pantheon of the ancient Greeks is a perfect fit with what we know of the rest of the Hellenic culture.

When an author carves up the world into porfolios for a pantheon, I like to see that all the important stuff is covered. In a typical world the important stuff includes food, fertility, health, protection from the elements, protection from other tribes, and social cohesion. In addition to seeing deities as givers of these benisons, some part of the pantheon's design needs to explain why food is sometimes scarce, why livestock cease giving birth, why there are plagues and earthquakes and wars and strife. I don't mind whether these arise from a shadow pantheon (e.g. demons), or punitive or whimsical gods, or simply weaknesses of personality - I just need to know that they're there.

When patheon designs break you'll often get a culture that just worships (say) a peaceful fertility goddess and a few demigods of health and prosperity - and that has no explanation for why calamities occur. Or cultures that have six flavours of donner und blitzen gods but nothing to keep the babies coming or food on the table... or a culture of warlike paladins whose deity is only loving and not punitive. Such designs look superficial to me when compared to the richness of historical theology.

MattW · Jul 16, 2008

Any number between 0 and infinity is acceptable. All else in wrong.

MattW · Jul 16, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
'Too few' or 'too many' gods may be a sign that the religion and the culture don't mesh well. Bear in mind that the gods aren't just characters. They're also mythic beings whose personality and portfolio shape or reflect the cultures who believe in them.

A good mythic deity has interesting resonances and tensions between its personality and portfolio. Zeus for instance, is the thunderer and king of the gods -- that creates a nice portfolio resonance. But he's also proud, lustful and plays favourites -- and that gives you a tension. Zeus creates a lot of his own portfolio problems. Athena is wise and warlike - that's a nice resonance. But she's also vain and jealous - there's the tension. Gaia, the ancient fertility goddess was a generous but malign bitch who favoured snakes and demanded human sacrifice. Put them together and they reflect a culture that sees people as flawed, sees politics as shaping the world, and is conscious of its own emergence from barbarism. The pantheon of the ancient Greeks is a perfect fit with what we know of the rest of the Hellenic culture.

When an author carves up the world into porfolios for a pantheon, I like to see that all the important stuff is covered. In a typical world the important stuff includes food, fertility, health, protection from the elements, protection from other tribes, and social cohesion. In addition to seeing deities as givers of these benisons, some part of the pantheon's design needs to explain why food is sometimes scarce, why livestock cease giving birth, why there are plagues and earthquakes and wars and strife. I don't mind whether these arise from a shadow pantheon (e.g. demons), or punitive or whimsical gods, or simply weaknesses of personality - I just need to know that they're there.

When patheon designs break you'll often get a culture that just worships (say) a peaceful fertility goddess and a few demigods of health and prosperity - and that has no explanation for why calamities occur. Or cultures that have six flavours of donner und blitzen gods but nothing to keep the babies coming or food on the table... or a culture of warlike paladins whose deity is only loving and not punitive. Such designs look superficial to me when compared to the richness of historical theology.

When it comes to pantheons, there's also a possibility for excess - literally every aspect is covered by a unique god or spirit. I, personally, prefer a little ambiguity and not limit deities to set spheres of influence, allowing them more latitude and mystery.

I also enjoy exploring the theological mistakes humans can make even in a world where deities are present but do not intervene on a daily basis.

DeleyanLee · Jul 16, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
'Too few' or 'too many' gods may be a sign that the religion and the culture don't mesh well. Bear in mind that the gods aren't just characters. They're also mythic beings whose personality and portfolio shape or reflect the cultures who believe in them.

Interesting take on it, especially since it's pretty much the flip side of how I look at it.

To me, what gods are worshipped by a people is a direct reflection on that society/culture. People create myths to explain things they don't understand or to control events and gods are flexible to provide for that inner human need. Likewise the best and worst of the societial expectation is reflected in the gods' personalities. This is a means of cultural POV setting for the author that I think is, for the most part, underused by the majority of writers. No need for a long info dumps if you can display the worship clearly and dramatically.

Now if the gods are active characters--something I greatly enjoy doing--their actual personalities may have little to nothing to do with what the general public knows of them. I figure it's like any other celebrity--public face/private face could be the same or vastly different. But if the gods are characters, they're characters first and the religion build around them is no more than their career/job.

The other thing to remember is that mythology and religion are NOT the same thing. Mythology is the stories told as lessons and explanations within a society. Religion is the actual worship of the dieties, including the rituals and informal practices of the followers. These things may or may not intersect, as the story demands. It's always confused me to hear all the myths about gods some writers come up with that have no bearing on just how the religion works within the scope of the story.

dwellerofthedeep · Jul 16, 2008

I don't think there is a right or wrong number of gods, but depending on their role in the story the detail they are described in should vary like anything else. I once outlined a Pantheon of 41 beings split into two opposed groups but gave up on actually going very deep because I realized they probably wouldn't see much use. Next time I want a pantheon of that scale I'll make them either the only characters in the story or at least the majority of them.

Ruv Draba · Jul 16, 2008

DeleyanLee said:
To me, what gods are worshipped by a people is a direct reflection on that society/culture.

And vice-versa: a culture reflects in part the values upheld by its religions and mythologies.

Now if the gods are active characters--something I greatly enjoy doing--their actual personalities may have little to nothing to do with what the general public knows of them.

While that's true, we're really talking here about what the reader knows of them, and how credible that seems.

I don't at all mind if three gods are mistaken by a culture for eight - but if that's the case then the reader would not say that there's a pantheon of eight gods, but of three. In that case, I would still be paying attention to the 'real' pantheon as a reflection of the cosmology, and the mythological pantheon as a reflection of culture. There are still better and worse designs for these things - and those designs, I believe, are still based on personality and portfolio and the tensions arising.

Claudia Gray · Jul 16, 2008

Five is right out.

K_Woods · Jul 17, 2008

MattW said:
Any number between 0 and infinity is acceptable. All else in wrong.

Now you have me thinking about how a negative quantity of deities would work...

DeleyanLee · Jul 17, 2008

Ruv Draba said:
And vice-versa: a culture reflects in part the values upheld by its religions and mythologies.
While that's true, we're really talking here about what the reader knows of them, and how credible that seems.

I don't at all mind if three gods are mistaken by a culture for eight - but if that's the case then the reader would not say that there's a pantheon of eight gods, but of three. In that case, I would still be paying attention to the 'real' pantheon as a reflection of the cosmology, and the mythological pantheon as a reflection of culture. There are still better and worse designs for these things - and those designs, I believe, are still based on personality and portfolio and the tensions arising.

All depends on what the focus of your story is. Every writer and every story is different, so it's good to have many interpretations of the same source material.

Is There a Right and Wrong Number of Gods?

Ruv Draba

MattW

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MattW

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DeleyanLee

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dwellerofthedeep

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Ruv Draba

Claudia Gray

K_Woods

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DeleyanLee

Writing Anarchist