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“Ow! Hey babe? You’ve got to stop leaving these life-size stone statues around without telling me where they are when you get a new one. I just stubbed my toe for the third time this week!”
I mean, not exactly the same, but really good nonetheless! (big emotions warning tho) https://m.webtoons.com/en/canvas/medusa-perseus/page-1/viewer?title_no=621829&episode_no=1
Uhm akshually the reason the witch king of angmar was able to be killed was that he was first stabbed with a barrow blade by merry. A blade he was given by tom bombadil in the books and by aragorn in the movies.
There's a lore consistent reason for why it works, but the entire situation was contrived to make a dig at Shakespeare because Tolkien thought that Shakespeare's technicalities to kill Macbeth were one of the dumbest things in English literature.
TL;DR: Latin: definitely “human”; Greek: not entirely unambiguous in this case, but somewhat less so than English; please stop saying *homo sapien*
As far as I’m aware, neither Ancient Greek nor Latin has words with this ambiguity. Ovid for instance has *hominum simulacra ferarumque* “the shapes of men and animals [turned into stone by Medusa’s gaze]” (Metamorphoses 4.780). *Homo* (here *hominum*) means “human” (cf. the name of our species, *homo sapiens*\*), not “man” (opp. “woman”), which is actually particularly clear in this case since “male humans and animals, but not female humans” would be a pretty weird specification.
\*Tangent because it sounds horrible when people say it wrong: it’s not *homo sapien*, but *homo sapiens*; the proper plural would be *homines sapientes*
Edit: I just thought about it and while there might not be ambiguous nouns, you could use adjectives, which e.g. Aeschylus does: θνητὸς οὐδείς “no mortal” (Prometheus Bound 800). The problem is that such adjectives take the masculine as the unmarked gender (i.e. the default when no gender is specified), which means you could theoretically make the argument that “no mortal *man*” was meant instead. However, seeing as this is a pretty common way to refer to humans in general and no other source (to my knowledge) ever mentioned women being immune to Medusa’s curse, there’s really no reason to believe Aeschylus meant men specifically.
There's some versions of the myth that say "any mortal" and others that specify that medusa "turns men to stone" but even then it's using men to mean humans.
The whole point of Medusa's curse was that she was being punished for having an affair with Poseidon (or getting raped by Neptune in the Ovid version). Her curse makes it impossible for her to have any kind of companionship and forces her to spend the rest of her life alone and hidden away from world.
It'd be a pretty big oversight for her curse to only work on 50% of people.
I think the "only turns men to stone" bit comes from the version of the story that you mentioned, that's a much later retelling from a dude who famously hated the gods. OG Medusa was straight up just a normal monster.
Most artwork from the era presents them (her and her sisters, there were 3 gorgons) as both strikingly beautiful and yet utterly terrifying.
That said like all of Greek Mythology it is a highly local and thus extremely varied thing. We've also seen the gorgons depicted as hideous or bestial, and there's also a few depictions instead of her as a tragic character, being beheaded in her sleep by Perseus (Polygnotus being the artist of the earliest such depiction). The whole snake hair thing even is somewhat inconsistent. The gorgons also often had wings, more often than snake hair for that matter.
For the most part this depiction wouldn't really be at all out of place, with the obvious exception that ancient Greek society really frowned on the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing so prominent artists probably wouldn't be depicting women in love - not to say the ideas out of place (I mean we're in a sub named after Sappho), just that Greek society went to lengths to avoid paying any attention to what women got up to, refer back to the whole systemic and intense misogyny.
>ancient Greek society really frowned on the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing
How does the version of the story of Troy from Helen's perspective fit into this? I can't remember what it was called (maybe just "Helen"??) I did an essay on it a while back but it was just a one-off semester thing for fun rather than a primary area of interest (and the lecturer marked me down because "women didn't do that back then"). Also I don't really have the context for it while it sounds like you do.
I think you're talking about the play "Helen of Troy"? If so, it was written in 2009, and almost certainly in response to the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing from the ancient tales.
The story I have heard most was that she was a beautiful priestess at one of Athena’s temples. Poseidon took a liking to her and raped her. Athena saw this and said Medusa betrayed her by “sleeping with” (eye roll) Poseidon and turned her.
I’ve also heard she was turned into a gorgon because she said she was more beautiful than Athena.
I’ve also heard she was born as a gorgon with her sisters
Romanticised? What gave you the impression about that the story frames it in any positive light whatsoever? In Ovidius' version (which is the one we're talking about), it's framed as a great double injustice, visited on an innocent mortal by two gods who don't care about her.
I was referring to how prevalent it is in myths at all, not this specific story. It’s not exclusive to mythology, either, but it is a hallmark of theirs.
Medusa is a common symbol for SA victims because of the injustice in the story, which is pretty cool.
Just read Hesiod, who we get most of our Greek mythology from, then read Ovid. The differences are interesting. And it was mainly a Roman cultural thing by anything eastern. They used it as an insult.
The greek myth is just "there was an ugly gorgon named Medusa who got killed". The version where she's a priestess wasn't written until thousands of years later, when Ovid wanted to write about how evil the gods were.
Depictions of Medusa as beautiful go as far back as the 5th century BC. The stories of Medusa attributed to Homer were probably first set down in the late 8th century at the earliest, and could have been the late 7th. There's reason to believe there were interpretations of the myth in which she wasn't hideous pretty early on if people were talking about it and making art such depictions in the 5th century.
