Line #91 Headscratchers/AmericanGods


1	* Sort of a headscratcher and maybe a little bit Fridge Horror, but how would shipping work? Like, could enough of the fandom's feverent belief that two characters, or even actors, are in love actually make them in love?
2	** I think it has to be a bit more intense than that. The modern gods are all big important concepts embedded into society. Even the smaller tribal gods were worshipped by their devotees and were a very important part of daily life. It's not likely that members of a fandom practice certain rituals for their ship or have the ship be an integral part of their lives. And if that is the case, then they're kind of sick. Plus, fictional characters are not even close to god level.
3	----
4	* Perhaps I just accidentally skimmed over something important, but why did the Buffalo-Headed Man and Whiskey Jack turn away from Shadow in one of his dreams towards the end of the book?
5	** they were waiting for him because he was about to die. he didn't see them in a dream, he saw them right before passing out from hypothermia after Hinzlemann pulled him out of the lake.
6	----
7	* Why didn't Thor regenerate after he shot himself back in the '30s? Of all that pantheon, Thor is the one with the most PR.
8	** Maybe he regenerated as the version of Thor seen in media today, which the other Norse gods don't see as the same Thor.
9	*** The answer is even simpler than that: Even though Thor was the most well-known of the Norse Gods, he still didn't have any true worshippers, so he simply couldn't come back.
10	*** Oh, [[http://pagan.wikia.com/wiki/Odinism I]] [[http://www.asatru.org/ wouldn't]] [[http://www.religionfacts.com/a-z-religion-index/asatru.htm say]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_Neopaganism that]]; there has been quite a revival of late. And as the last link mentions, effigies of Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, are one of the primary holy symbols of Germanic neopaganism!
11	*** It's pretty explicitly pointed out during Wednesday's encounter with the Pagan waitress that neopaganism isn't really the Old Ways, and more like re-skinned modern spiritualism. Modern pagans don't do the whole human sacrifice thing that feeds Odin in this story.
12	*** Not only that, different gods require different forms of worship. Odin requires deaths explicitly dedicated to him. Loki requires chaos itself. Easter, despite Wednesday's speech, is still shown to be doing well enough with only the forms of her worship being followed. What sort of worship would the American Thor require? Whatever it is, it's almost certainly not reflected in neopagan practices.
13	*** IIRC, we learn at the end of the book that Wednesday is really more like a shadow of Odin, and that the real Odin is still alive and well in Scandinavia, so maybe it was only the shadow-version of Thor that died from the suicide and the "real" one is still out there.
14	*** Eh, I think it would be more accurate to say that there are ''no'' "real" gods in ''Literature/AmericanGods''. All of them are just reflections of human ideas. That's why it's, y'know "'''''American''' Gods''" instead of just ''Gods''. The American Odin was killed, but the Scandinavian Odin is still alive.
15	** He didn't want to.
16	*** This is the most likely -- in the TV series (of which Neil Gaiman is one of the writers), Wednesday outright says that suicide is a death that gods simply cannot come back from. If some kind of will or desire is needed for a god to come back, then deliberately killing themselves is a pretty clear statement that they ''don't'' want to come back.
17	----
18	* Where are the Greek pantheon? They're not getting any animal sacrifice as was their wont, so they can't possibly be doing well like Jesus and Buddha, right?
19	** There's talk that the Forgettable God is actually Hades, because his name is Greek for "unseen" (hence the forgettable part), and because he controlled all the wealth in the world, since he lived underground and all riches come from minerals (hence the "impression of wealth" Shadow gets from him). The woman he's looking for should therefore be Persephone. Of course, this is all just WildMassGuessing, and the "real" answer should be: Creator/NeilGaiman wanted to feature the lesser-known gods.
20	*** Also, the Greek Gods probably never had worshippers on American soil. That religion was pretty much stamped out long before the Greeks made it to the Americas.
