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jng2058 posted:Not exactly. Mammoth God tells his people that the only way to survive is to sacrifice the adults (and the God himself) so that their children will survive as followers of the Buffalo God. As a not-book-reader, I have to say the adaptation really doesn't communicate this idea well. As far as we're shown, Nunnyunnini shows the shaman a vision of a buffalo killing her, and a buffalo does kill her, but it wasn't clear what the buffalo's relationship to Nunnyunnini was. It could have been an avatar of Nunnyunnini for all I know. We're not shown in the TV version that the adults were all killed off, and we're not shown the kids worshipping the buffalo The message I got from watching it as a newcomer to the material was that once the people were out of danger (they had food and defeated their enemies), they gave up on religion.
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May 29, 2017 10:56
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Gillian Anderson as Bowie you guys, I just... It's perfect. Such contempt for the technical boy, she's been doing it better for longer.
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May 29, 2017 11:02
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Gillian is absolutely murdering it in this. It takes chops to be the best thing in a show that has Ian McShane in it.
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May 29, 2017 11:18
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I was a little nerd mad about them touching one of my books but this is surprising good
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May 29, 2017 11:27
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Steve Yun posted:The message I got from watching it as a newcomer to the material was that once the people were out of danger (they had food and defeated their enemies), they gave up on religion. Yes, that's pretty much it. America is a bad place for gods and traditions. In the book the chapter ends with the descendants of the original tribe, having long forgotten their relation to the tribe and the mammoth god, murdering everybody and destroying the altar.
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May 29, 2017 13:15
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double nine posted:Nah. Still beaten by You're an rear end in a top hat, dead wife. But Glover was amazing, true. One small thing that work's VERY well is the new, 2017 interpretation of technical boy. It's really easy to imagine that little douchebag mugging for the camera in front of my 12-year-old cousins on youtube.
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May 29, 2017 14:08
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:One small thing that work's VERY well is the new, 2017 interpretation of technical boy. It's really easy to imagine that little douchebag mugging for the camera in front of my 12-year-old cousins on youtube. Yeah, his retrograde understanding of race would make him right st home blasting air horns over Five Nightsvar Minecraft Freddy's. Which I don't mean as a point against the show, Technical Boy is on point.
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May 29, 2017 16:07
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One thing that caught me by surprise (and this is mostly Media) is just how frightening the new gods are. They've done a great job making all of the new gods so far seem a bit other-worldly, albeit very powerful, but very nonhuman. Wednesday, Czernobog, etc. are clearly a bit different from some random rear end in a top hat you'd run into on the street, but they can pass as eccentric. From the book, Media always seemed more intent on bringing peace if possible, almost a little goofy. Here, Gillian Anderson has made her this terrifying alien. Awesome job.
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May 29, 2017 16:13
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Steve Yun posted:As a not-book-reader, I have to say the adaptation really doesn't communicate this idea well. As far as we're shown, Nunnyunnini shows the shaman a vision of a buffalo killing her, and a buffalo does kill her, but it wasn't clear what the buffalo's relationship to Nunnyunnini was. It could have been an avatar of Nunnyunnini for all I know. We're not shown in the TV version that the adults were all killed off, and we're not shown the kids worshipping the buffalo That's not from the book. There's a completely different deal with those characters in the book about sacred mushrooms and lack of faith and so on. I'm just saying what I interpreted from what was on screen. What was on screen was the Mammoth Skull tells the priestess that it will require a "terrible sacrifice" to survive. And then everyone but the kids die and the Mammoth god is forgotten. Sure sounds like "trade away what you know in exchange for life for your children" to me. But YMMV. 
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May 29, 2017 16:19
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It was funny how Mr World couldn't stop himself from tipping his hand to Shadow by repeatedly asking him if they had met before. Also casting two people as Mr World and Low Key makes sense because you just can't do the same thing as in a book where you have Mr World show up and just not mention what he looks like/have Shadow overhear him and then go "he sounded familiar but Shadow couldn't place it." muscles like this! fucked around with this message at 19:09 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 19:05
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I thought Loki was Mr. World's driver, and was upfront about being the guy shadow knew in prison, and Mr World is never actually seen in the book?
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May 29, 2017 19:09
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At the end of the book at the battle between Old Gods and New he explicitly lays out that Low Key and Mr World are the same guy. It was part of Odin's plan to have both sides play towards his goal. IIRC though Mr World wasn't specifically called out as a New God in the book, he was just the head of the organization working with the New Gods.
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May 29, 2017 19:11
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Normal Adult Human posted:I thought Loki was Mr. World's driver, and was upfront about being the guy shadow knew in prison, and Mr World is never actually seen in the book? Shadow thinks Loki is a driver for the new gods. The new gods and spookshow think Mr. World is posing as a driver to surreptitiously keep an eye on the hotel meetup.
