Speaker 1: Hi. Well, it's awfully late in the day, isn't it.
Speaker 1: This is let's talk about MIT's baby. And I am
Speaker 1: that host of yours, she who got stuck at the
Speaker 1: opposite end of the second biggest country in the world
Speaker 1: the other day because snow. I am your host Live
Speaker 1: here with Today is very late, but hey, it's here episode,
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to explain a little bit because frankly,
Speaker 1: it was really cool and annoying. So I traveled to
Speaker 1: Halifax last weekend too. I traveled to Halifax for the
Speaker 1: first time in my life in the end of January
Speaker 1: into February, which was a choice that I made, and
Speaker 1: I did it explicitly because the two actors who play
Speaker 1: Mary and Pippen in The Lord of the Rings were
Speaker 1: doing the play Rosen Krantz and Guildenstern, are dead together
Speaker 1: in Halifax, and I was not going to miss that
Speaker 1: happening in my country. But then a storm hit and.
Speaker 2: They got like six feet of snow, and I got
Speaker 2: stuck like an extra day and a half, which totally
Speaker 2: threw off everything, but honestly, anything for Mary and Pippen,
Speaker 2: it was totally worth it.
Speaker 1: But here I am throwing this episode together on Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1: But you know what, it's kind of refreshed me, Like
Speaker 1: I feel in a much better place than I have been.
Speaker 2: So we are absolutely going with it. So I had
Speaker 2: this plan for today's episode. See, you know, I have
Speaker 2: been doing this for going on seven years, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't POPI love Greek mythology more than I do now,
Speaker 2: And that's, you know, probably a lie because when I
Speaker 2: started this podcast, I would have said the same thing,
Speaker 2: but I just feel like it's true where now, you know,
Speaker 2: when you spend seven years learning every possible thing and
Speaker 2: yet God's know, there's still more.
Speaker 1: Like the love.
Speaker 2: It just keeps growing. And that's how I'm introducing today's
Speaker 2: utterly different episode because I just decided to play around
Speaker 2: with an idea. So we're going to go with it,
Speaker 2: and I want to hear from you all what you think.
Speaker 2: So as you have all heard in recent episodes, you
Speaker 2: know I've been going through a time and for all
Speaker 2: this job is the coolest and absolutely greatest thing to
Speaker 2: ever happen to me. The thing that can make it
Speaker 2: difficult is needing to put out content every week and
Speaker 2: having that content rely entirely on my own ability to
Speaker 2: be like not horrifically sad, you know, like I have
Speaker 2: to research and then write five thousand words of me
Speaker 2: being funny or smart or just you know, not what
Speaker 2: I feel now, which is kind of dead inside, you know, anyway,
Speaker 2: And because I feel dead inside, I wanted to find
Speaker 2: a way of sort of renewing and refreshing my love
Speaker 2: for this stuff.
Speaker 1: And when I think about the.
Speaker 2: History of the podcast, you know, and how I might say,
Speaker 2: revisit something that I've already talked about, something that I
Speaker 2: just love so purely and completely, I think back to
Speaker 2: the earliest days of the show and how I just
Speaker 2: dove right into this thing headfirst, just deciding I would
Speaker 2: have figured it out as I go. You know, I
Speaker 2: talk a lot about the first episode and how I
Speaker 2: wish it was better or at least, you know, gave
Speaker 2: a better idea as to what the show would go
Speaker 2: on to become now and what I am so proud
Speaker 2: of now, which is very different from the first episode.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't, you know, devalue the first episode. You
Speaker 2: all love it, and I love you for that, and
Speaker 2: so I thought, you know, instead of thinking how it's
Speaker 2: not the greatest representation of my knowledge or the show
Speaker 2: currently like maybe I look back on it in a
Speaker 2: cherishing kind of way. So today's episode is a love
Speaker 2: letter to the earliest days of the podcast, to the
Speaker 2: live who just wanted to talk about Greek myth because
Speaker 2: her life felt out of control, familiar, and starting a
Speaker 2: podcast out of the sheer love of it was just
Speaker 2: something that I could control. If I could go back
Speaker 2: in time and tell her that nearly seven years later,
Speaker 2: this would be her entire job, and that I would
Speaker 2: have made a name for myself as an experted myth
Speaker 2: I've written books, have more on the way, and got
Speaker 2: to just spend all of my days loving Greek mythology
Speaker 2: with hundreds of thousands of people like I don't even
Speaker 2: know if I could have begin to convince seven years
Speaker 2: ago me that that was even possible, because when I
Speaker 2: started the show, I felt like i'd kind of like
Speaker 2: watch my dreams go up in flames career wise, and
Speaker 2: instead I got new dreams and much better dreams, And
Speaker 2: then I guess I just made them happen. This episode
Speaker 2: is as much for me as it is for you.
Speaker 2: I need to feel something good, to remember the parts
Speaker 2: of my life that are amazing. In large part thanks
Speaker 2: to you all and your abiding love of this first
Speaker 2: episode of the podcast. And no we're not replaying it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna revisit it together in detail and
Speaker 1: see how it goes. This is episode two forty seven.
Speaker 1: You can learn all Greek myth has to offer, and
Speaker 1: the father still devours his son. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the first time I sit in a room with my
Speaker 1: cat and a microphone. My name is liv I'm completely
Speaker 1: obsessed with mythology. I have a totally useless Bachelors of
Speaker 1: Arts in Classical Civilizations that basically has prepared me for
Speaker 1: this and only this, and so here I go. All right,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys, but this is fun already.
Speaker 1: Did I have trouble with the first things I said?
Speaker 1: Absolutely went back and forth. I'm keeping it in but I.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to make this episode all about me.
Speaker 2: But it is quite special to explain. I have not
Speaker 2: listened to this episode in seven years. I just haven't
Speaker 2: and so it's very brand new for me in a
Speaker 2: way that's incredibly fun. And it's fun to hear myself
Speaker 2: describe my BA in Classical studies as useless because it's
Speaker 2: a little bit ironic now, but to hear back on
Speaker 2: me starting this just because I felt.
Speaker 1: Like it is a really big thrill. This is the
Speaker 1: first episode of my podcast where I talk to you
Speaker 1: bluntly about Greek myths. I'm talking, let's address how completely
Speaker 1: crazy some of these things are. Let's address how awful
Speaker 1: the men treated the women. Let's address how completely bananas
Speaker 1: some of these ideas were that really an entire ancient
Speaker 1: culture believed was the honest to god truth. So this
Speaker 1: is let's talk about myths, baby. So one thing that
Speaker 1: I hear from reviews fairly often, granted, like you know,
Speaker 1: only in the handful of bad ones that I do get,
Speaker 1: but those are the ones that of course stick in
Speaker 1: my brain because anxiety. But is this idea that I
Speaker 1: didn't start out feminist and that it like became feminist
Speaker 1: over time. So hearing myself like literally introduced the entire
Speaker 1: podcast project goal with how badly the men treated the women, like,
Speaker 1: let's get a grip angry dudes who review this podcast,
Speaker 1: because I have been very upfront from the start. And
Speaker 1: then that last bit I said, as well, that's a
Speaker 1: great example of why I wanted to do this episode
Speaker 1: because I would love to look a little deeper at
Speaker 1: some of the things I said seven years ago when
Speaker 1: I while I had the knowledge of Greek myth broadly,
Speaker 1: I lacked a lot of the context that I have now.
Speaker 1: In that context, I think makes an enormous difference. And
Speaker 1: that's what I want to talk about today. So this
Speaker 1: idea that the ancient Greek people believe this to be true,
Speaker 1: you know that the story of the gods, that's probably
Speaker 1: not an accurate statement. There was maybe a time when
Speaker 1: they believed it to be something like the truth, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that they were out there really understanding
Speaker 1: the world, you know, in line with the mythology in
Speaker 1: the way that we think about it. It's much more
Speaker 1: of that sort of conceptual idea. And you know, we
Speaker 1: are talking a thousand years worth of mythology. So in
Speaker 1: the earliest times, they were probably more likely to believe that,
Speaker 1: you know what, this, this theogony is about to tell
Speaker 1: us that it was in some way divinely true. And
Speaker 1: as time goes on and they develop all of this
Speaker 1: knowledge about the planet and the world itself, obviously you
Speaker 1: know they are are believing less about the inherent truth
Speaker 1: of the divine creation story. That they have, and it
Speaker 1: becomes more of a cultural idea than an inherent truth.
Speaker 1: It doesn't change its importance mythologically or culturally. It just
Speaker 1: sort of gives us a better understanding on how these
Speaker 1: people are changing, as the stories are changing, and to
Speaker 1: sort of what these things are becoming. Because as I like.
