Speaker 1: Hello, this is let's talk about MIT's baby. And I
Speaker 1: am that host of yours you cannot sing worth shit,
Speaker 1: and yet does this every time I am live, and
Speaker 1: so today I'm here with something a little different kind
Speaker 1: of So. A couple of weeks back, Godwin was it,
Speaker 1: I honestly don't even remember. Time is a flat circle.
Speaker 1: I did that episode where I re listened to the
Speaker 1: very first episod of this podcast, and I kind of
Speaker 1: expanded upon those things that I introduced to you guys
Speaker 1: at the beginning. I corrected some pieces, I added additional
Speaker 1: context all of these different things, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was really interesting, and thankfully Spotify now has this ability
Speaker 1: where I can ask you guys what you think directly
Speaker 1: after you listen to the episode, and so many of
Speaker 1: you agreed that I should do more of these, which
Speaker 1: was such a joy. Thank you. I think like eight
Speaker 1: people picked the not really interested in more option, and
Speaker 1: then it was like ninety percent heck yes, And I
Speaker 1: fucking love that. I don't know why I just said heck,
Speaker 1: but I fucking loved that. And so I really today's
Speaker 1: episode is based in that idea, but it is also
Speaker 1: based in what I am working on right now. So
Speaker 1: not only have I been spending my days, you know,
Speaker 1: coming up with content for Women's History Month, but I
Speaker 1: am also in the midst of preparing next month's special
Speaker 1: series of episodes, which is a very deep dive historical
Speaker 1: look into Greece during the Bronze Age and the collapse
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age. We are diving really, really heavily
Speaker 1: into that history, and by we, I mean Mikayla is
Speaker 1: doing such incredible research on it, and then I am
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I'm talking about based on
Speaker 1: Mikayla's incredible research, and we are planning and recording conversations
Speaker 1: with some absolutely fascinating people. What that means is that
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work. But then I also did
Speaker 1: agree to I think I mentioned it in a recent episode.
Speaker 1: I am writing this big introductory, contextual, historical cultural look
Speaker 1: at Medusa as a character for a book of short
Speaker 1: stories that is coming out sometime with Flame Tree Press.
Speaker 1: You can google that if you're interested. But what that
Speaker 1: means is that I've been also diving very deep into Medusa,
Speaker 1: and I am sort of caught up right now in
Speaker 1: this web of trying to understand all the ways that
Speaker 1: people see her now, all the ways that her story
Speaker 1: has been manipulated, And I mean that both maliciously and not,
Speaker 1: but just a pure manipulation of her story. Because honestly,
Speaker 1: I know I'm a broken record with this, but Medusa,
Speaker 1: of all characters, her story has been more manipulated, literally
Speaker 1: melded and changed and adjusted over the millennia, more than
Speaker 1: I swear anyone else. And it's absolutely fascinating. Like right now,
Speaker 1: I am just trying to get a grasp on all
Speaker 1: the ways in which her story has been changed, the
Speaker 1: ways in which people go and say like, oh, but
Speaker 1: the real story is X, or the truth is X,
Speaker 1: the original myth blah blah blah, all of these things,
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes they are wild departures from what
Speaker 1: actually exists in the ancient sources told to be quote
Speaker 1: unquote the original myth. Or sometimes they are just people
Speaker 1: who have taken Avid's version of the story, which is
Speaker 1: a very distinct and unique version of the story from
Speaker 1: the ancient world, and they have claimed this to be
Speaker 1: a kind of original or accurate or any number of things.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so utterly fascinated in people's desire to
Speaker 1: do this, both in terms of the ways in which
Speaker 1: her story has been sort of broken and adjusted and
Speaker 1: manipulated by misogyny, but also in the ways that her
Speaker 1: story the same thing has been done in her story
Speaker 1: by people who are explicitly reclaiming something in Medusa or
Speaker 1: or finding strength in her as a survivor, all of
Speaker 1: these different things. And so I'm looking at all of
Speaker 1: these things and trying to just get a grasp even
Speaker 1: on like what people understand and about her today, you know,
Speaker 1: and let alone all of the diving and research I'm
Speaker 1: going to be doing into, you know, what her story
Speaker 1: looked like in the ancient world. But honestly, I'm just
Speaker 1: so caught up in all of these versions and understanding
Speaker 1: and beliefs around Medusa that I just thought, you know,
Speaker 1: it is International Women's History Month. I think I've added
Speaker 1: an extra word in there. It is Women's History Month.
Speaker 1: It was recently International Women's Day. And so why the
Speaker 1: fuck not revisit one of my earliest episodes on Medusa,
Speaker 1: because not only has it become a true and really
Speaker 1: really lasting favorite of all of yours, which I absolutely love,
Speaker 1: but it also, you know, is this really interesting look
Speaker 1: at Medusa's story, And because I covered her story as
Speaker 1: it stands in Avid, I am now so curious about
Speaker 1: how wo how I went about telling her story all
Speaker 1: the way back in twenty eighteen, because frankly, for me,
Speaker 1: it's been six years and I don't know what the
Speaker 1: fuck I said. And so I I'm going to re
Speaker 1: listen to the Medusa section of that episode because in
Speaker 1: that episode I did cover a Rackney's story as well.
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at at what I would like to
Speaker 1: add contextually now, as well as how this fits with
Speaker 1: the wider Medusa that I have been seeing in my research.
