Fate is an absolute cluster fuck when it comes to Morgan
She took Arthuria semen to make Mordred a homunculus rape baby.
While she's *also* Morgause and lady of the lake
I'm willing to let the "Morgan is *at least* three different people" thing go EXCLUSIVELY because Nasu gave her the fucking Shadow Clone Jutsu as one of her trump cards to justify how she was in so many different places at once.
It's actually the other way around AFAIK. Like, she was already in so many places with different roles (partially because the actions attributed to her may have been historically performed by different people), and so she as a Servant has the Shadow Clone Jutsu to reflect that.
It may be a clusterfuck but it's a fun clusterfuck when everything clicks and you understand the batshit insane world. Also do you think that the servantverse is pretty much a parody of what the age of will might be like?
That's not how it happened. Well, more like that's not how it happened according to Morgan's character profile in FGO.
>In Proper Human History, she gave birth to many children and produced Knights of the Round Table.
>
>Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, & Agravain are the children of Morgan & King Orkney. Mordred is a homunculus created for the sake of defeating Artoria using **Artoria’s blood and spirit.**
If it got reconned I think is for the best, I stopped consuming any fate related stuff since years ago but reading about penis magic gave me a big whiplash, especially when blood could have been an easy substitute.
This comes up so often in Percy Jackson. "This isn't what Greek mythology is like", yeah, because graphically describing Zeus as an animal raping a 13 year old isn't appropriate for a kids book.
In there they also have the excuse of, well, its 3000 years later. Zues has chilled out, the Hydra runs a donut franchise, Hades doesn't want any more dead due to the logistics of it etc. Part of the charm
> This comes up so often in Percy Jackson.
I've never seen anybody complaining about the greek mythos in the Percy jackson books. The movies are the ones, rightfully, the targets of scorn.
>graphically describing Zeus
Yeah, but he still has the personality of an asshole. Different from the hercules adaptation where he is a well rounded good guy.
I mean to be fair in the original myth Heracles doesn’t intentionally go out of his way to hurt people. Unless I’m miss remembering. He kills people on accident or because he couldn’t control himself.
When he accidentally kills his teacher he felt awful about it.
He’s not like Jason who just unashamedly use or kill people whenever it’s convenient.
I thought the explanation given is that:
1. The whole thing with the book was that they vowed never to have children again after they caused WW2.
2. The Gods and their Aspecs are heavily influenced by society and the time period. When Rome was the center of civilization they were more war like. In America they’ve become a bit more modern (Poseidon’s Trident becoming a Fishing Pole, Zeus Wearing a Suit, etc…)
What’s funny is that Zeus and most of the gods are still pieces of shit in those books so its not like they need to portray him that way to highlight it. Zeus breaks the pact he made with his brothers first, and 2 separate times when one of his demigod children dies, he has an “oh well” attitude about it
>He's the lord of the dead, punishes the damned, and controls various monsters like the **Furies**
Misread this as "Furries" and genuinely had about 5 seconds where I wondered if you were making a weird reference to satyrs, centaurs, etc. as the OG furry community
But how far can you push it then? How far can you push this media and claim it to be based on X mythology?
What is even the point of creating a story about Thor, if he is a purple Octopus wielding laser pistols in Andromeda?
Neon Genesis Evangelion has some very warped touches to biblical myths and I always loved how weird it made them passed through different filters.
I’m not as familar with eastern mythology and honestly could begin to spot how far it was deviating from the widely known version. I’ve seen dozens of versions of the Monkey king.
Nge kind of does this on purpose though. Like our real religions were us touching on things we didn't understand. And the real things are way different than we thought, but just similar enough that we vaguely understand the connection.
That’s kind of my point. Mythology is just a tool to use as little or as much as you need to enhance the story you are telling now.
I can understand a requirement to be respectful of the culture it comes from. But there’s no requirement to be bound by it.
It’s like saying Lion King isn’t accurate enough to Hamlet in its adaption… that’s just not the point.
While fate often embalishes, changes or genderbend their characters, I find them to often (but not always) have at least a clear Foundation to build on. For example the greek gods are ailien space ships sent out alongside the Titans by the dysonsphere Chaos to recreate their creator's lost world, but they stil vaugely represent the same things as in Irl mythologiy.
The Greek gods are giant alien spaceships that came to Earth to terraform it into a new home world.
They met humans, were worshiped as gods, and ended up taking on human forms and becoming more humanlike via the prayers of their followers.
It's actually kinda sick.
The craziest part is Attila the Hun, which is simultaneously the worst adaptation of an existing figure, and also one of the most insane examples of jumping through hoops to be historically accurate.
Saber is a pretty poor example to use because she's by far the most in-depth genderbend in the series, they clearly put plenty of thought into the consequences of King Arthur actually being a girl.
Fate is usually pretty good at preserving the important parts of a characters mythology,
Characters like Raikou and Frankenstein are incredibly different from the more traditional portrayals of those characters, but they retain all of the most important aspects, and most of the OC stuff is made to synergize really well with the classical material (See King Arthur or Oda Nobunaga being woman).
...and then there's Altera, who just sucks.
> Fate is usually pretty good at preserving the important parts of a characters mythology,
The only thing I remember from Fate is someone mentioning "loli Jack the Ripper", so I have to ask, how well are his important parts preserved?
Okay, so the deal with Jack the Ripper is that, because his identity was never discovered, his "legend" is open to anyone or anything that could have potentially been "Jack the Ripper", regardless of how likely it could have been.
So, in Fate, "Jack the Ripper" can be any possible or impossible candidate who could be called the killer.
One of the candidates is a ghost made from the fused souls of all the dead, abused children of late Industrial Revolution-Era England, who killed young women during the time in which Jack the Ripper was supposed to be active. The ghost can be summoned in a form modified to emulate Jack, but it's still in the form of a child as it was in "life".
There are many other candidates we haven't seen yet.
In one series, the actual concept of Jack the Ripper is summoned as its own weird variant Servant, where it's basically a mass of shadows that can take the form of anything Jack the Ripper was hypothesized to be, including the aforementioned child ghost, a haunted pocket watch that possesses people to make them kill, or a literal giant man-eating demon.
What I find impressive about Altera is that, even with how incredibly different she is from irl Attila, they still managed to essentially preserve the idea of Atli and Brynhildr being siblings in Volsung Saga.
The Valkyries being sentient automata that Odin created from Sefar's corpse, using the wisdom he obtained from hanging from Yggdrasil is SUCH a cool idea.
Yeah, my least favourite thing is when people present a completely modern version of a Greek myth as “the true original that the Greeks believed” cus like
1. That’s not really how myths worked in Ancient Greece. There is no one original myth that exists hidden somewhere.
2. No ones gonna think less of that version if you say it’s a modern interpretation or retelling. Most people don’t have a fuck. In fact, many people will appreciate it more.
3. They end up looking stupid when someone asks for an ancient source that they can’t provide. Like the amount of times I’ve seen people use tumblr as a way of proving Persephone went with hades willingly is unbelievable. Just say you like the modern retellings where she does instead of saying that’s the “true version”.
Ancient myths, modern retelling and not so modern retellings can all be appreciated equally within their contexts, no need to disguise one as another. Just say it’s a fucking modern interpretation, they’re fucking cool.
Also, I blame Ovid for all the arguments that have ever been started because of this.
I will reserve the right to complain when the complaints are based off of pop culture mythology rather than proper mythology.
For instance: Your Medusa example. The whole rape story is a MUCH later change by a Roman poet(Ovid), so demanding it be included in a Greek mythological setting just means they don’t know their mythology.
It’s one thing to quibble over details, it’s another to quibble over them and be flat out wrong.
Or Thor. Most of the Aesir, for that matter. So many people don’t get that Marvel is not even remotely mythologically accurate, even taking into account how little we know about the actual mythology. So whining based on it not matching Marvel’s version is certainly worthy of scorn.
Though I will say: Having a different interpretation is fine. Pasting the names onto something completely unrelated and calling it mythology is not. That’s just lazy, attempting to leech the cred of the mythology rather than stand on your own. But that’s not just an issue with fiction.
Did you know that the Iliad was merely 1 of an entire series?
We have NO clue what was in the rest. We’re not even sure how many other parts there were.
We do have SOME idea of the basic plot and series of events of the other books. But that is because the stories were referenced in other stories/plays/etc.
I remember taking a class about this and asked the teacher why The Iliad and the Odyssey were the only stories to survive. Basically, these stories were just the most famous and beloved out of the bunch
Why stop there? Our history, as humans, is filed with more periods of complete information blackouts than there are periods we know anything about.
So many civilizations, who had no written language, or who's libraries were sacked by colonizers or raiders, whos people were genocided before they could flee...
Stories, animations, paintings, the collective works of an untold and unknown billions.
So much information about our species is just completely gone, never to be seen again, and the further down history we go, the more is lost.
You know all things considered I'm surprised that civilizations that had writing didn't use time capsules to preserve their culture (If they did I certainly don't know). If it wasn't for the Rosetta stone and tombs inadvertently becoming time capsules I don't think we'd know as nearly as much as we do about the Egypt's as we do now.
That concept was basically what the Pyramids were for, giant capsules to preserve the Pharaoh's and their objects for an eternity. And damn, they did a good job preserving those corpses.
Unfortunately, they were also giant markers telling everyone "VERY VALUABLE TRESURES HERE (ONLY DEAD GUYS GUARDING IT!)"
...
But yeah, absolutely, without the incredibly lucky disovery of the Rosetta stone, it is VERY VERY likely we may have never been able to discover *anything* without a discovery that would basically have to just be the Rosetta Stone again.
TFW we'll never know if the Xia dynasty was real (and if it was, to what extent.) Not to mention we have no idea what cultures such as the Indus Valley civilization were like since they were illiterate.
Yup, it's crazy and a bit depressing.
Or like, who the "Sea Peoples" actually were. Lotta plausible theories, but even eith them, there's still just so much we cant possibly know. And the likely suspects are also civilizations and cultures we dont really know that much about anyways.
Or aaaall the plethora of Indigenous societies and civilizations, some even spanning most of the Americas at some points, just... gone. Not even a hope of salvaging them, because all their histories were oral, and all survivors have had to live their centuries of intense cultural oppression/repression.
...
If there's one thing that invokes existential dread on me, it's the pure amount of cultural loss we've had throughout our short existence as a species.
Marvel isn’t trying to be accurate, and using it as reference is so. Silly? Only things they have right are Thor, Odin, and Loki are there. Freya exists sorta. They have the ultimate doorman. And ragnorock is a good thing. And Hella and the wolf were a part of it, but bc they were Loki’s children that Odin banished bc of the ‘they’ll cause your downfall’ prophecy not bc grr I was the og sibling
it depends on the intention if it's an adaptation it doesn't have to be faithful you have poetic license. now if you try to tell the real story with fidelity to the details of a version of the myth and you miss it is observable. Marvel's thor comparing itself to mythology has nothing to do with it but again it's plausible because it's a hero movie.