Speaker 2: To remind you, but I really didn't conceptualize it myself
Speaker 2: even fully in the same way seven years ago. But
Speaker 2: there is a thousand years worth of cultural evolution packed
Speaker 2: into the mythology and the sources that we have it now.
Speaker 2: Just imagine everything that has changed in our world in
Speaker 2: the last thousand years thousand, right, Like, the changes that
Speaker 2: humanity goes through in that amount of time are so
Speaker 2: enormous that we can't imagine this to all be one thing,
Speaker 2: or one belief system or one anything.
Speaker 1: Really, we have to.
Speaker 2: Look at it as these people evolving and changing over
Speaker 2: time and understanding their stories in different ways and how
Speaker 2: that affects them, you know, as real people.
Speaker 1: Where better to start this first episode than with a
Speaker 1: rundown of how it all began ancient Greek creationism, if
Speaker 1: you will. The ancient Greek world began with chaos. It
Speaker 1: was the first thing to exist, sort of a semi
Speaker 1: sentient nothingness. And from chaos came Guya, who was the
Speaker 1: personification of Earth. Guya created herself a companion who's named Uranus,
Speaker 1: and he is the Sky and the universe itself. So
Speaker 1: Guya and Uranus, the Earth and the Sky, they got
Speaker 1: together and they had a slew of kids. These children
Speaker 1: are collectively called the Titans. I won't name them all
Speaker 1: individually because there are twelve and it would really just
Speaker 1: be a lot of nonsensical Greek names that you'll rarely,
Speaker 1: if ever hear again. Oh past live. How naive and
Speaker 1: silly you were to think that you would not devote
Speaker 1: the next seven years of your life talking about these
Speaker 1: very individual Titans. Maybe not all of them, but gods
Speaker 1: most of them. So since I didn't do that last time,
Speaker 1: or you know, seven years ago, let's look at who
Speaker 1: those were that I didn't want to name. So we
Speaker 1: have Kronos, obviously he's the big guy. We'll get to him.
Speaker 1: Then there's Keios, who fine we rarely hear of again.
Speaker 1: I Apatos, he's a father of Prometheus and Epimetheus. So
Speaker 1: big name right there. Hyperion, father of Helios, the son
Speaker 1: he doesn't do much himself, but Helios does. Oceanis big
Speaker 1: name in fresh water. There's of course Raya, we're getting
Speaker 1: to her, thea mother of the Sun, Phoebe, mother of
Speaker 1: Leto and therefore grandmother to Apollo an Artemis. There is Nimosity,
Speaker 1: mother of the muses, famous mother of the Fates. And Tethys,
Speaker 1: mother of you know, God's so many water deities. Tethys
Speaker 1: is so cool. For now, we'll go with our main
Speaker 1: two Titans, those whose story this really is. They're Raya,
Speaker 1: who's another mother Earth type figure, though she's less the
Speaker 1: Earth itself than her mother Gaya is, and Chronos, who
Speaker 1: is just a badass motherfucker and all around lunatic. All right, now,
Speaker 1: for all, I no longer use the word lunatic because
Speaker 1: I have learned to be better. Like it's not untrue
Speaker 1: when it comes to Chronos, you know, you know, and
Speaker 1: I do respect that. Even in those earliest days, I
Speaker 1: was able to, uh, you know, respect the man for
Speaker 1: what he's worth.
Speaker 2: Call him a badass motherfucker. I mean, I mean, unlike
Speaker 2: you to pass. He is not a motherfucker. But you know,
Speaker 2: what's a bad name we could call him based on
Speaker 2: what he does. He's a badass father slayer.
Speaker 1: That makes him sound too cool, but it's true. Guya
Speaker 1: and Uranos also conceived a number of monster breed children
Speaker 1: in their time together, which they apparently had quite a
Speaker 1: lot of. The monster children are called the hekaton Kyries
Speaker 1: and the Cyclops, and there were three of each of them.
Speaker 1: The hekaton Kyries are three giants who each have fifty
Speaker 1: heads and one hundred hands. Just picture this, I mean,
Speaker 1: how does that even work? Not to mention, though, what
Speaker 1: an amazing word hecaton kyries. I could say it.
Speaker 2: Forever, honestly, the amount that I have evolved as a person,
Speaker 2: as a scholar, as a mythologists, as the you know, intelligent,
Speaker 2: respected person that I am now, as much as I
Speaker 2: have grown, I will never not love just saying.
Speaker 1: The word hecaton kyries out loud. Heca hundred kyries hands
Speaker 1: just they are the called the hundred handers like the
Speaker 1: badassory like it has never dimmed in my mind. And
Speaker 1: the Cyclops, who are as you might imagine Cyclops. They're
Speaker 1: one eyed badasses known primarily for causing trouble for Odysseus
Speaker 1: in Homer's Odyssey and more on them later.
Speaker 2: This is a great time to add a little bit
Speaker 2: more depth to what I said in that early episode. Yes,
Speaker 2: the cyclops are arguably most famous for that specific cyclops, Polypemous,
Speaker 2: who fucks with Odysseus, or rather Odysseus fucks with him.
Speaker 2: It's mutual fucking with They might be most famous for Polypemous,
Speaker 2: but in fact there are kind of there are a
Speaker 2: number of sort of conceptual ideas of Cyclops. These earliest
Speaker 2: three who are born of Gaya do not necessarily include
Speaker 2: someone like Polyphemus. This isn't really because we have like
Speaker 2: other ones who are specifically born in other ways, it's
Speaker 2: more just about how sources interact with each other. Homer
Speaker 2: and he see it are you know, we might be
Speaker 2: able to call them contemporaries. That's probably not super factual,
Speaker 2: but they are both from a very early time when
Speaker 2: it comes to surviving sources. Homer's conceptual poetry, you know,
Speaker 2: as the concept that is Homer as in he wasn't
Speaker 2: a real person. They are probably those pieces are probably
Speaker 2: older than he see it, but they also probably didn't
Speaker 2: interact like a ton. They have a lot of discrepancies
Speaker 2: between the two, not to mention that just the Iliad
Speaker 2: in the Odyssey have a shit ton of discrepancies in
Speaker 2: a way that I find that incredibly satisfying in anyone
Speaker 2: who says that Homer is one author is utterly absurd.
Speaker 1: But I digress. The point is that the cyclops that
Speaker 1: are created in this kind of way are more or
Speaker 1: considered to be the cyclops who tend to I suppose,
Speaker 1: mostly work with Hephaistus, helping him in his forge, but
Speaker 1: also very specifically they are known as the cyclopes who
Speaker 1: create Zeus's thunderbolts once Zeus is in existence, but they
Speaker 1: are a little less connected to this idea of Polyphemus
Speaker 1: as like a you know, a named character based cyclops. Cyclopes,
Speaker 1: of course, just means one eye, so they don't always
Speaker 1: have to be the same you know, type of creature
Speaker 1: they or even just you know, a group or anything.
Speaker 1: They're just people with one eye. Back to our friend Cronos,
Speaker 1: who were told destined to overthrow his father Uranus, and
Speaker 1: boy does he. Chronos envies his father from the start.
Speaker 1: Uranus is the ruler of the universe. He essentially is
Speaker 1: the sky and the universe itself, in the same way
Speaker 1: that Gaya is the Earth and Uranus is kind of
Speaker 1: a dick. Love the understatement past live, absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: See he hides his in Gaya's Monster Children away. He
Speaker 1: hides them in Tartarus, which is this weird concept that is,
Speaker 1: it wants the darkest, most awful depths of the underworld
Speaker 1: and well a god slash monster of some kind. It's
Speaker 1: basically all the definitions of a noun. It's a person,
Speaker 1: plays and a thing Tartarus. Frankly, I think he'd be
Speaker 1: pretty fun at parties.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to spend this time laughing at my
Speaker 2: own jokes, but I do still love describing Tartarus as
Speaker 2: all the definitions of a noun. Now how accurate that is, Like,
Speaker 2: it really is a place, but it is a place
Speaker 2: in the way that you know, the river Sticks is
Speaker 2: a place, I believe, you know, it is kind of
Speaker 2: also conceptually a divinity.
Speaker 1: But Tartarus is just h God, it's so interesting. There's
Speaker 1: just so much to it. There is, you know, it
Speaker 1: is the darker part of the underworld itself. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the conceptualizing of the underworld is not one
Speaker 1: succinct thing. Just like even where the monster children are
Speaker 1: hidden is not necessarily always certain, and then of course
Speaker 1: there are wars and things change. You know, are are
Speaker 1: they under mountains and that's why the mountains are volcanoes,
Speaker 1: not quite mountains, you know, or any such thing. Like.
