American Gods

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@Chimera

Anansi came over on a slave ship and has lived through hundreds of years in America as a black man. The attitude is understandable.

Indeed, and so far I wish we’d seen more of Anansi. The tailor/webspinning connection is clever.

I have no problems with the changes per se - and I’m really liking the expanded storylines for Laura and Mad Sweeney - but making Messers Nancy, Jacquel and Ibis young men is, to me, a significant shift in the thematic tone of the story. In the novel, they are old men, because they are old gods; their senectitude is what drives the conflict. The story still works, but having a angry young black man in place of the amused elderly trickster of the book changes the tone. Not worse, just different.

[SmartAleq]

@Gyrate

Well, the main problem I had was that Eoster/Ostara/whatever is a fertility goddess and hence you’d expect someone with bigger boobs and wider hips for the part, which is how I pictured the character in the book. But as noted they’ve given her a lot more 'tude, which Chenoweth excels at.

Spring is the domain of a Maiden goddess, summer/fall is the province of the Mother and the Crone rules in winter. Ostara is a goddess of mating, not of birth. You get the hips AFTER the babies come.

[Gyrate]

@SmartAleq

Spring is the domain of a Maiden goddess, summer/fall is the province of the Mother and the Crone rules in winter. Ostara is a goddess of mating, not of birth. You get the hips AFTER the babies come.

She is the goddess of renewal, rebirth and the dawn, not just “mating”. Bilquis is about the sexytimes; Ostara is about fertility and birth (hence eggs as well as bunnies). That’s why fertility goddesses traditionally have been rather curvy.

Which is a moot point, because I’m no longer quibbling about Chenoweth’s casting.

[DrDeth]

@Gyrate

She is the goddess of renewal, rebirth and the dawn, not just “mating”. Bilquis is about the sexytimes; Ostara is about fertility and birth (hence eggs as well as bunnies). That’s why fertility goddesses traditionally have been rather curvy.

You know what we know about Eostre aka Ostara? Venerable Bede:"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."

That’s it. 100%. No archeological evidence, no ancient writings, nothing. No bunnies. No eggs. No mating. No sex.

Those things are likely, Eostre being a Spring goddess.

[Gyrate]

Okay then.

[DSeid]

@DrDeth

You know what we know about Eostre aka Ostara? Venerable Bede:"Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."

That’s it. 100%. No archeological evidence, no ancient writings, nothing. No bunnies. No eggs. No mating. No sex.

Those things are likely, Eostre being a Spring goddess.

Meh to all that. In this mythology she reflects the how Americans think of her.

In America Easter is a hodgepodge Spring goddess, an amalgam of a variety of ancient faiths’ celebrations with bunnies and eggs and lambs and livestock having sex and giving birth and hopes for a fertile land to be reborn, absorbed into a celebration of Christ’s Resurrection that has itself become highly secularized and absorbed into Media’s realm of chocolate and Peeps.

They got that all exactly right in my book.

[Gyrate]

@DSeid

In America Easter is a hodgepodge Spring goddess, an amalgam of a variety of ancient faiths’ celebrations with bunnies and eggs and lambs and livestock having sex and giving birth and hopes for a fertile land to be reborn, absorbed into a celebration of Christ’s Resurrection that has itself become highly secularized and absorbed into Media’s realm of chocolate and Peeps.

Or, to sum all that up in a song…

[swampspruce]

Along with an Angrier Anansi, I’m pretty sure that’s why Bilquis’ story was altered as well. I have to say that it makes a lot more sense to me in the televised version and that the book version would not have played out as well. I’m just sad that I have to wait now for the next season.

FWIW, IZombie, which I’ve also been watching with the Frau is running a very different story-line from the graphic novel; to the point that it is really a different story altogether in some ways. In both cases,I think the choices that have been made in altering the story arcs has been well done and I am thoroughly enjoying them for what they are. ( Walking Dead is the same and no compaints there either.)