#pallas Odysseus | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

facts-i-just-made-up · 8 months

Note

Facts about Greek Myths?

There are a great many figures in Greek myth and they can be hard to keep track of, so here is a quick guide to which is which:

Ajax- Warrior who invented detergent.

Antigone- Funeral enthusiast who invented civil disobedience.

Atlas- First winner of the Olympic strong titan competition.

Bellerophon- Plot point in Mission Impossible 2.

Cerberus- 7 headed dog tragically born with only 3 heads.

Charon- Lead rower for Styx.

Cratus- God of strength, but not THAT god of strength.

Cyclops- Inventor of the monocle.

Daedalus- Inventor of the Labyrinth, and thus of David Bowie.

Dionysus- Drank 24/7 but very responsibly never drove.

Eris- Goddess of fighting with each other.

Eros- God of doing something else with each other.

Euronymous- God of Mayhem.

Fates- Least creatively named destiny gods ever.

Hera- Goddess of marriage yet only Zeus's third wife.

Hylia- Goddess of triangles and disjointed timelines.

Icarus- God of disappointing ones father.

Io- Space captain and epic 3D short film, still not on blu-ray.

Jocasta- Originator of Jo Mama jokes, mother of Oedipus.

Leda- Swan enthusiast and feathery-fandom originator.

Medea- Even worse mom than Jocasta.

Medusa- Inventor of reptile-safe shampoo.

Megaclite- LOL her name is "Megaclite." Pronounced like "Clitty."

Narcissus- Basically Trump.

Odysseus- Sailor who refused to ask for directions.

Orpheus- Inventor of impatiently checking the download bar.

Ouranos- Spelling that could've avoided a lot of planet butt jokes.

Pallas- Inventor of weird looking cats.

Persephone- Pomegranate fan, looked like Monica Bellucci.

Prometheus- Stupid fucking movie, especially for using some of H.R. Giger's original designs then putting them up next to a fucking plain white squid. Also let's make the space jockey a tall guy in a suit. How did Scott think that was a good idea? Fuck that shit and double fuck Covenant for somehow doing even fucking worse.

Rhode- Sea nymph yet not technically an island.

Siren- Inverse groupie.

Sisyphus- Limp Biscuit fan who never stopped rolling.

Tantalus- I'll tell you in a minute...

Thanatos- God of dying as easily as snapping your fingers.

Zeus- When the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire, and mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher- Folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs. They had two sets of arms, they had two sets of legs. They had two faces peering out of one giant head so they could watch all around them as they talked and they read. And they never knew nothing of love. It was before the origin of love. There were three sexes then: One that looked like two men glued up back to back, called the children of the sun. Similar in shape and girth were the children of the earth. They looked like two girls rolled up in one. The children of the moon were like a fork shoved on a spoon, they were part sun, part earth- Part daughter, part son. Now the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance and Thor said, "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer, like I killed the giants." And Zeus said, "No, you better let me use my lightening like scissors, like I cut the legs off the whales, and dinosaurs into lizards." Then he grabbed up some bolts and he let out a laugh, and said, "I'll split them right down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half." And then storm clouds gathered above into great balls of fire, and fire shot down from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife and it ripped right through the flesh of the children of the sun and the moon and the earth. If you want the rest, see Hedwig and the Angry Inch cuz this is taking way longer to type than I expected.

#greek mythology #medusa #hedwig and the angry inch #norwegian black metal #unreality

827 notes · View notes

dootznbootz · 3 months

Text

There's something really fascinating about how Athena treats Diomedes so differently from how treats Penelope and Odysseus (even Telemachus but that's a lil different too)

Athena has basically known Diomedes since he was born (some even say that she had a say in naming him) because of Tydeus. I don't think it's far-fetched to say that in a way, she possibly "molded" him. And Diomedes is kind of known for being the "perfect warrior king". He's respectful of the gods and most of his comrades, an incredibly skilled soldier, and has already achieved so many things despite being one of the youngest kings in the war.

I sadly think that's why Athena treats him so differently than Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus.

She cares for him, but it's still "distant" in a way. Or almost in an "I molded you. You will react the way I would want you to therefore I will not be surprised."

