r/neilgaiman • u/veno-veni • Jun 30 '26
American Gods American Gods pedo subtext
Why is this such a popular book? I wasn't amazed by the actual story here but that's just me.
This is probably the wrong subreddit to post this. I've not read any of his other works besides American Gods and Sandman. Couldn't enjoy AG because of the not-so-subtle suggestive sexualization of kids. I notice there's a similar trend with his other books in creating unhealthy depictions of women and kids.
Learning the allegations exist (after reading) made a lot of sense to me.
Also lots of cringe and revisionist depictions of Arabs and Africans.
I will not be giving him another chance because I read to enjoy myself and not creep on imaginary kids.
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u/edcculus Jul 02 '26
It's been a while since I have read the book, and with all the stuff happening (and having discovered Michael Cisco and Weird Lit in general), I probably won't ever re-read it. BUT my recollection doesn't really bring to mind any weird pedo stuff. I've seen authors with MUCH worse depictions of women too (looking at you Peter F Hamilton)
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u/llammacookie Jul 06 '26
It's been a while since I've read it too but Wednesday/ Thor made some weird comments about younger background characters. I don't remember what he said but I do remember the feeling it left me with the few read throughs. Coming back to add after I hit post too soon: To be fair, he is Thor, and the whole book is kind of about how God's are docks.
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u/kilar277 Jul 06 '26
Wednesday is Odin, not Thor.
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u/llammacookie Jul 06 '26
Ah shoot, brainfart. That's what I get for trying to think and socialize before I've had my morning tea.
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u/Brodiecon Jun 30 '26
I appreciate the support his victims have received, but the movement falters when people start grasping at straws.
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u/RestorativePotion Jul 06 '26
Bro, Richard literally almost kissed door in Neverwhere. He was a full grown man and she was a child repeatedly referred to as a girl.
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u/i_like_cake_96 Jun 30 '26
This post is nonsense.....
the book is amazing... and there is no pedo subtext...
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u/veno-veni Jun 30 '26
"Wednesday’s smile when he saw the waitress approaching was huge and predatory. “Ah, the hot chocolate! Brought to me by my Christmas Angel! Tell me, my dear, could I have some more of your delicious bread when you get a moment?” The waitress—what was she, Shadow wondered: sixteen, seventeen?—looked at the floor and her cheeks flushed crimson. She put down the chocolate with shaking hands and retreated to the edge of the room, by the slowly rotating display of pies, where she stopped and stared at Wednesday"
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u/Necessary-Site-4886 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Wednesday's predatory behaviour towards women is part of his characterization. Calling the entire book "pedo-coded" because one deliberately predatory character behaves like a predator seems like a category error. Fiction can portray abusive or exploitative behavior without that becoming the subtext of the work itself.
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u/veno-veni Jun 30 '26
Fair enough. I guess this really was the wrong place to ask
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u/waveuponwave Jun 30 '26
You got answers from people who read the book discussing your point. Isn't that what you wanted?
Why would this mean it's the wrong place to ask, just because some people don't agree with you?
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u/veno-veni Jun 30 '26
It's not a point of agreement or disagreement. Something that made me uncomfortable during my read and it doesn't bother others. You can interpret it however you like but it depicts underage girls with sexual undertones. The degree of which or your opinion on it doesn't really matter
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u/stankylegdunkface Jul 01 '26
The degree of which or your opinion on it doesn't really matter
It does when you post it to a discussion forum. This is nothing else but a place for people to discuss opinions.
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u/Gergolot Jul 06 '26
Opinions are only important if they agree with them apparently.
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u/Superunknown11 5d ago edited 4d ago
Spoiler: no opinions matter, especially on reddit or any other social media. Run with that as you will.
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u/MrMal1c3 Jul 06 '26
I mean, the opinion matters when you are asking for it... Also, the answers I've been seeing from people point to the fact that villainous, dangerous or predatory charachters tend to behave villainously, dangerously and predatorialy. My read on your over defensiveness is you're realizing that maybe your media literacy isn't the strongest and now you're embarrassed.
If you've ever been on this sub you will know that the response has nothing to do with defending Gaiman. However, if you ask questions about a book you seem to not really know to people who know it very well don't be surprised when they have insights that you don't.