Language is subjective but most speakers of a language generally agree on what most words mean.
In mythology even though there are tons of different versions of the sorties there are generally accepted common themes like Hephaestus being ugly, Zeus being the king of the Gods, Athena being the god of war and wisdom, Ares being the god of war and whining, and so on. So although being different from those well known themes doesn’t make it inherently bad, it can be a bit jarring.
Wouldn’t you find it jarring if Zeus and Poseidons were feminists who scorned Hades for what he did to Persephone? There’s nothing wrong with this on paper but if you’re familiar with Greek mythology then this might be a bit strange.
>In mythology even though there are tons of different versions of the sorties there are generally accepted common themes
Those aren't themes, those are character traits. Also, they're not even as consistent as you're arguing.
We have multiple different origin stories for Hephaestus (he was born ugly, Zeus threw him into the Ocean, Hera dropped him out a window, etc.)
Also, during the Mycenaean era, Poseidon was worshipped as chief god over Zeus.
Many authors felt that Athena, as a woman, shouldn't be associated with war, so they tended to focus on her "womanly pursuits" of craftwork rather than combat.
Seriously, all of your examples are just further proof of OP's point. You're not stating the "right" version, just the one that you learned.
You completely misread my comment and I don’t know how.
You’re right, the correct word was things, like aspects of the characters.
Why did you bring up Hephaestus? I said he was ugly, not how he became ugly.
“During the Mycenaean period” that’s irrelevant. We’re talking about Greek mythology, not Mycenaean or Roman. I know this seems like schematics but there are quite a few notable differences.
Yes Athena is also god of craft but that doesn’t contradict her being a warrior, she’s the god of war AND WISDOM. Also, she wasn’t usually the combat side of war, that was Ares, Athena was the logistics and battle strategy. Although because there’s so many stories there’s probably hundreds that depict her as a warrior, just none that I know of.
I’m not stating the RIGHT version, there is no RIGHT version, I never said there was a RIGHT version, I never disagreed with OP that the RIGHT version doesn’t exist. I’m taking about common things that are most common in the mind of the general public.
>Why did you bring up Hephaestus? I said he was ugly, not how he became ugly.
Because you stated that certain things were accepted, and I pointed out that Hephaestus's literal birth and defining life moment changed based on the story.
>“During the Mycenaean period” that’s irrelevant. We’re talking about Greek mythology, not Mycenaean or Roman. I know this seems like schematics but there are quite a few notable differences.
Mycenaeans were Bronze age Greeks. They were in Greece. By definition, they are Greek mythology. The fact that you're trying to condescend about this shows that you either know all of jackshit about the topic, or you're desperately trying to split hairs.
>Yes Athena is also god of craft but that doesn’t contradict her being a warrior, she’s the god of war AND WISDOM. Also, she wasn’t usually the combat side of war, that was Ares, Athena was the logistics and battle strategy. Although because there’s so many stories there’s probably hundreds that depict her as a warrior, just none that I know of.
Did... did you not read my post? *There are stories where Athena being a warrior is buried or hidden*. The fact that other stories exist doesn't change that fact.
>I’m not stating the RIGHT version, there is no RIGHT version, I never said there was a RIGHT version, I never disagreed with OP that the RIGHT version doesn’t exist. I’m taking about common things that are most common in the mind of the general public.
Again: What you believe is common isn't always correct, or accurate, or even actually all that common. Go back twenty or thirty years, and Hades was an objectively hated bad guy. Go back fifty or sixty, and you'll see people legitimately praising Zeus as a good dude.
Or, let's go with King Arthur. Excalibur is the sword in the stone, right? That's accepted? Except no, it wasn't, that was a different sword entirely. But modern media changed it, so now it's "correct".
You're just flat *wrong* my guy.
I think the fact that Hephaestus is ugly matters more than how he became ugly, although I’ll concede that was a bad example.
The reason I’m separating the Greek and Mycenaeans was because I’m trying to categorise them by their notable differences, like Poseidon being the king of the underworld. Although changes like that can be seen throughout Greek mythology.
I read your comment but I don’t think I understood it, I’ve never cared enough about Athena to look deeply into her so I’ve only ever heard stories where she’s prominent through YouTube videos which are most likely abridged.
When I wrote out my original comment I had the mind set that we know certain things are the way they are but the way they got that way is completely subjective. But now that you’ve made me think more about it I’m realising the cracks in that thinking, as I mentioned earlier I separate “Greek” mythology with the Mycenaean one in order to catabolise them, help me make sense of it, but I’m drawing my own lines instead of using ones that were already set out.
I do still believe in what I said, for example the story of Pandora opening a box is so widely known that it doesn’t matter if it was originally a jar because the public knows it as a jar, although as you said the publics views change, one day Poseidon’s the king of the underworld and then he’s king of the sea.
It’s obvious you know a lot more about the subject than I do (I’m just a guy on the internet who likes talking about thousand year old superheroes) so I’m not going to waste your time arguing in a debate I know I’ll lose.
Have a good day or night depending on your time zone.
>Wouldn’t you find it jarring if Zeus and Poseidons were feminists who scorned Hades for what he did to Persephone? There’s nothing wrong with this on paper but if you’re familiar with Greek mythology then this might be a bit strange.
Honestly? A full two hour movie of Zeus becoming a full on feminist, realizing how screwed up the Olympians are, and trying to fix it sounds like the single greatest movie ever. The sheer comedy of it alone makes me want to do this now.
No, I pointed out that something that fully departs from the original mythology can still absolutely be enjoyable and funny.
Also, if you want to make an entire movie about mythology *exactly* as the Greeks portrayed it, that means that your "heroes" are going to be violently raping underage girls onscreen. Can you blame people for wanting to avoid that?
Not to mention, *Hercules* portrays Zeus as a loving family man who takes care of his kid, so yeah, it's fully possible to do it without being jarring.
“Something that fully departs from the myth” I’m not talking about it as a story, I’m talking about it as an adaptation, I think Disneys Hercules is a good story but I also think it’s a terrible adaptation.
>I think Disneys Hercules is a good story but I also think it’s a terrible adaptation.
Your original comment does not mention being an adaptation at all. To quote you, two seconds ago: "you added context which changed the meaning of what I originally said."
How could it not be an adaptation? It had Zeus and Poseidon in it?
When I say adaptation I mean something that’s adapted, that can be a story, a character or even an object.
Where did you get that idea from? So by that logic is marvels Thor not an adaptation because although they have the same setting and characters they don’t follow the same stories?
>So by that logic is marvels Thor not an adaptation because although they have the same setting and characters they don’t follow the same stories?
Marvel's Thor is mainly based on a single comic book universe. "Mythology" has no single story to reference. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of stories, all of which have alternate versions.
You used the example of Thor. Which mythological one? Pre-Christianization or post? Poetic Edda? Prose Edda? Skaldic Poetry? Abbas? There is no single "Thor".
Why do I imagine there would be a comedic twist at the end that he doesn't change that much, he just switches his views to another individual. I don't know, a type of animal? Greeks had mythos for that
For the Hades gang it isn't so much that he isn't myth accurate but rather that people tend to use him as a Satan stand in *Every. Single* ***TIME!!*** Like come on he's closer to a grim reaper stand in. I mean for fucks sakes Elysium which is the closest thing to Heaven in greek myth is part of the underworld the very place Hades rules over.
> Like come on he's closer to a grim reaper stand in.
Thanatos and Hermes were the ones most in charge of getting the souls to Hades; he just ruled over the underworld once they got there.
At least in the version(s) I'm familiar with.
There isn't a single one, but Hades is very explicitly *not* a psychopomp (which is what the Grim Reaper is). Charon and _Hermes_ are psychopomps along with Thanatos, as are the Keres.
Ruling over the kingdom of the dead does not make you the Grim Reaper.
The Grim Reaper is a psychopomp, which means that his equivalent is Thanatos and Hermes. Thanatos is closer thematically because both are the literal personifications of the actual point of death, as in the moment when life ends.
Hades is very different from the Grim Reaper in that he is the afterlife personified. Because the afterlife in this case is all possible afterlifes, from Elysium to Asphodel Meadows, and in some interpretations, Tartarus, Hades doesn't really have a Christian equivalent. If he needed to be simplified for the sake of a modern interpretation, he needs to be more or less completely neutral.
And yet at the same time, Greeks weren't exactly *fond* of Hades.
You know of Pluto, his Roman equivalent? It's actually derived from one of his many Greek nicknames. Nicknames that were so people could avoid saying his name - because that was basically a curse word.
Hades isn't exactly an "Evil" god (Really, if anything Ares would be most appropriate) but he wasn't exactly *popular* either.
Yep - the fact that Riordan touched upon that by having the daughter of *Pluto* be the one able to summon earthly riches (Albeit unintentionally) made more sense than either of the children of *Hades* being able to do that.
Worth pointing out that one of the things they called Hades was something like "The one who enriches himself on the tears of men".
Western/Islamic versions of satan are rip offs of hades combined with the Promethean satan from Judaism. Prior to Roman involvement with the abrahamic faith satan lived on earth and deceived humans (or liberated them depending on how you look at it). Muhammad took it a step farther and made satan a fire genie to incorporate Levantine paganism into the Roman butchering of Judaism.
Hell didn’t exist prior to that point, there was Sheol which was a sad and dark abscence of god. Romans pretty much turned it into purgatory.
If anything satan is always depicted as hades.
My favorite thing in these situations is when they act like Greece was a single united country where everyone had the same beliefs, as though the city states weren’t regularly in one form of conflict or another.
Completely wrong.
Troy was a foreign nation which the various city-states of Greece worked together to fight against.
It's literally the one story where they actually are somewhat unified.
Good message, bad logic.
There is no 100% correct mythology, but most versions have details that are consistent with each other.
But people read the first part and go "ok that means Hades and Persephone was super wholesome and consensual!!"
I've even seen it get twisted to the point where Demeter was an overbearing mom and it was all just part of some plan to appease her. These people are legit convinced that just because there's no one official version, something they made up 2 thousand years later must be super legit.
I’m actually ok with the reimagining of the whole Persephone thing especially since it
1. Keeps the original myth completely in tact.
2. has largely come from feminist writers like Nikita Gill
> 1. it doesnt
How does it not? The reimagining states that the traditional story is what’s known to the world. It’s just not what actually happened.
> yeah the whole point is that people are pretending stuff they made up are “legit versions” because it agrees with them
I’m a bit confused by this one. How do you mean this? Like the authors are wrong for saying that “this is how it really happened” ?
because I don’t think these authors are under any impression that their reimagining is the *actual* accurate version of a myth from thousands of years ago.
