Myths Revisited: Part II, the Olympians

Zeus, the Skyfather, Lord of Lightning and Thunder, is the King of the Gods of Olympus according to most treatises on Classical Mythology. Most treatises on Classical Mythology, however, ignore the long history and historicity of the cults of the gods of Olympus, where they came from, and what happened to them. Consequently, these details are shrouded in over-simplified myths and metaphor.

In reality, Zeus came upon the Greek pantheon as a new god prior to its identification with Mount Olympus. At the time, a loose collection of gods including Artemis, Athena, Dionysos, and the Mistresses (Demeter and Persephone), Hephaestus, Hermes and Hera, along with a number of gods that later became more or less forgotten—Paean, Erinya, Eileithyia, and Despoina ruled a small pocket dimension that was tied to Greece on planet earth, allowing them to occasionally roam over this circumscribed geographical area. Over this loose collection of gods, Poseidon was champion and “first among equals”—a powerful force individually, but their loose collection made them vulnerable to another militaristic pantheon, the so-called Titans of Mount Othrys, who’s own pocket dimension was anchored in another part of the Greek peninsula, putting them at odds because of proximity.

Zeus arrived with some of his young and untested allies: Ares, Apollo, Hades, Aphrodite, Herakles, and others, and due to his own war-like nature and off-the-charts personal magnetism and physical power, was able to unite the disparate Mycenaean pantheon into a powerful force. They set up their paradise on Mount Olympus (in reality, a pocket dimension called Olympus, which is most often accessed via a semi-permanent portal on Mount Olympus in Greece) and waged the terrible war known as the Titanomachy. This was one of the first and most terrible examples of open warfare between pantheons of Outsiders, and the triumvirate of Zeus, his “brother” Hades, and Poseidon, the champion of the region before the arrival of Zeus and his entourage, proved to be unstoppable.

The New Olympians overthrew the Titans, incorporating some few of their members who surrendered into their own growing pantheon and imprisoning the rest so that they couldn’t be reborn to threaten their rule later. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the most powerful of the new Olympian pantheon, declared themselves brothers, retroactively declared themselves sons and heirs of Cronus, the King of Othrys and the Titans overall, and ruled Olympus jointly, with Zeus the new “first among equals.” In truth, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon don’t always get along, or trust each other too much, and the lusts, envies and politics between them are often brutal and cruel. However, all three of them recognize that it is the power of their joint triumvirate that has led to their long dominance. Breaking their triumvirate will expose them to their enemies (of which there are many, mostly due to their own aggressive nature) and creates a situation in which as much as they may not like it, all three have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Indeed, all three of the triumvirs have at times been killed, but on being re-embodied and reborn, the other two remaining triumvirs made sure that they were raised and taught their place so that they could assume it smoothly again on reaching their full maturity of power.

The Olympian pantheon later made war against two smaller pantheons; those later known as the Etruscan gods and the Roman gods. After suffering a number of losses in lightning raids that left their forces imprisoned and depleted, the Etruscan and Roman pantheons merged, and brought a titanic battle to the Olympians. Echoes of this struggle remain in mythology in garbled form as the Gigantomachy, but the effects of the war are better illustrated on the practices of the worshippers of these pantheons. The Etruscan pantheon, as transmitted to archeologists, adopted more and more Roman and Greek influences, and the Roman pantheon adopted the stories and personalities of the Olympians, although in most cases the names remained Roman. As with the titans, many of the original Roman and Etruscan deities were imprisoned and their places taken by Olympians, who adopted their names and titles for local worshippers, while others were integrated into the Olympian pantheon.

There were some bitter and brutal moves during this integration. Ares was slain and his reborn soul was hidden by the Romans, for example. Later, the Roman Mars took his place in Olympus, leaving Ares as an exile with no knowledge of his heritage for many centuries. Today, Ares remains a bitter outsider, unconnected with the Olympians, since Zeus and the triumvirate had to “adopt” Mars as part of the cessation of hostilities with the remaining Roman pantheon. Hades “adopted” a number of deities with similar interests—Orcus, Ploutus, etc. and announced that they were permanently part of his entourage.

