Hero of This Story

Welcome back to Tim + Alex Get TWATD. We’re sticking with our new format, which has Alex and Tim alternating writing duties each month, to match the standalone different-artist-each-issue nature of WicDiv’s current arc.

This time round, it’s Alex’s turn. After a bit of a delay, he’s talking about issue #15, and using it as a springboard to talk about something that’s been niggling at him for a little while.

Alex: There’s a question I’ve been asking myself since this arc of character-led one shots began. Since the demise of our viewpoint character, really, but it really came into focus with this issue: who is the main character of The Wicked + The Divine?

Issue #15 reminded me of the odd position Amaterasu holds in the WicDiv cast. She was one of the early icons of the series – the first of the Pantheon to appear on the page, the second to have her own cover, with a distinctive look that had people cosplaying as her before the first issue even dropped. But our Ammy has never been the focus of the story, and that’s driven home by her spotlight issue.

Compared to the last two installments, which gave over their entire page count to Tara and Woden’s stories, Amaterasu almost feels like a guest star in her own book. Counting only the pages where she has a line of more than three words, or performs an action of consequence, Amaterasu appears on 17 of the main feature’s 21 pages. The other four are given over to an argument between the rest of the Pantheon and Ananke, where Amaterasu remains near-silent like a child trapped in the car with rowing parents, and she shares most of the issue’s back half with Urðr.

I can pretty much count what we knew about Ammy going into this issue on one hand, with a thumb left over for clicking. For a member of the Pantheon, she seems like a sweet, innocent person (or is she?). She’s heterosexual, or at least primarily heterosexual. She was originally Hazel, a girl from Exeter. She has a complicated relationship with cultural appropriation.

It’s worth remembering that that first appearance was wordless, both in the way it was presented to us and as a performance. (“I don’t understand a word she’s saying,” reported Laura. “Nobody does.”) By the same rules I used earlier, and counting double-page spreads as a single page, she’s appeared on just 12 pages of the series so far, excluding this issue. The biggest stage she’s been given up until now is her interview with Cassandra in #1 – and even that is a public rather than private conversation, where she’s representing the Pantheon as a whole.

This issue adds a few facts more to the above list: She has, or had, anger issues. Her father died when she was young. She was originally Emily, a young girl from Exeter. She was a fan of her deific namesake before transforming into Her. She has a really complicated relationship with cultural appropriation.

But, for a story that gives our our first back-stage access to the real Ammy, there’s no sense of major revelation. It feels a little like we’re still being kept at arm’s length from Amaterasu, and Stephanie Hans’ art plays a big part in that. Her pages are utterly gorgeous, and there’s never any obfuscation in terms of storytelling, but these are the characters as icons, as Gods rather than people. (It’s almost the exact opposite of what Tim was saying about Kate Brown’s art in issue #12.)

So, if it’s clear that Amaterasu is never going to be our main character, who is? Being a nerd of incredible proportions, I didn’t stop at counting her appearances – I did the same for pretty much everyone.

Topping the list of appearances is Ananke, at 58 pages. That’s interesting, given that she’s currently looking like the story’s Big Bad, but the idea of lead who combines antagonist and protagonist is an interesting proposition.

In a near second, and for my money the most likely candidate, is Cassandra/Urðr. She’s appeared on 50 pages, two-thirds of them in her human form. She’s had the most character development – she’s evolved from snarky skeptic (and detective-style story engine, with the whodunnit plot thread) to reluctant establishment figure, and her interactions with Amaterasu this issue suggest she’s working to synthesise those two personas – and, between Beth and the other Norns, the book has already started to fill out a supporting cast for her.

Also ranking ahead of Ammy are the series’ main men. Baal and Woden, with 37 pages apiece – though it’s worth noting both have, indirectly in Baal’s case, received spotlight issues that boost this number – and, with 34, my other top contender Baphomet, who despite my initial misgivings has emerged as a roughly sympathetic anti-hero.

I was surprised to find that The Morrigan, in all her aspects, has actually made considerably fewer appearances, at 22 pages, but that number’s likely to leapfrog Amaterasu with her spotlight issue next month – something which is also likely to push Baphomet nearer the top of the pile.

I don’t know. There’s still the feeling that the rug could be pulled, and any member of this ensemble could emerge as our lead. Beth. Kerry, once known as the Valkyrie Brunhilde. That David Blake fella, possibly. The cast keeps swelling and swelling, faster even than the story can bump them off.

So maybe, as Tim suggested last time we had this conversation, The Wicked + The Divine is becoming a genuine ensemble story.

But the ensemble cast hasn’t been the engine that has driven most issues. There hasn’t been a single issue yet where we’ve seen the entire Pantheon, not even just the ones that are still alive at that moment.

Maybe the question doesn’t matter, and it’s an empty game that I’m playing here. Counting the pages, I felt a bit like Stephen Tobolowsky’s professor in Community, teaching a class dedicated to answering the titular question of the trashy ‘80s sitcom Who’s The Boss?.

But in a series about identity and fame and finding yourself and all that, it feels deliberate that no single character stands out.

Just the other day, I saw someone asking Gillen a question here on Tumblr. “It has got me thinking that Wicdiv is secretly a complex romance story for The Morrigan and Baphomet and the rest of the cast are minor distractions! Possibility rate?”

He answered: “That’s certainly how Morrigan and Baphomet see it.”

Maybe that’s the point, then. In WicDiv, as in life, everyone thinks they’re the main character, and everyone else is the supporting cast.

(Title is, of course, a reference to this Regina Spektor song. Maybe go back and re-read the whole thing with it playing?)