Are you Surprised at How Much Game of Thrones has Penetrated Pop Culture

[The Arthur Smith]

18 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

The whole Agamemnon story goes back and forth, either he was a complete asshat and deserved to get killed by his wife, or his wife was a conniving bitch who conspired with her lover - either way, her son was commanded by Apollo god to stab her in return, and then he was pursued by the Erinyes for matricide and had to seek the proection of Athena etc.
So that's a pretty nice cocktail of greyshade isn't it?

Sad that the Troy movie really makes him more of a flat character than he was in the original myth though.  In the Iliad, Agamemnon was portrayed as a guy who doesn't listen to Archilles' shit all and an implied rapist. But he really isn't different from all the other guys who pillage and rape. He's really caring towards his brother Menelaus and despite that he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia, he was implied to be a good father (to Electra at least) while like you said, his wife is a bitch to their children.

As for the Greek gods, i want to throw Ares and Athena in the greyshade as well. Ares was often portrayed as a coward god who is bloodthirsty and all. But keep in mind, all the myths we know were written down by the Athenians, who is pretty bias towards other Greek city states or kingdoms.As Athena is their patron goddess, inevitable they are going to be bias against other gods, particularly Ares who was the patron god of Sparta (i think you knew that Athenians and Spartans were rivals) Ares was probably seen as a positive deity in Sparta and some other cities, but unfortunately there weren't records from them about them, only left with the Athenians that can be taken with grain of salt to make them look bad based on their observations. But i would like to point there is some positive aspect of Ares as well. The myth never, ever, mention about Ares raping or seducing women (rape and seduce can means the same thing back then) and in fact, he's pretty supportive towards them. Like the case where he killed his daughter's rapist, he tried to save his mother from the giants, and he's the father of the Amazons. It makes sense if you think about how Spartans treated their women.

Athena is the opposite of this. She doesn't always have a positive interaction with women in the myths despite the popular belief that she suppose to be a feminist goddess, but really she's the opposite of this (which makes sense if you knew about Athenian women were treated). Particularly the Medusa case is famous. But of course, she can be supportive towards men like Odysseus.