miss-i-know-it-all

[miss-i-know-it-all]

Hera, more than the angry wife : the incredibly strong yet cruel goddess

Woooo, I'm back ! (And with one of my favorites subjects :))

When you hear Hera, what do you think about ? I bet it's the queen of the gods (true), the very angry and jealous goddess (partially true) and a very mean person (we can't say if it's true or not).

Now, can you think of a good aspect of Hera ?

It's harder, right ? Don't worry, it's normal. Modern medias don't like her.

Hera is one of my favorites subjects because she's incredibly complexe.

First of all, Hera is a daughter of Chronos and Rhea, so the sister of Zeus. But she's also his wife. Yes, it's normal. But she's also and most importantly the goddess of the sky, queen of all the gods, and the goddess of mariage and fidelity. Her symbols are mainly the peacock, her crown and her scepter.

Yet, she's married to one of the most cheating gods of all the Greek pantheon, and she's known to be a very jealous goddess who punishes her husband's lovers.

Now, I'm not gonna deny this part. It's a fact, Hera is not nice with Zeus's lovers. She's even cruel. And surprisingly enough (not really actually) that's the part modern adaptations prefers. Ofc, dramas are more likely to please the audience than... giving a woman in power depth and respecting what she represent while understanding her character ?

Really, what a crazy idea.

Because yes, she has depth. (OMG 😱)

We all agree she likes to punish Zeus's lovers, who for certain weren't even aware they flirted with Zeus, but she rarely tries something against her husband directly. But why ? I mean, he's the one who cheated ! Not really feminist for a goddess of women, Hera 😠

But she did. Hera actually tried to overthrow Zeus. Once. She was helped by some other gods (like Poseidon and Apollo), but she failed. Do you know what was her sentence ? She was imprisoned on a cloud with unbreakable chains and nobody was allowed to help her. Not very nice.

Zeus is the king of all the gods, and it's not for nothing. Hera herself cannot beat him, he's the strongest. So of course, she cannot try to punish him directly for his affairs.

So she punishes the others. The women he had fun with, their kids, and everybody who helped him (like Echo). Because she has no other solution.

But then : why is she so cruel ? Why can't she leave Zeus ? Why can't she even cheat on him at least once ?

Because she's the goddess of marriage and fidelity. While Hestia cannot be violent because it's the complete opposite of what she stand for, Hera cannot leave her husband, nor cheat on him, it's the perfect opposite of what she represents. It's like if a jellyfish tried to fly in the sky.

Yet, as the goddess of fidelity and queen of the gods and the sky, she cannot let those loves unpunished (same idea as when Poseidon says "I've got a reputation/I've got a name to uphold" in "Get in the Water" in Epic the musical). So she's very, very cruel (she def has anger issues and no healthy way to cope)

But let me tell you a secret : she can also be nice !

Surprisingly enough, we tend to forget that's she's not just a punisher but also sometimes a protector because of misogyny.

The perfect example is during the Trojan war. She was siding with the Acheans (the Greeks, like Odysseus and Achilles), but she saw their troops being completely annihilated on the battlefield like Italia against France during the Six Nations Tournament. And she knew Zeus had orchestrated everything, because as the king of all the gods, everything including the war itself was his plan.

She didn't want to see her team being obliterated, so she decided to distract Zeus so that he would not influence the battle. And we all know what Zeus prefers. So she made herself the most attractive possible and went to see Zeus. While they were occupied, the Acheans started to win the battle.

There's certainly other examples I'm forgetting right now, so if you remember them, don't hesitate to share.

So, the point is : modern adaptations tend to throw away the "better side" of Hera for the sake of making her the purely evil step-mother/jealous legitimate wife. And while this is not wrong, it's not considering the entirety of the symbolism of Hera.

She was the goddess of marriage. She protected the legitimate wives all around Greece and even more. She was a queen. Yet, some scientists reduced her to "Zeus's Hera" the angry wife, and unfortunately, it became the "only truth" in modern adaptations and media, giving us a biased and simple representation of Hera.

That's all for now, have a great day or night !

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

a quick psa to anyone recently getting into greek mythology and is a victim of tumblr and/or tiktok misconceptions:

-there is no shame in being introduced to mytholgy from something like percy jackson, epic the musical or anything like that, but keep in mind that actual myths are going to be VERY different from modern retellings

-the myth of medusa you probably know (her being a victim of poseidon and being cursed by athena) isn't 100% accurate to GREEK mythology (look up ovid)

-there is no version of persephone's abduction in which persephone willingly stays with hades, that's a tumblr invention (look up homeric hymn to demeter)

-as much as i would like it, no, cerberus' name does not mean "spot" (probably a misunderstanding from this wikipedia article)

-zeus isn't the only god who does terrible things to women, your fav male god probably has done the same

