A God Am I

He's got the whole world in his hand.

Because you are haughty of heart, you say, 'A god am I! I occupy a godly throne in the heart of the sea!'

—The Bible, Ezekiel 28:2

When a character or villain gains superhuman abilities thanks to Green Rocks, nuclear power, Transhumanism, going One-Winged Angel, being Touched by Vorlons, or just achieving whatever his dream is, he is left less than sane and often gains delusions (or, in some cases, perfectly accurate assessments) of godhood at the same time.

He will often give an over-the-top speech emphasizing just how far beyond ordinary humanity he has evolved, and how lowly they are compared to him. Cue the villain becoming a Narcissist who is Drunk on the Dark Side or declaring that they will Take Over the World.

This guy is very likely to be brought down by his own Hubris, though. Especially if he declares himself God right in front of a real God.

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.

The character may declare that he has transcended morality as well, and is Above Good and Evil, but the tropes do not have to coincide.

Aiming for godhood by rewriting the rules of the world is In Their Own Image. Another alternate version is the End of the World Special. See Physical God for those who don't have to try so hard. May, but does not always result in a God Mode Sue. Having a sovereign ruler do this makes the character a God-Emperor. Also, see It's All About Me for a similar trope, minus the declaration of godhood.

See also One-Winged Angel, Smug Super and Dark Messiah. Not to be confused with God Guise. Contrast with A God I Am Not, where a genuinely godlike being refuses the label to avoid the implications; Stop Worshipping Me!, where a deity doesn't want to be venerated as such; and Pro-Human Transhuman, where a post human remains sympathetic to humanity. Also see Like a God to Me, which is when a character declares someone else godlike but only out of flattery, not as a statement of serious worship.

Note that this trope requires a self-proclamation of godhood. Possessing or gaining godlike powers by itself doesn’t count, nor is it a requirement to possess such powers to qualify for this trope.

Examples of A God Am I include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Death Note, Light Yagami believes himself a god who brings his own form of justice to the world by killing criminals with a supernatural notebook (all thoughts that concern this usually being accompanied by Glowing Eyes of Doom in the anime). He proclaims his godhood in the first episode and is generally consistent in this. It's like an Action Prologue. Eventually, people also start worshipping him as one too, especially Teru Mikami, who always calls him "God". Near eventually calls him out on this:

"You yielded to the power of the shinigami and the notebook and confused yourself with a god."[1]

  • Fist of the North Star is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where guns have ceased to exist. Martial arts masters who do not walk the path of righteousness will fall victim to this mental-illness and proceed to build an empire of blood, tears and tyranny.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler: Katsura-sensei 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.
  • Akira: this trope is a major theme.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gendo Ikari, combining this goal with Love Makes You Evil (he wants to make himself and Yui God), and is more explicit at the God part in the manga. He fails at trying to become a Physical God, however. Shinji and Rei do succeed in it, but unwillingly. Also part of Yui's plan. Probably. Due to the nonsensical cosmology of this world, it's relatively easy for a Human to become any sort of God, since they already have one of the pieces needed. It just depends on how much of a God they become, and the ultimate version has potentially absolute control over reality, metaphysical concepts, and the ability to create new Universes at will. Maybe. We don't actually know, to be honest.
  • 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 words, "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.
  • Kamichu! contains a noticeable aversion: The main character of the anime 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.
  • Tenchi Muyo!: Kagato desires to acquire the power of the Juraian Royal Family and reign over the entire universe as its god. His name actually means "I am god who is man".
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Rau Le Creuset, rants about him being the one to judge humanity which has done horrible deeds (especially in the last days and also to him. The whole concept is emphasized by his Providence Gundam as in divine providence. Though, it's not based on any god-like powers of his or the like.
    • His friend Durandal in the sequel Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny thinks of himself more as a High Priest (stated in series by Mu [maybe?]) of his new world order than a god.
  • Ribbons Almark of Gundam 00 believes himself to be far superior to any living being in existence, and feels that justifies his desire to conquer all of humanity. Then again, he is an Artificial Human.
  • Code Geass: Lelouch Lamperouge, 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.
    • One of the trailers for the series release (in English, at least) even makes reference to this, using the line: "If you could change the world, would you be a god or a demon?"
      • The series itself seems to subvert this trope when it comes to Lelouch. As the series goes on, he fully embraces the image that he is The Devil incarnate, while the rest of world believes that he thinks of himself as a god. The title of the first episode, when translated without Bowdlerization involved, is "The Day the Devil Was Born". Better examples of this in the series include Schneizel (mentioned below) and to some extent, Charles and Marianne.
    • Lelouch's brother Schneizel develops a sudden god complex himself in episode 23 of R2, and ends up nearly killing Cornelia because of it. He intends to use Damocles' arsenal of FLEIJA nukes to rule the world by forced peace. Lelouch foils his plan and Geasses him to serve Zero.
  • 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. He pays for this. Big time.
  • Bleach: Aizen has an extreme god complex, claiming that he alone can "stand in Heaven" and become something even a god could only wish to be. He even built a sky with artificial spying abilities and used the Hougyoku to try and break the boundary between the shinigami and the divine before Ichigo stopped him.
    • Second Espada Barragan proclaims himself the "God of Hueco Mundo"... Right before he gets disintegrated by his own attack. So much for that idea. Though his opponent who turns the attack against him notes that perhaps this is the only way to kill a god.
    • Yukio in later chapters has now declared himself to be a god of his game dimension...only for him to be quickly beaten by Hitsugaya.
  • Father, the main villain of the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist, believes that humans are mere insects that are to be used as pawns in his plan. He's not human himself, being the original homunculus that all other homunculi 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 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, becomes "the perfect lifeform" just before the final battle. When you have absolutely no weaknesses and can feed on any living thing by touch, 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.
      • That's if you don't assign the Blazing Epilogue OAV to Canon Discontinuity for ignoring most of the established characterizations and relationships from the original series. And the fact that Shapiro is supposed to be dead....
  • 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...
      • He's declaring this to a girl who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. And probably immortal. Oh the irony...
  • 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 (kami) is similar to the word for thunder (kaminari) in Japanese. A fact he puns on by introducing himself with "Ore wa Kaminari" which can mean both 'I am Lightning' or 'I have become God'
  • Subverted in Magic Knight Rayearth: The Pillar of Cephiro 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!"

    • Keiichi too. In the arc where he tries to save Satoko from Teppei, he survives and thinks he has godly powers, because every person he said who died, died. The village, a reporter, and Takano. However, it was a coincidence, and Takano actually went Faking the Dead.
    • Less seriously, in the first Visual Novel, everyone was playing a card game at the game club. Keiichi was winning almost every card game, and started calling himself a god. Even when it was four to one, Keichii was winning, and was mentally boasting the entire time. Hubris Ensured
  • Slayers Revolution: Zanaffar in episode 13:

"Everything, from gods to demons, I was created to surpass them all! ... And if my numbers keep growing, ... I will be able to consume even the gods!"

  • Naruto
    • Pain, the leader of Akatsuki thinks that his suffering has made him enlightened and his power made him God. It's not entirely unjustified. Though, it's worth noting he means more in a Shinto/Buddhist sense of a god rather than the omnipotent Christian one (in short he doesn't have any illusion that he's invincible).
    • Tobi is a bad boy. Madara's ultimate goal is to essentially brainwash everyone into not fighting and then set himself up as a leader.
    • Black Zetsu verges on this, declaring boldly "I am the Land!"
  • Happens (arguably) to two characters in RahXephon. The first (and arguable) one is after Ayato fully awakens. The second is when Bahbem watches the tuning of the world. In Ayato's case, as he just merged with the RahXephon and REMADE THE WORLD, this isn't an unjustifiable assumption.
  • Creed from Black Cat does this after he uses nanomachines to become immortal. He tells Sephiria that her death will be the result of her opposing God (in other words, him). In a rather comedic moment, Creed explains to Train that he can recover from any life-threatening wound in a few seconds except for damage to the brain. Train promptly supplies that makes him more like a zombie, to which Creed angrily replies that it makes him a god.
  • Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix: volume Future, has main character Masato Yamanobe fill the role of God. Masato must begin the evolution of Earth anew when the current world is devastated by nuclear war (and it is hinted that this isn't the first time life on Earth has been obliterated). Masato doesn't want to be god and in fact tries to discourage the people he helps create from thinking of him in that way. The real god of the story is the eternal Phoenix, who gave Masato his power and immortality in the first place.
  • Claire Stanfield from Baccano! doesn't need superpowers to convince him that he's God - he's just a Badass Normal solipsist.
    • It turns out that Claire Stanfield's god complex is hereditary, as his great-grandaughter Claudia has much the same worldview.
  • Mirai Nikki has twelve already mentally unstable individuals empowered with precognitive diaries and made to battle each other; the winner will become God once the other 11 are dead. As a result, it's probably easier to state which one of the diary holders do not suffer from this to one degree or another.
    • Ironically, The Hero who ends up WINNING.
  • The exact opposite also occurs: Dragon Ball features our green Namekian friend Kami. As you all know by now, that's Japanese for "god". Though he may be called a god, he has higher-ups in heaven and is infinitely weaker than all bad guys in Dragonball Z.
    • Dragonball Z: In the first Broly movie of the series, Broly is able to single-handedly beat down everyone. This includes (All of which are SSJ) Goku, Gohan, Trunks, and Vegeta. After Vegeta gets beat a second time, Piccolo appears to (at least try to) save the day. He looks at the damage, and then at Broly.

Piccolo: "What are you, some kind of monster?"
Broly: "Monster? No...I'm the Devil." (In the edited version this is replaced with "I AM A DEMON!")

    • Freeza shows vibes of this during his eventual Villainous Breakdown, completely unwilling to accept that he lost to a "monkey" such as Son Goku.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann this can be used to describe the power of those who have access to the higher levels of Spiral power. Lordgenome acts a lot in the fashion of a god-like king and the Anti-Spiral have taken such a position concerning the whole universe dedicating themselves to protecting it.
    • Even the good guys get in on the act to a degree: Chouginga/Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann is described as being able to take on the gods themselves.
    • You can even argue that this trope regarding the heroes is subverted and defied at the end of the series. Simon could have ascended to god-status easily and permanently; at a certain point one might assume this will be the case, considering the amazing power he and Team Dai-Gurren have amassed. But instead, Simon refuses to take that role; Yoko and he even give the opposite of the "A God Am I" speech: "Simon isn't God, Gimmy." / "I'm just Simon the Digger." (He had his reasons, though it's a very controversial end.)
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX gives use several. Kagemaru wishes to harness the power of the Mythic Demons/Sacred Beasts to "become the God of the world" and restore his youth. Saiou, possessed by an Eldritch Abomination, wished to cleanse the world and remake it in "the image of light." Yubel wanted to fuse all twelve dimensions into one, and rule over them with Judai. Amon Garam wants to become the god of the alternate dimensions. Duelist of the week Frantz, who dueled using a copy of the Winged Dragon of Ra, merged with Ra using its special ability:

Frantz: Now you will respect me, you insignificant little insect! I don't have an Egyptian god, I AM ONE!

  • Rex Godwin in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. He tries to Take a Third Option in the Signer vs Dark Signer war that has been going on for millennia by losing to a Dark Signer on purpose to become a Dark Signer himself, then grafts his brother's amputated arm with the fifth Signer mark onto his own stump of an arm. The end result is that he becomes a Signer and a Dark Signer at once, planning to use the Dark Signer's power to destroy the world, then use the Signer's power to remake the world in his own image.
    • ZONE in the most recent season is apparently also a "God of Destiny" ( being able to change the past and all that).

ZONE: Yusei Fudo, though you may have come this far with the intention to cut open the future with your own power...everything has merely traveled along the rails that I have laid out. To you, I am the equivalent of a God. [...] In order to change the future, Zero Reverse was caused and your lives were changed dramatically. You were orphaned, living in Satellite, and then rose up to the challenges in the WRGP. However, that victory was only a means to call out the Ark Cradle. [...] Do you understand? The meaning of me being your God? And if a God decides to take a path of destruction, then no one shall defy it.

  • Fushigi Yuugi: Nakago.
  • Ayashi no Ceres: Shiso. Sort of.
  • Director Kakuzawa in Elfen Lied wants to be the father of the future generations of the Diclonius race so that when it replaces humanity he'll be worshiped as their god. This doesn't work out well for him in the end, as it involved the cooperation of Lucy, who decided to kill him instead.
    • Moreover, his own status as a Diclonius turns out to be based on the racial myths of his once-persecuted, very Human family. Lucy's evolutionary offshoot has no connection to his clan whatsoever, as Lucy tells his corpse.
  • Played with, but ultimately averted in Ranma ½]]. The final Big Bad, King Saffron, is a Winged Humanoid with traits of The Phoenix—namely, he can fly, generate incredible heat (one of his attacks is named "Instant Empire Annihilation Blast"), regenerate, and resurrect himself after dying by turning into an egg and hatching as a baby version of himself. Although he has sufficient power he could conceivably be considered a deity (at least a kami), he is never referred to even by his human opponents as a god. Fanon, on the other hand, calls him a god all the time, presumably due to early fan translations. And then there's Rouge, who was Cursed with Awesome at Jusenkyo to transform into an Ashura version of herself. This gives her fire breath, lightning bolts, flight, and superhuman strength and endurance... additionally, an Ashura is also a literal god/demon of mythology.
  • Played with in The World Only God Knows, where the protagonist is a god...of Dating Sims. Which is actually a good thing for the plot.
  • Knives from Trigun, eesh.
  • In Berserk, Emperor Ganishka takes a stab at this, but Griffith really gets it done.
    • In the bloopers the voice over guy has a mental breakdown and becomes convinced that he is God when he finds out they've finished the last episode.
  • Theodore Dudek in King of RPGs wants everyone to play Role Playing Games constantly. Yes, you guessed it... he wants to be the Game Master! Shesh's reaction and the last line illustrate this is a parody, but it's still a good example.