Speaker 1: So basically, all have to say today is just a broad,
Speaker 1: unscripted Medusa rant of an episode, both examining that earliest
Speaker 1: episode I did back in twenty eighteen and also her
Speaker 1: just just fucking Medusa. This is a thought experiment on Medusa.
Speaker 1: This is episode two fifty two, What makes a Monster?
Speaker 1: What if Avid's Medusa was thinly veiled misogyny? In looking
Speaker 1: at Medusa's story and how it has been interpreted in
Speaker 1: the past, I mean, honestly, even in the past ten
Speaker 1: to twenty years, I think that's what I'm most interested
Speaker 1: in right now. It is so inextricably tied to Avid's
Speaker 1: version of the story now that it is very difficult
Speaker 1: to tease out what is actually going on, and having
Speaker 1: just listened to my own telling of this story, I
Speaker 1: absolutely emphasize that it is Avid, but I think even
Speaker 1: I uugh, I We're going to get into what I
Speaker 1: think about what is going on. But basically, I am
Speaker 1: going to play the entirety of my original retelling of
Speaker 1: Medusa's story as it appears in Avid. It's only like
Speaker 1: eight minutes long, and then I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: what is going on with Avid's interpretation and how we
Speaker 1: see it today, in addition to what I did and
Speaker 1: how how I think I would do it differently now,
Speaker 1: and what exactly I want to emphasize about her story,
Speaker 1: because oh, there is so much going on here now.
Speaker 1: Trigger warning. Avid's version of the story does explicitly include
Speaker 1: sexual assault by Medusa. It's not particularly graphic in the
Speaker 1: way that I've told it, but it's absolutely there, so
Speaker 1: take warning.
Speaker 2: Forkis was a primordial sea god, Quito a famous and
Speaker 2: terrible sea monster. When they got together to propriate, this
Speaker 2: results in the birth of three gorgons sisters, two immortals,
Speaker 2: Theeno and Urali, and one named Medusa, who is mortal.
Speaker 2: While the story of Medusa and her sisters exist throughout
Speaker 2: Greek mythology from some of the oldest sources, including the
Speaker 2: patriarchal monster himself, Hesiod, this story, this particular origin story,
Speaker 2: comes from a main man Avid, just like a Rackne.
Speaker 2: You know what that means Roman names for the gods.
Speaker 2: Medusa is stunning, a beautiful, unforgettable woman. Sure she is
Speaker 2: the daughter of a primordial sea god and a straight
Speaker 2: up sea monster, but she is beautiful. There are so
Speaker 2: many men after her, so many vying for her attention.
Speaker 2: Of course, though with attention from men and astonishing beauty
Speaker 2: comes hatred from the goddesses. Because, for the one hundredth time,
Speaker 2: these myths were thought up by men who all assumed
Speaker 2: that if a woman encountered another woman whom she might
Speaker 2: consider more beautiful, she would immediately hate that woman and
Speaker 2: wish all the tragedy in the world upon her. It's
Speaker 2: in our dna, you know. Medusa's beauty is known all around,
Speaker 2: but there's one quality about her that is considered her
Speaker 2: most impressive asset. The best and most stunning thing about
Speaker 2: her is her hair. Medusa has magnificent, flowing hair. And
Speaker 2: this is not the serpent locks you know of. This
Speaker 2: is legit, beautiful, jealousy inducing hair. Medusa is so beautiful
Speaker 2: and her hair so incredible to behold that she catches
Speaker 2: the eye of one Neptune Poseidon. Neptune spots Medusa one
Speaker 2: day and he knows he just.
Speaker 1: Has to have her.
Speaker 2: And we all know what that means. It means that
Speaker 2: because she's wearing a short peploss, or because her hair
Speaker 2: is styled in whatever way was particularly sexy for ancient
Speaker 2: Greek women, for whatever reason, she obviously deserves what is
Speaker 2: about to happen to her. It all stems from somewhere, friends,
Speaker 2: Neptune spots Medusa one day, and he begins devising away
Speaker 2: to get what he wants. So one afternoon, when she's
Speaker 2: worshiping in Minerva's temple, minding her own fucking business, just
Speaker 2: trying to support the Goddess of Wisdom, Neptune comes upon
Speaker 2: her and he rapes her. Neptune rapes Medusa within the
Speaker 2: walls of Minerva's temple, rapes her. Minerva, in all her glory,
Speaker 2: determines that this is a slight against her personally. She
Speaker 2: is a virgin goddess. This isn't something she's experienced herself,
Speaker 2: and it isn't something she wants to see. A woman
Speaker 2: has been raped in her temple. Raped. It's offensive, horrendous,
Speaker 2: and atrocity. Minerva hides her eyes while it's happening. She
Speaker 2: doesn't want to witness this.
Speaker 1: She is chaste, she is pure.
Speaker 2: Somebody has to be punished for this. Minerva determines that
Speaker 2: it is Medusa who must be punished for being raped
Speaker 2: by a god. As a punishment for being raped, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's definitely not punishment enough, let alone punishment for
Speaker 2: doing absolutely nothing wrong. As punishment for being raped, Minerva
Speaker 2: turns Medusa's beautiful, flowing hair into snakes, awful, terrifying, hissing snakes,
Speaker 2: So she hides. She hides because fine, she also turns
Speaker 2: humans to stone with a single look. But it's also
Speaker 2: because a goddess turns her hair into snakes, making her
Speaker 2: less than fun at dinner parties. Medusa hides. She hides
Speaker 2: until one day a random man shows up with a sword,
Speaker 2: a shield, a bag, and winged sandals. On that day,
Speaker 2: the man uses the shield as a mirror so he
Speaker 2: doesn't see Medusa's face. She doesn't want him to see
Speaker 2: her hair, as it is made of angry, hissing snakes.
