S02.E07: Treasure of the Sun

[formerlyfreedom]

In Cairo, Mr. Wednesday entrusts Shadow with the Gungnir spear. Mad Sweeney recalls his journey through the ages as he awaits his promised battle. Once again, he warns Shadow about Wednesday.

Airing Sunday, April 21, 2019; please note, Starz makes episodes available on demand earlier than the broadcast time. Entering this topic may spoil you if you enter it before air time on 4/21.

[Nashville]

10 hours ago, saoirse said:

Starz makes episodes available on demand earlier than the broadcast time. Entering this topic may spoil you if you enter it before air time on 4/21.

Yeah, I’ve noticed.

[hnygrl]

That's how I watch. I watch it early Sunday Mornings because by Air time I'm doing like 6 other things and forget it's on.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I woke up early Sunday morning because I wanted to watch GoT live and I need to watch this before the kids wake up, for obvious reasons. 

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, Superclam said:

I woke up early Sunday morning because I wanted to watch GoT live and I need to watch this before the kids wake up, for obvious reasons. 

Hey, it’s at least as educational as Wild Kingdom....  😆

...so is GoT, come to think of it....

Edited April 16, 2019 by Nashville
Typo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

15 hours ago, Superclam said:

I woke up early Sunday morning because I wanted to watch GoT live and I need to watch this before the kids wake up, for obvious reasons. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one planning ahead because of GoT. We always have dinner with Mr. EB's family on Easter so last week when I was thinking about it, I thought man, I really hope that dinner starts early this year so I can get home in time to watch GoT! Because EVERYONE is watching it, I know that I can't go online after 6pm EDT because people start posting spoilers as soon as the episode begins airing. That means things like American Gods fall way down on my priority list. Any Sunday shows that air early (Killing Eve, American Gods, The Chi) are going to get watched as soon as possible (meaning late Saturday night or early Sunday morning) so that I have my evening clear for GoT for the next five weeks. I'm sure there is some god (Media? Mr. World?) who is benefiting from that decision!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ha, I enjoyed Mads and Shadow sniping at each other while grudgingly getting along.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I can't watch it early because my niece is sleeping on the couch. Stupid holidays!! 

[nodorothyparker]

I'll give it next week to see if the ending sticks, but if that's really it I think I'm out.  This show is so much flash and so very little actual substance that resonates that there isn't enough left if you rip the very heart out.

[Mr. Sparkle]

Reminds me of both Preacher and American Horror Story. Good looking cast, beautiful sets, costumes and lighting, seemingly very little interest in the story. 

[nodorothyparker]

That's it exactly.  There was plenty of beautiful imagery and camerawork in this episode, even without Bryan Fuller.  It has fun individual set pieces and great one-liners.  But save the one story I feel investment in it's all operating on such a tediously superficial level.  Not to get all book talky, but the book is kind of like that too.  Terrific premise and some really interesting set pieces.  Lots of fun cameos and namedropping.  But so much of it ends up feeling weightless in that there don't seem to be any real stakes for anyone outside of a handful of extremely petty gods.  

[raven]

I thought the season started well but the last couple of eps have not been the best.

They are trying to find story where there is none and it's showing.

[hnygrl]

I just have to say this. WAY TO GO MAD SWEENEY!!!!!  *standing ovation*

I am really impressed. He knew Shadow would ignore him. He knew Shadow would protect Wednesday. It’s his job to do it. Now the spear is in his HOARDE & the only person with access is dead. Yes. Yes yes yes. 

“Moon Shadow”. Gotta mean something...and of course there were banshees.  Dang. That.  Was. Good 

Good enough  forgive them for last week. 

I think this one is a re-watch. There was a lot of small-kind symbolism. 

Edited April 21, 2019 by hnygrl

[WatchrTina]

As a reader

Spoiler

I enjoyed this episode because when Shadow finds Sweeney under the train trellis I had a flash of recollecting the ignoble ending that Sweeney meets in the the book (which is one of the more pathetic endings to a god's life in the whole story) but then -- PSYCH! -- it was a fake out.  They completely re-wrote this bit, giving us a chance to care even more about Sweeney before he meets his end.

