Holier Than Thou

Judge Claude Frollo longed to purge the world of vice and sin, and he saw corruption everywhere except within.

—Clopin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney version)

In media, it seems anyone you meet who claims spirituality is either a Complete Monster, or so saintly and wonderful it makes you sick. If they hold a high position in a religion, they're even more likely to be far worse than everyone else. This is especially true if the cast is a bunch of jerkasses anyway.

This one is so pervasive that finding an overtly religious character in media and making him or her likable without promoting an Anvilicious agenda is rare. If you've got religion, then you're either The Messiah or a Knight Templar, if not an outright bastard whose piety is nothing but a front, perhaps not even with the luxury of self-righteousness. This is especially so if the character is actual clergy, although you might get lucky with a kind priest or monk of some sort (though they tend to veer into Messiah territory quickly, and are often killed off in a Kick the Dog moment). And don't even think about putting one of these people in a slasher or horror movie, as they are often the first to get killed in rather nasty fashion.

If there are multiple clerical characters and some sort of ranked hierarchy, the higher ranking members are much more likely to be evil or corrupt. Unless the work is Battle Pope, in which case all bets are off.

This trope taken to its logical conclusion gets you the Sinister Minister and/or the Corrupt Church.

If news coverage emphasizes stories with a priest molesting a child more as opposed to, say, a teacher, it is because though both hold positions of authority, priests are the ones who claim a moral superiority at the same time.

The exact words "holier than thou" is found in the King James Version of Isaiah 65:

2 I have spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick;
4 Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

Subtrope of Pride. Contrast Eviler Than Thou, More Hero Than Thou, Good Shepherd, and Real Men Love Jesus. Compare Egocentrically Religious and Hollywood Atheist. See also Acceptable Targets, Straw Hypocrite.

Inevitably Truth in Television. That said, No real life examples, please; this isn't a complimentary thing to say about someone.

Examples of Holier Than Thou include:

Anime and Manga

• Hellsing has a couple of religious characters which are all Christian. The Hellsing organization is made up of Protestants and mostly not that holy (sans Integra) but the Catholic Iscariot Unit is really into God and even if their badass mascot is rather likable his superior is anything but a nice guy.
• The Roman Catholics Orthodox, the Saints and God's Right Seat from the magic side of A Certain Magical Index are filled with this. To go into what they'd do would be spoilers. Really, at least the Anglicans English Puritians and the Japanese Catholics Orthodox were pretty honest and not that condescending when they talk to Touma.
• The con artist Father Cornello from Fullmetal Alchemist.
• The Golden Dragon Filia from the Slayers anime, taken to ridiculous levels. It doesn't help that she was sheltered for most of her life, but even after exposure to the outside world, she still acts like a snotty brat. And then, when she does realize the truth, her mind splinters REALLY bad.
• Blue Exorcist - Arthur Auguste Angel makes sure that everyone knows how great he is.
• In Saint Beast, being a god and all Zeus considers himself above criticism despite being the most morally bankrupt occupant of heaven and no more holy by nature than any other race.

