After the Apocalypse is averted and Vanya is paralyzed and has lost her memory.
Diego: I just feel like someone reached down my throat, grabbed my small intestine, pulled it out of my mouth, and tied it around my neck.
Luther: Cookie?
With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton looks like he might be aiming to do the funniest thing that’s ever happened in one of his movies. I’m extremely here for it. Like, honestly, let the antagonist and the protagonist fall in love (with or without meaning to) while working together to save somebody else. Thirty-six years and multiple franchise iterations have determined we love them because they’re both freaks; what have you even got to lose?
So she used Ovid but not really, just like she used Homer but not really Book Review for Circe | Thought Candy
What Odyssey did this person read
Because I highly suspect that Miller did not read the Odyssey aasdfgfdsdfghgfd
Oh no she actually mentioned using Ovid, Shakespeare's Ulysses, and other sources in an interview.
Oh neat..
However Ovid does not depict Circe being assaulted in his work thankfully. Her stories center around her unrequited love, jealousy, and the consequences of her powerful magic. The focus is on her role as a sorceress who transforms others, not as a victim.
That's a main difference that Miller has been making in her works is the useless plot device of using women's suffering and trauma for shock value.
Like miller you are ruining the source material and the image of those old poets.
^^^^^^^ All of this.
There's a difference between 'telling your own version' of a myth, and telling a completely different story. If you need to change a pre-existing character so much that they feel like a new character, then it's simply bad writing.
Miller is especially self-righteous about her retellings in interviews. Are her retellings 'other versions' of the myths? If by 'other versions' you mean distorting the mythology and missing its point, or utilizing foreign mythology as an aesthetic to draw people in, then yeah, I guess.
Readers who are ignorant of the myths or have no respect for the culture those myths belong to, will then take Miller's distorted stories as fact, and assume that hers is the correct way of telling them. And, evidently, Miller's fans will not tolerate anyone criticizing her.
Well I promise you that her books give the opposite impression.
In fact, her characterization of Patroclus alone is enough for me to doubt her both as an academic and as a researcher.
(Not to mention her tendency to invent unnecessary details, things that don't happen in the myths, like Circe getting assaulted, which was specifically added to 'justify' Circe's behaviour in the Odyssey. A+ writing, how very progressive)
A classicist like Miller should know that when you apply modern standards to an ancient myth, essentially removing it from the era in which it was written, and ignoring the reasons the myth was created, then you're missing half of the context.
Either she
has severely misunderstood the characters in the Homeric epics and Greek mythology in general (which doesn't say much about her as a classicist), or
she does understand the characters in the myths, but she cares more about what kind of story will 'sell'. She's thinking, "Let's see, if I frame Homer as problematic, and promote my books as the solution to the 'Homer problem', then of course people will prefer my stories."
If it's the latter, it's not a surprise, and she's not the first person to do it, and unfortunately she won't be the last.
@rightwheretheyleftme I think you're going into these retellings without fully grasping the purpose and cultural value of Greek mythology. I think you're glorifying these retellings regardless of how off the mark they are when it comes to characterization.
@lez-exclude-men If you're enjoying Miller's books that much, then I hate to break it to you, but you are the one who needs to get 'elbows deep' in research. But if you have no desire to do all that work, maybe you shut up and let people express their opinions? Miller's work is flawed, and we are allowed to point it out.
This isn't about Miller being a woman, and it isn't about all retellings being inherently bad. This is about Miller not respecting and not understanding the mythology she's so eager to 'fix'.
So Madeline Miller is writing a Persephone retelling. So let's make our bets about the book.
The winners will win this picture of a brick.
So let's make a bet.
A.) She will potray Demeter as an abusive mother, whaile the kidnapping will be ereased, and Hades will be baby boyfied.
B.) Hades will be potrayd as eveil incarnate, and Demeter will be potrayd as a poor poor blorbo (similar to how she potrayd Circe)
C.) Both will be potrayd as the worst. Demeter, and Hades will be potrayd as abusive, and Persephone will be potrayd as a poor poor girl who always has to suffer.
