(1/2) You know a lot more behind the scenes stuff about American Gods than I do so I could be missing important information. But I was thinking about your madwife speculation re: images we saw in the hoard and the Russian trailer. (Glad you're taking a measured approach because I've been burned before too.) Do you think it's possible Laura has sex with Samedi but it's a very dream-like experience and she imagines Samedi turning into Mad Sweeney,
(2/2) or that’s what Samedi shows her as a reflection of what’s in her mind? I could see him a character who likes to tease about shameful desires or unwanted feelings. Those images in the hoard could have come from her, though how she could be seeing the future, I don’t know. Or hoard magic could provide insight about the future.
To be honest, I often feel pretty out-of-the-loop about AG bts stuff, so I might be missing important info too — but this same possibility did occur to me, yeah! It was one of the things I was thinking of in the reblog where I mentioned some sort of different plane of reality or altered state of mind.
And… I think I’d be okay with it? I’m pretty ehhhh about Laura having to bang anyone, be it Mad Sweeney or Baron Samedi, in hopes of resurrection… I’d just rather she not feel obligated, y’know? If she’s gonna sleep with Sweeney, I want her to want to. But then again, the idea of sex as a component of ritual, as a divine and powerful and (re)generative act, is certainly not a concept that’s alien to AG or to religion/mythology in general, and my understanding is that the Guédé loa are associated with sexuality/fertility. So I guess sex being involved in resurrection does fit right in with the themes of American Gods.
But even if I’m iffy about the actual sex part, what I do like about this possibility of imagining Sweeney is that it would be a big step in developing Madwife based on Laura’s feelings. Like… I think we can all agree, at this point, that Sweeney has Feelings™ for Laura. I think that’s been pretty obvious since season 1. But Laura is still extremely focused on Shadow, and though she’s been thawing toward Sweeney in general, she hasn’t yet shown any romantic affection for him, imo. I don’t want her to stop caring about Shadow, but obviously I ship her with Sweeney pretty damn hard, and the idea of some sort of surreal dream-sex sequence helping her to realize that, deep down, she has sexual/romantic feelings for our favorite leprechaun… Something like that would finally shift the Laura/Sweeney romance toward being reciprocated rather than one-sided. So yeah, I could definitely be into that!
But… there are some holes in such a theory; I don’t think it really accounts for why those images were in the hoard, for example, which after all is a place for Sweeney’s things. And at this point, there’s just SO much we don’t know. But I can’t help but speculate nonetheless!