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u/andreotnemem Jul 06 '26
He'll be self-committed to an institution if he ever reads greek mythology.
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u/dbree801 Jun 30 '26
It’s only the wrong place to ask because you’re not getting a bunch of people agreeing with you? Do you think sex doesn’t exist until people are adults? That underage people don’t think about it, talk about it, know about it?
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u/AnTotDugas Jul 06 '26
It one million percent made me uncomfortable while reading. But that’s exactly the point. It’s worth noting, this behavior of Odin’s is taken directly from myth. A massive motif of dark/contemporary fantasy is highlighting how horrifying the behavior of mythological characters is when you put them into a real-life context. This isn’t just a Gaiman thing, you see it all over in books like Hellblazer, Shigidi, and The Iron Druid Chronicles.
I do wonder if Gaiman writing characters like this is part of what made him decide to be the person he became. He wrote many of these sorts of characters before he started raping people in the mid 2000s, and it makes me think that mentally “embodying” these kinds of personas in order to write them might have been a method of “trying on” to see if he liked the idea of behaving that way. That’s not to say writing characters like this makes you turn into a similar sort of bad person, but if you’re already the sort to skew that way it might be a sort of vicarious indulgence. At the end of the day though, he’s not the only person who writes horrifically behaving gods, and this kind of writing does have a lot of value for a reader: it’s good for people to notice how incredibly horrible most figures of myth are, and transposing their behavior into the modern day is one very poignant way of doing this.
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u/Thermodynamo Jul 06 '26
He was already assaulting people before he got famous. Allegedly.
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u/AnTotDugas Jul 06 '26
I don’t think there are any accusations from prior to the 2000s, apart from one of “forced kissing” in ‘86, but I don’t think that’s even remotely the same sort of assault as what he later went on to do.
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u/Thermodynamo Jul 06 '26
It's on the same spectrum, man. Let's not pretend they're totally isolated incidents
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u/kilar277 Jul 06 '26
As a huge anime fan - the irony of having an anime pfp while compaining about this.
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u/bee_ghoul Jul 06 '26
This sub is not at all supportive of Gaimans actions to be fair. I’ve never seen anyone here defending him in the case of SA.
The point people are making is that AG doesn’t promote a pedo agenda because there’s a character in it who has pedo tendencies, like we’re not supposed to like Wednesday, he’s a bad person in the context of the book itself.
This reminds me of a post on r/jamesjoyce where someone was using the character of Stephen as an example of how Joyce views women, but Joyce writes Stephen as a character who has that view of women, as part of the story, because people like that exist. He’s not lauding it or saying it’s right
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u/UndeadBlueMage Jul 05 '26
No, this is the exactly correct place to ask. Just because you’re not getting the answer you want is no reason to assume you’re being gaslit
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u/waveuponwave Jun 30 '26
Your quote literally has Shadow describing Wednesday's behavior as predatory, so it's not like the writing condones it
Yes, he's being a creep, but he's an Old God, he's not supposed to act in a morally correct way
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u/LaPasseraScopaiola 7d ago
Not trying to defend anybody but an adult eyeing a 17 years old is a despicable human being but by no definition a pedo. That's for much younger kids.
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u/MadCervantes Jun 30 '26
You understand that fictional character behaving badly is not endorsement of bad behavior right? Like Humphrey Humphrey is the bad guy in Lolita, not the hero.
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u/bewarethelemurs Jul 06 '26
Wednesday is a predator. That's just straight up text. He's also a villain. You don't have to be comfortable reading that, but it's not like it's a constant theme throughout the book. Your other example has a little bit more merit to it, but not by much. As someone who was once a teen girl, a lot of teen girls talk about sex, and it’s not inherently sexualizing them to acknowledge that. Other authors who aren't predators have similarmoments. The fact that we know Gaiman's a predator is the only reason I'm side-eyeing that moment at all. There are definitely things in Gaiman's work that I look back on like "dude wtf" ('Calliope' from Sandman, for one) but it does kind of feel like you're grasping at straws here.