Comic Books

• The pedophile ex-concentration-camp-chaplain bishop in V for Vendetta.
• Cardinal Roark of the Sin City story "The Hard Goodbye," who used the mob, a police death squad, and a silent and deadly farm boy cannibal whose proclivities he shared in order to do his dirty work. Too bad he was also The Man Behind the Curtain. However, Marv is shown to be a practicing Catholic as well, and he wears a cross around his neck.
• Averted by the X-Men's Nightcrawler, a charming and playful character who's also a devout Catholic. Though given how many writers' hands he's been through, somebody might have used him to play this trope straight at some point or another.
  • Rev. William Stryker is a more straight example of this trope in the X-Men universe, who is a televangelist and a "devoted Christian" who was willing to murder his own son and wife.
  • That suspicion would be correct, as Ultimate Universe Nightcrawler declares his friend Colossus an "abomination" or some such when he finds out the poor guy is gay. Then again, pretty much everyone is a dick in the Ultiverse...
    • Also, the Ultimate Universe version of him isn't particularly religious.
• Another comic-book Catholic exception: Doctor Mid-Nite from the Justice Society of America, who saves lives all day every day, attends church regularly, and is BFFs with staunch atheist Mister Terrific.
• Implied in Fables: Legends In Exile when describing "The kingdom of the Great Lion fell, and again we did nothing, because we always found the old lion to be a bit too pompous and holier-than-thou for our tastes." This is a Shout-Out (or a Take That) to Narnia.
  • Word of God from series writer Bill Willingham is that many readers, both the "Hey, he's hatin' on Narnia!" and "Yeah, you show that stupid Narnia!" crowd didn't pick up the importance of the context this description was given in. Like the "Oddness" of Oz, the "Holier Than Thou" derogatory remarks were the excuse the other Fable Homelands used to justify ignoring the fall of these worlds. He's on the record as stating that he loves the Narnia books and characters. The later arc The Good Prince includes a much more positive cameo by Aslan, and he's on the record as hoping that the rights to use the characters might clear up one day.
• Wilhelm Busch criticized the Catholic church several times in his stories for this. (Busch had witnessed how the pilgrims to a famous Bavarian monastery wouldn't be above having fun in the bushes around it.)

Film

• The 1992 Costner version of Robin Hood, plays it both straight and subverted. The bishop is firmly pro-sheriff, to the point of embracing the sheriff's devil-worshiping religion and even helps marry him to Marian at the sheriff's Satanic altar (despite the latter flatly refusing), and tries to flee with gold when Loxley storms the castle. On the other hand, Friar Tuck, the down-to-earth churchman, is not only wise, sympathetic and friendly, but can drink sacramental wine and beer with the best of them. What's more, he gets so incensed at the bishop's corruption he defenestrates the bishop from a tower with enough gold and "thirty pieces of silver to pay the Devil on YOUR WAY TO HELL!"
• Every single religious character in Saved! is a lying, cheating, hypocrite who is only concerned with their own image. The only decent human beings are hated and ostracized by the religious ones. Incidentally, the movie is set in the modern-day Midwestern United States.
  • The movie ends, however, with the lead character, a formerly evangelical Christian who was ostracized by her school's Christian Girl Posse for getting pregnant, realizing that faith is not exclusively the province of fundamentalists, and seeking a more open and accepting form of Christianity which embraces others instead of judging them.
  • Every single religious character - except for the main character and her gay childhood friend. Granted, Holier Than Thou characters might not consider either of them good Christians, but...
    • The problem seems to be the explicit assumption the film puts forth as fact: Devout Christian=Hateful Fanatic. Automatically and innately.
  • Most characters in this movie could be considered religious people. And while some of them use it to justify truly Jerkass behavior (or rather, rationalize the jerkass thing they want to do with a religious excuse), most of them are shown struggling with their faith at one point or another, even the Alpha Bitch.
• Samuel Norton, the Bible-thumping warden in The Shawshank Redemption.
• In the Woody Allen film Whatever Works Christianity is portrayed as a backwards superstition and the Southern characters who are vocally religious as rubes, who almost instantly (and happily) convert to atheism after the slightest contact with the metropolis of New York.
• The Inquisitor Pucci from the 2005 version of Casanova, played by Jeremy Irons. Rather than speaking about forgiveness, redemption, or any attempt to save the souls of those ostensibly under his care as a member of the Church, Pucci's goals all seem to revolve around control. There also appears to be an entire order of nuns willing to add another notch to Casanova's bedpost. When admonished for risking (or perhaps earning, in the eyes of the inquisitor), eternal damnation for a single night with Casanova, the response is "seems fair."
• The Na'vi of Avatar tend to go with this general trope. The film portrays every human as being a Flat Earth Atheist with no concept of spirituality or culture and the Na'vi being the perfect race, going so far to claim that human culture and all other traditions besides their own are a form of insanity and that conforming with their religion will cure it.
• Marianne and her Christian group in Easy A who protest everything they can think of, such as changing the school mascot from a Blue Devil to a Woodchuck and getting Olive (who accidentally starts and maintains a rumor about being a slut) expelled before "saving" her. Especially frustrating since her boyfriend is actually sleeping with the guidance councilor, who gives him chlamydia. The movie makes a point to equate their views to the views of the townsfolk in The Scarlet Letter (unsurprisingly, since the film is loosely based on the book).

