#judgement of the goddess

[themask-maker]

Lore: The Judgement of the Goddess (Ch 06, 19)

This track was created using NES 8-bit soundfonts. The instruments are not accurate to the music heard in-universe - this is merely a game-esque track with ambience to represent its sound. Its melody is based on Ni by Wardruna, which is an unrelated song. The lyrics are original to TMM. The full translated lyrics have not been learned in the context of the story as of this posting, and thus are minor spoilers if you did not translate the page shown in Ch06. Both those lyrics and IDs can be found under the cut.

[ID 1: A screencapped excerpt from The Mask-Maker. It reads as follows:]

Link is resting his head against the wall and nursing his dull headache when he hears a rhythmic thumping coming from above. Confused, he glances at Ghirahim. When the other doesn’t respond, Link strains to listen for anything else coming from the deck. Soon, a droning sound accompanies the thumping. Is that…music? His question is answered a moment later when a gravelly voice joins the sounds, harsh yet melancholy. The voice sways and swells through notes, mimicking the way the waves rock the ship, and a chorus of others respond in kind. Link is entranced by the song’s back and forth motion. It’s the first nice thing he’s felt in… however long it’s been since he got here. “What is going on up there?” he finally asks Ghirahim. “You bore me with your stupid questions," Ghirahim responds snidely.

[ID 2: An image of a page stylized to look like worn parchment. Its contents read as follows:]

O Goddess of light, who walled off the sea, gaze down upon us, let us sail free. Come now and look, see us anew. Though we have sinned, our souls guide us through. Open your heart, and we vow you'll see, many voices as one, all spirits will sing. Within our souls, bared in trust, hear what worth we bring you to judge. O Goddess of Light, who walled off the sea? 'Twas us, oh lord Us, oh lord Once blind, now we see! Gaze down upon us, why aren't we free? Our greed, oh lord Greed, oh lord We were envied by thee! Come now and look, what's made us new? We love, oh lord Love, oh lord We are humbled by you! Though we have sinned, what guides us true? Our hope, oh lord Hope, oh lord For a future we'll view! They open their hearts, and who will they see? See us, oh lords See us, oh lords Many voices as one, all spirits will sing! Within our souls, bared in trust, hear what worth we bring you to judge!

[mask131]

Some people are very confused about why, in the myth of the Judgement of Paris, the three goddesses who fall for the Apple of Discord trick are Aphrodite, Hera and Athena. They usually understand why Aphrodite and Hera would fall for the trick of "the most beautiful" - one is the goddess of love, sexuality, romance and beauty ; the other is the queen of the goddesses. But when it comes to Athena, they tend to have a hard time seeing the goddess of wisdom, war, peace, intelligence and virginity get enroled into a "I'm more beautiful than you" petty feud.

... Except it is very much in line with her character, and yes, these three deities are in classical mythology the most vain of the goddesses.

Now, I will here use both Greek and Roman example mixed together because I do not have time to do a thorough split and explanation for everything - so rather let us take an overview of the goddesses' legends as a whole, throughout the centuries.

Aphrodite is vain, this is something that has been established regularly. She is a being of seduction and love, she is the most beautiful of the goddesses since birth and if it wasn't enough she had her husband create a magical belt for her that makes her attractive to anyone who sees her (a husband she cheated on with one of the worst gods of Greek mythology just because said husband was ugly and the other god was hot. Hated but hot.)

One version of Echo's legend has Pan's unrequired love for her caused by Aphrodite as a punishment for not giving her the "most beautiful" award (and turned the other contestant who won into a shark). Aphrodite persecuted Psyche because she was said to be more beautiful than her. Myrrha was cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with her father because her mother claimed she was more beautiful than the goddess. And there's a lot of other tales like that - so it is well established that not only is Aphrodite the most beautiful goddess, she makes al lot of efforts to stay that way and will be VERY angry if anyone refuses her this title (sounds a bit insecure if you ask me but what do I know?)