Speaker 2: She avoids him, but he's there to get her. He
Speaker 2: uses the shield so that she can't use her one
Speaker 2: form of defense, turning people into stone with a single look.
Speaker 2: This strange man who's appeared out of nowhere, uses the
Speaker 2: shield as a mirror until finally he gets to her.
Speaker 2: With one swift motion, this strange man slices off Medusa's head.
Speaker 2: The snakes hiss and cry, and her head falls to
Speaker 2: the ground. This stranger who appeared from nowhere still avoids
Speaker 2: looking at her. Everyone has avoided looking at her ever
Speaker 2: since her hair was turned to snakes in punishment for
Speaker 2: being raped. This has been her life. Her life ends
Speaker 2: with a slicing sound through the air, a thud on
Speaker 2: the ground as her head falls, and the snakes stop
Speaker 2: their hissing and lie still, and all their remains are
Speaker 2: children she never knew she had. From her headless body
Speaker 2: spring a man and a horse, Chris Or The man
Speaker 2: springs fully formed from the poor woman's neck, and the horse,
Speaker 2: with massive feathery wings, shoots out, flying up into the sky,
Speaker 2: testing his wings for the first time neither child Man
Speaker 2: or flying horse ever gets to meet their mother. All
Speaker 2: because Athena is a fucking bitch who blamed women for
Speaker 2: being raped by awful men. It all comes from somewhere, people.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, there is so much happening here. Honestly, I am.
Speaker 1: I remain very proud of this episode. I want to
Speaker 1: be very clear about that. It is quite accurate to
Speaker 1: the story as it appears in Avid. It is obvious
Speaker 1: that that I got the point across the horrors of
Speaker 1: Medusa's story as it appears in Avid, and I think
Speaker 1: that it was told well. But now, oh, there's just
Speaker 1: so much more to say. First and foremost, I think
Speaker 1: it's important to contextualize Medusa's story in Avid like in
Speaker 1: Avid itself, because unlike so many other stories of transformation
Speaker 1: within the broader metamorphoses, like a Rackney Say, who also
Speaker 1: appears in the rest of that regular episode, the story
Speaker 1: of Medusa does not appear until after Medusa is dead.
Speaker 1: We meet Perseus in Avid's metamorphoses after he has already
Speaker 1: killed Medusa, taken her head, and then used it to
Speaker 1: kill other people. So we are visiting her story in
Speaker 1: the context of violence, not just violence against Medusa, but
Speaker 1: violence with the use of Medusa as the weapon. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is both fascinating but also really
Speaker 1: important when we're looking at what exactly Avid says about her.
Speaker 1: So I want to just read a section from Abvid's
Speaker 1: Metamorphoses in this new translation by Stephanie McCarter, which of
Speaker 1: course I didn't have when I first did this episode
Speaker 1: because it didn't exist. And basically, so we meet Percia
Speaker 1: having killed Medusa, carrying her head in a bag. He
Speaker 1: has used it against a handful of others and has
Speaker 1: just saved Andromeda, and they are, you know, celebrating in
Speaker 1: Ethiopia with Andromeda's family. She's just been saved by a
Speaker 1: sea monster. Obviously, there is so much going on there.
Speaker 1: You can listen back to my very detailed two part
Speaker 1: episode I believe on Perseus for more. But that is
Speaker 1: the context for this, Okay. We are celebrating the use
Speaker 1: of Medusa's head as a deadly weapon and enduring those celebrations. Basically,
Speaker 1: someone is like, hey, how'd you get that head? And so,
Speaker 1: you know, Perseus tells the story as we know it.
Speaker 1: He talks about the gray Eye, how they shared an
Speaker 1: eye and a tooth, and how he used this against
Speaker 1: them to give up the location of Medusa. And then
Speaker 1: you know, he gets to Medusa, and this is where
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote it. The barren and tree spiked
Speaker 1: crags where gorgons have their home. Throughout the field and paths,
Speaker 1: he could see statues of humans and wild beasts that
Speaker 1: had been changed to stone. When they returned Medusa's gaze,
Speaker 1: yet he had seen his looks reflected in his bronze shield.
Speaker 1: And as she slept, he snatched her head clean off.
Speaker 1: He snatched her head clean off. The lack of violence
Speaker 1: in this act compared to the use of Medusa's head
Speaker 1: as a weapon of violence, is so striking to me. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, I won't pretend to know the Latin well enough.
Speaker 1: The translation that I would have used when I first
Speaker 1: told this story says that he cut that gorgon's head
Speaker 1: off from her act. Something about snatched, though being used
Speaker 1: by Macrter here, feels incredibly intentional, and so I kind
Speaker 1: of want to trust her telling of it. She wouldn't
Speaker 1: have said snatched unless there was a lack of violence
Speaker 1: in this act, And so that that is our introduction
Speaker 1: to the fact that Medusa was once a living being,
Speaker 1: because we have already had like two full sections talking
Speaker 1: about the capabilities of her head. But this is where
Speaker 1: we know that she was a living thing and that
Speaker 1: not only was there such little violence in her death,
Speaker 1: but we also learned that she was sleeping when this
Speaker 1: man just snuck in, you know, used this shield so
Speaker 1: that he could look at her without dying, and just
Speaker 1: basically removed her head. The emphasis here is that her
Speaker 1: head is a thing to be used. It is not
Speaker 1: a thing that deserves to be on the body of
Speaker 1: the living creature that it belongs to, and that is
Speaker 1: so important. But then, of course we get to the
Speaker 1: real meat of her story, right that detailed description that
Speaker 1: you just re listened to that you you know that
Speaker 1: I recorded all the way back in twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 1: I was able to turn into this very dramatic act
Speaker 1: a real narrative story. I'm quite impressed with actually what
Speaker 1: happened there. I think that I had almost gas lit
Speaker 1: myself into believing that that exists within Ofvid, that he
Speaker 1: is providing us with this this sympathetic and detailed story
Speaker 1: of her fate and how she came to be, you know,
Speaker 1: who she was, how she came to be this, this
Speaker 1: snake haired quote unquote monster her turns people to stone.