My bet is that it will be C.).
Get in loser, we're going to the park
March 12: Tom Holland and Christoper Nolan prepare to film 'THE ODYSSEY' at the Greek sea.
The kind of mythology flex it is to be able to say "Hey! I'm a Real Alive Person and I was born and raised in mountain Πήλιο (Pelion), the actual mythical home of the Centaurs (and birthplace? If I'm not mistaken?)"
Because hey. I exist :)
And xenoi still think they're the rightful inheritors of Ancient Greek culture. Maddening to consider.
No bc back when I was reading Percy Jackson as a kid, I was so hurt to read the line where it said that the Greek Gods follow the path of "Πρόοδος" to the West and have "relocated to the US" or whatever. As a lil kid, my immediate reaction was
"WHY?! We're still here aren't we? Is Greece empty now? Is Olympos vacant? Why would Our Gods abandon us? What about the demigods born in Greece?"
It's a special kind of rage pain when you take into account ALL OF THE FUCKING STOLEN ANCIENT ARTIFACTS. That our culture often depicts them as being abducted. I've cried in frustration about this.
Haha, is that why everything's burning down? Because the Nyphes were (stolen?? again????) "relocated" and are no longer roaming the Greek forests? Is that why everything's flooding, because Poseidon is no longer here to regulate the Seas and Waters? Are we really Dying Off?
It's like plucking a beautiful flower from it's birthplace and trying to get it to get used to an environment it was not made to grow in. It's this level of absurdity. What the fuck.
That's why I'm a Greek Person studying Archaeology. We need more of us. Desperately.
My hands are shaking as I'm writing this and I'm slowly losing my mind about it :DDD
But to leave on a positive note. Hehe, mythology flex. I could have been born a Centaur if I really wanted to. Happily galloping away in the fields in the comfort of my own ignorance of our culture being ripped apart, dismembered and depicted as the gnarly bloody soulless mess the xenoi have made it be in mainstream media.
Ah, there's always next life. ^-^
I feel you, anon, and I've often felt the same as you. Our cultural heritage is rich and we are still here, a long line of people passing the Greek culture down. No matter what xenoi say, they will be eventually humbled by the truth if enough of us let the world know.
The PJO series did a big damage to us, matter how innocent it seems to the Westerners. If you check my #pjo and #rick riordan tags you'll see discussions about the books and of course the bigoted line "the gods abandoned Greece for the modern pillar of Western civilization, aka the US".
Hold on και καλή δύναμη!!!
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Person: Christina, why does teen Kraken look like a woodland creature?
Me: I don't know, Person; why did I have to spent half an hour sketching the perfect expression for teen Kraken's face, only to have the whole thing ruined by my unsteady hand later? Huh? Huh? Why do such things happen?
I was really excited for this one, and messing up the inking was NOT a happy accident.
However, I liked how mini Kraken turned out, so here you go.
I liked it
no, Rick, it's not
Like what do you mean Mount Olympus is the Empire State Building?? Last time I ckecked, Mount Olympus is a MOUNTAIN and it's in GREECE. 'Many of the locations of Greek mythology have also moved with Mount Olympus and can be found all over America'????? These are locations, not furniture!
Greece is a country that still exists, by the way, so why exactly would the Greek Gods (Greek, Rick, Greek) abandon it? Why would they leave their homeland?? Every time I remember that passage where Chiron is like "haha, Percy, western civilization is a liViNg fORce and it started in Greece" and "ohh it's a fire and the Gods follow wherever the flame is brightest uwu" I just- it's so stupid, it makes me want to pull my hair out. How on Earth did Riordan think that was okay to write? Did he really think it was valid justification for basically disconnecting the Greek gods and Greek culture from Greece and Greek people?
You know what this 'justification' reminds me of? This. They're both part of the same narrative.
Not even the camp- the goddamn camp for children whose parents are Greek Gods- is set in Greece. Riordan just made a US-flavored cake and sprinkled some Greek Mythology on top. Delicious.