Ovid's version of Medusa is by far the most common, but what if it's also the most misogynist? Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!
CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.
Sources: Ovid's Metamorphsoes, translations by Stephanie McCarter and Allen Mandelbaum; WorldHistory.org; a simple Google search for 'Medusa'.
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
Hello, this is let's talk about MIT's baby. And I am that host of yours you cannot sing worth shit, and yet does this every time I am live, and so today I'm here with something a little different kind of So. A couple of weeks back, Godwin was it, I honestly don't even remember. Time is a flat circle. I did that episode where I re listened to the very first episod of this podcast, and I kind of expanded upon those things that I introduced to you guys at the beginning. I corrected some pieces, I added additional context all of these different things, and I thought it was really interesting, and thankfully Spotify now has this ability where I can ask you guys what you think directly after you listen to the episode, and so many of you agreed that I should do more of these, which was such a joy. Thank you. I think like eight people picked the not really interested in more option, and then it was like ninety percent heck yes, And I fucking love that. I don't know why I just said heck, but I fucking loved that. And so I really today's episode is based in that idea, but it is also based in what I am working on right now. So not only have I been spending my days, you know, coming up with content for Women's History Month, but I am also in the midst of preparing next month's special series of episodes, which is a very deep dive historical look into Greece during the Bronze Age and the collapse of the Bronze Age. We are diving really, really heavily into that history, and by we, I mean Mikayla is doing such incredible research on it, and then I am trying to figure out what I'm talking about based on Mikayla's incredible research, and we are planning and recording conversations with some absolutely fascinating people. What that means is that it's a lot of work. But then I also did agree to I think I mentioned it in a recent episode. I am writing this big introductory, contextual, historical cultural look at Medusa as a character for a book of short stories that is coming out sometime with Flame Tree Press. You can google that if you're interested. But what that means is that I've been also diving very deep into Medusa, and I am sort of caught up right now in this web of trying to understand all the ways that people see her now, all the ways that her story has been manipulated, And I mean that both maliciously and not, but just a pure manipulation of her story. Because honestly, I know I'm a broken record with this, but Medusa, of all characters, her story has been more manipulated, literally melded and changed and adjusted over the millennia, more than I swear anyone else. And it's absolutely fascinating. Like right now, I am just trying to get a grasp on all the ways in which her story has been changed, the ways in which people go and say like, oh, but the real story is X, or the truth is X, the original myth blah blah blah, all of these things, and you know, sometimes they are wild departures from what actually exists in the ancient sources told to be quote unquote the original myth. Or sometimes they are just people who have taken Avid's version of the story, which is a very distinct and unique version of the story from the ancient world, and they have claimed this to be a kind of original or accurate or any number of things. And I'm just so utterly fascinated in people's desire to do this, both in terms of the ways in which her story has been sort of broken and adjusted and manipulated by misogyny, but also in the ways that her story the same thing has been done in her story by people who are explicitly reclaiming something in Medusa or or finding strength in her as a survivor, all of these different things. And so I'm looking at all of these things and trying to just get a grasp even on like what people understand and about her today, you know, and let alone all of the diving and research I'm going to be doing into, you know, what her story looked like in the ancient world. But honestly, I'm just so caught up in all of these versions and understanding and beliefs around Medusa that I just thought, you know, it is International Women's History Month. I think I've added an extra word in there. It is Women's History Month. It was recently International Women's Day. And so why the fuck not revisit one of my earliest episodes on Medusa, because not only has it become a true and really really