#theseus is my king

[athamad]

Theseus and women

Theseus is one of the most hated characters in Greek mythology on the internet and l wanted defend him because l love him and he's clearly, VERY clearly misunderstood. Now, by misunderstood l don't mean, "Oh, his father wasn't around so he was traumatized," l mean he is always characterized as this misogynist egoist man who everybody loves just because he's a MAN™, which isn't true at all. I'm not going to explain why l love him directly in this post but I'm just going to explain why people misinterpret his relationship with women, because other than his "misstreatment" of women, he's literally just a guy.

Theseus and Amphitrite

Like, look at him! He's just a boy! Anyways, let's start with the obvious reason he gets hate.

Ariadne

We all know the story of him leaving her behind and then Dionysus finds her yada yada. We don't know why he does this, some people say that he's just a jerk and did this dick move because he wanted to but l beg to differ. Many modern-day writers tried to explain this abandonment, though most of them just painted Theseus as a jerk like leaving her because she was annoying or like what l said, just because he's a dick. I was researching how authors reasoned him for his abandonment and guess what THERE ARE SOURCES ARE EXPLAINING HIS ACTION, 1) She was killed by Artemis, this is not a well-known one but it is an explanation of him leaving Ariadne behind, Ariadne was killed by Artemis while she was giving birth to his sons, l couldn't find a reason on why she did it but this is a reason, 2) Dionysus demanded him to leave her because he wanted her, some sources say this and even say that the reason Theseus forgot to change his sails was that he was sad about leaving Ariadne behind, now, does this mean he's an angel, no because some sources do say 3) Theseus willingly leaving her behind, however, they all give a different explanation. A reason l like comes from the book "The king must die" where Ariadne is participating in a human sacrificial ritual and Theseus doesn't like that because it reminds him of Medea or something. I don't know l just read it while researching l didn't read the book but l like it, Ariadne being all crazy and that because it would explain why she's great with Dionysus and her parents are both very cold people, one being a goddess and one being... Minos. I heard there are versions where Athena tells him to leave her but l couldn't find them so that could have been added very later. Now, what version do l see as the truth? None. I like the version my brother suggested, which is "He forgot,". HE FORGOT, HES FORGETFUL, AND HE ALSO FORGETS TO CHANGE THE SAILS. I like it so much because HES LITERALLY JUST A GUY. But, in all seriousness, you can dislike Theseus for leaving Ariadne behind since there are sources that say he left her willingly but check the other versions too.

Theseus, Athena, Dionysus, and Ariadne.

Now that that's out of the way, let's see any other reason Theseus gets hate that involves yet another woman! Which is...

Helen

There is a myth that Helen is kidnapped by Theseus... That's it. So, for context (even though everyone knows it already) Theseus and his "best bud" (wink, wink) Pirithous are both demigods, Theseus being Poseidon's son and Pirithous Zeus's. Since they both have divine blood, they conclude that they will marry one of Zeus's daughters, Theseus picks Helen and Pirithous picks Persephone (like an idiot). They abduct Helen, yada yada, try to abduct Persephone but fail miserably, yada yada. And people dislike him because... he kidnapped Helen, yeah, okay, let's break this down. Kidnapping women was a very well-known thing in ancient Greece, was it acknowledged it was bad? Yes. But was it still there? Also yes. But this isn't about lust, Theseus kidnaps Helen because she is Zeus's daughter and he thinks he deserves at least a demi-god because he is one too. Can this be considered hubris? Yes, it can, and in my opinion, it is. Theseus has done very heroic stuff and wants something in return, he thinks that a mortal wife is too little for him so he picks what he thinks is the best thing for him, a wife whose father is Zeus. He doesn't do this as an act of lust, just hubris, and maybe for reputation, since Helen is the most beautiful woman, having the most beautiful woman as a wife is a thing to be proud of. But that doesn't mean Theseus gets what he wants immediately, because Helen is young, very young. He even acknowledges that as an Athenian, which is okay to marry a 14-year-old girl, but Helen is younger. Sources change her age from 9 to 12, but the point is, she's too young. So, Theseus decides he'll wait and gives her to his mother in the meantime. When he gets rescued by Heracles, he faces consequences, which is learning his mother is now a slave to Castor and Pollux. This is what l like about him too, he's a king, a hero, yet faces consequences more than anyone. Even if he doesn't, when he does bad things to another, bad things happen to him later, Karma bites him in the ass, and in my opinion making a character face consequences is the best way to make them feel human and relatable. Theseus isn't the only one, every mortal in Greek mythology are human-like character to me because they face consequences! Heracles, Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Bellerophon, and many more make bad choices, face the consequences, and acknowledge them! Theseus kidnapping Helen is a bad thing, yes, but he didn't even touch her because she was a child and his mother got taken away in the end.

