| 1 | %% Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1294439498059180100 |
| 2 | %% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/olympians.jpg]] |
| 5 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[BigScrewedUpFamily Just one big, happy family.]]]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | ->''"We will go to worship Zeus\ |
| 8 | Though his morals are quite loose\ |
| 9 | He gave Leda quite a goose\ |
| 10 | And he's good enough for me!"'' |
| 11 | -->-- '''[[http://www.paganlibrary.com/music_poetry/real_old_religion.php "That Real Old Time Religion"]]''' |
| 12 | |
| 13 | The mythology of UsefulNotes/AncientGreece and AncientRome is the OlderThanFeudalism [[TropeNamers/ClassicalMythology namer of many tropes]], in addition to well-known gods, heroes and monsters. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Classical mythology is also known as "Greco-Roman Mythology", or just as "Greek Mythology" by people who don't think the Romans contributed much or who take the two mythologies separately. However, contrary to common belief, the Roman version isn't ''completely'' identical to the Greek one; Rome's own legends became closer to Greek mythology around the end of the monarchy and the foundation of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic the Republic]]. Take, for instance, the Roman emphasis on complicated divination methods that were alien to the Greeks (of which augury--reading the future from the behavior of birds--is merely the most famous). Or the fact that some of their gods, such as [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Mars]] (his Greek counterpart Ares is a dumb brute, while Mars is a highly competent badass) or [[HeroWithBadPublicity Saturn]], are [[AdaptationPersonalityChange largely different from their Greek counterparts]]. While the Romans generally tried to identify their deities with the Greek ones, there were a few Roman/Italic ones for which no exact Greek equivalent could be found, e.g. '''Flora''' and '''Bellona'''. The former was a nymph-like goddess of flowers and spring (most similar to '''Chloris'''), and the latter was a goddess of war variously identified as Mars' wife or sister (most similar to '''Enyo'''). The Roman religion (the actual practice of worshipping the gods in question) was also extremely different from the Greek one, dealing more with human representatives of the remote gods rather than stories of the gods themselves. Essentially, Roman mythology is a little bit like a ContinuityReboot of Greek mythology with some new elements borrowed from the Etruscans as well as just made up. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | ''Literature/TheAeneid'' was a sequel to the ''Literature/TheIliad'', which is attributed to Creator/{{Homer}}. ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' was the original (surviving) sequel to the ''Iliad'', written in Greek and supposedly by the same guy who wrote the ''Iliad'', though we really don't know (especially since Homer was a blind, illiterate poet who relied solely on oral recitations). Both were part of Literature/TheTrojanCycle, which included six other lost epics. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | The central figures of Greek mythology were the [[Characters/ClassicalMythologyOlympians Twelve Olympians]]: '''Zeus''', '''Hera''', '''Poseidon''', '''Demeter''', '''Hestia''', '''Athena''', '''Hermes''', '''Apollo''', '''Artemis''', '''Hephaestus''', '''Ares''', '''Aphrodite''', and '''Dionysus''' (versions vary on whether Hestia or Dionysus is the twelfth). While an important god and Zeus' brother, '''Hades''' lived in the Underworld and thus was not an Olympian. In Homer's portrayal, they were basically [[PhysicalGod super-powered humans]] without [[ComesGreatResponsibility the super-]] that comes standard with powers. Zeus, for example, was a serial philanderer (and outright rapist in Roman tradition), responsible for a large share of the [[HalfHumanHybrid demigods]] running around. Many of these became great heroes, the most famous of which was '''Hercules/Heracles/Herakles'''. Though you would think Zeus's [[BrotherSisterIncest sister]]-wife, Hera, would be a sympathetic character, she spends most of her free time taking out her frustrations on said heroes. This is probably because Zeus, who had more power and authority, was beyond her ability to take any meaningful revenge on. Hades, while [[HijackedByJesus not as evil]] as his ThemeParkVersion, got his wife by kidnapping his niece '''Persephone''' (possibly with Zeus's approval and assistance). This prompted the girl's mother, Demeter, to [[JustSoStory neglect the Earth, bringing winter]]. [[note]]More recently some have claimed it is actually summer, as Greece has mild winters but scorching summers (being a Mediterranean climate). However, the oldest Ancient Greek source on the subject, the Homeric ''Hymn to Demeter'' from the seventh century BCE, specifically states that Persephone returns to the Earth in springtime. [[/note]] And then there is [[WarGod Ares]]... well, he just about ''defines'' the word JerkAss. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | The '''Titans''' were a previous generation of gods overthrown by Zeus and his siblings. Though in modern times they are often depicted as another class of beings entirely, more primordial and elemental, the ancient Greeks conceived them as just as humanoid as the Olympians. '''Cronus''' (or '''Kronos''') was the king of the Titans, god of the harvest and ([[DependingOnTheWriter maybe]]) time, as well as the father of Zeus who would later overthrow him. Also there are the often forgotten primordial gods that preceded the Titans, '''Gaia''', the personification of the Earth, being the most well known of them. There were also minor gods such as the '''Muses''', '''Graces''', and countless nymphs, plus various monsters which you can today read about in the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' Monster Manual. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | It is useful to note that a lot of the epics we get from Classical Mythology are some of the biggest {{Crossover}}s in history: as an example, Ariadne was helped by Icarus to learn the route of the Labyrinth so the pair and Theseus escaped. Theseus had his ship but Icarus didn't. So he built a pair of wings to get off Crete because his father had been banished there by the Athenians. Minos wasn't too pleased about the escape but good thing his wife's father was the Sun, right? |
| 24 | |
| 25 | It should be noted that Greek and Roman religious ideas were not monolithic. In later years, people began worshiping all kinds of newfangled eastern gods. Creator/{{Plato}} wanted to outlaw [[Creator/{{Homer}} Homer's]] epics because [[MoralGuardians he thought their gods were bad role-models]]. Considering their ''lack'' of ComesGreatResponsibility, he may have had a point. Philosophers exercised various degrees of skepticism towards the old myths, to the point that Creator/{{Socrates}} and the Epicureans were accused of atheism (though some scholars say that atheism in those days meant [[NayTheism a lack of worship for the gods]] and not a lack of belief-others have argued atheism as we know it ''did'' exist, though in any case the two appear to have been conflated) because they had very different conceptions of the gods (Socrates believed one entirely good god existed, and the Epicureans believed in gods that did not care about humans at all, living in eternal bliss somewhere far away). Some historians, notably Euhemerus, tried to reinterpret the gods as having originally been great kings. In Literature/TheBible book, Literature/ActsOfTheApostles, the apostle, Paul of Tarsus, invited to explain his religion to a group of intellectuals in Athens, only interested a few converts while the others were apparently asking questions he couldn't answer satisfactorily. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | The Epicurean writer Lucian of Samosata was already [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] popular religious stories in the second century AD. Belief in the Greco-Roman gods gradually waned between the third and sixth centuries, largely due to the spread of the then-new religion UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}}. In fact the Romans' dislike of Christians stemmed from the fact that Christians refused to accept any god but their own, which the Romans considered arrogant (as well as treasonous, in a state where the Emperor was also the head of the Imperial cult and many if not most past Emperors had been deified[[note]]To the point where the great DeadpanSnarker Emperor Vespasian is reported to have said shortly before his death, "''Ut puto, deus fio''", roughly, "Oh, ''fuck'', I think I'm becoming a god."[[/note]]). Later, the Greeks and Romans got tired of what they perceived as their gods' antics and weren't spiritually fulfilled, hence the conversion to Christianity. Eventually the worship of the Roman gods was [[IllegalReligion outlawed]] by the end of the 4th century. However, the Church continued some of the practices of Greco-Roman religion; for example, the old practice of adopting foreign gods into the pantheon was adapted into the canonization of Saints as divine beings, and the nature of the Pope as a semi-divine figure originates with the cult of the Emperor. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | In addition to all this, the Greeks (and, later, the Romans) had a habit of identifying and referring to other people's gods by the names of their own deities. So a Germanic tribe might be said to worship Mercury if their principal god [[Myth/NorseMythology Wotan]] was similar enough to the guy; it helped that many of the peoples they came in contact with (the Celts and Germans in particular) were Indo-European and thus their mythologies [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion shared a common origin]]. There was also strong regional variation in worship of individual gods, both in emphasizing individual gods and particular attributes of the various gods. See how Mars was the god of War making the Romance languages' Tuesday mardi, marti, dimarts and martes and Tiw was the Saxon (English) god of War. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | Greek Mythology has been very influential in literature, art, and many other things so it is named [[TropeNamers/ClassicalMythology a lot of tropes]]. In fact, of all the pagan mythologies of Europe, it had the largest impact on the modern occidental culture (hence, it is the Greek myths we call "classical", not the {{Myth/Norse|Mythology}}, {{Myth/Celtic|Mythology}}, or Myth/SlavicMythology), as when the European artists and poets sought new inspirations outside the universal (for that time and region) Christian/biblical artistic dogma, they discovered them in the classical antiquity. This was particularly prevalent during UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance, which was characterized by the rediscovery of ancient artistic canons and daring mergers of the Christian tradition with the classic paganism (codified by Dante Alighieri in ''Literature/TheDivineComedy''). Characters from this period are universally recognizable to viewers thanks to a dress code heavy in drape-and-cinch unpatterned linens, plus, they've all made the uncanny decision [[TheQueensLatin to speak with]] UsefulNotes/BritishAccents. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[folder:Works on the wiki that constitute Classical Mythology:]] |
| 36 | [[index]] |
| 37 | !!Ancient Greece |
| 38 | [[AC:Literature]] |
| 39 | * ''Literature/{{Theogony}}'' |
| 40 | * ''[[https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomericHymns1.html Homeric Hymns]]'' |
| 41 | * ''Literature/TheTrojanCycle'' |
| 42 | ** ''Literature/TheIliad'' |
| 43 | ** ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' |
| 44 | |
| 45 | [[AC:Theatre]] |
| 46 | * The works of Creator/{{Aeschylus}}: |
| 47 | ** ''Theatre/TheOresteia'' |
| 48 | *** ''Theatre/{{Agamemnon}}'' |
| 49 | *** ''Theatre/TheLibationBearers'' |
| 50 | *** ''Theatre/{{Eumenides}}'' |
| 51 | ** ''Theatre/TheSuppliants'' |
| 52 | * The works of Creator/{{Euripides}}: |
| 53 | ** ''Theatre/{{Alcestis}}'' |
| 54 | ** ''Theatre/{{Bacchae}}'' |
| 55 | ** ''Theatre/{{Cyclops}}'' |
| 56 | ** ''Theatre/{{Hippolytus}}'' |
| 57 | ** ''Theatre/{{Medea}}'' |
| 58 | ** ''Theatre/TheTrojanWomen'' |
| 59 | * The works of Creator/{{Sophocles}}: |
| 60 | ** ''Theatre/{{Ajax}}'' |
| 61 | ** ''Theatre/{{Antigone}}'' |
| 62 | ** ''Theatre/{{Electra}}'' |
| 63 | ** ''Theatre/OedipusTheKing'' |
| 64 | ** ''Theatre/OedipusAtColonus'' |
| 65 | ** ''Theatre/{{Philoctetes}}'' |
| 66 | ** ''Theatre/TheProgeny'' |
| 67 | ** ''Theatre/TheWomenOfTrachis'' |
| 68 | * ''Theatre/PrometheusBound'' (author unknown) |
| 69 | |
| 70 | !!Ancient Rome |
| 71 | [[AC:Literature]] |
| 72 | * ''Literature/TheAchilleid'' |
| 73 | * ''Literature/TheAeneid'' |
| 74 | * ''Literature/{{Heroides}}'' |
| 75 | * ''Literature/TheMetamorphoses'' |
| 76 | * ''Literature/TheThebaid'' |
| 77 | [[/index]] |
| 78 | [[/folder]] |
| 79 | |
| 80 | ---- |
| 81 | !!Works based on (or including elements of) Classical Mythology: |
| 82 | |
| 83 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 84 | * ''Advertising/TheMythOfOrpheusAndEurydice'' |
| 85 | [[/folder]] |
| 86 | |
| 87 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 88 | * ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'' |
| 89 | * ''Franchise/FateSeries'' |
| 90 | * ''Literature/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'' |
| 91 | * ''VisualNovel/KamigamiNoAsobi'' |
| 92 | * ''Anime/LittlePollon'' |
| 93 | * ''Anime/MazingerZ'' |
| 94 | * ''Manga/RecordOfRagnarok'' |
| 95 | * ''Manga/SaintSeiya'' |
| 96 | * ''Anime/Ulysses31'' |
| 97 | * ''Manga/{{Unico}}'': A [[{{Kodomomuke}} children's manga]] by Creator/OsamuTezuka involving [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter an adorable baby unicorn]] being [[JerkassGods hated by the gods]] (especially [[GreaterScopeVillain Venus]]) for [[ForHappiness spreading happiness and love]]. In the manga, Psyche (The Goddess of Soul) is Unico's owner and [[TokenGoodTeammate the only god that genuinely loves him.]] Unfortunately, the Gods order The West Wind to take him as far away from Olympus and later summon The Night Wind to kill him. This causes Unico to get separated from his mother and Psyche. |
| 98 | ** ''Anime/UnicoBlackCloudAndWhiteFeather'' |
| 99 | ** ''Anime/TheFantasticAdventuresOfUnico'' |
| 100 | ** ''Anime/UnicoInTheIslandOfMagic'': Features a [[OurSphinxesAreDifferent young sphinx cub]] named "Piro/Marusu", who originated in one of the storylines of the original manga. |
| 101 | ** ''Anime/SavingOurFragileEarthUnicoSpecialChapter'' |
| 102 | ** ''Manga/UnicoAwakening'' |
| 103 | [[/folder]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[folder:Art]] |
| 106 | * ''Art/AllegoryOfTheFourSeasons'': The crown of ivy and tendrils worn by Autumn is made to give him a resemblance to Bacchus, the Roman God of Wine and Fertility. |
| 107 | * ''Art/AphroditeOfMenophantos'' |
| 108 | * ''Art/TheBirthOfVenusBotticelli'' |
| 109 | * ''Art/TheBirthOfVenusBouguereau'' |
| 110 | * ''Art/TheBirthOfVenusCabanel'' |
| 111 | * ''Art/TheBirthOfVenusSteinbruck'' |
| 112 | * ''Art/CirceInvidiosa'' |
| 113 | * ''Art/DrinkingBacchus'' |
| 114 | * ''Art/HylasAndTheNymphs'' |
| 115 | * ''Art/LaocoonAndHisSons'' |
| 116 | * ''Art/NymphsAndSatyr'' |
| 117 | * ''Art/{{Primavera}}'' |
| 118 | * ''Art/PsycheAndCupidBouguereau'' |
| 119 | * ''Art/TheRapeOfProserpinaBernini'' |
| 120 | * ''Art/TheRapeOfProserpinaRubens'' |
| 121 | * ''Art/SleepingVenusGiorgione'' |
| 122 | * ''Art/VenusAndCupidGentileschi'' |
| 123 | * ''Art/VenusAndCupidLotto'' |
| 124 | * ''Art/VenusCupidFollyAndTime'' |
| 125 | * ''Art/VenusDeMilo'' |
| 126 | * ''Art/YoungHylasWithTheWaterNymphs'' |
| 127 | * ''Art/YoungSickBacchus'' |
| 128 | [[/folder]] |
| 129 | |
| 130 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 131 | * ''ComicBook/AgeOfBronze'' |
| 132 | * ''ComicBook/HerculesUnbound'' |
| 133 | * ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules'' |
| 134 | * ''ComicBook/TheOlympians'' |
| 135 | * ''ComicBook/{{Promethea}}'' |
| 136 | * ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' |
| 137 | * ComicBook/WonderWoman is an Amazon. Her backstory and lore got increasingly filled with Olympian gods and other classical mythology figures over the decades. Two of her most prominent villains being Ares and Circe. |
| 138 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'' dilutes those mythological characters that show up by conflating them with aliens, though Aphrodite and Mars definitely have powers on another level and are considered gods by the Amazons. |
| 139 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' continues the Silver Age tradition of bringing in more elements of the mythology and having the Amazons worship the entire pantheon rather than just Aphrodite. |
| 140 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2006'' restores Zeus to his place as the Olympian TopGod after he was deposed by Athena in the previous series. |
| 141 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman2011'' tries a modern interpretation of the Olympians that takes heavily from the original myths while bringing in some terminology and behavior from Christian traditions. |
| 142 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWomanRebirth'' has a more mysterious and less approachable depiction of the Olympians. |
| 143 | ** ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfWonderWoman2016'' has all the surviving mystical elements of Classical Mythology stranded on a single island in a pocket dimension maintained by the Olympians. |
| 144 | ** ''ComicBook/WonderWomanHistoriaTheAmazons'' details the pre-Wonder Woman history of the Amazons and their creation by the Olympian Goddesses. |
| 145 | [[/folder]] |
| 146 | |
| 147 | [[folder:Films - Live-Action]] |
| 148 | * Films on which Creator/RayHarryhausen worked: |
| 149 | ** ''Film/The7thVoyageOfSinbad'' has Cyclops thrown in the ArabianNightsDays. One scene has Sinbad and his crew blinding one of the Cyclops in similar fashion to the ''Odyssey''. |
| 150 | ** ''Film/JasonAndTheArgonauts'' |
| 151 | ** ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'' (1981) |
| 152 | * ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|2010}}'' (2010) |
| 153 | ** ''Film/WrathOfTheTitans'' |
| 154 | * ''Film/BlackOrpheus'' |
| 155 | * ''Film/{{Electra}}'' (1962) |
| 156 | * ''Film/HelenOfTroy'' (1924, 1956 and 2003) |
| 157 | * ''Film/{{Hercules|1958}}'' (1958) |
| 158 | * ''Film/{{Hercules|1983}}'' (1983) |
| 159 | * ''Film/{{Hercules|2014}}'' (2014) |
| 160 | * ''Film/HerculesInNewYork'' |
| 161 | * ''Film/HighwayToHell'' |
| 162 | * ''Film/HoneyBaby'' |
| 163 | * ''Film/{{Iphigenia}}'' (1977) |
| 164 | * ''Film/{{Immortals}}'' |
| 165 | * ''Film/TheLegendOfHercules'' |
| 166 | * ''Film/{{Minotaur}}'' |
| 167 | * ''Film/{{Orpheus}}'' |
| 168 | * ''Film/{{Parking|1985}}'' |
| 169 | * ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'' |
| 170 | * ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'' |
| 171 | * ''Film/{{Triangle}}'' |
| 172 | * ''Film/{{Troy}}'' |
| 173 | * ''Film/{{Ulysses|1954}}'' |
| 174 | * ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' |
| 175 | ** ''Film/WonderWoman1984'' |
| 176 | [[/folder]] |
| 177 | |
| 178 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 179 | * ''Literature/TheAgeOfZeus'' |
| 180 | * ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'' |
| 181 | ** ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' |
| 182 | ** ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' |
| 183 | ** ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'' |
| 184 | * ''Literature/{{Circe}}'' |
| 185 | * ''Literature/CretanChronicles'' |
| 186 | * ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' |
| 187 | * ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'' |
| 188 | * ''Literature/TheFriendshipSong'' |
| 189 | * ''Literature/GodsAndMonsters2017'' |
| 190 | * ''Literature/GoddessGirls'' |
| 191 | * ''Literature/{{Illium}}'' |
| 192 | * ''[[Literature/MythicMisadventures Mythic Misadventures (The Pandora Gets... series)]]'' |
| 193 | * ''Literature/NeverLookBack'' |
| 194 | * ''Literature/OrpheusGirl'' |
| 195 | * ''[[Literature/CanongateMythSeries The Penelopiad]]'' |
| 196 | * ''Literature/{{Psyche}}'' |
| 197 | * ''Literature/TheSecretsOfTheImmortalNicholasFlamel'' |
| 198 | * ''Literature/TheShipThatSailedToMars'' incorporates several famous figures of Myth as characters who inhabit the "Star of Classical Mythology," including Calypso, Jason, Medea, Icarus, Orpheus, and Eurydice. |
| 199 | * ''Literature/{{Sirena}}'' |
| 200 | * ''Literature/ASongForEllaGrey'' |
| 201 | * ''Literature/TheSongOfAchilles'' |
| 202 | * ''Literature/TheSongOfUs'' |
| 203 | * ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'' |
| 204 | * ''Literature/TheTroySaga'' |
| 205 | * ''Literature/VoyagesInTheUnderworldOfOrpheusBlack'' |
| 206 | * ''Literature/TheYearOfTheBeasts'' |
| 207 | * ''Literature/ZeusIsDead'' |
| 208 | [[/folder]] |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 211 | * ''Series/AmericanGods'' |
| 212 | * ''Franchise/HercXenaverse'': |
| 213 | ** ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' |
| 214 | ** ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' |
| 215 | ** ''Series/YoungHercules'' |
| 216 | * ''Series/{{Hercules}}'' |
| 217 | * ''Series/TheIronHeart'' |
| 218 | * ''Series/JasonAndTheArgonauts'' |
| 219 | * ''Series/MythQuest'' |
| 220 | * ''The Odyssey'' (1997) |
| 221 | * ''Series/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians2023'' |
| 222 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (contains many references to Greek mythology and [[Recap/StarTrekS2E2WhoMournsForAdonais an episode]] inspired by it that claims the gods were AncientAstronauts) |
| 223 | * ''Series/TheStoryteller: Greek Myths'' |
| 224 | * ''Series/TroyFallOfACity'' |
| 225 | [[/folder]] |
| 226 | |
| 227 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 228 | * ''Podcast/{{Archaeostoryteller}}'' (mostly a historical podcast, but some episodes are dedicated to Greek mythology) |
| 229 | * ''Podcast/GreekingOut'' (children's podcast produced by Magazine/NationalGeographic) |
| 230 | * ''Podcast/LiveFromMountOlympus'' |
| 231 | [[/folder]] |
| 232 | |
| 233 | [[folder:Roleplays]] |
| 234 | * ''Roleplay/IliadQuest'' |
| 235 | [[/folder]] |
| 236 | |
| 237 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 238 | * ''TabletopGame/MazesAndMinotaurs'' |
| 239 | * ''TabletopGame/OdysseyOfTheDragonlords'' |
| 240 | [[/folder]] |
| 241 | |
| 242 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 243 | * ''Theatre/AllOurTragic'' |
| 244 | * ''Theatre/DidoQueenOfCarthage'' |
| 245 | * ''Theatre/{{Discus}}'' |
| 246 | * ''Theatre/{{Eurydice}}'' |
| 247 | * ''Theatre/{{Hadestown}}'' |
| 248 | * ''Theatre/HurricaneDiane'' |
| 249 | * ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'' |
| 250 | * ''Theatre/LOrfeo'' |
| 251 | * ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' |
| 252 | * ''Theatre/OrfeoEdEuridice'' |
| 253 | * ''Theatre/OrpheusAPoeticDrama'' |
| 254 | * ''Theatre/OrpheusInTheUnderworld'' |
| 255 | * ''Theatre/OrpheusX'' |
| 256 | * ''Theatre/PenelopeOrHowTheOdysseyWasReallyWritten'' |
| 257 | * ''Theatre/{{Semele}}'' |
| 258 | * ''Theatre/SlidingIntoHades'' |
| 259 | * ''Theatre/SpiderManTurnOffTheDark'' (includes the myth of Arachne and has her as a spirit guide to Spider-Man, while the 1.0 run additionally had her as the main villain and included a GreekChorus) |
| 260 | * ''Theatre/TroilusAndCressida'' |
| 261 | [[/folder]] |
| 262 | |
| 263 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 264 | * ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'' |
| 265 | * ''VideoGame/AlteredBeast1988'' |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/AntigoneWillTakeTheStairsToday'' |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/{{Apotheon}}'' |
| 268 | * ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' |
| 269 | * ''VideoGame/{{Athena}}'' |
| 270 | * ''VideoGame/TheBattleOfOlympus'' |
| 271 | * ''VideoGame/BookwormAdventures'' |
| 272 | * ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfIssyos'' |
| 273 | * ''VideoGame/DarkRomance'' |
| 274 | * ''VideoGame/DisneysHadesChallenge'' |
| 275 | * ''VideoGame/DontLookBack'' |
| 276 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'': Greek mythology is the main theme of Chapter 5, Season 2 (with a bit of ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' on the side). |
| 277 | * ''VideoGame/{{Galatea}}'' |
| 278 | * ''VideoGame/GloryOfHeracles'' |
| 279 | * ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' |
| 280 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' |
| 281 | ** ''VideoGame/HadesII'' |
| 282 | * ''VideoGame/HercsAdventures'' |
| 283 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hercules}}'' |
| 284 | * ''VideoGame/HeroOfSparta'' |
| 285 | * ''VideoGame/ImmortalsFenyxRising'' |
| 286 | * ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' |
| 287 | ** ''VideoGame/KidIcarus1986'' |
| 288 | ** ''VideoGame/KidIcarusOfMythsAndMonsters'' |
| 289 | ** ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' |
| 290 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' |
| 291 | * ''VideoGame/LittleMedusa'' |
| 292 | * ''VideoGame/MythsOfTheWorld'' |
| 293 | * ''VideoGame/{{Perish}}'' |
| 294 | * ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}'' |
| 295 | * ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheArgonauts'' |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/{{Rygar}}'' |
| 298 | * ''VideoGame/RyseSonOfRome'' |
| 299 | * ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'', particularly ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth''. |
