#greek mythology misinformation

[mask131]

So many lasting Greek mythology misinterpretation today could be avoided so simply if people just thought about what they are saying and doing. Really, it's just a question of thinking in a logical way.

Like Medusa, you know? There are so many people who literaly didn't notice that there was a slight problem when you said on one side "Medusa was the daughter of primordial two gods, and the sister of many monsters and dragons of Greek mythology" and on the other "She was a regular human priestess turned into a monster by the gods". For them it was just... normal, I guess? When the answer to this incoherence is just quite simple: Medusa started out, in Greek mythology, as a divine monster born out of the primordial forces of the world ; the story of Medusa as a human priestess comes from Roman literature when they reinvented the Greek myths. People just confused the two: as simple as that.

But people don't want to look at the incoherences of the "popular culture" version of mythology, apparently. I was doing this post initially upon seeing yet again depictions of Zeus and Poseidon as old men with white beards. Which is something that always bugs me for one simple reason: Everybody agrees and says the Greek gods are eternally young and cannot age. Why then are Zeus and Poseidon, THE gods by default, always depicted as old men?

For many people it's simple and clear-cut, somehow, but it is such a massive incoherence, especially since all the other gods are shown as young. And the answer is so simple if people just bothered looking for it: Zeus and Poseidon, were bearded men in Ancient Greek art, but had BLACK beards (or "blue" depending on if you understand literaly the Homeric names). They were adult men, but not OLD men (as opposed to the "beardless youth", who were basically in their 20s whereas the "bearded gods" are like... in their 30s or something).

The whole "old thing" is just resulting on the HUGE reinvention Europe made of Greek mythology from the Renaissance onward, mixing the "All Greek statues are white, so the gods were white-like" misunderstanding with the old, "acceptable" concept that god-rulers had to be like the Biblical or Christian patriarchs, elderly men with white or grey beards.

I don't mind per se the idea of Zeus or Poseidon being an older guy, because it is indeed now part of popular culture and it has been around for too many centuries to ignore or reject. Plus, it can be a good way to fight the ageism inherent to Greek mythology by depicting gods as elderly but still beautiful and "perfect" (which is what Renaissance art onward actually did). But it doesn't change the fact that it is not accurate to Greek mythology, and that it is HUGE and ancient misunderstanding.

Like Dionysos or Aphrodite being fat - it is something acceptable and understandable today, and it is justifiable in many ways (from cultural precedent to positive evolutions of our modern era)... But it is still a reinvention of Greek mythology, and not a faithful reproduction or an accurate depiction of how the Greek gods were. Because Ancient Greeks were fatphobic as fuck, to use modern terms. But beyond that, we enter into the whole debate of the artistic freedom, and the importance of reinventing and playing with myths and legends to keep them "alive", and that's an entirely different topic.

(Funnily enough, since I am bringing the Aphrodite business: yes, making her fat or middle-aged is not accurate to how the Greeks saw her, and is bringing modern era ideals, if Renaissance can be considered "modern", to Ancient matters. At least with the Romans, there's something justifiable because they had a "mother-goddess" thing going on with Venus, but for the Greeks Aphrodite was young and fat was ugliness, that's for certain. HOWEVER! The funny thing is that all those comics and movies depicting Aphrodite as a literal pin-up with a tiny waist but a huge butt and enormous boobs is just as inaccurate and "wrong" compared to the Ancient Greeks beauty canon. Because while Ancient Greeks hated people being too fat or too skinny, considering this "ugly", they also disliked people being too "developed". When a guy was too muscular, or had too large of a dick, he was considered ugly and visually "vulgar" (which is why grotesque figure like the satyrs had these huge sexual organs, and statues of the gods had tiny ones ; and Herakles doesn't look as much of a bodybuilder as super-hero comics depict him). So to have Aphrodite as just big boobs and butt on a stick is basically also making a goddess that the Ancient Greeks would have deemed ugly and "vulgar"/"grotesque", if not repulsive.

So you know... We can criticize the mainstream media alongside the new reinventions of today, because EVERYBODY'S WRONG and that's the fun of it Xp)

[amiti-art]

Troilus design! (ft best dad Apollo) He's around 12 years old here.

