This post is sort-of an expansion/continuation/sidequel to my previous post about the trend, in urban fantasy and modern mythologies, to make a "new trinity" (you can see it here). There is another trope (or sub-trope, or maybe simply motif) that I love very much when dealing with "modern gods" and it is "the generational effect" as I like to call it. Though maybe it is not a good title for it... "Generational incarnation"? Generational avatars?
To take one example of it, among many, in the very famous, very succesful comic book series "The Wicked + The Divine", there is "every ninety years or so" a phenomenon of reincarnation where mythical deities spontaneously return to the human world as exceptional human beings with incredible gifts that make them admired by their peers. And the comic book, set in 2014/early 21st century is a commentary/parody, evocation/criticism, "analysis" of the singers of pop culture, the idol phenomenon and our music industry, with each of the deity reflecting a famous big musician of today's media. But in "sequel issues" released in the franchise, exploring the previous "generations" of these deities, we see their nature evolving. They are always admired and famous artists - but they fit their historical context. As such, the deities of the early 19th century (1831) were authors and poets, evoking/caricaturing the Romantic Movement, whereas the early 20th century deities (1923) are fictional versions of central cultural figures of the Roaring Twenties/Jazz Age (authors, painters, movie-makers and movie-stars). This offers for a very interesting worldbuilding-thinking process about the evolution of art and of the people we admire for their gifts.
To remain in the world of comic books, a more recent example of this (or rather one I discovered more recently) is within "Astro City" where one of the big reveals (well not so much "big" but, you know, VERY important for the worldbuilding) is that there is, within the city, a spirit embodying counter-culture as a whole and which manifests, generation after generation, as various incarnations of the specific music-and-dance fashions that reflect the era's counter-culture. It was Mister Cakewalk when the 20th century began, it became Jazzbaby by the 20s and 30s, was the Zootsuit in the 40s, the Bouncing Beatnik in the 50s, the Halcyon Hippie in the 60s, Glamorax in the 70s, and briefly the Punk (Putrid or Peerless)...
In fact it is a motif you can see being quite recurring in comic books. To take a third and different example, not art-related this time, there was the character of the super-hero "Uncle Sam", leader of the Freedom Frighters super-team. Originally created by Will Eisner for Quality Comics, now DC-owned, "Uncle Sam" is presented as the definitive incarnation of an entity called "The Spirit of America" which, as its name indicates, is the embodiment of the newly formed American nation. All of his previous incarnations were, like Uncle Sam, nationalistic personifications from the real-world: Uncle Sam is born of the union of the feuding duo of Billy Yank and Johnny Reb from the Civil War, whom themselves were but the splitting of the older Brother Jonathan, who himself was just an evolution of the Minuteman (the first manifestation of the Spirit, during the Revolutionnary War).
Speaking of America however... Of course, one of the core representatives of this motif of "generatonal avatars" is American Gods. But no, not the novel. The television series rather.
Well... The book does touch upon the idea that the "New Gods" of the "present day" are not the first ones and previous ones have risen and fallen before. It is said at both the beginning and end that before the current New Gods (computer, television, men-in-black) there were the "iron gods" born of the worship of railways and trains, taking the shape of railroad barons, and they "fell"... In a similar way the novel hints that the deities of television and of cinema/Hollywood (which are in this continuity two different group) only existing "by their own light", hinting that they rely on specific fames and glories that make them disappear once it is gone... Plus we know the New Gods have an "afterlife" just like the Old Ones. But the novel does NOT explore this much, as the New Gods in general are not very much explored as as a faction as merely presented.
The television show adaptation, however, had planned to explore this concept. Season 2 precisely was created around the potential this "life cycle" of modern deities could bring. However season 2 being the huge mess that it was, with entire half-episodes scratched into oblivion, change of showrunners, the cast running away or being sent away for no reason... It becomes a bit difficult to get the full lore so bear with me for this synthesis of the cool (and not cool) ideas they had. The main one being the character of the Technical Boy, god of technology, and how he goes through a life-cycle of "divine updates".
(The post is getting a tad long, let's cut it)
One of the big reveals of season 2 is that the young "modern god" we know as the Technical Boy actually had several previous incarnations and personas in the past, which all ended up being "rebooted" or "upgraded" into a new identity/being. There was always a god of brand-new, awe-inspiring, faith-causing technology in modern days, but due to the constant technological shifts this deity ends up changing from generation to generation. The show invented the funny idea that the Technical Boy is precisely a "boy" because he is an eternally-young god never allowed to "grow up" since as soon as he gets too old a brand new, fresher version of himself replaces him. The current Technical Boy embodies 2010s technology - smartphones, drones, VR headsets, vapers. But the show reveals in the 30s he used to be "Telephone Boy", mainly representing the technological advances of communication, and in the finale of the season the "Technical Boy" is replaced by "Quantum Boy" meant to embody quantum computers (and with some doses of transhumanism dream in there).