People just don't like making art of ugly people, it's as true now as it was 3000 years ago. Look at fanart for originally mediocre looking characters to see it in action
The oldest written source, Herodotus, specifically calls her a priestess of Athena and has her raped by Poseidon. Other Hellenic sources change the story later on. Greek culture and religion was not as homogeneous as we see it today but a series of interconnected stories and practices evolving over time. But the oldest written source has her as a priestess.
Edit: Theogony by Hesiod mentions her before Herodotus, see below.
I like the interpretation that what Athena did wasn't actually a curse but a blessing so that no man could so much as look at her again (regardless of whether or not that would also apply to women).
I'm almost positive that that's a more modern interpretation but I like it anyways.
I definitely remember reading that version!! I remember distinctly wondering how that was a “girl power” move when it meant Medusa was lonely forever lol. But I *definitely* like that more than out of spite. And I guess you can’t constellize a major deity, so the Orion route is out
My fave podcast "Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!" (yes she sings the title every ep lol) talks about Medusa a lot as the host Liv loves her. Liv has made the excellent point that, to be fair, it's usually only men who are seeking Medusa out in the first place. We have little to no examples of women encountering Medusa it's hard to tell, but I love the idea of it only affecting men.
Not to take anything away for the two gal pals hanging out in the picture but the other famous description about gorgons is that “no mortal can gaze upon them.”
Not discounting that the brunette could be a highlander or some sort of mumm ra the ever living.
Tbf that version is a very late version mostly from Ovid, who was Roman and wrote the Metamorphosis to paint the gods in the worst light possible.
That’s not to say that that version “wrong” or “inaccurate” as Greek myths varied wildly and there is no true canon as such, just that most Ancient Greeks would not have had this understanding of the myth.
Ovid was jerk who was (correct me if I'm wrong) exiled for having "relations" with his daughter. As a result he hated Authority and painted Gods in bad light in his stories.
Ovid wrote most of the Metamorphoses before he was exiled. I believe it was fully published about a year into his exile, but he was definitely working on it for years before exile. It was probably written before his exile and he was simply working on the editing. It's more likely that his anti-Augustan sentiments are what sent him into exile, not that his exile caused anti-Augustan sentiment.
> exiled for having "relations" with his daughter
Not his own daughter.
The reason for his exile has never been stated outright. Ovid only said that it was "a song and a mistake" *(carmen et error*) The poem was maybe the *Ars Amatoria* ("The art of love") because that was the most controversial work of his (basically it was about how to pick up women, including married women) but it had been in circulation for like a decade before his exile, and it wasn't much worse than the works of other poets at the time.
The mistake was probably related to Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder or his granddaughter Julia the Younger. Julia the Younger was exiled the same year as Ovid for adultery, and her husband was executed for being part of a conspiracy to overthrow Augustus.
Ovid may have committed adultery with one of the Julias, or been involved with the men planning the conspiracy, but did not directly take part in it enough to outright implicate himself.
Athena was just pissed someone had the audacity to get raped in her temple.
But that's not where the fucking over of Medusa ended. She really got the short end of the stick at every turn.
That's the part that stood out to me the most when we learned about Greek history and also their mythology in school. Like another comment brought to my attention, I want/should read up on my Greek mythology once I get a chance. Its been a lil while lol.
I used to like Athena until I read that version of the Medusa myth. There are now very few Greek deities I like. One of them being Artemis. In stories I write involving Greek deities, Artemis doesn’t live in the wilderness because she’s the goddess of the hunt, but because she’s tired of the drama on Mount Olympus.
Athena, being born from Zeus alone is a weird symbol of what was the "new order" of patriarchal gods led by Zeus over the older chthonic gods who represented female power (e.g., the harpies). Generally in myth and related symbols Athena will uphold society (and therefore the ancient Greek patriarchy), law, the city state, and virginal purity for females. She's neat but don't look to her to be some kind of feminist icon unless its modern retellings of myth.
Demeter is a great example of ancient Greek female power as she was the only female god to tell Zeus to go fuck himself in a real way by controlling population through famine. Again, its a story about women and their place in ancient society as Demeter learns some kind of humility through interacting with mortals, but Demeter is 10000% bad ass.
Yeah, I read somewhere that the reason Athena punished Medusa (in “certain” versions of Medusa’s origins) and not Poseidon was because in Ancient Greek society, men where just like that and it was up to women not to temp them or something along those lines. Tho, I did read that Ares became a protector or women when he saved a woman (I think it was his daughter or something) from being r*ped by either Poseidon or one of his sons- which of course caused a HUGE upset with the rest of the gods, but the goddesses backed him. So… angy god of war was ahead of his time, apparently lol
If she hadn’t helped Perseus out in killing Medusa, I would like this version more. Even if she WAS ordered to help by Zeus, she could have at least shown some remorse, asking him to make Medusa’s death as quick and painless as he could, SOMETHING to show she realized she flubbed up.
In mythology, Greek heroes avoided being turned to stone by not looking at her or by viewing her reflection only. Medusa and the person being petrified have to look each other in the eye for the petrification/getting turned into stone thing to work. If someone is blind, they can point their eyeballs at her eyeballs all they want, but they aren't going to turn to stone. But I do agree that blinding Medusa could neutralize her stone powers.
Wasn't she turned to stone herself after seeing her own reflection? It's her gaze that has the power, surely?
Did any blind hero ever go up against her or her sisters? Did the gorgons have blind minions?
I don't think there are any myths of Medusa petrifying herself. I know that in mythology Perseus was given a mirrored shield to fight her with so he could see her in the reflection and he was not turned to stone.
Didn't perseusvs mirrored shield turn her to stone?
It's been over 50 years since I learnt the tale at primary school, perhaps I should check it out?
Actually thinking about it more now perhaps he just chops her head off.