Speaker 1: I was also convinced that there is a detailed story,
Speaker 1: and I certainly gave one to you back then, which
Speaker 1: is why I want to very explicitly read to you
Speaker 1: the entirety, okay, the entirety of Avid's telling of how
Speaker 1: Medusa came to have the fate that she had. So,
Speaker 1: after Perseus has explained how he got Medusa's head at
Speaker 1: this feast, someone asks him basically like you noted that
Speaker 1: you know her two sisters were immortal and she was mortal,
Speaker 1: and we get the implication here that only Medusa had
Speaker 1: this snaky hair, and that, of course, you know, as
Speaker 1: we know well, only Medusa could turn people to stone.
Speaker 1: And so someone asks him like, hey, why was that?
Speaker 1: And this is what Perseus says, quote, since you seek
Speaker 1: things worth the telling, here is the reason. Once acclaimed
Speaker 1: for beauty, she was the fervent hope of many suitors,
Speaker 1: and her most striking feature was her hair. I found
Speaker 1: a young man who alleged he'd seen it. They say
Speaker 1: the sea god raped her in Minerva's temple. Jove's daughter
Speaker 1: turned away, chaste eyes veiled by her aegis. This was
Speaker 1: not unpunished. She changed the gorgon's hair into foul serpents,
Speaker 1: and even now to stun her foes with fright, she
Speaker 1: wears upon her chest those snakes she made. That's all
Speaker 1: of it, That's the whole story. It's conveyed to us
Speaker 1: not only as this kind of afterthought, because that is
Speaker 1: the end of Perseus's telling of the story to the
Speaker 1: people of Ethiopia. It's not only presented as this kind
Speaker 1: of afterthought at the end, after her head has been
Speaker 1: used to cause such incredible violence, but it is conveyed
Speaker 1: almost like a rumor. And I find that to be
Speaker 1: incredibly interesting. He basically says it's a rumor, right, he says,
Speaker 1: they say the sea god raped her in Minerva's temple.
Speaker 1: And obviously that could be just a method of Avid's storytelling,
Speaker 1: but to me, it feels incredibly relevant, given that Avid
Speaker 1: is the first person to introduce not only the idea
Speaker 1: of an explicit sexual assault. You all know, I would
Speaker 1: argue that that sexual assault does also occur in Hesiod's
Speaker 1: earliest version of her story, but he is definitely certainly
Speaker 1: the first to introduce the idea that it happened in
Speaker 1: Athena's temple, and that it linked is linked to Athena
Speaker 1: in this way, that Athena transformed her to have this hair.
Speaker 1: That is, as far as we know it a completely
Speaker 1: Ovidian invention, and it's important to recognize that just because
Speaker 1: it does really change the story of Medusa and how
Speaker 1: we see her now. The thing about all of this
Speaker 1: is that it really, you know, it is presented in
Speaker 1: this way of it's just kind of an afterthought. It's
Speaker 1: a rumor. It's oh, they say, this is what happened.
Speaker 1: It's very much just sort of ah, like a thorowaway
Speaker 1: line in the grand scheme of Perseus has brought this
Speaker 1: woman's head in to do great damage. And yet it
Speaker 1: has become this thing today where you know, you google
Speaker 1: the story of Medusa and this is what you will get.
Speaker 1: I want to look at how Medusa is viewed today.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna so I'm gonna just share a little
Speaker 1: bit of what comes up when you just google Medusa. Okay,
Speaker 1: So first, one of the or the top video result
Speaker 1: that Google gives is a History Channel clip talking about
Speaker 1: her story and oh is it really something one? It
Speaker 1: presents Avid's story as explicitly the Greek myth, which is
Speaker 1: of course completely not only untrue, but just lacks so
Speaker 1: much important context about what exactly is going on with
Speaker 1: the ancient sources. I can't even get into it, but
Speaker 1: it really dramatizes all of it. I do believe that
Speaker 1: it is one of the places, and there are many
Speaker 1: I want to get into this too. There are many
Speaker 1: places that claim she was a priestess of Athena. Now
Speaker 1: that's something even I have heard so often that when
Speaker 1: I just revisited this so Vivian telling, I was expecting
Speaker 1: to find it. But you will note that there was
Speaker 1: nowhere in what I've just read to you where it
Speaker 1: says she was a priestess. I mean, I suppose the
Speaker 1: implication could be there because she was in Athena's temple,
Speaker 1: but like that really doesn't suggest anything about being a priestess.
Speaker 1: Like anyone would go into those temples. It was completely
Speaker 1: ubiquitous act of entering a temple for a goddess like Athena,
Speaker 1: especially a goddess like Athena, like one of the most
Speaker 1: widely worshiped goddesses in the ancient Greek world. Like everyone
Speaker 1: is just walking into her temple it does not require
Speaker 1: like a priestess status, so I find that really interesting.
