All right, I've pretty much figured out that something's up with Sam. She's not your normal type person. After two reads, I am convinced that she is perhaps a Demi-God or similar, as Shadow is. The hints are as follows:

1) She points out on her first meeting with Shadow that they are somehow alike (her asking if he has indian heritage, as she does);

2) Her claim to believe everything, just as Shadow is supposed to;

3) Her possible refusal to do what Hinzelmann wants with respect to Shadow when Hinz. was trying to get Shadow out of town.

4) Biggest hint - "Sometimes I have been dreaming of people who fell from the sky. Sometimes I'm underground, talking to a woman with a buffalo head."

5) Her link to Shadow (knowing when he was dead and not).

I suspect there are many more hints, but these are the ones I remembered or found in my annotations. So...

Is she part of the Norse mythology, which I am very rusty on (I didn't even know who Balder was, so I'm sure there's more I don't know)? Or is she just intertwined because of a common heritage of demigodhood or what?

another point, in the "I beleive" speech she mentions that she beleives "that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman." I figured this was obvious enough that everyone noticed, but that may just be because I worked with the speech a lot to make my t-shirt, and I dont remember if the speech comes before or after the bit in the book about the shaman crossing the bering strait....

Oooh, very nice. I will have to look that up, thank you. I am sure the Siberian bit comes before the speech, though.

Thanks!

I like the idea that her father was a God. That would make her just like Shadow. It would also help explain something I was going to ask about. And that is, how in the hell did Shadow get the flowers into Sam's hands in the end without her girlfriend notcing. Is this perhaps another little skill that Shadow has acquired, like the one he uses to reach into the sherrif's mind and clear it of the memories of what he did to Hinzelman?
If they were both children of Gods, perhaps it would be easier for him to connect with heer Backstage.

I figured it was a little backstage pass.

I believe the way Shadow got the flowers in Sams hands without being seen was by either manipulating time or pushing the girls memories, the same way he pushed Chad's. At first I thought it was a trick of misdirection, the same way he did coin tricks. But since neither Sam nor Natalie saw Shadow, he must have frozen time or pushed their minds.

I agree that Sam has to be some kind of semi-God, just like Shadow. My personal believe is that she is his (half-)sister, since 1. she has this connection to him and 2. Wednesday points out that he needed a *son* to work for him, IRC.

Also don't forget that Sams dad kept jumping around from place to place. However this wouldn't explain Sams connection to her half sister. Unless of course Sams half sister isn't really her half sister at all and really Shadow is Sams half-brother hence she loves him but "not in that way". Oh and the flowers thing is not anything tricky or "backstage" esq it was simply that both Sam and Nat were quite infatuated with each other they didn't even notice Shadow.

Either that or perhaps the adopted name of Baldur/Balder (Shadow) is more representative than we thought. He walks in both the Shadows of humans and gods.

I hadn't even considered that possibility but know that you mention it....

Possibly she is a demi-god but theres nowhere I would place her in the norse pantheon.

I hate to go all jungian on this but maybe she's Shadow's anima?

that is the female aspect of Shadow, while Shadow is the male aspect of Sam?
It explains how they are alike,her dreams about the buffalo woman,her link to shadow.

In us mere mortals our anima/animus is only an archetype in our own minds. Maybe the anima of a man fathered by a God somehow manifests itself in the real world?

Her father wouldn't be Wednesday for one because he didn't called Shadow a half-breed. Like Sam's father did.

Whisky Jack then maybe?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oneiromancer:
another point, in the "I beleive" speech she mentions that she beleives "that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman." I figured this was obvious enough that everyone noticed, but that may just be because I worked with the speech a lot to make my t-shirt, and I dont remember if the speech comes before or after the bit in the book about the shaman crossing the bering strait....

---

Exactly. It seems obvious to me that she is the shaman. Reincarnated, perhaps, but still the same shaman.

Yep, she's the Shaman all right. And the clues listed above also help explain why she and Shadow have so much in common. Let me trace
my logic here.

First, all the stuff above: They both speak to the buffalo-head == The Land. Both have a grounding in the Land, more strongly than the imported gods do. So Sam's guess that Shadow has native blood has an element of truth in it. See below also.

