(Thaleia Spoiler) It's weird that...

[Rongway]

"the gods (who) she prayed to" versus "the gods to whom she prayed".

Prescriptive grammar says it's "whom" in both those cases, as they are the object--the recipient of the prayer--rather than the subject. Prescriptive grammar indicates "who" when "who" is the subject--that is, the person doing the praying.

The reality of grammar, however, is that nobody will misunderstand you if you say "who" when a "whom" would be prescribed, and the use of "who" in places where "whom" is prescribed is not going to disappear from the language any time soon, so "who" is also fine to use.

[Iscah]

The reality of grammar, however, is that nobody will misunderstand you if you say "who" when a "whom" would be prescribed, and the use of "who" in places where "whom" is prescribed is not going to disappear from the language any time soon, so "who" is also fine to use.

I know that nobody will misunderstand the wrong choice of form. That's not the issue here.

The issue is the claim that choosing different forms between "[entity 1] whom she prayed to" and "[entity 2] who she fought" will tell you something about the differing natures of the entities, which it does not.

I put the one sentence in two forms to show that it is sentence order and not meaning that affects which one is used in a situation.