Speaker 1: There's always so many different places where where these creatures
Speaker 1: and gods later where they are, you know, either born
Speaker 1: or grow up or are imprisoned, And that's because there
Speaker 1: are so many different stories coming from so many different
Speaker 1: regions that every region kind of wanted to have their hand,
Speaker 1: you know. In the honeypot of Greek mythology. It's like
Speaker 1: how there are like three or four different mountains where
Speaker 1: some version of a story will say that Zeus grew up.
Speaker 1: There's one on Crete, there's one on Naxos. I am
Speaker 1: certain there are more. It goes the same for mountains
Speaker 1: associated with Dionysus's childhood, Like there are just always so
Speaker 1: many different places that want to be associated with certain
Speaker 1: divinities and concepts, and it doesn't make any version more
Speaker 1: correct than another. It's just all about the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, ancient Greece was not a unified place. They
Speaker 1: didn't even have a unified language. They shared a lot
Speaker 1: of cultural things and a lot of cultural stories, and
Speaker 1: that is why they're connected. And of course they are
Speaker 1: connected now and thus we put them all into one
Speaker 1: basket now. But they were just this broad collection of
Speaker 1: regions and city states, and you know, some more concerned
Speaker 1: with writing things down, some more concerned with being involved
Speaker 1: in the mythology. Everyone was really different, and so we
Speaker 1: get these like vastly different versions of stories and concepts
Speaker 1: and kind of where anyone is. So this imprisonment makes
Speaker 1: Gaya angry for obvious reasons, and ultimately she colludes with
Speaker 1: Chronos on how to punish Uranus. If I recall, there
Speaker 1: used to be a Trump joke in here, because this
Speaker 1: was recorded during the first year of his presidency, and
Speaker 1: then like a couple people complained about it being political,
Speaker 1: and I was so worried back in the day about
Speaker 1: you know, people enjoying the show that I cut it out,
Speaker 1: but you know, happy to say that I probably made
Speaker 1: a shitty joke about Trump colluding on some such thing.
Speaker 1: In the original version of this, apparently she tried to
Speaker 1: rope a number of her other Titan children into helping
Speaker 1: overthrow Ernus, but Cronus is the only one crazy enough
Speaker 1: to actually go along with his mother. Guya gives him
Speaker 1: a sickle, which is that super scary knife thing that
Speaker 1: old timey farmers used to cut hay, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: not a farmer. Or more famously, it's what the hooded
Speaker 1: figure of Death carries around. Very ominous. Oh my God,
Speaker 1: so much to say about the sickle. So one love
Speaker 1: hearing the origin of my not a farmer joke. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I say things and I don't even remember where they
Speaker 1: came from. It's not even a good joke.
Speaker 2: But two chronos having this sickle and my connecting it
Speaker 2: with this figure of death are are not unrelated concept
Speaker 2: I've talked about it a little bit before, but you know,
Speaker 2: there are two different deities called chronos in the broad
Speaker 2: concept of Greek mythology. There is Chronos with a K,
Speaker 2: this Chronos, you know, who is the father of those
Speaker 2: original Olympians, And then there.
Speaker 1: Is Kronos with a H.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is a key letter in Greek mythology,
Speaker 2: or in Greek it looks like an X. In English
Speaker 2: we put it as ch, which makes more of like
Speaker 2: a chronos kind of vibe. It is where we get
Speaker 2: ch as a kind of k sound instead of a sound.
Speaker 2: And now I'm going into etymology, my point is simply
Speaker 2: that at some point in the world, so Chronos, you know,
Speaker 2: with a ch is a deity from Orphic tradition, not
Speaker 2: traditional Greek mythology, but Orphic became kind of popular, and
Speaker 2: so at some point the two Chronoses got kind of
Speaker 2: squished together. And then I think they also got conflated
Speaker 2: with the Roman Saturn, who, though he had similar origins
Speaker 2: because of the origins you know of some Greek or
Speaker 2: the Roman mythology having some Greek origins, but the Roman
Speaker 2: Saturn was quite different, and he was very associated with
Speaker 2: the harvest in a way that Greek Chronos wasn't really
Speaker 2: And so then we get the sickle in, and then
Speaker 2: we get this conflation with Chronos of ach who was
Speaker 2: a god of time, and then we get Father Time
Speaker 2: having a sickle, and I can only assume that that
Speaker 2: then leads to the concept of death having a sickle,
Speaker 2: because what if is time if not also death?
Speaker 1: And I guess Guy just tells Cronus to go for it.
Speaker 1: Cronos then sneaks up on his father and he uses
Speaker 1: the sickle to castrate him. We don't even know if
Speaker 1: he actually kills Uranas literally the number one. Part of
Speaker 1: the story is that Kronos castrates Uranas. Chronos then tosses
Speaker 1: his father's important bits into the sea and they fly.
Speaker 1: As they fly across Uranas's precious parts, spatter blood on
Speaker 1: the land, and finally they land in the sea, which
Speaker 1: causes a foam to bubble up. It's really pleasant. We're
Speaker 1: told that from the blood spatter on the land are
Speaker 1: born the Jigants, who are a race of giants, and
Speaker 1: the Urnaways, who are better known as the Furies. The
Speaker 1: Furies are women. It's never totally clear how many there are.
Speaker 1: We go with three I think most often, and their
Speaker 1: deities of vengeance. Basically, if you do anything requiring major punishment,
Speaker 1: they're there to serve it up and they're pretty hardcore.
Speaker 1: The appui most often in Greek plays featuring kids killing
Speaker 1: their parents a common theme, or the reverse equally common,
Speaker 1: depending where you get your information. The runaways are described
Speaker 1: as crones with snakes for hair, or with dogs heads
Speaker 1: or bat wings and bloodshot eyes. Basically, they're not ladies
Speaker 1: you want hounding you, and that's completely aside from the
Speaker 1: fact that they're straight up born from blood spatter.
Speaker 2: I am so enjoying this actually really like I just
Speaker 2: never listened to my own voice back like obviously because
Speaker 2: it makes me cringe most of the time. But listening
Speaker 2: back to this is so much fun and listening to
Speaker 2: how I told this story. You know, the furies are
Speaker 2: they hold such a special place in my heart because
Speaker 2: they're fucking fascinating. But I also love you know that
Speaker 2: I mentioned this idea of them being crones, and I'm
Speaker 2: so curious where I got that from. I'm certain it's
Speaker 2: a modern source, because you know, it.
Speaker 1: Is part of this tradition of like taking uh, monstrous
Speaker 1: female deities like the furies and making them grosser. And
Speaker 1: two men to the patriarchy, what is the grossest thing
Speaker 1: that a woman can be, it's old. The grossest thing
Speaker 1: a woman can be is old, And so they make
Speaker 1: them crones, Whereas if you look at depictions in artwork,
Speaker 1: they are not old. They're not They're they're young and vibrant,
Speaker 1: like with their snakes either in their hair or like
Speaker 1: usually wrapped around them. They'll have like a viper belts,
Speaker 1: and they'll have them like twining their arms. Like. The
Speaker 1: Furies are fucking bad ass, and there's nothing not badass
Speaker 1: about an older woman either. But this idea of making
Speaker 1: them crones, of course, like it's such a specific usage,
Speaker 1: and there is no way in hell that it was
Speaker 1: not invented by a man, just for like the fucking
Speaker 1: sake of it. Like even the gray eye.
Speaker 2: Those three women who I might or may not mention
Speaker 2: this episode, I don't remember, but you know, honestly, they
Speaker 2: serve almost no purpose except for giving directions as to
Speaker 2: where Medusa lives. But they, you know, notoriously share an
Speaker 2: eye and a tooth. It's where the you know, Disney's
Speaker 2: Hercules fates come from. They've conflated the fates with the.
Speaker 1: Gray eye and that. But the gray I are not
Speaker 1: described I don't believe in any ancient sources as being
Speaker 1: old as being you know, chrons, but.
Speaker 2: They are gray. They are described as being gray, gray haired.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they are also likened to swans, which is really interesting.
Speaker 2: But then, of course, you know, the men interpreting these stories.
Speaker 2: The patriarchal nature of where and how the stories are
Speaker 2: being interpreted means that if a woman is described as gray,
Speaker 2: she must be a crone. And then we get again
Speaker 2: this like this negative connotation that isn't really there in
Speaker 2: the traditional sources. It doesn't matter whether they're young or old.
Speaker 2: They are just gray. They don't have to be one
Speaker 2: or the other. And certainly, even if they are old,
Speaker 2: they are not being described as old in any kind
Speaker 2: of gross way.
Speaker 1: But culture has made them that way. And it's just
Speaker 1: so utterly dark and fascinating. And that's not all the
Speaker 1: act of castration can create. In the world of ancient myth.