When it seems like she's known her other favored mortals for less long, she didn't get to "mold" them. They surprise and bring something "new" for her. She sees her little tricksters' scheme and plot and watches with intrigue but watching the perfect warrior is a "Yes, perfect form. That's what I'd do."

I mean even how her favored mortals pray to her tells you a lot about the relationships they have.

For example, in the Iliad, Odysseus doesn't need to really give as much reverence to her to "earn her favor" during book 10's Night Raid.

Odysseus rejoiced, and prayed to Pallas Athene: ‘Hear me, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, you who are with me in all my adventures, protecting me wherever I go. Show me your love, Athene, now, more than ever, and grant we return to the ships having won renown, with some brave act that will grieve the Trojans greatly.’ And Diomedes of the loud war-cry followed him in prayer: ‘Hear me also, Atrytone, daughter of Zeus. Be with me as you were with my father Tydeus in Thebes, when he went there as ambassador for the bronze-greaved Achaeans, camped there by the Asopus. A friendly offer was what he made them, but on his way back he was forced to take deadly reprisal for their ambush, and you fair goddess, readily stood by him. Stand by me now, and watch over me, and in return I will offer a broad-browed yearling heifer, unused to the yoke. I will tip her horns with gold and sacrifice her to you.’

(Book 10, A.S. Kline)

Diomedes brings up his dad and offers a young heifer (granted that could just be how Diomedes is with every immortal) while Odysseus doesn't and is basically like "Yo, help me out like you always do!". Odysseus is much more casual and personal with Athena. And with Penelope, Athena takes the form of one of her sisters to comfort her!

While Athena also most likely has known Telemachus since he was a baby, she's still closer to him than Diomedes.

Imagine that. You're basically molded by a goddess since birth, listen to her and other immortals dutifully, basically become her perfect warrior, and yet you can't seem to reach that familiarity with her. The same warmth she has for her other favored mortals.

#idk I'm eepy and this came to me and I felt bad for Diomedes.#Athena has a extreme soft spot for her tricksters.#Penelope is favored by Athena as well. I will fight you on that. (she should be favored by everyone in general but you know)#I wrote this very quick :P you get the idea #I've been working on my fic a lot so I haven't been making many analysis' so I'm sorry for that :'D #diomedes #iliad #the iliad #this probably means nothing but I wanted to talk abou tit #shot by odysseus #athena #When you're still Athena's Blorbo but not the most blorbo😞#Mad rambles #tagamemnon #greek mythology #fuck it. I'll put it in all tags for folks to see.

93 notes · View notes

pipandco · 4 months

Text

🤍The feathers are from an owl called "Athene noctua" and is associated with Athena/is believed to be Athena's owl

🤍The statue she is holding is Nike, goddess of Victory and often paired with Athena (and no, that's not a weeping angel)

🤍The cobweb on the necklace (for Arachne) and Medusa's face are to represent old grudges Athena has (very prideful indeed)*

🤍Apparently emerald green was a colour associated with Athena. I love the way green looks with Teagan's red hair so I just went with it 😊

*Edit/small note : Athena is known for not being a girl's girl. But it's also quite well known that stories are often translated by men who like to pit women against each others. There are multiple versions of each Greek stories. For Medusa, some say that she was turned into a monster by Athena because she was in the wrong. Others say that she was turned that way out of mercy from Athena, so that she would never be hurt by men again. For Arachne, some say that she was turned into a spider because she won and Athena was too prideful to accept her defeat. Others will say that she lost against the goddess and k*lled herself. She was changed into a spider by Athena so she could keep weaving for all eternity.

I think these two elements can either be seen as old grudges Athena has or testimonies toward these two people she couldn't save on time (add the spear for Pallas into that but that's another story). Imo, the lyrics I was inspired by in My goodbye (selfish and prideful and vain) can be interpreted like Odysseus having actually no idea what really happened, or him being actually right and Athena being all of these. Anyway, I love all the layers in every song !

