Does a deity think he or she is better than the mortals they deal with? Absolutely not!
They
know that they are.
The question is, is it arrogance to think that when it's demonstrably true?
To a deity, mortals, even the longer lived ones, are ephemeral. They come, they strive mightily, and then they fade away. Human heroes write their names and exploits across the sky in letters of fire.
For 30 years or so.
After that they've moved from their brash youth (early 20s) into their middle years, and the flames of youthful energy have begun to burn down to the comfortable embers of age.
To a deity who has been around for thousands or millions of years, an who reasonably expects to be around for millennia more, those scant few decades of sturm and drang might be entertaining, but they're brief, and there's always some other brash young hero ready in the wings.
And heroes have such a nasty habit of dying young. Sometimes several times. For a being whose consciousness spans multiple planes and hundreds of human lifetimes, it's probably hard to keep track of these things. Like all the sub plots in a soap opera, you look away for a moment and you can lost the point of the entire thing.
So if a deity considers you expendable, even a good deity, it's because to them, you really are. You'll be dead soon enough anyway, whether you die in glorious combat, or from a bad case of gout in your old age. The difference is only a few decades, and if a human life span is short to a deity, that fraction of a lifetime is even shorter.
We have a seldom spoken of rule, a view of how the gods view the mortal realm.
Gods seldom fight directly. Somebody could actually get killed if they did that.
Instead they play "The Great Game". The rules are simple. The playing field is the world as we know it. A challenge will be issued by one side or another, sometimes directly, sometimes implicit. Each player will choose their pieces, sort of like chess. Co-opt a king and his kingdom, a few bishops, a knight or two, a few castles, and oh, don't forget the pawns. Lots and lots of pawns.
Drop a ring in a mountain? Pull a sword from a stone? The gods will pick their cause, and each will send their pieces into battle, sometimes by subtle manipulation, sometimes by more direct means.
Now the simple fact is, the gods could take that ring and hit Mt. Doom from half a continent away, nothing but net. They could also reach in and pick up their pieces whenever they fall, stand them up, wind them up and send them back into the fray. They could sweep the opposing game pieces from the board with one wave of their hand.
But that's cheating. If a god cheats by directly interfering with the quest, it licenses the opposing power to interfere as well, and because they have that open license they're probably going to interfere bigger than the cheater did.
So believe me, you don't want things to get so desperate that only an act of god (or goddess) can save the day. And you definitely don't want your god to be the first one to break that rule.
On the other hand, you love it when the other side cheats first. Unless, of course, you happen to be the poor schmoe on the spot when the hand of an angry god crashes down on the game board, upsetting all the pieces.
Now any given god is probably "playing" a dozen games at once, some for major stakes and some penny-ante. A daring deity might arrange so that different quests cross paths, hoping to tip the scales of one by drawing aid from his other team. But that's risky, since it might leave his A team facing both the oppositions A team and their C or D team at the same time.
Ever wonder why it seems that your quests are the only thing happening in the world? It's because the gods want to keep the play clean.
Ever wonder why there is the occasional star that falls from the sky? It's because some deity or other decided to take a direct shot at an opponent, instead of taking it to the playing field.
And if you ever wonder why it seems like your character is a mere pawn in somebody else's scheme, it's because that's exactly what he or she is.