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, a sea foam erupted from where Uranus's
Speaker 1: bits actually landed, and from that foam, our girl, Aphrodite
Speaker 1: was born. That's right, The goddess of love, beauty, desire, pleasure,
Speaker 1: and procreation was born from the seafoam of castrated man parts.
Speaker 1: It's romantic, isn't it. Just picture that classic painting bought
Speaker 1: Aicelli's The Birth of Venus. Aphrodite or Venus in the Roman,
Speaker 1: looking all angelic in her clamshell, She's surrounded by beautiful figures.
Speaker 1: The sea is the backdrop. That clamshell is floating on
Speaker 1: top of castration foam. If you look up Cronus's descendants
Speaker 1: on Wikipedia, Aphrodite's literally listed under Uranus's genitals and it's
Speaker 1: origin stories like this and make me want to talk
Speaker 1: about Greek myths just all the time. Who came up
Speaker 1: with that? And again and again. Some things never change.
Speaker 1: That is still one of my favorite origin stories. It
Speaker 1: is still one of the things I like to talk
Speaker 1: about most. Castoration Foam has become iconic in my own mind,
Speaker 1: if not in some of yours also, and I just
Speaker 1: it remains perfect. This like sort of alternate version where
Speaker 1: Aphroditi is the daughter of Zeus and a Titan. Dione
Speaker 1: is like such a fucking bummer, Like it's so unnecessary,
Speaker 1: like nah nah, she is born of Ranos's castration foam
Speaker 1: or the family trio Wikipedia as it says, his genitals,
Speaker 1: not born of him or you know, a mother of
Speaker 1: any kind castrated genitals. Only after Chronos overthrows Uranus, he
Speaker 1: reimprisons the Heka, ton Kyries and the Cyclops in Tartarus.
Speaker 1: This time he has a dragon guard them, essentially making
Speaker 1: himself even more restricted than Uranus was. So obviously, Gaya's
Speaker 1: feeling pretty psyched with her decision to help Chronos castrate
Speaker 1: and overthrow her partner. At this point, Kronos is ruling
Speaker 1: the world and now he and Raya get together because
Speaker 1: in the beginning of time. What can you really do
Speaker 1: but hook up with your siblings? I say, this is
Speaker 1: if this is the only time it happens, it isn't.
Speaker 1: Greek myth is full of it. This is so true.
Speaker 2: And I do want to clarify because somebody recently asked
Speaker 2: me this in one of the recent Q and A episodes.
Speaker 2: You know, there is so much incest in Greek mythology.
Speaker 2: It is always, well not always, it is primarily brothers sister,
Speaker 2: not exclusively. And they ask whether that kind of translated
Speaker 2: to any belief systems amongst actual ancient Greek people. And
Speaker 2: while I, you know, have not read studies on this specifically,
Speaker 2: I think I can pretty confidently say no, they did
Speaker 2: recognize that incest was bad, you know, both morally and
Speaker 2: scientifically biologically rather, but really what it is is this
Speaker 2: kind of idea that the gods are so they are human,
Speaker 2: and then they are not human. So while there's a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot of incest, it just doesn't count
Speaker 2: as incest because their divinities it's just not the same.
Speaker 2: They are not biologically, you know, having any of the
Speaker 2: same issues that humans would. And also, you know, and
Speaker 2: this is where it all kind of Begins is simply
Speaker 2: this what I've just said on the original episode. You
Speaker 2: know this, They are the only ones if you are
Speaker 2: one of the first deities on this planet, like who
Speaker 2: else can you fuck but your sibling? And so it
Speaker 2: just has to be okay, it has to be different
Speaker 2: from humanity, thankfully.
Speaker 1: Yet and Kronos, like their parents before them, also have
Speaker 1: a slew of kids. But Kronos has learned that one
Speaker 1: of his children is destined to overthrow him, just as
Speaker 1: he had his own father. So many destinies, so many
Speaker 1: this generation of fathers and sons who are all destined
Speaker 1: to overthrow one another, and one that what's really interesting
Speaker 1: is that, you know what I'm about to get to
Speaker 1: in this is that Zeus is going to be sort
Speaker 1: of the one who breaks this ongoing curse. Kind of right,
Speaker 1: that this idea that the fathers are always going to
Speaker 1: overthrow the sons in this line. But in a recent conversation,
Speaker 1: and by reason I do mean like a few months ago,
Speaker 1: but time is a flat circle. I had with Matchie Preprovski.
Speaker 1: We talked about this, and one thing I had never
Speaker 1: really clocked is this idea that like Apollo would have
Speaker 1: been the one to carry that on. And so you know,
Speaker 1: what are those things about Apollo that are kind of
Speaker 1: we can see as Zeus preventing that from happening. I'm
Speaker 1: going to forget the details, but go back and listen
Speaker 1: to that conversation because I mean, one, it was two parts,
Speaker 1: because it was just so fucking good. But we really
Speaker 1: talked about the gods in terms of these like really
Speaker 1: technical and really fascinating, you know, like almost scientifically looking
Speaker 1: at the gods. And it was so incredible and one
Speaker 1: of the few conversations I get to have that was
Speaker 1: like so heavily based in the really broad nature of
Speaker 1: Greek mythology and what it means and doesn't mean, and anyway,
Speaker 1: it's all I can think about, and yet I don't
Speaker 1: have details to provide you with, So go listen. This
Speaker 1: does not jibe with Chronos. But his solution is not
Speaker 1: to stop having children because spoiler's ancient Greek gods are
Speaker 1: horny like all the time. But instead his solution is
Speaker 1: just to eat all his children, therefore solving the problem
Speaker 1: entirely just easy peasy. So Raya's popping out kids, just
Speaker 1: God after God after God, Poseidon and Hades and Hara
Speaker 1: and Demeter and Hestia, and they're all being swallowed up
Speaker 1: by Cronos. Finally, Raya gets sick of her husband eating
Speaker 1: their children. I mean, who wouldn't, and she devises a
Speaker 1: plan when Raya gives birth to their next child instead
Speaker 1: of giving him to Cronos because I guess before she'd
Speaker 1: just been handing him all their kids to eat. And
Speaker 1: this time she gives him a rock that's all wrapped
Speaker 1: up as if it's a baby, which he promptly consumes.
Speaker 1: This child she manages to save is none other than Zeus,
Speaker 1: future king of the Gods. Raya hides him on the
Speaker 1: island of Crete, where he's raised in a cave on
Speaker 1: Mount Ida by any number of random people or things,
Speaker 1: depending which version of the myth you read, or it's
Speaker 1: Mount Zas I think on Naxos, there's like a whole
Speaker 1: cave you can visit there that is, you know, apparently
Speaker 1: the mythological birthplace of Zeus. There.
Speaker 2: Mount Eyedep is a little bit more famous, I think,
Speaker 2: but Naxos is my favorite, so it deserves the mention.
Speaker 1: The point is, Zeus grows up to be old enough
Speaker 1: and strong enough to finally overthrow his father Kronos bringing
Speaker 1: truth to the prophecy. This is something that happens time
Speaker 1: and time again in mythology. If there's a prophecy, there
Speaker 1: is no point in trying to fight it because it
Speaker 1: will inevitably come true one way or the other. When
Speaker 1: Zeus is old enough, he sets out to take revenge
Speaker 1: on his father. It's pretty valid if you ask me,
Speaker 1: avenging your siblings, which your father has been eating uncontrollably
Speaker 1: for your entire life. Zeus forces Kronos to expel his
Speaker 1: siblings the gods. Whether this means that Zeus simply hits
Speaker 1: Kronos really hard on the back out pop a bunch
Speaker 1: of full grown gods, or whether Zeus slices him up
Speaker 1: gory like is not clear. The former is unlikely. Sure,
Speaker 1: but wouldn't it be a great visual.
Speaker 2: I'd fully forgotten that I say that, and yes, past live,
Speaker 2: that would be a great visual. I just love the
Speaker 2: idea that, like, this really epic thing that Zeus is
Speaker 2: gonna be known for for the rest of all time.
Speaker 2: That is not really said in any detail, is that
Speaker 2: he just like hit Kronos on the back rely herd
Speaker 2: and he just kind of like threw up five children The.
Speaker 1: Point is now Zeus has his siblings back, and they
Speaker 1: are the gods Poseidon, Hades, Hara, Demeter, and Hestia, and
Speaker 1: they are all pretty pissed. Now.
Speaker 2: One thing I didn't mention in this, I hope I'm
Speaker 2: not about to say it, in which case, disregard everything
Speaker 2: I'm about to say. But one thing I didn't mention
Speaker 2: in this you know, seven years ago version, is that
Speaker 2: what this actually means from a mythological standpoint is that
Speaker 2: both Zeus and Hestia serve as being the oldest and
Speaker 2: the youngest of the children. Like so Hestia was born
Speaker 2: first and therefore swallowed first, and Zeus was born last
Speaker 2: but never swallowed at all.
