The other day I saw a post from the American gods fandom talking about how if Neil Gaiman wasn't white and straight then all the New Gods would be... Tech would be a black lives matter activist, and there'd be a cute enthusiastic Fandom god and... no? I mean one you are miles off in assuming that the softest version of tumblr's community is the worldwide norm and model for how most people experience these, and more importantly - Gods aren't nice. I mean it's been a while since I read American gods but. I feel like that was a major theme? That gods of a force of the world wouldn't always be the best and kindest and most just version of that force - they might be, sometimes, but it's not the standard or all of how they are.
Also, uh. Even if that bubble was universal, American Gods was published in 2001, well before it existed in its current form. Internet and fandom culture has changed a lot in the last 16 years.
What the living hell? Did they even read the book? And oh jeez Fandom the god would be absolutely Lovecraftian. I'm picturing some kind of tentacled hellbeast that occasionally eats bits of itself…
WE NEED HER. Also I have to say I am digging changes made to the Technical Boy in the tv show. He was updated to be a vape smoking fuckass and that's beautiful. If we're going to be updating them it's going to be like that. Not by making them nice. now back to my pondering actually watching it or not because I Have Feelings about that book and gaiman in general Highly conflicted ones.
I'd guess no, honestly. It sounds like the sort of gripe people come up with about things that are sort of on their radar but they don't actually know very well. Fandom would probably be in a <3/<3< relationship with Media, alternating between declaring their love for each other and tearing each other to pieces and devouring their flesh.
Well the post did mention something about if it had been written now... Still not sure I want to go looking for the original. And yeah. A lot of the new forces of the world would be terrible - a mercurial and impatient internet god, raises you high and crowned with laurels before forgetting you in a moment - if you're lucky; there are always those who earned ire somehow, who have their lives torn apart and threatened and stalked... Or a new war god, made out of blue sky and mud who burrows into the desert or the cold and tears the world apart and chews up generations who had no better options, twin to the god of commerce (bright eyed and vampiric, these days, and always talking about these spectacular people who still work 80 hours a week even with school and cerebral palsy and a kid to feed - what an inspiration!)
I do want Gaiman nowhere near war gods though. Because war gods are My Thing. i do not trust him enough to do them right WHY WAS MACHA A CHILD.
...im going to assume this is a Sandman gripe? But I'd like to see a war god who embodied - idk. Drone strikes and the endless quagmire over oil that eats the budget and eats kids that's been going on for as long as i can remember and seems like it will never ever end, because when it started it smashed up everything and there's no way out now, or at least not one that won't get shouted down as soon as it's suggested, but sure is making money for a few people - so many contracts and new equipment being bought, even if it all goes to sit in the Midwest and rust, but cutting away the purchases that not even the generals want would kill jobs, so that can't stop either...
Yeah, like. A god of the internet isn't going to just be covering the things you like, they're going to be covering the people on 4chan who think they caused Lord Dampnut's election with meme magic, and the antivaxxers harassing the CDC's Facebook page, and spam mail about Nigerian princes and male enhancement pills, and people selling their souls on eBay, and deliberate lies presented as news and blindly shared on Facebook by people who believe them because they fit their prejudices, and millions of people passing around "cute" videos of animals being abused...
Macha shows up near the end of American Gods as a child. I will never forgive this. I will never forgive many things about that book, honestly. Parts of it speak to me greatly. Others make me intensely despise the man who wrote it. I want a war god as I have known war gods. As opposed to "well Ares is mean and war is just bad". Jame comes close to how I would like a war god presented. But this would not fit in American Gods. But something else. Something more to what I want.
Oh. Well like I said it's been a while since I read them... Isn't Macha usually depicted as a crone? I vaguely recall Gentle Annie being the one most commonly depicted as youngest, but...
That isn't correct, either. They are both grating and incorrect, each for their own reasons. Really I've yet to see a portrayal of the Morrígan in media that I like. Period. They all strip her of so much of the complexity that makes her wonderful, or force her into archetypes that don't even fit her.
Anakin Skywalker didn't go through a redemption arc, he got a heroic death. There's a difference, and it's mostly that we (that being those of us who haven't yet gotten into the EU stuff that mighta given them a better idea of what's going on in Vader's head at any point) only know that he didn't wanna see his son die, not the extent to which he regretted his past actions, or hell which actions he might have regretted and why. And that's fun and interesting, and you can make a lot out of it, but it's not. He's not a good dude just cause he died. He still has to fucking work for it! He's not suddenly gonna be a different man than the dude who ordered Han and Leia to be tortured just cause they'd pissed him off! He's still the man who knowingly cut off his son's hand! He's still every bad thing he's ever done!!! It's no fucking fun when you just decide it doesn't count and he's totally a generically wise and good dude just cause he fucking died. Also, I feel like people who write him getting pissed off at Kylo for being over dramatic and hurting his family and shit like that could maybe be a little bit, idk, self-aware about it. It's fucking Anakin goddamned Skywalker. He's got no room to judge.
I think a lot of that can be blamed on the "we're all happy Force ghost friends now" shot at the end of RotJ. It certainly implies "oh look he's in Force Heaven with dead mentors who are regarded positively even though they were often huge jerks." I feel like the best possible note to go for with that would be "intense secondhand embarrassment."
I always took the ghost thing and his death to mean that through his saving of Luke and his death he is vindicated and redeemed, yeah. Like it's just kind of blatantly "You gotta die to be redeemed" for me. And it's not like the original three movies were that complicated morally to begin with. So while a different take of Star Wars may want to look into that more going by the simple black and white good vs. evil type morality of the original trilogy I can see how many would go "Yeah Anakin is redeemed". Those movies were never the most compelling or complex.
Also this reminds me. I am sick and tired of the hardcore trilogy fans shit of "Well it was just a simple space fantasy film we don't need to make it complicated." Yes. It was just a simple space fantasy film. It is now no longer just that. Other people do not like those simple space fantasy films, such as myself. Some love them but also more complicated and nuanced takes on the universe. Your masturbating to the original releases of the original trilogy doesn't somehow make you the better Star Wars fan. Nor does going "Oh but I'm a not Star Wars fan" make you not a Star Wars fan. You're a Star Wars fan and you're as insufferable as the rest of us. Now stop being pompous assholes and just like your Star Wars.
