Not sure which forum but Religios Characters in media

darlarosa

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May 4, 2011
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Do characters with religious beliefs get treated differently than non religious characters in fandom?
To me it seems like that at times. There is always a fandom and a hatedom, but I have noticed a lot of times with certain characters the problem doesn't seem to be entirely with a character, more so than there religious beliefs.

For example if you play Dragon Age there is Cullen, a minor npc in the first game, who plays a much larger role in the 2nd game. Some of the comments I have heard in relation to him and other religious characters has been decidedly negative. Some call Cullen a religious zealot for his words later in the game about killing mages after a very traumatic event(though to be flat out this is just plain missing the narrative, 100% wrong in terms of story comprehension just by virtue of the narrative techniques implied in the story). In reference to The Chantry as a whole I see a lot of people basically saying burn the mother fucker down. Even with "good" characters such as Leliana people who even like her complain about her being too religious (and liking shoes)

Actually my kinda BF's cousin and her ex completely lost there shit while watching The Avengers and he gives that "one god" line,(which is pretty unreasonable actually when you consider the context of the period in which he grew up, and wasn't he raised in an orphanage after his parents died in the film univese anyway?).


Is it my imagination? Is there a reason that any religious belief is somehow equated with negativity?
Why is this?
 

Owyn_Merrilin

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May 22, 2010
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I think it's because you hang out with angry anti-theists.

It's times like this that I get annoyed by the low-content rule, because that sentence pretty much says it all. To add to it, I really haven't seen any of the negativity you're talking about. Heck, around here I'd imagine that an atheist character would get more people annoyed than one with relatively innocuous religious beliefs.
 

newfoundsky

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It really just depends on the situation. If a character is obviously wrong about their religious belief (bare the fuck with me now, guys.), I will not like that character at all. Captain America is a pretty decent example. He's confronted with a being from freaking Norse Mythology (two, actually), and still says that line. It's pretty inconsistent with that fact that the Cap'n is a smart guy. I'm not saying he should become an atheist soon afterword, but at least acknowledge that there are godlike beings.

Also, if a character is religious, but its handed just so damn poorly, I'll dislike that character. See any movie were the religious person is Latino. Besides Machete. Because it's fucking Machete.
 

Shadowstar38

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I think this is only a problem when a character's religion is the only that interesting about them. If they're stereotypical, or one dimensional, they can get annoying fast. How you described those characters though, I doubt that's the case.

With Captain America, the "one God" line makes sense given his background. But his faith wasn't even mentioned once in his own movie, so they don't really make a big deal out of it.

In fact, when Cap is unfrozen, he's confronted with 60 years of scientific advanced, a robot man, and a big green fucker. A few other weird superpowered beings are not going to change his faith when something like Thor is normal in this universe.
 

Ljs1121

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Mar 17, 2011
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A lot of religious people in the media are portrayed as backwards zealots who don't listen to reason. Then again, some atheists are portrayed as evil puppy-eating jerks who go out of their way to belittle anyone who disagrees with them.

It depends on which form of media it is and who the people in charge of it are.
 

Zhukov

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Dec 29, 2009
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It's funny, I'm not religious myself but I have a soft spot for fictional religious characters.

I really liked some of the characters in Kingdom of Heaven for example.

Also, I liked that Captain America line. It made sense for him and it was kinda funny.
 

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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The only appropriate response for hating religious character for being religious:









SORRY, CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER HOW AWESOME FATHER ANDERSON IS.
 

direkiller

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Owyn_Merrilin said:
It's times like this that I get annoyed by the low-content rule
If you don't write something to this effect most people don't care or notice you have only written one sentence.

unless your writing like one word or something just to raise your glorious post count

OT:
It depends on who it is and the subject matter.

for instance most people who like Paladin Anderson from Hellsing are not bothered by the fact he is an extreme religions zealot, in-fact they like him because he is a religions zealot.

And I have never seen it anyone say it was a problem for religons outside of christian or I can't believe it's not christian(the low fat stand-in for Christianity).

Take the elder scrolls for instance. Most of the storys is intertwined with religion, or there gods in some sort or another. Yet I have never met a person who dislikes it because it has a religion in it(or single charters).

and for a somewhat dated example. Ultima 4 founding your own religion
 

Lord Garnaat

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newfoundsky said:
It really just depends on the situation. If a character is obviously wrong about their religious belief (bare the fuck with me now, guys.), I will not like that character at all. Captain America is a pretty decent example. He's confronted with a being from freaking Norse Mythology (two, actually), and still says that line. It's pretty inconsistent with that fact that the Cap'n is a smart guy. I'm not saying he should become an atheist soon afterword, but at least acknowledge that there are godlike beings.