21	*** History is pretty fuzzy in the novels. Ancient Egyptians somehow came to America before European settlers so I wouldn't be too hasty to assume that the Greeks never brought their Gods over.
22	*** But Medusa is there.
23	*** Medusa has enjoyed something of a revival as a horror movie monster; I'm sure there are kids somewhere who believed in her just enough for her to hold on.
24	** There's actually a moment in where Shadow and Wednesday go to Houston, and after the meeting, Wednesday storms into the car, and says "Fucking Albanians. Like anyone cares." This may or not be the Greek Gods, and Wednesday was just hanging a Lampshade on the ethnic weirdness of the Balkans.
25	** Neil Gaiman [[WordOfGod stated in a recent interview]] that as long as he could find some excuse for a god's believers somehow making it to America sometime in history, he put it in the story. Since he couldn't find any historical, or even pseudosciencey, evidence that the Greeks ever made it as far as America, he didn't feel justified in including them. However, he's also stated that they'll probably show up in the sequel, since archaeologists have recently discovered ancient Roman coins somewhere where they really ought not to be, and that's good enough for him.
26	*** This is the justification for including Vulcan as a god in the TV series.
27	** They DO make a cameo, though. When Shadow visits Margeurite Olsen, her son is watching Disney's Hercules.
28	** Since American Gods is joining the [[BryanFuller Fullerverse]] which now includes the Franchise/TrekVerse thanks to ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', the Greek gods aren't there since they were aliens all along and left earth 5000 years ago according to "Who Mourns for Adonais" from the original series. Aliens that liked worship and allowed themselves to fade away when they no longer got it, similar to what's going on in American Gods, but aliens nonetheless.
29	----
30	* Seriously? No one in a hundred people, in a major city, would know that Easter rituals were from pagan origins? Wouldn't a pagan at least know this?
31	*** To answer the first part, Easter that we're familiar with is probably more "syncretic", as it combines both Judeo-Christian beliefs and some pagan celebrations (i.e the eggs and the Easter Bunny--some facets of those or related to those) but those came later (During/Post-Christianization of Europe). To answer the second part, there are different Pagan groups ("Pagan", in most usages, means faiths/cultures/traditions that aren't Judeo-Christian/Abrahamic faith in origin) and so would have different beliefs/customs, so their celebrations might not involve those specific pagan elements.
32	** The waitress was [[CanonDefilement not]] a druidic pagan-- probably not a pagan at all, just a fluffy bunny. [[SugarWiki/{{WAFF}} Wicca good and woman power love the earth]] but nought between the ears (on the subject, that is, she seemed like a perfectly intelligent if slightly ignorant and/or extremely misguided young woman). Wednesday was just bluffing Easter, helped by the two misguided people (the bunny and the Christianite) shaking her faith in [[Literature/SmallGods the stability of her belief]]. He knew he couldn't escape that bet with many if any of his digits, but expected Easter to join them or storm off without taking the bet. He's been a confidence man for hundreds of years, including scams with more risk than a few fingers; that's how he works. (Another thing: Paganism isn't a specific set of beliefs. The Ainu were pagans, but you wouldn't expect one of them to know Pluto from a pushbroom, and the ancient Greeks were pagans, but ask them who Freyja was and they'd have no idea what you were talking about.)
33	*** Depends what ancient greeks you're talking about. There were greek trading posts all the way to britain; I'm sure they came in contact with germanic peoples and at least one version of Freyja.
34	*** A better comparison would be asking the ancient Greeks if they knew who Xiuhtecuhtli was. I'm pretty sure none of them did.
35	*** who?
36	** The Aztec deity of fire and creator of all life.
37	----
38	* Why are Media and the Internet separate entities? Shouldn't the internet, as a new medium, be an extension of Media? And is Media really a new god? She should have been in existence from the moment mankind invented ''writing''. Heck, even cave drawings are a form of early Media.
