I think the god that the god is the christian
god, it makes good senses because he is a god that has no name that can be spoken , it is not allowed to paint or sculpt his image, he is compasionate and most importantly he is very present in america, the one old god that should be in the book. Also I think the nameless god is to important in the book to be some obscure god.(eventhough his name and face are unknown, he leaves the biggest impression of all gods in the book)


a nice article can be found here:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/y/yahweh.html

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Originally posted by sandernei:
I don't know if this will help or if it will twist things even further... but when reading about the man in the gray suit, there is a particular observation concerning his whereabouts in Vegas
It is mentioned that he steps out of the Casino and it is not impressed by the "imitation of New York" to his left. Looking at a map of Las Vegas Strip, there is a hotel across from NEW YORK, exactly to what would be the man's left that might carry some significance; the Luxor.

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Actually, you can look left from three other casinos and see directly New York New York (without looking up, etc):

MGM Grand (due East of NYNY)
Excaliber (due South of NYNY)
The Tropicana (opposite corner, SE of NYNY)

Excaliber is between Luxor and NYNY.

Fun Fact: Neil stayed at the Tropicana while writing sections of American Gods.

-=- Saint NightWalker -=-

Ah, so maybe the perpetually forgotten, unnamable god is a manifestation of the Author's Persona; i.e., maybe it's Neil himself. Characters never know their "Creators," so it may make sense. And he's rich, too. (Don't take this seriously ... unless you want to.)

It wouldn't make sense for him to have been the judeo-christian god. For starters, all throughout biblical texts, it is mentioned over and over again that he doesn't favor (and in fact, is angered by) sacrifices of wealth.

He's not a "money" god, so to speak.

I think the biggest clue is the question he asked wednesday about the girl who hasn't been heard from in 200 years..

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Originally posted by peep:
I think the biggest clue is the question he asked wednesday about the girl who hasn't been heard from in 200 years..

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I know . I know . PERSEPHONE. Right ????

But it doesn't really make sense for it to be persephone (and he, hades), does it? There really, really aren't any of the Greek/Roman pantheon included. I asked this of Neil at a book signing. And he has said it countless times. No..I think we need to look farther.

The Greek/Roman gods are so well known. I think the clue is in the 200 years part. She hasn't even been heard from in 200 years. Someone must have brought the gods from this particular pantheon over to America a long, long time ago.

I'm wondering something;
Could the god be a lost god? Maybe he's so old he's abstract, slipping in and out of human consciousness, and, as such, maybe it's been so long since anyone believed in him that he's only barely there, and barely registering having been there, at that. He has no name, and leaves no memory, because the world has moved so terribly far from worshipping him.
He's "seen a million faces, and he's rocked them all." Sorry. Couldn't resist that last.

Okay, I think I might know who the God was. I'm not 100% yet, but it's sounded more right than the rest of the guesses I've seen, so here goes. For those attempting to figure this out on your own, this may or may not be spoiler material. But if you're really really worried about it, then don't keep reading.


The got that makes the most sense is Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of lots of stuff. He's considered to be "the true invisible god" and "His cruel hand was felt to be at fault when a rich man was brought to mis fortune. When Tezcatlipoca chose to appear on the earth he brought destruction, and only rarely did he provide good fortune to an individual, after all why should he?"

He is depicted as having black hair and is usually carved from obsidian. The god in Vegas has dark hair and dark eyes and a charcoal colored suit.

"Tezcatlipoca lives by no law, he is invisible, a mocker, a giver of disease, a player of men's destinies and fortunes."

All of this information is from http://www.northcoast.com/~spdtom/a-god6.html and I'm going to do some more research, but this is what I'm thinking right now.

=Brian

Very interesting...

Follow up when you find out more.

Ntolnry, assuming your right, then who is the girl he asks wednesday about? shed probably be from the same pantheon wouldnt she? and what about the soma? how does that fit in?

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Originally posted by mike:
Ntolnry, assuming your right, then who is the girl he asks wednesday about? shed probably be from the same pantheon wouldnt she? and what about the soma? how does that fit in?

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Might have been someone from the same pantheon, or it might have just been one of the other gods, perhaps Bilquis. I will bear it in mind during further investigation, though.

As for the soma, that was a bribe. The god knew that the game was rigged, so Wednesday had to find some way to bring him into it. If I'm right about who it is, then he would have seen the scam, because he is a trickster god as well. The Soma is something that gods would really want more than just about anything. I believe it was also a way of giving another hint that Shadow is a god, since I think Wednesday gave him some Soma after leaving backstage the first time, when Shadow was feeling ill.

=Brian

thanks. i know the soma was a bribe, but what i meant was, why does that god especially want the soma, whats the significance of it to him, as it did seem to be a clue as to that gods identity. and what is soma anyway

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Originally posted by mike:
thanks. i know the soma was a bribe, but what i meant was, why does that god especially want the soma, whats the significance of it to him, as it did seem to be a clue as to that gods identity. and what is soma anyway

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I haven't heard of Soma outside of AG, so I couldn't really give a better explanation than Neil Gaiman's, which is kind of an alcoholic spirit made from belief (or something like that).

