Dissecting the Accusation of a Gods’ Capability of Murder
Without dialogue, a story can still be told
Without a doubt, The Wicked + The Divine Issue №4 The Immoral of the Tale is the key part to kicking off the rest of the plot development for the series. It’s the climax of figuring out how Lucifer is to figure out what to do next after her arrest of allegedly murdering three people.
The particular spread of the issue I wanted to focus upon is when Laura visits Woden’s Valhalla with the lightning god Baal to see the Ananke, the so-called “guide” of the Pantheon, on Lucifier’s behalf. In doing so, Laura collectively accuses the Pantheon that one of them is the true murderer of the three humans.
Even though it is only eight panels, each character shown reacts in very discernible ways from one another.
Laura’s is by far the easiest to recognize, considering she is the one who instigates the reactions of the gods. She is rather unsurprisingly angry with the actions of the gods not helping Lucifer out of her legal situation, going as far to speak out in fury:
“You’re sitting in a circle, acting all cool and one of you is a murderer! You could be sitting next to a killer right now.”
With Laura’s interests in the Pantheon as one of their many “followers” her burst of anger can be interpreted as displeasure in how her dreams of being closely connected with, or even hope to be a part of, the Pantheon have gone sour rather quickly. Even more so with her close connection to Luci, she now feels to have a better understanding than most in how the gods act and react within certain contexts.
By design and placement of the panels, Minerva is supposedly the first god to react to Laura’s outburst. As both the issue’s newly introduced character and youngest god of the Pantheon, the best way to describe her reaction is uncertain. Even though she is the embodiment of the Roman goddess of wisdom, it makes sense with how young and inexperienced she is to godhood that she would take cues from the other gods present. Conversely, her look of uncertainty could lean more towards that of worry if whether or not the others might act against her similarly in the way they did to Luci.
On the contrary, warrior goddess Sakhmet appears to be judgemental of the murder accusation Laura throws out quite plainly. With her wild warrior-like temperament, she is a bit harder to determine what particular emotion she might be displaying in comparison to the others. Looking at her body language, it is visible that she is much of a person whose attitude is very indifferent to what is going around her, but can change in an instant if it directly involves or is related to her. My best guess for Sakhmet is that underneath such a judgemental facade, is that she might emotionally be hurt by the accusation or upset that a human is confronting a god in such an unsubmissive manner.
Out of the remaining four, both sun goddess Amaterasu and lightning god Baal have practically identical reactions to Laura’s claim. The way that they both react with what can be described as somber expressions. Lips pouted and eyebrows drawn together are usually correlated to some experience of sadness and/or pity. Each have their own reasons for the way they respond; Amaterasu’s more likely to be out of pity due to her free spirited and peaceful nature in comparison to Baal’s reaction probably being increasingly restrained to not express more than just slight physical reaction.
Woden is by far the most difficult to figure out what emotional response he is experiencing due to his helmet blocking all distinction of his face. Looking beyond analyzing this particular spread, his character is rather difficult to determine throughout most of his appearances in the series. With the scene taking place in his domain, it can be seen that Woden is practically surrounded by technology or tech related items constantly. This can easily be determined as coping mechanism or self preservation tactic so he is able to place a buffer between himself and the others around him. If I had to guess, Woden might be more impassive or maybe worried about the outcome of such an accusation against the gods.
Finally, Ananke is the only other character in the spread to really have more details due to having a small section of dialogue, but still has an ominous nature like Woden. Based off of her emotional reaction alone, it does not seem that she really has any positive or negative response. It almost appears to be closed off, possibly due to her being the guide/guardian of each reincarnated group of gods, and not wanting to influence any reactions from the others present. Additionally, the dialogue also feels to be very controlled so drastic actions will not be taken by the gods as well. I personally feel that Ananke is purposefully designed to be rather neutral to keep up an ominous, and most likely foreshadowing related, presence.
This section of the series brings the importance of how emotion can deepen a connection of relatability, especially in characters that are commonly viewed as being emotional. It’s particularly important in the context of present day society in how popular individuals have to compose themselves in the public versus private eye. I feel that by using the gods characters in a similar manner to modern celebrities is able to create a stronger connection with the audience of how emotions play an integral part of both life and plot developments.
