#hephaestion six

[mogfist]

favouritism

[fitzbelovedhangover]

I'm supposed to study Ancient Greece and Persia for work. Let me tell u when i say that all i can think of is how, just like Alexander the Great and Hephaestion, or Achille and Patroclus...

In 2000/2500 years if they were real, people in the Six Duchies and abroad would still have debates and argue regarding Fitz and Beloved's relationship:

"Were the Prophet and his catalyst just close friends or were they lovers? Well there is no evidence that... but also.. they called each other Beloved... But can it be counted as a proof? And Historians have.... But there were a woman named Amber... some people have suspicions that the fool and her were the same person but this is just to romanticize History obviously..."

[spectres-fulcrum]

"Do you not know any mythology?" Hephaestion to Ptolemy after Parmenion made a mythology reference he didn't understand.

THAT my friends is the sass that every Hephaestion seems to has and must have. I love it.

(Also overall I do love Hephaestion's relationship with Alexander but I'm waiting to watch all six episodes for a big analysis.)

[solarzilla]

Honestly, a good chunk of Servant reveals over the course of the Lostbelt arc boiled down to "We're calling this person (X) but they're actually (Y) because reasons" and the reasons they did it are either basically nonexistent or straight-up dogshit.

The writers need to stop taking pages from M. Night Shyamalan's playbook because it has gotten well and truly tiresome at this point, and I don't think I can take another Tunguska Sanctuary-level asspull. Hell, even when you consider how much of an asspull it was, anything interesting they could have done with the reveal afterwards was rendered a moot point because they decided to shove Koyanskaya into an egg and shot her into space before we could actually explore the ramifications behind her true origins.

I don't think I've ever been really "wowed" by a Servant having some sort of fake identity. Not saying those Heroic Spirits like that haven't been written well, hell this already started way back with the original Stay Night with Kojirou and Cursed Arm Hassan but the former being more akin to a Phantasm and the latter just simply having a title thats passed down. The only other time that these taken up identites have actually had some impact on the Servant was Benkei and Hephaestion but that's kinda it? Obviously there's Oberon who's the breakout star of the Pretender class but otherwise everyone else are just their normal selves with slight Class adjustments. I feel like Dante is so far the only one who's been interesting since its just his real self masquerading as his book self. The only other possible character who i think can get away with this as a Servant is probably Six Earred Macaque considering thats his whole thing, or hell, even Morgan considering her whole multiple fairy identites.

[pashterlengkap]

Greek minister blasts Netflix’s Alexander the Great series for depicting same-sex relationship

