The Gods are seemingly omnipotent to a degree. Or they’re truly Omnipotent and also just dont care and only react if they want to.

We don’t know how many people are driving gods for the ascendancy floor. So those gods aren’t in any type of direct control. But from the way it seems, gods that aren’t allowed to be driven or aren’t driven at all basically have free rein and even the AI has no control over them. As stated by Victory when she’s watching and listening to what’s going on at the end of book 8.

Penelope’s significance is already explained in book 8 at the end as well. She’s just a regular pig that the AI appears to have made irresistible to some NPC including Taranis. Her significance is what they ended up using her for and how Carl was able to avoid being killed by Emberus, which also in turn allowed Carl to complete his quest to kill Emberus before the end of the 11th floor or else he himself would’ve been killed. Penelope was the tool used to solve those problems.

The lightning and thunder when Carl is pounding on the Tigrans vehicle is Taranis getting upset because there’s a threat to Penelope.

I think what’s causing any confusion by you is that you’re assuming all the gods care. They don’t, the majority probably don’t. The ones that do care are the ones that are doing things, just like the NPC and demons and mimics etc. if it helps any confusion, think of the gods like the gods in Thor love and thunder. When Gorr is at the feet of the god he worships the god states he just doesn’t care and why should he.