Epics, Mythology and Legends

True. And seems to include several generations of gods in fact. The eldest being Uranus, Gaia and the titans. And even before them there was Chaos (if it's considered a god, I'm not really sure). Their children and grandchildren became the ruling gods later, taking power from them. It's a whole new development of the ancient greeks' religious system, replacing the old gods with new ones and creating new myths in the process.

There's chaos/eros (at least by Hesiod's account), then Uranus/Gaia, then Chronos/Titans, then finally Zeus and company. The "new generation of gods replacing/killing the older ones" story is a narrative about the conquest of superior Greek culture over all the barbarians.

I don't think one really gets the whole picture by thinking of the gods like people. You have to remember that they are also personifications of concepts—some more (Nike/Victory), some less. Of course an embodied concept behaves in ways different from normal people. For instance, why is Hera always getting on Zeus' case? Because she's the embodiment of marriage. So it's her job to defend marriage by constantly trying to hunt down his infidelities.

Hmm. I'm gonna try something here, bear with me... *thinks about The Judgement Of Paris for a bit*

Okay, so I think everything works out tidiest when they're people on Mt. Olympus, but concepts everywhere else. And the half-bloods get to have it both ways.

That way, Athena, Aphrodite and Hera still get in an argument, and Zeus still passes the buck to a mortal to maintain peace under his roof, but down on Earth, Paris has to choose between being a good prince (Wise and Dutiful, eventually destined to be powerful) and giving in to his hormones to plow another man's wife and give the guy's brother the excuse he needed to start a war in which victory would allow him to control the trade routes of the Black Sea.

Something else to keep in mind is that the ancient Greeks thought that everything was the gods' responsibility. Even people's thoughts and actions were the result of some god somewhere doing something. So, since there's bad stuff like war, disease, hunger, and natural disasters in the world, it followed that the gods must be some mean sons-of-bitches.

Well, mostly. Death wasn't really, though. Hades wasn't malicious, he was just doing his job. Same with Thanatos, who actually worked for Hades.

Yes, that's what I found most curious actually. Aides (or Hades) was rarely mentioned compared to the other gods. He's practically a saint among them in fact, if you think about the damage all the other gods did to humans. Not something you would expect the ruler of the Underworld and warden of the dead to be.

And Hestia was goodness incarnate. And for her kindness she gets to be forgotten and called a demon by modern religious people.

Probably because Hestia has one major appearance, in which she gives up her seat. It's not exactly memorable.

Plus, hearth or no hearth, how do you expect medieval Christians to label a pagan goddess of fire?

Hades might not do much to the living, but he could be a real dick to the dead. I don't care what he did in life, what Tantalus was put through was not cool.

To be fair it was Values Dissonance, because Tantalus offended the gods.

Most people either were sent to the Asphodel fields, where they lived off flower petals and worked as in life, or they went to Elysium, which was literally Heaven.

Offended the gods and, in some versions of the myth, killed his own son and tried to fool the gods into eating his flesh.

Yeah, by and large the Greeks weren't big on Fire and Brimstone Hell. In a lot of descriptions of Hades, you get the feeling that you'd have to do something exceptionally blasphemous or evil to actually get sent to Tartarus and punished. The vast majority of the dead ended up in the Asphodel Fields; Tantalus, the Danaids, Sisyphus and the others are the exceptions.

Wasn't there some part of the Odyssey where a guy in Hades says that he'd rather be the lowliest peasant in the living world than the highest ranked person in the land of the dead? That's not exactly a stirring recommendation for the Greek afterlife.

When it comes to Greek and Roman gods, I quickly get disinterested because of how 'distant' they seem to me. I much prefer the Norse pantheon, who seem much more personal to me. Not sure if I can explain it, really.

Given the nature of mythology, there's a huge amount of depending on the writer there. I can think of a couple myths that had the Greek gods just swinging by some guy's house for dinner. Or one where Apollo got a friend of his brought back to life by getting the Anthropomorphic Personifications of Fate drunk.

edited 16th May '11 9:31:29 AM by RavenWilder

Mm, I suppose it might be that the most obvious depictions of the Greek pantheon are the epics, which always seem to draw the favour of the gods away from the protagonist at some stage.

Well, let's not forget, one of the most famous Greek epics began because the gods all went to attend a wedding, but didn't invite their annoying relative Eris, who, in revenge, played a prank to set three of the goddesses arguing over which of them was the prettiest.

Yeah, but in Norse-Germanic mythology, Thor dresses up as a bride and eats an entire ox.

It's exactly the kind of hilarious, dumb shit I'd expect of my closest friends.

I guess it helps that Norse-Germanic mythology, there's less of a predeterminist vibe. Defying the gods in Greek mythology is the most self-destructive thing one can do, whereas Norse-Germanic mythology celebrates balls that huge. Dare To Be Awesome sums it all up pretty neatly.

@Raven: Achilles. It was kinda whiny, to be honest, but he had a point. I, meanwhile, was trying to work through the Values Dissonance that put him in the best part of Hades.

"Wasn't there some part of the Odyssey where a guy in Hades says that he'd rather be the lowliest peasant in the living world than the highest ranked person in the land of the dead? That's not exactly a stirring recommendation for the Greek afterlife."

It would be a starking contrast to the glorious depictions of Elysium and the mundane Asphodel. Then again, it might well be that said person was afraid that Zeus would convince Hades to be mean (after all, in the Odyssey Helios/Hyperion backmails Zeus into punishing the guys that ate his cows. Gods sometimes like to backmail each other into punishing people it seems)

In regards to the norse gods, it may also help that they have less cases of jerkassery than their greek analogues. In fact, the only norse god I can recall that was nasty, with the exception of Loki (which is really more of a Woobie Des Troyer Of Worlds) and Balder, was Odin himself, who was considered a backstabbing jerkass.

edited 16th May '11 1:22:36 PM by Mullerornis

You could say that the big difference between the Greek and Norse pantheons is that the Norse gods were constantly having to do battle with the Giants, while the Greek gods locked the Titans away ages and ages ago. There were occasional crises to deal with after that, like Typhon and the Gigantes, but mostly the Greek gods didn't have any worthy opponents, so they just hung around Olympus, messing with mortals for fun.

They fought each other, just not very hard.

^^^ Ooh, Baldur was nasty? Spill! I never did like that shiny git, but none of the books I had on him as a kid spoke ill of him; he was just kind of there up until he got bumped off.

Well, he wasn't just there. He did keep the other Aesir amused by letting them use him for target practice.

In Gesta Danorum Balder is evil.

Sounds like fun!