lasting favorite of all of yours, which I absolutely love, but it also, you know, is this really interesting look at Medusa's story, And because I covered her story as it stands in Avid, I am now so curious about how wo how I went about telling her story all the way back in twenty eighteen, because frankly, for me, it's been six years and I don't know what the fuck I said. And so I I'm going to re listen to the Medusa section of that episode because in that episode I did cover a Rackney's story as well. We're gonna look at at what I would like to add contextually now, as well as how this fits with the wider Medusa that I have been seeing in my research. So basically, all have to say today is just a broad, unscripted Medusa rant of an episode, both examining that earliest episode I did back in twenty eighteen and also her just just fucking Medusa. This is a thought experiment on Medusa. This is episode two fifty two, What makes a Monster? What if Avid's Medusa was thinly veiled misogyny? In looking at Medusa's story and how it has been interpreted in the past, I mean, honestly, even in the past ten to twenty years, I think that's what I'm most interested in right now. It is so inextricably tied to Avid's version of the story now that it is very difficult to tease out what is actually going on, and having just listened to my own telling of this story, I absolutely emphasize that it is Avid, but I think even I uugh, I We're going to get into what I think about what is going on. But basically, I am going to play the entirety of my original retelling of Medusa's story as it appears in Avid. It's only like eight minutes long, and then I'm going to talk about what is going on with Avid's interpretation and how we see it today, in addition to what I did and how how I think I would do it differently now, and what exactly I want to emphasize about her story, because oh, there is so much going on here now. Trigger warning. Avid's version of the story does explicitly include sexual assault by Medusa. It's not particularly graphic in the way that I've told it, but it's absolutely there, so take warning.
Forkis was a primordial sea god, Quito a famous and terrible sea monster. When they got together to propriate, this results in the birth of three gorgons sisters, two immortals, Theeno and Urali, and one named Medusa, who is mortal. While the story of Medusa and her sisters exist throughout Greek mythology from some of the oldest sources, including the patriarchal monster himself, Hesiod, this story, this particular origin story, comes from a main man Avid, just like a Rackne. You know what that means Roman names for the gods. Medusa is stunning, a beautiful, unforgettable woman. Sure she is the daughter of a primordial sea god and a straight up sea monster, but she is beautiful. There are so many men after her, so many vying for her attention. Of course, though with attention from men and astonishing beauty comes hatred from the goddesses. Because, for the one hundredth time, these myths were thought up by men who all assumed that if a woman encountered another woman whom she might consider more beautiful, she would immediately hate that woman and wish all the tragedy in the world upon her. It's in our dna, you know. Medusa's beauty is known all around, but there's one quality about her that is considered her most impressive asset. The best and most stunning thing about her is her hair. Medusa has magnificent, flowing hair. And this is not the serpent locks you know of. This is legit, beautiful, jealousy inducing hair. Medusa is so beautiful and her hair so incredible to behold that she catches the eye of one Neptune Poseidon. Neptune spots Medusa one day and he knows he just.
Has to have her.
And we all know what that means. It means that because she's wearing a short peploss, or because her hair is styled in whatever way was particularly sexy for ancient Greek women, for whatever reason, she obviously deserves what is about to happen to her. It all stems from somewhere, friends, Neptune spots Medusa one day, and he begins devising away to get what he wants. So one afternoon, when she's worshiping in Minerva's temple, minding her own fucking business, just trying to support the Goddess of Wisdom, Neptune comes upon her and he rapes her. Neptune rapes Medusa within the walls of Minerva's temple, rapes her. Minerva, in all her glory, determines that this is a slight against her personally. She is a virgin goddess. This isn't something she's experienced herself, and it isn't something she wants to see. A woman has been raped in her temple. Raped. It's offensive, horrendous, and atrocity. Minerva hides her eyes while it's happening. She doesn't want to witness this.
She is chaste, she is pure.