I really loved Sweeney getting a chance to finally fuck over the guy who has held his leash for so long.  Stowing Odin's spear in Sweeney's hoard (which, presumably NO ONE can get to BUT Sweeney) is one hell of a last great act of defiance (and good job by the writers reminding us that he has that ability by having him briefly snatch Shadow's lucky "moon" coin).  But on the other hand, that renders the whole episode that centered around the spear as totally moot so that kind of sucks.

This turn of events (Sweeney's death) does throw a wrinkle in my speculation that it was going to be Sweeney's blood that made the voodoo potion work (him having secretly fallen in love with Laura.)  I guess not.  But according the Mama-Ji, the Voodoo potion is snake oil anyway and Laura already has the wherewithal within herself to bring herself back to life (which renders the road trip to New Orleans as also completely unnecessary.)  If these side trips (quests?) all end up being pointless that's . . . an interesting narrative decision.

Then again, maybe I misunderstood Mama-Ji.  That's my biggest complaint about this show.  These gods keep making proclamations and pontifications that make no damn sense to me.  And I've READ the book.

Speaking of pontifications . . . WTF was Bilquis doing serving as officiant at a Christian funeral service?  That's just wrong.

Edited April 22, 2019 by saoirse
Spoiler tagging information from the book

[Starchild]

Well, fuck.

And I was just thinking at the beginning of the episode that Sweeney was becoming my favourite character.

[ombre]

1 hour ago, WatchrTina said:

Speaking of pontifications . . . WTF was Bilquis doing serving as officiant at a Christian funeral service?  That's just wrong.

I don't think that was a funeral service.  I think she's starting to gather worshipers unto herself, launching a temple of free love.  Watching those actors get to work their characters' transition to straight-up faith was a thing of beauty.

And, for my money, there truly are fewer things that have ever been written that are hotter than the Song of Solomon.  I like that it gets a shout-out in an episode that is so much about how stories get rewritten - it's so out of character with the rest of the Old Testament that I've always wondered if it was folded in from some other source.

[Mongo Like Candy]

I haven’t read the books so, please, no spoilers - 

But is Dead Wife (in homage to Mad Sweeney, shall she be known forever more) still after the blood of someone in love?  Cuz one character who spoke a lot about being in love in this episode was Salim, and I’d hate for him to get hurt. His is such an open heart. 

I know Mama-Ji was trying to steer DW in another direction, but I couldn’t tell if she wrote anything on that check other than the bill. 

[hnygrl]

Hmmm...you make a good point there, @Mongo Like Candy. And Mama Ji saying specifically that this was voodoo or something like that tells us that this is gonna backfire on DeadWife. SHE thinks she's got the key to being human 100% again, with blood that flows and free will and all that but in reality, she may be signing up to be one of the guy's voodoo sex slaves or something.  For sure though, if she does this - and we all know she probably will when she listens to Salim go on and on about love (the man is smitten) - and remember she only needs a drop or two - this is not gonna be pretty. Nothing that's happened thus far has had any positive consequences. 

[AngelKitty]

11 hours ago, hnygrl said:

“Moon Shadow”. Gotta mean something

Plus now I'll be singing that song all day.

11 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

These gods keep making proclamations and pontifications that make no damn sense to me.

Right? I keep thinking it's all going to make sense but I have a feeling it probably never will.

[ombre]

That... was some episode.  It took me utterly by surprise.

The way this episode played with memory and PTSD was absolutely beautiful.  Part of the point of myths/gods/religion in general is to have ways to cope with the things that break us apart.  (And the non-religious, too - a scientist friend whose father recently passed away has repeatedly remarked to me about how she's really drawn to arts and humanities as a way to look at grief that's just too big to look directly at.)  It's reminded me of, for instance, Jonathan Shay's work on using the Odyssey to help vets deal with their PTSD, which has spawned programs like this.  I read it (the big O) again recently for the first time in decades and discovered that I'd *utterly* forgotten the most PTSD-y stuff, like Odysseus's trip through the underworld, where he meets many of the men who were on the battlefield in Troy, but there it was, clearly hugely important to worlds where people spent more time on battlefields themselves. 

