History Characters / AmericanGods2017MainCharacters

->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/RickyWhittle, Gabriel Darku (young)

->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/EmilyBrowning, Elle [=McAdam=] (child)

->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/IanMcShane, Tom York (young)

* RaceLift: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. In the book, Shadow's mother was African American, and [[spoiler: his father was white]]. Ricky Whittle is [[FakeAmerican British]], and his father is African Jamaican while his mother is English (and white).

* ButtMonkey: After he gives his lucky coin to Shadow, he nearly gets his head blown off with a shotgun, survives a car crash, gets beaten up by [[spoiler:Laura]], and then arrested by the police. The longer the series goes on, the clearer it becomes that everything that can go wrong for Sweeney ''will'' go wrong. By the end of Season One, and continuing into Season Two, he's basically reduced to the role of ComicRelief due to all the crap that keeps happening to him.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. When she crawls out of her grave, she promptly [[VomitIndiscretionShot vomits copious amounts of embalming fluid]] onto the ground. We later see her in tight jeans, only for her to end up on the toilet [[PottyEmergency with embalming fluid violently erupting out of the other end]]. She does spend a good bit of screen time nude... but her autopsy scars and thick stitching send her right into the UncannyValley. They also [[FanDisservice completely negate her attempt to seduce]] Shadow.

* AmbiguousDisorder: It's implied she was suffering from depression before her death. She's apathetic to life, full of self loathing, and suicidal (which she expresses as a means to find peace); all signs of clinical depression. Most of her actions in life were driven by the need to drive away the emptiness for even a moment, no matter how terrible the consequences.

%% Doesn't epxlain what the reaction is * Berserk Button: Much of the time, Shadow has pretty good judgment, but mentioning Laura is a good way to provoke him.

* BerserkButton: Much of the time, Shadow has pretty good judgment, but mentioning Laura is a good way to provoke him.

* GeniusBruiser: He can punch out a six-foot-five leprechaun, and Wednesday hired him to act as muscle, but he's a well-read, he was working as a con artist before he met Laura, and at the very least he's a better checkers player than Czernobog, easily beating him after losing their first game. He's also very well-read after spending his time in prison working through the entire prison library.

* AdaptationalPersonalityChange: Unlike the book Wednesday, who seems more relieved than anything that he doesn't have to come with Shadow to Laura's funeral (as he has other things to do), this version offers his sincere condolences. [[spoiler: At least it seems that way, except Wednesday's the one who ordered Laura's death in the first place.]]

* BadassBookworm: Shadow got through his sentence with intense workouts and reading. Leaving him very well read, and able to go toe to toe with Mad Sweeney in a fistfight.
* BerserkButton: Much of the time, Shadow has pretty good judgment but mentioning Laura is a good way to provoke him.
* ChessWithDeath: More like checkers with the Slavic god of darkness and evil. Shadow says he'll let Czernobog kill him with his hammer if he loses, but Czernobog has to join Wednesday if he wins. [[spoiler:Shadow loses, but then gives another wager that he will give another swing for Czernobog if needed if he loses, but Czernobog will come with them if not. He wins this time, but still has to have his one swing later down the line.]]
* DisappearedDad: Originally Shadow isn't aware of who his father is, due to his mother having been quite promiscuous ([[ReallyGetsAround eighty six sexual partners]] in her life, according to Mr. World). Eventually he learns [[spoiler:Mr. Wednesday is his father.]]

%%* GeniusBruiser: He can punch out a six-foot-tall leprechaun and Wednesday hired him to act as muscle, but he's a well-read, he was working as a con artist before he met Laura, and at the very least he's a better checkers player than Czernobog, easily beating him after losing their first game.

* RaceLift: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. In the book, Shadow's mother was African American, and [[spoiler: his father was white]]. Ricky Whittle is [[FakeAmerican British]], and his father was African Jamaican while his mother was English (and white).
* RetiredOutlaw: Shadow has zero desire to go back to prison, and has no wish to start committing crime again. Unfortunately, working with Wednesday often puts him at odds with that desire.

* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: In-universe. Shadow grew up traveling the world with his mother and speaks without any slang or an accent, he was accosted by a group of black youths who think he 'talks funny' and 'like a white boy'.

* AllergicToRoutine: A dramatic example. She can't stand living a life where she does the same exact thing every last day, even if she has everything else she wants. This first causes her to [[DrivenToSuicide attempt suicide]] because she was stuck in a crappy and repetitive job and later to attempt to rob her employer with Shadow's help because she was bored with her life despite being happy with her marriage.

* LadyMacbeth: When Laura has become bored with her life, and wanting nicer things, she goes to Shadow with a plan to rob the casino she works at, while Shadow is content with Laura and what he has, a reversal of when they first met. Shadow reluctantly agrees, [[ForegoneConclusion and it doesn't go well.]]