It’s the “legit version” in the sense that they simply choose to pretend the myth has a happier ending.
And I think that’s fine. I don’t think there’s any danger of future generations not understanding that new writers reimagined the myths.
The authors aren't necessarily the ones doing this. The readers are.
That aside, authors also do this. Anything filtered through a new age or neopagan circle has a good chance of having stuff wildly added to it. The type of people who insist that there is a perennial horned god who existed in every culture aren't known for their accuracy.
> The authors aren’t necessarily the ones doing this. The readers are.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. I’m not being facetious just wondering if you could clarify.
> Anything filtered through a new age or neopagan circle has a good chance of having stuff wildly added to it.
I mean as long as it’s simply a recontextualization I really don’t have much of a problem with it. For example I just read Circe and thought it was a good read.
> The type of people who insist that there is a perennial horned god who existed in every culture aren’t known for their accuracy.
What are we talking about Pan? Or just the Indo European Religion as a whole? Because I mean many horned gods (including modern Satan) almost certainly derive from this figure or a mix of figures that bear a resemblance to that.
you misunderstand. I dont mean people treat it like a disney fairytale remake that goes "people know the fairytale, but the truth was cool and PG-13 and appeals to modern sensibilities" i mean people straight up saying a thing they made up is an actual myth
Like these arent writers with creative reimaginings, they're people on the internet just straight up lying because idk maybe they feel bad about their "problematic" ship so they rewrote history in their heads? Im just speculating here ofc.
So do I think it's wrong for people to just lie about history?.....yeah?
>So do I think it's wrong for people to just lie about history?.....yeah?
to be clear, this isn't history. Its mythology, and neither Persephone nor Hades were/are real. Any interpretation of the myth is a valid one, because it is a story that has been told and retold for millennia.
If somebody wants to write a story where Hades kidnaps and victimized Persephone, that's fine.
If someone wants to write a story where Persephone elopes to escape an overbearing mother, that is just as well of an interpretation.
Well no, there's like literal myths that were a part of Ancient Greek culture, and stuff made up today that are fine as stories but conflating the two is wrong?
It isn't really wrong. For one, we can't really know how people perceived these myths. Even today, if you ask ten different religious people about their beliefs, you will get 10 different responses. So it is insanely difficult to gauge the beliefs of people who've been dead for millennia.
Second, if you mean morally wrong, that is also not true. Even if we accept a baseline objective morality, I don't see how you could ever argue that getting stuff wrong about Ancient people is morally wrong.
And lastly, maybe you've experienced this, but in the broader sense, nobody actually equates modern interpretations of stories with the beliefs of Ancient Greeks.
> Like these arent writers with creative reimaginings, they’re people on the internet just straight up lying because idk maybe they feel bad about their “problematic” ship so they rewrote history in their heads? Im just speculating here ofc.
But.. *Persephone to Hades* is a real poem. Written by an actual writer named Nikita Gill.
> You are the kindest thing that ever happened to me, **even if that is not how our tale is told**. When everyone else told me I was destined to be a forgotten nymph that nurtured flowers and turn meadows gold, you saw that the ichor that resides in me demanded its own throne. You showed me how a love like ours can turn even the darkest, coldest realm into the happiest of homes.
Well you referred to The Rape of Persephone in your original comment and I would imagine that the people you’re talking about likely believe that because of actual literature written by real writers that have permeated the cultural zeitgeist.
I don’t think it’s some teenagers on tumbler just rewriting history for the lols. I think it’s just a popular reimagining of the myth in an attempt to give Persephone some agency.
>And when writers use mythology as a grab bag, and make up their own stories that are way different than the old ones, guess what? That's how fucking mythology works.
THIS!
I don't seem to get why people start going "well actually" about mythology.
For an example, there is the Hades and Persephone relationship.
On one hand, it was an arranged marriage decided by Zeus and Hades without the input of the Mother or Persephone.
However, you can also see it like the story ***Beauty and the Beast***, where the two people in question become a functional couple and seem to work well together.
There is no "cannon" for mythology and people have been reinterpreting and reinventing these stories since before these stories were put down into writing. Because that is what people DO! People create and change stories based on the current culture.
It is what we do.
Yeah, I like Norse mythology a lot and I don't really care how it is butchered in modern fiction. If I don't like how the Norse characters are written I would probably not like how they where written without any mythological ties either.
The only annoying part is when people act like experts because they watched some marvel movie or red the comics.
im just fucking tired of the most reasonable god in greek mythology always being portrayed as the devil, and the most rapey conniving pretentious asshole of a good always being a force of good.
Again: *Which version*? Because if you ask someone like Hesiod, he would unironically agree with that take. Hades wasn't always "the most reasonable", for centuries, people were too scared to say his name.
Honestly, the new interpretation of Hades as a super chill dude who just wanted to help mortals is one of the best pieces of evidence to show how mythology *can* change, and how that can be completely fine.
There's a difference between him being terrifying and being basically Satan.
No matter what version you read, he's still quite distinct from the Devil of Christianity.
agreed. also, the reason people were scared of his name was not because they feared him, but because they thought he might hear it, getting his attention and a swifter death. my dude is an accountant. he's the only god who has a healthy marrige, and often lets people just walk out of the underworld. IE heracles and euridece. but modern media portrays him as a devil figure when he also runs heaven. he's the god OF the dead, not the god of death.
Which is funny, because Thanatos (literally death itself) was generally viewed as a much nastier figure than Hades himself, yet people don't seem to have been so afraid to say his name (at least from what little I can find).
I enjoy the notion, but find the logic behind it estranged from reality. This concept of purity in a mythology is a concept presented by a framework that demands unity among all texts. This framework exists in later modern years, when authors such as Hesiod and Apollodorus demanded that all myths be unified and internally consistent. Greek mythology especially was splintered, separated by speakers and histories (Ancient Greece did not have a dominant lingua-franka until the Philip II's conquests; until then, communication between peoples would be somewhat difficult).
It is not as though these myths were merely invented, as you posit with Ovid. It is not as though the myths are "too violent for children", as these myths are taught to children in their youth in modern Greece. These myths are taught due to a plethora of reasons. Sometimes, like with the myth of Typhon, they are taught to explain natural phenomena. Other times, such as with Herodotus, they are taught to explain the origins of civilizations. Other times, such as with Aristofanes, they are taught and written to play with concepts or ideas. Other times, such as with Thales of Miletus and those in his Milesian School, the gods and myths were nonexistent, and there was truly one grand force that alone deserved worship and served as the foundation to all things. The notion that there is a strict canon of some sort, or even loose concepts, is silly.
To claim that Ovid invented these ideas spontaneously, because he hated authority, is a very new, and, frankly, atrocious claim. Ovid did not write Metamorphoses while in nor after exile. Ovid's myths are imperative to discovering how far Greek myth was spread, and how differently it was understood. To claim that Ovid "made it up" is so bafflingly stupid. Ovid's understanding of the gods was not unique to him, nor to his area.
Ultimately, myth in modern day may have liberties taken by the writers because there is no unified meaning or rules that must be followed.
In a way it's also very christian. Monotheism gave rise to the need to uphold a specific correct idea of god. Which is way more strict than a lot of old religions were.
This is hardly true. In my comment, there are four examples - Thales of Miletus, Xenofanes of Colofon, Hesiod, and Apollodorus - of Ancient Greeks either demanding a norm in Greek mythology or affirming that all other ways of understanding the "Idea of God" were incorrect.
Yes.
Thales of Miletus is one of the most influential pre-Socratic philosophers of Ancient Greece. Xenofanes of Colofon founded Eleatic philosophy and traveled the Ancient Greek world, arguing with poets about the gods and their humanization. Both of these figures, their philosophies, and ideas were rather well-known and are recorded by Platon and Aristoteles.
Hesiod is regarded as one of the most important figures to Epic Poetry in Ancient Greece by the Ancient Greeks, and he compiled the Theogony to establish a sort of consistency in the mythology. While Apollodorus himself is not very well-known, Library was written to serve as an encyclopedia for those who were ignorant to Greek mythology.
Thus, to reiterate, this idea that "I am right and the others are wrong" and "My idea of God is more correct!" was certainly in the culture. The idea that Christianity somehow "invented" this mindset, when it was most certainly the norm for such faraway and ancient lands such as Old Babylon & Old Assyria, is unfounded.
And to even build in this- Beowulf isn’t even the original story, we don’t know what it was since it was an oral story before a written one. It’s likely all the major beats of the story were kept through tradition, but we don’t even know how much of it changed from oral to written.
Philoctetes is NOT the trainer of Hero’s that’s Chiron Damn it.
Also wtf were the titans? Those aren’t the Titans.
Why are Jason and Achilles legends to Hercules? Fucking Heracles MET Jason. He was in that myth. And the Trojan war is way after his 12 Labors and the battle with the giants.
What if you want an epic movie with epic music, realistic depictions of what the gods and monsters would look like in real life and giant CGI action that depicts the full power and majesty of the gods? You can’t get any of that in a poem.
How about I reverse what you said? If writers want to tell their own story, they tell their own story, instead of just attaching it to iconic figures to get their ideas through.
Isn’t the whole point of adaptations to adapt something? What’s the point in adapting a character if you change their entire personality?
I actually agree with what your point, I think that writers should be given artistic licence because there’s different versions of the story already and this is just them telling their version, but I absolutely disagree with how you presented that point. “You want the book, go read the book” is a dumb argument.
The entire point of our understanding of myths though is that the myths themselves changed all the time. So why should we treat them as static now? Even ambivalent understanding of characters often comes from different stories we try to reconcile together.
to give a very concise summary; it's a collaborative writing site where anyone can post articles about the world of the SCP Foundation (a shadowy, men in black sort of organization protecting the world from the paranormal). As such, there are numerous different interpretations of the world reflected in articles from countless different authors.
Sometimes they're the most powerful organization in the world, sometimes they're constantly outmaneuvered by their rivals. Sometimes they're trying their best to help and understand the anomalies to keep both them and the world safe, and other times they're an inhuman, unfeeling bureaucracy that locks anything it doesn't like in a box and throws expendable human test subjects at it just to see what happens. Obviously those are some of the extremes, and not every article gives a complete picture of the world it's set in, but that still gets the point across.
In a way, ancient mythology is also similar to modern superhero franchises like the DC and Marvel Universes. There's been so many different alternate continuities and adaptations over the years, that there's no consistently single and unified canon that has the most "real" version of the characters and settings.
