SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers from the latest episode of AMC's "Preacher" (and the Vertigo comic series it's adapted from) follow.
While Odin Quincannon is one of the most memorable characters from the "Preacher" comics, he's not exactly complex. He did things like having sex with a giant woman made of meat simply because he was a sicko, not because there was any kind of nuanced psychology involved.
The AMC adaptation is a different story though. As tonight's episode, "El Valero," revealed, there's a reason why Odin (played by Jackie Earle Haley) is the way he is. Decades ago, his entire family (including his wife, daughter, and extended relatives) went on a ski trip in Vail, Colorado, with Odin staying behind to work. As the Quincannon clan took a ski lift up a mountain, the cable car detached and plummeted to the ground, killing everyone.
Back in Annville, Odin had a mental breakdown, which prompted him to call Jesse's father for spiritual advice (it's the same moment we partially saw back in "Monster Swamp"). When the two Custers arrived at Quincannon Meat & Power, they discovered that Odin disemboweled the corpse of his daughter and a cow. Clutching the ropy intestines in his hands, he confessed to the preacher that he couldn't tell the difference between the livestock and the human being. They're both just meat, with no spirit within. No energy. No anything.
This explains Odin's lack of faith in a traditional Judeo-Christian God. He also tells an adult Jesse later on in the episode that, after Jesse's order for him to "serve God," he's begun worshipping the God of Meat, the God "of what's touchable and true". In other words, if Odin belonged to a church, it would be one focused on the corporeal; on the blood, muscle, and bone that makes up all of us. So perhaps the giant meat-woman willRead more in our full recap.