| 300 | * ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'' |
| 301 | * ''VideoGame/SpartanTotalWarrior'' |
| 302 | * ''VideoGame/{{Spiritfarer}}'' |
| 303 | * ''VideoGame/StrayGods'' |
| 304 | * ''VideoGame/TitanQuest'' |
| 305 | * ''VideoGame/ATotalWarSagaTroy'' |
| 306 | * ''VideoGame/WarriorsLegendsOfTroy'' |
| 307 | * ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi 3'' and ''4'' |
| 308 | * ''VideoGame/WillRock'' |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/WrathOfTheGods'' |
| 310 | * ''VideoGame/ZeusMasterOfOlympus'' |
| 311 | [[/folder]] |
| 312 | |
| 313 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 314 | * ''VisualNovel/AstoriaFatesKiss'' |
| 315 | [[/folder]] |
| 316 | |
| 317 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 318 | * ''WebVideo/DestripandoLaHistoria'' |
| 319 | * ''WebAnimation/GodsSchoolTheOlympianGods'' |
| 320 | * ''WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions'' |
| 321 | [[/folder]] |
| 322 | |
| 323 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 324 | * ''Webcomic/AthenaComplex'' |
| 325 | * ''Webcomic/GoofyGodsComics'' was a SliceOfLife web comic on Platform/{{Webtoon}} with these gods set in the modern world. |
| 326 | * ''Webcomic/TheGodInTheField'' |
| 327 | * ''Webcomic/LoreOlympus'' |
| 328 | * ''Webcomic/{{Myth}}'' |
| 329 | * ''Webcomic/PepsiaPhobia'' |
| 330 | * ''Webcomic/{{Punderworld}}'' |
| 331 | * ''Webcomic/{{Theseus}}'' |
| 332 | [[/folder]] |
| 333 | |
| 334 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 335 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Achilles}}'' |
| 336 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingFeatsOfYoungHercules'' |
| 337 | * ''WesternAnimation/BloodOfZeus'' |
| 338 | * ''WesternAnimation/ClassOfTheTitans'' |
| 339 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'' (Disney) |
| 340 | ** ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'' |
| 341 | * ''[[WesternAnimation/HerculesAndXenaTheAnimatedMovieTheBattleForMountOlympus Hercules and Xena: The Battle for Mount Olympus]]'' |
| 342 | * ''WesternAnimation/MythicWarriorsGuardiansOfTheLegend'' |
| 343 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheTwelveTasksOfAsterix'' borrows its premise to the Twelve Tasks of Hercules, although none of Asterix's tasks is similar to the original ones. The gods of Olympus do show up in one scene. |
| 344 | [[/folder]] |
| 345 | ---- |
| 346 | !!Classical Mythology provides examples of: |
| 347 | |
| 348 | [[folder:Tropes A to H]] |
| 349 | * AbductionIsLove: The Rape of the Sabine Women may be the most iconic example of this trope. Note that the word "rape" is used here in the archaic sense, referring only to abduction and not necessarily to forced sex (it shares a Greek root with "rapture"). Even so, the story basically involves the Roman men kidnapping women from the Sabine tribe, and then the Sabine women loving the Roman men so much that they refuse to let the Sabine men rescue them. |
| 350 | * AboveTheGods: While nigh-omnipotent over the world, the gods were still considered just as subject to fate as mortals were. Cronus' attempt at fighting it [[SelfFulfillingProphecy only caused his fate to be sealed]]. |
| 351 | * AchillesHeel: TropeNamer that is surprisingly not ''Literature/TheIliad''. That is the story of his rage, but it doesn't cover many of the famous parts of UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar, including his death and the creation of the Trojan Horse (those are narrated in lost epics of Literature/TheTrojanCycle). In fact, the Achilles Heel myth is not even referenced in the text, and Achilles is more known for his skill, strength, speed, and ferocity than for being nigh-invulnerable. |
| 352 | * AchillesInHisTent: TropeNamer again, though not the only example. |
| 353 | * ActionGirl: |
| 354 | ** Athena, the goddess of warfare and battle strategy. |
| 355 | ** Artemis, the goddess of hunting. |
| 356 | ** The Amazons were an entire [[WorldOfActionGirls tribe of warrior women]]. |
| 357 | ** Atalanta - [[RaisedByWolves raised by bears]], brought up to be a huntress, the only female member of the Argonauts, outran all of the men who challenged her (save the last one, and he tricked her), and one of ''two'' {{Badass Normal}}s numbered among the great Greek heroes (the only other being Ajax). |
| 358 | ** The Keres were [[DarkActionGirl goddesses of violent death]] who roamed battlefields for wounded and dying men they could eat. |
| 359 | %%* AdamAndEvePlot: Deucalion and Pyrrha. |
| 360 | * AerithAndBob: For modern readers, anyway. Amongst names like Heracles, Theseus, and Atalanta and the like, it's strange to come across still-common names such as Jason, Helen, and Penelope. |
| 361 | %%* AnAesop: Trope namer and UrExample(s). |
| 362 | * AesopAmnesia: How many times will mortals [[TooDumbtoLive have to learn]] that to [[DoNotTauntCthulhu provoke any god or goddess is certain death]]? |
| 363 | * AlienBlood: Gods and other divine beings do not bleed red blood but a golden glowing substance called Ichor, although a JustSoStory where Aphrodite turns roses red after pricking her finger on a thorn suggests it may be red after all. |
| 364 | * AllAmazonsWantHercules: TropeMaker in the version of the myth where Amazon queen Hippolyta falls in love with Heracles. |
| 365 | * AllGirlsWantBadBoys: |
| 366 | ** After marrying the homely smith-god Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, the god of war, behind his back. Some versions of the story say that she chose Hephaestus as a husband precisely ''because'' he wouldn't mind if she had an affair or two. [[ReallyGetsAround Or twelve.]] |
| 367 | ** It's implied with Persephone and Hades too in some myths. She's ''happy'' to get to the Underworld after six months as it gets her away from her overprotective mother. |
| 368 | * AllOfTheOtherReindeer: |
| 369 | ** The other gods ostracized, mocked and pitied Hephaestus because he was ugly, despite him being the creator of all their [[IconicItem Iconic Items]]. Some myths state his own mother (Hera) threw him out of Olympus after his birth when she saw that he was deformed... Fortunately there were some nice nymphs that raised him (and he gets his revenge on her later on when he returns to Olympus). |
| 370 | ** Sometimes Hades as well. |
| 371 | ** This is the reason why Pan refused to live on Olympus when offered by his father. |
| 372 | * AlternateCompanyEquivalent: This is due to their [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion common origin]] in the Indo-European warrior tribes that expanded out from the plains region north of the Black Sea. |
| 373 | ** [[Myth/HinduMythology Indra]] and Zeus are very similar characters. Both are [[JerkassGods Jerkass chief god]] of the pantheons, wielding [[BoltOfDivineRetribution Bolts of Divine Retribution]] and have pretty amusing sexual lives. |
| 374 | ** Also Apollo and [[Myth/NorseMythology Freyr]], Hades and [[Myth/FinnishMythology Tuoni]] and etc. |
| 375 | ** The weekdays Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are named after the Norse/Germanic gods Tiw, Wodan, Thor, and Freya. In the Romance languages, their names are different: For example, in Italian, they're called Martedi (Mars), Mercoledi (Mercury), Giovedi (Jove/Jupiter), and Venerdi (Venus). The implication is that Mars is equivalent to Tiw, Mercury to Wodan, Jupiter to Thor, and Venus to Freya. (Incidentally, it also means that the names of the days of the week are named after [[UsefulNotes/TheSolarSystem the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn]]--the seven planets of [[WesternZodiac traditional Western astrology]].) |
| 376 | * AnatomicallyImpossibleSex: Zeus was said to have impregnated Artemis' hunting companion, Callisto, while appearing to Callisto [[BedTrick as Artemis]]. We don't really know how that worked out either, though we can probably forgive Callisto's unawareness about where babies come from and genuinely thinking that Artemis herself impregnated her given she was in ancient Greece, she swore to be a virgin and lived in the company of a virgin hunting goddess, and the logistics of the gods can be [[PregnancyDoesNotWorkThatWay very, very strange]]. |
| 377 | * AndIMustScream: There are quite a few examples: |
| 378 | ** Medusa inflicted this on [[TakenForGranite anyone who made eye-contact with her.]] |
| 379 | ** Prometheus was chained to a rock where a bird would come every day to eat his liver, only for it to grow back each day. |
| 380 | ** As his personal IronicHell, Sisyphus was forever forced to roll a boulder up a mountain, [[AllForNothing just to watch it roll back down every time he reached the top]]. |
| 381 | ** Atlas had to hold up the heavens forever. |
| 382 | ** Much like Sisyphus, Tantalus was also stuck in an IronicHell of his own, in a lake that he couldn't drink from, with a fruit branch above him that he couldn't eat from, because the water and the branch always moved just out of reach whenever he tried to drink or eat. |
| 383 | ** Typhon. Being trapped forever under Mount Etna. |
| 384 | ** Niobe after losing all her children, if the stone she turned into still shedding tears long afterwards is anything to go by. |
| 385 | ** What Theatre/{{Medea}} did to her husband Jason after he decided to marry another woman. It was so bad that Hera, who as the goddess who got them together had all reasons to punish Jason, couldn't find anything worse than [[CruelMercy not killing him when Medea decided to let him live with it]]. |
| 386 | ** Ixion, condemned to be attached to a winged wheel of fire, eternally spinning. |
| 387 | * AngelUnaware: It's very common for gods to take the forms of mortals in order to test or otherwise interact with mortals. |
| 388 | ** Zeus and Hermes did this in the legend of Baucis and Philemon, see SacredHospitality below. |
| 389 | ** Zeus also does this in the case of Lycaon. The results... are very different. He appears to the king disguised as a workman, intending to expose his impiety, and is served human flesh. He turns Lycaon into a wolf as punishment; [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Lycaon's name is the source of the word "lycanthropy."]] |
| 390 | ** Athena takes the form of an old woman to gently suggest to Arachne that she should give Athena credit for her weaving skill. When Arachne doubles down and continues to insult Athena, Athena reveals herself and is furious. She also appears in various disguises throughout ''The Odyssey'' to aid Odysseus and Telemachus. |
| 391 | ** Hera also takes the form of an old woman to manipulate Semele into asking [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm to see Zeus in his true form]]. |
| 392 | * AnimalisticAbomination: In some myths, Eurynome (a dove) and Ophion (a serpent) were primordial deities even older than Gaia. |
| 393 | * AnsweringEcho: The story of Echo and Narcissus is the TropeMaker. |
| 394 | * AntWar: UnbuiltTrope, with the Myrmidons, whose name literally meant "ant-people", created from ants, to be warriors for a depopulated country. |
| 395 | * AntiRegeneration: |
| 396 | ** One of Hercules' task was to kill the Hydra, which he succeeded at when his nephew Iolaus cauterized the stumps with his torch. |
| 397 | ** The giant Antaeus challenged travelers to a wrestling match to the death, without mentioning that every time he was in contact with his mother the Earth (i.e., thrown to the ground), his health and energy were completely restored. When Heracles came along, he solved the problem by hoisting Antaeus in the air with one hand and strangling him with the other. |
| 398 | * AnthropomorphicPersonification: Nyx (personification of night), her husband and [[BrotherSisterIncest little brother]] Erebus, and every. Single. One. Of. Her. Children. And grandchildren, too. |
| 399 | * AntlionMonster: Charybdis is a giant nautical version of this, with a whirlpool in place of a pit. |
| 400 | * ArcVillain: Mythology rarely ever had one set villain with the possible exception of Typhon. Examples of arc villains are: |
| 401 | ** [[EldritchAbomination Ouranos]] for the Titans. |
| 402 | ** [[AbusiveParents Kronos]] for the original Olympians. |
| 403 | ** [[AppleOfDiscord Eris]] for UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar. |
| 404 | ** [[JerkassGods Poseidon]] for the Odyssey, with Athena acting as the BigGood. |
| 405 | ** [[ClingyJealousGirl Hera]] for Heracles' story. |
| 406 | ** [[PrinceCharmingWannabe Polydectes]] for Perseus’ story. |
| 407 | ** [[TheDreaded Typhon]] for the Battle against Zeus, though given what [[HeroKiller he's like]] and [[TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether how many other villains he created]] (and by extension how many horrible things he indirectly caused through them), he could qualify as the BigBad of Classical Mythology as a whole. |
| 408 | * ArtifactOfDoom: Several, including PandorasBox, the box Aphrodite gave to Psyche for Persephone to fill, the necklace of Harmonia... |
| 409 | * ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Whether or not the Thracians were an Indo-Iranian people, still there's no way Polymestor could be the man's true name. |
| 410 | * AssholeVictim: Those who end up in Tartarus are usually this--Ixion (who tried to rape Hera), Sisyphus (who murdered his houseguests and tried to con the gods of death), Tantalus (who murdered and almost cannibalized his own son), Tityos (who tried to rape Leto), Phlegyas (who tried to burn down Apollo's temple), the Aloadae (twin giants who tried to kidnap Artemis and Hera) and forty-nine of the fifty daughters of Danaus (who murdered their husbands) all ended up there and received eternal, torturous punishments in the process. Played with regarding Ocnus, another inmate of Tartarus, who got a torturous punishment but no records survive of just ''why'' he was punished in the first place. |
| 411 | * {{Atlantis}}: The TropeNamer may or may not have originated in Plato's writing as an allegory, an island nation that tried and failed to attack Athens and sunk to the bottom of the sea after losing favor with the gods. |
| 412 | * AttemptedRape: |
| 413 | ** When Poseidon's son Alirrothios tried to rape Ares's daughter Alkippe, Ares went PapaWolf and killed him. Poseidon tried to prosecute him, but he was acquitted. |
| 414 | ** Hephaestus, to his half-sister Athena. |
| 415 | ** Atalanta, who, after making a vow of chastity to Artemis, had to kill two centaurs, Rhaecus and Hylaeus, who tried to rape her (some accounts say Meleager killed them). In fact, Centaurs are a common victim (or criminal?) of this trope. They go around trying to rape just about anything with a vagina. The whole Centauromachy happened because the centaur Eurytion tried to rape a woman in a wedding and that woman happened to be the bride. One centaur with amazingly big balls called Nessus tried to rape Deianeira, Heracles' wife. Heracles killed him. |
| 416 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Atalanta, who's distracted from a footrace by sparkly golden apples. |
| 417 | * AtTheCrossroads: The Ur-example and TropeMaker is probably the goddess Hecate, who was goddess of the crossroads as well as her prominent realms of the dead, ghosts, magic, night and moonlight (if you didn't live in a region big on Artemis or Selene).[[note]]The fact that Hecate was the goddess of so many things, and with considerable overlap with other deities, has led modern scholars to the conclusion that she originated outside Greece and was incorporated into the Greek pantheon after her original worshipers (whoever they might be) were conquered.[[/note]] Like other deities of paths such as Hermes or the Roman Janus, her offerings would be placed at the crossroads so she would control the evil spirits that walked along them. The Romans had a comparable deity Trivia (though one a bit DarkerAndEdgier) that they conflated with Hecate so this aspect continued strongest. This rite survived for quite a while into the Christianisation of Europe, which leads to religious figures specifically demonising the practice, which leads to the strong DealWithTheDevil associations throughout Western Civilisation. |
| 418 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: While [[HypocriticalHeartwarming Zeus himself]] does a lot of morally ambiguous things to [[TheCasanova mortals]], if anyone besides him tries to make a move on Hera (or Leto), he reacts instantly and violently. |
| 419 | ** Zeus certainly loves Hera but is willing to punish her severely when she crosses a line. A great example is when he suspended her in the air with an anvil tied to her feet, then used her for ''target practice'' with his thunder. Zeus' angry outbursts could also instill deep fear within her. Yes, the woman who regularly tried to make Hercules' life miserable was terrified when Zeus had a temper tantrum. |
| 420 | * BackFromTheDead: |
| 421 | ** The god Dionysus, whose cult thrived on the image of him dying and coming back to life, and Persephone's metaphorical death in her trip to the Underworld and yearly return. |
| 422 | ** Very rarely, mortals get this privilege. {{Theatre/Alcestis}} was such a faithful wife, dying in her husband's stead, that Heracles, her husband's friend, marched to Hades and demanded her return. Pelops was brought back after the Gods realized Tantalus, his dad, had served ''him'' for dinner. Tantalus was zapped and damned, but innocent Pelops was restored. |
| 423 | * BadassBookworm: |
| 424 | ** Athena, goddess of [[GadgeteerGenius arts and crafts (or possibly technology, depending on your translation)]], [[ThePhilosopher philosophy]], and [[TheStrategist strategy]]. |
| 425 | ** Odysseus is the best mortal example. This is probably why Athena took such a shine to him. |
| 426 | * BarredFromTheAfterlife: Played with--in Ancient Greece, you'll go to the Underworld no matter what when you die, but if you either can't pay Charon or haven't been given the proper funeral rites, you ain't going any further than the entrance. Some of the monsters are subjected to this fate, apparently. |
| 427 | * BeakAttack: Prometheus' punishment for bringing fire to mankind is to be chained to a rock and have his liver pecked out and eaten by an eagle. [[FateWorseThanDeath Repeatedly.]] |
| 428 | * BeastInTheMaze: The TropeCodifier is the legendary [[OurMinotaursAreDifferent Minotaur]] of King Minos who kept him within a gigantic labyrinth. |
| 429 | * BecauseDestinySaysSo: Greek myth gave us the Fates themselves, a set of three goddesses named Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis, who measure out a mortal's life on a thread, weave the thread with the lives of others, and cut it at its appointed hour of death. Even Zeus has no power over the Fates. And don't think you have much in the way of free will during life--even falling in love is commanded by Aphrodite and Eros. |
| 430 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: |
| 431 | ** Midas is one of the most famous examples of this trope in action. When the god Dionysus owed him a favor, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Within a day he turned nearly everything in his castle unusable, realized he could never ''eat'' anything again for the rest of his life, and worst of all, [[TakenForGranite turned his daughter into a pure gold statue when he hugged her]]. He ended up begging Dionysus to take back the wish and set everything aright again... which he did. It's one of the very few examples where the gods ''do'' take back their gifts: most of the time, wishers aren't so lucky. |
| 432 | ** Eos, goddess of the dawn, wished that her mortal husband Tithonus would live forever. But she didn't ask that he'd stay ''young'' forever, and [[AgeWithoutYouth he ended up shriveling and shriveling into a miserable cricket]]. Selene, the moon goddess, Eos' sister, averted this trope by asking that her crush, the mortal Endymion, remain frozen in time -- and asleep -- forever. |
| 433 | ** A slightly less straight example comes late in the Trojan War. When asked to judge between three goddesses in a beauty competition, Paris chose Aphrodite because she bribed him with the most beautiful woman in the world. In some stories, at least, after ten years of warfare, all the divinely-induced sparks between Paris and Helen have faded, and now they utterly despise each other. Also, there's an awful siege war destroying Troy. |
| 434 | * BedTrick: Herakles's conception by Zeus. Zeus, to seduce Alcmene, made himself into the dead ringer of Amphitryon, her husband and paternal cousin and his great-grandson, even marrying her in his form. |
| 435 | * BerserkButton: |
| 436 | ** The Greek Gods tended to take a very dim view of mortals proclaiming themselves to better than them in some way. If you're a character in a Greek myth, don't say that you're more beautiful than Aphrodite, a greater warrior than Ares, a better hunter than Artemis, wiser than Athena (or a better craftsman, ''especially weaving''), a better smith than Hephaestus, a mightier king than Zeus or anything else along those lines. They'll chew you up and spit you out. |
| 437 | ** Pretty much the ''only'' thing that will make Hades attack a mortal is trying to cheat death, for the most part. |
| 438 | * BestHerToBedHer: Atalanta only agreed to marry whoever could outrun her in a footrace. |
| 439 | * BigEater: A horrifying example from the Tale of Erysichthon of Thesslay. The goddess Demeter curses Erysichthon with an insatiable hunger after he chops down a tree sacred to her. The end result was Erysichthon selling everything he had to get money for food and repeatedly selling his own daughter into slavery until she finally left him. Eventually, Erysichthon resorted to ''[[{{Autocannibalism}} eating himself]]'' to satisfy his hunger until there was nothing left of him. One version of this myth has said daughter freeing herself from slavery by praying to Poseidon, who disguised her by turning her into a donkey, allowing her to escape. Still in her donkey form, she found her father again, still wishing to help him - only for Erysichthon to attack and ''[[OffingTheOffspring eat her in her donkey form]]'' to sate his hunger, though she manages to escape again by Poseidon turning her into a butterfly and flying away. |
| 440 | * BlameTheParamour: Women with whom Zeus had affairs were frequently subjected to horrific punishments by Hera, while Zeus himself suffered no consequences. Note that in many cases, the women didn't even know it was Zeus they were sleeping with since he tended to uses disguises. However, this was because Zeus was simply too powerful for Hera to directly retaliate against him— when she did try once, it ended poorly for her. |
| 441 | * BlasphemousBoast: The gods are quick to take offense and retaliate when they catch anybody doing this. |
| 442 | ** [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]] would have saved himself several years of hardships had he not bragged to Poseidon to the point of refusing him a sacrifice, or mocking his son Polyphemus after blinding him. As a man of proverbial wit, you'd expect him to know better than anger the god of seas, especially if you and home sweet home are hundreds miles of sea apart. |
| 443 | ** Queen Niobe brags in public that she has more children than "poor" Leto (the mother of Apollo and Artemis!). The two promptly take it upon themselves to [[DisproportionateRetribution avenge their mother]] by [[RevengeByProxy killing each and every one of the queen's children]] and she turns to stone from grief. |
| 444 | ** A certain Arachne claims she's a better weaver than Athena? There's a reason we call spiders 'arachnids' today... |
| 445 | *** This myth is referenced in Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}, where the teller of the tale points out that Athena plays fair during the challenge and admits Arachne is as good as she thinks she is. It's not Arachne's blasphemy, but rather her hubris, that results in her being cursed. |
| 446 | *** Another version has Athena [[JerkassGods get angry]] when Arachne matches her, and blowing her off so rudely that Arachne [[DrivenToSuicide tried hanging herself]]. That's when Athena came to her senses and saved her by turning her into a spider. |
| 447 | ** The reason Perseus had to save Andromeda from the sea monster was because her mother, Cassiopeia, claimed Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, daughters of the Sea God Nereus who had good relationship with Poseidon. Poseidon is [[SeriousBusiness the one who got pissed]] and then drowns the whole kingdom with the ultimatum of sacrificing Andromeda to his sea monster to stop the assault. |
| 448 | ** In one version of the story, Medusa got turned into a monster after having an affair with Hephaestus, and then claiming that she was more beautiful than his wife Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. |
| 449 | ** Aphrodite had to deal with this a lot, apparently, since suitors were saying that Psyche (who ended up being [[MisplacedRetribution the one to catch flack for their boasting]]) was more beautiful than her. Or there's one time that a mother of a certain woman named Myrrha did the same boast to the daughter, pissing off Aphrodite, but indirectly leading for the Goddess herself to PetTheDog through Myrrha's son Adonis. |
| 450 | ** Adonis himself in one version of his story died through a boar sent by Artemis because Adonis made a boast that he's a better hunter than Artemis. Really, just see BerserkButton above and see which part shouldn't be boasted when compared to what Gods. They never end well. |
| 451 | * BlasphemousPraise: |
| 452 | ** Cassiopeia comparing the beauty of her daughter Andromeda to that of various goddesses ticks the gods off. Based on this, the 1981 film ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'' has Queen Cassiopeia of the city of Joppa saying that her daughter Princess Andromeda is more lovely than the goddess Thetis. Thetis is not pleased by this and orders that Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken. If they don't, the Kraken will destroy Joppa. |
