#athena and her gender fuckery is genuinely so fascinating to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

falconfate · 4 months ago

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Also, the reason Athena is born from Zeus’s head is because her mother, Metis (literally “wisdom”), was prophesied to bear Zeus two children: first a daughter, then a son who would continue the cycle of sons replacing their fathers. Zeus basically panicked and absorbed Metis into himself (thus absorbing her wisdom also), while she was pregnant according to the tellings I’m familiar with; Metis then gives Zeus an absolute whopper of a headache by forging armor and a spear in his head so that when Athena emerges from his skull, she does so fully-formed, fully-grown, and fully-armed. That might-have-been son doesn’t get to exist… but Athena herself functions as a son while remaining a daughter.

It’s odd how Athena is Zeus’s favorite but she doesn’t seem to like him back, not only did she participate in Hera’s coup against him but even in the Iliad she was upset with him.

#athena and her gender fuckery is genuinely so fascinating to me #like she is NOT representative of how ancient greece viewed actual human women #she is a god and therefore a Story and a Character and a Metaphor #even more specifically she is a City Patron #so her feminity and specifically her feminine virginity are hugely significant—her city is supposedly as impregnable as she is #yet simultaneously she is sexless and masculine and The ‘Good’ War God #the War God of Tactics and Glory and Justice #(as opposed to ares who manages the Bloodshed and Brutality side of things)#AND EVEN IN THAT she’s like. the feminine side of masculinity.#yeah she’s a war god but she’s the Clean War god #she and artemis and hestia are genuinely so fucking interesting #god im exhausted and im not explaining this super well but. classical studies brain go brrrr #also rattling around somewhere is a story where like. millenia after mythohistorical canon #zeus gets Another Astronomical Headache and hephaestus busts out the headcracking axe again #and woops! athena’s got a full brother now!#main thing that stopped momentum on that project was coming up with a name #greek god names are rabbit hole fodder it has to be said

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