Somebody has to be punished for this. Minerva determines that it is Medusa who must be punished for being raped by a god. As a punishment for being raped, you know, because that's definitely not punishment enough, let alone punishment for doing absolutely nothing wrong. As punishment for being raped, Minerva turns Medusa's beautiful, flowing hair into snakes, awful, terrifying, hissing snakes, So she hides. She hides because fine, she also turns humans to stone with a single look. But it's also because a goddess turns her hair into snakes, making her less than fun at dinner parties. Medusa hides. She hides until one day a random man shows up with a sword, a shield, a bag, and winged sandals. On that day, the man uses the shield as a mirror so he doesn't see Medusa's face. She doesn't want him to see her hair, as it is made of angry, hissing snakes. She avoids him, but he's there to get her. He uses the shield so that she can't use her one form of defense, turning people into stone with a single look. This strange man who's appeared out of nowhere, uses the shield as a mirror until finally he gets to her. With one swift motion, this strange man slices off Medusa's head. The snakes hiss and cry, and her head falls to the ground. This stranger who appeared from nowhere still avoids looking at her. Everyone has avoided looking at her ever since her hair was turned to snakes in punishment for being raped. This has been her life. Her life ends with a slicing sound through the air, a thud on the ground as her head falls, and the snakes stop their hissing and lie still, and all their remains are children she never knew she had. From her headless body spring a man and a horse, Chris Or The man springs fully formed from the poor woman's neck, and the horse, with massive feathery wings, shoots out, flying up into the sky, testing his wings for the first time neither child Man or flying horse ever gets to meet their mother. All because Athena is a fucking bitch who blamed women for being raped by awful men. It all comes from somewhere, people.
Wow, Okay, there is so much happening here. Honestly, I am. I remain very proud of this episode. I want to be very clear about that. It is quite accurate to the story as it appears in Avid. It is obvious that that I got the point across the horrors of Medusa's story as it appears in Avid, and I think that it was told well. But now, oh, there's just so much more to say. First and foremost, I think it's important to contextualize Medusa's story in Avid like in Avid itself, because unlike so many other stories of transformation within the broader metamorphoses, like a Rackney Say, who also appears in the rest of that regular episode, the story of Medusa does not appear until after Medusa is dead. We meet Perseus in Avid's metamorphoses after he has already killed Medusa, taken her head, and then used it to kill other people. So we are visiting her story in the context of violence, not just violence against Medusa, but violence with the use of Medusa as the weapon. And I think that that is both fascinating but also really important when we're looking at what exactly Avid says about her. So I want to just read a section from Abvid's Metamorphoses in this new translation by Stephanie McCarter, which of course I didn't have when I first did this episode because it didn't exist. And basically, so we meet Percia having killed Medusa, carrying her head in a bag. He has used it against a handful of others and has just saved Andromeda, and they are, you know, celebrating in Ethiopia with Andromeda's family. She's just been saved by a sea monster. Obviously, there is so much going on there. You can listen back to my very detailed two part episode I believe on Perseus for more. But that is the context for this, Okay. We are celebrating the use of Medusa's head as a deadly weapon and enduring those celebrations. Basically, someone is like, hey, how'd you get that head? And so, you know, Perseus tells the story as we know it. He talks about the gray Eye, how they shared an eye and a tooth, and how he used this against them to give up the location of Medusa. And then you know, he gets to Medusa, and this is where I'm going to quote it. The barren and tree spiked crags where gorgons have their home. Throughout the field and paths, he could see statues of humans and wild beasts that had been changed to stone. When they returned Medusa's gaze, yet he had seen his looks reflected in his bronze shield. And as she slept, he snatched her head clean off. He snatched her head clean off. The lack of violence in this act compared to the use of Medusa's head as a weapon of violence, is so striking to me. Now, of course, I won't pretend to know the Latin well enough. The translation that I would have used when I first told this story says that he cut that gorgon's head off from her act. Something about snatched, though being used by Macrter here, feels incredibly intentional, and so I kind of want to trust her telling of it. She wouldn't have said snatched unless there was a lack of violence in this act, And so that that is our introduction to