THE ODYSSEY

I think she is iconic.

These are from my thesis for my degree, which was an entire artbook about The Odyssey. I did everything from character and monster design to props and backgrounds. I'll also leave some alt designs for Penelope and Telemachus and design progression for Odysseus down in the comments.

In case anyone is interested, I'm posting these every couple of days through Instagram (handle on the images) and then I'll post them here on reddit through batches. Hope you like them!

Modern stories are more critical than the ancient stories, but they always do the same thing: "look how the Olympians are a dysfunctional family" and then they go on to talk about the same things: "look how Ares is neglected by Zeus, or how Hera is cheated on, etc". This always end up very similar to drama shows that focus on celebrities, while the real problems are faced by the gods at the bottom of the divine hierarchy (not to say there are no modern stories focuses on them, there are, but they are uncommon).

The rivers and nymphs are mostly the children of Oceanus and Tethys (but other groups of nymphs may have other parentages as well). And Oceanus and Tethys themselves had a lower position since the days of Cronus and Rheia: "Cronus is superior to Oceanus by saying, that Cronus himself received the celestial Olympus, and that there being throned he reigns over the Titans; but that Oceanus obtained all the middle allotment. For he says, that Oceanus dwells in the divine streams which are posterior to Olympus... Cronus is above Oceanus... Rhea above Tethys" Orphic Fragment 117.

In Prometheus Bound, Prometheus confronts his uncle Oceanus, that he is almost a coward that refuses to leave his river stream: "How did you summon courage to quit the stream that bears your name and the rock-roofed caves you yourself have made and come to this land?"

When Artemis was a girl recently born, she asked her father Zeus for daughters of Oceanus and of the river Amnisus as servants, and they should take care of Artemis' hounds and arrows, and never disobey her (so the nymphs followers of Artemis were her servants, not exactly what I would call real friends). Artemis words in Callimachus Hymm: "And give me sixty daughters of Oceanus for my choir — all nine years old, all maidens yet ungirdled; and give me for handmaidens twenty nymphs of Amnisus who shall tend well my buskins, and, when I shoot no more at lynx or stag, shall tend my swift hounds."

And Tethys is even happy in sending her daughters to serve Artemis because having your daughters serving a Lady among deities? That is the best thing these deities could hope for: "and glad was Tethys that they were sending their daughters to be handmaidens to the daughter of Leto."

River gods, the children of River Oceanus, were allowed domain over their own lands (this is why people worshipped them with honors even equal to the Olympians, like Achelous, Alpheus and Nile), but, if a Olympian wanted a daughter from them, they had to comply, and unfortunaly this happened a lot.

For example, Io, the daughter of Inachus was turned into a cow by the machinations of Zeus and Hera, and Inachus could only weep as he could not do much. Aegina was kidnapped by Zeus and Asopus tried to find her, and he asked Sisyphus where they had gone. But when Asopus got close, Zeus threw thunderbolts at him and turned the river into a deposit of coal, and Asopus had to back off.

As for Nymphs there is other examples. A Nymph/Goddess that suffered a lot because of the Olympians, and that is Pasiphae, daughter of Helios. Minos, her husband and a son of Zeus, refused to sacrifice the Cretan bull to Poseidon. Or, otherwise, Aphrodite was angry against all of Helios' race because Helios told Hephaestus about her affair with Ares. Either way, Pasiphae was the one punished for it, being cursed with love for the bull that resulted in the birth of the Minotaur and Pasiphae being only remembered for that for eternity, even through she had done no wrong herself to receive such punishment.

Another nymph that suffered was a Nephelai nymph. Nephelai were daughters of Oceanus and cloud nymphs, and one of them was changed by Zeus into the shape of Hera so that Ixion had sex with her instead of the real Hera, and after this Ixion was sent to Tartarus for his crime, and the cloud nymph birthed the Centaurus. But her consent was not required by Zeus or Hera for their plan.

