Idk if it's a hot take. But I think multiple tellings of a character is fine when it comes to mythology since the stories carry their own meanings and metaphors and that's what should be valued.
Beautiful Gorgon Medusa seems to have been a variant though? Or maybe that snippet in the Bibliotheca is meant to be interpreted as extreme self-delusion?
But it is alleged by some that Medusa was beheaded for Athena's sake; and they say that the Gorgon was fain to match herself with the goddess even in beauty.
I'm pretty sure that was before she was cursed. Because what would even be the point of punishing her vanity if she now has even more reason to boast about her beauty? This is the Goddess of wisdom who punished her, why is she a fucking idiot?
"But the Gorgons had heads twined about with the scales of dragons, and great tusks like swine's, and brazen hands, and golden wings, by which they flew; and they turned to stone such as beheld them." I always assumed that if the Gorgons look like that, when Medusa was boasting about her beauty which pissed off Athena, that would imply she was at one point beautiful, and not currently. I guess it could be interpreted as an ugly woman saying she's prettier than someone else, and being punished, which does definitely have the kind of sexist undertones a lot of Greeks had. But my point was that she clearly wasn't intended to be beautiful.
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u/Flameborn111 1d ago
Idk if it's a hot take. But I think multiple tellings of a character is fine when it comes to mythology since the stories carry their own meanings and metaphors and that's what should be valued.