Apotheosis

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Apotheosis is the ascension of a mortal to genuine godhood -- usually without having to die first.

The subject of an apotheosis doesn't always gain phenomenal cosmic power -- they may find that they are a very minor god -- but they are now undeniably divine, probably immortal and possibly able to gain power and/or sustenance from the worship of mortals.

Elevation to godhood is not without its drawbacks -- the new god almost always has responsibilities that they must then tend to: whatever they are now god of -- variously called a sphere of influence, a domain, a portfolio, or a Word, among other terms -- was probably in desperate need of someone to take care of it, otherwise they would not have been elevated into a position to do so. New gods rarely find themselves without something that needs their immediate (and sometimes total) attention. A newly ascended god may also find that he's acquired enemies who themselves are usually gods or god-level -- possibly even the very being(s) who are responsible for there being an opening for him to be ascended into in the first place.

This trope is specifically about the transformation of a mortal into a god. It doesn't cover avatars, in which a mortal becomes a vessel through which a supernatural being may manifest or act, but isn't otherwise altered. It should also be noted that "god" here is used for any supremely powerful celestial being regardless of moral compass -- a person who is transformed into a demon prince, for example, has also undergone apotheosis.

Depending on the setting, this trope may be inextricably intertwined with either or both Gods Need Prayer Badly and Clap Your Hands If You Believe, to the point that simply sufficient belief and/or worship may be enough to elevate a mortal to genuine godhood. (And lack of same may be enough to bring him right back down again.)

See also God for a Day, in which a mortal is temporarily and briefly granted the power of a god, usually as some manner of moral lesson. Contrast A God Am I, when a mortal claims godhood either out of madness, hubris or from being drunk on power. Also contrast Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, which may seem superficially similar. Compare Abstract Apotheosis, in which a mortal becomes the emodiment of an abstract concept such as Love or Pain.

Examples of Apotheosis include:

Anime and Manga

• Fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Yurie Hitotsubashi's unexpected elevation to godhood kicks off the story in Kamichu!
• In the Backstory of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, the Juraian goddess Tsunami merged with Princess Sasami when the girl was critically injured in a fall; the result is a fusion where Sasami is the dominant personality, and will eventually become Tsunami when she grows up.
  • Averted with Tenchi Masaki himself, who appears to undergo an apotheosis late in the OVA series. It turns out, though, that he unknowingly was a god -- in fact, the god -- all along, and all that happened was a temporary awakening of his true self.
• Masami Eiri attempts to engineer an apotheosis for himself in Serial Experiments Lain by running the Gods Need Prayer Badly trope backwards in a form of Clap Your Hands If You Believe -- if a sufficient number of people believe he is a god, he will be. Sadly, he didn't count on Lain.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Madoka makes her wish to erase Witches before they are even born. By doing this, she becomes a goddess who prevents Magical Girls from turning into Witches in the past, present, and future.
• Bleach‍'‍s Aizen planned on ascending to become a being like the Sul King by using the Hogyoku to recreate the world as he saw fit.

Comic Books

• Zig-zagged with Thor in Marvel Comics. In the earliest version of Thor's origin story, ordinary human Dr. Donald Blake discovered Mjolnir, the possession and use of which let him turn into Thor, Norse god of thunder. (The story is written such that the reader might conclude that the original Thor no longer exists for some reason, and Blake has become a "new" Thor to replace him -- which might also explain why he's blond and cleanshaven when Norse myth describes Thor as a bearded redhead.) Later expansions and Retcons subverted the trope when they revealed that Blake had been Thor all along, reduced to merely human and stripped of his divine identity by Odin as a punishment for arrogance.
  • Played straight with other mortal beings who have been endowed with Thor's power, including Beta Ray Bill, Eric Masterson (aka Thunderstrike), and Jane Foster.
• Happens in the campaign in Knights of the Dinner Table: After Bob's character Knuckles III dies, his next character (Knuckles IV) manages to get Knuckles III promoted to gawdhood. The promotion appears genuine, and temples to Knu-Kyle-Ra are now a recurring feature in the comic.
• In the Harry Kipling series published in 2000 AD, being regarded as a god by his sort-of clone Klux actually elevates Kipling to godhood, or at least to a level where he gains the ability to kill (other) gods.