Researching Troilus' story is not an easy task because unfortunately most of the ancient texts focused on him didn't survive and others only survived in fragments.

This story is brutal even for greek mythology standards so please keep that in mind if you want to continue reading this or do more research on your own.

Something that all of the versions seems to agree on is that he was a Trojan prince, son of queen Hecuba and was killed by Achilles. His father was either Apollo or Priam (Apollo fits more with the context of the story though).

Most of the versions also focus on Troilus' young age and he's often shown to be visibly shorter than Achilles on the vase paintings depicting his death.

The most popular version of the myth (which is also supported by ancient vase paintings) states that Troilus and his sister Polyxena (she's not preset in every version though) went outside of Troy on their horses and while they were at a fountain Achilles ambushed them.

Achilles then chased Troilus who tried to hide inside of Apollo's temple (possibly seeking his father's protection) but Achilles caught up to him and murdered Troilus either inside or in front of the temple and then brutally mutilated his body.

There 2 alternative reasons given for the murder:

1. There was a prophecy which said that if Troilus reached 21 years of age Troy would never fall.

2. Achilles fell in love with Troilus, tried to force himself on him and was enraged when the boy refused his advances. (This version seems to have more surviving evidence)

It could also be that the only reason that Achilles killed Troilus was the fact that he was a Trojan prince and therefore an enemy but this does not seem to fit with the brutality of the act.

Here are some vase paintings that show Troilus' death at the hands of Achilles

[theoihalioistuff]

ARES IS NOT THE PROTECTOR OF WOMEN IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

He is never presented as such in any source, there is no evidence such a role was ever assigned to him in any account, and as far as I'm aware this popular yet unattested assertion is born from the echo-chambers of tumblr. In fact quite the opposite could be argued. TW for sexual assault.

This baffling claim seems to originate from a sort of shallow examination of the way Ares "behaves in myth", and the following arguments are the most frequently presented:

1. Ares protects his daughter Alkippe from assault, and is therefore morally opposed to rape. (Apollodorus 3.180, Pausanias 1.21.4, Suidas "Areios pagos", attributed to Hellanikos)

Curiously this argument is never applied to, among other examples: Apollo for defending his mother Leto from Tytios, Herakles for defending Hera from Porphyrion (or his wife Deianeira from Nessos), or Zeus for defending his sister Demeter from Iasion (in the versions where he attacks her), etc. The multiple accounts of rape of the previously mentioned figures did not conflict with these stories in greek thought: they're defending family members or women otherwise close to them. This sort of mentality is not uncommon even in contemporary times, e.g. a warrior may have no ethical problem killing men, but would not want his own family or loved ones to be killed. The same goes here for sexual assault.

2. There are no surviving accounts of Ares sexually assaulting anybody.

The idea that the ancient greeks pictured that, among all the gods, Ares was the only one who shied away from committing rape is baseless and borders on ridiculous. In this case absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The majority of surviving records regarding Ares' unions are presented in a genealogical manner, and do not go into details on their nature. This is the case for most works of mythography, where specifics of sexual encounters are to be found elsewhere. However, common motifs present in other accounts of rape also appear in stories concerning Ares' relationships, e.g. tropes like shape-shifting/the use of disguises, the victim being a huntress, secrecy, and the disposal of the concieved child, are to be found in the stories of Phylonome and Astyoche respectively:

Φυλονόμη Νυκτίμου καὶ Ἀρκαδίας θυγάτηρ ἐκυνήγει σὺν τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι: Ἄρης δ᾽ ἐν σχήματι ποιμένος ἔγκυον ἐποίησεν. ἡ δὲ τεκοῦσα διδύμους παῖδας καὶ φοβουμένη τὸν πατέρα ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν Ἐρύμανθο

"Phylonome, the daughter of Nyktimos and Arkadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the [River] Erymanthos." (Pseudo-Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories, 36)

οἳ δ᾽ Ἀσπληδόνα ναῖον ἰδ᾽ Ὀρχομενὸν Μινύειον, τῶν ἦρχ᾽ Ἀσκάλαφος καὶ Ἰάλμενος υἷες Ἄρηος οὓς τέκεν Ἀστυόχη δόμῳ Ἄκτορος Ἀζεΐδαο, παρθένος αἰδοίη ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα Ἄρηϊ κρατερῷ: ὃ δέ οἱ παρελέξατο λάθρῃ: τοῖς δὲ τριήκοντα γλαφυραὶ νέες ἐστιχόωντο.