I think I heard about that work around the end of the last season, when I was so excitedly digging into Sweeney's history, because I remember as I read Seamus Heaney's Sweeney Astray being really fascinated by how Sweeney's story, too, is one of post-war PTSD.  But unlike Odysseus, Sweeney was on the side that lost, and in losing the physical battle also lost the cultural war and thus had cultural memories reprogrammed.  (Funny sensation - with such a long gap since the end of the first season, and with Sweeney's story, like so many other Darned Old Stories being filled with events but few distinctively memorable details, I'd forgotten a lot of his tale and felt very much like I was rediscovering Sweeney's memories along with him.)  And even in reading the Heaney version of his story, I'd been struck by the way his life is re-imagined over and over again within the space of the overall story.  This episode - seeing what side each of his companions/acquaintances brought out of him - was such a great way of getting at that faceted/fragmented aspect of his tale. 

I look forward to rewatching and seeing how exactly brought out what (and whether that was for Sweeney's good or their own ends!).  Bilquis reminded him of his own wife.  Ibis reminded him of his family lineage and his battle prowess.  Dude might as well have stabbed Wednesday himself!  (Gaiman, Gaiman... just can't resist showing the power of the narrator, can ya?!?)  I can't remember as many of the details about his convos with Shadow or Salim (but remember - for the eleventy billionth time!!! - rejoicing in what Salim's character quietly brings to the story)

Spoiler

In with the memory stuff - I had completely forgotten about Shadow's coin (and still only barely remember how it plays out.  Now I want to go back and rewatch the *whoooole* thing again and keep my eyes on that coin!  By golly - I want to see how the magician does his tricks!

Last season I noted (in the post linked above) that Sweeney's story is so similar to Odin's - the battles, the birds, the madness, etc.  It was a really lovely twist on Gaiman's part to make the "meta"-ish family tree of how myths travel and beget other myths and find doppelgangers of themselves in unexpected places into an explicit (if hallucinatory?) kind of family lineage  With Donar's suicide last week and Sweeney's death this week, Wednesday is losing sons (real or not) left and right.  Not very good for a family tree in the long run.  But then, if you're immortal already, what do you care if you kill off your (possibly hallucinated grand)sons?  More power for you!  It does get at a bit of funny ground, though - is this suicide-by-bodyguard on Sweeney's part?  Glorious death in battle?*  There's a funny middle ground with these gods whose stories include their own deaths.  I think a fair number of those deaths are written by the next influx of ideas/religions (like Sweeney's), while others incorporate the death into the story so there can be a resurrection and ever greater power.

And what does it say of the world that two of the gods with the strongest sense of honor (Donar refusing to throw the fight, Sweeney carefully tallying the books, making amends, calling Wednesday's debt) just cannot deal with present circumstances?

Spoiler

I truly loved the way that Sweeney and Shadow turned into a Cain and Abel story.  It mirrors those elements of Thor and Loki, a parallel that I never picked up on before.  I've always seen Shadow as Thor to Lowkey's Loki, but here he gets to stand as the opposite to strong, honor-driven Sweeney... which puts him in the Loki place in the binary.  Cunning move.  Man contains multitudes.

Mad props to Mad Sweeney for totally screwing Wednesday's plans.  I'm excited to see how *that* plays out.  @WatchrTina, I'm with you in being intrigued by how much of the story has to be unraveled to tell the story.  For Wednesday, that would be distraction to cover the con, but I'm thinking about the Odyssey now, so I can't help but also think of Penelope unweaving her work to keep the suitors at bay until *something* could change to get her out of her predicament.  With other tv shows, you can expand the story for more seasons by just changing the finish line.  But here... the finish line is (presumably) already set.  So it makes sense that sometimes you enrich the story by inserting extra tangents and sometimes you do it by writing a few red herrings and then erasing them.  And even so... it's not like that spear isn't going to come back somehow!  You don't spend that many eps making a spear only to... :poof:!

It's been a loooooong time since I woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep because I was so wound up about a bit of tv, but this one kept me up.  Fortunately, 3am is a *perfect* time to peruse the internet for things like... excellent interviews with Pablo Schreiber!  May my loss be your gain!

*Then again, what *is* Sweeney?  Man?  God? Demi-god?

Edited April 22, 2019 by ombre
If you're gonna *open* some parentheses, by golly, you'd better close 'em, too!

