#people keep commenting the same. fucking. thing. thinking they’re proving a point by enforcing traditional gender roles and saying

[theprideful]

if you’re wondering why you can’t reblog the gendered names post it’s because i’ve revoked reblog privileges. y’all are annoying me

[ruffoverthinksthings]

God Loves You, Which Is Why You’ll Burn In Hell (Part 3): “The Spawn of Heathens, False Gods, and Unbelievers” - Religion for the VKs

Note: This document clocked in at 2,862 words, written in two hours straight.

I officially have a problem, and its name is Disney Descendants Headcanon and Analyses.

By the time most of the VKs have been born, religion has been discredited in favour of worshipping Maleficent, abandoned entirely for the massive Hell that was the Great Isle War (a headcanon of mine, for clarity), or was isolated in Temple Way (the concentrated district of religious establishments, sans the church above Dragon Hall, also a headcanon of mine), with their followers generally incredibly zealous believers, to put it politely.

Most of them have not even been introduced to the idea of religion, or it was only given as explanation as to why people generally stay away from Temple Way, why you should try your damndest to do much the same (no matter how good the potential loot), and why you should try not to associate or talk with the people from there.

As with anything from the Isle, a culture of scary stories to get their children to behave have risen around Temple Way, and the Wild Fae (malevolent gargoyles, chupacabras, actual devils and the like) are not very amused by this.

Before you ask, Maleficent is ambivalent towards religion, happy to have the population do whatever keeps them distracted, complacent, and above all, from thinking of ever trying to overthrow her. She doesn’t even need to keep spies, as “those fools are happy to shout everything they’re planning to do to anyone within earshot.”

She is wary of them since she had harnessed the power of religious extremism and xenophobia during the War to her advantage, but with the aging congregations and her unquestioned, unchallenged rule, “Zealot Watch” is largely dedicated to lieutenants and underlings like Mozenrath.

As I also mentioned, the Badlands (the non-concrete, dirt and grass jungle of the Isle of the Lost) have their own religious beliefs and system, so won’t be included here.

Back on topic: almost all of the VKs are atheists by ignorance, or by choice. There are only a few exceptions to this, with individual/group explanations and how it affects their lives below:

As mentioned in the previous post, Claudine Frollo used to be the most devout of the VKs until CJ set fire to her father’s convent while she was still in it. Before Auradon, she has completely lost her faith in religion and sees it largely as a means of controlling people with promises punishment from some unseen “Higher Being,” and false senses of security that they would protect them, care for them, and reward their piety, both relying largely on them believing that such a Higher Being actually exists on faith alone.

Her current opinion on Hell is that she doesn’t mind going there, as “it can’t be that far from the Isle, and I got used to it anyway, didn’t I?”

Richard “Rick” Ratcliffe is her opposite, still as devout a Christian as ever, though he wasn’t a very good one in the first place. Most of his beliefs and his “divinely inspired” actions involve him having an incredibly overinflated sense of self-worth and confidence, being on a “holy high horse” every time he interacts with pretty much anyone, particularly when he makes one of his infamous speeches, and stealing and robbing from others like the rest of the VKs, except with the justification of him “claiming it for the Church.”

(Which he is. After he takes a cut, because doesn’t a good servant of God deserve to treat himself every once in a while?)

Privately, he still takes comfort in his faith, especially the entirety of Jesus Christ’s life in the New Testament. He sees an idol in the Christian Messiah, as he was a great orator that was constantly attacked, ostracized, and even condemned and killed before people truly realized how great he was.

(Though, he does sincerely hope he can avoid the “foregone death sentence, and being nailed to a cross” bit.)

Mal didn’t have much of an interest in religion, seeing as Maleficent’s demands and “training” of her took up most of her time, and the ultimate goal was that the two of them would supplant the current deities and objects of worship, be the ones the masses are bowing down to and in fear of.

However, for the sake of curiosity (and of course, exploring “truths” outside of everything Maleficent has fed her), she has studied the various religions, mostly through the reading of whatever surviving holy texts and handwritten copies exist on the Isle, with a few oral accounts here and there.

She was a fan of the Torah and Judaism, if only because of the Yahweh that burned down entire cities and turned those that disobeyed Him into pillars of salt (Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot’s wife); brought massive, crippling, devastating plagues to the enemies of his followers (Moses and the Exodus from Egypt); and struck people dead where they stood if they did something as trivial as spill their semen on the ground (Onan).

She stopped being such a fan by the time she came to the Christian Bible, the New Testament, and Christianity, both because God had “gone soft,” and she wasn’t as big a fan of the idea of the Big Man Upstairs sending a Son to do all of His dirty work for Him, and the whole “Jesus getting humiliated, tortured, and ultimately crucified” being his Father’s will REALLY hit too close to home for her.