Speaker 1: But this video is just honestly kuckoo bananas if you
Speaker 1: want to check it out. But as you go further
Speaker 1: into Medusa on Google, what I'm fascinated by is the
Speaker 1: sort of the questions that you can, you know, prompt right.
Speaker 1: So there's a qu there's a list of questions here
Speaker 1: on Google. The first says why was Medusa Turned Evil?
Speaker 1: Which is fascinating And I'm not going to click on
Speaker 1: this link. I want to just read to you what
Speaker 1: appears on Google. I'm assuming that there is important context
Speaker 1: added at the link, because the first result for why
Speaker 1: was Medusa Turned Evil? Is from the met Museum in
Speaker 1: New York, So I hope that this is not what
Speaker 1: they say, but the actual sentence, the paragraph rather that
Speaker 1: shows up on Google is the snake haired Medusa does
Speaker 1: not become widespread until the first century BC. What the
Speaker 1: Roman author Avid describes the mortal Medusa as a beautiful
Speaker 1: maiden seduced by Poseidon in a temple of Athena. Such
Speaker 1: a sacrilege attracted the goddess's wrath, and she punished Medusa
Speaker 1: by turning her hair to snakes. Now again, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that there is extra context on this website. But the
Speaker 1: problem I want to raise is that there is no
Speaker 1: content on Google, which of course is just like a
Speaker 1: broad problem for Google in so many ways. But I
Speaker 1: am fascinated by what it is doing to Medusa so specifically.
Speaker 1: And then the next question, all right, what does Medusa symbolize?
Speaker 1: This says, this is from a oh, dear Oh, it
Speaker 1: is from a website called this Youngie in Life. I
Speaker 1: know what we're gonna get, And it says, as a gorgon,
Speaker 1: Medusa represents a primordial force of chaos and destruction, embodying
Speaker 1: the untamed and unpredictable aspects of the natural world. Her
Speaker 1: petrifying gaze can be interpreted as a reminder of the
Speaker 1: inherent danger and potential for devastation that exists within the
Speaker 1: natural order. Why there are so many monsters from Greek
Speaker 1: myth that I believe that this is actually applicable to
Speaker 1: uh monsters like the hydra, the chimera, typhon. So specifically,
Speaker 1: there are a long list of monsters that this applies
Speaker 1: to that do represent the primordial force of chaos and
Speaker 1: destruction of the natural world. There are absolutely monsters that
Speaker 1: do this. Medusa is simply not one of them. Her
Speaker 1: story member as it exists in Heesid, I mean, I
Speaker 1: have this memorized at this point. The story as it
Speaker 1: exists Inhesid is that Medusa was born a gorgon to
Speaker 1: Forcus in Keto. With her sisters, she was the only
Speaker 1: mortal gorgon. He does not give any explanation for why
Speaker 1: that might be. He says that Poseidon quote unquote lay
Speaker 1: with her, but the implication there is that it is
Speaker 1: very unlikely to be consensual, and that she suffered a
Speaker 1: woeful fate. He describes Perseus cutting off her head and
Speaker 1: her children, Pegasus and Chrissy, are being birthed from the
Speaker 1: stump of her severed neck. That is her story in
Speaker 1: the earliest surviving source. There is not a single reference
Speaker 1: to her causing any damage to the world to a
Speaker 1: single person, just the notion that once her head is
Speaker 1: cut off, at the very least, it can be used
Speaker 1: to turn people to stone. Of course, we can gather
Speaker 1: that that might have been applicable before it was cut
Speaker 1: off her head, particularly when we get to these more
Speaker 1: detailed versions where Perseus has to use this shield as
Speaker 1: a mirror. However, there is not a single reference to
Speaker 1: her having harmed anyone before we reach Avid's telling of
Speaker 1: the story, and so there is just simply not a
Speaker 1: single lick of evidence to suggest that she does represent
Speaker 1: this kind of chaos of the natural world. Even when
Speaker 1: we get to Avid, it still doesn't stand. She is
Speaker 1: given this sympathetic story. We do learn that she is
Speaker 1: surrounded by statues of those she has transformed to stone,
Speaker 1: but there is still no implication that she did it intentionally,
Speaker 1: that she did it with any kind of malice. There
Speaker 1: is no version that I have ever come across, in
Speaker 1: seven years of obsessing over her and being well aware
Speaker 1: of the ancient sources, there is no version of an
Speaker 1: ancient source on Medusa's story that suggests that when she
Speaker 1: was alive, she intentionally committed any harm to any living creature.
Speaker 1: And yet we get this kind of psychologizing, this philosophizing
Speaker 1: on her as this source of chaos and destruction. I
Speaker 1: have seen it in countless places, and it just makes
Speaker 1: me want to scream, because while that is so applicable
Speaker 1: to so many monsters and like, it is interesting if
Speaker 1: it was applicable, but I want to hear one tiny
Speaker 1: piece of ancient evidence that suggests that this is applicable
Speaker 1: to Medusa, because I can't find it. And then we
Speaker 1: get to you know, more generic questions about Medusa on Google,
Speaker 1: about the possibility of her, you know, as a beautiful
Speaker 1: person being cursed. There's a meeting article that is clearly
Speaker 1: talking about Avid and says that she was originally a
Speaker 1: golden haired fair maiden. So we're also whitewashing her, given
Speaker 1: she's meant to be found in North Africa, Northwest Africa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: golden haired fair maiden, get a grip. The idea of
Speaker 1: a maiden too, is very uncertain, obviously. Sometimes that word
Speaker 1: now is meant to just kind of apply to young woman,
Speaker 1: but intent like etymologically speaking, it means virgin, which there's
Speaker 1: no suggestion of that again, and you know, certainly I
Speaker 1: guess she was unmarried, so for going with that, she was,
Speaker 1: but she was born a gorgon. Even Avid, to be clear,
Speaker 1: even Avid emphasizes that she was born a gorgon. He
Speaker 1: says she was beautiful, but she was born a gorgon.
