Hey. I've been a Gaiman fan for several years, but this is my first time posting. Anyway, I always thought this guy was supposed to be Luck. Either Gentleman Luck or just Lady Luck in Drag. We meet him in vegas. And as soon as you find him, you lose him. That's just my two cents.

Though I personally doubt that any of us (including myself) have gotten this one right, I would like to identify the Incan god Pachacamac as being worthy of consideration.

Pachacamac (along with his rival Viracocha) did not originate as part of the Incan pantheon, but was adopted into it, and became the supreme god of Peru's maritime population. To quote the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, "He renewed the world by changing the men created by Viracocha and teaching them the different arts and occupations...His worship required human victims. He uttered mysterious oracles. He was invisible, and it was forbidden to represent him in any form whatsoever."

Telling the waitress of the opportunity to gain wealth by becoming mentor and partner to the oncologist from Denver could fall under the heading of teaching different arts and occupations. Those who lose their money in Las Vegas could constitute the human victims. The invisibility and cryptic oracles are fairly clearly relevant.

Honestly, I doubt this is the correct god, due to the fact that his connection with wealth is a tenuous one. Still, Pachacamac is an interesting one to consider.

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Originally posted by NonLocality:
Pachacamac (along with his rival Viracocha) did not originate as part of the Incan pantheon, but was adopted into it, and became the supreme god of Peru's maritime population. To quote the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, "He renewed the world by changing the men created by Viracocha and teaching them the different arts and occupations...His worship required human victims. He uttered mysterious oracles. He was invisible, and it was forbidden to represent him in any form whatsoever."

Telling the waitress of the opportunity to gain wealth by becoming mentor and partner to the oncologist from Denver could fall under the heading of teaching different arts and occupations. Those who lose their money in Las Vegas could constitute the human victims. The invisibility and cryptic oracles are fairly clearly relevant.

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That is interesting. Are there any corroborating details, such as the mode of dress or hair/eye color? Possibly the desire for Soma, the Goddess that hasn't been seen for a while, or the drinking of Laphroig? Also, is he, perchance, a god of Wealth?

I'm not trying to shoot down your theory, btw. Quite the opposite, I'm hoping you'll be able to find enough corroborating details to fill in all the gaps that the other theories have.

=Brian

Yes, those gaps are, unfortunately, present with Pachacamac as well, and are what lead me to believe that none of us have guessed it correctly yet. One avenue I am currently exploring is that the god may not be a god of wealth so much as a god of commerce. It is described how he can search through the flow of money. His coming upon the fact that there will be a newly wealthy man is described as finding a node. It is my hope that looking at this god as a god of commerce will open up some new possibilities.

Evidence points to Amen/Amon/Ammon...
"The name 'Ammon' meant 'hidden'; the god was an invisible being."
Also, Shadow not being able to remember his name may be consistent with the actions of Akhenaton - "with the frenzy of a fanatic, he directed his agents to remove the name and image of Ammon from all temples and tombs."
And the wealth? "The high priest of Ammon and his associates, with vast territories and multitudes of lesser priests to house, feed, and supervise, employed thousands of scribes. Ammon was not the only deity whose wealth called for voluminous records..." This sounds almost exactly like the description of the casino and flow of wealth we are given...
"Meticulous bookkeepers, the Egyptians kept a careful tally of every goat, sheep and cow taken in battle and severed one hand of each slain enemy so that an exact count could be made. Then the spoils were dedicated to the national god Ammon."

All this info is from 'Great Ages of Man : Ancient Egypt' by Time Life Books.

-SLASH-

Has anyone mentioned the possibility that the unnamed God is Kubera, Hindu God of Wealth? I don't know too much about his mythology, but he started out as an earth diety in the Vedas--king of the demons and spirits that live in the shadows.

Sort of a stretch, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Just thinking; Shadow actually says something like "my name's not Ainsel", which, it of course isn't, but thinking about the anagrams of the name, it could be a hint to those trying to figure things out

/Daniel

I believe that the god was Nyarlathotep.

I've been looking for the answer off and on ever since I've read American Gods, but finally gave up in frustration since I could never get a god that would fit the description properly. Until tonight, when I was reading a short story of Neil's, where he mentions Nyarlathotep.