The real clincher was when she wasn’t sure if Maleficent would also go through the trouble of bringing her back to life after three days or so.

On a side note, she really liked the idea of having a close circle of twelve followers who obey you no matter what, but it soured when Judas turned on Jesus.

She stopped being such a fan of Allah by the time she was calling Him that as she studied the Quran and Islam (with Jay’s help for actually reading the texts, and why he attempted to convert—more on that in the next post), and saw all the conflicting orders and distinct cultures that had come up from who was ostensibly the same Supreme Deity.

She figured that if God/Allah/Yahweh couldn’t get His followers to agree on what exactly He said, and they had in fact been getting into constant conflict about who’s religion was the “True” religion, He wasn’t worth following.

“IT’S ALL HIS WORDS, YOU DUMBASSES! THIS IS THE SAME BIG GUY UPSTAIRS FOR ALL THREE BOOKS!” is how she put it.

As mighty as His powers of causing widespread suffering and instant death to those that disobeyed Him, that He can't keep house was a complete turn-off.

"Why do you think He's a He?" Maleficent commented. "Hmpf, Men."

She tried studying the other religions and was impressed with some such as Shiva from Hinduism, not so much Taoism with its focus on humility, and she stopped altogether after a brief study of Louisiana Vodoo with Dr. Facillier, and learning that the many, many, many other sects of Christianity she would have to read about in order to truly say that she “knew her enemies.”

At that point, she thought it’d just be much more practical to dedicate her time in learning how to subjugate the people by force than by subverting and abusing their religious practices and beliefs, as she and her mother will be the only thing they’ll be worshiping by the end, anyway.

Evie did very briefly entertain the idea of religion as a source of comfort, until the numerous patriarchal mutations and corruptions of the original traditions and practices made her realize she wouldn’t be able to maintain her current lifestyle, and lose a lot of her personal freedoms beside.

(“Modest and proper dress” was the most obvious deal breaker.)

After the elevator pitch, it was a firm “Fuck that noise!” into permanent atheism. Not even the more liberal and feminist Auradon practices can make her change her mind, though I suppose the stigma she has with the followers there doesn’t help.

Before you ask, a lot of the religious practitioners on the Isle do enforce plenty of incredibly restrictive rules and customs, all in the service of making some form of sanity and order within their communities, and making themselves distinct from the rest of the Isle that basically does as they please, so long as it doesn’t anger Maleficent too much.

Carlos did try to seek out religion as a means of relief in the day-to-day Hell that is being Cruella’s only child and personal unpaid servant, and a tentative form of escape into a better life. However, you could say his mistake/wise decision was talking to Frollo about converting, and after his admittedly rather appealing pitch to him, he opened up the floor for questions.

Carlos’ was this: “Why are some kids born into suffering like us, and others are born in a nice place like Auradon?”

“Child, God tests our faith all the time, to prove that we are worthy of His love, and our ultimate reward in Heaven; it is not something to hold against Him, but merely another part of His glorious, ineffable plan for us all,” Frollo replied.

“… So, like, how does He decide? Is there some sort of criteria about who gets born in a nice life, and who gets born in a bad life…?”

“Child, even the most faithful and Good of us all get tested, should He deem it necessary—just look at His only son, Jesus Christ, and how even with his unwavering faith in Our Father, He decided to push him to the very edge of renouncing his belief in Him all the same.”

“… So you’re basically saying that He just essentially decides on a whim who suffers and who doesn’t?”

Frollo frowned. “De Vil, it is NOT on a whim; to say that He would act in such a random manner is insulting to His greatness. He follows a Plan, known to Him and Him alone, and we are all to play our parts in it without question.”

Carlos nodded, then hopped off his chair. “Okay, that was all I had, thanks Father Frollo!” he said as he walked out of Frollo’s inner sanctum, and away from religion for the rest of his life.

Jay is interesting in that he does take a vested interest in Islam, as it is the one part of his Arabic heritage that Jafar refuses to indulge. The curiosity was first ignited with his adamant refusal to let him read the Quran even though it was one of the most easily acquired texts in Arabic, and Jafar’s incredibly hostile opinion of it.

Islam to him is just “the means for fools and weaklings to comfort themselves, lies that those in power feed to them with glee so they may selfishly keep that power, and the masses will even praise them for it.”

It doesn’t help that he tried to become a Supreme Being himself, and ultimately failed.

His foray into Islam, should he take it like @baby-prince-oppa theorizes he will, will be detailed in a future post. It’s a LOT of words, and this post is already massive, okay?