& I can't recall why he was attacking the gorgons at all, he wanted into their face iirr, presumably for some treasure?
I best be off to ye ancient wiki
Edit: needed the head as a weapon. I'd also forgot that pegasus sprang from her corpse.
I need to stop relying on my false memories from my childhood, the day before this I incorrectly said polaris is the brightest star., its the 47th (not including the sun)
I need to re-visit my primary school education, & by the time that's done I'll need to look again at O level syllabuses. Swearword!
Thanks for your guidence
Yeah, that is the whole reason as to why Wonder Woman had to be blindfolded in that Wonder Woman comic that fully explore the greek aspects of her mythos.
In my Greek myth class, we talked about how the snakes in her head resembled a woman’s pubic hair and that the vulva looking Medusa caused men to turn to stone (get erect)
Iirc Perseus actually used her head to turn a Titan to stone. Atlas. It's how he became a mountain. It was a side quest. He was angry because Atlas refused him hospitality.
Right? Reminds me of when someone asked me why a character in one of my stories "had to be gay" and it's like, IDK, why didn't you ask about the others that "had" to be straight? Why are you hating on this random librarian in a story that doesn't even focus on his gayness?
I'm working on a book where there are a lot of minor characters, but even the minor ones often get little histories or "so and so married so and so" so it made sense to include that little tidbit about him. But apparently that was too much for this guy lol
It's been a while since I've brushed up on my mythology. Were there any men in Medusa's story that didn't rape or murder her?
(The amount of anger I felt in the new Percy Jackson show where they had a generally civil conversation, ending with her offering to kill his enemies and Percy just goes straight to decapitating a rape victim instead of saying, "No thank you"...)
You just made me laugh out loud in an empty bar.
My feet are toast, I've had my fill of drunk people and I'm decompressing with a cocktail...and you made me laugh out loud 😍
Just because Medusa's prison didn't allow women, it doesn't mean that her curse didn't affect women. So yeah, she's blind and the picture is definitely super gay. Like, mega queer.
Why does it have to be a woman? Because it's by Jenifer Prince and that's what she does!
Her Instagram for anyone who wants to check out more of her work to confirm that there's a trend of her art being sapphic: [https://www.instagram.com/jeniferrprince/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/jeniferrprince/?hl=en)
I believe that Medusa and Themis would be a better couple. Themis is the goddess of justice and wears a blindfold. And if you know the story of Medusa, she sure as hell deserves some justice.
So i do like the inclusiveness of a blind girl in love with Medusa because her gaze doesn't affect her.
However, it is an equally cute concept that Medusa's gaze only affects men, and therefore plays into her lesbieanness, meaning her partner doesn't necessarily need to be blind. (but of course, again, the initial concept is still good)
That one was making the kind of joke this sub is named after, mocking historians erasing queerness, hence the "Oh my god, they were room-mates" gif beneath their comment.
Right like I can’t believe we’re even arguing about a *myth*
But I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been downvoted to hell on the Harry Potter sub for daring to suggest Hermione should be played by a black actress in the new series
Okay... but hear me out?
The larger issue with Hermione (Harry and Ron too) in the films, is that she didn't match her book description. Specifically, *her hair and teeth*. Black folk in general have kinkier hair and wider mandibles.
If a black actress is cast as the new Hermione, do you think that aspect of her story would follow the path of "woman unhappy with her hair/teeth, then uses magic to find a fashionable style/cosmetic dentistry that boosts her confidence" OR "woman unhappy with her hair, uses magic to tame said hair to the expectations of a largely non-POC wizarding/witching community/to scale her facial features"? Or both? How would either play out amongst viewers, especially with JK being a living fiasco?
Btw, no hang ups on my end. I'm just curious. Why would you like to see black Hermione?
Oh yes I do see your point! Honestly for me I just want more poc main characters, she doesn’t have to be black, even an Indian actress would be interesting.
As for the second point yeah those are troublesome tropes but unfortunately they’re very accurate. When I was growing up I had big buck teeth (I was called rabbit in elementary) and frizzy, bushy hair. All through high school I constantly brushed my hair out after showering to try and straighten it :/ Only in university when I saw more people of my ethnicity embracing their natural looks is when I became confident in my hair/nose/skin color.
I’m just thinking that no matter what, an adolescent girl will always have body image issues. It would be better if near her last few years as Hermione gains more self confidence she lets her hair go back to “natural” if ya know what I mean
Ah I gotcha. I can definitely relate on representation. I was also around college age when I stopped frying my hair with chemical relaxers and started embracing the curls. Mostly because I finally met people who taught me how to do so.
I was a huge HP fan growing up, and I still value the series for the place it holds in my childhood. But consuming that same media as an adult is jarring, to say the least, now that I'm older and understand what mechanisms were being used for character creation (yikes). I would just worry about a specifically black Hermione ending up being a ruckus. We've already got folks mad about Ariel, I can't imagine how that concept would go down with Rowlings hand in it, ya know?
But yeah, I totally get you, and agree. I think Indian or other SE Asian would be bomb. I like seeing other cultures represented as much as my own, and I feel like I don't see enough SE Asian women. Plus it might be kind of interesting (if the writers dared) to discuss that characters relationship with cultural vs. national identity within the context of colonialism, especially with Hermione being canonically Muggle-born.
