Bishop Mozgus, gently informing some hapless soul of the "error" of his ways.
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
We all know the type. Their beliefs are right, and anyone who does not believe as they do is stupid, crazy, evil or all three. The Fundamentalist is right, you are wrong, and being right is the only thing that matters.
A common behavior of The Fundamentalist is a tendency to dehumanize or demonize those not in line with their particular brand of belief, which allows them to lie to, abuse and otherwise mistreat those opposed to their beliefs, often in contravention of their own professed beliefs.
The most common Fundamentalists you'll meet in the West are Christian, but there are also breeds of Jewish, Muslim, Shinto and Hindu fundamentalism. Even Buddhism has had its "holy wars," exchanging campaigns of political repression, burning of scriptures, and outright murder with Taoists in ancient China.
Fundamentalism is also something other than a religious phenomenon. Non-religious ideologies like communism, capitalism, socialism, racism, environmentalism, fascism, democracy, anarchism and yes, even atheism, can all attract their own brands of "fundies" as well.
Fundamentalists crop up in Fandom. If, for example, you see Gollum as anything less than a direct agent of the Valar sent to destroy the Ring once and for all, the Tolkien fundamentalist sees you as bad and wrong. The Fundamentalist is pathologically obsessed with being "right," even in subjects that might not have a right answer — art criticism, hermeneutics, straight down to the best flavor of ice cream. Fundamentalism looks a lot like Fan Dumb, as this College Humor video
points out.
A religious fundamentalist may also be a Sinister Minister. See also: Knight Templar, Well-Intentioned Extremist, Holier Than Thou, Moral Myopia, Single-Issue Wonk, Dry Crusader, Strawman Political, Windmill Political, Windmill Crusader, With Us or Against Us, Lawful Stupid and Poe's Law. Atheism is given this attribution in various instances when extreme skepticism is employed against the supernatural or religious beliefs, but most instances in fiction can fall under the tropes Flat-Earth Atheist, Agent Scully, and Hollywood Atheist. Also compare Totalitarian Utilitarian and Principles Zealot for similar attitudes to secular philosophies. Contrast The Soulsaver and Soul-Saving Crusader for religious fundamentalists who are objectively right within The 'Verse of the setting.
See also Egocentrically Religious, Black-and-White Insanity, Belief Makes You Stupid and Activist-Fundamentalist Antics.
Examples
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Anime
- Bishop Mozgus from the "Tower of Conviction" arc in Berserk takes this trope to the most nightmarishly horrifying logical conclusion imaginable, having tortured to death uncounted thousands of "heretics" (which, to him, includes such miscreants as peasants desperately begging for food for their starving children when that food was supposed to go to churchmen and church-affiliated knights, who most definitely are not starving).
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, Scar tries to pass off his murderous revenge against state alchemists as this, saying that their alchemy is an affront to his god Ishval. However, Ed later points out that Scar is deceiving everyone with this excuse, including himself; his real motive is nothing more than simple revenge for the Ishvallan War of Extermination. After this, Scar starts his transformation into The Atoner, fully admitting the crimes he's committed without using his religion as an excuse. It helps that his old master (presumably the guy who trained him as a priest) survived the genocide and when Scar runs into him, he takes the Ishvala Is Love approach—or more like, the Revenge Helps Nothing approach. This is one of the few instances of religion having a positive impact in the setting.
- In the English Gag Dub of Ghost Stories, Momoko is a fundamentalist Christian. At times she objects to the magic used to defeat the ghosts, but most of the time she mentally translates "ghost" to "demon" so it's okay, and she insists that her own channeling powers were a gift from God as a result of her conversion.
- Alexander Anderson from Hellsing is a good example. He is a Vatican priest who works for the Iscariot branch; his job is to kill vampires and other unholy creatures. Alexander compulsively quotes lines from the Holy Bible when he speaks, especially when facing whom he believes to be a heretic or monster that must be slain. He also has an extreme dislike for Protestants, going so far as to call Sir Integra "Babylon" in reference to "The Whore of Babylon". As bad as he can be, he has honor which transcends it. Father Enrico Maxwell, however, is much worse.
