THE ODYSSEY

To us it's a mythology, but to them it was a religion just as real as Islam is to Muslims or Hinduism to Hindus. I've seen on an old thread from AskHistorians that we don't know what they called it but I'm hoping that the folks here might have an answer.

it's where all of creation sprouted (came from),

but what exactly is it?

Like an Abyss/Chasm, or something like an empty void? Or in a way can be similarly seen like the big bang where creation was a lump of mess that took time to form itself?

Does it have any ties with the sea (for the early people who created the myth)? (like Egyptian and Sumerian myth where things all began from the sea)

So in one of the first few books of the Iliad when Helen is telling Priam who all the greeks are she thinks Castor and Pollux hated her and didn't come to save her. But Helen's brothers died before she left Sparta because the whole marriage issue started after she was the only heir of Sparta.

Basically, the Hydra is a unique monster, which grows two heads for every one cut off. If you cut off part of its heads, you have linear growth, but cut off all each time and it becomes exponential.

Let's say we expanded Hydras into a genus with hundreds of species, each running on different orders of growth. If you had to fight one, you would ask yourself, how many would grow back?

Understanding growth orders is one of the most important things, especially with events such as price inflation, growing populations of invasive species, pandemics such as COVID-19, increases in human population density, natural resource loss, and economic growth, among others, so we may find the solutions to stop them before it gets too late. After all, if Iolaus hadn't helped Heracles while fighting the Hydra, Heracles would have to deal with thousands, maybe even millions or billions of heads. Just like Heracles probably not wanting to deal with that, we don't want an unstoppable pandemic raging throughout the world, nor do we want to run out of resources, or have to be a billionaire to afford a single loaf of bread and a liter of water (that was the case in 2000s Zimbabwe, when at its peak, even $1 quadrillion couldn't even afford a bus ticket or a loaf of bread). Otherwise, the world would be an absolute dystopia. We don't want a dystopian world like in a bunch of science fiction novels. That would be unlivable.

I did some art of Athena for a contest on discord!

I need help remembering which myth or piece of ancient literature features a mortal cheating a prophecy.

My ancient greek professor was talking about the role of prophecies in mythology, and how they practically always come true in the end. Once someone learns about a prophecy about them, the very actions they take to try to avoid it eventually end up fulfilling it (like Oedipus' case).

But she mentioned ONE exception.

I can't remember if it was an obscure myth, a poem, or a fragment, but it was the only instance where a mortal manages to rewrite his own fate. According to the prophecy about him, he learns he's going to commit some terrible act that he wants to avoid at all costs, like hurting someone else, for example. And to prevent his fate from being fulfilled, he takes his own life, much sooner than expected, before the prophecy can even come true. And because he's dead, noone can fulfill his prophecy. The prophecy is null. He cheated Fate.

I was blown away by how he had simply stopped himself from doing what the prophecy said (even if it meant suicide), when usually mortals are completely under Fate's control.

What was his name? What myth could this be? Please, help me find this story, thank you

But why incest you may ask? Why are the gods so nasty?

Well, that's because world-building is hard. lol.

(Ok, this one isn't for the folks who understand what is going on, but for the ones horrorized by the gods' actions. Why is everyone making out with everyone? Why is the god's family tree a wreath?)

Let's start easy: The gods are NOT human. We like to personify the cosmos' inteligentia as human beings so we have a familiar face to speak with, instead of the abstract forces of nature. As they say, if we were birds, our gods would have wings. If we were dogs, our gods would have tails.

Because the gods are not human, they DON'T have actual human relationships. After all, the Gods (their names, their appearance, THEIR STORIES) are only world-building we invented to describe reality. When Love (Aphrodite) pacifies War (Ares), Harmony is born. Surprise, surprise.

From here, it's free real state. Sometimes Tyche is Hermes' daughter (fortune is born from commerce), memory is the mother of art and knowledge (Mnemosyne & the Muses). To define one definitive genealogy is basically impossible for the simple reason all these concepts don't behave in singular cause-effect sequences. It's all a fucked retelling of who was first, the egg or the chicken? Sometimes two gods are a couple, sometimes son and mother, sometimes they're the same being. And when you mash together all these different stories things get weird.

There are MANY, MANY ways to describe how the world behaves, which translates in many, many different stories, characters and interpretations. (Does this mean the gods are made up? Look around, everything is made up. The language you read is made up. Communication is real. Salve Hermes).

For example: We recognize the gods as wise and powerful... so, as an allegoric device, we make them all related to Wisdom and Power itself (Zeus) as a way to legitimate their position... this, of course, has the side effect of incest. Lots of incest. But can you blame the greek story-tellers?

