#while Iphigenia and Orestes take after Agamemnon more

[tweedfrog]

I wonder if Clytemnestra fully checked out of motherhood and wifedom (is that a word?) after what happened with Iphigenia resulting in the very neglectful/abusive dynamic we see her share with Electra later on.

Because 1. What is the point of being good or caring as a mother if your children get sacrificed and 2. What is the point of being a good wife if your husband sacrifices your children and is unfaithful to you 3. NO ONE suggests he should be punished for these actions so if he does it it's fine if you do it too 4. The daughter you have left loves her father more because you treated her like shit

[babyrdie]

I just read someone commenting that Odysseus is the most suffering of the Achaeans because… he's a father? Like, yeah, it's sad for him and Telemachus, but he's literally not the only father who misses his children. He didn't suffer more than anyone else because of it.

When Agamemnon went to Troy, Orestes was just a baby. And Agamemnon complains to Odysseus that Clytemnestra wouldn't let him see Orestes, so he didn't even get to see his son's face after 10 years. And contrary to popular belief, Agamemnon WAS saddened by Iphigenia's sacrifice (depending on the version, she is alive. But there is no way for Agamemnon to know this as we see in Iphigenia at Tauris, so either way for him she was dead). And he had other daughters!

Achilles didn't even get to raise Neoptolemus. And contrary to popular belief, he did care about Neptolemus. While mourning the death of Patroclus, he literally uses the idea of ​​losing Peleus and Neoptolemus as a metric for his grief. Not only that, he talks about how he planned for Patroclus to take care of Neoptolemus, which indicates that he was thinking about his son. He asks Odysseus about Neoptolemus, showing that he thought of him even after he died. Depending on the myth, his ghost appears to Neoptoleums after Odysseus recruits him.

When Menelaus went to Troy, he left nine-year-old Hermione behind. Unlike the others, she didn't even have a mother at home.

Nestor went to war with two of his sons, one of whom (Antilochus) was not only too young for war but also died in it. And Nestor is shown mourning Antilochus, it was horrible for him. And not only that, Antilochus wasn't even the youngest, Nestor had younger sons (and daughters!) at home.

So this whole thing about Odysseus suffering more because he's a father doesn't make any sense. Why does anyone need to have a "I suffered more" medal in the first place?

(It wasn't on Tumblr, no point looking for the post)

[mai-marybel]

Sometimes I hate that they make Orestes out to be a misogynist or an Agamemnon 2.0 since (bad man, good woman) when in the plays he is hesitant to kill his own mother while Electra supports him

For me Clytemnestra cursed Orestes But she didn't curse Electra just to torture her in another way, "to see how your brother that you hadn't seen in years loses his sanity because of YOU" also taking into account that Electra planned all that and not Orestes

I also laugh when they portray Elektra as the repentant one, but the texts portray her as the most resentful, "Oh mother, you who betrayed your own blood."

and also like the fans of Clytemnestra she only cares about Iphigenia when she is a victim but not when she shows preference for her brother in Iphigenia by Thauris (where she, upon confusing Orestes with a stranger and knowing what her mother has done, cries more for her deceased brother than for her mother, and when she finds out that her brother is alive she does not hesitate to hug him but Orestes stops her because he is AFRAID of what the Furies can do to them)

and then Iphigenia dares to clean him up. But he doesn't want to involve her because he doesn't want to lose another woman again...

and as an adult Iphigenia decides to follow him on her own to get back home and there are hints that she has forgiven her father (she calls Orestes "as dear as my father") and it also gave me the head canon that Clytemnestra was a narcissistic mother since Iphigenia doesn't seem to care about her or even mention her.

Orestes is honestly anything BUT misogynistic, him preferring his father over his mother read less as misogyny and more that he didn't even get to meet him, he was a BABY when he sailed to troy, and was denied the opportunity to even get to know him by his mother, a mother we can assume wasn't really all there bc of her severe trauma and anger. So yeah, obviously the little boy is gonna idolize his hero father and resent his absent mother.

I don't remember Clytemnestra cursing Orestes, but from the Euripides' "Orestes" is obvious that, even if she wasn't punished by the furies like her brother, Electra does view herself as a murderer. I forever love the parallel of Electra literally guiding Orestes' blade, while Clytemnestra metaphorically guided Aegisthus' blade (tho I do love the versions of her being the direct killer) Euripides basically goes out his way to compare Electra and Clytemnestra and I LIVE for that

Electra does show repent for her actions, but it's for a very different reasons from Orestes, while Orestes is remorseful for the actual act of killing their mother, Electra is more focused on how her actions caused her brother's demise, she does not feel repent over the action, but over the (obvious) consequences (I mean, girl you killed your mother, what tf did your ass expect?)

I very much agree with you, Iphigenia is like, one of my top 3 mortal gals, and obviously her sacrifice is vital to her story, but I hate that it's the only thing ppl talk about, she wasn't just a victim, she was a daughter, a sister, a priestess, an inmortal, these people constantly ignore everything else about her in favor of her just being a victim, also they constantly erase how at the end, she literally accepts being sacrificed, Iphigenia love for her family is a key factor to her personality to a point she literally decides to be killed to help her father, but gods forbid a woman makes a decision they don't like, bc let's fucking ignore her self sacrifice for the sake of making her a helpless little girl who Agamemnon brutally killed without remorse (let's also ignore how he literally cried and had to hide his face)

(I can't believe these people made me defend Agamemnon, I hate his ass)

While I get your headcanon (like, yeah valid) her interactions with Orestes and Iphigenia in "Iphigenia in Aulis" makes me think the contrary, she really loved her children above anything, but after losing Iphigenia, I feel like she fully checked out of motherhood, leaving her alive children to be raised by the servants while she cheated on their father. I think Iphigenia easiness to forgive her father has to do with the fact she was the one being hurt, if Agamemnon had done that to her brother or sisters, I feel like she would definitely have a hard time even looking at him, her preferring her brother over her mother makes complete sense given her character, she asked her mother to protect her brother, she did the contrary, not only that, she abused her sister and tried killing her, exiled two of her siblings. Iphigenia is the oldest child, and she will always choose her siblings over her mother (one time I saw someone call Iphigenia a "traitor" for not preferring her mother which was????)

[khawthorneofficial]

A Thousand Ships excerpt

Several more years passed, and Penelope, Clytemnestra and I all gave birth around the same time. For Clytemnestra, this marked her third child, for Penelope and I our first. I gave birth to a daughter, while Clytemnestra and Penelope both had boys. Menelaus and I named her Hermione.

The three of us agreed that we simply had to meet up, but the question remained where. Clytemnestra insisted Penelope and I come to Mycenae, saying that young Iphigenia and little Elektra wanted to see their aunts. We obliged. Menelaus said he had royal duties to attend to, so I was accompanied by a royal escort. Fortunately, we made it to Mycenae safely.

I was surprised to see that Penelope and Odysseus had arrived before I, Ithaca being further away than Sparta, and over water rather than land. Penelope sat on an arrangement of pillows, cradling a baby that looked like a perfect mix of her and Odysseus. He wasn’t chubby like little Hermione or most of the babies I’d seen, but he wasn’t too skinny either. He looked happy and healthy. He had a full head of dark hair and piercing gray eyes.

“Penelope!” I greeted her. “It’s been so long! Is this your son?” I sat down inches from her.

“It really has,” my cousin said. “And yes, this is Telemachus.” I nodded.

“This is Hermione.” In that moment I realized for the first time that my daughter didn’t look much like me at all. She had my eyes and skin tone, but that was all. She had Menelaus’ fiery red hair and as much of his face shape as an infant could have.

That was when Clytemnestra stalked over. Five-year old Elektra was clinging to her skirts, and she carried a baby that was the spitting image of herself. Whereas Elektra and Iphigenia had more of their father in them- something I knew Clytemnestra despised- the baby boy in my sister’s arms looked exactly like her.

“Helen, Penelope,” she said with a smile. “This is my son, Orestes.” Penelope nodded.

“He’s beautiful.” I pressed my lips together and wetted them with my tongue.

“I know how much you were longing for a child that looked like you, my dear sister.”

“Was I?” My sister looked amused, like she hadn’t the slightest idea what I was talking about. “I suppose the other two do take a little more after Agamemnon, but they have my spirit in them at least.” Elektra giggled and let go of her mother’s dress.

“Aunt Helen! Aunt Penelope! Mother, I want to play with my cousins!”

“Ask your aunts,” Clytemnestra smiled. “Helen, do tell me what your daughter’s name is.”

“This is Hermione,” I said with a smile. “She has some of me in her, but really she looks like Menelaus.”

“I see,” Clytemnestra said. “Though your hair is nearly red itself.”

“True,” I said. “And of course Telemachus looks like a perfect mix of his mother and father. Another of Penelope’s masterpieces.”

“True,” my sister said, and we laughed.

[fweet-prince]

This might be incoherent but I wanna talk about tumblr’s girlbossification of Clytemnestra because like. A) “Clytemnestra was right” ignores/erases a lot of really fascinating complexity from the story and frankly does a massive disservice to both Electra and Iphigenia, the daughter Agamemnon killed, two of my favorite girlbosses in the canon (and Orestes, who I also adore), and B) Clytemnestra is way more interesting when we open up the moral ambiguity of what she did as opposed to oversimplifying it to “grieving mother kills her husband for killing her daughter,” which is arguably not even a simple version of what happened.