| 453 | ** Arachne receives this in her own story. When she claimed that her weaving could challenge the gods, Athena decides to come down and put that to the test. They both weave tapestries, and (in at least one version) when they have the people vote, they chose Arachne's tapestry. This is what doomed her along with the fact that her tapestry just happened to be insulting Gods, especially Zeus, ''in front of [[DaddysGirl Athena]].'' |
| 454 | * {{Blessing}}: |
| 455 | ** Zeus blessed Ganymede with immortality and made him the gods' cupbearer because of his irresistible charm and undying beauty. |
| 456 | ** When Perseus prayed to Zeus before setting out on his quest, Hermes and Athena blessed him with weapons that could defeat Medusa. |
| 457 | * BlindSeer: Tiresias and Phineas. |
| 458 | * BloodForMortar: Antaeus, son of Poseidon and Gaia, murdered wayward travelers and used their bones to build a temple to his father. Hercules killed him while going to the Garden of Hesperides. |
| 459 | * BoltOfDivineRetribution: Zeus was known for hurling thunderbolts at people who annoyed him. |
| 460 | * BornAsAnAdult: Athena, who is perhaps one of the most classic examples of this trope. Also Aphrodite, as the sexual love she represented was adult in nature. |
| 461 | * BrainsVersusBrawn: This is often how Athena and Ares are contrasted as gods of war. Athena as the goddess of wisdom, represents the strategic thinking and planning that is necessary for engaging in large scale battles, but is also useful from a "fight smarter not harder" standpoint in any context. Ares on the other hand is the god of courage and war, more typically associated with brutality, carnage, and bloodlust that comes with mass killing. From ''Literature/TheIliad's'' account of the Trojan War, Ares and Athena found themselves on opposite sides, with Ares backing the Trojans and Athena supporting the Greeks. To lessen their battle output, when Ares was fighting King Diomedes, Athena uses an invisibility cloak from Hades to hide herself and causes Ares's spear to miss, opening him up for a counterattack that leaves him wounded. |
| 462 | * BringingBackProof: |
| 463 | ** Heracles' first labor is to kill the invulnerable Nemean lion and bring its pelt to King Eurystheus. He succeeds in completing the ImpossibleTask, which terrifies the king so much that he refuses to meet Heracles face-to-face after that. |
| 464 | ** Perseus was tasked by the king Polydectes with slaying the mortal Gorgon Medusa in an attempt by the latter to get him killed for preventing him from courting Perseus' mother. When Perseus returned, he claimed he had brought back proof of his success. Polydectes demanded to see this proof, at which point Perseus looked away and reached into the sack he was carrying, pulling out Medusa's severed head. Unluckily for for Polydectes and his sycophants, even in death [[TakenForGranite her powers were still active]]... |
| 465 | * BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Sisyphus managed to cheat death by chaining up Thanatos. However, doing so messed up the whole cycle of life and death. So eventually the impulsive Ares freed Thanatos (because a war without death would be boring), and Sisyphus was dragged to the underworld. He then gets back again by telling Hades that he has to punish his wife because she didn't bury him properly (he told her to do so, the cheater) and lives on like some insurance cheater for some decades until finally dying once and for all. His punishment? Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a steep hill... But it will always roll back down again whenever he's almost at the top, forcing him to perform this pointless task forever. |
| 466 | * BrokenAesop: The Greek gods epitomized the idea of "do as we say, not as we do" even ''before'' Values Dissonance gets added in. |
| 467 | * BrotherSisterIncest: Like most mythologies, Classical Myth also has lots of pairings between family members, as the various generations of gods are siblings and children of the previous one. Starting with Gaea and Uranus (mother and son), to their children Kronos (Saturn) and Rhea, to their children who are the current generation of gods. Notable sibling pairs among them are e.g. Zeus (Jupiter/Jove) and Hera (Juno), Demeter (Ceres) with both Zeus and Poseidon (Neptune), etc. |
| 468 | %%* BrotherSisterTeam: Artemis and Apollo. |
| 469 | %%* CainAndAbel: Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. |
| 470 | * CallingTheOldManOut: Uranus cruelly imprisoned his children - including the Titans - until one Titan, Kronos, attacked and castrated him. Kronos then proved to be just as bad a ruler, swallowing his own children whole, until his son Zeus successfully overthrew him. Zeus proved to be as bad as his father and grandfather, but [[KarmaHoudini avoided their fate]]. |
| 471 | * CannotKillTheirLovedOnes: Agamemnon had to kill his [[OffingTheOffspring daughter]] Iphigenia so that the Greek fleet could sail... opinions differ as to whether he actually did the deed. In the most commonly retold version, [[spoiler:he did, which was one of the reasons his wife murdered him on his return]]. |
| 472 | * CanonForeigner: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate Hecate]], Goddess of witchcraft and crossroads, is usually considered a foreign deity added to the Greek pantheon due to the dearth of myths surrounding her. |
| 473 | * CanonImmigrant: |
| 474 | ** Aphrodite, who originates from Phoenician mythology and entered the Olympian Pantheon during the Greek Dark Ages. |
| 475 | ** Antaeus may have been incorporated into Greek mythology as an opponent of Heracles, following the conquest of Libya in the mid-seventh century BC. |
| 476 | * CanonWelding: The Roman Pantheon was originally distinct from the Greek one, but as Rome came under the influence of Greek culture, the Roman gods were equated with the Greek ones and by and by adopted all their attributes. The ''Literature/{{Aeneid}}'' finally extended the lineage of Rome's foundational hero, Romulus, to the Trojan Aeneas, and thus connected Roman legend to the Greek myths about UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar. |
| 477 | * TheCasanova: Zeus's appetite for pretty mortal girls (and occasionally boys, according to a few authors) is quite storied. And with Hera breathing down his neck, he got ''very'' creative with disguises for his conquests. He once did the deed as an ''ant''. |
| 478 | * TheCassandra: Cassandra. Apollo offered her incredible prophetic powers if she'd sleep with him. She told him to pay up first; when she had the powers, she told him to get lost. He couldn't take the powers back, so he slapped on an update; no one would ever believe her. |
| 479 | * CassandraTruth: TropeNamer. Cassandra always prophesied the truth; Apollo's curse meant no one would ever believe her. |
| 480 | * CelibateHero: |
| 481 | ** Hestia, Athena and Artemis are three virgin goddesses; in fact, according to the Homeric Hymns, they are the only three entities in the universe over whom Aphrodite has no power (whereas she can beguile even Zeus). |
| 482 | ** Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, who had sworn to be a virgin. |
| 483 | ** Subverted by Pygmalion. At first he had no interest in women, but he fell in love with his statue and Aphrodite brought her to life. |
| 484 | * ChainedToARock: Andromeda and Hesione. |
| 485 | * ChariotPulledByCats: Greek gods travelled cool in chariots pulled by mythical or awesome animals. |
| 486 | ** Dionysus is shown in artwork as being in a chariot drawn by panthers. |
| 487 | ** Aphrodite's chariot is drawn by swans or geese when not being pulled by the [[Characters/ClassicalMythologyMinorDeities Erotes]]. |
| 488 | ** Apollo is the God of light, archery and the arts and his sacred swans pulled his chariot. |
| 489 | ** Artemis's chariot was pulled by a pair of her sacred deer. |
| 490 | ** Demeter gave Triptolemus a serpent drawn winged chariot after she was reunited with her daughter Persephone and her own chariot was drawn by her dragons. |
| 491 | ** Medea's chariot was pulled by flying dragons that were born of Titan's blood. |
| 492 | ** Poseidon had a pair of [[MixAndMatchCritters hippocamps]] draw his chariot. |
| 493 | * CharmPerson: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peitho Peitho]] is the goddess of persuasion and seduction. |
| 494 | * ChildSupplantsParent: |
| 495 | ** The primordial MotherEarth Gaia and FatherSky Uranus were the parents of the Titans, the first cohort of gods. The leader of the Titans was Cronus. To become the TopGod, Cronus had seized power from his father Uranus, and castrated him for good measure. |
| 496 | ** Then Cronus heard a prophesy that ''his'' son would in turn overthrow ''him''. To prevent this, he [[EatsBabies ate his 5 children]]. His wife Rhea was not a fan of her kids being treated this way. When baby #6 was born, she gave him a fake baby to eat and spirited the real baby away. That baby, Zeus, grew up in secret and then returned to overthrow his father. This DivineConflict was known as the Titanomachy. Zeus cut his father's stomach open (or poisoned him, [[DependingOnTheWriter it depends on the version]]) and freed his siblings (who were [[GettingEatenIsHarmless fine in there]]) and became the new TopGod. |
| 497 | ** Zeus himself {{Defied|Trope}} this with the next generation; when he was told that Metis would bear him a son that would overthrow him as his father and grandfather did, Zeus turned her into a fly and swallowed her whole. Metis was already pregnant with a daughter, Athena, at the time, leading to Athena being born from her father's skull. The son who could have repeated the cycle never came to be, and Athena never showed any inclination toward picking up the mantle. |
| 498 | * ClingyJealousGirl: |
| 499 | ** Hera is a Jealous Wife, but rightfully so, because her job as goddess of family and marriage runs in direct opposition to her husband's ''very'' promiscuous ways. She even torments the poor girls Zeus rapes. |
| 500 | ** Persephone turned the nymph Minthe into the mint plant as revenge for trying to sleep with her husband. |
| 501 | * ClassicalCyclops: |
| 502 | ** [[invoked]] The TropeNamers are the original three cyclopes of Greek myth: Arges, Steropes, and Brontes. They were master craftsman and giants of considerable size and power (and prone to fits of rage); the Greeks coined the term "cyclopean" to refer to ancient, precursor structures that they presumed could only have been built by mighty giants. Their father Uranus was so afraid of their power and fits of rage that he imprisoned them in Tartarus. When their nephew Zeus finally freed them to help in overthrowing their brother Cronus, they worked together to forge Zeus's lightning bolt (each contributing one third of the weapon's elements; the blinding light, lethal heat, and deafening thunderclap, respectively). They also created Poseidon's trident and Hades's helmet of invisibility. Eventually, the brothers were surpassed by Zeus's son, Hephaestus, to whom they and their descendants became assistants. They also created the SolarAndLunar [[SacredBowAndArrows bows and arrows]] of Apollo and Artemis. |
| 503 | ** The arimaspi were a race of one-eyed humans from the north of the world and ancestral enemies of [[OurGriffinsAreDifferent griffins]]. |
| 504 | %%* ClingyMacGuffin: The Ring of Polycrates. |
| 505 | * CoinsForTheDead: It was considered proper to place coins with the dead so they could pay the ferryman Charon for passage across the river Styx. Orpheus instead paid with a song. |
| 506 | * CoitusUninterruptus: Hephaestus captures Ares and Aphrodite in the act with a trapped bed, and puts them on display in "Lovers' embrace" so the rest of the Olympians can laugh at them (whic they do.) |
| 507 | * CompleteImmortality: The Olympian gods, and their ancestors the Titans, had Complete Immortality, which is why the first five Olympians (Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon and Hera) did not die when their father Cronus ate them as infants and they emerged alive and full-grown when he was tricked by Zeus and Rhea into vomiting them up. Likewise, this is why the Olympians imprisoned most of the Titans in Tartarus. As true immortals they could not even kill each other. |
| 508 | * ConjoinedTwins: Depending who you ask, Geryon is a group of conjoined ''triplets.'' |
| 509 | * ContinuitySnarl: Even if you stick to just the Roman or just the Greek myths, ''don't'' expect consistency. |
| 510 | * TheCoup: Happens twice, first when Kronos overthrows his father, and then again when Zeus overthrows him. |
| 511 | * CreateYourOwnHero: Done by accident several times: when a king hears a prophecy that their son/grandson will cause their death/be greater than them, the steps they take to avert this result in it happening: |
| 512 | ** A prophecy foretold that Priam's son Paris would be the downfall of Troy, so he was sent away to Mount Ida. Then he judged which of the three goddesses was most beautiful and promised the hand of Helen, and was recognized as Priam's son, who could not send away his newfound son but also had no wish to see all of Greece allied against him. |
| 513 | ** Oedipus' parents, the king and queen of Thebes, heard a prophecy that their son would kill his father and have children with his mother. Horrified, they had the child taken away to be killed, but he was saved and raised by a different couple. When Oedipus learned of the prophecy, he thought it applied to his (unknowingly adoptive) parents, and left, killing an older man and marrying the recently widowed queen of Thebes... |
| 514 | ** Perseus' grandfather Acrisius learned that his grandson would kill him, so he locked his daughter in a tower. This didn't stop Zeus from entering and impregnating her, and she and her son Perseus were cast out to sea. Perseus grew up to slay the Medusa, and ended up accidentally killing his grandfather during a sports contest. |
| 515 | * {{Crossover}}: About half the point of the story of the ''Argo'', Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, and the Battle of the Lapiths were to gather a ridiculous number of well-known heroes together in one place. |
| 516 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Hades, who contrary to [[GodOfEvil modern adaptations]] was the stoic and gloomy but non-evil ruler of the dead who had no designs (that we're aware of) on his brother's throne, for several reasons; |
| 517 | ** He was actually one of the ''less'' selfish or petty gods. Although Demeter would disagree considering he did abduct Persephone for his own. |
| 518 | ** Helps he pretty much got the raw end of the deal, he's overworked (thanks to all the Greek heroes and gods), no one likes him, and the prime reason why he kidnapped his wife Persephone was out of loneliness. And in some versions of the story, Persephone ''wanted'' Hades to abduct her, because that was the only way they could get together without her overprotective mother interfering. At least the marriage worked out. |
| 519 | ** Ancient Greece considered marriage to be an abduction of a woman from her family. So in truth, back then, Hades wouldn't have been considered to be kidnapping Persephone, merely marrying her. |
| 520 | ** And then there's the fact that Hades [[PetTheDog could and did occasionally bend the rules for mortals]], such as with Orpheus and Eurydice. And when he ''did'' screw around with mortals, he was actually justified in doing so -- Theseus and Peirithous tried to kidnap Persephone, Sisyphus (see above) tried to cheat death, and Zeus blasted Asclepius because Hades complained that Asclepius's efforts were cheating him of new subjects for his kingdom. In general, if you didn't bother Hades, he wouldn't bother you. According to some versions of the story, Hades had no problem with a kickass healer like Asclepius until he started going from curing the deathly ill and mortally wounded to actually ''[[BackFromTheDead raising the dead.]]'' From his perspective, medicine is fine, but stealing Hades's subjects without his express permission is a '''Bad Idea'''. |
| 521 | ** Not to mention, one thing that's not commonly mentioned (Except in [[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Rick Riordan's works]] or the city-building game ''Zeus'') is that Hades was lord of the dead and the underworld, but also the lord of everything in the earth, including mineral wealth. Death itself was actually ''Thanatos'', one of his servants. |
| 522 | * DeadlySparring: [[LadyOfWar Athena]] and her mortal friend [[ActionGirl Pallas]] were having a friendly sparring match that ended with Athena [[AccidentalMurder accidentally impaling]] Pallas with a thrown javelin. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Out of guilt]], Athena [[MeaningfulName chose to add Pallas' name to her own]]. [[DependingOnTheWriter In some versions of the story]], it is Athena's father Zeus who kills Pallas [[PapaWolf out of concern that she would hurt his daughter]]. |
| 523 | %%* DeathTakesAHoliday: Sisyphus and Thanatos. |
| 524 | * DeathOfTheOldGods: After the Heroic Age ended with the Trojan War, the gods stopped interacting with humans |
| 525 | * DemandingTheirHead: In Greek Mythology, King Polydectes ordered Perseus to bring him the head of {{Medusa}} as a wedding present to [[ARealManIsAKiller prove his manhood]]. That said, Polydectes tasked Perseus with doing this [[UriahGambit hoping it would get him killed]] and thereby enable Polydectes to [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe marry Perseus' mother Danae]], whom [[ExtremelyProtectiveChild Perseus had been defending from Polydectes repeatedly]]. Sadly for Polydectes, [[GoneHorriblyRight Perseus successfully killed Medusa]], and once he heard what the king was planning for his mother, he returned home and presented the king with his gift, whereupon Polydectes was TakenForGranite. |
| 526 | * DependingOnTheWriter: Lots of characters, lots of writers, lots of variation, and that's before you get into cultural and linguistic vagaries, like the fact that the stories don't particularly distinguish between things like rape and seduction. |
| 527 | ** The only thing certain about the story of Actaeon is that he was changed into a stag and destroyed by hunting dogs. That it happened [[DisproportionateRetribution due to accidental trespass]] on the virgin Artemis in the middle of her bath is simply the most widely-known version; in other versions it happened because he was actually pursuing Semele, or because he boasted he was a better hunter than Artemis, or because his peeping on Artemis wasn't an accident, etc. Even whether the dogs belong to him or not varies. |
| 528 | ** King Minos is subject to AdaptationalVillainy in Athenian versions of stories including him to set him up as the a BigBad for Athens' mythical founder Theseus to defeat. In his original Homeric mentions he was renowned for being a ruler who received his laws from ''Zeus''. (These two Minoses are so different, in fact, that later tellers started describing them as different people, with the villainous Minos II as the later successor of TheGoodKing Minos I). |
| 529 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: |
| 530 | ** In the [[Theatre/{{Alcestis}} myth of Admetus and Alcestis]], Hercules tackles Death... and wins. |
| 531 | ** Hercules incurred the wrath of Ares, who in a bloodlusted rage charged at the warrior. Stories differ on how but Hercules drove off the mad god either by driving a spear or sword into Ares' leg or, in a manner most fitting considering the trope name, by ''punching'' Ares in the thigh. |
| 532 | ** In the ''Iliad'', with the help of Athena, the mortal hero Diomedes wounds both Aphrodite and Ares and drives them off the battlefield. But Aphrodite got her revenge, making Diomedes' wife fall in love with another man, which led to him being driven into exile. |
| 533 | * DiedInIgnorance: Before sending Theseus to Crete to try ending their country's annual tribute of sacrificial victims to the [[OurMinotaursAreDifferent Minotaur]], Aegeus made him promise that upon his return, Theseus would change his ship's black sails for white ones, so that he would know he had survived. Sadly, upon his return, Theseus, for differing reasons DependingOnTheWriter, forgot to change the colour of the sails, and Aegeus, seeing the black sails from afar, immediately assumed the worst and threw himself off a cliff and drowned, without learning that his son/stepson had come home alive after all. |
| 534 | * DifferentForGirls: Achilles in a disguise. He was the only "girl" interested in weapons instead of jewels, or in another version, the only one that ran to defend the city instead of running for cover. |
| 535 | * DiligentDraftAnimal: Hephaestus, the god of fire, metalworking, and stone masonry, was associated with donkeys. |
| 536 | * DismemberingTheBody: |
| 537 | ** When Jason and his crew were fleeing king Aetes (who wanted to reclaim the Golden Fleece and his daughter Medea) on the Argo, Medea murdered her brother Apsyrtus and started dismembering him, throwing the chunks overboard one at a time. As she'd expected, her horrified father slowed down to pick up the pieces, letting the Argonauts escape. |
| 538 | ** Most versions of the Greek legend of Orpheus end with him getting torn limb from limb by the Maenads for offending Dionysus and thrown into the sea. |
| 539 | * DisproportionateRetribution: Tick off the gods, and they will go above and beyond with payback. |
| 540 | ** [[http://regretfulmorning.com/2009/02/8-overkill-punishments-dished-out-by-greek-gods/ This list]] of [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill the 8 Overkill Punishments]] Dished Out By Greek Gods goes to show that if the gods are not acting towards hubristic humans the way a human king would act towards a disrespectful subject, they are laying elaborate traps that make escape from punishment impossible. |
| 541 | ** Theatre/{{Medea}} managed to ''top Hera'': when her husband Jason broke his oath of eternal love to her Hera, keeper of the oath, would have just killed his family (the standard punishment) and likely the girl Jason was cheating on Medea with, but Medea beat her to the punch and killed the girl by tricking her into wearing a poisoned dress that ''[[KillItWithFire set her on fire]]'', her father the king (by accident: he tried to save his daughter, and failed) and ''her own children from Jason'' ([[DependingOnTheWriter in one version. In another it was the Corinthians who did it, as they had delivered the poisoned dress]]), ''burned down the city'' (again, by accident: [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the king caused the fire when he tried to put off her burning daughter]]) and then ''unleashed an earthquake and a plague on it'', and left with almost all her surviving children, [[CruelMercy letting Jason live with it]]. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Hera couldn't add anything to it]], [[PetTheDog and later let Jason put his last children on the throne of his hometown Iolcus]]. |
| 542 | * DistractedByTheSexy: |
| 543 | ** If Actaeon had been thinking with the right head at the time, he probably would have realized it was not a good idea to stand around watching the [[DoesNotLikeMen adamantly virginal Artemis]] bathe. And he [[ForcedTransformation might have survived]]. |
| 544 | ** In some versions of the Siege of Troy Helen escapes death by tearing her clothes, distracting either her husband or his soldiers from murdering her. |
| 545 | * DivineConflict: The Olympians usurped the positions of gods of the world in a battle with their parents and uncles, the Titans. |
| 546 | * DivineDate: Zeus was notorious for doing this behind Hera's back, though a fair number of other gods were willing to give it a try. This is why there are so many demigods. |
| 547 | * DivineIncest: The gods marry and have affairs with each at every turn, and there's a lot of incest. This probably has something to do with how Greek mythology is better documented than many other mythologies. Some gods have a MultipleChoicePast, but very few ''lack'' a backstory or linage. |
| 548 | ** The core of the family tree are these 3 generations of {{God Couple}}s: |
| 549 | *** Gaia is a primordial god who exists without parents. Uranus is her son and husband, and together they have 12 children, the Titans. |
| 550 | *** Among the Titans, Cronus and his sister Rhea mate and have 6 children, the Olympians. |
| 551 | *** Among the Olympians, Zeus marries his sister Hera. Their main children are Ares and Hephaestus. |
| 552 | ** Other miscellaneous examples include: |
| 553 | *** Persephone is typically said to be the daughter of siblings Demeter and Zeus, born of a short-term relationship. Alternatively, in an Arcadian myth, Persephone is fathered by Poseidon (also Demeter's brother). In that version Demeter and Poseidon mate while transformed into horses. Demeter then gives birth to twins, a humanoid goddess daughter Despoina (probably another name for Persephone) and a divine horse son Arion. |
| 554 | *** Hades marries Persephone, his niece. They're a GodCouple, best known for having the most stable, loving relationship in the entire pantheon, as the RulingCouple of the underworld with a SeductionProofMarriage. |
| 555 | *** In an Orphic version of the myth, Zagreus (read: proto-Dionysus) is the son of Zeus and Persephone (father and daughter). |
| 556 | *** Antaeus and Charybdis are the children of Poseidon and Gaia (Poseidon's grandmother) |