the fact that Medusa was once a living being, because we have already had like two full sections talking about the capabilities of her head. But this is where we know that she was a living thing and that not only was there such little violence in her death, but we also learned that she was sleeping when this man just snuck in, you know, used this shield so that he could look at her without dying, and just basically removed her head. The emphasis here is that her head is a thing to be used. It is not a thing that deserves to be on the body of the living creature that it belongs to, and that is so important. But then, of course we get to the real meat of her story, right that detailed description that you just re listened to that you you know that I recorded all the way back in twenty eighteen, and I was able to turn into this very dramatic act a real narrative story. I'm quite impressed with actually what happened there. I think that I had almost gas lit myself into believing that that exists within Ofvid, that he is providing us with this this sympathetic and detailed story of her fate and how she came to be, you know, who she was, how she came to be this, this snake haired quote unquote monster her turns people to stone. I was also convinced that there is a detailed story, and I certainly gave one to you back then, which is why I want to very explicitly read to you the entirety, okay, the entirety of Avid's telling of how Medusa came to have the fate that she had. So, after Perseus has explained how he got Medusa's head at this feast, someone asks him basically like you noted that you know her two sisters were immortal and she was mortal, and we get the implication here that only Medusa had this snaky hair, and that, of course, you know, as we know well, only Medusa could turn people to stone. And so someone asks him like, hey, why was that? And this is what Perseus says, quote, since you seek things worth the telling, here is the reason. Once acclaimed for beauty, she was the fervent hope of many suitors, and her most striking feature was her hair. I found a young man who alleged he'd seen it. They say the sea god raped her in Minerva's temple. Jove's daughter turned away, chaste eyes veiled by her aegis. This was not unpunished. She changed the gorgon's hair into foul serpents, and even now to stun her foes with fright, she wears upon her chest those snakes she made. That's all of it, That's the whole story. It's conveyed to us not only as this kind of afterthought, because that is the end of Perseus's telling of the story to the people of Ethiopia. It's not only presented as this kind of afterthought at the end, after her head has been used to cause such incredible violence, but it is conveyed almost like a rumor. And I find that to be incredibly interesting. He basically says it's a rumor, right, he says, they say the sea god raped her in Minerva's temple. And obviously that could be just a method of Avid's storytelling, but to me, it feels incredibly relevant, given that Avid is the first person to introduce not only the idea of an explicit sexual assault. You all know, I would argue that that sexual assault does also occur in Hesiod's earliest version of her story, but he is definitely certainly the first to introduce the idea that it happened in Athena's temple, and that it linked is linked to Athena in this way, that Athena transformed her to have this hair. That is, as far as we know it a completely Ovidian invention, and it's important to recognize that just because it does really change the story of Medusa and how we see her now. The thing about all of this is that it really, you know, it is presented in this way of it's just kind of an afterthought. It's a rumor. It's oh, they say, this is what happened. It's very much just sort of ah, like a thorowaway line in the grand scheme of Perseus has brought this woman's head in to do great damage. And yet it has become this thing today where you know, you google the story of Medusa and this is what you will get. I want to look at how Medusa is viewed today. So I'm gonna so I'm gonna just share a little bit of what comes up when you just google Medusa. Okay, So first, one of the or the top video result that Google gives is a History Channel clip talking about her story and oh is it really something one? It presents Avid's story as explicitly the Greek myth, which is of course completely not only untrue, but just lacks so much important context about what exactly is going on with the ancient sources. I can't even get into it, but it really dramatizes all of it. I do believe that it is one of the places, and there are many I want to get into this too. There are many places that claim she was a priestess of Athena. Now that's something even I have heard so often that when I just revisited this so Vivian telling, I was expecting to find it. But you will note that there was nowhere in what I've just read to you where it says she was a priestess. I mean, I suppose the implication could be there because she was in Athena's temple, but like that really doesn't suggest anything about being a