"And they that dwelt in Aspledon and Orchomenus of the Minyae were led by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares, whom, in the palace of Actor, son of Azeus, Astyoche, the honoured maiden, conceived of mighty Ares, when she had entered into her upper chamber; for he lay with her in secret" (Homer, Iliad 2. 512 ff)

In neither of these cases is a verb explicitly denoting rape used, though it is heavily implied by the context. The focus of the action is on the conception of sons, the nature of the interaction is secondary.

Other examples are found among the daughters of the river Asopos, who where (and here there's no confusion) ravished and kidnapped by different gods to different parts of the greek world, where they found local lines through children borne to their abductors and serve as eponyms. Surviving fragments from Corinna of Tanagra tell us:

"Asopos went to his haunts . . from you halls . . into woe . . Of these [nine] daughters Zeus, giver of good things, took his [Asopos'] child Aigina . . from her father's [house] . . while Korkyra and Salamis and lovely Euboia were stolen by father Poseidon, and Leto's son is in possession of Sinope and Thespia . . [and Tanagra was seized by Hermes] . . But to Asopos no one was able to make the matter clear, until . . [the seer Akraiphen reveals to him] 'And of your daughters father Zeus, king of all, has three; and Poseidon, ruler of the sea, married three; and Phoibos [Apollon] is master of the beds of two of them, and of one Hermes, good son of Maia. For so did the pair Eros and the Kypris persuade them, that they should go in secret to your house and take your nine daughters." (heavily fragmented papyrus. Corinna fr. 654)

"For your [Tanagra's] sake Hermes boxed against Ares." (Corinna fr. 666)

It seems that, similar to the myths of Beroe or Marpessa, the abducted maiden is fought over by two competing "suitors", and though we can infer that the outcome of the story is that Hermes gets to keep Tanagra, apparently by beating Ares in a boxing match, we don't actually know what happened or how it happened. In any case, Ares does mate with another daughter of Asopos, Harpina, who bears him Oinomaos according to some versions (Paus. 5.22.6; Stephanus Byzantium. Ethnica. A125.3; Diodorus Siculus 4. 73. 1). There is little reason to suppose that this encounter wasn't pictured as an abduction like the rest of her sisters.

The blatant statement that each of his affairs was envisioned as consensual is simply not true.

3. He was worshipped under the epithet Gynaikothoinas "feasted by women"

This was a local cult that existed in Tegea, the following reason is given:

"There is also an image of Ares in the marketplace of Tegea. Carved in relief on a slab it is called Gynaecothoenas. At the time of the Laconian war, when Charillus king of Lacedaemon made the first invasion, the women armed themselves and lay in ambush under the hill they call today Phylactris. When the armies met and the men on either side were performing many remarkable exploits, the women, they say, came on the scene and put the Lacedaemonians to flight. Marpessa, surnamed Choera, surpassed, they say, the other women in daring, while Charillus himself was one of the Spartan prisoners. The story goes on to say that he was set free without ransom, swore to the Tegeans that the Lacedaemonians would never again attack Tegea, and then broke his oath; that the women offered to Ares a sacrifice of victory on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname." (Paus. 8.48.4-5)

As emphasised by Georgoudi in To Act, Not Submit: Women’s Attitudes in Situations of War in Ancient Greece (part of the highly recommendable collection of essays Women and War in Antiquity), "it is not necessary to see the operation of an invitation in the bestowal of the epithet Γυναικοθοίνας on Ares". The epithet is ambiguous, and can be translated both as "Host of the banquet of women" or "[He who is] invited to the banquet of women". In any case no act of divine intervention occurs, and the main reason for the women's act of devotion lies principally in recognising their decisive role in the routing of the Lakedaimonians. It's they who preside/participate in the feast of war, the men are excluded.

Also this a local epithet that isn't found anywhere else in Greece. As such it would be worth reminding that not every Ares is Gynaikothoinas, in the same way not every Zeus is Aithiopian, not every Demeter Erinys, and not every Artemis of Ephesos.

