American Gods

“Rigged games are the easiest ones to beat.”

Wednesday warns Shadow early in the novel that “rigged games” (31) are easy to beat. He says this as part of his attempt to rig a game in his favor. The comment foreshadows how Shadow will stop Wednesday’s plan by refusing to play and revealing the rigged nature of the game to the other gods. In the end, Wednesday is brought down by his own advice and his own hubris.

“His gods were already waiting for him when he arrived.”

America, as the novel states, is not a land for gods, but the gods continue to exist there. Without believers, however, they are caught in a state of powerlessness and are forced to wait for the arrival of credulous humans. Odin was abandoned in North America many centuries before the events of the novels and was forced to wait until the Scandinavian sailors returned. As such, the modern era is not his first existential crisis. He has endured a lack of belief before and he does not want to endure it again, explaining why he is so desperate to act.

“Here, I am a bad memory no one wants to remember.”

At one time, the gods provided some function in the minds of the humans who worshiped them. Czernobog laments the lack of faith in the modern era as there is no longer a function that he can provide. He is not remembered because no one wants to remember him. He is a bad memory of a past before humans had science, technology, and other ways to explain the world around them. Now, he is a relic of a bygone era who is waiting to be completely forgotten once and for all.

“‘This is the only country in the world,’ said Wednesday, into the stillness, ‘that worries about what it is.’”

The nature of modern America perturbs Wednesday. He criticizes American culture for being relentlessly obsessed with its own self. For all his criticism, however, he is utterly dependent on America. He is the American incarnation of Odin; he cannot simply leave. In this sense, Wednesday’s criticism of America is a form of self-loathing. He worries about his own condition and his own self, recognizing this as an American problem and blaming his inherent Americanness for his own weakness.

“The thing about coin manipulation was that it took all Shadow’s head to do it.”

Shadow practices coin tricks as a way to escape himself. Whether he is passing the days in prison or trying not to think about Laura’s death, the coin tricks allow him to focus his mind away from negative thoughts. Shadow’s tricks are not magic in the traditional sense, as everything is accomplished with sleight of hand. The real magic of Shadow’s tricks is the escapism they provide to him, allowing him to get away from his own destructive, damaging thoughts.

“Their time, mostly.”

Media explains that people in America sacrifice their time to the god of television. The manner of the sacrifice illustrates the ways the new gods have evolved in contrast to their old counterparts. The new gods are not just products of technology; the methods of worship and sacrifice have moved into abstractions. Odin needs blood to be spilled and dedications to be made in his name, while Media simply needs people to stare at their television screens.

“You wish to know that your grief is happening on a local level, not a national one.”

Funeral parlors in America offer the pretense of local service when they are actually owned by a national corporation. Humans, Ibis explains, feel the need to believe in the lie as it comforts them. While everything else in their lives may be corporatized, they are willing to believe that funeral parlors are different as an act of faith. Humans may no longer believe in the old gods, but they are just as dependent on faith to navigate their lives.

“You just have to hold it in your mind, and it’s yours to take from.”

Taking a coin from the hoard, Sweeney teaches Shadow, is simply a matter of belief. Sweeney’s words are seemingly absurd to a rational man like Shadow, but the evidence of Sweeney’s actions shows Shadow that rationality is a hollow concept. Magic does exist in this world, and the only rational response is to accept this and use it rather than continue to deny it. Shadow learning to perform Sweeney’s trick is an illustration of how much he has changed from his former, supposedly non-superstitious self. Now, Shadow is willing to believe the evidence of the world around him.

“The car smelled of leather and old cigarette smoke—not a fresh smell, but as if enough people had smoked enough cigarettes and cigars in the car over the years that the smell of burning tobacco had become part of the fabric of the car.”

Hinzelmann is an old god who requires the sacrifice of a child each year to sustain himself. He places these children in the trunks of cars that then fall into the lake. Shadow does not know this yet, but hints exist in Hinzelmann’s life. His vintage car is essentially a temple in which the smell of stale cigarette smoke is like burning incense. Each cigarette is a sacrifice or a ritual offering, made inside a replica of the same machines that contain the children’s bodies.

“But that is merely the easy lie that allows the gamblers to lie to themselves, the big lie that gets them through the enormous, ever-open, welcoming doors.”

The description of the casino frames the institution in the same way as a church. Like a church, a casino allows patrons to lie to themselves that they are uniquely lucky and blessed, while in truth, they are pouring their money into an indifferent institution. These easy lies are the key to belief in the old gods, and as modernity encroaches on the “old world,” these old and easy lies are being replaced by new easy lies, such as the casino.

“We feed on belief, on prayers, on love.”

In his discussion with Shadow, Wednesday alludes to the innate powerlessness of gods. The force that sustains them needs to come from human belief. For all their power, they can do nothing without belief. In a broad sense, the gods simply need to be loved to sustain themselves. This powerlessness is pathetic in the literary sense; for all the gods’ power, they are weak without the love and belief of humans.