The short story is "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar", and the reference is found in the collection "Smoke And Mirrors", page 150.

"'Well, let's say, just supposing I'd been on a pilgrimage to the Tomb of Nyarlathotep...'
"The black king of the ancients who shall come in the night from the east and you shall not know him, you mean?"
"Of course that's who I mean.'"

So, I did some looking into Nyarlathotep on the internet, and found out that he was written about by H.P. Lovecraftin some of his stories.

"Throngs pressed around, frantic for his commands,
But leaving, could not tell what they had heard;"

Found at http://www.miskatonic.net/pickman/mythos/n-origins.html

So, I'm convinced anyway. At least convinced enough not to wonder about it anymore, anyway

I personally like the idea of Hades.

A point that I hate is when people say he was a new god. Why would he be aligned with the old Gods? The only ones that double crossed were Wedenesday and Loki.

Here are the reasons I like Hades.

1) Hades was inoxerably linked with money.

2) Hades name could not be mentioned, and he was never represented in art because he had a cap that made him INVISIBLE.

The idea of death is hard to link, but remember god was not the god of Death. He was simply their ruler. Death himself was a brother to Morpheus and Hypnos named Thanatos.

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Originally posted by Zalasta:
I believe that the god was Nyarlathotep.

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ooo, I like that one!

I'm not really an authority on this, but I wanted to try to be a little evil. What if (and I'm sorry if this has already been suggested and ruled out, I'm still really behind) Neil INVENTED the unnamed god. What if this god is just a charater that popped out of Mr. Gaiman's mind?

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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.

=Brian

You can't blame a girl for trying.

Well, I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this and I don't have time to read everyone's replies...but this unnamed "god" seems to me like the Erlking (or Erlkonig or Elfking) from old Germanic and later English and American legends. We see the Erlking most notably in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Goethe's "Erlkonig" (there should be an umblaut over the o, but I don't have a German character set). Mostly, I feel, from the mysterious and forgettable nature of this character. In legend, most adults couldn't see or hear the king of the faeries because they had lost their ability to believe in him. Encounters with the Erlking usually were written off as the wind or some suitable "natural" occurance, or simply forgotten altogether. But children were aware of him and believed in him and it was in children he was most interested. To kidnap and raise with his wife, or to kill, depending on his mood (which was unpredictable). He and his wife (the queen of the faeries) went through cycles of love and hate. I believe the character in the book asks about a woman, perhaps his estranged wife? He was neither good nor evil, for he was capable of the most extreme of both behaviors. Just a thought. Those wanting more info on the Erlking should start by reading the above mentioned works and use them to then research the actual mythology.

Another thought would be Merlin, for reasons too numerous to name.

That sounds plausable. Does the Elfking have any kind of dominion over money or fortune? I have a feeling that the unnamed one is a god of fortune, unfortunatly I'm not well versed in many mythologies, I've just got a sort of general knowledge.

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Originally posted by paddedcell:
That sounds plausable. Does the Elfking have any kind of dominion over money or fortune? I have a feeling that the unnamed one is a god of fortune, unfortunatly I'm not well versed in many mythologies, I've just got a sort of general knowledge.

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Not a dominion, nor a particular patronage. The difficult thing about most Germanic and Scandinavian folklore and mythology is that often times the "gods" (and I use the term loosely) weren't particular patrons or have dominion over certain elements as we often see in, say, Greek and Egyptian (which are one and the same, really). This probably stems from the fact that most pagan Germanic and Scandinavian peoples didn't exactly worship these gods and creatures theh way we often think of in other pantheons. More often they were stories to explain natural events (ala Hades and Persephone being how we get the seasons) or even to inspire the people and warriors. This is especially true in Scandinavian mythology. The Germanic peoples were simply too individualistic and independant to bow their heads and admit they needed a higher power to do all the work for them. However, from talking to my good friend, she instilled in me the thought that it's not the money or the fortune that drove this character so much as it was the rampant ability for said money to change hands and thereby change lives (for good and ill) that this unnamed one was more interested in. And in this light, the Erlking works, as he loved to turn people's lives on their heads through subtle manipulation and often tricks. Often, his pranks would turn deadly and the victims (or benefaciary) seldom realized the Erlking's hand in it. He did have a love for glitz and glamour too, from reading some stories, and this works well in Las Vegas. It's, admittedly, difficult to build a strong case for the Erlking as few of his stories were ever written down and so the material is rather thin. Guess that got a little sidetracked, but hope that explains more.

