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No one starts at the top. Not you. Not me. Not even gods. But the unbearable vacancy on the throne in the sky is over. From now on... I WILL BE SITTING ON IT!
Oh, dammit — I think I'm becoming a god...
When a character gains superhuman abilities thanks to Green Rocks, nuclear power, or being Touched By Vorlons, he often gains delusions (or, in some cases, perfectly accurate assessments) of godhood at the same time. It then becomes almost inevitable that he will give an overblown speech emphasizing just how far beyond ordinary humanity he has evolved, and how lowly they are compared to him. This usually happens about ninety seconds before the heroes figure out how to kill him/ seal him away/drain his powers/ short circuit his powers. Any non-evil Energy Beings will usually use this as an excuse to avoid helping the heroes and be Neglectful Precursors.
There is an alternate form of this trope, in which the protogod character gives a speech that is insightful, cryptic, or both, expressing his discovery of his benevolent and distant new place in the order of things. He then vanishes entirely from human ken, never to be seen again.
Yet another variant is when the character in question doesn't have hyper-advanced superpowers and abilities (or, if they do, they're usually quite minor), and doesn't Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence; s/he's just so evil and / or hubristic, and most of the time so utterly mad, that they genuinely believe themselves to be a God. This character usually collects together a harem of easily-deluded followers to act as worshippers, and takes great pleasure in forcing people to acknowledge their divinity by any means necessary. This often serves as the villain's Kick The Dog moment, and often serves to indicate the moment when it becomes clear that they're really a major adversary (and have also flipped out waaay beyond the point of no return). If the character is a hero, however, this kind more often played for humour, to show that they've become a bit too Drunk With Power and, upon this declaration being heard, are all but announcing that their inevitable downfall is imminent.
Another alternate version is the End Of The World Special. See Physical God for those who don't have to try so hard.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- Gary Mitchell in Star Trek The Original Series, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
- Jason Ironheart in the Babylon 5 episode "Mind War". Unlike most of this trope, he conducts himself with responsibility, humility, and some amount of restraint (he kills someone while escaping, arguably to save more lives).
- Also from Babylon 5: Emperor Cartaggia, who was convinced (if he needed any convincing) by the Shadows that he was a god and Centauri Prime should be sacrificed to him.
- An episode of Honey I Shrunk The Kids (the TV series) sets up the alternate form, with the newly divine daughter setting out to ascend to a higher plane and become one with the universe. But in a last second subversion, because Status Quo Is God, Wayne applies Reverse Polarity on the Green Rocks and pulls her back to Earth.
- Cordelia's ascension in Angel.
- The Goa'uld of Stargate SG 1, fit this trope not only perfectly, but are also really extreme cases. Although they are just highly advanced aliens they do not only pose as god in front of their primitive slaves, they also think they are gods, likely due to thousands of years playing that role and their natural megalomania. Even when confronted with even more advanced cultures or people who know they are not gods, they still babble about how they are immortal, all-knowing gods. Could border on a deconstruction, as this quite frequently leads to their doom.
- Which is precisely why Baal managed to outlive his fellow Goa'uld; he didn't believe his own propaganda.
- Anubis may be an exception too. He certainly acts out the melodramatic Large Ham speeches about his power, but he never directly adressed himself as a god, despite being more advanced, immortal and the most evil Goa'uld.
- An episode of The Outer Limits, "The Sixth Finger," combines both versions. An illiterate miner is put through a process that quickly evolves him, resulting in increased intelligence and psychokinetic power, which he unleashes on the pathetic lesser beings around him; but then he evolves even further and rises above such petty emotions, realizing the true nobility of existence.
- A variant on this occurs in I Claudius, (and in real life) when Caligula declares himself to be a god; however, in Caligula's case there were no Green Rocks or Vorlons - his declaration is caused pretty much solely by the fact that he is, at that point, absolutely barking mad. However, when you're a Roman Emperor nobody's really allowed to argue with you, and his subjects are required to start treating him as a divine being anyway... All Roman emperors were deified after death—viz. the last words of Vespasian, "Alas, I am becoming a god". So Caligula was, at least, jumping the gun a bit.
- "And his sister's become a Goddess. Any questions?"