[Lemur]

14 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

I really loved Sweeney getting a chance to finally fuck over the guy who has held his leash for so long.  Stowing Odin's spear in Sweeney's hoard (which, presumably NO ONE can get to BUT Sweeney) is one hell of a last great act of defiance (and good job by the writers reminding us that he has that ability by having him briefly snatch Shadow's lucky "moon" coin).  But on the other hand, that renders the whole episode that centered around the spear as totally moot so that kind of sucks.

This turn of events (Sweeney's death) does throw a wrinkle in my speculation that it was going to be Sweeney's blood that made the voodoo potion work (him having secretly fallen in love with Laura.)  I guess not.  But according the Mama-Ji, the Voodoo potion is snake oil anyway and Laura already has the wherewithal within herself to bring herself back to life (which renders the road trip to New Orleans as also completely unnecessary.)  If these side trips (quests?) all end up being pointless that's . . . an interesting narrative decision.

Then again, maybe I misunderstood Mama-Ji.  That's my biggest complaint about this show.  These gods keep making proclamations and pontifications that make no damn sense to me.  And I've READ the book.

Speaking of pontifications . . . WTF was Bilquis doing serving as officiant at a Christian funeral service?  That's just wrong.

So, in regards to the spear, Shadow can pluck it out of the Horde.  Sweeney showed him how to do it at Jack's Crocodile Bar.  He just has to remember how.  (This was mentioned in either the first or second episode of Season 1.)

Mama-Ji wasn't saying that DeadWife has the power to regenerate inside her, she was saying she has the power to destroy Wednesday, which would bring her the fulfillment she actually needs instead of the one she thinks she wants.

As for Bilquis, she's just feeling cute, starting up a sex cult.  NBD.

[terrymct]

15 hours ago, WatchrTina said:

I really loved Sweeney getting a chance to finally fuck over the guy who has held his leash for so long.  Stowing Odin's spear in Sweeney's hoard (which, presumably NO ONE can get to BUT Sweeney) is one hell of a last great act of defiance (and good job by the writers reminding us that he has that ability by having him briefly snatch Shadow's lucky "moon" coin).  But on the other hand, that renders the whole episode that centered around the spear as totally moot so that kind of sucks.

This turn of events (Sweeney's death) does throw a wrinkle in my speculation that it was going to be Sweeney's blood that made the voodoo potion work (him having secretly fallen in love with Laura.)  I guess not.  But according the Mama-Ji, the Voodoo potion is snake oil anyway and Laura already has the wherewithal within herself to bring herself back to life (which renders the road trip to New Orleans as also completely unnecessary.)  If these side trips (quests?) all end up being pointless that's . . . an interesting narrative decision.

Then again, maybe I misunderstood Mama-Ji.  That's my biggest complaint about this show.  These gods keep making proclamations and pontifications that make no damn sense to me.  And I've READ the book.

Speaking of pontifications . . . WTF was Bilquis doing serving as officiant at a Christian funeral service?  That's just wrong.

Laura has made a trip to the hoard.   Perhaps she'll be the key to getting the spear back.

Mama-Ji, whom I love and would like to see more often, did kind of have a Wizard of Oz message this week.  Laura Moon, click your heels together three times and repeat "There's nothing like living!"

Bilquis has found a whole new category of worshippers.   I bet you her erotically charged readings of the Song of Solomon will pack them into the pews.  

I had a little trouble following Sweeney's recollection.  Did we learn that Wednesday was really Sweeney's father or grandfather?   Sweeney's abilities as a fighter while he was a Celtic king were because he had a god for a father or grandfather, correct?   Did he really chop the head off of an incarnation of Wednesday or had his memory drifted and he overlaid Wednesday's image over the face of the real man/god he killed?

[DarkRaichu]

41 minutes ago, Lemur said:

So, in regards to the spear, Shadow can pluck it out of the Horde.  Sweeney showed him how to do it at Jack's Crocodile Bar.  He just has to remember how.  (This was mentioned in either the first or second episode of Season 1.)

Sweeney even gave Shadow hints when he made the coin disappeared in Shadow's room

42 minutes ago, Lemur said:

As for Bilquis, she's just feeling cute, starting up a sex cult.  NBD.

Per season 1, her court was made literally out of orgies.  She is just establishing a new court in Cairo

13 minutes ago, terrymct said:

Did he really chop the head off of an incarnation of Wednesday or had his memory drifted and he overlaid Wednesday's image over the face of the real man/god he killed?