| 557 | * DivineParentage: Lots and lots of examples. Many were children of Zeus, like Perseus, Heracles and Helen. Aeneas was a son of Aphrodite. Theseus, the legendary founder-king of Athens, has a particularly interesting one--he had ''two'' fathers, one a god (Poseidon) and the other mortal (the previous king of Attica, Aegus) who both slept with one woman (Aethra) in one night (the Greeks weren't particularly up on their biology). This [[JustSoStory supposedly explained]] why Athens was so awesome at everything to do with ships and the sea. Bellerophon is sometimes cited as a son of Poseidon as well. |
| 558 | * DivinePunishment: Most stories involve the gods punishing someone for something. |
| 559 | ** Medusa was turned into a monster as punishment for [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming being raped by Poseidon]] in Athena's temple. In some older versions she isn't raped and the sex was consensual, but she's still punished while Poseidon is ignored. |
| 560 | ** Cassandra was cursed to never have her prophecies believed after she turned down Apollo. |
| 561 | ** Narcissus was cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with his own reflection after he refused all suitors. |
| 562 | ** Prometheus was punished by Zeus for giving fire to humanity by being chained to a rock and having his liver be pecked out by a eagle each day. This punishment would continue until Prometheus was freed by Heracles. |
| 563 | ** King Sisyphus of Corinth made his city prosperous by lying, murdering innocents, deceiving others and in almost every way, violating the Xenia, i.e. the custom of showing travelers hospitality and generosity. As the defender of the Xenia, this, on top of telling the father of a river nymph Zeus kidnapped where she was located, angered Zeus. He decided to punish Sisyphus by having him eternally condemned to push a giant boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down just before it reaches the top. |
| 564 | * DoNotTauntCthulhu: Happens all the time, and yet, no one seems to be capable of [[AesopAmnesia remembering the consequences of doing so]]. |
| 565 | * DoesNotLikeMen: Artemis. While Athena and Hestia were also virgin goddesses, at least they weren't hostile towards the idea of even ''meeting'' a man. Ask, for example, poor Actaeon, who was transformed into a deer, then eaten ''by his own hunting dogs'' for ''accidentally'' peeping on her. Sometimes averted in the myth of Orion, the greatest hunter in the history of the world, who she fell in love with and was going to marry. However, her [[MySisterIsOffLimits jealous brother]] Apollo bet her she [[SchmuckBait couldn't shoot that far-off round object bobbing in the river]], [[DownerEnding while poor Orion was off bathing]]... Another version of the myth had him (or Gaia) create [[ScaryScorpions Scorpio]] to kill Orion; when Orion couldn't beat it by himself, he sought Artemis for help while she was practising archery on an island. Apollo still tricked her into sniping him, and she got revenge by killing Scorpio and [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence immortalizing Orion as a constellation.]] Apollo still managed to get back at her by turning Scorpio into another constellation who spends its time chasing after the Orion constellation for eternity. |
| 566 | * DontLookBack: The Orpheus story. |
| 567 | * DoubleStandard: See Calypso's rant at the beginning of the ''Odyssey'' about how gods get to sleep around, but goddesses don't. Note that bad things can happen to consorts of either. |
| 568 | ** The DoubleStandard was reversed in those days from what we're used to: AllWomenAreLustful. |
| 569 | ** In the Homeric Hymns, it is said that while Hestia, Athena, and Artemis are immune to Aphrodite's power, Aphrodite had mated every god with mortal women, and every other goddess with mortal men. The hymn then recounts how Zeus saw to it that she got mated to a mortal man, to avoid too much trouble in Olympus. |
| 570 | ** Hubris, or excessive pride, is seen as one of the worst sins people can commit in Greek and Roman mythology and humans who are too proud suffer a horrible fate. However, it's perfectly okay for the gods to be prideful jerkasses who can't stand for humans being better at anything. |
| 571 | * DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal: The poster boy for this trope (that's putting it mildly). See KarmaHoudini. |
| 572 | * DovesMeanPeace: Doves are associated with the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, who was a GoddessOfLove. Her association with doves also spread to Venus (God of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory), and Fortuna (Goddess of Fortune), causing the dove to become associated with them as well. |
| 573 | * DownerEnding: Many myths have this kind of ending, although there are some that have a [[BittersweetEnding somewhat happy ending]]. Even the great heroes like Theseus, Heracles, Jason and Bellerophon always meet unfortunate ends. |
| 574 | * DragonHoard: Dragons sometimes appear as treasure-guardians in Greek myths, such as Ladon who guarded the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, or the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece sought by Jason and the Argonauts. By the Roman era, Phaedrus' BeastFable [[http://www.ciffciaff.org/en/content/book-iv/fox-and-dragon "The Fox and the Dragon"]] (c. 50 AD) documents a folk belief that dragons guard treasure as a natural instinct. |
| 575 | * DressingAsTheEnemy: ''Literature/TheIliad'' and ''Literature/TheAeneid''. |
| 576 | * DrivenToSuicide: When Oedipus answers the riddle correctly, the sphinx is ''so'' upset that she kills herself. |
| 577 | ** Also Narcissus, who was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection by Aphrodite as punishment for cruelly rejecting all the girls (and [[ErastesEromenos guys]]) who fancied him. Realising he could never love anyone else so much, he either stabbed himself or threw himself into a river. Though in another story, this falls into Driven To Idiocy, whereas the Goddess of Revenge, Nemesis, pissed off with his self-praising hubris, cursed him to fall in love with his reflection... and then makes him try to kiss it, fall down and drown. |
| 578 | ** This trope is hardly uncommon, especially in Greek tragedy: going back to Oedipus, Jocasta did not take the news of the revelation well. Then later we have Antigone, Haemon, Eurydice... and that's just the Oedipus trilogy. |
| 579 | ** Theseus's father Aegeus killed himself when he believed that Theseus had died in the Labyrinth. |
| 580 | * DrivesLikeCrazy: Phaeton, son of Helios (the sun), tried to drive his father's chariot once. It didn't end well. (And yet they named first [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeton_%28carriage%29 a type of carriage]], and then a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeton_body a kind of car]], and then [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Phaeton a Volkswagen]] after him...) |
| 581 | * DudeShesLikeInAComa: Endymion and Selene, except that it's ''Endymion'' (the ''[[GenderInvertedTrope dude]]'') who is asleep. |
| 582 | * DueToTheDead: Good guys bury the dead properly. Always. Insofar as you fail, you are not a good guy until you straighten out your act. Proper burial is a sacred act decreed by the gods. Or you die because you actually DID it (or because of laws that want to prevent that)... ask Theatre/{{Antigone}}... |
| 583 | * DwindlingParty: |
| 584 | ** Typhon and Echidna's family is an evil example; [[SnakePeople Echidna]] is killed by Argus, [[BigBad Typhon]] is buried by Zeus, [[PantheraAwesome the Nemean Lion]], [[MultipleHeadCase Lernean Hydra]], [[FeatheredFiend Caucasian Eagle]], [[{{Hellhound}} Orthrus]] and [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Ladon]] were killed by Heracles, [[RiddleMeThis the Sphinx]] committed suicide, [[MixAndMatchCritters Chimera]] was killed by Bellerophon and [[FullBoarAction the Crommyonian Sow]] was killed by Theseus. Among this crazy family, [[SoleSurvivor only Cerberus remains]]. Of course, this is entirely dependent on which myth you happen to be following. |
| 585 | ** The crew of Odysseus also, who are slowly but surely whittled down in numbers until only Odysseus survives to make it home. |
| 586 | * DyingCandle: Justified in the myth of Meleager: At Meleager's birth, the Moirai predicted he would only live until a log burning in the hearth nearby would be consumed. Meleager's mother Althaea doused the fire and kept the log. When, many years later, Meleager killed two brothers of Althaea, she was so angry she placed the log in the fire; Meleager died when the log was burnt. |
| 587 | * DysfunctionJunction: The Greek Pantheon is one of the earliest examples of this for a religion - which tends to be why it stands out as compared to other ancient theologies. Five of the six eldest siblings were eaten by their dad and their relationship is strained by all manner of issues like sexual-relationships, rivalries, and divine obligation. A WomanScorned, [[TheRival Jealous older-brother]], a socially isolated {{workaholic}}, Mood-Swinging MamaBear, an [[OvershadowedByAwesome oft ignored elder-sister]] and a king who can not keep it in his toga. And that is not even getting into the children thereof. |
| 588 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the Mycenaean era, the head of the pantheon was Poseidon, and Aphrodite and Hades are nowhere to be found (Aphrodite was based on the Phoenecian Astarte, who herself was based on the Babylonian Ishtar, while the current theory is that Poseidon and Hades were originally the same god who ended up getting split into two). The now-familiar version settled into place sometime after the Bronze Age Collapse. |
| 589 | * EarlyPersonalitySigns: Heracles' very first act of fearless heroism as an infant was to strangle a pair of snakes that had been sent into his crib, foreshadowing the feats he would accomplish as an adult. Hermes steals Apollo's cattle literally the day he's born. |
| 590 | * EarthWindJuxtaposition: Gaia and Ouranos are two of the earliest primordial deities to take part in creation, with Ouranos forming the sky and Gaia the earth. At first they were lovers and equals, but Ouranos disliked the children he fathered by Gaia and imprisoned the ugliest of them, the [[MultiArmedAndDangerous multi-limbed Hecatonchires]] and [[ClassicalCyclops one-eyed Cyclopes]] in Tartarus. Gaia in turn grew to loathe Ouranos and encouraged the last of her children that he had not imprisoned, the Titans, to castrate and dethrone him, and take his place as rulers of the young world. |
| 591 | * EatenAlive: The god Cronos [[SwallowedWhole eats his children]] to prevent them from murdering him, but after being fed a drink that makes him throw up, all his kids reappear again. |
| 592 | * TheEchoer: A mountain nymph named Echo is one of Zeus's many, many consorts. Hera comes to find her with him and after she tries to protect him (on his orders), Hera curses her so that she can only speak words that have been spoken to her. Later on, she becomes infatuated with the vain and cruel Narcissus. The exact details of what happens after differ depending on interpretations (he ends up killing her and Aphrodite curses him to fall in-love with his reflection, he falls in love with his reflection and they both die of a broken heart, etc), but all versions end with both dying, Echo's voice living on after her death as the origin of the acoustical phenomena of the same name. |
| 593 | * EldritchAbomination: Chaos, according to Creator/{{Ovid}}, is "rather a crude and indigested mass, a lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed, of jarring seeds and justly Chaos named." |
| 594 | ** Really, every single one of the protogenoi, specially Ouranos and Nix, fall into this, when not manifesting themselves as [[HumanoidAbomination pretty people]]. |
| 595 | ** The Hekatonkheires. Embodiments of natural disasters like Tsunamis, Earthquakes & Volcanic Eruptions, born with fifty heads and one hundred arms, and big enough that mountains are literally throwing rocks to them. |
| 596 | ** Typhon the Storm Giant is another example. Lower half consisting of serpent coils, a human upper half that reaches the stars, arms that spanned the East and the West covered with live dragon heads, a body covered in mighty wings, and eyes that shot forth flames. When it first appeared, all of the Greek gods except Zeus ran like hell. And even Zeus, the most powerful god of them all, wielding his mighty thunderbolts in battle, lost the first round against Typhon (by Typhon stealing Zeus's sinews and hiding them) and barely managed to seal it away under Mount Aetna in round two. Before it was sealed away, Typhon also fathered most of the monsters present in Greek Mythology, such as Cerberus, the Sphinx, Orthus, the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, Ladon, and the Chimera (their mother Echidna might also fit the bill). And how did Gaia give birth to this beast? By sleeping with Tartarus, a.k.a. the Greek Underworld. The Earth slept with ancient Greek Hell to give birth to a monster that frightened the gods themselves. |
| 597 | ** Charybdis was apparently once a beautiful naiad, but was transformed by Zeus into a horrible and utterly inhuman monster. According to The Other Wiki, in some versions, she is a huge bladder of a creature whose face was all mouth and whose arms and legs were flippers that belches out whirlpools, while in others, she is a giant whirlpool. When forced to choose between Scylla and Charybdis, Odysseus quickly chose Scylla for good reason. |
| 598 | * EliteFour: The four Titan Lords who were of higher rank than the other Titans and presided over the four corners of the earth. They consisted of: [[StarPower Krios]], Titan of the South and the stars, [[AnIcePerson Koios]], Titan of the north and wisdom, [[LightEmUp Hyperion]], Titan of the east and the sun, and [[CastingAShadow Iapetus]], Titan of the west and mortality. They were under the command of the King of the Titans, Kronos. |
| 599 | * EmpathicEnvironment: After losing her daughter Persephone to Hades, Demeter's grief was so great that the land itself became barren. |
| 600 | * EndOfAnAge: There were five eras of the world: Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Heroic Age and Iron Age. According to Hesiod the Golden Age ended, when Zeus overthrew Cronos. The Silver Age ended, when people refused to worship gods and were destroyed for their arrogance. The Bronze Age ended when Zeus decided to flood the world and the Heroic Age ended with UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar. After this point gods stopped actively interacting with humans. |
| 601 | * EnemyMine: Safe to say Hera was not a fan of Zeus's illegtimate children that resided on Mount Olympus with them, but that didn't stop her from allying herself with Athena, Hermes and Apollo in an attempt to overthrow Zeus. |
| 602 | * EnslavedTongue: Echo is cursed to repeat what she has already heard without ever putting anything in her own words. |
| 603 | * EveryoneIsBi: Nearly everyone has had sex with at least one member of the same sex, and yet are married. In the case of goddesses and important human females, this was more implied, while in with males it was more obvious. |
| 604 | * EverybodyLovesZeus: |
| 605 | ** Helios (the charioteer of the Sun) is one of the more positively portrayed gods of Greek myth, probably because the best-known myth features him forced by his own oath to give his son Phaeton the reins of the sun chariot, leading to Phaeton's death. |
| 606 | ** He was later merged with Apollo, the god of poetry (who also gets a good rep, despite not being averse to [[DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal chasing nymphs and mortals]], and responsible for a few cases of DisproportionateRetribution as well). |
| 607 | * ExtranormalPrison: Tartarus, where the souls of the worst of humanity are tormented for eternity along with the monsters that have been banished there. |
| 608 | * EyeScream: |
| 609 | ** Oedipus, and HOW. |
| 610 | ** Polyphemus (the Cyclops in ''Literature/TheOdyssey'') as well... |
| 611 | * FallenCupid: While the modern idea of Cupid is more of an idea of both {{Flanderization}} and [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerization]] of the original myth, the Cupid of AncientRome was [[SadlyMythtaken nowhere near as wholesome]], making the trope much OlderThanTheyThink. While Cupid (known to the Greeks as ''Eros'') wielded golden arrows that induced desire, he also wielded lead arrows that destroyed it. He was also notoriously a terrible shot (or blind, depending on who you ask) and would frequently pair people off with the wrong people, causing mischief among gods and mortals, in line with the Roman belief that [[LoveMakesYouCrazy romantic infatuation was more a form of madness]] than the kind of thing you'd encourage in the population. |
| 612 | * FalseRapeAccusation: |
| 613 | ** Phaedra makes one against her stepson Hippolytus. |
| 614 | ** Proetus, King of Tiryns, takes in Bellerophon in his exile; Proetus' wife takes a shine to him and tries to seduce him. When Bellerophon refuses, she tells Proetus that Bellerophon has tried to rape her. Proetus, not wanting to take revenge openly because of SacredHospitality, sends Bellerophon on a mission to his friend King Iobates [[PleaseShootTheMessenger with a letter that asks Iobates to kill Bellerophon.]] |
| 615 | * FamilialCannibalismSurprise: After Pelops died again, his heir Atreus was very pissed with his brother Thyestes for seducing Queen Aërope and trying to seize the throne. He pretended to extend the olive branch, and held a private feast for Thyestes, only telling him afterwords that "You ate your own children!" |
| 616 | * TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: Typhon, Echidna and their children. |
| 617 | %%* TheFatalist |
| 618 | * FateWorseThanDeath: Prometheus. Since gods are immortal, he was bound to a stake in the Caucasus where his ever-regenerating liver was eaten daily by an eagle. |
| 619 | * FatherNeptune: Or should we say Poseidon. |
| 620 | * FeatheredFiend: Aethon, a giant eagle among the offspring of Typhon, sent to punish Prometheus. Also the Stymphalian birds (when not portrayed as [[CreepyCrows corvids]] or [[KillerRabbit cranes]]), and the harpies and sirens, [[OurGryphonsAreDifferent gryphons]] and the peryton all had traits from them. |
| 621 | * FearIsTheAppropriateResponse: ''Every single one'' of the gods flee to Egypt when Typhon [[{{Pun}} storms]] Olympus, leaving Zeus and Athena alone to defeat him. |
| 622 | * FemmeFatale: Aphrodite -- perhaps the original model. She was a ''huge'' JerkAss when crossed, but not completely evil. |
| 623 | * FertileBlood: |
| 624 | ** The hyacinth flower grew from the blood of a divine hero named Hyacinth. |
| 625 | ** Also, after Uranus was [[GroinAttack castrated]] by his son, Cronus, his blood gave birth to Aphrodite, the Giants, the Erinyes and the Meliae. |
| 626 | ** The Anemone flower is said to have sprung up from the blood of the slain Adonis. |
| 627 | ** Some versions of the Narcissus myth use this. All agree that the flower grew on the spot where he died, but they disagree as to whether he drowned or stabbed himself. |
| 628 | ** The winged horse, Pegasus, was born from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut her head off. Some versions state specifically that the birth was caused by the blood mixing with seawater. |
| 629 | ** Some accounts claimed that the moly, the herb Odysseus used to break Circe's magic, was sprang from the blood of Picolous, a Giant who, following the Gigantomachy, fled to the island of Circe and tried to chase her away only to be killed by Helios. |
| 630 | * FertilityGod: |
| 631 | ** Demeter (aka Ceres) is the most archetypical fertility goddess, being the deity of agriculture and harvest. Her most famous myth involves her daughter Persephone being married and/or kidnapped by Hades, thus making Demeter miserable and causing a winter where plant life begins to wither and die off. In some tellings, this is [[EmpathicEnvironment merely a result of her mood]], but in other versions, Demeter ''intentionally'' does it to essentially hold life on earth hostage. Either way, Zeus eventually intervenes and allows Persephone to return to her mother for half of the year (Spring and Summer) before returning to the Underworld for the other half (Fall and Winter). |
| 632 | ** Persephone herself is either a goddess of spring and vegetation, a goddess of death and the underworld...or ''both''. Her exact tasks in either role are relatively unknown. As a fertility goddess, some hypotheses posit that she and Demeter must somehow work ''together'', and as goddess of the underworld, she was sometimes referred to as [[TheDreaded "Dread Persephone"]] with some [[SpeakOfTheDevil even too afraid to say her name]]. She is sometimes also portrayed as a compassionate death goddess who made sure the recently-deceased were properly venerated and buried, and who had their needs taken care of in the afterlife. The latter case possibly explains her somewhat contradictory nature. |
| 633 | ** Heracles was often worshipped as a symbol of male fertility and virility, usually within the context of men siring strong heirs or sons. Heracles himself was accredited with having ''hundreds'' of children from dozens of different women, who were referred to as "Heraclids". For example, most Spartans claimed ancestry from Heracles. He was also known for having passionate sexual affairs with various men as well, which was also celebrated as a form of male virility in Ancient Greece. |
| 634 | ** In addition to love, sex and beauty, fertility was sometimes considered part of Aphrodite's purview, although that was mostly due to her association with the Roman fertility goddess, Venus, and the Mesopotamian goddess Astarte. Nonetheless, her myths were also full of children that were born in very short order after Aphrodite used her powers on one (or both) of the parents, and Aphrodite herself also had a large number of children as well. |
| 635 | * FieryStoic: Hestia, [[OddJobGod goddess of hearth and home]], symbolizing the domestic warmth of the fireplace and the flames of the sacred pyres and braziers of the temple altars. Despite her OddJobGod status, she is Zeus' eldest sister, and was one of the Twelve Olympians. However, instead of killing/raping mortals like [[JerkassGods her siblings]], she prefers peace and stays a virgin. Despite being portrayed as quiet and modest and appearing in few myths, she was one of the most culturally important gods to the Greeks, being invoked before every sacrifice, since her flame provided the light and heat everyone needed to survive. One of the Orphic Hymns sung in her name: |
| 636 | -->''Hestia . . . who dwellest amidst great fire's eternal flame; in sacred rites these ministers are thine, mystics much blessed, holy and divine. In thee the Gods have fixed their dwelling place, strong, stable basis of the mortal race.'' |
| 637 | * FireStolenFromTheGods: The TropeNamer. The titan Prometheus is said to have felt the gods were neglecting mankind, and stole a burning brand from Hestia's hearth to bring it to them. The gods retaliated by chaining Prometheus to a boulder to have his liver torn out by a bird of prey every day, though he was later freed by the hero Herakles. |
| 638 | * {{Flanderization}}: The modern understanding of the myths, and especially the prominence of the more salacious stories, is definitely an exaggerated take on the actual literary sources, and even then the literary sources themselves were only dubiously accurate to the religious figures themselves--Creator/{{Plato}} notably described the poetic myths to be ''blasphemous''. |
| 639 | ** Zeus, remember, was the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure god of law, hospitality, and civilization in general]] to them, not ''just'' TheCasanova, and he was closer to a serial polygamist than a serial philanderer, since monarchs in those days frequently had multiple wives. Hera was just a jealous chief wife. |
| 640 | ** Nymphs were basically just elves, despite the fact that most people today think of them as benevolent versions of SuccubiAndIncubi. |
| 641 | ** Demeter seemed to have been reduced to just being Persephone's [[MyBelovedSmother overbearing, overprotective mother]], hellbent on keeping her daughter to herself and refusing to let her grow up. This has overshadowed her more minor but still notable moments in Greek mythology such as dealing with Erysichthon. |
| 642 | ** The Greeks themselves engaged in exaggeration, as the cult of the gods was known to mutate over time. Love gods Aphrodite and Eros were considered in antiquity to be ''cosmic forces'' (Eros in particular was originally one of the ''Protogenoi'') before they wound up being gods of mere sex and physical attraction. There's a theory that Aphrodite started out as an imported version of the Middle Eastern goddess Ishtar; however, whereas Ishtar was a complex deity of sex, war, justice, and political power, the Greeks made Aphrodite into a straightforward LoveGoddess. |
| 643 | * FoodChains: Persephone, whose snack in the Underworld binds her to stay there. |
| 644 | * FoodGod: |
| 645 | ** Mars is the Roman god of agriculture as well as of war. Sensible as whatever politicians might think an ordinary legionary's motive is "get those blankety-blanks off my property/take some of theirs". |
| 646 | ** Greek Mythology had several gods with different culinary jurisdictions. Demeter was grain, Dionysus was grapes, Athena gets into the act a little with olives, and of course Poseidon was fish. |
| 647 | * ForbiddenFruit: |
| 648 | ** Pandora and her infamous box ([[LostInImitation technically a jar]]), which was never to be opened and would have remained sealed if not for Pandora's overwhelming curiosity. DependingOnTheWriter, either the box was filled with all the world's evils, which went on to dog humanity's days, or all the world's blessings, which fled beyond human reach; in either case, Pandora is usually only able to catch ''hope'', putting this story on both ends of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. This story is often part of the drama of Prometheus, in which Pandora also serves as the first woman sent either to punish man for accepting the gift of Prometheus' stolen fire or to punish clever Prometheus[[note]]Whose name means "Forethought"[[/note]] for creating man in the first place, by making Pandora a gift of the gods to his slow-witted brother Epimetheus[[note]]"Afterthought"[[/note]]. |