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May 29, 2017 19:13
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I think if nothing else we can all agree that the best change they made in the show is to not explicitly name him Low-Key Lyesmith. Wins the award for most subtle of all names. Surprised Gaiman didn't name Wednesday "Ohdyn Thundurrgawd".
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May 29, 2017 19:17
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He was still called that in the credits for the first episode, they just never said it out loud.
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May 29, 2017 19:21
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I guess maybe it's because I know a lot about Norse mythology but I was talking to a non book reader about the newest episode and (as I mentioned earlier) I was surprised they revealed Wednesday's true identity so early. He was confused, and still doesn't know. I mean, Wednesday is very subtle...they called him Grimnir this episode, slightly less subtle, and then they came out with the O.D.I.N Rocket...
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May 29, 2017 19:27
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The whole name is too much and dumb, but "Low-key" on its own probably would've been fine. Do any of the other old gods use a straight-up pseudonym? All the ones I can think of use their actual name (e.g. Bilquis), a word derived from their name (Wednesday), or a common corruption of their name (e.g. Nancy). I can't think of any good options from the latter two categories for Loki.
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May 29, 2017 19:29
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Well, Mr. Jacquel is Anubis, and Mr. Ibis is Thoth - they just named themselves after their animal portion of their identity.
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May 29, 2017 19:55
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Ibis and Jacquel. Medullah posted:I guess maybe it's because I know a lot about Norse mythology but I was talking to a non book reader about the newest episode and (as I mentioned earlier) I was surprised they revealed Wednesday's true identity so early. He was confused, and still doesn't know. In this episode Mad Sweeney calls him Wotan but that still might be too obscure for some people.
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May 29, 2017 19:55
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muscles like this! posted:In this episode Mad Sweeney calls him Wotan but that still might be too obscure for some people. Czernobog called him Wotan too, so from pretty early on we have several characters not calling him Wednesday, but not referring to him as Odin either. Fantastic episode. I'm still in awe at how spot-on the casting has been. Give me Gillian Anderson ASAP.
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May 29, 2017 20:14
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Wizchine posted:Well, Mr. Jacquel is Anubis, and Mr. Ibis is Thoth - they just named themselves after their animal portion of their identity.  Yeah, not sure how I forgot about them.
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May 29, 2017 20:19
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Bryan Fuller I love what you're doing with visuals in this show but if you were gonna have Laura retell the story in three minutes anyway you didn't need to make me sit through the boring-rear end last episode.
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May 29, 2017 20:27
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Toast Museum posted:The whole name is too much and dumb, but "Low-key" on its own probably would've been fine. Oh, Loki has a lot of names. Not as many as Odin, but still quite a few. Skywalker, for instance.
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May 29, 2017 21:05
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muscles like this! posted:Ibis and Jacquel. Mad Sweeney calls Wednesday Grimnir in this episode, which is one of Odin's name, Czernobog had previously called him Wotan. And of course, the "Odin Guidance Satellite" which was referenced by Media uses the more popular rendering. Although Shadow hasn't explicitly said anything to him to the effect of "Where's your six legged horse." I think the Wednesday thing worked by the nature of the book, but I'm happy it's presented this way in the show too.
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May 29, 2017 21:22
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I knew who he was as soon as they said "Mr. Wednesday" because "it's my day" but I had a lot of exposure to Norse myth growing up. Of course I was also completely blindsided by the Loki reveal so who knows. 
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May 29, 2017 21:25
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I knew who he was as soon as they said "Mr. Wednesday" because "it's my day" but I had a lot of exposure to Norse myth growing up. Yeah, same here. I've known for ever that Wednesday is Wotan's Day and so I pegged him right away. But I felt like a chump that I missed Loki.
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May 29, 2017 21:49
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One wonders if Freya gets some power from Friday being worshiped by everyone with an office job
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May 29, 2017 21:55
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precision posted:One wonders if Freya gets some power from Friday being worshiped by everyone with an office job Freya suffered a fate worse than death
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May 29, 2017 21:57
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Choco1980 posted:Oh, Loki has a lot of names. Not as many as Odin, but still quite a few. Skywalker, for instance.
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May 30, 2017 00:21
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You know, it occurs to me that all the hilarious tip-toeing in the non-spoiler thread regarding Wednesday might be off tone entirely. I think Gaiman/Fuller/et al expected the audience to be smart enough to make the connection that someone in a show called American Gods, who hangs out with Gods, who says "Wednesday, that's my day", has ravens around, is called Wotan in episode 2, is Odin.