4. He was the patron god of the Amazons

He was considered progenitor of the Amazons because of their proverbial warlike nature and love of battle, the same reason he was associated with other "barbaric" tribes, like the Thracians or the Scythians. In this capacity he was also appointed as a suitable father/ancestor for other violent and savage characters who generally function as antagonists (e.g. Kyknos, Diomedes of Thrace, Tereos of Thrace, Oinomaos, Agrios and Oreios, Phlegyas, Lykos etc.). Also he was by no means the only god connected with the Amazons (they were in fact especially linked to Artemis, see Religious Cults Associated With the Amazons by Florence Mary Bennett, if only for the bibliography).

Similarly, Poseidon was considered patron and ancestor of the Phaiakians mainly because of their mastery over the art of seafaring (and was curiously also credited in genealogies as father to monsters and other disreputable figures).

On another note I have found no sources that claim he taught his amazon daughters how to fight, as I've seen often mentioned (though I admit I'd love to be proven wrong on that point).

5. Finally, the last reason Ares could never be portrayed as a protector of women is because of his divine assignation itself

The uncountable references to his love of bloodshed and man-slaying don't just stop short of the battlefield, but continue on to the conclusion and intended purpose of most waged wars in antiquity: the sacking of the city. The title Sacker of Cities as an epithet of Ares (though it is by no means exclusive to him) is encountered numerous times and in different variations (eg. τειχεσιπλήτης or πτολίπορθος), and the meaning behind the epithet is plain. Though it is hard to summarise without being reductionist, the sacking of a city entails the plundering of all its goods, the slaughtering of its men, and the sistematic raping and enslavement of the surviving women (to name only a small few of the literary references see The Iliad, The Trojan Women or The Women of Trachis). There is little need to emphasise that war as concieved of in ancient greece, especifically the brutal aspects of war Ares is most often associated with, directly entailed sexual violence against women as one of it's main concerns. The multiple references to Ares being an unloved or disliked deity are because of this, because war is horrifying (not because his daddy is a big old meany who hates him for no reason, Zeus makes very clear the motive for his contempt in the Iliad (5. 889-891): "Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar. To me you are most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos. Forever quarreling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.")

Ares was only the protector of women inasmuch as he could be averted or repelled (e.g. surviving apotropaic chants):

"There is no clash of brazen shields but our fight is with the war god, a war god ringed with the cries of men, a savage god who burns us; grant that he turn in racing course backward out of our country’s bounds, to the great palace of Amphitrite or where the waves of the thracian sea deny the stranger safe anchorage. Whatsoever escapes the night at last the light of day revisits; so smite him, Father Zeus, beneath your thunderbolt, for you are the lord of the lightning, the lightning that carries fire." (Shophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos, 190-202)

"And let no murderous havoc come upon the realm to ravage it, by arming Ares—foe to the dance and lute, parent of tears—and the shout of civil strife." (Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 678)

~~~~~

All that being said, this is a post about Ares as conceptualized and attested in ancient sources, made specifically in response to condescending statements about how "uhmmm, actually, in greek mythology Ares was a super-feminist himbo who was worshipped as the protector of women and was hated by his family for no reason, you idiot". It is factually incorrect. HOWEVER, far be it from me to tell anyone how they have to interact with this deity. Be it your retellings, your headcannons or your own personal religious attachments and beliefs towards Ares, those are your own provinces and prerogatives, and not what was being discussed here at all (I personally love art where Ares and Aphrodite goof around, or retellings where he plays with his daughters, or headcannons that showcase his more noble sides, etc.)

~~~~~

I've seen that other people on tumblr have made similar posts, the ones I've seen were by @deathlessathanasia and @en-theos . I have no idea how to link their posts, but they're really good so go check them out on their pages!

[aromantic-goldfishdeactivated202]

um. im going to go ahead and call none of these a reliable source for learning about Greek mythology

[diioonysus]

no joke, someone on tik tok was trying to say that medusa being r*ped was a greek mythology story, and i corrected them by informing them that it is actually a roman myth because ovid, a roman poet created it. and they go “ metamorphoses actually made it, and he’s a greek poet.” dude, metamorphoses is ovid’s latin poem, metamorphoses isn’t a person, it’s a piece of text that OVID wrote.