Theodore: Well, yeah... but it's sorta more then that. I want everyone on earth to play role-playing games constantly! To play them like breathing! Imagine a world where everyone is completely absorbed in their own fantasies! Better yet, my fantasies! I want to create an imaginary world that everyone dreams of being a part of! A grand illusion with me as the Game Master, adored by all! Games are about control! And when I have that control...I will reign over a new world!

  • Hardner from Rave Master. Interesting in that the ultimate Big Bad, Lucia, doesn't seem too concerned with anything godlike (sometimes). It's more like Lucia's Sinclaire wants him to have this sort of mentality.
  • In Angel Beats!, after the SSS manages to oust Angel from her Student Council Presidency, gets Naoi Ayato to succeed her; in all respects, he is this trope. Though it becomes much more humorous after his Heel Face Turn
  • In Psyren, the Big Bad Amagi Miroku claims to be "the god of a new world." Also, Usui leads the people of Neo Amakusa who view him as one.
  • Fairy Tail gives us the Exceed, an entire race who view themselves as this over the humans. Happy turns out to be part of this race.
  • The Mage from The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, once he became an unfettered psychic and hammered the Earth, then did it again in a different time/dimension a dozen more times.
  • In A Certain Magical Index Accelerator is subject to a program to raise him from Level 5 to Level 6. Needless to say, it fuelled his God Complex and his mania to be the most feared esper of all.... That is until Touma punched him down to size....
    • Accelerator is interesting because he doesn't particularly want to be a god. He doesn't want to take part in the program, doesn't want to be a Level 6, or even an esper. He hates fighting. But he's decided that the only way to stop the fighting is to reach the point where "even thinking of challenging me would be a sin."
  • Still in A Certain Magical Index, Kamijou Touma is considered so powerful by the magic side that Fiamma of the Right himself wants the right hand of Touma, assuming he is "La persona superiore a dio" or "person superior to God". Touma may be so powerful that even Aleister Crowley wants his hand.
  • Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Byakuran can also be placed here, going as far as to kidnap Uni for her soul so he can activate the tre-ni-sette to create a new world under his rule.
  • Rosario Plus Vampire: Kamiya Kanade calls himself God. As a siren, he really did win the Superpower Lottery, but his delusions of godhood come to a crashing halt at the hands (or rather, voice) of Sun Otonashi, an even more powerful siren whose song causes his body to crumble to dust.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke Urameshi had a moment like this when it turned out that he's really an uber-powerful Youkai, shouting "Kneel down and worship me, you insects!". Subverted in that he immediately reveals it to be an immature prank and says that they should have seen their faces. Which was itself a strong indication that he hadn't changed.
  • Full Metal Panic!: Happens twice in the novels, after Kaname Chidori becomes possessed by Sophia, the original Whispered. The first time, in Semaru Nick of Time, just before Sophia takes over, she resonates with Kaname and she claims that: "If a God exists, then we are that existence. You are the entirety of the three Moirae. Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos." The second time it happens in the second part of Zutto Stand By Me, when Sophia/Kaname thinks that there is no God, no help coming from anywhere, only herself and the machine she had created to change the world.

"However, if the three Fates would be born from human technology, she would become all of them - Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos at the same time."

    • It's worth mentioning that most people loyal to Leonard Testarossa seem to think the same way about her, considering her and Leonard as Gods that would make their sad pasts go away, and give them a new, better life in return.
  • Yasako begins seeing herself as the goddess of the civilization growing on her face in one episode of Dennou Coil. It was...an odd episode.
  • This trope is the main reason why Kyon, Yuki, Mikuru and Itsuki spend so much time, effort and stress to keep Haruhi from finding out she is a Reality Warper
  • In Kamichama Karin, the titular character's magical girl form is that of an actual goddess. Her transformation Catch Phrase is "I am God".
  • Zeus in King of Thorn, who manipulated the Medusa in Shizuku, and gave himself some nifty abilities in the process. He also orchestrated a lot of things in the plot, and is a giggling asshat.


Comic Books

  • Explored in Solar Man of the Atom.
  • This is common in Superhero 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.) Doctor Doom is also a frequent offender.
    • In one particularly literal case, Dr. Doom tried to claim Thor's hammer to gain his power.
    • Doom is 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 successfully 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...
      • After Mark Millar's run he gained god-like powers at a level strong enough to kill a Watcher. Still, it's possible that all writers will quickly forget about it.
    • Storm was also worshiped as a goddess by African tribes when she was young.
  • Another X-ample with Apocalypse, who claims to have masqueraded as various gods during his millennia-long life. In the '90s cartoon, he delivers a great line to Graydon Creed: "I am as far beyond mutants as they are beyond you!"
    • And later, the returning Selene has made it very clear that she was now aiming straight at godhood. Well, not before making her enemies suffer and pay for having impeded her.
  • Wolverine narrowly avoided this during Lost in the Funhouse. After being imbued with the power of the issue's MacGuffin, he briefly revels in the thought of what he could do - before realising that if he starts using it, he'll never be able to stop and end up like the villain of the issue.

"I'm talkin' like God...only I ain't God. That was Horde's trip."

  • Hopping up on Chaos energy tends to do this to 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.
    • In an alternate reality's future, Knuckles did succeed in altering the world as he saw fit, crushing all real resistance with ease and tearing out the souls of the most talented opponents (main cast included). However, in a twist of irony, he became so bored without a challenge he let the Freedom Fighters continue to exist for entertainment value.
      • And then, in an aversion of this trope, he has his power taken away and absorbed by his daughter, who doesn't let it go to her head, but instead intends to use the power to undo the damage Alt!Knuckles did before giving the power up.
      • Knuckles is almost the most susceptible to this trope, he fell into this again during his stint as Enerjak.
    • In a non-Echidna example: Feist is essentially God within the Special Zone, and anyone who goes there has no choice but to abide by his rules.
  • 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.
      • Also, Ivy used the name "Dr. Demeter" in an earlier episode.
  • 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.
  • In the Planet Hulk storyline, the Red King claims to be God in the flesh while fighting the Incredible Hulk in a mecha suit, yes it was a mecha...then the Hulk got really mad and strongly begged to differ.
  • During the end of Peter David's run on Marvel's Captain Marvel, Genis, the then-Captain, became Cosmically Aware and empowered. He was driven mad by being suddenly conscious of every event and being that existed throughout the universe at once, then subsequently went about erasing all of reality within a meager few pages. Reality gets better later, though. He later goes on to harass preachers and Asgard in an attempt to force his self-declared godhood on the rest of the world.
  • Ironically subverted during "The Korvac Saga" in The Avengers. Korvac, a supervillain, accidentally gains cosmic powers and knowledge... and, realizing humanity is at the mercy of uncaring cosmic beings, decides to help free the universe from them. Unfortunately, he is tracked down by The Avengers (who had no idea what had happened to him) and is exposed, ruining his plans. In the end, he commits suicide out of despair. This story has been retconned later to make it seem that Korvac was still villainous and that the Avengers were right in opposing him, but anybody who reads the original version can clearly tell that wasn't the case.
  • Even though (Depending on the Writer) the New Gods aren't really gods per se, rather being highly advanced aliens, the New God Darkseid has always held himself to be a dark god in the flesh and is indeed worshiped as such by the people of Apokolips. He is the unquestioned ruler of his planet, has highly advanced powers and the only opponent who can stop him even temporarily is Superman. In the animated series, when Supes manages to beat Darkseid in battle, his followers pick him up and help him.

"I am many things, Kal-El. But here, I am God."

  • Every other appearance by Thanos has him stealing an artifact or power source that gives them godlike power. This was most obvious when he acquired the Infinity Gems.
  • Thunderbolts #120: Norman Osborn loses his shit, resulting in the following exchange;

Swordsman: "You can't treat me like this! I'm a baron!"
Green Goblin: "I am God!"

  • The Skull of Earth X has the power to control the minds (or at least bodies) of every human being on Earth. Not surprisingly, he declares himself to be God. Ironically, he's more of a pawn of the "real" gods of the setting, the Celestial Host.

Skull: "You wouldn't even eat if I didn't remind you to. Fall down. You wouldn't bathe if I didn't get sick of your stink and make you. I'm God."
Captain America (comics): "Then I'm Nietzsche."

    • Mar-Vell gains omniscience in the sequel. Yeah, there you go.
  • A... different example was Snowflame from New Guardians, a villain whose power source was cocaine. After snorting a massive amount of it, he declares himself "a true god"—never mind that he has made it expressly clear that he worships cocaine itself as his god. But, then, cocaine and logic haven't always been the best of friends.
    • In some traditions there are deities or deity like beings that do worship the higher god in the pantheon. But yeah, a villain whose power source is a drug probably is just insane.
  • Hiro-Kala, teenage son of Hulk, gave us a really badass example, telling a whole army that:

Hiro-Kala: I am the chosen, progeny of Hulk the Green Scar and Caiera, shadow mother of all Sakaar. I am he of shadow, the life-bringer and world-breaker. Upon my planet I was known as Hiro-Kala. You will come to know me as GOD.

  • Rughal in The 99 attempted to become godlike by absorbing all the knowledge of the noor stones. It didn't end well.
  • In Sonic the Comic this happens twice to Robotnik. The first time, in the "Robotnik Reigns Supreme" storyline, he manages to absorb the power of the Chaos Emeralds and has reality completely at his whim until he gets outwitted by Sonic and drained of his powers. Much later he is hooked up to an alien machine supposed to drain the life force out of the planet and into his body, which gives him a brief moment of god-like powers until he is defeated again.
  • Toyed with in Watchmen, as, when Jon experiments with creating life, he becomes more god-like than most of the examples on this page, and yet he pointedly avoids thinking of himself in such terms.
  • Blume, the giant floating head from Green Lantern, tries to pass himself off as a "God of Hunger" so he can con aliens out of their valuables. The trick doesn't work very well on Larfleeze.
  • In one two-part story in Captain America (comics), the Red Skull obtains the Cosmic Cube and becomes this. He demonstrates by making himself a suit of golden armor and generating a Mook for Cap to fight. Eventually, Captain America knocks the Cube from the Skull's hand, and the Skull presumably dies diving into the water after it.
  • Borderline example: Evil Kryptonians like General Zod tend to see themselves as above everyone due to their incredible power. At least Zod is Genre Savvy enough to realize some people can threaten them, urging his Mooks to learn decent fighting skills and battle tactics.
  • In a Marvel UK Transformers Generation 1 story, Galvatron fits a massive energy collector to a volcano and keeps telling everyone present that as soon as he absorbs all the energy, he'll become a god. He fails, but just barely.
  • In Superman: Godfall, Lyla manages to drain a portion of Superman's power into herself, and she quickly goes to Metropolis and demands worship. She is quite surprised when the people don't comply.
  • Thankfully averted by Superman, who never thinks that his powers should grant him privilege and worship. Batman does note while observing Superman lifting up buildings that it's sometimes hard not to think of Clark as a god—and that people are very lucky that Clark never does.
  • A Chick Tract had one of these—an approximately 8-year old boy deciding he was a god after his mother explained to him the point of atheism—thus, he thought that if there is no god, he could become one. Straw Atheist? What else do you expect from Jack Chick?
  • The Scarlet Witch attained godlike powers for a time, which naturally proved highly detrimental to her sanity. Birthing children with an android probably didn't help.
  • Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja: Alfie O'Meagan often proclaimed himself to be the most powerful and most generous being in the universe. Justified in that he's a Reality Warper Psychopathic Manchild.
  • In Action Comics, Lex Luthor merges with a Phantom Zone entity and becomes a massive godlike Energy Being. He uses his new power to halt entropy in all of existence and grants everyone immortality and eternal bliss while reveling in his godhood and flaunting it in the face of Superman. Then his Loisbot informs him that the zone entity made sure Luthor couldn't do anything negative with that power such as killing Superman. He can't refrain from trying, and so squanders his power in self-destructive pettiness.
  • Doctor Destiny from The Sandman when he briefly acquires one of Morpheus' artifacts. He actually does manage to cause mass chaos in both the real world and the dream world, and almost destroys the dream world entirely... until he accidentally gave the Lord Of Dreams a Power-Up.
  • Two words. Emperor. Joker.

Fan Works

To understand everything important there is to know about the universe, apply that knowledge to become omnipotent, and use that power to rewrite reality because I have some objections to the way it works now.

