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 Mr Morden wrote:
Ah that's a pity.

Agreed. I really like the first season. Hopefully 2nd will be as good even with new faces making it.

Well, S2 certainly crept up on me, didn't realise it was out so soon!

Watched Ep1 last night, and I think they handled a pivotal and fundamentally abstract scene pretty well, and I'm intrigued by the divergences. Wasn't blown away, but it was good enough that I'm optimistic that the quality of S1 will be maintained.

Mmmmmm... Don’t think I like this New Media. I know they had to recast after Gillian Anderson left, but I agree with the kid, I don’t see how this is an upgrade.

Watched first two epsiodes and finding it frustrating...

Visuals very good, Ian Mcshane is always good but we decided its probably best watched drunk or spaced out.....which we were not.

I don't know if it matters but I don't get how the gods work - so how is a Hindu (Kali) god short of worshippers - yeah Odin and Aphrodite might have 3 men and a cat in the US worshippng them but according to Wiki there are more than a million people just in the US worshipping the Hindu pantheon?

What is Mr World? I don't get who or what he is? Media, technology - makes sense. Mr World, Mr Town - who, what?

Mr World is globalisation. The idea being that humanity becoming increasingly connected threatens the whole concept of all the religions.

Which I suspect is why we're seeing deities of higher profile religions, the new gods don't just threaten the older, nearly forgotten ones but the idea of worship in its entirety.

She's not Kali either, btw. I forget what she's credited as but it wasn't Kali, it was another Hindu god though, so your logic is still the same.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Mr World is globalisation. The idea being that humanity becoming increasingly connected threatens the whole concept of all the religions.

Which I suspect is why we're seeing deities of higher profile religions, the new gods don't just threaten the older, nearly forgotten ones but the idea of worship in its entirety.

She's not Kali either, btw. I forget what she's credited as but it wasn't Kali, it was another Hindu god though, so your logic is still the same.

Wiki says Kali?

Sakina Jaffrey as Mama-Ji (season 2), a waitress at the Motel America and the Hindu goddess of death and liberation, Kali. With her necklace of skulls, acerbic wit and free spirit, she is a match for any mighty god or man

.

Thanks for the info on Mr World - Have to think about that now

Hmm, having gone back it was Durga I'd seen her referenced as, but then, she's apparently a multi armed Hindu goddess as well, so I can see where the lines got crossed.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Watched first two epsiodes and finding it frustrating...

Visuals very good, Ian Mcshane is always good but we decided its probably best watched drunk or spaced out.....which we were not.

I don't know if it matters but I don't get how the gods work - so how is a Hindu (Kali) god short of worshippers - yeah Odin and Aphrodite might have 3 men and a cat in the US worshippng them but according to Wiki there are more than a million people just in the US worshipping the Hindu pantheon?

What is Mr World? I don't get who or what he is? Media, technology - makes sense. Mr World, Mr Town - who, what?

The God's in American Gods are kind of on the same wavelength of the Chaos God in Warhammer largely fuelled by worship and belief, yep the Kali thing is a bit odd but (and this is a guess/tinfoil theory) but 'American' Kali (as the gods can have multiple version as per the Jesus episode) may be regarded as little more than a boogywomen and placated rather than actually worshipped like the big 3 of that pantheon

Mr Town and his ilk others are kind of manifestions of the collective belief of MiB's or G-Men, complete with stereotype 'agent' names

as for Mr World, well he's complicated,,,

Been watching it .. I enjoy some of it, but other parts just kinda make my brain hurt. I mean, I get it, sort of, most of the time. Other times it feels trippy for trippy's sake.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Watched first two epsiodes and finding it frustrating...

Visuals very good, Ian Mcshane is always good but we decided its probably best watched drunk or spaced out.....which we were not.

I don't know if it matters but I don't get how the gods work - so how is a Hindu (Kali) god short of worshippers - yeah Odin and Aphrodite might have 3 men and a cat in the US worshippng them but according to Wiki there are more than a million people just in the US worshipping the Hindu pantheon?

What is Mr World? I don't get who or what he is? Media, technology - makes sense. Mr World, Mr Town - who, what?