[hermesmoly]

...you're not Anti-Zeus?

no? what gave you the impression i was 😭

[mbharestuff]

asked chatGPT to tell me about traditional rituals associated with the Greek goddess Mesperyian. it eagerly rattled off quite a few!

which is interesting, because such a goddess does not actually exist in Greek mythology! she's a modern invention that got popularized on Tumblr!

[smol-blue-bird]

Greek mythology retellings that I like:

We updated this myth for a modern setting while keeping most of the story and major elements of the mythology intact

We made a story loosely based on or inspired by an old Greek myth, and we’re upfront about that

Greek mythology retellings that I don’t mind:

This is an adaptation for laypeople who have little familiarity with the subject matter, so we simplified some things out of necessity

This is an adaptation for children, so we kept it age-appropriate and handled the sexual/gory material in a non-explicit way

This is a ten-minute YouTube video that can’t possibly explain every tiny detail about this extremely complex topic, so we’re gonna stick to the basics

Greek mythology retellings that I loathe with every fiber of my being:

This is the Secret True Version of the original myth that historians have been hiding out of malice, and if anyone tells you otherwise they’re a liar who’s shilling for Big Archeology

The original myth was Wrong and Problematic and you’re Bad if you enjoyed learning about it, but don’t worry, I rewrote it to make it Good

I hate history, I hate reading, I hate the classics, and I especially hate ancient Greece. I did zero research whatsoever for this project and I have no respect for the source material or the field in general, and I’m very proud of that

[a-wine-dark-sea]

yet again developed a vendetta against a dead academic whilst researching for uni. robert graves when I find you

[valiantvillain]

I have a Masters in Classics and I dare not touch anything about Greek mythology on tumblr because over half of it is people trying to make their headcanons canon, uncited nonsense, and straight-up making shit up, all of which ends up becoming my job to clear up for a lot of clearly passionate but misguided college kids. Remember kids, don't just believe it because it's on the internet and sounds cool. Always look for cited sources and check reputable sources to see if they lend any credence to the claim. This also extends to pinterest, twitter, and most other social media platforms.

[mask131]

Showing how far misinformation goes: Where does the idea that Medusa was a priestess of Athena comes from?

Rick Riodan did not invent it, since I had heard of this long before Riordan had even published his first Percy Jackson book. And yet, while everybody says "Ovid"... Ovid never wrote about Medusa being a priestess of Athena.

Yes, Ovid wrote about Medusa being a beautiful mortal woman who was raped by Neptune in the shrine/temple of Minerva and punished as a result of these events... But Ovid never wrote about any vow of chastity Medusa had supposedly broken (in fact he specifies Medusa had many suitors before Neptune and Minerva came into her life), and never wrote about Medusa as a former priestess of Minerva...

So where does this idea comes from? I have no idea - but one can add this to the long list of misinformation about the most famous Gorgon...

EDIT:

@gosagacious found that the mention of Medusa being a priestess of Athena dates back from at least the second half of the 19th century, since the "Pindar" volume of Harper's Classical series for Schools and Colleges, from 1881, includes a commentary by Basil L. Gildersleeve about how in Ovid's tale Medusa was a priestess of Athena...

[oasatelematics]

feeling weirdly defensive over nuclear energy tonight crazy what being on your period does to you

[khozee-mag]

Styx and Bones Podcast | June 28, 2022

Come join your hosts High Priestess Chelsea and archaeologist Dr. Tenn Kellenbarger as they take you on a journey into learning about ancient Greek Religion, Greek mythology, ancient magic and more!

[call-me-strega]

Dc x Dp Prompt #3: Of Apples and Academic Frenemies

Au where Jason and Danny are attending the same college course on mythology and classical literature and they are always getting into debates about the depictions of the characters and the historical context of stories and stuff bc the both have a different exposure to the myths. Like Jason knows literal demigods and Amazons but Danny knows Pandora and the Greek myth related ghosts plus time travel from Clockwork and the infi-map. The debates can get heated at times but the respect each others intellectual takes.

