MovieChat Forums > Joan of Arcadia (2003) Discussion > Were they all vessels of God?

Were they all vessels of God?


Are all the various God characters really normal people that are possessed and used as vessels? I always wondered about this. In the Pilot, he says he appears in the form that Joan wants to see. So it comes off like only she can see him. Yet, other people have interacted with the various God characters when around Joan.

I think a cool S3 storyline could've been Ryan using his insight to target vessels of God. They could have had it be a whole arc with Will and company having no clue why the serial killer was targeting these people because they're all seemingly unconnected. Only Joan would know that they were being possessed by God.

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I was wondering that myself when I started watching.
But I think they are not possessed. They are the embodiment of God, and nothing more or less. He is among us, I mean, many religious texts say so, therefore it makes sense to do it like that.
It also is logical for the scene in the hospital, where Joan's parents cannot see the people passing them. He chooses whether or not he can be seen.
But if you can see him, you are not the only one, he really is there.

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They were called avatars. By definition an avatar is "a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher." So I always thought they were people God created for himself to use to appear to Joan. This would apply to people like Old Lady God who appeared in many different situations. But in some cases, that idea doesn't fit. So I'm inclined to think now that they were people that God temporarily borrowed in order to appear to Joan. Mainly because of characters like the gay office admin at the school. If he was really the school admin, then it seems God only became him when necessary. And what about Johnny Broadway/Godway? That avatar broke all the rules.

I think the bottom line is there's no hard and fast rule. He's God. He can do whatever He wants or needs to in order to reach Joan. So maybe it's a little of both.

To me, the most interesting aspect was always the fact that Adam was the only one of the other main characters we see interacting with any of the Gods. He got jealous of Joan dancing with Cute Boy God. He asked who Goth God was when he saw Joan talking to him. He literally bumped right smack-into Office Admin God. And look at the whole thing with Johnny Godway. I always thought they were building toward something with that. And then the whole thing with Adam getting close to Ryan after breaking up with Joan happened. I thought that probably one of Joan's struggles for Season Three would have been her fighting against Ryan's corrupting influence on Adam, a literal fight for Adam's very soul.
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The old god at the parent teacher conference S02Ep17 had the name tag on that said A. Vatar

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