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Zaphod42 posted:McShane is just such a perfect casting for Wednesday I still can't believe its real Yeah I'm genuinely curious if people who went into this show cold picked up on it. I'm also surprised we got that full opening vignette, curious to see what others are planned for the adaptation.
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May 1, 2017 04:34
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Golli posted:Someone previously mentioned they hope that Wednesday doesn't use his power to sleep with whomever he wants, because that would be creepy (by today's standards). But that is the root cause of the whole pickle the gods find themselves in. They are who they are - they don't change because of society. Their task is to persuade/trick/intimidate society into accepting and worshipping them as they have been, are, and will continue to be. So if they showrummers have Wednesday change from the womanizing, jealous, strong, angry god that would be recognizable to the Vikings in the first scene they will have failed in their characterization. I'd say that it's close to the opposite of this, actually. Though I'm a book-reader, I'll try and keep my speculation on the show's intents focused on the show's screen-language and presentation (and thus be intentionally ignorant on certain parts, so please don't feel obligated to correct me with black boxes). It's not that these American Gods are the gods of the old world who have become abandoned by the American people, but the versions of those gods brought to the country by its many immigrants. It's not that figures like Wednesday and Mad Sweeny were made in some primordial image eons ago and have to trick others into worshipping them, but rather that their very being was crafted by the perceptions of their worshippers in the New World - and yes, now they have to coerce worship, but their faults and flaws were created in them by the mortals who "created" them. We see the lost vikings in the opening create a crude and simple version of Wotan the All-Father, a gallows god who is fickle and cruel, who delights in sacrifice, service and submission, and the wanton bloodshed of those wishing to earn his favor. And so, the Wednesday of America (if indeed we're meant to assume that the two characters are one in the same, but again this seems to be what the show is telling us based on Wednesday's one eye, his urging of the fight between Shadow and Sweeney, and his refusal to do things - especially travel - on any terms beyond his own) exemplifies these qualities. One assumes that if there is a European Odin, his personality may be more informed by the much wider mythology available to the people that once worshipped him there, as opposed to a band of desperate and cruel vikings. Similarly, there may indeed be a Jesus Christ walking among America who is lily-white, polite, and suspiciously mute on the topics of gun rights and nationalism, whereas the Jesus Christ of Latin America may be coated in blood, darker-skinned, and possibly tinged with a bit of Santeria. The gods in this show aren't universal constants who descend to find followers, but are instead crafted through the very act of "worship". We see this with the unnamed, presumptive "New God" that abducts Shadow. He appears to be representative of technology, but not in the industrial or progressive sense, but the conspicuous nouveau-tech, obsessed with the bleeding edge and the co-option of popular imagery (he's the traditional 'boss' smoking in the back of a limo, his goons are corrupted versions of A Clockwork Orange's Droogs - both are classic images of crime that an adolescent would be obsessed over).
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May 1, 2017 22:15
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Golli posted:Agreed. Oh yeah, this seems accurate. I just thought you meant the Gods were older and static, and their whole shtick has been to always coerce mortals into worship. Yeah, the cycle seems to be "people come to a country, or what is defined and understood by its people to be a country, start praying, then eventually abandon the gods they birthed as they become more interested in This Thing or That One" - the new focuses of attention, then of course, become another sort of "god". There might be weak Proto-Odins or whatever stuck on little islands across the world or comic-book-toned Golems in Manhattan from the 40s. Maybe there's a Haitian Legba wandering Florida who has a strange kinship or rivalry with White St. Peter. Vape Boy may be as equally disdainful of Wednesday and "his kind" as he is of Uncle Sam or Manifest Destiny. Zaphod42 posted:At risk of book talk, The ending of the book makes this abundantly clear. Wednesday is not Odin. He is me, but I am not him. Hence, American Gods. tin can made man posted:Though I'm a book-reader, I'll try and keep my speculation on the show's intents focused on the show's screen-language and presentation (and thus be intentionally ignorant on certain parts, so please don't feel obligated to correct me with black boxes). tin can made man fucked around with this message at 23:04 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 23:01
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As it is now, it's only a theory, highly supported by the text of the show; on that note I think it's fair discussion. It could even be wrong, since we have no rightful clue what will or will not be adapted from the novel.etalian posted:I was disappointed that there was no Redtube god. This is an interesting point and puts some new flavor on the Bilquis scene. A more blunt property with the premise of "ancient sex goddess in Hollywood" would paint her as an ultra kinky dominatrix or something, but in this she's not even so much as a prostitute. She's a woman in the dating world looking for genuine attraction and lust, surrounded by men who have endless stores of pornography and for-hire thrills at every corner ("the most beautiful thing I haven't had to pay to touch"). In a sense, those types of easy lust-fulfillments are her "rival pantheons" and in the face of red tube and online escort services, of course she's obscure and diminished.
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May 2, 2017 00:54
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Deadulus posted:I hope we get to see the origin of the new gods as well. They could do something with Hearst and have Jon Lithgow play him like in that one Drunk History
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May 10, 2017 20:59
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