This was the last great Outsider war in which the Olympians participated—following the naked aggression of Zeus and his brothers against the Roman and Etruscan pantheons, few other outsiders would trust or deal with the Olympians anymore, and many would rather make common cause with their rivals against the Olympians rather than give the powerful Zeus a chance to work his way into another pantheonic conquest. That said, two additional powerful deities were later associated with the Olympians during the later Roman times—Isis, a goddess from the Eqyptian pantheon who dallied for many years with Poseidon and had a powerful alliance with him (and him alone, not with the rest of the Olympians). Zeus also befriended Mithras, a wandering deity who was part of an pre-Avestan pantheon that imploded in brutal warfare and politics, and the Mithraic mysteries were an important part of Olympian worship for some time. Mithras eventually wandered again, although his friendship with Zeus remains an important trump card that Zeus can pull when needed, for Mithras was a solar figure and infamously powerful warrior.

The Olympians had a long-running “Cold War” with a Celtic pantheon that was separate from the later attested Irish and Welsh mythologies, but this never erupted into full-scale war. While historically the Roman mortals did eventually conquer and assimilate most of the continental and many of the insular celtic groups, their pantheon was able to form a temporary alliance with the up and coming Teutonic pantheon, an early incarnation of what is later known better to us as the Norse pantheon, where it was actually transmitted to archeologists via writing. Having just come off a war of their own, in which the Æsir and Vanir gods merged to form a much stronger Teutonic pantheon, they were a militarily powerful group and rival for the Olympians that the Olympians were not ready to tackle. Some small part of the warfare and politics between the Teutonic—later Asgardian, Celtic—later, Avalonian, and Olympian pantheons is reflected in the complex relationships between the Celtic, Germanic, and Romano-Greek peoples, but as all three populations were eventually Christianized and became significantly intermingled culturally and ethnically over time, later events in the pantheons are not reflected in mythology or history, but in the secret history of the Outsiders, which is unknown to most peoples.

This later history, however, mostly coincides with that of the other pantheons—as worship of the Outsiders as gods has faded and failed, they have found that their connections to Earth have become less stable and predictable. This has also led to a dampening of hostilities between pantheons, as without easy access to Earth and “the Porch”, they don’t have the means to make war on each other. It also means that individuals are often stranded on Earth, and sometimes are even killed here. Re-embodied without the ability of their “home” pantheons to raise them to take the same place that they held before their deaths, many pantheons have holes missing in them, and the presence of Exile outsiders, who have little or no knowledge of who or what they are, is growing. Some believe, for example, that Samson or Beowulf (or perhaps both!) were actually lives of Herakles, who while wandering far from Olympus was slain, grew up amongst a foreign people when re-embodied and reborn, and became a local hero to them before being killed again.

Myths Revisited, part I: what are the gods?

I decided to name this little series and give it it's own tag: MYTHS REVISITED wherein I discuss a modern-day setting in which mythological characters--gods and heroes--are reinterpreted as superheroes, basically.  As I said in my previous post, this is hardly anything new: the Marvel comics character of Thor (as well as all the backstory around him) was quite successful, and spawned a fair bit of additional mythological Marvel stuff, including Hercules and later Ares as Avengers, the Chaos War storyline (as well as several others), as well as the spin-off (which was later integrated into the mainstream continuity) of the Eternals.  DC has done their part as well, since the character of Wonder Woman is strongly rooted in Greek mythology, and many characters from myth appear in their continuums as well.  And where Marvel has the Eternals, many see that as a reflection of Jack Kirby's New Gods; after it was cancelled, he filed off the serial numbers, changed a lot of the details, but basically explored a lot of the same themes--a science fiction adaptation of mythological concepts.  This more overtly science fictional presentation has a number of important legacies--Darkseid, one of the favorite mega-villains of the DC universe, for example, started as such.  Marvel, in integrating the Eternals, made the Titanians and the Uranians into Eternals, basically, so Thanos (often viewed as a Marvel counterpart to Darkseid himself) is one of them.  Curiously, although it's one of the "other" continuities of the Marvel multiverse, Superman analog Hyperion, i.e. Mark Milton, is specifically said to be an Eternal in that universe, although in the Supreme Power version of the character, he's even more overtly Superman-like, and he and Princess Zarda are aliens--bringing the concept full circle of tying mythology to science fiction.