I think he killed a version of Odin that traveled to Ireland via the Viking invasion.  My take is Sweeney was the home god of the Celts/Ireland natives.  When the Viking invaded bringing Odin with them, the Celts successfully defended their land (ie. Sweeney killed Odin).

Later when Christianity came (via the grey monk) Sweeney was not as successful at defending the land due to the monk's curse and/or insanity that poisoned him after he killed Odin.  Sweeney fled his people somehow (after talked with pregnant wife).  Then he became mad (ie when the wife came visiting with daughter)

[Lemur]

40 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

I think he killed a version of Odin that traveled to Ireland via the Viking invasion.  My take is Sweeney was the home god of the Celts/Ireland natives.  When the Viking invaded bringing Odin with them, the Celts successfully defended their land (ie. Sweeney killed Odin).

Later when Christianity came (via the grey monk) Sweeney was not as successful at defending the land due to the monk's curse and/or insanity that poisoned him after he killed Odin.  Sweeney fled his people somehow (after talked with pregnant wife).  Then he became mad (ie when the wife came visiting with daughter)

They actually conflated two legends - Mad Sweeney at Mag Roth and the legend of the sun god Lugh of the Long Arm, who was a Tuatha de Danann king and father of Cu Chulainn.  He's associated with lighting.  Also, Catholicism arrived in Ireland in the 300s, the Norse the 800s.  The Irish were already Catholic when the Norse came.  It has more to do with Lugh killing Balor at Magh Tuireadh, who had a poisonous eye that would kill all that looked upon it, so the beheading of Wednesday was more symbolic, IMO. 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Lemur

[Bruinsfan]

Celtic mythology of the Tuatha Dé Danann goes way back before Viking presence on Ireland, doesn't it? Even the Christian conversion of the island happened a couple centuries before the Viking raids started. If Sweeney really was an incarnation of Lugh, he'd have fought the Fomor before anyone heard of Odin. I think maybe he's conflating his current situation with the past and seeing Wednesday in the role of a similar bloodthirsty father figure from his origin.

[terrymct]

1 hour ago, Lemur said:

 so the beheading of Wednesday was more symbolic, IMO. 

That makes sense.  Between Shadow, Donar, and then hints at Sweeney, I was starting to think that Wednesday's title of "All Father" might be more than just an honorific.

[Lemur]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Celtic mythology of the Tuatha Dé Danann goes way back before Viking presence on Ireland, doesn't it? Even the Christian conversion of the island happened a couple centuries before the Viking raids started. If Sweeney really was an incarnation of Lugh, he'd have fought the Fomor before anyone heard of Odin. I think maybe he's conflating his current situation with the past and seeing Wednesday in the role of a similar bloodthirsty father figure from his origin.

Pretty much, yeah, the Heroic era was pre-Christ.  

[ombre]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Celtic mythology of the Tuatha Dé Danann goes way back before Viking presence on Ireland, doesn't it? Even the Christian conversion of the island happened a couple centuries before the Viking raids started. If Sweeney really was an incarnation of Lugh, he'd have fought the Fomor before anyone heard of Odin. I think maybe he's conflating his current situation with the past and seeing Wednesday in the role of a similar bloodthirsty father figure from his origin.

As said above, I can't help but feel that Ibis, who's held his cards so very close to his chest throughout, set him on the track to conflate those two things.  And then gave him a further push with his musing on how if the story's better than the truth, go with the story.  Sweeney pre-dates Odin's story, but then reads Odin into his own twisted lineage (much as he's done with seeing Dead Wife's face in Essie).

[DarkRaichu]

Cool thanks for the crash course on Celtic mythology

[rab01]

I really liked and hated this episode.  The hated part is easy -- Mad Sweeney and Dead Wife are my favorite part of the show and she's at her best when with him so the show just lost most of what I enjoyed this season.  But I really liked the exploration of Sweeney's past, why he was tied to Odin, why he hated him, etc.  I don't necessarily understand most of what they showed us -- and the unreliable narrator means that the show may not be taking a position on what's necessarily "real" about it -- but it felt like it touched on the level of myth-making that the show achieved often last season and somewhat less often this season.