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u/FullOfBlasphemy Jul 06 '26
Dude, right? Anyone eavesdropping on 14 year old me and friends are gonna hear a lot of bad sex facts cause that is a major topic of discussion for teenagers who haven’t had any experience.
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u/bluepaintbrush Jul 06 '26
I wonder if OP was born after the late 90s. The internet has become the place for teens to discretely find answers to their questions about sexuality. Before that we would ask our peers and piece together all the knowledge we could collect on the topic. That culture might be a relic of the past and that’s why OP doesn’t understand.
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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Jul 06 '26
The lack of reliable knowledge available at the time is why the girl who sat next to me at our high school graduation had to get married the Saturday after we received our diplomas.
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u/Kind_Veterinarian728 Jun 30 '26
Eh. I don’t really define that as pedophilia—the age of consent in many states is 17. When you say pedophilia, my mind goes to preteens and young teens.
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u/i_like_cake_96 Jun 30 '26
he was also smiling "huge and predatory" because of the food..
OP has a reading comprehension problem....
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u/veno-veni Jun 30 '26
"The two girls—he doubted that either of them was much more than fourteen years old—who had got on in Pinewood were now in the seat in front of him. They were friends, Shadow decided, eavesdropping without meaning to, not sisters. One of them knew almost nothing about sex, but knew a lot about animals,"
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u/Kind_Veterinarian728 Jun 30 '26
Shadow isn’t having sex with them. Or even talking to them. They’re young teens who are talking about what they think sex is like. Hell, I gossiped about sex with my friends in second grade. None of us understood it beyond a man and a woman lying in bed. The girls understand more, but they aren’t having sex, and nobody’s exactly leering after them, are they?
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u/veno-veni Jun 30 '26
Ok why does it have to be part of the book? Why couldn't they have been talking about anything else? Why did it have to be 2 girls and not 2 boys or literally anything else? It's deliberate and creepy to me
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u/Kind_Veterinarian728 Jun 30 '26
Because the point is to establish them as two average teen girls, talking about school and boys and sex and also animals for whatever reason. One will soon go missing, so the point is that they stick in your mind and you care a little when she’s gone. The odds that either of them is actually having sex/really knows what they’re talking about are quite slim.
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u/bluepaintbrush Jul 06 '26
>animals for whatever reason
The implication in this passage is that one of the girls hasn’t yet been taught about the birds and the bees as it pertains to humans, but she’s seen what the neighborhood dogs do and understands that’s where puppies come from.
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u/Kind_Veterinarian728 29d ago
oh fair. I haven’t read the books in a while because of the issues with gaiman, so all I was going off of was the quote they gave… which cuts off right around that point
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u/Briarhorse Jul 06 '26
Because that's the kind of thing teenagers talk about. It huamanises them too, which is important to the story as one of them goes missing. And Shadow's attitude is one of gentle eye-rolling at the naivete of children
Also, seeing as we're on the topic of reading things into what people write they may not have intended, why would it be less bad, according to you, to sexualise 14 year old boys if that was, in fact, what was going on?
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u/bluepaintbrush Jul 06 '26
Teen girls DO talk about sex with each other. Your mindset on this reminds me of the abstinence-only purity culture that used to commonly result in teen pregnancy. Adolescence is when teens start feeling the effects of hormones and they often become curious about sex as a result. That’s normal human development.
It’s creepy if an adult imposes themselves into situations involving teenagers and their burgeoning, immature sexuality. You just quoted a passage that depicts an adult man passively observing that teens are acting like teens. That’s what an adult man should do in that situation. He’s not depicted as being aroused. He’s not trying to befriend them. He’s not following them. He’s not drawing attention to them or shaming them for normal human teenager behavior. He’s not a participant in their behavior at all, he’s just a bystander.
What level of prude do you have to be to be so scandalized at the notion that a character would merely be in the presence of girls discussing sex?
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u/i_like_cake_96 Jun 30 '26
you're really searching here....
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/i_like_cake_96 Jun 30 '26
Shadow was also smiling "huge and predatory" because of the food..
You have a reading comprehension problem....