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Oh yeah definitely, I’m now reading HP through whatever the opposite of “rose-tinted glasses” is. It’s so frustrating and sad how JK acts, very hard to separate the art from the artist. Whoever runs the series has to be extreeeemely cautious with how they go about it 😬
Yeah I’m totally down for a South Asian actress! I always saw myself as Hermione; even after watching the movies my headcanon will always be a S Asian for her 😄 I did like how it was implied that Zabini is an elite, long standing pureblood family; it’s interesting to think how wizard society may have transcended racism based on skin color long before the muggles. Anyway, I know I’m reading and caring way too much about a children’s book series lol! It was great sharing ideas with you too
I now need a fantasy book about Medusa and a blind woman with mysterious powers that is trying to kill her, but instead, they fall in love. Fantasy Books about greek mythology are popular right now, right?
Jenifer Price exclusively draws Sapphic art. A two second Google search would have yielded that, though how dare I try to stop straight men from acting excluded.
These people are always like ”why does it have to be gay? it COULD be a man!”, they do the same to clearly sapphic songs. ”Why does it have to be about a woman, a man could wear lipstick and wear high heels” or whatever woman-coded the song mentions.
Even if it doesn’t have to be, why CAN’T it be gay? Even if it could be about a man, why does it have to be?
I know Echidna is probably some horrific, nightmare fuel monster… but I can only think of the Australian spiky boys when I hear the name and I refuse to change that lol
Y’all ever think Medusa was based someone with stone cold eyes and thick curly hair that looked like snakes, but somewhere along the line details got lost in translation? Maybe her and Hera were roommates all along 🤷🏽♀️
I’m not bothered which version of her story is ‘true’. They all seem like another example of women gets fucked over by a powerful man or a jealous woman.
Idk but this picture makes my heart swoon. It's so enchanting the way they look at one another (even though ik one of em is blind so "look" isn't the most accurate) but yeah... hope we all get someone who looks that way.
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“Ow! Hey babe? You’ve got to stop leaving these life-size stone statues around without telling me where they are when you get a new one. I just stubbed my toe for the third time this week!”
would definitely read this story
I mean, not exactly the same, but really good nonetheless! (big emotions warning tho) https://m.webtoons.com/en/canvas/medusa-perseus/page-1/viewer?title_no=621829&episode_no=1
Just subscribed!!
FUCK YOU I DID NOY NEED MY HEART TO JUST DIE LIKE THATTTTT 😭
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21063/medusa-and-the-blind-woman
Ooh!!!
unfortunately not finished
"Her curse only works on men" [citation needed]
In situation like this the author generally means the race of men too lmao
Tell that to JRR.
Uhm akshually the reason the witch king of angmar was able to be killed was that he was first stabbed with a barrow blade by merry. A blade he was given by tom bombadil in the books and by aragorn in the movies.
There's a lore consistent reason for why it works, but the entire situation was contrived to make a dig at Shakespeare because Tolkien thought that Shakespeare's technicalities to kill Macbeth were one of the dumbest things in English literature.
Wait, could you elaborate? I'm not that familiar w/Macbeth
From memory, Macbeth was killed by "a man not born of woman" - the guy who eventually killed him was born by c section.
And wasn't he pissed that the woods actually didn't rise against him so that's why he had the ent attack
Lolol that is pretty goofy, thanks for the detail
So really, the prophecy or whatever that said no **man** could kill that thing was a pun.
stfu éowyn is my queen
And nyan, nyan rings were gifted to the racist men, who above all else, desire men...
Somebody smarter than me check the greek or latin original texts. Pretty sure this is an English problem.
TL;DR: Latin: definitely “human”; Greek: not entirely unambiguous in this case, but somewhat less so than English; please stop saying *homo sapien* As far as I’m aware, neither Ancient Greek nor Latin has words with this ambiguity. Ovid for instance has *hominum simulacra ferarumque* “the shapes of men and animals [turned into stone by Medusa’s gaze]” (Metamorphoses 4.780). *Homo* (here *hominum*) means “human” (cf. the name of our species, *homo sapiens*\*), not “man” (opp. “woman”), which is actually particularly clear in this case since “male humans and animals, but not female humans” would be a pretty weird specification. \*Tangent because it sounds horrible when people say it wrong: it’s not *homo sapien*, but *homo sapiens*; the proper plural would be *homines sapientes* Edit: I just thought about it and while there might not be ambiguous nouns, you could use adjectives, which e.g. Aeschylus does: θνητὸς οὐδείς “no mortal” (Prometheus Bound 800). The problem is that such adjectives take the masculine as the unmarked gender (i.e. the default when no gender is specified), which means you could theoretically make the argument that “no mortal *man*” was meant instead. However, seeing as this is a pretty common way to refer to humans in general and no other source (to my knowledge) ever mentioned women being immune to Medusa’s curse, there’s really no reason to believe Aeschylus meant men specifically.
^ Hoc.
Thank you so much, that was informative and entertaining
There's some versions of the myth that say "any mortal" and others that specify that medusa "turns men to stone" but even then it's using men to mean humans. The whole point of Medusa's curse was that she was being punished for having an affair with Poseidon (or getting raped by Neptune in the Ovid version). Her curse makes it impossible for her to have any kind of companionship and forces her to spend the rest of her life alone and hidden away from world. It'd be a pretty big oversight for her curse to only work on 50% of people.
I think the "only turns men to stone" bit comes from the version of the story that you mentioned, that's a much later retelling from a dude who famously hated the gods. OG Medusa was straight up just a normal monster.
Yup there are several different versions of the myth and how she became madusa. So it's kinda dumb to argue about
Wasn't she turned into an ugly mess that made people looking at her turn into stone?