This creates a peculiar situation where everyone in the class thinks they are academic rivals who hate each other (except for the few with their shipping goggles on and sense the homoerotic tension underlying their debates) and are deeply invested in watching them interact like their own personal drama even thought at this point in time they are at best friendly acquaintances and at worst annoying classmates.

Jason rants to his family about his debate partner/rival bc he’s happy to have some who will talk to him ad-nauseam abt this stuff but also bc he wants to complain about how Danny's a “smart but annoying little twink who’s got some real audacity”. And while the batfam is happy that Jason is experiencing some normal life things like an academic frenemy they’d love to stop hearing about this guy's “smug fucking smirk” and the “annoying gleam in his eyes". They are worried that Jason will snap and beat this guy up for being too annoying. Well, except Tim who thinks Jason would rather make out with this guy than debate with him.

One day the course decides to do a big themed party/fundraiser to save up for a class trip to an excavation site of some temple ruins or something. Both of them volunteer for the organizing committee bc of the offered extra credit. This encourages the two of them to start seeing each other more and to hang out outside of their classes so the can work on event planning. Over time they actually become pretty good friends (Danny's presence filters Jason's toxic ecto and cures pit rage due to increased exposure. It was happening anyways as classmates but the close proximity sped up the process) and Jason and Danny develop mutual crushes on each other.

For the event they do, like an Olympic games style format and have people sign up in teams for events a couple of weeks beforehand. Anyone in any sort of classical/mythology related course can join and they opened the event for public spectating. They have a few traditional events like a foot race, long jump and chariot race. But the also have some silly ones like Medusa's Snakes, where they shove their faces into bowls of whipped cream and fish out gummy worms, Pandora's Amphora, where they stick there hands into a box/jar of mystery contents (grapes, slime, a live animal like rats or kittens, a bunch of glitter, soda, etc.) and whoever keeps their hand in the longest wins, and Gladiator Fights, where they try to knock each other into a foam pit with those foam and rubber jousting sticks and the such.

Neither Danny, nor Jason want to participate for fear of their physical/supernatural abilities being discovered so the both get talked into doing the emceeing and commentary for the events. They make a really good duo, snarking and bantering with each other, playing off each other's energy and providing fun commentary to the events. Everyone, including the batfam who came to spectate, is a bit baffled by how well they are getting along bc last they checked these two were rivals of a sort, mildly annoying at best and actively antagonistic at worst. However, they really seem to be enjoying themselves.

The last event of the day is a trivia contest, which they both decide to take part in and let someone else take over the emceeing. The final winning trivia question is "what trope was falsely understood as a marriage proposal or declaration of love by misinformed media, that was actually closer to a ploy of seduction and indication of sexual desire according to Greek texts" and the both ring in at the same time to say "tossing an apple to someone" and an tie for the win. They both go up on stage to receive the prize (idk a gift card or smth) and shake hands before walking away in opposite directions.

Then suddenly Danny calls out to Jason just before he leaves the stage and chucks an apple he seemingly produced out of nowhere at him. The apple has a note with the time and date of a dinner reservation on it and when Jason looks back up at Danny he see the slightly flushed boy tentatively smiling at him.

" What do ya say Jase? Will you go out with me?"

And instead of replying Jason just straight up kisses him in front of everyone. Everyone else is gobsmacked by this whole turn of events except Tim who's cackling his head off, screaming "I FUCKING KNEW IT". When the two of them break apart they grin at each other widely and Jason drags Danny of the stage presumably to go make out somewhere.

[hungergamesbookclub]

Inspired by an 18th century Scottish philosopher and the modern scourge of misinformation, Suzanne Collins is returning to the ravaged, post-apocalyptic land of Panem for a new “The Hunger Games” novel. Scholastic announced Thursday that “Sunrise on the Reaping,” the fifth volume of Collins’ blockbuster dystopian series, will be published March 18, 2025. The new book begins with the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, set 24 years before the original “Hunger Games” novel, which came out in 2008, and 40 years after Collins’ most recent book, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Collins has drawn upon Greek mythology and the Roman gladiator games for her earlier “Hunger Games” books. But for the upcoming novel, she cites the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. “With ‘Sunrise on the Reaping,’ I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,’” Collins said in a statement. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”