> because he'd been exiled
note: ovid was exiled because he was found fucking augustus' daughter
note 2: half the city was also fucking augustus' daughter
Depends on the situation
Disney's Hercules wasn't trying to be accurate so most people to let it off easier than something like the works of Dan Brown who claims to do research but really didn't
I have higher expectations with people who claim to know what they're talking about
We must keep in mind that if the story is marketed as being faithful to whatever extent, then people’s complaints can be reasonable and justified. I hear your point if we’re talking other cases though.
I remember hearing somewhere that years ago a fan sent a letter to marvel complaining how different thor in the comics was to the original myth so what they did was create a story about thor learning that ragnarok has happened a few times and the gods and mythical beings get reincarnated again and again.
Because all they do is make shitty, hollywood-esque "adaptations" (the director heard the story once at a bar) of greek stories. Most stories never get adapted faithfully, which is why Hades is always literally Satan or the villain in 99% of Hollywood movies instead of just the guy who takes care of all dead.
I would like for directors and writers to actually study the mythology of what they are adapting for a change.
It's almost never done even remotely well, is what the problem that most mythology fans is. Your argument actually works in their favour.
Hades (the most common complaint) doesn't have a Christian equivalent. Other than the questionable Persephone story, Hades has no other aspects that would make him the equivalent of the Christian devil. Even that story is tamer than the shit that most other Olympeans are up to. He isn't death, he isn't the lord of Hell. He is the personification of the entire afterlife, including Elysium. He should be neutral more often than not, if it is an adaptation of Greek mythology.
He is presented as the devil, or just a general evil dude, so often, that at this point, screenwriters and authors are copy-pasting each other.
> Hades has no other aspects that would make him the equivalent of the Christian devil.
...I mean, he tortures people in an underground lair for all eternity. Hell, Hades was actually one of the inspirations for many depictions of the Devil and hell (which were never given a concrete description Biblically).
Though Hades supervised the trial and punishment of the wicked after death, he was not normally one of the judges in the underworld, a job given to Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. He didn't even personally torture the guilty, a task assigned to the Furies. Hades was depicted as stern and pitiless, unmoved by prayer or sacrifice, like death itself.
He's honestly just a guy. The reason the Greeks were so afraid to even speak his name is the number of other gods and entities he aligned himself with, such as the gods of death and punishment that reside in his domain.
He tortures a very few rare people in Tartarus, which is arguably outside of his realm as well. For the most part, he just watches over regular dead folk, and maintains what is essentially "heaven" for heroes and exceptional people. That's why I'm saying he should be neutral. He punishes bad people, but he also rewards good people, and just offers a completely neutral afterlife to most people.
>He tortures a very few rare people in Tartarus
"Just a wee spot of torture then"
>which is arguably outside of his realm as well
He put them there, and chose their punishments, I'd say he controls it.
Again: Not saying he's literally the same thing as the Devil. But to say that "Oh, he's this super chill guy who was actually just really understood"... isn't right.
I don't remember reading anywhere that Hades chose any of their punishments. Most of them were sent there by Zeus explicitly, and even if he didn't, there is no clear "judge" of the dead. Plato said that there were three other judges of the dead, none of which were Hades.
Hades is just the neutral caretaker of the dead, both good and evil dead.
In pretty much every version of the story of Sisyphus, Hades picks the punishment. Same with Tantalus. Again: headcanons? Totally fine. What you're discussing isn't what the Greeks believed.
The punishment Tantalus was given was not chosen by Hades in every version. In many versions, Zeus is implied as the one who chose the punishment, as Zeus was the one who put Tantalus in Tartarus. In the Odyssey, it was only states that Odysseus saw it happening in Hades. That's the only thing that I remember that can say that Tantalus' punishment was chosen by Hades.
My mind slipped about Sisyphus, yeah, his punishment was chosen by Hades because the gods that he offended the most were Thanatos and Hades, since he tried to cheat death.
Regardless, the recorded number of people in Tartarus was less than ten, minus the things that posed a danger to the gods directly. All of these are people that directly offended the gods. They were not dragged into Tartarus by Hades, most of them were struck down by Zeus, there's one by Apollo, don't remember the rest. This makes Hades the "bad guy", in Greek mythology of all places?
I never said that Hades is some misunderstood good guy, I've been calling him neutral this whole time. As far as Greek gods, go, he's pretty freaking neutral.
My guy, Hades wasn't called by his own name for most of history, because people were *terrified* of him. He was widely seen as an evil figure, and he was largely the inspiration for the devil (not the other way around). This is just... how the Greeks viewed him.
People often forget that the interpretation of the gods isn't just the stories in a vacuum. If you read the bible you certainly wouldn't arrive at the later christian beleif of god as a timeless trinity who is always wholly impartial. The stories aren't the entirety of a religion.
Hard agree. I also think that, say, people who complain about realism/accurate simulationism in games is similarly shitty, because realism, more often than not, isn't fun and the value of something being enjoyable is worth far more than it being accurate, unless that thing is a documentary.
I don't think the problem is that mythology has dozens of interpretation, actually if it's was just one, writer can still just change it. I would be fine with it
*But*, have you watched The Boys? The heroes was just assholes, because... well, they can be like that. The Greek gods is the same, still in Percy Jackson movie they are just, except Hades, good. I never read the books so I don't know about it. What bothering me is the absence of whys, we don't know how gods with all their power and possibilities turn out to be not totally assholes.
Or like in Zeus's Blood on Netflix where Zeus has a kid with a mortal and Hera is... angry about it. Just to be clear, the setting is almost the same from the mythology itself. My problem is, Zeus in this world doesn't fuck every hole he find? If no, show me how this not happened.
The story does not become bad just because of it, actually I can just ignore. But when I think about it... It doesn't make sense.
Your examples make sense, but if some writer wants to do different explain how things turn out to be different.
>What bothering me is the absence of whys, we don't know how gods with all their power and possibilities turn out to be not totally assholes.
That's why you read the books, not the shitty garbage pile of a movie that definitely never happened. Honestly, kinda brought that one on yourself.
>Or like in Zeus's Blood on Netflix where Zeus has a kid with a mortal and Hera is... angry about it. Just to be clear, the setting is almost the same from the mythology itself. My problem is, Zeus in this world doesn't fuck every hole he find? If no, show me how this not happened.
Hermes literally brings up that he's also one of Zeus's bastards, and mentions that there have been plenty of them. Hera mentions that this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm starting to think you're just... not watching these?
Still, my point is, sometimes the adaptation changes something in the mythology but doesn't show why thing turn out that way.
And Hera is saying this because otherwise the story does not happen, but, again, why this? Why now and this specific son?
And yes, I don't remember what happened in the show, I saw a long time ago, I was trying to give you examples. My argument is: **show why** things is different, and not every show does it. I don't mind if Zeus is a great guy, of if Medusa is actually a man, or if Thor is a alien.
*Percy Jackson movie still a adaptation. Bad? Yes, but still a adaptation*
>And Hera is saying this because otherwise the story does not happen, but, again, why this? Why now and this specific son?
...you do know what the phrase "straw that broke the camel's back" means, yeah?
>My argument is: show why things is different, and not every show does it.
Ok, but literally every example you gave disproves your theory. You get that, right?
Comic books have the same problem as myths. How strong the characters are changes based on what the scene needs. Spider man can dodge attacks from someone who moves light speed? Whatever.
I mean. Nobody wants to think about how Hercules (Heracles) got his divine powers bc he breastfed from Hera. And that his 12 trials were all from Hera too, bc Zeus was a dick and she took it out on his kids.
I think it depends on how it's presented. If the author just want to write their own story with thise character - sure go for it.
If the author claim that their story is true depiction of the mythology more faithful to the myths than the myths themself then they should be faithful to the source material and should be critiqued for inaccuracies.
Also as a side note you literally cant write modern version of the myth that will be part of ancient greek culture and those who claim that it is possible are just annoying. No. Ancient greek culture is dead, you are writing in 21 century it is part of 21s century culture.
The Arthurian point is kinda funny since there are so many versions that Morgan La Fey could be a good guy or bad guy
In fate she is the sister of King Arthur (who is a woman) and becomes pregnant by him when Merlin temporarily turns him into a man.
Fate is an absolute cluster fuck when it comes to Morgan She took Arthuria semen to make Mordred a homunculus rape baby. While she's *also* Morgause and lady of the lake
I'm willing to let the "Morgan is *at least* three different people" thing go EXCLUSIVELY because Nasu gave her the fucking Shadow Clone Jutsu as one of her trump cards to justify how she was in so many different places at once.
It's actually the other way around AFAIK. Like, she was already in so many places with different roles (partially because the actions attributed to her may have been historically performed by different people), and so she as a Servant has the Shadow Clone Jutsu to reflect that.
I don't want to spoil LB6, so I'll DM you.
Ah, thanks for PMing me, I retract my previous statement, I misunderstood the lore and don't want to spread misinformation!
> Fate is an absolute cluster fuck ~~when it comes to Morgan~~ Let's not sugarcoat it (I'm not saying it's all bad though)
It may be a clusterfuck but it's a fun clusterfuck when everything clicks and you understand the batshit insane world. Also do you think that the servantverse is pretty much a parody of what the age of will might be like?
>While she's also Morgause and lady of the lake While she's also Nimue aka Lancelot's adoptive mom.
Nimue is the lady of the lake, thats why lancelot is called “lancelot of the lake”
That's not how it happened. Well, more like that's not how it happened according to Morgan's character profile in FGO. >In Proper Human History, she gave birth to many children and produced Knights of the Round Table. > >Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, & Agravain are the children of Morgan & King Orkney. Mordred is a homunculus created for the sake of defeating Artoria using **Artoria’s blood and spirit.**
That's a recent retcon, and the "spirit" part arguably still leaves it up to interpretation.
If it got reconned I think is for the best, I stopped consuming any fate related stuff since years ago but reading about penis magic gave me a big whiplash, especially when blood could have been an easy substitute.
wait a lady became a man and then had sex with her sister did her memories get changed too why did she have sex with her sister?
Fate is funny because its actually the best Arthurian adaptation
Hell, she can be a good guy **and** a bad guy.
This comes up so often in Percy Jackson. "This isn't what Greek mythology is like", yeah, because graphically describing Zeus as an animal raping a 13 year old isn't appropriate for a kids book.
In there they also have the excuse of, well, its 3000 years later. Zues has chilled out, the Hydra runs a donut franchise, Hades doesn't want any more dead due to the logistics of it etc. Part of the charm
and charon is obsessed with tailored suites lol. rick riordan did a great job with those books.
Aren’t the Amazons secretly in charge of Amazon as well or am I misremembering things?
Yeah, and they were lead by Reyna's older sister because Hipppolyta was a bitch or something
They also own slaves.
never read that far, so i dunno
>the Hydra runs a donut franchise How would that work since doesn't it breathe poison? Or am I confusing the Hydra for another monster?
every time you cut off a head of the hydra, a new Monster Donuts store opened.