39	** It's all in how their believers believe them. Back then, there was media (and plenty of old pantheons did have gods of writing and art), but people didn't speak of ''The Media'' as an entity. Now we do, so there she is, and she looks like what you picture when you hear people speak of The Media. The Internet is separate because a lot of people [[NewMediaAreEvil still think of it]] [[OldMediaAreEvil as separate]] from TV and print, and the stereotypes attached to it are [[{{Geek}} very different]].
40	** If you think about it, when people refer to "the media", they usually talk about the news, the TV, etc. Visual media, as it is. Internet and print media are usually referred to separately. Similarly, Media has been shown to be basically the spirit of TV & movies. Maybe her full name's actually "Visual Media" but shortens it for the same reasons we do. The Internet could be considered Media's child, if anything.
41	*** That's actually what 'medium' means-- something which can be used to convey a message. The internet supports and provides a means of distribution for media, but it's not really a communications medium itself and that's also not the only thing it does. This wiki, for instance, would be the medium through which this edit is being conveyed, but the raw functionality of the internet isn't being directly interpreted by the person on either end. There's grey area, but pretty much every major concept of that type has overlap with every other concept, this is why gods are always finding things to argue about.
42	** I took it Media to be the side of the mass media that was actually produced by professionals - The alphabet networks and the like, while Technical Boy was the side produced by amateurs like, well, Website/TVTropes.
43	*** Correct, also Media is based on showmanship and presentation and Technical boy on, well, technology and interconnectivity.
44	** The Media is mentioned 'killing her children.' I understood that Media is the mother of the mediums, like TV, Radio, Newspaper and Internet, and that, for example, Town Crier was killed off by Newspaper, and that other media are getting weaker because of Internet.
45	*** The character mishears and is actually referring to Medea from Greek mythology, who killed her two children.
46	*** Then again, though...
47	---> ''“Different woman,” said Mr. Nancy. “Same deal.”''
48	----
49	* Okay, ''Monarch of the Glen'' establishes that [[spoiler: Shadow is Baldur, the god of Light]]. My question is, HOW is Shadow [[spoiler: Baldur]] and not just a demi-god in his own right? I mean, [[spoiler: Baldur is the son of Odin and Frigga]], and last I checked, Shadow's mom was NOT [[spoiler: Frigga]].
50	** Reincarnation.
51	** Which foreshadows an even greater destiny for Shadow. In the ''Literature/PoeticEdda'', [[spoiler: Baldur is released from Hel's domain to rule over the new world after Ragnarok.]]
52	*** I think Shadow being Baldur explains a lot about his motivations and the way he reacts to the entire situation. When he first finds out about the Gods and everything else, he doesn't react like someone who is just finding out, instead he reacts as if it is something he instinctively always knew and was just relearning.
53	** Also remember that he is only the American Balder, in the same way as Wednesday is the American Odin. Presumably the was/is a different Balder in Scandinavia.
54	** It's worth noting that the version of Baldur everyone knows is Creator/SnorriSturluson's version. There's a version told by Creator/SaxoGrammaticus in which Baldur actually is a demi-god. Shadow seems more like Snorri's Baldur (Saxo's was a jerk) but perhaps the existence of different myths allows for him to be a demi-god.
55	** "History doesn't repeat, it rhymes" and "the same shapes keep appearing in history" and other such misremembered lines. Shadow does not have to be Balder by being an old forgotten old born centuries ago like the rest of them. He can be Balder by being the shape that fills the Balder shaped hole in the story.
56	** His given name is Balder. That doesn't necessarily mean he's the same Baldur.
57	----
58	* Why is Mama Ji in with the rest of the gods? There's a pretty solid Hindu population in America so while it's not like anyone's doing any sacrifices to the dark goddess of Calucutta, she'd hardly be merely subsisting like the others.
59	** She actually says she's doing well. At one point Wednesday mentions that the attack on the gathering of the gods convinced several of them to join up, and Mama-ji was the most skeptical before that point. She's not hard up for belief, but she's scared of dying.