Bilquis' sermon/seduction lacked a little for me and I think it's because she was so serene during the service.  The audience reaction shots showed a build-up of desire to match the biblical verse but her body language didn't quite match it.  For me, there was more seduction in the moment she sat in the chair opposite Sweeney than in the entire sermon.  I wish they had brought more of that energy into her speech. Obviously, attraction is a very personal response so YMMV.  

[Bruinsfan]

I think you're right though. In that scene Bilquis was awakening desire in her listeners, but didn't seem to be feeling it or taking part in it herself.

[JayBird23]

Without a doubt the best episode this year (not much comp) and one of the best episodes of the series.  What happened?  Someone behind the scenes stepped it up.  This is why I loved the show.  It was much more focused, not a jagged mess of screen jumps.  Well acted and well directed.  The dialogue was good.  I was going to change the channel and it caught my attention.

[ombre]

14 hours ago, rab01 said:

Bilquis' sermon/seduction lacked a little for me and I think it's because she was so serene during the service.  The audience reaction shots showed a build-up of desire to match the biblical verse but her body language didn't quite match it.  For me, there was more seduction in the moment she sat in the chair opposite Sweeney than in the entire sermon.  I wish they had brought more of that energy into her speech. Obviously, attraction is a very personal response so YMMV.  

It was the same in the flashback we saw in her temple, iirc? Lady's a queen. She's accepting tribute. But she never gets caught up in the passion herself. That's for other people. Her job is to get other people there, to a place where they offer their praise to the experience. 

It's definitely not how all pantheons work - plenty of getting carried away with their own habits in most pantheons! - and frankly, I don't know enough about bilquis's history to know if it's how she's usually interpreted. It's not my favorite aspect of how she's interpreted in this show - it can *sometimes* feel like it denies women's sexuality - but I think it gives yetide badaki more space to work with. I'd rather have regal and a little uninvolved than, say, purring at everyone and everything. That said, she's had plenty of chemistry with the god characters (and Laura).

It's like she's the fire that can rip through you. Fire doesn't feel in and of itself, it's just fire. But when you're on fire, boy do *you* feel it. 

When I think on her, I can't help but think about just how *many* types of gods are left out of this world. Gaiman's carefully pulled in lots of gods of war and death and trickery and stories, a few gods of balance, but very few of love, of life, of growth, etc.  Obviously, this is because this is Wednesday's game, so these are people useful to his ends. Bringing in Bilquis and Easter shows what his approach would be (us against them, get their fear going, etc), but by bringing in so few of the creation gods and so many of the destruction gods, it limits the ways that problems can be solved. Just as Wednesday wants it. But not as I'd hope we humans would want it. 

Speaking of gods of balance - the scene I *wish* we'd gotten for Sweeney? Him and Jacquel, a god of paying debts and evening the scales and a god of balance and weighing the scales. If his last conversation had been with Jacquel, would he have still gone after Wednesday? Would he have gone after him with a little more forethought? (this former fencing coach would like to know would he at least have gotten to the proper distance for an action that depends on surprise?!? *rolls eyes, grumbles, walks off to see what the other students are doing*)  Mind you, it might have played out the same - nothing quite like ongoing, abused debt peonage to mess up the scales - but I'd have liked to see that conversation. 

Edited April 23, 2019 by ombre
Elaboration.

[Lemur]

8 hours ago, JayBird23 said:

Without a doubt the best episode this year (not much comp) and one of the best episodes of the series.  What happened?  Someone behind the scenes stepped it up.  This is why I loved the show.  It was much more focused, not a jagged mess of screen jumps.  Well acted and well directed.  The dialogue was good.  I was going to change the channel and it caught my attention.

Rumor is that it's one of the episodes that the Season 1 team was involved with, but who knows?

[ombre]

Brain continues to obsess about this ep, and in particular about the parallels between Sweeney and Wednesday.  And in particular particular (that's a thing, right?) about the glimpses of Sweeney as a husband/father/king, and in positions of responsibility.  Those moments really underscore the degree to which the All Father is... ignoring that manifestation of himself.