- In YuYu Hakusho, the Armed Church of the True Disciples is a fanatical religious sect which believes that the spirit world beings are emissaries from God, preaching a hard-line stance against the Demon World (whose inhabitants are regarded as the spawn of the devil) and who are prepared to fire the Interdimensional Laser at the human world to get their demands met.
Comics
- Certain recurring characters of Jack Chick's various tracts combine the Fundamentalist with Easy Evangelism. Results are awkward, especially considering that you're supposed to be on their side.
- Israeli comic artist Uri Fink created a superhero team of a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim, appropriately named The Fundamentalists. (They're fun! They're mental!) Rather than actually saving people, however, they always end up killing them instead, because instead of fighting crime they violently punish whoever they consider to be sinners, regardless of the sin. Over the course of four stories, they have:
- Redirected the course of a rampaging Godzilla Expy in order to crush the homosexual soldiers fighting it,
- Allowed a Xenomorph to burst out of an astronaut because of their pro-life stances,
- Saved the kidnapped Israeli prime minister in time to prevent a major conflict, then chaining her into the kitchen while World War III broke loose, and
- Vaporized a young boy for masturbating, while doing nothing to the man who kidnapped him, chained him in the basement and was about to kill him.
- Marvel Comics:
- Pretty much everyone in the Marvel Universe (and that's a lot of people) who believes superheroes, especially mutants and the X-Men, are evil no matter how many times they have saved the planet.
- J. Jonah Jameson cannot admit that Spider-Man is anything other than a menace even though he has saved Jameson's life dozens of times. Various reasons have been given over the years as to why this belief is stuck in an otherwise good journalist's head, who caught flak several times in-universe for being in favor of mutant rights, among other things: The anti-Spiderman rant sells papers; if Spiderman were to be captured, tried, and imprisoned, the Daily Bugle would fold as soon as the judge sentenced him; Jameson is a muckraker; he's only doing it to boost circulation.
- Venom: Eddie Brock was raised Catholic, and in the 2000s became increasingly fanatical in his beliefs — especially as Anti-Venom, when he believed that God had given him a shot at redemption by choosing him to purge the symbiotes from the Earth. This led to him murdering Hybrid and Scream in cold blood, despite admitting that they were doing good using their symbiotes and that he could have non-lethally separated them.
Film
- Dawn of the Dead (2004): The televangelist, who blames the zombie apocalypse on America's sinfulness (read: tolerating pre-maritial sex, abortion, homosexuality and homosexual marriage). He's played by Ken Foree, and gets to utter his famous line from the original in a very different context.
- Easy A:
- Marianne Bryant, who is the head of a group of religious conservative students. Before setting her sights on Olive, who she (and everyone else) believes has had premarital sex, Marianne petitioned to have the school football team to be renamed to Woodchucks from Devils. Apparently, she picked up the trait from her father, a priest.
- Marianne's father is adamant about his own beliefs and doesn't recognize others, as evidenced by his constant corrections of Olive's hypothetical question about Hell. As far as he's concerned, Hell is a real place, and there's nothing hypothetical about it. He's a hypocrite as well; he's watching Olive's webcast, expecting her to have live sex on camera, and is disappointed when she doesn't.
- Marianne's hardliner boyfriend Micah ends up with an STD he picked up from the guidance counselor, a married woman.
- One guy in the youth group from First Reformed is a conservative Christian who sneers at the mention of the poor and goes on a tirade about Muslims and prayer in schools. Reverend Toller and one of his colleagues than have a discussion about young Christian "Jihadists" in general, which only pushes Toller further to despair.
- Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Even being a classic case of Knight Templar, the things he does casts his "good intentions" as being sham and hollow.
- Nute Gunray from the prequel trilogy era of Star Wars, though he is a political (and economical) example, rather than religious.
- Trash Fire: Violet is initially presented as a stock religious shrike, calling Isabel a whore and whatnot, and Pearl an abomination. She later claims that god told her to kill the rest of her family.