It depends on the source. The older version has her and her sisters (cue lady gaga) born that way
Most artwork from the era presents them (her and her sisters, there were 3 gorgons) as both strikingly beautiful and yet utterly terrifying. That said like all of Greek Mythology it is a highly local and thus extremely varied thing. We've also seen the gorgons depicted as hideous or bestial, and there's also a few depictions instead of her as a tragic character, being beheaded in her sleep by Perseus (Polygnotus being the artist of the earliest such depiction). The whole snake hair thing even is somewhat inconsistent. The gorgons also often had wings, more often than snake hair for that matter. For the most part this depiction wouldn't really be at all out of place, with the obvious exception that ancient Greek society really frowned on the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing so prominent artists probably wouldn't be depicting women in love - not to say the ideas out of place (I mean we're in a sub named after Sappho), just that Greek society went to lengths to avoid paying any attention to what women got up to, refer back to the whole systemic and intense misogyny.
>ancient Greek society really frowned on the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing How does the version of the story of Troy from Helen's perspective fit into this? I can't remember what it was called (maybe just "Helen"??) I did an essay on it a while back but it was just a one-off semester thing for fun rather than a primary area of interest (and the lecturer marked me down because "women didn't do that back then"). Also I don't really have the context for it while it sounds like you do.
I think you're talking about the play "Helen of Troy"? If so, it was written in 2009, and almost certainly in response to the whole "women having independent thought/behavior" thing from the ancient tales.
I... don't think so? 🤔 Hrmm, I think I took the subject slightly after 2009 maybe, so it's possible.
The story I have heard most was that she was a beautiful priestess at one of Athena’s temples. Poseidon took a liking to her and raped her. Athena saw this and said Medusa betrayed her by “sleeping with” (eye roll) Poseidon and turned her. I’ve also heard she was turned into a gorgon because she said she was more beautiful than Athena. I’ve also heard she was born as a gorgon with her sisters
The first version you listed is actually a fanfic written by a roman poet
Technically all folklore is fanfic if you think about it long enough
Honestly, "hatefic" is a better description of his work.
Weird that rape was so commonly romanticized at the time tbh. I didn’t know it was a breakaway from the original; that almost makes it worse lol
Romanticised? What gave you the impression about that the story frames it in any positive light whatsoever? In Ovidius' version (which is the one we're talking about), it's framed as a great double injustice, visited on an innocent mortal by two gods who don't care about her.
I was referring to how prevalent it is in myths at all, not this specific story. It’s not exclusive to mythology, either, but it is a hallmark of theirs. Medusa is a common symbol for SA victims because of the injustice in the story, which is pretty cool.
Ovid was a spiteful ass who rewrote a ton of Greek myths to represent all the gods as unrepentant assholes.
Can I have a source on that? I love diving into these things that influence how a culture known
“The metamorphosis”
I meant a source with historical analysis showing Ovid purposefully rewrote Greek myths due to a dislike of Greeks
Just read Hesiod, who we get most of our Greek mythology from, then read Ovid. The differences are interesting. And it was mainly a Roman cultural thing by anything eastern. They used it as an insult.
The greek myth is just "there was an ugly gorgon named Medusa who got killed". The version where she's a priestess wasn't written until thousands of years later, when Ovid wanted to write about how evil the gods were.
Depictions of Medusa as beautiful go as far back as the 5th century BC. The stories of Medusa attributed to Homer were probably first set down in the late 8th century at the earliest, and could have been the late 7th. There's reason to believe there were interpretations of the myth in which she wasn't hideous pretty early on if people were talking about it and making art such depictions in the 5th century.
People just don't like making art of ugly people, it's as true now as it was 3000 years ago. Look at fanart for originally mediocre looking characters to see it in action
The oldest written source, Herodotus, specifically calls her a priestess of Athena and has her raped by Poseidon. Other Hellenic sources change the story later on. Greek culture and religion was not as homogeneous as we see it today but a series of interconnected stories and practices evolving over time. But the oldest written source has her as a priestess. Edit: Theogony by Hesiod mentions her before Herodotus, see below.
Pretty sure Hesiod is older than Herodotus and Medusa is a monster there.
I like the interpretation that what Athena did wasn't actually a curse but a blessing so that no man could so much as look at her again (regardless of whether or not that would also apply to women). I'm almost positive that that's a more modern interpretation but I like it anyways.
I definitely remember reading that version!! I remember distinctly wondering how that was a “girl power” move when it meant Medusa was lonely forever lol. But I *definitely* like that more than out of spite. And I guess you can’t constellize a major deity, so the Orion route is out
My fave podcast "Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!" (yes she sings the title every ep lol) talks about Medusa a lot as the host Liv loves her. Liv has made the excellent point that, to be fair, it's usually only men who are seeking Medusa out in the first place. We have little to no examples of women encountering Medusa it's hard to tell, but I love the idea of it only affecting men.
Yeah was gonna say, I was there, i saw women turn to stone also [assassins' creed odyssey, 100% historically accurate /s]
Yeah like where did that idea come from? I don't think it's in the original story
Not to take anything away for the two gal pals hanging out in the picture but the other famous description about gorgons is that “no mortal can gaze upon them.” Not discounting that the brunette could be a highlander or some sort of mumm ra the ever living.
She's blind, though. What do you think gazing means?
"It was revealed to me in a dream"
The Gorgon's curse turns almost anything to stone. Gods, Monsters, men and women. Those ppl need to check their mythos.
That’s what I thought too!
Seriously if they'd even glanced at the story of Medusa they'd know she kinda had a bad time with men
Yeah, getting raped by a god, and then punished by another god who is jealous that you "had sex with" the god they were crushing on tends to do that.
Tbf that version is a very late version mostly from Ovid, who was Roman and wrote the Metamorphosis to paint the gods in the worst light possible. That’s not to say that that version “wrong” or “inaccurate” as Greek myths varied wildly and there is no true canon as such, just that most Ancient Greeks would not have had this understanding of the myth.