Speaker 1: She was born a gorgon to these sea gods, Forcus
Speaker 1: and Keto, there is nothing to suggest that she was
Speaker 1: particularly human. The word beauty is used, but it is
Speaker 1: certainly open to interpretation as to what exactly that means.
Speaker 1: And then we get to some Quora questions. Oh Gods
Speaker 1: are those messy? And you know, I actually just realized
Speaker 1: I missed the very first question that appears on Google.
Speaker 1: The people also ask the top one is what is
Speaker 1: the real story of Medusa? And this comes from the
Speaker 1: World History Encyclopedia, And again I hope that the website
Speaker 1: includes context. But if people are just reading this paragraph
Speaker 1: that pops up, it says Medusa was seduced by Neptune
Speaker 1: Poseidon in a temple to Minerva Athena, and in revenge,
Speaker 1: Minerva turned Medusa's beautiful head of hair into snakes, and
Speaker 1: she was both mortal and had the ability to turn
Speaker 1: men to stone. Perseus was sent to cut off her head. Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, I did want to make sure that
Speaker 1: this website includes more context, and God's I really hope
Speaker 1: people click on this because it does very explicitly say
Speaker 1: that the best known story comes from Avid and then
Speaker 1: describes what I read earlier. But then the following question
Speaker 1: after this is is Medusa evil or good? And it
Speaker 1: says there are no stories that tell us of Medusa
Speaker 1: turning people to stone, nor any tales of her harassing
Speaker 1: or killing people. Unlike other Greek monsters such as Scilla
Speaker 1: and Charybdis, although she had the power to kill, she
Speaker 1: was not inherently evil. So thank Youworldhistory dot Org. But
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a little about what it
Speaker 1: means that Avid's version has become what it has today.
Speaker 1: It can be empowering, I want to say upfront, I
Speaker 1: don't want to take away from the empower that does
Speaker 1: come with Medusa being a survivor of assault. I think
Speaker 1: that it is incredibly important to see that structure, you know,
Speaker 1: being used in the myths. But I would argue that
Speaker 1: using Avid's version for that is it's not kind to Medusa,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that it brings across the same
Speaker 1: point that people want it to make, especially now that
Speaker 1: I have reread it. The idea that her she is
Speaker 1: introduced through violence of the use of her head as
Speaker 1: a weapon, long long, long before we ever hear anything
Speaker 1: about her as a person, is incredibly important, and that
Speaker 1: you know, her sympathetic origin story is conveyed over like
Speaker 1: four lines as an afterthought is also incredibly important. I
Speaker 1: don't think that Avid's version is kind to Medusa. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I've said before that it was. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's true. So I don't think that he was being
Speaker 1: kind in telling her story. I think that it is
Speaker 1: an insult to Medusa. I believe that Hesiod's version, for
Speaker 1: all Hesiod was flawed, is all shit. I believe that
Speaker 1: this her, the earliest surviving source for Medusa's story, is
Speaker 1: the most kind to her. It takes all of the
Speaker 1: blame off of her for what Perseus did in killing her.
Speaker 1: It does convey the idea that she was a survivor
Speaker 1: of Poseidon. Hesiod does not explicitly call it assault, but
Speaker 1: almost nothing in the ancient Greek sources is explicitly called assault,
Speaker 1: and particularly not in Hesid, because it wasn't a question
Speaker 1: of whether the woman was willing. That just wasn't a
Speaker 1: question they were asking or answering in those sources. That
Speaker 1: isn't to say it wasn't something that occurred to them
Speaker 1: or that they didn't care, but in the sources as
Speaker 1: they stand, it wasn't a question that was being asked
Speaker 1: or answered. I think we can can and should read
Speaker 1: into Hesid as being non consensual, particularly because of the
Speaker 1: word choices, the word used to suggest that she quote
Speaker 1: unquote lay with Poseidon, because that is always how it
Speaker 1: is translated, as far as I could tell, and I'm
Speaker 1: not particularly good at ancient Greek, but I do know
Speaker 1: how to search through the usage of words in ancient Greek.
Speaker 1: The word used for all that I have been able
Speaker 1: to dig into the source, The word used Inhesid means
Speaker 1: ultimately something like to pluck out a superfluous hair, and
Speaker 1: as it has been used to convey sexual intercourse. It
Speaker 1: appears in Heesid and in the Iliad when discussing Achilles's
Speaker 1: relationship with Bresais. As far as I know, it has
Speaker 1: not was not used beyond that particularly, and so the
Speaker 1: idea that a word that is used to describe sex
Speaker 1: also means to pluck out a superfluous hair, and was
Speaker 1: used when discussing a man having sex with a woman
Speaker 1: that he took as a war gift. Basically, there's a
Speaker 1: better word for that. But she was abducted from her
Speaker 1: life and brought to live in a camp for the enemy.