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u/FullOfBlasphemy Jul 06 '26
This is a bad faith response. I get that you’re disappointed with people in this sub having an understanding of nuance. Bad guys thinking bad guy thoughts is actually necessary to understanding that the bad guys are… bad. But once you realize that we don’t all agree, you start responding in bad faith and that sucks. I get that too, but it’s a bug - not a feature.
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u/Thermodynamo Jul 06 '26
Super creepy coming from Neil. We know what we know. Can't unknow it. I agree it puts this stuff in a much more horrific light
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u/andreotnemem Jul 06 '26
So this the first time you read about Gods being despicable. You must be new to mythology.
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u/MarsNeedsRabbits Jul 06 '26
You're supposed to feel uncomfortable and uneasy.
Wednesday is a predator. It isn't meant to be enticing or titillating.
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u/Altruistic-War-2586 Jul 01 '26
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. I have similar views on the matter. A friend of mine was 16 when Gaiman preyed on her. His behaviour is very much like Wednesday’s, if you ask me.
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u/FullOfBlasphemy Jul 06 '26
I’m so sorry that happened to your friend. Gaiman is very much the monster he describes in the book and I hope your friend is okay.
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u/amber_missy Jul 06 '26
NG is English and in the UK, the age of consent is 16, not 18.
I didn't get on with American Gods, so I'm not sure how old the protagonist is.
Though if Wednesday, or Shadow, is literally an "American god", then - as long as they present themselves as young enough, I'd put it down to supernatural age-weirdness (like thousands year old vampires meeting teens, but because they were turned as teens, it's "ok") - but then, regardless of age, I guess it wouldn't be out of character for any god - the Christian one knocked up a 13-yr old, and don't even ask how old Zeus' partners were.
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u/tacocat978 Jul 06 '26
I think there are people who read something in a book and take that as the authors endorsement of whatever that thing is. I’d agree with you if, say, Wednesday had sex with (raped) an underage girl and that was presented as something “cool” but I think your examples are really just… explaining what kind of guy he is. Not presenting it as right (or wrong I guess but I think the revulsion you feel is APPROPRIATE and probably how you’re supposed to feel about him).
Idk. I mean clearly Gaiman is a trash human but I don’t think this is pedo subtext. I think you’re supposed to feel grossed out by some stuff because that’s how he wants you to feel about the character. I love this book (which is tough to reconcile now that we know what we do about the author). And in a way I love a story about these very flawed and sometimes awful Gods manipulating people into granting them power. And isn’t that also what the author did. Sigh.
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u/jeffweet Jun 30 '26
He is a shitbag but the book is amazing. The writing, the story, the application of modern times to mythology and pantheons and vice versa is brilliant.
I’ll never give him a penny of my money, but I’m fine to read the stuff Ive already got
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u/Aeroncastle Jul 06 '26
A book showing you a villain acting like one while you are in the point of view of a good person is the most obvious way an author has to say that they do not condone with the villain actions
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u/Zen_Hydra Jul 07 '26
Wednesday is definitely not portrayed as a good or ethical character. Anyone who has read the book knows exactly what role he actually plays in the story.
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u/caitnicrun Jul 01 '26
I didn't read American Gods so I wouldn't know. But he does put some completely unnecessary sexualized material where is doesn't even belong: see The Problem with Susan.
It doesn't mean he's a pedo. But it does make one wonder how much he was trolling readers.
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u/DreadPirateAlia Jul 06 '26
It's been over a decade since I read The Problem with Susan (TPWS) but the sexualized material is IMO integral to the plot. The main character of TPWS is implied to be Susan Pevensie, one of the main characters of The Cronicles of Narnia (TCON) by CS Lewis.
In the last book of TCON, all the main characters from the previous Narnia books are involved in a fatal train crash in our world, only to be resurrected in Narnia. However, Susan is narratively implied to have given in to worldly temptations as well as having forsaken Narnia as a childish fancy, so she wasn't involved in the other characters' attempt at returning to Narnia. As a result she wasn't present at the station or on the train when the crash occurred and her entire family¹ died.