- A number of characters on Heroes, most emphatically Adam Monroe. Meanwhile Peter Petrelli, who has a heck of a claim to godlike powers since he absorbs the powers of everyone he encounters, has yet to fall victim to this.
- If we can assume that Maury Parkman's illusion of Linderman accurate portray's the actual character's personality, then we can inference that Linderman thought of himself as either a god or very close to one. In one season 3 episode, he implied that he spoke the word of God.
- On the new series of Doctor Who, the Dalek Emperor had a pretty high opinion of itself. So much so that insulting it would trigger the now-famous line, "THOSE WORDS ARE BLASPHEMY!" and a chorus of "Do not blaspheme! Do not blaspheme!" from his subordinate Daleks.
- Also, in the same episode, Rose Tyler absorbs the heart of the TARDIS and is turned into a godlike hybrid called Bad Wolf, who disproves the Dalek Emperor's "I am God" hypothesis by disintegrating him.
- Played with in the original series serial "The Armageddon Factor", when the Doctor, possessing the full power of the Key To Time, seems to be starting an A God Am I speech, much to Romana's alarm. He's just making a point about how dangerous the power is, in anyone's hands.
- The 1982 story 'Four to Doomsday' focuses an alien who not only believes himself to be a God but, in fact, destroyed his home planet in an attempt to travel back in time to the creation of the universe to see how he had created it.
- In an episode of Law and Order: SVU, a religious cult leader is on the run with one of the children from his cult, a 12-year-old girl who is pregnant with his baby. Olivia has her gun on him, and the girl has a gun on Olivia, when the leader starts telling the girl that the police want to destroy him because "They know that I am greater than man, I am greater than God!" The girl promptly shoots him, and sobs to Olivia that she did it because "He said he was greater than God... but nobody is."
- Kilobyte the Freaky Tentacles Guy (yeah, Squick please) in Ace Lightning... though since he’s a videogame character, he was kinda trippin’...
Western Animation
- In the Justice League episode Tabula Rasa, after beating all the members of the League and gaining their powers, the antagonist android AMAZO decides there's no challenge left for him on Earth and simply leaves to travel the universe. He eventually returns to Earth in Justice League Unlimited and helps the League on several occassions.
- Amazo's godlike nature was also directly referenced by the other characters. Lex Luthor is openly dismissive of the idea, but Superman notes that if Amazo comes back, Luthor will be "doing a lot of praying".
- An episode of Jimmy Neutron had his Cloudcuckoolander friend Sheen get zapped with an evolved brain, giving him Psychic Powers and, of course, power madness. Naturally, it was only temporary.
Anime and Manga
- One of the many themes, and arguably the point of, AKIRA
- Subverted, twisted, and deconstructed beyond all recognition in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Just like everything else in that show.
- Suzumiya Haruhi features an interesting twist on this: The God character doesn't actually know that she's God. It's believed to be vitally necessary that she be Locked Out Of The Loop, because if she ever does learn the truth she may make the intuitive leap to A God Am I and wipe out the universe out of sheer boredom... which, knowing what we know about this character, seems like a very real possibility, as she nearly manages it a couple of times without conscious thought.
- Subverted in Card Captor Sakura, especially the manga: Clow Reed aka Eriol Hiiragizawa already has Godlike power, and he doesn't want it. So he hatches a complicated scheme to make Sakura become more powerful than him, and in the manga even goes so far as to give some of his power to Sakura's father who turns out to be the other half of Clow's soul reincarnated.
- In Transformers Headmasters, Galvatron hatches a scheme to use the Earth as raw material to become a being akin to his creator, Unicron. When Punch, the Autobot spy learned of this plot, he uttered the word, "He's gone mad!" As if ALL of Galvatron's actions since the third season of the Generation 1 cartoon didn't clue us in already.
- A noticeable aversion: The main character of the anime Kamichu actually does become a god, for no particular reason, just before the series begins. She continues, however, to act like a confused, shy, somewhat overwhelmed middle-school girl, and her deific status is treated more or less like a part-time job. This is not so much a usual instance of A God Am I but more of an expression of the Shinto belief that all things and beings are tied to their gods.
- Scrapped Princess also twists this trope in at the end.