Literature

• The Friar from The Canterbury Tales.
  • Given the breadth of characters, The Canterbury Tales actually plays this trope both ways.
• Claude Frollo, in both the original The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Disney movie. Disneyfication tempers the trope a little by having a non-jerk religious figure as well. Further, to slightly mollify the Moral Guardians, Disney's Frollo is a judge, not Archdeacon of the Cathedral (the Archdeacon is now the religious non-jerk aforementioned) and he falls to his death accidentally, rather than being pushed by Quasimodo.
  • While it was certainly not Quasimodo, it did not look like an accident. The gargoyle seems to come alive sending him to his appropriate demise.
• Downright defied in The Dresden Files by Michael Carpenter, one of the Knights of the Cross. He's strongly religious and unafraid to show it, but is also a genuinely nice guy unless you're a demon or a similarly irredeemably evil being. And even then he's usually at least polite. Harry specifically lampshades that Michael is righteous, not self-righteous, and notes there's a big difference between the two.
  • He even tries to offers Nicodemus, a 2000-year-old guy who shares a body with a demon and has killed countless people, a chance to turn back from his evil ways over the phone. Granted, Nicodemus just laughed at him, but he still tried.
• Both averted and played straight in Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth. Bishop Waleran is a scheming, manipulative, selfish jerk who exploits his office for personal and political gain. The protagonist, Prior Philip, is a humble, genuinely devout man who seemingly has no limit to his compassion. The strongest example is near the end, where after Waleran's schemes come crashing down, depriving him of everything and leaving him a penniless beggar, Prior Philip forgives him and takes him into the Monastery. This is despite Waleran being personally responsible for most of Philip's troubles for over a decade, including the death of several of Philip's friends.
• Only a Woman Can Take This Sort of Abuse (Forgotten Realms Spin-a-Yarn story) used this straight and then doubled back: a paladin shrank back from a drow and...

Laeral: ...And you needn't recoil from Qilué. She's personally consecrated to two goddesses and is more holy than you can ever hope to be.

• Both averted and used straight in Discworld books, as everything else. Small Gods centers around the religious country of Omnia, so while most priests are good-naturedly idiotic or afraid, some are genuinely good, and the head of the Quisition is bone-tremblingly evil - but Brutha, the protagonist, is the only person who genuinely believes in Om any more. On the other hand, several decades later, in Carpe Jugulum, Mightily Oats is presented as a literally conflicted priest who certainly wants what's good but can't always decide what that is.
  • Mightily Oats is an interesting example, though: unlike Brutha, who is quietly, staunchly religious all the way through Small Gods, Oats starts out a pretty wishy-washy missionary - until the vampires get to Granny Weatherwax, crippling her, and Oats is forced to flee the monsters through the dark forest in a downpour while this nasty, godless old... biddy needles him incessantly about his faith. He finally snaps at her, and she replies that if she had a god who she thought was genuinely good and gave a damn about humanity, her faith would be so fierce it burned, and no argument could make her doubt it. From then on, Oats undergoes a sort of transformation, realizing religion is more than his holy books (which he burns for a very necessary fire) or his turtle pendant (which he shouldn't have hung on such a cheap chain), and culminating in his faith becoming pretty damn fierce indeed.
    • A brief mention in one of the later novels suggests he's become something of a Badass Preacher who's got An Axe to Grind with Überwald's vampires. A big axe.
• The spinster Emily Brent from And Then There Were None disowns her maid when she gets pregnant, claiming it's because the girl doesn't fit in her household anymore for not following the Word of God. Said maid is Driven to Suicide and Emily shows no remorse (though she has some disturbing visions in the course of the story). Judge Wargrave finds out, though, and in the mysterious island where action takes place he poisons her as punishment and a part of his Xanatos Roulette to get everyone dead.
  • Not too surprisingly, the video game chose Emily Brent as its new "surprise" killer.
• Most of the high-up churchmen in David Eddings' The Elenium/Tamuli series avert this, but one Cordz of Nelan appears for a few pages in The Tamuli. Cordz has concluded that he is "the perfect man" because he follows the Scriptures, leading him to spy on his neighbors for things to denounce at church, and if he can't see in, he just dreams up something imperfect he thinks they might be doing, and denounces them for that. As Eddings put it:

He probably irritated the Devil. God knows he irritated his neighbours.

