They don't need to. Anubis still has worshipers, though nowhere near as many as before, and is still ferrying the souls of the dead. Not sure what Thoth is doing, but the gods can survive on a very low level of belief—they just can't do anything impressive. Thoth doesn't seem to want to do anything but write stories, so he doesn't need any real power.
That puts it better.
edited 5th Jul '17 1:31:30 PM by Discar
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.A bit late but I'm glad my theory about Media being Loki is gaining traction. That way we can all be disappointed together
I need to finish the show still, but basically yeah, gods subsist on the most basic forms of belief (just people remembering them in some form would be enough for them to get by). Odin probably gets a mild boost from things like the marvel comics and heavy metal bands. Not really anything significative but enough for him to keep existing.
Gods only die when no one remembers them.
edited 5th Jul '17 1:40:16 PM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Oh yeah, I meant they can only die for real, as in stay dead for good when they're truly forgotten. Otherwise they just come back.
As for what they provide, gods provide meaning and favors to those who worship them, is the usual logic. All the "Coming to America" stories feature this to some extent or the other, the god lending a hand to one of their worshipers, to varying extents of "lending a hand".
edited 5th Jul '17 1:49:42 PM by Gaon
"All you Fascists bound to lose."You know what I would like? A story set in this setting, or even in The Sandman, with a Discworld approach to the divine: that is to say, Gods aren't just creepy/awesome, they're ridiculous, in spite of all their power and all their cruelty, or perhaps because of it. Alternately, it would be fun to see Wednesday read Small Gods, though I wonder if he would actually learn anything.
Seriously, though, it would be fun to tell those gods "We don't need you, we don't want you; we believe in ourselves, and that's enough for us, because we care."
I'm still confused about what Mr. World is.
And why the New Gods seem so incompetent and gaudy. The Old Gods act like confused grandparents who are annoyed they're becoming irrelevant and wasting away in retirement. The New Gods seem legitimately insane and disoriented. And why is Media so heavy-handed and clumsy in her seduction attempts?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that....Because she's the media. Seriously, look at modern media. And look at the state of internet discussion. Go on Twitter or read the first five comments on your average You Tube video. Do you really wonder why these gods are indecisive, attention-hungry, shallow monsters?
One of the British networks (I think it was Sky) is making a Good Omens adaptation, which might scratch a bit of the itch you're talking about.
...Could be that's old news and no longer happening, though. I might also be confusing it with the Anansi Boys adaptation that was in the works. What a time, huh?
edited 5th Jul '17 2:06:50 PM by Unsung
And well, you can't really say that in this universe's inner logic. Belief gives our life meaning, and we all believe in something. In AG logic, this means we give power to something. A rejection of godhood as in itself is literally impossible in the universe of American Gods.
Also, Mr. World is, as it so appears, the avatar of globalization (thus the name). The avatar of the cultural, informational, economic exchange we are currently doing as we speak.
"All you Fascists bound to lose.""Because she's the media. Seriously, look at modern media."
I feel like there's a huge missed opportunity for self-deprecation from the show. Especially given the sometimes gratuitous sex and violence and the occasions where Gaiman had to put his foot down to keep the Executive Meddling from taking it to trashland. Shadow accepting that blowjob would have damaged my sympathy for him and investment in his relationship with Laura for the rest of the story.
I'm also fresh from reading an awesome book called God Is Disappointed In You, which does little more than retell the Bible's books in modern, plain English, and it is hilarious. It left me wanting to see more works with irreverent treatment of YHWH and Jesus.
- The fomer coming off as a psycho jealous husband/father figure with a Hair-Trigger Temper and quick to resort to killing as a way to solve problems.
- The latter as a smartass young genius who enjoys going Socrates on authority figures, hanging out with and gathers outlaws and misfits, promotes kindness, charity, and forgiveness, and exasperates everyone around him by constantly speaking in metaphors and parables instead of stating things plainly. A Phrase Catcher for "Well, why didn't he just say so?!"
In general, I feel that Jesus should make everyone around him feel like both their intelligence and kindness have a lot of room for improvement, while OT YHWH should make you feel you're a Yandere kingpin's disloyal sugar baby.
I dunno, I guess there might be room for a fanfic, but my point is, I got a need to see more of that and I feel like there was a wasted opportunity here.
Back to the actual show, did the Wetback Jesus actually achieve anything?
And why is Vulcan a racist, of all things?
edited 5th Jul '17 2:30:51 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.I feel the self-deprecation is there but its subtle. Mr. World alludes to the amount of time people spend glued to their tv screens/computer screens, which can make you chuckle when you observe you're watching an hour long series on a weekly basis.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."It was the showrunners, not executive meddling. And while on the one hand I can sort of see where they were coming from with the idea that it's just a blowjob, she was also drunk and bereaved and I'm ultimately glad Shadow's not the sort of person who would take advantage of her. It wouldn't have been just sex, not for either of them, under the circumstances.
Mexican Jesus getting killed by border patrols toting scripture on their guns is all about the incredible hypocrisy of someone espousing so-called Christian values (such as, y'know, charity) even as they gun down helpless innocents, and fellow Christians, with automatic weapons.
Vulcan's a racist because despite being an immigrant himself he's aligned himself with a racist American small town. Hephaestus/Vulcan is actually one of the more peaceable, inoffensive Olympians in the myths. Notably it's becoming the New God of guns that seems to have corrupted him as much as anything. He's a sellout, basically, preaching what his followers practice. Telling them what they want to hear, rather than staying true to the original tenets of his own faith.
edited 5th Jul '17 2:47:43 PM by Unsung
No, but I'd expect him to have a very snarky comment or parable to drop here and there
.
