"Paul called out, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ At that, the lame man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates, because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them."
When people do something impressive, they are admired. When people do something amazing, they are revered. So what happens when someone does something so unbelievably awesomeazable that they are not only revered but worshipped? When that happens, they are frequently worshipped as a god.
A character who has been worshipped as a god is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Something they did has caused a person or group of people to see them as a deity, and now they are being worshipped, either as part of a larger pantheon or as a sole deity. The character in question may encourage or even come to believe it themselves, or they may find it bothersome and discourage it, but either way, they are part of a faith now.
It's important to note that the character does not start out as a god or god-like entity. Whatever caused them to be worshipped in the first place was relatively mundane by the story's usual standards, or at least within the realm of possibility, but for whatever reason, it resonates enough with those who witnessed or heard of it that they become venerated for it. The worship may, however, cause them to develop godlike powers, in which case Clap Your Hands If You Believe is in effect, and they become a Deity of Human Origin, frequently one who needs prayer badly.
Compare Unwanted False Faith and Stop Worshipping Me, where the character in question finds this attitude annoying and discourages it, and God Guise, where the character is mistaken for a deity without having done something to deserve it, and encourages this belief. A character (or object) has to have actually done something to deserve worship, and simply appearing impressive to the point where people assume they are a god does not count.
Folk Heroes are frequently subject to this due to the sheer amount of shenanigans they get up to over the course of their lives.
The Real Life term for this is Deification.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Cardfight!! Vanguard G: Jaime Alcaraz mentions that Soryuu Leon is worshipped as a god by the users of the Aqua Force clan for reviving it (more literally than they think, considering its previous state).
- The Sage of the West in Fullmetal Alchemist is revered for bringing the art of Alkahestry to Xing. He's actually van Hohenheim, the father of the main duo, and the art he taught them was alchemy. Alkahestry was a later iteration. Amestris has a similar figure, though, being mostly atheists, they consider him more of an important cultural and historical figure.
- Girls' Last Tour implies that this happened with the Eringi and the series of AI that help maintain the city. There are statues of both of them all across areas, particularly around towns and in front of what's revealed to be a graveyard, and a temple celebrating them was constructed some unknown amount of time ago. The Eringi act as a natural disposal service, eating anything with high energy (like weapons) or dead bodies; the AIs by contrast have existed for centuries and help maintain structures around their towers.
- Land of the Lustrous has this happen to protagonist Phosphophyllite. After helping the Admirabilis leader Ventricosus return to the ocean, Phos becomes worshipped by the Admirabilis species, and generations of estrangement leads to their part in returning Ventricosus deifying them in Admirabilis mythology. The agate given to Phos, which is eventually fashioned into artificial legs, also carries "the scent of the ruler", so no matter how long it's been since Phos has been in contact with Admirabilis royalty normal members of the species will instantly submit to the Gem.
Comic Books
- In Age of Bronze, Herakles is elevated for godhood for his herculean accomplishments before his death by wife. His exact accomplishments aren't shown, but they were presumably exaggerations of relatively mundane achievements (the series is big on Doing In the Wizard). Priam is also a biased narrator, as this is seen in a flashback to his sister Hesione being kidnapped by Herakles.
- Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds: After going to the 31th century and shockingly seeing his name as barely mentioned in Superman Museum, Superboy-Prime found some villains of the Legion of Super-Heroes, who admired him since decades and treated Prime as a god, since his past appearances were taken as feats for them, begging him to lead them as a League of Super-Villains against the Legion and even recruiting more villains from other two Earths.
- Darth Vader, in both Legends and Canon, became a figure of reverence in Tusken culture after he single-handedly slaughtered an entire camp of Tusken in a single night, not to mention that anytime he visits Tatooine he makes sure to take a side trip to let off some steam in the same way. The Tusken see him as a Destroyer Deity wielding a staff (since Tusken don't use swords) forged from Tatooine's twin suns, and sacrifice their own in his name.
Fan Works
- A Moth to a Flame: Marcy looks up to her Villainous Lineage, seeing her ancestors in the Wu Clan having taken down warlords like Gaius Julius Caesar, formed entire empires (including Newtopia and Imperial China), and shaped the course of human history for centuries all as magnificent things that she needs to emulate to become a Multiversal Conqueror.