Speaker 1: The idea that that word being used to describe Poseidon
Speaker 1: and Medusa doesn't convey some kind of violence is fucking
Speaker 1: wild to me, like it so obviously does. Whereas this
Speaker 1: story as it appears in Avid, while explicit about an assault,
Speaker 1: is not kind about the assault. It not only demonizes
Speaker 1: Athena and suggests that she would do something like this,
Speaker 1: but it is it is not sympathetic to Medusa. This
Speaker 1: woman has had her head used for like five hundred
Speaker 1: lines of poetry to describe horrible violence. And then when
Speaker 1: somebody's finally like, hey, she was alive once, right, they
Speaker 1: tell this story And yeah, I mean, looking at it
Speaker 1: now with all of the context that I know, I really,
Speaker 1: I really don't think that Avid's is at all something
Speaker 1: that we should, you know, be finding some kind of
Speaker 1: solace in. I don't know he seeds it to me.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't want to take away from what
Speaker 1: anyone else has or has not found in Avid for themselves.
Speaker 1: But I think what tends to frustrate me when it
Speaker 1: comes to Medusa is how often Avid's story is conveyed
Speaker 1: as the quote unquote true or original myth. And it's
Speaker 1: done so often out of this this suggestion that because
Speaker 1: you know, it gives her this origin story, it is
Speaker 1: somehow better better for her to suggest that she actually
Speaker 1: was once beautiful and transformed into what she was, and
Speaker 1: I think that that has a lot of layers of
Speaker 1: misogyny that that the people using it don't want, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that they are aware of the misogyny
Speaker 1: that's inherent in that by saying it. But the idea
Speaker 1: that that she was once beautiful and then made ugly
Speaker 1: is I mean it. I want there to be like
Speaker 1: a word like fat shaming, but for looks, because that's
Speaker 1: what it feels like to me. Right Whereas Medusa was
Speaker 1: a gorgon and and that made her not human, but
Speaker 1: what it didn't make her was ugly, Like there there
Speaker 1: nothing in the Greek forms of Medusa to suggest that
Speaker 1: she felt ugly as a gorgon, or that people saw
Speaker 1: gorgons as ugly. They were simply not human, right, they
Speaker 1: were divine in some way. They do have this kind
Speaker 1: of monstrous context. But monstrosity does not mean ugly, and
Speaker 1: it monstrosity is not an opposite to beauty, and I
Speaker 1: think to suggest that monstrosity is an object to an
Speaker 1: opposite rather to beauty has a lot of misogynist undertones, right, Like,
Speaker 1: this monstrous woman can't be beautiful when how I see
Speaker 1: Medusa is that she was born that way and that's
Speaker 1: just simply who she was. It wasn't an insult to
Speaker 1: say that she was monstrous. She was born a monster.
Speaker 1: And again, the connotations of monstrosity as ugly not only
Speaker 1: has misogynist undertones, but it is also a more construct
Speaker 1: right Like, there's nothing to suggest that the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: were around going like, oh, Medusa was ugly, she was monstrous.
Speaker 1: Her monstrosity served a purpose. It was not about ugliness.
Speaker 1: It was about protection, And I mean it was mostly
Speaker 1: about protection, right like. Her symbol was also used as
Speaker 1: an apotropaic device. Of course, it is a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's about her head being off her body and being
Speaker 1: able to be used as a weapon. That's why it
Speaker 1: appears as a form of protection. Unfortunately, also, there are
Speaker 1: rumors that go around online that suggest that the gorgon
Speaker 1: symbol was used I forget what the details are, but
Speaker 1: it's something to do with sexual assault or used by
Speaker 1: women in the ancient world as a protective device, like
Speaker 1: it was somehow a more feminine or a woman's specific thing.
Speaker 1: That isn't true. There's no evidence of that it was
Speaker 1: simply a protective device. But that protective device is linked
Speaker 1: to the fact that after her head was cut off
Speaker 1: from her body, it was put onto Athena's shield, right,
Speaker 1: It was explicitly Athena's protective device, and therefore was used
Speaker 1: as such by humans as well, which I think that
Speaker 1: it doesn't take away from the value. It is just
Speaker 1: the context of she was a protective device. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's really important when we are looking at
Speaker 1: the idea of monstrosity and how monstrosity does not have
Speaker 1: to be evil. Monstrosity does not have to be it
Speaker 1: does not have to come with malice or destruction. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: in this case, her head was used for destruction when
Speaker 1: it was off her body, But Medusa's monstrosity is not
Speaker 1: inherently tied to violence, and I think that that is
Speaker 1: in itself a a kind of act of resistance. That
Speaker 1: she was monstrous, but that wasn't a bad thing. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a bad thing to be monstrous in this context.
Speaker 1: And I think that when Avid introduces the idea that
Speaker 1: she was once beautiful and sawed after and then Athena
Speaker 1: made her monstrous and ugly, I think that that is
Speaker 1: mean to Medusa. It is mean to women, it is
Speaker 1: mean to assault survivors. I think that is considerably more
Speaker 1: harmful than the version where Medusa was just born that way.