-on that note, your fav greek hero has probably done some heinous shit as well

-gods are more complicated than simply being "god of [insert thing]", many titles overlap between gods and some may even change depending on where they were worshipped

-also, apollo and artemis being the gods of the sun and the moon isn't 100% accurate, their main aspects as deities originally were music and the hunt

-titans and gods aren't two wholly different concepts, titan is just the word used to decribe the generation of gods before the olympians

-hector isn't the villain some people make him out to be

-hephaestus WAS married to aphrodite. they divorced. yes, divorce was a thing in ancient greece. hephaestus' wife is aglaia

-ancient greek society didn't have the same concepts of sexuality that we have now, it's incorrect to describe virgin goddesses like artemis and athena as lesbians, BUT it's also not wholly accurate to describe them as aromantic/asexual, it's more complex than that

-you can never fully understand certain myths if you don't understand the societal context in which they were told

-myths have lots and lots of retellings, there isn't one singular "canon", but we can try to distinguish between older and newer versions and bewteen greek and roman versions

-most of what you know about sparta is probably incorrect

-reading/waching retellings is not a substitute to reading the original myths, read the iliad! read the odyssey! i know they may seem intimidating, but they're much more entertaining than you may think

greek mythology is so complex and interesting, don't go into it with preconcieved notions! try to be open to learn!

[miss-i-know-it-all]

The truth behind Medusa's story and why we should check our sources

I wasn't supposed to make this post that early, but I cannot stand it anymore.

As much as we all know Medusa's story, raped by Poseidon and then transformed by Athena, and we love to make Medusa a feminist icon, I'm afraid I have to say stop.

Just a minute. Read this and think a second.

It's not a wrong statement, but it's not the greek myth.

Now if you still want to keep Medusa the icon, okay. She was murdered without any reason, which is awful, and I understand what she became today. I just want to make sure people know the truth behind the myth.

Basically, the myth we know today is this one :

Medusa was just a normal girl, but very beautiful, so Poseidon decided he wanted her. So he raped her in one of Athena's temple. Furious, the goddess chose to punish Medusa and transformed her in a monster with hair made of snakes and the power to petrify everyone she looks at in the eyes.

(Also she has two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, who are very ugly, monstrous and more important, immortal.)

This is a fanfiction. It's the version written by Ovide, so a roman author from the 1st century before Common Era (is that how you say it in English ?), so wayyyy after the original myth was established, and even after a lot of versions of the myth.

So was can say it's a fanfiction. Does it makes it less valid ? I don't know.

But there's an older version, commonly considered as "more right" because it was the version a lot of authors used before Ovide. We give credit to Apollodore (idk how he's called in English) for this version :

Basically, Medusa was beautiful, especially her hair. She even said she had more beautiful hair than Athena. And we all know how it went. Apparently, Arachne's story wasn't enough (they would have been besties tbh), so Athena transformed her in the monster we know today.

This version is less feminist, she's just a proud girl who compared herself to the wrong goddess (still unfair tho), so I understand why we chose to ignore this version when we talk about a feminist icon.

BUT WAIT.

THERE'S MORE.

Because before Apollodore and Ovide, THERE WAS ANOTHER VERSION.

This is the oldest version of the myth we have found. It simply says that Medusa was born a gorgon, like her sisters.

She has the face of a wild boar, fangs, a hanging tongue and of course the snakes. Her sisters are not better. The only difference is that Medusa is mortal. She was living her life, doing what she wants, and suddenly, Perseus decided it's the moment to become the heroes (hot take : I understand, I would want to save my mother from a freak too. Doesn't justify killing an innocent but he didn't have much options and she certainly had killed people before, Ig he's not entirely to blame ?)

As you can see, there's not much reason for her to be killed, only a slight difference with her sisters and basically... existing.

Now I don't care wich version you find the more valid (I prefer the oldest one), but in every case, it doesn't takes back her symbolism today. In every case, what happened to her was unfair. She was or transformed because she was raped on the wrong place or spoke up too loud, or just born as she was, and every time she was killed for nothing.

In every case, she was a victim.

(Buuuuut... she killed people and terrorized the area, so she wasn't entirely innocent)

The point is, before affirming something, she should check our sources. I took Medusa because it kills me to see her reduced to one thing when there's more interesting and I needed to yap about it, but in every case, it doesn't fundamentally changes our way to see her, which is not the case for every myth. So, check your sources ig ?

Anyways, good day, or night ?

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

The nuances about Zeus : why saying he's the worst husband of all eternity is actually wrong and can be explained by the context of the mythes, something we don't think about anymore

Okay. I feel like I'm going to create myself a lot of ops because it's a very controversial take, but you have to listen to me on this :

Can we stop making Zeus the "bad husband serial cheater bad bad guy" please ?

We all know the Zeus who cannot keep it in his pant. However, reducing him to only that is not understanding the myth.