| 649 | ** In the Tale of Eros/Cupid and Psyche, jealous Aphrodite/Venus sends Eros to use his arrows to cause Psyche (whose beauty is praised above Aphrodite's, naturally) to fall in love with the most hideous thing in the world. Eros bungles the assignment and pricks himself with love's arrow, falling in love with Psyche instantly. Psyche finds herself living the good life with a god, but on the condition that she never see her new husband. Naturally, this works out no better than any of the other examples on this page. |
| 650 | ** Another incident featured the same characters: when Aphrodite ordered her to bring her a portion of Persephone's beauty, Psyche was warned not to eat anything in the underworld except for bread and also not to open the box Persephone gave her. She obeys the first order but disobeys the second, and would have likely slept forever had Eros not intervened. |
| 651 | ** A very similar fate initially befell Semele, one of Zeus's lovers. But [[FauxDeath Psyche]]’s [[TrueLovesKiss fate]] was [[HappilyEverAfter different]] then [[SpontaneousHumanCombustion Semele’s fate]]. |
| 652 | ** Another example is the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was a famed singer whose fiancee, Eurydice, was bitten on the heel by a poisonous snake and killed, while she was fleeing centaurs who were trying to rape her on her wedding day. Grieving for his lost wife, Orpheus traveled to the underworld and sang to Hades and Persephone, begging them to release Eurydice and allow her to live the rest of her life. They were so moved by his song that they relented, saying that Eurydice's spirit would follow him out of the underworld and she would be restored to life once they reached the surface. The one caveat to this agreement was that Orpheus was never to look back when he was leaving the underworld. Orpheus climbed back out the way he came but, as he reached the surface, suddenly began wondering if Eurydice was really following him... and guess what happened next. Unable to quench his doubt, he turned to check if Eurydice was behind him. She was just a few steps from leaving the Underworld and returning to life but, since he had broken his pledge, her spirit sank back into the underworld and, despite much more begging on Orpheus's behalf, Hades and Persephone wouldn't give him a second chance. |
| 653 | * ForcedTransformation: It's very common for gods to turn mortals into animals as punishment for transgressions, and this is actually a relatively lax punishment. Famous examples include Lycaon (wolf), the Tyrrhenian Pirates (dolphins), Arachne (spider), and Cadmus and Harmonia (snakes), though these are many more. |
| 654 | ** Zeus turned Io into a cow to (unsuccessfully) hide her from Hera. Io fled to Egypt, where she became worshipped as the goddess Hathor. |
| 655 | ** This is a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin major theme of]] Ovid's ''[[Literature/TheMetamorphoses Metamorphoses]]''. Many of these transformations are afflicted by the [[JerkassGods gods]]. This is the only source for the story of Arachne, and also for the story of Medusa having been a beautiful woman whom Athena punishes for being raped by Poseidon in her temple. (In older versions of the story, Medusa be a monster to begin with, and the sex was consensual.) |
| 656 | ** When the satyr Marsyas challenged Apollo to a music contest, King Midas was one of the judges. Midas was the only judge who preferred Marsyas's performance to Apollo's. After he [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath skinned Marsyas alive for daring to challenge him]], Apollo gave Midas a pair of donkey ears for refusing to recognize good music when he heard it. |
| 657 | ** When Odysseus and his crew land on Circe's island, she turns the sailors into pigs. |
| 658 | * FriendlyPlayfulDolphin: Boys riding dolphins were a common motif in Roman and Greek art and literature and in latter art inspired by Classical themes. In some of the stories, the boys are in fact gods or demigods. [[http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Palaimon.html Palaimon]] and Cupid are common choices. However, there were also stories of mortal boys that befriended dolphins and rode them. Pliny the Younger's letter include [[http://www.bartleby.com/9/4/1107.html such a tale]] of a boy in the North African town of Hippo. According to the tale, while swimming, the boy was befriended by a dolphin that allowed him to ride it. |
| 659 | * FunPersonified: Dionysus. As god of both wine and entertainment, it's to be expected. |
| 660 | * FullCircleRevolution: The Despot TopGod Oranos is usurped by his son Cronos, who only becomes a despot himself, and thus is usurped by ''his'' son Zeus, [[DownplayedTrope who while better overall]] can still be just as despotic on a bad day. |
| 661 | * FusionDance: The origin of Hermaphroditus. Originally simply the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, he was so pretty that the nymph Salmacis tried wooing him. He rejected her, but she grabbed him and wished to never be parted from him. [[LiteralGenie She got exactly what she wished for]]. |
| 662 | * GagPenis: Priapus, Pan. Hephaestus depending on the source. |
| 663 | * GateGuardian: Greek mythology has several gate guardians: |
| 664 | ** [[HellHound Cerberus]] is the guardian of [[TheUnderworld Hades]], preventing the dead from leaving as well as the living from entering the place. |
| 665 | ** [[{{Hell}} Tartarus]], the deep abyss of Hades, used to be guarded by a female dragon, Kampe, before [[TopGod Zeus]] killed it to free the giants imprisoned there. Later the hundred-armed giants, Hecatonchires, became the new guardians. In ''Roman'' mythology, however, Tartarus was actually guarded by [[OurDragonsAreDifferent a hydra]]. Tisiphone of the Erinyes (also known as the Furies) was also said to keep guard on the top of a turret, slashing the prisoners with her whip. |
| 666 | * GenderBender: |
| 667 | ** Tiresias was changed from male to female to male, both times the bite of a snake he stepped on while it was mating. |
| 668 | ** Also the myth of Iphis and Ianthe. |
| 669 | ** Caenis was raped by Neptune, who then turns her into a NighInvulnerable man named Caeneus when she wishes that no one would ever do it again. |
| 670 | ** Siproites was turned into a girl for peeking on Artemis' bathing. Considering the other guy who did so was turned into a animal before being horribly murdered, he was lucky. |
| 671 | * GenerationXerox: The Titan Uranus was afraid of being overthrown by his children so he imprisoned them until one of them, Cronos escaped and [[GroinAttack castrated him]]. Cronos was afraid of being overthrown by his children, so he [[EatsBabies ate them]] until he was defeated by one of them, Zeus, who tricked him into vomiting up the others. Zeus heard of a prophesy that ''he'' would be overthrown by one of his children, so he turned the mother into a fly and ate her. The child, the goddess Athene, developed in Zeus's body and was born [[MisterSeahorse through his head]]. Since Athene was a virgin goddess, the cycle finally ended at this point. |
| 672 | * GenerationalTrauma: The entire mythology has its roots in generational trauma, as the cruel Ouranos was deposed and castrated by his son Cronus, who took to ruling the Earth, sea, and sky as an equally cruel ruler. When Cronus was told of a prophecy that one of his own children would depose him in the same way, he swallowed every baby Rhea had except Zeus, who was safely hidden and would return to overthrow him. Zeus himself later heard of a similar prophecy and was seemingly able to avoid it, but between the Titanomachy that deposed Cronus and Ouranos' wife Gaia sending giants and monsters to attack the Olympians afterward, the entire Greek Pantheon has some form of generational trauma and a FreudianExcuse for their [[JerkassGods petty infighting]] and other behavior. |
| 673 | * GeniusBruiser: |
| 674 | ** Athena, being the Greek goddess of both warfare and wisdom. Ares, the god of war, can ''never'' beat her in a fight. Minerva is her Roman equivalent. |
| 675 | ** Also, among mortals, Theseus and Odysseus. |
| 676 | ** Heracles is mostly recalled as a HotBlooded LeeroyJenkins, but whenever he ''did'' allow himself to think things through a little more, he would be a ''master'' of the IndyPloy. |
| 677 | ** Hephaestus bested Ares using his skills as a smith, considerable wit and formidable strength. Not bad for a guy often considered a joke by the other Gods. |
| 678 | * GettingEatenIsHarmless: Five of the original Olympians, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon, were eaten by their father the Titan Kronos as soon as they were born. Years latter the sixth and youngest Olympian, Zeus, who had been raised in secret and so avoided sharing their fate, slipped Kronos an ipecac that resulted in the latter vomiting up Zeus' older siblings, who were of course no worse for wear. Justified in the fact that they were gods so the stomach was essentially a prison. |
| 679 | * GodIsEvil: Zeus, the king of the gods, appears often as a rapist and a ManipulativeBastard in some myths, despite his modern [[SadlyMythtaken usually benevolent portrayal]]. His father Kronos and his grandfather Uranus weren't any better... if not worse. See also JerkassGods. |
| 680 | * GodOfFire: |
| 681 | ** Hephaestus is the god of fire, craftsmen, and metalwork, and is said to have had a forge beneath Mount Etna where he toiled away to build weapons for the other gods. The word "volcano" is derived from the name of his Roman counterpart Vulcan. |
| 682 | ** Hestia (Vesta in Roman mythology) is the goddess of [[FireOfComfort the hearth]], home, house, and family. She only uses fire to warm, cook, and [[HealItWithFire cauterize]], and is the most [[GodOfGood benevolent]] and [[LovedByAll beloved]] of the Olympians. |
| 683 | ** Prometheus is considered the Titan of fire but he is really a downplayed version of this trope as he stole fire from the Olympians and gave it to the humans. For this act, he was chained to a cliff while an eagle tore out his liver until Heracles freed him. |
| 684 | * {{Gotterdammerung}}: Happens when the gods challenge the current rulers, the Titans. |
| 685 | * TheGreatFlood: Deucalion and Phyrra again, as well as two other stories. |
| 686 | * TheGreatSerpent: Python was the name of a giant serpent spawned by Gaia that attempted to kill the god Apollo at Delphi, either because it tried to prevent him from choosing an Oracle or because it attacked Apollo's mother Leto. |
| 687 | * GuileHero: A popular trope in Greek mythology - Athena and Hermes were the patron deities of all heroes, but clearly liked Guile Heroes more. Rather less popular in Roman mythology. |
| 688 | ** Daedalus, the man who built the Labyrinth and made artificial wings to escape from a desert island. Or an imprisoning tower. |
| 689 | ** Odysseus was a great archer, but his ''brains'' were his most powerful weapon. |
| 690 | ** Even Heracles had shades of this. His tricking of Atlas, for example. |
| 691 | * HappyEnding: Though often overshadowed by {{Bittersweet Ending}}s or {{Downer Ending}}s, especially considering Greek {{Tragedy}}, there are actually several stories with happy endings in Greek and Roman mythology, including the story of [[Literature/TheMetamorphoses Baucis and Philemon]] and that of [[Theatre/{{Alcestis}} Admetus and Alcestis]], among others. Perseus' legend also has a happy end. |
| 692 | * HappilyMarried: Rarely among deities and mortals alike, but some example do exist. |
| 693 | ** Hilariously, [[UnholyMatrimony Typhon and Echidna]]. Two of the worst monsters to ever come out of Tartarus (who by the way is Typhon's father), are entirely faithful to one another and support each other in all of their endeavours. Typhon eventually becomes Sealed Evil in a Can, but Echidna never moves on. All of her young (and there are a lot of them) are also Typhon's. By Greek standards that is weirdly functional. |
| 694 | ** The RescueRomance of Perseus and Andromeda. Just the fact that neither cheated on the other is a very good sign. |
| 695 | ** Ariadne and Dionysus. Dionysus saved Ariadne when she was left by Theseus on Naxos and she later accompanied him during his journeys. (Though some sources say that Dionysius had his eyes on Ariadne for a while already, and thus threatened Theseus in his dreams so he'd leave her.) He loved her enough to not only [[ToHellAndBack go down to the Underworld]] after her death to demand her soul back, but also made her immortal afterwards. |
| 696 | ** Hector and Andromache in sharp contrast to everyone else in their family. Priam's a philandering bastard, Helen and Menelaus/Helen and Paris are horribly dysfunctional, and we won't even get started on Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Hector and Andromache honestly seem to have been a good match. |
| 697 | ** Odysseus and Penelope. Okay, there was the stuff with Circe and Calypso but [[QuestionableConsent neither of those was what you could call 100% consensual]] (because when a very powerful being that could kill you in a heartbeat wants to sleep with you, it's smart not to argue, and Odysseus is nothing if not smart) and he did go to the ends of Earth (and Hell and back) to get back to Penelope. That counts for something. As does the fact that he turned down immortality for her. For her part, Penelope did all she could to hold off the obnoxious suitors and stay faithful to her husband. After 10 years of devotion to her husband, she feared the worst and asked Artemis to strike her down painlessly, either because she wanted to be TogetherInDeath with Odysseus, or because she knew her suitors would kill their son and force her to choose between them (or not even let her choose), or both. |
| 698 | ** Orpheus and Eurydice until she's dragged to Hades, but even then, he loves her so much that he goes to Hades and back to try and retrieve her. When he fails at the very last moment, [[TheMourningAfter man, how he mourns...]] |
| 699 | ** Eros and Psyche are an unlikely pair, considering how the vast majority of the Greek pantheon are constitutionally incapable of anything resembling fidelity. The story of the origins of their marriage is about trusting and going to great lengths to mend bridges. |
| 700 | * HealerGod: |
| 701 | ** Ancient Greece: |
| 702 | *** [[Characters/ClassicalMythologySecondGenerationOlympians Apollo]] had medicine as one of his domains, and was the father of the god of medicine Asclepius. |
| 703 | *** Asclepius was the official Greek god of medicine. |
| 704 | *** Chiron was a [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaur]] known for his knowledge and skill in medicinal arts |
| 705 | *** Epione was Asclepius's wife. Her name meant "soothing", and her role seemed to be a nursemaid. |
| 706 | *** Hygieia was a goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation and daughter of Asclepius. Her name later became "hygiene". |
| 707 | *** "Panacea" became a word meaning cure-all. But originally Panacea was the Greek goddess of universal remedies and daughter of Asclepius. |
| 708 | ** Ancient Rome: |
| 709 | *** Bona Dea was a Roman goddess who cured diseases related to childbirth and infertility. |
| 710 | *** Menrva was an Etruscan goddess of war, art, wisdom, and medicine. She later lost the medicine domain and became the Roman war goddess [[Characters/ClassicalMythologySecondGenerationOlympians Minerva]]. |
| 711 | * HealingSerpent: |
| 712 | ** The TropeCodifier Asclepius[[note]] Also known as Asklepios and Aesculapius or Vejovis to the Romans.[[/note]], who was a demigod and [[DeityOfHumanOrigin later god]], was affiliated with, healing, medicine, rejuvenation and physicians. The second part of this trope is found in the snakes[[note]]Supposedly the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculapian_snake Aesculapian snake]] species.[[/note]] that he had help him in healing pilgrims at his temples. Some myths stated that he learned healing from a snake. His symbol, the Rod/Staff of Asclepius or the asklepian, which is a snake coiled around a staff, is still a prominent symbol for medicine and health care around the world. |
| 713 | ** Hygiene, the daughter of Asclepius, also counts as this, for she is the goddess of good health, cleanliness, and sanitation. She is also affiliated with snakes as the trope requires, often being accompanied by one. |
| 714 | ** The gorgons, which were some sort of SnakePeople. Blood taken from the right side of a gorgon had wondrous healing properties and in some myths could even bring the dead back to life. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with blood taken from the left side of a gorgon, which was a powerful [[PerfectPoison poison]]. |
| 715 | ** Hermes/Mercury's staff the Caduceus. Much like the Rod/Staff of Asclepius mentioned above, is also a symbol for medicine and health care around the world. This appears to be a case of SadlyMythtaken, though, since Hermes/Mercury and his Caduceus had little if anything to do with healing or medicine. |
| 716 | * {{Heaven}}: |
| 717 | ** God-wise. Mount Olympus. This is where they seat their power. |
| 718 | ** Mortal-wise. If you have been judged good and worthy, you are allowed entry into Elysium. If you want to take it a step further, you can gamble by ''reincarnating and hope that you could repeat this result two more times''. Doing so will grant you entry to the best afterlife possible, the Isles of the Blessed. |
| 719 | * HeavenAbove: Of all the places in Greece they could have lived, the Greek Gods decided to seat their thrones on the highest mountain in the nation, Mount Olympus, placing the gods on the point closest to the heavens. |
| 720 | * HenotheisticSociety: In both real life and the stories, there were cults devoted to the worship of one member of the pantheon above all the rest. For instance, the Maenads were female worshippers of Dionysus who drove themselves into a frenzy of dancing and intoxication. |
| 721 | * HereditaryCurse: Tantalus prepared his own son Pelops as food for the gods. Not only was he himself punished for this gruesome act (but this is another story...) but also a curse was laid upon the next four generations of his house. How did this curse manifest itself? Let's just say that the House of Atreus (named after Tantalus' grandkid) took being a DysfunctionalFamily to another level. |
| 722 | * HeroicSacrifice: Codrus, the last King of Athens, performed one according to the myths. There was a prophecy that the Dorians would conquer Athens as long as its king was not harmed. So Codrus sneaked out of the city disguised as a peasant and provoked a group of Dorian soldiers into a fight. He died in the quarrel, and the Dorians, realizing who they just killed, retreated out of fear of their prophesized defeat. After this, the Athenians decided that no king could possibly top such heroic selflessness, and so they abolished the monarchy. |
| 723 | * HesBack: Odysseus returned to Ithaca after 20 years. |
| 724 | * HighClassCallGirl: Aphrodite. She could be interpreted as a Companion at a StandardRoyalCourt. |
| 725 | * HolyIsNotSafe: Seeing the undisguised glory of a god was deadly to mortals. Zeus was manipulated into causing the death of Semele, the mother of Dionysus, in this way. |
| 726 | * HornedHumanoid: Minotaurs and Satyrs. |
| 727 | * {{Hubris}}: This was the biggest sin possible in Classical Mythology, as it implied disrespect toward the Gods. |
| 728 | * HydraProblem: TropeNamer. |
| 729 | [[/folder]] |
| 730 | |
| 731 | [[folder:Tropes I to O]] |
| 732 | * IcarusAllusion: UrExample. The story of Icarus was being referenced even in works and recordings of Greek mythology that weren't solely about the father and son's escape from Minos. It is frequently reimagined in reference as showing the dangers of imbalancing hubris and compliance, rather than just teaching a lesson about respecting your elders. |
| 733 | * IdiotBall: Probably not the only case, but the biggest: Rhea fooled her husband Kronos from devouring little baby Zeus by giving him a stone in diapers. |
| 734 | * IfItsYouItsOkay: Artemis usually DoesNotLikeMen, but according to some myths she fell in love with the great human hunter Orion. This led Apollo, who disliked this relationship, to spot Orion while he was swimming, and then tell his sister, in essence, "I bet you can't hit that tiny thing in the sea from this far away;" of course, being the goddess of archery, she ''could'', and when she saw that she had killed her beloved Orion, she put him in the sky as a constellation along with his dogs (Canis Major and Minor). |
| 735 | * IGaveMyWord: When they swear by the Styx, even the gods have to come through. |
| 736 | * IHaveManyNames: The Romans' practice of labeling foreign gods as versions of their own added to this effect. Roman religious ceremonies involved the priest listing all of the names for a given god - which could be quite extensive. |
| 737 | * IllegalReligion: Defied by Dionysus, who is known for killing mortal rulers who dare to make worship of him illegal. |
| 738 | * ImmortalityField: Antaeus remains invincible as long as he remains in contact with his [[EarthMother mother, Gaia (the Earth)]]. He challenges passers-by to wrestling matches and because Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, typically involves forcing opponents to the ground, he always wins and kills his opponents. Antaeus fights Heracles on the latter's way to the Garden of Hesperides for his 11th Labor. Heracles realizes that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him so he lifts and then crushes him to death in a BearHug. |
| 739 | * ImmortalityPromiscuity: Unless they have VirginPower or are HappilyMarried, gods tend to sleep with whoever they want to, either with each other or mortals [[DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal whether the mortal wants to or not]]. Zeus is the most noteworthy philanderer, and most demigod heroes can trace their paternity to him. |
| 740 | * InformationWantsToBeFree: The Prometheus myth. Secret of fire given to the mortals against the gods' will. OlderThanTheyThink? Yup. |
| 741 | * InhumanlyBeautifulRace: Most immortals, particularly the Olympian deities, though there are some notable exceptions. Hephaestus (known to the Romans as Vulcan), for example, was one of the few gods noted for his bad looks. |
| 742 | * InjuryBookend: Tireseus was turned into a woman when he saw two snakes having sex. He was told by the Oracle that he would remain a woman until he saw the same two snakes having sex. He eventually did and was turned back into a man. |
| 743 | * InstrumentOfMurder: During a music lesson from the lyrist Linus, Heracles once took some criticism the wrong way, and bashed Linus' head in with his own lyre. |
| 744 | %%* ItWasAGift |
| 745 | * JamesBondage: Prometheus. |
| 746 | * JerkassGods: None of the Greek pantheon were capital E evil, but most of them could be petty, spiteful, vindictive, and a host of other unpleasant adjectives. Some of this is a result of ValuesDissonance, and of the disconnect between the way gods are portrayed in myths and the way they were interpreted by their worshippers in RealLife. |
| 747 | ** This is averted by the likes of Hestia (the goddess of the hearth), Helios (the god of the sun), and Selene (the goddess of the moon), who were all actually pretty benign. (Note however that Helios and Selene weren't Olympians, and their functions were absorbed in whole or in part by Apollo and Artemis respectively; while those two were substantially less douchey than their father or Uncle Poseidon, Apollo could be a dick at times and Artemis was ''very'' -- sometimes murderously -- serious about [[DoesNotLikeMen not liking men]].) |
| 748 | ** Demeter and Hades were slightly different in that Hades never harassed mortals who didn't screw with ''him'' first, while Demeter was quite understandably upset by the loss of Persephone. When Persephone comes back for six months of the year in fall and winter, Demeter cheerfully attends to her duties as a fertility goddess. |
| 749 | * JourneyToTheSky: Bellerophon attempted to fly to Mount Olympus on Pegasus, but his mount was stung by a gadfly, causing him to fall into a thorn bush and [[EyeScream lose his eyesight as a result]]. |
| 750 | * JustSoStory: As is typical of myths, many stories are intended to explain natural phenomena or cultural norms, or contain some such explanation within them. |
| 751 | * KarmaHoudini: Many gods and goddesses have a tendency to screw up the lives of various people and get away with it. |
| 752 | ** One example: when Medusa had sex with Poseidon (or in some versions of the story, got raped by Poseidon) in Athena's temple, Athena punished the mortal Medusa by turning her into a snake-haired monster... Poseidon was never punished for this. |
| 753 | ** Also worth noting is ''Theatre/{{Medea}}'', who was deeply and tragically screwed by Jason, stitched together an [[DisproportionateRetribution over-the-top revenge]] and left Jason alone. The Gods sided with Medea instead, and Jason was left in a FateWorseThanDeath. Many historians, [[Literature/TheDivineComedy Dante]] included, agreed that Jason was the bad guy and also sided with Medea. She's sided with for a few reasons: First, Jason's patron goddess was Hera, goddess of marriage - fairly obvious why Jason betraying Medea after marrying her didn't go over well with Hera. Second and more importantly, Jason had initially been so moved by Medea's devotion to him that he swore an oath to all the Twelve Lords of Olympus that he would stay with her forever. Meaning that when he abandoned her later, ''this was a direct affront to the entire pantheon,'' and Medea was considered a tool of divine vengeance instead of a murdering psycho. Essentially, her actions are the result of Jason having his KarmaHoudini privileges revoked. |