The God's in American Gods are kind of on the same wavelength of the Chaos God in Warhammer largely fuelled by worship and belief, yep the Kali thing is a bit odd but (and this is a guess/tinfoil theory) but 'American' Kali (as the gods can have multiple version as per the Jesus episode) may be regarded as little more than a boogywomen and placated rather than actually worshipped like the big 3 of that pantheon

Mr Town and his ilk others are kind of manifestions of the collective belief of MiB's or G-Men, complete with stereotype 'agent' names

as for Mr World, well he's complicated,,,

Yeah I kind of got the belief = power - but presumably they are also constrained from appearing to humans somehow otherwise as they have actual material form they would generate huge amounts of new belif by just appearing MCU style?

I do tend to agree with Necros - its pretty self indulgent and ramberling.

IIRC from the books, Mr Town was an ordinary man - or at least, he and his colleagues were personifications of the MIB/secret agent types with no more power than ordinary men.

Mind you, the plot has wandered so far away from the book now (well, since about episoide 3 of season 1) it's not obvious that taking anything from the book is helpful.

Also, the gods in America aren't necessarily the gods as a whole - there'll be an Odin in Scandinavia (and a Wotan in Germany), perhaps even one scraping a living in Turkey if he's not faded completely. Indian Kali is probably doing pretty well even if the American one is down on her luck.

It's also mentioned in the books that America isn't a fertile place for gods - whether that's to do with the land itself, or the fact that everyone's an immigrant or something about the "American psyche" is up to you.

bit behind on my streaming, finally did Season 2

4/10, took an awful long time to pretty much go nowhere, New Media was very annoying (although that might have been her point),

fingers crossed Season 3 picks up the pace as another 8 episode of fup all happening in Lakeside might end it

EDIT, after a chat with one of my nerd herd I'm raising my score to 4.5 for the homage to the old Thor comic with Wedneday's Spear being disguised as a walking cane, in the Thor episode no less

I think in the book there was also a clear distinction between gods in America (including the new ones) and the gods of America.

New Media was definitely a downgrade. As you said, really annoying.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
IIRC from the books, Mr Town was an ordinary man - or at least, he and his colleagues were personifications of the MIB/secret agent types with no more power than ordinary men.

Mind you, the plot has wandered so far away from the book now (well, since about episoide 3 of season 1) it's not obvious that taking anything from the book is helpful.

Also, the gods in America aren't necessarily the gods as a whole - there'll be an Odin in Scandinavia (and a Wotan in Germany), perhaps even one scraping a living in Turkey if he's not faded completely. Indian Kali is probably doing pretty well even if the American one is down on her luck.

It's also mentioned in the books that America isn't a fertile place for gods - whether that's to do with the land itself, or the fact that everyone's an immigrant or something about the "American psyche" is up to you.

Isn't everyone an immigrant unless they live in Africa?

I don;t know - it just seems a bit weird for the sake of being wierd

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
IIRC from the books, Mr Town was an ordinary man - or at least, he and his colleagues were personifications of the MIB/secret agent types with no more power than ordinary men.

Mind you, the plot has wandered so far away from the book now (well, since about episoide 3 of season 1) it's not obvious that taking anything from the book is helpful.

Also, the gods in America aren't necessarily the gods as a whole - there'll be an Odin in Scandinavia (and a Wotan in Germany), perhaps even one scraping a living in Turkey if he's not faded completely. Indian Kali is probably doing pretty well even if the American one is down on her luck.

It's also mentioned in the books that America isn't a fertile place for gods - whether that's to do with the land itself, or the fact that everyone's an immigrant or something about the "American psyche" is up to you.

Isn't everyone an immigrant unless they live in Africa?

I don;t know - it just seems a bit weird for the sake of being wierd

Insofar as we know everyone is descended from African homo sapiens, but that doesn't really have any relevance to the immigrants that moved gods in the narrative - the old gods have all long since faded away. The oldest ones acknowledged were still the recipients of widespread worship pretty recently (if not currently).

nfe wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
IIRC from the books, Mr Town was an ordinary man - or at least, he and his colleagues were personifications of the MIB/secret agent types with no more power than ordinary men.

Mind you, the plot has wandered so far away from the book now (well, since about episoide 3 of season 1) it's not obvious that taking anything from the book is helpful.

