Allison: Patrick, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Patrick.
Ben: Hey, Patrick.
Klaus: Hey, Patrick.
Diego: Hey, Patrick.
Vanya: Hi, Patrick.
Luther: I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. Patrick, was it?
I liked it
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?
Drew this back when that trailer dropped and never posted it lmao
It was supposed to continue but I lost motivation so I’m posting it now as it is. If I ever draw more crossover shenanigans I’ll just add it in a reblog
I put Musical Lydia in the Brazilian costume because it fucking rocks
No for real, at this point I'm more willing to believe that she somehow got her bachelor's and master's in Classics without having read the Odyssey and the Iliad, than her having read the Odyssey and the Iliad once in her life
Or maybe she read it once at five years old and thought it was enough
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.).
There was controversy. As much as I ,as a Greek, enjoyed the game many agreed that the game was showing a diversity fit for the USA. The difference is that a post managed to get many views to cause a debate.
The point isn't what the artists did, who just did their job, is the studios and corporations behind the scenes that push the forced diversity into a culture that has been overshadowed.
Again i will say this example, had the game be about Chinese/Egyptian/ Hindu mythology would it make sense for the deities to be of different ethnicity?
No. So the same goes for the Greek gods.
People simply ask ,why Greeks are being tossed aside and forgotten and don't get respected for simply saying they want representation in the entertainment industry. It's nothing about racism or white supremacism or "haters are losing it right now".
Ethnicity matters and Greek culture is still thriving despite the hardships it endured. The bare minimum we ask is seeing ourselves being represented in media the way it's respected.
Iconic Golden Girls Things (as voted by you!)
#1: Picture it: Sicily... (28.3%)
This is so much fun.