| 754 | * KillItWithFire: The Hydra's heads will regenerate if you destroy them. When Heracles fought the monster, he was assisted by his nephew Iolaus, who seared the heads with a burning torch and prevented them from growing back. |
| 755 | * KinslayingIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Killing one's relatives is considered one of the biggest taboos in Ancient Greece. The other two are violating SacredHospitality and [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalism]]. |
| 756 | * LifeDeathJuxtaposition: Hades, god of the Underworld, kidnaps and marries Persephone, a goddess of vegetation and fertility. |
| 757 | * LightIsNotGood: Light gods like Apollo and, possibly, Hyperion, are no better than the other gods (Apollo, for instance, is also a god of plague). Also Aethon, the giant eagle that was sent to punish Prometheus, has a name meaning "burning" or "blazing". Both Hesiod and Homer described the god of war Ares with light attributes, such as having golden armour and light. |
| 758 | * LightningFireJuxtaposition: The myth of Prometheus has Prometheus going against Zeus' will to give fire (and knowledge as a result) to man. |
| 759 | * LimbSensationFascination: The legend of Icarus contains a variation on this trope, likely making it the UrExample. When Icarus gets given a pair of wings (made from wax and bird feathers), even though they just strap on rather than being actual appendages, he explores what he can do with them. His delight in seeing how low to the sea and close to the Sun he can fly is what leads to his death. |
| 760 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: Easily has more than 20 fantastic races, when you count all the bizarre HumanSubspecies that have four legs, one leg, one eye, no mouth, no head, or ears bigger than their body, or live forever or for only 8 years or are one foot tall... Besides mortal humans there are gods (including titans and daimones), fauns, satyrs, centaurs, giants, cyclopes, gegenees, and nymphs. That's not counting the half-gods, the various one-off monsters like the Chimaera, and the little groups of monsters like the three Gorgons. |
| 761 | * LordOfTheOcean: Oceanus, Poseidon/Neptunus, Amphitrite and every other god associated with the seas, lakes, rivers, etc. |
| 762 | * LoserDeity: |
| 763 | ** The Greek god Hephaestus, though the creator of many of his fellow Olympians' best weapons and items, was otherwise rejected and scorned. Upon being born, his mother Hera threw him down Mount Olympus for being ugly (making him the only unattractive god), which crippled him. He was given Aphrodite as a wife only to prevent other gods from warring over her, and even then she ended up cheating on him with Ares in his own home. |
| 764 | ** The Greek god Ares is basically divine DumbMuscle, once ending up trapped in a jar and even sent packing by a mortal during the Trojan War. His [[CulturalTranslation Roman equivalent]] Mars, on the other hand, is one of Rome's most important gods and portrayed much more positively. |
| 765 | * LostInTranslation: Zeus' reputation as a serial rapist. The Greeks had no exact word for the modern definition of rape and several different words are used in instances that might be modern rape. In ancient Greece, an unmarried virgin willingly sleeping with a man might be considered "rape." So thanks to different versions of the myths, [[ValuesDissonance different values]], and translating difficulties rape, seduction, and abduction might all be used to describe the same event depending on the translation. |
| 766 | * LotusEaterMachine: TropeNamer from ''Literature/TheOdyssey''. |
| 767 | * LoveAtFirstSight: A few examples, usually caused directly by some god or goddess [Usually Eros and/or Aphrodite]. |
| 768 | ** Eros, after a quarrel with Apollo, got back at him by shooting him with an arrow that made him fall in love with Daphne at first sight, after he shot Daphne with an arrow that made her (in simplest terms) hate at first sight. |
| 769 | ** Narcissus was considered so beautiful that every woman who looked upon his face fell instantly in love with him, but he would always spurn such people and break their hearts. He was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection after spurning several nymphs this way. |
| 770 | *** And in other versions, falling in love with his own reflection was punishment for spurning probably much older ''male'' suitors. Values Dissonance? Perhaps[[note]] In Greek culture of the time young men were supposed to have older male suitors, as well as continue to be attracted to women[[/note]]. Creepy? Just a tad. |
| 771 | *** No matter who else got rejected by Narcissus, the last person is always Echo in an exceptionally cruel manner. Since she had the misfortune of getting cursed to repeat only what people said to her, it was a big problem when Narcissus needed directions to the nearest city. He had no way of knowing she was cursed, but it doesn't mean he should have called Echo an idiot and gone out of his way to avoid her. Rather understandable that Aphrodite considered this the last straw — especially since Echo was so in love with him that she couldn't bear to cause him harm, even to seek justice for herself. |
| 772 | ** Hades and Persephone. A bit one-sided, but basically he (also) gets shot with Eros' arrow of love. Instant attraction and abduction ensues. |
| 773 | *** Oddly enough, they end up the most stable (and presumably happy) couple in Greek mythology. It probably helped that he lavished gifts and non-sexual attention on her to genuinely win her over — and unlike Zeus, he (practically) never cheats on her[[note]]Once or twice in three-thousand years of marriage according to different versions. That's leagues above a lot of people, let alone Zeus or Poseidon[[/note]]. Just because he's the king of the Underworld doesn't mean he can't respect his wife's feelings. |
| 774 | ** Even Eros was not immune to this. Aphrodite, Eros' mother, because she was jealous of the beautiful Psyche, asked Eros to shoot her with an arrow so that she would fall in love with someone repulsive at first sight, but Eros ended up falling in love at first sight with Psyche. Fortunately for him it was not one-sided. |
| 775 | ** Aphrodite either had this, CutenessProximity or a WifeHusbandry version of ''Lust'' At First Sight when it came to CanonImmigrant [[MrFanservice Adonis]] given he was a ''baby,'' but she apparently ''knew'' he'd grow up to be hot and left him with [[PerkyGoth Persephone]] to raise until he was legal, which lead to SickeningSweethearts and a LoveTriangle against the underworld goddess. Or alternatively in some stories, she came to met Adonis after accidentally pricking herself with Eros/Cupid's arrow. |
| 776 | * LoveMakesYouCrazy: Along with LoveMakesYouDumb. Helen of Troy[[note]]"Helen of Sparta" is technically correct as she was Menelaus' wife. "Helen of Troy" is technically correct as well, at least after her defection (or kidnapping) to Troy. As to why people think of her as "Helen of Troy" regardless... chalk it up to MemeticMutation. The whole Troy business ''is'' what she's most well-known for.[[/note]], at the very least. Happily married until some upstart prince and the goddess of love come along. In some versions Paris kidnaps her. |
| 777 | * LoverAndBeloved: Goes hand-in-hand with the HoYay. |
| 778 | * LustMakesYouDumb: |
| 779 | ** Ixion, the king of the Lapiths, already established himself as an untrustworthy {{Jerkass}} when he invited his father-in-law to a feast, only to [[KillItWithFire shove him into a burning pit]] [[EvilIsPetty instead of paying him a dowry]]. But when [[TopGod Zeus]] took pity on him when no other Greek kings would, and allowed him shelter in Olympus, how did Ixion repay him? [[TheFarmerAndTheViper By openly lusting after Zeus' wife Hera]]. Upon first being made of suspicious of Ixion's conduct, Zeus decided to test him by either making a decoy of Hera made from clouds, or putting Nephele, a [[OurNymphsAreDifferent cloud nymph]] who just happened to be Hera's IdenticalStranger. Whichever account you go by, Ixion flat-out [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raped]] what he thought was Hera, and despite his less-than-perfect record as a husband, [[HypocriticalHeartwarming Zeus was furious that this man would dare rape the Queen of the Gods]], ''[[TooDumbToLive while in the home of the Gods, no less]].'' Ixion was thereafter punished for his lust in the Underworld by being tied to a burning wheel and sent spinning around through Tartarus forever, while the seed of his rape gave rise to the [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaurs]], who were themselves prone to doing stupid things when thinking with their penises, including starting a war with the Lapiths, their forefather's own people. ''[[SarcasmMode Nice going there, Ixion]]!'' |
| 780 | ** In Roman tradition, Sextus Tarquinius, the sixth son of [[TheCaligula the tyrant]] King Tarquinius Superbus, became dangerously obsessed with the noblewoman Lucretia, to the point of visiting her at Collatia years later, and then [[ScarpiaUltimatum he forced her to have sex with him whilst holding a sword]], telling her that if she didn't, he'd kill her and one of her slaves, line their bodies up together, and then [[DeliberateValuesDissonance claim he caught her cheating on her husband with said slave, and killed them both to preserve her husband's honour]]. This was [[StupidEvil the worst thing Sextus could have done]]: he had raped someone who had not only paid him the respects of SacredHospitality, but was the daughter of the powerful magistrate [[PapaWolf Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus]] ''and'' the wife of [[ActionPolitician Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus]]. Feeling DefiledForever, Lucretia came before her father and her husband, telling them what Sextus had done, and appealing to them to take revenge for her, before [[DrivenToSuicide stabbing herself to death right where she stood]]. Sextus' callous rape was the last straw for all the Romans who had suffered under him and his father, and Collatinus, alongside his friend Lucius Junius Brutus, decided to lead an uprising against Tarquinius Superbus. Sextus, being a DirtyCoward, fled to Gabii to try taking refuge before the revolution happened, but the leaders of that region killed him anyway for his past crimes. Sextus got the entire monarchy of Rome overthrown, his father exiled, and himself assassinated, all because he couldn't keep it in his pants for a married woman. |
| 781 | * MagicalWeapon: Zeus's lightning bolts were treated as actual weapons handcrafted by Cyclopes in [[UltimateBlacksmith Hephaestus's]] forge. |
| 782 | * MagicIsFeminine: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Despite much of their literature focusing on female sorcerers like Circe and Medea, there's evidence that, historically, a higher percentage of men practiced magic compared to women. Additionally, mythology had several male magic users like King Aeetees (Circe's brother), Tiresias (who in addition to having the gift of prophecy was also mentioned doing at least some necromancy on the side), and Orpheus (who used MagicMusic) to name a select few. And even though Hecate, a goddess, was the main magic deity, Hermes was also a god of magic and alchemy, in addition to Helios (whose children and grandchildren were often magic users, like the aforementioned Circe and Aeetees) and Hades (who was often invoked when attempting to summon spirits). |
| 783 | * MaleSunFemaleMoon: Some of the oldest and well-known examples. |
| 784 | ** Apollo is the god of the sun while his sister Artemis/Diana is the goddess of the moon. Apollo was originally just God of light, however, over time it shifted to him becoming God of the Sun and thus his sister gained the Moon. |
| 785 | ** Originally Helios was the Titan and personification of the Sun, whilst his sister Selena was Titan and personification of the Moon. |
| 786 | * MamaBear: Demeter, when Persephone went missing. To the point of ''making the Earth barren'' until she was returned! On a sidenote, in very many modern interpretations, Demeter falls under the MyBelovedSmother trope. (See for example ''Hercules the Legendary Journeys'' on this Wiki.) |
| 787 | * ManyFacedDivinity: There are several cases of polycephaly, most notably Hecate, the three-headed godess of magic, and Janus, the TwoFaced Roman god of gateways. |
| 788 | * TheMarvelousDeer: The Golden Hind sacred to the goddess Artemis. Heracles had to catch it, alive and unharmed, in one labor. |
| 789 | * MasqueradeEnforcer: The gods of Classical Mythology are very jealous of their secrets, and often punish those who reveal their secrets to mortals: |
| 790 | ** One episode is mentioned in the [[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/830/830-h/830-h.htm Argonautica]] by Apollonius of Rhodes. He mentions how Phineus was granted the power of prophecy. However, Phineus told mankind the future, angering Zeus. In retaliation, Zeus had him blinded, and sent the Harpies tormented b, who stole or defiled whatever food Phineus had at hand. |
| 791 | ** Euripides' play [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0112%3Acard%3D1259 Iphigenia in Tauris]] notes an episode where Themis loses control of the Pytho (a.k.a. Delphi), where the prophetic oracle Pythia lived, to Apollo. In response, Themis's mother the Earth starts sending prophetic dreams to all humans, rendering the Pythia obsolete. Apollo complained to Zeus, and Zeus took away the prophetic dreams from humanity, ending the Earth's efforts and restoring the authority of the Pythia, and thus Apollo, over prophecy. |
| 792 | ** Pausanias provides an example in his [[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D15%3Asection%3D7 Description of Greece]] with the death of Orpheus. While there are numerous examples of why Orpheus dies, Pausanias lists one such story claiming that Zeus killed Orpheus with a thunderbolt for divulging divine mysteries to humans. |
| 793 | ** In the second book of [[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D2%3Acard%3D633 Metamorphoses]], Ovid recounts the fate of the centaur Ocyroe, Chiron’s irreverent daughter. In this scene, Ocyroe’s lengthy and vociferous prophecy concerning the fates of Aesculapius and Chiron angers Jupiter, who did not want his designs revealed to mortals. In retaliation, Ocyroe is transformed completely into a mare. |
| 794 | * MasterArcher: |
| 795 | ** Artemis and Apollo, twin gods of the moon and sun, are both depicted as archers par excellence, and sometimes credited as the inventors of the sport. Artemis is also portrayed as a goddess of the hunt, shooting down many beasts at night with her silver arrows. |
| 796 | ** Orion, a mortal hunter who was so great at archery he won the affections of Artemis. |
| 797 | * MechanicalAnimals: Hephaestos sometimes built these, including the Khalkotauroi, bronze bulls that could breathe fire. Jason had to defeat them in order to win the Golden Fleece. |
| 798 | * MiracleFood: The Cornucopia is a magical horn created by Zeus (or Herakles in some versions) which is said to be able to create a never-ending supply of fruits and vegetables. |
| 799 | * MisterSeahorse: Zeus gave birth to at least two of his children -- he sewed the fetal Dionysus into his calf after his mother died and carried him to term there (note that this is possibly a euphemism and "calf" actually meant "scrotum"), and when Athena was swallowed alongside her mother Metis she survived and grew inside Zeus' body and had to be forcefully released from his cranium. |
| 800 | * MurderTheHypotenuse: Hera, Hera, Hera... well she ''is'' goddess of marriage, so she can't exactly let that go... |
| 801 | * NakedFirstImpression: Artemis ''really'' doesn't appreciate men who get themselves a lookie-loo. |
| 802 | ** In the most commonly known version of the death of Actaeon (who was turned into a stag and had his throat torn out by hounds), his crime is peeping on the goddess Artemis, [[DependingOnTheWriter supposedly]] on accident. |
| 803 | ** Sipriotes likewise peeked in on Artemis, presumably at the same spring. Perhaps because he was so young, or because he had the good sense to look away when she noticed him, or because she was feeling in a better mood that time, Artemis merely [[GenderBender turned him into a girl]]. |
| 804 | * NighInvulnerability: Achilles was totally invulnerable, as he was bathed in the waters of the River Styx as a baby. His only weakness was his famous heel, which his mother held him by when she dipped him into Styx. |
| 805 | * NightAndDayDuo: |
| 806 | ** Artemis and Apollo are the twins who rule over night and day. Artemis is further associated with femininity and nature, while Apollo is masculine and associated with cultured pursuits like art and medicine. |
| 807 | ** Before them came Helios and Selene, Titans of the sun and moon. They were believed to control the movement of the sun and moon with their chariots. Their Roman equivalents were Sol and Luna, and they had a third sibling, being Eos/Aurora, the dawn. |
| 808 | ** Hemera, the goddess of the day, with her mother Nyx, the goddess of the night, also count. |
| 809 | * NightmareFuel: InUniverse: When Heracles came back wearing the Nemean Lion's skin or dragged the Erymanthian Boar, the Cretan Bull and even Cerberus back from the Underworld to prove he'd done it, his cousin and quest giver Eurystheus was so terrified he ran like hell into the palace cellars. |
| 810 | * NoEyeInMagic: Perseus looked at the Gorgon through a mirror/his shield so he didn't get killed by looking directly at it. |
| 811 | * NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Prometheus stole fire from Olympus and gave it to mankind. His punishment was to be chained to a rock for all eternity, where a giant eagle would visit him each day to peck out his liver (which would regrow each night). |
| 812 | * NonHumanHead: In the original myths, the Minotaur only had the head of a bull, and the rest of its body was human. |
| 813 | * NotSoAboveItAll: Even the more reasonable, level-headed gods ended up engaging in petty, spiteful, or entitled behavior at one point or another. |
| 814 | * TheNothingAfterDeath: The Asphodel Meadows is the "neutral" afterlife for people who've lived quietly rather than being heroes or villains. Not specifically a place of torment like Tartarus, but rather grey and desolate. |
| 815 | * OfferingAnotherInYourStead: Admetus was rewarded by Apollo by letting him find one person willing to die in his stead. When the time came, Admetus found that this wasn't as easy as he thought, with even his parents being unwilling to simply die for him. At last his wife Alcestis volunteered for love of him, and Admetus' household was in the middle of grieving her when Herakles dropped by. He partied as hard as ever (thinking the servants looked sad because one of their own had died), but on waking up and understanding the situation he went to the underworld and brought Alcestis back. |
| 816 | * OhCrap: Several mortals have experienced this when they realize they've just crossed one of the gods, with Lycaon being just one example. |
| 817 | ** Subverted with Acoetes, who repeatedly tried to talk his fellow pirates out of kidnapping Dionysus. Dionysus destroys the rest of the crew [[DependingOnTheWriter (or turns them into dolphins, depending on the myth)]] and Acoetes has this reaction. Fortunately, Dionysus spares Acoetes for trying to talk the rest of the crew out of kidnapping him. |
| 818 | * TheOldNorthWind: Boreas is the Greek god of the north wind, who is often depicted as a [[WingedHumanoid winged man]] who flies down from the mountains to chill the air with his cold breath. Boreas also had sons who were part of the Argonaut expedition, where they helped to fight off the harpies. Boreas was also responsible for the Classical Greek name for Britain: Hyperborea, the land beyond the North Wind (ie, unbelievably remote and equally unbelievably cold, bleak, and inhospitable). |
| 819 | * OneSteveLimit: Frequently averted: |
| 820 | ** Ajax the Great (Ajax son of Telamon) and Ajax the Lesser (Ajax of Locris) were both Greek warlords in UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar, and figure in ''Literature/TheIliad''. |
| 821 | ** Zeus has two sons named Sarpedon; one is the son of Europa and brother to Minos and Rhadamanthys and the other is the son of Laomedia and a hero in the Trojan War. |
| 822 | ** Zeus has two daughters named Thalia, one of the muses and one of the Charities. |
| 823 | ** The titaness Tethys is often confused with Thetis, the mother of Achilles, who is her granddaughter. |
| 824 | ** Scylla was the name of a Megaran princess who betrayed her kingdom due to her lust for Minos as well as the famous sea monster. |
| 825 | ** In addition to being one of Hades' many aliases (often incorrectly attributed to the Romans), Pluto is the name of Tantalus' mother. |
| 826 | ** Cronos was the leader of the Titans, Chronos was the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification personification of time]]. The former is also sometimes spelled Cronus or Kronos, while the latter is also spelled Chronus or Khronos. Which doesn't really help matters. Even the Greeks got them confused from time to time, and by the Renaissance the figure of Father Time was usually depicted as carrying a scythe, the weapon the other Cronos used to castrate Uranus. |
| 827 | ** The rule also gets trampled by the ''dozen'' mythical figures named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurypylus Eurypylus]]. Two of them fought on opposite sides of the Trojan War. At the same time, a third one was among the suitors of Penelope. One generation back, another Eurypylus had helped Heracles sack Troy. Yet another was a son of Heracles, not to be confused with the one who was ''killed by'' Heracles... and so on. |
| 828 | * OnlyInItForTheMoney: Even in their best of moods, most of the gods did not care about humanity as a whole or feel any sense of responsibility towards their followers. However, what the gods did love was all the tribute and sacrifices that came from their mortal worshippers and it's often depicted as being their main motivation for assisting mortals in their daily lives. |
| 829 | * OnlySaneWoman: Hestia, who is well aware her family is divinely [[BigScrewedUpFamily messed up]]. |
| 830 | %%* OrphansPlotTrinket |
| 831 | * OrpheanRescue: The TropeNamer, Orpheus went into the underworld to retrieve his wife. |
| 832 | * OurCentaursAreDifferent: Wild, raunchy and crude men with horse bodies, though there were a few exceptions such as Chiron. |
| 833 | * OurElvesAreDifferent: The nymphs were essentially Greek version of elves. |
| 834 | * OurGiantsAreBigger: |
| 835 | ** The ''Gigantes'', who once waged war against the gods, were giants with snake trunks instead of legs. There were also the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones, giants of varying degrees of monstrousness. The Titans may also count, though they were an older set of god -- the term only came to be synonymous to "giant" after classical Greek times. |
| 836 | ** Greek gods and heroes in general (men and women alike) were often described as being twice or three times the height of an ordinary man. It went along with the whole "human, but MORE" idea. |
| 837 | * OurGoblinsAreDifferent: The kobaloi were the TropeMaker. Diminutive shape-shifting trickster companions of Dionysus. The words ''goblin'' and ''kobold'' are thought to be derivatives. |
| 838 | * OurHippocampsAreDifferent: Hippocampi were chiefly an artistic phenomenon in Ancient Greece and Rome; they appear in friezes and on coins, but most myths use regular if aquatic horses for the role. Exceptions include the ''Argonautica'', which specifically refers to "two-hooved" horses of Poseidon. They often appear winged and as pullers of Poseidon's chariot. Chapter 22 of the ''Physiologus'' is where the term "hydrippus" comes from. The religious nature of the book casts the hydrippus as a prophet, specifically [[Literature/BookOfExodus Moses]], whom the other fish have to follow in order to reach God. |
| 839 | * OurHydrasAreDifferent: Greek mythology is the TropeMaker through the Lernaean Hydra, a monstrous nine-headed snake that lived in the swamps of Lerna and guarded one of the entrances to the underworld. A creature of poison, its breath and blood were both fatally toxic and, in some versions, even its scent was deadly. The creature was a daughter of the primordial monsters Typhon and Echidna, like many of the other multi-headed or [[MixAndMatchCritters hybrid]] monsters of Classical myth, and was eventually slain by Heracles during his second labor, scorching the stumps of the Hydra's heads to keep them from growing back [[AndIMustScream and burying its last immortal head beneath a rock]]. He then dipped his arrows in the Hydra's blood, turning them permanently poisonous. One interpretation of the original hydra myth was that it served as a symbol of the Lernean swamp itself, where plugging up one spring would cause another to spring up shortly after. |
| 840 | * OurSirensAreDifferent: TropeMaker. Between two and five of them, and they lured sailors to their death on the rocks. |
| 841 | * OutsourcingFate: A recurring theme, with gods asking a human to judge between their disputes. |
| 842 | [[/folder]] |
| 843 | |
| 844 | [[folder:Tropes P to Z]] |
| 845 | * PaintingTheFrostOnWindows: Most forces of nature were explained (or at least poetically dramatized) as having been caused by gods. Ergo lightning bolts were actually Zeus' javelins, volcanoes were the Cyclopes' forges powered by the imprisoned Typhon, the sun was Helios' chariot, stampedes were caused by Pan's feral shrieks, etc. etc. |