Literature
- Less sympathetic is the Bear-Cult in the Belgariad universe, a group of raging, racist fanatics with a "conversion by sword" mentality and a misogynist streak a mile wide.
- Seen in "The Grand Inquisitor," a story within a story in Dostoievsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The eponymous figure, representing a Corrupt Church, effectively tells Jesus Christ to His face that His teachings are no longer relevant to either the world in general or the Church in particular. Christ isn't condemned to death, but He doesn't seem to have much effect on the Inquisitor either.
- Chrysalis (RinoZ): Beyn's preaching is actually fairly light on fire and brimstone, but his fanatical worship of the ants goes to extremes. Enid gives him a lot of credit for the village of Renewal being successful, since his powerful sermons about following the ants' examples of selflessness and hard work do a lot to bring the community together — but she doesn't much enjoy being around him, and Anthony can only handle him in small doses.
Beyn: We have been delivered from Monsters, by Monsters! Our insect saviours, led by the Great One, have defended us, provided for us and granted us sanctuary in these times of fear and death. A miracle has occurred here! The Great One is a miracle sent to grant us succour in our time of most dire need! The monsters rise, friends! They rise but they shall be defeated! Our guardians shall overcome them. They shall roll back the tides of darkness that sweep over the lands and we shall be saved!
- Crusade, the second of David Weber's Starfire books, featured religious zealots who worshipped the Terran Empire as gods, and denounced the Khanate of Orion as devils. Within their society, religious doubt was absolutely not tolerated.
- Discworld:
- Terry Pratchett parodies the concept of fundamentalism with the Omnians, who cling to their monotheistic beliefs despite being demonstrably wrong. The majority of them are depicted as basically nice people, however, just irritatingly overzealous at times.
- Small Gods is the story of how they got past the old fire and brimstone style of fundamentalism. An interesting twist is that virtually none of the people shown in Small Gods actually believe in the Great God Om, rather they believe that they don't want to be tortured by the Quisition for expressing their unbelief.
- Vorbis the Exquisitor is perhaps the ultimate fundamentalist. He has no trouble admitting to himself (and a few others) that it is irrelevant if something is empirically found to contradict the teachings of their holy book, because real truth is found within. In other words, even if he's not factually right, he's still right, and right to extinguish those who disagree. And he's not just pretending to believe he is, either, but really believes he's following his god's will. Supernatural beings see his mind as a steel ball; nothing can get in or out. Of course, when his actual god appears in an admittedly unlikely physical form in front of him, he can't hear him at all, as any believer could. In the end, after his death, he finds himself in the desert where several of his victims have also found themselves. They actually found it to be a hopeful new start. He can't cross the desert because the desert is what you believe, and he finds it horrifyingly empty.
- In The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day, a sect of modern Omnian fundamentalists raises a court case to gain custody of the Roundworld (a Bigger on the Inside miniature universe created by the wizards that also happens to be ours) on the grounds that the world being round is an idea of their religion. Incidentally, they defend this idea of the shape of the world confidently while ignoring the plain evidence to the contrary. Their spokesman eventually calls Om to be his witness, and this being the Discworld, the god is obliged to appear. He then goes on to argue the case of the sect's opposition and also to state quite clearly that he doesn't like what they're doing in his name. After he leaves, the spokesman says "Well, that's one opinion," and they try to resort to terrorism next.
- "Fundamentalist" atheists, of course, are equally deluded... seeing as the gods have tendency to come and throw lightning bolts at you if you refuse to believe in them. The golem constable in the Watch, Dorfl, being ceramic and thus fireproof has proven to be something of a challenge in this regard.
- Dwarfs ostensibly have no religion, but being a dwarf itself is like a religion, and there are people who are fundamentalists about being dwarfs. Typically these are found among the grags, the (quasi-)religious specialists, though not all of them are like that. The extremists refuse to be touched by sunlight at all, since it's proper for dwarfs to be underground, and are opposed to dwarfs in human cities taking on foreign influences such as being openly female. In Thud!, they fight tooth and nail to hide evidence that hating trolls was not originally a part of dwarven cultural heritage. In Raising Steam, they start leading terrorist strikes against technological symbols of modernity — the semaphore towers and the nascent railway.