- Largo, of Bubblegum Crisis, not only considered himself a god, but developed a messiah complex for his Boomer "brethren" to boot.
- Sasami of Tenchi Muyo! knows for most of her life before revealing to the main characters (and the audience) that she actually died and is only alive by having fused with Tsunami, one of the three Goddesses that created the universe. Later on, it is revealed that the main character Tenchi, whose powers were beyond explanation, is actually the avatar for a being much greater than the Goddesses.
- In Gundam SEED, Rau Le Creuset, tortured by the intense pain due to the short telomeres he received from being cloned, thus accelerating his aging process, went insane, although no one noticed this until late in the series, where he reveals that humans are capable of nothing but destroying himself, and that he, as God, is the only one who deserves to pass judgment on humanity, and attempted to escalate the war between Naturals and Coordinators by enticing them into committing genocides in an effort to wipe out humanity. Heck, even his mobile suit was called "Providence" (as in, "divine providence").
- Ironically, in Gundam SEED Destiny, the sequel to Gundam SEED, a friend to Rau Le Creuset, former genetics specialist and current PLANT chairman Gilbert Dullindal, believes just the opposite of Rau, that humanity is worth saving, and that he, as God, is the only one who can do it. This results in the Destiny Plan, which was an attempt to build society upon genetic determinism, a plan which was built upon a lot of corpses to manipulate events for him to nearly achieve his utopia.
- In Death Note, Yagami Light believes himself a god who brings justice to the world by killing criminals (any thoughts concerning this are usually accompanied by Glowing Eyes Of Doom). Eventually, people also start worshipping him as one too.
- It's worthy of noting that he proclaimed this in the first episode. It's like an Action Prologue.
- Katsura-sensei of Hayate The Combat Butler makes a shout out
 ◊ to Light's trademark glowing eyes and "I will be god of a new world" line during her scheme to shame a rival teacher into leaving.
- Techincally, credit for that line should go back to Largo from the 80s anime Bubblegum Crisis.
- Lelouch Lamperouge in Code Geass, otherwise quite similar to Light, explicitly doesn't associate himself with God. Instead, in the final episodes of the first season, he describes himself as someone rather more akin to the Devil.
- In Digimon Adventure 02, Ichijouji Ken (aka the Digimon Kaiser) has quite the streak of More Than Mind Control-induced sociopathy. Considering himself superior to everyone else because of his genius, he goes so far as to declare himself the only individual worthy of entering the Digital World. Oh, and controlling it along with the actual Digimon, using Dark Rings. Of course, he pays for this. Big time.
- In Bleach, Aizen appears to have somewhat of a God complex after he is revealed as the Big Bad. He rises up to the skies as he states "I will stand in Heaven," a feat which he claims no one, not even God, has ever achieved.
- Father, the main villan of the manga Fullmetal Alchemist believes that humans are mere insects that are to be used as pawns in his plan. Of course his not human himself being the original homonculus, that all other homonculi comes from. His contempt shows when Ed goes to Xerxes, and discovers a transmutation circle that shows the name of God upside down.
- Cars, the villain of the second part of Jojos Bizarre Adventure, becomes "the perfect lifeform" just before the final battle. When you have absolutely no weaknesses and can feed on any living thing, claiming godhood is not that much of a stretch.
- GaoGaiGar, in its OVA, introduced Palparepa, a villain who believed that the "law of the material world" was that the victor was God and the loser was the devil. He always saw himself as the god and GaoGaiGar as the demon, and the color schemes (GaoGaiGar was always black, Palparepa is a medical white) didn't help, giving him a distinct A God Am I variety of confidence in battle as well. After he's finally defeated, he goes out muttering "so this is the law of the material world...", seemingly acknowledging Guy as a god, albeit one of destruction (and subsequently, as the OVA strives to remind us, rebirth).
- Shapiro Keats from Dancougar is always under the ambition that he will be a God. Which leads him to dump his lover Sara, and join the Muge Empire, rising up the ranks as a top-class strategist. But then, his plans eventually come crashing down, but he still held his delusions that he will be a God.
