Epics, Mythology and Legends

This. I've transplanted the idea from the Classics thread, since it was getting a little off-topic.

So, just to get things kicked off:

@apassingthought: No, I didn't like Odysseus. I used to, and I didn't mind him in the Iliad, but I disliked him in the Odyssey. At the very end, he kills a lot of people who were disloyal or even nearby when other people were disloyal. Athena loves him, though, so he gets away with it.

If you're a friend of Athena (or really any of the gods), one can get away with a lot of things. If not, you're probably in for A Fate Worse Than Death. Athena remains my favourite of the primary Greek gods, however. Not so much for her personality (though out of a group of Jerkass Gods, she is one of the better deities), but for what she stands for.

I tend to like the more human Greek figures more than the gods, actually. Aside from Hector, my other favourites are Medea, Oedipus, and Antigone; Anti Villians and Anti Heroes have always been two of the most compelling character types (for me). I think I was the only person in my class that felt sorry for Oedipus. Everyone else hated that guy. I don't really like the better-known Greek heroes. Hercules had Testosterone Poisoning, Theseus was a jerk in some versions, and Perseus ... well, Perseus was alright, I guess.

Also regarding The Divine Comedy: which translation did you read? There's quite a few online text versions floating around.

So, besides The Iliad and The Odyssey, I've also read Beowulf and The Kalevala (Eino Friberg translation) and really, really liked the latter. It's quite different than the better-known Greek and Norse stories in both tone and narrative, and more people should definitely read it.

edited 6th Mar '11 10:47:43 PM by apassingthought

I love mythology, but I have little interest in reading stuff written by actual ancient people. The writing style is just too far removed from what I find appealing. Besides, they were originally oral stories anyway, so reading a modern retelling is more in keeping with the spirit of the thing.

If you want to talk about people who got the shaft in mythology, try Loki. At least in versions of the story I've read, the subtext seems to be that Loki didn't actually plan Balder's death; the other gods just pinned it on him because he made a lot of rude comments at dinner.

P.S. Perseus was nothing without his divine gadgets, though, which the gods just handed to him.

edited 7th Mar '11 4:34:14 AM by RavenWilder

I didn't much like Antigone or Medea. To be honest, I felt sorry for Creon. I didn't really understand why he went crazy. I liked Oedipus too. Other humans? Most of the ones I liked were minor characters.

Greek gods? I loved Hades. The poor guy was pathetic. None of the other gods liked him, so he basically hung out by himself. The Greeks didn't even like him.

For about the same reason, I liked Loki, though Thor had his moments.

I've read Beowulf, Iliad and Odyssey. I'm not sure The Divine Comedy counts as an epic, great though it is. I'm just finishing up Inferno at the moment. What translation? You want to be careful with online translations. The important thing is to get a lot of good notes. Unless you're literally a scholar who spends your life reading it in the original Italian, you need notes. I've got the simple, beginner's translation from Penguin. Mark Musa, I believe. It's good, but I'm not enough of an expert to make a recommendation.

I read all the heroic myths as a child, and I loved the heroes then. Later, though I ran into Values Dissonance with pretty much all of them. Even Perseus executes a few dozen random people along with his evil king.

edited 7th Mar '11 4:25:37 PM by Ultrayellow

As far as Odysseus is concerned - you know, he was a king, and he would not be considered a good king if he didn't kill all the suitors and the disloyal servants. They were destroying his property and according to the ancient social rules he was obliged to punish them as a ruler and a husband of Penelope. It's similar to the situation of Orestes who was under the moral obligation to kill his mother to avenge the murder of his father - it was tragic, because she was his mother, but all the same he simply had to do it.

And, if it comes to the epic style, I used to dislike it in the past, preferring novels (I even wondered why no one rewrote the Iliad in the form of the novel...), but later I realized that it makes perfect sense in the original language. Homer is much better in Greek than in English, because epic style is very much about metrical and euphonic features which are hard to retain in translation.

On a completely different track that the previous comments, Gye Nyame. I'm a big fan of various African mythologies, especially the Ashanti Pantheon, dieties/heroes/characters like Anansi in particular. From the matriarchal pantheons that can be seen as some of the several roots of Voodoo to monsters like ghosts which can only be exorcised by a weeklong party thrown by the doctor at the expense of the patient's family, they're all strikingly interesting.

That's what I mean about Values Dissonance. While I understand that's the way things were, I can't sympathize now. Plus, Orestes was literally told to do what he did by Apollo. Of course, that depends on your interpretation. You can choose to interpret the gods as just the expression of humanity's internal thoughts.

Also, I know what you mean about losing something in the translation. I used to be an English elitist. I automatically assigned works not originally in my native language less relevance, thinking they had declined in the translation. I still feel a bit of that impulse. Still, I like the Iliad, and I like epics. It's not that hard to get through an epic (if nothing else, it's spaced evenly) and I often appreciate the work of the translator, which can still be very beautiful.

I used to love Greek mythology. I obsessed over it since reading an illustrated collection when I was like nine. Athena was always my patron goddess.

Now I don't know if I should like it or not. I have fundamentally horrible taste in everything. If I like it it's usually freaking terrible or I like it for the worst possible reason. If Greek myth has been one of my oldest passions then either it must be one of the most asinine things humanity ever created or it appeals to me for a flat out stupid and wrong reason.

I know what made me realize the ugly truth was reading the article here and learning that outside of ignorant, dumbass me, they're considered Complete Monsters and Athena is really a she-male.

edited 9th Mar '11 1:45:24 AM by Rotpar

I don't know which versions present it as not being Loki's fault, but in most of the versions I've read it seems completely calculated.

Also Kalevala wooooo. And Egil's Saga. My faverits.

