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God Guise: Difference between revisions
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* Also seen in the full-length animated feature ''[[The Road to El Dorado]]'', where con artists-cum-explorers Tulio and Miguel allow the residents of the titular city of gold to believe they are incarnations of the Gods that built the city. Rather heavily based on the [[Real Life]] treatment the Spanish got when they encountered the Aztecs (see below).
** Throughout the film, several characters begin to doubt their claims, but let it continue, as the two Spaniards are pretty harmless. Then the head priest sees one of the bleed after a heated ball game. Gods aren't supposed to bleed, right?
** The chief was hinted to have known that it was all a rouse, but went along with it so that the more benevolent "gods" cared more about the citizens of the city than their traditions, which required ritualistic sacrifices (something the resident priest was all too happy about). A little silliness was a small price to pay when the strangers brightened the lives of all your citizens.
* Subverted in ''[[Fitzcarraldo]]''. In order to get the manpower to [[It Makes Sense in Context|haul a 320-ton ship up a mountain in the Amazon rainforest]], Fitzcarraldo and his crew try convincing a bunch of natives who conveniently have a legend about a divine power with a white vessel that Fitzcarraldo is a God. The natives inform them that they weren't born yesterday, but decide to help out anyway in exchange for ice.
* The backstory of the original ''[[The Wicker Man]]'' describes how the first Lord Summerisle introduced new crops and farming methods, as well as his Pagan faith. When the crops were incredibly successful, he had no difficulty convincing the locals that there was a connection between their survival and the appeasal of Celtic deities.
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* In the early [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novels, the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Yuuzhan Vong]] mistook Jaina Solo for Yun-Harla, their Goddess of Deception. This gave the New Republic an advantage, as the Yuuzhan Vong were incredibly frightened and demoralized at the thought that one of their deities had turned against them.
** The Thrawn Trilogy also had Thrawn making use of a race that worshiped Darth Vader as a god. Leia managed to sabotage this by going right to the leaders of the race and saying, "Screw Thrawn, I'm Vader's ''daughter.''"
** This is also how the [[Religion of Evil|Sith]] [[The Empire|Order]] got its start. After being defeated by the Jedi Order in the war known as the Hundred Year Darkness, a group of Dark Jedi were exiled from republic space in the hopes that they would learn the error of their ways and return to the Jedi Order. Instead, they landed on the planet Korriban, and encountered the native Sith species. Seeing that the Sith were very technologically undeveloped, some of the Dark Jedi got the great idea to pose as the gods of the Sith through use of their force powers and technology. This is also where the term "Dark Lord of the Sith" comes from, as the title refers to the reigning [[God-Emperor]] of the Sith people.
* In [[David Weber]]'s ''Heirs of Empire'', the third ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'' book, the [[Lost Colony]] natives of Pardal decide that the stranded off-world protagonists are angels, which does not sit well with the repressive theocracy governing the planet; the end result is a full-scale religious war. Harriet and Sandy insist that they not be called angels, but the locals only humor them to their faces, and aside from the insistent terminology the crew largely goes along with it anyway.
** Also from Weber the [[Safehold]] series has the Church Of God Awaiting,in which a bunch of megalomaniacs set themselves up as "archangels" through [[Brainwashing]] and [[Clarke's Third Law|sufficiently advanced technology]].
* In [[Mark Twain]]'s ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'', a late 19th-century American is sent back in time to the Dark Ages and becomes an important member of King Arthur's court, using his advanced scientific and political knowledge to greatly improve the quality of life of the kingdom, while also discrediting Merlin (revealed to be a fraud) with his own advanced technology and intelligence that makes him look like a true Sorcerer. In the end, he's {{spoiler|kicked out of the kingdom and he and a small number of his allies make a defensive position with 13 Gatling guns, dynamite, and electrical wiring that allows them to defeat 30,000 of England's soldiers.}}
* The short story [http://theopinionguy.com/OG25.pdf "Assumption" (scroll down)] by Desmond Warzel features a ''literal'' [[Cargo Cult]] (in that they worship an actual piece of cargo), but eventually becomes more like this trope -- a person becomes an object of religious awe because of her advanced technology (she descends from the sky).
* Since a number of the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' forms and/or powers resemble figures or symbols from various religions, not surprisingly a number of them have been given (or have deliberately cultivated) religious roles. Nur Al'Allah was the most blatant example.
** Not compared to the Living Gods of Egypt, a group of Aces and Jokers (many of whom have animalistic mutations) who claim to be the reincarnation of the Egyptian pantheon. As you might imagine, this leads to... issues when the Nur Al'Allah's Caliphate starts to make headway into Egypt.
* This is how the angels in ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' created the Abrahamic religions. The first of them all convinced the ones that were born after that he was the supreme creator and being, and so [[God Is Evil|he came to rule them]]. Later, when the rebel angels gave sentience to mankind and other races, all he had to do was to send his agents and see the awestruck people convert to his cause.
** The witches in Lyra's world worship deities based on our Finnish mythology, but no indication about their nature is present. One of said witches does, however, kill the false gods that a human tribe worshipped - [[Panthera Awesome|tigers]].
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* In the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Over the Rainbow", Cordelia is made a goddess by the people of Pylea, as the result of her visions. Unfortunately, the power behind the throne is a [[Religion of Evil]].
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode, "The Little People".
* In an episode of ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'', Earl used a walkie-talkie to transmit messages through his religious cranky landlady's hearing aid to get her to do nice things for him and his friends. She later became a nun...and Earl had to tell her what he did, thus shaking up her faith.
* In the ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' episode "Little Tin God", Duncan flashes back to a time when he visited South America and found that an Immortal named Gavriel Larca had conned a tribe into worshiping him. The tribe eventually turned on him when he couldn't heal them from a plague. In the present, Larca goes back to his old tricks and cons some people into believing he's God, then sends them to kill Duncan, claiming he's Satan. Duncan and Joe later muse that worship is a great temptation for any Immortal.
* ''[[Pixelface]]'': In "High Spirits", the angry ghost of a pharaoh mistakes Rex for an Egyptian god after Romford falls out of the ceiling and gets stuck on his head. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
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* Nobby of ''[[Doctor Snuggles]]'' used super powers to impersonate an Egyptian god.
* The Hawaiian tribespeople in ''[[Garfield|Garfield in Paradise]]''. They worship a [[Hell-Bent for Leather|greaser]] who [[Heroic Sacrifice|drove his Chevy into an erupting volcano]] in the 1950s, in order to prevent it from destroying the tribe's village.
* Happens to Dagget in ''[[The Angry Beavers]]''. He and Norbert were after "knots" in the wood, and Dagget pushed one out of a tree (sacred to a bunch of female raccoons on the other side) and wound up in their land with the knot balanced on his head. He rather enjoyed being "The Mighty Knothead" until he learned that he had to become the boyfriend/husband of The High Priestess.
** In another episode, Dagget has ingested a large amount of a stupidity-inducing potion...except that he was already pretty stupid to begin with, so it actually made him a super-genius. He then ponders what happened to Norb (who responded to the potion exactly as expected). Cut to Norb on a [[Mayincatec]] pyramid, being fed fruit, with the worshippers bowing down and repeating his mantra: [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"DUUUHHH!"]]
* In the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' episode "G.I. Joe and the Golden Fleece", several Joes and COBRA members get sent back in time to Ancient Greece. The locals mistake the Joes as a whole for Jason and the Argonauts, Lifeline for Asclepius the God of Healing, Sargent Slaughter for Heracles, and the COBRA forces for various monsters.
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[[Category:God Guise]]
[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]
[[Category:God Tropes]]
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