We're going to explore different axes for this development :

The reasons behind those multiple infidelities

The real potential of Zeus, beyond the classic "bad husband"

His modern representations, ultimate symbole of our tendency to manipulate the myths for our own pleasure

1- The reasons behind those multiple infidelities

Because yes, there's reasons.

As you certainly know, Zeus is not a faithful husband. He has a lot of lovers (women AND men) and more illegitimate child than legitimate (around 4, depending on the myths). The question is : why ? Why the husband of the goddess or marriage and fidelity seems to think it's his personal job to maintain life on Earth ?

There are two major reasons : the contextual and the cultural.

Yes, if we lack the context in which such myths has been established, it is easy to see him as a serial cheater, and I did for a very long time, until I took the time to check the sources.

We tend to think of the Greek mythology as one big ensemble of myths that somehow work with each other. Unfortunately, if it was that easy, we wouldn't have as much different versions of the same myths.

So, a very very veeeeery long time ago, even compared to the late Antiquity, there was not one Greek pantheon, but multiple for different regions, that today arrived to us under the form of one. In all those pantheons, there was a king-like figure we assimilated to Zeus. But all those figures had their own wife and children, that we didn't assimilated to Hera and Zeus's legitimate kids. They became Zeus's lovers.

Now, there's also a cultural reason that explains THAT MUCH lovers and, most important, kids/descendants (because there's a hell lot of them).

I don't know if you're taught that at school, but, in France at least, when whe had a monarchy, it was called a monarchy of divine right (monarchie de droit divin), which means the kings justified their title by the fact they were "God's voice on Earth", or "chosen by God", things like that. It has been done multiple times in history, with the pharaohs and Trump (because religion was the safest argument since they didn't have any logical argument for their position except "haha I was born lucky and not you 😝").

Well. Greeks did the same thing.

To justify their place on a throne, kings could say "Wait, hold on guys, I'm actually a descendant of Zeus, y'know the king of the gods and the gods of kings", which explains why there's so much descendants of Zeus. We can definitely imagine some of our favorite heroes use this argument ! Alexander the Great did it !

Thus Zeus became the father of a lot of people. (Just for the fun, I would be curious to see an adaptation were almost all the gods who pretend to be Zeus's kids (except Athena bc she's his daughter from a precedent marriage, and maybe Dionysus since Zeus was heavily involved in his birth) are actually maybe not and Zeus hates it because then he has to justify to Hera except he maybe didn't do it...)

2- The real potential of Zeus, beyond the classic "bad husband"

This one is tricky because Zeus is a bad husband and a bad father, we can't deny it. He literally yeeted youn Hephaestus of the Mount Olympus because the kid said his mother (Hera) was right in an argument against Zeus, and he has a favourite daughter and a less favorite son.

This man will not get the "best dad" cup for Christmas.

Plus, he definitely kidnapped and raped a lot of people, men and women, some of them underage. Freud would have loved study him.

And he was certainly pedophile.

BUT THERE'S SO MUCH MORE !!!!

We can show more ! Because Zeus is also a protector ! He's the protector of kings and travelers, he often takes the appearance of a random dude just to explore Greece and to see if people are nice even with strangers, or if he has to enclenche a new deluge !

Once, he was with Hermes, and they were received by king Lycaon of Arcadia (the father of Callisto, if you know). But this man had no respect for the gods and the rules of hospitality. So when, to test him, Zeus said "Hey by the way I'm Zeus in disguise", Lycaon was like "bet" and served him human flesh for diner, sure he wasn't a god because only a god could know it's human flesh. But it was really Zeus, and so, mad that a stupid human was being stupid, transformed Lycaon into a wolf (and according to some versions, he transformed all his sons too, and there was a lot of them).

Another time, he was received by a couple of old people. Despite being very poor, they did their best to receive him decently. At the end of his stay, Zeus said he was, un fact, Zeus, and told them "You guys were so nice I'mma save you from the deluge I'm planing and then I'll grant you a wish". The old could said "We want to be together for ever", and so, when they died, they became two intertwined trees. Their names were Philemon and Baucis (couple goal tbh).

Plus, one of Zeus's fonctions was bringing justice and keeping balance into the world.

And there's so much more things to say !

The point is. I do not support the way he treated his "lovers", his wife and his kids. BUT this is just a microscopic part of his character ! And I promise you, all his attributions of king of the gods and, we must say, not a bad king, can perfectly coexist with his bullshit (and if you're not a coward you'll see it can makes a perfect complexity in his character, which would be a 100 times more interesting to explore than his basic representations nowadays).

3. His modern representations, ultimate symbole of our tendency to manipulate the myths for our own pleasure

Now, what does all this analysis says about us ?

We see we originally have a complex god with an infinity of topics to explore. And we see today none of them has been exploited (if it has been done, please tell me).

He has always been reduced to the proud big boss who likes to seduce women and even rape them if necessary (notice his masculine conquests has been erased from media).