Speaker 1: And when the.
Speaker 2: Children are being thrown up by Kronos in whatever way,
Speaker 2: they are thrown up in the order reverse order rather
Speaker 2: of their birth, which means Hestia is the one who
Speaker 2: comes out last, and because of that she is oldest
Speaker 2: and youngest and Zeus's oldest and youngest. And they both
Speaker 2: play this role in really interesting ways, like Zeus obviously
Speaker 2: holds onto the idea that he is the oldest. Like
Speaker 2: if you're to go up to Zeus and you're like,
Speaker 2: you know, technically you're the youngest. He'd be like, ah,
Speaker 2: so fucking Lily, not like we don't talk about that.
Speaker 2: You have no idea what you're talking about. Fuck you,
Speaker 2: but Hestia, I think. But also like, I mean it's true, dude,
Speaker 2: like he behaves like the youngest child like all the
Speaker 2: fucking time. But Hestia, I meanwhile, you know, is this
Speaker 2: perfect goddess who who just serves mortals in a warm
Speaker 2: and fuzzy way and no other way. She has no drama,
Speaker 2: she has no she is just vitally important to the
Speaker 2: day to day lives because she is everyone's mother. You know,
Speaker 2: she is just this big, warm, hug in a goddess.
Speaker 2: And if that isn't this kind of concept of oldest
Speaker 2: and youngest sort of melded together to make this sort
Speaker 2: of honestly closest thing to perfect deity, Like I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is.
Speaker 1: Zeus is on a spree now next to Freeze. Kronos's
Speaker 1: monster siblings from Tartarus, the hecaton Kyries and the Cyclops.
Speaker 1: The Cyclops are pretty killer when it comes to forging weapons.
Speaker 1: They're kind of the Gordon Ramsay of the forge and
Speaker 1: they go to work. That was not a good joke.
Speaker 1: Was he relevant in twenty seventeen? Is he relevant now?
Speaker 1: I've never watched a cooking show in my life. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I would have said that. For Zeus
Speaker 1: they create his signature lightning bolts, for Poseidon his trident,
Speaker 1: and for Hades his helmet of darkness. And for the ladies, well, shit,
Speaker 1: all because women had to work their power, just like
Speaker 1: all bad ass females. Okay, yeah, yeah, that was good.
Speaker 1: I made up for it. At this point, Zeus has
Speaker 1: basically assembled an Avengers style superhero team. We've got Zeus
Speaker 1: with his gigantic white beard, wielder of lightning bolts, Poseidon
Speaker 1: who's getting off stabby with his trident, and Hades who's
Speaker 1: sporting his helmet of Darkness, which actually just makes them invisible.
Speaker 1: And then there's Hara, Hestia and Demeter, who are just
Speaker 1: being powerful, badass goddesses. You can just picture them in
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman's dance.
Speaker 2: Oh that aged well. I was waiting for that thought
Speaker 2: to finish so that I could just say, very vaguely
Speaker 2: to those who know the thing about you know, the
Speaker 2: newest or I guess one of the newest marvel ish
Speaker 2: I don't even know if it's technically Marvel but superheroes
Speaker 2: quote unquote superheroes, that's.
Speaker 1: Gonna be.
Speaker 2: Somehow in a movie, Like they really haven't taken her
Speaker 2: out anyway, industrial military complexes right late stage capitalism is
Speaker 2: doing great. The Wonder Woman joke was not irrelevant to this.
Speaker 1: The gods and monsters wage of war against the Titans
Speaker 1: Kronos and his non monster siblings. The war is called
Speaker 1: the titanomiche and it is not to be confused with
Speaker 1: a Clash of the Titans, because that movie didn't actually
Speaker 1: include any Titans. And don't even get me started on
Speaker 1: the Kraken. We'll leave that for when I cover Perseus.
Speaker 1: A kraken is from Norse mythology, for God's sake, still
Speaker 1: a relevant comment to make. Never not relevant fucking krakens.
Speaker 1: So where did that? Like, how why did we get there?
Speaker 2: Also one thing that I absolutely love, and I'm not
Speaker 2: even sure if I realized it back then, because now
Speaker 2: I have this like obsessive need to look into all
Speaker 2: etymological connections with Greek words. But titanomichi just means war
Speaker 2: of the Titans, like macki is basically like a not
Speaker 2: a prefix. The opposite I'm doing well, and then to Titans,
Speaker 2: so it just like means War of the Titans.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 2: That was a really, really relevant and well said point,
Speaker 2: and I'm keeping it in as well as this.
Speaker 1: The war went on for ten years and it was
Speaker 1: fought in the Greek region of Thessaly. So the gods
Speaker 1: fought with the help of the hecaton Kyries, who flung
Speaker 1: stones at the Titans. And you can just imagine how
Speaker 1: many stones three hundred handed dudes can throw. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of stones.
Speaker 2: It's nine hundred stones, you know, with each throw live
Speaker 2: Like I know, math isn't tar thing. Past live, I
Speaker 2: should say, I mean present live. Math still isn't my thing.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that one was easy. Nine hundred stones per
Speaker 2: Hans each throw.
Speaker 1: There are two Titans who didn't fight alongside Kronos and
Speaker 1: who instead sided with Zeus. At the risk of introducing
Speaker 1: too many names, as if I haven't done that already,
Speaker 1: they were famous and Prometheus. I point this out because
Speaker 1: Prometheus has his own exciting adventures still to come. Let's
Speaker 1: just say when it comes to Prometheus, there's a jar
Speaker 1: and fire and no epically disappointing alien movie in sight.
Speaker 1: The titanomic Key is one of the most ancient stories
Speaker 1: in mythology. By that, I mean it takes place so
Speaker 1: far back even in the mythology itself. This kind of
Speaker 1: history is history. It's myth wrapped in myth. It's the
Speaker 1: origin story of the gods who would go on to
Speaker 1: form the pantheon gods of Greek mythology, the Olympians. Almost
Speaker 1: all Greek myths revolve around the Olympians, so the Titanomice
Speaker 1: serves as a backdrop to their rule.
Speaker 2: What this also means is that there is like little
Speaker 2: to no detail on the technomic Key, like we know
Speaker 2: they had a war, even that Thessaly thing probably comes
Speaker 2: from a later source I imagine, like we just know they
Speaker 2: thought it was bad. One of the things that's so
Speaker 2: interesting about this whole story, you know, that I covered
Speaker 2: in that first episode, is just that it really does
Speaker 2: serve as like I said, history's history, like this this
Speaker 2: mythologizing of history, because they really did see it as
Speaker 2: this thing that was like in the distant past, both
Speaker 2: for them and the gods, like it had all happened already, right,
Speaker 2: Like basically all mythology had happened already, but especially when
Speaker 2: it comes to the line of divinities. Like it wasn't
Speaker 2: like this, I think somebody asked me this, which is
Speaker 2: why I'm explaining it this way, But like it wasn't like,
Speaker 2: you know, they thought that the Bronze Age Greeks lived
Speaker 2: under the Titans, and that you know, the Archaic and
Speaker 2: Classical lived under the Olympians.
Speaker 1: Like it was always just that that was the past.
Speaker 2: That was how Zeus got to be in power, and
Speaker 2: he was always the one that humans knew. And this
Speaker 2: is of course explained in the Introduction to humanity that
Speaker 2: comes much later, but even that is like very wishy
Speaker 2: washy as to whether that's actually, you know, how humans
Speaker 2: were quote unquote created. But mostly it's just this idea
Speaker 2: that like it was just always in the past. They
Speaker 2: were always dealing with Zeus, but they just came up
Speaker 2: with this like really amazingly epic origin.
Speaker 1: Once it's all over, Zeus and his pals have defeated
Speaker 1: the Titans, and not one to break with tradition, Zeus
Speaker 1: imprisons them in Tartarus. This time the hecatone Kyries act
Speaker 1: as guards. They get payback for being imprisoned themselves, and
Speaker 1: Zeus keeps their three hundred hands hidden far away. Only
Speaker 1: one Titan escapes Tartarus, and that's Atlas, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: escape punishment entirely. He now has the privilege of holding
Speaker 1: the earth on his back, keeping us all steady. We
Speaker 1: just want to make sure he doesn't shrug or will
Speaker 1: get caught up in some sort of anarchic objectivist disaster world.
Speaker 1: That was a bad joke, but I'm going with.
Speaker 2: It even I don't really get that. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: to day and Ran joke, but that's it.
