He isn’t an old god, and he resents that, resents the old gods who get respect where he does not, especially the old gods who get respect who are, he feels, genuinely beneath him. Why should anyone listen to Tesla Jefferson or Queen Qatar? Bad enough that any goddess should have a following, but they don’t even have the decency to be offended by their own complexions, as any right-thinking woman would be!
He isn’t an old god, and most of his supposed peers hope he never will be. Hope he’ll fade as so many gods of misinformed supremacy and obstinate pride have faded before him, hope he’ll be nothing more than a footnote in the long and storied mythology of the small gods. Or perhaps an asterisk leading into nothing, like the snowflake symbol he so proudly carries on his breast. They hope.
But too few of them are able to stir their followers into rising up against him.
Klueless is a new god, a new manifestation of an old and toxic way of thinking, a poison that humanity carries with it everywhere it goes; the idea that any one can be superior to any other for reasons other than their own hard work, their own ceaseless toil. He is a reflection of the horrific inner selves too many carry with them, a secret shouted from a mountaintop, and his vey buffoonery is what makes him powerful.
“Surely I can’t belong to that god,” say the women with their teased-up hair, before they remind a darker-skinned stranger to move along, their sidewalks aren’t for vagrants and vagabonds.
“I have dignity; I’m not like that,” say the men with their own symbols on their breasts, and their handguns at their hips, before they go out to patrol neighborhoods they keep safe for their own kind, not any others—and sometimes not even for that.
Comedy’s mask can hide all the horrors in the world.
And he is quite a horror.
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Artist Lee Moyer (The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, Starstruck) and author Seanan McGuire (Middlegame, Every Heart a Doorway) have joined forces to bring you icons and stories of the small deities who manage our modern world, from the God of Social Distancing to the God of Finding a Parking Space.
Join in each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a guide to the many tiny divinities:
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