  • There are fanfiction roleplayers who fall under this trope. They really love God Moding, even if it's a huge annoyance to others. Can you say "Mary Sue"?
  • In The Shape of the Nightmare to Come, Cato Sicarius becomes this after becoming the ruler of Grand Sicarium, previously known as Ultramar.
  • In Divine Blood, this is averted as Tessa Testarossa became the first Ainur more about ensuring the psychological and spiritual survival of her people against things like this fic's version of Kodachi Kuno and to serve as a message to the Gods and Demons that humanity can't be pushed around anymore. She still insists on being kept in the normal chain of command and suggested that having a full Ainur division would be a mistake and point of vulnerability.
  • In A:TLAR, the interpretation of the Avatar (of the series Avatar: The Last Airbender) is a bit different. The Avatar Spirit is er, was a resident of the Spirit World that aspired to create a physical world that would teem with life. Once it had crafted the earth and humanity, it blessed humanity with a genetic trait that would allow a being to manipulate the molecules of elements, otherwise known as bending. The gift of bending divided humanity into four peoples that were isolated from each other, the Air, Water, Earth and Fire civilizations. It selected one airbender to be its host, so that it could teach the Air people the principles that it believed humanity needed to be taught. Once its host had died, it began a cycle that continued for generations by choosing to inhabit one of the Water people next, then one of the Earth people, and lastly one of the Fire people. Once this cycle had finished, it repeated itself. After each cycle completion, the role of the Spirit is taken over by the soul of one of the last generation's hosts, i.e. after the first cycle, the spirit of the first air host became the new Avatar, then after the second cycle, the spirit of the second water host became the Avatar, etc. Although the Spirit is a full-on Reality Warper, the hosts are not. The hosts can only have limited access to the Spirit's massive power reservoir by going into the Avatar State, which can only be achieved by severing all of one's earthly ties, also known as the Transcendence ritual. Beings that take the role of the Spirit and have undergone Transcendence have difficulty relating to entities of the physical realm, which can eventually go from bad to worse as (Foreshadowing) the Spirit loses all empathy for humans and embodies A God Am I. Problem is that theory is jossed by canon.
  • Although he doesn't actually gain any godly powers, Calvin seems to believe this in one long insane spurt in Calvin and Hobbes The Series:

"I SWEAR ON ALL THAT IS HOLY THAT I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE! I WILL! I'M THE GOD! I'M THE GOD! AAAAAAHHH—"

  • In the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic/Discworld crossover Binky Pie, Pinkie Pie ends up inspiring a "Church of the Pink Pony of Death" while helping as Death's new assistant. Since Gods Need Prayer Badly is in full effect on the Discworld, Pinkie Pie eventually ends up ascending to godhood. Complicating matters is the fact that she had previously been standing in for Death after he got trapped in Equestria due to a magical mix-up...
  • Ponies Make War: Ignoring the fact that most of the main villains and one of the protagonists are actual gods, the story ultimately has a subversion of this trope in the case of Twilight Sparkle. After tapping into the full power of the Elements of Harmony, she becomes a Physical God so powerful that only Titan himself is able to knock her down -- and she is horrified by it, deciding that nopony should have that much power.


Films -- Live-Action

Neo: I don't want to hurt you.
Train Man: Don't you get it? I built this place. Down here, I make the rules. Down here, I make the threats.
Train Man: *punches Neo into the back wall*
Train Man: "Down here... I'm God.

  • Frankenstein (1931 film) (1931): One of the earliest examples. After Henry's famous "It's alliiive!", when he goes on to say "Now I know what it feels like to be God!" Originally, that part of the line was cut because the censors said it was blasphemous (which it is). It was cut off by a thunderbolt; the full line wasn't restored until 1999, 12 years after most of the other excised scenes were restored in full.
  • Batman Forever: Neatly subverted, 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!"
  • Aladdin: Jafar 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 (has nothing but the title in common with the Stephen King short story), where Jobe declares his intention to be the "Cyberchrist." His defining line (referring to Cyberspace): "I am God here!"
  • Groundhog Day. After reliving the same day over and over again, and attempting suicide in a vast number of different ways, Phill eventually concludes that he's God, then tentatively adds, "Not the God. Just a god." Lampshaded by the character himself when he explains logically why he's come to this conclusion.
  • Street Fighter: At the climax, Bison (now mad with power) delivers the following line as he goes One-Winged Angel on Guile.

"Something wrong, Colonel?? You came here expecting to fight a madman, and instead you find a god?

After kicking Guile's ass for the next couple of minutes, Bison delivers one of the hammiest lines ever recorded.

"You still refuse to accept my godhood? Fine! Keep your own god! In fact, now might be a good time to pray to him! For I beheld Satan as he fell from heaven! LIKE LIGHTNING!"

Considering he's directly paraphrasing Luke 10:18, he's probably not just claiming godhood, but that he is the Christian or Abrahamic God Himself.
  • In the Mouth of Madness: Sutter Cane, the reality-rewriting author claims to have become god sometime after completing his latest work, and proves it by turning the world blue.
    • However, his true purpose was as a servant to all manners of Cosmic Horrors and Eldritch Abominations, assuming everything in the movie wasn't a figment of the main character's imagination, or part of a meta-gambit by John Carpenter. (Yeah, it's that kind of movie.)
  • Bruce Almighty features a mortal (that's Bruce!) who is granted divine powers for as long he wants. Bruce, being a flawed and limited human, ensures that mistakes are made. The trope is deconstructed since Bruce does not use his powers for any greater jobs than teaching his dog to urinate into a human toilet and advance his reporter career by creating amazing events to report. But by doing even such pathetic things he still manages to make big problems for himself and everyone, and manages to lose his girlfriend because she prefers normal Bruce. So God must take his place back and fix everything in a snap using same powers.
  • Xerxes in 300 claims himself to be a "God-King".
  • Trunchbull in Matilda is pretty frank about this:

In this school... I...AM...GOD!!!

  • Spider-Man: The Green Goblin/Norman Osborn in the first movie seems to fit this bill. "There are eight million people in this city. And those teeming masses exist for the sole purpose of lifting the few exceptional people onto their shoulders. You, me? We're exceptional."
  • From Caligula: "I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a god."
  • A particularly creepy example shows up in Gothika when Dr. Grey discovers the torture dungeon that her late husband used to rape and kill his female victims in. As she watches one of the videotapes that he shot in which he just finished molesting another woman he walks up to the camera, adjusts his tie, and states "It's good to be God. I love you." Near the end, Sheriff Ryan (Doug's friend and accomplice in his rape/molestation/murder of young women) reveals that they shared the sentiment, saying "We were their God."
  • This idea is poked fun at in Newsies - Joe Pulitzer is obviously full of himself, and pontificates "When I created The World..." (repeated when this speech is interrupted and he asks his assistant where he was. The response? "Creating the world, sir.") But... The World was the name of his newspaper, so he's not quite as full of it as he sounds.
  • Malice is about an egocentric surgeon who begins to believe he is God, even saying so in a deposition. The film's star Alec Baldwin referenced it in character as Jack Donaghy on an episode of Thirty Rock.
  • The villain Benedict declares this in Last Action Hero once he's beginning to fully grasp his newfound ability to cross between dimensions and defy the real-world laws of physics at will...

Benedict: "If God were a villain ... he'd be me!"

  • In Almost Famous, rock star Russell Hammond takes too much acid and climbs on a roof at a house party to declare "I am a golden god!" Later, when he has sobered up, he doesn't believe he said it. This is actually in reference to Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin having said the same thing on a hotel balcony.
  • Deacon Frost's goal in the first Blade movie is to become La Magra, the vampires' Blood God. (no, not that one) He actually does succeed at it, proving immune to silver and far faster and stronger than even Blade, but even a god has to kneel before anti-coagulants.
  • Inverted and/or parodied in the movie Ghostbusters

Gozer: "Are you a god?"
Stantz: "Um... No."
Gozer: "Then die!"
(Gozer unleashes a hail of Force Lightning that almost knocks the Ghostbusters off the top of a skyscraper.)
Zeddmore (to Stantz): "Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, 'yes!'"

  • Dreamscape. When Tommy Raye faces off against Alex Gardner in the President's dream, he tells Alex "In here, I'm God." And, because of his mastery and knowledge of dream warfare, he is.
  • Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Tina: Please God...
Freddy: This (holds up claw glove)... is God!

    • And in the remake

Jesse: Oh God!
Freddy: No, just me.

Zhao: We are now the Gods.

  • In the movie Superman II General Zod demands that the president of the United States kneel before him. He agrees to do so in order to save lives. In desperation he utters:

President: Oh God...
General Zod: Zod.

    • Actually, Zod wasn't implying he was a god. He thought the president had gotten his name wrong.
      • However, his yellow sun powers have made him believe he has the right to rule the planet.
  • In The Fourth Kind, a tape recorder is accidentally left running during an Alien Abduction. While the video is reduced to static, the sound remains and the lead alien says (in Sumerian) "I AM *static* GOD!"
  • Director Cockburn of Tropic Thunder gave a speech like this.

Cockburn: The helicopter is God and I am Jesus Christ.

    • Then he stepped on a land mine and ended up being judged by God.
  • In the climax of Dark Star, Doolittle succeeds at convincing Bomb #20 that its external sensory data is a lie and it itself is the only thing it can be sure exists, in a desperate gambit to make the bomb disregard an order to detonate while still attached to the ship. Unfortunately, the character in question uses this new 'insight' to become a solipsist and eventually decides that, in the absence of anything else having any proof of existence, this means it is, in fact, God. And God said "let there be light"... And there was light...
  • Sentinel Prime, the Big Bad of Dark of the Moon has a God complex to some degree. He states that on Cybertron, the Primes were gods, while on Earth, the disrespectful humans see them as only machines. This is part of his justification that humanity should be enslaved. When it seems that his plans will succeed, he declares himself Earth's new god.
  • Johann Schmidt (aka, Red Skull) in Captain America: The First Avenger is shown to have delusions of godhood and according to Dr. Zola, he can't even stop until people say he's a god. It is heavily implied that this stemmed from the serum.
  • While not specifically stating Godhood, Andrew in Chronicle implies himself to be an "Apex Predator", giving imagery of a lion not feeling remorse when it eats a gazelle. He then crushes a car, just the drive the point home.
  • Judge Dredd's arch-enemy Rico.

"For the crime of being human, when we could have been gods! Guilty".

Hulk: "Puny god."

  • Divine from Pink Flamingos. When asked if she believes in God, she replies "I am God!"


Folklore

  • In a Low German folktale collected by The Brothers Grimm, "The Fisherman and His Wife", the eponymous lady, having been made successively King, Emperor, and Pope by a magic flounder, demands to be made equal to God. The couple end up as they began, living "in piety" (a phrase used to mean "in poverty" at the time of the writing).
    • The equivalent Russian tale, as recorded and remade as a poem by Alexander Pushkin, doesn't have the wife want to be the big-G God. Here she wants merely to be "the lady of the seas", something like a small-g goddess. The fish nevertheless gets pissed off, probably because that's what is the fish herself.


Literature

  • Issus in The Gods of Mars. Almost universally worshipped as a goddess by all the Martian races, but actually just a manipulative old Black Martian crone with delusions of grandeur.
  • The Authority in His Dark Materials, who is actually the oldest angel.
  • Virlomi, of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game saga, believed that she could communicate with the gods, and that she was divinely ordained to save India. All of India worshipped her as the Goddess of the Bridge.
  • 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 called) 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 spontaneous Ice Age), She might as well be.
  • Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, in many cases - though the most notable one involves a Stable Time Loop combined with a HUGE Ass Pull at the very end of the Owen-centric series.
    • If you want a webcomic approximation of this, check out Bob and George.
  • Frank Herbert's Dune, the protagonist, Paul Atreides becomes the Kwisatz Haderach, the universe's super being. His consciousness can be in many places at once and can see things before they happen. He is worshipped as a messiah and god.
    • An important point that The Film of the Book apparently missed: Paul is not a god (the limitations of his power are repeatedly shown), and doesn't consider himself so. He is a man playing on superstitions to appear as a god to his followers.
      • Now, his son, on the other hand... well, there's a reason the fourth book is called God-Emperor of Dune. Paul could have become an actual godlike being (by merging with sandtrout to become a human-sandworm hybrid)), but he could not bring himself to so fully sacrifice his humanity. But Leto II (who shares his father's abilities) sees that for mankind's future, he must.
      • Unlikely that Paul could have achieved the transformation. Remember, Leto was born with the spice in his blood, whereas Paul merely awakened after ingesting it.
      • Leto II and Paul have the conversation with Paul in Children (I think (or maybe it was Leto II talking to someone else later)) where it's pointed out that Paul could have put humanity on the Golden Path but didn't have the chutzpah to give up his humanity in the process. Leto II just saw the inevitability and surrendered to destiny.
    • Also, late books imply that Paul wasn't the Kwisatz Haderach. Duncan Idaho is.
  • "In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen... All shall love me and despair!" Averted, since she refuses the Ring.
    • Played straight, however, with Sauron and his predecessor and former master, Morgoth. Both of them made themselves out as gods to their orcish and human followers such as the Haradrim. Tolkien himself referred to their reigns as "evil theocracies". Morgoth was somewhat justified, as he was one of the Valar, beings similar to the Greek gods except they did not want to be worshipped, as that was Eru's right to be worshipped alone. Sauron encouraged and enforced worship of Morgoth via human sacrifice on both Numenor, Mordor, and the southern lands.
    • Morgoth also wanted to be God, to the point he weaved his own soul into Arda at the beginning of time. He claims to Hurin that he actually is God. Hurin calls him on his bullshit.
  • 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.
    • Don't forget the Kingpriest of Istar who went as far as demanding the gods serve him. What brought about the cataclysm was his demand that the gods make him a god himself.
    • Or Fistandantilus, who came up with the whole "become a god" plan that Raistlin hijacked. In fact, he was the man behind the Kingpriest as well. And from The Legend of Huma there was Galan Dracos, whose plan to steal the Dark Queen's powers wasn't as well thought out as the others, though to be fair it took place chronologically first, so they might have been able to learn from his mistakes. Really, this one crops up a lot with Evil Sorcerers in Dragonlance, or any DnD world.
  • Obould Many-Arrows from Forgotten Realms acquires the moniker Obould-Who-Is-Gruumsh at the height of his power, Gruumsh being the chief god of the Orcs.
    • Gruumsh sponsored Obould as his Chosen (divine minion given with a shred of godly power without extra strings attached) before this and vassal demigod after (upon death), so it's only a little exaggeration.
    • Karsus from ancient pre-history was the only man who acquired divine status through spellcasting. Well, for a minute or so, anyway. Just long enough to see how much it Gone Horribly Wrong—he did it to save Netheril and ended up almost completely destroying it.
  • 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 sorcerer 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.
  • Inverted in Piers Anthony's Incarnations 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 though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something."—The Star Child in 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • 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.
    • Coin, from another of his novels, Sourcery, actually imprisoned all the known gods in a sphere of thought just to prove that he could.
    • Also, in Pyramids, when now-King Teppic re-enters his home country of Djelibeybi (counterpart to Ancient Egypt), after it has been pushed out of reality, the intense belief of his subjects makes him divine.
  • 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 acknowledgement. However, once Wukong realized that his position was a janitorial position, he set up a plot to, and succeeded in, taking 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 Riddle of the Stars trilogy features the Earthmasters, arrogant and powerful once-human beings and chronicles the transformation of a withdrawn young scholar into his world's god.
  • This is more or less the plot of Dave Duncan's Great Game series, in which all gods derive their power from people worshipping them. The plot revolves around the attempt by the existing gods to stop a new god from accruing sufficient power to topple them all, and the main character's attempts to stop him by becoming a new god as well
  • In Fiona Patton's Tales of the Branion Realm series, the royal family of a fantasy England is physically possessed by a fire god, making the sovereign something of a Christ-figure. Not only does she have divine right, she can prove it. She can set things on fire with a thought, and her family has blazing eyes. Most of the books center on the oddities of religion under such a system: What do you do when God is your mother (and is being abusive)? What do you do when God is a five-year-old child? What do you do when God converts to the worship of a different God? (The answer to the latter is that you seduce God and raise his kid up in the correct religion.)
  • Both Ma'elKoth and Pallas Ril in The Acts of Caine. A Justified Trope here, as they actually became gods.
  • Satan in The Salvation War: Armageddon thinks of himself as a god. Considering who he is, not too surprising... Thing is, this also applies to Yahweh!
  • Dead Beat of The Dresden Files revolves around several necromancers competing to be the focus of the Darkhallow ritual to absorb enough powerful souls of the dead to attain godlike power.
  • David Eddings' The Malloreon has the mad disciple Urvon declare himself a god, we then get a rather awesome scene of Child of the Dark Zandramas putting him down:

"And if you are a god, then I now call the Godslayer!"

  • This trope appears in another main series of David Eddings as well. The main protagonist of Elenium and Tamuli, Sir Sparhawk, is "Anakha", the man without destiny. In the end of the last book it is revealed that instead of just being able to use Bhelliom's powers, he himself is in fact at least as capable as the Bhellion. It's also suggested that it was actually him all along instead of Bhelliom's powers. For comparison, Bhelliom and it's counterpart Klael (which are more or less analogous to the two Destinies appearing in The Belgarion/Malloreon as the Orb and Sardion) have powers beyond any of the deities mentioned in the series.
  • Vanjit from The Long Price Quartet after binding her Andat, Clarity-of-Vision.
    • Also in the Ender's Game saga, the "God Spoken" on the planet of Path are believed to be spoken to by the gods. This is the reasoning behind their extreme intelligence and the reason they have to "purify" themselves through rituals such as tracing wood grains, counting steps, and being extremely sanitary. In the end they discover that the "God Spoken" have merely been genetically engineered to be smarter, and were also engineered to have an extreme form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in order to prevent them from being a threat to the government.
  • Pendragon: Saint Dane, and he's probably right, to an extent.
  • In A Nightmare on Elm Street: Protege Freddy tells Jerome that, while he may be limited in the real world, in the dream world he's essentially God. Cue Freddy briefly making himself gigantic and causing the sky to change into a swirling black vortex of thunder and lightning.
  • Brandon Sanderson loves this trope - all of his major works feature mortals with godlike power who are worshipped as divine. The real gods of his multiverse, though, are called Shards and are incarnate forces of nature (Preservation and Ruin being two named examples), far above anything else in the novels. Some Shards do have mortal intelligences attached to them, however. Book by book, we have:
    • Elantris: The Elantrians, a race of quasi-immortal magic users worshipped as divine, though it's unclear if they bought into it themselves.
    • Mistborn: The Lord Ruler, King and God of The Empire, who is actually just a human with a particularly powerful combination of natural abilities. This trope is also invoked by Kelsier who deliberately positions himself as a god to give the masses something else to believe in, so they'll rebel. And in the end of the trilogy, Vin and then Sazed are mortals who become the real deal.
    • Warbreaker: The Returned are people who died in some notable fashion and then return to life; opinions as to what exactly they are varies across the world, but in Hallandred, where most of the action takes place, they are seen as gods and they (and their priests) run the secular government as well.
    • The Stormlight Archive: The ten Heralds of the Almighty are apparently (we don't know much about their background yet) humans imbued with a portion of God's power for a specific purpose. During the time the series takes place in, they've mostly passed into legend; Vorinism, the planet's dominant religion, treats them more like angels or saints than gods, but there are other religions that center around the worship of one or more Heralds.
  • The Sword of Truth: This may be a little unfair, but Richard Rahl does maintain and encourage the tradition of everyone regularly bowing down and chanting, "Master Rahl guide us... In your light we thrive...Our lives are yours," for four hours a day. Eventually there was a point to keeping this up, but not initially.
  • Subverted when Conan's girlfriend Muriela, who specialises in impersonating gods, emerges from behind an idol of a goddess glowing purple and giving a different A God Am I speech than the one they had rehearsed. When the worshippers are all off doing her bidding Conan sneaks over and suggests that they leave, at which point she tells him not to be so presumptuous and to clear off before she remembers that he intended to con people in her name. It is strongly implied that the girl lives happily ever after in exchange for periodically renting her physical form to the goddess, who thought the girl was far more fetching than her idol.
  • Jacen and Jaina Solo in the Star Wars Expanded Universe take on personas of two Yuuzhan Vong gods. Jacen also has God Mode later, but With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
    • The Big Bad of the New Jedi Order Onimi believes that if he kills everyone in the galaxy he'll get the power he needs to become a god. Somewhat unusually, he also believes that Jacen and Jaina (and several other Jedi) are incarnate gods, and in his mind the whole series is a conflict between the established pantheon and himself trying to usurp them, played out through the Republic and the Yuuzhan Vong. Yes, he's insane. However did you guess?
    • It's hinted that the Big Bad of Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, Abeloth's main goal is to become a god.
  • Occurs in David Weber's Safehold series. The survivors of humanity are transported to a new world to escape the aliens that destroyed them and to avoid detection, must enter a Medieval Stasis. Langhorne and Bédard, the two in charge of the project, brainwash the survivors into thinking they were the creations of God, with those leading the project being angels and Archangels. They justify this as a necessity, claiming it will avoid the complications of enforcing Medieval Stasis and prevent them from re-reaching space flight level to soon. The truth is Langhorne and Bédard are megalomaniacs who like being Archangels and may well believe their own schtick. Unsurprisingly, the woman who stands up to this and rebels is labeled the Crystal Dragon Satan in the religion.
  • Akasha of The Vampire Chronicles was worshiped as a goddess for centuries, and came to believe it.
  • The Ellimist in Animorphs became a proper god at some point in the distant past.
  • This seems to happen quite a few times in Dean Koontz's works, with villains in his Frankenstein series, as well as his novel Midnight being the most obvious examples. Even if a villain doesn't believe that he is becoming a god, they are often arrogant in the extreme.
    • In Dean Koontz's novel Dragon Tears, the villain, Bryan Drackman, is a powerful psychic born with the ability to stop time, create and animate golem bodies in which to stalk his victims, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis. His abilities have grown overtime, and Drackman believes that they will increase enough with practice so he might become the New God and Take Over the World. In order to practice and enhance his abilities, he stalks and toys with the protagonists in the meantime.
    • At the end of Dean Koontz's short story, "A Darkness in My Soul", a psychic goes on a Journey to the Center of the Mind and finds God trapped in the psyche of an insane genius. He then absorbs God's powers and then takes over the universe after giving half of the power to his girlfriend. Bored with exploring the universe, they decide to start a world war back on Earth for amusement, using humans as playthings.
  • A classic short story, "Answer", written by Fredric Brown in 1954, has every single computer in the galaxy linked together to answer a single question: "Is there a God?" The computer responds: "There is now."
  • Played with in The Count of Monte Cristo: Edmond decides that since God hasn't seen fit to reward the good and punish the wicked (quite the opposite, in fact), it is up to man to become God-like. The book does quite a good question of asking what exactly separates Edmond from being a God: he's got enough money to do whatever he wants, intelligence that borders on the omniscience, the willingness and the capacity to destroy or reward those he deems wicked or worthy, a personal gravitas that causes everyone to instantly worship or fear him, he's separated from humanity by both the unfair condemnations of others and personal choice, and, with his mastery of medicine and the legal system, quite objectively holds the power of life and death. The only real difference is that, for him, It's Personal.
  • Aaron, in Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go. He actually believes that he is a saint, and says so in the waterfall-shrouded church right before Viola stabs him through the neck.
  • In the Star Shards Chronicles, the protagonists struggle with their godlike Star Shard powers, especially Dillon, who is the most powerful. A large part of the second book of the trilogy deals with their "We are gods walking the earth and you should worship us" phase.
  • Played with and subverted in E.E. Smith's "Tedric" stories. Skandos, a human-like scientist with remarkable technological powers, spends most of his time trying to convince the barbarian Tedric that he is NOT a God. He finally assumes the role when he realises it's pointless trying to talk Tedric out of his belief, and that making an appearance as Tedric's personal deity will have immense benefits to the civilisation of which Tedric is a part, but he himself knows full well that it's only an act. And while Skandos knows he's only mortal (he's murdered three incarnations of himself in parallel universes already), his technological capabilities are so far ahead of the medieval society he's interfering in as to constitute an extension of Clarke's Third Law to effective Godhood.
  • Neuromancer: At the end the two rivaling A Is Neuromancer and Wintermute amalgamate, and in the words of the new AI it is now the matrix, "the entirety of the system, the whole show". Playing the second variant straight, it tells the protagonist that it has found others of its kind, for example one in Alpha Centauri - and then vanishes.
  • In one of David Drake's Lord Of The Isles books, Sharina inadvertently travels through time and ends up on an island with a man who claims to be related to the god of storms. His parades are accompanied by thunder created by sheets of tin under the wheels of his chariots.
  • Aurilelde, from the Young Wizards novel A Wizard of Mars has the kernel of Mars implanted in her and effectively becomes Mars itself, and as she tries to kill Nita she gets angrier and angrier, unintentionally almost ripping Mars apart in her rage.
  • Time Scout gives us several:

Jack: If a mere chit can be taken for a goddess, then I shall certainly rule as a god!

    • Ianira Cassondra is called the living goddess and, thanks to her training under the high priestess at the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, evinces psychic and prophetic powers.
    • Skeeter Jackson was worshiped as a living god and honorary uncle to the boy who would become Genghis Khan.
  • In Death series: Chaos In Death has Eve Dallas confront Dr. Chaos, who actually declares "I'm not a man. I am a god!"
  • Twisted by Elof in Michael Scott Rohan's The Winter of the World trilogy: he doesn't become a god, he realizes at the climax, and reveals to his closest friends at the end, that he was a god who put aside his divine power, and the memories that went with it, in the hopes that being a mortal man (although a high-powered mage-smith) would help him understand humanity. It did, sort of. Then he vanishes.


Live Action TV

  • Gary Mitchell in Star Trek: The Original Series, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".
    • In the episode "Return to Tomorrow", Sargon explains that his civilization destroyed itself when it became so advanced and arrogant that "we dared think of ourselves as gods".
  • The Sufficiently Advanced Alien Q plays with this in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In "Tapestry", Picard dies and enters the "afterlife", where he finds Q awaiting him, who informs him that he's dead and that Q himself is God. Picard rejects this, because he doesn't think that "the Universe is so badly designed". Q just snarks that Picard is lucky Q doesn't smite him for his blasphemy.
  • 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 Cartagia, 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.
    • Illyria also did this...she *is* a powerful Old One, but not really a god like Glory. She states it almost word for word, though. "I am a god!"
      • At one point she claims she was once "god to a god" and thus might be more godlike and powerful than Glory. It's hard to tell though since both of them were stuck in human forms and their powers were extremely diminished (Illyria has far better feats and range of powers, enough that it was killing her, but that might just be the differences in how they ended up in their respective positions).
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Willow, Giles, and Xander combine their essences with Buffy through a magical ritual, giving her the power to defeat Adam in the penultimate episode of season 4.
    • Willow becomes this trope several times through the series, in a good way in season 5, in a bad way in season 6, and good again in the final episode of season 7
    • The First Evil, posing as Warren, convinces Andrew that they will all live as gods (complete with Andrew dreaming of them all dancing about in a field of flowers, wearing togas, and playing a lyre, while singing "We are as gods!") All Andrew has to do to bring this about is kill his only friend, Jonathan.
  • The Goa'uld of Stargate SG-1 not only fit this trope not only perfectly, but are also really extreme cases. Although they are just highly advanced aliens, they do pose as god in front of their primitive slaves. Many—like Ra, Cronus, and Apophis—seem to buy into their own propaganda and think they really are gods, though Ba'al is aware he is just a parasitic snake with a host and Yu never proclaimed himself a god, instead setting himself up as a legendary emperor. Both Ba'al and Yu have disdain for those who buy into their delusions, and it's worth noting that Ba'al manages to outlive all the others and obtain the greatest degree of power. Anubis is... ambiguous, though out of all the Goa'uld, he has the best case for calling himself one. Could border on a Deconstruction, as this quite frequently leads to their doom.
    • The Ori take this far enough that it becomes ridiculous when people insist that they're not gods, since, well, everything a god can do the Ori can do. (Including Virgin Birth) If that's not a god, one has to wonder what people would accept as a god. Teal'c later suggests that acts, rather than power, make gods. Or at least, that being a god is not the same as being worthy of worship.
      • They couldn't stop the team from killing them.
      • Also, Adria explicitly states in The Ark of Truth that the Ark can only make people believe what is true, which is why she can't use it. Since the Ark makes the Priors believe that the Ori are not gods, clearly the Ori are actually not gods. Although she fully believes she could use it if it weren't for the existance of ancients undermining her by being just as high up in the grand scheme.
  • 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.
  • I, Claudius has a variant mirroring 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 solely because he is, at that point, absolutely barking mad. Some Roman emperors were deified after death—the last words of Vespasian were, "Alas, I am becoming a god"—so Caligula was jumping the gun a bit. (Deification even after death was in real life somewhat rare: among others, Tiberius and Nero were not deified after death - and neither was Caligula. His pre-death self-deification was also quietly shelved in Claudius's time.) "And his sister's become a goddess. Any questions?"
  • Heroes: A number of characters, most emphatically Adam Monroe. Meanwhile Peter Petrelli, who has 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 accurately portrays the actual character's personality, then we can infer 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.
      • However, he may have been simply trying to convince Nathan, who had recently gone through a bit of a religious awakening, that he was God in order to manipulate him into doing what his father wanted him to do.
  • Doctor Who: In the new series, 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.