Films — Live-Action
- King Kong. The title character is usually worshipped by the natives of Skull Island for protecting them from the island's many dangers (whether he intends to or not), complete with sacrificial ceremonies to placate him. Kong: Skull Island goes even further by Skullcrawlers, the "devils" to Kong's "God".
- In The Man Who Would be King, Alexander the Great is worshipped in Kafirstan for being an immensely powerful conqueror who came from afar and built wonders beyond anything they could accomplish on their own. The Lovable Rogue Daniel Dravot gets added to the pantheon after a bandolier he wore protected him from an arrow, causing him to come across as invulnerable.
Literature
- In The Bible, Paul and Barnabas are treated like gods for their preaching. They quickly shoot that down because of the whole first commandment thing.
- Chrysalis (RinoZ): Everyone agrees that Beyn's fanatical worship of the ants is overblown and tiring, but even level-headed characters like Enid have a hard time completely ignoring his point of view when the ants have acted like saviours, taking scattered desperate refugees and making them a strong, secure, self-sufficient community.
Anthony: [You aren't starting to buy into Beyn's rubbish are you? I am certainly not a divine messenger of any kind.]
Enid: [If you keep producing miracles at the rate you have been, I'm not going to have much choice am I?] - InCryptid: The Aeslin mice worship the Price-Healy family as their Animal Religion, and rely on their gods to protect them from larger threats, like dangerous predators and the Covenant. The human (and not-so-human) members of the family accept this as inevitable (as it's hardwired into the nature of Aeslin mice), though they themselves don't believe they have any godly powers beyond their skills (and in some cases innate magic).
- Star Wars Legends seems to love this trope.
- It plays a vital part in the New Jedi Order books. After Anakin Solo helped the Yuuzhan Vong Shamed One (dishonored outcast) Vua Rupaang prove his innocence, the word spread among the other Shamed Ones that a Jedi (or Jeedai as the word was corrupted into) had helped a Shamed One regain his honor. Soon after, cults started popping up that revered the Jeedai as savior figures who could redeem Shamed Ones. This was further encouraged by the prophet Yu'shaa (really the treacherous spy Nom Anor in disguise), who united the various cults into an entire offshoot of the main Yuuzhan Vong religion that saw the Force as the last breath of the creator deity, and the Jeedai as emissaries or avatars of their gods. For a few specific examples:
- Luke Skywalker became syncretized as an avatar of the Yuuzhan Vong War God Yun-Yammka after he slew the foul Shimrra.
- Jacen Solo, who converted the Yuuzhan Vong religion but returned to the Jeedai, became syncretized with Yun-Shuno, the goddess of forgiveness.
- Jaina Solo, another great warrior, became syncretized with Yun-Harla, the Trickster God.
- Tahiri Veila, a Jeedai who went through Yuuzhan Vong bio-augmentation, became associated with Yun-Ne'Shel, the goddess of nature.
- Ganner Rhysode, after fending off hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong to save his friends, and ultimately collapsing a building upon himself, was venerated as the Ganner, an invincible giant who guards the Yuuzhan Vong afterlife.
- Shimrra Jamaane was already worshipped as a messiah by the Yuuzhan Vong, but the Jeedai adherents saw him as a Dark Messiah whose vile actions caused the gods to send forth the Jeedai.
- In addition to the Tusken example mentioned under Comics, the Noghri of the The Thrawn Trilogy worshipped Vader as a savior due to an orchestrated disaster on their homeward that Imperial forces started in secret and quelled in the open, and later allied with the Republic once their realized that Leia was Vader's daughter and started following her out of a sense of religious obligation.
- It plays a vital part in the New Jedi Order books. After Anakin Solo helped the Yuuzhan Vong Shamed One (dishonored outcast) Vua Rupaang prove his innocence, the word spread among the other Shamed Ones that a Jedi (or Jeedai as the word was corrupted into) had helped a Shamed One regain his honor. Soon after, cults started popping up that revered the Jeedai as savior figures who could redeem Shamed Ones. This was further encouraged by the prophet Yu'shaa (really the treacherous spy Nom Anor in disguise), who united the various cults into an entire offshoot of the main Yuuzhan Vong religion that saw the Force as the last breath of the creator deity, and the Jeedai as emissaries or avatars of their gods. For a few specific examples:
- Attempted in the background of His Dark Materials: Reina Miti, queen of a clan of witches, had killed the sacred snow tigers of a Tartar tribe, and then refused their request to worship her, replying their worship didn't protect their tigers.