- Terry Pratchett parodies the concept of fundamentalism with the Omnians, who cling to their monotheistic beliefs despite being demonstrably wrong. The majority of them are depicted as basically nice people, however, just irritatingly overzealous at times.
- Patriarch Ortzel from The Elenium starts out like this (albeit a moderately sympathetic version, because he may be a stern unyielding fanatic who wants the Church Knights to give up magic, but at least he isn't Annias, Primate of Cimmura). By the sequel series, The Tamuli, Eddings provides a bit of Character Development.
- Good Omens: Sergeant Shadwell hates all Southerners, and, "by inference, [is] standing at the North Pole." Thinks Aziraphale is a Russian spy and Crowley, because he wears sunglasses, must be a member of the mafia. Also believes his landlords, the Rajits, practice voodoo, and frequently condemns his neighbor across the hall, who performs seances and entertains gentleman callers as a "Painted Jezebel" or "Whore of Babylon." He also hates witches. And Go- Sa- Somebody help you if he suspects you don't have the correct number of nipples.
- In Death: The murderer in Vengeance In Death is definitely this. Eve even refers to him as a Bible-thumper close to the end of the book.
- The Christians from the Left Behind series. They engage in selfishness, pettiness, and condescension to anyone who doesn't agree with them. That sort of behavior is expected from the bad guys, the followers of The Antichrist, but these are supposed to be the heroes and the audience is supposed to be on their side.
- Outbound Flight: Jorus C'baoth is a Jedi version of this. Very few of his fellow Jedi get along with him as a result, and the only one who can really knock sense into him is Yoda.
- In one of the short stories Philip José Farmer wrote in the Riverworld series, Jesus and Tom Mix run across a territory controlled by an Inquisitor. The ultra-fundamentalist Inquisitor ends up burning Jesus Christ as an anti-Christian heretic.
- The novel Towing Jehovah revolves around the discovery of god's body, and a group of atheist fundamentalist extremists attempting to destroy the body to get rid of any evidence of his existence.
- Jim Rennie and Lester Coggins from Under the Dome. Lester Coggins turns out to be a Red Herring who dies after a Heel Realization.
- In Flawed, Logan and his family are highly religious, and part of his hatred of Celestine stems from her being a "sinner". He forces her to repent before leaving her alone, and his alibi is that he was at Bible Study with his parents.
Live-Action TV
- For a series with a lot of religious beliefs on display, Babylon 5 largely averts this trope. Political zealots are fairly common, however, and the conflict between the Vorlons and the Shadows boils down to diametrically opposed doctrine.
- The Big Bang Theory:
- Sheldon Cooper applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.
- Sheldon's mother, by contrast, is a classic Christian fundamentalist at the opposite end of the spectrum. However, as opposed to most Christian versions of this trope, his mother is hardly a ranting lunatic.
Sheldon: I'm going to stay here in Texas, teaching evolution to creationists.
Mary: Watch your language, Sheldon. You know everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Sheldon: Evolution is not an opinion, it's a fact.
Mary: And that is your opinion. - Agent Nelson Van Alden from "Boardwalk Empire" is this to a terrifying degree. Towards the end of the first season, he attempts to convert a subordinate, who is Jewish (and also possibly get a confession of murder out of him; it's not quite clear) by 'baptizing' him repeatedly in a river, and ends up drowning the guy. Word of God says this was unintentional, but he sure doesn't seem too sorry. He also cheats on his wife, which is not very Christian, although he does it while wearing a "What Have I Done" expression.
- Shirley in Community is a Christian fundamentalist who is shown early in the series forcing her beliefs on other members of her study group. Most attempts are rather mild, like mandating wearing "What Would Baby Jesus Do?" bracelets. There are other instances hinted at that aren't so benign, like inviting Annie to a pool party which turned out to be an involuntary baptism. Later episodes have toned this down considerably, and ultimately Shirley is shown to have many good qualities that outweigh the bad.