Interviews revealed that other incarnations included in the canon of season 2 (presumably to be shown in deleted sequences but never actually seen on screen) were Telegraph Boy and Television Boy (see the Media/Technical conflict below). We also do have a delete scene that had fragments of it shared around social media and promotional videos - revealing a scene showing the previous incarnation to the "current" Technical Boy was shot but not included. Given the set design, fashion choice and props, it seems this previous incarnation was an 80s/90s deity that embodied video games and consoles, and that I strongly hypothize to be called "Game Boy" (yes with a pun on the actual "Game Boy" item ; unless he was the "Television Boy" talked about in interviews)
We also do know that this incarnation was meant to be a nod/homage to the way Technical Boy was depicted in the novel - because his character was drastically changed from the novel to the television series. In the book, Technical Boy is a god of computers and the Internet of the 90s turned towards the promises of the new millenium ; and he is depicted as being a mix of the dreams of cyberpunk fiction (he is a living reference to both The Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic) with the emerging idea of the geek, "basement-dweller" type (Gaiman admitted the character was mean to reflect how the "proudest, coolest, nerdiest" thing back in 1998 was to be able to get a pizza delivered without having to talk to a human being even once). But both Gaiman and the showrunners of season 1 (Fuller and Green) admitted it couldn't work for a 2016 show, and they made a new Technical Boy meant to reflect how the geeks went "from a subculture to Zuckerberg", how technology became "ubiquitous, punk and fashionable", with Bruce Langley's incarnation of the character reflecting more a tech-bro, social media-CEO, Internet influencer type of character. In both media he is a god of synthetic, but in the novel he was more a god of electronics whereas in the series he embraces the virtual and digital.
EDIT: As I am writing these lines I discovered that in an interview given before season 1's release, Fuller and Green said that (alongside David Slade) they decided to have Technical Boy embrace in their show a "Commodore 64" aesthetic, a choice of which would become clearer once the audience "knows his backstory" - which means they clearly had been planning on him being updated out of his book counterpart since the beginning.
EDIT 2: I am starting to think the deleted incarnation was actually "Television Boy", because I discovered there was an 90s console called "TV Boy" that existed - though the season 2 episodes gave an emphasis on a Game Boy being used... However it gives credit to the idea of Television Boy being the incarnation of the deleted scene - the same way the idea of the "Telegraph Boy" was likely named after the actual telegram boys that existed as a job
To get to the point, we thus have a "generational deity" of "eternal boyhood" as he embodies the latest cutting trend, the newest and shiniest fashion in technology, immediately replaced by the next invention. From telegraphs to telephones, from video games to smartphones, from old monitors to quantum computers... Season 2 also offered a similar "upgrade"/"updated" with its character of Media, goddess of mass media, who in season 2 became "Social Media". And... It is worldbuilding wise a bad decision. It makes sense in concept but not in execution.
It seemed like a good idea because the actress for Media had left the project, and what better way to "excuse" a change of face than to have an "update" of a New God? Plus Media, as depicted in season 1, reflected a "classical" pop culture very rooted within the 20th century - by upgrading her into "Social Media" the show intended to bring a "social media" goddess that would highlight the dichotomy between Technical Boy (as a god of the technology per se, the item) and Media (as a goddess of mediatic content). Both Technical Boy and Social Media ruling over the Internet and being rivals on it, but on different levels...
However, it was bad due to in-universe characterization. Season 1 had set up Media as a goddess of mass media who survives and is one of the old powers of the "New Gods". The change of format and media does not bother her - in fact, a change from the novel, in the show she precisely says the rise of smartphones, tablets and small screens doesn't make the classical television outdated but merely continues strengthening the power of media through streaming. Fuller and Green designed a goddess that is all-encompassing, absorbing and expanding with every new format and crossing "Golden Age through Golden Age" not by rebooting or being replaced (as the Technical Boy is) but by collecting the faces and personas, being the deity of fame, glory and popular culture, a concept that uses specific technological formats but transcends technological revolutions, as Hollywood movies come on TV, radio singers can be heard on the Internet and television series appear on computers.
As a result the idea that "social media" would be enough to replace an entire century worth of deity in the blink of an eye (especially with the character itself being quite weak and hastily written) feels like a big waste of a potential. To oppose a face-collecting goddess building herself like a Frankenstein monster to an ever-reborn forever-rebooting god could have offered something so much more satisfying... Or at least that how I would have done it had they asked me.
[You can insert here your "Video Killed the Radio Star" song, and potential radio-TV clash, including Vox-Alastor]
All of which reminds me of an interesting thing done in "Good Omens", the novel. With the Horsemen of the Apocalypse - or rather the Horsepersons. It is made clear that these entities (outside of Death who forever remain the same) adapt with their time and evolve to fit human society. However, it is not because they "modernize" that they modernize the same way... or at the same speed. It is made clear in the novel that, for example, it takes a long time for War to switch her job (abandoning her weapons-dealing ways to become a reporter and use journalism as a cover), because she measures time in centuries. Meanwhile Famine moves with fluidity from what seems to be decade from decade - going from a famous diet guru in the 70s to a fast-food magnate in the 80s. And Pollution is even faster than them all, constantly changing jobs and occupations.
What else to say? I could speak of the evolving notion of "Golden Age" as seen through works like "Midnight in Paris" (The Golden Age of the 2000s is the 1920s, the Golden Age of the Roaring Twenties is the Belle Epoque, the Golden Age of the Belle Epoque is the Renaissance...). I could mention the way the "national pantheons" of the RPG Scion (heavily inspired by American Gods) try to reflect the evolution of the various eras of a country. Which would make me jump to both to the "Gods of Manchester" of "Journey Into Mystery" (about the Industrial Revolution of Britain manifesting in the legendary world of Arthuriana and Celtic mythology), and the huge goof Scion made by putting the Soviet Union with the Allies from the get go (why does everybody forget the Soviet Union was with the AXIS and the ally of the Nazis at the beginning of the war, until Hitler tried to backstab them and so the Union joined the Allies as revenge?). I could also speak of how Stephen King sort-of used it for various villains of his? Especially the Flagg characters?
But I think it might be enough for now... Though if you have your own favorite "generational shift in urban fantasy/modern mythologies", don't hesitate to share!
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