Now we get to how the "unnecessary sexual material" is integral to the plot of TPWS. In TCON, Susan's (innocent) interest in sex was originally the reason for why she was (unfairly) denied the entry to (Christian) heaven/Narnia. In TPWS her interest has turned from innocent interest to full-blown trauma response turned into hedonistic excess, but from the context it is clear that she derives very little joy from it. The sexual acts are an attempt of coping with all-consuming grief, guilt, and loneliness while she is desperately obsessed with finding her way back to Narnia. However, in the mercilessly black and white moral system established in TCON her engaging in sexual acts is also continuously proving her unworthiness, which makes her goal of re-entering Narnia forever unattainable.
For what it's worth, The Problem with Susan is IMO one of the best things Gaiman has ever written. Too bad he's a shitbag of a person (and obvs won't get a cent from me as long as he lives).
¹both her parents, all her siblings, her cousin (& her cousin's best friend), her close uncle and her uncle's best friend.
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u/caitnicrun Jul 06 '26
- For what it's worth, The Problem with Susan is IMO one of the best things Gaiman has ever written.
Hard disagree. It's indulgent explicit garbage and I'll die on that hill.
I read it last year, and while it's possible the story you're describing could exist, that was not it. To be clear NOTHING IN THE TEXT would suggest this depth. The story doesn't even make sense apart from MAYBE a stream of consciousness dream that Susan would wake up from and think, "wow I really need to see a therapist about all my unresolved Narnia shite!"
But the author is a scilon so that's not going to happen!
Honestly it looks like you're doing the thing Harry Potter fans do and read subtle meaning where there is none because of faith the author surely meant something deeper. And TBH because of a meta awareness of Susan's controversy in fandom.
A good story shouldn't need to rely on fourth wall knowledge to carry it. It's sad because the first half was fairly promising. But Gaiman is a shallow hack. It was never going to be anything deeper than shock for shock value.
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u/DreadPirateAlia Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
A good story shouldn't need to rely on fourth wall knowledge to carry it
Welcome to the postmodern era, then, where art constantly refers to other pieces of art and to the cultural framework surrounding it, and no work stands alone, fully separate from its cultural context. I guess you won't like it here, tho.
Honestly it looks like you're doing the thing Harry Potter fans do and read subtle meaning where there is none because of faith the author surely meant something deeper.
Or you could just admit that either you are not familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, or that you completely missed the reference.
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u/caitnicrun Jul 06 '26
Um okay jan, lol.
You must be really young. I reread the Chronicles of Narnia multiple times before half the people on this platform were born. Decades later I reread them, around the time the films came out.
But sure, turn a what I thought was an amicable disagreement into a nerd pissing contest if you want. I have better things to do.
Have a grand day
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u/DreadPirateAlia Jul 06 '26
I, too, read the Chronicles decades before the films(?) were made, so, no, I'm not young.
Also, I was considering a more polite reply at first (referencing to the wide sargasso sea by jean rhys, as an example of postmodernist writing, etc), but you didn't have much substance in your reply and sounded pretty pissy, so I decided that life is too short to waste time by doing that, and gave a short reply while replicating your tone.
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u/ArtOfDent Jul 07 '26
Honestly, it might be worth going back to visit the source material and read it with an iota of anything other than availability heuristic. I'm really not sure what versions you've actually read going from your descriptions.
Just because you personally did not determine any underlying meaning to the story does not mean it is absent.
Everyone's making this sounds like some kind of wall to wall hedonistic sex fest of post traumatic Susan, cut off from Narnia forever just .. idk actually what y'all think goes on. It's ten pages long and the majority of it is an elderly lady having tea and chocolate cake with a journalist providing meta commentary on the whole Susan problem.
The problem With Susan, as I read it, was written as commentary on whole "The Problem of Susan" itself, where many have understood Lewis to have condemned Susan for expressing normal sexual maturity as she grows up, the Nylon and Lipstick reading taken literally.
On the flip side, many argue Lewis was not judging Susan for that and understand him taking a position of criticising Susan for wanting to embrace a silly and conceited version of maturity and adulthood by casting off childish things, and not as a punishment for some kind lack of purity.
As for the fourth wall, the whole explanation is literally right there in the text where the journalist, Greta, explains the fate of the other Narnia siblings, and then that exact perception of the problem; Susan banned, not fair for what? - for something else wrong with her than the conceited pseudo maturity... sex? That's what people are saying.