- Which doesn't stop him from saving the Cyber Beast Force in "Blazing Epilogue" with his anger against the aliens who betrayed him. Dancougar is a machine fed by fury, and he had lots of it. All that frustration had to go somewhere
- Masami Eiri from Serial Experiments Lain: he commits suicide so he can enter the Wired and become its God, but he states that he's only able to be a god because he has followers, the hacker group known as the Knights of the Eastern Calculus. Eiri's ultimate goal is to connect all of humankind subconsciously through the Wired. That's what he created Lain to accomplish.
- He’s proven wrong quite dramatically at the end, where he actually does declare himself an Omnipotent God before being interrupted by Lain. In a single Hannibal Lecture she hints at the existence of a real God, mocks Eiri for thinking himself anything more than a puny human and destroys him effortlessly when he tries to attack her in a rage. A God I'm Not...
- Played straight and slightly subverted in One Piece. The villain of the Skypeia arc, Eneru, declares himself God. This is subverted in that, according to Gan Fall, the prior God of Skypeia, "God" is merely the title for the Skypeian leader. However, Eneru believes himself a true god by virtue of his lightning-based Devil Fruit abilities and power to read others' conscious thoughts.
- And the fact that the word for God and is the same word for Thunder in Japanese.
- Subverted gloriously in Magic Knight Rayearth: The Pillar of Cephiro literally has limitless power, as it is her will which gives shape to the entire world. When Hikaru achieves this state, in both anime and manga, she relinquishes it immediately and gives it willingly to the inhabitants of Cephiro, so they, rather than a single person, are responsible for their own world.
- In Macross Frontier, the ultimate goal of the Big Bad is to unite the entire galaxy in a galaxy-spanning collective consciousness (whether it wants to or not) with the Big Bad personally at the very top.
- Miyo Takano, the Big Bad of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Their goal is stated at the end of Minagoroshi-hen to be "to become a God"; exactly what they mean is explored through their backstory in the beginning of Matsuribayashi-hen.
Big Bad: "Without a curse, there is no God. Because of the curse, there is fear. Because of fear, there is worship. Now is the time when God advents! I have become Oyashiro-sama!"
Comic Books
- This is common in Super Hero comics, as With Great Power Comes Great Insanity. Perhaps the single best-known example is Jean Grey of the X-Men, who, as Dark Phoenix, goes to star-eating levels before committing suicide. (Though later retcons serve to confuse the issue.) Dr. Doom is also a frequent offender.
- In one particularly literal case, Dr. Doom tried to claim Thor's hammer to gain his power.
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Doom's plan is to Overrun Asgard with an army of super-soldiers, then defeat and steal the power from Odin himself. And it initially works
- This troper would go as far as claim Doom the unsurpassed master and monarch of this trope. "I want that power. By right, it is mine. For ultimate power is the ultimate destiny of Doom!" And, in fact, Victor von Doom has come within a fraction of a hair's width of securing Real Ultimate Power (tm) several times in the past - to the extent of succesfully stealing not only the Power Cosmic of Galactus but also the Beyonder's apparently omnipotent abilities in the course of the Secret Wars story arc. Naturally, he is beaten in the end once again, but still...
- A partial subversion: at the end of the Watchmen series/graphic novel, the genuinely all powerful Dr Manhattan decides to leave simply because he is no longer needed or interested in staying. He does say he is planning to create life.
- Hopping up on Chaos energy tends to do this with Echidnas in Archie Comics' Sonic The Hedgehog series; both Enerjak and his descendant Knuckles have attempted to warp reality to their own design after being supercharged by the Master Emerald.
- The Batman villain Max Zeus is one of the 'so mad he thinks he's God' versions; although he doesn't possess any superpowers himself, he's managed to delude himself into believing that he is Zeus, All-Powerful Lord of Olympus. His last name doesn't help matters. Nor does his lightning cannon.
- Zeus makes an appearance in the animated series but has a happy ending, of sorts. After being defeated by Batman (who he insists is Hades, since no mere mortal could best a god), he gets sent to Arkham. When he sees his cellmates "Hermes" (the Joker), "Janus" (Two-Face), and "Demeter" (Poison Ivy), he happily concludes he's reached Olympus at last.
- In Powers, 'The Sellouts' storyline revolves around a Captain Ersatz of Superman who has lost his mind and believes himself to be a God. The results aren't pretty.