- Wings of Fire: Clearsight is worshipped by the dragons of Pantala for her protecting them with the ability to tell the future, which no Pantalan dragons could do.
Live-Action TV
- Highlander. While immortals are usually too powerful to qualify for this trope, the immortal in the episode "Little Tin God" actually gets worshipped specifically because they killed another immortal, and not for their immortality.
- Santa Clarita Diet, in season 3, has a cult that forms around Sheila formed from those she brought Back from the Dead.
- Shadow and Bone is set in Ravka, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Tsarist Russia where the predominant religion is something akin to the Eastern Orthodox faith without a Jesus figure; people instead worship figures known as Saints. After Alina's light powers are revealed to the public, the public starts seeing her as a living Saint because said powers could potentially destroy the nightmarish Shadow Fold that bisects Ravka. She finds all this attention and importance unwelcome.
- Red Dwarf: Lister is worshipped as the god of the cat people, Cloister the Stupid, after going into stasis to save his pregnant pet cat. By the end of The Promised Land, the cat people have started worshipping Rimmer as their god.
Podcasts
- In the fifth season of The Magnus Archives, a cult forms around Action Survivors Melanie and Georgie, since they have enough knowledge to evade the Fears and try to save all the people they can. Georgie in particular is viewed as some sort of Messiah because her supernatural experiences have left her literally unable to feel fear. They also dub Melanie "the blind prophet," which annoys her to no end, although she does play along and lie about having seen a vision of the world restored to normal, not wanting to rob the survivors of hope. In general, the ladies have a distinct "please quit calling us saviors" attitude, but can never quite shake the cult due to their genuine desire to help protect them.
Religion
- Ancient Greek hero cults worshipped people who were believed to be mortal heroes but had the power to intervene in the lives of their worshippers.
- Religion/Christianity has this with their saints.
Tabletop Games
- In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, Kragnos is an ancient, centaur-like warrior who has grown infamous for his strength, savagery and bloodthirstiness. He has crushed countless armies and civilizations in his time and seems to have become immortal, putting him on the edge of Deity of Human Origin, and as such has come to be worshipped as a god of war and earthquakes by the great hordes of orcish barbarians that follow him around in hopes of sharing in the slaughter and battle he brings with him. Sigmar also started out as this in Warhammer, but has since become an actual god, thus handily disqualifying him for this trope.
Video Games
- Assassin's Creed: The Isu were a race of ancient humanoids that ruled Earth eons ago, and were the original creators of humanity, whom they created to be essentially slave labor. Their society ultimately collapsed and was destroyed during an event called the First Catastrophe, and any remnants quickly died out, paving the way for humanity's rise to domination. Despite this, they came to be worshipped as the gods from the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons, in part due to the recordings, weapons, Pieces of Eden, and other aspects of their ancient, yet incredibly advanced technology and civilization that actually managed to survive well into the modern-day.
- Downplayed with the Jedi Consular in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The class companion Qyzen Fess, a Trandoshan who reveres the hunt, sees the consular as a herald of his goddess, the Scorekeeper, but this is less worship and more the Consular being favored by the goddess and thus a good person to follow around if you're looking to rack up points. Depending on player choices, the Consular can go on an ego trip, play along out of respect for Qyzen's faith, or deny it. Qyzen's faith does take a bit of a crack when the Consular is captured as part of the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, but by that point, they are close enough friends that Qyzen will follow them around anyway.
- In Warframe Ash was revered as the Patron Saint of Scoria, the political assassination school of the Orokin. He was held up as the epitome of stealth, efficiency, and form, with all members of the order wearing a black, ash-colored gem on their foreheads in reverence of him. Those same gems brainwash kidnapped children into being subservient to Scoria, and Ash became so fed up with it that he single-handedly annihilates the entire sect during the fall of the Orokin.
Western Animation
- Played with in Rick and Morty. When Rick tries to build a society for his children with the planet (It Makes Sense in Context), he dismisses the unproductive ones. Jerry Smith takes these Ricklets and is revered by them after he teaches them camping, leading to them developing a paleolithic society.