- Game of Thrones has several potential candidates to being a fundamentalist or fanatic, from Beric and the Brotherhood Without Banners to the red priestesses worshiping the Lord of Light, but the two largest examples are Melisandre/The Red Woman and the High Sparrow leading the Faith of the Seven.
- Melisandre's Activist-Fundamentalist Antics include burning crosses, poisoning nonbelievers, sex rituals, blood magic, demon assassins, kidnapping, burning heretics alive, and burning children alive. The last is considered a In-Universe Moral Event Horizon for her, Stannis, his wife, his army, Davos, Jon Snow and Castle Black.
- The Faith of the Seven believe in destroying any establishment they don't like, flinging anyone they don't like into the streets to be humiliated and flogged, destruction of any alcohol, kidnapping the King's wife and mother, torture, forced confessions, then marching the King's mother through the kingdom shaved and naked to be brutalized for one crime, before brainwashing said King to make everything in the kingdom revolve around the church while arranging a trial for his mother to dole out punishment for her other crimes.
Music
- In The Mechanisms' Rock Opera High Noon At Camelot, Galahad is reinterpreted as a Fire and Brimstone preacher instead of a pure Knight in Shining Armor. He thinks the decaying orbit of the Space Station everyone lives on is actually the world falling into hell (although he's technically right about how to stop it), and later walks into a hall of gun turrets thinking his faith will protect him (it doesn't, but he stays alive and moving far longer than he should).
- The Proclaimers' song "The Light" is a scathing condemnation of the real-life examples of this trope from a moderate Christian perspective, with lyrics such as "I believe in God alright/It's folk like you I just can't stand."
Professional Wrestling
- When he's a Heel, CM Punk is a Straight Edge fundamentalist: Have you ever taken drugs? Smoked a cigarette? Drunk alcohol? Doubled-up on a prescription medication? If so, then he's Better Than You.
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, the worst of the Immaculate Order combine this trope with Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy. Most notable is the signature character Peleps Deled, who once killed a fellow monk...for suggesting that an old, obscure, hard-to-translate passage of the Immaculate Texts read "from the Dragons" rather than "of the Dragons". This is a minor instance of dog-kicking for him.
- In In Nomine, Khalid, the Archangel of Faith, goes through this for a few centuries, becoming increasingly devoted to a xenophobic, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He was very nearly setting himself up for a Fall when a near-miss with Armageddon shocked him back into a more open, accepting mode.
- In Magic: The Gathering, White embodies the positive aspects of peace, order, and stability, but its negative side is expressed through this and the Knight Templar, seeking to purge any who disagree with its dogma. The card True Believer exemplifies this aspect of White, especially in its flavor text:
So great is his certainty that mere facts cannot shake it
- Warhammer 40,000:
- A lot of the human characters. Presumably, some of the Chaos-worshipers too, but they're less about "proving you're wrong" and more about "tearing your head off and doing something obscene with the neck-stump". Of course, given the Your Emotions Make It Real and Clap Your Hands If You Believe nature of The Warp in that setting, willful ignorance and blind faith in The Emperor are something of a survival mechanism for humans in that universe.
- Further, even within a church already considered fundamentalist by the standards of most of the audience, they have their own set of deranged fundamentalists in the form of The Redemptionist sect, who are considered dangerous fanatics by the standards of a culture that considers murderous xenophobia a laudable social value.
Video Games
- Civilization: Beyond Earth: Any faction with a high level of a certain affinity can easily be classified as this. At the same time, all affinities go a long way before becoming central to the philosophical visions of the factions. Each colony, upon arrival on the surface of the planet, faces the same challenge in the form of an unsuitable atmosphere and deadly life forms. Nevertheless, the situation is far from desperate, and the colonists eventually cope with it but with different methods, which become the basis of their affinity. Initially, each of these affinities is a set of values and practices that helped civilization survive in the early days. But, as soon as the question of survival disappears, affinities begin to play the role of something similar to a worldview. At the end of their evolutionary journey, affinities move into the rank of unyielding ideologies that, judging by the in-game affinity quotes at this stage, are identical to extremely dogmatic religions. Therefore, each faction will harbor disgust for adherents of other ideals, and this is at best. At worst - will try to forcibly prove their case.