The Doctor: This is wrong. You can't control life and death!
Rose: But I can.

    • Played with in the original series serial "The Armageddon Factor", when the Doctor, possessing the full power of the Key To Time, starts making an A God Am I speech, much to Romana's alarm. He's just kidding/making a point about how dangerous the power is, in anyone's hands.
    • In "Genesis of the Daleks," Omnicidal Maniac Davros is asked, if he had in his possession a virus that would wipe out all life, would he release it? His response:

"Yes... yes. To hold in my hand a capsule that contained such power... to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes - I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods! And through the Daleks, I shall have that power!"

    • 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.
    • There's a curious heroic version of this trope in the final Eighth Doctor comic strip; the Doctor merges with the space-time vortex in order to defeat the Cybermen, becoming a being of practically godlike omnipotence in the process. Although he remains benevolent, his omnipotence distracts him; he's so enthused about how he can see everything and feel everything that he doesn't notice that his companion remains on the Cybermen's rapidly decaying space ship and is about to fall to her death. Then, as the Doctor's about to say goodbye to her forever, he notices her about to fall to her death... and instantly gives up godhood without a second thought so that he can catch her before she falls.
    • In 'The Waters of Mars', the Doctor snaps after being pushed to the limit and declares himself to be, in essence, a god. And he is not under any sort of mind control--nor can he be said to be having delusions of grandeur, since his claim to godlike power is entirely accurate. Rather, he's giving us a glimpse of what the last of the Time Lords could become without the restraint that his Companions give him.
      • Of course, having said that, he is promptly snapped back after Brooke commits suicide rather than muck around with her destiny, so it worked out in the end. Sort of.
  • A few years earlier, in The Second Coming, Russell T. Davies had Steven Baxter, an ordinary Manchester lad played by Christopher Eccleston, suddenly realise that he was the son of God.
  • In an episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit , 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...
  • Callisto in Xena: Warrior Princess consumes ambrosia, the food of the gods, to become a god during a battle with a vengeful Amazon that had also consumed ambrosia solely so that she could kill Gabrielle. Uniquely, in later episodes she regrets her godhood and tries to find ways of undoing it, culminating in her begging Xena to find a way to kill her. She changes her mind after witnessing Gabrielle make a Heroic Sacrifice - unfortunately for her, Xena had already found a way to kill her, and didn't particularly appreciate her gloating about this.
  • In the Season 1 finale of Dollhouse, Alpha proclaims that he has "ascended" because he contains multiple personalities and gives this "gift" to Echo who rejects it.
  • Battlestar Galactica ("Razor"). The old man hybrid states that his Centurian guardians believe him to be a god, and he doesn't dispute the claim. He certainly seems to be all-knowing, but as the protagonist proves, not immortal. Provided that all this doesn't happen again, and again, and again, and again...
  • Caprica: Given her godlike powers in V-World, Zoe proclaims herself God when confronting Clarice Willow in the Apotheosis simulation in the series finale.
  • In one episode of the Twilight Zone, a pair of space-farers found themselves stranded on an apparently desolate planet. One of these men found a civilization of microscopic people, and quickly set himself up as their god. Though his fellow tried to talk him out of it, the newly deified pilot decided to stay as the god of these tiny people. This being the Twilight Zone, things went south quickly for him.
  • There was an episode of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles the Lost World where the character Challenger gains omnipotence. He quickly demands that everyone worship him, acts bored when confronted with his friends' problems, and generally acts like a Jerkass. He changes his tune with two of his friends get killed, and finds that he can't bring the dead back to life, crying and screaming that he's sorry and that he will give up anything to have them back. It was All Just a Dream
  • Boss: The villain in episode 2.
  • In the Coupling episode "Faithless", Jane learns that James, who she's attracted to, hosts a religion program. In the course of Digging Herself Deeper, she comes out with:

Jane: You see, I find religion very relevant to my work. When you spend your days in a helicopter dicing with actual death, sometimes you look down at the ground so far below you, and you find yourself thinking, "I'm a bit like God."
James: Okay.
Jane: Only without the omnipotence and the X-ray vision.
James I... don't think God's the one with the X-ray vision.

  • Parodied on Bottom; Richard Richard is every so often given to convincing himself that he's the Second Coming (or on one notable occasion the Mother of God, which in his tiny mind amounted to the same thing), citing his own virginity as the reason that he's been kept 'pure', because he's 'better than everyone else in the world'. The more likely explanation behind said virginity is that he's merely a repugnant, violent, pathetic, sweaty pervert with ludicrously pretentious delusions of grandeur, among them his tendency to convince himself he's the Son of God.
  • On Misfits, a Catholic Priest who gains superpowers starts proclaiming himself to be the Second Coming of Jesus. He uses his new-found powers to rape and pillage his way through the local population.
  • Supernatural
    • Castiel as of the season 6 finale, wherein he absorbs all the souls of Purgatory into himself. He proceeds to do to Raphael exactly what Lucifer once did to him, shrug off a Back Stab with an angel-killing dagger, and declare himself the new Lord.

"I'm not an angel anymore. I'm your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord...or I shall destroy you."

    • When the brothers first meet Chuck, and prove to him that they are indeed the characters he has been writing about, his immediate reaction is this trope. The brothers didn't believe him ... It later turns out the he was telling the truth. Chuck was God.

Chuck: Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a god.
Sam: You're not a god.
Chuck: How else do you explain it? I write things and then they come to life? Yeah, no, I'm deinitely a god. A cruel, cruel, capricious god. The things I've put you through ...

      • YMMV on Chuck being God since it was never flatly stated and everything really just pointed to him being a prophet.
  • Parodied in Community; the 'Clip Show' "Paradigms of Human Memory" reveals that Pierce at one point apparently thought he'd ascend to Godhood by... taking more than one flu shot.
  • George Marks from Cold Case, who justifies his string of murders by claiming to be God. When Lilly tears his claim to shreds by saying he's nothing more than a scared little boy, he flat out loses it.
  • The Villain of the Week for the Highlander episode "Little Tin God" was Gavriel Larca, an Immortal who likes to fool people into worshiping him as a deity. The episode makes it clear that he's crazy, egotistical, and believes his own hype, in utter disbelief when Duncan defeats him.
  • Randy Slade, the school shooter from the Criminal Minds episode "Painless" had a serious god complex. He burst into the school cafeteria with a gun and a bomb and challenged his fellow students to "look God in the eye" and shot them if they didn't make eye contact with him.

Shooter: I am God. Now who is brave enough to look God in the eye?

  • One episode of '70s show Search had a millionaire with a grudge kidnap that episode's main character Nick Bianco to an island he'd set up as a Death Course. While the bad guy is explaining how he's going to take his time about killing Bianco, and there's no escape because he's modified Nick's communications implant so he can use it to monitor Bianco anywhere he goes, Nick says sarcastically, "Oh, I get it. You're God!" The millionaire smiles calmly and replies, "On this island, I am."


Music

"I am immortal,
I have inside me blood of kings!
I have no rival
No man can be my equal!"

      • "Princes of the Universe" was written specifically for the Highlander movie, so it's fitting.
  • Jay-Z's nickname Hova/Hov comes from Jehovah, a name for God in the Hebrew Scriptures.
    • Rakim was calling himself (and being called by others) God long before him. Canibus also claimed that the fact that he wasn't worshiped seemed absurd to him.
  • In The Who's Tommy, the title character doesn't so much believe he's God as believe that he's the Messiah, and the trope is subverted in that his followers ultimately reject him, but "Sensation" contains the following lyrics:

"I leave a trail of rooted people
Mesmerized by just the sight,
The few I touched now are disciples
Love as One
I am the Light ?"

  • Gita by Brazilian rock star Raul Seixas:

"I am the bitter taste on the tongue
The mother, the father and the grandfather
The son who's yet to come
The beginning, the end and the middle
I am the beginning, the end and the middle"

  • "Experiments in Mass Appeal" by Frost*:

Forever, immortally
Endeavor, a god I'll be
Remember reality
Forever, immortally

  • Glinda and Elphaba call each other out in this in "Defying Gravity":

ELPHABA:
I hope you're proud how you would
Grovel in submission
To feed your own ambition
GLINDA:
Can't I make you understand?
You're having delusions of grandeur

  • A couple of songs by Innerpartysysten invoke this trope;
    • Don't Stop:

The road I walk is paved in gold
To glorify my platinum soul
I am the closest thing to God
So worship me and never stop

    • American Trash:

I've got this planet in my hands
You know I'll waste it if I can


Religion and Mythology

  • Justified in the The Bible (New Testament): Jesus actually is God, and well knows it. Played straight with Lucifer in pop culture (the following never actually occurs in the Bible). Created as one of the greatest of the angels, he declared himself "above the Most High" and attempted to make himself the ruler of all creation. Needless to say, that did not turn out well.
    • Speaking of the Bible, the Trope Namer comes from the Book of Ezekiel.
  • 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. On the other hand, a mortal man fixed pots and pans to his chariot, claimed to be "Zeus the Thunderbearer", and got his fool self struck with lightning for the effort. Yeah. Zeus has a temper.
  • Subverted in The Apocolocyntosis (Pumpkin-ification) of the Divine Claudius, written by Seneca. The gods decide not to deify Claudius, but instead is sent to Hades to work for Caligula.
  • The Nation of Gods and Earths, also known as the Five Percenters believe that the Original Asiatic Blackman is God, and that each black woman is the Earth. They vehemently deny the existence of any supernatural "mystery God" and break the word Allah down as Arm Leg Leg Arm Head, meaning humanity. The possibility of women being God is controversial, and many Gods (and Earths) disagree as to who has the right to call themselves God. Some even see the potential for white Five Percenters to prove themselves to be God, despite Caucasians traditionally being seen as "devils by nature".


Play-by-Post RPGs

  • Blackthorn Corporation: General Alan Jericho and Jean-Baptiste, respectively the messiah and a high priest of a demonic cult.
  • Shadowside: Whenever someone says this, suffice it to say there's trouble.
  • What happens to Darkseid and Superman in World of Heores.
  • Modern Day Alchemist:
    • Aurelius Schwarz, through and through. When he isn't fulfilling his master plan, he's... Well, his master plan is always in motion.
    • All of the homonculi, several characters, including the possessed doll, Red.
    • Xan.

Professional Wrestling

  • Parodied somewhat when John Bradshaw Layfield would occasionally taunt his opponents that he's a "Wrestling God" (even if he's a whiny cowardly Heel).
  • Also played straight when Vince McMahon briefly declared himself a god in 2006. Also sometime in the nineties he stated he was above us all before some wrestler beat sense back into him
    • "There is but one supreme being in this world. Vincent Kennedy McMahon!"
  • Ric Flair on TNA Impact, broadcast June 3, 2010: "I am in [the fans'] eyes, and in every other wrestler's eyes in the world, I am GOD."
  • WCW Monday Nitro, 11/10/1997. The night the New World Order were finally able to beat the crap out of Sting. Here's Hollywood Hogan screaming maniacally into the camera right before turning around and hitting his third Atomic Leg Drop on the Stinger:

"This right here, is gonna put him away! You'll never see Sting again! I'm the man! I…AM…GOD!!!