• • In The Belgariad Relg, an Ulgo with the ability to pass through stone, aggravates his companions with his incredible self-righteousness. After he's confronted with his own hypocrisy he turns self-hating for a while, but eventually mellows out.
• Mostly averted in Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, where devout Brother Cadfael and his fellow Benedictine monks are credibly well-meaning and conscious of their own moral imperfections. Prior Roberts, though arrogant and annoying, also has his good points, and the toadying Jerome is so remorseful as to suffer a nervous breakdown after striking someone down out of anger. Villains occasionally do fall under this trope, but their hypocrisy and/or intolerance is soundly refuted by more moderate clergymen, often using genuine scripture to back up their arguments.
• Joseph in Wuthering Heights is a bullying, work-shy and snide man nevertheless full of pious sermons for anyone who crosses his path.
• The Brontës liked this trope; the schoolmaster, Mr. Brocklehurst, in Jane Eyre is a hypocritical clergyman who forces the girls under his charge to live in deprivation and, eventually, disease under the excuse that it is God's will that they be cured of their sins through Christian austerity, whilst simultaneously fleecing the joint and ensuring that he and his family live in obscene luxury.
• In The Wheel of Time: The Children of the Light, and many of the Aes Sedai (especially those of the Red Ajah).
  • The Children of the Light were a mixed bunch. Eamon Valda was a nasty piece of work, and the Questioners were deep in Knight Templar territory, but Pedron Niall seemed genuine, if a tad cynically pragmatic, and later Galad definitely had his heart in the right place.
• In Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents, this seems to be the hat of the Church of Christian America. Notable examples:
  • Early in the book, Marcus Duran is rescued by his sister, who is in the process of founding a new religion. He decides to try to convert her followers to Christianity by convincing them that Earthseed is nonsense -- without bothering to find out what Earthseed actually teaches. He then leaves, graciously forgiving his sister for the fact that her followers pointed out his mistakes.
  • The guards at the Camp Christian reeducation facility are devoted to teaching their prisoners to be good, hardworking Christians. They consider themselves (of course) to be better people than their prisoners—despite making the prisoners do all of the work, and letting several of them die of overwork and lack of medical attention.
  • Reverend Chandler Benton likes to preach sermons on the evils of every form of sexual behavior he does not indulge in. His sermons mention, for example, homosexuality. They do not mention rape.
  • Later in the book, Marcus Duran, now a minister of Christian America, tries to tell his sister -- who was enslaved and tortured, and had her daughter Larkin kidnapped, by members of Christian America -- that she should join the church to find her daughter. She doesn't. When he later finds Larkin, he doesn't tell his sister where she is, because he thinks she's better off being raised by emotionally abusive Christian Americans than by her non-Christian mother.
• Ms. Clack in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.
• Verchiel of The Fallen. He uses the Word of God as an excuse to slaughter the Fallen.
• Special Circumstances: Soundly thrashed by Barbara. She goes out of her way to avoid such types, detesting the type.
• In Bumped, Harmony is like this, being from the Amish-like cult Goodside. She is convinced that she must convert her long lost twin sister Melody to Christianity and stop her from being a surrogate for a family at age 16. It is revealed, however, that she ran away from her husband a few days after marrying him because she was unsure about women's role in Goodside as (basically) baby makers.
• Eugene from Purple Hibiscus is this and still manages to be the book's main bad guy.
• This is how Ambrosio in The Monk justifies having sex with Matilda even after he exposed a young nun for having a lover. He's convinced he's just that awesome.