But why ?

It's not a rhetorical question. Tell me why you take away what would make him an interesting character ? Because you didn't know he was that nuanced ? To uplift other gods ? EXPLAIN THIS TO ME PLEASE !

Anyways have a good day or night !

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

Ty ! Honestly I learned things with your post too (I didn't know for Shakespeare for example) ! And if you have other takes or thoughts about my posts or just about mythology in general (I know a lot of stuff about Nordic myths, I hope I'll have the possibility to talk about it when I'll be finished with my list of complaints on Greek mythology, and I know some stuff about Aztecs and some other myths), you're more than welcome, I would love to discuss it and to have other people's opinions, I know I can be very strict about my interests sometimes...

Achilles is actually a disgusting asshole and reducing him to a supposed love story with Patroclus is complete and bullshit

I feel like this is not going to please a lot of people.

I think the majority of us have nowadays heard of the "tragic love story" between Achilles, the heroes, the golden child, the whatever Mr. Perfect you want, and Patroclus, the normal guy who sacrificed his life for his soulmate (this usually comes with some kind of diabolisation of Briseis).

We all say thank you to Madeline Miller for this bullshit.

Yes, there was something going on between Patroclus and Achilles. But no, it doesn't necessarily means they were lovers, it is only one of the multiple versions that coexisted during the Antiquity. Sometimes they were cousins, or friends, or yes lovers, but no always.

The problem we have as a society is that somebody dared to say something and under the pretext of her writing well (and I read the Song of Achilles, her writing, or at least the french translation, is pretty good), it has become the one and only truth !

But there's worst : because he has a tragic gay love story, we forget everything that makes Achilles Achilles beyond his relationship with Patroclus.

So for those who don't know a lot about the character, Achilles is one of the most famous heroes of the Antiquity.

He's the son of Thetis, a very powerful Nereid (marine nymph). Zeus and Poseidon both fancied Thetis, until a prophecy said her son would be far more powerful than his father. Suddenly, they decided they were fine. But they also wanted to control the power of this future son, so they decided to marry Thetis to a mortal, and they chose Peleus, a pious and honorable king, but far from the level of the gods. Needles to say, Thetis wasn't involved in that decision.

The myth says that Peleus, to have Thetis, had to be... very close to her, we will say. He met her on a beach, but every time he tried to approach her, she metamorphosed into a different animal. So he waited until she got too tired to resist, and he tied her up. I'll let you guess what happened next.

Then, they got married (it's the wedding in which Éris dropped the golden apple that caused the Trojan war, by the way).

After, Achilles was born, and Thetis though it would be cool to have an invincible son, so in most myths (sometimes she proceeds differently), she dropped him in the Styx, holding him only by the heel, which became his only weakness. Then, she sends him to Chiron to learn how to be a heroes.

But there was the Trojan war and Achilles wanted to go, because he was literally the best warrior in the world. Thetis prophetized that if he went to the war, he would have a very famous but short life, but if he stayed, he would have a peaceful and calm long live. He wanted fame so he chose the first option. But Thetis didn't want her baby boy to die, so she sent him, disguised as a girl named Pyrrha, which means something like red-hair (because Achilles was not blond but a red-head), into another king's city, Lycomedes.

Now this is where things are getting complicated because this is now we will oppose your beliefs to the myth.

In this city, there was a princess, Deidamia.

Now I know in some modern adaptations, it is said Deidamia forced Achilles, or just they were both consenting. And it is true the second version is one of the original versions. But not the first one. In the original myth, it's Achilles who rapes Deidamia, not the opposite, if they are not both consenting. In some versions, this episode doesn't even happen !

Anyways, this leads to the conception of Neoptolemus, sometimes named Pyrrhus because he inherited his father's hair, and they both went to the Trojan war.

But what we can remember is that nowadays, when I talk to people about Achilles, they seem to forget, intentionally or not, that Achilles raped Deidamia in most myths. Modern adaptations seems to not like this version of the story, to the point some of them even make Deidamia the bad guy. And we know why. I'm gonna say it.

It's fore the sake of the tragic gay love story™.

If we're being real, we have to face the truth that because one (1) modern adaptation made of Achilles and Patroclus' relation a queer tragedy (while the story was actually weird and not that great at all, I felt like reading the lamentations of a cringe teenager. He was like "I'm such an ugly guy... I'm awful... And this guy is perfect... 🥺" It wasn't event healthy. But because it was convenient to some people, it has become the norm today.

And we're not going to talk about Briseis ! Because she clearly wasn't consenting to become Achilles's slave ! If he didn't want to give her to Agamemnon, it's not because he knew this man was an asshole (it is true though) but because he liked having a slave ! Face it, Achilles is not the tragic boy you picture him being, he's a butthole.