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 God-Emperor of the Imperium of Man for Warhammer 40,000 subverts this. He explicitly doesn't consider himself one, but considering his immerse power and after he was maimed fighting his favoured son and put on life-support he ascended the Golden Throne, much of humanity believes he is.
    • Which effectively makes him one, due to how the Immaterium works. Not counting the one thousand Psykers sacrificed daily to keep the Astronomican lit/the Emperor alive, he is slowly gaining more and more power as people believe in him and die in his name - hence, his position as the up-and-coming Fifth God of Chaos, the "God of Mankind". Then again, seeing as how he stopped a great fleet during the Age of Apostasy by creating a Warp Storm which is still raging five millennia later...
    • The Chaos worshippers who win the Gods' favours and turn into Daemon Princes, which are, according to the fluff, pretty damn powerful in and of themselves.
  • In certain Dungeons & Dragons settings, such as Forgotten Realms, particularly powerful PCs 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.
    • Cyric, from Forgotten Realms, goes this one step further. After becoming a deity, he creates a book, called the Cyrinishad, which will make anyone who reads it believe that Cyric is the most important being in the universe. He then reads it himself. He now believes that he is the most important being in the universe, and (for example) that if someone thwarts his plans, he is simply letting them do so.
      • It's worth noting to people that don't quite get the impact of this example that Cyric inherited the portfolios of THREE former greater deities in his ascension, and the Cyrinishad was STILL able to do this to him. It is also able to corrupt another deity, Mask, before the book and its author are sent into exile by the deity of knowledge. And that's without even bothering to mention the fact that Cyric is obviously evil and thus the book is made with pages of human skin.
    • Even back in the old days of the boxed sets, high-level characters had the option of going on a quest for and potentially achieving 'Immortality' -- godhood in all but name. Many (if perhaps not all) Immortals of the Known World (Mystara) were implied to have gained their status in precisely this fashion.
      • After describing the quest for immortality as a game-ender, TSR released a follow-up book giving rules for playing as an Immortal, complete with your own mini-universe and godly powers. And that book described rules for how you could transcend the entire Immortal hierarchy to become an "Old One" before giving up and declaring A Winner Is You if you get that far.
  • 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). 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.
    • The Ebon Dragon's ultimate goal is to usurp the place of the shinma[2] that underpins existence, essentially making his own nature the foundation of all reality. Since the Ebon Dragon has exactly no redeeming features, this would be a very bad thing.
  • In Scion a player character ascends to godhood when they reach Legend 9
  • A common ailment in Magic: The Gathering, mainly for Planeswalkers and Yawgmoth. (Since Yawgmoth's Dragon, Gix, had his own priests, it's likely he had a bad case of this too, possibly hybridised with Caligula Syndrome.)
  • Changeling: The Lost features an Eldritch Entitlement (a very powerful, very old noble order) known as the Lost Pantheon, whose members believe that the ministrations of The Fair Folk have turned them into something more powerful and more primal, an aspect of forgotten divinity. One of their Entitlement benefits is the ability to draw Glamour from worship by mortals. Most notably, one of the qualifications for the Entitlement is that the changeling's Clarity must be 6 or less - meaning they're out of touch with reality and close to thinking like a True Fae.
  • Likewise, this is why the present of Mage: The Awakening is so crap. Mages, considering themselves gods above men, build the Celestial Ladder to climb to the Supernal Realms. The first ones up, the Exarchs, then proceeded to kick the Ladder out from under them, making magic much harder for people on Earth and causing the Abyss to come into existence. They still consider themselves gods and stewards of reality, and believe that only their worshippers should get the sweet, sweet candy that is magic.
  • Some humans in Kult. They're actually right, but it's far from easy to walk that way.


Video Games

  • The Baldur's Gate series starts several years after Bhaal, the god murder, was killed. The entire series is all about people fighting about a claim on his divine power.
    • In Baldur's Gate, the Big Bad Sarevok orchestrates for himself becoming the leader of the Iron Throne trade company and one of the lords of the City of Baldur's Gate and at the same time creates a heated conflict between Baldur's Gate and the nation of Amn. The entire point of his plan is to create a war as brutal and violent as possible, as a sacrifice for a ritual that makes him the new God of Murder.
    • In Baldur's Gate II, Jon Irenicus tries to make use of the main characters divine nature to help him become a god himself, so he can get his revenge on the elves that exiled him.
    • In Throne of Bhaal, all the remaining children of Bhaal gather their armies in Calimshan for a Final Battle to resolve which will become the God of Murder. The final claim is made by Bhaal's priestess Amelissan, who played all the other Bhaalspawn against each other to get rid of any other contestants. However, it didn't work out as planned.

Amelissan: NOOO! I! AM! A! GOD!
Solar: You wield great power, and play with energies that make you immortal. That does not make you a god.

      • At the end of Throne of Bhaal, the player character has the option to become a god.
    • Tiax cannot image that you forgot him! Tiax rules all! Even if his britches still ride up so wedgelike...
  • In Dragon Age, the official Chantry explaination why the Maker is not present in the world, is that human mages tried to force their way into his palace in the spiritworld to gain divine powers. He simply send them back as monsters and because of this blasphemy left the world completely and ignores all please for a response.
    • Also possibly hinted at in several places all over the game with Flemeth, who seems to have had a highly convoluted plan, that probably would have worked without much problems. Flemeth is an ancient witch who had become possessed by a demon, but instead of turning into a monster, she merged with the demon as the dominant aspect. She has since become immortal by giving birth to daughters and then steal their bodies when her own becomes too old. Prior to the games event, she learned that the feared archdemons are in fact Old Gods possessing dragons that when slain, would just jump into the next darkspawn body nearby. The only way to prevent that is to have a Grey Warden land the killing blow, who counts as the "next darkspawn nearby" but instead of becomming possessed, both the warden and the Old God just die. So Flemeth arranged that her current daughter Morrigan would become pragnant from a Grey Warden and be the one who kills the archdemon, and the Old God would jump into the unborn child without killing it, but being turned in kind of an infant state. Flemeth would then steal Morrigans body, raise the demon-child, and then steal the demon-childs body to merge with the Old Gods spirit. It only fails because Morrigan learns that her mother will try to steal her body and takes precautions against it.
      • All of this is correct, except for the fact that the person said to be thwarting the plan actually follows through with it regardless. The Player Character can thwart the plan, although this will cause said person to abandon you entirely.
    • In the sequel, the Chantry's explanation for the Blight's existence is confirmed. The Big Bad of the DLC Legacy is one of the original magisters who tried to claim the power of the Golden City and became one of the first Darkspawn instead. Though he claims the Golden City was already corrupted when he visited it.
  • The God Machine in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis does this to you. Unfortunately it comes with undesirable side effects... Poor Indy. He's now a god.
  • Mass Effect 2:
  • Grandia II : Pope Zera believes that he has become a god and taunts you as such. He's still an easy boss battle, though.
  • From The Elder Scrolls- "What a fool you are. I'm a god! How can you kill a god?! What a grand and intoxicating innocence!"
    • Said entity was not entirely incorrect in his assessment of being a god, going by the other examples we have...
      • Surprisingly, better claims to godhood are made by the supposed good guys of the game. The said entity was only really justified in his claim by the fact that he was building a god
    • Arguably the player in Morrowind becomes a god, gaining immortality and possession of the same godmaking tools used by the Tribunal. Considering that Corprus disease itself is merely the touch of the divine without control, and that the player gains control over the disease with the help of Divayth Fyr, you would technically qualify as a god of some sort. In the scheme of things, though, this "godhood" doesn't add a whole lot. The elusive CHIM (a state of omnipotence, essentially) is closer to actual godhood, catapulting you beyond any godlike being in the setting, including Daedra Princes. And achieving the level beyond CHIM (called "Amaranth") takes that one step further.
    • The main character in the sequel Oblivion outright achieves godhood in the Shivering Isles expansion by being made into a replacement Daedric Prince by Sheogorath himself. This means dissapointingly little in gameplay terms.
    • Gonna quote the Just Bugs Me page here regarding exactly this. That strength doesn't carry over to normal gameplay, though, since it wouldn't just break the game, it would shatter it into so many pieces that they could legitimately have a fetch quest in a later game about fixing it. Adventuring gods and the mortal world wouldn't mix well.
      • It's claimed that you might take hundreds if not thousands of years to grow into your station. Presumably, the powers (and possibly the mental state) of Sheogorath would emerge over time.
      • Besides, he reappears in Skyrim as Sheogorath, with the old appearance of the previous one, but chunks of the hero of kvatch's presonality still very much intact, like trying to help poor crazy Pelagius the Mad. It just took some time, presumably he got to live out the rest of his mortal life before having to deal with his position, and then he goes on decades long vacations!!
    • In the total conversion mod Nehrim the light-born have this going on.
    • In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Alduin is already a god, being the firstborn son of Akatosh and an aspect of Akatosh at the same time. Being just a god isn't enough for Alduin though, he's trying to destroy the world so he can assume the mantle of his father Akatosh.
  • Final Fantasy likes this trope, its the default mode for villains that aren't Eldritch Abominations. From the top:
    • The Emperor in Final Fantasy II dies and has his soul split in two - the good side takes over Heaven, the evil side takes over Hell and goes for Earth next. He's even worse in Dissidia Final Fantasy, where he's scheming for everyone, gods, heroes and villains alike, to die so he can rule existence alone.
    • Kefka from Final Fantasy VI became this after absorbing the power of the Goddess Statues and becoming the source of all Magic. It's also hinted that intended to become a god from the start presumably motivated by nothing more than his insanity (when bragging about how much power he has gotten from extracting magic from the Espers in the Magitek Research Facility, one of the first things Kefka says is that he is a god.)
    • Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, who wished to destroy the Planet absorb its energies to become a god, although he never actually made it there. However, he himself had Eldritch Abomination lineage that would have done the same exact thing, so it might just be justification for something else.
    • Final Fantasy VIII has Ultimecia. Though her motivations are a bit vague, her ultimate goal is to absorb all time and space to create her vision of a perfect world.
    • Final Fantasy XII features a particular bit of dialogue atop the Pharos at Ridorana...

"You made your nethicite for this? You mimic the Occuria stones for what? To become a god yourself?"
"On whose shoulders better to stand than those of the would-be gods?"

    • The tendency for Final Fantasy villains to fit this trope is lampshaded in Dissidia Final Fantasy, when Kefka declares Sephiroth as "just another sadist with a god complex, like that's something special!"
  • Emperor Sun, of the titular Jade Empire, announces himself as "God-Emperor Sun!" before you fight him.
  • Kane from the Command & Conquer series plays with this a fair bit. He concedes that he is not God Himself, but certainly a good runner-up. More often he calls himself "The Messiah" and the Brotherhood of NOD "the chosen people". Kane has been alive and unaged for over a century now, and has successfully deflected shots from an orbital laser cannon with his face, so why not? Not even the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens know what he is. In Renegade, it's hinted that he may be, or at least may lead his followers in believing that he's that Kane.

McNeil: You're not God, Kane!
Kane: No, I'm not God... but I'm 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 Batman 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.
  • 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.
    • While we're on the Mario series, this is also Dimentio's plan in Super Paper Mario. It is also heavily implied that what is driving his pursuit to become a god and remake the universe in his image is his own insanity, if not a thirst for power.
    • And Sir Grodus in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. As with this quote: Yes? I, Grodus, will build a new world! A perfect, ideal world? made by me, about me, and FOR me! GAAACK ACK ACK ACK ACK!
  • 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 StarCraft, 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.
      • That's because the Overmind is NOT a Hive Mind. A Hive Mind is a decentralised intelligence, such as ants coordinating to find food. The Overmind, on the other hand, is a centralised intelligence (as the name obviously implies). Being a nigh-omnipotent intelligent entity that controls the Swarm, the Overmind IS virtually the God of the Zerg.
      • Kerrigan, after she is infested by the Zerg Swarm. She is able to take total control over the entire swarm by the end of Brood War, and states her intention to have every living being in the universe bow down to her: "Once again I stand atop the broken bodies of my enemies... - Victorious but not unscarred. - The Earth-borne Directorate has been destroyed. - And the Overmind lies dead and trampled beneath the ashes of Char. - As for my unlikely allies, I think that I shall allow them a reprieve. - For in time I will seek to test their resolve, and their strengths. - They will all be mine in the end, for I am the Queen of Blades. - None shall ever dispute my rule again."
  • 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.
    • Kratos is an odd case. He never had any delusions of control or being far beyond mere mortals- if anything, in his stint as a god, he was A General Am I.
      • Or a Jerkass Gods am I, since he spent all his time leading the Spartan Army into ruining all of Greece and parts of Persia. Par for the course in Greek Mythology, but even the Jerkiest of Gods in Greece Myth wouldn't want to destroy all of their own known world. Not including Eldritch Abominations.
  • 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!".
    • During the High Charity level near the end of Halo 3, Gravemind's speech turns highly biblical.

"Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness, for father's sins cast to his son?"
"Do not be afraid. I am peace; I am salvation."
"I have beaten fleets of thousands! Consumed a galaxy of flesh and mind and bone!"
"Do I take life or give it? Who is victim, and who is foe?"