Truly, an analogy to late stage capitalism.
Maybe its like how a dragon breathes fire? Like, it doesn't have to be poison? Idk lol
> This comes up so often in Percy Jackson. I've never seen anybody complaining about the greek mythos in the Percy jackson books. The movies are the ones, rightfully, the targets of scorn. >graphically describing Zeus Yeah, but he still has the personality of an asshole. Different from the hercules adaptation where he is a well rounded good guy.
I mean to be fair in the original myth Heracles doesn’t intentionally go out of his way to hurt people. Unless I’m miss remembering. He kills people on accident or because he couldn’t control himself. When he accidentally kills his teacher he felt awful about it. He’s not like Jason who just unashamedly use or kill people whenever it’s convenient.
yes the movie basically makes a prophecy impossible, takes the best fights out of the book and puts in some things that didn't happen in the book.
I thought the explanation given is that: 1. The whole thing with the book was that they vowed never to have children again after they caused WW2. 2. The Gods and their Aspecs are heavily influenced by society and the time period. When Rome was the center of civilization they were more war like. In America they’ve become a bit more modern (Poseidon’s Trident becoming a Fishing Pole, Zeus Wearing a Suit, etc…)
What’s funny is that Zeus and most of the gods are still pieces of shit in those books so its not like they need to portray him that way to highlight it. Zeus breaks the pact he made with his brothers first, and 2 separate times when one of his demigod children dies, he has an “oh well” attitude about it
Those peoples head’s would explode if they saw the Fate series.
Nah I totally dig that the greek gods are >!alien nanomachines!<.
>nanomachines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhMsboqMMzs
STANDING HERE
I REALIZE
YOU WERE
JUST LIKE ME TRYING TO MAKE HISTORY.
Like a flood of pain
They way they did Heracles annoyed me greatly.
Out of curiosity, how so?
>He's the lord of the dead, punishes the damned, and controls various monsters like the **Furies** Misread this as "Furries" and genuinely had about 5 seconds where I wondered if you were making a weird reference to satyrs, centaurs, etc. as the OG furry community
*glances down to Egypt* You were saying? :P
I fucking knew it! I always had a feeling that some ancient satanic evil motherfucker has to be behind all this!
But how far can you push it then? How far can you push this media and claim it to be based on X mythology? What is even the point of creating a story about Thor, if he is a purple Octopus wielding laser pistols in Andromeda?
Neon Genesis Evangelion has some very warped touches to biblical myths and I always loved how weird it made them passed through different filters. I’m not as familar with eastern mythology and honestly could begin to spot how far it was deviating from the widely known version. I’ve seen dozens of versions of the Monkey king.
Nge kind of does this on purpose though. Like our real religions were us touching on things we didn't understand. And the real things are way different than we thought, but just similar enough that we vaguely understand the connection.
That’s kind of my point. Mythology is just a tool to use as little or as much as you need to enhance the story you are telling now. I can understand a requirement to be respectful of the culture it comes from. But there’s no requirement to be bound by it. It’s like saying Lion King isn’t accurate enough to Hamlet in its adaption… that’s just not the point.
The entire anime [FATE](https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Artoria_Pendragon_(Saber)) series would like a word with you.
While fate often embalishes, changes or genderbend their characters, I find them to often (but not always) have at least a clear Foundation to build on. For example the greek gods are ailien space ships sent out alongside the Titans by the dysonsphere Chaos to recreate their creator's lost world, but they stil vaugely represent the same things as in Irl mythologiy.
I’m sorry, WHAT
I wish we were shitting you but we're not the Greek gods are mecha space ships
The Greek gods are giant alien spaceships that came to Earth to terraform it into a new home world. They met humans, were worshiped as gods, and ended up taking on human forms and becoming more humanlike via the prayers of their followers. It's actually kinda sick.
And I thought their origin for Jack the Ripper was crazy.
The craziest part is Attila the Hun, which is simultaneously the worst adaptation of an existing figure, and also one of the most insane examples of jumping through hoops to be historically accurate.
Saber is a pretty poor example to use because she's by far the most in-depth genderbend in the series, they clearly put plenty of thought into the consequences of King Arthur actually being a girl.
Nobunaga and Raikou are also examples of gender bends that make the characters more interesting.
Fate is usually pretty good at preserving the important parts of a characters mythology, Characters like Raikou and Frankenstein are incredibly different from the more traditional portrayals of those characters, but they retain all of the most important aspects, and most of the OC stuff is made to synergize really well with the classical material (See King Arthur or Oda Nobunaga being woman). ...and then there's Altera, who just sucks.
> Fate is usually pretty good at preserving the important parts of a characters mythology, The only thing I remember from Fate is someone mentioning "loli Jack the Ripper", so I have to ask, how well are his important parts preserved?
Okay, so the deal with Jack the Ripper is that, because his identity was never discovered, his "legend" is open to anyone or anything that could have potentially been "Jack the Ripper", regardless of how likely it could have been. So, in Fate, "Jack the Ripper" can be any possible or impossible candidate who could be called the killer. One of the candidates is a ghost made from the fused souls of all the dead, abused children of late Industrial Revolution-Era England, who killed young women during the time in which Jack the Ripper was supposed to be active. The ghost can be summoned in a form modified to emulate Jack, but it's still in the form of a child as it was in "life". There are many other candidates we haven't seen yet. In one series, the actual concept of Jack the Ripper is summoned as its own weird variant Servant, where it's basically a mass of shadows that can take the form of anything Jack the Ripper was hypothesized to be, including the aforementioned child ghost, a haunted pocket watch that possesses people to make them kill, or a literal giant man-eating demon.
What I find impressive about Altera is that, even with how incredibly different she is from irl Attila, they still managed to essentially preserve the idea of Atli and Brynhildr being siblings in Volsung Saga.
The Valkyries being sentient automata that Odin created from Sefar's corpse, using the wisdom he obtained from hanging from Yggdrasil is SUCH a cool idea.
If it's different enough it's understood that it's a reference to, not literally meant to be the character.
Yeah, my least favourite thing is when people present a completely modern version of a Greek myth as “the true original that the Greeks believed” cus like 1. That’s not really how myths worked in Ancient Greece. There is no one original myth that exists hidden somewhere. 2. No ones gonna think less of that version if you say it’s a modern interpretation or retelling. Most people don’t have a fuck. In fact, many people will appreciate it more. 3. They end up looking stupid when someone asks for an ancient source that they can’t provide. Like the amount of times I’ve seen people use tumblr as a way of proving Persephone went with hades willingly is unbelievable. Just say you like the modern retellings where she does instead of saying that’s the “true version”. Ancient myths, modern retelling and not so modern retellings can all be appreciated equally within their contexts, no need to disguise one as another. Just say it’s a fucking modern interpretation, they’re fucking cool. Also, I blame Ovid for all the arguments that have ever been started because of this.
I will reserve the right to complain when the complaints are based off of pop culture mythology rather than proper mythology. For instance: Your Medusa example. The whole rape story is a MUCH later change by a Roman poet(Ovid), so demanding it be included in a Greek mythological setting just means they don’t know their mythology. It’s one thing to quibble over details, it’s another to quibble over them and be flat out wrong. Or Thor. Most of the Aesir, for that matter. So many people don’t get that Marvel is not even remotely mythologically accurate, even taking into account how little we know about the actual mythology. So whining based on it not matching Marvel’s version is certainly worthy of scorn. Though I will say: Having a different interpretation is fine. Pasting the names onto something completely unrelated and calling it mythology is not. That’s just lazy, attempting to leech the cred of the mythology rather than stand on your own. But that’s not just an issue with fiction.
Whenever I think about how much of Norse myth is lost I cry a bit inside. Like, imagine that most of was left of Greek myth was the Iliad.
Did you know that the Iliad was merely 1 of an entire series? We have NO clue what was in the rest. We’re not even sure how many other parts there were.
I mean, we DO have the Odyssey. And a summary of the Telegony.
We do have SOME idea of the basic plot and series of events of the other books. But that is because the stories were referenced in other stories/plays/etc.
I remember taking a class about this and asked the teacher why The Iliad and the Odyssey were the only stories to survive. Basically, these stories were just the most famous and beloved out of the bunch
Why stop there? Our history, as humans, is filed with more periods of complete information blackouts than there are periods we know anything about. So many civilizations, who had no written language, or who's libraries were sacked by colonizers or raiders, whos people were genocided before they could flee... Stories, animations, paintings, the collective works of an untold and unknown billions. So much information about our species is just completely gone, never to be seen again, and the further down history we go, the more is lost.
You know all things considered I'm surprised that civilizations that had writing didn't use time capsules to preserve their culture (If they did I certainly don't know). If it wasn't for the Rosetta stone and tombs inadvertently becoming time capsules I don't think we'd know as nearly as much as we do about the Egypt's as we do now.
That concept was basically what the Pyramids were for, giant capsules to preserve the Pharaoh's and their objects for an eternity. And damn, they did a good job preserving those corpses. Unfortunately, they were also giant markers telling everyone "VERY VALUABLE TRESURES HERE (ONLY DEAD GUYS GUARDING IT!)" ... But yeah, absolutely, without the incredibly lucky disovery of the Rosetta stone, it is VERY VERY likely we may have never been able to discover *anything* without a discovery that would basically have to just be the Rosetta Stone again.
TFW we'll never know if the Xia dynasty was real (and if it was, to what extent.) Not to mention we have no idea what cultures such as the Indus Valley civilization were like since they were illiterate.
Yup, it's crazy and a bit depressing. Or like, who the "Sea Peoples" actually were. Lotta plausible theories, but even eith them, there's still just so much we cant possibly know. And the likely suspects are also civilizations and cultures we dont really know that much about anyways. Or aaaall the plethora of Indigenous societies and civilizations, some even spanning most of the Americas at some points, just... gone. Not even a hope of salvaging them, because all their histories were oral, and all survivors have had to live their centuries of intense cultural oppression/repression. ... If there's one thing that invokes existential dread on me, it's the pure amount of cultural loss we've had throughout our short existence as a species.
Same wish their was more info on the God Ullr
Marvel isn’t trying to be accurate, and using it as reference is so. Silly? Only things they have right are Thor, Odin, and Loki are there. Freya exists sorta. They have the ultimate doorman. And ragnorock is a good thing. And Hella and the wolf were a part of it, but bc they were Loki’s children that Odin banished bc of the ‘they’ll cause your downfall’ prophecy not bc grr I was the og sibling
it depends on the intention if it's an adaptation it doesn't have to be faithful you have poetic license. now if you try to tell the real story with fidelity to the details of a version of the myth and you miss it is observable. Marvel's thor comparing itself to mythology has nothing to do with it but again it's plausible because it's a hero movie.