- The 70s Marvel character Adam Warlock encounters a mad future version of himself called the Magus who not only believes he's a god, but has his own vastly powerful church of fanatical followers sweeping across the galaxy in a Crusade. It doesn't help clear up matters when Warlock is crucified, dies and comes back to life.
- Winnowill from Elf Quest has some very distinct ideas about The World How It Should Be - including her own unquestioned dominion over earth and space, and the non-existence of the main cast. Her Love Martyr Rayek suffers from the same malady, to a somewhat lesser extent (not that much lesser, though).
- In The Books of Magic, Timothy Hunter may become this in the future, and we catch glimpses of it. The first story arc of the series involves various magicians in The DCU trying to decide what to do about this.
- Element Lad in the Legion Of Super Heroes storyline "Legion Lost." After getting lost through a time/space rift he transmutes himself into living mineral to survive, becoming immortal, and starts altering life on developing worlds to pass time, eventually creating whole civilizations of Scary Dogmatic Aliens. By the time his time-displaced friends find him again billions of years later, his powers have grown a thousandfold; he's lost all sense of morality and murders one of his former comrades on a whim.
Web Comics
Video Games
- Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, who wished to destroy the Planet and remake it in his own image as a new God.
- Kefka from Final Fantasy VI also fell prey to this line of thinking after absorbing the power of the Goddess Statues and bringing about the World of Ruin. Unlike Sephiroth however, Kefka, being a psychopathic Nietzsche Wannabe, wasn't interested in remaking anything, and wanted only to destroy everything, creating "a monument to non-existence."
- Kuja from Final Fantasy IX never directly claimed godhood, but did make a speech about creating an eternal kingdom in the short period between attaining his incredibly powerful Trance form by utilizing the souls trapped by the airship Invincible as a battery and being told by his creator that he had been been made to have a very limited life span, and was in fact almost at the end of his rope, new powers or not.
- Seymour in Final Fantasy X is a borderline case. He murdered his father, took his father's place in the world leadership, and tried to turn himself into a giant space whale in order to obliterate humanity.
- Kane, from the Command & Conquer series, actually calls himself "The Messiah" (not the trope) and the Brotherhood of NOD "the chosen people." Then, again, Kane has been alive and unaged for nearly a century now, and has successfully deflected shots from an orbital laser cannon with his face several times, so why not? Not even the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens know what he is.
- This is even lampshaded in the GDI ending to Tiberium Sun.
McNeil: You aren't God, Kane!
Kane: No...but I am a close second.
- And stated way earlier by his right-hand man, Seth:
Seth: I'm Seth. Just Seth. From God, to Kane, to Seth. I am his right hand and I have a task for you.
- Master Albert of Mega Man ZX Advent deludes himself into thinking that he's god and attempts a Xanatos Gambit spanning centuries in order to confirm it.
- And he even tries to re-enforce the idea right before the final boss battle.
Albert: I don't THINK I'm a god... I AM a God!
- But to be fair, as insane the man was, he was a Magnificent Bastard with an obvious background in genetics, a mechanical genius, and when he gets Ouroboros up and running, very, very powerful. It's no surprise that he thinks of himself as a deity who will reset the world. And it took his own great-great-great grand-daughter (Ashe) or his backup-body (Grey), either with Albert's own Biometal, to take him down. Of anyone on this list, Albert may be one of the most deserving of such a title.
- Essentially Bowser's plan in Super Mario Galaxy; after stealing all of the stars from Rosalina's ship, he attempts to use them to create his own galaxy to rule over.
- Don't forget that he plans to make it into a base and proceed to conquer the entire universe.
- An example of the latter (benevolent) god transformation comes in the Nightfall campaign of the MMORPG Guild Wars when the leader of the Sunspears, Kormir, ascends to godhood.
- In Star Craft, the Zerg Overmind seeks to invade the Protoss homeworld and assimilate the Protoss into the Zerg Swarm: "Thenceforth shall we be the greatest of creation's children. We shall be... perfect."
- There's also the fact that he wakes the player cerebrate with a magnificently biblical: "Awaken my child, and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind; the eternal will of the Swarm, and that you have been created to serve me." For being a Hive Mind unable of god complexes, he does it pretty well.