And I say it while being part of the LGBTQ+ community. But we have to stop lying to ourselves and face the fact that some heroes are not to be reduced to a single trait of personality, and it's not worth making an innocent woman the bad guy.

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

I agree with your general idea, the problem is that it works in theory, but not in practice.

If Madeline Miller's Achilles is supposed to represent grief, maybe. The problem is that it comes with 1) a very problematic story and 2) the fan base took control over the way the characters are represented in a not very cool way because the story became very binary. We have the "sad gay boys 🥺" and their story is so so sad and unfair. Even if it wasn't the intention of Madeline Miller, it's the reality, or at least that's what I can see from talking with people about those subjects (and knowing me, the subject always comes to the table on day or an other). Of course there are exceptions (or at least I hope), but the majority of the "fandom" is like that.

Now for Shakespeare, I didn't read it because traduced works of Shakespeare are awful and I don't have the courage yet to read it in English. But even for him, the idea of Greek myths for what they represented in the Antiquity was even more difficult to conceive and understand than for us. In a way, he's in the same case than us.

And yes Greek mythology characters are symboles, but they're also "actually" something. Hestia cannot become a violent goddess even for the sake of protecting her home. Gods and heroes are not constant, it's clearly pointed multiple times in many myths. They can become different symbols. The problem is that there's something that makes them "mythical", their profound nature, and nowadays, it's that people tend to ignore for the sake of their fantaisies.

Now if we take the case of Achilles, the really important thing about him was not his relationship with Patroclus, but the fact that he was the best of all heroes. Today, we think it makes him the perfect, tragic guy, given his story. But in reality, Achilles was very flawed with pride, the hubris, he was very proud and full of himself (and had wrong anger issues) and that's what ultimately led to his death. This is what we should remember about him (and it's a golden mine for content creators tbh)

The other thing that bother me is that people modify the myths to satisfy their fantaisies, which ends up taking away the message of the myths. It's very hard to illustrate this with Achilles given he's part of a immensely bigger myth that probably roots in a real event, but of you look at less realistic myth and their modern readaptation, it's more evident to see. This is what bothers me the most, because we forget too easily that it's a real culture and not just some fiction. If we want to manipulate Greek mythology, we have to do it very carefully, because not only we will have to satisfy our own desires and those of our audience, but we must be careful to respect what people from the Antiquity were trying to tell us, make an effort to try to understand them, and be careful to take in consideration people it really concerne to not spread misinformation.

It's not just a normal fandom, it's a real culture, and we have to take it into consideration.

Now I clearly agree with your post, I just think it would need a little more nuance, and sorry if my English seems broken or if my posts seems offensive (I wrote the original post on Achilles with rage and sleep deprivation), it's not my intention to offense people !

Have a nice day, or night !

Achilles is actually a disgusting asshole and reducing him to a supposed love story with Patroclus is complete and bullshit

I feel like this is not going to please a lot of people.

I think the majority of us have nowadays heard of the "tragic love story" between Achilles, the heroes, the golden child, the whatever Mr. Perfect you want, and Patroclus, the normal guy who sacrificed his life for his soulmate (this usually comes with some kind of diabolisation of Briseis).

We all say thank you to Madeline Miller for this bullshit.

Yes, there was something going on between Patroclus and Achilles. But no, it doesn't necessarily means they were lovers, it is only one of the multiple versions that coexisted during the Antiquity. Sometimes they were cousins, or friends, or yes lovers, but no always.

The problem we have as a society is that somebody dared to say something and under the pretext of her writing well (and I read the Song of Achilles, her writing, or at least the french translation, is pretty good), it has become the one and only truth !

But there's worst : because he has a tragic gay love story, we forget everything that makes Achilles Achilles beyond his relationship with Patroclus.

So for those who don't know a lot about the character, Achilles is one of the most famous heroes of the Antiquity.

He's the son of Thetis, a very powerful Nereid (marine nymph). Zeus and Poseidon both fancied Thetis, until a prophecy said her son would be far more powerful than his father. Suddenly, they decided they were fine. But they also wanted to control the power of this future son, so they decided to marry Thetis to a mortal, and they chose Peleus, a pious and honorable king, but far from the level of the gods. Needles to say, Thetis wasn't involved in that decision.

The myth says that Peleus, to have Thetis, had to be... very close to her, we will say. He met her on a beach, but every time he tried to approach her, she metamorphosed into a different animal. So he waited until she got too tired to resist, and he tied her up. I'll let you guess what happened next.

Then, they got married (it's the wedding in which Éris dropped the golden apple that caused the Trojan war, by the way).

After, Achilles was born, and Thetis though it would be cool to have an invincible son, so in most myths (sometimes she proceeds differently), she dropped him in the Styx, holding him only by the heel, which became his only weakness. Then, she sends him to Chiron to learn how to be a heroes.

