YMMV / Old Gods of Appalachia

• Archive Panic: Despite being relatively new, it's quickly developed into this and can only get larger as the show continues. Three seasons which once completed will add up to over 40 episodes, plus at least 10 independent and holiday specials. This doesn't include the Patreon exclusives, which have the 17 part epic "Build Mama A Coffin," "Door in the Floor," and the ongoing "Black Mouthed Dog."
• Alternative Character Interpretation: A show like this leaves many characters motivations ambiguous, and while some may be clarified later, others are deliberately left vague:
  • Speculations about the nature of the Things include that they are a hive mind or a mega-gigantic kaiju, but nothing to directly support these theories has been given in the show.
  • The situation with Barlow in Season 1. Was it the work of one of the Deep Things? Barrow and Locke? Was it perhaps a manifestation of Those Who Sleep Beneath themselves? The appearance of Ignatius Combs seems to lend the situation with Sarah Avery at least to Barrow And Locked, especially given that obliterating entire towns for their plans is not out of character. However, evidence for the former is that Cletus Garvin makes offerings towards something he hears in his head, in hopes of preventing death. This fits the profile of a Deep Thing, who is more likely to look for offerings than their masters who want freedom or Barrow and Locke which simply will take what they want. The latter theory, meanwhile, is supported by the heavy association of the Old Things with mines and whispering voices, where a Deep Thing is more likely to reveal its monstrous self outright.
  • Daughter Dooley: Well meaning witch looking to keep the wilds safe from man, and merely allying with Horned Head to do so? Or is she perhaps more uncaring and callous than she seems? Her response to seeing a baby about to be sacrificed lenses credit to the former.
  • The Railroad Man brings many different interpretations to the table: Is he a Free Agent, embodying the ruthless progress that comes with the railroad? Or is he an associate of Barrow and Locke? The narration thus far has left it rather ambiguous.
  • How benevolent is the Green really? It can manifest from anywhere at any time and immediately be rid of any lesser haint, and likely can kill off the Deep Things itself given Glory Ann Boggs can permanently incapacitate them by invoking its power, but for some reason it seems content with only coming out for Godzilla Threshold events such as the rising of the Dead Queen. Does it have any plans for permanently dealing with the Inner Dark? Or is it content to let the innocent suffer under the thumb of indiscriminately killing monsters for eternity, as long as their creators don't escape?
• Complete Monster:
  • The Thing Whose Name Sounds Like Horned Head, But Is Not is an ancient elder thing of the hills, not the oldest but perhaps the cruelest and pettiest of them all. As a great black stag crowned with amber antlers, Horned-Head leads countless settlements and camps to ruins and death while contriving to separate the Witch Queen Daughter Dooley from her mothers, granting her immortality that drains the lives of those about her while cursing her to age in reverse so it may claim her and "raise her right" once her slate is wiped clean. Upon its defeat, Horned-Head resorts to feeding on children to restore itself, finally returning to power after 140 years to commit to unleashing its masters upon an unsuspecting world.
  • Elias Pontias "E.P." Barrow is The Patriarch of the Barrow family and one of the two rulers of the Barrow & Locke Mining and Railroad company. Conducting Human Sacrifice, feeding the Deep Things, and keeping employees in horrid and risky working conditions, E.P. frequently has victims murdered by his Hollowed Men, with their souls consigned to horrible fates. Attempts at resistance can see entire towns wiped from the map, endless industrialized suffering keeping the Barrow fortunes filled. Sacrificing any remaining humanity along with the entire town of Barrow, E.P. proceeds to give orders from a black coffin deep in the earth. Creating his one daughter and heir Polly, E.P. sends her with the "Weapon", a baby, to be given to the families of unionizing miners. After the baby slaughters most of them, the powerful Underwood family nullifies the weapon, prompting a furious E.P. to recall his daughter and subject her to a horrific torture that will leave her "indisposed" for some time.
  • Build Mama a Coffin storyline: Granny White, hiding behind the veneer of an respectable old albino woman, is one of the oldest, most powerful, and cruelest Deep Things. Running "White Farms", officially presented as a worker's paradise and a refuge for orphans, is in reality "a slaughterhouse of souls and minds" to feed her insatiable gluttony. Granny White enslaves her workers, bewitching them to worship her while their bodies are hollowing out until they work themselves to death. Every soul who is slaughtered, she then binds to the cursed earth, leaving them in perpetual agony for her to continue feeding upon, while their flesh is twisted into beasts to continue serving her or simply devoured. Purely out of vanity, Granny White likewise holds regular festivals to honor herself, even making children butcher their siblings to present their hearts for her to feast upon. Responsible for the suffering of untold hundreds already, following the death of Glory Anne Boggs, desiring to devour her power Granny White kidnapped her granddaughter Deeley, to force her mother to bring her Glory's body, all while planning to simply eat them both regardless.
  • "Paper, Ink and Sorrow" to "Paradise Lost": The Man from the Railroad, in his charcoal suit, is the cruel embodiment of progress and death, whose gleefully states his adeptness and efficiency in "bringing hell to you". Crafting deals to secure laborers bound by contract to his masters regardless of how many will die in the process, the Railroad Man takes over the hunt for Vera Blevins in her flight to Pleasant Evenings, the brothel house owned by witch Marcie Walker. Deciding to wipe it out should they fail to give Vera over, the Railroad Man twists many of the town's people into monsters to sacrifice over the protective wards, even murdering his associate, Judge Jerry Brotherton, as a sacrifice before attempting to have everyone in Pleasant Evenings massacred for the insult of refusing him.
  • As Above, So Below part 1:
    • "Pretty" Polly Barrow is her father E.P.'s greatest achievement, created deep in the earth after her father delved even deeper within. A vicious, Spoiled Brat, Polly is known to torture and kill for her father's designs in return for material gains like cruises or shopping trips. Given charge of the "Weapon", Polly provides the baby to unionizing families so it may kill them all, before it is taken by the Underwoods. Fearing her father's retribution, Polly takes her allies and leads them to a meeting of miners, intending on simply massacring them all to cover for her failure.
    • Mr. Churchman is a gaunt Hollowed Man who killed over 200 men, women, and children by strangling them before he was turned into a monster by the Barrow & Locke company. More savage than ever before, Churchman uses his powers to kill by draining the air out of his victims' lungs, an agonizing process, with the spirits of his victims clinging near to him. As the bodyguard of Polly Barrow, Churchman leads an attempted slaughter of unionizing miners, trying to suffocate one opposing witch to death.
• Continuity Lockout: Even if you start the show from the beginning! The non-linear storytelling can lead to family connections being unclear, the seemingly random appearance of characters intimately linked to the lore upon further analysis, and hefty amounts of Mind Screw. That being said, part of the show's appeal and mission statement is unraveling the secrets of Appalachia one by one, but the format can still be off putting to a casual listener.

