#myth literalism

[seasaltdevotion]

Ok so,,,

I’m baffled.

I saw a post about someone’s “hot takes” on the gods. And it was tagged in Hellenic Polytheism and such-

And just boldly claimed Lord Poseidon is a terrible person and King Zeus is worse? Like hello? Are we following the same religion?

Just a reminder, you don’t pick and choose what gods are “good.” You don’t get to decide that gods are ok or not to worship based on their portrayal in myth. The gods are not their myths. Myths were written by opinionated/biased people who intended to explain the unexplained at the time. Myths are metaphors. Myths are *myths.*

Of course there is some information and lessons that we can draw from myths but our entire religion is not centered around myth literalism like other religions are such as Christianity.

The gods are not bad. They aren’t assholes or terrible people. They are Gods and Goddesses. They are the (I don’t wanna say personification but I can’t think of a better way to phrase it) personification and guardians of nature and life and knowledge and all of the beautiful things we deal with in everyday life. They’re not big story time villains that you get to write headcanons on.

Please, please research our religion and understand mythic literalism and why it’s not what the religion is founded on. Take the time to actually learn and understand that the gods are not their myths. They’re so much more than that, and they don’t mean any ill will on their followers unless you’ve terribly wronged them or someone else in an incomprehensible way.

I’m sorry for the long post but it upsets me so much to see people calling gods that are genuinely so kind and have helped me and others through so much assholes when they are anything but that.

[pomegranatehymns]

Fanfiction isn't a source. Please show me where you are finding versions of the myth where Persephone goes with Haides willingly. Also what need is there to trash on Demeter? A mother lost her child and was crushed by it. The myths were allegories for the culture and values of the time. The myths you are talking about is death taking someone's child from them, as well as how marriage worked in the culture of the time. Demeter if she were a mortal would have never had the chance to get her daughter back.

Myths were not taken literally. I repeat. MYTHS WERE NOT TAKEN LITERALLY! Why are we treating them like they were? Most myths go over some aspect of the god they represent and indicate some rule or societal standard of the time.

Zeus was not seen as a bad guy. He was literally the king of the gods, and fathered many gods. His myths are telling a story that fulfill his role, and also follows the culture and what was considered ok at the time.

Why are we having this Tictok-sounding misinformation being spread on Tumblr? I thought we were past that.

This isn't Christianity or any other Abrahamic religion where the gods are supposed to be seen as good and righteous. Please do some deconstruction of previous beliefs, and stop using fanfiction as a source if you do consider yourself a Hellenic Polytheist.

Can we like, stop making Hades out to be a bad guy in Greek myth and zues to be a good guy. Honestly Hades is like not even evil in most Greek iterations. Zues is the one who fucked everyone and caused issues. Zues is the fuckup, Hades mostly just wanted a wife. And in most iterations she willingly went no trickery and willingly wanted to stay. And after thousands of years Demeter is still upset about it. Persephone willingly stayed Hades isn't evil, and neither is the location known by the same name.

[gingermintpepper]

I think, perhaps one of the funniest things to come from EPIC popularising the Odyssey is that now a ton of people think Poseidon wanted to kill Odysseus.

In the Odyssey, Poseidon has no intention of killing Odysseus. In fact, part of the whole reason Zeus lets Poseidon do whatever he wants even though he thinks Odysseus is rad and should get to kiss his wife is explicitly because Poseidon had no intentions of killing Odysseus. Poseidon wanted to pay back the suffering/inconvenience blinding Polyphemus would have caused. It's a really abstract thing tbh. How do you pay back someone permanently disabling your son? Poseidon's solution was just to amputate Odysseus from his other half; i.e. Penelope. The end game was never murder, it was always an endurance race.

(Od. Book 1: Zeus reassuring Athena that he is not, in fact, a part of Odysseus Hater-Nation. Trans. Robert Fagles)

Also, for those wondering if there's any sort of in text reason for why Poseidon wasn't around in God Games - at the time in the Odyssey when Athena petitions Zeus to let Odysseus leave Calypso's island, Poseidon was -checks notes- on vacation in Ethiopia. Yep. He left to Ethiopia for a festival and thusly was very much absent for Athena's whole "please let Ody go? Please? 🥺" request.

(Od. Book 1: While Odysseus was suffering, Poseidon went to party in the east)

I am begging y'all to read the Odyssey. It's a comedy for everyone except Odysseus and Penelope who are, in fact, suffering 24/7 365.

