#greek mythology tho

[professorsta]

To be The Chosen One and lose

wild play by the fates

[gigizetz]

Hermes with his male lover Crocus?

[rubynrut]

[diioonysus]

"there perseus slew medousa gorgon-eyed by the stars' baths and utmost bounds of earth and fountains of deep-flowing okeanos, where night in the far west meets the setting sun."

[cam-stopped-eating-candles]

Yes this was because of the Metamorphoses note

If you don’t get the reference v

[maggie44paint]

Alexander and his generals!

(at least the ones I actually remember by their name, sorry Cleitus💀)

Edit: Huge thanks to everyone who respectfully explained the topic of skintones in Ancient Macedonia to me, I truly appreciate it 🙏

[re-kyba]

The Polyphemus apologist in me drew this

[cowboys-tshot]

Circe and Odysseus in Epic: The Musical

EDIT: DO NOT TAKE MY WORD AS THE 100% TRUTH!!

I took some classes and wrote a paper about ancient Greek culture, but I am in NO WAY an expert. Please read through the reblogs to see some good criticisms and discussion about this topic further. My point overall stands that you can't apply modern rules and standards to ancient stories, but my evidence is undoubtedly flawed! This post has been edited to try and better reflect this.

I'm seeing everyone pointing out the possible issues with Epic the Musical's deviation from the original story of Circe and Odysseus, and as someone who's studied Ancient Greece/ancient Greek myths a bit, I wanted to say some stuff about it. This will be a bit of a long one, so apologies for my rambling!

Note that I'm not trying to shit on SA survivor's perspectives and (completely valid) arguments. I'm just trying to offer some context surrounding the original myth and how it fits (or rather, doesn't fit) with a modern audience. If I'm wrong with any of this, feel free to call me out! Criticize the shit out of me! I like learning about Greek culture and myths and would 100% love to hear other perspectives on this.

So, a few points about Ancient Greek myths to kind of explain the context around Circe and Odysseus:

Greek myths often did not have good views/depictions of women. Women were very often depicted as conniving, selfish, sexually insatiable creatures. There are a few deviations from this trope, the most prominent of which being Penelope herself—she's basically the ideal Greek wife, staying loyal to her husband for 20 years and all that.

Adultery often only applied to women. Husbands cheating on their wives wasn't merely tolerated, but kind of expected. Men often cheated on their wives with various kinds of prostitutes, concubines, mistresses, etc. Although, sleeping with unmarried women (that weren't specifically prostitutes) or married women was still looked down upon. Women didn't have this same standard. They could only sleep with their husbands—hell, their husbands (and family) were pretty much the only men they could even interact with once some really sexist Asiatic practices were brought to Athens.

The original myth has Hermes very plainly lay out how Odysseus' confrontation with Circe will go: Odysseus will eat the moly, draw his sword at her, she'll proposition him, and Hermes directly tells Odysseus to accept. Basically a "sleep with her if you want your men to live" situation. (See this post for more specifics on this).

So, let's apply this to Epic: The Musical. Here's some reasons I think may explain the Circe myth being changed:

The Greek "women being evil" stereotype is... problematic. While I 100% understand that it's important to acknowledge male victims of SA, I don't think the original myth was focusing on Odysseus being a victim—I saw it more of an emphasis on Circe being a sexually selfish woman, as women were often believed to be. Changing Circe to be less conniving and evil deviates from the concerning Greek stereotype.

The SA in the myth is not actually very clearly SA. Yes, with a modern perspective, it absolutely is sexual coercion, but for ancient Greeks, not so much. It made sense to them that sex could be transactional, especially when gods were involved. It's already been established that Epic, while still generally accurate to the original myth, does change things relating to morality/themes in order to better align with modern Western ideas (i.e. OG Odysseus not being as remorseful and merciful, as that was expected of a Greek hero, but Epic Odysseus having more empathy because that's more modernly heroic). If something from the original myth doesn't translate well into modern culture, then it's understandable to want to change or omit it.

In the case that the original Circe myth wasn't SA (I'm not saying one is more right than the other, I'm just covering all the bases), then it wouldn't even constitute as cheating. Like I described earlier, men often slept with women that weren't their wives. Plus, being a goddess, she's already kinda exempt from being blamed if Odysseus slept with her—only women are ever really blamed for sleeping with (or being SAed by) gods, and even then, their husbands sometimes don't even give a shit. But modernly, we would not see it that way. To us, it's not societally acceptable for a married man to sleep with another woman (without his wife's consent, at least). While Ancient Greeks viewed Odysseus as a good (or at least okay) husband, a modern audience wouldn't. Making Odysseus loyal to Penelope and not sleeping with other women (assuming this wasn't SA, but again that's one interpretation) makes him the good, loyal, empathic, modernly heroic man that Epic is clearly aiming for. Repeating my last point: If something from the original myth doesn't translate well into modern culture, then it's understandable to want to change or omit it.

Applying modern perspectives on Ancient Greek society and mythology isn't worth it. Like, we all joke about Greek mythology/Ancient Greece being super gay, but it was often just what we consider pedophilia (it's called pederasty if you'd like to know more). Y'know the Hades and Persephone story? Like, the original one with the kidnapping? Yeah, that was kinda normal in some areas. The myth of Demeter and Persephone is tragic, yes, but it was so normal that a lot of wedding ceremonies included references/recreations of it! Girls got married off ASAP after their first menstruation to men of at least 30 years old. We don't tolerate that shit today (for the most part, at least)! But it was normal in Ancient Greece. Applying modern rules and standards to ancient culture just does not work.

Anyways, I'll shut up now! I'm gonna go keep listening to The Circe Saga lmao

[apollomes-supremacy]

The fact that Apollo uses a silver bow and a golden sword implies that hes the type of person who combines golden and silver jewelry *shivers*

[iamolympus]

apollo, pretending to be human: you look like a god hyacinthus, blushing: you have no idea what the gods look like apollo: well

[restlesskeychains]

For the zombie apocolypse au, I imagine that it’s Odysseus and Telemachus just surviving the world together. And Odysseus has got this radio that was given to him by Athena, and that radio plays several channels, one of which being a news channel thats run by Hermes and at the end of those broadcasts there’s a few lines of morse code that play. Those lines are coordinates and times to different locations, and Odysseus would go there and be supplied with food, medicine, anything by his mentor and previous teacher, Athena. Telemachus is like 5 years old in this au, and they’re both by themselves. Also Odysseus thinks Penelope is dead.

[sarafangirlart]

I love how Hera betrayed Zeus in literally every kind of way EXCEPT for cheating. Even when she had children outside him she produced them asexually and fueled by spite. Gotta respect a hater with standards.

[lyculuscaelus]

Polites, to Odysseus: Let me be your light!

Polites gets killed by Polyphemus

Odysseus to Polyphemus: I am your darkest moment!

Because he has just lost his light.

[rochichan]

i think this is my favorite book so far 

[l-bubee-l]

Tbh, if I was Zeus, I’d be fuckin round. The more gods there are, the less work I have to do.

I suppose that is kinda valid to a... Very limited extent.

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