If we go to Hera, we have again a certain case of pride and a status to be held. Hera is renowned for her beautiful eyes (the famous "cow-eyes" which no, are not an insult, but were an Ancient Greek compliment, because cow-eyes were deemed to be beautiful), and she is the queen of the gods, Zeus' eternal queen, THE first goddess among them all. That's a certain status to hold - and since she is known to have a bad temper, this comes of as a form of vanity and jealousy. The fact Herakles was named Herakles, "the glory of Hera", was precisely in an attempt to appease the goddess' wrath by appealing to her with flattery (turns out it didn't work). Remember: when Zeus had children of his own, without female help, such as Athena (or rather when it looked like he produced Athena on his own), Hera got pissed off because she saw this as a personal offense and tried to have a child of her own without Zeus just to prove him she could do it too (and the result was always disastrous, ranging from Hephaistos to FRIGGIN TYPHON).

This also ties into the whole idea of Hera persecuting Zeus' lovers and "bastards" out of jealousy. Note that she does not persecute ALL of Zeus' lovers, nor does she persecutes all of his extra-marital children... She always picks up those that Zeus seems to favor. That's how it all started with Herakles: Zeus was boasting about how he was going to shower his son with great gifts and a glorious destiny and all that, and Hera wouldn't have that. But she did not persecute Herakles' mother in any way... Just the son that Zeus clearly favoritized. And it becomes VERY obvious Hera's jealousy is not just related to a case of "cheating" in the case of Leto. Hera persecuted Leto for bearing Zeus' children and being deemed more beautiful than her by Zeus... When the myths are clear that Leto was Zeus companion (and possible wife) BEFORE Hera married Zeus. Before this whole story became another one of Zeus' cheating cases, this was a tale of Hera, unmarried to Zeus yet, simply being jealous of Leto being deemed more beautiful than her.

So this was all quite well established... But what about Athena, then, you ask?

Athena is also vain. I am sorry to announce it to you, but all the goddesses of Ancient Greeks have a flaw in myths (not in religion though, in religion all the goddesses are perfect and benevolent, but in legends and texts they are human-like with flaws and vices), and Athena's personal vice is vanity. The whole Arachne myth has sometimes been interpreted as a manifestation of Athena's personal pettiness, as in she cannot stand that someone is better than her at weaving. (It is a bit complicated since as I said before the legend of Arachne is purely Roman not Greek but I also told you I was going to mix Roman and Greek today so you have been warned). Even outside of the legend of Arachne, there is the legend of the flute - how Athena invented the first flute, but then cast it away and cursed it because when she played it, she looked ugly and people mocked her. This is probably the most famous legend about her vanity. And as I posted a long time ago - while this version of Medusa's legend was mostly lost to time because we lack the text, and it was preserved in scholia, we know that by Classical Greece the legend of Athena turning Medusa into a monster was quite popular... but it was all about Medusa being more beautiful than Athena, hence her being turned into a monster.

There's also a legend of a Meropis turned into an owl for mocking Athena's eye-color...

Anyway! Conclusion, it makes sense in the wider scope of Greco-Roman mythology to have these three goddesses be the one to fall for Eris' scheme, because they are the three most vain Olympian goddesses. Now it would have been weird if the candidates would have been, I don't know... Demeter or Hestia. These goddesses are not renowned for any vanity. But Athena? Yeah, makes sense.

EDIT: @teamrocketsfatknockers made a quite important point in a reblog and so I will add a point to my article.

I will insist that all I present to you above is from an "in-universe" point of view and a literal reading of the story. We are here talking of "humanized characterization" for the goddesses, and from a purely narrative, fictional point of view. That was my angle of attack: Why would Athena be considered "vain" in-story when we typically deem an "asexual virgin who hates romance and is more into war and high-intellects" as someone someone not much into superficiality or appearances.

