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#perseus – @zambomarti on Tumblr
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ZAMBETTA

@zambomarti / zambomarti.tumblr.com

Nationality: Italian. Freelance artist, architecture student. DON'T REPOST MY ART. If you are under 18 you enter at your own risk. COMMISSION OPEN
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I’m thinking about Danaë, Perseus, and Andromeda.

Danaë was a princess, once. Her happy life was upended the day her father caught wind of a prophecy that his grandchild would be his undoing. She was imprisoned in her own home, and when her son was born, she and the baby were banished and left for dead. Yet Danaë powered through, as heroes are known to do in these types of stories. This single mother in a strange land raised her son with pride — not hubris, but true, righteous pride. They have no need of gods or monsters or the kingdom that cast them out; all mother and son need are each other.

Perseus’s call to adventure begins when yet another evil king decides to treat Danaë as an object instead of a person. Polydectes will force Danaë to marry him unless Perseus can cross the world and return with the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Perseus is in no place to protest, not when the truest hero he’s ever known is counting on him. This is not a quest for glory, but piety: the duty a child owes to their parent.

In his travels, Perseus meets Andromeda, chained to a cliffside and awaiting her grim fate. She too, has a story of a mother and child. Queen Cassiopeia foolishly offended a long list of sea gods and their kingdom will be washed away unless the gods exact their price. Cassiopeia did the offending; it should be her on the cliff. But Andromeda has to suffer for the sins of her family, just like Perseus. He chose to risk his life for his mother; Andromeda had her fate chosen for her.

Maybe Andromeda tried to talk herself into thinking her death would mean something. She’s grown up as a princess, where each generation of the dynasty is meant to be in unbroken continuity with the generation before. The crown she is presumed to wear weighs down any hopes for her own life. If Cassiopeia tells her to die, it is her duty and honor as the child to obey. Secretly, she prays that her death will mean something for her mother — that the next child she has will be granted the freedom of choice Andromeda herself never knew.

But Perseus, raised by a mother worthy of her role, knows that is bullshit. He knows Andromeda deserves better than this, and he breaks the cycle by destroying the monster and breaking her chains, will of Poseidon be damned. And when Cassiopeia reunites with her child, it’s clear she has learned nothing. She immediately tries to force Andromeda into an unhappy marriage - just like what Polydectes means to do to Danaë.

Now Andromeda and Perseus are both angry. She is ready to let her so-called family crumble. She shields her eyes, and lets her suitor and her mother meet the Gorgon’s eyes. She walks away from the stone to which she was chained, into a new life of her making.

The young couple returns to Seriphos. Perseus saves Danaë from the dread altar. A worthy king claims the throne, and in a remarkable stroke of luck for Greek mythology, Perseus kills his evil grandfather without technically violating Ancient Greece’s taboos on kin-slaying. Andromeda and Perseus ascend to the throne of Mycenae, and have that rarest thing in any myth: a happily ever after.

Andromeda gets a husband and a crown, sure, but she also gets Danaë. Danaë is everything Cassiopeia wasn’t: humble, resilient, and loving. She raised Perseus well, and she teaches Andromeda how to stand tall against monsters: not the sea beast, but the creatures that would rather offer up their own children than admit that they were in the wrong.

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sforzesco

something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.

it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.

and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.

on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.

Perseus, Daniel Ogden

Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet

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reblogged

What frustrates me so much about all the "poor Medusa ;A;!! Perseus is THE REAL monster and should dieeee" wailing (read the Theogony and maybe you'll calm down. Or hey, even the version where Medusa commits hubris and that's why Athena curses her!) is that it's like Medusa is the only woman who matters in the narrative.

Let's talk about Danae, who is the reason Perseus ends up having to go after Medusa at all.

Danae, who, in the common version of the myth, has had to fend off Polydektes for years as he tries to make her marry him, which she doesn't want to do, and ends up at an altar as a supplicant/to take refuge before Perseus comes back.

Or Danae, who, in Pindar, has been living as Polydektes' slave and "wife" (concubine, more like), way before Perseus can help free her by going on a suicide mission. ("thus to end his mother's long slavery and enforced wedlock" - Pindar, Pythian Ode 12; I don't see how this is to be interpreted otherwise)

Danae, who has to watch her son be maneuvered into signing up for a suicide mission, knowing it's happening because Polydektes wants to marry her. Danae, who has to listen to her son, who doesn't have the horses Polydektes is asking all the noble men to give him as preparation for courting Hippodameia (yes, that Hippodameia that Pelops marries) and ends up swearing he'll give him "even the head of the Gorgon".

Something which Polydektes immediately jumps on and demands he should do! And Perseus is stuck now, so he'll have to do it!