Speaker 1: The only other children of Gaya and Uranas that escape
Speaker 1: this purge are a Kidnap and Typhon. And don't ask
Speaker 1: me why they escape it, because they're terrifying. Like Zeus,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have this whole war to overthrow these pretty
Speaker 1: benign Titans, but you're not gonna get rid of Ekidnap
Speaker 1: and Typhon. Really, let me explain. Typhon is a monster
Speaker 1: described as having a hundred snakeheads writhing atop his shoulders.
Speaker 1: These heads breathe fire and make every imaginable noise I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They're described as sounding like a lion and a bear
Speaker 1: and literally every other scary noise on the planet, only
Speaker 1: the sounds are coming out of a hundred snake heads
Speaker 1: atop a man's body. It's terrifying. Sometimes they even say
Speaker 1: he has wings, so that's an added bonus.
Speaker 2: For real, though, Typhon is so fucking awesome, Like there
Speaker 2: are so many different ways that he has described there's
Speaker 2: always a shit ton of snakes. I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 2: did an episode on him and it was just called
Speaker 2: like so many snakes, like it's just all snakes, but
Speaker 2: also yeah, like wings, like he was just like honestly
Speaker 2: Chef's kiss, perfect monster, mythological creature of death like no
Speaker 2: notes and Echidna, well, Akidna is a half snake half woman,
Speaker 2: which frankly is more than enough to turn me off.
Speaker 1: To clarify, like, I just really don't like snakes, but
Speaker 1: I do like them in mythology. But also I would
Speaker 1: like to say about a kidna that a kidnap is
Speaker 1: kind of described in a way that Medusa has been
Speaker 1: become like visually depicted in the last one hundred or
Speaker 1: so years, Like I don't know if she was depicted
Speaker 1: that way before the original Clash of the Titans, so
Speaker 1: it might be that movie's fault, but you know that
Speaker 1: like top half woman, bottom half snake that she has become.
Speaker 1: Like there is absolutely no ancient source that suggests that
Speaker 1: Medusa had a bottom half snake whatsoever. That is absolutely invented. However,
Speaker 1: conceptually it's coming from Echidna and like it's just being
Speaker 1: turned into Medusa. I'm saying the word conceptually too much.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's in my brain. I can't
Speaker 1: stop together though, they spawn some of the most epic
Speaker 1: monsters of myth, including but not limited to Cerberus, who's
Speaker 1: the three headed dog who guards the standard non tartarous underworld.
Speaker 1: Cerberus also stars as Fluffy and Harry Potter and the
Speaker 1: Philosopher's Stone. Oh gee, this is it, This is my chance,
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: I don't ever want to go back into my past
Speaker 2: episodes and cut out the references to Harry Potter and
Speaker 2: that fucking bitch ass Turf, because you know they existed
Speaker 2: at the time, Like this was all before.
Speaker 1: This was when she was an.
Speaker 2: Icon to so many of us, and when those books
Speaker 2: were like my entire like I want to say childhood,
Speaker 2: but like I was like twenty seven or twenty eight
Speaker 2: when this show started, so you know, but like they
Speaker 2: meant so much to my millennial generation that I don't
Speaker 2: want to go cut that stuff out. But I do
Speaker 2: want to say, and I have said so many times
Speaker 2: since to make this fucking clear, but like, fuck her,
Speaker 2: turfy bit, fuck turfs.
Speaker 1: I'll still say it.
Speaker 2: Trans people are wonderful, magnificent people, just like everyone else
Speaker 2: you know. Or rather, they're just fucking normal people living
Speaker 2: their fucking normal lives, and we all need.
Speaker 1: To stop trying to tell them what they can and
Speaker 1: cannot do. Jesus fucking Christ. Anyway, there's my chance.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to say her name, but like,
Speaker 2: you know, just fucking gross, Like thanks for ruining your
Speaker 2: entire legacy by just being like a fucking awful human.
Speaker 1: Right anyway, there's that. I've been waiting a really long
Speaker 1: time to say that in relation specifically to like so
Speaker 1: closely with those early episodes when I just she just
Speaker 1: shut She hadn't shown herself. Jesus Hydra, who's a many
Speaker 1: headed serpent thing with the awesome skill of growing back
Speaker 1: two heads whenever you cut off one. You'll know her
Speaker 1: from Disney's animated Hercules. Old her had a tricky time
Speaker 1: with that one and the camera uh sometimes fire breathing
Speaker 1: lion goats snake monstrosity, which lent its name to the
Speaker 1: now nearly forgotten but oh so wonderful show Dark Angel. Rip.
Speaker 2: This remains relevant. I stand by it. Dark Angel is
Speaker 2: nearly as good today as it was back then.
Speaker 1: Are there a couple jokes that shouldn't be jokes? Yep?
Speaker 2: Otherwise honestly fucking aged so like a fine wine, like
Speaker 2: a fine wine.
Speaker 1: So now we're at a point where the remaining gods
Speaker 1: are Zeus in his siblings, and they have to decide
Speaker 1: what the new world order is going to be, the
Speaker 1: three brothers, because ancient Greece, like every goddamn thing, was
Speaker 1: a patriarchy. Like I am sorry, angryman of the Internet.
Speaker 1: You really listened to this first episode and you thought
Speaker 1: you thought, I think I don't think she's a feminist,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't think I'm gonna hear any
Speaker 1: anti man sentiments. I'll just keep listening. In the number
Speaker 1: review as if that I've been surprised by it, they
Speaker 1: split up the world by drawing straws or something in
Speaker 1: that general vein. They probably didn't have straws. Zeus rules
Speaker 1: over the air and the sky beside in the sea,
Speaker 1: and Hades stuck with the underworld, which is why he's
Speaker 1: always pissed off. I actually think this this is really
Speaker 1: interesting because as far as I know, in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, very ancient sources, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: pre Roman sources, there's no detail on how the three
Speaker 1: gods determined, you know, who would get what. And it's
Speaker 1: used a lot this idea of like drawing lots and
Speaker 1: this like idea that Haites like lost, and I really think,
Speaker 1: I really think that that is a more modern invention,
Speaker 1: Like it seems to me that it was really this
Speaker 1: sort of inherent divine nature. There's no like Zeus wants
Speaker 1: it all and Poseidon wants the water, and you know,
Speaker 1: like I really think that this was a it was
Speaker 1: just divinely ordained and that's how it would have been
Speaker 1: understood in you know, in the ancient world, because they
Speaker 1: really there was not a lot of fear of death.
Speaker 1: There was a fear of leaving your loved ones, there
Speaker 1: was a sadness associated with death. There was you know,
Speaker 1: certainly grief, human grief. But it's the Christian concept.
Speaker 2: Of hell that forces this narrative into us now right,
Speaker 2: this idea that death is scary and bad and you're
Speaker 2: either going to go to the bad place or the
Speaker 2: good place, you know, but that really wasn't a thing.
Speaker 2: And so I really dislike this idea that Hades, that
Speaker 2: Hades lost anything, or that Hades was somehow mad or
Speaker 2: upset at all, that he was stuck, you know, this
Speaker 2: idea that he was stuck with the underworld, Like, I
Speaker 2: really don't think that that is mythologically accurate, at least
Speaker 2: in terms of, you know, the ancient Greek concept. I
Speaker 2: really think that that it was just this sort of
Speaker 2: divine nature. He was always meant to be the king
Speaker 2: of the underworld, to be the god of the dead,
Speaker 2: you know. He that was just sort of always going
Speaker 2: to be his role. And I think it's really important
Speaker 2: to say that because I think it really does push
Speaker 2: back against this idea that death is bad and scary,
Speaker 2: because that is so fucking Christian, Like, it's such a
Speaker 2: Christian Western idea. It's it's it really does not tie
Speaker 2: back to the ancient world, and I want to nip
Speaker 2: it in the bud. So, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do this episode is kind of
Speaker 2: correct things or expand upon them, just because I have
Speaker 2: grown so much and I have learned so much of
Speaker 2: the context, and I think it really adds so much
Speaker 2: to our understanding of Greek myth and it makes it
Speaker 2: it makes it less this like modern story and more
Speaker 2: what it really was, which was this like ancient culture,
Speaker 2: this this entire way of understanding the world and divinity broadly.
Speaker 2: I just think it's so much more interesting than, you know,
Speaker 2: than what we have made it into when it comes to,
Speaker 2: you know, picking up a book that just says, like
Speaker 2: the Greek myths like they're and all. But if you
Speaker 2: don't have that contextual background of like this was like
Speaker 2: a thousand years of tradition, there are so many different versions.
Speaker 2: We have to really ignore all of these these things
Speaker 2: that are coming to us through the lens of Christianity.
Speaker 2: That really takes away from the ancient culture of it all. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I just love pointing that shit out, so thanks very
Speaker 2: quick amendment, because I checked my work after recording this.