First off, “was Agamemnon right to kill Iphigenia,” “was Clytemnestra right to kill Agamemnon,” and “was Orestes right to kill Clytemnestra” are three separate questions, and the latter two take the answer to the previous ones into account but aren’t solely determined by them, but tumblr seems to get stuck on “no, obviously,” therefore “yes, obviously,” therefore “no, obviously,” which is an interpretation, but all three are really interesting complex questions, that’s why people keep fucking writing Oresteias!!

“Was Agamemnon right to kill Iphigenia” is often looked at as “is it cool to kill a teenage girl so you can go to war” but it is WAY more complicated than that. Like I am fully on the fuck Agamemnon train but not for the reasons I feel like a lot of people here are. Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis is so fucking good and really highlights how utterly and completely Agamemnon did not have a choice. It wasn’t “sacrifice Iphigenia or go home,” it was “sacrifice Iphigenia or all the armies die here at Aulis,” which means that functionally it was “sacrifice Iphigenia or the men kill you and then her anyway.” On top of that, it’s not like turning around and going home would be a real option even if it was a logistical one, and this is Not the post to get into the causes of the Trojan War but the short version for this purpose is that is simply not how a tragedy works. Still extremely fuck Agamemnon for lying to Iphigenia and to Clytemnestra and for using Achilles, and Achilles in that play does a great job demonstrating how we’d want Agamemnon to act by telling Iphigenia fuck that I will take on every single soldier here if you say the word but like. That isn’t a rational response, that’s a prideful, emotional response and the narrative knows it and Iphigenia knows it. Iphigenia was tricked to Aulis and for that Agamemnon is a shithead, but Iphigenia went willingly to the altar and she died a hero and she knew it, and that is way too sexy and powerful to bury to make an uncomplicated vengeful mother story out of Clytemnestra. Of course that’s only one telling and there are others where Iphigenia doesn’t have that kind of power but why would you ignore the ones where she’s so fucking cool. My best friend Iphigenia

“Was Clytemnestra right to kill Agamemnon” I gotta say I am still on board with “lmao yeah” to that one but there is so much more to it than revenge. I think it’s important to acknowledge that Clytemnestra very much was cheating with Agamemnon with his cousin and she very much did kill him for power and while it is a sexist double standard to condemn her for infidelity and not Agamemnon I think we can in fact condemn them both! And there’s also that there is so much indignity in the way she killed him that I feel like gets lost in cultural translation but like. Agamemnon did not get to die gloriously in battle. Agamemnon died naked and tangled in a shower curtain after returning home victorious. It’s the same kind of thing that makes Medea’s prophecy of Jason’s death so powerful, that a great hero dies pathetically, and you absolutely could argue he fucking deserves it (Jason certainly did) but it is also worth acknowledging that Agamemnon does not get the dignified death that Iphigenia does. Even if we take Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon as purely revenge, she gave him worse than he gave Iphigenia. And we gotta acknowledge that she did also axe murder Cassandra which is just plain fucked up. I don’t think I have to explain that one that’s fucked up. But my point is Clytemnestra is frankly SO much more interesting if we separate “did Agamemnon deserve what he got” (yeah, probably) from “did Clytemnestra do it for the right reasons” (who knows!)

And “was Orestes right to kill Clytemnestra” I mean. That one’s so complicated it gets an entire play of the Oresteia dedicated to it. That one’s so complicated Aeschylus had the Athenian justice system invented to deal with it. And this post about Clytemnestra is not NEARLY gonna get into All My Thoughts About That (affirmations voice I am NOT going to go off about Hamlet-Orestes parallels in this post) but the main factor in how it relates to Thoughts On Clytemnestra Specifically is like. Pretty consistently Clytemnestra was a shitty mother at least to Electra and (looks at smudged writing on hand) chrysanthemums [Chrysothemis] and depending on the telling just straight-up Sold Orestes. In at least three of four tellings I’m familiar with (I do not remember if it comes up in the Odyssey and I cannot be assed to check rn) Electra is 100% on board with the mother-murdering, and in Euripides she actually holds the sword with Orestes and helps him physically do it which is fucking metal I adore Electra with my entire heart. Like. Yes the final argument Aeschylus gives to acquit Orestes (that the father is more closely related to the child than the mother) is utter bullshit but he also doesn’t (directly) address a lot of the factors that are Very Relevant to us today (like, any of the non-avenging-his-father reasons for Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, nor any of the non-because-she’s-his-mother reasons for him not to), so I think analysis can and should go well beyond what Aeschylus brings up

Anyway I. I swear this isn’t an anti-Clytemnestra post this is just a pro-acknowledging Clytemnestra’s complexity post because frankly she (and Iphigenia, and Electra) is WAY too cool a character to be oversimplified how I keep seeing. I mean I don’t know what I expected to happen to one of the most juicily morally gray stories I’ve ever encountered on a site where black-and-white hot takes are encouraged but also I hope people who are big enough nerds to read my five-paragraph essay about Clytemnestra are on board for deeper analysis dhfgdhg

[vavuska]

Bob's Burgers, Season 11, Episode 7, Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid

When Gene can't eat Thanksgiving dinner because of a stomach flu, the family tries to make him hate food, by telling him horror stories about food: in both Tina's — a parody of Harrison Ford's Air Force One (1997) — and Bob's —a parody of Michael Bay's Armageddon (1998) — stories, Gene insists that his wife be played by Linda. The others find it questionable, while Linda finds it sweet.

Bob's Burgers, Season 9, Episode 14, Every Which Way but Goose

Oedipus Mythology

Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle that his son would slay him. So, Laius started avoiding physical contacts with his wife, Jocasta. Unfortunately, a night, while he was strongly drunk, ended up sleeping with her, getting Jocasta pregnant. So, when Jocasta, bore a son, Laius had the baby exposed (a form of infanticide) on Cithaeron. (Tradition has it that the name Oedipus, which means “Swollen-Foot,” was a result of his feet having been pinned together, but modern scholars are skeptical of that etymology.) A shepherd took pity on the infant and decided to rescue him and gave little Oedipus to the royal couple that didn't have child of their own. So, Oedipus was adopted by King Polybus of Corinth and his wife and was brought up as their son. In early manhood Oedipus visited Delphi and upon learning that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified by this reveal, Oedipus, who didn't know to have been adopted, he decided to never return to Corinth.

A depiction of Oedipus and the sphinx, taken from an Attic kylix produced by an artist known to modern scholars as ‘Painter of Oedipus’. Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatican City, Rome. 470 B. C.

Traveling toward Thebes, the young man encountered Laius, who provoked a quarrel in which Oedipus killed him. Continuing on his way, Oedipus found Thebes plagued by the Sphinx, who put a riddle to all passersby and destroyed those who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle, and the Sphinx killed herself. In reward, he received the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen, his mother, Jocasta. They had four children: Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, and Ismene. Later, when the truth became known, Jocasta committed suicide, and Oedipus (according to another version), after blinding himself, went into exile, accompanied by Antigone and Ismene, leaving his brother-in-law/uncle Creon as regent. Oedipus died at Colonus near Athens, where he was swallowed into the earth and became a guardian hero of the land.

Charles Francois Jalabert, Oedipus and Antigone (1843)

Antoni Brodowski, Oedipus and Antigone (1823)

Oedipus' children and his uncle/brother-in-law have a tragic mythological story of their own: Antigone and Ismene, after the death of their unfortunate father, returned to Thebes, where they attempted to reconcile their quarreling brothers—Eteocles, who was defending the city and his crown, and Polyneices, who was attacking Thebes. In fact, Eteocles and Polynices were twins and they made a pact in which they would govern on Thebes togheter in alternate years, but at the end of his first year of government, King Eteocles decided to not pass the crown to his brother, breaking their pact. So, Polynices with his loyal followers and allies decided to attack Thebes to obtain the crown for himself. Both brothers, however, were killed, and their uncle Creon became king. After performing an elaborate funeral service for Eteocles, Creon forbade the removal of the corpse of Polyneices, condemning it to lie unburied, declaring him to have been a traitor. Antigone, moved by love for her brother and convinced of the injustice of the command, buried Polyneices secretly. For that she was ordered by Creon to be executed and was immured in a cave, where she hanged herself. Her beloved, Haemon, son of Creon, committed suicide.

Antigone with Polynices' Body, painting by Sebastien Norblin, 1825 CE, Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

Oedipus in art: X

Oedipus complex

in classical psychoanalytic theory, the erotic feelings of the son toward the mother, accompanied by rivalry and hostility toward the father, during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. Sigmund Freud derived the name from the Greek myth in which Oedipus unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Freud saw the Oedipus complex as the basis for neurosis when it is not adequately resolved by the boy’s fear of castration and gradual identification with the father. The corresponding relationship involving the erotic feelings of the daughter toward the father, and rivalry toward the mother, is referred to as the female Oedipus complex, which is posited to be resolved by the threat of losing the mother’s love and by finding fulfillment in the feminine role. Although Freud held the Oedipus complex to be universal, most anthropologists question this universality because there are many cultures in which it does not appear. Contemporary psychoanalytic thought has decentralized the importance of the Oedipus complex and has largely modified the classical theory by emphasizing the earlier, primal relationship between child and mother.

Here the link to a post of mine in which I analyze the relationship between Freud and his parents:

Electra complex

Electra complex is the female equivalent of the Oedipus complex. Carl Jung introduced this concept in his Theory of Psychoanalysis in 1913; however, Freud did not accept this theory as he believed that Oedipus complex applies to both boys and girls although they experience it differently.

What happens in the Electra complex is that girls become unconsciously attracted to their father and develop hostile feelings towards mothers, seeing them as their rivals. Penis envy is an element in female psychosexual development, where the daughter blames the mother for depriving her of a penis. Eventually, this resentment leads the girl to identify with and emulate the mother, incorporating many of the mother’s characteristics into her ego.

