A Century of Fictional Divinity
Greek gods had affairs and grudges. Modern fictional gods don't know we exist. Something changed — and the data shows when.
Colored by alignment — watch Good peak in the 70s, Ambiguous rise through the 2010s.
1920s
70%
cosmic scale
1960s
63%
cosmic scale
1990s
91%
cosmic scale
2010s
67%
cosmic scale
72 fictional deities were introduced in the 2010s alone — more than the entire period from the 1910s through the 1970s combined. The same decade saw record lows in Western church attendance.
1910s–1950s
Lovecraft defines the template: gods as vast, indifferent, and hostile to human sanity. Not evil so much as simply beyond us.
1960s–1970s
Tolkien's pantheon, D&D's structured tiers, and the rise of sword-and-sorcery bring Good gods back. Divine alignment diversifies.
1980s–1990s
Comics, early video games, and anime multiply the canon. Ambiguous gods emerge — powerful, morally complex, no longer categorically Good or Evil.
2000s–2020s
Volume explodes. God of War, FFXIV, Dark Souls, Marvel. The dominant arc: gods must be killed for humans to be free.
The spiritual impulse didn't disappear. It migrated — from pews into pixels, from prayers into playthroughs.