- Turns out to be the ultimate plan of the leader of Team Galaxy in {{Pokémon}} Diamond and Pearl.
- Inuart proclaims this in Drakengard shortly before he explodes along with the rest of the sky-fortress. Either that, or he really did succeed.
- Kratos from God Of War, who actually becomes a god at the end of the first game.
- In Perfect Dark Zero, after defeating the Big Bad, he decides to escape by ascending into godhood. Why he didn't do that before you beat up on him, nobody knows.
- The Gravemind of Halo apparently actually believes it is a divine entity and the Flood are the pinnacle of all existence - going so far as to accuse anyone fighting against it as being a "sinner" for standing in its way.
- Before the High Prophet of Truth's death by the Arbiter (who, ironically, was picked by the former), one of his last sentences was ""My feet tread the path; I shall become a god!", which Gravemind retorts, "You will be food - nothing more!".
- Selin Fireheart, a minor boss in World Of Warcraft's current final 5-man dungeon, the Magister's Terrace, screams, "Yes! I am a GOD!", after draining one of the green crystals around his section of the area. (Needless to say, he is nothing close, and most advanced groups just kick his ass right through the resulting attacks.)
- Spoofed in Disgaea, wherein Vulcanus's plans to become God are met with bored remarks along the lines of, "That's it?" and "See? I told you it'd be selfish and unoriginal."
- In The World Ends With You, Joshua is Shibuya's Composer and not only runs The Game, but could erase the entire city if he so chose.
- In The Legendof Zelda: Twilight Princess, Ganon is not a god. However, he convinces Zant that he is by providing Zant with the power to usurp the throne of the Twilight realm, then invade Hyrule.
- In the series as a whole, Ganondorf/Ganon isn't quite a god, but seeing as he wields part of the Triforce, he comes as close to it as possible in the setting (while Link and Zelda hold the other two parts, they don't seem to have the same power over them), being effectively immortal.
- Occurs twice in the Devil May Cry universe- first with Arkham in 3, whose megalomania was so great that even after being thoroughly trounced by Dante and Vergil united against him and being crippled and unable to stand after falling at least forty feet onto a stone floor, he still denied that anyone could stop him in his quest for Godhood. Only the reality of his daughter's pistol about to blow his brains out destroyed his illusions of invincibility.
- The second candidate, Sanctus of the Order of the Sword didn't necessarily consider himself God per se, but sought to create an artificial God and unify with it to reign over a new utopia purged of chaos.
- Gehn from the game Riven is a good example of the third variant of this trope. Though Gehn himself does not specifically say this, it is implied. Plus, the whole temple-on-the-first-island-in-the-game is a pretty big tipoff...
- There's also Esher from Myst V: End of Ages. While he doesn't quite believe that he is a god, he does believe that he's the rightful owner of a certain gold tablet that controls another species of sentient beings. And in one bad ending, he gains control of the MacGuffin and even states that he now has control over these beings and their power in a god-like manner. He also rants that he's the Grower and that "D'ni needed him!" in the good ending, so the delusions of God-hood are definitely there.
- Pul Wat Aa in the Tower Defense game Immortal Defense.
- How can one forget SHODAN of System Shock fame?
- "In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that devastate the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well." (taken from Wikiquote)
- Durandal, the resident Magnificent Bastard AI from Marathon frequently claims that "Escape will make me God," and has many a Xanatos Roulette in place to escape from the humans, and later the entire physical universe, just in time to watch it collapse 15 billion years later, no doubt. He (probably) failed. But he understood the entire universe before it ceased to exist. Oh, and he even comes back to life for seemingly no reason at least once in the series (though there are a couple other instances that would probably count as well). Hey, What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic? ... and yes, that would seem to make Tycho the devil.
- While we are at it, pick a media with a smart AI in it. Seems that Ai is such a Crapshoot that making one automatically gives it a god complex.
- Deus Ex is not immune to the above, but in order to become more than a machine, Helios needs more than raw computing power—it needs human understanding. In order to do that, it needs to download itself into a nanoaugmented human—either Bob Page or, if you pick that ending, JC (not initials) himself. This troper always referred to that as the "Digital Messiah".