Electra Myth

Electra was the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra of Mycenae. She was the sister of Iphigenia (who Agamemnon sacrificed to Neptune to have a good sail to Troy) and as well as Orestes, with whom they planned the murder of their mother and her lover Aegisthus, seeking revenge for the murder of their father. Agamemnon was the brother of Menelaus, who was king of Sparta and married with Helen (the woman fallen in love with Prince Paris of Troy and "kidnapped" by him) and Clytemnestra was Helen's sister.

When Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War along with his slave-lover Cassandra (was a fromer priestess of Apollus, cursed by Apollus himself to tell future and not be believed for refusing his love attentions, and also the sister of Paris), he was murdered by his wife and her lover, Aegisthus, who was also his cousin. Aegisthus had a rotten past of being born by an incestuous rape and in a family history of adultery, murders and revenge: Thyestes, Aegisthus' father, and Atreus, father of Menelaus and Agamemnon, were brothers and they were exiled by their father for killing their own half-brother to rule over Olympia. They moved to Mycenae and started fighting for the throne. Thyestes was the lover of Atreus' wife and Atreus for revenge murdered all Thyestes' sons and severed their flesh to their unwilling father as meal. Horrified by have eaten his own children, Atreus plotted his revenge and asked for help to an oracle, that told him that his revenger would be born from the rape of his own daughter, Pelopia. However, when Aegisthus was first born, he was abandoned by Pelopia, ashamed of the origin of her son. A shepherd found the infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy and that Atreus was his uncle. Aegisthus then killed Atreus, accused of murdering his brothers/uncles and forcing Thyestes to rape his own daughter. While Thyestes ruled Mycenae, the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, were exiled to Sparta. There, King Tyndareus accepted them as the royalty that they were and gave his daughters' hands (Clytemnestra and Helen) in marriage to the brothers. Shortly after, he helped the brothers return to Mycenae to overthrow Thyestes, forcing him to live in Kythira, where he died. Clytemnestra was furious at her husband for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia before his departure to Troy and Aegisthus with a similar past wasn't that happy with his uncle and cousins too. So, they killed both Agamemnon and Cassandra upon their arrival, even though Cassandra had warned of this ill fate.

Clytemnestra after the Murder, oil painting by John Collier, 1882, London, Guildhall Art Gallery

Clytemnestra hesitates before killing the sleeping Agamemnon as Aegisthus urges her on. 1817.  Pierre Narcisse Guerin. French 1774-1833. oil/canvas.

Electra and Orestes sought refuge in Athens, and when Orestes was 20 years old, he consulted the Oracle of Delphi; there, he was told to take revenge for his father's death. Along with his sister, they went back to Mycenae and plotted against their mother and Aegisthus. With the help of his cousin and best friend, Pylades, Orestes managed to kill his mother and her lover; before her death though, Clytemnestra cursed Orestes and as a result, the Furies or Erinyes (justice or revenge goddess, who punish people who committed most horrible crimes) chased him, as it was their duty to punish anyone commiting matricide or other similar violent acts. Electra, instead, was not haunted by the Erinyes.

Orestes murders Aegisthus, (On the left Chrysothemis), Red-figure pelike. Detail. Attic., by an ancient artist known as the Berlin Painter. Clay. Ca. 500 B. C., Vienna, Museum of Art History

The Ghost of Clytemnestra Awakening the Furies, John Downman, 1781, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America

About the House of Atreus: X

[struck-by-the-moon]

The Worship of Taurian Artemis and Iphigeneia

      I wanted to write this post because I worship Iphigeneia and I think it is kinda neat. There is a connection between Artemis as she was worshipped in Tauris and Iphigeneia. Iphigeneia may have been syncretized with Artemis and the goddess who was worshipped in Tauris. Artemis has a few epithets that are related to Iphigeneia.

“O′RTHIA (Orthia, Orthias, or Orthôsia) a surname of the Artemis who is also called Iphigeneia or Lygodesma, and must be regarded as the goddess of the moon. Her worship was probably brought to Sparta from Lemnos. It was at the altar of Artemis Orthia that Spartan boys had to undergo the diamastigosis (Schol. ad Pind. Ol. iii. 54 ; Herod. iv. 87; Xenoph. de Rep. Lac. ii. 10). She also had temples at Brauron, in the Cerameicus at Athens, in Elis, and on the coast of Byzantium. The ancients derived her surname from mount Orthosium or Orthium in Arcadia.” (Theoi.com-Artemis Cult titles and epithets)

“TAU′RICA (DEA) (hê Taurikê), "the Taurian goddess," commonly called Artemis. Her image was believed to have been carried from Tauris by Orestes and Iphigenia, and to have been conveyed to Brauron, Sparta, or Aricia. The worship of this Taurian goddess, who was identified with Artemis and Iphigenia, was carried on with orgiastic rites and human sacrifices, and seems to have been very ancient in Greece. (Paus. iii. 16. § 6; Herod. iv. 103.) (Theoi.com-Artemis Cult titles and epithets)

“TAURIO′NE, TAURO, TAURO′POLOS, or TAURO′POS (Tauriônê, Taurô, Tauropolo, Taurôpos), originally a designation of the Taurian goddess, but also used as a surname of Artemis or even Athena, both of whom were identified with the Taurian goddess. (Hesych. s. v. tauropolai.) The name has been explained in different ways, some supposing that it means the goddess worshipped in Tauris, going around (i. e. protecting) the country of Tauris, or the goddess to whom bulls are sacrificed; while others explain it to mean the goddess riding on bulls, drawn by bulls, or killing bulls. Both explanations seem to have one thing in common, namely, that the bull was probably the ancient symbol of the bloody and savage worship of the Taurian divinity. (Schol. ad Soph. Ajac. 172 ; Eurip. Iphig. Taur. 1457 ; Müller, Orchom. p. 305, &c. 2d ed.)”(Theoi.com-Artemis Cult titles and epithets)

Iphigenia is also mentioned alongside Artemis and the Taurian goddess in Herodotus’ Histories and Pausanias’ description of Greece. This shows that Iphigeneia was worshipped but was also syncretized with Artemis which is interesting.

“Among these, the Tauri have the following customs: all ship-wrecked men, and any Greeks whom they capture in their sea-raids, they sacrifice to the Virgin goddess1 as I will describe: after the first rites of sacrifice, they strike the victim on the head with a club; [2] according to some, they then place the head on a pole and throw the body off the cliff on which their temple stands; others agree as to the head, but say that the body is buried, not thrown off the cliff. The Tauri themselves say that this deity to whom they sacrifice is Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. [3] As for enemies whom they defeat, each cuts his enemy's head off and carries it away to his house, where he places it on a tall pole and stands it high above the dwelling, above the smoke-vent for the most part. These heads, they say, are set up to guard the whole house. The Tauri live by plundering and war.” (Herodotus Book 4 chapter 103)

“Pausanias has left us two sources that identify Artemis with Iphigenia: in one of them he mentions a temple of Artemis at Hermione in Argolis where this goddess is called Iphigenia (Paus. II, 35, 1), i.e. testifies of a cult of Artemis-Iphigenia; in the other – a temple of Artemis with a statue of Iphigenia in Aigira, Achaea, which according to the explanation of the periegetes meant that in ancient times the temple had been dedicated to Iphigenia” (Paus. VII. 26. 5).” (The Cult of Artemis-Iphigenia,Ruja Popova 59) “[7.26.5] There is also a temple of Artemis, with an image of the modern style of workmanship. The priestess is a maiden, who holds office until she reaches the age to marry. There stands here too an ancient image, which the folk of Aegeira say is Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon. If they are correct, it is plain that the temple must have been built originally for Iphigeneia.” (Pausanias 7.26.5)

“Near the latter is a temple of Dionysus of the Black Goatskin. In his honor every year they hold a competition in music, and they offer prizes for swimming-races and boat-races. There is also a sanctuary of Artemis surnamed Iphigenia, and a bronze Poseidon with one foot upon a dolphin. Passing by this into the sanctuary of Hestia, we see no image, but only an altar, and they sacrifice to Hestia upon it.” (Pausanias 2.35.1)

“They say that there is also a shrine of the heroine Iphigenia; for she too according to them died in Megara. Now I have heard another account of Iphigenia that is given by Arcadians and I know that Hesiod, in his poem A Catalogue of Women, says that Iphigenia did not die, but by the will of Artemis is Hecate. With this agrees the account of Herodotus, that the Tauri near Scythia sacrifice castaways to a maiden who they say is Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. Adrastus also is honored among the Megarians, who say that he too died among them when he was leading back his army after taking Thebes, and that his death was caused by old age and the fate of Aegialeus. A sanctuary of Artemis was made by Agamemnon when he came to persuade Calchas, who dwelt in Megara, to accompany him to Troy.” (Pausanias 1.43.1) “Four ideas must be kept in mind when considering this conundrum. The first is that Herodotos did travel to the Crimea personally, and thus he was a first-hand observer of this aspect of Tauric religion. Second, the historian specifies that it is the Tauroi themselves who make this claim, not Greeks who attribute this identity to a foreign deity. Third, it is obvious that both the word “Parthenos” and the name Iphigeneia are Greek, meaning that the indigenous Tauroi were clearly sufficiently influenced by their Greek neighbors by the fifth century at the latest to have adopted a foreign identification for their own goddess. Fourth, we have virtually no indigenous evidence about Tauric religion, and thus we are unable to see the native divinity behind the Greek overlay.” (Gods and Heroes: Artemis, 123)

 I think that the author here raises a good question about the quotes in Herodotus’ Histories regarding Iphigeneia in Tauris, and we don’t really have an answer yet. But what is in Herodotus’ Histories combined with Iphigeneia being mentioned more than once in Pausanias’ description of Greece shows that she was worshipped even in Greece.