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Melvin Blevins, a loving but flawed father who works with the Walker Sisters. His hilarious voice and general competence even though he's a Badass Normal has greatly endeared him to the fandom.
  • Skint Tom, a Laughably Evil serial killer very fond of Genuine Human Hide. Sure he's killed in his third appearance, but he's left quite the impression on the fandom. It helps that he's one of the few evil characters that actually brings comedy to this rather dark show. He even gets his own focus episode in the Valentine's Day special Date Night, detailing his Start of Darkness. Rather unfortunately for his fans, it states he's not revived until the 1990s, nearly ensuring he won't be interacting with the main cast again.
  • Sam the Dog from Season 2's initial arc is this, being a blind old companion who is so committed to his charges he does the animal equivalent of telling an Eldritch Abomination to fucking try to touch his kids. Sure, Cowboy has to save him, but points for trying! Hell, he's even got his own plush coming!

• Friendly Fandoms: With The Magnus Archives, due to both of them being part of the Rusty Quill Network as of 2022 and both being cosmic horror stories featuring non-linear storytelling.
  • With Alice Isn't Dead, due to both being country spanning horror stories often taking place in small towns often analyzing the harmful parts of U.S. culture.

• Memetic Badass: Melvin Blevins was noted by creator Steve Shell to have taken on a life of his own in the fandom during the Wolf Sisters arc. This has only increased with the context provided by the Railroad Man arc in Season 2, which saw him take on a Hollowed Man and stare down the Railroad Man himself.
  • Sam the Dog trying to take on an Eldritch Abomination has earned him this rank. Some fans have even talked about scenarios where Sam takes on Horned Head, all of Barrow and Locke or even the Green itself.

• Moral Event Horizon: After spending much of Build Mama A Coffin as a Wild Card con man, J.T. Fields crosses it by maliciously misinterpreting Glory Ann's request to dissuade her son from buying his cursed land and caving Vernard Boggs' head in with a shovel. Glory Ann even describes poor Vernard as damn near being decapitated by the force! Luckily, Glory Ann decides J.T. went too far and lets Vernard's son beat J.T.'s mortal body to death, using her own version of Exact Words to get vengeance. You likely won't feel too bad for J.T. after this.

• The Woobie: The nature of the story ensures that most protagonists will be some variation of this, but the following are a few stand-out examples:
  • Melvin Blevins gets this after we find out how he truly came to work for the Walker Sisters. He's a stern and somewhat simple man who was alienated from his daughter. Hearing rumors for years about what his daughter did for work, he decides to leave her be, even staying away once she's back in the county out of a fear that she wouldn't want to see him again. After being approached to help with the Railroad Man, he arrives only to find he's too late to save his daughter. He devotes himself to Marcy Walker from then on, doing his best to protect those that are lost like his daughter from the forces of the Inner Dark.
  • Cowboy Absher (AKA Caleb Gibson) from Season 2 is a young boy whose entire family was slaughtered by the Dead Queen. He was resurrected soon after, cursed to be unable to die and being imbued with a corruption of the Green that will occasionally lash out at those who threaten him. This is without mentioning the fact that he can see the death of everything he turns his eye to. After a chance encounter with a manifestation of the Inner Dark, Caleb is found by a member of the Walker family, who takes him on a journey to discover how to undo his curse. Cowboy is forced to leave his new loving family behind, including his best friend and adopted brother Floyd, without knowing if he'll ever see them again.

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