Live-Action TV

• Robbie's wife's parents from Everybody Loves Raymond.
• Averted on Firefly with Shepherd Book.
  • Maybe. Considering his shady past, it's hard to say if he's an aversion, subversion, played straight or non-example. He might not be good or religious. If he is an aversion, he's a huge exception -- Joss Whedon loves this trope.
    • He's really Becoming the Mask if he's pretending, given how often he offers the other characters spiritual advice and sticks to Thou Shalt Not Kill in rather life-threatening situations.
    • Unlike most examples of Holier Than Thou, Book manages to make more than a few jokes about religiosity and Holier Than Thou itself: at one point, Inara asks if he's going to preach about the error of her ways, and Book says something to the effect of "I have several pretty good ones prepared, actually. Hellfire, damnation -- one has lepers."
    • In Serenity, at least, he comes across as a sincere and pious good guy.
• Averted in the short-lived Threshold where astrophysicist Lucas Pegg was established as a deeply religious person... but a very quiet, private one who looked to his faith for reassurance in the face of adversity (the coming of hostile aliens) and didn't care to push it.
  • As well, in an episode where one of the alien-infected humans used a church as a front to work and expose people to the alien virus, the faithful were largely reasonable people, and the reverend was not evil but instead greatly confused by the return of a former member who had been reported dead.
• Caleb, the misogynistic Dragon to the First Evil in the last televised season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an utterly psychotic, misogynistic defrocked priest.
• In Stargate SG-1, given that the "gods" are usually evil, anyone who's particularly devout toward them is probably evil as well, both in the case of the Goa'uld and the Ori.
  • This is averted occasionally, whenever a handful of Mooks realizes their gods are shams and switch sides. This is especially true of Tomin, a humble villager-turned-general, who gives a priest an epic verbal reaming over how they're corrupting the Ori religion to oppress and destroy. He was, indeed, holier than thou.
  • Also averted in the character of Sam Carter, whom Word of God (ie: the actress) says is a practicing Catholic and can occasionally be seen quietly praying before the sh* t really hits the fan.
  • Played straight and averted in Episode 52, Demons. The Canon is a self-righteous (and self-worshiping) witch-hunt leader; Simon is the devout, who stands up both to the corrupt Canon and "the Devil" (actually a Goa'uld-possessed Unas) at the episode's climax.
    • Unas/Devil: Your God has abandoned you!
    • Simon: My God is with me always. (Butt-kicking ensues.)
  • Senator Kinsey, who loves to tell people how he's doing God's work, even if he has to get in bed with the Devil, said Devil being a shady government agency stealing alien tech and pissing off humanity's only allies.
• Kai Winn Adami, the manipulative, power-grabbing (and smug, can't forget smug) spiritual leader of Bajor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Her primary clash with Emissary Benjamin Sisko (besides from the fact he, a non-Bajoran, was given a title and prestige in their holy order that trumps hers), was that his faith and respect for the Bajoran religion was far stronger and more pure than hers was. And let's not forget what she did to her rival for the role of Kai, Vedek Bareil, and her eventual defection to her religion's "devils" the Pah-Wraiths.
  • She was also deeply envious that the Prophets would communicate directly with Sisko, while she was never granted such visions despite a lifelong devotion to the Prophets. A good portion of the events in the final season of the show could have been avoided if the Prophets had simply spoken to her.
  • On the other hand, many worshipers of the Bajoran gods tended to subvert this, most notably Major Kira.
  • Even more notably, the previous Kai was a saintly woman who willingly remained behind on a hellish world to help its constantly warring natives achieve peace. Not that she had much choice, really, but she accepted it gracefully.
  • The Expanded Universe novels include a species of alien that worship an offshoot of the Prophets, murdering anyone who worshiped either the normal Prophets or the Pah-Wraiths as heretics and false believers. Also in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch, we have Vedek Yevir, who has ambitions to be kai. At first he looks like a retread of Kai Winn in some regards (tensions with Kira included). However, he gets better later on, particularly in Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Cardassia, where he has a genuine Crowning Moment of Awesome, and one befitting a religious minister (he talks a 14-year old would-be suicide bomber into standing down).
• Played with a little in Father Ted. While Jack is a drunken lech and Dougal a ditz, Ted himself is a bit more complex. Clearly he is interested in fame and money but many occasions show that he at least has faith and often means well; he just is a bit too inclined to follow his baser desires. There is an interview with the creators where they discuss their real feelings on religion. If people haven't watched this, they may assume that Father Ted was an affectionate, if sharp tongued parody.
• Used occasionally in the Highlander franchise, especially since the various Immortals are either so old they predate current religions, or are vilified and hunted as being witches or abominations. In the fifth movie, Highlander the Source, one of the protagonists is a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, and is portrayed as a total Jerkass. One character calls him out on this, saying something to the effect of, "I met Jesus. He wouldn't like you very much."