Bibliography

"Artemis Titles And Epithets". Theoi.Com, 2000, https://www.theoi.com/Cult/ArtemisTitles.html. Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

"Herodotus, The Histories,Book 4, Chapter 103". Perseus.Tufts.Edu, 2021, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=4:chapter=103. Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

"Pausanias, Description Of Greece,Achaia, Chapter 26, Section 5". Perseus.Tufts.Edu, 2021, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+7.26.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160. Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

"Pausanias, Description Of Greece,Attica, Chapter 43, Section 1". Perseus.Tufts.Edu, 2021, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+1.43.1. Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

"Pausanias, Description Of Greece,Corinth, Chapter 35, Section 1". Perseus.Tufts.Edu, 2021, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+2.35.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160. Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

Budin, Stephanie. Gods And Heroes-Artemis. Routledge, 2016, p. 123.

Popova, Ruja. "The Cult Of Artemis-Iphigenia In The Tauric Chersonesus: The Movement Of An Aition". Orpheus Journal Of Indo European And Thracian Studies, vol 18, 2011, p. 59., Accessed 18 Jan 2021.

[finelythreadedsky]

Hi! do you have any recs for someone who has never read a greek tragedy before? such as the best ones to begin with & best translations? thank you in any case. :)

i answered a similar question here a while ago but i’ve just finished a seminar on greek tragedy so i feel a little more qualified to give recommendations now! there are three classical athenian playwrights whose work survives: aeschylus (seven surviving tragedies, including the only surviving complete trilogy), sophocles (seven surviving tragedies), and euripides (eighteen surviving tragedies and one satyr play). i’ve read about half of these in translation and three in greek.

for starting out, i’d probably recommend aeschylus’s agamemnon (the first and, in my opinion, best in the oresteia trilogy) and prometheus bound, sophocles’s antigone and oedipus rex (which deal with the same family but were written a decade or so apart), and euripides’s medea and bacchae.

alternatively, you could start out with the house of atreus, a family that all three wrote plays about. aeschylus’s oresteia (agamemnon, libation bearers, and eumenides) deals with this family, and sophocles and euripides both wrote electras that cover the same material as the libation bearers but with different takes, and euripides also wrote an orestes, a characteristically euripidean take set between the libation bearers and the eumenides. anne carson combines aeschylus’s agamemnon, sophocles’s electra, and euripides’s orestes in one translation volume that she calls an oresteia. euripides also wrote two more plays about this family: iphigenia in aulis (takes place before aeschylus’s oresteia) and iphigenia among the taurians (set in a time frame after aeschylus’s oresteia). his four plays about this family aren’t meant to be taken as a consistent or coherent narrative, but it’s interesting to look at aeschylus’s trilogy and at the later plays that treat the same or adjacent subject matter. each author has different interpretations of the characterizations of the family members as well as different narratives of the course of events. fair warning though: it can be pretty exhausting to sit with this family and their trauma for long periods of time.

in terms of translations, i’m a big fan of the greek tragedy in new translations series. their concept is to either get a translator who is also a poet or to pair a classicist and a poet “based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies,” and i’d recommend those editions. the translations sometimes don’t end up being super literal if you look line by line, but i like them a lot. (also they generally have great introductions.) anne carson as a translator is kind of complicated and even sometimes controversial (she tends to lean more on the interpretive side of translation and parts of her translations are often easily taken out of context and reframed), but i think i really do like her work. apart from her compilation an oresteia (aeschylus’s agamemnon, sophocles’s electra, euripides’s orestes), she’s published translations of about half of euripides’s work and of sophocles’s antigone (both a more traditional translation, done for performance, and a more interpretive and artistic one titled antigonick). seamus heaney also published two translations of sophocles under different titles that i’d recommend: the cure at troy (philoctetes) and the burial at thebes (antigone).

[mortuarybees]

What books do you recommend me to read?

I’m not sure what your tastes are but I’ll tell you some of my favorites! To be quite honest, I mainly return to the same books over and over again so the list is rather short and I doubt I have anything to recommend that you won’t have heard of already. I’ll recommend my favorites. It consists mainly of my usual rotation of things i read over and over or books that left an impression on me and I refer back to them often.

When it comes to the non-fiction section just like….keep in mind that most academic texts have many, many problems and I’m not presenting any of the texts I list as The Quintessential Must Read Best Flawless Overview of a topic, I’m mainly listing the books I have found to be approachable and reasonable introductions to topics. Read everything critically, always (and that includes everything else on this list, not just the non-fiction).

Plays:

An Oresteia, translated by Anne Carson (Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Elektra, Euripides’ Orestes)

Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides

I mean like. Shakespeare, obviously; my personal favorites are Hamlet, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth; recently, thanks to the productions starring David Tennant, Much Ado About Nothing and Richard II have been added to the list

Doctor Faustus, Edward II, and Dido by Christopher Marlowe

Antigone, particularly Anne Carson’s translation, and after you’ve read Antigone, I’d recommend reading Antigonick, but not before

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (I feel like Lady Windermere’s Fan is also kind of necessary reading and I do love it of course but I’ve only read it the once, for the sake of it, whereas I’ve come back to the Importance of Being Earnest a million times and the 2002 movie is one of the things I watch when I’m down)

Novels (and Epics)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett if you haven’t yet, obviously

Maurice by E. M. Forster

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

VIRGINIA WOOLF. everything but particularly the Waves, Orlando, and Mrs. Dalloway. The Waves is my favorite, followed closely by Orlando, but I’d start with the Mrs. Dalloway because it gets you accustomed to Woolf’s writing style and the way she approaches her characters if you haven’t read her before.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (If you haven’t read it yet and you have seen 2005 P&P and love it and you’re opening the novel with the expectation that it’s similar to the 2005 film in tone and feel, you’ll be disappointed. If you’ve seen the 1995 miniseries, that reflects it very well. So just approach it with an open mind with 2005 on the back burner and you’ll find it an amazing and very repressed love story)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

The Iliad (the translation I own is Lombardo. It’s extremely approachable and colloquial and I enjoy it, and if you’ve never read the Iliad and you find it intimidating, I would very much recommend it, but my high opinion is not universal. Fagles and Lattimore are very popular translations and I like them both well enough)

I’m dying to get a copy of Emily Wilson’s Odyssey translation. I don’t love the Odyssey personally but I am a big fan of Wilson and from what I’ve read about her translation and what she’s said about it, if anything could make me enjoy the Odyssey, it would be that translation.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I would personally recommend reading the Iliad first just because Miller takes…….liberties with it, but I also don’t think there’s a problem with that at all, so if you’re not interested in the Iliad, or you think tsoa would get you interested in it, there’s nothing at all wrong with reading it on its own or reading it first. I just think it’s a genuinely more enjoyable experience to read the Iliad first and then see what Miller does with it. And regardless of what order you read them in, if you read them both you will understand how very different tsoa and the Iliad are from one another and you will not be one of those people who talks about the Iliad when what they mean is tsoa. Again, there’s nothing wrong with tsoa, it’s one of my favorite novels, but it’s just a very separate thing and it gets just a little maddening.

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. It’s both poetry and a novel but it’s got to go somewhere so

When I was 14 I got very into Les Mis and i will recommend it. I genuinely love it and it will always have a special place in my heart. I have read the entire brick only once however because as much as i love it. as much as i Relate to the infamous off-topic tangents. there is a limit to my patience.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is just like. extremely good. I really don’t know enough about it to recommend any specific translations; in high school I was given a stapled copy of the whole thing and I read that til I lost it and now if I want to reread it or refer back I just look it up online. I’m a fake fan.

Poetry

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson

The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson

Devotions, Felicity, and Winter Hours by Mary Oliver. Those are the anthologies that I have read and I adore them. I imagine that all of her anthologies are also amazing and all of them are on my to-read list. I don’t think you could possibly go wrong

I do not have the singular published collection of Elizabeth Siddal’s poetry (My Ladys Soul) but I have read all of her poetry and she is an amazing poet and I hold her very near and dear to my heart

Crush by Richard Siken

Useless Magic by Florence Welch……..yall knew what you came here for

Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake

Non-fiction and Essay Collections (again. None of these are recommended as the definitive, end all, be all, all-you-need book on any given subject, they’re just some of my favorites). I have limited myself to collection specifically because this is long enough already and if I start just adding essays it’ll never end. All of these were either purchased online for under $10, are available somewhere on the internet as pdfs, or were at my library, so if you look, you can probably find them somewhere (I say this bc while trying to find the authors of some of these I have been stunned by their retail prices and I’m assuring you, don’t be scared off by your initial search bc I sure as fuck did not pay $30):

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama

Marie Antoinette: the Journey by Antonia Fraser (controversial but well-researched and approachable and I love it. I would recommend reading like. almost anything else first because Fraser does obviously focus on Marie Antoinette and her life and experiences; and while she does talk about the revolution, it isn’t the focus of this biography, and you won’t understand why it was necessary if you don’t come to it with a good grasp on the broader events outside Marie Antoinette).

A Day with Marie Antoinette by Hélène Delalex

Robespierre: a Revolutionary Life and Liberty or Death: the French Revolution by Peter McPhee

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James

If you’re at all interested in 18th century art, I recommend Rococo to Revolution:Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting by Michael Levey

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn is controversial. But it’s approachable and well-researched and if you don’t know a lot about American history, I recommend it highly (especially for Americans).