Theseus taking away Helen

So yeah, this is it. I was going to go into more detail about his relationship with women since there are women he helps and respects but this is all for now. If l made any mistakes, please let me know without sounding rude, l can take constructive criticism. Anyways, have a good day!

(@coloricioso was the one who asked me to explain my Theseus obsession, so here it is!)

[spineless-lobster]

I know in my heart that theseus and asterius are in a qpr and honestly I love that for them

[kingsbride-moved]

Sometimes I think about Theseus growing his hair back out once he becomes more confident in himself and who he is 💕 so I wanted to draw something about it... though I got carried away 💔💔💔

[ancientgreekyuri]

shoutout to characters that I would have a crush on if I liked their clothes more. Maybe hypocritical of me to say considering I'm obsessed with a guy who looks like this sometimes

But still 💔

[voided-selfships]

Well, close enough.

[TAGLIST+EXTRA]

D17 -MOONLIGHT

@mashyaoi @comfycozycirrus @ghost--girlfriend @wanderers-wife

[yea-baiyi]

oh my god i was going thru one of ur tags to find ur yushi huang/iphigenia post (banger btw) and i saw smth abt hua cheng as theseus n idk if u have talked abt it but if u haven't pls do i will pay u (i wont) (also u dont have to if u dont want to ofcofc)

hello i’ve been sitting on this ask for months

i’ve really wanted to post about hua cheng as theseus, but i have no clue how to translate my thoughts, bc it’s just a jumble of “stain them, i don’t care” and “fuck he’s the king of athens he invented ghost city” and “FUCK it’s the red string that saves you from the maze” and “lmfao trans ghost shapeshifter ship of theseus motherfucker”

(quote dump beneath the cut)

Hua Cheng as Theseus

Herakles by Euripedes (translated by Anne Carson)

Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles (translated by Ian Johnston)

Theseus and Ariadne by Angelica Kauffman

Life of Theseus by Plutarch

do you see my vision

[scalproie]

King in Yellow: watch this. you're pre-killed, and once I am whole again, you'll be fully killed.

Arthur: IF you become whole again

Arthur: and if you haven't fully fallen in love with me by then

King in Yellow: what?

[uefb]

New Scamander brothers fic soon

I’ve been peeved with fic, recently, because I’d written the majority of “Hope is the thing with feathers” and had begun to post it, before Queenie Goldstein threw the largest wrench of ‘my universe’ into things as I was finishing the climax, which thus forced an actual ENTIRE rewrite. That fic is now—therefore—unfortunately on hiatus. That being said, this one is nearly ready to go next week! About 20,000 words from Theseus’ POV, following his relationship with Newt (and their parents) from the time he’s 8 to about 28—it’s very much a fic as much about Newt and early 20th century beliefs about autism as it is Theseus and brotherhood, but it’s the first time I’ve ever done a story *entirely* from outside Newt’s POV. I’m decently pleased with it, and just have to write a few missing scenes to tie the pacing and beats together. (But I’m not posting it until it’s done, to avoid a Queenie fiasco 😅.) So here is the opening of the first chapter and the last chapter of my next fic ^_^

First chapter—

Last chapter —

[ellennieel]

"On the back of the wooden bull there was one rider left, sitting at ease. Now balanced on his fingertips, he vaulted down and landed before me. He went beautifully through the air, as if he were flying. He was slight, and smaller than I; a Minyan, with some Hellene blood. He stood poised on the balls of his feet, like a dancer, then took a step back and looked us over. I had never seen such a youth as this. At first sight he could have been a mountebank. But his heavy gold necklaces, his arm-rings of jeweller’s work, the gems on his glittering belt and loin-guard, were not gilded shams; he was wearing a prince’s ransom. His light-brown hair hung down in long curled tresses, groomed as sleek as a girl’s, and his eyes were painted. But with all this frippery, he was like a young panther, lean and spare and hard. A thick red scar, like a long burn, curved round the ribs on his right side"