#athena goddess of wisdom #athena goddess of wisdom and holding grudges #athena #epic the musical #my goodbye #how many references to past myths can I include in this drawing #my own design #I had fun drawing it #teagan earley as athena is top tier casting #my greek mythology obsession is coming back full force #greek myth art #odysseus

79 notes · View notes

athamad · 1 year

Text

Imagine being Athena trying to help Odysseus in Ithaca and, out of nowhere, Odysseus goes on a whole rant about you leaving him and you're like:

#greek mythology #odyssey #homer's odyssey #homer #odysseus #illiad #the illiad #homer's iliad #athena #pallas athena #imagine #Them having a roast battle #i would pay for that #they would destroy each other

169 notes · View notes

a-d-nox · 10 months

Text

telemachus, hero's son (asteroid 15913)

Telemachus was the son of Odysseus and Penelope. Notably, Odysseus attempted to get out of going to war with the Trojans to be with him and Penelope - but that didn't work out. For years, Telemachus was raised solely by his mother. When he came of age, he travelled the Mediterranean to find his lost father. Inspired by the words of Athena, Telemachus visited Nestor then Menelaus and Helen all of whom told him stories of his father. At last (because that is quite the distance between the two visits), he reached Eumaeus who was hosting the disguised Odysseus at the time. When Odysseus exposed his true identity, father and son set off to kill the suitor of Penelope. IN MY OPINION Telemachus in your chart can indicate a) being raised solely by your mother/maternal figure, b) your curiosity about your father, c) your loyalty to your father, and/or d) your protectiveness of your mother.

i encourage you to look into the aspects of telemachus along with the sign, degree, and house placement. for the more advanced astrologers, take a look at the persona chart of telemachus AND/OR add the other characters involved to see how they support or impede telemachus!

OTHER RELATED ASTEROIDS: athene (881), pallas (2), odysseus (1143), ulysses (5254), penelope (201), helena (101), menelaus (1647), and nestor (659)!

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic" button if you want to see a specific post or mythical asteroid next!

click here for the masterlist

click here for more greek myths & legends

want a personal reading? click here to check out my reading options and prices!

69 notes · View notes

wolfythewitch · 1 year

Note

your odysseus brainrot reminded me of that thing where people sometimes call athena as ‘pallas athena’, and i finally decided to google why

and now im crying at the club ;^;

OUGHH YEAH THAT STORY man that was a sad story

#wolfy tedtalks #anon

130 notes · View notes

thegodcyclecomic · 5 months

Note

Hello again! Thank you for your post that covered my question on what sources of inspiration you used for Athena. It was super enlightening!

I know this is a tall order because the myths are broad, but could you discuss what aspects of characterization and dimensions you feel are often ignored about Athena? This is me practically begging for a meta post, but I genuinely love hearing your thoughts on her because I agree with your assessment that roughly most media tend to lean to simplistic aspects of Athena. I like hearing from your inspiration notes that you thought of Athena’s childhood with Pallas and how she is more of a pragmatic character that has agency.

I have a lot of thoughts on this so this post won't be as comprehensive as I originally intended, I will be briefly covering the points I want to list out. I try my best to base my writing of Athena on the canon source material, but there will be aspects that veer into my own interpretation/headcanon territory. All Iliad passages here are from the Robert Fitzgerald translation.

Anyway, here are the aspects of characterization I think are normally ignored when authors write Athena.

Her calculating nature / intelligence

This one sounds weird because it's paradoxically the first thing that comes to mind when writing Athena. The issue with this is the same issue when amateur authors try to write characters who are smarter than them: They resort to cheap shortcuts and stereotypes to show a character is "smart".

Examples of this would be the overusage of chess imagery. It's a game that wouldn't exist in Ancient Greece anyway, and it's a measure of spatial memorization rather than strategy. In real warfare, everything is variable to change. Chess pieces don't have motivations or biases that could influence their actions. Opening moves in chess have their counters, but real-life tactics allow you more freedom on how to engage with it.

The next writing shortcut people resort to re: Athena's intelligence is how they use her reading books to show she is "smart" but don't really elaborate on what kind of books she reads of what topics she specializes in which is already in the mythos that can give you lots of ideas.