Eros, the Bittersweet by Anne Carson (okay literally everything by Anne Carson. All her essays, her poetry, her translations, her weird mashups, all of it. There are a few things I haven’t read yet but. I very much doubt you’re going to be able to go wrong, so just take what I’ve listed as my favorites)

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate and the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: and Other Lessons from the Crematory and From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty (also the illustrations by Landis Blair are absolutely phenomenal. Look at this. I love it so much I pulled it out of the book to hang in my momento mori corner because it’s so beautiful.)

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Alexander of Macedon by Peter Green is. okay we have a love-hate relationship, me and this biography; me, and peter green, but I have major issues with every single Alexander biography I’ve read and this was the first so if you want to start somewhere, I guess go for it.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

The Honey Bee by James L. Gould. It’s out of date in some respects but a good, simple introduction into honeybee biology and behavior

Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s by Otto Friedrich

Vanishing Bees: Science, Politics, and Honeybee Health by Sainath Suryanarayanan and Daniel Kleinman

Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present by Neil Miller

Holy Madness by Adam Zamoyski isn’t by any means perfect, but it’s a alright introduction to the Age of Revolution. Just don’t let it be the only thing you read. It’s here because it has a special place in my heart as my introduction to it.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Erotic Exchanges: the World of Elite Prostitution in 18th Century Paris by Nina Kushner

Radical Love: Introduction to Queer Theology by Patrick S. Cheng

Our Lives Matter: A Womanist queer Theology by Pamela R. Lightsey

Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them by Paige Embry

At the Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell (I really do not know that much about philosophy or existentialism specifically or this subject generally, so I have no idea where the faults of this book are, but I really enjoyed reading it and it made me think a lot. I have a feeling it’s very simplified so take it with a grain of salt as I did?)

Walden by Henry David Thoreau (just. just. it’s enjoyable but don’t get too into it please for the love of God). My copy (and I think most copies?) includes his essay Civil Disobedience as well which is very good.

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave by Ona Judge

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells

The Diaries of Virginia Woolf: I’m currently in the midst of volume 2 (1920-1924). They’re very enjoyable, but they’re something of an undertaking as all diaries are if you aren’t already very familiar with the biography of the person in question, so like. If you find yourself moving slowly don’t worry about it.

Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Robert Beachy

To Be Broken and Tender: A Quaker Theology for Today by Margery Post Abbott

The New Jim Crow byMichelle Alexander

The Environmental Case: Translating Values into Policy by Judith A. Layzer is a textbook that was assigned to me in my Enviornmental Policy class last semester and I really fkcing enjoyed it. It’s a book of case studies in environmental policy and it’s dense at times, but really interesting and enjoyable.

The Second Amendment: a Biography by Michael Waldman

Michelangelo’s Notebooks: the Poetry, Letters, and Art of the Great Master by Carolyn Vaughan. Just like. Genuinely. Genuinely. unintentionally hilarious. but also sometimes very sad, and very gay. I just adore Michelangelo. Just a shy foul-tempered repressed disaster. Jesus Christ.

[marjanefan]

The Riddle of the Sphinx as a Greek Tragedy

Warning – this essay includes spoilers (under the read more link)

It may be set in modern day Cambridge but in its referring to the story of the Sphinx of Thebes (and Oedipus) and its plot involving multiple revelations and betrayals, its exploration of revenge it deliberately calls back to the golden age of Greek tragedy, This is a point Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have commented on in interview, particularly to explain the episode.

As mentioned, the main story from Greek mythology that the episode references is Oedipus, specifically his banishing the Sphinx from Thebes by answering her riddle. However, it also references elements from Sophocles play ‘Oedipus Tyrannus/Rex’ and other Greek tragedies both in plot elements and how the narrative unfolds.

Firstly it is important to note that there are some major differences between this episode and Greek tragedies. For example there is no chorus commenting on the action and we see all the major action happen in front of us rather than key events happening off stage which then are relayed by a messenger, amongst other things (However it could be argued the crossword itself acts as a Greek chorus commenting on the action and as the messenger as it will tell others what has transpired between Squires and 'Nina')

However, there are a great number of ways in which this episode very accurately reproduces the practices of ancient Greek drama.

In Greek tragedy we usually see dialogues between two characters (Sophocles introduced a third actor, but we usually only see two characters interact in his and Euripides plays). We only see dialogue between Squires and Nina/Charlotte then Squires and Tyler. There are often long passages of exposition and monologues which are also echoed in this episode with Nina, Squires and Tyler all getting opportunities to explain what is happening.

The Riddle of the Sphinx (like many episodes of Inside No.9) conforms to the three Aristotelian unities for drama set out in in The Poetics. It has unity of action (it concerns Squires confrontation with Nina/Charlotte and Tyler with no subplots), unity of time (it occurs in real time over a half hour) and unity of place (Squire’s office). Indeed, almost two third of the episodes of Inside No.9 in the first four series also conform to these three unities.

The plot could be said to conform to three-episode structure of Greek tragedy with Squires and Nina/Charlotte’s initial interactions about crosswords being the first episode, Nina/Charlotte revealing her true motives being the second episode and Tyler’s arrival being the third episode. The Poetics also set out that a discovery should occur within a play and this certainly happens in The Riddle of the Sphinx!

The referencing of the myth of Oedipus in the story must be deliberate with Squires involvement with the death of his two children and sexual assault on a young woman who turns out to be his daughter echoing Oedipus unknowingly killing his father Laius and marrying his mother Jocasta.

Squire’s real crime like most characters in Greek tragedy is his ‘Hubris’ (ὑβρῐ́ς). This goes beyond our concept of pride or arrogance (both of which Squires is more than guilty of). In Greek Tragedy it is almost a form of blasphemy (certainly in the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus) in that it is a form of disrespect for the gods and fate. Oedipus may be infamous for (unknowingly) killing his father Laius and marrying his mother Jocasta. But in Greek myth, this is not his actual crime. His and his parents were informed separately by oracles that Oedipus is fated to kill his father and marry his mother. They both take action to try and avoid this, but these actions only ensure that they occur. More pertinently it is flaws in all three’s personalities that allow these events to pass. All three act rashly or impulsively when told about the prophecy (Laius and Jocasta command baby Oedipus to be left to die, Oedipus runs away from his adopted parents). In spite of the prophecy Oedipus and Laius get into a violent argument when they encounter each other which leads to Laius’s death. So both had tempers that leads them to have violent arguments with apparently random strangers they encounter. Jocasta marries Oedipus almost immediately when he arrives in Thebes as a hero for having vanquished the sphinx even though she has only recently been widowed and he is quite literally young enough to be her son (despite the prophecy).

The plot of Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus Tyrannus/Oedipus Rex ‘occurs years into Oedipus’ rule of Thebes and concerns the eventual revelation of his actions. Throughout the play Oedipus behaves in high handed and arrogant manner toward all those around him, such as the sear Tiresias, in investigating the cause of the plague that has befallen Thebes and the circumstances of the death of Laius. He refuses to heed warnings of what he might uncover or that he may himself be the cause of the plague. This exacerbates his horror when his actions are eventually revealed. Jocasta kills herself offstage (hanging herself – with her scarf, rather like Simon had done) and Oedipus blinds himself.

It could be argued that Squires has his fate foretold him in Tyler apparently warning him that Nina/Charlotte plans to kill him. In trying to avoid this fate and not exploring why Nina/Charlotte wants him dead or Tyler’s motivation for telling him, he ensures his eventual death and that of his daughter.

Squires thinks he can outwit ‘Nina’ and that he will not be called to account for his behaviour toward others who have less power than him (Simon in the crossword quiz, the other young female undergraduates he presumably sexually assaulted). He refuses to show sympathy for those who have suffered because of his arrogance. In the end one of his victims, Tyler, will call him to account in the most horrendous manner possible.

Jacob Tyler in many ways acts in the role of the avenging god that we see frequently appear at Euripides’ tragedies (such as Dionysus in the Bacchae). These gods often reveal at the end of Euripides plays to the central figure the full consequences of their action and punish them accordingly. Tyler’s actions bring around the downfall of Squires and he exposes Squires hubris in his treatment of others. He could also be said to act as a Deus Ex Machina (a trope especially associated with Euripides) in supplying Squires with the bullet to kill himself with. However, these figures are frequently shown to be petulant and deeply cruel in Euripides’ dramas (particularly in plays such as The Bacchae and Hippolytus). Tyler is shown to be similarly cruel and petulant with no compassion toward Squires or even Nina/Charlotte who he raised as his daughter.

Jacob’s first name may be an allusion to Jacobean tragedy. Many Jacobean tragedies (also known as revenge dramas) were every bit as bloody and revenge driven as many Greek tragedies and undoubtably this was another influence on Pemberton and Shearsmith.

Professor Squires middle name Hector (revealed only at the end of the episode) may be another allusion to Greek myth. In the Iliad Hector was the Trojan warrior who kills Achilles’ companion Patroclus in battle. This evokes the wrath of Achilles (the stated theme of the Iliad) who in turn kills Hector.

One of the main themes of the Iliad and many Greek tragedies is ‘honour’ and its maintenance. Characters such a Medea are shown to go to extreme lengths when they perceive themselves as being dishonoured. Squires is determined to maintain his honour as a Crossword specialist over a young man even if it means cheating and abusing his position of power. Tyler feels he has lost his honour both by Squires cuckolding him and his resulting withdrawal from his promising academic career. Both men have an unhealthy preoccupation with their standing in the eyes of others and with being successful. Honour and excelling is linked to identity and power in Greek myth and is seen as almost conferring a form of immortality. The maintenance of honour becomes a deadly matter. Tyler can only see one way of restoring his lost honour- by avenging himself upon Squires and robbing him of his honour by exposing him to shame.