priestess. Like anyone would go into those temples. It was completely ubiquitous act of entering a temple for a goddess like Athena, especially a goddess like Athena, like one of the most widely worshiped goddesses in the ancient Greek world. Like everyone is just walking into her temple it does not require like a priestess status, so I find that really interesting. But this video is just honestly kuckoo bananas if you want to check it out. But as you go further into Medusa on Google, what I'm fascinated by is the sort of the questions that you can, you know, prompt right. So there's a qu there's a list of questions here on Google. The first says why was Medusa Turned Evil? Which is fascinating And I'm not going to click on this link. I want to just read to you what appears on Google. I'm assuming that there is important context added at the link, because the first result for why was Medusa Turned Evil? Is from the met Museum in New York, So I hope that this is not what they say, but the actual sentence, the paragraph rather that shows up on Google is the snake haired Medusa does not become widespread until the first century BC. What the Roman author Avid describes the mortal Medusa as a beautiful maiden seduced by Poseidon in a temple of Athena. Such a sacrilege attracted the goddess's wrath, and she punished Medusa by turning her hair to snakes. Now again, I'm assuming that there is extra context on this website. But the problem I want to raise is that there is no content on Google, which of course is just like a broad problem for Google in so many ways. But I am fascinated by what it is doing to Medusa so specifically. And then the next question, all right, what does Medusa symbolize? This says, this is from a oh, dear Oh, it is from a website called this Youngie in Life. I know what we're gonna get, And it says, as a gorgon, Medusa represents a primordial force of chaos and destruction, embodying the untamed and unpredictable aspects of the natural world. Her petrifying gaze can be interpreted as a reminder of the inherent danger and potential for devastation that exists within the natural order. Why there are so many monsters from Greek myth that I believe that this is actually applicable to uh monsters like the hydra, the chimera, typhon. So specifically, there are a long list of monsters that this applies to that do represent the primordial force of chaos and destruction of the natural world. There are absolutely monsters that do this. Medusa is simply not one of them. Her story member as it exists in Heesid, I mean, I have this memorized at this point. The story as it exists Inhesid is that Medusa was born a gorgon to Forcus in Keto. With her sisters, she was the only mortal gorgon. He does not give any explanation for why that might be. He says that Poseidon quote unquote lay with her, but the implication there is that it is very unlikely to be consensual, and that she suffered a woeful fate. He describes Perseus cutting off her head and her children, Pegasus and Chrissy, are being birthed from the stump of her severed neck. That is her story in the earliest surviving source. There is not a single reference to her causing any damage to the world to a single person, just the notion that once her head is cut off, at the very least, it can be used to turn people to stone. Of course, we can gather that that might have been applicable before it was cut off her head, particularly when we get to these more detailed versions where Perseus has to use this shield as a mirror. However, there is not a single reference to her having harmed anyone before we reach Avid's telling of the story, and so there is just simply not a single lick of evidence to suggest that she does represent this kind of chaos of the natural world. Even when we get to Avid, it still doesn't stand. She is given this sympathetic story. We do learn that she is surrounded by statues of those she has transformed to stone, but there is still no implication that she did it intentionally, that she did it with any kind of malice. There is no version that I have ever come across, in seven years of obsessing over her and being well aware of the ancient sources, there is no version of an ancient source on Medusa's story that suggests that when she was alive, she intentionally committed any harm to any living creature. And yet we get this kind of psychologizing, this philosophizing on her as this source of chaos and destruction. I have seen it in countless places, and it just makes me want to scream, because while that is so applicable to so many monsters and like, it is interesting if it was applicable, but I want to hear one tiny piece of ancient evidence that suggests that this is applicable to Medusa, because I can't find it. And then we get to you know, more generic questions about Medusa on Google, about the possibility of her, you know, as a beautiful person being cursed. There's a meeting article that is clearly talking about Avid and says that she was originally a golden haired fair maiden. So we're also whitewashing her, given she's meant to be found in North Africa, Northwest