  • More powerfully averted though, by the character of Darius, the priest of a small church in Paris. It is implied that he himself is not actually a Christian (being more than 2000 years old and born a barbarian raider he wouldn't have run into Christianity until many, many years after he first became Immortal), but he strictly follows both the rule and the intent of the church laws, knowing how important it is to his mortal followers.
    • Darius was extremely popular with the audience, and was intended to be a long-term character in the series, but the actor's death at the end of the first season forced them to change direction.
• Averted in The West Wing with devoutly Catholic President Jed Bartlet and Chief of Staff Leo McGarry and devoutly Jewish Communications Director Toby Ziegler, none of whom are holier than thou (well, Toby might be, but for different reasons). Played straight with some other characters, though, such as the evangelicals from the first episode.
  • In some episodes, however, Josh Lyman, a fellow Jew (if a seemingly less devout one) does note that Toby has a tendency to treat Josh as somehow being a lesser Jew, partly because Toby comes from New York and Josh from Connecticut.
• Aversions in Babylon 5 are notable in how systematic they are. No priest—be it Brother Theo, Ivanova's rabbi, or any of the other priests or priest-equivalents passing through B5—is shown to be anything other than a good person following their tenets.
  • Delenn is a particularly notable aversion. She is quite religious and is even a nominal priestess. She is also very much The Messiah. However she expresses her messiahship as a stateswoman not as a religious figure, has a few dark secrets in her past, and so on, and in general does not really reach Mary Sue status. She is seldom particularly self-righteous, for instance she was the one who suggested giving Londo an invitation to the rebirth ceremony.
  • On the other hand, it's played straight with some of the more uptight members of the Minbari religious caste.
  • Played horribly straight with an alien couple in "Believers" who were willing to let their ill son die rather then submit him to surgery, which was against their beliefs. Dr. Franklin operates on him anyway. It didn't occur to him that the parents would destroy what they now believe to be a soulless zombie of their son. It should have. Come on, if you sincerely believed a loved one had been zombified wouldn't you destroy their empty shell?
  • In a tragic rather then malicious example, the Markab race died out of plague mostly because they believed that the malady was a divine punishment for debauchery and concealed all facts of contraction out of fear of embarrassment. When the news of the plague spread across the Babylon 5 and the resident Markabs began falling victims both to the disease and angered neighbors, their priest convinced all his kindred to lock themselves in a separate section where they would be untouched by the general corruption and protected by their purity of heart and all that crap. Naturally, a horde of people susceptible to a respiratory infection gathered closely together in an air-tight space worked out just as well as you'd think.
• Justified in Joan of Arcadia, as God is Holier Than Thou, and whatever he told Joan to do was ultimately right, even when it seemed wrong. Most other religious characters are subversion to this and offer their interpretations of God in a non-demeaning manner. There was one character who was put in for one episode as a response to the priest sex abuse scandal but he was a short lived exception.
  • The priest in the sex abuse episode was also an aversion because it turned out later he had never molested the kid in question. The kid had come to him for guidance because he thought he was gay, and the priest had been supportive of him. When the kid told his homophobic father, the dad got so enraged that he beat the priest senseless and made up the molestation story so he and his son would get sympathy from the police.
• The Dead Zone's Big Bad is a corrupt, manipulative, womanizing sociopath with an encyclopedic memory of scripture who represents himself in public as deeply religious. In contrast, Reverend Gene Purdy is a genuinely religious character who at first seems sinister but over the course of the series proves to be compassionate and well-intentioned, albeit prone to a lot of internal conflict over the ethically questionable decisions he makes from time to time.
• Andrea Zuckerman from Beverly Hills, 90210.
• The Weaver Family from Season 8 of The Amazing Race. They constantly trumpeted how they were the only team who deserved to win, because they were the only good people on the Race, yet they were that season's least popular team, and were hated by all the other teams because of the way they acted and their general attitudes.
  • Charla & Mirna (Seasons 5 & 11) were a less severe case of this, but that still didn't stop them from condemning the other teams for being untrustworthy and back-stabbing them. Season 5 even saw Mirna rant that all the other teams were jealous of them.
• Shirley in Community both parodies and plays this straight; she's the most openly and passionately religious of the study group members, and while for the most part a likeable and friendly person, her beliefs can lead her to get very obnoxiously self-righteous very quickly.
• Boardwalk Empire has Nelson Van Alden, an incredibly messed up Protestant fundamentalist and Prohibition agent; possibly Father Brennan, a Catholic priest with shady deals with corrupt politician Nucky Thompson (and whose influence turns Margaret Schroeder into an Hypocrite Hiding Behind Religion as well); and a rare Jewish example in Manny the Kosher butcher, who kills people with the same facility he offers rabbinical wisdom.

