Save Your Deity

"Hang on Lord!
We're gonna fight for you!
Hang on Lord!
We're gonna fight for you!"

—Jesus Christ Superstar, Peter and others trying to rescue Jesus

Has the Love Goddess turned into a Damsel in Distress? Has The Messiah fallen victim to a mob hating unbigoted goodness? Is the pantheon dying because people have forgotten that Gods Need Prayer Badly? Or has it even come to pass that God Is Dead, and now need resurrection badly? In either case, dear hero, it's time for you to Jump At The Call and Save Your Deity!

And yes, failed rescue attempts do count as examples. However, fighting alongside the deity to save the world does not. The deity has to personally be in need of rescue, or at least be perceived as such.

Examples of Save Your Deity include:

Anime and Manga

• In Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, our hero has to rescue his patron deity during the final story arc of the first season. Granted, he has to rescue her from a kidnapping, but it's still a rescue.

Film

• In Dogma, Yahweh is in a coma for most of the movie. One of the protagonists rescues him by slaying his mortal form.
• Jesus Christ Superstar: Fails miserably in the 1973 version: Peter and the others try to save Jesus, but are overwhelmed by the Romans—Jesus' surrender clearly save them from getting slaughtered. Various theater versions of the play may handle this scene in different ways, since it's mostly a matter of choreography.

Literature

• A trilogy of novels set in Scarred Lands are about a priest who tries and finally succeeds to resurrect the dead god he used to worship until the Divine War This is actually played interestingly. In the Scarred Lands, priests gain their magic powers from their deities. Because their god died, his priests can only access the most basic of spells. After he's resurrected, the main character still can't cast spells, despite being his former high priest. The consequence of bringing his god back to life means he can no longer truly have faith in him, because he's now aware of his own mortality, and can't see him as an infallible being.
• Discussed in The Bible: Peter grabs a sword to save Jesus from the roman soldiers, but Jesus stops him and recommend pacifism. At some point, Jesus also states that he could easily save himself, or summon a legion of angels to his aid, if he wanted to. This would would go against the entire point though.
• In Percy Jackson and The Olympians, the quest of Grover and the other satyrs is to find their god Pan, who was said to be dead. Heck, book three of the first series is about saving Artemis, and book one of the second series is about saving Hera. Rick Riordan loves this trope.
• In The Mists of Avalon, The Lady of the Lake is trying to rescue her pagan pantheon, which is dying from the advances of Christianity.
• This is what drives the plot for most of Small Gods.

Live Action TV

• In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Aphrodite need to be saved sometimes.
• The Blink Of An Eye episode of Star Trek: Voyager takes place on a planet where the people are living in the stone age when Lightbringer, Groundshaker arrive. This deity inspire them to much greatness, but also cause them much harm. Over the ages that follow, they develop their culture and technology in their quest for their deity - Eventually realizing that she is stuck in the sky. Eventually they work together with the crew of USS Voyager to save her. And yes - "Lightbringer, Groundshaker" is Voyager: Time itself pass differently on the planet. This episode is a rare case of a pre-warp civilization being portrayed as justified in their belief in humans/starfleet.

Tabletop RPG

• Dungeons & Dragons
  • In the adventure For Duty and Deity, the high priestess of Waukeen gathers a group of adventurers who worship the goddess and sends them to the Abyss to rescue her from the demon lord Graz'zt.
  • Dungeon Magazine #21, adventure The Chest of the Aloeids. Hermes has been captured and trapped in the title container. A group of PC's who worship the Greek deities must rescue him so he can take his place among the other gods on Mount Olympus.

Video Games

• In Lunar, the main Damsel in Distress turns out to be the goddess Althena.
• God Of War: Chains of Olympus tasks Kratos with rescuing Helios.
• The main plot of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky actually involves the player trying to save Dialga from—Dialga.
• Jade Empire: This drives a large part of the plot. The Water Dragon is not only in charge of rain, but she's also the deity in charge of escorting the deceased to the afterlife for reincarnation. Without her, the world's getting overrun with angry and tormented ghosts. Of course, you don't have to rescue or restore her if you're playing Closed Fist.
• Kid Icarus: The first and second games involve saving Palutena.

Web Original

• In Kickassia, the cast tries to revive Santa Christ after That Guy With The Glasses accidentally shoots him. Their chosen method of resurrection is to get everyone they know to repeatedly chant "We believe in Santa Christ!"

Western Animation

• In Hercules, Herc has to save Zeus and the other gods from Hades and the Titans.
• In South Park, the kids work very hard to save Muhammad—a divine Superhero fueled by holy power equal to his teammate Jesus.