Nina/Charlotte has some interesting comparisons with two figures from Greek tragedy in Electra and Antigone. Electra and her brother Orestes’s killing of their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus in revenge for the murder of their father Agamemnon was the theme of plays by both Euripides and Sophocles (and the Oresteia). In Euripides’ play Electra’s desire for vengeance is met but she is then beset by guilt and regret. It is also worth notig that at least in Euripides plays Clytemnestra's killing of Agamemnon was in large part motivated by his apparent sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia)

But Nina/Charlotte also has some parallels with Antigone, Oedipus’s daughter (who is herself the subject of a play by Sophocles). Antigone ensures her brother Polynices is given a proper burial after her uncle Creon expressly forbids anyone doing this. She is caught and punished by being entombed alive. Like Antigone, Nina/Charlotte is concerned with doing what she perceives as right by her dead brother. Her fate of being left completely paralysed while dying a slow death could be said to echo Antigone’s fate.

Alexandra Roach gives a powerful performance as Nina/Charlotte showing her fierce determination to avenge her brother and later her horror as the extent of Tyler’s betrayal become evident (all the more so as the character is completely paralysed – but her eyes speak volumes). She has been betrayed by both her ‘fathers’ (particularly Tyler) and her life has been lost as collateral in their power game. This echoes both Electra and Antigone having little power as women in their stories, a reflection of the highly patriarchal nature of ancient Athenian society.

There was always a clear moral purpose to Catharsis for the of any Greek tragedy. These were collective experiences whih deliberately explored religious and moral questions for the audience. To this end each play needed an act of ‘Catharsis’ (fear and pity) which Aristotle wrote was so critical to a successful drama. We get this act of catharsis. Squires is confronted with his role in the death of his two children (and the fact he assaulted his own daughter). Steve Pemberton manages to make Squires a pitiable character in the final moments of the episode. We see Squires is genuinely distraught at what he has done to Nina/Charlotte as he cradles her in her final moments. We pity Squires as a man who inadvertently destroyed the family he could have had if he had been more honest, less arrogant and less lecherous. We are also left with feelings of fear that people like Tyler are so ruthless in their quest for revenge and that our own misdeeds. The gunshot at the end resolves the action and ironically both Squires and the audience are released from the tension of the events of the episode.

The Riddle of the Sphinx may at first be nasty fun but as with much of Inside No.9 there is a moral message. Both Squires and Tyler behave in a toxic and entitled way which no one in the audience is supposed to admire. Squires may be physically destroyed by the end of the episode but Tyler is destroyed morally. Nina/Charlotte is so warped by a desire for revenge she is consumed (quite literally!) by it. All this in a story apparently about crosswords

[afraschatz]

The Children of Atreus

Let's talk a bit about the coolest of the mythological Greeks, the children of Atreus - Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxabia. And let me just name three things about them that are guaranteed to make you fall in love with them.

Before that, here is a quick summary of the things that everyone already knows anyway: Menelaus is the famous king of Sparta whose wife Helen’s disappearance sparked the Trojan War. The Greeks’ troops are led by his brother, Agamemnon, king of mighty Mycenae (who, when returning from the war, gets murdered by his wife Clytemnestra). Anaxabia is their sister, and she is married to Strophius, king of Phocis.

Secondly, here are three of the (many) reasons why they are The Best:

 1 - They are the best of siblings.

Obviously, they are called the Atrides (or Atreides) after their father, Atreus, who is the son of Pelops and grandson of Tantalus. That makes them part of the forever cursed family of the Tantalides. That curse manifests itself in their father’s relationship with his brother, Thyest. Atreus and Thyest come to Mycenae after they get thrown out of Elis, the territory around Olympia, for murdering their half-brother. They then quickly gain power and influence in Mycenae and use the majority of it to stab each other in the back - repeatedly and quite literally, as they both end up dead.

With role models such as these (plus the curse that Tantalus brought on his family for murdering and cooking his own son just to prove a point), it is absolutely amazing and quite heart-warming how close the Atrides are. Despite their family history of betrayal and murder, they always, ALWAYS stand by one another and support each other.

I mean, Agamemnon starts a war to end all wars to get justice for his brother, for fuck’s sake (yeah, yeah, there’s that bit about the oath of Helen; I’ll get to that later), and for that ten-year-long war they are practically joined at the hip.

And it’s not just a matter of obvious power-politics either: Agamemnon sends his son Orestes to his sister and brother-in-law in Phocis when he has to leave for war. To entrust his only male heir to them is massive proof of his trust in them, in her. Anaxabia and Strophius continue to raise Orestes as their own, and Orestes becomes best friends (and quite definitely lovers, according to my man Euripides) with their son, Pylades who supports him through thick and thin.

Pylades ends up marrying Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter, while Orestes gets wed to Hermione, Menelaus’s kid with Helen. While for today’s standards this might be a bit too incestuous for comfort, it is further proof how tightly knit that family now (in contrast to previous generations and their fondness for throwing people down wells / dismemberment) is because of the bond of the three siblings.

 2 - They are strategic and diplomatic masterminds.

Agamemnon and Menelaus are often reduced to being one entitled and power-hungry dick and his arrogant but ultimately impotent little brother. While that makes them the perfect cardboard-cut-villain for everyone in need of one (such as grieving Achilles, for one) and while I enjoy Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson as “Troy”’s villains as well as Sophocles's characterization of them in "Aias" as much as the next guy, it really doesn’t do them justice.

First of all, as for the notion that they are entitled and/or feeble: Both of them are self-made men. Not only are they (as well as Anaxabia) kids of a refugee / man living in exile, after their uncle Thyest overthrows their father and has him murdered, they have to flee from Mycenae and seek refuge in Sparta, with king Tyndareos, their future father-in-law, (step) father of Clytemnestra and Helen. From there, they not only manage to mobilize enough man power to overthrow Thyest and conquer Mycenae. They also turn Mycenae into the most influential and mightiest of all the Greeks’ kingdoms. And by proving himself over and over again, Menelaus inherits the right to the throne of Sparta from his father-in-law, while Anaxabia marries the king of Phocis, a kingdom North of the gulf of Corinth with influential Delphi right in the center.

The Atrides’s influence is not just gained by clever marriage and perseverance, however. Sure, the famous oath of Helen (in which all the kings that asked for Helen’s hand in marriage swore to protect her and her husband-to-be) is thought up by wily Odysseus. But who makes sure (for all those years before Paris) that it would be upheld? It’s not like alliances between Greek kingdoms are all that stable. And yet, the council of kings - including extremely strong-willed characters such as Achilles, Aias, and Odysseus - WORKS and works well for ten years, even under the pressure of a prolonged war. Why? It’s because Agamemnon knows how to choose advisers (such as wise Nestor), knows how to utilize the human equivalent of an eel (I am looking at you, Odysseus) etc. He is a fucking brilliant politician. (And it was his RIGHT (AND a necessity) to demand Briseis from Achilles, however much the Myrmidon may moan about it; but more about that later).

Simple proof in numbers: Three exiled kids with NOTHING; fast-forward a decade or two and you have this: Agamemnon commands the largest of the Greek fleets (100 ships). If you add to those the number of Spartan (60) and Phocian (40) ships as well, that’s a whooping 200, even if you disregard for instance the huge Cretan fleet (80) which is led by their uncle, Idomeneus. Brilliant strategists and politicians.

 3 - They are so highkey EXTRA when it comes to the love department. (Well, the brothers are. Anaxabia rolls her eyes at them.)

Before I talk about the brothers and their highkey Extra relationships to their wives, let me just again go back to Anaxabia. Her marriage to Strophius is delightfully stable and uneventful and no one ends up dead (which is quite rare in Greek mythology, really). It produces delightfully stable and unproblematic children, such as the original bestest of mates, Pylades. Just think of Anaxabia and her husband just looking at each other silently at a family dinner,when her dramatic brothers and their dramatic wives start throwing food (and possibly knives) across the table. Next year, we’re doing a couple’s retreat in Delphi, my dear. I love her.

But the brothers’ marriages are equally fascinating.

Paris kidnaps Helen while Menelaus is attending his grandfather Catreus’s funeral btw - dick move, prince of Troy -, and for some reason THEIR relationship is the stuff of legends? Well, fuck that. While I have all the love in the world for one (1) flamboyant and canonically cowardly favourite of Aphrodite, let’s not forget how superglue-strong Menelaus’s bond with Helen is.

First of all, out of all the suitors for her hand in marriage, she chooses HIM without hesitation - after they must’ve known each other for years, btw considering Menelaus’s time in exile in Sparta.

And when she is suddenly gone, he mobilizes literally every available man in Greece to get her back.

That’s a matter of pride, you say? That’s because - much like Agamemnon when he demands Achilles’s prize of war, Briseis, because he had to give his own, Chryseis, back to appease Apollo - he would lose face and power (and thus massively endangering the stability of his reign and consequently the safety of his country, btw)? Sure, it’s that as well.

But.

It’s not like other kings haven’t “misplaced” a wife before. It’s not like he couldn’t simply have claimed she died. He could have. And you know what? It would have saved him from being both the laughing stock of all of Greece (“Here comes Menelaus who couldn’t hold on to his wife”) and also everyone’s favourite villain for having to go to war for him.

And later, what does he do when he finds her again - either in the ruins of Troy or in far away Egypt? Does he kill her? Does he demand a divorce?

No. They sail back to Sparta together and - and this is the kicker - rule together for many years, quite happily reunited.