For what its worth, the newish Thor movie, which establishes its own related but different continuity called the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-199999 for the curious, who are into that kinda thing) also posits an Asgard where Asgardians, including Thor and Odin and Loki and the rest of the Norse mythological characters, are as much based on pulpish super-science as on magic and mythology.  I'd also be lying if I didn't note that the Percy Jackson movies (I never read the books, although my kids mostly all have) aren't an influence as well.

All that said, in Myths Revisited, what, then are the heathen gods of various mythologies?  Do they all exist, and how do they relate to the stories that we probably know (at least for well-known mythologies like Norse and Greek?)  The characters do exist, and they are (mostly) human-like in appearance, and in fact, often pose as human beings and live among us--or at least can do so.  Like comic-book characters, they exhibit superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, durability, resistance to injury and disease and aging, as at least a baseline.  Individual characters may have other superhuman abilities as well--Thor's ability to call lightning, for example, Hermes incredible speed, etc.  The named, known gods are characters who are more active in human affairs, and/or more heroic in terms of accomplishments than their compatriots, but in reality, there is a bigger population of these types of characters than are known on Earth.  Most of them live in pocket dimensions that "orbit" the dimension of the Earth (for lack of a better description) and are connected via a transitory dimension colloquially known as "the Earth's Porch" or simply the Porch.  Individuals from these worlds (as well as people from Earth, actually) may travel via the Porch to one or more of these pocket dimensions, and occasionally do so, but the journey is often harrowing, and requires specialized, esoteric knowledge that few in any dimension possess.

One of the great mysteries of humanity is exactly what happens to the souls of those who die, however, such is not the case with these Outsiders, as they are collectively sometimes called.  While not actually immortal, and certainly capable of being slain, the souls of Outsiders eventually re-coalesce and reform to be reborn when one is slain.  They will grow up to possess all of the abilities that they had before, although none of the memories of their prior lives.  This does grant them a measure of immortality, but a very limited one, since if you are killed, have to be reborn a number of years later, grow up, and then still don't have any of your prior memories, death to the Outsiders is fairly final, and is certainly a viable solution to dealing with the plans of a rival or enemy.

Certain rituals can give characters random (and usually more confusing rather than helpful) glimpses into their past lives, and can be done on occasion, although they are very fearful of doing so because prolonged exposure to these glimpses leads to insanity and violent, paranoid madness.

Outsiders can often manipulate "magic"--forces from beyond the boundaries of the Worlds We Know that leak through like dark energy directly from the bulk (to give a vague reference to brane cosmology theory. There are a number of other, more exotic beasts that live in these pocket dimensions--creatures that may be semi-human like, as in centaurs or rusalka, or others that are purely monstrous, such as trolls, hydras or worse.  In addition to this "magic", they have access to often advanced science--in fact, the magic is merely manipulation of energy from the bulk, and thus fits the old maxim of being merely sufficiently advanced science rather than actually magical.

In the past, various populations of Outsiders usually had limited geographical exposure to Earth, but as the population of Earth has become increasingly scattered and intermingled, that is no longer true, and the various populations of Outsiders now interact not only with humanity, but also with each other quite a bit.  In addition, as their wars and often brutal politics proceed, in many cases, individual heroes are reborn, or hidden after their birth, on the Earth, where they may be completely unconnected from their forebears (and in an ironic twist, may in fact grow up to later become more familiar with a rival population of Outsiders.)  Also, the myths as presented show a point in time only--echoes of past upheavals are reflected in the mythology, such as in the Æsir-Vanir War or the Titanomachy--are merely past upheavals, and others of often similar scope have taken place since the time that the myths were first transmitted to "mortals."