Anyway, I did go watch this again, 1) to see what aspects of the story we see for which gods, and 2) because I wanted to track wtf was up with the debt that Sweeney owes Wednesday.  Each story has a madness or lie, and a kernel of truth that leads to a whooooole new layer of madness

Bilquis:  The madness: Sweeney's own memory is basically of being a fairy (the tall version, not the wee people version).  The kernel: You had a wife.  Thank you, Bilquis, for that reminder of love!  Which in turn reminds him of having had a much more complicated and individual story, not just "Welp, I was a generic fairy." 

Wednesday:  Madness – we were invaded and I chickened out.  Kernel - grey monks weren't our allies.  Where Bilquis fed truth, Wednesday feeds the lie - he takes that ray of hope - my wife! - and twists it into a story of failure, shirked responsibility.  The story/traits that Wednesday has been using to keep Sweeney in line, and told through a lens that is the conqueror's lie (although Sweeney doesn't remember that just yet). This is where it seems like Sweeney builds his debt, but this is a debt to his people, not to Wednesday, and a curse by the church to live in madness and die by the spear.  (Iirc, in other versions, this curse is because he *attacks* the church.) 

Salim:  Madness – seemingly nothing!  He’s a hero king!  He just needs to adapt!  Kernel – Adaption=invasion=death.  Salim, like Bilquis, bringing out Sweeney's own enduring love.  And the idea that adapting is how you stay alive in a changing world.  And that even if you're about to be on the losing side of a war, there is still life to live.  But that last part is more than he can take.  Which...  I'm interested by how Ibis later paints him as, effectively, a god of civilization in its entirety.  And it make sense that a god of a specific civilization would not be down with the church bells that are the death knell of *his* civilization.  Whole thing speaks volumes for a country that has had a history of occupation and brutal loss of culture.  (Small wonder that Heaney was working on Sweeney Astray in the 80s, as the Troubles were entering a whole new phase of strategies.)

Ibis: Madness - the *entire* Sweeney myth.  Kernel – Lugh.  And then Sweeney’s own epiphany (or new level of madness?) – Nope, it was Odin, not nightmares.  And Ibis the historian is already making the jump to Lugh’s story before Sweeny even enters.  He tells of Sweeney’s battles against his people's nightmares... who happen to be led by his grandfather.  And Sweeney remembers that no, it's Odin.  It's still a story of fighting off invading cultures, but now directed at an individual (you can *fight* an individual!) rather than an amorphous thing like social change.  Eliding the ideas of nemesis and nightmare and kin and Odin all into one thing allows for *action*. 

I still don't get how Wednesday ever claimed to have *any* right to some debt from Sweeney.  There's nothing I see in any part of this story that gives Odin that debt.  Odin's story has a debt at its root (debt to his kinsmen for leaving the field of battle, curse by the Bishop), but that's not a debt to Odin.  And he may/maynothave killed another version of Odin, but that was done in battle and Odin was invading.  But that doesn't give a debt?  By my reckoning, Wednesday is in Sweeney's debt for a lie, a few centuries (millennia?) of bondage, including making him do some things he clearly finds incredibly distasteful, *and* some potato salad.

I can accept it as a contract set at some more recent time, Sweeney in a battle-less era with a debt/death wish looking for a battle in which to end his curse.  But as some kind of long-standing mythical debt?  I don't get it.

Either way, it's no accident that Wednesday's response to Sweeney's realization that his debt is even is to change the subject rather than respond.  There's no response that will serve Wednesday's ends.

Edited April 23, 2019 by ombre
Clarify organizing idea.

[rab01]

10 minutes ago, ombre said:

I still don't get how Wednesday ever claimed to have *any* right to some debt from Sweeney.  There's nothing I see in any part of this story that gives Odin that debt.  Odin's story has a debt at its root (debt to his kinsmen for leaving the field of battle, curse by the Bishop), but that's not a debt to Odin.  And he may/maynothave killed another version of Odin, but that was done in battle and Odin was invading.  But that doesn't give a debt?  By my reckoning, Wednesday is in Sweeney's debt for a lie, a few centuries (millennia?) of bondage, including making him do some things he clearly finds incredibly distasteful, *and* some potato salad.

I think it's a recurring theme of the show that Wednesday is tricking people and deities into his service and binding them to him through a claimed debt/agreement.  We've seen it with Shadow, with Donar, with Columbia, and now with Sweeney. We've also seen him refuse to pay honest value even if it's something as trivial as money (for Lou Reed's jacket).  