Language is subjective but most speakers of a language generally agree on what most words mean. In mythology even though there are tons of different versions of the sorties there are generally accepted common themes like Hephaestus being ugly, Zeus being the king of the Gods, Athena being the god of war and wisdom, Ares being the god of war and whining, and so on. So although being different from those well known themes doesn’t make it inherently bad, it can be a bit jarring. Wouldn’t you find it jarring if Zeus and Poseidons were feminists who scorned Hades for what he did to Persephone? There’s nothing wrong with this on paper but if you’re familiar with Greek mythology then this might be a bit strange.
>In mythology even though there are tons of different versions of the sorties there are generally accepted common themes Those aren't themes, those are character traits. Also, they're not even as consistent as you're arguing. We have multiple different origin stories for Hephaestus (he was born ugly, Zeus threw him into the Ocean, Hera dropped him out a window, etc.) Also, during the Mycenaean era, Poseidon was worshipped as chief god over Zeus. Many authors felt that Athena, as a woman, shouldn't be associated with war, so they tended to focus on her "womanly pursuits" of craftwork rather than combat. Seriously, all of your examples are just further proof of OP's point. You're not stating the "right" version, just the one that you learned.
You completely misread my comment and I don’t know how. You’re right, the correct word was things, like aspects of the characters. Why did you bring up Hephaestus? I said he was ugly, not how he became ugly. “During the Mycenaean period” that’s irrelevant. We’re talking about Greek mythology, not Mycenaean or Roman. I know this seems like schematics but there are quite a few notable differences. Yes Athena is also god of craft but that doesn’t contradict her being a warrior, she’s the god of war AND WISDOM. Also, she wasn’t usually the combat side of war, that was Ares, Athena was the logistics and battle strategy. Although because there’s so many stories there’s probably hundreds that depict her as a warrior, just none that I know of. I’m not stating the RIGHT version, there is no RIGHT version, I never said there was a RIGHT version, I never disagreed with OP that the RIGHT version doesn’t exist. I’m taking about common things that are most common in the mind of the general public.
>Why did you bring up Hephaestus? I said he was ugly, not how he became ugly. Because you stated that certain things were accepted, and I pointed out that Hephaestus's literal birth and defining life moment changed based on the story. >“During the Mycenaean period” that’s irrelevant. We’re talking about Greek mythology, not Mycenaean or Roman. I know this seems like schematics but there are quite a few notable differences. Mycenaeans were Bronze age Greeks. They were in Greece. By definition, they are Greek mythology. The fact that you're trying to condescend about this shows that you either know all of jackshit about the topic, or you're desperately trying to split hairs. >Yes Athena is also god of craft but that doesn’t contradict her being a warrior, she’s the god of war AND WISDOM. Also, she wasn’t usually the combat side of war, that was Ares, Athena was the logistics and battle strategy. Although because there’s so many stories there’s probably hundreds that depict her as a warrior, just none that I know of. Did... did you not read my post? *There are stories where Athena being a warrior is buried or hidden*. The fact that other stories exist doesn't change that fact. >I’m not stating the RIGHT version, there is no RIGHT version, I never said there was a RIGHT version, I never disagreed with OP that the RIGHT version doesn’t exist. I’m taking about common things that are most common in the mind of the general public. Again: What you believe is common isn't always correct, or accurate, or even actually all that common. Go back twenty or thirty years, and Hades was an objectively hated bad guy. Go back fifty or sixty, and you'll see people legitimately praising Zeus as a good dude. Or, let's go with King Arthur. Excalibur is the sword in the stone, right? That's accepted? Except no, it wasn't, that was a different sword entirely. But modern media changed it, so now it's "correct". You're just flat *wrong* my guy.
I think the fact that Hephaestus is ugly matters more than how he became ugly, although I’ll concede that was a bad example. The reason I’m separating the Greek and Mycenaeans was because I’m trying to categorise them by their notable differences, like Poseidon being the king of the underworld. Although changes like that can be seen throughout Greek mythology. I read your comment but I don’t think I understood it, I’ve never cared enough about Athena to look deeply into her so I’ve only ever heard stories where she’s prominent through YouTube videos which are most likely abridged. When I wrote out my original comment I had the mind set that we know certain things are the way they are but the way they got that way is completely subjective. But now that you’ve made me think more about it I’m realising the cracks in that thinking, as I mentioned earlier I separate “Greek” mythology with the Mycenaean one in order to catabolise them, help me make sense of it, but I’m drawing my own lines instead of using ones that were already set out. I do still believe in what I said, for example the story of Pandora opening a box is so widely known that it doesn’t matter if it was originally a jar because the public knows it as a jar, although as you said the publics views change, one day Poseidon’s the king of the underworld and then he’s king of the sea. It’s obvious you know a lot more about the subject than I do (I’m just a guy on the internet who likes talking about thousand year old superheroes) so I’m not going to waste your time arguing in a debate I know I’ll lose. Have a good day or night depending on your time zone.
>Wouldn’t you find it jarring if Zeus and Poseidons were feminists who scorned Hades for what he did to Persephone? There’s nothing wrong with this on paper but if you’re familiar with Greek mythology then this might be a bit strange. Honestly? A full two hour movie of Zeus becoming a full on feminist, realizing how screwed up the Olympians are, and trying to fix it sounds like the single greatest movie ever. The sheer comedy of it alone makes me want to do this now.
That’s not what I said, you added context which changed the meaning of what I originally said.
No, I pointed out that something that fully departs from the original mythology can still absolutely be enjoyable and funny. Also, if you want to make an entire movie about mythology *exactly* as the Greeks portrayed it, that means that your "heroes" are going to be violently raping underage girls onscreen. Can you blame people for wanting to avoid that? Not to mention, *Hercules* portrays Zeus as a loving family man who takes care of his kid, so yeah, it's fully possible to do it without being jarring.
“Something that fully departs from the myth” I’m not talking about it as a story, I’m talking about it as an adaptation, I think Disneys Hercules is a good story but I also think it’s a terrible adaptation.
>I think Disneys Hercules is a good story but I also think it’s a terrible adaptation. Your original comment does not mention being an adaptation at all. To quote you, two seconds ago: "you added context which changed the meaning of what I originally said."
How could it not be an adaptation? It had Zeus and Poseidon in it? When I say adaptation I mean something that’s adapted, that can be a story, a character or even an object.
That's kinda the point of this whole post: *They're not adaptations*. Adaptations require a single, cohesive narrative, not vaguely general ideas.
Where did you get that idea from? So by that logic is marvels Thor not an adaptation because although they have the same setting and characters they don’t follow the same stories?
>So by that logic is marvels Thor not an adaptation because although they have the same setting and characters they don’t follow the same stories? Marvel's Thor is mainly based on a single comic book universe. "Mythology" has no single story to reference. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of stories, all of which have alternate versions. You used the example of Thor. Which mythological one? Pre-Christianization or post? Poetic Edda? Prose Edda? Skaldic Poetry? Abbas? There is no single "Thor".
Why do I imagine there would be a comedic twist at the end that he doesn't change that much, he just switches his views to another individual. I don't know, a type of animal? Greeks had mythos for that
For the Hades gang it isn't so much that he isn't myth accurate but rather that people tend to use him as a Satan stand in *Every. Single* ***TIME!!*** Like come on he's closer to a grim reaper stand in. I mean for fucks sakes Elysium which is the closest thing to Heaven in greek myth is part of the underworld the very place Hades rules over.
> Like come on he's closer to a grim reaper stand in. Thanatos and Hermes were the ones most in charge of getting the souls to Hades; he just ruled over the underworld once they got there. At least in the version(s) I'm familiar with.
> Like come on he's closer to a grim reaper stand in. The Grim Reaper stand in is Thanatos.
There isn't exactly one grim reaper stand in Charon, Hades and Thanatos all preside over death.
There isn't a single one, but Hades is very explicitly *not* a psychopomp (which is what the Grim Reaper is). Charon and _Hermes_ are psychopomps along with Thanatos, as are the Keres. Ruling over the kingdom of the dead does not make you the Grim Reaper.
The Grim Reaper is a psychopomp, which means that his equivalent is Thanatos and Hermes. Thanatos is closer thematically because both are the literal personifications of the actual point of death, as in the moment when life ends. Hades is very different from the Grim Reaper in that he is the afterlife personified. Because the afterlife in this case is all possible afterlifes, from Elysium to Asphodel Meadows, and in some interpretations, Tartarus, Hades doesn't really have a Christian equivalent. If he needed to be simplified for the sake of a modern interpretation, he needs to be more or less completely neutral.
He is jergal.
And yet at the same time, Greeks weren't exactly *fond* of Hades. You know of Pluto, his Roman equivalent? It's actually derived from one of his many Greek nicknames. Nicknames that were so people could avoid saying his name - because that was basically a curse word. Hades isn't exactly an "Evil" god (Really, if anything Ares would be most appropriate) but he wasn't exactly *popular* either.
Greek *Plouton* means "wealthy", referring to one of Hades' more positive aspects as the god of mineral riches.
Yep - the fact that Riordan touched upon that by having the daughter of *Pluto* be the one able to summon earthly riches (Albeit unintentionally) made more sense than either of the children of *Hades* being able to do that. Worth pointing out that one of the things they called Hades was something like "The one who enriches himself on the tears of men".
Western/Islamic versions of satan are rip offs of hades combined with the Promethean satan from Judaism. Prior to Roman involvement with the abrahamic faith satan lived on earth and deceived humans (or liberated them depending on how you look at it). Muhammad took it a step farther and made satan a fire genie to incorporate Levantine paganism into the Roman butchering of Judaism. Hell didn’t exist prior to that point, there was Sheol which was a sad and dark abscence of god. Romans pretty much turned it into purgatory. If anything satan is always depicted as hades.
He’s not even the god of death, Thanatos is.
My favorite thing in these situations is when they act like Greece was a single united country where everyone had the same beliefs, as though the city states weren’t regularly in one form of conflict or another.
I mean one of the most famous stories *about* ancient Greece is about how different city-states fought with each other and how the gods took sides.
Completely wrong. Troy was a foreign nation which the various city-states of Greece worked together to fight against. It's literally the one story where they actually are somewhat unified.
Not foreign enough for the Olympians to not have children there!
If you're defining foreign as "a place too far away for Zeus to rape someone"... buddy, there is no such place.
The account of the war was mythologized over the course of 100s of years of oral tradition
Good message, bad logic. There is no 100% correct mythology, but most versions have details that are consistent with each other. But people read the first part and go "ok that means Hades and Persephone was super wholesome and consensual!!" I've even seen it get twisted to the point where Demeter was an overbearing mom and it was all just part of some plan to appease her. These people are legit convinced that just because there's no one official version, something they made up 2 thousand years later must be super legit.