“The only things which give it the illusion of being one country are the green-back, The Tonight Show, and McDonald’s.”

America, in Wednesday’s view, is a country united by cultural affectations instead of gods. They worship money, fast food, and television rather than the old gods. These new gods do not offer (and cannot offer) whatever the old gods once offered them, but they are suited to the modern American culture. As such, the new gods thrive in the current moment while the old gods are unable to adjust. The old gods are not content to be artifacts of a diverse culture.

“They made me. They forgot me. Now I take a little back from them. Isn’t that fair?”

Wednesday resents the same humans that he needs to believe in him. He loathes them for creating him and then abandoning him. His resentment frames him like a brokenhearted family member, someone who has been betrayed by those closest to him but who can never quite deny his love (and his need) for those same people. He is desperate for their love and worship, and he is furious at himself because he is so dependent on people who barely acknowledge his existence.

“‘Rez road,’ she said. ‘You get used to them.’”

The Indigenous reservations are seemingly separate from the rest of America. In the novel, the culture heroes of Indigenous Americans are different from the old gods and an indication that Indigenous beliefs are better suited to the continent. The new gods seemingly follow a similar, separate trajectory. The gods of highways and infrastructure have no place on the “rez road,” (231) which serves a people that has learned to live without them.

“He could feel his heart beating in his chest.”

When Shadow is close to Laura, he feels his own heartbeat. That he should feel his heartbeat is a painful reminder of the distance between him and his dead wife: She has no heartbeat of her own because she is no longer alive. Shadow feeling the beat of his heart is a tragic reminder of how much he loves Laura and why they can never be together again.

“If we’re forgotten, we’re done.”

The way Wednesday frames his scheme illustrates why he is so successful at scamming people. The scheme serves only Wednesday (and, to a degree, Loki) but he frames his plan as a collective effort. He uses the collective pronoun “we” rather than the individual pronoun “I,” suggesting a solidarity that does not really exist. Wednesday is turning his cause into a collective cause, and in doing so, he is inventing a unity and an altruism that do not exist.

“I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.”

Sam is one of the only human characters who can be honest with herself. Unlike the insistently rational Shadow, Sam acknowledges the importance of belief as an act of faith. To believe in something does not mean that evidence is necessary. Sam can believe in something that is true just as much as she can believe in something that is not true. This is the power of belief, as it is based in faith.

“‘This isn’t about what is,’ said Mr. Nancy. ‘It’s about what people think is.’”

Mr. Nancy recognizes that reality is a construct. People do not believe in the truth, in his experience. Instead, they believe what they choose to believe. His words unwittingly foreshadow Wednesday’s plan: Wednesday does not need people to know the truth; he wants them to believe in a truth that he has created for them. The truth is irrelevant. All that matters is that the old gods believe Wednesday was killed by the new gods. His death gives them the justification to follow through on his plan, setting his scheme in motion.

“‘It doesn’t matter that you didn’t believe in us,’ said Mr. Ibis. ‘We believed in you.’”

Gods and humans have a symbiotic relationship, and belief does not flow only one way. The gods need humans to worship them, and in return, they have power over the afterlife, death, and many more supernatural and abstract ideas. The gods believe in humans just as much as the humans believe in the gods. The humans’ belief in the gods gives the gods power, and the gods’ belief in the humans gives the humans power. The difference is that humans are unaware of their own power.

“Another several hours’ pointless driving, and by now Town hated the GPS almost as much as he hated Shadow.”

Town works for the new gods, and in doing so, he invests himself in the accruements of modern life. The GPS unit is one such facet of modern existence, and Town’s dependence on it shows how much he treats it almost like a supernatural force. The GPS unit—for a lost man—is like an indifferent god who will not acknowledge his struggles. The irony of Town’s situation is that the backroads of America are no place for a godlike GPS, just as America itself is an unsuited place for gods in general.

“This is not a good country for gods.”

Whiskey Jack reiterates one of the key ideas of the novel to Shadow, explaining to him that America is “not a good country for gods” (332). The words resonate more coming from an Indigenous culture hero; Whiskey Jack has much more experience than any human or god in America. He can understand the nuances of the country and the technical details that differentiate him from the struggling gods. He is a product of the environment rather than something struggling to get by.

“They’re like valkyries or buzzards. They come because they have to come.”

The helicopters are extensions of a continuum, something that has existed and will continue to exist because humans continue to believe. In the “old world,” the dead would be taken away from the battlefield by natural or supernatural forces. In the modern world, the dead will still be taken away but new technology such as helicopters has replaced the old methods. The same function is performed, but it evolves to fit a contemporary culture’s expectations.

“Because of you, things are changing. This is spring time. The true spring.”

The irony of Wednesday’s plan failing is that the other gods now have hope. They believe that something has changed in the world following the abandonment of the battle. In a sense, Wednesday sacrificed himself by accident. He sacrificed his plans, his schemes, and himself, which resulted in a renewal and a new spring for the others. This is the true spring, as it suits all the gods rather than just Wednesday.