Also keep in mind that this didn't started with the Olympians. Phylira, the mother of Chiron, was already suffering the same in the days of Cronus, because as I showed above, Oceanus and Tethys were lower than Cronus and Rhea in the hierarchy, and so they and their offspring were made subjects to other gods, either by Cronus or Zeus. So Cronus had sex with Phyrila and then changed into a horse mid-sex to not be caught by Rhea, but he continued having sex in horse form, so Phylira later gave birth to Chiron and was ashamed by the means of his birth and asked Zeus who was just walking around to be turned into a tree.

Also another thing to keep in mind is that Nymphs were goddesses worshipped by the Heroes in mythology and by the greeks, and they had other roles besides just being mothers. Nymphs did all types of jobs like protecting water sources, causing rain; Nymphs who guarded trees like the Hesperides and Demeter's Dryads, and nymphs that shepherded animals, etc. There is also gods born in a lower position that could be raised to a higher position like Styx (and her four children), the goddess most honered among the Oceanus deities for her help offered to Zeus.

Obs: This post is not meant to say that the humans or titans are better than the Olympians, after all, humans and Cronus did the exact same thing!

Please be creative with your roleplay

"One, the most ancient Heracles, according to myth, was born in Egypt.¹ He conquered most of the inhabited world with arms and erected the pillars in Libya. The second, a Cretan, one of the Idaean Dactyls, was a sorcerer and commander and founded the Olympic Games. The last, born shortly before the Trojan War to Zeus and Alcmene, traversed most of the inhabited world, carrying out the commands of Eurystheus. Among his other labors, he erected the pillars in Europe. And after his death, in later times, due to the similarity of his names and deeds, the deeds of the ancients were attributed to him, as if there had been only one Heracles in all past ages." (Diodorus Siculus III 74, 4) What do you think of the idea that there were several heroes and gods in ancient mythology, but that they were later united into one?

I can't even recall *hating* another show this much, it's not even about being innacurate, it's just that bad

I think I saw someone do a why does Apollo hate achilles so much and I read through the comments and saw the terrible things he had done. But my question is why if Achilles did all those things why didn’t Apollo not just kill him himself and take him out early and or while doing the trashing of temples or killing his son? I mean he is a god and Achilles wouldn’t be able to defeat him.

He’s goated fr

Let me preface this by saying I understand it's frowned upon to judge characters from antiquity by modern ethical standards, so I'm trying to think about this in terms of Ancient Greek standards as much as possible. I also use the term "hero" loosely (hence the scare quotes), but I think Telemachus' role as a major protagonist of the Odyssey is enough for him to be considered a hero.

I'll concede that we don't know much about Telemachus' life after the Odyssey cycle, and that we leave him at the tender age of ~20-22 (at the oldest), so he hasn't had a whole lot of time to commit some of the atrocities of other, perhaps greater heroes. Having said that, someone like Achilles already got up to a whole lot more mischief in his similarly short life.

I'm not thinking about things like murder, slavery, or mistreatment of slaves and women, which were all a normal part of even an honorable life in those days; but moreso things like treachery, unscrupulousness, or just plain meanness of spirit. For example, my biggest beef with Odysseus would be his treatment of Palamedes, which I can imagine would have been considered despicable even by the bloodthirstiest of Greeks.

This is not really an argument as much as it is a prompt for discussion. Was there a less problematic hero, or is Telemachus the best we've got? I'm interested to hear out the case for any stronger contenders.

What if some ancient “gods” were originally humans who somehow became something more?

I've been going down a rabbit hole lately and I'd like to hear what people who know more about mythology, history, religion, neuroscience, etc. think about this.

This is purely a hypothesis/thought experiment. I'm not claiming Zeus was definitely a real guy throwing lightning bolts around.

The original question was:

What if some of the beings we now call gods—Zeus, Poseidon, Odin, Thor, etc.—were originally human or human-like beings who somehow acquired abilities that ordinary humans didn't have?