* SlidingScaleOfUndeadRegeneration: Type I. While sentient, Laura is just a corpse that can walk and talk. All of the various preservatives used on her body were expelled the moment she was resurrected, so nothing is stopping her from deteriorating. Her eyes turn glassy, her physique withers away, her arm falls off repeatedly and she attracts flies, her body soon hosting a nest of maggots that she will occasionally vomit out. While [[spoiler:killing Argus]] had helped undo some of the rot, it is just a temporary measure.
* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler: Her coming BackFromTheDead and finding out ''who'' killed her puts a huge damper in Wednesday's plans -- mainly it could get Shadow to turn on him, since Wednesday was the one who arranged for Shadow to be sent to prison and for her to be killed all so Shadow would be in a position where he would willingly enter Wednesday's "employment".]]
* SuperStrength: Laura is absurdly strong, capable of tearing through normal men like wet paper and flicking Mad Sweeney across the room with a single finger. Her strength is supernatural in nature, so there seems to be a form of [[RequiredSecondaryPowers super anchoring]] going on so she doesn't go flying or wrench herself apart using it. Notably, she completely lacks SuperToughness (as seen when a crowbar from one of Technical Boy's men is able to tear her arm clean off and when she gets into ''another'' car crash that pulls her Lucky Coin right out of her body).
* TemptingFate: She claims to Shadow she's got the perfect plan to rob the casino without getting caught to convince him to rob the place. One GilliganCut later, she's asking the now imprisoned Shadow how he got caught.

* WaifFu: [[AvertedTrope Completely averted]], as Laura isn't an exceptionally skilled or nimble fighter -- her strength is magical in nature and thus she can cause tremendous damage with little to no actual fighting prowess.

* AntiHero: He is affable, charming, witty and can be charitable when the mood suits him. With that said, he is a ConsummateLiar with an endless trail of broken promises that he has accumulated over the course of all his time in America to the point where every God he meets up with either wants him gone or dead. He makes his living coning mortals out of their money and, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality as typical of a God in this setting]], holds very little sanctity in human life.

* CoolCar: Drives a [[https://notoriousluxury.com/2014/01/07/1966-cadillac-fleetwood-brougham/ 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham]] that he nicknames [[ICallItVera "Betty."]] He ended up sacrificing it in the episode "The Beguiling Man" in order to stop the train that holds Shadow hostage, giving it an eulogy and comparing it to a Viking warrior (although the car escapes unharmed in the end).

* {{Foreshadowing}}: He's constantly dropping hints to his true identity up to last episode of the season, between saying that Wednesday is "his day"[[note]]the word "Wednesday" is derived from the Norse term meaning "Wodan's/Wotan's Day", which is of course one of Odin's ''many'' aliases.[[/note]], his healing touch powers, and his unusual glass eye.
* GlassEye: His left eye is brown, the right is golden. They both move normally, and considering who and what he is, it is hard to say which one is glass. Even the previews of second season, which show him in OneWingedAngel mode. One eye glows bright, the other does not, but is the glowing eye a godly eye (and the non-glowing glass), or is it an empty eye socket glowing?

** [[spoiler: Repeatedly feigns ignorance of circumstances around Shadow that he himself set in motion.]]

* PrecisionFStrike: He's usually talking in a polite manner and rarely curse, but when he do...

* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: Rather than [[spoiler: drinking himself to death]] he gets an [[spoiler: InertialImpalement with Gungnir.]]
* Fiction500: He has enough gold that he thinks nothing of throwing away handfuls of coins. This backfired when he accidentally gave away his lucky coin, the only one that actually matters.

* {{Irony}}: When discussions of gods comes up, his tone is usually a cynical one, [[NayTheist seeing them as inherently petty and selfish who's squabbles come to the expense of everybody else]], [[spoiler:but if Ibis is to be believed, Sweeney was himself a god.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: In ''A Prayer For Mad Sweeney'', when regaining his lucky coin after Laura crashes the ice cream truck that they were riding in, Sweeney decides to give it back and thus revive her.

* {{Leprechaun}}: What he claims to be, despite being taller than Shadow. In fact he claims being short is a stereotype, and in mythology the Tuatha Dé Danann -- the supernatural race who would eventually become TheFairFolk of Irish folklore -- were very often taller than ordinary humans.

** In one recollection, he is one of TheFairFolk who is told by a Seer a prophecy of his death one night and is shortly thereafter killed by a saint or a swineherd.
** In another, he is the Irish king of Buile Shuibhne who kills a priest and is cursed as a result.

* BaldOfAwesome: A bald badass and our hero.

* EyepatchOfPower: Or rather, a glass eye of power. See MismatchedEyes for more.

* MismatchedEyes: His left eye is brown, the right is golden. They both move normally, and considering who and what he is, it is hard to say which one is glass. Even the previews of second season, which show him in OneWingedAngel mode. One eye glows bright, the other does not, but is the glowing eye a godly eye (and the non-glowing glass), or is it an empty eye socket glowing?

* AdaptationalJerkass: A mild example, but Shadow starts to become more selfish and [[AmbitionIsEvil power-hungry]] toward the end of Season 3, believing that [[spoiler:performing Wednesday's vigil]] will allow him to [[GodhoodSeeker become a god]] and [[spoiler:step into Wednesday's shoes as leader of the Old Gods]]. Book!Shadow had no such ambitions, and only performed the vigil because [[IGaveMyWord he gave his word]].

** It's a moment of FridgeBrilliance when you remember that [[spoiler: Odin]] was also one of the Old Gods whose source of worship was taken over by Christians.
** It can also be a moment of CatharsisFactor for viewers who worship "the old gods" and may have to dig through christianization, or outright suppression, of the gods they worship/follow/revere.