Speaker 1: In the Iliad, they do say that they pulled lots,
Speaker 1: but that still doesn't suggest that Hades lost, that Hades
Speaker 1: was like upset. As for the women folk, well, they
Speaker 1: get some decent roles, unlike the mortal women of ancient
Speaker 1: Greece who had it pretty fucking shitty. Harah becomes Zeus's
Speaker 1: sister wife because, like I said, Raya and Cronos were
Speaker 1: not the only married siblings, and she's the goddess of
Speaker 1: women and marriage. A bit ironically, as we'll come to see, Hesjaz,
Speaker 1: the goddess of the hearth and fire. She keeps to herself.
Speaker 1: She's pretty awesome, demeanors the goddess of the harvest and agriculture,
Speaker 1: and she's famous mostly for being a super pissed mom
Speaker 1: at one point. Again, we'll get there. From there, the
Speaker 1: pantheon of the Olympians is rounded out by Aphrodite, who
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, she of the castoration foam, and a
Speaker 1: select few of Zeus's many many children. His children deserve
Speaker 1: stories of their own. We'll just say I plan to
Speaker 1: devote an entire episode onto the slut that is Zeus.
Speaker 1: Irony of irony is given. His wife is the goddess
Speaker 1: of marriage. Like I said, Harrah gets the short end
Speaker 1: of the stick. To be sure. For now to say
Speaker 1: that of Zeus's children, those who become Olympians are Apollo
Speaker 1: and Artemis, who are twins. Apollo is the god of music, truth, prophecy, light,
Speaker 1: and the sun. Artemis is the badass virgin, goddess of
Speaker 1: the hunt. And then there's Athena, also a badass virgin.
Speaker 1: She's the goddess of wisdom, war craft, and diplomacy. It's
Speaker 1: war and craft, but also warcraft, I guess.
Speaker 2: And here is where I remind you all the the
Speaker 2: concept of quote unquote virgin.
Speaker 1: Is again what what's that? It's Christian So the idea
Speaker 1: of looking at Athena and Artemis through this lens of
Speaker 1: virginity is through a lens of Christianity, whereas in truth,
Speaker 1: in in this ancient Greek world, the word is parthenos,
Speaker 1: it means unmarried women. They did not conceptualize this idea
Speaker 1: of virginity as like a physical thing in your body,
Speaker 1: like good.
Speaker 2: It literally doesn't matter, it's not a thing, it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter anyway. They did not conceptualize it like that. And
Speaker 2: so what virginity was was just unmarried. So but also
Speaker 2: there is you know, a lot to be said about
Speaker 2: how women couldn't marry other women, and so like absolutely
Speaker 2: they were fucking and but they could still be called virgins,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, I think that that's probably true
Speaker 2: of Artemis in terms of like if we want to
Speaker 2: dive into you know what, how we could view her
Speaker 2: sexuality in the modern world. Same with the but I
Speaker 2: like to think that she's more asexual. There's a lot
Speaker 2: more evidence that Artemis is like into the nymphs, the
Speaker 2: nymph ladies. But I just really do want to emphasize
Speaker 2: that because this is something that I said a lot
Speaker 2: in the early days of the podcast, again because I
Speaker 2: did not have the background, the context. It is so
Speaker 2: important in understanding this stuff, and which is completely lacking
Speaker 2: when you are just trying to learn this on your own,
Speaker 2: like unless you are coming to sources that explain it.
Speaker 2: But so often the commercial sources that you're gonna find
Speaker 2: like don't because it's not easy to get into that detail,
Speaker 2: which is where I come in. So does this reminder
Speaker 2: this idea of virginity, you know, in the Western context
Speaker 2: is so inherently.
Speaker 1: Tied to Christianity and is so gross. It's so gross,
Speaker 1: right because it is like never really applicable to men,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter whereas women have this like bodily
Speaker 1: thing that they like ill, ye, you know you know,
Speaker 1: so unmarried means unmarried women. Parthenos Aries is the god
Speaker 1: of war who is not super popular among his breath
Speaker 1: and the's a bit of a loose cannon. Really. Hermes
Speaker 1: is a messenger god and all around trickster. He's basically
Speaker 1: the same Cutie Petuty from the animated Hercules. He's a
Speaker 1: little crazy. He wears a helmet and sandals, both with
Speaker 1: little wings we can fly around. He carries around the
Speaker 1: Caducia staff that ultimately comes to represent medicine and is
Speaker 1: another connection to Dark Angel. Again rip ough, so much
Speaker 1: to say here.
Speaker 2: One absolutely still think that he is the Cutie Patuty
Speaker 2: little weirdo from Disney's Hercules. Definitely still relevant. Two, he
Speaker 2: does carry around the Cadushias no live, no past live.
Speaker 2: It does not well, I guess it does come to
Speaker 2: symbolize medicine, but it shouldn't, and let me tell you why.
Speaker 2: So there are two ancient Greek staff like things that
Speaker 2: involve snakes, and both have come to represent medicine and
Speaker 2: the modern Western world in different ways. But one is
Speaker 2: wrong and one is right, and nobody really seems to
Speaker 2: be keeping track. So the Caducious that Hermes carried around
Speaker 2: has absolutely nothing to do with medicine in the ancient world.
Speaker 2: It is the one that has the like kind of
Speaker 2: thing at the top and two snakes wrapped around it. Okay,
Speaker 2: Hermes is a god of huh commercialism, mm hmmm mmmm,
Speaker 2: so it is particularly relevant when countries like the United
Speaker 2: States use it to describe medicine.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. The one that's actually supposed to be a
Speaker 1: symbol for medicine is just a staff, like a very
Speaker 1: simple walking stick kind of staff with one snake. That
Speaker 1: is the symbol for a Sclepius. It's what he carried around.
Speaker 1: He is the god of health of medicine, and thus
Speaker 1: that is the correct Ancient Greek symbol for it, not
Speaker 1: the caducious important dark angel. Still relevant again. Hephaestus, who's
Speaker 1: the god of the forge and husband of Aphrodite. Though
Speaker 1: she isn't a big fan of his, she is one
Speaker 1: of the few who takes a real shine to her
Speaker 1: brother Aris and Dionysus, who's the god of the vine,
Speaker 1: wine and general debauchery, and he eventually takes hestias spot
Speaker 1: in the Olympian order when she becomes sick of the
Speaker 1: other Olympians bullshit. Like I said, she's kind of a
Speaker 1: secret badass. She's not willing to take the petty squabbles
Speaker 1: of the Olympians and she just gets sick of it
Speaker 1: at one point and leaves. It's awesome, okay again, kind
Speaker 1: of like the drawing lots thing like this is not
Speaker 1: actually something that is ever described in the surviving sources,
Speaker 1: which I just find really interesting. Like it's more just
Speaker 1: that like over the breadth of time that is Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes Hestia is an Olympian and sometimes she's not
Speaker 1: really explicitly one. It never lessens her overall importance. She
Speaker 1: was so fucking important with her hearts, like it's how
Speaker 1: people kept themselves warm and they ate. It was like
Speaker 1: the family like emblem kind of thing. But she just
Speaker 1: sometimes isn't isn't an Olympian and so like I really
Speaker 1: do think though, like if we were to give it
Speaker 1: a story, it's that she was.
Speaker 2: Like, fuck you guys, I don't want any of this
Speaker 2: and she just left. But it is not explicit in
Speaker 2: any sources.
Speaker 1: The Olympians, now having established themselves as the ruling order
Speaker 1: of gods, they settle atop Mount Olympus, and hence their
Speaker 1: name from there, as we'll find out, they watch over
Speaker 1: the humans from afar, sometimes jumping in to start or
Speaker 1: stop wars, or too frankly, just spread their godly seed. Kay,
Speaker 1: but for real though, Like such an accurate statement and
Speaker 1: also like weirdly relevant for a novel that I'm working on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's early days, but relevant a general rule, though, the
Speaker 1: Olympians are not able to show themselves to humans in
Speaker 1: their true god form. A human can't survive it, so
Speaker 1: typically they find creative ways of interacting. Therein lies the
Speaker 1: fun of Greek myths. To what lengths will the gods
Speaker 1: go to have sex with mortals? We will find out
Speaker 1: the simpler days when I thought that there were any
Speaker 1: kind of general rules in Greek mythology, there are no rules.
Speaker 1: There is no canon, There is no right or wrong
Speaker 1: myth except for when it doesn't exist in the sources
Speaker 1: at all, and then it is wrong, like Medusa being
Speaker 1: actually dangerous to humans. But no, like there is no rules,
Speaker 1: there are no rules.
