Demigods in The Silt Verses
~~ spoilers for the entire show~~
Relistening to TSV and I won't lie, alot is blotted from my memory due to the trauma this show has given me (in the good way), however finishing season 1 I feel like we only see 2 proper demigods?
The most obvious is Val, her and TheLast Word have intertwined so much that she is it and it is she. From what I remember The Last Word is a new propaganda God, so it would make sense she's it's only disciple and therefore able to completely co-exist within her. Not like a larger faith where the constant pulling from other worshipers means it'll hurridly create saints before moving to the next call.
Val is called a battle saint but the level of autonomy, internal thought, and "humanity" she's retained makes her seem like a true demi(in the purist sense)-God.
The second is almost the opposite, but also not.
Paige.
In some regards they're similar, both Paige and Val want to change the world they live in, and both The Last Word and The Wound Tree want to help facilitate that. What's different is that Paige won't allow it. In some ways Paige is a black box, Val has proven the coexistence she has, by preforming miracles without losing (much) control. Paige on the other hand never really utilises The Wound Tree's power directly, acting as a messiah and letting others call upon its power. This would put her in the same camp as Faulkner, where they're more "divine emissaries" rather than demigods.
However the difference I think is their internal worlds. For Paige, The Wound Tree is HER. It's her baby, a part of herself, her deepest wants, it hunts for HER and wants to give her everything she wants if only she would let it. The Trawlerman is an external force for Faulker, an important one, but he's his conduit, not a host. This might seem like semantics but in Paige we see a coexistence, not a healthy or balanced one, but The Wound Tree is in her unlike any other God we've seen.
Also like The Last Word, I think the small size of Paige's cult was why she was able be the incarnate of The Wound Tree. I think among other reasons she decided to abandon the cult was that, as it grew, she could feel her demigod status changing, and she'd either become a saint or a messiah.
In this way I'd say that Demigods in the TSV universe are humans fused with all or a large portion of a divinity. Not saints as they retain their higher cognitive thinking and relative autonomy, and not messiahs, as the divine is an internal part of them, not an external source to which they are a special person too. A coexistence is needed but as with both examples above, it'll always be on a knifes edge and will eventually crumble. Lastly an alignment of goals, down to the minutiae, is needed and works best if the deity was made for the demigod or vice versa.
Other possible demigods are -
Side Wright - who I was originally gonna have as one of my 2 but thinking on it, paige is much closer to the balance than he is. However he does seem different from other saints we've seen, like Babble, as he seems bitter (haha) wnough to recognise he was sacrificed for no great reason.
Mercer and Gage - I think they where gunning for demigod status but would've likely been sainted. However Mercer at least was perfectly aligned with The Beast That Stalks Through The Long Grass, it's just that for them to remain perfectly aligned she would've had become more animalistic and eventually would just be a saint.
Carpenter - personal crackpot theory, I think by the beginning of the show Carpenter isn't tied to The Trawlerman at all. Her use of language, her philosophy, and the results she gets when she invokes it. I think Carpenter made a new river god "My River". And I think that is who she's the demigod of ... possibly. "My River" as a separate deity to The Trawlerman is a whole other post that's too long for here.
Anyways I know the TSV is antithetical to categorising the divine and their effects, and the whole show is about trying to read human concepts into what are essentially reality parasites, but this was kicking around my brain for too long and the voices must be expunged. I hope you enjoyed.