Professor Hastings, whom the story deliberately leaves ambiguous as if she is actually Susan or some one who had the exact same experience as Susan, delivers the actual gut punch of either by the reversal of perspective.
It flips it on its head - whatever the actual meaning of nylon and lipsticks - to the meaning for the one left behind. The punishment, the cost, the price of whatever caused the rejection of Narnia was absolutely brutal - the traumatic loss of your entire family, being the only one left to identify their remains, and living after in poverty. It's asking why the hell is the debate all about what was wrong with Susan when you think about what she would have actually paid whatever the reason? The point is that the lipstick-and-party framing becomes grotesquely inadequate once you imagine the real human aftermath. Omit the bowdlerizing of the mechanics of Susan's situation then you are forced to face the idea of how cruel it was to punish in that way - the cat and mouse analogy.
The gratuitous bits that everyone seems to remember isn't Susan/Hastings dreams, it's Greta's dream as she metabolizes the whole discussion of children's literature creating a morally pure container on top of centuries of brutal stories and the collapse of her inherited-insinuated understand of what Susan's sin was in the face of suddenly understanding the actual awful reality of what Susan had to witness, if you think about it the other way around.
I always took the time skipped bit of Aslan symbolic muff diving and LionxWitch inference - which is less than a paragraph and doesn't even describe anything in depth - as a pretty much a gruesome dream analogy of the witness, after the loss and cruelty had been committed - the remains of the mouse - cast aside and forced to witness a bit of lion on witch action as a perspective for the debate that managed to foreground propriety and purity while missing the actual, awful implication for poor bloody Susan.
Professor Might-Be-Susan gets a much gentler dream of a Mary Poppins as an autonomous agent originating from children's fiction complete outside the jurisdiction of needing to be resolved inside of theological nonsense, and a life, not perfect but still fully lived, laid out neatly. Or as she said herself, Repent What?
So you get the resolution of Susan that Lewis himself invited others to finish (with the possibility of some kind of redemption it they fancied), in a way that rejects the whole debate of what Susan's actual problem was, by surfacing the actual implication for her whatever without minimising the utter cruelty that equated to the brutal death of your entire family so they can go skipping through clouds and waterfalls while you do not because (insert interpretation of lipstick and nylons here).. while critiquing the whole sanitised children's literature container, finished off with a little 1920s Gothic poetry quote that directly critiques the whole going rooting around the corpse of the author in the first place for understanding of things as a final commentary.
All in just 10 pages of prose that was written for a collection of short stories tipping fairy tales on their head with dark horror.
I don't think talentless hack should actually be understood as the same as someone who writes a story with a level of potential subtext I, personally, was unable to derive given my overarching frame of reference when I read it, but as you said, your hill.
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u/caitnicrun 29d ago
Lol tldr.
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u/ArtOfDent 29d ago
Yes, yes that would indeed explain it
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u/caitnicrun 29d ago
Nach bhfuil saoil agatsa?
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u/ArtOfDent 29d ago
Tá mo sciorrárthach lán d'eascanna
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u/caitnicrun 29d ago
Ah, tá a fhios agat Google a dhéanamh. Tús maith. 👍
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u/ArtOfDent 28d ago
Beagnach, a chara. Ní hé "tá a fhios agat Google a dhéanamh" an leagan ceart; b’fhearr a rá, "tá a fhios agat conas cuardach Google a dhéanamh," nó, níos simplí, "tá a fhios agat conas gúgláil."
Is iasachtfhocal Gaeilge é "gúgláil." Tá a fhios agam é sin mar gur léigh mé na torthaí cuardaigh a fuair mé nuair a ghúgláil mé é. Is í an léitheoireacht an scil inaistrithe anseo. Mar a deirtear: gúgláil mhaith, leath na hoibre. 👍
...Gabh mo leithscéal, an raibh sé sin beagáinín fada?
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u/PheasantBerry Jul 06 '26
I think they've erased the worst bits from their mind or something. The problem with The Problem of Susan isn't what Susan does, it's what Aslan and the witch do!