Any information on the physical appearance of Elfking, such as whether he wore dark clothes and/or had dark eyes and hair? I suspect this is an important clue to the identity of the god, as well.

Incidentally, is this Oberon you're talking about? Or, at least, the inspiration for Oberon?

=Brian

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Originally posted by Ntolnry:
Any information on the physical appearance of Elfking, such as whether he wore dark clothes and/or had dark eyes and hair? I suspect this is an important clue to the identity of the god, as well.

Incidentally, is this Oberon you're talking about? Or, at least, the inspiration for Oberon?

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Yes, the Erlking was the inspiration for Oberon and several other literary figures. To my knowledge, the Danish stories never gave him a proper name. Appearance varies from location to location and person to person, much like any other folk lore and mythology. Germans would describe him in their image, Danes in theirs, etc. Other versions of the stories imply he could change his appearance or that his appearance was different from person to person, based on their fears and desires. No particular details to my knowledge on mode of dress. As I said, it's difficult to build a strong case for the Erlking because many details simply don't exist in the folk stories or were lost along the way. You're left only with more general concepts. Besides, it's hard to have details on what a person looks like when you can't even remember them 30 seconds after you encounter them. Which to me may be why Gaiman gives the character such neutral appearances. If we're dealing with belief, how can a god or heroic figure appear a certain way when no one can remember his name, let alone his face? Perhaps this is the reason behind the black on black on black.

Gooday. I just joined the board, so I hope I don't sound too ignorant. I have however read this entire thread (took me a good hour) and I'm prepared to post my theory: I have to agree on the theory of Hades. Sorry for bringing it back up, I'm sure he's dead and burried in your minds. Another thing that wasn't mentioned in this thread is the River Styx which is an aspect of his dominion. Styx drains your memory. And Hades/Pluto did have a liking for the ladies hence his sympathy for the waitress.
The wealth thing is covered, the name thing is covered, the forgetfulness thing is covered.
BUT I'm not prepared to confirm this because Gaiman is a writer. If you were to KNOW who it was and confirm everyone else wrong, then the character would lose it's charm. Sorry all you hopefuls I'm prepared to say that Gaiman will never tell.
On the note that Gaiman claimes that he didn't include any Roman Gods or Greek Gods in this novel... First off, where is this interview? I'd like to read it, because I believe that you're right. He has no reason to include Roman or Greek Gods (they are after all what led to the Judeo-Christian God which is never seen in this novel). BUT I'm going to take another slant in countering this claim. Gaiman is a writer. In terms of the mystery of the novel, Gaiman has never said anything straightforward, so to take Gaiman's claim as fact might be assuming too much. After all the book is about "American Gods". And I'm prepared to argue that ALL of the Gods in this book ARE American! They're all capitalists trying to climb their ways to the top! None of them hold the ideals that they once held in their former worlds. They all have been warped to reflect the ideals and the problems associated with America. Wednesday was an American version of Odin, just as the Odin that Shadow meets in the epilogue is yet another version. So of course there are no Greek or Roman Gods, because they're all American!
Don't believe me that writers are SUPPOSED to take you for this kind of trip? William Golding, the writer of "Lord of the Flies" stated that the book is only about a bunch of boys on an island, but the book is CLEARLY much more than that. That's British humour for you.
What's my claim: You can't set your mind on one God! This God incorporates so many ideas that the debate could go on forever. My mind could easily be changed as with anyone's if they're open minded. In spite of the magic of the book, (I'm almost afraid to say it) I think Gaiman did just create this character to provoke this kind of debate. Why? Well think about how much we've learned in trying to solve who this guy is? What's been more meaningful? Our own theories or in reading and understanding everyone elses ideas surrounding Gods and religion as well as doing our own research into religion? I think that's what Gaiman was going for.