Alexander: The Making of a God, Netflix’s new docu-drama about Alexander the Great, is causing controversy in Greece, where some commentators and far-right leaders have slammed its depiction of the ancient Macedonian king’s same-sex relationship with one of his generals. As The Guardian notes, one recent editorial in the Greek daily newspaper Eleftheros Typos described the six-part series, which combines commentary from historians with dramatic reenactments, as “a distortion of the truth,” and cited director Oliver Stone’s 2004 film Alexander for starting “a propaganda campaign about Alexander’s homosexuality.” Related: Conservatives are outraged that Netflix’s Alexander the Great docuseries “turned him gay” “I don’t think it was Netflix that made him gay.” Dimitri Natsios, founder and leader of the far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ Niki party, went so far as to question Greece’s Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, about the series in Parliament. Natsios said the series aims to “subliminally convey the notion that homosexuality was acceptable in ancient times, an element that has no basis” and described it as “deplorable, unacceptable and unhistorical.” Stay connected to your community Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our daily newsletter. In fact, the ancients would have had no concept of homosexuality as an identity category. But same-sex relationships were tolerated and even encouraged in certain contexts, notably in the “Sacred Band of Thebes,” a troop of elite soldiers consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers. While sexual relationships between adult men were likely frowned upon in many ancient Greek cities, some modern scholars like Thomas Hubbard have suggested that the Macedonian court may have been more tolerant. Mendoni, though, seemed to agree with Natsios’s assessment, describing the Netflix series as “replete with historical inaccuracies” that demonstrate “the director’s sloppiness and poverty of scenario.” She went on to address the show’s depiction of Alexander’s life-long relationship with Hephaestion, a childhood friend who went on to become a general in his army and his personal bodyguard. “There is no mention in the sources that it goes beyond the limits of friendship, as defined by Aristotle,” Mendoni said. “But you will know that the concept of love in antiquity is broad and multidimensional. We cannot interpret either practices or persons who acted 2,300 years ago by our own measures, our own norms and assumptions. Alexander the Great, for 2,300 years, has never needed, nor does he need now, the intervention of any unsolicited protector of his historical memory or, even more, of his personality and moral standing.” Mendoni may be right in her assertion that there are no known descriptions of Alexander and Hephaestion’s relationship as explicitly sexual by their contemporaries, but many modern historians believe they were more than just friends. They were frequently compared to Patroclus and Achilles, who were also believed to be lovers, and historians like Robin Lane Fox believe their sexual relationship may have continued into adulthood. While Alexander did marry and produce an heir later in his life, historian Peter Green argues in his 2007 book Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age that there is little evidence that he had much interest in women. This is not the first time a pop culture depiction of Alexander the Great has caused an uproar in Greece. In 2004, a coalition of Greek lawyers claimed that Stone’s depiction of Alexander as bisexual in his 2004 film starring Colin Firth was defamatory and threatened to sue the director and Warner Bros. In the U.S., Alexander: The Making of a God has already sparked outrage from the usual anti-LGBTQ+ trolls on social media. Earlier this month, influential rightwing X account End Wokeness posted that Netflix had “turned… http://dlvr.it/T3FfMc

[rottonbear]

***Review of Alexander the Great***

***NOT accept any discussion about sexual orientation, its just a tiny tiny part of the series, and only mention one time in very beginning of the first ep in total six )***

Enjoy it much

all cast match their character and did a great job, clear explanation, prefect story-telling skill to me ( hv some problems on long-time focusing, so this is very important to me) May be also cause i never expect a 100% accuracy story will be told (furthermore, who can claim he/she knows what actually happened 2000 years ago)

Alexander the Great is gay or bi or any other else doesnt matter to me at all. after roughly extending searching on net, all i know is, the strong, close, and life-timed bond between him and Hephaestion* can even makes gods jealous (base on a Chinese adage), no matter there is sexuality or not, it is just a beautiful and divine bonding that was called love.

* seems Hephaistion is the correct spelling by moviemaker

edit

after reading more review, found some mistake in the series, but those arnt a big one or cause of different reading point (even medicine has different opinion, no doubt of same in history), still in my range.

Again no one can claim he/she knows what actually happened 2000 years ago, and i will not suppose a netflix film/series even documentry can help me pass my exam.

if this is a historic based series 4/5

but cause it calms itself a documentry, 3.5/5

[atopvisenyashill]

@whiteraven0001 yes, i would say that’s probably a better comparison too. i didn’t make it mostly because a) he doesn’t have a sexy soldier boyfriend like hephaestion bc george hates me, personally, and b) i just really wanted to make a manifest destiny joke lmaoooo

but it’s still comparison bc you have that young supposed genius conquering lands only for his kingdom to crumble fairly quickly bc it turns out children are bad at ruling. and his tactics included utterly destroying cities like thebes, persepolis, and tyre, massacring the men and enslaving the women & children, and pushing a cultural hegemony over egypt, the levant, persia, and beyond. i believe it was iran/parts of persia where he found the most issue because a lot of the iranian people had intermingled with the ruling class that they didn’t appreciate him coming in and jacking their shit, which i’m assuming is part of the inspiration for the conflict with dorne (and in general, the way the greeks & romans had issues conquering and controlling large swaths of persia is a likely historical parallel).