Jehovah, though, being furious at his worshippers cheating on him with all these pagan gods is, like, his main thing.
edited 6th Jul '17 2:32:20 AM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.The book barely even alludes to God, Allah and YVWH. The "no defined image being part of the image" thing would probaby do really weird things under the American Gods rules. It also helps that none of them are likely hurting for belief. God and Allah (as Allah literally just means "god") are probably catching, not only the belief actually directed at them, but any belief directed towards a generic god. Like, the deists who think that there is a god, but they aren't sure which one.
Or at least that's my guess.
edited 6th Jul '17 6:24:57 AM by Zendervai
> Jesus' involvement. Jesus is a man of peace.
Man of peace unless you're a money changer at the temple,oh and he could call on army of angels if he really wanted
"Don't you think that I could call on my Father, and he would send me more than twelve legions of angels now?"
(Book reader here,saying hi)
-waves-
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverWorth remembering: In American Gods, gods are what you believe they are. So Jesus is a nice pacifist because that's how he's believed to be, and his occasional demonstrations of brute strength are either forgotten or treated as rare O.O.C. Is Serious Business (which to be fair they mostly are).
This mechanic of American Gods (the gods as direct constructs of our belief) is what makes it quite difficult to imagine the Abrahamic God. Of all divine entities, He's the one most subject to Alternate Character Interpretation so the AG-God would either be completely schizophrenic, shifting from several different personalities at a breakneck pace or somehow be all at the same time, incomprehensibly.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
When they are using His flock as both collateral damage, power, and fodder? When the current state of pagan gods, forgotten and derelict, is a direct result of the Church and Islam prohibiting and stamping down paganism in His name and at His direct request?
Honestly, I just chalk YHWH being an All-Powerful Bystander up to
- Story-Breaker Power, in relation to the story itself.
- Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment, in relation to the audiences. A story about pagan gods fighting for people's attention is pleasantly edgy, like a decorative katana bought in Toledo. A story where YHWH intervenes directly is bound to be the kind of edgy that you might cut yourself with.
Even in stories where YHWH should show up a lot more intensively, Neil Gaiman has gone out of his way to make him The Ghost (pun unintended): The Sandman, Lucifer, Good Omens, all ought to have G*D play a central role, yet he's always just out-of-frame.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.The point of capital-G God being The Ghost is that (S)He's supposed to be above it all. In Mysterious Ways gets voided the moment (S)He appears and takes a side, and the conflict of the story is demolished because either free will and any sense of moral ambiguity or complexity are out the window or the whole notion of the omnipotent/-scient/-benevolent god is disproven.
Maintaining that uncertainty about a higher power as Gaiman does is deliberately and, I think, elegantly done.
Edited by Unsung on Oct 13th 2018 at 1:00:40 PM
I think going by the logic of AG, the Abrahamic God would operate in the vein of The Chessmaster, manipulating the events from a safe distance so the elder and new gods just wipe themselves out. Modern-day western society society largely views God as a distant mastermind, operating reality through the smallest of events in some sort of weaponized butterly effect type of deal, so in AG that's how he'd behave.
He'd be the type of character who shows up in the closing minutes of one episode, to the sound of Red Right Hand
, drinking water (which promptly turns into wine when he pours it into his glass) grinning bemused as the scene reveals a bunch of seemingly innocuous coincidences were his direct doing (e.g Mad Sweeney losing his coin) and he's been playing the long game all this time.
Amused. Amused. Bemused is the expression everyone else would have, that is to say, shocked, nonplussed, taken aback.
I always thought the coin loss was Odin's doing, somehow. It's Shadow throwing it into his wife's tomb that was the Spanner in the Works.
I can definitely buy that. That works within the setting.
edited 6th Jul '17 3:10:26 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Having read the book, I had the thought that explicitly including Jesus (and several of Him) in the series where he was only present for an extra (and ambiguous) scene in an anniversary version of the book might reflect the changing views of the past couple of decades with regards to religion in general and Christianity in particular. That is to say, including Jesus among the ranks of various mythological figures created and sustained by the belief of mankind might have been controversial at the time the book came out, but less so today.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.Starz is premium paid cable, and premium paid cable is notoriously difficult to attack and pressure. There's no advertising you can target, and as long as people are paying for the subscription, the channel won't care what protest groups are going on about. So most groups don't even bother because the channels rarely even acknowledge the protest.
A group tried to protest Game of Thrones a few years back. It sputtered out really fast because HBO refused to acknowledge it and it became a boring news story in a matter of days.
And anyway, after the Harry Potter and Da Vinci Code backfires (where the protests probably made huge contributions to the popularity) a lot of groups have decided that protesting these sorts of things is worse than useless. And anyway, it's a show called American Gods. Those groups weren't going to be watching it anyway.

Death isn't the only form of sacrifice, and there are all different kinds of belief. Anubis is a very popular god in fiction, for example. Besides, if any gods have built up a stockpile of power derived from death, it's a couple of psychopomps. And unlike other death gods, perhaps the two of them haven't squandered that power. Anubis and Thoth, contrary to popular depiction of the former, were guides rather than guardians, and never spent much time on vengeance or overt displays of divinity.
*shrugs* Who knows, though, really. The most correct answer is that it's not something the show has told us, so there's any number of possibilities.
edited 5th Jul '17 1:37:36 PM by Unsung