But there was the Trojan war and Achilles wanted to go, because he was literally the best warrior in the world. Thetis prophetized that if he went to the war, he would have a very famous but short life, but if he stayed, he would have a peaceful and calm long live. He wanted fame so he chose the first option. But Thetis didn't want her baby boy to die, so she sent him, disguised as a girl named Pyrrha, which means something like red-hair (because Achilles was not blond but a red-head), into another king's city, Lycomedes.

Now this is where things are getting complicated because this is now we will oppose your beliefs to the myth.

In this city, there was a princess, Deidamia.

Now I know in some modern adaptations, it is said Deidamia forced Achilles, or just they were both consenting. And it is true the second version is one of the original versions. But not the first one. In the original myth, it's Achilles who rapes Deidamia, not the opposite, if they are not both consenting. In some versions, this episode doesn't even happen !

Anyways, this leads to the conception of Neoptolemus, sometimes named Pyrrhus because he inherited his father's hair, and they both went to the Trojan war.

But what we can remember is that nowadays, when I talk to people about Achilles, they seem to forget, intentionally or not, that Achilles raped Deidamia in most myths. Modern adaptations seems to not like this version of the story, to the point some of them even make Deidamia the bad guy. And we know why. I'm gonna say it.

It's fore the sake of the tragic gay love story™.

If we're being real, we have to face the truth that because one (1) modern adaptation made of Achilles and Patroclus' relation a queer tragedy (while the story was actually weird and not that great at all, I felt like reading the lamentations of a cringe teenager. He was like "I'm such an ugly guy... I'm awful... And this guy is perfect... 🥺" It wasn't event healthy. But because it was convenient to some people, it has become the norm today.

And we're not going to talk about Briseis ! Because she clearly wasn't consenting to become Achilles's slave ! If he didn't want to give her to Agamemnon, it's not because he knew this man was an asshole (it is true though) but because he liked having a slave ! Face it, Achilles is not the tragic boy you picture him being, he's a butthole.

And I say it while being part of the LGBTQ+ community. But we have to stop lying to ourselves and face the fact that some heroes are not to be reduced to a single trait of personality, and it's not worth making an innocent woman the bad guy.

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

Achilles is actually a disgusting asshole and reducing him to a supposed love story with Patroclus is complete and bullshit

I feel like this is not going to please a lot of people.

I think the majority of us have nowadays heard of the "tragic love story" between Achilles, the heroes, the golden child, the whatever Mr. Perfect you want, and Patroclus, the normal guy who sacrificed his life for his soulmate (this usually comes with some kind of diabolisation of Briseis).

We all say thank you to Madeline Miller for this bullshit.

Yes, there was something going on between Patroclus and Achilles. But no, it doesn't necessarily means they were lovers, it is only one of the multiple versions that coexisted during the Antiquity. Sometimes they were cousins, or friends, or yes lovers, but no always.

The problem we have as a society is that somebody dared to say something and under the pretext of her writing well (and I read the Song of Achilles, her writing, or at least the french translation, is pretty good), it has become the one and only truth !

But there's worst : because he has a tragic gay love story, we forget everything that makes Achilles Achilles beyond his relationship with Patroclus.

So for those who don't know a lot about the character, Achilles is one of the most famous heroes of the Antiquity.

He's the son of Thetis, a very powerful Nereid (marine nymph). Zeus and Poseidon both fancied Thetis, until a prophecy said her son would be far more powerful than his father. Suddenly, they decided they were fine. But they also wanted to control the power of this future son, so they decided to marry Thetis to a mortal, and they chose Peleus, a pious and honorable king, but far from the level of the gods. Needles to say, Thetis wasn't involved in that decision.

The myth says that Peleus, to have Thetis, had to be... very close to her, we will say. He met her on a beach, but every time he tried to approach her, she metamorphosed into a different animal. So he waited until she got too tired to resist, and he tied her up. I'll let you guess what happened next.

Then, they got married (it's the wedding in which Éris dropped the golden apple that caused the Trojan war, by the way).

After, Achilles was born, and Thetis though it would be cool to have an invincible son, so in most myths (sometimes she proceeds differently), she dropped him in the Styx, holding him only by the heel, which became his only weakness. Then, she sends him to Chiron to learn how to be a heroes.

But there was the Trojan war and Achilles wanted to go, because he was literally the best warrior in the world. Thetis prophetized that if he went to the war, he would have a very famous but short life, but if he stayed, he would have a peaceful and calm long live. He wanted fame so he chose the first option. But Thetis didn't want her baby boy to die, so she sent him, disguised as a girl named Pyrrha, which means something like red-hair (because Achilles was not blond but a red-head), into another king's city, Lycomedes.

Now this is where things are getting complicated because this is now we will oppose your beliefs to the myth.

In this city, there was a princess, Deidamia.

