God for a Day - TV Tropes

"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is; give him power. This is the supreme test."

• Lex Luthor is granted divine powers in The Black Ring to make the universe a paradise. There's only one catch: the overwhelming positivity of these powers means that he can't use them to fulfill negative desires. He remains a god only so long as he doesn't use his ultimate power to, say, just picking an example at random, screw with Superman. Guess what happens.
• When Green Lantern Kyle Rayner became Ion, a being with all the power of the entire Green Lantern Corps, he used his new might to feed starving children in Africa, removed the residue of power preventing his friend, John Stewart, from healing his back-injury, restored his girlfriend Jade's powers, etc. Kyle even single-handedly prevents a full-scale alien invasion from a force so powerful it once took the full mobilization of the JLA, reserves included, to stop. Superman advises him to back down because people around the world have started to worship him as a god, due to these amazing developments occurring in just under a week. Soon after, he sacrifices the power so that the Guardians of the Universe and the Corps can live again.
• Subverted with Thanos of Titan. Whenever Thanos becomes omnipotent (whether by the Infinity Gauntlet, Cosmic Cube, or the Heart of the Universe), he is typically able to handle the responsibility. He has shown the foresight and wisdom to bear the sudden apotheosis and avoid the downsides like instant suicidal madness, the results of which would lead to the end of everything in existence. This wisdom does not translate to benevolence as his use of these powers has always been disastrous to life in the universe. When he loses the power, Thanos proves he was unworthy of it in the first place. He has been canonically confirmed to be subconsciously aware that he is unworthy of such power, thus always leaving some means of defeat for his enemies to find and ensuring his downfall.

• Absolutely Anything sees a council of aliens testing the worth of Earth joining them by giving a random person omnipotent powers and seeing what he does with them. The powers go to Neil Clarke, a washed-up schoolteacher. While he first uses them for selfish gains, he more and more learns to act responsibly. Unfortunately, the aliens wanted him to use them for evil, which in their eyes would be the right thing.
• The plot of Bruce Almighty: Bruce thinks that God does a rubbish job because he was passed up for a promotion in favor of his jerkass rival, he got fired after an on-air breakdown, a gang of thugs beat him up and vandalized his car, and his dog isn't toilet trained. Rather than smiting him like a mighty smiter, God gives Bruce the job. Bruce gives himself some frivolities, screws over a few people who annoy him, gets laid, and has some really good coffee, but alas, God-like powers don't get you love, and answering yes to every prayer just makes things worse.

• Another wager with godlike entities: Rachel of the Animorphs was given the chance to become the ultimate fighting machine by Crayak. However such things are not much fun for a Blood Knight and it leaves only the satisfaction of sadistically snuffing out your enemies which is a road she doesn't feel comfortably going down when Crayak starts saying she isn't so different. It doesn't help that she would have to kill her cousin in exchange for getting the powers.
• The Dean Koontz short story "A Darkness in My Soul" ended with the main character gaining God's powers and changing the world, exploring the universe, and granting half his powers to his girlfriend so they might both be gods. The story ends with them returning to Earth and playing war games against each other with the population out of boredom.
• Possibly the Trope Maker is H. G. Wells' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" (1898), adapted into a film of the same name in 1936.
• Joshua Culvert is given this in the The Night's Dawn Trilogy.

• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hide and Q", Q gives such powers to Riker and makes, unknown to Riker, a bet with Picard: Picard thinks that Riker will reject Q's offer and bets the Enterprise herself on him against Q offering to never bother them again. Picard wins after Riker finds that every gift he tries to give to his friends rings hollow:

  Riker: But it's what you've always wanted, Data — to become human.
  Data: Yes, sir. That is true. But I never wanted to compound one... illusion with another. It might be real to Q... perhaps even you, sir. But it would never be so to me. Was it not one of the Captain's favourite authors who wrote, "This above all: to thine own self be true?" Sorry, Commander, I must decline.

• In the Supernatural episode "Appointment in Samarra", Dean is given the job of being one of Death's reapers for a day. He tries to let a little girl with a heart condition live, only to discover that letting someone live "against the natural order" sets off a cascade of other deaths, and he has to give up before the day is over, admitting that it's harder than it looks.

• In Classical Mythology, the sun god Helios offered his son Phaeton anything he wanted — and what Phaeton wanted was to fly the solar chariot for a day. Helios tried to warn him how to control the horses, and not to fly too close or too far from the Earth, but Phaeton was too excited to listen. When he took the reins, the horses sensed they had a new, inexperienced rider, and promptly took off, bouncing between too close to the Earth, which burned it, and too far away, which froze it. Eventually Zeus threw a lightning bolt at the chariot to preserve life on Earth.

• Shel Silverstein toys with this in a poem called "God's Wheel" where God gives someone a chance "to be God awhile and steer the world." After a barrage of questions about the working hours, pay, etc., the offer is withdrawn.

  "Gimme back that wheel," says GOD.

  "I don't think you're quite ready yet."

• According to himself, Jan Jansen from Baldur's Gate II was once the god of death for a year, due to a long story involving a Banite cult, a clerical mix-up, and an extraordinarily good dental plan. Like everything else that comes out of Jan's mouth concerning his own life, its veracity is highly suspect.
• Noire considers offering this opportunity in one of her blog entries in Hyperdimension Neptunia. Keeping with her being the PS3 rep, she says you'd "only have to do everything".
• Wheatley from Portal 2 gets put into GLaDOS's chassis in a last-ditch attempt to help Chell escape from the facility. He goes Drunk with Power within minutes and betrays you, taking up the role as Big Bad for the rest of the game, and even functioning as the Final Boss.

• In the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons (1983) episode "Day of the Dungeon Master," Eric the Cavalier is given the practically limitless power of the Dungeon Master. He screws up a lot by being rather pompous but he actually ends up becoming very sagelike himself and even gets the capability to send everyone back to the real world but they stay because it would require him being left behind on his own.
• Futurama: Happens to Bender in the episode "Godfellas". He first exploits the shrimpkins to make him alcohol, but then tries to be benevolent and when he finds he can't solve all their problems, a faction turns against him and they all eventually destroy themselves. Shortly after that, he meets a being that may or may not be God himself, and they have a discussion on how divine lords should work, with the entity saying that they should act In Mysterious Ways.