#a few are books i've had for a while | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dragontamer05 · 7 months

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I know my memory ain't perfect but I can still honestly say within the past almost like 20ish years when I think about all the various things I've watched that involved Greek mythology and specifically had Hades in it,

I can only think of one where he was actively portrayed as not just a good guy but like friendly. Oh he could still get mad, but over all a decent fellow. Now he didn't have a big role and only appeared in a handful of episodes but still,

Class of the Titans has one of my favourite Hades portrayals. Yeh he can be a little over the top and goofy sometimes but it works within the show and it's just fun.

The man loves his dog, is over the moon smitten in love with Persephone and is willing to lend a hand to those who ask if he can.

Even Thanatos God of Death himself isn't even made to be seen as evil, he's just doing his job.

There's even an episode where one of the characters pretty much dies, comes close to yet even then. While he literally has to fight and run away from Fate to avoid going to the Underworld, while an antagonistic role- because you know he's fighting against what they want. It's not treated or framed like they're bad for doing this, this is just their job.

Character is supposed to be dead so they're just trying to get them to go to the Underworld, while MC does everything to avoid that- as they wait for their friends to return with the means to save them.

#I also vaguely remember reading some book that was very much a reimagining /interpreation of like Hades/Persephone thing / greek gods #don't remember the exact plot but I do remember enjoying it well enough #I'm not saying there are other books or movies or whatever out there with positive Hades protrayals just in my experience i've come across #very few of em #also how about we finally just ditch the interpretation that Hades was tricked/ otherwise unhappy with getting the underworld #Even in Greek myth itself while that may be an interpretation that exists/was written #equally so and what I'm familiar with is Hades chose the underworld / at the very least took no issue in little brother ruling over the god #Big bro Hades had no interest in having so much power wasn't interested (and quite possibly neither was poseidon)#in the underworld he gets to avoid most of everyone else's drama and problems

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queenlucythevaliant · 2 years

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It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Eugenides dwelt on the betrayal far more than he should have, for one who already had an answer. He returned to the altar again and again, but thoughts of the Mede, of Attolia with her green dress and impassive face, made him tongue-tied and stupid in his supplication. Praise came harder still.

At night, he dreamt the quaking, unsteady ground and his own feet struggling to find foothold. Perhaps there was more than one way to fall from his god’s hand.

When Attolia’s altar was erected and the day of his wedding drew near, Gen stood before the place and bitterly muttered, “I understand and accept your purpose, but I do not have to like it.” Gods, but it was still a heartbreak to look down at himself, with only one hand.

Who are you to speak of rights to the gods?

The whirlwind was stronger than he ever could have understood. Job shuddered in the face of it. Sackcloth and ashes do not make for comfortable clothing, but the whirlwind was worse. Dust flew through the biting air and stuck to his skin, his hair. His eyes burned with dryness.

The voice of the Lord was terrible, terrible, and Job could do nothing but swallow his complaint. No recourse. He was raw, laid open, and he could not bear his own smallness.

Gird up your loins like a man.

I push myself up, freeing myself from the coils of the bedsheets. Another day devoured by the hungry locusts, which I can only hope to see returned in eternity. Another day lost.

When I feel my eyes begin to burn again, I cry out to God and He answers. So what if I do not like the answer?

Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?

Mara poured out vitriol and wondered how Ruth could stand to cleave to such a god as hers. The God of Israel took and took and when he gave, it was only with the intention of taking later. Mara knew. He had taken her yeled, her boys! and now she was empty. So, she could not be Naomi any longer.

Left alone with the daughter-in-law she loved best, she tried to fold her soul into a state of acceptance. She ate the meagre food they could still afford, which was still better than famine, and took pleasure in the sound of her native Hebrew. Mara, she whispered internally. Bitterness. Yeled. My boys.

The Almighty has brought calamity upon me.

The Stella Maris was freezing cold. This was a strange observation, since the onboard climate controls were calibrated to maintain a perfect room temperature of twenty degrees Celsius. Still, as he stared down at his ruined hands, Emilio Sandoz felt terribly cold.

If God had willed this, then there was no warmth left anywhere in the universe. Deus vult, Marc had repeated, but Marc was dead now. Anne was dead, and D.W., and Sofia, and all the rest, and it was either his own fault or God’s.

Sometimes Emilio still caught himself thinking, “Please, have mercy on their souls, O God. Please have mercy on me, if it be your will.” God. He’d sworn he’d never pray that again.

And so, with nothing more to pray, Emilio could only watch his bandaged fingers seep blood, cold and desolate.

If I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, then the rest of it was God’s will too, and that is cause for bitterness.

When Susan remembered Aslan, it was only as a sweet dream that she had long since outgrown; a lie, even if breathed through silver. If ever she had believed him real, she knew now that she must have been deluding herself. She’d left all that behind, years and miles ago. Only children comfort themselves on beautiful lies, and Susan was a child no longer.

There were parties to attend, lipstick and nylons and invitations, enough to distract herself from the vicious weight of her heart. Susan started over in a new city and wished to be brilliant, to be dazzling and popular and beautiful, if she could not be strong.

Whenever she passed by the doors of a church, she trembled.

‘Course he’s not safe.