Mary Renault "The king must die"

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

I did regale the group at game night with the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur because the soundtrack for Daedalus’s labyrinth from god of war came on and I mentioned teaching my students about the story of the labyrinth and got asked to tell the myth. Sometimes the oral tradition does get to continue on in the old way, with people on couches at a party

[xeniums]

the singular zagreus supporter in the stands my beloved

I blow a kiss to them every time I wipe the floor with that goddamn king theseus (asterius you get a pass)

[storiesaremylife]

Some of the main characters from my series

[kingsbride-moved]

Made quick symmetrical Theseus Asterius refs so I could have something of a height chart 😭

[strewbi]

stoooop asterius said I (Zagreus) was his “good friend” and he has zagreus’s banner in his training hall. We’re besties!!!

[zomb1eturtlez]

"At the risk of stating the obvious, no woman can mate with a bull and produce a child. Recognizing this simple scientific fact, I am led to a somewhat interesting suspicion: King Minos did not build the labyrinth to imprison a monster but to conceal a deformed child, his child.

While the Minotaur has often been depicted as a creature with the body of a bull but the torso of a man, centaur-like, the myth describes the minotaur as simply having the head of a bull and the body of a man, or in other words, a man with a deformed face. I believe pride would not allow Minos to accept that the heir to the throne had a horrendous appearance.

Consequently, he dissolved the right of ascension by publicly accusing his wife Pasiphae of fornicating with a male bovine.

Having enough conscience to keep from murdering his own flesh and blood, Minos had a labyrinth constructed, complicated enough to keep his son from ever escaping but without bars to suggest a prison. (It is interesting to note how the myth states most of the Athenian youth "fed" to the Minotaur actually starved to death in the Labyrinth, thus indicating their deaths had more to do with the complexity of the maze and less to do with the presumed ferocity of the Minotaur.)

I am convinced Minos' maze really serves as a trope for repression. My published thoughts on this subject (see "Birth Defects in Knossos"Sonny Won't Wait Flyer, Santa Cruz, 1968) inspired the playwright Taggert Chielitz to author a play called *The Minotaur* for The Seattle Repertory Company. As only eight people, including the doorman, got a chance to see the production, I produce here a brief summary:

Chielitz begins his play with Minos entering the labyrinth late one evening to speak to his son. As it turns out, the Minotaur is a gentle and misunderstood creature, while the so-called Athenian youth are convicted criminals who were already sentenced to death back in Greece. Usually King Minos has them secretly executed and then publicly claims their deaths were caused by the terrifying Minotaur thus ensuring that the residents of Knossos will never get too close to the labyrinth. Unfortunately this time, one of the criminals had escaped into the maze, encountered Mint (as Chielitz refers to the Minotaur) and nearly murdered him. Had Minos himself not rushed in and killed the criminal, his son would have perished. Suffice it to say Minos is furious. He has caught himself caring for his son and the resulting guilt and sorrow ineeses him to no end. As the play progresses, the King slowly sees past his son's deformities, eventually discovering an elegiae spirit, an artistie sentiment and most importantly a visionary understanding of the world. Soon a deep paternal love grows in the King's heart and he begins to conceive of a way to reintroduce the Minotaur back into society. Sadly, the stories the King has spread throughout the world concerning this terrifying beast prove the seeds of tragedy. Soon enough, a bruiser named Theseus arrives (Chielitz describes him as a drunken, virtually retarded, frat boy) who without a second thought hacks the Minotaur into little pieces. In one of the play's most moving scenes, King Minos, with tears streaming down his face, publicly commends Theseus' courage. The crowd believes the tears are a sign of gratitude while we the audience understand they are tears of loss. The King's heart breaks and while he will go on to be an extremely just ruler, it is a justice forever informed by the deepest kind of agony."

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

pg. 110-111

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.