Africa. Yeah, golden haired fair maiden, get a grip. The idea of a maiden too, is very uncertain, obviously. Sometimes that word now is meant to just kind of apply to young woman, but intent like etymologically speaking, it means virgin, which there's no suggestion of that again, and you know, certainly I guess she was unmarried, so for going with that, she was, but she was born a gorgon. Even Avid, to be clear, even Avid emphasizes that she was born a gorgon. He says she was beautiful, but she was born a gorgon. She was born a gorgon to these sea gods, Forcus and Keto, there is nothing to suggest that she was particularly human. The word beauty is used, but it is certainly open to interpretation as to what exactly that means. And then we get to some Quora questions. Oh Gods are those messy? And you know, I actually just realized I missed the very first question that appears on Google. The people also ask the top one is what is the real story of Medusa? And this comes from the World History Encyclopedia, And again I hope that the website includes context. But if people are just reading this paragraph that pops up, it says Medusa was seduced by Neptune Poseidon in a temple to Minerva Athena, and in revenge, Minerva turned Medusa's beautiful head of hair into snakes, and she was both mortal and had the ability to turn men to stone. Perseus was sent to cut off her head. Now, in this case, I did want to make sure that this website includes more context, and God's I really hope people click on this because it does very explicitly say that the best known story comes from Avid and then describes what I read earlier. But then the following question after this is is Medusa evil or good? And it says there are no stories that tell us of Medusa turning people to stone, nor any tales of her harassing or killing people. Unlike other Greek monsters such as Scilla and Charybdis, although she had the power to kill, she was not inherently evil. So thank Youworldhistory dot Org. But I want to talk about a little about what it means that Avid's version has become what it has today. It can be empowering, I want to say upfront, I don't want to take away from the empower that does come with Medusa being a survivor of assault. I think that it is incredibly important to see that structure, you know, being used in the myths. But I would argue that using Avid's version for that is it's not kind to Medusa, and I don't think that it brings across the same point that people want it to make, especially now that I have reread it. The idea that her she is introduced through violence of the use of her head as a weapon, long long, long before we ever hear anything about her as a person, is incredibly important, and that you know, her sympathetic origin story is conveyed over like four lines as an afterthought is also incredibly important. I don't think that Avid's version is kind to Medusa. I'm sure I've said before that it was. I don't think that's true. So I don't think that he was being kind in telling her story. I think that it is an insult to Medusa. I believe that Hesiod's version, for all Hesiod was flawed, is all shit. I believe that this her, the earliest surviving source for Medusa's story, is the most kind to her. It takes all of the blame off of her for what Perseus did in killing her. It does convey the idea that she was a survivor of Poseidon. Hesiod does not explicitly call it assault, but almost nothing in the ancient Greek sources is explicitly called assault, and particularly not in Hesid, because it wasn't a question of whether the woman was willing. That just wasn't a question they were asking or answering in those sources. That isn't to say it wasn't something that occurred to them or that they didn't care, but in the sources as they stand, it wasn't a question that was being asked or answered. I think we can can and should read into Hesid as being non consensual, particularly because of the word choices, the word used to suggest that she quote unquote lay with Poseidon, because that is always how it is translated, as far as I could tell, and I'm not particularly good at ancient Greek, but I do know how to search through the usage of words in ancient Greek. The word used for all that I have been able to dig into the source, The word used Inhesid means ultimately something like to pluck out a superfluous hair, and as it has been used to convey sexual intercourse. It appears in Heesid and in the Iliad when discussing Achilles's relationship with Bresais. As far as I know, it has not was not used beyond that particularly, and so the idea that a word that is used to describe sex also means to pluck out a superfluous hair, and was used when discussing a man having sex with a woman that he took as a war gift. Basically, there's a better word for that. But she was abducted from her life and brought to live in a camp for the enemy. The idea that that word being used to describe Poseidon and Medusa doesn't convey some kind of violence is fucking wild to me, like it so obviously does. Whereas this story as it appears in Avid, while explicit about an assault, is not kind