- A benevolent example is Mother Helen of Dead Island. Highly religious and invoking her (possibly monotheist) religion constantly, she believes the outbreak is The End of the World as We Know It. It's because of her beliefs that she sets out to help anyone she can and her quests are either to help her do so or to set things right for the coming apocalypse.
- Dead Space:
- The Church of Unitology seems to run on fanaticism, but the best in-game example is the insane, homicidally devout Dr Challus Mercer.
- Subverted in his former fellow-believer Dr Terrance Kyne, who starts out that way but has just about reasoned himself out of his zealotry in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence by the time the player meets him.
- The Qunari of Dragon Age are fundamentalists by definition. Only those who dogmatically follow the Qun are actually called Qunari. If they deviate from the demands of the Qun then they are declared Tal-Vashoth instead. Interestingly, anyone who is not of the Qunari race (i.e., the Kossith) can still become Qunari by following the Qun. The Qunari don't discriminate based on race, only beliefs and magic. Anyone who doesn't follow the Qun is simply bas ("thing").
- Several Yevonites in Final Fantasy X are revealed to be this, after you kill the Big Bad (one of the church's leaders)... Said villain himself was just manipulating their loyalty and continues to do so after he comes Back from the Dead.
- Halo: The Covenant is full of these, though some of its leadership has been portrayed as more opportunist than fundamentalist.
- Non-religious example from Hearts of Iron, where every Foreign Minister with the "Ideological Crusader" trait will represent this trope. Regardless of the specific ideology, he will zealously promote and defend it, very likely making the policy pursued too idealist and uncompromising.
The Ideological Crusader views himself as a devoted proponent of his political system, but to others he is an extremist. If a Fascist, he judges all non-Fascists as weak and decadent. If a Democrat, he would rather lose a war than comply with any demands from a non-Democrat. If a Communist, he views Democrats as evil capitalists and Fascists as evil pseudo-capitalists. When it comes to ideology it is impossible to argue with him since he has already found his salvation.
- Pokémon Black and White: Team Plasma are a non-religious example. They even regularly chant "we are right, everyone else is wrong!". Explored in that their actual goals are pretty noble (even the protagonists acknowledge this), but their arrogant denial of everyone else's views makes them come off as villainous anyway. (also Lampshaded). It ultimately turns out the Big Bad who made the organization doesn't believe in its goals at all and just wanted to Take Over the World.
- God himself in Shin Megami Tensei II, although it could also be viewed as a case of a Well-Intentioned Extremist with an utter lack of human perspective. Subverted in Devil Survivor, where He is good, but there are Knight Templars running around. His characterisation in Shin Megami Tensei games started to change after Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, when the series began to attract American fans, likely as a result of religion being a much more touchy subject there. A shame, considering one of the underlying metathemes was that YHVH's evil was due to something terribly wrong affecting Creation; what it is or was supposed to be will likely be never resolved.
- Sister Miriam Godwinson from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a fundamentalist when it comes to religion and saving souls, and a subversion when it comes to technology. She appears to be an anti-tech fanatic, but she's actually calling for restraint, reason and ethics in a scientific field dominated by the amoral University. This is somewhat flanderized in the novel Twilight of the Mind by Michael Ely: Miriam thinks that all technology is evil, unless, of course, the "righteous" use the same technology to enact God's will.
- Silent Hill:
- Claudia Wolf in Silent Hill 3, to the point where she murders Vincent, a fellow cult member, just for disagreeing with her.
- Before that the series had Dahlia Gillespie, who was so wholly devoted to the cause that she turned her own daughter into an Apocalypse Maiden via a near-deadly ritual and left her trapped in an endless nightmare of physical and psychological pain for seven years afterwards, all for the sole purpose of strengthening said daughter's inner hate so she could birth God and whisk them all away to Paradise.
- The Zealot races in Spore.