Who knows, can you image the gods of the mushrooms? Was Athena's birth Zeus doing mitosis? It doesn't matter.

Shoutout to @jens-holland on Tumblr for sharing their ideas for this discussion!

So many on the internet love demonizing the Greek hero Perseus, mostly because of his killing of Medusa, which I'm sure you know all about and I should tell you her tragic backstory doesn't happen in the original Greek myths. But anyways, because of this, Perseus is often painted in a bad light for everything he does despite being probably one of the most noble Greek heroes, one being his rescue and marriage to Princess Andromeda. See, there are some who find the fact he asked Andromeda's father for her hand in marriage before rescuing her as proof of him being a jerk and treating Andromeda as his prize. And not gonna lie, at first, this did rub me the wrong way too.

But here's the thing we need to remember: this is ancient times, their norms and standards are very different from us now. So things that may seem weird and problematic to us might not have been for those in that time, in fact it might have been seen in a positive or progressive light.

It could be said that Perseus was actually being very respectful of Andromeda's virtue and her status as a dependent of her parents. He's following all of the cultural rules at that time. My friend had this idea if her chained to the rock is a metaphor for her unmarried status/being bound to her father's house, so Perseus freeing her is in a way symbolic of him taking her under his protection. And considering that, I started to wonder if maybe her being sacrificed to the sea monster Cetus could possibly be interpreted as her being married off to her uncle, Phineus.

Because keep in mind, while uncle-niece marriages were pretty common occurances, many Greeks didn't like the fact this was a norm.
I have seen it said that he Hades and Persephone myth was probably meant as a commentary of this uncle-niece marriage situation that often happened in Ancient Greece. So considering Perseus is meant to be a very noble and ideal Greek hero, why not add to that by having him rescue a young woman from a terrible marriage and make her end up with a good caring husband and loving relationship instead?

Both Demeter and Leto had affairs with Zeus and had children with him. Yet Hera seems to direct alot of her anger towards Leto, yet she didn’t do anything to Demeter, Themis or Mnemosyn… who also had kids with Zeus.

Also, if Hera was the last wife of Zeus why would she be pissed off at Leto? Unless the chronoloical order of Zeus marriages are wrong and contradictory…

Ok so technically this is the Pentheus from the book The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, but it’s based on the Bacchae, so I think it counts. That book did the miraculous job of actually making me feel really bad for Pentheus. I love him, he’s just a baby. But also I hate him and he sucks.

So I drew him (and his mask) for my character design class.

According to the ancient Greek writer Pausanias, this is where Medusa’s head was buried, in the ancient Agora of Argos. There isn't a specific spot so...here is the whole Agora in Argos. It's not as cool as Perseus giving Medusa's head to Athena but I can't walk on Athena's shield.

I just started doing a bit of a deep dive into Greek Mythology. It's a very silly journey, but I'm happy I've taken it.

So I have read (and heard) in several places that Pandora is the one that opened her jar. But on Online Etymology Dictionary, they say that Epimetheus is the one that "foolishly" opened the jar.

Why is there this discrepancy?

Another thing that's bothering me is that their breakdown of the name Pandora is that it means "all-gifted" or "giver of all." But these don't sound right from the other interpretations I heard. I thought the name was supposed to be "all gifts," to indicate that she is a composition of the abilities and features of all of the gods (or something). Maybe that's what the all-gifted is saying, but for some reason it doesn't sound right to me given the context I read about.

How accurate is this entry on Etymonline? Is it as off-kilter as I feel it is? Or do I have a bunch of stuff wrong, myself?

Now, I'm not much of a Greek-head, but I read the Theban Plays and that was a grand old time. Yet when I tried to read the Iliad (Fagles edition) it has been utterly miserable. And I'm not too sure why. The Odyssey appeals a lot more to me but I'd like to read the Iliad first. Any idea why it might not appeal to someone?

I wanted to share some of my recent Dionysus and Ariadne art here before I forget again! I hope to share art of the other gods I've designed and drawn for, but one thing at a time, you know?

I think its a bit ridiculous that some people prefer the amazons are portrayed as they saintly sapphic girlboss women who were only capable of wrong if it was justified. And it seems people only care about them if they fit such a trope.

Don't get me wrong, my problem is painting these female figures in any box. The women in these myths were a product of the ancient world, they own sex slaves, they killed people. Painting them as saintly girlie loving girls strips away their character and numbs them down to a specific fantasy. Nor do I like the fantasy of amazons being utterly obsessed with men.

These women were just as brutal as the world they lived in. I dont like it when they are portrayed as pure villians/heroes or purely straight/queer in their sexualities.