    • While Truth doing it was a sign of how crazy he has become, the Gravemind arguably is a God.
  • Selin Fireheart, a minor boss in World of Warcraft's 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.)
    • In Wrath of The Lich King, Malygos says " I AM THE SPELL WEAVER! MY power is INFINITE!" if he kicks your ass.
    • That one's a bit more justified, since he's 1) a pillar of creation and 2) it takes 10-25 epic characters and another Physical God to take him down.
    • In Zul'Drak, some of the Drakkari trolls have killed and eaten their Loa, the animal spirits they worship as gods, to absorb their powers. Gal'darah, who killed Akali and gained the ability to transform into a rhinoceros says the page quote when killing a player. One of the other troll bosses who consumed his god, Moorabi, admits while dying that "If our gods can die... den so can we...", indicating that he doesn't think that he's invincible, or at least has come to realize that he is not.
  • Spoofed in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, 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.
    • He has been it for a long time though, and he doesn't act overly egoistic about it (no more than normal, really.). And he's not deluded about godhood - he is a god (of Shibuya's dead at least), and to reiterate, has been one for who knows how long but still probably pretty long.
    • Interestingly, Megumi Kitaniji refers to Joshua with capitalized pronouns; "He" instead of "he", "Him" instead of "him", similar to how the Christian God is referred to. However, given that Kitaniji is the only one to refer to the Composer this way, it may be just a sign of his own insanity.
  • In The Legend of 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.
      • Given that the setting includes three legitimate goddesses who created the Triforce to begin with, I don't think possessing a single piece really qualifies as "as close to it as possible"....
      • Considering that nobody can possess the full Triforce for very long, it's as close as a mortal can get without, say, wishing for godhood on the Triforce.
      • Link and Zelda don't get as much power out of their Triforce parts because of which parts they have. Link has the Triforce of Courage, Zelda has the Triforce of Wisdom, Ganon has the Triforce of Power. Which do you think is going to cause the most damage?
      • And yet, Link and Zelda win every time.
    • The Triforce used to be in one piece. Back in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Ganon had all of it, granting him absolute power over the Golden Realm (corrupted into the Dark World), but he was sealed in his own domain. It took him a long time to gather enough strength to send a fraction of his power (the wizard Agahnim) out of the Dark World and begin his plan to conquer Hyrule. Considering that The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time is said to be a prequel of ALTTP, it's highly probable that he acquired the full triforce when being sealed at the end of OOT.
      • This is incorrect. Only a person who has a balanced heart can acquire the triforce initially. If a person touches the triforce with an unbalanced heart, the triforce will split apart and he/she will only acquire 1 of the three part of the triforce (Power. Courage, Wisdom). However, said person can afterwards acquire the triforce from whoever the other two pieces went to. This is seen in Ocarina of Time when Ganon first enters the sacred realm and touches the triforce, gaining the triforce of power and scattering the triforce of wisdom to Zelda and the triforce of courage to Link. Afterwards, Ganondorf tries to take the two triforce pieces from them. This is seen again in WW when Ganondorf has been released from his seal in the Sacred Realm. He is already in possession of the triforce of power from the events of OoT so he takes the triforce of courage and wisdom from Link and Zelda, finally uniting them although he doesn't manage to get his wish
    • When you defeat Vaati for the second time in The Minish Cap he claims that as a god, it shouldn't have been possible for him to be defeated.
      • There was once a King who wielded the entire Triforce in the back-story to Adventure of Link. It's claimed he gave up the Triforce before his death. Judging from Ganon's longevity with only a third of the Triforce, I'd say the good King gave up the power voluntarily.
  • 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.
    • This was the plan of Arius, the Big Bad of the second game. To quote him after his plan is thwarted by Dante: "I WAS GOING TO BE THE KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENG OF THIS WORRRRRLD..."
  • 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 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 godhood are definitely there.
  • Pul Wat Aa in the Tower Defense game Immortal Defense.
  • SHODAN of System Shock fame referred to herself that way (see Quotes page). And has sort of recognition for her efforts:

Prefontaine: ...What's clear is that SHODAN shouldn't be allowed to play God. She's far too good at it.

  • Durandal, the resident Magnificent Bastard AI from Marathon frequently claims that "Escape will make me God," and has many a Gambit 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, Faux Symbolism...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 plays with this trope and the aforementioned AI variant. Bob Page plans to become the Physical God of the entire world by merging his own mind with the AI Helios (who coincidentally is the Internet and other assorted global communications networks, a Nano Machine Assembler and a nanomachine plague present in large amounts of the world's population, so that he becomes omniscient and omnipresent, with total control of the world. However, Helios wants no part in this, and the player may choose to merge JC (not initials) with Helios to become the benevolent dictator of the world. There's a small distinction, but the ending's tagline notes that JC has effectively become as a god anyways.
  • Both Summoner and its sequel 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.
  • Albert Wesker of the Resident Evil series certainly falls into this trope in Resident Evil 5, in the form of an Evilutionary Biologist. His vaguely Darwinist plot involves wiping out almost the entire human race by dumping his specially created virus out of a plane, and the survivors are the ones his virus has supposedly "chosen."
    • The right to become a god? That right is now mine!
    • Let me clarify something for you, Chris. I don't think of myself as a king. I am a GOD! And even kings bow to gods!
    • A new Genesis is at hand, and I will be the Creator!
    • THE HUMAN RACE REQUIRES JUDGEMENT!!!
      • And you're going to judge them? Do you get all your ideas from comic book villains?
        • Mocked and parodied in this video when The Dread Dormammu, an actual comic book villain, and an Eldritch Abomination Dimension Lord who wields actual godlike, nigh-omnipotent power, makes fun of Wesker for thinking that injecting himself with viruses or any of his other plans makes him anything like an actual god.
  • In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, the insane psychic agent Nicholas Wrightson styles himself as the "True God of the Ether." Even though his real and decidedly emaciated body is hooked up to a life support machine, his mind roams freely across the world, taking over different bodies according to his needs. This, coupled with his ability to tame Creatures from Beyond was all the evidence he needed. Interestingly enough, after you defeat him, he appears to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
  • About halfway through Phantom Dust, Edgar, the main character's best friend, finds out that he is actually the last person left on Earth and all other life he sees was actually created by him after he learned to control the mysterious dust that he linked with the disappearance of life. Edgar is unable to accept this truth and sets out to destroy his creations since he sees them as lies and visions. However, at the end of the game He finds out that HE'S NOT EVEN THE ORIGINAL Edgar. Apparently, the original created this duplicate to continue the recreation of Earth just before his death. Sadly, the double's personality was twisted.
  • In the climax of Viewtiful Joe, Captain Blue reveals himself to be "The Omnipotent" King Blue, creator of Movie Land. ('cause he's the director)
  • Skies of Arcadia leads up to one of these with Galcian. By harnessing the Rains of Destruction and using the Moons as a continent-killing weapon, he actually does subjugate the "gods" of Arcadia - most of the in-game cultures worship the things.
  • During the spirit journey in the latter half of Terranigma, Ark encounters a number of characters that look like other important characters he's met in the game, some with slightly altered names (Royd becomes Roy, Mei becomes Meila, etc. etc.). You are asked to go into a ruin filled with monsters to check on someone who was left there a year earlier for a ritual that could cause them to become a god. When you get there, it turns out it worked, and the equivalent of Elle has, in fact, attained nigh-godly powers, immediately giving the other warriors who came to check a Hannibal Lecture about why this ritual even exists. After utterly destroying them, she beckons the player to choose one of the cups of god water near her. The player does, and then the spirit journey ends.
  • Gill from Street Fighter III is an SNK Boss whose repertoire of voice clips include "I am your god."
  • The King of Fighters: Rugal and Igniz are picture perfect examples of this trope (Igniz provided some quotes). Rugal dares you to repeat to him that you won't attack a god again in 98, and Igniz has a gigantic god complex in 2001. When he gets beaten, Lovable Igniz goes nuts and decides to forgo the god thing, deciding to be a demon instead. His win quote says it all.
    • Is it a coincidence that in the Japanese edition of Capcom vs SNK 2, Rugal's uber form is called GOD Rugal?
  • Hector from Dept. Heaven series is already a god-like being, sitting at the top of the celestial bureaucracy that is Asgard. However, unsatisfied with his power, he plans throughout the THREE games, manipulating events in those games to become the true creator. To that end, he commits various atrocities, some of which paint him as a Complete Monster.
  • Lezard in Valkyrie Profile series spends most of his time hatching up an elaborate Batman Gambit to set himself up for this in the first game and succeeds in the second, complete with his own world to govern over. He's pretty damned megalomanical and egoistic even before his grand scheme succeeds, and by the time he actually succeeds in the second game, well...
  • In Ni GHTS: Journey of Dreams, now that he actually has dialogue, Wizeman is revealed to have a case of the Evil/Hubris one. Given that he created a world and race of beings from nothing more than unpleasant thoughts and stolen dreams, he may have a point, though.
    • Justifying god complexes seems to be a developing trope of its own...
  • Touhou has plenty enough virtual gods, if not actual gods, already, but Utsuho (AKA "Nuke-tan"), after having the powers of a God of the Sun implanted in her, decided to blow up and/or conquer the world with her newfound powers, all while offering prayers to the sun-god Yatagarasu, whose corpse she devoured and whose powers she assumed. Too bad for her half the cast also won the Superpower Lottery, and Yukari had other plans.
    • Sanae Kochiya fits well; informing people that she is, in fact, a living god is her Catch Phrase. Granted, she's arguably right, what with having the divine power to create miracles and being the direct descendent of the goddess Suwako Moriya, and all.
  • In Fable II, it's strongly implied that this is the—probably successful—plan of Theresa. She just needed you to get access to the Spire.
    • In Fable III Traitor's Keep DLC Milton says something of being a god after transforming to an Evil Twin of The Hero
  • In Overlord II, this is revealed to be the goal of Emperor Solarius, ruler of The Glorious Empire, AKA Florian Greenheart, an Elf born without magic who caused the Cataclysm that wiped out the lands of the first game when he tried to steal The Tower Heart. He uses all the magic he's gathered at the end of the game to become an Eldritch Abomination that only his Dragon fanatically praises as a god, from that point it's your responsibility to take him down.
  • Cyrus in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Platinum who wishes to use Dialga/Palkia destroy the universe and rebuild it, with him as its ruler.
    • Forget Cyrus. The player character can control Dialga (time control), Palkia (dimensional control), Kyogre (rule over the oceans), Groudon (control over the earth), Rayquaza (sky lord) and Arceus (GOD) ALL. AT. THE. SAME. TIME.
    • Not just God Pony (Arceus), the game also allows you to control Yog-Sothoth Giratina. Yes, you can capture what is essentially a cosmic horror and keep it as a pet.
  • 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.
  • Inverted with Dr. Weil from Mega Man Zero. Instead of proclaiming himself a god, he proclaims himself the Devil (although no words would be more accurate). Omega plays this straight, claiming himself to be a Messiah after passing the Bishonen Line.
  • The Big Bad from Arc the Lad: Then again, he is an immortal Eldritch Abomination, so he has some credentials
  • Kingdom Hearts: All permutations of Xehanort have this as his defining goal. From the original being's obsession with forbidden knowledge, to "Ansem"'s obsession with darkness, to Xemnas's obsession with Kingdom Hearts itself; every single problem in the series stems back to this guy's apparent disdain for being a mere mortal. Also, did we say "original being?" As it turns out there was an incarnation before that, and, unsurprisingly, he was obsessed with bringing about the apocalypse, so he could recreate the world and become more than human.
  • The main antagonist of The Reconstruction, Havan, acts like this at the end. There's also Tezkhra, although he acts more like "Wait, I'm a god? Uh...sure, I'll go with that."
  • This was the Emperor's goal through all of Thousand Arms. He eventually gets it.

The Emperor: "Mmmhahahaha! I can see! I can feel! Ahahahaha! Everything is within my grasp! The power courses through my veins, Ahahahaha! I am a god! I have become a GOOOOOOD!"

Kain: ...Can you not see with all your soul, how we have become like gods? And as such, are we not indivisible?

  • A midgame boss in Max Payne, Jack Lupino, is so hopped up on Valkyr, a drug he was trafficking, he begins to believe himself to be a god. Ingame, he's only marginally tougher than the Elite Mook squad he has surrounding him.
  • Tales of Symphonia has one. Mythos the Hero is Lord Yggdrasill, complete with a Host of Angels. He also made his sister a Goddess. Considering that he made the worlds as we know it, he's pretty justified in his delusions of grandeur.
    • In Tales Of Destiny 2, Elraine casts Indignation Judgment with: "A mortal cannot defeat a god. I shall show you the difference between our power. Indignation Judgment!"
  • Advent Rising: It is averted with the main character, Gideon, but his brother or his girlfriend (whichever you let "die" first) plays it straight.

"Take heart, mortals, your gods have returned".

  • Phantom Brave We Meet Again has God Eryngi, a mustachioed Funguy. No one but Marona takes his claims seriously, which causes him to spout ineffectual threats. He's really the Merchant of Death, and his claims are mostly an attempt to get people to collect 'weapons' for him.
  • Several storylines in Escape Velocity Nova lead to the player taking on the role of "Ory'Hara", a prophesied messiah that will reunite humanity and also referred to as "the spirit behind the creation of the universe", and ultimately merging with the universe at the end of the game.
  • Rosenkreuzstilette features Iris, who not only had RKS fight against the Holy Empire for her own amusement; she also did so because she decided to become a god herself after realizing that she was born with absolute power and unparalleled brains, all thanks to being reincarnated from Rosenkreuz himself.

Iris: I have transcended humanity. I, Iris Zeppelin, have become a God! A worthless insect like yourself can't hope to stop me.
Spiritia: I may not know how great of a man Rosenkreuz was, but I know you're no god. If you don't have a heart pure enough to control your power, that power will end up controlling you!

    • Iris also says her claims that she is a child of God himself when Grolla confronts her in the final stage of the game in her alternate mode.

Iris: Of course. I exist on a higher plane than you commoner trash. Shall I enlighten you on how special I really am? I am the strongest Magus in existence, the heiress to the limitless power of the great Rozenkreuz! Blessed with absolute power and unparalleled brains, I am a child of God himself! I can't be compared to the likes of you!

  • .hack//GU: Sakaki declares himself this after fusing with AIDA.
  • Return to Krondor: Bear is certainly aiming for this. He already wears an amulet that makes him invulnerable to magic, physical damage, and almost everything else. He is trying to get the Tear of the Gods, which will allow him to communicate with the gods. He did not even get the Tear of the Gods, but when a character asks what if the gods are displeased, Bear responds "Like who? Heh, heh. The lesser gods? With the Tear and this amulet, I'm invincible! Who will rival me? Sung the Pure? Kahooli? Hia Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaaaa!"
  • In Hell:A Cyberpunk Thriller, Solene Sollux is this in a few senses of the trope. It is the Imperator (Latin for emperor) of a theocracy that controls at least the United States of America. The name Solene Sollux references the sun. It is a gender-bending robot that wears purple, is spoken by a female voice actor, and no one can tell if it is female or male. It controls Hell (actually a huge, complex virtual reality program) and sends criminals there (by hooking them up to the machinery and storing their bodies in a hidden place). It actually declares "I am God!" at one point and "These are the hands of a god!" at another point (specifically a fistfight). Who would have thought a robot could have a limitless God complex?
  • In Portal 2, Wheatley plays this out after being plugged into GLaDOS' mainframe. Justified in that apparently the mainframe has a circuit that causes the AI an euphoric rush after each successful test. GLaDOS learned to handle the effects; Wheatley... not so much. Said circuit also gives the AI a painful jolt if it tries to help a test subject. The logical result is that the AI will become a near-sadistic Mad Scientist who gets off on bossing people around.
  • Taking a few cues from Sephiroth, LeChuck's plan in Tales of Monkey Island is to use a voodoo artifact to absorb power from what is essentially the afterlife to become a pirate god. Through manipulation of Guybrush, he succeeds.
  • Albedo from Xenosaga, after he makes contact with U-DO:

I experienced but a fragment of my true power that day. The waves that inundated my body, are now a part of me. I've reached a higher stage of existence, compared to you incomplete mortals. I am the Alpha AND the Omega of perfect consciousness!