As to why that particular god, I don't think that god in particular wants the soma. I think it's that that god in particular won't go for an idealogical cause, because he knows wednesday has something up his sleeve. Therefore, he wants to make sure that, even though he'll lose, he gets something out of it. Hence the need for a bribe. Some was just a particularly good bribe for a god. Plus, as I said, the need to set up what the soma was for later in the story.

=Brian

Ok, folks, I haven't read the whole discussion, but I did do a search through it, and I didn't see my guess come up once.

I was interested that people went off for so long on the intangibles. That's some sort of financial market mumbo jumbo that no one understands, and a good choice for a modern god.

I think the invisible god is someone who is known to be dead but whom people keep claiming to see everywhere. Kind of like Jesus, but not. A real god for modern times.

Now if you can't guess what I'm thinking, there's no hope for you.

I would also like to tentatively put forward the possibility that the intagible god is actually no one in particular, but Neil made it up and wants us to think he knows something he doesn't. Which he does, of course. In other words, it's a Jedi mind trick. He's pretty good at those.

lpb@apocalypse.org

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Originally posted by lpb@apocalypse.org:
I think the invisible god is someone who is known to be dead but whom people keep claiming to see everywhere. Kind of like Jesus, but not. A real god for modern times.

Now if you can't guess what I'm thinking, there's no hope for you.

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Thank you. Thank you very much.

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I would also like to tentatively put forward the possibility that the intagible god is actually no one in particular, but Neil made it up and wants us to think he knows something he doesn't. Which he does, of course. In other words, it's a Jedi mind trick. He's pretty good at those.

lpb@apocalypse.org

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Actually, I asked him whether he made him up (you can see it on the FAQ page), and unfortunately he didn't answer, because of a plea made by one of the other members. Now, Mr. Gaiman is not a cruel man (well, not past a certain point), and I don't think he would just let the person who requested that he not reveal the identity of the god searching if there weren't an answer. So I choose to believe that there is, hence my Aztec guess. But it could be that he didn't have the heart to say that the god was made up, but I doubt it. He tends to play fair with most of the stuff he does, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't make up any of the old gods, just the new ones.

I think the biggest hints he gave, aside from the inability to remember the god, is the charcoal grey suit, black hair, black eyes, the fact that's he's a male god, and that he's somehow tied to wealth and/or fortune and lives in Las Vegas, where people play to lose, rather than to win. Oh, and the fact that he doesn't realizes that Wednesday's up to something.

There may be more clues in the car ride where the god was first introduced, but I don't remember anything, and will have to re-read before I find anything. And there may be something at Rock City, buried deep in the whirlwind of gods. Overall, there's too many hints, to my mind, for it to be a trick of Mr. Gaiman's.

And I don't think it was your first thought quoted above, since I don't seem to recall him having a penchant for charcoal colored suits. Heh.

=Brian

P.S. Oh, the Laphroig, with it's body-in-the-bog taste, might have been a clue as well. I'm not sure.

I think it couldnt be Jesus or the Christian god, because I think he wouldnt belong to this battle: this is about forgotten gods vs. modern gods, and the Christian god is none of those.
My guess -really poor documentated I must say, but will try to fix that- is that he is not a god we can find about in books.
Here's something I made up: If you cannot remember seeing him or talking to him, maybe you cannot worship him. How could people have brought a god to America if they didn't remember him?
I think it would make sense that his worshippers wouldn't remember him coz he's some kind of inaprehensible deity.
I think he's some kind of sacrifice god, or rather, THE sacrifice god. The Indians -from India- believed the sacrifice itself was as holy as the god they sacrificed to. Soma was a drink made from a plant used in India in sacrifices to gods -they also sacrificed butter, cereal which they burnt in a fire. When things were burnt, they went up to the sky -smoke- to the gods. Fire was sacred too, and the bridge tended between heaven and earth, gods and humans, as well as the act itself, was sacred.
People in Las Vegas, says Neil, go there to lose their money, it's a sacrifice. So it would make sense that a sacrifice god would live there where the most sacrifices are being made, and it would make sense what he wants more is soma, which no one has given to him in ages.
No idea about the girl, though.
I'm not much convinced myself with my own theory, at least until I do some more re-reading and research.

So, he would be shadow's shadow, in a way?

Very, very interesting....

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Originally posted by Sparker:
So, he would be shadow's shadow, in a way?

Very, very interesting....

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Are you referring to my post?
*feeling really, REALLY stupid right now*

OK, so he didn't do charcoal suits. But he did have a lot to do with Vegas. I will admit that part of why I have this idea is that he showed up in "Good Omens" in a similar sneaky way.

It wouldn't be anyone from the Christian pantheon. Gaiman doesn't refer to that one in his works very much, except as an inscrutable force keeping an eye on all the other gods and mortals and messing around with their heads, lives, fates for no obvious reason except a sick sense of humor. I was re-reading some of my original Sandmans recently and picked up a lot of such irony about the Judeo-Christian god.

Oh, and for no obvious reason, I'll point out that the plant that is soma was mushrooms. Not the kind that you eat in your salad either.

No, no: I meant that in a good way. If he was THE sacrifice god, and Shadow is the living representation of the sacrificial hero, then it would make scene thematically as well as compliment the narrative structure, since they'd be polar opposites: Shadow is THE main character, and the unknown god is THE non-character. Shadow's shadow, see?