- StarCraft:
- The Protoss are rife with these. In the first game, the Khalai Protoss seem to consist mostly of these until their homeworld is devastated by the Zerg Swarm. Even after they are accepted by the Dark Templar who they had exiled centuries before, many of the more fanatical Khalai still despise them, going as far as to start another war with them. Granted, Aldaris was right about the Dark Templar Matriarch being under Kerrigan's Mind Control, but if he had actually said something to the others rather than babbling like a zealot, the Protoss could have prevented everything that happened in Brood War.
- StarCraft II introduces the Tal'Darim Protoss, an even more fanatical sect of their race.
- SWAT 4: The Children of Taronne. Your SWAT team has to bring in this cult who have bombs that will blow up half the city, and the cultists have no regard whether their gunfire will set them off. There's insane writing everywhere, cultist material, children's rooms but no children. Even your teammates get freaked out at the religious babbling. Then you get to the basement. The cult had dug up the basement ''and buried their murdered children in graves,'' in preparation for the holocaust the cult believes in. Watch it here if you dare, a few Lets Plays of this level had actually caused Heroic BSoD.
Webcomics
- Miko Miyazaki from The Order of the Stick refuses to believe any form of morality besides that which she has predetermined, putting her into conflict with the main cast, despite them fighting the same villain. The creator wanted to show through her how NOT to play a paladin.
- Charlotte from Penny and Aggie. Though she's changed since developing an interest in the only black - as well as Muslim - student at the school. As well as in the aftermath of having fallen afoul of the machinations of the one cast member who is truly, unrepentently, sociopathically evil.
- Questionable Content: Penny's parents. Here, because it's important to cite your sources.
- Scandinavia and the World:
- America, particularly when it comes to his opinions on homosexuality. He'd be more effective if a) his sister wasn't pro-gay rights (and a shipper), b) Sweden (the target of his ranting) actually knew what God was, and c) he didn't think gays were flamingos. (Then again, Sister America thinks they're penguins.)
- The Faroe Islands also has shades of this. A pity he was just as turned on by Denmark/Netherlands as Sister Japan was.
- Sinfest: Seymore and Lil Evil, for Christianity and Satanism, respectively. It's quite clear their respective deities can't stand their fundamentalist cheerleaders. Especially anvilicious in the case of the former, portrayed as a robed stick-figure with a fake wire halo. Frequently in his mania for collecting all things Jesus-related he often fails to notice that Jesus is standing right there. Like the other characters, he also has a feudal incarnation as a Buddhist Monk, generally retaining all his other characteristics. Surprisingly, this is occasionally subverted when Seymore does something genuinely kind and compassionate. Although anything vaguely kind Seymore has ever done has gone right out the window after he Took A Level In Jerk Ass in Bad Behavior.
- Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff:
Sweet Bro: No you dumb homo tool, your PRAYING WRONG.
- Pretty much everyone who isn't an ally and/or lover of the main character in War Mage. The only ones who aren't are the ones that go the extra mile to Knight Templar.
- xkcd pokes fun of the fandom variation in this strip.
- Virgo from Zodiac, though she tries to avoid being judgmental.
- The Walkyverse and its Alternate Universe Spin-Off Dumbing of Age feature a number of such characters:
- The most prominent across most of the comics is Joyce Brown, who in both continuities was raised in a very conservative Christian household and clings to fairly strict interpretations of the Bible, especially in DOA. She subverts the trope, however, by trying to be as inclusive and friendly to all as possible, and by having her religious worldview deeply shaken by certain events in DOA. By the time the second semester begins, she has lost her faith. The strips' creator, David Willis, has stated that Joyce's evolution in this aspect is autobiographical.
- Mary Bradford, on the other hand, sharply contrasts Joyce, as she's holier-than-thou, harshly judgmental of others, and a hypocrite who engages in thoroughly un-Christian actions against people she thinks she's better than. This shows up in Roomies! but is especially prevalent in DOA, where this behavior earns her the ire of all her dorm-mates.
