‘YFNSM’ + 'Circe' - Feb 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the next three episodes of ‘YFNSM’, yes?

…Well, that was the plan, but somehow I ended up reading Ms. Miller’s novel ‘Circe’, and-

-And the novel is a mash-up of various myths, some about Circe, and some not really. What caught my eye is the novel’s treatment of Circe, Picus, and Scylla.

First, Scylla. In the ‘Odyssey’, she is an immortal evil, undefeatable by anyone, so Odysseus does not try to begin with. In the ‘Aeneid’, Aeneas and his fleet just avoid her (and Charybdis – the duo are a matched set, JRH breaking them up is something new), and in the ‘Metamorphoses’, she is an empty-brained and hollow-hearted girl who denies Glaucus his love for her, and Circe – who’s been jilted by the sea god in question – turns her into the monster that Odysseus meets… and who eventually turns into a sea reef (according to ‘Metamorphoses’). What next?

In ‘Circe’ this pretty much what happens; the only twist here is that the team of Circe, Telegonus (Circe’s son by Odysseus), Penelope, and Telemachus ends Scylla. Pause.

Leaving aside the soap opera morality of Odysseus’ two sons marrying each other’s mother, (this has happened, in fact, in some of semi-apocryphal conclusions to the ‘Odyssey’), what about female empowerment? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Circe to undo her enchantment and return Scylla to her original self (before swimming off into the sunset with her new trophy husband, his mother, and her son who’s married to her new mother in law)? No? So much for progressive values – first Circe de-facto mutilates another woman for the sake of a man (that she quickly moves on from, to boot), and then she ends her, heroically, of course. Wow.

As for Picus, he just is not here. His story is also told in ‘Metamorphoses’: he was a pre-Trojan Latium king who refused to cheat on his wife with Circe and transformed into a woodpecker instead. His wife failed to recognize that, and wasted away. ‘Circe’ just ignores this story…wonder why.

…The point here is that Ms. Miller tried to tell Circe’s story anew, in a new, progressive way, but what she told instead is a now-old story of a powerful woman who rises to match the men-folk around her…and becomes just like them, albeit gender-flipped. Pause.

‘YFNSM’, meanwhile, is trying to tell the origin story of the titular character also in a new way, but somehow it all feels empty, pointless. The 1990’s ‘Spider-Man’ series already did that, and in a much grander manner than the 2025’s version, which is doing its’ best to be politically inoffensive. Sigh. By losing the elections-2024, the Democrats have really dropped the ball, shot themselves in the foot, stabbed their non-politician allies in the back and so forth. In addition, team Marvel (and Disney?) are having a giveaway of a Marvel encyclopedia at the same time as this cartoon airs, and so they are trying to generate the primary excitement for the giveaway, not the cartoon. The universe might really hate the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise for real, after all.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!