I mentioned this before but when I started TGC I had a hard time characterizing Athena at first because I didn't understand her domains too well. So you know what I did? I picked up books about military history, Ancient Greek laws, political theory, philosophy, and similar. Learning about these things gave me a perspective of "how would the personification of the state act if they were a person?". Ancient Greece was big on the Social Contract, as exemplified in Socrates's speech in Plato's Apology.

There's a lot more to it, I'm not doing it justice at all in this post. But that's the idea. In the Oresteia, Athena created the practice of cross-examination for murder trials, and then immediately proceeded to undermine the entire justice process by attempting to bribe the prosecution (the Furies). In the Iliad Book 4, she disguises herself as a Trojan soldier to trick Laodokos to shoot Menelaus to break the ceasefire-- essentially enacting what we in modern day would call a False Flag Operation. It's so quintessentially Politician(tm) of her to do.

Athena's intelligence comes from how she seeks to improve and make efficient current systems, like her strategy to Ares's warfare. Or her various inventions in mythos. Another one would be her ability to manipulate people and situations to push for the outcomes she wants. You can see this in her various dialogues in the Epic Cycle:

Athena grifting in the Odyssey in a speech she makes to Zeus about why she should be allowed to assist Odysseus.

520: Athena kept the pace behind them, bearing her shield of storm, immortal and august, whose hundred golden-plaited tassles, worth a hekatomb each one, floated in air. So down the ranks that dazzling goddess went to stir the attack, and each man in his heart grew strong to fight and never quit the melee, for at her passage war itself became lovelier than return, lovelier than sailing in the decked ships to their own native land -Iliad Book 4

and this

100: “Son of Lykaon, I have in mind an exploit that may tempt you, tempt a fighting heart. Have you the gall to send an arrow like a fork of lightning home against Menelaus? Every Trojan heart would rise, and every man would praise you, especially Paris, the prince— you would be sure to come by glittering gifts if he could see the warrior, Menelaus, the son of Atreus, brought down by your bow, then bedded on a dolorous pyre! Come now, brace yourself for a shot at Menelaus. engage to pay Apollo, the bright archer, a perfect hekatomb of firstling lambs when you go home to your old town, Zeleia.” That was Athena’s way, leading him on, the foolish man, to folly. -Iliad Book 4

from what I can understand, Athena's domain of wisdom is not just limited to giving insight to people-- but also in obscuring the truth and leading others to their ruin. Which is in line with one of Athena's epithets which is Απατουρια (Apaturia) "Deciever".

Often times in other adaptations, they relegate Athena's intelligence to spouting random facts or a "nerdy" personality. Or they nerf it so that she doesn't solve these braindead plots in 2 seconds. Take Athena from Lore Olympus for example, the Athena of canon would've never allowed any of this shit with Persephone and Apollo undermining Zeus to happen TT_TT if you have to make your characters stupid for the story to work, then it is a bad story hands down.

2. Interpretations regarding Athena's relationship with heroes

This is something I see a lot where Athena is written to have a personal investment in her heroes like they are "her blorbos" (actual words I've seen people on this hellsite use for this). I'd like to direct your attention to this passage from of Athena speaking in Iliad book 8.

My father, now, is full of a black madness, evil and perverse. All that I strive for he brings to nothing: He will not remember how many times I intervened to save his son, worn out in trials set by Eurystheus. How Heracles would cry to heaven! And Zeus Would send me out of heaven to be his shield. Had I forseen this day that time he went down, bidden by Eurystheus, between Death’s narrow gates to bring from Erebos the watchdog of the Lord of Undergloom, he never would have left the gorge of Styx!

The way I understand this passage is that Athena does a lot of "NPC questgiver" tasks for Zeus in an attempt to curry favor from him. It's a calculated choice on her part and not something she does out of the kindness of her heart. A similar situation occurs when Orestes asks Athena for aid, she helps him on the insistence of Apollo.

Regarding Odysseus, I'm sure there is some fondness she has for him-- but that doesn't stop her from allowing him to be struck by storm (as collateral damage for the crimes of Ajax the lesser for raping Cassandra in Athena's temple). Or from her setting up the suitor problem so she could convince him to murder them all.