about the assault. It not only demonizes Athena and suggests that she would do something like this, but it is it is not sympathetic to Medusa. This woman has had her head used for like five hundred lines of poetry to describe horrible violence. And then when somebody's finally like, hey, she was alive once, right, they tell this story And yeah, I mean, looking at it now with all of the context that I know, I really, I really don't think that Avid's is at all something that we should, you know, be finding some kind of solace in. I don't know he seeds it to me. And again, I don't want to take away from what anyone else has or has not found in Avid for themselves. But I think what tends to frustrate me when it comes to Medusa is how often Avid's story is conveyed as the quote unquote true or original myth. And it's done so often out of this this suggestion that because you know, it gives her this origin story, it is somehow better better for her to suggest that she actually was once beautiful and transformed into what she was, and I think that that has a lot of layers of misogyny that that the people using it don't want, and I don't think that they are aware of the misogyny that's inherent in that by saying it. But the idea that that she was once beautiful and then made ugly is I mean it. I want there to be like a word like fat shaming, but for looks, because that's what it feels like to me. Right Whereas Medusa was a gorgon and and that made her not human, but what it didn't make her was ugly, Like there there nothing in the Greek forms of Medusa to suggest that she felt ugly as a gorgon, or that people saw gorgons as ugly. They were simply not human, right, they were divine in some way. They do have this kind of monstrous context. But monstrosity does not mean ugly, and it monstrosity is not an opposite to beauty, and I think to suggest that monstrosity is an object to an opposite rather to beauty has a lot of misogynist undertones, right, Like, this monstrous woman can't be beautiful when how I see Medusa is that she was born that way and that's just simply who she was. It wasn't an insult to say that she was monstrous. She was born a monster. And again, the connotations of monstrosity as ugly not only has misogynist undertones, but it is also a more construct right Like, there's nothing to suggest that the ancient Greeks were around going like, oh, Medusa was ugly, she was monstrous. Her monstrosity served a purpose. It was not about ugliness. It was about protection, And I mean it was mostly about protection, right like. Her symbol was also used as an apotropaic device. Of course, it is a little bit. It's about her head being off her body and being able to be used as a weapon. That's why it appears as a form of protection. Unfortunately, also, there are rumors that go around online that suggest that the gorgon symbol was used I forget what the details are, but it's something to do with sexual assault or used by women in the ancient world as a protective device, like it was somehow a more feminine or a woman's specific thing. That isn't true. There's no evidence of that it was simply a protective device. But that protective device is linked to the fact that after her head was cut off from her body, it was put onto Athena's shield, right, It was explicitly Athena's protective device, and therefore was used as such by humans as well, which I think that it doesn't take away from the value. It is just the context of she was a protective device. And I think that that's really important when we are looking at the idea of monstrosity and how monstrosity does not have to be evil. Monstrosity does not have to be it does not have to come with malice or destruction. I mean, obviously, in this case, her head was used for destruction when it was off her body, But Medusa's monstrosity is not inherently tied to violence, and I think that that is in itself a a kind of act of resistance. That she was monstrous, but that wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't a bad thing to be monstrous in this context. And I think that when Avid introduces the idea that she was once beautiful and sawed after and then Athena made her monstrous and ugly, I think that that is mean to Medusa. It is mean to women, it is mean to assault survivors. I think that is considerably more harmful than the version where Medusa was just born that way. Medusa inhesiate in her earliest source, is born that way, and it doesn't make her any less of a victim or survivor of assault. It doesn't make her any less of a victim of Perseus's murder of her. It is just who she was. And I think that taking that away, I mean, it just feels to me like it's screaming of the importance of beauty over anything else. And then of course we get the reading of it that that Athena actually helped Medusa in this quote unquote curse, that you know, she prevented her from getting assaulted again, and I think there's so many problems with that reading not I mean, of course, the number one in terms of my concerns are it has absolutely no basis in the ancient sources. And I think a lot of times when it