Now I know in some modern adaptations, it is said Deidamia forced Achilles, or just they were both consenting. And it is true the second version is one of the original versions. But not the first one. In the original myth, it's Achilles who rapes Deidamia, not the opposite, if they are not both consenting. In some versions, this episode doesn't even happen !

Anyways, this leads to the conception of Neoptolemus, sometimes named Pyrrhus because he inherited his father's hair, and they both went to the Trojan war.

But what we can remember is that nowadays, when I talk to people about Achilles, they seem to forget, intentionally or not, that Achilles raped Deidamia in most myths. Modern adaptations seems to not like this version of the story, to the point some of them even make Deidamia the bad guy. And we know why. I'm gonna say it.

It's fore the sake of the tragic gay love story™.

If we're being real, we have to face the truth that because one (1) modern adaptation made of Achilles and Patroclus' relation a queer tragedy (while the story was actually weird and not that great at all, I felt like reading the lamentations of a cringe teenager. He was like "I'm such an ugly guy... I'm awful... And this guy is perfect... 🥺" It wasn't event healthy. But because it was convenient to some people, it has become the norm today.

And we're not going to talk about Briseis ! Because she clearly wasn't consenting to become Achilles's slave ! If he didn't want to give her to Agamemnon, it's not because he knew this man was an asshole (it is true though) but because he liked having a slave ! Face it, Achilles is not the tragic boy you picture him being, he's a butthole.

And I say it while being part of the LGBTQ+ community. But we have to stop lying to ourselves and face the fact that some heroes are not to be reduced to a single trait of personality, and it's not worth making an innocent woman the bad guy.

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

Why Hades and Persephone's marriage is actually not a love story (and why Demeter is the real feminist symbole and a very good mother)

This subject has been studied again and again and again, but I want to do it to. So to be clear :

No, Hades and Persephone are not romantic, a couple goal or I don't know what.

In no antic version of the myth you will find a Persephone who was willing to leave her mother and the mortal realm to live with Hades in the Underworld to escape her toxic mother.

This myth was not supposed to be romanticized.

We can't tell with exactitude if the myth was supposed to criticize the way young girls were taken away from their mother to be married of, resulting in them not seing a lot their mother after that, even if it's plausible, making almost all the retellings nowadays even more weird and far from the original source. But come on, look at the myth and tell me it is a love story.

For those who don't know the myth was :

One day, Hades came to see Zeus and asked him the hand of Persephone. Zeus knew if he agreed, Demeter would be furious, but if he disagreed, Hades would be the one pissed of, so he said "It's not my attribution to give you Persephone" or something like that. So Hades though it would be a good idea to kidnap Persephone. Persephone, the young daughter of Demeter (sometimes she has no father, sometimes it's Zeus her father), was minding her own business with a group of nymphs in a field, when suddenly the earth opened and she was kidnapped and led to the underworld. The nymphs alerted Demeter, who was doing her agriculture goddess job. Demeter, absolutely destroyed by this information, decided to find the person who had kidnapped her daughter. Hecate, the goddess of magic, shadows and other dark things, said she had heard screams and came to the rescue of Persephone, but when she arrived in the field, it was to late. Demeter searched 9 days and 9 nights, and on the 10th day, she arrived in a city, when she was greeted by the king and the queen. Things happened, but that's not the most important now. When she left, two shepherd said the day of the kidnapping, earth opened before them, swallowing some of their animals, and then they say a chariot led by black horses going to the underworld by this breach. They didn't see who was leading the chariot, but they did saw a young girl screaming in the chariot. (Notice how she was not described as happy or relieved, but screaming and sometimes crying.) So Demeter decided to ask Helios, the Sun. He explained her what happened, because he had saw everything since he was shining in the sky. Demeter was so furious against Zeus and Hadès she decided to make all the soils infertile. It was an eternal winter for the Greeks. Zeus tried to send messengers to calm her, but she refused. So he sent Hermes, who is also part chthonian, in the Underworld to bring back Persephone. The only condition was that she must have not eaten anything in the Underworld, but just before she left, she was tricked into eating a few seeds of a pomegranate. Because of that pomegranate, Persephone was doomed to spend half the year into the Underworld. It explains the cycle of the seasons : summer is when Persephone is with Demeter, autumn when Demeter knows she's leaving, winter when Demeter is in the deepest loneliness, missing her daughter, and spring when she knows she's coming back.

This is the original myth. Maybe a few details change depending on the period and the location of the myth, but you will not find a version where Persephone purposely leaves the mortal realm before the 21st century. It is a modern retelling that goes against everything the original myth was saying, for the sake of a supposed romance that is just glorified abuse.

Yes I'm looking at you Lore Olympus.

This comic was the beginning of the end for the myth, let's be honest. It shaped so much people's vision of Greek mythology in a way so inaccurate it hurts me. It led to (mainly) a huge mischaracterization of the gods.