Also, the gods in America aren't necessarily the gods as a whole - there'll be an Odin in Scandinavia (and a Wotan in Germany), perhaps even one scraping a living in Turkey if he's not faded completely. Indian Kali is probably doing pretty well even if the American one is down on her luck.

It's also mentioned in the books that America isn't a fertile place for gods - whether that's to do with the land itself, or the fact that everyone's an immigrant or something about the "American psyche" is up to you.

Isn't everyone an immigrant unless they live in Africa?

I don;t know - it just seems a bit weird for the sake of being wierd

Insofar as we know everyone is descended from African homo sapiens, but that doesn't really have any relevance to the immigrants that moved gods in the narrative - the old gods have all long since faded away. The oldest ones acknowledged were still the recipients of widespread worship pretty recently (if not currently).

Yeah but thats where it does not work for me - Hindu gods are old AND current gods??

Yeah but thats where it does not work for me - Hindu gods are old AND current gods??

whilst it falls into the weird cos reasons, the American incarnations are new compared to the originals, Wednesday is most likely the oldest non-native god having arrived with Vikings in the late 9th century, with the rest following as various groups migrate to America and bring a version of their gods with them like Mr Nancy arriving with african slaves, the czenabog and the sisters with eastern europeans etc,

 Mr Morden wrote:

nfe wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
IIRC from the books, Mr Town was an ordinary man - or at least, he and his colleagues were personifications of the MIB/secret agent types with no more power than ordinary men.

Mind you, the plot has wandered so far away from the book now (well, since about episoide 3 of season 1) it's not obvious that taking anything from the book is helpful.

Also, the gods in America aren't necessarily the gods as a whole - there'll be an Odin in Scandinavia (and a Wotan in Germany), perhaps even one scraping a living in Turkey if he's not faded completely. Indian Kali is probably doing pretty well even if the American one is down on her luck.

It's also mentioned in the books that America isn't a fertile place for gods - whether that's to do with the land itself, or the fact that everyone's an immigrant or something about the "American psyche" is up to you.

Isn't everyone an immigrant unless they live in Africa?

I don;t know - it just seems a bit weird for the sake of being wierd

Insofar as we know everyone is descended from African homo sapiens, but that doesn't really have any relevance to the immigrants that moved gods in the narrative - the old gods have all long since faded away. The oldest ones acknowledged were still the recipients of widespread worship pretty recently (if not currently).

Yeah but thats where it does not work for me - Hindu gods are old AND current gods??

I'm not sure where the problem lies, here?

The premise is that worship manifests deities. When people arrive somewhere new and continue worshipping the gods of home (or wherever they were previously) then they manifest new versions of those deities. Those deities continue to hang around as long as they're being worshipped, and fade in power and eventually away to nothingness without worship or acknowledgement. The oldest deities explicitly referenced are probably the Hindu ones but they're still recipients of worship and have been throughout the period since they first arrived in the Americas.

Deities that are not being worshipped aren't transported anywhere.

I put 'old' in italics because I mean several millennia older than those that appear. We know a lot about a lot of deities that were long forgotten about by the time people moved in significant numbers to the Americas from Europe, Asia, and Africa - none of them turn up in the show because no one was worshipping them by the time they set sail for the Americas.

The problem is multiple for me the more I watched it:

The gods need to be worshipped and fade away if not - so why don;t they manifest and get a whole bunch of new worshippers - interacting with mortals is not something they were shy about in the mythic past - Does somethimg stop them doing a MCU Thor style appearance - if so what? Instant worship from at least some people and power boost seems worth it?.

As I mentioned before - they say - "oh the HIndu gods are fading" but they actually have a strong worship base of millions of people in the US - so why are they?

Why is US Odin still so powerful in comparison to the tohers when as far as I am aware few worship him (or ever did) in USA?

The Christian god/s seem to be massively fragmented for some reason but ok, but still any one of them will be massively powerful compared to Odin remnant?

Easter still gets power by proxy - do the others?

As far as i can the show wants to make you think about stuff but when you do - I can't make it work in my head.

 Mr Morden wrote:
The problem is multiple for me the more I watched it:

The gods need to be worshipped and fade away if not - so why don;t they manifest and get a whole bunch of new worshippers - interacting with mortals is not something they were shy about in the mythic past - Does somethimg stop them doing a MCU Thor style appearance - if so what? Instant worship from at least some people and power boost seems worth it?.