Speaker 2: Rather, so it's really a matter of like, sometimes there
Speaker 2: are stories where a god can't show himself to a woman,
Speaker 2: and you know it makes for disastrous results. Like Zeus
Speaker 2: and Semele for the birth of Dionysus, or you know,
Speaker 2: Cupid and Psyche. But that's very Roman and also not
Speaker 2: irrelevant to the thing that.
Speaker 1: I just said. Still, this idea that that there are
Speaker 1: any kind of rules, no, like, what it does is
Speaker 1: just kind of explain all those times when Zeus was like,
Speaker 1: I'm good to fuck a woman as a shower of gold,
Speaker 1: or well, I think in order to let's be honest,
Speaker 1: assault this woman, I'm going to appear as a swan.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Really, all it does is like a kind of account
Speaker 2: for that, or like you know, he did abduct an
Speaker 2: assault of poor the boy Ganymede as an eagle. Like
Speaker 2: there are no rules, there are just these stories. And
Speaker 2: then I think sometimes people who who retell them kind
Speaker 2: of invent these rules because it is interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: to have a kind of rule, to have a canon,
Speaker 2: to have like a kind of structure, and you know,
Speaker 2: as I talked about, you know, in that same episode
Speaker 2: I was talking about earlier with MATCHI like, there there
Speaker 2: is structure, but it is not so cut and dry
Speaker 2: and clean, you know, as the the retelling books often
Speaker 2: want you to believe. It's really just you know it's
Speaker 2: a lot more kind of deep and existential, but again,
Speaker 2: listen to those episodes. Still there are no rules, and honestly, like,
Speaker 2: isn't that why we all still love it? It's certainly
Speaker 2: why I love it after seven years, because there are
Speaker 2: no rules, and there it is the beginning of everything.
Speaker 2: They will only get crazier from here. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for listening to this inaugural episode of Let's Talk About Myths.
Speaker 1: Baby. My name is liv and I love this shit. Okay, honestly,
Speaker 1: that was actually that was really that was really fun.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys liked this episode. You know.
Speaker 2: It's something where like I mean, I'm not running out
Speaker 2: of content. I don't want to scare anyone, but like
Speaker 2: I'm definitely running out of you know. They're really the
Speaker 2: myths that we think of, the sort of standard concepts.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, of myth because I've just told them all.
Speaker 2: But I really like this idea of revisiting things, not
Speaker 2: by replaying it, you know, directly, but by kind of
Speaker 2: analyzing it and breaking down, you know, what what I
Speaker 2: might have been wrong about because I didn't have the context,
Speaker 2: what I might be able to expand upon now and
Speaker 2: add more information obviously, you know in cases where like
Speaker 2: THESEUS or PERSEUS, where I have already redone those stories
Speaker 2: in greater detail, Like I'm not going to do that
Speaker 2: with those episodes, but if there are other ones, you
Speaker 2: know that maybe don't need to be fully redone, or
Speaker 2: maybe I just they're very popular early episodes like this one.
Speaker 2: This episode gets like one hundred and fifty thousand downloads
Speaker 2: like a month, like, which compared to my other episodes
Speaker 2: is like fucking in just ridiculous. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I just want to like kind of look at it
Speaker 2: a little closer. So if you liked this, please let
Speaker 2: me know in whatever way that you can. If you're
Speaker 2: listening on Spotify, there will be an option for you
Speaker 2: to let me know whether this is something you'd like
Speaker 2: me to keep doing, because it was really fun for me.
Speaker 2: Also just generally, you know, this was so much fun.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening. I really hoped you like it.
Speaker 2: I needed this honestly, and it actually did, even though
Speaker 2: I was kind of like wild, just kind of my
Speaker 2: brain is sort of a mess today because of ADHD.
Speaker 2: You really need like structure and so having like a
Speaker 2: day and a half completely like taken away in this
Speaker 2: very stressful way of like I had no idea when
Speaker 2: I was going to get home because flights just kept
Speaker 2: getting canceled.
Speaker 1: And what's you know the most is that, like I was.
Speaker 2: I flew to this place with fucking winter, and I
Speaker 2: come from a place without winter, so it's just incredibly annoying.
Speaker 2: So I came back to like zero snow and really
Speaker 2: warm sunny weather when there was like six feet across
Speaker 2: the country. In any case, I really needed this. And I,
Speaker 2: you know, even on top of after this this ridiculous weekend,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously in as you've heard, you know, in
Speaker 2: past things I've recorded, I've been having a lot of
Speaker 2: trouble just being happy, let alone just like finding thrill
Speaker 2: in this again just because I've been so bogged down
Speaker 2: by my life and this was really this was really
Speaker 2: everything I needed it, like just really, so thank you
Speaker 2: all so much for listening. Let's talk about MAT's Baby
Speaker 2: is written and produced by me Live Alberton, godse it
Speaker 2: has been for seven fucking years. Like even just oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, listening to how I spoke back then, and
Speaker 2: I just it's really it's really fun. And for all
Speaker 2: I complain about how that episode gets all those downloads,
Speaker 2: and then so often people judge me based on it,
Speaker 2: and I'm just just listen to some more recent like
Speaker 2: I'm really I really come a long way, and I'm
Speaker 2: so proud of what I am now and anyway, but
Speaker 2: I am so proud of that first episode because it
Speaker 2: is what led me to be the person and the
Speaker 2: creator that I am now, and like, fuck it's it's
Speaker 2: really cool. Yeah, I really needed that just for my
Speaker 2: own mental health, So thank you.
Speaker 1: MICHAELA.
Speaker 2: Smith is the hermes to my Olympian Scots. Could you imagine,
Speaker 2: Like I just want to tell past live that I'd
Speaker 2: be reading credits seven years later. Uh where I employ
Speaker 2: two people and like angry leftists and me too, Like
Speaker 2: just like I get to employ people and make their
Speaker 2: jobs fun and well paid and low stress. And as
Speaker 2: a millennial who has worked some shit jobs and like
Speaker 2: shit jobs that led me to be creating this, it
Speaker 2: means a whole lot that I get to do that.
Speaker 2: So like, I mean, thank you to Mikaela for letting
Speaker 2: me pay you. I guess like you're the best. MaKayla's
Speaker 2: my assistant producer. Laura Smith is the production assistant and
Speaker 2: audio engineer Laura is amazing both of them. It's just
Speaker 2: so fucking fun. Select music in this episode was by
Speaker 2: the wonderful Luke Chaos.
Speaker 1: I also got to pay somebody to make me custom music.
Speaker 1: What is my Life Now?
Speaker 2: The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast network and
Speaker 2: still retains complete independence. I make what I want to make,
Speaker 2: as you can tell by this slightly unhinged episode.
Speaker 1: But you know what, guys, they pay me to give
Speaker 1: you all this free content, and how fuck cool is that?
Speaker 2: Help me continue bring you the world of Greek mythology
Speaker 2: and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron where you'll
Speaker 2: get bonus episodes and more, and they will be returning
Speaker 2: to my Patreon now that I've kind of got my
Speaker 2: shit back together, if you want to, if you want
Speaker 2: to subscribe, you know, for all that I Heeart does
Speaker 2: pay me, I also am afraid of capitalism, So if
Speaker 2: you want to help me out and make sure that
Speaker 2: if something ever blows up or I make them angry,
Speaker 2: you know I'll still keep going visit me over on Patreon.
Speaker 2: I do consider it to be more of a donation
Speaker 2: based system than for bonus content, because I give two
Speaker 2: free episodes of the show every week. I simply can't
Speaker 2: create more.
Speaker 1: So, but if you want to help me create the
Speaker 1: free ones, head on over there visit patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash myths Baby for that. The link is also in
Speaker 1: the description. And Oh, I meant to say this.
Speaker 2: I had to say this at the very end of
Speaker 2: the recording or the earlier episode. Rather, I think I
Speaker 2: said I love this shit like on a whim.
Speaker 1: I think I just was like, oh, this is the
Speaker 1: thing because it's true, because I actually find myself just
Speaker 1: like saying it in conversation, like when I was in
Speaker 1: Rome with my friend Jenny from agin histree Fangirl, I
Speaker 1: we were both kept saying it and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we're both just like using what has
Speaker 1: become my catchphrase, which is like so wild and weird.
Speaker 1: But it's just like what I say about the ancient world,
Speaker 1: because like, I have no better way of phrasing how
Speaker 1: much I fucking love it and really truly.
Speaker 2: This, Oh my gosh, this episode has just helped me
Speaker 2: get back to that. So thank you all so much
Speaker 2: for coming along on the ride. And I hope you
Speaker 2: liked it. And even if you liked it and you
Speaker 2: don't want more like that's fine too either way, it
Speaker 2: really helped me, so thank you all. I'm live and
Speaker 2: i love this shit.