He fucking loves her, and she loves him. (Okay, she might ALSO love Paris and that whole war could’ve been avoided if they just got into a poly relationship. I wouldn’t have been opposed to that either.)

The same goes for Agamemnon and his family.

Iphigenia, you yell at me in outrage? Well, the unquestioned villain in THAT story is so clearly vengeful Artemis for demanding her life in the first place. And yes, you may fight me on this.

And okay, I am having a slightly harder time explaining away Agamemnon murdering Clytemnestra’s first husband as a romantic gesture, fine. But my point is, Agamemnon’s and Clytemnestra’s relationship status throughout is clearly “it’s complicated”, it’s ENDLESSLY fascinating. Plus, Clytemnestra is such a fierce and badass (Spartan) woman who without problem competently takes care of Mycenae during the war. They are SO well suited for one another, and their relationship is brilliant, from a storytelling point of view.

 So, in conclusion: Give me Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon, Dominic West as Menelaus, and Oona Chaplin as Anaxabia, and I’d watch the hell out of twenty plus seasons about the Atrides and how they feel rightfully superior to all those other Peloponnesian peasants .

The Atrides are the best. It’s just a fact.

[agentrouka-blog]

True. Also, Euripides’ two Iphigenia plays are another case of Buzzword Bingo for the goings-on in the North with the Baratheons. 

Agamemnon-Stannis needs to sacrifice his daughter after he killed a deer in a sacrilegious manner (kinslaying Renly). 

Mother and daughter are lured to Aulis under the pretext of marriage (like Sansa!) when it’s for death. (Dany burning Drogo: “This is a wedding, too.”) Drama. The fanaticism of their people causes Agamemnon to relent and agree to the sacrifice. At the moment of the sacrifice, Iphigenia is replaced by a deer (Baratheon) and transported to different place, Tauris. 

In the second play, in Tauris Iphigenia is reunited with a brother, Orestes, whom she initially doesn’t recognize, in a situation where she will be asked to sacrifice him. That is basically Theon and Asha in Theon’s TWOW sample chapter. Stannis is jonesing to kill Theon, Asha tells him to “give him to the tree”, to the old gods of the North. Stannis is more keen on burning him for R’hllor. Iphigenia and her brother Orestes escape together. 

Maybe GRRM will mesh the two plays. Asha will free Theon and their escape triggers the sacrifice of Shireen, the deer who replaces Theon, because the fire-happy fanatics want to see royal blood burn? 

Also, Randyll Tarly was skinning a deer and ripping its heart out while explaining to his son and heir Samwell why he had to take the black or be murdered, i.e. two kinds of death. Because he wasn’t worthy of touching the hilt of their special sword Heartsbane. Killing childen for special swords is a thing.

Damn, but deer are not a good sign in this universe.

Do you think stannis will either be responsible or complicit in shireen's death? I've read that this story line is similar to iliad where agaemnon sacrifice his daughter life but under pressure n influence.

You know what? I think so. Why?

Ned and Cat “sacrificed” Sansa the same way. 

He knew Joffrey was not quite Right, though obviously not the extent.

“Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “And Joffrey … Joffrey is …” She finished for him. “… crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.” 

(AGFOT, Catelyn II)

But for a higher purpose...

"You must," he said. "Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too."

Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. 

(AGOT, Catelyn II)

Like Stannis and Selyse, the father is thinking strategically, while the mother is a “true believer”. Both are hesitant but don't really doubt that they are doing the right thing.

Ned then ALSO kills Lady at the behest of an evil queen. Melisandre is described as Stannis’ “true queen”. He didn’t put up much of a fight. He later deeply regrets it. Eventually, he dies and fails at attaining the goals he had in mind while sacrificing his daughter.

Ned is not Stannis, and I don’t hate Ned, but that parallel is there and it hints at ugly things.

[kashuan]

In which I finally write a long ass post about all my grievances with the never ending shenanigans I see in the Iliad tag because I can’t take it anymore and needed to get it out tbh

Things y’all really need to stop doing, in no particular order: • Treating Clytemnestra like a Bad Bitch Feminist Icon #goals because she killed a character you don’t like. Know what she also was? Pretty hypocritical. Half her motive for killing Agamemnon is the mistreatment of their daughter, but guess what, Clytemnestra then goes on to treat 2/3 of her remaining children pretty much like shit. I suppose you could consider Electra to be an unreliable narrator in terms of her relating how coldly she was treated at home, but the facts don’t lie in that Cly let her new hubby Aegisthus pass Electra off to be married to some peasant so that she and her children would die without any power and wouldn’t be able to take revenge. It’s pretty indisputable though that her treatment of her son Orestes was flat out terrible. As a child, Orestes has to go into exile, as it’s implied Aegisthus would have had him killed otherwise. Cly just Lets This Happen. When Orestes returns to murder both her and Aegisthus as instructed by Apollo, Clytemnestra entreats him with a set of pretty flimsy excuses. Here’s a part from The Libation Bearers:

CLYTAEMESTRA Have you no regard for a parent's curse, my son?

ORESTES You brought me to birth and yet you cast me out to misery.

CLYTAEMESTRA No, surely I did not cast you out in sending you to the house of an ally.

ORESTES I was sold in disgrace, though I was born of a free father. CLYTAEMESTRA Then where is the price I got for you? ORESTES I am ashamed to reproach you with that outright.

Furthermore, she attempts to manipulate Orestes by entreating him to spare her because she is his mother, the one who nursed him, yet we know that this wasn’t actually done by her, and since a young age she has been completely absent in his life otherwise. When Orestes finally does kill her, this girl cannot even let it go at that but essentially makes sure he’s haunted by demons for the rest of his life. Talk about #petty, not even Agamemnon took it that far. So this character who's set up as like Badass Mama Bear is actually….not. Post Iphigenia at Aulis Clytemnestra is actually pretty self-serving, but not in the sort of way that should be admired. I think Clytemnestra is a great flawed character. Please no more ‘my perfect queen deserved better’ posts. I’m beggin’ ya. Read more than a summary of like 1/4th of her history and then let’s talk. • So I’m gonna follow this up with my long stewing Agamemnon Apologist rant (you: yikes me: Buckle Up). I’d like to begin this by saying we can all definitely agree that this man is a garbageboy stinkman. No arguing that. I love a good ‘Agamemnon is an asshole’ joke as much as the next guy. HOWEVER, when, when will I be free from posts that act like this character is honestly so completely one dimensional, that jokes about it comprise literally 98% of the tag. Where are the actually interesting meta posts that consider things about him beyond JUST being a dumpster of a man. For example, we know he was at least a half-decent bro. In book 4 of the Iliad, Menelaus basically scrapes his knee and Agamemnon essentially calls a T.O. on the entire war because HIS BROTHER, OK!!! Like yeah, he also includes a hilariously selfish line in that part that Menelaus can’t bite it because then he will be disgraced when he goes home, but the point stands. Further evidence of these having a tight relationship can be found in the Iphigenia at Aulis play. After the two of them have had a savage as hell argument about whether or not to sacrifice Iphigenia, taking some serious pot shots at each other, they have this exchange

MENELAUS I’ve changed, and I’ve changed because I love you, brother. I’ve changed because of my love for my mother’s son.  It’s a natural thing for men with decent hearts to do the decent thing. AGAMEMNON I praise you, Menelaus for these unexpected words, proper words, words truly worthy of you.  Brothers fight because of lust and because of greed in their inheritance. I hate such relationships; they bring bitter pain to all.

 I think Agamemnon’s relationship with Menelaus is actually one of the more interesting ones among the cast because he is both in a way protective yet also very controlling of his brother. Here and Here are a couple of fantastic essays on their dynamic and the way it differs from source to source. While on the subject of the play Iphigenia at Aulis and my favorite problematic fav getting the short end of the stick from fandom, can I just say that the majority of retellings, posts, and so on about this particular event ARE TERRIBLE? I’m so tired of seeing it depicted as though Agamemnon just killed his daughter like some afterthought, possibly while twirling his mustache like a cartoon villain. There is so, SO much more nuance to that scene and it kills the man when I see how no one ever discusses it in favor of just saying lol Agamemnon’s a dick, so anyway. Iphigenia herself is actually one of the best sources we have for the fact Agamemnon probably had more than a grand total of zero good traits. The relationship between the two is obviously a very close one and on the whole we get the sense that, aside from the whole killing his daughter thing (ya) he was actually a good dad. Like an inverse Clytemnestra :,). The scene where Iphigenia first speaks with Agamemnon is particularly telling of what was probably their normal relationship. IPHIGENIA What’s wrong, daddy?  You say you’re happy to see me but your face looks worried! AGAMEMNON A king, darling, a General is always worried. IPHIGENIA Make your worries go away, daddy. From now on, think only of me. AGAMEMNON Yes, my darling. I shall think of nothing else but you from now on IPHIGENIA Well then, get rid of this ugly frown from the face that I love so much! AGAMEMNON There! Oh, what a joy it is to see you, Iphigeneia! IPHIGENIA But… but look at you, father! Full of joy and yet tears flow from your eyes…AGAMEMNON Yes, dear… because our separation will be a long one.

