Oh, My Pop Culture Deities: Religious Diversity and Game of Thrones

Innovative worldbuilding is the true backbone of all fiction which is celebrated by geek culture. Our most beloved authors, artists, and filmmakers create worlds in which we can imagine ourselves. There are plenty of things storytellers do to make a world convincing: use science or magic to explain (or enhance) strangeness, compose detailed descriptions of food or foreign landscapes, or even base it on our own. When most storytellers create worlds, unfortunately, they usually do a poor job of including any kind of religion. It’s either ignored altogether, or inserted via boring stereotypes. That’s a pity, because religion can be one of the most powerful tools in a writer’s arsenal to tie together a peoples’ culture, history, and motivations. One author that does a great job of exploring this is George R. R. Martin in his A Song of Ice and Fire series, adapted into HBO’s Game of Thrones. 

In Brightest Day: Warcraft’s Old Gods

Since World of Warcraft’s become the main source of most lore involving the citizens of Azeroth, most of the main plots have revolved around, in some way or another, the concept of the Old Gods.

In fact, I would argue that the Old Gods are one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to the stability of Azeroth. They also have shown over and over again that they have the ability to make even the strongest warriors of Azeroth go mad.