First of all, Persephone. It is true we don't learn a lot about her in the myth, I'll give you that. The only things we know for sure is that she's the goddess of spring and that she was not happy to leave with Hades. And this is what people forget too easily. It is even said that she stopped crying the moment Hermes told her she could go back to the Mortal Realm, but before she was in tear non-stop. And saying the opposite is not understanding the myth and it's message on a level that requires you to have an empty skull.

So I ask you : where do you see her happy to leave to the Underworld and in love with Hades ?

This leads us to Hades.

(Side note before, because it bothers me too even if it's not really related to the point : Hades is not the god of death, but of the dead, king of the Underworld but also a god of fertility, because the roots of all the plants are in his realm.)

So Hades clearly didn't give a single fuck about Persephone's consent. He doesn't even care about her mother, Demeter was not aware of his "affection" for her daughter (and if she knew, she would have found a way to kill Hades). He just saw a young girl (his niece, which is weirdly normal in Greek mythology but completely messed up in any modern retelling), thought he wanted her and went to ask for the king of the gods to marry her because he's the king so his words are the truth. And even Zeus said he couldn't decide (i.e : the situation is so complicated the best solution is to not choose a side, even for the king of the gods). But this creep of Hades decided to take the girl (without her consente) despite the circumstances !

This guy is disgusting. And even the argument of "but he didn't cheat on her 🥺" isn't valid because he freaking kidnapped her ! Not cheating on her is the bare minimum, if you even dare to consider it !

And then we have Demeter.

People who don't like Demeter clearly need to be studied. Imagine your daughter has been kidnapped by your brother, who lives in a world with only dead people and almost no sun, when you know your daughter is the goddess of spring (the season when the sun comes back) and loves flower, and then you learn your other brother was aware of this shit before you, but he didn't tell you and didn't oppose himself even though he had the power to stop it all ? And then multiple gods come to tell you you're not reasonable because you decide to do everything possible to get back your daughter (ok, maybe punishing the humanity was extreme, but honestly, I can understand), and when you finally have you daughter back, you discover she can be with you only half a year, and she spends the other part with the creep ? And then people have the audacity to say you're a toxic mother ?

In which world Demeter was the bad guy of the story ? She did everything in her power to save her daughter, and even then, it wasn't enough. We should not hate her but applause her and cry for her, because she's the real heroes of this story and she's more of an icon you should admire than your pseudo-Persephone. But most important, she's an good mother. We cannot take that from her. She did what every good mother would have done, she went against all the gods of the greek pantheon, all by herself, and in the end, she would have won if it wasn't for the pomegranate. If it happened to me, I could only which my mother would do half the things she did.

(Here's the link to my introduction post)

[miss-i-know-it-all]

Let's start simple.

I am a Greek mythology nerd since I'm 5 (even less I guess but I can't remember that far). It is my long-lasting obsession and I am the most annoying person when it comes to it. By that I mean : if I were to notice a deviance from the material source, I need to rant about it for a very long time.

So it is not a surprise the "fandomization" of Greek mythology started to piss me of.

In the recent years, and overall since Percy Jackson, Greek mythology became the subject of the passion of a lot of people. It wouldn't be a problem if everybody on this planet understood media literacy and used their brain to think and search. Unfortunately, if the world was like that, we would know it.

So I created this blog to talk about this special interest of mine because I cannot stand anymore seing some people misunderstanding myths to a point I didn't even know possible to reach. Let's not forget it is a whole culture and civilization we're talking about, not just some show on Netflix, and it implies respecting this culture as we do for more prominent culture. (Because let's be honest, if this fandom effect touched the Bible, people would be more reactive to denounce a scandal.)

So in this blog, be prepared to see me tackle subjects like :

Why Hades and Persephone's marriage is actually not a love story (and why Demeter is the real feminist symbole and a very good mother)

Achilles is actually a disgusting asshole and reducing him to a supposed love story with Patroclus is complete and bullshit

The nuances about Zeus : why saying he's the worst husband of all eternity is actually wrong and can be explained by the context of the mythes, something we don't think about anymore

Hera, more than the angry wife : the incredibly strong yet cruel goddess

An exhaustive list of gods you do not want to meet

Trust me, you do not want to mess with Apollo, behind his perfect face hides a poisoned god (literally)

Please stop picturing Dionysus as the funny one, because he was actually one of the worst

And a Hestia appreciation post

The truth behind Medusa's story and why we should check our sources

The differences in portraying Hephaestus' story and the importance of remembering there's usually multiple takes on each myth

Different retellings of Greek mythology, from Percy Jackson to Madeline Miller, passing by Lore Olympus and EPIC : the musical

There will certainly be more, but for now, I will concentrate on those ones. Of course, if you disagree with me, I am always open to discussion, as long as you don't start the conversation by something rude and insulting. Please keep this blog respectful, I don't have the time nor the energy to deal with people's bullshit.

I wish you all have a nice day, or night.