Neil Gaiman's American Gods

When I first heard Peter Stormare was cast for Czernobog, I could see him in the role. Glad to see he fills it.

 

Well acted, smartly written, just about every scene worthy of a painting, tone and mood that draws you in, damn how can you go wrong.
I really think this is the show that will be talked about for a long time to come.
The second episode just builds right onto the first.

 

Point me to a free way of viewing it, and I'll let you know what I think .

I just finished the book. Not my thing, but it was a good read, should (hopefully) translate well to screen.

 

Not free but for $8.99 a month you can add Starz to Amazon Prime.
That's what I did.

 

Don't steal content.

 

I was really excited when I heard they were making this and the first episode didn't disappoint.
I agree the actor choices are fantastic so far.
I didn't read this story off a page, I listened to it as an audio book from itunes when i was driving long distance for a living. I mention the itunes source because whoever did the casting must have listened to that.
I'm sure the voices of Laura & Wednesday are extremely similar.

I'm trying to use my partner as a guide to know if the tv series makes sense by itself. I've heard the book twice but she's never read it and she's only watched the first episode because I put it on. She's definitely interested in at least one more episode

 

I feel obliged to offer a dissenting opinion here. I was eagerly anticipating this show given my enjoyment of The Almighty Johnsons, a tv series about Norse deities who are reincarnated among Scandinavian immigrants to New Zealand (and who later meet avatars of Maori deities among indigenous Kiwis). I heard on a public radio station before the premiere that the show's writers supposedly did a lot of research on the mythologies of the characters and mandated authentic casting, both to avoid perpetuating ethnic stereotypes through cultural ignorance. However, I've seen little evidence of that so far and a whole lot of evidence to the contrary.

The first two episodes have featured a human avatar of the well-known Norse god Odin, a spider/human avatar of the only well-known traditional African god Anansi, and a few human avatars of pre-Christian Slavic gods. It attempts to also portray a demonic and apparently East African goddess, but she's not identified as any actual deity or demon, African or otherwise. She's named for the biblical Queen of Sheba, which seems incredibly lazy to me, as if Neil Gaiman didn't care to research traditional East African religions given that the Bible provided him with an ostensibly Ethiopian name he liked, never mind that it's not the name of a deity. Her succubus-style role in the show is even more fanciful, seducing and then consuming her lovers through her vagina, which seems like an exoticist fantasy of savage "Darkest Africa" because it doesn't appear to be based on any traditional African belief.

Then there's the Irish god, a coin trick-performing bar brawler who calls himself a leprechaun. Deadline Hollywood reports that this character will be "down on his luck" due to having "lost his charm". Seriously? Rather than draw from the extensive and well-studied cycles of Irish mythology, Gaiman went with an American breakfast cereal caricature and the derogatory drunken Irishman trope?

And then there are the language issues that come from casting actors of inappropriate nationality. Chernobog, played by a Swedish actor, badly mangles the name Zorja Vechernjaja (as does Odin, but that's forgivable), and those two Slavic characters speak with odd dialects that don't sound particularly Slavic. On the slave ship, a young man speaks Igbo, a Nigerian language, to invoke the Ghanaian god Anansi. To be more accurate, an Akan actor could have been cast if the production wished to maintain the Akan name Anansi for the god.

I don't yet understand the antagonists or the conflict they have with the protagonists. If I watch more of this series, perhaps I'll make another post commenting on that.

 

While I'm not defending Gaiman or the writers, I suspect they are well aware of some of the inaccuracies (as compared to many TV writers who are ignorant or just don't give a fuck) but I think there is some intent to show that America is a mixed bag and that many of the old gods have lost their edge so things aren't as well put together as they used to be.
I suspect you will be seeing some of that explained as the show goes on.
And Mad Sweeney ain't no average fucking leprechaun. He was a poet, a warrior and totally insane.
Buile Shuibhne - Wikipedia
The idea that he came from Ireland with the runestone to protect it (and then lost the damned thing) is kind of in keeping with the character from history.

 

That doesn't make much sense to me. Are the old gods fading because they're losing believers? Odin has never had an appreciable number of believers in the United States and hasn't had one in Europe for a thousand years, but due to the popularity of Neopaganism, the number has surely increased in recent times. Furthermore, if the antagonists are new gods that have replaced pagan gods, why aren't they Christian and Muslim gods?

What leads you to suspect that?

The thing is, the leprechaun character in the first episode isn't presented as medieval warrior-king or anything other than merely a modern Irish stereotype. Is the runestone thing from the novel? How is that in keeping with the legend of Buile Shuibhne?

 

Forgive me, but Gaiman clearly wrote American Gods as light, relatively speaking, entertainment.

 

I haven't read the book, and I'm asking for details of its plot even if it might spoil the show.

That surprises me, as the show appears to take itself very seriously. I would be more forgiving of it if it didn't.