60	** Plus, she is an old god, and more likely to find solidarity and sympathy with them than the new gods, when push comes to shove.
61	----
62	* So why are all the new gods evil? I know that in the end some of the old gods were evil too, but why are ''all'' the new gods evil?
63	** They're not evil. They're people fallen on hard times trying to stay alive, and hopefully find some prosper as well. That leads to desperate acts. And it's best to remember that JerkassGods seems to be the traditional template in almost every religion at some point or another. And seriously, did you actually think that Anubis and Thoth did anything "evil" in the course of the entire book?
64	*** I think by "New Gods" he meant the Mr.s, the Internet, the Automobile, etc.
65	** Before the battle took off, a delegation of New Gods sent the technical boy to ask Mr. World if they really had to fight. That's not evil. The spookshow were [[PunchclockVillain Punchclock Villains]], so they weren't evil either.
66	*** Basically, they were conceited (the speeches the tech kid and Media give basically go "get out of the way, oldies"), scared of both the Old Gods and their own quick-livedness (mention is given of trains being supplanted by automobiles), and manipulated by Mr. World into believing the Old Gods were the enemy.
67	** Pretty much you're seeing Shadow's perspective throughout the novel, and Shadow is on the side of the old gods. Plus, the new gods are being manipulated by Mr. World, just as much as Wednesday was conning the old ones (the spookshow have no idea why they're being sent after Shadow). Neither side are particularly evil, they're just... on different sides.
68	** Gaiman even hints at this interpretation at least once: Mr. Nancy mentions that the new gods are messing with things that mess back with them, implying that the very source of their power and existence sets them on a knife edge of their own undoing. Not at all like, say, requiring blood and life sacrifices from your followers to sustain you. Remember, Wednesday himself is in decline because, as it turns out, people don't like having to kill each other to ensure prosperity. It's not shown if Mr. Nancy gets the irony of his statement.
69	** In short, it turns out to be GrayAndGrayMorality.
70	*** Also, Nancy's power source is stories and having fun. Not blood and death, but things people like.
71	----
72	* In the "deleted scene" in the Author's Preferred Text, is... is Jesus supposed to be a film producer? There's the beard, the suit, and then... the baseball cap?
73	** A lot of people, this troper included, like to think of Jesus as this approachable, likable kind of guy, not a majestic savior-king who you have to bow down to. The jokes about water into wine, the baseball cap, it all seems like that was Gaiman's way of showing that aspect of Jesus in his portrayal of him. Like he says, being a god means being so many different things at once, so I think that Gaiman's Jesus is a sort of composite of everything America expects Jesus to be.
74	*** Ah. Okay. That makes more sense. I was thinking of this story of Gaiman's ("The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories") about a British writer going to Hollywood to adapt his bestselling novel into a screenplay, and many of the men he talked to had beards and/or baseball caps, and one of them is even described as looking a little like Jesus.
75	** Considering baseball's reputation as a specifically American game, the cap is an easy shorthand for Gaiman to identify the character as ''American'' Jesus as opposed to a more general Jesus.
76	----
77	* This a fairly small detail, but bugs me... so who died the effreti or the human that took his identity?
78	** IIRC, the man who had befriended the ifrit assumed the identity/became an ifrit and the original died. I believe that he was the Arab taxi driver who died in New York some chapters later.
79	*** I think you're right on the second point - the taxi driver who died "offscreen" was probably the salesman. But I didn't think the original jinn/ifrit died, I got the impression he assumed the salesman's identity (and took his plane ticket, passport, etc) and went back to the Middle East. The salesman seemed to be enjoying New York and hated his life in Oman; the jinn/ifrit hated his life in NYC and missed the Middle East. I assumed the salesman's death was a case of mistaken identity - new gods trying to kill the ifrit.