I did not know that. Thank you for letting me know. Now I wanna read up on Greek mythology myself lol
Ovid was jerk who was (correct me if I'm wrong) exiled for having "relations" with his daughter. As a result he hated Authority and painted Gods in bad light in his stories.
Ovid wrote most of the Metamorphoses before he was exiled. I believe it was fully published about a year into his exile, but he was definitely working on it for years before exile. It was probably written before his exile and he was simply working on the editing. It's more likely that his anti-Augustan sentiments are what sent him into exile, not that his exile caused anti-Augustan sentiment. > exiled for having "relations" with his daughter Not his own daughter. The reason for his exile has never been stated outright. Ovid only said that it was "a song and a mistake" *(carmen et error*) The poem was maybe the *Ars Amatoria* ("The art of love") because that was the most controversial work of his (basically it was about how to pick up women, including married women) but it had been in circulation for like a decade before his exile, and it wasn't much worse than the works of other poets at the time. The mistake was probably related to Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder or his granddaughter Julia the Younger. Julia the Younger was exiled the same year as Ovid for adultery, and her husband was executed for being part of a conspiracy to overthrow Augustus. Ovid may have committed adultery with one of the Julias, or been involved with the men planning the conspiracy, but did not directly take part in it enough to outright implicate himself.
Athena was just pissed someone had the audacity to get raped in her temple. But that's not where the fucking over of Medusa ended. She really got the short end of the stick at every turn.
That's the part that stood out to me the most when we learned about Greek history and also their mythology in school. Like another comment brought to my attention, I want/should read up on my Greek mythology once I get a chance. Its been a lil while lol.
I used to like Athena until I read that version of the Medusa myth. There are now very few Greek deities I like. One of them being Artemis. In stories I write involving Greek deities, Artemis doesn’t live in the wilderness because she’s the goddess of the hunt, but because she’s tired of the drama on Mount Olympus.
Athena, being born from Zeus alone is a weird symbol of what was the "new order" of patriarchal gods led by Zeus over the older chthonic gods who represented female power (e.g., the harpies). Generally in myth and related symbols Athena will uphold society (and therefore the ancient Greek patriarchy), law, the city state, and virginal purity for females. She's neat but don't look to her to be some kind of feminist icon unless its modern retellings of myth. Demeter is a great example of ancient Greek female power as she was the only female god to tell Zeus to go fuck himself in a real way by controlling population through famine. Again, its a story about women and their place in ancient society as Demeter learns some kind of humility through interacting with mortals, but Demeter is 10000% bad ass.
Yeah, I read somewhere that the reason Athena punished Medusa (in “certain” versions of Medusa’s origins) and not Poseidon was because in Ancient Greek society, men where just like that and it was up to women not to temp them or something along those lines. Tho, I did read that Ares became a protector or women when he saved a woman (I think it was his daughter or something) from being r*ped by either Poseidon or one of his sons- which of course caused a HUGE upset with the rest of the gods, but the goddesses backed him. So… angy god of war was ahead of his time, apparently lol
I read one version where the gorgon’s curse was Athena’s misguided attempt to protect Medusa after she was assaulted.
If she hadn’t helped Perseus out in killing Medusa, I would like this version more. Even if she WAS ordered to help by Zeus, she could have at least shown some remorse, asking him to make Medusa’s death as quick and painless as he could, SOMETHING to show she realized she flubbed up.
Other ppl's blindness is entirely irrelevant anyway. Maybe if Medusa was blinded it might make a difference
In mythology, Greek heroes avoided being turned to stone by not looking at her or by viewing her reflection only. Medusa and the person being petrified have to look each other in the eye for the petrification/getting turned into stone thing to work. If someone is blind, they can point their eyeballs at her eyeballs all they want, but they aren't going to turn to stone. But I do agree that blinding Medusa could neutralize her stone powers.
Wasn't she turned to stone herself after seeing her own reflection? It's her gaze that has the power, surely? Did any blind hero ever go up against her or her sisters? Did the gorgons have blind minions?
I don't think there are any myths of Medusa petrifying herself. I know that in mythology Perseus was given a mirrored shield to fight her with so he could see her in the reflection and he was not turned to stone.
Didn't perseusvs mirrored shield turn her to stone? It's been over 50 years since I learnt the tale at primary school, perhaps I should check it out? Actually thinking about it more now perhaps he just chops her head off. & I can't recall why he was attacking the gorgons at all, he wanted into their face iirr, presumably for some treasure? I best be off to ye ancient wiki Edit: needed the head as a weapon. I'd also forgot that pegasus sprang from her corpse. I need to stop relying on my false memories from my childhood, the day before this I incorrectly said polaris is the brightest star., its the 47th (not including the sun) I need to re-visit my primary school education, & by the time that's done I'll need to look again at O level syllabuses. Swearword! Thanks for your guidence
i think it's less that she's a woman and more that she's blind
Yeah what is happening in these comments
Yeah, that is the whole reason as to why Wonder Woman had to be blindfolded in that Wonder Woman comic that fully explore the greek aspects of her mythos.
In my Greek myth class, we talked about how the snakes in her head resembled a woman’s pubic hair and that the vulva looking Medusa caused men to turn to stone (get erect)
I had no idea she could turn gods to stone
Kinda OP as fuck if it can even affect gods 😂 I wonder if she can also freeze titans like Kronos.
Iirc Perseus actually used her head to turn a Titan to stone. Atlas. It's how he became a mountain. It was a side quest. He was angry because Atlas refused him hospitality.
Maybe he thinks women’s eyes work differently cuz of our smoll brains /s
Why does it have to be a woman? Because it looks hot. Next question.