Music

• Metallica had a song on their self-titled Black Album named this, which describes it very well.
• Iron Maiden's "Holy Smoke", a Protest Song on televangelists depict them as this, complete with the line "I’ve lived in filth, I’ve lived in sin, and I still smell cleaner than the shit you’re in!"

Professional Wrestling

• Chances are, whenever you see a deeply religious character in Professional Wrestling, it'll be this type of character (Reverend D'Von, Dustin Runnels, etc.). And it's going to suck. This has led some wrestling fans (for example, R.D. Reynolds of Wrestlecrap) to argue for strict "separation of church and ring."
• Averted and subverted with Shawn Michaels post-comeback. While known both in real life and his ring persona as a born-again Christian, he never considered himself a role model, instead becoming a Guile Hero who prayed before matches.

Video Games

• Seen prominently in Shin Megami Tensei I and Shin Megami Tensei II. Although the other side's guys are jerkasses, too. The Messians were just jerkasses first.
  • In general, Law is almost invariably this while Chaos is "Screw The Rules, We've Got Demonic Powers". Kind of a toss-up as to who's worse, really...
• What, no Grandia II and High Priestess Selene or at least, she gives a good performance as this trope, at first...? The first time you meet her, she's considering having an entire village burnt down because a blind child can suddenly see.
• Reverend Ray from Call of Juarez at the end he realizes his holier than thou attitude is the sin of pride and repents.
• In Final Fantasy X, several of the leaders of Yevon as a whole fall into this in two ways. First, they are complicit to some degree in the church being a Path of Inspiration working for Yu Yevon. Second, they believe the protagonists to be naive children, and are holier than thou about the nature of the Path of Inspiration.
  • Wakka starts this way. Though he's more or less a good guy who has no problems explaining how his religion works to Tidus he hates Al Bhed and reacts very bad to them, saying all the bad things that happen to them are deserved for not obeying Yevon's teachings (though it also has to do with his brother dying while using Al Bhed weapons). Half way through the game he changes his view after he learns more about them and the military force of Yevon attacks their Home, which has to be destroyed by Cid. Also seeing how hypocrite the leaders of Yevon truly are helps.
  • Yuna is another aversion: extremely devoted to Yevon (at least until she learns the Final Summoning can never defeat Sin), but she also cares for others to an astonishing degree, and is painfully humble and self-effacing despite receiving the adoration of practically the entire country because she is going to sacrifice herself so people can live peacefully.
  • In fact, with the exception of Shelinda, nearly all the lower level members of the clergy are aversions of this trope.
• "Stop Having Fun!" Guys and Scrubs are incredibly venomous towards those who do not play certain video games exactly the way they do, with the former preferring Serious Business tournament-style matches where only top-tier is allowed (as well as any and all glitches and exploits advanced techniques), and the latter preferring to use the exact opposite settings and ban pretty much everything previously mentioned because they are unable to deal with it. Both sides are incredibly high and mighty about the way they play and view anyone not playing exactly like them as a member of the other group, treating you like the worthless primordial slime you are.
• In Penumbra: Black Plague, the Tuurngait are an example of this, trying to explain how they're so much better than humanity - after having spent the entirety of the game trying to Kill All Humans. Not a particularly religious example, but a good fit, nonetheless.
• Bastila in Knights of the Old Republic makes a point of being a more perfect adherent to the letter of the Code of the Jedi than everyone else, though by the end of the game Character Development sets in and she becomes a lot nicer.
• In Final Fantasy Tactics, if the Faith stat of your party members get too high, they will leave your party for religious reasons and may say they are too pure or such to be with a group that commits sinful acts.
• The Paranids in the X Universe play this to the hilt. They are a theocracy and consider pretty much every other lifeform in the galaxy unholy to the point of not allowing any non-Paranid to live on their planets,^[1] although not to the point of trying to wipe them all out.