If you've noticed, all of Athena's champions are some kind of high-ranking warriors. A king or general or prince. You would think that the goddess of wisdom would favor the philosophers more, or would choose more often to avoid violence. But Athena is very quick to choose violence, it's who she is. And she needs a tool that she can use as a blade.

(these are my interpretations, if you disagree thats fine) 3. Athena as a "peaceful" goddess

This one makes me laugh and also drives me insane.

There are two Homeric hymns that directly and clearly contradict this idea.

(HOMERIC HYMNS 5 - 33, TRANSLATED BY H. G. EVELYN-WHITE) a. The Homeric Hymn to Athena

Of Pallas Athene, guardian of the city, I begin to sing. Dread is she, and with Ares she loves deeds of war, the sack of cities and the shouting and the battle. It is she who saves the people as they go out to war and come back. Hail, goddess, and give us good fortune with happiness!

b. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

...Yet there are three hearts that she cannot bend nor yet ensnare. First is the daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis, bright-eyed Athene; for she has no pleasure in the deeds of golden Aphrodite, but delights in wars and in the work of Ares, in strifes and battles and in preparing famous crafts.

What I find insightful about the second one is that it gives a specific reason for why Athena cannot be moved by romantic love. It's because war occupies the space in her heart that love would normally be. Both hymns specifically name drop Ares, so the idea that Athena finds Ares's violence to be repulsive is just blatantly untrue. If anything, she adores it. The time it would become an issue for her is when his rampages act against her greater interests, which is the source of all their duels in canon.

Other proof for Athena being generally violent can be inferred from her characterization in the Iliad, the instances of which are too numerous to list here.

4. Athena's personality defined by her lack of childhood.

I mentioned this in another post, but Athena was born from Zeus as an adult (though in TGC I changed this to being born as a pre-teen. This is intentional and serves a purpose). What we know about psychology today is that for normal social and emotional development, young children need to form an attachment with at least one primary caregiver. Athena being born as an adult means that she would've missed out on important development milestones that other gods would've gone through.

I will preemptively say that before you bring up the "theyre Gods they're not like humans" that as far as mythos is concerned, the way that gods behave and think is almost exactly identical to that of humans. They experience the same range of emotions humans do, as well as grief and trauma. So I will consider that their psychology is also the same with the difference being that they might experience mental degradation not typically seen in humans because of cumulative negative experiences over a long period.

Back to Athena, the only framework she would have to start from literally being born yesterday would be the fragments of memories she gleaned from being inside of Zeus's head. I think this would be confusing for her, as these are from the first-person perspective of Zeus, so using his memories but lacking context for those experiences might lead to an early identity crisis. Athena would then have to play catchup in learning extremely fast everything to fill those blanks.

This is why I think Athena has a hard time forming personal connections. She doesn't have a true equal. Athena's relationships are defined by power imbalances and transactions, and that is how she understands relationships in general to work.

5. Athena's humanity.

I think what bothers me the most about Athena in adaptations is the lack of humanity given to her character. I know I just went over why she's a manipulative machiavellian character, but what I see is that Athena often gets relegated to the Unfun Stick in the Mud character. She exists to ruin the fun of the Fun Chaotic Dudes Dionysus, Hermes, and Apollo. She doesn't have anything going to her except being a snitch and a daddy's girl, or worse, she exists to be "put in her place" by other male gods. This is why I really dislike Fedini's and "incorrect greek gods" take on Athena. I think there's this underlying biases that an ace-coded goddess can't have anything interesting about her, because all media on tumblr and fandom these days are broken down to fucking shipping instead of seriously engaging with the source material. I've seen people call her a Mary Sue or act like she is an annoying bitch for exhibiting personality traits that would be praised in a male character (the traits of a Byronic Hero).

Portrayals of Athena go one extreme or another, either she is a wholly Good goddess or she is a Villain/mere annoyance. It's a real shame to see, because I hope I can show you now that she is a wonderfully complex and morally grey character. I want to see Athena's curiosity and how she tries to understand the world from her own perspective. I want to explore her relationships with Zeus and her siblings like Ares and Apollo outside of the Meme'fication of Greek mythology.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, I hope this answers your question. If you have any point you'd like me to explain more, I'd be glad to make another post in greater detail.

