#what riordan did to zeus and poseidon is a tragedy why is poseidon likeable and why is zeus whatever riordan did to him

[mylittleversaille]

Every day I see more and more pop myth takes that make me want to pull my eyelashes out. No, Ares was not a protector of women. No, Aphrodite was not a war goddess (and you know what, being the goddess of sex and lust and beaut is okay!). No, Hera is not an irredeemable villain. No, Zeus is not evil incarnate. No Achilles isn’t without fault or some ‘gay softboi’ icon (he’s literally presented in the Iliad as someone who is proud to a fault. You’re supposed to recognize that he’s selfish and arrogant). No, Demeter was not an overbearing mother nor was Hades some sort of misunderstood, brooding knight in shining armour. Medea is allowed to commit heinous crimes and still be a sympathetic character. Jason… deserves all the hate he gets, respectfully.

Off the top of my head, I think Helen is one of the few people who gets complex, interesting characterization in modern retellings and discourse, ironically enough. She’s allowed to be vain and aware of her own beauty while also often having a great deal of agency. At the same time, she is frequently depicted as both victim and as offender. She’s allowed to want to be in Troy, but also to miss her husband and daughter.

Some days I feel like I could write essays about pop mythology and the way people reduce mythological figures to one dimensional caricatures. And how these retellings are never as progressive as people think, fixing some issues but exacerbating others. I do think retellings end up being an excellent resource for identifying what social issues bother us and how we would like to address them.

For example, we see a lot of feminist retellings that want to show women as capable of the same things as men, and in so doing they reject or deride their own femininity. But a retelling that is ultimately saying that masculinity is more interesting or valuable than femininity isn’t a truly feminist retelling, but it does show us that our society struggles to find femininity compatible with strength or courage.