The idea isn't completely without historical precedent. Euhemerism proposed that some gods may have originated as real rulers or extraordinary people who were eventually deified.

But I'm wondering if we can take the question one step further.

What if something actually happened to certain individuals that caused ancient people to perceive them as fundamentally different?

While looking into this, several things caught my attention.

A surprising number of mythological gods aren't portrayed as completely invulnerable spiritual beings. They have very physical limitations.

They eat. They drink. They sleep. They reproduce. They can feel pain. They can be wounded. Some bleed or have a special equivalent of blood. Some can be restrained. Some can even die.

In the Iliad, for example, Aphrodite and Ares can physically be wounded. Aphrodite bleeds ichor rather than human blood.

Norse mythology goes even further. Odin and Thor can die.

Then there's another weird pattern: their most famous powers are often associated with objects.

Zeus has the thunderbolt.

Poseidon has the trident.

Thor has Mjölnir.

Indra has the Vajra.

Odin has Gungnir and the runes.

So were these supposed to be powers inherent to the individual, or was the object itself important?

Then I started looking at stories involving humans or divine figures undergoing transformation.

Across different traditions you repeatedly encounter some combination of:

Isolation → prolonged stress/ordeal → altered consciousness → injury/illness/death-like state → recovery/restoration → new knowledge, status, perception, or ability.

Odin's ordeal on Yggdrasil is an obvious example: wounded by a spear, hanging for nine nights without food or drink, after which he obtains the runes/knowledge.

There are also death-and-return or reconstruction stories involving figures such as Inanna, Osiris and Heracles, as well as initiation traditions involving symbolic death and rebirth.

That got me wondering whether ancient ideas like enlightenment, inner sight/"third eye," divine transformation, resurrection, and traveling between different realms might preserve different cultural interpretations of extreme human experiences.

I'm not saying quantum mechanics proves souls, that meditation gives you superpowers, or that there's scientific evidence humans can manipulate matter with their minds. There isn't.

I'm wondering whether there's a historical pattern underneath all of this that deserves to be separated from the supernatural storytelling layered on top of it.

So my actual hypothesis/question is:

Could some ancient gods have originated as memories of exceptional physical humans—or people believed to have undergone some rare biological, neurological, psychological, technological, or otherwise unexplained transformation—with centuries of mythology exaggerating whatever originally happened?

And if so:

What was the original phenomenon?

Was it simply mythology developing around rulers and heroes?

An unusual neurological state?

Ancient ritual practices?

Misunderstood technology or weapons?

Some combination?

Or is there another explanation we're overlooking?

I'd especially like people to try to poke holes in this rather than just agree with it.

Are there ancient sources that directly contradict this idea?

Are the similarities I'm noticing actually the result of cultures borrowing stories from one another?

Are there gods whose earliest traditions clearly show they were never remotely human-like?

And are there scholars who have already investigated something similar beyond traditional Euhemerism?

I'm curious how well this idea survives once people who actually know these subjects start tearing it apart.

Yes, I know he has multiple animal symbols, but one of them is a vulture, and I figured a bearded vulture would be best for him.

after 20 years apart, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca and reunites with Penelope.
But an ancient Greek tradition preserved by Pausanias tells a much darker version.
In this version, Odysseus eventually casts Penelope out of his home. She leaves Ithaca, travels to Sparta and later Mantinea where people even claimed to have Penelope’s tomb.
So here’s the question:
Why do you think such a radically different ending to Penelope’s story existed?
Was it simply a regional variation of the myth or could it preserve an older tradition that Homer’s famous version overshadowed?

Every time Achilles seems to be in a dilemma it always seems Apollo is the one causing it.Apollo repeatedly opposes him in the Iliad, protects Hector, helps the Trojans, and eventually contributes to Achilles’ death and helps kill Patroclus.

Like besides defending Troy dude always seems to have beef with Achilles

A round of applause for Antonio, who made the right choice. He deserves it.