HOWEVER. i don’t really know enough about alexander the great or the history of persia to really define how he took inspiration from there. i do know a lot about indigenous history and in studying it, there’s obviously a lot of commonalities between the way the british, french, Portuguese, and spanish governments all saw the indigenous peoples & the way some famous conquerer’s saw their neighbors and other cultures, & the way the upper six kingdoms see & treat dorne. it’s not a complete one to one, obviously, because in the colonial era you had the beginnings of a racial caste system & the burgeoning white identity as a class, and that wasn’t a huge thing before the “discovery” of the americas - certainly there was colonialism, racism, genocide, and wars of extinction before then (something also very obvious in george’s writing - as many have pointed out, his is a sort of “old school racism” common in classic literature where the vaguely brown culture is hyper sexual and “freer” than the dominant culture) but all of this kind of exploded when the colonization of the americas started. and just in my opinion, i think the valyrian houses landing in westeros does act in many ways as a similar “explosion” moment for how westeros handles race, faith, and ethnicity - cultural & religious hegemony of a single, strong government over many varied cultures & nation states who are anywhere from ambivalent to outright hostile at the idea of being brought together.

also i just need everyone to know that my feelings on andrew jackson are: shoot him and cut out his tongue then shoot his tongue!!

“why would elaena marry a dornishman when they’re nasty evil people who murdered her poor innocent brother daeron”

maybe because once elaena grew up she realized that there were better ways of bringing dorne into the realm than violent conquest, and that daeron got the death he deserved from not just a nobility that is valid for fearing subjugation from valyria but also a smallfolk sick and tired of these people showing up every few decades to set their principality on fire, and put aside any anti dornish sentiments she may or may not have harbored as a child to see the way her family had directly attributed to their suffering, eventually even falling in love with and marrying a dornish man??

also, considering daeron ii attempts a type of proto-reparations act in bringing dorne into the kingdom, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone as intelligent as elaena would recognize the inherent racism in the targaryen conquest of dorne and especially considering the very loud anti-dornish, deeply anti intellectual faction in the blackfyre rebellions, realized they wouldn’t be kind or understanding of an intelligent woman like herself and had no interest in herself or her daughters (of which she had four!!) getting shoved back into the maidenvault again?

like, daeron i is on some andrew jackson manifest destiny shit, and if it makes me an asshole for thinking “god i wish someone had merked jackson before he genocided & displaced my ancestors, good on the dornish for realizing you can’t negotiate with imperialists” than i am perfectly comfortable being considered an asshole right next to my girl elaena.

[2o2o-kit]

Alexander the Great Pride Flags

And here they are in Icon form

[pipaipie]

Charles II with his counselor, Alexander the great with his military advisor

[qqueenofhades]

Comedic The Old Guard prompt wherein Andy spent a big chunk of time on Crete during the Middle Minoan period, but never bothered with learning the written language, and Nile’s reaction of rage and despair upon realizing that the key to deciphering Linear A was too busy leaping over bulls or some such to learn to read.

Nile doesn't recall exactly how the subject comes up. It's an evening at their new safe house in Tallinn, Estonia, which is the cleanest, most internet-connected, and quite possibly the tallest country that she, an-only recently-immortal from a solidly ordinary upbringing in Chicago, has ever been to. (Nicky says that if she thinks the Balts are tall, she should just wait until she meets the Dutch and the Croats.) She and Andy are sitting on the couch and talking about not much in particular. Nicky's cooking dinner, and Joe is sketching absently, watching the World Cup qualifiers on television with half an eye. They've rearranged themselves around Booker's absence awkwardly, like a missing tooth, and Andy hates anyone fussing over her for the whole losing-her-immortality thing, so Nile tries not to. But the sheer fascination of being able to talk to someone who's six thousand goddamn years old cannot be denied, and she keeps asking eager questions about who Andy's met and what she's learned -- but most of the answers, it must be admitted, are a bit of a letdown. Or possibly more than that.

"Come on," Nile says. "Was Alexander the Great really that bad?"

