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Urban Fantasy, Gods, and Neil Gaiman

   Neil Gaiman seems to root his fantasy world in the same one we live in. Writing about things we interact with every day suddenly from a new and fantastic perspective. 
Something that he does in most of his pieces involving gods, is include the idea that a god only exists as long as they are believed in. Belief also controls how strong and influential they are on the world. Sandman fantasy characters, for example, seems to rotate almost entirely on belief. Not only gods exist but also fairies, Barbie, and The Presence (an overarching idea of a supreme being). There is even a human who, since he believes so strongly that he won’t, does not die. For hundreds of years he preaches that if you don’t want to you can simply not die. What so interesting about the graphic novel series is that is focuses on 7 beings called The Endless. They are not gods and so their existence does not hinge on belief. Rather they are embodiments of aspects of the known universe and therefore exist as long as those aspects exist, (In order of existence: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium). They are not humans or something of human creation or belief. Generally they are not believed in or recognized at all except for each other, their own creations, and a select few humans.  So can only experience the human world from their own perspective and not that of a human. 
In other pieces, belief is harder to come by and much more precious. In American Gods, gods from all and every other land come to America with the people who believe in them only to be weakened and die slowly. America is a land without magic and without belief and so the gods starve. Even new gods who emerge from the technological and social media advancements of the age possess the problem of things changing too rapidly for them to be sustained. They begin to adopt very human aspects and actions. Some get jobs, live in normal messy homes, and a leprechaun drinks and has fights in bars. The dead come alive and middle America is still just as boring and cryptic as it always was. 

Now comparing American gods with Ananzi boys, it appears that only the trickster gods still hold any ground in this world. In the case of Tiger and Odin/Wednesday - their influences on the world that changed it so long ago, still exist however they are no longer relevant to the society now and therefore have to impact or necessity. The trickster gods however (Loki and Ananzi) still seem to be able to get whatever they want and trick whoever they want. The world is still a mischievous one where everyone is trying to come out on top and so they still fit in just fine. Even more than that, they seem to be at the lead of the world.  They both even manage to deceive other gods and, more often than not, us as the reader . They seem to be an aspect of humanity that has always been and is still very relevant. 

                         -Bridgette Olavage

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