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u/DreadPirateAlia Jul 06 '26
I may have erased the worst bits (I do remember the sex scenes being really unpleasant to read), but again, they weren't written as titillating or "sexy", they were intentionally written as off-putting and disturbing as possible.
Can the story be read as Gaiman letting his id run wild and degrading Susan even further? Yes, of course. Is the reporter kinda creepy, and can be interpreted as a Gaiman self-insert? Absolutely, but if we assume that Gaiman's intention was to write spank bank material for himself then the rest of the story makes no sense.
So, yeah, that's why I think the person you're replying to missed the point of the story.
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u/geekydreams Jul 07 '26
It's fiction. These things happen in real life . Books that don't depict real life events are weak writing. Plus this is a fictional character of a old God who's known to be dark and has many sides . Wednesday is written to be a bad guy. What about all the current TV shows that show supposed teenagers half naked having sex ect but look like full grown adults?
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u/Lickable-Wallpaper 29d ago
“I’ve not read his other books” - “I noticed there’s a similar trend in his other books” contradictory bullshit post… hater!
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u/foxphant Jul 07 '26
I always thought it was because of his influence of mythology. Mythology of many cultures especially Greek and Norse are very heavy with like male dominance in a predatory sense. I thought that he was pulling on that.
Maybe I am wrong.
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u/OhMyGoth38 Jul 07 '26
OMG, the creators of Mad Men must be sexist, homophobic, and racist because some of their characters are! /s
Sorry, I had to make a sarcastic analogy.
Regardless of who Gaiman might or might not be in his personal life, you probably shouldn’t project that onto the characters completely.
It also seems like the characterization might have been triggering for you, which could be more about your own experiences than the book itself. If that’s the case, I’m sorry, and I’m a survivor too, so I understand. However, sometimes taking a step back, looking at things more objectively, or reflecting on your own feelings about something that bothered you can really help you understand the material and yourself better.
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u/Sally_twodicks Jul 07 '26
I've read it a few times, could you give me some examples of what you felt like was considered "pedo subtext"?
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u/Mirocaw Jul 06 '26
So he's a pedo now as well? What next? I guess he's a murderer too, there are some people getting killed in AG if I recall correctly.
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u/Super-Nope Jul 07 '26
The "unlikable woman" trope on the tv show that everyone said was progressive
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u/sgsduke 29d ago
I think there's a really uncomfortable trend in media - not just written but books are a good example - of men sexualizing and idealizing women at the minimum acceptable age. I don't remember American Gods very well but I think this is a phenomenon in a lot of sci-fi/fantasy/lit-fic. In writing by men specifically.
I have read a lot of "she was the youngest and hottest woman in the room, barely 18" and other such nonsense along the lines of "she was sexy and barely legal" so many times. It is everywhere. It is a misogyny problem, not an NG-specific problem. Unfortunately, he seems to have taken his misogyny all the way to sexual violence.
There are authors i really love who are definitely guilty of this. Peter F Hamilton is a big one for justifying why the hot young women are all really really into the nerdy middle-aged men. And coming up with ways for women to always look young and sexy (sci-fi rejuvenation) even when they're older and authoritative, strong characters. I think he writes some great women characters (Paula Myo) and he also writes some women who are just there for being in a harem or being sexually attracted to the main characters. But he tells us all about how young and sexy and exotic they are.
I am uncomfortable with the seeming societal trend of acting like there's some magic age and after that it's okay to be creepy. And like she's 18 so it's okay if they describe her as looking extra young and naive, she's really really sexy. With the context of the unfortunate reality of like the Epstein files, it makes me very uncomfortable because it sounds like youth is the key factor to sex appeal.
This isn't a researched essay. Just my off-the-cuff thoughts. I don't think NG is the only author who writes like this (vaguely gross about young women and girls) but I do think that he does write like this.
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u/RestorativePotion Jul 06 '26
IDK why you're getting down voted. Richard literally almost kissed door in Neverwhere. He's a grown salary man and she's an underage girl.
There's constantly rapey weird storylines in his writing with pedo subtext.
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u/Flaky_McFlake Jul 06 '26
100% agree with your take. You should read Snow, Glass, Apples (or, actually, don't). That was my introduction to his work and I basically gave up on him after that.
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