"Horrible." Andy reaches for the vodka shot on the coffee table and knocks it back without a flinch. "Spoiled little mama's boy who just had to get his hands all over everything. Or his dick." She snorts, as if the great Macedonian warlord and conqueror of much of the ancient world only died yesterday and is still managing to disappoint her. "No, I am not speaking from personal experience here. He was much more into Hephaestion, anyway."

"Okay." Nile racks her brains for any more of the (admittedly scanty) historical knowledge that an American public-school education has left her with. "What about the Greek-Persian wars? You're from Scythia, which is mostly Iran now, right? Did you meet, like, Xerxes?"

"Also a dick." Andy knocks back a second vodka shot without turning a hair. "But that's just what I heard. I don't remember what I was doing during all that bullshit, but it definitely wasn't hanging out with them."

Nile bites her tongue on asking what Andy was doing, since forgetting some of a six-millennium life must be a blessing. A human brain was never designed to process that many experiences and that much loss and pain, and Andy's been more on edge ever since the whole clusterfuck with Merrick. She's trying to think of a way to change the subject when Nicky calls from the kitchen, "Ask her about Linear A."

"Linear A?" Nile blinks. "What's that?"

"Counterpart to Linear B," Joe says, not looking up from his sketching. "And Nicolò, that is rather cruel of you, don't you think?"

"Uh." Nile looks at Andy, trying not to gulp. "What is Linear A, and why should I ask and/or not ask you about it?"

"I'm gonna kill you," Andy yells at Nicky (not at all an idle threat where a bunch of self-regenerating immortals are involved, and Nicky simply tips a cheeky shrug at her and resumes stirring his sauce). To Nile she says, "Ugh. Fine. It's one of the only remaining ancient languages that can't be translated at all. From the island of Crete, during the Minoan period. They eventually learned how to translate its counterpart, Linear B, but nobody knows how to read A."

"Okay?"

"And yes," Andy says, scowling at Nicky's back again, "I was in Crete during the time period in question."

"So.... so do you?" Nile leans forward, fascinated. "Even if you never told the archaeologists?"

"No. No, I don't know how to read the fucking stuff either." Andy sighs, glares at the vodka bottle, debates pouring a third shot, and puts her boots up on the table instead. "There were a lot of hot women and archery competitions and bull-fights to do instead. Sorry."

"That..." Nile splutters. "Come on! What? Really?! Just think what people would give to have that information! Like, not even a little?!"

"See," Nicky shouts. "Told you that everyone has that reaction."

"Get fucked, Nicky." Andy says it without rancor, even as Joe is glaring at her (mostly good-naturedly, but not entirely) for daring to insult his beloved. "Now get back to working on dinner. I'm hungry."

Nicky looks as if she is presuming quite a bit to think that she will be getting any of his dinner, at this rate. But he contents himself with raising both eyebrows, flashing Nile a conspiratorial smile, and turning back to the spice rack. Nile can't help herself, she grins back, and even if it's still strange and new, tonight truly does feel like family.

[wubwubnparmaham]

Would be really something if Harry had met one of the originals before he became Hephaestion. Imagine him seeing them and like "oh I met you in my past life. You still owe me six sheep."

SIX SHEEP. You have spoken it and so mote it be. I will add this into my collection of lighthearted one-shots to publish at a later time.

[mogfist]

mlem mlem

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr. Reames, sorry to disturb you. I remember somewhere you mentioned how many times ATG was associated with each gods and heroes in the ancient sources ?But I can't find the blog now. If my memory is correct and you still have such records, could you please send me a link to it? Thank you so much!

Besides, when I read curtius 'Beside her sat one of her granddaughters, mourning for the recent loss of Hephaestion, whom she had married, and in the general sorrow was renewing her own reasons for grief. But Sisigambis alone felt the misfortune that had befallen all her family.....', I wonder if there is anything reliable in this account, does it try to imply that Hephaestion might have been nice to this girl?

Answering the second question first, he probably was nice enough to her. She was a royal princess, and her grandmother was fond of Alexander. And he himself seems to have been in favor of Alexander’s policy of integrating Persians, so he wouldn’t have been predisposed to treat her badly. And she’d have been inclined to make him happy, as her life more or less depending on it. Which brings me to the rest of the story.

