American Gods: Mad Sweeney
American Gods episode 7 was quite an emotional rollercoaster. No spoilers, promise.
Two of Mad Sweeney's lines had me in tears, "into this land with no time for magic" being one of them.
First, in the interest of full disclaimer, I must admit that I have a soft spot for Mad Sweeney. My heritage is excessively Irish, as my surname can easily indicate. He was one of my favorite aspects of Neil Gaiman's book.
For anyone not familiar with American Gods - where have you been? - the main theme of the story is that of belief. We believe and therefore these beings spring into existence. Or do these beings exist and we believe in them? As immigrants and settlers, Americans have brought a vast array of cultures and beliefs with them into this strange amalgamation.
No other country in the world wonders about who they are. They know who they are. America is the only one that struggles to find itself.
The idea that this land of ours has no room, no time, for magic... it broke my heart.
Is it lost?
Not the occult practices with wand waving or dancing naked in the woods. The deeper notion. The mere hope of something beyond our understanding, just outside the window of our mundane and repetitive reality. Something fantastic lies just out there, waiting for us to merely take a chance and look.
Believe.
And it will not be lost.
Yeh I watched the first episode and thought it wasn't bad but need to watch more.
A nice episode, very emotional indeed, but it felt a bit long at some point. Useful to bridge some story holes (for example, we learn that Mad Sweeney provoked Laura's car accident in the first place) and to give more screen time to Ibis and Anubis.
The other emotional part for me was him shouting in Old Irish that he's not evil. Damn Wednesday making him do this evil thing. But I'm Irish, I'm a sucker for leprechauns.
Damn! You translated the shouting part or you understood it??? I don't remember it in the book, was it there?
It's pretty close to "Haven't I believed enough in your bullshit? Haven't I suffered enough? Isn't that enough itself? I'm not evil! I'm not!" with some wiggle room given for various dialectics, or "Why does this bullshit keep happening to me?" However I more inclined to think the former, and he's cursing specifically at Wednesday.
That's fascinating. Then, Leprechauns are not as much Celtic folk characters than Viking/Nordic lost souls gone rogue on irish land! :) That fits perfectly
I keep meaning to get back to this. I watched the first and liked it. The book of course is awesome. I will put on my to-do list!
They are doing an incredible job fleshing out portions of the story Neil Gaiman has long wanted to tell, but also having fun doing their own things. So far I like the departures from the book, mostly because I fanboy The Jinn pretty hard and those few pages in the book just were not enough.
YES! American Gods is amazing!
And of course... Mad Sweeney is probably my favorite character for obvious reasons :D
I never, ever would have guessed. :D
All in all, it's an absolutely great show.
I had no idea there was a book... Guess I know what I'm reading next.
Absofrigginlutely. It's one of my all time favorite books. My poor copy is so dog eared and worn.
Have an Upvote & welcome to Steemit!
Thank you much!
Woots!! So glad you got all signed up!! This place really is pretty darn exciting!
I highly recommend doing an introduction post using the #introduceyourself and #introduce tags. That's where most people watch for new users. :) Make sure to have the first image in the post be a good, eye catching one. :)
Writing about myself is the absolute worst, but I'm trying to pull something together.
I understand. I don't do it often either. You can just give the basics of who you are (as much as you're comfortable with), what your interests are and what you think you might be posting about. Also, in your first sentence..say something about @sykochica bringing you in here...I've got a a little name recognition.
Oh, trust me, I fully intend on blaming you. ~.^
:)