[Ea]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Shadow -- My impression is that his temper got him into prison and he learned in prison to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. He drank the mead and made his promise.

Yes, that's right, he has quite a temper - but I'd still think that Gaiman is making a point with his passivity. But I have no guesses as to why...

Originally Posted by jgaiser

A bit more about Shadow as Balder. Searching around on the web, i find this snippet:

According to legend, Balder was concerned with his own death, so his mother extracted an oath from every creature, object, and force in nature, to never harm Balder. However, she forgot about the mistletoe, and Loki, who was jealous of Balder, tricked Balder's blind brother Hod into stabbing Balder with mistletoe.

Late in the book, we have Mr World (Loki) speaking to Laura:

"Yes," said Mr. World. "I know. When this is all done with, I guess I'll sharpen a stick of mistletoe and go down to the ash tree, and ram it through his eye. Now. My stick, please."

Comments?

The way the story goes is that Balder had a series of dreams, foretelling of his death. This worried his mother, the goddess Frigg, so much that she extracted that promise of everything not to harm Balder, except she forgot the harmless-appearing mistletoe.

Since Balder is apparently invulnerable, the gods make a sport of it, trying to attack Balder or throw or shoot things at him, just to see everything fail. Balder's brother Hod feels left out though, as he's blind, but Loke tells Hod he'd help him aim an arrow at Balder, so he can participate even if he can''t see the target. Unfortunately the arrow is made from mistletoe and Balder dies.

After his death, the gods try to retrieve Balder back from the underworld of the dead. They send a servant to speak with the ruler of the underworld, Hel, but she can only tell them that Balder will come back if everything and everyone in the world will cry for him. So again Frigg goes out, to convince everything and everyone to cry for Balder. She is almost successful, but cannot convince an old hag, Tøkk, to cry for her son - "I will cry only dry tears for Balder," she tells Frigg. Some say that Tøkk was Loke in disguise.

But enough story-telling I noticed that remark of Mr. World, too, but to me it comes across as a sarcastic remark that alludes to that story, but doesn't mean Shadow is Balder.

It's just that I see very little in Shadow's personality and person that can allude to Balder - perhaps except this - that I don't like the hypothesis.