This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Copper Alloy: I don't get this. About halfway through, the writing jumps from supporting Medea, what with Jason being an idiot dumping the awesome sorceress who betrayed her family for her love for Jason, and the suddenly changes to the tone that she eats kittens and grows a Hitler Moustache. Yes, she murders her own children, but that's a mercy killing as they'll otherwise just become slaves. Everything else seems somewhat reasonable.
Skinner: Values Dissonance? I think most people find it extremely difficult to put it into cultural context, specifically removing themselves from the modern morality that killing a child is the worst crime you can ever commit. I'll try to edit it to be a little more neutral.
Ross N: Even taking the mercy killing as read I don't see how murdering Creon and Glauce can be seen as 'reasonable'. And I'm not even sure about whitewashing killing the kids either - there is a serious element of revelling in Jason's pain in the end.
I think the writing has gone too far towards whitewashing Medea now.
Is it really accurate to say that Medea is presented as a heroic figure? I always felt that Medea and Jason were both portrayed as unlikeable figures-Jason as a philandering ex-hero who has rested on his small laurels for a very long time, and Medea as an insane yandere who worships Hecate-certainly one of the less savoury figures of Greek mythology, even when compared to figures like Zeus, the serial philanderer and rapist.
