Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional clergy and religious figures (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Cleanup and potentially moving can be discussed outside of AFD Eddie891 Talk Work 12:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

List of fictional clergy and religious figures
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Fails LISTN, largely unsourced and without RS discussing the topic as a whole list. There are so many millions of characters in books, TV, plays, and movies who hold so many types of jobs and do so many things. It is not the encyclopedia's job to attempt to catalogue such non-notable charactors – many here are very minor characters with no significance and no relation or comparison to others. Reywas92Talk 07:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Reywas92Talk 07:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Reywas92Talk 07:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 08:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Of the top of my head, there's Father Brown; Brother Cadfael; William of Baskerville; Friar Tuck; Deacon Vorbis; Brian; &c. But does the topic pass WP:LISTN?  Of course; here's a selection of sources:
 * Saints, Clergy and Other Religious Figures on Film and Television,
 * Jane Austen and the Clergy
 * The Established Clergy as Depicted in English Prose Fiction
 * Religion and the Clergy in Boccaccio's Decameron
 * Shriven Selves; Religious Problems in Recent American Fiction
 * The Priest in Fiction: A Comparative Study
 * Godly and Righteous, Peevish and Perverse: Clergy and Religious in Literature
 * Breaking the Fall: Religious Readings of Contemporary Fiction
 * Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction
 * Mysterium and Mystery: The Clerical Crime Novel
 * And notice that these are all books and I could easily have kept listing such sources. It really doesn't get any more notable than this.  So, as this topic has been nominated before and was kept, this seems to be a clear case of WP:DELAFD, "It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hope of getting a different outcome."  See also Proverbs 26:11.
 * Andrew🐉(talk) 11:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Will you piss off about always complaining about disruption? A second nom THIRTEEN years later is certainly "a reasonable amount of time to pass", NOT disruptive, and perfectly allowed. Reywas92Talk 17:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * KEEP The blue linked ones are notable, and the list serves a purpose by aiding in navigation. Not sure about the rest on the list.   D r e a m Focus  11:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete: While this list references instances of fictional portrayals of religious figures in various media - some famed and recognisable, others not - this list does not provide notability nor does it satisfy any purpose. Whiteguru (talk) 11:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Weak keep A list of notable fictional religious figures such as the ones Andrew mentions above would make for a useful, encyclopedic list; the list as it stands now does not. If this list is kept I would say it needs a major restructuring to include only the characters where there exists some sort of scholarly analysis of their roles in the story, how they represent their religion, etc. That list could help readers understand the role of religion in fiction, rather than just attempt to list every single fictional religious figure ever, which is useless and indiscriminate. Rhino131 (talk) 12:05, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep, but Cleanup - As stated above, there actually are plenty of sources that discuss the concept of fictional religious figures, and there are some notable examples, so a list would actually be a useful navigational tool on the topic. That said, this current list needs to be massively culled and cleaned up, and relegated to the actual notable examples that either link to their own articles, or have sources to demonstrate they have some notability.  Additionally, even a lot of the blue links here need to be examined and removed, as I'm seeing a lot that do not actually fit the criteria of the list (Homer Simpson being a missionary in one episode does not make him clergy, Caiaphas and Annas are historical figures that happened to have been portrayed in fiction, etc.).  Rorshacma (talk) 15:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I removed the 90% of the list that were passing appearances and otherwise non-notable characters, limiting it to characters with their own articles. This obviously has no relation to the search results above, which could be the basis for a Clergy in fiction prose article, but of course does not discuss the indiscriminate list "as a group or set". The short list of completely unrelated notable fictional religious figures is still neither encyclopedic, a useful navigational tool, nor containing worthy sourced analysis. Reywas92Talk 18:33, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:LISTN. The topic is discussed as a group or set in any number of reliable sources. pburka (talk) 20:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:LISTN The list helps readers navigate. Wm335td (talk) 19:05, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment A subject like this is better covered in an actual article, not a list. Move to Clergy and religious figures in fiction and remove all the cruft.★Trekker (talk) 17:51, 25 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.