80	* The salesman hated New York, or at least the job he was supposed to do there. But I concur about the mistaken identity.
81	----
82	* While it's an entertaining enough story, this always bugged me about ''American Gods'': why are the "new gods" personifications of new media? The Internet is not a modern god, as much as the MoralGuardians would have us believe people literally worship at its altar. If Gaiman wanted a story about the old gods supplanted or killed by the new, wouldn't modern monotheist gods be the logical modern equivalent? Not that the book would ''ever'' have been published if he'd gone that route, but still, the fundamental concept of the story always seemed off, to me.
83	** It isn't belief that empowers, its ''worship'' (as shown by [[spoiler: Wednesday's plan to have a battle in tribute to himself to empower himself, despite none of the combatants believing in him like a member of his cult would, or even knowing that was the true purpose]]), and what qualifies as worship varies from god to god. Sure, people ''believe'' more in monotheism than in the trappings of modern society, but they ''worship'' the new media gods more - they watch TV, empowering the personification of TV, they die in car crashes, sacrificing their life unintentionally in tribute to the Personification of Cars, etc. Its as much a commentary on what we spend our time and energy doing as anything else.
84	** This bothered me too. Also, I keep thinking that there could be better ideas for modern gods. Examples: Idols. People keep saying that Elvis lives; maybe Elvis became a god post-mortem? Gaining power through people listening to his music and watching his movies? Same with many other idols. And related to that, personality cults. Secondly, nations; nationalism is a very modern thing and even religious studies sometimes talks about it as a form of religion. And people definitely give "blood sacrifices" to their nations. I realize that there already is a personification of America in the book but it seems to be more like a personification of the land rather than the nation. And, I mean, in the 19th century, people even depicted nations as goddesses, like "Columbia", "Britannia", "Marianne", "Mother Russia", "Germania", etc. Or the more mundane personifications like Uncle Sam and John Bull. Then there are other ideas like certain popular fictional characters, especially those of children's stories (since children are more likely to believe, at least in some way, in those characters), etc.
85	*** It's easy to miss, but Elvis ''is'' in the story. He's one of the people Shadow ferries back from the House Under The Rock, right before he gets captured by the spooks. It's fair to say that there are other idols out there, we just haven't seen them.
86	*** That's Alviss, a Dwarf from Norse mythology. Similar name, different myth.
87	*** Elvis ''does'' show up in ''Literature/GoodOmens.'' Apparently he's beyond the reach of Death. Maybe he ''has'' attained a minor godhood.
88	** I guess what bothers me about it is that it's basically saying that people worship cars, television and the internet ''in the same way'' as people once worshiped gods, seemingly falling into the same "safe zone" as most modern media. "Well, the gods people ''currently'' believe in are off limits, but we can do whatever we want with the classical deities." Sure, we drive cars, we die in them, we surf the net, but I would think that, you know...going to church and praying is pretty much the same as it ever was, maybe with less human sacrifice involved, granted. The book seems to contend that the nature of worship has changed.
89	*** I got the impression that gods--old and new--are empowered at least as much by sacrifice as by worship in the modern Judeo-Christian sense. This is reinforced by Media's comment--when Shadow asks her what people sacrifice to her, she responds with "Their time. Sometimes their lives." People are dedicating an insane amount of time and interest to the internet, the television, the automobile, etc. And in a sense, there are indeed lives being sacrificed on those altars. Suicides committed on account of cyber bullying could be considered a "sacrifice" to the internet. People ignore the dangers of driving a car due to their convenience, and as such car accidents are a major cause of death in the US; could this not be seen as a sacrifice as well?
90	*** Indeed, sacrifices don't need to be literal. It's mentioned that the money lost in Vegas is a sort of sacrifice, and Media explicitly says that people mostly sacrifice time (and sometimes each other) to her. The line between actually worshiping them and sacrificing to them without genuine worship may not really exist, in any way that matters to the gods.