Is he still a completly awful man for having sacrificed her? Yes. Completely. But here’s a few factors that play into this decision that I never see anyone, ever, mention: -It is Agamemnon’s intention to send Iphigenia away, to save herself, at the last minute, but Menelaus intercepts the letter meant to warn her of her fate. -Charismatic Odysseus has a good deal of control over the soldiers at this point and was probably looking to further increase his popularity among them (a consistent theme-- see: when he’s ready to shank his bff Diomedes just to be the only one to bring home a trophy from Troy instead of both of them). One can imply that if Agamemnon didn’t go through it, he would have done it himself -- and Agamemnon knew that (he mentions as much). -Gods are terrifying, my dudes. Treating it as though he could have just said ‘naw’ to Artemis’ order for Iphigenia’s death and gone home expresses a pretty fundamental lack of understanding how the Greeks feared the gods and just what the stakes likely already were by that point. Artemis was already pissed that he killed one of her sacred deer so it wasn’t as though she was just like ‘you can either sacrifice your daughter or go home unscathed’. I’ve only seen one other retelling accurately capture what very likely would have happened if Agamemnon didn’t go through with it: Artemis likely would have retaliated at the disrespect against the men and probably his family. Furthermore, the soldiers had already been stranded at Aulis for months on end-- a mutiny was exceedingly likely if they found out what was going on, one in which where they probably would have harmed not only him but also Clytemnestra and baby Orestes who came with Iphigenia. These two facts are more conjecture, but it’s a pretty plausible estimate and I’ve seen several scholarly essays arrive at the same conclusion.  If you’d actually like to see a depiction of Agamemnon that is both incredibly sympathetic yet does not shy away either from showing how terrible what he did was, please watch the 1977 Iphigenia movie. One of my favorite movies in general. Honestly I feel I could make a giant essay out of My Feelings on this particular subject alone so I’ll wrap it now because I have a lot of other stuff I want to get to, though I’ll include one final pet peeve: the amount of people who call Agamemnon trash because he was Sexist. You know who else was a Meninist? Every single goddamn man in ancient Greece. Okay, I’ll give a pass to characters like Patroclus and Hector when it comes to the women front because all we see is them being pretty decent. But like. Otherwise??? Sure, just because everyone is that way doesn’t make it any less shitty-- I’m not arguing that. But it’s also like reading a novel focused on an entire group of mobsters, but calling out only one of them as Problematic for being a criminal. Like, my dudes...  TL;DR: Agamemnon is a dick jokes are funny and completely deserved but throw in a few posts here and there that actually suggest you might have read more than just Book 1 of the Iliad and nothing else. Character depth is your friend. • That said, for the love of god, stop writing Menelaus like he’s just Agamemnon 2.0. A lot of adaptions do this because they don’t seem to know what to do with his character (I’m lookin’ @ u most of all Troy though he suffers some form of this in almost all film adaptions...) Which is a shame because Menelaus as a character is a lot more (and better) than that. From what we do know, Menelaus was actually (relatively speaking) a pretty chill guy and one of the least problematic out of these assholes (y’know, minus that scene I mentioned above with Iphigenia, but hey...at least he admits he fucked up?). We know that Helen voluntarily chose him to be her husband. We know that Helen wanted to return home to him by the time the Iliad takes place. We know they got back together after the war and more or less lived happily ever after. So why do I keep seein’ all these posts about Helen hating him or about him being another warmonger like Agamemnon. Menelaus was a Decent Dude. Leave him alone :,| • Speaking of Helen, how many times am I going to read “feminist” retellings where she either is totally indifferent to or even wanted the war to happen, where she enjoys watching men die, where she ~reclaims~ her demigoddess power and is A Figure To Be Feared. What Helen is this??? Because in the Iliad, Helen is remorseful af about all the people she’s indirectly responsible for the deaths of. There are more ways to build up and strengthen female characters than to make them just like the men they despise. Just. Saying. I get that people want to free her from the damsel in distress role she’s essentially relegated to, me too, but that is NOT the way to do it. Girl can be strong willed but still have a great amount of empathy. As with essentially every other bullet point above, please just give these characters more than one dimension. • Also, how many times am I gonna have to read about The One Fellow Female (Helen or Clytemnestra usually) who believes Cassandra’s prophecies in order to emphasize like, girl power, or that the author feels sorry for Cass and want to project that onto some other character or something. Dude, she was cursed not to be believed. PERIOD. BY ANYONE. There was no clause in the curse for like “except someone who really thinks you’re swell”. It’s tragic because there are no exceptions. No one believes her. NO ONE. THE END. • Achilles was bi. Bi af (by modern standards, of course). See: Iphigenia, Deidamia, Briseis, Polyxena, Penthesilea… I totally get this movement of wanting to call Achilles gay because for so long he and Patroclus have gotten the ‘just guys bein’ dudes’ treatment from scholars. I think it’s absolutely fantastic that potential element of his character is more widely recognized and accepted now. However, I can’t help but get these really uncomfy biphobia feels when I read all the posts about how gay he is, as if liking women makes his relationship with Patroclus less legitimate. That was one thing about TSOA which also really disappointed me-- it had to pull that yaoi fanfic trope of ‘girls are so icky and gross’ in order to further sell how convinced you should be of the same sex relationship. It’s just, Bad And Not Good. Finally, I feel like y’all are so busy hating Agamemnon and shoving off every single bad character trait into existence onto him, that Achilles is always ultimately depicted as this #relatable teen who did nothing wrong except get a little too upset when his bf died. May I remind you of just a few things Achilles also did: -Indirectly got a lot of men killed by refusing to fight during his quarrel with Agamemnon -Had 12 innocent children killed when Patroclus died -Basically everything involving Troilus. From wikipedia: [Achilles] is struck by the beauty of both [Polyxena and Troilus] and is filled with lust. It is the fleeing Troilus whom swift-footed Achilles catches, dragging him by the hair from his horse. The young prince refuses to yield to Achilles' sexual attentions and somehow escapes, taking refuge in the nearby temple. But the warrior follows him in, and beheads him at the altar before help can arrive. The murderer then mutilates the boy's body. Some pottery shows Achilles, already having killed Troilus, using his victim's severed head as a weapon as Hector and his companions arrive too late to save him. The mourning of the Trojans at Troilus' death is great. -Just straight up fucking murders a guy for making fun of him after he just murdered someone else. "Achilles, who fell in love with the Amazon [Penthesilea] after her death, slew Thersites for jeering at him" I’m sure there’s more receipts like this. So like. Can we throw in a couple posts now and then among the Agamemnon ones about Achilles, who was Problematic for far more reasons than just sulking in his tent :,) ...Okay. I think that’s it. FOR NOW. I guess I’ll end this by saying half of this is just my own opinion and I recognize that people can interpret and retell these stories and characters however they want to. It’s when it becomes so consistent however that people treat it like it is The One True Canon when it’s actually not that my jimmies get a bit rustled. [/END RANT]

[dysfunctional-college-roommates]

Uh 2D 4B? If you haven't done them. Sorry if you have. Also hi. I hope you're having a good day

Hi! Thank you! I am having a good day! I hope you are, too! :) And thanks for asking! I haven’t done those yet!

2. D - About the antagonist

Okay, so when I talked about the ship, I said that the Greek lit characters come from Sophocles’ Electra, but I suppose I should have said that most of them are from there. Because while Iphigenia is part of the family, she’s long (presumed, depending on the story) dead by the time the Electra takes place. Basically, according to the story, her father Agamemnon sacrifices her to Artemis, who had been offended by the killing of a deer on her sacred land, before the ships can take off for the Trojan War. In some versions, Artemis saves Iphigenia at the last minute and whisks her away to become a priestess at Taurus, where her job is basically to sacrifice any foreigners. If you read Euripides’ Iphigenia Among the Taurians, you can see that she’s not very happy with any of this or with her father, though I suppose you could probably guess that without reading the play…

Anyhow, back to the rest of the family: when Agamemnon returns from the war, he and his “prize” Cassandra are killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. In the Electra, the only son of Agamemnon, Orestes, returns to kill his mother and Aegisthus in revenge for the killing of his father. My version of Iphigenia is rather bitter about that, considering that one of the reasons Clytemnestra cites for the murder of her husband is the killing of Iphigenia, and Iphigenia canonically has no sympathy for her father. Also, I may tweak the original story slightly so that Orestes never managed to find Iphigenia from Taurus, because I think that spending the rest of her life there would make her much more bitter.

So, yeah, Iphigenia is angered by her siblings’ attitude towards her “death” as opposed to how they feel about their father, and she brings them all into the modern world to teach them a lesson.

4. B - About the ship

Ah, Tom and Greg. I guess I may need a bit of background on the story before I can talk about them, so briefly: people have superpowers, but only if they already have some sort of disability. It’s not one-to-one, and there are plenty of people with disabilities but no powers, which is good, because the government wants to restrict the people with powers. The powers develop around the age of… I think now it’s become 17, and if you’re caught having abilities, the government will be after you. Which is why our characters are on the run.

Anyways, Greg has been at this far longer than Tom. He actually managed to escape prison once, with Tess, though to be fair, the police had picked them up for truancy and hadn’t realized they had powers. Anyways, he’s scouring the police databases, looking for other kids who might have powers, when he comes across Tom. It’s too much to resist, really - the potential to see, maybe even help, another kid like them - even though Tess is vehemently against it. Greg manages to catch up to Tom a bit after he’s just lost the police, though Tom doesn’t really stop to long enough to realize that Greg isn’t the police.

Having accidentally scared Tom, Greg brings him back to the apartment he’s holing up in with Tess. (Tess isn’t happy about having been ignored, but she gets used to Tom eventually.) For a while after that, Tom is too afraid to leave the apartment, and Greg tries to annoy him into going outside. He does this mainly by moving furniture around. Tom eventually catches on to what he’s doing, though.

I don’t know, they’re both just so snarky and they like to push each other’s buttons. But they can also be really sentimental and they’re very loyal to each other, when it comes down to it. In my opinion, they’re adorable and hilarious together. They’re such dorks! (I’m rereading things I wrote, and it’s wonderful. I love them.)