Web Comics

• Sam from Men in Hats.

Gamal: I've been thinking a lot lately about my beliefs, and I'm finding it hard not to wish that I had some faith in God, or religion, or anything, really. Maybe I just want life to be more like when I was a child, back when everything was magical and the world was still mysterious and amazing. But I had to grow up and realize that, although I still know essentially nothing, everything has a logical and sensible explanation, even if I can't grasp it. But with religion you never lose that sense of wonder. The world is always full of magic: There's always something beyond what is seen and understood... Sometimes I wish I could have that.
...And then Sam comes along.
Sam: BURN THE CRIPPLES!

• The proprietors of the "Hell House" in a Halloween sequence in Something*Positive are fundamentalist Christians who lead visitors through a haunted house that's supposed to show them the horrors of promiscuity, homosexuality, secularism, and other bogeymen of the religious right, then refuse to let them leave unless they profess Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. (Sadly, this is a real phenomenon [although they'll typically let you leave with a tract or two].) However, the set-up is subverted in that the character who calls them out on their bullshit is himself a devout Christian who is disgusted at what he sees as a perversion of his faith.
  • There's also The Militant Wiccan. His T-shirt reads "Brighter Blessed Than Thee".
• Miko Miyazaki from Order of the Stick. Other paladins and the party cleric are shown in a much more sympathetic light though.
• Seymore of Sinfest is relatively tame as far as most examples are concerned. He's actually a good man at heart, his biggest problem is that his ignorance and fanaticism greatly overshadow his better qualities.
• Notably averted in Thunderstruck, where the two leads are atheist and Christian sisters. Due to the story's heavy emphasis on how well they complement each other, it's actually necessary for the author to balance their views, and people applaud him for it. Even the religious "good" guys in the series are treated as just as flawed as their secular counterparts.
• Dueling Sanctimony from Barking Crayon. There's always a pecking order...

Western Animation

• Most of the characters in Moral Orel fall under the "piety as a front" version of this trope. They're all really much more concerned with enforcing social norms than any genuine faith, with the (apparently exclusive) exception of Orel himself.
  • Rev. Putty seems to be a subversion too, especially as you get closer to the end of the series. He really seems to want to inspire hope and steer people towards a righteous life, but is very understanding of alternate lifestyles and quick to admit he's human. That he has flaws and is just another guy with a job.
• Despite naming Flanderization and having a bunch of cringe-worthy moral-guardian moments, Ned usually averts this trope. He's incredibly nice and compassionate, even to someone like Homer who constantly abuses him, and his faith is shown to be a source of his friendly nature. He's also shown undergoing at least one realistically-portrayed crisis of faith, but still doesn't lose his religion.
  • That said, even his kids are disturbed when he spends untold hours staring at recordings of daily TV shows in search for corruption and anti-Christianity in order to complain about them on the Internet (sadly, some people really do this in Real Life).

"Daddy, we think you need a new Mommy..."

• Demona, like Frollo, attempts to purge the world of evil and sees corruption in every human (and quite a few gargoyles, too, like Goliath).

1. ↑ though the other races wouldn't really want to live there anyway for biological reasons