| 846 | --> ὕει μὲν ὁ Ζεύς, ἐκ δ’ ὀράνω μέγας / χείμων πεπάγαισιν (Zeus is raining, from the heavens comes a great storm...) |
| 847 | -->-- Alkaios of Mytilene, fragment 338 |
| 848 | * ParentalIncest: |
| 849 | ** Oedipus is one of the most famous examples of this trope, having been prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother, and unwittingly doing exactly that. When he finds out the AwfulTruth, he is so horrified that he [[EyeScream puts out his own eyes]]. |
| 850 | ** Very common between gods, or between gods and their mortal descendants. (Because gods are immortal, they can easily be their own kids' great-grandparents.) This is not treated as being horrifying among gods. |
| 851 | * PatronGod: A newly-founded city in Attica was to be dedicated to a god, but Athena and Poseidon argued over which should be in charge. It was decided the god who could offer the citizens the most useful gift would receive the city. Poseidon created a saltwater fountain, Athena gave an olive tree and was declared the winner. The city was then dedicated to the goddess by the name of Athens. |
| 852 | * {{Pegasus}}: Greek myth provides the TropeNamer. The Pegasus is a winged horse who springs from the neck of the decaptiated Medusa after Perseus slays her. |
| 853 | * PhlebotinumBattery: Antaeus draws his power from the earth. |
| 854 | * PracticallyDifferentGenerations: While the age difference isn't that elaborated on, the gods' {{Immortality}} and, in most cases, [[ReallyGetsAround promiscuity]], would lead to half-siblings centuries in age different at least, especially when it comes to Zeus' divine children and his innumerable demi-god offspring. |
| 855 | * PrettyBoy: The Greeks were unabashed about ogling beautiful young men |
| 856 | ** Ganymede (which is why Zeus went after him). |
| 857 | ** Apollo counts, too. |
| 858 | ** Eros; every version of him is described as 'the fairest of the deathless gods'. |
| 859 | ** Hyakinthos (known more often as Hyacinthus or just Hyacinth) is often described as beautiful. |
| 860 | * PrimordialChaos: Literally called Chaos, who is a primal god that existed before everything and everyone else. Chaos [Khaos] gave birth to Gaia and Ouranos, along with a few other immortals such as Eros and Tartarus. Is very rarely mentioned in Myths, but surrounds Creation. |
| 861 | * ProperLady: What Hera was supposed to be, before she was flanderized into Zeus's {{Yandere}}. Zeus's sister, Hestia, is more of a straight example. |
| 862 | * ProphecyArmor: Many examples. One of the most famous is that of Achilles, who calls to the gods not to let him die in the River Scamander ([[TooDumbToLive which he attacked]]). They save him, because Achilles is fated to die later from being shot in the heel. |
| 863 | * ProphecyTwist: Too numerous to list. Here's a few examples: |
| 864 | ** Oedipus hears that he will kill his father and marry his mother. He distances himself from the King and Queen of Corinth so that this will not happen, without bothering to ask if they are his real parents. |
| 865 | ** Acrisius hears that his grandson will one day kill him. This happens, but it's a [[AccidentalMurder complete accident]], and Acrisius is a very old man by then. |
| 866 | * ProudBeauty: Every incarnation of Aphrodite has this trait. Justified since she is the goddess of love and beauty. But it is also her BerserkButton. |
| 867 | ** In the Tale of Eros/Cupid and Psyche, she become jelaous of Psyche (whose beauty is praised above her) and sends her son Cupid to use his arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the most hideous thing in the world. |
| 868 | ** In one version of the story, Medusa got turned into a monster after having an affair with Hephaestus, and then claiming that she was more beautiful than his wife Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. |
| 869 | ** The trope applies to other goddess also. In AppleOfDiscord tale, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite are having a competition to see who was the fairest. The three demanded Zeus choose who was the "fairest", but he wisely declined. Instead, he chose a mortal man to arbitrate. Each goddess presented their beauty to him while also offering a prize should he choose them. Eventually he chose Aphrodite as winner and accepted her promise of the most beautiful woman in Greece. The man? Paris of Troy. The woman? Helen of Sparta. Thus began The Trojan War. |
| 870 | * ThePunishment: Medusa, famously cursed with snakes for hair and causing anyone who looked at her to be TakenForGranite. Her crime? Being violated on Holy Ground. However, this is because Aphrodite, her patron, couldn't punish the actually guilty party, Poseidon, so she had to punish Medusa instead. According to some scholars, the punishment was deliberately chosen as a ''comfort'' to poor Medusa, to ensure that she'd NeverBeHurtAgain. The emblem of Medusa was often used to mark a house as a Women's Shelter, lending credence to this. |
| 871 | * PurgatoryAndLimbo: Erebus in the Underworld was pretty much a shadowy limbo for "neutral" souls, between Tartarus (Hell) and Elysium (Heaven). |
| 872 | * PygmalionPlot: TropeNamer. Pygmalion was a sculptor who was such a misogynist that he decided to remain celebate. He created a statue of his ideal woman, so beautiful that he fell in love with it and began to treat it like a living person. Aphrodite granted his prayer for the statue to come to life, and the statue became Galatea. |
| 873 | * RageAgainstTheHeavens: Olympus is attacked more than once, and Heracles was known to get into fights with several gods. |
| 874 | ** Gaia, mother of Earth, did it the most; first she plotted to have her husband, Ouranos, overthrown by Cronus because he locked away the Gigantes, Cyclopes and Hecatonchires for their ugliness. Then, when Cronus is stupid enough to lock away the newly-freed giants after they were just freed (not to mention devour his children) she plots for Zeus to depose him. Then, as vengeance for the Olympians killing her children, the Titans (which she herself pretty much caused by the previous plot; never mind that Zeus had ''freed'' the kyklopes and hekatonkheires), she sets Typhon and the Gigantes onto the Olympians. Basically, she took offense to pretty much every generation of the gods, even when she got them into power in the first place. Brings a whole new meaning to GaiasVengeance, doesn't it? |
| 875 | *** Gaia never was the benevolent entity that modern usage tends to [[WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers attribute to her]]. All she cared about was her deity children being able to run all over the place. Them pummeling each other? Couldn't care less. |
| 876 | *** Damage to the environment? [[SadlyMythtaken Despite what people tend to indicate today]], apparently, she still didn't give a damn. |
| 877 | *** Although being the one who pretty much created just about everything, worrying about the environment doesn't make much sense, you can just remake it. She would care if someone was destroying her creation because it's hers. It's also possible that the place of the Mother Earth was passed down through generations like it was said in ''Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia'': "Demeter would take the place of her grandmother, Gaia, and her mother, Rhea, as goddess of the earth in a time when humans and gods thought the activities of the heavens more sacred than those of earth." After Demeter comes Persephone until she is kidnapped by Hades and turned into the Queen of the Underworld. |
| 878 | * RashPromise: |
| 879 | ** Helios' son Phaeton asked his father for help proving his divine parentage, getting him to swear on the Styx. Helios, amused, did so, but was very much taken aback when Phaeton asked to drive the sun (a flying chariot) for a day. Helios did his best to persuade him otherwise, but in the end was forced to let Phaeton drive. The result was that Phaeton lost control of the chariot, burning some parts of the earth and freezing others, and had to be shot down by Zeus to prevent further damage (other versions have him fall off). |
| 880 | ** Semele, one of Zeus' paramours, was convinced by Hera to get Zeus to promise her anything on the Styx. Zeus did so, but when Semele asked to see him in his true divine glory (another of Hera's suggestions), also tried to get her to change her mind. When she would not relent, he revealed himself, Semele burning up in an instant. He managed to save their unborn son Dyonisus by sewing up the fetus in his thigh (or scrotum, depending on the version). This is most famously depicted in ''Literature/TheMetamorphoses'' of Ovid. |
| 881 | ** In order to prevent a war between every Greek city-state over the hand of Helen, Odysseus suggested that every suitor swear an oath to take up arms against any who would try to take her from the husband she chose. This caused everyone to calm down and agree, but bit Odysseus in the ass years later when he was called upon to fulfill his vow, having no desire to leave his wife and kingdom behind. |
| 882 | * RateLimitedPerpetualResource: The gods need to eat the ambrosia of Hebe every so often to maintain their immortality. |
| 883 | * RealityWarper: Just about all of the Greek Gods. Zeus, for example, managed to get a woman pregnant just by touching her...while in the form of a bird! |
| 884 | * ReallyGetsAround: '''ZEUS''', probably the UrExample, and possibly the TropeMaker. According to Website/TheOtherWiki, not including his wife, he slept with at at least 62 and as many as 69 assorted women, goddesses, nymphs and the like - some of whom were his daughters from previous encounters... |
| 885 | ** Hercules gives Zeus a run for his money in this department. For killing the lion of Cithaeron, the king of Thespiae gave Hercules a chance to sleep with his daughters. Hercules makes love to and impregnates every one of his daughters. All ''50'' of them. Hercules also married 4 different women, and there were numerous men in his life as well. |
| 886 | ** Lots of the other gods - including Poseidon, Hermes and Aphrodite - also had several lovers, and by them, lots of kids. |
| 887 | *** Apollo more than made up for his sister [[DoesNotLikeMen Artemis]] being a sworn virgin. |
| 888 | * RelatedDifferentlyInTheAdaptation: One theory to explain why the mythology is so full of incest is that the gods concerned weren't originally related, but as the Greek civilization grew, its religion syncretized foreign gods and attributed their myths to the Olympians (e.g. if one religion had their unrelated thunder god and fertility goddess have children, the Greek version took that relationship and applied it to Zeus and his sister Demeter). Similarly, the original Zeus might not have been quite the memetic horndog he is today had it not been for every local thunder god's sexual escapade or hero's paternity being attributed to him alone. |
| 889 | * RevengeSVP: Eris wasn't invited to a wedding, so she throws the AppleOfDiscord onto the table and causes Hera, Aphrodite and Athena to fight over who is prettiest. In a roundabout way, this ''kickstarted UsefulNotes/TheTrojanWar.'' |
| 890 | * RideTheRainbow: Iris was a goddess that acted as a personal messenger of Hera, rainbows being her iconic method of transportation between Earth and the Heavens. |
| 891 | * RiddleOfTheSphinx: From the story of Oedipus. |
| 892 | * RidiculouslySmallWings: {{Exaggerated|Trope}} with The Winged Sandals of Hermes. This artifact was made by Hephaestus and make everyone who wears it the FastestThingAlive when it comes to flight. If someone doesn't know, they look like sandals with microscopic wings. |
| 893 | * RightHandAttackDog: Cerberus. |
| 894 | * RockOfLimitlessWater: Several examples: |
| 895 | ** One legend involves Athena and Poseidon dueling over the patronage of the city that would become Athens. As part of said duel, Poseidon creates a sea from a rock. |
| 896 | ** Another legend involves the winged horse Pegasus flying up to the top of Mt. Helicon and striking a rock with his hoof, creating a stream of water. It became known as the ''Hippocrene'', literally the "Fountain of the Horse" |
| 897 | ** A third legend involves a woman named Niobe who [[BlasphemousBoast thought herself above the goddess]] Leto. To avenge this insult to their mother's honor, Apollo and Artemis flew from Olympus and smote each of Niobe's children. In her grief, Niobe turned into a stone constantly awash in tears. |
| 898 | * RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Pretty much ''all'' the big-name mortal characters, although how much their individual stories emphasize that will vary. Of course, with the kings and queens of the era "merely" ruling individual city-states there are also a lot of royal families for both heroes and villains to hail ''from''. |
| 899 | * RuleThirtyFour: And much OlderThanTheyThink, at that, what with Agostino Carraci's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Modi I Modi]]'' |
| 900 | * RussianReversal: In a strange sort of FridgeBrilliance / HilariousInHindsight example, the Amazons. In the myths, they were just about the only civilization at the time where women oppressed men instead of the other way around. And according to [[Literature/TheHistories Herodotus]], they inhabited parts of what is now Ukraine and Russia. |
| 901 | * SacredBowAndArrows: Apollo, god of archery, and Artemis, goddess of the hunt. |
| 902 | * SacredFlames: Hestia, goddess of the hearth was honored in every Greek home with scraps of food fed to the fireplaces as thanks for keeping them warm and comfortable. Her Roman counterpart, Vesta, was even more highly regarded. The fires of her temple were always kept burning by the Vestal Virgins dedicated to her service. It's said that the flames were synonymous with the continuation and prosperity of the Roman Empire. She was so beloved that mass protests and outrage broke out when emperor Theodosius I closed the temple and extinguished the flame in favor of Christianity. Sure enough, the Roman Empire was fractured into east and west halves by the end of his reign, and the west would fall to continual invasions from the Gauls and Huns. |
| 903 | * SacredHospitality: Called Xenia, it's one of the most important social and moral values in Ancient Greece. Many stories involve mortals being rewarded or punished by the gods for their success at or failure to honor Xenia. For example, an old couple named Baucis and Philimon are the only people who warmly recieve [[AngelUnaware a disguised Zeus and Hermes]], so they are spared and rewarded when Zeus and Hermes destroy the rest of the town. |
| 904 | ** The reason the Trojan War went for so long was that Paris took Helen while a guest in her husband's Menelaus' home, and the Greeks were ''furious'' at that. |
| 905 | * SadlyMythtaken: No ancient myths portray Hestia giving up her place to Dionysus. This was made up by modern authors to explain why Hestia appears to be the twelfth Olympian in some stories, while in others it's Dionysus. |
| 906 | * TheSandman: The lesser-known Greek god of dreams, Morpheus, is sometimes conflated with the Sandman (as in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' comic book). The drug morphine is named after him. |
| 907 | * ScalesOfJustice: Themis, Dike, Astraea, Nemesis/Invidia, Adrestia and Justitia all use them since all of them are at least affiliated with justice, law, judgment or order if not a outright goddess of it. Themis and Dike (one of them or both are the Greek equivalent to Justitia) are the providers of the Tropenamer. |
| 908 | * TheScrappy: Ares is an in-universe example. Zeus flat out tells him in ''Literature/TheIliad'' that he hates him most out of all his children, and that if he saw reason for it, he wouldn't hesitate to kill the God of War and never regret it. Ares' actions that caused Zeus's outburst? Complaining that Athena had helped the mortal Diomedes try to kill him, causing him to suffer a severe stomach wound. A severe stomach wound he was suffering ''at that same moment''. Given that Athena is Zeus's favorite child (she's the only one he ever allows to use his trademark thunderbolt) and also better than Ares at his own specialty (thus making the god of war somewhat redundant to the pantheon), [[TheUnfavorite this shouldn't come as any surprise]]. |
| 909 | ** Some modern commentators have pointed out that for all his unsympathetic portrayals, Ares has one unusual characteristic among Greek male deities: there aren't any myths portraying him raping anyone. In fact, he ''kills'' Poseidon's son Halirrhothios for trying to rape his daughter Alkippe; he stands trial for the killing and is acquitted by Athena. This may or may not be connected to the fact that he was one of the few deities that had both male-only ''and'' female-only festivals, and was referred to as Ares Gynaikothoinas (Ares, celebrated by women). |
| 910 | ** Why did anyone worship him, if he was such a jerk? Without needing to get into the distinction between the cultus and the mythology, one important reason is that, as the god of war, and therefore in charge of whether there's a war or not, he was invoked (e.g. in the Homeric and Orphic hymns) to pray for ''peace.'' |
| 911 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Most of the Olympians have this reaction to seeing Typhon. Instead of fighting, they turn into animals and flee to Egypt (which [[JustSoStory explains why Egyptian gods are depicted as having animal heads]]). |
| 912 | * ScyllaAndCharybdis: TropeNamer from ''Literature/TheOdyssey''. |
| 913 | * SeaMonster: Several, although the Cetea are the best fit for the traditional image of a sea monster. |
| 914 | * SeahorseSteed: Poseidon was often shown with his chariot pulled by horses or seahorses (as King Triton does in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989''). |
| 915 | * SealedEvilInACan: |
| 916 | ** PandorasBox might be the ur-example, being a box (actually a lidded jar) that contains all of the evils of the world. |
| 917 | ** The Titans and Typhon are sealed away in Tartarus, the pit below the Earth. |
| 918 | * SelfFulfillingProphecies: No kidding. Someone along the line should have learned that trying to prevent, kill, or throw away an infant with [[{{Pun}} bad prophecy]] is a surefire way of it coming back and, often completely unaware, doing exactly what you tried to prevent it from doing (e.g. Perseus, Paris, Oedipus, Romulus and Remus, and many more). |
| 919 | * SemiDivine: Many, many demigods. Heracles is only the most famous. In fact, most of the mortal characters in Greek mythology have divine ancestry somewhere, being only a few degrees of separation from divine ancestors. |
| 920 | * ShapeShifterMashup: What happened to Scylla. |
| 921 | * SleepsWithBothEyesOpen: Endymion was granted the ability to sleep with his eyes open so he could keep watch over his lover, Selene. |
| 922 | * SoHideousItsTerrifying: Medusa and her sisters count as an Ur-Example. Early depictions of the Gorgon sisters portray them as masculine women with boar fangs, claws on each hand, and even bushy beards. Their ugliness combined with the petrifying powers of their gaze led to the gods banishing them to the edge of the world. Late Antiquity portrayals of the three Gorgons avert this trope by lessening their masculine traits to the point they eventually looked like maidens with snakes for hair. |
| 923 | * SoreLoser: PROTIP: If you ever find yourself in a "friendly" contest with a Greek god, ''throw the match.'' |
| 924 | ** Poseidon and Athena have a contest in Athens, with the king judging. Poseidon creates a well, but it only produces salt water. Athena creates an olive tree and is deemed the winner. Poseidon then curses Athens with permanent fresh-water problems. (This was apparently a JustSoStory to explain Athens' RealLife irrigation issues.) |
| 925 | ** Athena challenged Arachne to a weaving contest after the latter made a BlasphemousBoast about her skill. They're running neck-and-neck, but Athena gets annoyed at Arachne weaving scenes making fun of the gods, and transforms her into a spider. |
| 926 | ** The satyr Marsyas challenges Apollo to a flute-vs-harp contest. They're evenly matched until Apollo demands (depending on the version) either they play their instruments upside down (which doesn't work well with a flute) or that they play and sing at the same time. He then binds Marsyas to a tree and flays him alive. |
| 927 | ** A PrettyBoy named Acheilus (not to be confused with Achilles) challenges Aphrodite to a beauty contest, judged by Pan. When Pan judges in favor of the boy, the enraged Aphrodite not only transforms Acheilus into an ugly shark but curses Pan with unrequited love for good measure. |
| 928 | * SpellMyNameWithAnS: With the Greek names of the mythological figures, this is not impossible, considering the fact that Greek did and still does use a different alphabet than English. An example would be Heracles often being spelled Herakles as well. However, this is not a problem with Roman names, as English indirectly borrows its alphabet from Latin. |
| 929 | ** Likewise, English 'C' is always ''kappa'' (K) in Greek. Therefore Kirke (Circe), not Sirse. |
| 930 | ** Back when the stories are set, most Greek languages retained the /w/ and /h/ sounds, and Mycenean Greek still had labiovelars (/g[[superscript:w]]/, /k[[superscript:w]]/, and /k[[superscript:hw]]/) before some vowels. Eteocles' name, for example would have actually been Ἐτεϝοκλέϝες (Etewoklewes). |
| 931 | ** Achilles is sometimes rendered Achilleus, which is closer to the name's original spelling Ἀχιλλεὺς, though less common. Achilles is actually an Anglicization. This is an issue for verse translations, which have to account for the line meter (rhythm, number of syllables, etc). |
| 932 | ** Aias is better known through his Latin name Ajax, because it's nowadays a brand of cleaning products (extra strength, get it?). Since there are two people called Aias/Ajax, one is known as the Greater and the other as the Lesser. But sometimes they're referred to together as "Aiantes" or "the Ajaxes". Early English translations had this as "the Ajaces", some modern ones just have it as "the Aiantes", and others Latinize it a bit and have "the Aeantes" while ''also'' using "Ajax" instead of "Aeas". |
| 933 | * SleepParalysisCreature: In Greece and Cyprus, sleep paralysis is caused by a demonic creature called Mora, who sits on its victim's chest, causes breath shortage, and tries to steal their voice. |
| 934 | * SpecialAbilityShield: |
| 935 | ** Perseus' shield is shiny and reflective like a mirror. Although not magical, it saved the day when he slew Medusa in the sleep, allowing him to look at her indirectly. |
| 936 | ** Diomedes (specifically the Mycenean hero that fought in the Trojan War) had a [[FireBreathingWeapon fire-breathing shield]] in at least one account. |
| 937 | * {{Stellification}}: Multiple myths describe notable monsters and heroes as being transformed into constellations by the gods in order to commemorate their deeds. In general, a significant majority of the Greek constellations were believed to have been living beings transported into the sky. |
| 938 | ** After Orion was killed by Apollo's scorpion, both were made into constellations -- Orion and Scorpio -- and placed at opposite ends of the sky. In many versions of the myth, Orion's hunting dogs were also brought into the sky when their master was turned into a constellation. Some versions identify the constellations Canis Major and Minor as these dogs, while others only point out Sirius, a bright star within Canis Major, as being Orion's former hound. |
| 939 | ** In other myths, Canis Major and Minor are the hound Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox -- the hound could catch any prey and the fox could never be caught. Turning them into constellations was the only way out of the LogicBomb caused by Laelaps chasing the fox. |
| 940 | ** Perseus and Hercules each got one constellation commemorating their exploits. Hercules' foes were also memorialized like this: Leo is the Nemean Lion, while Cancer is Karkinous, the crab Hera sent to attack Hercules while he was battling the Lernean Hydra. One version of the myth has it that this GiantEnemyCrab was only a minor inconvenience to Hercules, who kicked him so hard that he flew into the sky and that was how it turned into a constellation. |
| 941 | ** Aquarius is Ganymede, Zeus'... cupbearer, among other things. Hera was unamused by Zeus giving him the job (which was filled by their daughter Hebe beforehand), requiring Zeus to turn Ganymede into a constellation to keep him safe. |
| 942 | ** Depending on the myth, the constellation Auriga is made up of charioteers placed there by the gods in thanks for the invention of the chariot. |
| 943 | ** Bootes is either the inventor of the wagon placed there in thanks, or Icarus who was murdered when his wine was mistaken for poison and placed there by Dionysus. |
| 944 | ** Centaurus (or Sagittarius depending on the version) is Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs who surrendered his immortality after being pricked with a poison arrow. |
| 945 | ** Corvus is Coronis, a lover of Apollo's. When she was unfaithful to him, his twin sister Artemis killed her and Apollo placed her among the stars. |
| 946 | ** Andromeda and her mother Cassiopeia were put in the sky as constellations for bad-mouthing the gods. Notably, Cassiopeia was supposed to be sitting in a topsy-turvy throne, hanging upside down forever in punishment. |
| 947 | ** Ursa Major and Minor were one of Zeus' mistresses and her child (supposedly Hera ensured the two never dipped below the horizon because she carried a grudge). Another version of Ursa Major and Minor has the mistress being turned into a bear not by Hera, but by ''Artemis'', as said mistress was her hunter raped by Zeus. In both versions, the child was turned into a bear cub when he happened upon his mother (in bear form), in a desperate bid by Zeus to prevent from the mother bear from killing him. [[MamaBear It worked.]] |
