The Wicked + The Divine #6

I’ve always found celebrity worship to be fascinating, in a disturbing sort of way. Don’t get me wrong; if I were to meet in person, say, Tina Fey or Steve Martin, I’d be as excited as anyone else. What I don’t do is track their personal lives like they’re my best friends, nor would I (most likely) go into a foaming frenzy over anything they did. I guess I have a hard time understanding how you could care so much about someone you don’t know personally.

That’s how I still feel about Laura’s obsession with Luci and the Pantheon, although I’m a lot more sympathetic now since she became so much more intimate with them. Throwing up over the mere reminder of Luci doesn’t have the tang of hysteria Laura might have had when she was merely one fan out of millions. This is an emotional reaction to the very real trauma of seeing someone she got to know very well killed in the most graphic manner possible.

Luci in particular seems to deserve that level of attachment because within the story, she got a very raw deal, and outside of it, she was easily its most compelling character. Her actions may have led to her death, but at least they weren’t completely attention-seeking, the way the other gods’ are. To prove my point, there’s Baal being his usual surly self on camera, Amaterasu spilling her heart in a talk show, and Baphomet causing unnecessary scenes, all within the month after Luci’s death.

The only one doing anything productive is Inanna, who may be taking Luci’s place as the god most in touch with his humanity, despite thinking that a deep purple trenchcoat with tiger-stripe trimming is inconspicuous. His decision to be Laura’s “Deep Throat” is important only insofar as it allows her to advance the story’s mystery. What’s really significant about Inanna is he calls attention to the arbitrariness of the Recurrence. Months earlier, he had been an ordinary citizen who attended the same Pantheon convention as Laura, only making even less of an impact. He admits, “My go-to cosplay was wallpaper.” Indeed, at the time he shared the same homely appearance as Luci did before her transformation. That’s too much of a coincidence to not mean something.

It’s also becoming clearer that the gods favor those who don’t go out of their way to understand them, but rather who appreciate them wholeheartedly as they are. People like Cassandra and the speaker at Ragnarok, who devote themselves to studying the Pantheon or, God forbid, question them, are doomed to remain outside of it. Faith is the key to worship; it’s why Laura’s in so deep with the gods and probably why she’s struggling to recreate the little miracle she performed at the end of last issue.

What’s perhaps troubling is that Laura’s devoting quite a lot of time to the Pantheon, people she really only barely knows, and neglecting the people close to her. She notes somewhat distantly that some kids she knew from school “have called me. More than I expected. I’m…grateful? I think I am.” She doesn’t respond, of course, either to them or to her mother, who tries to reach out to her in this issue. At best, Laura’s tempted to pour out her heart, but the best she can do is walk by with an emotionless “Uh-huh.” Instead of throwing herself into her mother’s arms, as she imagines, she accepts Inanna’s embrace.

Maybe by focusing so much of herself into the Pantheon allows her to avoid uncomfortable discoveries about herself. In her fantasy confession to her mom, she exclaims, I think my head is full of plasma! But I felt like that before everything with Luci anyway, so I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more, Mum. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for being me. I’m such a disappointment.” But being yet another kid who fails to live up to her parents’ expectations isn’t nearly as attractive as being an insider with the gods.

I was a little slide in my description of Inanna’s outfit earlier, but the fact is for all its outrageousness, Inanna pulls it off, and that’s only because McKelvie pulls it off. McKelvie understands that the most effective fashion choices are the ones that add just that touch of flair or pizazz to an otherwise simple outfit. In the case of the gods, there are quite a few such touches, enough to make them stand out above the crowd, but not so many as to be messy or distracting. Again, though, Wilson may be the real star in all this, as his tricks and effects of light convincingly make Inanna and his peers both rock stars and celestial beings.

Some Musings:

– Okay, seriously, does everyone have cracked smartphone screens except me? What are y’all doing with your phones? Am I doing something wrong?

– Inanna may be a god, but he’s pretty naïve for all that. This is the extent of his vetting: “So…can I trust you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s good.”