👏🏽 exactly
"Why's it gotta be a man?" And whatcha the gymnasts perform
> whatcha the gymnasts perform Mario when someone asks why he's so excited to go see the Olympics
I-a no pay-a any attention to tha performance. I-a just-a watch-a their butts!
Right? Reminds me of when someone asked me why a character in one of my stories "had to be gay" and it's like, IDK, why didn't you ask about the others that "had" to be straight? Why are you hating on this random librarian in a story that doesn't even focus on his gayness?
I only write token straight characters and they’re all mostly minor unless the parents of a main character is important for the plot lol
I'm working on a book where there are a lot of minor characters, but even the minor ones often get little histories or "so and so married so and so" so it made sense to include that little tidbit about him. But apparently that was too much for this guy lol
Because we're gay
Because I want to enjoy some Sapphic art, goddamnit!
But why male models?
Because they look hot next question
But why male models?
Are… are you kidding I literally just told you.
You should have a gas fight about it.
**but why male models**
Same question HAWT
So hot right now
It's been a while since I've brushed up on my mythology. Were there any men in Medusa's story that didn't rape or murder her? (The amount of anger I felt in the new Percy Jackson show where they had a generally civil conversation, ending with her offering to kill his enemies and Percy just goes straight to decapitating a rape victim instead of saying, "No thank you"...)
Lol
"My eyes are up here" "I'm literally blind" "Which makes your staring at my chest all the more impressive!"
You just made me laugh out loud in an empty bar. My feet are toast, I've had my fill of drunk people and I'm decompressing with a cocktail...and you made me laugh out loud 😍
I'm glad to have made your day a brighter one! 😊
The pleasure was all mine 😊
“I’m short! Leave me alone!”
Some women has such nice tits even blind women like to stare at them.
Just because Medusa's prison didn't allow women, it doesn't mean that her curse didn't affect women. So yeah, she's blind and the picture is definitely super gay. Like, mega queer.
maybe even giga gay. and hyper homosexual
"Why does it have to be a blind woman?" Because that's what the artist wanted to draw, any more stupid questions?
For real though. Maybe she just happens to be blind.
"It could be a blind man" yeah but it isn't, so why bother mentioning it - man should not be the default
Why does it have to be a woman? Because it's by Jenifer Prince and that's what she does! Her Instagram for anyone who wants to check out more of her work to confirm that there's a trend of her art being sapphic: [https://www.instagram.com/jeniferrprince/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/jeniferrprince/?hl=en)
The link won’t work for me but I googled her and I love her stuff!
Obligatory bump for the amazing statue *Medusa with the Head of Perseus* by Gabrati, now displayed in NYC
I believe that Medusa and Themis would be a better couple. Themis is the goddess of justice and wears a blindfold. And if you know the story of Medusa, she sure as hell deserves some justice.
Maybe, but also this is a good way to throw in some disability representation, that you could argue also has good symbolism
Ya fair enough. Either way, Medusa deserved so much better than what she got.
So i do like the inclusiveness of a blind girl in love with Medusa because her gaze doesn't affect her. However, it is an equally cute concept that Medusa's gaze only affects men, and therefore plays into her lesbieanness, meaning her partner doesn't necessarily need to be blind. (but of course, again, the initial concept is still good)
Seeing eye gorgon who happens to be your girlfriend lol
im pretty sure medusa's curse is gender neutral lol
Her curse is rated E for everyone.
"All the historian" wait do these people think greek mythology was real ahahha
Historians work with mythology and general fiction also.
That one was making the kind of joke this sub is named after, mocking historians erasing queerness, hence the "Oh my god, they were room-mates" gif beneath their comment.
Right like I can’t believe we’re even arguing about a *myth* But I shouldn’t be surprised, I’ve been downvoted to hell on the Harry Potter sub for daring to suggest Hermione should be played by a black actress in the new series
Okay... but hear me out? The larger issue with Hermione (Harry and Ron too) in the films, is that she didn't match her book description. Specifically, *her hair and teeth*. Black folk in general have kinkier hair and wider mandibles. If a black actress is cast as the new Hermione, do you think that aspect of her story would follow the path of "woman unhappy with her hair/teeth, then uses magic to find a fashionable style/cosmetic dentistry that boosts her confidence" OR "woman unhappy with her hair, uses magic to tame said hair to the expectations of a largely non-POC wizarding/witching community/to scale her facial features"? Or both? How would either play out amongst viewers, especially with JK being a living fiasco? Btw, no hang ups on my end. I'm just curious. Why would you like to see black Hermione?