The details are likely an exercise in ancient Roman “creative non-fiction.” Curtius does that a lot, embellishing on the historical record, which itself was embellished. So we shouldn’t give a lot of attention to the details, but Curtius was almost certainly correct in the general sorrow-fear these women felt when Alexander died. He’d been their protector. Without him, they’d have no idea about their futures. What Curtius gives to Sisygambus was almost certainly the alarm of every woman in Alexander’s harem: what will become of us now? That would probably generate a lot of tears, and also, perhaps, some cut-throat plans—as we see with Roxana.

The harem was, itself, a political hothouse, especially for those closest to the top. For the novels, I’ve given some thought to how I’ll be portraying the women/girls in the novels, just as I did to the sisters and wives in the women’s rooms in Macedonia.

Returning to your first question, I can find a bunch on Achilles in blogs [asks + Achilles] but none with exact numbers. BUT I do have the original article itself, of course, so below is my footnote that lays it all out:

Footnote 14 from “Philip’s and Alexander’s Use of Religious Cult in Our Extant Sources”:

In Plutarch, Herakles is referenced only twice in relation to Alexander, Achilles three times and Dionysos three. Justin, although shorter, references Herakles four times, Achilles two, and Dionysos only once. Diodoros mentions Herakles six times, Achilles three, and Dionysos two. Predictably, Curtius and Arrian have more. Curtius references Herakles nine times, Achilles once, and Dionysos seven, but Curtius is missing the first two chapters, which would have included the Troy visit, and has a large lacuna including the death of Hephaistion, both of which would likely have involved references to Achilles, and probably more of Herakles as well. Arrian shows the same disproportion: Herakles has twelve mentions, Achilles four, and Dionysos seven.

No, I’m not sure yet when this Companion is coming out, but probably in 2024. Edward Anson is the editor, and the title will be Brill's Companion to the Campaigns of Philip II and Alexander the Great.

[rosyfingered-moon]

Six Flying Dragons episodes 43-45

Sambong’s thoughts and my thoughts are the same. Think of Sambong’s orders as my own. Ngl Taejo this is some Alexander and Hephaestion level romance! But it’s really tragic how Sambong has become the kind of checkless power he sought to eradicate. At least he looks pretty in his new uniform.

Bang-won’s fake act of seokgodaejwe LMAO. He even squeezed out one perfect tear before giving Sambong the cuntiest little smirk I have ever seen. Also Ha Ryun’s facial expression when they’re reading the envoy decree is the funniest scene in this show so far, he’s basically purring in the middle of the state assembly

The way Yeon-hee keeps lighting up like a lantern in the beginning of ep 45 🥺 please I just want my sneaky spy girl to be happy

Rip Eun-ho, rip Young-gyu, and rip Cheok Sa-gwang’s neutrality I guess. Bang-won’s voice breaking when he says hyung? hyung? did not leave me unaffected.

Aaaand here we are, our murder prince coming full circle. Haha so I suppose my faves are all gonna die now :) I am feeling unwell

[alisoncooper]

where is the bill-style six idiots movie about alexander the great with ben as alex and larry as hephaestion???? WHERE IS IT????

[raayllum]

What's your opinion on (what I assume is) the OG MLM ship, patrochilles (Patrochlus / Achilles)?

i’ve loved greek mythology ever since i was six years old (hence why i got into pjo in the first place) so i’ve always had a soft spot for them. that was true even before i read “the song of achilles” by madeline miller 4ish years ago and it utterly wrecked me. so i really love them and there’s something about them - the slight battle couple edge, maybe, and devotions and battlefield stuff - that makes me think of janaya (although they both survive, of course). 

maybe it’s the similarities fictional patrochilles has to real life alexander (the great) and his lover, hephaestion, who are also some of my faves. 

but yeah this is my patrochilles tag on my main blog, enjoy!!