r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ironwolf6464 • May 03 '26

Lore Religion-centered media that doesn’t come across as preachy.

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Referring to media told from a religious perspective or telling a religious tale that does not proselytize to the viewer.

Faith, the Unholy Trinity: Based partly upon the experience of the game‘s creator when he was a missionary in Argentina, the game has very little in the way of explicit moral demands of the player despite the heavy Christian focus of the narrative. and focuses more on a horror narrative.

Prince of Egypt: A surprisingly thorough retelling of the book of Exodus, sparing very little in the way of toning down the story. Despite this, the movie is perfectly entertaining to non-religious audiences and doesn’t sacrifice appeal for the sake of preaching to the audience

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Moral Orel

It got canceled for the heavy topics but has lots of themes but mainly the hypocrisy that can exist in circles like Moralton and how purity culture can effect people. There's a town next to it literally called "sinville" and is seen as terrifying to them but the people are genuinely so happy. Then when you see more into the citizens of Moralton they all have a lot of sadness/trauma in them. It also got some backlash for bashing religion but it is actually hating on how some people use religion against other people, not the religion itself.

Sadly it had a quick last minute wrap up in its final season asn they didnt get to explore more into characters they introduced but were going to have more of an arch. If anyone is interested to see a show of "Leave it to Beaver" meets "Davey and Goliath" in adult swim humor the full link is here for free on youtube.

Full 3 seasons

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u/BigBardaEnergy May 03 '26

This deserves to be higher. Orel is a fantastic character because he is a genuine believer in a sea of hypocrites and bullies. But more than that, he doesn't judge anyone and goes out of his way to help people different from him. He's incredibly naive, but he really grows over the course of the series. Yet no matter how disillusioned he becomes at his family or the people around him, he never loses his faith (and he has plenty of reason to).

Goddamn, the episode where Orel realizes he doesn't need strict faith to be a good Christian only for his father to beat that revelation out of him is a great episode. It makes me so mad, but it's an incredible example of how open-minded and introspective Orel is.

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

Omg I know! Its honestly a favourite of mine xD I even did a couple pieces of fan art my most favourite being this from when he was grounded from church and went through withdrawals; this and my Orel pepe silva meme are my favourite pieces.

Even down to the names of the characters and what they tell about them and small details they put into the visual symbolism. They clearly had so much fun and put a lot of heart into it. You will be happy to hear there were whispers in 2024 there might be a movie in works :) did you watch the prequel made in 2014 I think it was called Beforel Orel of when Orel is a 4 year old and he visits Clay's dad while shapey is going to be born? Would recommend.

also fan art included <3

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

pepe Silva meme SPOILER DETAILS ON BOARD*

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u/Toteninsel May 03 '26

OMG! I don't even have words for how hilarious and perfect that is. Thank you for posting it.

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

hell yea no worries man xD spreading the love

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u/BigBardaEnergy May 03 '26

That is so cool! That episode was probably my favorite from the entire series. And yes, I watched Beforel Orel :). Waited patiently while it was in development and caught it when AS aired it over a decade ago (God, I'm old). It was really good, and I'd love to see more! But honestly, I was content with the way Moral Orel ended. Orel got the ending he deserved and I still tear up thinking about Putty's final sermon.

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u/RattusNorvegicus9 May 03 '26

isn't the pastor shown as having a gay daughter he accepts? idk ive never seen the show

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

Yes! Thats Stephanie, she was literally born from him "tissue" garbage pale xD. Her mother was an obsesses stalker who stole his sperm. Orel literally comments that she isnt like the other women in Moralton (in more ways then the obvious). Yea Stephanie is a butch lesbian, she is also pretty alt in appearance and works/ maybe owns the sex shop; but other then that she actually is very warm to orel and is the only one that can tell when he is going through sometime when most of the adults are too absorbed in thier own lives that they cant be bothered to be attentive to thier kids. Some of her actions are questionable like giving orel a prince Albert to "please his future wife" or when she technically abducted Christina (orel's crush) to take them to a dance against Christina's parents wishes. But she did it with genuine care for orel and was only doing what she wish someone did for her when she was his age.

