Gods as Beings Outside Their Sphere of Influence
(1999)

Love, Death, and My Buddy Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard observes in Either/Or that Eros, the god of love, is not himself in love (with the exception of the whole Psyche incident, but we’ll let that go); he causes love in others but is himself unaffected by it.

I forget the point that Kierkegaard was trying to make, but it got me to thinking that it could be interesting to enlarge this concept when designing a pantheon. Each deity is completely outside their own sphere of influence, and in some ways the antithesis of it. The deity of wisdom would be completely foolish, the deity of war would be completely unaggressive (or completely cowardly, or completely defenseless…it gets you to thinking about what precisely you mean by deity of war), the deity of agriculture and growth would be barren, and so on.