sarafangirlart

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Myrtilos has to be one of the dumbest yet dangerous villains in mythology, bc his stupidity still affected Pelops and Hippodamia as well as their children, so if you ever feel mad about the tragedy of the house of Atreus, it’s partially this mfs fault.

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Perseus being one of the more chill and merciful greek heroes yet still having one of the highest body counts lol

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I think I’ve complained plenty about Perseus being aged up, whether it’s in retellings or Hollywood movies, but now I wanna talk about Theseus being aged up.

It diminishes Theseus’s nobility and selflessness to avenge and liberate Athens. There’s no way cretans (who specifically demanded girls/maidens and boys/youths) would’ve accepted bringing in a big strong man to sacrifice to the Minotaur, if they were ok with bringing adult men then Aegeus would’ve sent warriors to kill the Minotaur ages ago. Theseus being a youth, and therefore elegible to be sacrificed is a crucial detail, one source even explicitly states he’s 16 years old, but even without this we should know Theseus was supposed to be a teenager.

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Well this is just evil what the fuck

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Here you go!

oh brother…

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The masculinization of Andromeda continues.

Btw I’m sparing y’all from the worst of this book bc the men here are so unnaturally horny they get a bulge just by seeing an attractive man it’s so cringe. It reminds me of female romantasy authors who have both their male and female characters be unrealistically horny for each other that it’s more comical than sexy.

oh brother…

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oh brother…

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oh brother…

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So since we have our straight Perseus x Medusa story that villainizes Andromeda, a yuri Andromeda x Cetus story that villainizes Perseus do you think we'll eventually get a Perseus x Hermes story that villainizes or devalues Andromeda and probably uses like, comphet or something as a justification?

It already exists lol https://eroticmythology.com/review-hermes-and-perseus-by-david-molina/

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I hate hate HATE the way the entire Polydectes situation was treated in this retelling.

In Shadow of Perseus Polydectes not only that has a tragic background story (being a man who worked hard and won people's trust in order to become king and then tragically lost his wife and daughter) in order to appear more sympathetic, but it gets to a point where Danaë herself wants to marry him and we're supposed to appreciate him even more for willingly wanting to marry a woman above 35 with a child. 🙄

The sanitization of his character is just another way the author proves not only that her irrational hatred towards Perseus made her portray the actual big bad guy and final boss in a good light, but also that she doesn't understand how does abuse work. Polydectes wanted to marry Danaë against her own will and then, after she rejected him, he planned to send Perseus on a safe suicide mission in order to marry her, in some source he goes far enough to rape or enslave her. Just because she's not your conventional victim because she wasn’t young neither childless that doesn’t mean that her trauma is less important. Not to mention the fact that people tend to hyperfixate on physical appearence and claim that Danaë couldn't have been desired because she was no longer beautiful enough, when in most cases the most common reason behind SA is NOT sexual attraction but domination or control, and in this case particularly we have a man in power being uncapable of accepting that a single mother and vulnerable woman such as Danaë would refuse the advances of a goddamn king.

Speaking about Danaë, I find it deeply ironic that a so-called Feminist Retelling wasn't able to acknowledge the fact that a woman choosing not to marry even the king of an island despite of currently living in a fisherman's household and probably confronting her with the social stigma of being an unmarried woman Ancient Greece was ahead of those times. Danaë was actually the type of woman who didn't desire a husband even for a higher social status or financial stability, and you're here having her fall in love with that piece of shit because... because?!

Next we have Perseus, who, being the male guardian of his mother, feels entitled to her and doesn't allow her to marry Polydectes because he knows that he will become her protective figure then. It gets to a point of over-possessiveness that gives Perseus some freudian tendencies, even having him claiming that Polydectes wants to keep his mother all for himself. Which not only that is disgusting af, but directly erases the most important aspect of Perseus and Danaë's relationship from the original myths, namely that Perseus cared for his mother's wishes and would've done anything she wanted him to do. In some versions he doesn't even despise Polydectes but perceives him as a father-figure (before he betrayed him), and the only reason why he disapproved this marriage was because his mother didn't want to marry him.