What happened in the mythic past doesn't necessarily have much overlap with what happened in the real past. Maybe they never interacted with mortals to any great degree?

As I mentioned before - they say - "oh the HIndu gods are fading" but they actually have a strong worship base of millions of people in the US - so why are they?

Why is US Odin still so powerful in comparison to the tohers when as far as I am aware few worship him (or ever did) in USA?

What do you mean by powerful? He's a con artist that gets most of what he gets done via hoodwinking and coercing people. I don't recall the specific reference to Hindu gods fading, but many don't receive worship. There are a lot and they've ebbed and flowed depending on the cultic, social, and personal preoccupations of Hindu people for thousands of years.

The Christian god/s seem to be massively fragmented for some reason but ok, but still any one of them will be massively powerful compared to Odin remnant?

Jesus is fragmented because different denominations interpret him very differently. God is never depicted or, insofar as I remember, even referenced (without going into whether or not Jesus is part of God depending on denomination, again).

Easter still gets power by proxy - do the others?

Probably? The anthropomorphised concept-gods like media and technology that aren't the recipients of direct worship.


I don't think the show really wants you to think about these things, and I don't think Gaiman or anyone else has sat and tried to draw up a consistent logic for the narrative world - but it isn't wall-to-wall inconsistencies. Then again, even if it was: magic. The religious stories that deities originate in aren't very consistent either.

But if they did show their powers - they would get worshipped...

The main Hindi god in the 2nd seson is Kali - I can't see her being ignored by Hunidu's - although I am not that familair with that faith's details? She is definately worshipped in the West....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali

If she had been some minor goddess then ok fine but Kali?

Odin seems to be able to call down a pretty powerful storm when he wants to....

If you believe in Jesus - you believe in God - so he would become real in some manner -even if he was not before??

Probably just thinking about it too much.

I think I saw it mentioned in Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that deities are supported by “faith” not belief. So MCU Thor is believed to exist because there is proof of existence. No faith is required, so maybe in the rules of American Gods that wouldn’t help sustain them?

If we consider the arrival of the Vikings to America in the show...



Odin could have just popped up and saved them, but that would have created belief, not required faith.

And of course yer man Grimnr isn't the most helpful of gods, unless it helps him of course, a fair few of his tales involve him making life tricky for mortals for shizz and giggles

also a bit of a shame they had to ditch the Ostara plot due the the intra-season hijinx as that was as close to a blatant show of power as we've seen (still think Wednesday's lightning was a kind of one shot from having Shadow belief in him, however briefly)

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
And of course yer man Grimnr isn't the most helpful of gods, unless it helps him of course, a fair few of his tales involve him making life tricky for mortals for shizz and giggles

also a bit of a shame they had to ditch the Ostara plot due the the intra-season hijinx as that was as close to a blatant show of power as we've seen (still think Wednesday's lightning was a kind of one shot from having Shadow belief in him, however briefly)

But again Shadow only believes because he has been shown stuff - he does not have blind faith - quite the opposite - he has seen the work of the gods and so he believes?

If it works on him - it will work on many humans?

The Djinn and the leprechaun seems to be beyond all of this as well - their powers work regardless...

true but as both the ifrit and sweeneys main powers appear to be bad luck, leading to being in debt to Wednesday are Hawkeye levels of divine power...

Maybe, instead, the Gods and such exist as a sort of Gestalt manifestation. Like the Ork waaagh. An “entity” may be created through group belief in something specific, and maintained through general belief in the same idea / basis.

Wednesday the conman isn’t believed in en masse. But conning people into doing what you want is (nation-istly speaking) an American thing. Look who’s running the show?

So Wednesday morphs, in time, to being the God of schemers and liars in pursuit of power. A goddess of weather wanes in power as humans master their environment. Hheating and air conditioning, hydroponic agriculture, generally less susceptible to day to day weather events... but still part of our collective conciousness is an awareness of what nature can do.

In Wednesday’s case, blatant acts of power would invalidate his need to be conniving. He could just force his way through. He’d be a different god. One of power and strength acting in the open. Same with Globalization. Most powerful as operating behind the scenes without people “knowing” what’s going on.