Danae, having to say good bye to her son, to what's undoubtedly his death, the last time she'll see him. Who is going because he was/is under the belief this might keep Polydektes from finally from pursuing his mother, but no, this is so he'll be able to marry her! And she'll have to marry (and, you know, be raped by, for presumably the rest of her life unless she commits suicide) the man she's been managing to avoid marrying for so long, her son dead on top of that.

But who cares, right. The ONLY one who matters is Medusa, who you don't even HAVE to go with Ovid's version for her background for.

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coloricioso

Oh Clair Heywood is making a book on why Perseus is actually a villian and not a hero.

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Oh Clair Heywood NOT AGAIN. 😭

One thing I've noticed about heroes and myths is that it's really necessary to focus on the ACTUAL ancient GREEK sources. Because if we look at Ovid's versions, many of the heroes become total jerks. So, I guess the same happens with Perseus, I will try to check it later, but I have the feeling that in "ancient Greek imagery" he was a good hero, VS whatever later version we can get of him.

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totorotori

Yeah the reason why he originally killed Medusa was to save his mother if I remember right.

I think he was still a youth/kid. I can't remember it right...but I believe the man who was trying to marry Perseus' mom sent Perseus to kill Medusa and hoped that Medusa would turn the kid into stone. Instead Perseus came back with Medusa's head and turns the man into stone.

"Nationally bestselling author of Daughters of Sparta Claire Heywood returns with an imaginative and female-centered reinterpretation of the myth of the great hero Perseus, told through the voices of three women who are sidelined in the traditional version—his mother, Danae; his trophy, Medusa; and his wife, Andromeda—but whose viewpoints reveal a man who is not, in fact, a hero at all."

AHH NO. 😭 Anything that says "an imaginative and female-centered reinterpretation" can't be good.

Also, I don't understand what is wrong with these pseudo feminists authors?? What is their problem with positive masculinity????? Like, why can't they have men protecting the women close to them? What's so horrible about it? Why can't they have heroes respecting women and loving women?? Why they must center their "feminism" in hating men and depicting men as bad people???

????!!!!!

BITING BITING BITING

what the fuck "sidelined" what is Danae supposed to do when some asshole wants to marry her and undoubtedly isn't going to listen to "no"? Perseus is maneuvered into a position where he suggests something outrageous (and lethal) and can then not back out when the man demands he fulfil his claim as his payment for the gift he couldn't give! What does Perseus have to do with Andromeda being sidelined??? He literally just wanders into a city drama (and she'd be dead if he hadn't) and offers to help (whether or not one wants to add "leverages wanting to marry Andromeda as a price to help).

~not a hero at all~

I AM GOING TO BITE

Now there will be even more dumb ~Perseus was awful and a villain and ~killed girlboss Medusa~ opinions everywhere uuuurgh.

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anistrange

@apollomes-supremacy @alatismeni-theitsa @coloricioso @littlesparklight OMG, I read the Amazon's review too and you also want to read it.

“Re-energizes the Perseus myth by asking What If? What if Perseus was not a demigod, not a hero, but a troubled killing machine?"

OMFG IM GONNA LOSE IT!!!!

"As Perseus becomes increasingly obsessed with the promise of his own destiny, his heroic journey casts a shadow of violence and destruction across all three women’s lives."

This girl so unoriginal lmao. The "guy who falls because of his own destiny" trope applied to greek mythology is valid in the cases of Orestes who tried to avoid it but it backfired in an amazingly way. Why does Perseus becomes a victim of this trope all of a sudden?

"What if Zeus never visited Danae and wasn’t the father of Perseus?"

She unironically making the Troy (The Movie) version of Perseus lmfao!!! "LE THERE ARE NO GODS, ONLY ME!!!" There you go folks, Perseus is no demigod, nor hero, he is a reddit mod. 😱

"But whose viewpoints reveal a man who is not, in fact, a hero at all."

You notice when an author lacks any creativity when they spend all the time coping about making the hero a villain instead of looking for the secondary antagonist which can add weight to the story. They really believe in their wacky mindset mixed with high doses of destilated copium is "subversive and breaks all expectations" lmao, try again buddy!!

Yeah, it's like there are NO other men in this myth that could be explored as the villain (that they are! Especially Polydectes! like wtf) I'm just. So tired. You could do a dark as shit exploration of Herakles and it'd even make sense in many ways, but Perseus?

But noooo, Perseus, who is trying to save his mom, is the BAD ONE.

I just "his heroic destiny" the one where he's destined to kill his grandfather, you mean? NOT a lethal monster lol. Only his mother knows about his destiny! (And like, while there is some scrap of a version where it's Akrisios' brother who is Perseus' father so it's not unprecedented, exploring the possible politics behind that is clearly not what Heywood is interested in, just reducing Perseus down to some delusional, evil ~man~ who isn't even as "special" as he thinks or whatever.

Like, at this point a book-long rendition of the Perseus myth exactly as it is, would be more revolutionary than the shit that's been going around.

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