What the Hell, Hero?/Oral Tradition

• Apollo, the Greek deity of the sun and the arts, once competed in a music competition with a lesser river spirit. When he found out that he couldn't beat him, he challenged him to do an impossible task – play on a flute and sing at the same time. When said deity couldn't do that, Apollo announced himself to be the winner, and ordered the challenger to be stripped from the skin alive. King Midas called him on his total jackassery, but Apollo just gave him donkey ears to shut him up.
  • Of course, for the Ancient Greeks, the fault would have been Midas' for showing disrespect to Apollo.
  • The point of the whole story, meanwhile, might have been that you don't enter contests where being flayed alive is the stake and the other guy is a god.
    • Or that you shouldn't go around saying you're better than an omnipotent deity.
• In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Shamash calls Enkidu out for cursing Shamhat, the hooker who introduced civilization to Enkidu, because of the grief it eventually cost him with the Bull of Heaven mess. Enkidu relents and instead offers a blessing for Shamhat.
  • Also, in the same story, Gilgamesh calls out Ishtar for her bad treatment of her lovers, to show her why he didn't wish to sleep with her. She does not take this well.
• In The Bible:
  • King David, slayer of Goliath, the measure of righteousness by which all other kings of Israel are measured -- and adulterer guilty of Murdering The Hypotenuse. God sends Nathan to call him out, and while David repents immediately upon hearing the rebuke, the damage has been done.
    • It gets better. God -- via Nathan -- tells David a story about a rich man who killed a neighbor's pet sheep for his dinner despite having a large flock of his own. (David had several wives at the time.) David is furious and decrees that the rich man should die, and four sheep of his flock should be given to the wronged neighbor. In a brilliantly delivered Twist Ending, God essentially gets David to call himself out.

David: As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
Nathan: Thou art the man!

• • In the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon does a lot of stupid things, including threatening his seers with death unless they completed an impossible task and building a giant statue, forcing people to worship it, and attempting to kill 3 of his official who wouldn't, because they were Jewish. Both times, God sorts out the problem, and Nebuchadnezzer appears to have been converted so God lets him off. Then he breaks his promise one day by looking over his kingdom and calling himself God. So Daniel shows up to inform him that his punishment from God is that he will go insane for seven years and think he's an animal, which soon comes to pass.
    • Later, after Babylon had been conquered, King Darius of Medea issues a decree that all should worship him and him alone for the next 30 days, under pain of being cast into the lion's den. This was, of course a plot by Daniel's enemies to trap Daniel into committing a capital crime. Daniel, of course, ignores the unjust edict. When the King find out, he tries to revoke the order, only to realize that royal edicts are irrevocable, so Daniel must be cast into the lion's den. King Darius stays awake all night fasting and praying for Daniel's safety trusting that Daniel's God would save him from the lions, and noting that the punishment was to be cast into the lion's den, not to be put to death, so if Daniel survived the sentence, the terms of the decree would be fulfilled, and Daniel could live.
  • The Book of Job has Job holding a whole What the Hell, Hero? court case over God's having apparently punished him without cause. Job's friends keep trying to convince him that he must have done something to deserve the punishment (of which he could therefore repent) while Job holds the line and insists on his day in court with God. Subverted in part in that God counters Job's charges, not by explaining that He had a bet with Satan, but by invoking something like an Omniscient Morality License. Ultimately, however, He does tell the friends that "You have not spoken rightly of me as Job has" and they are the ones who end up having to repent!
    • As a quick note, God also hits the Reset Button and doubled his crops, wealth and even his family.
    • But his original family is still dead.
      • But Job was a faithful believer in the Resurrection of the Dead, so he rightly expected to be reunited with his dead children one day.

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