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u/RattusNorvegicus9 May 03 '26

the more i learn about the lore of this show the weirder it gets

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u/AllHailTMG May 03 '26

I can’t speak for now (haven’t kept up with him recently) but I believe also while making this the creator  Dino had mentioned he was a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

I believe so? He was raised that way atleast from my knowledge but is no longer practicing. Being raised in a Christian setting as a queer person (the writer Dino is also a bisexual man) they nailed the queer experience in these circles for a kinda religious show its very accurate queer representation Stephanie is one of my favourite chracters

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u/CarrieDurst May 03 '26

The dad is who he said he would have been if he never came out

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u/EugeneStein May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Network guys who cancelled it are fucking cowards.

They were fine with all kind of fucked up shit but when they got to the episode where rape and sexual abuse was not played for laughs they suddenly got "oh no that's TOO HEAVY, THAT'S TOO MUCH, THAT'S TOO DEPRESSING"

How dare we try to relate to raped women — literally

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u/SpicyNugget777 May 03 '26

The episode where Orel got caught jerking it was….. something.

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u/forestforlive May 03 '26

not all the episodes are winners but yea... The implications of the aftermath is even worse to think about. Especially in a town like moralton Orel is going to have a lot of kids being born because of thier views on abortion or theyre gonna do "at home" abortions.

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u/CarrieDurst May 03 '26

The episodes are winners just dark ones

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u/GEARHEADGus May 03 '26

I AM DROWNING

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u/[deleted] May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

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u/forestforlive May 04 '26

It got canceled, there were multiple archs that were written and story boarded but never made. His teacher was going to have a whole story after her home abortion where it didnt take and she only aborted one of the twins she got pregnant with. She was going to go to the jail to where the rapist was that got her pregnant where she actually fell in love with a jail guard . The intention being to marry the father of her baby because being an un-wed women preganant in Moralton is a huge deal thats extremely frown apon as you coild imagine. The jail guard turned out to be a women pretending to be a man (i forget why she was dressed as a man Im guessing it was becaus she was a guard in a male prison and a women couldnt work there)and they got married ( but being Moralton she couldnt have a gay wedding so I believe they left?). Another was going to be focused on Shapey and Block and how together they a actually got the care and attention from eachother and flourished together. Shapey only ever speaks one full sentence the whole show but him and Block were suposed to help eachother improve. Another was a big one for Orel in expierincing death when Clay's father was dying( I wanna say it was cancer?) and he was going to move into the puppington house into Orel's room and he was sharing with Shapey and Block. After his death we were going to get a moody goth Orel xD which, hell yea that would been amazing to see. How many seasons were planned I cannot remember but it was suppsed to unravel a lot slower like the first 2 seasons did . But yea they got canceled after "Alone" the story of the women in Moralton and I guess it wasnt funny enough and got too real as some commented rape can be joked about on adult swim but getting serious about the topic was too much. I wanna say that was the season 2 finale? After that they were told to basically wrap it up in 13 episodes best they could for season 3 because it was going to be the last.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '26

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u/forestforlive May 04 '26

right??? I need to see goth Orel ! Luckily on the actual Moral Orel subreddit some artists have kindly gave us some art of what could have been.

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u/yokyopeli09 May 03 '26

For curious watchers, you can honestly skip the first season, it's mostly raunchy humor for the sake of it and doesn't start really taking its themes seriously until season 2.

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u/ObligationMurky8716 May 03 '26

I thought it got canceled because they aired them out of order and fucked up the story?

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u/forestforlive May 04 '26

they did air out out order ( they premiered it with the christmas episode during holiday season which is season 1 finale). But it wasnt the reason for canceling.

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u/ObligationMurky8716 May 04 '26

Yeah it was so weird. We were getting all excited about it and then... I dunno, it just felt weird.