But as I repeatedly said before, each myth has at least three levels of interpretation and three meaning warped in one. A religious meaning (though the one in the Judgement of Paris is... unknown to me so far), a literal meaning (as in we have a story, with characters, and this is a fiction) and a metaphorical or philosophical meaning. So I need to highlight that the myth of the Judgement of Paris can be read in a philosophical way as such. Why are these three goddesses searching for the Golden Apple aimed at the "fairest of them all"? Because all three of them embody the most attractive and seductive concepts a Greek man can ever hope for ; they are all three the ideals of Ancient Greek mindset and society. As such Paris' choice and the goddess' quarrels isn't about just satisfying the petty vanity of superficial divas anymore - it becomes a deep debate about which ideal, which dream is the most desirable for a Greek hero, and by extension for a Greek man. Hera is royalty, supremacy, political power and domination ; Athena is peace and wisdom, heroism and cleverness ; Aphrodite is romance, love, beauty and sexuality. And this all reflects within their gifts to Paris - which are in fact extension of what the goddesses themselves embody and represent.

You could sum it up as: Do you want to be a king, a hero or a lover? What would reward you most in life, a crown, a sword or a wife? What allures to you more, power, glory or romance?

Again, that's the beauty of the Greeks myths - and of all myths in the world. They depict simultaneously the gods as the pettiest more vicious selfish and flawed persons you ever met, basically warped caricatures of humanity... and as deep, profound, essential principles of human nature and human society, whose every interaction with mortals causes philosophical debates, ideological questioning and existential crisis.

[littlesparklight]

I'm pissy and pedantic and joyless so.

Things that will get you/Paris and possibly others, too, (still!) in the Judgement very, very dead:

-Choosing one goddess above the other two. (What's that you say? That's what the whole Judgement is about? Well, bully for the judge, then.)

-Eating the apple/cutting it up in three pieces to give to each goddess.

-Naming some other divinity not present nor included among the three standing in front of you as the winner of the apple.

-Refusing the oh so generously offered divine gifts. (What's that, you say? All three of them offered gifts? One of the "gifts" is married and you found this out and would now like to back out? Well, bully for the judge, then.)

-Refuse to do the Judgement by deferring to someone else. (You will simply be forced to do it anyway; this might or might not get you dead unless you keep refusing.)

-Giving the apple to your significant other/Oenone.

May I introduce you to Andromeda, whose mother famously declared her more beautiful than the Nereids?

Side, who while no one else declares her as beautiful as the goddesses, does so herself (against Hera)?

Psyche, who other mortals decided was surely a new/mortal Aphrodite and worshipped her as such?

Congrats on getting your significant other/Oenone dead or tortured by various methods, possibly with you/Paris dead, possibly left alive because you made someone else the target of divine wrath.

[mer-acle]

Soooo

Judgement of Paris, but make it a good old fashioned singoff

To Choose your fighter by Ava Max bc I can

This was less of a pain to edit than I thought but still pretty long haha. Also why do all of the goddesses look amazing in pink?? Esp Athena girl slay I didn't know that was your color!

Oh also this is my mythology Athena design for once even though the epic goddesses so totally would do this too.

[red-moon-at-night]

The Heart wants what it wants.

[morrigan-sims]

Judgement

upright: resurrection, reflection, reckoning, judgement, and awakening. reversed: lack of self-awareness, doubt, self-loathing.

Yet another tarot card edit, this time for my Curse of Strahd character, Avra! She's a shadar-kai/reborn phantom rogue who was brought back from the dead by the Raven Queen to serve as her chosen assassin. She was sent to Barovia to kill a rogue lich, but one of the people meant to help her (a raven given human form by the Raven Queen) has made a bargain with him instead...

Her epithet in my notes is "the revenant", and I think it's pretty obvious why. And also pretty obvious why she gets the Judgement card. (Resurrected from the dead, brings her goddess's judgement upon people, etc.)

In this case the reversed version of the card is also fitting, or at least it most likely will be as her arc progresses... (Though the "lack of self-awareness" is pretty accurate, given recent events in the campaign.)

Oh, and of course I had to include a raven looking down on Avra. The Raven Queen does keep a very close eye on her, even now that she's in Barovia...

[peggy-sue-reads-a-book]

I would love to see a depiction of the Judgement of Paris where it feels like a plot twist. I’d like to think he has 0 clue what’s going on, is not told they’re goddesses, and their bribes are presented as wild hypotheticals.

