What Happens After a God Dies?

I promise this is an interesting question.

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There are many stories in which divine beings come to an end. But what happens after a deity perishes?

Would they… decompose, their holy forms rotting away to nothing? Or would they linger, their figures forever changing the surrounding environment, or even becoming an environment themselves? Would they ever really go away?

0:00 Fallen Gods
1:20 The Drowned Giant
3:24 Forgetting the Divine
5:09 A God of War
7:08 The Mountain that Fell
8:56 Mother of the World
11:09 Metal Monsters
13:29 The Leviathan
15:54 Healing the Divine
18:33 Hyper Light Drifter
20:11 A Giant’s Resurrection

Media Shown: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, The Drowned Giant: Love Death and Robots, Jusant, Everest, Hyper Light Drifter, Hyper Light Breaker, God of War (2018), God of War 3, Leviathan, Heavy Metal, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Owl House, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Subnautica

Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.

I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.

SOURCES:
Additional Hyper Light Drifter footage from gryzu clips, TterraJ42

♫ Music Used – Ballad of the Goddess (Skyward Sword), Fi’s Gratitude (Skyward Sword), Komorebi (Gris), Environments (Gris), Song of Healing (Majora’s Mask), God of War Theme (God of War), Resurrection (Shadow of the Colossus), Promise (Okami), Prolouge (Shadow of the Colossus), Back and Forth (Cloud Gardens), Rhizome (Cloud Gardens), Title Theme (Twilight Princess)

♫ Additional music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

[dogbackwards]

"Please don't name a mountain after me"

-George Everest, probably.

[fatherceltics]

I really like the Warhammer interpretation of this concept. Like if you kill a god you are killing an aspect of the universe so its hard to do and comes with massive consequences.

[fluffernal]

i love the delivery on "He's dead." at the beginning of the video.

[ktkthakre]

I don't know why I'm attracted to these types of stories. Fallen Gods, Ancient demons, forgotten legends, mythical creatures etc. It's really fascinating how listening and realising something that 'once was' and now its gone, left behind to ruin, the atmosphere around it spoiled by it. It's all so captivating and interesting.

[entropyOTD]

"Decayed Divinity" would make one hell of a title for a game.

Sounds like an RPG where you're trying to save the memory of a dead god and find out how it died. Sounds like it could be very tragic and sad, and also inspiring at the same time.

[justabrokezombie]

*"THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES TO KILLING A GOD !!!"*
- Kratos, the killer of gods

[pandamaster]

Hollow knight reflects a lot of the themes you covered in this video, it would be nice to see you mention the lore surrounding it if the topic becomes relevant in a future video

[cmllvwm]

A quote keeps coming to my mind
“The first time I felt my faith waver is when I first saw god bleed”

[craz]

I think one of most scary tropes are the ones where Gods die... Just the thought of something so powerful being dead is frightening

[zomgjim]

Subnautica’s Gargantuan Leviathan, in its Entry, says that what can be seen is only a third of what its true size is. In addition, it was only a Juvenile when it died, meaning that it can grow to be much more massive.

[dogsbear]

I’m so glad you brought up Chomolungma/Everest because it has long been a frustration of mine. Taking one of the Earth’s most incredible and important natural landmarks and turning it into a tourist hotspot feels so so wrong to me. It reminds me a lot of how people used to be allowed to climb Uluru, and I honestly think it’s time we enact a similar ban on climbing Everest.

[SergioLeonardoCornejo]

I find stories where the setting has fallen gods extremely fascinating. Especially considering many cultures had one or more gods which lose their lives and they leave something behind. Gods don't need to be biologically immortal.

[joshuabushman]

As a climber, really glad you said something about Everest. It drives me insane the things we’ve done to the mountain and the people

[yvaincallipso]

Nothing lasts forever. In the end, even gods die when their name is breathed for the last time.

[detectivegordon]

"I placed my faith into the hands of Random Gods.

Now I must endure it to the end." -Distant Towers upon Cracked Earth, (From the game Rainworld, which the thumbnail reminded me of.)

[hellandruby]

As a calamity mod fan, the idea of a god's corpse growing and altering the place around it to reflect the worst parts of the God's personality is a very interesting concept.

In calamity lore, when a god's corpse isn't cleaned up properly, the corpse infects the world around it and turns it into an ecosystem fueled by death. In the Crimson's case, the ground turns to flesh, the corpses of the creatures around it morph into new creatures as their organs get repurposed. Eventually everything is red and covered in blood. In the case of the corruption, the infection makes the ground purple and corrupts the creatures.

[NumeriSuntDeus]

" *We only find them when they're dead* " is a comic centred around death of gods, human nature and the cycle of life. It's a brilliant story and complete on top of that. Do give it a read, might delight you.

[blearyeyedchangeling]

thank you so much for putting in the effort to use captions! Not every channel does and it can be very frustrating!

[lebean]

"you want to know why I can't love a mortal back? Because you WILL betray me."
And I wept.

[wesleycolvin]

I'm surprised Shadow of the Colossus isn't on this list. Discovering that you've been killing god level beings tasked with keeping the world safe is an unsettling plot twist.