is conveyed by people, it is suggested that it is somehow evidenced in the ancient sources, and I mean that's just simply untrue. And you know me, I'm just obsessed with sticking to the ancient sources and getting what we can from them, but what actually exists within them. I don't think there's anything wrong with looking beyond them and theorizing and questioning what other people might have believed that never got written down. But to suggest that you know that this is what was happening, I think that it is. Ultimately. I understand that it is well intentioned, that it is meant to be a kind of taking back of one's trauma, but I think that it ultimately does the opposite of that. Right, It suggests that in order to not be assault assaulted, you need to be ugly. Right Like, it feels to me like the she was asking for it. I know that's not what it is meant to be, but to me it screams. You know, she was wearing a short skirt. You know, Athena might as well have transformed her to be wearing coveralls so that she wouldn't be assaulted again. Right. And So I just think that the use of Avid's is really unfortunate how widespread that it has become, just because ultimately, I really think that we could find the same empowerment that is coming from this version of the story, but without all of the sort of icky underlying misogyny that comes with it. We can find that in the oldest surviving source Hesiods, which I mean hesiid broadly pretty misogynous source. And yet still this version really gives her. It just really emphasizes, I guess, how faultless she was in the situation and therefore how shitty it makes the God's look, Perseus look all of it. Like, to me, this is the Medusa that feels the most powerful or the most transgressive, I guess, And I can't totally put into words like why the hesiod one has those qualities, but comparatively to the Avid, I do think it lacks just a lot of the ick that I've personally found in revisiting this source and in just like really digging into the way that people online really like dig their heels in to her story like he Seids is simple. It's to the point. It just says what happened in a couple of lines, and I think that is almost the most powerful, because she did nothing and everything happened to her, and that might not It doesn't have agency, and it doesn't have like any kind of overt empowerment, but I don't know. To me, it's still a good reminder that, like, she is not evil or scary or ugly. She is simply a gorgan, and a gorgon is a monster, and there's literally nothing violent or dangerous about that inherently, and I think that's what matters most to me.
Hmm.
Anyway, it turns out when I don't script something, I can get real good and rambly with these thoughts. Thank you all so much for listening. This was really a little experiment about like what exactly I am capable of Without researching a script in front of me, I won't be doing it a lot, but I think it's really interesting to kind of just explore these thoughts, particularly when it comes to somebody like Medusa. Like I just feel like I so much lives in my brain when it comes to her, and I've been doing so much really weird research digging in for this piece I'm writing that, Like, I just was so inspired to talk about her and to look at all the ways that her story has been manipulated again, both good and bad. And I'm not saying it's all intentional manipulation or that it is all damaging, but it has been pipulated, right, it has been changed and altered, and I feel like today, you know, her original her earliest sources like tend to just be lost in the noise that exists around her. And I mean, it's nice that she's so incredibly famous and popular and also so divisive. But yeah, oh it's utterly fascinating. Oh Medusa. Like there's a reason that I could talk about her like this forever and also write a ton of stuff about her because huh Medusa. As always, Let's end with a five star review from one of you incredible listeners. This one comes from Hannah Mack thirteen from the States. Whimsical and fun. I listen to these at work, which makes the workday a fun experience. I also love to read fantasy books, and knowing more about the origin slash backstory of myths adds more dimension to the characters, which I love. Thank you. That was incredibly fun. Please leave me a five star review on Apple Podcasts if you want me to read it on the show, because they fill me with joy and then I get to read your review again. Thank you all for listening. Wild Times Let's Talk a mits Baby is written produced by me Live Albert Mikhaela Smith is the Harmies to my Olympians. My assistant producer, Laura Smith is the audio engineer and production assistant. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts, and find me on Patreon, where there's a ton of back bonus content as well as just your ability to support the two free episodes that I give you every week. If you want to help me keep that up and ensure that I am not reliant on capitalist ads, you know, feel free until then. So we got thank you. Also watch you are the absolute best. I am live and I love this shit.