Line #5 Fridge/AmericanGods


1	'''FridgeBrilliance''':
2	* Names:
3	** ''Aunt Nancy'': Anansi.
4	** Low-Key Lyesmith. Loki, the liar (i.e., a smith of lies)
5	** Calling a sun god Shadow. Shadows can't exist in complete darkness, you need a source of light for them to manifest.
6	* Easter resurrecting Shadow. Easter is the goddess of resurrection. The Christian holiday of Easter also celebrates Jesus' resurrection.
7	** Easter also mentions that she had brought people back before, a reference to Jesus.
8	* Why would [[LouisCypher Low Key Lyesmith]], aka the [[Myth/NorseMythology Norse trickster Loki.,]] be such a fan of Creator/{{Herodotus}}? Due to the immense amount of creative license that Herodotus took with his history, he's known ruefully among historians as "the father of lies."
9	* "Speaking of Bielebog, have you heard anything from him?" Wednesday knows full well, of course, that Czernobog ''hasn't'' heard from him. But it goes further: Recall that Bielebog only resurfaces when winter/the storm is over. But the storm was from the heightened conflict between the old and new gods coming to a head -- that is, the series of events that Low-Key and Wednesday fabricated. It's Wednesday's fault that Bielebog has been missing, and he's using that knowledge to convince Czernobog to participate in the war.
10	* Why do the Valkyries appear as helicopters? Because the gods are shaped by human belief, and ''Music/RideOfTheValkyries'' has become so synonymous [[Film/ApocalypseNow with dramatic scenes involving helicopters]] that, to Americans, Valkyries and helicopters are one and the same.
11	* Everyone calls Shadow that, even prison officials, but it makes a lot of sense given the [[IKnowYourTrueName established power of names]]. This is also seen with "Fat Charlie" in the "sequel" ''Literature/AnansiBoys''. In both cases, there's something like a PerceptionFilter that affects other people that [[TomatoInTheMirror they aren't initially aware of]], that makes it so that people can't help but think of Shadow as "Shadow", and Fat Charlie as "Fat Charlie" even though he's thin.
12	* Shadow has a pretty crappy deal. His wife dies, then he finds out she cheated on him, then her mother blames him for the whole thing, then he gets beat up and humiliated by people he doesn't know. Get this: turns out he's Wednesday's son, and "Wednesday's child is full of woe" is a line from a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child traditional nursery rhyme]].
13	* Why does Czernobog like checkers so much? It's an abstract battle between black and white.
14	* When Czernobog and Anansi are arguing over what to listen to on the radio, it is mentioned that Czernobog prefers classical music, especially gloomy pieces. In the film ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'', the sequence set to the very gloomy "Night on Bald Mountain" features Czernobog awakening.
15	* Hinzelmann liked to create artificial "puddles" for trouts, so that they could rest there and he could later fish them. He created the lake near Lakeside, and once a year he "fishes" a child to keep the city prosperous.
16	** Hinzelmann's scheme is even deeper then just sacrificing a child. He makes their body an object of worship first! How? Remember what Media said when Shadow asked her what people sacrifice to her? Mostly their time and attention. By selling tickets for the "klunker lottery" to the whole town, where you can bet on the time and day when the klunker will sink, Hinzelmann ensures that almost everybody who bought a ticket and sees a klunker in passing will think about it and say a silent prayer, if only "Sink at the time on my ticket, please (and bring me luck and riches).", which only takes a few seconds, but it adds up from multiple people. The klunker is like a prayer wheel, a focal point for the low level hopes of the people in the town!
17	** Hinzelmann was an ancient god long before he was kobold and he came into being when animal sacrifice was common. One of the reasons religion had lead to greater development of agriculture was rules for animal sacrifice. The animal to be sacrificed to the gods had to be the best (or second best) in the flock, unblemished, well fed, with no visible injury, like a missing limb or a cut. If a petitioner didn't obey those rules, a god could choose not to accept the sacrifice and thus petitioner's prayers would go unanswered. So, all those rules were made to give sacrifice to a god that said god would like. Hinzelmann chooses his own sacrifices and he (almost) always chooses good kids (members of his flock that he shepherds, if you will) that he actually likes. Those few times he sacrificed a child he didn't like? According to him, those exceptions were the bad troublemaking kids he absolutely hated and loathed, usually those that badmouthed him or broke his things. So they can be explained not as an animal sacrifice but as a divine punishment for a transgression against god. Hinzelmann gets to have his blood sacrifices either way.
18	* Mad Sweeney ''was'' supposed to have given Shadow that special gold coin. Remember how it brought back Laura? That was to be Shadow's original ticket back from the dead after he did Mr. Wednesday's vigil, before he gave it away, as well as the Sun itself, belonging to Shadow as Baldur by right. Zorya Polunochnaya explicitly says that her silver Liberty dollar (the Moon) can only give a much smaller protection, and indeed, it never brings anyone back from the dead, only keeps them alive and calls help if applicable.
19	** He was, but by whom? He refers to the source of the coins as "the treasure of the Sun". Later on, Horus says to Shadow "you're Sun, like I am". The treasure belongs to sun gods! This coin had been Shadow's from the very start, his to give away if he wanted to.
20	* In hindsight, the revelation that Shadow is Wednesday's son should be obvious -- Wednesday spends most of the book calling Shadow, "my boy." The damn swindler is telling Shadow to his face just who he is the whole time.
21	* When Laura meets Loki, he says that he will kill Shadow by ramming mistletoe through his eye. This alludes to Shadow's true identity as Baldur, a Norse god who is killed by Loki with a spear made of mistletoe.
22	* As pointed out on the Headscratchers page, Shadow being remarkably quick to accept he's surrounded by literal gods retroactively makes sense with the revelation that he's a god himself, the American incarnation of Baldur.
23
24	'''FridgeHorror''':
25	* Gods are created because people believe in them. So all those horror stories and urban legends that are convincing enough to make people believe in them might become real as well.

Context Fridge / AmericanGods