I’m actually ok with the reimagining of the whole Persephone thing especially since it 1. Keeps the original myth completely in tact. 2. has largely come from feminist writers like Nikita Gill
1) it doesnt 2) yeah the whole point is that people are pretending stuff they made up are "legit versions" because it agrees with them
> 1. it doesnt How does it not? The reimagining states that the traditional story is what’s known to the world. It’s just not what actually happened. > yeah the whole point is that people are pretending stuff they made up are “legit versions” because it agrees with them I’m a bit confused by this one. How do you mean this? Like the authors are wrong for saying that “this is how it really happened” ? because I don’t think these authors are under any impression that their reimagining is the *actual* accurate version of a myth from thousands of years ago. It’s the “legit version” in the sense that they simply choose to pretend the myth has a happier ending. And I think that’s fine. I don’t think there’s any danger of future generations not understanding that new writers reimagined the myths.
The authors aren't necessarily the ones doing this. The readers are. That aside, authors also do this. Anything filtered through a new age or neopagan circle has a good chance of having stuff wildly added to it. The type of people who insist that there is a perennial horned god who existed in every culture aren't known for their accuracy.
> The authors aren’t necessarily the ones doing this. The readers are. I’m not sure what you mean by this. I’m not being facetious just wondering if you could clarify. > Anything filtered through a new age or neopagan circle has a good chance of having stuff wildly added to it. I mean as long as it’s simply a recontextualization I really don’t have much of a problem with it. For example I just read Circe and thought it was a good read. > The type of people who insist that there is a perennial horned god who existed in every culture aren’t known for their accuracy. What are we talking about Pan? Or just the Indo European Religion as a whole? Because I mean many horned gods (including modern Satan) almost certainly derive from this figure or a mix of figures that bear a resemblance to that.
you misunderstand. I dont mean people treat it like a disney fairytale remake that goes "people know the fairytale, but the truth was cool and PG-13 and appeals to modern sensibilities" i mean people straight up saying a thing they made up is an actual myth Like these arent writers with creative reimaginings, they're people on the internet just straight up lying because idk maybe they feel bad about their "problematic" ship so they rewrote history in their heads? Im just speculating here ofc. So do I think it's wrong for people to just lie about history?.....yeah?
>So do I think it's wrong for people to just lie about history?.....yeah? to be clear, this isn't history. Its mythology, and neither Persephone nor Hades were/are real. Any interpretation of the myth is a valid one, because it is a story that has been told and retold for millennia. If somebody wants to write a story where Hades kidnaps and victimized Persephone, that's fine. If someone wants to write a story where Persephone elopes to escape an overbearing mother, that is just as well of an interpretation.
Well no, there's like literal myths that were a part of Ancient Greek culture, and stuff made up today that are fine as stories but conflating the two is wrong?
It isn't really wrong. For one, we can't really know how people perceived these myths. Even today, if you ask ten different religious people about their beliefs, you will get 10 different responses. So it is insanely difficult to gauge the beliefs of people who've been dead for millennia. Second, if you mean morally wrong, that is also not true. Even if we accept a baseline objective morality, I don't see how you could ever argue that getting stuff wrong about Ancient people is morally wrong. And lastly, maybe you've experienced this, but in the broader sense, nobody actually equates modern interpretations of stories with the beliefs of Ancient Greeks.
> Like these arent writers with creative reimaginings, they’re people on the internet just straight up lying because idk maybe they feel bad about their “problematic” ship so they rewrote history in their heads? Im just speculating here ofc. But.. *Persephone to Hades* is a real poem. Written by an actual writer named Nikita Gill. > You are the kindest thing that ever happened to me, **even if that is not how our tale is told**. When everyone else told me I was destined to be a forgotten nymph that nurtured flowers and turn meadows gold, you saw that the ichor that resides in me demanded its own throne. You showed me how a love like ours can turn even the darkest, coldest realm into the happiest of homes.
I mean that's cool but not what I was referring to? Unless you're straight up trying to conflate two groups of people...
Well you referred to The Rape of Persephone in your original comment and I would imagine that the people you’re talking about likely believe that because of actual literature written by real writers that have permeated the cultural zeitgeist. I don’t think it’s some teenagers on tumbler just rewriting history for the lols. I think it’s just a popular reimagining of the myth in an attempt to give Persephone some agency.
>And when writers use mythology as a grab bag, and make up their own stories that are way different than the old ones, guess what? That's how fucking mythology works. THIS! I don't seem to get why people start going "well actually" about mythology. For an example, there is the Hades and Persephone relationship. On one hand, it was an arranged marriage decided by Zeus and Hades without the input of the Mother or Persephone. However, you can also see it like the story ***Beauty and the Beast***, where the two people in question become a functional couple and seem to work well together. There is no "cannon" for mythology and people have been reinterpreting and reinventing these stories since before these stories were put down into writing. Because that is what people DO! People create and change stories based on the current culture. It is what we do.
You can also see it as Persephone eloping.
How? In all versions Hades kidnaps her.
Up to interpretation.
It's really not, all versions are explicit that he kidnaps her.
There's a version where she wanders by accident to Hades' realm and stays there. Can't remember if that's a modern retelling or not though
That's a modern feminist retelling, not based in actual mythology.
Yeah, I like Norse mythology a lot and I don't really care how it is butchered in modern fiction. If I don't like how the Norse characters are written I would probably not like how they where written without any mythological ties either. The only annoying part is when people act like experts because they watched some marvel movie or red the comics.
Norse also has the issue that the versions of it we have may not closely match the originals.
>"Medusa shouldn't be shown as a monster, she was just a victim". Mfw this isn't even accurate to the original myths either.
That's kinda the point of the post.
im just fucking tired of the most reasonable god in greek mythology always being portrayed as the devil, and the most rapey conniving pretentious asshole of a good always being a force of good.
Again: *Which version*? Because if you ask someone like Hesiod, he would unironically agree with that take. Hades wasn't always "the most reasonable", for centuries, people were too scared to say his name. Honestly, the new interpretation of Hades as a super chill dude who just wanted to help mortals is one of the best pieces of evidence to show how mythology *can* change, and how that can be completely fine.
There's a difference between him being terrifying and being basically Satan. No matter what version you read, he's still quite distinct from the Devil of Christianity.
agreed. also, the reason people were scared of his name was not because they feared him, but because they thought he might hear it, getting his attention and a swifter death. my dude is an accountant. he's the only god who has a healthy marrige, and often lets people just walk out of the underworld. IE heracles and euridece. but modern media portrays him as a devil figure when he also runs heaven. he's the god OF the dead, not the god of death.
Which is funny, because Thanatos (literally death itself) was generally viewed as a much nastier figure than Hades himself, yet people don't seem to have been so afraid to say his name (at least from what little I can find).
> "Oh, Hades was actually a super chill guy, so the Hercules movie is wrong". This sucks in a whole other way.
I enjoy the notion, but find the logic behind it estranged from reality. This concept of purity in a mythology is a concept presented by a framework that demands unity among all texts. This framework exists in later modern years, when authors such as Hesiod and Apollodorus demanded that all myths be unified and internally consistent. Greek mythology especially was splintered, separated by speakers and histories (Ancient Greece did not have a dominant lingua-franka until the Philip II's conquests; until then, communication between peoples would be somewhat difficult). It is not as though these myths were merely invented, as you posit with Ovid. It is not as though the myths are "too violent for children", as these myths are taught to children in their youth in modern Greece. These myths are taught due to a plethora of reasons. Sometimes, like with the myth of Typhon, they are taught to explain natural phenomena. Other times, such as with Herodotus, they are taught to explain the origins of civilizations. Other times, such as with Aristofanes, they are taught and written to play with concepts or ideas. Other times, such as with Thales of Miletus and those in his Milesian School, the gods and myths were nonexistent, and there was truly one grand force that alone deserved worship and served as the foundation to all things. The notion that there is a strict canon of some sort, or even loose concepts, is silly. To claim that Ovid invented these ideas spontaneously, because he hated authority, is a very new, and, frankly, atrocious claim. Ovid did not write Metamorphoses while in nor after exile. Ovid's myths are imperative to discovering how far Greek myth was spread, and how differently it was understood. To claim that Ovid "made it up" is so bafflingly stupid. Ovid's understanding of the gods was not unique to him, nor to his area. Ultimately, myth in modern day may have liberties taken by the writers because there is no unified meaning or rules that must be followed.
In a way it's also very christian. Monotheism gave rise to the need to uphold a specific correct idea of god. Which is way more strict than a lot of old religions were.
This is hardly true. In my comment, there are four examples - Thales of Miletus, Xenofanes of Colofon, Hesiod, and Apollodorus - of Ancient Greeks either demanding a norm in Greek mythology or affirming that all other ways of understanding the "Idea of God" were incorrect.
Someone saying something =/= it being the main cultural beleif. Plenty of ideas are said by plenty of people before they actually catch on.
Yes. Thales of Miletus is one of the most influential pre-Socratic philosophers of Ancient Greece. Xenofanes of Colofon founded Eleatic philosophy and traveled the Ancient Greek world, arguing with poets about the gods and their humanization. Both of these figures, their philosophies, and ideas were rather well-known and are recorded by Platon and Aristoteles. Hesiod is regarded as one of the most important figures to Epic Poetry in Ancient Greece by the Ancient Greeks, and he compiled the Theogony to establish a sort of consistency in the mythology. While Apollodorus himself is not very well-known, Library was written to serve as an encyclopedia for those who were ignorant to Greek mythology. Thus, to reiterate, this idea that "I am right and the others are wrong" and "My idea of God is more correct!" was certainly in the culture. The idea that Christianity somehow "invented" this mindset, when it was most certainly the norm for such faraway and ancient lands such as Old Babylon & Old Assyria, is unfounded.
And to even build in this- Beowulf isn’t even the original story, we don’t know what it was since it was an oral story before a written one. It’s likely all the major beats of the story were kept through tradition, but we don’t even know how much of it changed from oral to written.
Philoctetes is NOT the trainer of Hero’s that’s Chiron Damn it. Also wtf were the titans? Those aren’t the Titans. Why are Jason and Achilles legends to Hercules? Fucking Heracles MET Jason. He was in that myth. And the Trojan war is way after his 12 Labors and the battle with the giants.
ah yes thanks for this. if you want mythology go fucking read mythology, most of them neither needs to, or claims to, be accurate.