After she finished writing her complaint, Orual thought for a wild moment of burning it. Her anger was righteous, sure enough; but the god was a god. Foolish is the mortal who challenges the divine.

Instead, she wrapped her book in oilcloth and gazed at it a moment longer before setting it aside. She half expected the god to appear, glorious and absolute. If he did, she would meet him. Silently, Orual defied the god who had wronged her so grievously. Alright, she thought, give me the very worst you’ve got.

Are you answered?

“Am I king?” asked Eugenides.

The voice from the heavens replied, “Am I god?”

Yes, said I.

Prayer is important—I would be dead without it—but it is very hard too. Hard to subordinate myself to a God whose mind I don’t understand. Hard to accept something called truth which cannot be proven empirically. Hard to grapple with theodicy and epistemology when my brain is entirely shrouded in fog two days in three, but necessary, so necessary, if I want to survive this.

I write prayers in my journal and I try not to make them read too much like letters. My friends will tell you that I am not very good at letters. I always overthink them. Elizabeth once told me that my birthday cards tend to read like the Declaration of Independence.

Still, writing my prayers does help, because I do want to think about them, because faith is not a feeling. I am trying hard to have faith, in spite of how I feel.

How long O Lord?

Habakkuk paced the watchtower until his knees complained, squinting at the horizon like it might somehow answer him. Surely, if God lived, He would take action. Surely, He would not leave his people to fend for themselves.

Yet all through the long watch of the night, as the lanterns burned low and the stars danced overhead, no sign came from the horizon. Silent and sullen sat the tree line, and beyond it the enemy slept peacefully in their beds. A night-bird chirped beneath the empty sky. The heavens might as well have been empty.

So, Habakkuk cried out to the God who did not act. “You who cannot look at wrong, why do you remain silent while the wicked swallows up the righteous? Where is your justice, oh holy God?” he bellowed.

The bird chirped again in the silence. And then God made His reply.

My legs tremble beneath me, yet I will wait quietly.

It was many, many years before Emilio could again say Deus vult with anything resembling joy. Bitterness gave way to grudging acceptance, and there he remained for a good long while. Grudging acceptance made a good midway point. It allowed him to stay the course for many years, somewhere between Christian and apostate, clinging to a God that he loved and hated in equal measure.

But one night, when Emilio was sitting with a child on his knee pointing a telescope up at Rakhat, he realized he could do little but laugh at the observation that perhaps God had always known what He was doing.

God is waiting for you, in the ruins.

Aslan was bigger than Susan remembered him: bigger than an elephant, bigger than a mountain, bigger even than the whole world. He stooped and the sweet, wild smell of his mane surrounded her.

“How can you still be so good to me, after everything I’ve done?”

The Lion spoke in a voice like summer thunder. “Dear child, I did not only die for Edmund. I paid for your treachery and for his, and for all the faltering hearts of my children. I purchased you out of the hands of evil and death. You saw.”

Susan brushed her hand across her cheek, feeling the stiff tears drying there. “I didn’t see. I covered my face.”

“That is not the point. I am Myself, child. Even when you have been faithless, I have always been faithful. Have I not told you? Things must always work according to their natures.”

But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.

The boy in Naomi’s arms had chubby hands and perfect little fingernails. Her grandson was big and well fed. He cried loudly, but not often. He smiled like his mother, Naomi thought. Her little Obed.

He was not a replacement. Nothing could ever replace the sons that Naomi had lost. Yet the Lord had not left her empty. He had filled her arms again, another yeled to cradle against her breast.

Ruth came in from the fields, laughing softly at something her husband had said, and took the child from Naomi’s arms. Obed blinked up at his mother in the slanting light as she tousled the wisps of his hair. “Have you been good for your grandma today?” she asked.

“He’s been a joy, as always,” Naomi replied.

“Yes. The Lord is faithful.”

Blessed be the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer.

Her Ungit face began to change. Slowly at first, but then more quickly, her features began to shine with all the things that were most beautiful in them. Her eyes, always bright with intelligence, grew brighter still. Her brow spoke of wisdom; of a country governed well and the respect of her people. The greed washed out of her lips as though it had never been, until all that remained was the pure, glorified love that had always lived beneath it.

Orual reached a trembling hand towards the God, bright and terrible. He was every answer she had ever sought, the Truth beyond all the Fox’s clever words and all the light that had ever poured out from the sun across Psyche’s mountain; the only dread and beauty that there was or could have been.

The queen fell to her knees. For a moment, she recoiled, a soul at once reaching out for its creator and climbing back into a body now made perfect. The Judge bent down and offered her his hand.

When Orual arose, she was altogether righteous.

Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?

When he heard the whirlwind-voice of God for the second time, Job stretched out his arms and danced.

#once again a piece that has an audience of me #i've had something like this percolating in my mind for a while now #incorporating a few little snippets from a few years back having to do with migraine #but bringing in both Scripture and fiction to try to make sense of #theodicy #on an intimate level #keen eyed readers may notice that I kind of tiptoed around Children of God in the emilio section #that was intentional I really don't care for Emilio's trajectory in that book #anyway #narnia #the sparrow #till we have faces #leah in attolia #(might need to split that tag one of these days it's getting a bit convoluted)#Leah stories #(kinda)#pontifications and creations #long post #Bible humans

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