Misused: Deus Ex Homine

There is a great deal of overlap between this trope and Deity of Human Origin, and both are at times mistaken for each other and misused. There is also the issue that, to my knowledge, there is no trope for humans or other such beings who become deities without creating a world, since the wording of both tropes precludes them. For Deity of Human Origin, the description for some reason requires the deity to have created a world, and in the case of Deus Ex Homine, the description says that humans who become gods don't count, and requires the creation to be intentional.

I propose we merge the pages and add do the "Type A-Type B-Both" thing, since there's many cases of man made deities that originated as mortals; notably Helios from Deus Ex who, last time I checked, was indexed on both pages despite technically not qualifying for either because of that odd wording. At the very least, these pages need a better description. Especially since almost all the examples on Deity of Human Origin underwent an apotheosis, but didn't create a world.

edited 29th Mar '12 10:51:21 AM by Archereon

Deus Ex Homine also has the problem of being snowcloned from Deus ex Machina (even if the Latin meaning is still correct in context)

Possibly, though there are a bunch of Deus Ex whatever tropes.

Deus est Machina for one.

Diabolus ex Machina

Maybe just roll all the examples together into Deity of Human Origin, and divide it into two types: Ascended mortals and Man-made gods, and remove the weird description text that precludes a ton of examples.

edited 30th Mar '12 10:27:12 AM by Archereon

Deus Ex Homine is a god created by humans, and Deity of Human Origin is a god that used to be human.

I think there is definitely a distinction since a Deity of Human Origin could easily have been granted godhood by other gods, while a Deus Ex Homine is always manmade and not necessarily human, for example Deus est Machina*

I think we need to rewrite Deity of Human Origin though. I don't really understand why you have create your own world to qualify for godhood.

edited 31st Mar '12 3:05:36 AM by Godnat

I agree on that last part. However, any case of auto-deification sort of qualifies for both tropes.

Either way, both need a rewrite.

edited 31st Mar '12 8:25:15 AM by Archereon

While any human that is turned into a god by humans is both a Deity of Human Origin and Deus Ex Homine, they are still two distinct tropes.

Edit: By the way, can you give some examples of misuse. I checked a few of the examples and wicks, and they all seem legit to me.

edited 1st Apr '12 1:07:40 AM by Godnat

All of the Elder Scrolls examples, Helios, arguably Madoka and Dr Manhatten...

All of those don't count due to not having technically created a world. So needs a rewrite maybe?

Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence or Godhood that fixes the current problems right? Madoka is very much that.

Anyone else read this as Homie as in you buddy fixes all the problems.... Lol.

edited 1st Apr '12 10:00:06 AM by Raso

I concur with the merge.

Also, we should not assume tropers speak Latin. Deus ex Machina is an established term in English; most of its Snowclones are not anywhere close to that, and many of them aren't proper Latin either.

And we should not assumed that it matters. Claims of not understanding should get evidence. Just sayin'.

Straw man; I didn't write what you say I did.

Then why does the fact that it's Latin matter? Because most people won't understand it, but if it's understood regardless, then it's not a problem.

That being said, I agree that a merge is in order.

If there is misuse, I would like to see some actual evidence of it. They seem distinct enough to me.

@7 I was talking about Deus Ex Homine. The description of Deus Ex Homine doesn't say anything about creating a world.

Slightly off topic, but I made a special efforts thread about Deus ex Machina snowclones in general.

@Raso: Ascended To A Higher Plain Of Existence is a form of being Put on a Bus according to that description, though it's frequently misused IMHO, and doesn't necessarily involve deities. As it stands, I really don't understand why these stupid restrictions exist in the descriptions. There's no reason for a Deity of Human Origin to be the creator of a world, and there's no need for a Deus Ex Homine to be nonhuman or intentional, since a Man-Made Deity of Human Origin is entirely possible, and there are conceivable cases of mortals accidentally creating a god (Warhammer 40000 for example).("You will soon have your god, and you will make it with your own hands.")

On a side note, I saw Numidium indexed on Deity of Human Origin several times, as well as other Man Made gods that should probably be on Deus Ex Homine. I'm starting to think that trope is the one that's being misused, and indeed, Deity of Human Origin does sound like a Man-Made God.

@Godnat: Well, the weird diction of Deus Ex Homine kinda forbids most of the examples on the page, even when they definitely belong there. I do recall a few cases of Deus Ex Homine being mistaken for Deity of Human Origin, and vice-versa. If we don't merge the pages, we definitely should rename both, right now DOHO's name could easily be misinterpreted as "man made god", and not everyone speaks Latin, so Deus Ex Homine easily could be (and has been) mistaken for "Ascended Mortal." Sine it's not possible to assign a Trope Repair Shop forum to two pages at once, and since I wasn't sure what exactly this problem counted as (we don't have an option for "badly written page" as far as I know), I made the thread the way it is.

edited 4th Apr '12 9:56:59 PM by Archereon

Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence was not a form of Put on a Bus last time I looked because we had to explicitly remove that because nobody cared about that part.

It is not a Put on the Bus trope, it could be one, many times its just a pseudo-death trope but it does not have to be.

Numerous examples it happens at the end of a movie as a Co MA ( Mass Effect 3, Star Trek 1, Madoka Magica, Persona 3, Ghost In The Shell, the first four I would count in this Deus Ex Homine trope.)

edited 7th Apr '12 3:35:25 PM by Raso

Ah. The description of the trope said it was a form of being Put on a Bus last time I checked.

That said, while many cases of becoming a Deity of Human Origin will be Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence, it's not guaranteed (Helios is a good example of this), and many examples of Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence are not cases of a Deity of Human Origin coming to be.

I still believe that there simply isn't enough of a distinction between Deus Ex Homine and Deity of Human Origin (mainly because most of the latter tend to also be cases of the former; I'd estimate about 60% of the gods indexed of DOHO were cases of Autodeification (which basically plays both tropes straight at the same time), or deification due to humans or other mortals.

Also, I object to Mass Effect 3 being put there. It only arguably happens in one out of the three endings (2 if you're pushing it), and it's Anything but an CMOA IMHO. To avoid a derail, let's just Leave it at That.

edited 15th Apr '12 7:06:05 PM by Archereon

Clocking due to lack of activity.

Crowned adjoined to thread.

Bumping this because the crowner needs more votes.

Bump for votes.

Bumping for votes again.

So how many votes do we need to delete Deus Ex Homine and merge the two pages together?