The original Siberian Shaman was not a god, but was a conduit, mouthpiece, and helper to the god Ninnunnayanna. But she was, unlike the gods, born into a human body, not created out of belief.

Shadow is also born into a human body, and acts as a conduit, helper, and mouthpiece at times. He is also born, not created. And he, like Sam, is a half-breed -- half god, half human. And the Native blood that he lacks, he gains by being "reborn" from the land, in the "Bargain/Squeeze" dream. If that's not enough, all those skulls he climbs up to find Thunderbirds are his own. So he's got every right to claim native blood when Sam asks him (assuming he's had that dream by then, I forget).

Shadow and Sam are linked by their link to the Land -- that's why Sam knows when he's alive/dead, and why Shadow knows what Sam studies and where she works. They both Believe Everything, too. They are both prophets of the Buffalo-head. They are "on the same side", with a "f**k-you" to everyone else, as Sam tries to explain later to Natalie.

Sam, like Shadow, speaks to gods (though indirectly.) She tells Shadow to "say hi to any gods he meets for her". And he does.

So they're half-brother and sister, by virtue of the Land/Buffalo head, who is their common mother.

[This message was edited by UncleSteve on February 07, 2003 at 04:47 PM.]

[This message was edited by UncleSteve on February 07, 2003 at 04:47 PM.]

Just one more link:

Sam first appears tapping on the window of
Shadow's car, blending into then waking him
up from the dream with the Buffalo Head land guy.

In that dream, Shadow asks "are these guys really gods?", and Buffalo Head answers "What is a god?". Then before he can try to answer, Shadow hears the tapping and wakes up to meet Sam.

Buffalo Head also starts appearing later to Sam, too. link link link.

Sam is obviously very "down to earth" in personality, but also is described as having a face that looks "carved from rock". She is as close as you'll find to the Land incarnate.

Even though Neil himself has said that Shadow is Baldur, perhaps he is actually another of the Norse Pantheon, the one guy who has a direct female counterpart. I really ought to look these things up before I post, but I seem to recall from some research I did on the Norse Pantheon that there was one god-goddess-kind-of-the-same
-person-but-not pair. Maybe Baldur was even the male side of that, which would show that I'm right so much it wouldn't even be funny.

Another idea: Saami is a nomadic tribe that stretches across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. They are extremely shamanistic and live on and with the land. Sam/Sammi could be a personification of that tie to the norse pantheon.

quote:

---

Originally posted by phool:
Even though Neil himself has said that Shadow is Baldur, perhaps he is actually another of the Norse Pantheon, the one guy who has a direct female counterpart. I really ought to look these things up before I post, but I seem to recall from some research I did on the Norse Pantheon that there was one god-goddess-kind-of-the-same
-person-but-not pair. Maybe Baldur was even the male side of that, which would show that I'm right so much it wouldn't even be funny.

---

When did he say this? Wow, if he is Baldur, who is Hodur?

Quick update on Norse Mythology, Hodur, Baldur's brother, killed him with mistletoe because Loki knew that the only thing that didn't promise not to kill Baldur was mistletoe. Loki guided Hodur's dart. Read "Myth's of the Norseman" by Roger Lancelyn Green for more info.

quote:

---

+ Shadow is also born into a human body, and acts as a conduit, helper, and mouthpiece at times. He is also born, not created. And he, like Sam, is a half-breed -- half god, half human. And the Native blood that he lacks, he gains by being "reborn" from the land, in the "Bargain/Squeeze" dream. If that's not enough, all those skulls he climbs up to find Thunderbirds are his own. So he's got every right to claim native blood when Sam asks him (assuming he's had that dream by then, I forget).+

---

No, in fact he had not had that dream yet. The dream came after he met her, because he was in lakeside then. But the dream just further proves his claim

I found something that said Zisa was the female counterpart of Tyr,

I think Sam is supposed to represent Americans in general, hence the name; think Uncle Sam.

Edit: I just looked it up, and Samantha means either "God heard," "God has heard," "requested of God," "God's heart," or "God's name." Or "listener," but that doesn't work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Zzedar,