[tennisgurl]

"Whoa...good bible"-Mal Reynolds, Firefly, and my thoughts on Bilquis taking people to church. She is a lady that knows when to roll with the punches. 

Oh Mad Sweeney. This is definitely one of the episodes that actually did feel like American Gods again, and not some beautiful disaster masquerading as it. Its bittersweet, because Mad Sweeney is one of my favorite characters, and if this is the end of him (at least for awhile) I am going to miss him a lot. The show wont be the same without him snarking with/catching feels for Dead Wife. On the other hand, what a great exit for him, and a really interesting exploration of the themes of the series. mad Sweeney has been so many things to so many people, not even he really knows anymore. Maybe he was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann? Maybe he was Buile Shuibhne? Maybe he was one of the Fair Folk? Maybe he was the ancient Celtic version of Odin? Really, he was/is probably all of them, depending on who is telling the story. The gods, old and new, are many things to many people, based on what people believe in at the time. Mad Sweeney could very easily have been all those things and more, before he came to America with people like Essie Macgowan, before he became a cereal mascot and not much more. Everything is real, as long as someone believed it. 

At least he died telling Wednesday to kindly fuck himself, and even taking his weapon from him just as one final middle finger from beyond the grave. 

Moon Shadow. Better pay attention, Shadow...

 

On 4/22/2019 at 5:47 AM, ombre said:

*Then again, what *is* Sweeney?  Man?  God? Demi-god?

I believe the answer is "All of the Above, and more." 😉

[ombre]

On 4/23/2019 at 1:18 PM, rab01 said:

I think it's a recurring theme of the show that Wednesday is tricking people and deities into his service and binding them to him through a claimed debt/agreement.  We've seen it with Shadow, with Donar, with Columbia, and now with Sweeney. We've also seen him refuse to pay honest value even if it's something as trivial as money (for Lou Reed's jacket).  

We've definitely seen him flat-out swindle humans (and it's so *enjoyable* when *you're* not the rube!), but it's always so much squishier with the gods...

***

From my rewatch - 

The work of this season thus far:
Characters

• Make us detest Wednesday, show the fractures in his coalition.  (Plus, I can't get past the implication that he's killing all his sons...)
• Set Shadow on his own two feet a bit, but also make him naive af wrt Wednsday.
• Make us love Sweeney and then kill him (which... serves primarily to make us detest Wednesday)
• Show that Dead Wife's supposed goal - love Shadow - is not the sure footing she thought it was.  She's coming around to Hate Wednesday as her new goal, but is that really who she is?  Frankly, I don't think she knows yet.  And where I now loathe Wednesday and can't stop rolling my eyes at Shadow, I'm downright curious about where she goes.
• Salim, the Jinn, Mama-Ji have so far been there to get the others to reflect on their work/beliefs/etc.  I hope they get more to work with in the future, but one does need characters that can just make the rest clear.
• Bilquis has gone from being an ally of the New Gods to finding her own source of strength.  She joins Dead Wife on my Tell Me More list.
• Mr. Nancy, Ibis, etc, appear to be on Wednesday's side, but it feels like there's restlessness there, and Bilquis's model shows that they can probably find worship on their own.  What would it mean for Wednesday if they splintered off?  I also like those possible stories.

All of this appears to parallel the fractured dynamics of the New Gods.

Plot:

• Grew a tree.
• Got a spear.  Lost a spear.
• Got a way to bring Dead Wife back.  If you ignore Mama-Ji's disdain.

So basically, a season of pretty vital character development.  Plus a tree.  And a lot of potential character explosions set up for the finale.  I'm looking forward to it!

[Drogo]

No Sweeney, no Drogo.  

[Bruinsfan]

I'm still interested in Salim and his romance with the Ifrit, Mr. Nancy and his hilarious rants, and Mr. Ibis and his wise counsel (or hell, anything he cares to say in Demore Barnes' voice). But Mad Sweeney leaving takes away the most enjoyable interactions Shadow had and moves Dead Wife from part-time insufferable to 24/7. Mr. World has been giving the same performance for most of the season, I have very little interest in Tech Boy 2.0, and none whatsoever in New Media.