Fan Works

• In the 1996-2004 Ah! My Goddess Self-Insert Fic Oh! My Brother!, Author Avatar Christopher Angel becomes the God of Moments and older brother to the Norns when, while talking with Skuld after she offers him a wish, he absently wishes for a little sister just like her.
• Predating Oh! My Brother! (and a possible inspiration for it) was Brett Handy's 1996 Ah! My Goddess fic Oh My God?. In it, Handy's self-insert avatar blurts out a wish to have a job just like Urd's; he is promptly turned into a god and given a job delivering wishes. Oh, and gets to become involved with Urd.
• Jared Ornstead's self-insert character "Interdimensional superspy/adventurer" Skysaber was elevated to literal godhood as a side effect of the events of the late 1990s fanfic cycle The Bet. Exactly what he was god of was never made clear, but in several stories he was able grant wishes like the deities of Ah! My Goddess, although occasionally he had to call Heaven for approval or the necessary power, sometimes after the fact.
  • Similarly, versions of Kasumi and Nabiki Tendo (from different timelines) were elevated to minor divine spirits during the course of The Bet.
• Played with in Gregg "Metroanime" Sharp's "Grey", another Self-Insert character from 1990s anime fanfiction. Transformed into a neutralish celestial being not unlike a daemon from Greek myth, he ended up something of a Cosmic Butt Monkey, stuck in a dead-end job in a third-rate divine intervention agency, and almost never allowed true success or happiness in anything he did. Although Grey also took part in The Bet, the character existed well before it.
• In the Symphony of the Sword storyline of Undocumented Features, after Akio Ohtori is killed by Utena Tenjou, he is elevated by Surtur from damned soul to demon prince and set on the task of destroying the mortal forces that derailed the Ragnarok. Touga and Nanami Kiryuu, killed in the same incident, are also raised from damned souls to a demon and a succubus respectively, to serve as his assistants minions.

Film

• One can argue that this is what happens to David Bowman when he becomes the Starchild in the psychedelic climax to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Literature

• This happens -- on a temporary basis! -- to mortals chosen to take up the various offices of the Incarnations in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series -- especially in the case of God (Good) and Devil (Evil).
• The late Duchess of Borogravia is elevated to a minor deity by the prayers made to her instead of to Borogravia's "official" god Nuggan in the Discworld book Monstrous Regiment.

Live-Action TV

• Mayor Richard Wilkins from Buffy the Vampire Slayer followed a century-long plan to ascend into a True Demon -- and succeeded. (For about ten minutes. Until the Scoobies blew him up.)
• In a borderline case on Angel, Cordelia eventually ascends on (or just before) her death to become some manner of celestial being.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

• Christian Fanon frequently declares or assumes that humans become angels -- which by definition are lesser divine creatures -- when they die and go to Heaven. This is not only never stated anywhere in the Bible or other definitive sources, but said sources make it clear that becoming an angel would be a step down for a human soul. For instance, 2 Peter 1:4 declares that one of Christ's goals was to make it possible for humans to partake of the nature of God. These same sources also never state that in doing so human souls become gods, making mainstream Christianity an aversion despite its accumulated folklore. Meanwhile, Christ himself is an inversion, being an incarnation of the existing Creator, rather than a mortal who attained divinity.
  • The patriarch Enoch, father of Methuselah, is an odd case. According to Genesis 5:24, "...Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." This is interpreted in many Christian and Jewish traditions to mean that he physically ascended into Heaven without dying, but in no formal scripture is anything more said about him or his post-ascension status. The Apocrypha called the Book of Enoch as well as 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch allege that Enoch was transformed into an angel and appointed guardian of all the celestial treasures, made chief of the archangels, and became the immediate attendant on the Throne of God; 3 Enoch explicitly says he became the Metatron, the voice of God. It should be noted that none of the books of Enoch are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies, although the Ethiopian Jewish community Beta Israel and the Christian Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church both consider it part of their biblical canon.
• Mormonism includes among its tenets a belief called "exaltation", in which the faithful will ascend to heaven and eventually become lesser gods subordinate to God while dwelling with Him through eternity. They believe that one purpose for Christ's mission and atonement was to allow the deification of mortal men, which will (eventually) happen in the afterlife to those who properly embraced Mormon beliefs before the final judgment.
• Unlike the subjects of most of the "hero cults" of Ancient Greece (which resembled ancestor worship more than anything else), Heracles and Asclepius were (at least sometimes) venerated as mortals who had ascended to become true gods.
• While different branches of Taoism often venerate entirely different pantheons of gods, most include historical figures who are believed to have become immortals and thus are worthy of worship and reverence.

Video Games

• The reward for completing Melbourne House's Starion is (in-universe) godhood: the plot involves repairing temporal paradoxes while on a one-way trip backwards in time. Once they're all fixed, Starion arrives at a point before the beginning of the universe and, as the only thing that exists, must by default assume the title of Creator of all that follows. Which definitely won't create any more paradoxes, now will it?
• Characters from City of Heroes and City of Villains who continue on into the endgame Incarnate System after reaching maximum level are by definition (and description) undergoing a slow apotheosis, in which they gather scraps of divine power to themselves and use them to forge new abilities that set them apart even from other superhumans.
  • Strictly speaking, given the Mass Empowering Event in its Backstory, all supers in the City of X games are to one degree or another extremely minor divinities whether they realize it or not, with their apotheoses being their personal origin stories.
• Mortal Kombat
  • Several characters are granted godhood in their endings to Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, including Sheeva and Bo'Rai Cho.
  • In the good ending to the DLC of Mortal Kombat 11, Liu Kang gains godhood, though Raiden relinquishes it. In the bad ending, Shang Tsung does.
    • And in the relaunch, it turns out both endings are true, as Kronika's defeat has split reality into two simultaneous timelines.

Western Animation

• Ōban Star-Racers: The prize of the Great Race is becoming the Avatar, a god-like being whose duty is to be the guardian of the galaxy fo 10,000 years, though they are limited.