"Ody Get Away From The Ledge" + Flashbacks Thoughts

"Ody get away from the ledge" + flashbacks thoughts

Tw: mention of suicide in wisdom saga

What if when calypso said "Ody get away from the ledge" and Odysseus starts thinking about all the people who died or left him including Polites' "this life is amazing when you greet it with open arms" Ody is not just standing on the ledge of a cliff about to jump, but he is standing on the ledge, arms spread wide, thinking "I know this isn't what you meant, but it's all I can do anymore." He is standing with his arms open, teetering between killing himself and thinking he doesn't even deserve that.

Odysseus is contemplating greeting his own suicide with open arms

I can't I'm unwell-

Lovely

To Odysseus also Athena reveals herself in a highly characteristic manner: when Odysseus, now returned to Ithaca, fails to recognize his homeland and breaks out in lamentation, Athena approaches in the shape of a herdsman and tells him the good news; Odysseus, distrustful for all his joy, answers with a lying tale. Athena merely smiles, changes her shape, and is now like a beautiful, tall woman well versed in glorious handiworks. Odysseus recognizes her and recognizes Ithaca. This, after all, says Athena, is what binds her to Odysseus - he is foremost among men for plans and designs, while she is famed among gods for wisdom and wiles; for this reason, she cannot leave Odysseus; and so she guides the plot of the Odyssey from its beginning to its prudent end.

Walter Burkert, Greek Religion

do you think athena ever resents Zeus for robbing her of the chance of having had a "normal birth" and a mother like everyone else has? does athena ever imagine what being a child would have felt like? what holding her mom's hands and hiding behind her dress would have felt like? i wonder if hera is nice to athena because she knows athena never had a mother. she was born before Zeus and her got married, after all, so Hera has no real reason to hold grudges like she held against Apollo, Artemis and Dionysus (all born out of affairs and not out of a previous union). Hera and Athena are often in the same side, they supported the acheans against troy and seem to generally respect each other.

Am I thinking all this just because of that "Hey, baby" in Hera's level in God Games? YEAH ABSOLUTELY.

ohh you came to the right person because mother-daughter dynamics drive me wild actually

i think there’s something to be said about a girl raised by her father because her father had his will that she would not have a mother. a girl who was born adorned in armour because her mother crafted it for her. athena was born a warrior of the mind (quite literally), and though zeus may shaped her and taught her as she grew, a lot of who she is can be attested to her birth. to her mother. so i think, yes, although athena is loyal to zeus, although she is his favourite, pe4ect daughter - there is still going to be a part of her that grieve for the mother she didn’t get to have, an resents the father who bears the reason.

i do like the idea that hera has a maternal dynamic with athena, then, because i think it would be good for both of them. athena finally gaining a mother-like presence in her life, and hera making a conscious choice of treating her as a daughter, knowing that the decision is hers, the girl is hers, and this isn’t like the other children of zeus. i think the “hey baby” line is quite telling, i definitely interpreted it as a sort of maternal-inflection, mother greeting daughter (in a sense). also just the whole way that hera interacts with athena in god games is really interesting. specifically her lines:

Try harder

and:

You can do better than that

it’s almost like she wants athena to win. where all the other gods presents their own arguments against odysseus, hera is giving way for athena to presents hers for him. she’s actively encouraging her to persuade her; she knows what athena - goddess of wisdom - is capable of, and she’s waiting to be hit with the wit that she knows athena posses. she knows athena “can do better than that”, she wants her to. she’s by far the most relaxed and causal of the gods throughout the games, i think to her this is just for fun and she sort of just wants to play around with athena for a bit. i like the interpretation that they’re locked in a dance during their conversation, like hers is using this as an excuse to just have some fun. maybe just for her own sake, but also maybe to spend sone time with athena.

headcanon wise, i do like the idea that hera is the one to take athena away after zeus’ wrath, or at least is the first to go to her. like i said, she seems to see the games as a very casual thing and doesn’t show any real contempt towards athena like the other gods do. she probably didn’t expect things to ever actually get dangerous. and of course, she also has her own qualms with zeus, so seeing him do something so heinous to his own daughter - i feel like that would kick in some kind of material instinct within her. she’d want to keep athena safe.

i should preface this all with the fact that this is all based solely in the context of epic. i’m sure the gods and their dynamics are different within wider mythology, but looking solely at the musical, these are some of my takes

Now, I’m in love with the Wisdom Saga. God Games in general (if that wasn’t obvious—)

But you cannot tell me that Zeus didn’t just make Athena play his game because he was just Bored and wanted an excuse to play a game. And then got mad because his game got beaten in like less than 3 minutes.

It’s like a fucking kid trying to get their tired ass parent to play with them and when they give like no effort at all they throw their little tantrum-

Actually wait no! It’s like an Older sibling trying to get something that their Younger sibling stole and the only way to get it back is to play a game that they made up on the spot with them and when the younger sibling looses they throw a tantrum-

ZEUS IS LITERALLY THIS!!!!

I can't except Athena dying soooo

Apollo:soooo like we can all agree we are pissed at dad for what he did to Athena???

Artemis:wait what happened??

Heaphestus:he tried to kill her again

Artemis:oh hell nah!