[pearlsandpeacocks]

[soup-mother]

i know it's obviously English Wikipedia so it's full of the most wretched biased people you'll ever meet, but the fact that there's like 4 different sections in the article for the vietnam war on its influence in various elements of US home society (black servicemen etc) and so comparatively little on its effects on both contemporary Vietnamese people and modern day Vietnam outside of "oh there's lots of unexploded bombs and everyone got horrible illnesses from our chemicals" is insane.

literally they will bomb your country and then spend all their time writing about the implications it had for *their* country at home. evil evil evil self interested people

[lylahammar]

Queen of the underworld 🌾

[gigizetz]

Antinous sketches

I will redesign him a bit for Wisdom saga because his old design looked too much like Kaeya from genshin impact. Still keeping the eyepatch though, that's my favorite part of his design.

For his design I was mostly aiming for this intimidating, vain, kind of brute hunter aesthetic. I'm not really used to drawing manly men so he'll be quite the challenge to animate.

[sophie-jane-silver]

Me when "touch her and ill kill you": well thats problematic

Me when "you ploted to kill my son, you planed to rape my wife, ALL OF YOU are going to die": seem like I dont have an option but to fall in love

[mintroclus]

Mentors and Mentees

[sfsolstice]

Albert Camus, from The Myth of Sisyphus

[lturnips]

Someone who doesn't know anything about greek mythology watching Kaos: yh this is probs pretty accurate

Someone who knows a fair bit about greek mythology watching Kaos: this is so inaccurate they have changed everything

Someone who had studied greek mythology watching Kaos: omg omg omg so much of this is so accurate

[doesephs]

homer was the original multishipper, eurylochus bagged ctieme and an early grave !

[br3adtoasty]

personal hermes design….

[starmocha]

I AM FUCKING SOBBING ALREADY DSJSHALLADHDNKXKDK

[aziscribs]

Aphrodite 🕊️🩷

ermmm hi first posts are always awkward but here's my Aphrodite I don't know. How tumblr works. 😅‼️What are all these things on my screen hell

Here's some details about her design... 🗣️

~ HER HAIR is fastened into a heart shaped bun by arrows! 💘 Of course a nod to her cheeky son, as well as just general imagery of "falling in love". Also, chains of bubble braids adorned with hearts down the length of her hair (cause don't bubble braids look like little pearls?? 🩷), as well as her hair fading to white at its ends, just like foam gathering at the ends of crashing waves 🌊 ~ SEAFOAM! I wanted to add lots of seafoam and ocean vibes– since that's what she was literally born from– so waves, and thin, perpetually wet fabrics (like the ones she's usually depicted wearing– whenever she's wearing clothes at all– in classical paintings!), and lots of actual seafoam all over her! ~ DEATHLESS AND INHUMAN, as signified by her more godly traits! She has teal-tipped nereid-like ears, and similar teal freckles dusted over her joints. Plus, she's got pearls for irises! And of course, those wings– dove wings, her sacred animal! As previously mentioned in my aeneas design (see my IG highlights! I'll post it here one day soon), she has super long hair, a trait I'm trying to keep wherever I can in divine/half-divine characters! ~ HER GOLDEN BELT of course I didn't forget to include it who do you think I am 🙄 YES I know it's a girdle now but my first impression of it was a thin little band okay?! ~ THOSE COLUMNS IN THE BACKGROUND I tried to fill them up with genitalia motifs. Just having fun with the sexy part of it LOL can you see them all?

[each-uisge-enthusiast]

the modern villainisation of demeter will never cease to enrage me bc it wasn’t ENOUGH to just take a story of a girl being torn from her home from everyone who loved her and dragged away to be forced into marriage and twist and corrupt it until it was a romance story about female empowerment that wasn’t ENOUGH they HAD to take the original hero of the story the mother who went to every length to find her daughter again to bring her home and demonise her character until she was this horrific overbearing unloving mother. overprotective controlling without love. they turn the story of her grief at her YOUNG daughter being torn from her without her knowledge into the story of a misunderstood bad boy and a horrible cruel mother who won’t give him a chance and i really find it sickening. it’s ironic, that the ever misogynist age of hellenistic greece, has a better grasp of how disgusting and horrifying this situation was that a modern, self proclaimed ‘feminist’ era.