Suzanne Collins on her new Hunger Games novel, Sunrise on the Reaping

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

Greek mythology has evolved over the course of hundreds of years, and with all those… retellings now, it’s gotten me thinking about just how many people have been spreading false details of myths through word of mouth to the point of becoming the most common interpretation, when if you were to look back in history, a great number of them were only recently made up, barely a a few centuries prior. Example of this is King Midas and his turning his daughter into a gold statue. I remember this part having been included all throughout my childhood, only to find out it was never part of the original myth but a recent addition in a book from 1852. (suddenly, the daughter being aptly named “Marigold” makes a lot more sense.) My ask is: which commonly told misconception of this type regarding any Greek myth is most infuriating to you and why?

oh my god misinformation can be INFURIATING smh

Let's start off with the Apollo misinformation.

"He raped Persephone/is a serial rapist!"

First of all, no he did not. LO, toss yourself into an eternal blaze and incinerate.

and secondly- he's not a serial rapist. There's only two accounts of rape, specifically Dryope and Creusa, but that depends on interpretation and the source so if you want to discard it, you can. No one can tell you you can't.

"UwU Apollo's love life is terrible!"

do i even need to say anything?

"Athena hates women!"

hell to the fuck no. the evidence people use for this is the Medusa Myth: Ovid's Version, and CONVIENTLY IGNORE THE ONES WHERE SHE HELPS WOMEN ESCAPE BEING RAPED!! AND THAT OVID IS THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THIS!!

Even with the ones where she punishes the victim, the older versions do not have that! She made Nicymene her eternal owl companion, for heaven's sake!

"Hermes/Dionysus/Hephaestus is the only unproblematic god! UwU"

uh... *waves Leuconoe/Choine/Philonis around* no matter which version you go with, Hermes/Mercury does rape her...

...and in the Dionysica Dionysus rapes like two women...

...and Hephaestus tried to rape Athena... (oh wow, would you look at that...it's like Athena would have *gasp* sympathy for assault survivors...)

...See the double standards? :/ Ignores Roman/late Greek literature when it's convenient, and then exaggerates it to suit their own needs.

"Demeter is a terrible mom!"

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE NO ONE DISRESPECTS THE QUEEN

"Hades only kidnapped Persephone because Zeus told him too!"

Hades is his own man and wasn't being held at gunpoint to abduct her. He did so on his own merits. From a literal perspective, what was stopping him from just. you know. talking to her. kidnapping was not necessary.

(yes, yes, i know about the symbolic perspective, hence my use of 'literal'.)

"But Hades and Persephone are the only ones who don't cheat!!"

uh, nope. Hi Adonis, Minthe, how're you doing?

"But Adonis was more of a son to Persephone!!"

uh, NO. Even the ancients saw them as a couple!!

"Artemis is a girlboss who hates her brother!"

*kicks open door* OUT!

"Orion's the only man Artemis ever loved!"

how dare you disrespect my boy in this way Apollo was the first man she ever loved and no one will be able to replace him how dare you-

-and how dare you disrespect Hippolytus in this way he did not die in the name of all aroace people to be disrespected like this smh

"Zeus's only quality is how he fucks around!"

look, I've joked about this before but I know that's not all there is too him and that it has a symbolic representation.

Sure would be nice if people focused on that more :)

also anything that villainizes Aphrodite or Hera. god forbid women do anything.

"Clytemnestra is a girlboss who did no wrong!"

OH MY GOD THE DOUBLE STANDARDS.

funny how people fawn over Cassandra one moment and then COMPLETELY FORGET HER EXISTENCE to becry the woman who murdered her!

AND ALSO GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO HATE APOLLO FOR CURSING HER WHEN THEIR STORY IS LITERAL ABOUT A WOMAN'S AUTONOMY BEING RESPECTED!!

AND GUESS WHAT!! APOLLO AVENGES HER DEATH!!

anything that is "UwU Achilles!" omg i am sick of it.

that bitch had everything coming. he deserved everything he got. Tenes, Troilus, and Hemithea did NOT deserve what he did to them! APOLLO AND PARIS HAD EVERY RIGHT TO TAKE HIM DOWN!

i'm probably forgetting some but here's the one that popped into my head :)