When next I return to this topic, let's discuss some more specifics--starting with the Greek mythos and its reflection in the Myths Revisited settling.

Deities & Demigods

After watching Young Justice, I felt like I'd reached a critical point in terms of superheroes.  A number of things had come together to bring this about.  I've always loved superheroes, of course, but Young Justice added a new character, Wonder Girl to the mix.  She wasn't necessarily an important component of the cast, but I'd long been a fan of some Wonder Woman material in particular because of her connections to the DC Universe version of Greek mythology.  Marvel, too, has often had a long history of reinterpreting mythology as super-heroes, with Thor being one of the very early Silver Age characters and a founding member of the Avengers.  Hercules and Ares of Greek mythology were also Avengers for a time, and I still have the issues of a story-arc in which the Avengers must go to Olympus because Zeus is ticked off at injuries Hercules suffered in his capacity as a superhero.  Marvel also had the Chaos War in which all kinds of pantheons contributed to the story; and in the run-up to Thor #400, back in the 80s, Set, the Serpent God from Egyptian mythology invaded Asgard.  And Snowbird, a character with strong relations to Inuit mythology, plays heavily in Alpha Flight.  Although both comic book companies are not at all immune to concepts that are rooted in magic and mysticism, by and large, the mythological elements are often coated in a superficial technobabble of pseudo-scientific stuff.

This angle was later more explicitly explored by Jack Kirby first in the New Gods series for DC, which was cancelled after a short time, then in The Eternals for Marvel which explored many of the same themes.  In both cases, the New Gods and the Eternals were meant to be stand-alone stories, unaffiliated with the greater continuity, but in both cases, they were eventually brought on board, and some characters, such as Darkseid, becoming recurring characters in the continuity.  This was somewhat confusing, as it was the explicit conceit of at least the Eternals, that they were the source of legends about gods, but now they existed alongside the actual gods that they were kinda sorta based on themselves.  DC also retconned some history of the universe with the invention of the Godwave, a power called The Source that swept through the universe creating gods, then bounced off the edge and created superheroes on it's way back, and which now was bouncing back outwards yet a third time.

Other sources besides comic books have had mythology and modern times intersect, including Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, in which Odin and a few other Norse mythological creatures and whatnot make appearances (and its rumored that the next volume, coming out at the end of the year, may focus heavily on Greek mythological themes.)  My kids have been big fans of Rick Riordan's work, which includes two 5-book series on modern day demigods--New York teenages who are the counterparts of Theseus or Perseus.  He also has an unrelated series that has ties to Egyptian mythology, and it's rumored that he's also working on an all new series with ties to Norse mythology.  In fact, there's a new Percy Jackson movie due out this weekend, which no doubt we'll see, because the kids are all interested (and frankly, so am I.)  There's other ones out there that I've seen here and there, but haven't quite managed to get into yet, too.

Frankly, I kind of like the more pseudo-science interpretations, with Von Danniken-esque interpretations of where "gods" came from.  This just "feels" really comic-bookish to me.  I also like the notion of mythological characters are more like superheroes than anything else.  In the Supreme Power stories, for example, Power Princess (Princess Zarda) has (apparently) both an extraterrestrial origin, and a history as some kind of ancient Greek goddess.  This ambiguity between science fiction and "typical" mythology is desireable, in my opinion.  It's also important to not allow the super-powers to get carried away into craziness (a problem that most typically belongs to Superman rather than to the mythological characters, but y'know... you still have to watch it.)

Anyway, I'm going to continue to explore this concept for a few more posts, using the tags MYTHOLOGY and SUPERHEROES simultaneously.  The "world-building" itch has struck again, and rather than being focused on my normal DARK•HERITAGE topics, it's wandering a bit further afield.