I’ve given this some thought, actually. Hera is factually the most beautiful— you just don’t like her. I know this because if she weren’t, they would have had a lot more problems a lot sooner than the Trojan war. We know from Métis that Zeus has no qualms trading up wives. It was Hera and Hera expected to win.

As for Athena, I think she was fucking terrifying. So he’s glancing between this doe-eyed, porcelain, raven-haired angel and a fierce bitch who finna incinerate him if he doesn’t act right and he doesn’t know what to do. They’re both bullying him in their own way when a cute and friendly but normal girl whispers in his ear that she can give him true love.

He surprises them all because he doesn’t want to be a king or a soldier or anything. His first memory is of abandonment. So he hands Aphrodite the apple, shrugs, and goes back to his sheep.

[eraenia-era]

Amaterasu

[chaos666incarnate]

Rhea Ripley

[streets-in-paradise]

Commodus from Gladiator is almost what you get if Paris would pick Hera.

[fashioninpaper]

The Judgement of Paris by Helen Page

(A beautiful rendition)

[shreddheir]

To everyone wondering why Wanderer is in the upcoming summer event:

It’s not surprising to see the living puppet end up in the world of toys, is it?

[littlesparklight]

The way that, when it comes to the Judgement itself, what the ancient Greek writers were saying Paris did wrong isn't that he chose the objectively wrong goddess. For the first, it's of course that he was bribed (let's ignore that he did not ask for anything and each goddess on their own offers a gift; choosing a goddess then becomes choosing a bribe/gift).

For the second; there is in fact a couple sources that, in arguing that the very idea of the Judgement is silly, basically points out that the other two goddesses wouldn't have competed with Aphrodite in beauty [because they wouldn't care/she is the objectively correct winner in such a contest].

It's not even that he chooses wrong because another option would definitely not lead to Troy destroyed and so many people dead.

(Which it would. Hera's gift assures the destruction of Troy's royal house, at the least, and Athena's with war... well. People die in war. Cities get attacked and sacked in war. Why would Troy be spared?)

It's that Paris chooses the unmanly option.

As a man, he shouldn't prioritize a relationship/marriage, and certainly not sex; that shows a lack of (manly) self-control over his body and urges. As a man, he should want/should be dedicating himself either to war or kingship, among the gifts/bribes the goddesses offer. As a man, it doesn't matter that not choosing Aphrodite c/would be objectively wrong; by what they offer only either Athena or Hera are the "right" options in the view of Ancient Greek social mores.

The goddesses' individual beauty does not matter in terms of "correctness" of Paris' choice.

That Troy (and others) are equally doomed no matter which goddess chosen doesn't matter in terms of "correctness" of Paris' choice.

The only thing that matters (again, aside from complaints of judicial corruption when the judge also cannot refuse the gifts involved), is that Paris confers the prize to the goddess offering him the unmanly gift/life option/what have you.

Like Blondell phrases it, Paris' affirms who/what he already is (effeminate) by choosing who he will henceforth be (sex/love-oriented, that is, effeminate) though awarding Aphrodite the apple.

[goddess-of-frot]

I could never post a “have you jerked off to me” poll, not because I’m above that or anything but because I wouldn’t be able to tell between a yes that means you enjoyed a nude I sent you and a yes that means you’re psychosexually obsessed with the idea of me as perceived through my blog, mostly because that second one doesn’t fit in a poll option

[comparativetarot]

Awakening. Art by ​Linzi Silverman, from ​The Intuitive Night Goddess Tarot.

[0lollipop0]

Elizabeth, Meliodas and Merlin - Episode 21 Season 4 (Stitch)

“She abandoned her form as a little girl, and recreated herself as an adult woman.”

“Then stopped the time that coursed through her.”

“All in the hopes that she could win over Meliodas’ heart forever.”

“But that hope”

“was taken away in an instant.”

“by Elizabeth of the goddesses.”

“Shock. Sadness. Anger. Jealousy.”

“Young Merlin was assailed by the dizzying maelstrom of emotions.”

“Even so,”

“she could not bring herself to hate the two of them.”