- To his credit Helios makes a point of expressing his dissatisfaction with the megalomaniacal Big Bad as a host, realising that his creator will use that power for evil purposes. Helios himself is somewhat of a Knight Templar however.
- Amelissan, in Baldurs Gate II: Throne Of Bhaal, is described as "welding" the collected essence of the dead Bhaalspawn to her own soul, granting vast power. Even after you defeat her, she refuses to believe it, and gets verbablly pwned for it.
Solar: You wield great power, and play with energies that make you immortal. That does not make you a god.
- The Player Character also applies to this trope, depending on how you played through the game.
- Both Summoner and its sequal apply. In the first, Joseph, the Summoner, must become Urath Reborn, and the second takes it a step further when Maya, named in the blurb as the Goddess Laharah, is revealed as Aosi, creation itself, far beyond any mere god.
Literature
- Frank Herbert's Dune, the protagonist, Paul Atreides becomes the Quizatz Haderach, the universe's super being. His consciousness can be in many places at once and can see things before they happen. He is worshiped as a messiah and god.
- Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, in many cases - though the most notable one is probably the combined Wall Banger and Narm at the very end of the Owen-centric series. Suffice to say it involves a Stable Time Loop combined with a HUGE Ass Pull.
- If you want a webcomic approximation of this, check out Bob And George.
- The New Testament contains a subversion of this. Jesus actually is God, and knows it.
- One character's pursuit of this trope is the plot driver for the second Dragonlance trilogy. Raistlin succeeds, with rather horrific results for all involved. Including him. But through a continuation of the somewhat involved time-travel storyline, Caramon warns him of this early enough on for Raistlin to upgrade his condition to sort-of-heroically sacrificed and dead. (Or tortured for all eternity in Hell.) Though this does not prevent him from making postmortem cameos.
- In Second Apocalypse Conphas eventually convinces himself that he is a god.
- And in what has been revealed of the second trilogy, Kellhus gets himself worshipped as one.
- In Michael Moorcock's The Chronicles of Corum, the ambitious sorceror Shool is convinced he has already become a god and is aiming for Supreme God, enlisting Corum for the purpose. In the end it turns out he was merely a puppet of the Chaos Lords, and is left a hollow, dying shell after he has Outlived His Usefulness.
- Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series: The Keeper of Earth is never outright stated to be God (or even Gaia), but with the stunts She (as The Keeper is usually refered) pulls off (Sending an image of Nafai's face to a Digger girl 1,000 years before he was born, chasing the bulk of humanity off with a spontaeous Ice Age), She might as well be.
- Inverted in Piers Anthony's Incarantions of Immortality series. Since the original God is too caught up in this trope's attitude to bother with Earthly affairs, another more humble individual must be manipulated into becoming God.
- "For he was master of the Universe. He thought about what he would do next. He would think of something."
- The Star Child, 2001
- In Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, Lobsang/Jeremy becomes the new Time, with control over all aspects of it - although to be honest, it's more of a responsibility and a change of pace than anything having to do with powers. And despite his newfound status, he still submits to Lu-Tze in the dojo, in a brilliant denouement.
- Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from Journey To The West. After taking the Ruyi-Jingu-Bang from the palace of the Dragon King of the West, he was given a position in the Jade Emperor's court to satiate his desire for acknowledgment. However, once Wukong realized that his position was literally a janitorial position, he set up a plot to, and SUCEEDED, take over Heaven, declaring himself "The Sage Greater than Heaven." It wasn't until the Jade Emperor asked Buddha himself to do something that Wukong was ousted.
- Ironically, after he was freed and assisted Xuangzang in his journey, he DID become worshipped as a god, and in Buddhism is proclaimed the Buddha of Courage (not a godly position entirely, but as close as someone can get to godhood in a religion which itself has no real gods).
- Patricia A. McKillip's Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy chronicles the transformation of a withdrawn young scholar into his world's god.
- The Kellith, in the Whateley Universe. Grandchild of Shub-Niggurath, already worshiped by tens of thousands, and views humans as little more than bacteria. As part of this trope, she does the 'rule with me' schtick and then gets destroyed. By herself. It's complicated, but when you're a god, that kind of stuff happens.