91	*** It's not that the nature of worship has changed, it's that the supernatural nature of America is different and always has been. That's the entire point of the story. The old gods are here because people brought their old beliefs, but those old beliefs quickly faded in the new land. America is a poor place for gods, but an excellent place for culture heroes and anthropomorphic personifications. They don't necessarily need worship, just attention. Nobody has ever sacrificed anything to Johnny Appleseed, and he's doing just fine.
92	*** Have you guys not noticed the huge and dizzying variety of magazines and TV shows devoted to cars or guns or fashion? There are people who have studied these things far more than they would have even read anything religious.
93	** The above explanation does make sense for the new media gods, but the Judeo-Christian god is still the elephant in the room. Plenty of people still do sacrifice time, money, energy, all sorts of things for their religion. Maybe He's just too powerful to worry about what all the other gods are doing?
94	*** NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus. Can't talk about that one or jimmies will be rustled.
95	*** He is mentioned as doing very well for himself, but also as having coopted a lot of the old gods' rituals and holidays. Presumably it's a combination of A. being big enough and powerful enough that he doesn't need to worry about the conflict, B. the old gods having a grudge over the aforementioned ritual-and-holiday stealing, and C. that he doesn't really identify with the new gods of technology and media either, putting him somewhere in the middle.
96	*** American Jesus actually does show up during the "Shadow is dying" montage in some later editions. He's pretty laid back, but mentions being spread thin by all the contradictory things people believe about him and hoping some of the more extreme factions will convert to the new gods.
97	----
98	* At one point in the story, when talking to Mr. Ibis, Shadow says Low Key's name aloud, mentioning him as his old cellmate. How did he fail to get it at that point? Read on a page, you might miss the meaning, but saying it aloud the pronunciation is obvious.
99	** Not really. How often do people make unintentional puns that they don't notice until someone else points it out to them? How often does LouisCypher or similar introduce themselves with a name that is phonetically identical (or at least very similar) to their "true" identity and people just don't get it? He had no reason to think Low Key was anything other than his previous cellmate, so his brain wasn't thinking in that pathway.
100	** "Low [[{{beat}} (slight pause)]] Key" would be pronounced aloud different from "Loki", too.
101	** Brain association. He associated "Low Key Lyesmith" with the man he had known in prison, not "Loki Lie-Smith" the Norse god. This is the reason why the audiobook isn't as good, though...there's a huge spoiler as soon as the narrator reads "Low Key Lyesmith"!
102	*** I didn't make the connection. I'd like to think i'm a reasonably intelligent person. Also, what part of "God of trickery" are we missing here? It's not like he didn't have years to work his literal magic on Shadow.
103	----
104	* Are parallel gods of similar religions the same entity or independent? Are the Christian God and Allah the same thing? What about Zeus and Jupiter, or Odin and Wotan?
105	** Different. For that first example, the people I know who believe in the Christian God would definitely not say He's the same as Allah, even if they share some things, because they're different religions with different rituals, specific beliefs, rules, etc. If what makes the god powerful is having people believe in and worship them, then the cultural origins or whatever wouldn't matter, as long as you have different people worshiping Zeus and Jupiter.
106	*** The Allah example is messier than it looks; many Christians consider God and Allah (which is actually just Arabic for "God" and also used by Arab Christians) to be separate, but it's an ''explicit'' bedrock of the Muslim faith that they aren't. They both (plus Jews and a few others) say that their god is the one true God of Abraham, even if they believe wildly different things ''about'' said god.