- In Shortpacked!, Leslie Bean's fundamentalist parents disowned her after she came out, with her father even literally saying "I cast you out". Her mother resumed communications on the sly, but she refused to budge on her belief that what Leslie was doing was sinful and spurned Leslie's attempts at reconciliation via attending her and Robin's wedding.
- Dumbing of Age features several negative portrayals beyond Mary:
- Ross McIntyre is so deeply entrenched in his religious views that he sees many aspects of modern life as borderline Satanic, and even goes as far as assault and kidnapping to try to "save" his daughter Becky from the sinful environment he believes she's in. It's also implied that he drove his wife to suicide.
- Part of Joyce's family. Her mother passive-agressively snipes at Becky for being a lesbian, tries to have Joyce taken out of school, and sides with Ross over the aforementioned incident with Becky, to Joyce's horror. Her oldest brother condescends to both Joyce and Becky over the Ross incident and over Becky's coming out, and doesn't take it well when their youngest sibling Jocelyne calls him out on their church using tithed money to buy him a fancy car. Jocelyne also stays in the closet about being a trans woman out of fear of how her family would react.
Web Original
- Dolly in 80's Dan turns out to be like this, but just when it comes to Christmas.
- Rachel Gettys of Survival of the Fittest v4 is your standard Christian fundamentalist along with showing Rich Bitch traits. She spends a good amount of time on the island hallucinating "visions from God" and trying to convert people. Disagree with her and she'll bash your head in.
- The Fundamentalist is the name of a super villian that was used in flash animation of the MC Hawking song "What we need more of is Science." He speaks just like a Televangelist and creates a ray-gun to turn scientists into actual sheep only to be defeated by the Unique powers and skills of Dr. Astro.
Western Animation
- Princess Clara from Drawn Together is an extreme parody of this type.
- The Owl House: Emperor Belos is eventually revealed to be Philip Wittebane, the one other human known to have visited the Boiling Isles, who in turn is revealed to be a witch hunter from the 17th century. As such, he is possessed by unrelenting prejudice against the witches and demons inhabiting the Boiling Isles, and has been planning to exterminate them for centuries. When he tries to convince Luz, from the 21st century, that what he is doing is righteous and that he's trying to save humanity from the evils of the Boiling Isles, Luz retorts that he's wrong, that the people of the Boiling Isles aren't even a threat to humanity and that he's the one who's evil; Belos nonchalantly dismisses her arguments with "can't reason with crazy" and tries to kill her on the spot. While he loves to paint himself as the hero who will save humanity (no matter what underhanded actions he has to take), once you get past all the lies he tells both to everyone else and himself you realize that the real reason behind his prejudice is petty resentment towards his older brother Caleb, who fell in love with a witch and abandoned both Philip and witch-hunting to move to the Boiling Isles. When he assimilates the Titan's corpse (read "the Boiling Isles themselves") during the finale, he compares the Isles to Hell and relishes the opportunity to wipe them out with his own hands. To his last breath, Belos refuses to believe that he could be wrong, and tries to guilt-trip Luz into sparing his life by telling her how she'll be "just as bad, just as conniving, just as evil, and just as unforgivable" as the witches he very nearly wiped out if she kills him. By this point, even Luz has had just about enough of Belos, and doesn't even bother to say so much as a single word to him, aware that she would be wasting her breath.
- The Simpsons: Ned Flanders due to Flanderization. Which is a shame, because he used to have sort of a cult (pun unintended) fanbase among religious viewers for representing everything potentially good about Christians (nice to a fault, accepts everyone, strong family values, etc.), even if it was taken to a humorous degree. In more recent (read: at least 15) seasons the writers have just used him as a strawman for Moral Guardians. However, averted in The Simpsons Movie, where he's shown as a more fatherly figure and seems to fully revert to his season 1 kindness (and then some).
- South Park:
- The show inverts and parodies this trope and gives us the rare fundamentalist agnostic family, The Weatherheads.
- Father Maxi is this in some episodes (most notably "Do The Handicapped Go To Hell?"). However, in others (such as "Red Hot Catholic Love"), he's more grounded and reasonable.