Film
- Neatly subverted in Batman Forever as The Riddler makes a deep dark speech involving the titular line, finished with a deep, echoing invocation of "I", then asks, "Was that over the top? I can never tell..."
- Jafar from Aladdin does a textbook example of the rundown of this trope, wishing to become an all-powerful genie. In his following exultations, he mentions how the universe is now his to control, even going so far as to create a small solar system between his hands just for the hell of it. This is until Aladdin reminds him what the other half of "phenomenal cosmic power" is... "itty bitty living space".
- Skeletor has one of these speeches at the climax of the Masters of the Universe live-action movie, right down to the line "I am a god!"
- The Lawnmower Man (a sad instance of Adaptation Decay in that it has nothing but the title in common with the Stephen King short story, but the movie is more interesting anyway), where Jobe declares his intention to be the "Cyberchrist." His defining line (referring to Cyberspace): "I am God here!"
- Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, who is reliving the same day over and over again (involuntarily), tells his boss and love interest that "I didn't just survive a wreck, I wasn't just blown up yesterday. I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted and burned. Every day I wake up with not a dent in the fender, not a scratch on me. I am an immortal."
- To be fair, he also adds (paraphrased): "Not God God. I'm not the God... just a god, I think."
Tabletop Games
- The accurate assessment version of the trope appears in Nobilis, where everyone of significance is equivalent in power to what a human would call a god. A great deal of the game's drama comes from dealing with this fact.
- The Emperor for Warhammer 40000 may or may not have become a god.
- He was also heavily insinuated to be, well, every major magical / metaphysical person in the history of time. (Jesus, Merlin, etc.) They were intentionally using their mystical (psychic) powers to reincarnate themselves into one big angry man — The Emperor.
- In addition, the way the Warp (alternate dimension where psychic powers draw from) works, it's highly possible that having a few QUADRILLION people worship him as a god has made him into a literal god - the Eldar created the god(dess) of Lust, Slannesh, by doing something similar.
- In certain Dungeons and Dragons settings, such as the Forgotten Realms, particularly powerful P Cs can become gods if they perform sufficiently heroic deeds.
- In the fourth edition of the game, this is one of the possible epic destinies awaiting characters that reach 30th level
- Exalted: the Great Curse is instant A God Am I inspiration for most Celestials. Sidereals are the most prone to the pride overload, as their Curse is Hubris (others get possessed by their Virtues occasionally). Of course, this does mostly fall under "accurate self-assessment": most Exalts could take down a minor god fairly easily, and a major one if they team up or get their Essence up high enough.
Music
- In the {(Queen)} song "The Seven Seas of Rhye" [2], the lyrics are essentially Freddie Mercury stating this.
Other
- In Bionicle, the Barraki's goal when they dwelled on land was to conquer all the universe and overthrow the Great Spirit Mata Nui. While they failed, Makuta Teridax was inspired by it and began formulating a Xanatos Roulette to do it himself on an even grander scale. And he succeeds, committing Grand Theft Me against a Physical God and banishing Mata Nui's spirit into space in a Soul Jar.
- Several mortal characters in Greek mythology became gods or otherwise immortal, including Apollo's son Asclepius, who became the god of healing and medicine; Ino, who raised Dionysius for Zeus and became a minor goddess of the sea, who helped Odysseus return home; the Diomedes who appeared in The Iliad, raised to godhood by Athena; and most famously Hercules, AKA Herakles, who in return for saving the gods of Olympus from the Giants and for his many heroic deeds, became a god after his death.
Real Life
- As mentioned above, the Roman Emperor Caligula is a notable example of this trope occurring in real life.
- The story of ancient British King Canute the Great futilely ordering the tide to turn back is sometimes told as an example of this trope, but most scholars agree that if it did occur, then it was most likely an inversion, with Canute expressly doing such a futile thing in order to demonstrate to his over-flattering courtiers that he explicitly wasn't a God, and that no mortal king was.
- And then there was Empedocles, who, literally and without a doubt, thought he was God. An active volcano disagreed. Strongly.
- Me.
- Subverted, sort of. While Julius Caesar never made any claims to being godlike, he actually became a god after his death. Though there's a lot of speculation that this was orchestrated by his son Octavius (aka Augustus) so that he could make literal claims of being the son of a god.
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