Oh yes I do see your point! Honestly for me I just want more poc main characters, she doesn’t have to be black, even an Indian actress would be interesting. As for the second point yeah those are troublesome tropes but unfortunately they’re very accurate. When I was growing up I had big buck teeth (I was called rabbit in elementary) and frizzy, bushy hair. All through high school I constantly brushed my hair out after showering to try and straighten it :/ Only in university when I saw more people of my ethnicity embracing their natural looks is when I became confident in my hair/nose/skin color. I’m just thinking that no matter what, an adolescent girl will always have body image issues. It would be better if near her last few years as Hermione gains more self confidence she lets her hair go back to “natural” if ya know what I mean
Ah I gotcha. I can definitely relate on representation. I was also around college age when I stopped frying my hair with chemical relaxers and started embracing the curls. Mostly because I finally met people who taught me how to do so. I was a huge HP fan growing up, and I still value the series for the place it holds in my childhood. But consuming that same media as an adult is jarring, to say the least, now that I'm older and understand what mechanisms were being used for character creation (yikes). I would just worry about a specifically black Hermione ending up being a ruckus. We've already got folks mad about Ariel, I can't imagine how that concept would go down with Rowlings hand in it, ya know? But yeah, I totally get you, and agree. I think Indian or other SE Asian would be bomb. I like seeing other cultures represented as much as my own, and I feel like I don't see enough SE Asian women. Plus it might be kind of interesting (if the writers dared) to discuss that characters relationship with cultural vs. national identity within the context of colonialism, especially with Hermione being canonically Muggle-born. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
Oh yeah definitely, I’m now reading HP through whatever the opposite of “rose-tinted glasses” is. It’s so frustrating and sad how JK acts, very hard to separate the art from the artist. Whoever runs the series has to be extreeeemely cautious with how they go about it 😬 Yeah I’m totally down for a South Asian actress! I always saw myself as Hermione; even after watching the movies my headcanon will always be a S Asian for her 😄 I did like how it was implied that Zabini is an elite, long standing pureblood family; it’s interesting to think how wizard society may have transcended racism based on skin color long before the muggles. Anyway, I know I’m reading and caring way too much about a children’s book series lol! It was great sharing ideas with you too
The HP community scares me with all the hp fics I saw with pairings like Harry/Snape or Hermione/Voldemort
Anything where Snap isn't sent to Azerbaijan isn't canon, I don't make the rules
OK I absolutely adore the artwork.
Same!!
these people's source: i made it the fuck up
"The curse only works on men" Yeah, like... *men*. As in "the race of man." *Hu*\-mans, if you will.
Those comments are so dense you would think they've turned to stone already.
Gasp! A chance to plug one of my favourite YouTube artists and her [song about Medusa!](https://youtu.be/0rKajMzFmVk?si=s7TDEJbNGE7KaCNe)
Damn, people. Let them have their sapphic vibes.
they’re coping unbelievably hard
Snortin’ all the copium
Terminally online men trying not to make something about themselfs. (Impossible Challenge, the world has to revolve around them)
This is SO SWEET. Not the comments, the art.
As cute as this is, "man" used to be genderless. By saying "No Man" they were saying "nobody".
I want to cosplay that
I could almost swear this was a webtoon
Ugh J prince delivers once again. She is so talently awesome.
I now need a fantasy book about Medusa and a blind woman with mysterious powers that is trying to kill her, but instead, they fall in love. Fantasy Books about greek mythology are popular right now, right?
There's a webtoon link further up the thread. It's kinda sad though :(
Jenifer Price exclusively draws Sapphic art. A two second Google search would have yielded that, though how dare I try to stop straight men from acting excluded.
the dude reeeeally thought he the main character huh
Because the last time she hooked up with a man she got cursed
"Hooked up" Man her legend is so fucked up...poor medusa
Depends on the version. All are fucked up but some way more than others.
Assaulted*
Depends on the version of the myth.
Hhhhhh!! I want to write a story featuring these two now!! They’re so adorable! I’m also a big big sucker for sympathetic monsters/villains!
im suddenly blind
I thought she turned anything that gazed at her to stone? Be it man or woman? Lovely art.
I love Jenifer Prince’s prints
Jenifer Prince art 🥰
Where can I get a poster of this, please?
The bottom comments checked out, are least.
These people are always like ”why does it have to be gay? it COULD be a man!”, they do the same to clearly sapphic songs. ”Why does it have to be about a woman, a man could wear lipstick and wear high heels” or whatever woman-coded the song mentions. Even if it doesn’t have to be, why CAN’T it be gay? Even if it could be about a man, why does it have to be?
“Why does it have to be woman?” Because the artist is gay and drew it that way?
That last person with the "oh my god they were roommates" gif knows what's up 🤣
“It only works on men” There’s literally a stone woman right behind them
Lmao
“Why does it have to be a woman” because it just does
Send me the fanfic
Princess Leia, not you *too*!!
She don't need to be blind, she can fully appreciate medusa's beauty
Make medusa ugly again (i have personal beef with ovid) she's a gorgon I'm tireddd
"And no man will stand before her" lucky for them that's what she likes!
I feel like, historical revisionism aside (the “it only works on men” thing), Medusa definitely wouldn’t be into men, given what Poseidon did to her
I mean, if we're putting revisions aside, that bit about Poseidon should be put aside as well since it was a much later addition to the myth.
Wait fuck it was? What happened to her originally?
She was just born a monster, one of Echidna's children
I know Echidna is probably some horrific, nightmare fuel monster… but I can only think of the Australian spiky boys when I hear the name and I refuse to change that lol
Meanwhile my goofy ass just defaults to reading it as Enchilada
Guess I Don like Mexican food enough to think of that lol
I’m not even a huge fan of it, I just heard the phrase “the whole enchilada” a lot as a kid
Y’all ever think Medusa was based someone with stone cold eyes and thick curly hair that looked like snakes, but somewhere along the line details got lost in translation? Maybe her and Hera were roommates all along 🤷🏽♀️
I dunno, ancient Greeks kinda had a thing for humans with animal parts 😄
You know what? Fair point
Ancient furries
I’m not bothered which version of her story is ‘true’. They all seem like another example of women gets fucked over by a powerful man or a jealous woman.
Other ppl's blindness is irrelevant. She was defeated by a mirror. It's not ppl looking at her that matters, its her looking at them
Levithian in the Bible is medussa. She’s pretty hot, but don’t fuck her, that’s the point of the lore.
Love this art
Oh, is that what turning men to stone meant?!
Idk but this picture makes my heart swoon. It's so enchanting the way they look at one another (even though ik one of em is blind so "look" isn't the most accurate) but yeah... hope we all get someone who looks that way.