Classical Mythology: Difference between revisions

{{Useful Notes}}

 

The mythology of ancient Greece and Rome is the [[Older Than Feudalism]] source of many tropes, as well as well-known gods, heroes and monsters. An important element of [[Ancient Greece]], [[The Roman Republic]] and [[The Roman Empire]].

For further details, see the [[Classical Mythology/Characters|character sheet]]. Greek Mythology has been very influential in literature, art, and many other things so it's named a lot of Tropes. [[Trope Namers/Classical Mythology|See the list here.]]

 

 

== Greek ==

* ''[[The Metamorphoses]]''

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== A-C ==

** There are a number of tales in which Zeus [[Casanova|seduces or forces himself on pretty girls]] while taking seemingly random shapes.

*** Ganymedes was an example of when he did that to a guy, he then made Gadymedes his cupbearer, kicking out Hebe, his daughter by Hera. Ganymede was Trojan, giving Hera yet another reason to hate Troy. [[Hair-Trigger Temper|Then again she tends to hate everything.]]

*** And Bellerophon who had an entire city's women strip off and throw themselves at him (he was threatening to use his father Poseidon's power to destroy the city). He panicked and fled.

** Some myths state his own mother (Hera) threw him out of Olympus after his birth when she saw that he was deformed... Fortunately there were some nice nymphs that raised him (and he gets his revenge on her later on when he returns to Olympus).

** Sometimes Hades as well.

* [[All-Star Cast]]: About half the point of the story of the ''Argo'', Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, and the Battle of the Lapiths were to gather a ridiculous number of well-known heroes together in one place.

** Also Apollo and [[Norse Mythology|Freyr]], Hades and [[Finnish Mythology|Tuoni]] and etc.

* [[And I Must Scream]]: Those [[Taken for Granite|unfortunate enough]] to gaze upon the face of Medusa.

** Which is where we get the word petrified

* [[Born as an Adult]]: Athena, who is perhaps one of the most [[Just for Pun|classic]] examples of this trope.

* [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]]: Sisyphus managed to cheat death by chaining up Thanatos. However, doing so messed up the whole cycle of life and death. So eventually the impulsive Ares frees Thanatos (because a war without death would be boring), and Sisyphus was dragged to underworld. He then gets back again by telling Hades that he has to punish his wife because she didn't bury him properly (he told her to do so, the cheater) and lived on like some insurance cheater for some decades until finally dying once and for all. His punishment? Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a steep hill... But it will always roll back down again whenever he's almost at the top, forcing him to perform this pointless task forever.

** The Greek gods pretty much epitomized the idea of "do as we say, not as we do" even ''before'' [[Values Dissonance]] gets added in.

* [[Brother-Sister Incest]]: Like most mythologies, Classical Myth also has lots of pairings between family members, as the various generations of gods are siblings and children of the previous one. Starting with Gaea and Uranus (mother and son), to their children Kronos (Saturn) and Rhea, to their children who are the current generation of gods. Notable sibling pairs among them are e.g. Zeus (Jupiter/Jove) and Hera (Juno), Demeter (Ceres) with both Zeus and Poseidon (Neptune), etc.

* [[Happily Married]]: Baucis and Philemon. Also Hades and Persephone.

** As previously mentioned, Eros and Psyche, surprisingly.

* [[Has Two Mommies]]: According to a Roman myth, Juno (Greek name: Hera) became pregnant with Mars (Ares) after being touched by a herb grown by the goddess Flora. She did this to get her own back at Jupiter (Zeus) for giving birth to Minerva (Athena).

* [[Hereditary Curse]]: Tantalus prepared his own son Pelops as food for the gods. Not only was he himself punished for this gruesome act (but this is another story...) but also a curse was laid upon the next four generations of his house. How did this curse manifest itself? Let's just say that the House of Atreus (named after Tantalus' grandkid) took being a [[Dysfunctional Family]].

** Eros, after a quarrel with Apollo, got back at him by shooting him with an arrow that made him fall in love with Daphne at first sight, after he shot Daphne with an arrow that made her (in simplest terms) hate at first sight.

** Narcissus was considered so beautiful that every woman who looked upon his face fell instantly in love with him, but he would always spurn such people and break their hearts. He was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection after spurning several nymphs this way.

*** No matter who else got rejected by Narcissus, the last person is always Echo in an exceptionally cruel manner. Since she had the misfortune of getting cursed to repeat only what people said to her, it was a big problem when Narcissus needed directions to the nearest city. He had no way of knowing she was cursed, but it doesn't mean he should have called Echo an idiot and gone out of his way to avoid her. Rather understandable that Aphrodite considered this the last straw — especially since Echo was so in love with him that she couldn't bear to cause him harm, even to seek justice for herself.

** Hades and Persephone. A bit one-sided, but basically he (also) gets shot with Eros' arrow of love. Instant attraction and abduction ensues.

** Even Eros was not immune to this. Aphrodite, Eros' mother, because she was jealous of the beautiful Psyche, asked Eros to shoot her with an arrow so that she would fall in love with someone repulsive at first sight, but Eros ended up falling in love at first sight with Psyche. Fortunately for him it was not one-sided.

* [[Lover and Beloved]]: Goes hand-in-hand with the [[Ho Yay]].

 

* [[Plant Person]]: Dryads.

* [[Prophecy Twist]]: Too numerous to list.

* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]: Olympus is attacked more than once, and Heracles was known to get into fights with several gods.

** Gaia, mother of Earth, did it the most; first she plotted to have her husband, Ouranos, overthrown and killed by Cronus because he locked away the Gigantes, Cyclopes and Hecatonchires for their ugliness. Then, when Cronus is stupid enough to lock away the newly-freed giants after they were just freed (not to mention devour his children) she plots for Zeus to kill him. Then, as vengeance for the Olympians killing her children, the Titans (which she herself pretty much caused by the previous plot; never mind that Zeus had ''freed'' the kyklopes and hekatonkheires), she sets Typhon and the Gigantes onto the Olympians. Basically, she took offense to pretty much every generation of the gods, even when she got them into power in the first place. Brings a whole new meaning to [[Gaia's Vengeance]], doesn't it?

* [[World's Strongest Man]]: Heracles.

** He can even lift the sky... ask Atlas...

** Hera, too. Doesn't help that her husband is none other than Zeus.

* [[You Can't Go Home Again]]: ''[[Odyssey|The Odyssey]]'', ''[[The Aeneid]]''.

* [[You Can't Fight Fate]], because

 

{{reflist}}