| 948 | ** The Pliades were turned into stars by Zeus to confront Orion, their father (who is also a constellation.) There's also a myth that they were saddened by their father's fate or their siblings' fate, and Zeus turned them into stars. |
| 949 | ** Gemini, the twins, are Castor and Pollux, (half)twin brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. One was mortal, the other was not. When the mortal one died, his brother either got so depressed that Zeus took pity on them and made sure they were never separated again, or marched down to the Underworld, found his brother there, and refused to leave until Zeus made sure they were never separated again. |
| 950 | * StockAnimalName: According to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus#Etymology The Other Wiki]], the name of Cerberus (the three-headed dog, guardian of the gates of Hell) may derive from an Indo-European root meaning "Spotted". In which case, Hades, God of the Dead and Ruler of Hell, named his pet dog "Spot". |
| 951 | * SupernaturalAid: Perseus receives magical items like a [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe reflective shield]], an AbsurdlySharpBlade, Hades [[InvisibilityCloak Helm of Darkness]], a BagOfHolding, etc. from Athena, Hermes, and (sometimes) the Nymphs of the Hesperides. |
| 952 | * SupernaturalFearInducer: TricksterGod Pan likes to sneak up on people and then let out a bloodcurdling scream, causing them to flee in mindless terror. This is the origin of the word 'panic'. |
| 953 | * SupportingTheMonsterLovedOne: The Minotaur was the Queen's daughter (by a bull, thanks to a curse from the Gods; some versions have the bull in question as the one Heracles had to capture as one of his labours). [[DependingOnTheWriter In some versions anyway]]. The King kept his step-son in The Labyrinth and had sacrifices brought in (seven young men and seven young women a year) to feed him, until Theseus came along to slay it. |
| 954 | * SwallowedAFly: Zeus swallows Metis after she transforms into a fly. Cranial pregnancy ensues. |
| 955 | * SwallowedWhole: The god Cronos [[EatenAlive eats his children]] to prevent them from murdering him, but after being fed a drink that makes him throw up all his kids reappear again. |
| 956 | * SweetsOfTemptation: Hades falls in love with Persephone and kidnaps her, but she refuses all of his romantic advances. Finally, at his urging, she eats six sweet, juicy pomegranate seeds. When her uncle Zeus comes to take her back, the rules of the Underworld state that Persephone is bound to it since she has eaten food from there, but Zeus compromises by declaring that Persephone will spend six months of every year with her mother Demeter and the remaining six months in the Underworld with Hades, one for each seed she ate. So, when Persephone and her mother are together, Demeter is happy and blesses the earth with spring and summer, [[JustSoStory but when she has to return to the Underworld, Demeter's sadness creates fall and winter]]. |
| 957 | * TakenForGranite: The Gorgons' victims, and Niobe (turned into a stone). |
| 958 | * TangledFamilyTree: Pretty much every named character can be placed somewhere on one massive and convoluted family tree. This is partly due to the "long-running continuity" being stretched over centuries of oral tradition and scores of different storytellers, and partly because... well... Zeus [[ReallyGetsAround slept around]] '''a lot''', including his sisters. Seriously, on any given family tree he's everyone's ancestor in at least two different places. It really doesn't help that the Olympian gods, who via traditional and less-than-traditional means birthed the majority of the gods, were children of the Titans, who were themselves the children of Gaia and Ouranos (see a pattern?), and that Zeus was far from the only one who considered monogamy beneath him. Things got off to a great start as Ouranos already was Gaia's son - she gave birth to him [[TrulySingleParent unassisted by any male]] - so 'his' children, the Titans, the Furies, the Gigantes, the Hekatonchieres, the Cyclopes, etc., were also his siblings. |
| 959 | ** Family trees became especially convoluted due to Zeus' recurring habit of sleeping with descendants of his -- for instance, he fathered the little-known god Zagreus with Persephone, his daughter by his sister Demeter, and Herakles with Alcmene, the granddaughter of his son Perseus. To add extra complications, there were several instances of mortal women having children by both their divine lover and mortal husband, often as fraternal twins (in at least one case one mother was simultaneously pregnant by Hermes and Apollo in this way), although in one case, it happened with a single child (Theseus, who was the son both of the god Poseidon and the mortal King of Athens Aegus, whom his mother Aethra had bedded in the same night). The most well-known example is Leda, whose children were Castor and Clytaimnestra (fathered by her husband Tyndareus) and Polydeuces and Helen (fathered by Zeus) (Yes, all at once. Leda laid two eggs, as [[InsaneTrollLogic Zeus had mated with her in the form of a swan]]). |
| 960 | ** Every mythological hero, and everybody who fought at Troy, needed to have the dignity of coming from a line descended from the gods, and so pretty much every mortal lineage was shoehorned into the Olympian clan by some author (or by multiple authors, using different genealogies, for added confusion!) Then there's the ancient Greek habit of marrying one's nieces... |
| 961 | *** And then there were some complicated relationships brought about by the trope of PairTheSpares. For instance according to an Italian tradition, after Odysseus (Ulysses to the Italians) was killed by Telegonus, his son by Circe, Circe granted immortality to Ulysses' widow Penelope and her son Telemachus. Circe married Telemachus and Penelope Telegonus, having sons called Italus and Latinus respectively. So Circe and Penelope both became each other's mother and daughter-in-law, and Telemachus and Telegonus each got a nephew who was also their half-brother. |
| 962 | ** Authors also disagree about the genealogy of some of the deities; for instance, according to Hesiod Aphrodite was born from the foam spilled from Ouranos' cut-off genitals (making her Zeus' aunt), while according to Homer she is the daughter of Zeus and the minor earth-goddess Dione[[note]]who may or may not have been a regional alias of Zeus' mother, Rhea[[/note]]. According to some traditions, Hephaistos is a son of Zeus and Hera, while according to Hesiod Hera had him without a sperm-donor. According to the most popular myth, Eros is the son of Aphrodite and Ares, another son of Zeus, but Hesiod's "Theogony" makes him one of the oldest of gods, a brother of Gaia brought forth by Chaos. |
| 963 | ** To make things even worse, the genealogies don't always make sense. For example, Perseus was the great-great-great-great grandson of Belus, whose granddaughter was Andromeda, the ''wife'' of Perseus. |
| 964 | * TemptingFate: Happens a lot. |
| 965 | ** In revenge for Diomedes wounding her before Troy, Aphrodite/Venus saw to it that he was driven into exile in Italy. Trying to cheer him up, his six companions told him him that at least Venus could do no worse to them. She could - she turned the six into birds. |
| 966 | * TextileWorkIsFeminine: Athena; the Fates; Penelope; Philomenia; Lucretia. |
| 967 | * ThemeTwinNaming: Apollo and Artemis; Ares and Enyo |
| 968 | %%* ThickerThanWater |
| 969 | * ToHellAndBack: Orpheus, Heracles, Odysseus, Psyche, Aeneas, even Theseus (though Heracles had to give him a hand)... apparently, Hades has SwissCheeseSecurity. |
| 970 | ** Well, yeah. The method of getting past Cerberus in one myth is ''feeding him a frickin' cake''. |
| 971 | ** On the other hand, people who visit the Underworld can't really ''do'' anything once they're there other than lament over the state of their loved ones and that they probably share the same fate. Removing somebody from the Underworld was impossible without Hades's permission, an issue he was generally immovable on (and even then there were conditions which even Hades might be unable to circumvent). Cerberus was more about keeping the dead ''in'' than keeping the living out (after all, where are the dead going to get cake from?) |
| 972 | * TornApartByTheMob: |
| 973 | ** The minstrel Orpheus was ripped to shreds by Maenads: female followers of Dionysus who would go into an ecstatic frenzy during their rites. Depending on the version of the legend, the Maenads were either angered by Orpheus no longer honouring his previous patron Dionysus, or they were feeling spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers following the loss of Eurydice. His head survived and went on to become an oracle. |
| 974 | ** Pentheus, king of Thebes, suffered the same fate by the hand of his own mother, and his aunts, along with all the other women of Thebes frenzied by Dionysos. |
| 975 | ** Dionysus himself suffers this in one version of his origin story. He's dismembered by the Titans, who were sent by Hera to kill and eat him, and is later resurrected. |
| 976 | * TotalitarianUtilitarian: The Golden Age is identified (at least in some versions) with the reign of Kronos. Now there was a prophecy that one of his children would topple him, like he had toppled his father Uranos. So Kronos ate all his children to avoid this. Not sure whether he did that for concern that the Golden Age should continue or just because he himself didn't want to lose power, but if it was the former, this would be a case. |
| 977 | * TragicHero: Most of Classical mythology's heroes die in sad ways, to show that no matter how great they are, they are still mortal. |
| 978 | * {{Transflormation}}: |
| 979 | ** Daphne chooses to turn into a laurel tree to escape from Apollo's amorous advances. Syrinx does the same when trying to escape from Pan, becoming a reed. |
| 980 | ** There is an established trope of handsome young men dying tragically and becoming plants. Examples include Adonis, Narcissus, Hyacinthus, Crocus, and Ampelos. All of these (except Narcissus) are the loves of gods, and all except Ampelos become beautiful flowers (Ampelos becomes a grapevine). |
| 981 | * TrappedWithMonsterPlot: Theseus vs. the Minotaur. |
| 982 | * TrashOfTheTitans: Heracles having to deal with Augeas's stables. By ''driving two rivers through them''. |
| 983 | * TricksterGod: Prometheus functioned as a pro-human trickster god until Zeus locked him up. Hermes has tricks and moral transgressions as one of his hats. |
| 984 | * {{Troll}}: Eris enjoys stirring up trouble for its own sake. |
| 985 | * TrulySingleParent: Nyx (although exactly which ones are just hers and which ones she had by Erebus are disputed). Also her daughter Eris, to either a lesser or further extent, depending on whether you're counting number of kids had or percentage of kids born by parthenogenesis. |
| 986 | * TwinsAreSpecial: Castor and Pollux are an interesting case as they are twin half-brothers, born from the same mother but with two different fathers. Pollux's father is Zeus and Castor's father is Tyndareus, King of Sparta. The brothers' deep bond with each other is immortalized in the tale of Castor's death. As Castor had no divine lineage, he did not share either the immortality that Pollux had or the ability to ascend to Olympus upon death (depending on whether Pollux is interpreted as a non-mortal in the text). Thus, when Castor is killed by his cousin Idas in a botched revenge scheme, Pollux asks his father Zeus to share his immortality with Castor. This allowed them both to go between Olympus and Hades and they were later immortalized in the sky as the [[{{UsefulNotes/Constellations}} Gemini constellation]]. |
| 987 | * TwistingTheProphecy: Zeus did this twice. Once, he heard his current paramour, Metis, pregnant with a girl at the time, would have a child stronger than the father if she was ever pregnant with a boy, so he turned her, or tricked her into turning herself, into a fly and swallowed her -- the daughter Metis carried becoming Athena later. The second time, the gods heard Thetis, a beautiful water nymph, would have a son (again) much stronger than his father, so they had her marry a mortal: the child thus would be a demigod, by definition stronger than a mortal. |
| 988 | * TwoTimingWithTheBestie: After discovering his wife Aphrodite was having an affair with his brother Ares, Hephaestus started up a relationship with Aglaia, one of the Graces and Aphrodite's friend. In versions where Hephaestus divorces Aphrodite, he and Aglaia even get married and have a much happier life together. |
| 989 | * UglyGuyHotWife: Hephaestus and Aphrodite. Depending on the version, it was either to stop the marriage squabbles over her, that he impressed her with his craftsmanship, or a promise Hephaestus extracted from Hera in return for freeing her from a chair he made. |
| 990 | * UnstoppableRage: "The wrath of Achilles." |
| 991 | ** At his worst, Heracles is also known for this as well as being more unstoppable. |
| 992 | * UriahGambit: A favorite tactic of rulers in Greek mythology, though rarely, if ever, sucessful. Generally speaking, if a king sent a a hero to slay a monster, it's for this reason rather than because the king thought the hero was actually up to the task. |
| 993 | * VirginPower: Hestia/Vesta, Artemis/Diana and Athena/Minerva, obviously, but also somewhat unexpectedly Hera/Juno. According to a myth from Argos, Hera once every year restored her virginity by bathing in the spring of Kanathos. According to Hesiod, Hera had Hephaestus asexually, which may explain why according to one myth Hephaestus sided with his mother against Zeus in the matter of Herakles. According to the Romans, Jupiter was Vulcan's father, but Juno had Mars without male aid. |
| 994 | * VirileStallion: Centaurs were originally characterised as amorous warriors who were seen as wild, lawless, and inhospitable beings who were slaves to their "animal passions". |
| 995 | * WeakToFire: The Hydra's heads stop regenerating when the stumps from decapitation are cauterized. |
| 996 | * WesternZodiac: Each of the signs has a myth to go with them, most of which were adapted from earlier Babylonian legends. |
| 997 | ** Aries is the ram that became the Golden Fleece. |
| 998 | ** Taurus can be any one of the three bulls associated with Crete. Typically it's taken to represent Zeus when he abducted Europa in bull form, but it could also represent the Cretan Bull sent by Poseidon who became the father of the Minotaur, or the Minotaur himself (whose given name, Asterion, references the constellation). |
| 999 | ** Gemini is the Dioskouri, Castor and Polydeuces, who spend half of their time in the heavens and the other half in the Underworld. |
| 1000 | ** Cancer is a crab sent by Hera to attack Heracles while he was trying to kill the Hydra. |
| 1001 | ** Leo is the Nemean Lion, slain by Heracles. |
| 1002 | ** Virgo can potentially represent many different mythological women. She is usually Demeter, but she can also represent Astraia (or Dike), Parthanos, or Erigone. |
| 1003 | ** Libra is a symbol of Astraia/Dike or Tyche, the goddesses of justice. Sometimes it's not scales but the claws of Scorpio. |
| 1004 | ** Scorpio is the scorpion that was sent to kill Orion, eternally chasing him across the sky. |
| 1005 | ** Sagittarius typically represents Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs. |
| 1006 | ** Capricorn is sometimes identified as a goat-fish form that Pan took to escape Typhon, but other times it represents Amalthea, the goat who nursed Zeus. |
| 1007 | ** Aquarius is sometimes Ganymede, the Trojan prince carried off by Zeus, and other times represents Deucalion or Kekrops (the first king of Athens). |
| 1008 | ** Pisces represents Aphrodite and Eros (or Ares) in the forms they took to escape Typhon, or else two fish who rescued them in the same situation. |
| 1009 | * TheWeirdSisters: |
| 1010 | ** In ''Literature/{{Theogony}}'', there are three Moirai or goddesses of fate: Clotho ("spinner") spins the thread of life at the birth of a human being, Lachesis ("allotter") measures it, and Atropos ("inevitable"), also called Aisa ("destiny"), cuts it when life is at its end. The Moirai are sometimes described as ugly old women, but are also depicted as young women in works of art. Their parentage varies between sources, but they are always sisters. Atropos is usually given as the oldest. The notion of three Moirai was codified by ''Theogony''; in traditions predating Creator/{{Hesiod}} there are two Moirai or only one Moira. The basic meaning of ''moira'' is "lot" or "share". |
| 1011 | ** The Roman equivalent of the Moirai are the Parcae, later also Fata "Fates", whose names are Nona, Decuma and Morta. |
| 1012 | ** Hecate, the goddess of magic, necromancy, and crossroads, is often depicted as "triplicate" in Ancient Greek art, i.e. as three young and beautiful women standing back to back to each other or against a column. Paradoxically, all three women are Hecate. |
| 1013 | * WhoWantsToLiveForever: Tithonos, who was granted eternal life as a favour to his lover Eos, the goddess of the dawn. He was not granted eternal youth, so the gods decided to turn him into a cicada, [[JustSoStory which sheds its skin to remain eternally young, and chirps at the sign of his love]]. |
| 1014 | * WholesomeCrossdresser: |
| 1015 | ** Thetis had Achilles hide among Lycomedes's daughters, [[TemptingFate fearing he'd die at Troy]]. Odysseus still found him. |
| 1016 | ** Omphale, Queen of Lydia, forced '''Heracles''' to dress in woman's clothing and do women's work, as punishment for his sins. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments To add insult to injury, she wore his Nemean Lion skin during this.]] Believe it or not, she then made Heracles her husband and got away with it all. |
| 1017 | * WhosOnFirst: Odysseus pulls this on the Cyclops. |
| 1018 | * WildChild: |
| 1019 | ** Romulus and Remus. |
| 1020 | ** Also Herakles' son Telephos (raised by a hind) and Agamemnon's murderer Aegisthos (raised by goat). |
| 1021 | ** Atalanta. |
| 1022 | * WingedHumanoid: Ancient Greece imported the "winged humanoid" imagery from Mesopotamic cultures, resulting in various gods and personifications with (usually feathered bird-) wings, e.g. Nike, Eros, and the rest of Aphrodite's gang, the Erotes, many of the Wind Gods, the Putti. Eros's lover Psyche, as an exception from the usual bird wings, is depicted with butterfly wings. |
| 1023 | ** And there is also a mound of usually non-winged animals and creatures with wings: Pegasus, gryphons, the Sphinx; then there's the harpies, and the Sirens (before they [[SirensAreMermaids got warped into mermaids]]). |
| 1024 | * WolverinePublicity: A lot of characters get this, but mostly [[TopGod Zeus]], [[TheHero Hercules]], [[ValentinesDayEpisode Cupid]], and [[BreakoutVillain Medusa]]. |
| 1025 | * WomanScorned: Greek Myth has a fair few betrayed wives running around. |
| 1026 | ** Hera, queen of the gods and goddess of marriage, childbirth, and family, frequently resorts to dramatic punishments of the women her rapacious husband Zeus impregnates. |
| 1027 | ** Medea, the [[LadyOfBlackMagic witchy]] wife of Jason the Argonaut, takes it to {{Yandere}} proportions, and her revenge is [[KillItWithFire so dire and hideous]] that the only thing the gods can do is to let Jason live with it. And then there's her rival's fate. |
| 1028 | ** Zephyr, in some tellings of the myth of Hyacinth. |
| 1029 | ** There are some {{Spear Counterpart}}s running around, too. In one possible story of the death of Adonis, apparently Ares didn't take about his lover Aphrodite not paying much attention to him well, so he retaliated by killing Adonis while disguised as a boar. And don't forget the vengeful Hephaistos, her husband. |
| 1030 | * WiseSerpent: Serpents were associated with wisdom and hidden knowledge. The [[BlindSeer seer]] Tiresias [[GenderBender transformation]] that enabled him to gain knowledge of life as both a man and woman was marked both times by [[BookEnds witnessing two snakes mating]]. Snakes were associated with terrestrial and subterranean/chthonic oracles. |
| 1031 | * WomanlinessAsPathos: |
| 1032 | ** The Greek myth of Pandora states that Zeus wanted to punish Prometheus for stealing fire to give to mankind (which, at this point, is literally made of only men). So after chaining him to a rock and having his liver ripped out every night by an eagle, Zeus gives his dumb brother Epimetheus a "gift" in the form of Pandora, the first woman. Pandora is absolutely beautiful, and also absolutely good at everything (her name literally means all-gifted), so Epimetheus takes her in right away. However, Pandora also carries a jar with all of the evils of the world in side. From here, the myth branches into various tellings; the original versions of the myth explicitly stated that the "all-gifted" Pandora's cunning and deceit were equal to her bewitching beauty, so the moment that men accepted her, she ''intentionally'' opened the jar and released the evils that would forever make men miserable -- thus cementing the belief that Pandora (and by extension, womankind in general) existed specifically to seduce and torment men. In other tellings, Pandora is instead innocent and unaware of what's in the jar, but her curiosity gets the better of her. When she opens it, all manner of suffering flies out. |
| 1033 | ** Almost all of the misery in Heracles' life was caused by women--first, his father's wife Hera, who couldn't punish her husband for infidelity and so took out her rage on Heracles...in one myth causing him to go mad and kill his wife and children. Later, his wife Deianeira is almost raped by the centaur Nessus and after Heracles defeats him, the dying Nessus somehow convinces Deianeira that a magic shirt will keep Heracles faithful to her. When she becomes afraid that Heracles is falling for another woman, she puts the shirt on him which causes Heracles' horrible agony that he can only relieve by burning himself to death. |
| 1034 | ** Aphrodite, in general, was a constant source of this; to the Greeks, her status as a LoveGoddess made her one of the most dangerous gods in the entire Olympian pantheon. A human could reasonably avoid pissing off gods like Helios, Poseidon, or Hades simply by not being involved with anything concerning them. But love is an entirely different story, and Aphrodite's myths are full of men and women who angered, offended, or slighted her in some way and earned her wrath. Typically, causing her to retaliate by having them ([[AesopCollateralDamage or a loved one]]) fall in love with something troublesome. This, for example, is how the infamous Minotaur was born. Aphrodite herself also constantly fell in love with mortals (which usually ended badly), feuded with other gods for various reasons (usually over a lover), and {{cuckold}}ed her own husband Hephaestus with Ares. She was even involved with the creation of Pandora. |
| 1035 | ** A common motif in Greco-Roman mythology is that of the "[[MonsterProgenitor Mother of Monsters]]", a single figure who is responsible for giving birth (literally) to most evils, both physical and metaphysical. For example, Gaea gave birth to the Titans (including Typhon, the most dangerous one of all) and Echidna gave birth to most monsters that the later heroes have to slay in their stories. This may have been absorbed from older religions such as Sumerian and Hebrew folklore, who had similar figures like Tiamat and Myth/{{Lilith}}. |
| 1036 | * WorldPillars: |
| 1037 | ** The Pillars of Herakles. Some say they are not just the markers for the end of the world as the Greeks knew it, but also held up the sky. |
| 1038 | ** The Titan Atlas was punished by Zeus to hold up the sky; Herakles bargained to trade places with him for a bit if Atlas would get some golden apples Atlas' daughters were guarding. |
| 1039 | ** In some tellings, Mount Caucasus, where Prometheus was chained for stealing fire from the gods, is one of the pillars of the world holding up the sky. |
| 1040 | * WorldsStrongestMan: Heracles, famously so. He was so strong that he could hold up the sky itself, successfully defeat death himself in a wrestling match and all manner of other feats. |
| 1041 | * WriterOnBoard: Because most of Classical Mythology is handed down from Athens, it comes with a very distinctly Athenian bias, which results in things like Ares (revered and worshiped by Athens' hated rival ''Sparta'') being depicted as a brutish thug. |
| 1042 | * YouCannotChangeTheFuture: An {{aesop}} in just about every Greek story. Otherwise unstoppable {{Designated Hero}}es are brought down by the gods for {{hubris}} for merely ''thinking'' they can change their future. |
| 1043 | * YouCantGoHomeAgain: ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', ''Literature/TheAeneid''. |
| 1044 | * YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: While the gods look like [[PhysicalGod immortal humanoids with supernatural powers]], they are actually the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification living embodiment of the world's elements]] and simply [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith took human form to interact with humans]]. [[VoluntaryShapeshifting They are more than capable of changing their shape into any animal or object they want to be]]. If Dionysus' birth is any indication, the gods' [[OneWingedAngel true form]] is by no means something easy to understand or safe to interact with. |
| 1045 | [[/folder]] |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Myth / ClassicalMythology
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
