Is there a real-world mythological counterpart to WoW's "kill your gods for power" theme?

Question

In World of Warcraft, various groups seen trying to kill or sacrifice their own ostensible "gods" to gain power. Generally, this is associated with the trolls and their Loa, which I understand to be sort of troll deities. Examples of this are:

• The Drakkari trolls of Northrend sacrificed their Loa in an attempt to gain the power to fight off the Scourge.

• Jin'do the Godbreaker draining power from Hakkar (who at this point is already dead after the original Zul'Gurub raid and is now a spirit...I guess? WoW lore can be confusing).

• Yazma killed and drained the power from the loa Shadra, although in fairness, Shadra was also player killable before Cataclysm (...WoW lore can be confusing).

My question: is there a precedent for the concept of humans or mortals sacrificing their deities or semi-deities to gain power, from human mythology? If not from mythology, is there a precedent from some other pre-Warcraft fantasy work?

Answer 1

In previous fantasy, there's lots of examples, for example from the D&D Forgotten Realms setting from 1990s. During The Time of Troubles, mortals kill gods, in some cases to steal their powers. Most notably the mortal Cyric who kills the god Bhaal and becomes a god himself.

This story is central to the Baldur's Gate series of RPG computer games, published between 1998 to 2000. (Warcraft 3 was published in 2002). The main story in Baldur's Gate is that the God of Murder predicted his own death, but made a scheme to pass on his powers to his mortal offspring, who compete with each other to inherit the God's powers.

Answer 2

I believe at the root of this is the notion of "that which you eat you will gain the strength/speed/inteligence/power of."

Draining the power of Gods in WoW would be the equivalent of eating them in olden times.

It is now easy to understand why a savage should desire to partake of the flesh of an animal or man whom he regards as divine. By eating the body of the god he shares in the god’s attributes and powers. - Homeopathic Magic of a Flesh Diet

That article cites many examples in history across the world where cultures eat various types of animals or performs acts in order to get additional strength or speed from them. You are in essence taking it from them and adding it your own.

If you trust TvTropes (danger) as a source they have additional examples of cultures and animals which used this same philosophy (under Real Life). This is a subset:

There are beliefs such as eating your foe will give you his strength or courage. In fact, the word originally meant "strong man" and was used by tribes that believed this.

In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Tanzania, one of the various reasons for the persecution of albinos is the belief that eating their flesh will confer superpowers to the eater.

A lot of insects are able to make themselves poisonous by eating poisonous plants. The poison doesn't harm them and sticks around in their body for a while without being broken down, making them either taste horrible or be downright toxic to anything that decides they would be a good meal.

If you want a Fantasy/Science Fiction answer, look no further than Star Trek

Worf: Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth. - Deep Space Nine

Answer 3

There is an elephant in the room which I am going to address. Yes, there is an example. Christianity. You may have heard of it.

Christianity believes that through the death of their god, humanity would be saved. Some believe that emulating the pain and suffering of this death increases the state of Grace in the world and lubricates the way to heaven or the preparation of this world to move on to its next stage. This was all explicitly set in motion through the sacrifice of the god.

Moreover in some faiths, communion is taken. Whether symbolic or through the belief in transubstantiation, the idea is that the believers figuratively or literally consume the flesh and drink the blood of their god and in doing so have their souls purified in the process.

Please note, in an effort to forestall hatred I fear coming my way, that I am not either casting aspersions upon or standing in judgement of Christianity as a whole or any of the various flavors therin.

Answer 4

The story of Kvasir comes to mind.

In Norse mythology, Kvasir was a being born of the saliva of the Æsir and the Vanir, two groups of gods. Extremely wise, Kvasir traveled far and wide, teaching and spreading knowledge. This continued until the dwarfs Fjalar and Galar killed Kvasir and drained him of his blood. The two mixed his blood with honey, resulting in the Mead of Poetry, a mead which imbues the drinker with skaldship and wisdom, and the spread of which eventually resulted in the introduction of poetry to mankind.

This does mostly fit:

• He is not explicitly a god or godlike being, but was at least created by/from some
• He is killed by dwarfs, not humans, but you left the question open to "other mortals", which might include dwarfs
• The brew created from his blood imbues apparently anyone who drinks from it with wisdom and poetic skills

Answer 5

In mythology:

• Explicitly for power by humans, I can't find a direct example , although I have a feeling there must be some Maori, African or American Indian examples. I remember reading a huge 500+ page book in childhood which had collected stories about tricksters from all over the world. I kinda feel some examples lurk somewhere, will try to find more.

• Explicitly by humans: Christianity

• Also note some answers to https://mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/2640/can-the-greek-gods-be-killed

Note also Deicide article in Wikipedia.

In fantasy, explicitly for power, definitely yes:

A prime example, which comes to mind is Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the book came out a couple years before first installment of WoW. Spoiler:

You might say that killing gods for power is the hidden plot of the whole book. While most of the killing is done by other gods, some are by mortals.

As Gaiman draws heavily on mythology I'd be surprised if he didn't find the concept in some myths.

Also, there must be other, older, examples, probably by Roger Zelazny or others.

Note, however, that a god is usually someone immortal by definition, so killing a god by mortal should be considered generally impossible. If he is not immortal, is he a god?

Answer 6

The most clear example from real myths is certainly ancient greek mythology.

Zeus killed his father Kronos, who in turn had killed his father Uranus. While there were other reasons besides gaining power, there is an undercurrent of that idea there, with the son coming to power by the act of killing his father.

The main difference is that Zeus is a god himself, but the basic idea is there.