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May 30, 2017 00:58
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precision posted:You know, it occurs to me that all the hilarious tip-toeing in the non-spoiler thread regarding Wednesday might be off tone entirely. I think Gaiman/Fuller/et al expected the audience to be smart enough to make the connection that someone in a show called American Gods, who hangs out with Gods, who says "Wednesday, that's my day", has ravens around, is called Wotan in episode 2, is Odin. Well to be fair, Norse mythology definitely wasn't all that popular/mainstream when the novel came out. It's definitely become a bit more mainstream with the Marvel movies. I doubt many people know the alternate names of Odin, and most have no idea that Wednesday comes from his name. I did when I read the book because I was a mythology nerd, but that definitely wasn't the norm. I think it's meant to be a secret at first, but if people didn't guess after this episode there's something wrong. I haven't looked at the other thread, but I'm guessing it's filled with "people who never read the books" making "guesses as to what's happening" just like the Game of Thrones worst threads.
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May 30, 2017 01:18
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i forgot, what happens when a powerful god is murdered. does he just come back again later in a different form or something
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May 30, 2017 01:24
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Terror Sweat posted:i forgot, what happens when a powerful god is murdered. does he just come back again later in a different form or something I think what Wednesday says is that they do die, and something like them but not them turns up after a while.
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May 30, 2017 01:42
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Terror Sweat posted:i forgot, what happens when a powerful god is murdered. does he just come back again later in a different form or something Well in the end of the book (spoiling in case anyone doesn't want to remember) you find out that the Old Gods in America are just aspects of the original Gods brought over by their original believers. After Wednesday is killed, Shadow meets another version of Odin. The quote is something like "He was I, and I am him, but we are not the same".
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May 30, 2017 01:44
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Medullah posted:Well to be fair, Norse mythology definitely wasn't all that popular/mainstream when the novel came out. It's definitely become a bit more mainstream with the Marvel movies. I doubt many people know the alternate names of Odin, and most have no idea that Wednesday comes from his name. I did when I read the book because I was a mythology nerd, but that definitely wasn't the norm. Where'd you go to school? I was taught the basics of Norse/Greek/Roman mythologies in at least 3 different classes. At least the "Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Wotan's Day" and "he has a bro named Loki" basics. Honestly thought most people were, since I went to school all over the country growing up and always encountered it. Then again that was a long time ago, maybe they don't bother teaching that stuff more recently.
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May 30, 2017 01:44
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precision posted:Where'd you go to school? I was taught the basics of Norse/Greek/Roman mythologies in at least 3 different classes. At least the "Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Wotan's Day" and "he has a bro named Loki" basics. Honestly thought most people were, since I went to school all over the country growing up and always encountered it. Then again that was a long time ago, maybe they don't bother teaching that stuff more recently. Michigan, graduated in '94. Mythology was barely touched unless you chose it as an independent study elective, and when it was it was mostly Greek/Roman stuff.
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May 30, 2017 01:47
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Am I seeing things, or was Mr. World going into and slightly out of focus during his scene, especially during closeups? That's a nice subtle visual cue that something's off with him.
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May 30, 2017 03:02
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Terror Sweat posted:i forgot, what happens when a powerful god is murdered. does he just come back again later in a different form or something I think this past episode dealt quite well in explaining the "afterlife" for Gods. They can die, if they're completely forgotten. Otherwise, they just get paradigm shifts, and change to reflect changing times (like when Media and World try to convince Wednesday to the branding of the Odin Satellite over Korea). Wednesday and his crew are trying to fight against the changing times, that's kind of the whole point. They don't WANT to change, they want to be themselves. The problem seems to be that that's a lot more out of their power than they like to admit. The Gods are powered by belief. By us. What we believe them to be, they become. The old Norse beliefs put Odin (whose name we use constantly for a day of the week) as a wise trickster conman, so that's exactly what he is. Media herself said she's whatever is being played at the moment (note how in her first scene, she corrects Shadow that she's not appearing as Lucille Ball, but Lucille Ricardo. A key distinction). We're a society where we believe whatever the media shows us, so she becomes those same things because we believe in them. Anything else is posture, whether they have control over it or not.
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May 30, 2017 03:16
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It's a great touch that Media literally speaks in lyrics and quotes, as if she doesn't really know how to speak English, she just knows what's been in the airwaves.
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May 30, 2017 04:10
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precision posted:You know, it occurs to me that all the hilarious tip-toeing in the non-spoiler thread regarding Wednesday might be off tone entirely. I think Gaiman/Fuller/et al expected the audience to be smart enough to make the connection that someone in a show called American Gods, who hangs out with Gods, who says "Wednesday, that's my day", has ravens around, is called Wotan in episode 2, is Odin. but the thing here is that it works for the Anglosphere/Nordic/Germanic audiences, but Latin language countries, for example, wouldn't get it since Wednesday would be Mercury's day (Miércoles/Mercredi/Mercoledi/etc) since the names come from the Roman traditions. but then again the show is "American Gods" so ymmv
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May 30, 2017 04:21
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