#athena #tagamemnon #greek mythology #greek myths #the god cycle #ask

17 notes · View notes

specialagentartemis · 3 months

Note

ask meme since Pin-Lee was taken: the literal goddess Athena. throwing the apple of discord at you

Kat are you trying to get me smited :P

First impression

Age 10 or so: wow! Cool smart warrior lady! Also I love that she decides to stay unmarried forever for reasons I don’t know how to express!

Impression now

Age now: wow! Cool smart warrior lady! Also I love that she decides to stay unmarried forever for reasons I know Exactly how to express!

… although tempered a lot with more knowledge about Ancient Greece and different variants on the gods’ stories, the social context of when the different ones were written, and why. I’m actually more fascinated now with Athena’s portrayal as the goddess of merciful justice, as she is in the Oresteia; neither Apollo’s smug righteousness, nor the Furies’ screaming for vengeance and blood. However, a lot of these portrayals of wise, just, balanced, merciful Athena come from Athenian playwrights who were obviously biased towards their city’s patron, and against Apollo (who was associated with Sparta, the city Athens was at war with at the time). She could certainly be selfish in the way of the Bronze Age gods in the Bronze Age stories.

I’m also interested in her association with crafts, specifically women’s crafts. Crafts being recognized as taking the same kind of logic, planning, intelligence, and importance as war tactics. Athena spanning this masculine space of war and feminine space of craftworking.

And the ambivalence of her eternal virginity—Athena only able to have that position of power and respect she does because no man is allowed to dominate, master, and functionally own her, the way classical Greek views on gender hierarchy and sexism assumed was the natural way of men and women. Athena has to take on masculine characteristics to be powerful in this manner. As much as I wanna go hell yeah genderqueer aroace icon there’s also the fact that it’s heavily rooted in sexism. She’s a fascinating, complex, ambivalent figure.

Favorite moment

I’m very fond of the story where Athena was raised alongside Triton’s daughter Pallas, as sisters and friends. They both practiced the arts of war and would practice and spar together. Then, once, either they had a falling-out and the fighting became real; or they were sparring and ply-fighting, but either way, Zeus, afraid for his daughter and Meddling, distracted Pallas, and Athena accidentally killed her. Athena, heartbroken at the death of her friend, which she genuinely wasn’t trying to do!, built a statue in her honor and adopted her name “Pallas” in honor and memory.

Idea for a story

She’s Odysseus’s patron, and Telemachus’s mentor (ha), but as the goddess of weaving and tactics and cleverness… I would LOVE to see her interacting with Penelope more. The woman known for her cleverness, and her weaving skill, and for using weaving as a tactic in her cold war against her suitors. I would DESPERATELY love to see Athena and Penelope during the time period when Telemachus was growing up, or while he was off in Sparta and Pylos, and Penelope was holding down her palace and kingdom alone.

Unpopular opinion

Ovid’s renditions of the myths are fine. Yes even the one where Athena turned Arachne into a spider out of spite, and the one where Athena made Medusa a monster. They’re not the only versions or the version that your own mythic/literary tradition needs to draw on, but they’re compelling and interesting. They were written from a very specific cultural and political perspective, but that perspective is fascinating in its own right. It’s not Ovid’s fault that most of our knowledge of Greek literature comes from Athenians who are biased towards Athena and portray her as great.

Favorite relationship

I’m a simple normie, I like Athena lavishing attention on Odysseus as her champion during the war, a warrior after her own heart, and the way even when he pisses her off after the war and she withholds her help anymore she starts to feel kiiiiinda bad about it. And she strikes up a friendship/mentorship with Telemachus and starts advocating for him to the other gods again. Odysseus and his son as Athena’s… projects, supplicants, maybe even in the strange way of gods and men, friends.

Favorite headcanon

I think she is SO pleased that even though she lost the judgement of Paris, she won the war (not even the Trojan War, the war for the hearts and minds of the people. She is Everyone’s Favorite Greek Goddess now)

#clonerightsagenda #Greek mythology #ask game #perpetual perpetual ladies night

9 notes · View notes