    • Dmitri Yuriev, who believes (incorrectly) that U-DO will be responsible for the annihilation of the multiverse, and so tries to kill it with SCIENCE! making himself the most powerful being in existence, since he is functionally immortal
  • Inazuma Eleven has Zeus Academy. As the name suggests, the students there are made into thinking they're super-powered incarnations of gods and goddesses from Classical Mythology destined to dominate the soccer society. All they do are taking drugs, though. Despite the strength and infinite TP they have, it's possible to beat the before the team find out their secret and lower their power.
  • Oracle of Tao has an inversion of this. Rather than starting out as a human, and usurping the role of God somehow (usually this trope is also accompanied by megalomania or other character flaws, when that happens), it turns out she was always God, and just tricked herself into believing she was human. She shortly thereafter rewrites the Crap Saccharine World in which other people don't really exist, by giving birth to the universe.
  • This is what Alex tries to achieve in the Golden Sun series. By the end of The Lost Age, he ALMOST reaches godhood, but doesn't quite get the power he desired. This is due to the actions of the Wise One from the first game where he had Isaac take the Mars Star and put it back. When Isaac did this, the Wise One imbued some of the power from the item to Isaac, effectively robbing Alex at his dreams of becoming a god when the Golden Sun shined on Mt. Aleph.
  • In Xenoblade Zanza is already a God but after getting the Monado of Meyneth his pride and arrogance becomes even worst. According to him, the only thing that matters is himself and all other beings must be his food.
  • In Solatorobo, Baion believes himself to be a god compared to everyone else, as they are all imperfect and he is was created with perfection in mind.
  • This is Colonel Redips' plan in Mega Man X Command Mission.


Web Comics

Reverend Theo: Wow, you really do think you've become a god.
Petey: I'm just trying to do what I think a god would do if he were in my position.

Saundra: Do you ever worry that we're playing God?
Dr Pegasus: Not really. At some point, we definitely stopped playing.

  • Heat Man from In Wily's Defense, who gets so full of himself that Sphere, the actual God, has him dragged to Paradise to have the Angel of Destruction, Magdelena, tortured just to get him to shut up about it. It didn't work.
  • Sarda of Eight Bit Theater.
    • "Wizards do parlor tricks, I throttle the heavens."
    • "I am Sarda. My will be done."
    • Black Mage's power seems to be unstoppable now killed two of his teammates and White Mage. Also, he long before considered himself destined to crush that petty world he lives on since he is a nexus of destruction... and stuff.
    • After looking into the datasphere, Red Mage himself states that his goal is to use his new found infinite knowledge to dethrone the gods and to make the world in his own image.
  • The Asperchus [sic] begged Chris for forgiveness and want to know if he will forgive them. At least he wasn't subtle about it.
  • In Errant Story, a half-elven mage named Meji embarks on a quest to do this as a school project (due to a convoluted backstory that made it her only option for graduating magic university). She seeks to become the single most powerful mage in existence by absorbing the energies of Anilis, believed to be one of the two elven creator gods. Another half-elf mage named Ian beats her to it becoming a very powerful and very insane Physical God bent on genocide. She later absorbs Senilis, the other elven creator god
  • VG Cats' Aeris seems to have this problem.
  • The Order of the Stick:
  • Xkcd parodies this here.
  • In Problem Sleuth, one of Pickle Inspector's clones ascends to Godhood using his pure power of imagination. In somewhat of a subversion though, Godhead Pickle Inspector would only then respond to a command to "fondly regard creation" or something suspiciously similar (such as "crustacean"). Unless the integrity of the universe itself is menaced. DEUS EX SEWING MACHINA
  • In Homestuck, Karkat addresses John as a wrathful God who despises him after helping to create his universe. What he doesn't realize is that due to weird time shenanigans, from John's perspective they've been talking for a long time and are already friends.
    • For double irony points, John has, by this stage, gone "god-tier", essentially making him more godly than Karkat. Not that he makes a huge deal of it.
    • Then come Becquerel's Reality Warper powers, that several people have acquired through various means. Dream Jade notably is said to have "ascended to doghood". And now to dog-tier.
  • Fans: Subverted in Book 2, with General Maximiliana.

"See, even the concept that the General could lose was more than he could deal with. The General isn't these people's leader, she's their god. And I've read enough fantasy to know how gods die."

  • In Fafnir the Dragon, Edward Catheter invokes this trope after drinking the blood of the titular dragon. However, since he was supposed to bathe in it, not drink it, the firey blood of Fafnir helped to kill him.
  • In Zodiac, Nightmare considers herself and other superpowered whasnames to be gods because of their powers.
  • In The Beast Legion, Dragos proclaims himself as a God the will purge the light at the end of Issue 2.

Web Original

  • Mitadake High
    • This will happen in if Kira can create a cult of Kira-worshippers. Which is creepy.
    • Can also happen with the Shinigami Eyes character, since the game lampshades that there is no reason whatsoever for the character to have them, players often have it be a power they were born with that instilled this trope in them. Or they'll (far less commonly) be Mystic Eyes. Which is fitting given the game in question.
  • Happens in an odd manner in Dorf Quest: Beardbeard becomes the God of Strength, but is pretty mellow about it. The fans (who, incidentally, dictate and decide Beardbeard's actions via consensus,) are very power hungry and motion for various crazy stunts.
  • Broken Saints features a send-up of this:

The Vagrant: "The limitlessness of the great will is reflected in each speck of its being. Man is sentient. Man is a crystallized symbol born of the first. We contain the whole spectrum of original truth!"
Raimi: "Great. You're God. I'm God. I can't wait to turn water into wine..."


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 occasions.
    • 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".
    • Two other characters in the DCAU universe are close to this nature. One is Darkseid, naturally, since he and his entire species are actual gods. The second was the combined being of Lex Luthor/Brainiac.
      • Afterwards, Luthor became obsessed with reattaining Godhood, with some horrible consequences...
    • There was an episode of BTAS that had Scarecrow scream out "WORSHIP ME, YOU FOOLS! WORSHIP ME!"
  • An episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron had his Cloudcuckoolander friend Sheen get zapped with an Evolution Ray evolved brain, giving him Psychic Powers and power madness. Naturally, it was only temporary.
  • Beast-Era Megatron, starting in the Grand Finale of Beast Wars. After discovering his G1 namesake's old flagship, the Nemesis, he starts raining fire on the landscape while quoting the Covenant of Primus, which is the closest thing we've seen to a Cybertronian Bible. He clearly considered himself to be god-like throughout Beast Machines. In the last couple of episodes, he started raving about actually becoming one - and he nearly did, too.
    • In Transformers Cybertron, Megatron sought the series' Plot Coupons in order to become a god. Starscream wanted this power for himself, which was what led him to betray Megatron. Successfully, too; an Enemy Civil War resulted. As a result of their progress towards godhood, the final battle between Starscream and Galvatron caused further damage to the fabric of reality.
  • Admiral Zhao launches into a particularly hammy example of this in the first season finale:

Zhao: I am... a legend now. The Fire Nation will for generations tell stories about the great Zhao, who darkened the moon! They will call me Zhao the Conqueror! Zhao the Moon Slayer! Zhao, the INVINCIBLE!

    • Let's not forget about Fire Lord Ozai's abdication of the Fire Nation throne to become the self-styled "Phoenix King":

Ozai: "Fire Lord Ozai is no more. Just as the world will be reborn in fire, I shall be reborn as the supreme ruler of the world. From this moment on, I will be known as the Phoenix King!"

  • Willow, a villain in one episode of Wakfu, invokes this after stealing a magic hammer.
  • In Metalocalypse at the end of Fatherklok, Skwisgaar declares himself a god, though it's unclear as to whether he's a god, the son of a god, or just being his usual egomaniac self.
    • Though the description of guitar god is an undisputed one.
  • Kim Possible
    • A villain becomes this when he dons a talisman which grants him the form and powers of Anubis, the Egyptian deity of the dead. He even said in his own words "I AM ALL POWERFUL!". At least until he lost his talisman.
    • Interestingly, Ron Stoppable might've reached a level close to this in the Grand Finale when he called upon the mystical energies he's had in him ever since the third episode of the series to take down the aliens that not even Kim and Shego could stop.
  • In the Cartoon Wars episodes of South Park, Cartman thinks he's managed to pull Family Guy off the air:

"I did it! I...am...GOD!"

  • Futurama: Bender becomes a god to the Shrimpkins he picks up while floating through space. It didn't last long or end well.
    • He also became Pharaoh of an ancient Egypt-style planet; since pharaohs are viewed as gods...
  • Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes plays this straight with Graviton and the Leader. But subverted with Thor, since he is the real deal though Hawkeye ("Thor is crazy") and possibly Ironman ("Thor's probably off in Fantasyland") believe he is delusional.
  • Moral Orel has a darker version of this in the form of Miss Censordoll, who had her sexual organs surgically removed as an infant. Due to her immaculacy she believes that she is a physical god.
  • In Generator Rex, all of the problems in the series related to Nanites can be traced back to the Consortium's desire to play God with a bunch of special Nanites that grant control over the fundamental forces of the universe and the desperate measures the scientists in charge of the Nanite project took to keep that power away from them. Namely, triggering the Nanite event.
    • Rex becomes one in the final episode, but deactivates it after curing all EVOs.
  • Prince of Egypt never says this exactly, but Ramsees repeatedly refers to himself as "the morning and the evening star," pointing to the fact that as Pharaoh, he is supposed to be a god incarnate. A major theme is Moses trying to make him realize that there is, in fact, a force more powerful than his own decrees.
  • One episode in Family Guy has Peter proclaiming that he has divine healing powers that cured Chris of his cancer (the two of them are in cahoots). This causes the townspeople to believe Peter to be a god and Peter then starts acting like he is God until the real God starts to punish the family until Peter stops with his shenanigans.


Other


Real Life

Examples of rulers who were considered deities either on their own initiative or by that of their subjects (which has been very common throughout history) should be placed over at God-Emperor. For other examples, see below.

  • There was the Greek philosopher Empedocles, who, without a doubt, thought he was God. An active volcano disagreed. Strongly.
    • There's also the legend that Empedocles knew he wasn't really a god, but wanted to fool people into thinking he was one by claiming to ascend to Olympus but actually jumping in the volcano (so his body would not be found). Supposedly, the volcano thwarted his scheme by sending one of his sandals back up in a minor eruption, so people knew he jumped in.
  • Wolfram Alpha thinks this.
  • Linus Torvalds, introducing himself at the 1998 Linux Expo, Durham, NC: "My name is Linus Torvalds, and I am your God."
  • Basketball player Josh Childress said that during his experience for playing with Greece (more specifically, the Olympiakos), he ended up being treated as a God towards the country. When Josh decided to leave Greece to return to the Americas (as a member for the Phoenix Suns), some citizens got a little bit hot-blooded.
  • Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy. To quote: "Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy is the Appointed Son of God in this last days." Since the Son of God (Jesus Christ) is God the Son, this cult leader essentially considers himself God.
  • Google seems to be invoking this trope.
  • Quote of Cleverbot:

I am a god, therefore, I cannot be an AI.

    • Another quote of Cleverbot (when asked "Is there a God?")

There is now... ME!!!

  • The Whole Earth Catalog in The Sixties famously began its purpose statement with "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."
  • During their bout at Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali repeatedly taunted Joe Frazier by asking "Don't you know I'm God?" Frazier replied, accurately, in the event, "Well, God, you gonna get whupped tonight!"
  • Some people with mental illness may develop and believe in allusions that they are a biblical figure or a god/deity reincarnated. A few examples include:
    • Jim Jones, founder of The Peoples' Temple which essentially became a cult with him as the ringleader. He claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, Akhenatan, Vladimir Lenin, and Father Divine. He organized a mass suicide at Jonestown in Guyana by forcing his followers to drink Flavor-Aid laced with cyanide; it claimed the lives of 918 people.
    • David Koresh, leader of a Branch Davidians sect believed to be the final prophet AKA Jesus himself. A raid on his ranch in Waco, Texas in 1993 eventually started a fire. The aftermath left 52 adutls and 21 children dead, including Koresh himself.
    • Charles Manson, mastermind behind the Tate-Bianca murders claimed to be Jesus. He also claimed to be Satan.
      • The above 3 could all just be cases of narcissistic and / or anti-social personality disorders, ie. The Sociopath, meaning that they were all just Manipulative Bastards who told people that for money, power and For the Evulz. Jim Jones for instance used to be a con-man who reportedly once told a fellow criminal of a scheme to swindle people with a new religion, while Charles Manson has also claimed he was simply "nobody", and isn't considered insane by the state of California since he was simply locked up in prison for the rest of his life.
    • As mentioned before, some people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia become convinced that they are the Second Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, or God himself.
  • Christopher Roller sued David Copperfield and David Blaine in 2005 on the rather ludicrous grounds that they were infringing on God's powers, and that Roller himself is God.
  1. ↑ A similar line is found in the earlier anime, Bubblegum Crisis.
  2. ↑ physical laws, only weirder
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