Freddie has an eclectic, limited education on Christianity and Voodoo, largely attributed to most of Dr. Facillier’s knowledge being in the darker arts as a bokor (a Vodoo Witch Doctor who plays with both good and evil, by definition). Most of it is also limited to strictly practical application such as potions, hexes, and of course the nature of the Shadow Cards.

The culture that had arisen around Louisiana Voodoo and “gris-gris” (charms) is mostly skipped over as Dr. Facillier was never interested in the “good” way to practice it, and they were too wary and knowledgeable of him to be victimized by him, so knowledge of it was largely useless to him. He also doesn’t encourage her to learn or follow the rituals and traditions, and especially not to attend Sunday church at Frollo’s, though this is mostly for safety concerns than religious ones.

(“Never deal with a man who always thinks himself on the right hand of God, sweet potato,” is how he phrases it.)

The only real takeaway she has from it is to be “very wary of the forces out there greater and wilier than mere mortals like ourselves.”

Before you ask, no, he does not encourage her to make deals with loa, his former “Friends from the Other Side.” This is because they are completely reliable; “you better believe they will do what they said when you pony up, and especially when you don’t.”

The Hook Kids (Harriet, Harry, and CJ) and the rest of the pirates/mostly seafaring Villain Kids such as those from the seedier parts of coastal China, all worship the Sea, seeing Her as their “Lady of Life, Bounty, and Death.”

This is even though their experiences with the sea are being beached for most of the year, being unable sail out or ply their trade past a certain distance off the coast where the alligators are especially active, and their (safely) being in water and enjoying themselves is in the underwater half of Serpent Prep, or in the flooded tomb “swimming pool” of Dragon Hall. (Both are headcanons of mine, for clarity.)

A lot of what you can call their religious acts and beliefs center around the vicious, man-eating crocodiles and how they avoid them like… well, vicious, man-eating crocodiles.

“Metaphors are rather twee when what you fear already has sharp teeth, massive mouths, and an insatiable hunger for flesh of any kind,” as Harriet would say.

Uma has been taught about the religious practices and beliefs Sea Witchcraft by Ursula, but she has largely focused on the matters of potion making and utmost respect for senior witches, as these were the ones that are most practical and shut her daughter up for most of the time.

Her knowledge on it is very incomplete because Ursula was a recluse, and she stops bothering with it altogether when she realizes that everything Ursula has her do is no different from the other VKs, just with different reasons behind it.

Even though Zevon has been born in a heavily polytheistic culture where it was an almost inescapable part of everyday living, he has no religion, as Yzma was never a big believer in deities or the emperors supposedly granted divine knowledge and right to rule by them.

(That she personally knows how much of a selfish, shallow, and greedy idiot Kuzco is contributed a lot to this.)

The only thing he can be said to worship is himself (and his mother), as Yzma has fed him many delusions of grandeur, and manipulative encouragements of all of his worst impulses, beliefs, and behaviours, all the traits that would best groom him as her ticket out of the Isle.

Even after infiltrating Auradon, and during his time being at-large, he does not change his mind, as by that point the brainwashing and propaganda Yzma had been feeding into him is so ingrained he sees all other religion as his “rivals,” whose followers he will steal, after he shows them that he is “The true Supreme Deity of all of Auradon!”

Or, as he pronounces it, “The true Super-eemee D-eighty of Auradon!”

The other Western European VKs, such as the Gaston brothers, LeFou Deux, Ginny Gothel, the Tremaines, the Mim Children and Grandchildren, Clay Clayton, Diego de Vil, Jace and Harry—are all atheists, and not likely to ever find or participate religion.

Aside from the fact that their respective universes did not seem to involve the dominant or possible religions at the time (likely because Disney was avoiding the massive kerfuffle that would come with portraying a canonically Catholic French Village while it’s not central to the story like Hunchback of Notre Dame), they generally come from people that put their faith in their names and reputations (de Vil and henchmen, Tremaine, Gaston), their abilities (Clayton, also Gaston), or their magic (Gothel, Mim).

The likes of Madam Mim and Mother Gothel probably know and have had contact with supreme beings and deities (such as the local Hades), but were likely not impressed by them back when they still had their powers, they still aren’t impressed with them now.

Speaking of Hades, his daughter Hadie believes in the existence of her various uncles and aunts, but does not worship them for very obvious reasons. She is a commonly seen figure at her father’s bar, “The Way Down Under,” (a headcanon of mine, for clarity) and has her own small following of loyal worshipers who frequently make tribute to her, though this is mostly because she’s smoking hot with a gift of seduction and a silver tongue.

With the exceptions of Claudine Frollo and Richard “Rick” Ratcliffe, their attitudes towards religion aren’t likely to change if they ever get to (legally) stay in Auradon.