Headscratchers / The Wicked + The Divine

• Why is the Recurrence every 90 years? I've been reading the series since the start and this has been bugging me for a while now. It's just that it seems kind of random and with the attitude normal people have about the gods and the awareness it seems... strange that there would be fan conventions and such like. As well, I did some digging with the whole "Lord Byron was a past incarnation of Lucifer" thing and some maths and it just doesn't add up with in the time frame. So this is bothering me. Of course, I could be meant to be thinking this and this is all part of some plot by Ananke.
  • I don't think Byron was an incarnation of Lucifer, I just think Cassandra used that phrase of "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know" just as a description. Yeah, it was intended to describe Byron when it was first said, but Cassandra probably just used it as a fitting allusion.
  • The gods are not meant to be Lord Byron and co. but are expies of them. The same way Sekhmet and Rihanna or Lucifer and David Bowie both exist in the same universe.
  • It doesn't seem to be every 90 years on the dot, since there was one where the math was off. (I think it's the 17th century one?)
  • The math from issue 36 proves it is indeed every 90 years. We just have to factor in the 2 years when the gods are present, as they count outside the 90 years. So the math works out (technically) to every 92 years, from beginning of Recurrance to beginning of Recurrance.
• Why not kill them at the start? Why does Ananke even bother with the whole recurrence thing? If she is the one who grants people godhood, she can just immediately kill them when they ascend. If she did this constantly, no one would know about the recurrence thing and she would always have her heads.
  • Necessity. Or, to be less obnoxious, maybe the performances are part of the process.
  • Issue #36 shows that she does in fact do this to Persephone.
• How did the modern Pantheon become famous stars so quickly after they ascend? Even with godly powers they're all big stars near the start of their two years, and they were mostly unknowns beforehand.
  • Their concerts are literally divine. Just being there is one of the greatest experiences a person can have. Of course they'd get famous quick. Show up for open mike night with that and you'll have a bar full of fans for life. Keep it up for a few weeks, maybe visit some karaoke bars, and word of mouth will do the rest. Once you've got that fame, an audience is just a public announcement away.
• At the end did Laura mean anyone could do magic or just that Ananke picked people who could already do magic?
  • There are only a small number of people who can do literal straight up magic magic- it might well actually be only 13 per generation. But anyone can change the world. In short, just because you're not magical doesn't mean you can't do miracles.