Also, if a character is religious, but its handed just so damn poorly, I'll dislike that character. See any movie were the religious person is Latino. Besides Machete. Because it's fucking Machete.
The reason Captain America doesn't believe that Thor and Loki are gods is because they aren't. They're aliens, something that he was already briefed on. Extremely powerful aliens, yes, with powers that would appear god-like to someone who didn't know better, but still just aliens. It wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense for the Captain, as a religious person, to set aside his personal beliefs because he met a pair of aliens that were vaguely similar but by no means equivalent to an ancient divine being.
 

dyre

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I think that's more to do with most of the religious characters in Dragon Age, that is, the templars and the mages, being completely uncompromising, with their only response to everything being "kill everyone." That kind of attitude gets annoying, especially since they're too wimpy to carry that through most of the time.

If you're a cool guy like Shepherd in Firefly, people will like you anyway. If you're an annoying idiot like Cullen or Leliana, then no one will like you.

Zhukov said:
It's funny, I'm not religious myself but I have a soft spot for fictional religious characters.

I really liked some of the characters in Kingdom of Heaven for example.

Also, I liked that Captain America line. It made sense for him and it was kinda funny.
Kingdom of Heaven made all the clergy on both sides a bunch of annoying pricks (especially that "God wills it!" guy >:|) though, and the good characters were all the not-very-religious people

TizzytheTormentor said:
Well, in Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts, Joshua Graham is religious and heavily so.

...he is also one of the best written, awesome and bad-ass characters in the entirely of the Fallout series (With the sexiest voice ever)

If a character is awesome and well developed, they will be loved!
Oh man, so true on Joshua Graham. I think he might be the only cool Mormon in any form of media ever o_O
 

Monster_user

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newfoundsky said:
He's confronted with a being from freaking Norse Mythology (two, actually), and still says that line. It's pretty inconsistent with that fact that the Cap'n is a smart guy. I'm not saying he should become an atheist soon afterword, but at least acknowledge that there are godlike beings.
I don't see how it is inconsistent. If put in that situation nearly every Christian would have the exact same response.

In the Christian vernacular, "God" is a word used to describe a being that is the original royalty, the ruler, the champion, the #1 ultimate power, bar none. The God of the gods. In the Christian vernacular, "god" little "g" is used to refer to any other god-like creature or mythos. "God", capital "G" denotes the God of the gods.

Captain America is not denying they are god-like beings, the Avengers themselves could be considered god-like beings. He is denying that he should answer to them, or fear them, or worship them, because he answers to a being that could squash Odin like a bug. Captain America was declaring himself to be equal to Thor, in as much as an overweight paper pusher can be equal to a Marine (Although, the movie hints that Captain America could hold his own against Thor).
 

CpT_x_Killsteal

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Jun 21, 2012
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only Dragon Age games I played was Origins. My stance on this is that I think the church itself is f'ing stupid, but the people in it are generally nice. Well... except for a few of the templars.
 

Monster_user

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Then you get into a questionable area of whether or not the show is promoting, or justifying this behavior. Do the ends justify the means?

Most of the time when a zealot is portrayed, the zealot is representing behavior that the writer/director/producer condemns, so that character has to be condemnable for the point to be made. If you portray both sides fairly, then you raise questions instead of give answers.

I see this as one of the many reasons there is a divide between pro-religious, and anti-religious representations. One interesting question is, why do pro-religious characters seem so rare in mainstream media?

Is it because overt pro-religious elements limit the viewing audience/customer base?
 

TheIronRuler

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Shadowstar38 said:
I think this is only a problem when a character's religion is the only that interesting about them. If they're stereotypical, or one dimensional, they can get annoying fast. How you described those characters though, I doubt that's the case.

With Captain America, the "one God" line makes sense given his background. But his faith wasn't even mentioned once in his own movie, so they don't really make a big deal out of it.

In fact, when Cap is unfrozen, he's confronted with 60 years of scientific advanced, a robot man, and a big green fucker. A few other weird superpowered beings are not going to change his faith when something like Thor is normal in this universe.
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Perhaps he was a devote Mormon and we were never told of it? Man that could be good PR for Romney right now.
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No, I do think it's your imagination. A religion is a part of a character the same way non-religion is. It can be mentioned, lingered on or overlooked altogether, depending on how you want to show the char.