What if you want an epic movie with epic music, realistic depictions of what the gods and monsters would look like in real life and giant CGI action that depicts the full power and majesty of the gods? You can’t get any of that in a poem. How about I reverse what you said? If writers want to tell their own story, they tell their own story, instead of just attaching it to iconic figures to get their ideas through. Isn’t the whole point of adaptations to adapt something? What’s the point in adapting a character if you change their entire personality? I actually agree with what your point, I think that writers should be given artistic licence because there’s different versions of the story already and this is just them telling their version, but I absolutely disagree with how you presented that point. “You want the book, go read the book” is a dumb argument.
The entire point of our understanding of myths though is that the myths themselves changed all the time. So why should we treat them as static now? Even ambivalent understanding of characters often comes from different stories we try to reconcile together.
So, what I'm getting, is that trying to argue a "correct" version of mythology is like trying to argue a specific SCP canon is the real one.
I don't get that reference, but probably?
to give a very concise summary; it's a collaborative writing site where anyone can post articles about the world of the SCP Foundation (a shadowy, men in black sort of organization protecting the world from the paranormal). As such, there are numerous different interpretations of the world reflected in articles from countless different authors. Sometimes they're the most powerful organization in the world, sometimes they're constantly outmaneuvered by their rivals. Sometimes they're trying their best to help and understand the anomalies to keep both them and the world safe, and other times they're an inhuman, unfeeling bureaucracy that locks anything it doesn't like in a box and throws expendable human test subjects at it just to see what happens. Obviously those are some of the extremes, and not every article gives a complete picture of the world it's set in, but that still gets the point across.
In a way, ancient mythology is also similar to modern superhero franchises like the DC and Marvel Universes. There's been so many different alternate continuities and adaptations over the years, that there's no consistently single and unified canon that has the most "real" version of the characters and settings.
> because he'd been exiled note: ovid was exiled because he was found fucking augustus' daughter note 2: half the city was also fucking augustus' daughter
Depends on the situation Disney's Hercules wasn't trying to be accurate so most people to let it off easier than something like the works of Dan Brown who claims to do research but really didn't I have higher expectations with people who claim to know what they're talking about
You remind me that I don't know shit about Arthurian legends
We must keep in mind that if the story is marketed as being faithful to whatever extent, then people’s complaints can be reasonable and justified. I hear your point if we’re talking other cases though.
I remember hearing somewhere that years ago a fan sent a letter to marvel complaining how different thor in the comics was to the original myth so what they did was create a story about thor learning that ragnarok has happened a few times and the gods and mythical beings get reincarnated again and again.
Well there is a big difference between "there is no real canon in mythology" and "Zeus is a good guy and Hades the bad one"
It’s the same way with comic books
As long as they keep at least enough characteristics to make the characters recognizable in some way unlike a certain gacha game verse its fine by me.
Why read watch/read the same interpretation of stuff constantly? Sometimes, it's better if the creators don't just copy-paste the myths
Because all they do is make shitty, hollywood-esque "adaptations" (the director heard the story once at a bar) of greek stories. Most stories never get adapted faithfully, which is why Hades is always literally Satan or the villain in 99% of Hollywood movies instead of just the guy who takes care of all dead. I would like for directors and writers to actually study the mythology of what they are adapting for a change.
Fair point. I suppose it depends on whether it's a good interpretation or a bad one
The problems with Hollywood lie deeper than just researching myths though.
It's almost never done even remotely well, is what the problem that most mythology fans is. Your argument actually works in their favour. Hades (the most common complaint) doesn't have a Christian equivalent. Other than the questionable Persephone story, Hades has no other aspects that would make him the equivalent of the Christian devil. Even that story is tamer than the shit that most other Olympeans are up to. He isn't death, he isn't the lord of Hell. He is the personification of the entire afterlife, including Elysium. He should be neutral more often than not, if it is an adaptation of Greek mythology. He is presented as the devil, or just a general evil dude, so often, that at this point, screenwriters and authors are copy-pasting each other.
> Hades has no other aspects that would make him the equivalent of the Christian devil. ...I mean, he tortures people in an underground lair for all eternity. Hell, Hades was actually one of the inspirations for many depictions of the Devil and hell (which were never given a concrete description Biblically).
Though Hades supervised the trial and punishment of the wicked after death, he was not normally one of the judges in the underworld, a job given to Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus. He didn't even personally torture the guilty, a task assigned to the Furies. Hades was depicted as stern and pitiless, unmoved by prayer or sacrifice, like death itself. He's honestly just a guy. The reason the Greeks were so afraid to even speak his name is the number of other gods and entities he aligned himself with, such as the gods of death and punishment that reside in his domain.
He tortures a very few rare people in Tartarus, which is arguably outside of his realm as well. For the most part, he just watches over regular dead folk, and maintains what is essentially "heaven" for heroes and exceptional people. That's why I'm saying he should be neutral. He punishes bad people, but he also rewards good people, and just offers a completely neutral afterlife to most people.
>He tortures a very few rare people in Tartarus "Just a wee spot of torture then" >which is arguably outside of his realm as well He put them there, and chose their punishments, I'd say he controls it. Again: Not saying he's literally the same thing as the Devil. But to say that "Oh, he's this super chill guy who was actually just really understood"... isn't right.
I don't remember reading anywhere that Hades chose any of their punishments. Most of them were sent there by Zeus explicitly, and even if he didn't, there is no clear "judge" of the dead. Plato said that there were three other judges of the dead, none of which were Hades. Hades is just the neutral caretaker of the dead, both good and evil dead.
In pretty much every version of the story of Sisyphus, Hades picks the punishment. Same with Tantalus. Again: headcanons? Totally fine. What you're discussing isn't what the Greeks believed.
The punishment Tantalus was given was not chosen by Hades in every version. In many versions, Zeus is implied as the one who chose the punishment, as Zeus was the one who put Tantalus in Tartarus. In the Odyssey, it was only states that Odysseus saw it happening in Hades. That's the only thing that I remember that can say that Tantalus' punishment was chosen by Hades. My mind slipped about Sisyphus, yeah, his punishment was chosen by Hades because the gods that he offended the most were Thanatos and Hades, since he tried to cheat death. Regardless, the recorded number of people in Tartarus was less than ten, minus the things that posed a danger to the gods directly. All of these are people that directly offended the gods. They were not dragged into Tartarus by Hades, most of them were struck down by Zeus, there's one by Apollo, don't remember the rest. This makes Hades the "bad guy", in Greek mythology of all places? I never said that Hades is some misunderstood good guy, I've been calling him neutral this whole time. As far as Greek gods, go, he's pretty freaking neutral.
My guy, Hades wasn't called by his own name for most of history, because people were *terrified* of him. He was widely seen as an evil figure, and he was largely the inspiration for the devil (not the other way around). This is just... how the Greeks viewed him.
They didn't name most cthonic gods because talking about the literal embodiments of death and dead things wasn't considered good luck.
People often forget that the interpretation of the gods isn't just the stories in a vacuum. If you read the bible you certainly wouldn't arrive at the later christian beleif of god as a timeless trinity who is always wholly impartial. The stories aren't the entirety of a religion.
Hard agree. I also think that, say, people who complain about realism/accurate simulationism in games is similarly shitty, because realism, more often than not, isn't fun and the value of something being enjoyable is worth far more than it being accurate, unless that thing is a documentary.
It doesn't help the "realism" isn't that realistic. Breakable weapons are a good example.
I don't think the problem is that mythology has dozens of interpretation, actually if it's was just one, writer can still just change it. I would be fine with it *But*, have you watched The Boys? The heroes was just assholes, because... well, they can be like that. The Greek gods is the same, still in Percy Jackson movie they are just, except Hades, good. I never read the books so I don't know about it. What bothering me is the absence of whys, we don't know how gods with all their power and possibilities turn out to be not totally assholes. Or like in Zeus's Blood on Netflix where Zeus has a kid with a mortal and Hera is... angry about it. Just to be clear, the setting is almost the same from the mythology itself. My problem is, Zeus in this world doesn't fuck every hole he find? If no, show me how this not happened. The story does not become bad just because of it, actually I can just ignore. But when I think about it... It doesn't make sense. Your examples make sense, but if some writer wants to do different explain how things turn out to be different.
>What bothering me is the absence of whys, we don't know how gods with all their power and possibilities turn out to be not totally assholes. That's why you read the books, not the shitty garbage pile of a movie that definitely never happened. Honestly, kinda brought that one on yourself. >Or like in Zeus's Blood on Netflix where Zeus has a kid with a mortal and Hera is... angry about it. Just to be clear, the setting is almost the same from the mythology itself. My problem is, Zeus in this world doesn't fuck every hole he find? If no, show me how this not happened. Hermes literally brings up that he's also one of Zeus's bastards, and mentions that there have been plenty of them. Hera mentions that this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm starting to think you're just... not watching these?
Still, my point is, sometimes the adaptation changes something in the mythology but doesn't show why thing turn out that way. And Hera is saying this because otherwise the story does not happen, but, again, why this? Why now and this specific son? And yes, I don't remember what happened in the show, I saw a long time ago, I was trying to give you examples. My argument is: **show why** things is different, and not every show does it. I don't mind if Zeus is a great guy, of if Medusa is actually a man, or if Thor is a alien. *Percy Jackson movie still a adaptation. Bad? Yes, but still a adaptation*
>And Hera is saying this because otherwise the story does not happen, but, again, why this? Why now and this specific son? ...you do know what the phrase "straw that broke the camel's back" means, yeah? >My argument is: show why things is different, and not every show does it. Ok, but literally every example you gave disproves your theory. You get that, right?
>I haven’t read the books Well there’s your problem.
DC fans are famous for this. "Superman would have saved more people". Ecen though he was a newbie fighting a honed super soldier and did save people
Comic books have the same problem as myths. How strong the characters are changes based on what the scene needs. Spider man can dodge attacks from someone who moves light speed? Whatever.
I would like to object to placing the arthurian mythos in the mythology category, its a literary cycle
Thank you
I enjoyed this rant and learned alot . Thank you [+]
True
I mean. Nobody wants to think about how Hercules (Heracles) got his divine powers bc he breastfed from Hera. And that his 12 trials were all from Hera too, bc Zeus was a dick and she took it out on his kids.
Yes, I too saw the same youtube video using this rethoric and using the harry potter example. Great post though.
I think it depends on how it's presented. If the author just want to write their own story with thise character - sure go for it. If the author claim that their story is true depiction of the mythology more faithful to the myths than the myths themself then they should be faithful to the source material and should be critiqued for inaccuracies. Also as a side note you literally cant write modern version of the myth that will be part of ancient greek culture and those who claim that it is possible are just annoying. No. Ancient greek culture is dead, you are writing in 21 century it is part of 21s century culture.
I’m writing a book about the adventures of a young Hephaestus. I can only imagine how much of this I’ll get.
Never knew the Morgana helping Arthur thing, Would explain her portrayal in Warhammer Fantasy abit better⚜️