#ditto on fucking demeter tbh

[spookberry]

Its been a while so I cant point to a bunch of specific example outside of like, Hera, Athena, and Hephaestus. But okay, one thing that always bothers me about the Percy Jackson worldbuilding is the fact that its fundamental premise is just "what if the greek gods and their stories were real" so there's nothing you can do about how deeply and unrelentingly sexist the ancient greeks were without just breaking your own premise. Like your options are take them at their word to fulfill the premise or say "nah all of them were wrong I have new lore". So I don't exactly blame Riordon for cherrypicking which myths he was gonna edit.

Its just a little wacky to me though that because of it's status as an adaption(to some degree) people don't really critically analyze the intent behind the source material on the gods. Their context from a meta perspective is often overlooked in the grand scheme of the story. Which I understand, the intrigue is on the demigods afterall, not the gods themselves.

However I just cannot stop myself from thinking about it. Like the fact that a big part of why the greeks respected Athena was because she was born "purely of man" and her birth was umblemished via coming from an icky woman. Shes the perfect woman because she lacks ties to womanhood. Shes the ideal Pick Me girl.

The story of Hephaestus's birth is sucky for him, but personally I think more on Hera. To me its always been fairly clear that the intended message you are meant to get out of that story is literally "no matter what, women are worse then men. Even at the one thing theyre meant to be good at." How dare a woman think she could ever be better than a man at something even if she is a Goddess of this thing.

Hera does bad things in her mythos I wont deny that and youre not meant to like her in Percy Jackson either which is fine. We can have complicated and annoyingly meddlesome girlbosss goddess for the sake of plot. Nonetheless I often find myself feeling sad about how she has been dragged through the mud for centuries because people dont dare to think more critically on why the men telling her stories spoke on her the way they did.

#ditto on fucking demeter tbh #if i see one more bitch make her a mother gothel type over persephone ill lose it #the greeks hated mothers so much #and that bleeds into rick's writing of mothers too #which i don't think is intentional #but its still there #sally jackson not withstanding #percy jackson

[reignofolympus]

i’ve always wanted to do a breakdown of all of zeus’ commonly listed lovers / fathers of his children and what the significance of them was to him, considering versions vary and his relationships / victims are important in developing his story. also this is my blog and my idea of it is different. this is all from ZEUS’ perspective, and i’d like that to remain clear.  i don’t condone any of his actions in any way, nor am i trying to excuse them.

Metis: we all know she was his first wife, LIKELY the first person he ever slept with, and the first person he fell in love with. she was his guide in nearly every aspect ; his intelligence, his morality, his steps taken during the war, his leap into ‘manhood’. i think his feelings for her were strongly based on the fact she saved him and shaped him into who he was, and was one of the first women in his life. also, it’s really common for younger men to grow extremely attached to the first person they sleep with, so that’s an assisting factor, too.  he DID love her, a lot.  and her loss was devastating -- he still hasn’t forgiven himself.  paranoia, ptsd, and a general bad constitution for stress made of him a monster and he lost his first love because of it.

Themis: a lot of sources say he married her before he did hera, but i tend to consider this just another fling before he ‘settled’ down with hera.  she was likely a rebound from metis’ death, not to mention, a powerful titan who influenced him as a god of justice and law. a pretty lowkey relationship, with not a lot of feelings on zeus’ side.

Mnemosyne: similar to themis, more of a rebound than an actual love interest. ( really good at sex, obviously... given the NINE TIMES thing but anyway ).  was probably a little too intimidated by her to ever really consider her a potential wife. 

Hera: zeus wanted what he couldn’t have, and that was hera. she was gorgeous, first of all. she was fierce, and confident, and totally uninterested in him, so obviously that meant she was the one. i think my idea of this relationship is pretty clear; rocky, obviously, but still full of love all these years later. it took a lot of convincing on his part, but he finally won her over.  they compliment each other really well, and despite the one great flaw of their relationship ( monogamous vs non-monogamous ), zeus loves her SO much and never wants to hurt her intentionally. still the love of his life.

Leto: i’d love to imagine this one having a slow-build, a lot of flirting and coy smiles, joking back and forth, and there’s so much sexual tension there but neither of them make a move for a long time. i don’t know if i’d go as far as to say zeus was in love with her, but he definitely had a soft spot, and cared about her a lot. her pregnancy was a source of joy for him, even if the strife following was not. after what happened with hera, i doubt she wanted much to do with him, and he doesn’t blame her!

Demeter: this was one hundred percent a really bright-burning, short term fling.  probably quite shortly after zeus married hera tbh -- or before, up to the demeter. it was super passionate, they were both into each other, cared a lot about one another; but when dem got pregnant with persephone, she knew she had to think of her baby’s safety first and foremost, shutting zeus and the shitty people on olympus, out. lowkey broke his heart, still some bitterness there, but zeus mostly feels it’s his fault anyway so!

Semele: aside from hera, i don’t think zeus has loved anyone more.  he beat himself up for ages over his mistake, and it was pretty obvious the lengths he was willing to go to protect their child.  i don’t want to over-complicate this; zeus was in love with her, as i’d like to think she was too, and it got her killed.  he was devastated.

Ganymede: this one is super complicated; because while evidence ( to me ) suggests that zeus did end up falling quite hard for ganymedes, enough for me to comfortably say zeus loved him, it’s still really fucked up, and not at all a healthy relationship.  my theory is that ganymedes was the first male that zeus felt anything towards, and that’s a little complicated, considering the expected relationship between a young man and an older man -- something zeus wasn’t exactly looking for, but took on anyway. probably really one-sided.

Europa: there was nothing consensual about this, and was not at all a matter of emotions.

Io: ^^ditto. him trying to ‘save’ her was just to cover his own guilt at getting caught.

Callisto: honestly, just really fucking gross and manipulative.

Persephone:  no. not on this blog. no fuckin’ way.

Danae: purely rape, unfortunately.

#rape mention #rape w #headcanon #ϟ ║ DOSSIER. ❛ legends never die.