From Page to Screen - A Book to TV Comparison of Episode 1 of 'American Gods'

Written by Scott Murray

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

I must warn you, that I expect you to have watched the first episode of American Gods before reading this, because I am going to discuss what happens in the episode without taking care to avoid spoilers. I do not, however, expect you to have read the book, so I will not spoil anything which has yet to happen. 

As with any book-to-screen adaptation, changes have been made. Some are small, some are large, and some are practical. I am not here to definitively claim one version as 'superior;' I am simply here to compare and discuss. To that end, there are three changes I want to mention.

First, the 'Coming to America' sequence. In the books, the Vikings encounter a lone native, who they sacrifice to their God, and are eventually driven off the new land by the other natives. In the show, as you know, they instead make many offerings of their own flesh. I’m not particularly certain whether this change is really going to make any significant difference, since the whole purpose of the story is to show one of the ways Gods from the old world are brought to the new one. I will note that we got some interesting imagery in the show’s fight, which I believe is alluding to some future events which should share some similar imagery.

The next two are both to do with Shadow’s meeting with Technical Boy. (Since his name was not specifically mentioned, I’ll tell you here that the boy in the car smoking the synthetic toad skins is supposed to be the New God of Technology. He is referred to as 'The Technical Boy' later on in the novel.) First, the meeting itself: it’s been no secret that Technical Boy appears very differently than he was described in the novel, but the aesthetic changes have to do with the changes in technology, and in our perceptions of technology, since the book’s release.

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I am more concerned with the nature of the meeting. One of my favorite things about the book is the way the line between our world and the world of gods is almost indistinguishable, at least for a while. Did Wednesday actually fix the coin toss, or was he simply lucky? Was Sweeney really pulling coins out of thin air with magic, or just a particularly good con artist? Shadow’s journey into this new world, hidden just beneath the surface of our own, takes time and slowly creeps in at the edges of his vision. Although the readers know gods exist thanks to things like the Bilquis segment, they are left uncertain about whether Shadow has truly fallen in with them. Technical Boy, in the novel, simply pulls up in a limo and Shadow gets in and rides along, rather than having some strange device attached to his face and stumbling through a mystical other world where the laws of physics are just suggestions. In the show this leaves the audience with no doubt whatsoever that Shadow has found himself mixed up with, if not gods, then beings of great power who are something more than human. ​

I find my feelings torn about this change: on the one hand, as a reader, it almost feels like the showrunners have said to me 'We know what you want, and we know that you already know what’s going on, and we’re not going to hesitate to give it to you.' They aren’t teasing me or hanging it above my head. They have, with no uncertainty, given me what I’ve been waiting to see for a very long time. On the other hand, I feel like viewers who haven’t read the book are being cheated out of the delightfully pitched and perfectly paced journey I experienced as a reader. Does this even come close to ruining the show? No, of course not, and this different pacing means fewer viewers are likely to drift away because things aren’t happening quickly enough, nor are they confused about what exactly is going on. It also lays out a clear message for Shadow: this is larger than he is. But on a personal level I feel a bit let down that I’m not going to get to witness Shadow’s slow descent with my own eyes or discuss it with other viewers.
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Lastly, I’d like to mention Shadow being saved from death after his meeting with Technical Boy. In order to avoid spoiling anything my language may get a bit muddled, but I’ll do my best to keep it coherent.
The attack and rescue did not happen in the book; instead Technical Boy drops Shadow off near his motel. Let me now say that I think I know what happened because it closely resembles a very similar event which takes place later in the book, so I’m working off the assumption that my theory is correct. I could be completely wrong, but only time (and the next episode) will tell.

If I know what happened, then the purpose of having Technical Boy order Shadow’s death seems to be done entirely so that Shadow can be saved, and including the salvation seems to be for the sole purpose of teasing at something which comes up later. I can only assume the showrunners felt that leaving absolutely no trace of this 'Later Thing' for an entire episode would be a mistake, and so they built in this attack and rescue so there’s be a hint of it in the first episode. Unfortunately this may have caused a few problems down the line: when Shadow next encounters this 'Later Thing' it will no longer be his first experience with it, and saving his life seems like a pretty significant shared event to have in common at a first meeting. Also, this makes Technical Boy seem to be a bit more overtly and directly hostile and willing to do violence than he was in the book. This change in his nature may be only surface deep, or it may play into their broader depiction of Technology and internet culture, but I have yet to see that it’s for any reason other than to facilitate the rescue and the 'Later Thing' it hints at. They seem to have changed so much just so they can include a hint of something here, and it has the potential to change the whole dynamic of later events, if they let it. In the end, we’ll just have to wait and see.           

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