Speaker 1: Medusa inhesiate in her earliest source, is born that way,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make her any less of a victim
Speaker 1: or survivor of assault. It doesn't make her any less
Speaker 1: of a victim of Perseus's murder of her. It is
Speaker 1: just who she was. And I think that taking that away,
Speaker 1: I mean, it just feels to me like it's screaming
Speaker 1: of the importance of beauty over anything else. And then
Speaker 1: of course we get the reading of it that that
Speaker 1: Athena actually helped Medusa in this quote unquote curse, that
Speaker 1: you know, she prevented her from getting assaulted again, and
Speaker 1: I think there's so many problems with that reading not
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, the number one in terms of
Speaker 1: my concerns are it has absolutely no basis in the
Speaker 1: ancient sources. And I think a lot of times when
Speaker 1: it is conveyed by people, it is suggested that it
Speaker 1: is somehow evidenced in the ancient sources, and I mean
Speaker 1: that's just simply untrue. And you know me, I'm just
Speaker 1: obsessed with sticking to the ancient sources and getting what
Speaker 1: we can from them, but what actually exists within them.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with looking beyond them
Speaker 1: and theorizing and questioning what other people might have believed
Speaker 1: that never got written down. But to suggest that you
Speaker 1: know that this is what was happening, I think that
Speaker 1: it is. Ultimately. I understand that it is well intentioned,
Speaker 1: that it is meant to be a kind of taking
Speaker 1: back of one's trauma, but I think that it ultimately
Speaker 1: does the opposite of that. Right, It suggests that in
Speaker 1: order to not be assault assaulted, you need to be ugly.
Speaker 1: Right Like, it feels to me like the she was
Speaker 1: asking for it. I know that's not what it is
Speaker 1: meant to be, but to me it screams. You know,
Speaker 1: she was wearing a short skirt. You know, Athena might
Speaker 1: as well have transformed her to be wearing coveralls so
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't be assaulted again. Right. And So I
Speaker 1: just think that the use of Avid's is really unfortunate
Speaker 1: how widespread that it has become, just because ultimately, I
Speaker 1: really think that we could find the same empowerment that
Speaker 1: is coming from this version of the story, but without
Speaker 1: all of the sort of icky underlying misogyny that comes
Speaker 1: with it. We can find that in the oldest surviving
Speaker 1: source Hesiods, which I mean hesiid broadly pretty misogynous source.
Speaker 1: And yet still this version really gives her. It just
Speaker 1: really emphasizes, I guess, how faultless she was in the
Speaker 1: situation and therefore how shitty it makes the God's look,
Speaker 1: Perseus look all of it. Like, to me, this is
Speaker 1: the Medusa that feels the most powerful or the most transgressive,
Speaker 1: I guess, And I can't totally put into words like
Speaker 1: why the hesiod one has those qualities, but comparatively to
Speaker 1: the Avid, I do think it lacks just a lot
Speaker 1: of the ick that I've personally found in revisiting this
Speaker 1: source and in just like really digging into the way
Speaker 1: that people online really like dig their heels in to
Speaker 1: her story like he Seids is simple. It's to the point.
Speaker 1: It just says what happened in a couple of lines,
Speaker 1: and I think that is almost the most powerful, because
Speaker 1: she did nothing and everything happened to her, and that
Speaker 1: might not It doesn't have agency, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: like any kind of overt empowerment, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: To me, it's still a good reminder that, like, she
Speaker 1: is not evil or scary or ugly. She is simply
Speaker 1: a gorgan, and a gorgon is a monster, and there's
Speaker 1: literally nothing violent or dangerous about that inherently, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what matters most to me.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it turns out when I don't script something, I
Speaker 1: can get real good and rambly with these thoughts. Thank
Speaker 1: you all so much for listening. This was really a
Speaker 1: little experiment about like what exactly I am capable of
Speaker 1: Without researching a script in front of me, I won't
Speaker 1: be doing it a lot, but I think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to kind of just explore these thoughts, particularly when
Speaker 1: it comes to somebody like Medusa. Like I just feel
Speaker 1: like I so much lives in my brain when it
Speaker 1: comes to her, and I've been doing so much really
Speaker 1: weird research digging in for this piece I'm writing that, Like,
Speaker 1: I just was so inspired to talk about her and
Speaker 1: to look at all the ways that her story has
Speaker 1: been manipulated again, both good and bad. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's all intentional manipulation or that it is all damaging,
Speaker 1: but it has been pipulated, right, it has been changed
Speaker 1: and altered, and I feel like today, you know, her
Speaker 1: original her earliest sources like tend to just be lost
Speaker 1: in the noise that exists around her. And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's nice that she's so incredibly famous and popular and
Speaker 1: also so divisive. But yeah, oh it's utterly fascinating. Oh Medusa.
Speaker 1: Like there's a reason that I could talk about her
Speaker 1: like this forever and also write a ton of stuff
Speaker 1: about her because huh Medusa. As always, Let's end with
Speaker 1: a five star review from one of you incredible listeners.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Hannah Mack thirteen from the States.
Speaker 1: Whimsical and fun. I listen to these at work, which
Speaker 1: makes the workday a fun experience. I also love to
Speaker 1: read fantasy books, and knowing more about the origin slash
Speaker 1: backstory of myths adds more dimension to the characters, which
Speaker 1: I love. Thank you. That was incredibly fun. Please leave
Speaker 1: me a five star review on Apple Podcasts if you
Speaker 1: want me to read it on the show, because they
Speaker 1: fill me with joy and then I get to read
Speaker 1: your review again. Thank you all for listening. Wild Times
Speaker 1: Let's Talk a mits Baby is written produced by me
Speaker 1: Live Albert Mikhaela Smith is the Harmies to my Olympians.
Speaker 1: My assistant producer, Laura Smith is the audio engineer and
Speaker 1: production assistant. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos.
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