EDIT:

they're considered Complete Monsters

Sigh...that has to be hyperbole. They're just humans, only with ridiculous powers. Trust your taste and like what you like!

This is the place where people write massive tracts on why a certain font choice is the scariest thing ever or slight downers either break your mind completely or you're a total robot, man.

So yeah, take anything anyone says here with a mine full of salt.

edited 9th Mar '11 5:24:20 AM by mmysqueeant

They are massive pricks, though.

Of course, so are the humans, like that dude who cooks his son for his guests.

edited 9th Mar '11 10:55:03 AM by Tzetze

@ Ultrayellow: Oh, I liked Creon, too. I like the entire House of Thebes as a whole, actually. Love those kinds of screwed up people in literature.

@ Green Tea Addict: I'm the opposite! While I also read and enjoy modern novels, I'm quite fond of the archaic diction and syntax found in the epics. It immerses one elsewhere in space and time and makes you long for something other than the banality of the modern world.

That whole family was screwed up IIRC.

As I recall it, that guy (it was Tantalus, right, the one with the food-and-water-always-out-of-reach punishment in Hades?) had a few dozen sons who were all as cannibalistic as he was and one who wasn't. The son who didn't agree with them was the one who got chopped up into stew, but Zeus brought him back to life and turned the rest of the family into wolves who killed and ate each other.

Apassingthought: now, I completely agree with you, it's just when I was a child when I disliked the epic style. In fact, now it seems to me much more ordered and, uhm, literary. Of course, it is possible to show it in translation - but id doesn't always happen.

Rotpar, the thing is, some of them were considered Complete Monsters even in antiquity, and that is why the stories look in the way they do... And if it comes to Athena: ok, she's a she-male, so what? Does it make her less interesting as a character? When I come to think of it, she has all the virtues traditionally associated with masculinity (courage, leadership, rationality and collectedness), and some of the traditionally feminine vices (vanity, revengefulness and jealousy), but not the other way round. For me, this makes her a complicated character and adds to the originality of the stories about her.

I personally don't mind the Values Dissonance aspect of those myths, but I end up hating characters I'm supposed to like anyway. I too liked Creon, but I really, really hated Antigone. She acted so bitchy all the time, I was looking forward to her death. Unfortunately, I've only read Antigone at school (it was our ancient Greek lesson of that year), so I never got to that part. The furthest we got was her famous grieving scene, which I found completely ridiculous considering how she acted beforehand, when she was basically begging to get killed. Sure, it is a good humanizing moment for her if you like her, but if you don't...

I liked the play itself, but Antigone severely damaged the experience for me.

You don't see it. You don't even see Haemon see it. Instead, you hear about what happened from a servant.

I'm not actually a big fan of the 'tell, don't show' technique in situations like these.

I can't say I mind them. The guard who described how they found the body buried was detailed enough for me. (Even if he didn't, of course, describe how it was done.) Besides, he was easily the single most sympathetic and relatable character of the play.

Gilgamesh is the only story I read that praised prostitution without irony.

Gilgamesh is awesome. Surprisingly cool and relatable for one of the oldest narratives ever written. I also like the bit about not searching for eternal life, but accepting death.

Has anyone read Sundiata? It's an epic poem from old mali about the creation of the mali empire. it is also surprisingly fun and has cool battle scenes.

All these Epic Poems from completely different backgrounds share neat commonalities.

To me, the Greek gods were just way too focused on the big picture to care about things like the lives of puny mortals unless they fell in love or got slighted by one. They're immortal, perpetually in the prime of life, and control the cosmos, so it's more like Blue-and-Orange Morality or Does Not Know His Own Strength.

For example, how long does it take for the average human to decide someone is awesome, go out with them for a while, decide to take their relationship to a deeper level, marry, have kids, and live out their lives? For Zeus, that counted as a fling. He has nth-great-grandchildren by bastards. It does not work, applying them to any human's moral standards. The only accurate reference point to judge them against is by putting them against other gods.

edited 4th Apr '11 8:24:57 PM by Leradny

On that note, I have a question then.

Which would you say were more human, the Greek or Norse gods?

There are quite a few pieces of Norse mythology where it seems like the only thing seperating the gods from regular folk are all the mystical toys they've got. Heck, cut off their supply of golden apples and they don't even have eternal youth.

There is something very alluring about mythology in general. It's fascinating how people thought of all these gods and heroes and spirits in ancient times.

The first myths that sparked my interest were greek ones, of course. Later I learned about other mythologies as well, such as Slavic, Egyptian, a bit of Norse and very little of Chinese and Celtic (by 'very little' meaning just a few gods and spirits and maybe heroes).

Slavic mythology in particular seems to be the least explored and one of the most diverse, probably because it changed over the centuries and was never in written form. What I find interesting about it is that the Slavs believed that everything that happens can somehow be connected to spirits, as even the spirits of the dead never leave this world. It could be said that they also started the whole vampire myth, as they believed that a man's soul can return to possess the corpse if the person in question had unfinished business (like revenge or any strong negative emotion) or if the person was evil. And, of course, they figured the corpse would drink blood.

Anyway, my point being, mythology in general is amazing and shows many different perspectives about the world and how people perceived it.

Exactly.

See, in Norse mythology, the gods were like several groups of feuding families. You had the Asgardians, the Frost Giants, the Demons, etc.

In Greek mythology, it's like one big family.

Egyptian mythology is a multi-generational family passed down as deities retire.

In Chinese mythology, you've got a large bureaucracy, with high-ranking families in charge.

Japanese, on the other hand, had a more familial set of deities, despite espousing many of the same principles.

And so on. It's incredible.

Greek mythology had a lot of feuding families, too; it's just that one family killed, enslaved, or imprisoned all the rest.