Turning back to Polydectes it is deeply frustrating to see how he convinces Danaë to sent Perseus far away for an year so that he could get rid of him, marry his mother and bang her in the meantime just like in the original myth, yet somehow his actions are still sanitized and Perseus is still the supreme evil guy in this story. He even leaves Danaë pregnant so that his death could be perceived as more disturbing by readers than it should've been because now Perseus left his unborn half-brother fatherless just like him. Again, what was in the writer's mind when she decided that said pregnancy would be a brilliant idea?!

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I know the name Eurydice is the most common one for Danaë’s mother, but I prefer Aganippe, partially bc “mare who kills mercifully” goes hard but also bc it’s an epithet of Demeter, so it’s an interesting parallel where both are mothers who’s daughters were taken away from them due to their fathers.

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In Shadow of Perseus the relationships between women and this overall "Girls supporting girls!" idea is never here.

First let's start with Danaë!

In this book we are told that her mother died while giving birth to her, and her father initially intented to marry a girl around her age (EWW!) for a male heir, before learning about the prophecy. Sure, you could have Eurydice still being present in her life and suffering along with her after her imprisonment by her father in order to avoid that prophecy, or when he tried to kill her by throwing her into a chest and casting it into the sea. You could even have them two reuniting themselves after so many years. But because the author clearly has a hard time portraying motherhood or mother's bonds with their children in general and rather pretends to care about these women too (since they do not fit into her slay queen girlboss definition of a strong woman), Danae’s mom ended up being killed off screen.

There's also an obscure version where Danaë has a sister, but because it's a less common version of the myth even though you can find about Evarete with only one search on Wikipedia she's not here either.

Next we have Proteus' daughters and her cousins, namely Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa. Now, we don't know too much about them, so you could do pretty much whatever you want with them, including creating a strong, wholesome friendship between them and Danaë. However, in this book Danaë herself says that they're close to each other only by blood, and that there was never a real connection between them. The fact they three collectively share one braincell in this retelling and their favorite hobby is thinking about husbands and weddings (which Danaë cannot relate to because she knows way better how oppressive marriage is and she's also not like the other girls uWu) doesn't help either.

Last but not least there's Danaë's nursemaid, who got locked along with her in some sources and helped her hide her pregnancy and then her baby before he got discovered by Acrisius, which led to said servant getting hanged as punishment. In this book though Danaë cannot trust even her handmaid named Korinna, who tells her father about her pregnancy the moment she realizes that something's odd about her.

Next we have Medusa, who, despite of being the priestess and leader of a "women's shelter" (which is a deeply anachronistic concept but whatever), her best relationship with a woman she has is between her and an OC, while her bond with her sister is portrayed as cold and distant.

Andromeda's relationship with her mother is almost non-existent, and the only other woman from her life out there is Danaë, who had very racist and xenophobic impressions on her at the beginning.

Last but not least, all of these women's lives are rotating around the exact same male character.

Somebody please tell me how is this supposed to be a feminist retelling again.

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… well at least Medusa isn’t a “virgin priestess” in this.

Bad guy Perseus in a sapphic Medusa retelling? Groundbreaking.

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Danae and Perseus received by Polydectes, king of Seriphus

Medieval baby Perseus jumpscare lol

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Ancient ppl being clueless over the existence of wlw gives us some absolute comedy (like Demeter and Baubo) bc this high key reads like an affair between Hera and Chloris. Ovid’s Fasti, Book Five

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Not to beat a dead horse bc the show was canceled ages ago, but in retrospect… Kaos’s biggest crime is that it wasn’t even that funny, it’s supposed to be a dark comedy show but I rarely laughed, Greek mythology has tons of bizarre aspects you can make fun of (Aristophanes would agree lol) and base your comedy around, but the show isn’t particularly smart or subversive with its source material. The humor is either:

- low hanging fruit that they were too cowardly to go the whole way with (haha Zeus and Hera are siblings isn’t that funny? Oh but Hades and Persephone aren’t uncle and niece bc that’s gross)

- jokes that aren’t Greek mythology related

- the actors charisma and comedic timing

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Okay I lied I now think Hera/Chloris would be fun as a yuri crackship