107	** So far as the original forms of the gods go, if they're worshipped in a sufficiently different country it probably produces a different version, just as Wednesday is only ''American'' Odin and not the original Odin, who turns up in Iceland in the epilogue. Possibly Greek and Roman cultures were sufficiently different for the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter to both exist. So far as the American versions of the gods, go, probably they're blended into one entity if they're similar enough. Wednesday appears to consider himself to be both Odin and Woden (hence his chosen moniker - Woden's Day). Mad Sweeney appears to be an amalgam of both the fairy king Suibhne and an earlier leprechaun. Bilquis is both the goddess and the half-demon versions of the Queen of Sheba simultaneously. Hinzelmann is the mythical kobold of the same name but he's also simultaneously an older god on whom we're presumably supposed to assume the kobold was based. In the extended addition, American Jesus turns up and it's implied he's struggling to be all things to all people because of all the different denominations of Christianity. Et cetera. If an Ancient Greek or Roman ever made it to America, then there's probably a version of Zeus-Jupiter wandering around there who considers himself to be both at once, a la Wednesday with Odin-Woden. Whether Yahweh can be considered similar enough to either Allah or Jesus to be blended with one or other of them in the same way - or both - is a tricky question to answer, though, and unless Gaiman decides to write a sequel we're unlikely to ever get a canon answer.
108	*** Possibly Zeus and Jupiter merged when their followers decided they were the same deity and became a god with multiple guises or a split personality.
109	----
110	* Why did Laura rot? She was embalmed.
111	** Modern embalming isn't meant to preserve dead bodies for any length of time - only for the few days until the wake & funeral can take place.
112	----
113	* How did Shadow rent a car after getting out of prison? I'm assuming there's no DMV in jail. (I'm also assuming you need a valid drivers license to rent a car. I don't drive.)
114	** First, it wasn't a rental, it was a buy. Still think you'd need a license, but it was made pretty clear it was a shady deal at best, and it's said in the book that the guy selling it to Shadow didn't ask for any sort of identification, just money.
115	** His prison sentence might have been short enough that his license hadn't expired.
116	** Explicitly stated during the "leaving prison" sequence that his license is still good, so he won't run into trouble using it as identification as a fellow inmate had.
117	----
118	* So why ''did'' Odin and Loki need Shadow? He just says something vague about needing a son but never seems to clarify what for. Did he mean the sacrifice on the tree? But surely that's just small pickings compared to the massacre that's about to happen anyway? And how could Odin possibly know Shadow was willing to sacrifice himself on the tree anyway? How do you pull a BatmanGambit on a man who has no motivation to begin with?
119	** It's a mythical thing. Sacrificing a son is a mythical motif.
120	----
121	* What happened to Mr. Wood? Shadow only sees Stone's body. Was he the guy down the hallway having a wank?
122	** Town explicitly thinks he's dead, so - maybe?
123	----
124	* Are TheMenInBlack human agents, or are they also formed from the collective consciousness as proto-new gods?
125	** Since Wood apparently left a widow, I'd say - humans.
126	*** That was just Shadow taunting.
127	* Town is human. He muses about not actually knowing who he's working for, though, and not really caring, so... Maybe they're the sort of humans other humans distrust? He also thinks about his ex-wife.
128	----
129	* One thing I always wondered was why the technical boy was associated with frogs and toads (the synthetized toad skin, he is described as looking like a frog - spotty faced and puffing with pride, his eyes are described as toad-colored...). Is there some sort of computer-pun I am missing or is it just a random trait thrown in?
130	** His toad motifs might be a ref to an [[https://tinyurl.com/cm724f8c actual software]] and, in computing terms, "FROG", as a abbreviation tends to stand for "Fixture Random Output Generator", "Free Roaming on Grid", or, with his changeable skins, "Free Revolutionary Online Game".
131	----
132	* If GodsNeedPrayerBadly, you would think that forming secretive underground communities would be the last thing they would do; instead, they would want to be as loud, visible and in-your-face as possible, throwing lightning bolts around every so often to remind people that yes, they do exist. Wednesday laments how people have stopped believing in him, but he doesn't do anything to get them believing in him again.
133	** Ufologists, flat-earthers and so on are loud and in-your-face. Does that make anyone who doesn't already believe - believe?

Context Headscratchers / AmericanGods