Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. My apologizes for vanishing for the rest of 2025, but real life sucks, and I did not have a regular access to computer until now. I really hate my life, you know? That said, the ‘Endlings’ have ended for now, (and we will talk about them some other time), MCU is about to bring forth ‘Wonder-Man’ by the end of Jan 2026, (and we will talk about it then), so what is left?
The second season of PJO, mostly. After the
excitement of the first season, the second is going down much quietly, people
have accepted this PJ reality and just go with it – or not. The sirens, for
example, clearly designed via 3.5 edition’s D&D Monster Manual II, are just…
not working. This probably brings us to Annabeth (and Clarisse). Pause.
Once upon a time, there was plenty of racebending
artwork – not just of PJ, but also of HP and the like – and then the first
season of PJO came out, and racebending became official, and unofficially? The
racebending stopped. Even via the AI, as well as the more traditional artwork.
In fact, the popularity of the entire Riordan franchise still appears to be
gradually dying down, which brings us to Ms. Natalie Haynes.
Ms. Haynes, judging by her books, both fiction and
non-fiction, wouldn’t object being noticed by Disney or someone like that; to
achieve this, she’s trying to be politically progressive, especially in ‘Deific
Might’ (that features a particularly cheeky goddess Athena on the cover)… just
when the progressive politics are dying – thanks to the Donald (at the moment).
Moreover, as I wrote in 2025, most of the time, Ms. Haynes’ prose is more mind
than passion, more Athena than Medusa (by her standards), and while she does
get passionate (say, about Phaedra in ‘Pandora’s Jar’), most of the time she is
not. Therefore, it is rather hard to get excited/involved/etc. in her writings
as well. You read them, and you are done. Onto Athena?
Athena… is a special case for Ms. Haynes – she is
clearly her favorite goddess, she tries to put her into every entry of PJ and
DM. Ms. Haynes tends to be long-winded anyhow, (and it doesn’t always work in
her favor), but when Athena, (or Odysseus, Penelope, or Homer), is talked
about, she becomes especially so. Ms. Haynes has her favorites, and no matter
how hard she tries to some across as a politically progressive person, she does
not always achieve this. So what does Riordan has to do with this?
As we have seen the goddess Athena in PJO, she too
is now Afro-American, as is Annabeth, her daughter. This means nothing, because
Athena is a fully blooded goddess and can look like everyone. This is
traditional, in fact, because in Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’, (as well as the
later works, especially Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’) Athena was quite fond of
disguises and could be anyone, before revealing her godly might and surprising
the unlucky mortal. She got it from Zeus, of course – the king of gods and
mortals really loved disguises, especially when it came to seduction; he usually
didn’t go as himself (unless the other party themselves was divine, like Leto
or Maia), but rather as someone else – as the lawful husband when he sired
Heracles, as his own daughter when he seduced Calypso, as a bull, or a golden
rain, or – you get the idea. How does Athena fit here?
Zeus was worried about himself being dethroned.
After all, his father, who was dethroned by Zeus himself, so there was
tradition, dethroned his grandfather and since it was in Zeus’s disfavor, he did
not like it. Therefore, his Olympian children were rather worried about him
whipping out his old thunderbolt and sending them off the Olympus into who
knows where. There are actually myths about Apollo (and sometimes Poseidon)
having this sort of experience – usually serving mortals as well. Riordan’s
TTOA books have precedent on their side.
For Athena’s part, she was the daughter of Metis.
Zeus was worried that Metis will bear a son, who will dethrone him, so he
swallowed her, and Metis bore Athena, a daughter, instead. I.e., Athena is the
son that Zeus always wanted – a daughter who cannot inherit his throne (or
deposit him – theoretically). In addition, for her part Athena is always
obedient to Zeus in the canon and usually does what he wants and nothing more. That
is one.
Two is that Athena is wisdom, true, but… the wisdom
she gives is the one that the person already has. Look at Aphrodite. As love, she
can be anyone, so all of those depictions of her are all true – she can take any
shape, from a skinny blonde-haired woman to a short and busty redhead, to anyone
else – and she will always be Aphrodite. Athena, too, can be anyone or anything
– an old woman, a bird (and not just an owl), your best friend or even your
sibling – and she will always give wise advice. Only… everyone has their own
wisdom (and common sense), and that is what Athena does. She tells the person
not so much what they want to hear, but rather what they are already thinking;
she helps them work through the thinking process and arrive where they want to
go mentally – and that can be dangerous. In the ‘Iliad’, for example, Athena
pretended to be one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who promised to
help Hector with his fight with Achilles – and so Hector went to fight
Achilles, and his brother (let alone Athena) wasn’t there to help him, and that
was one of the reasons he died.
The rub there, of course, is that it might’ve been
one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who wanted Hector to die so that
he can be the next commander in chief of the Trojan forces, and Athena just
helped him figure out how to do it – how to set Hector up. Athena, the wisdom,
does what you want to do, she helps you get to your goal without caring about
morality, and if you fail, or succeed, and the price is paid – Athena is already
gone; she usually does not care about mortals, normally she does not care about
the mortals at all…
You know who, or what, this sounds like? An AI or a
robot. Athena is almost all intellect, normally; she does not have much
emotions. Poor Annabeth has her work cut out for her trying to impress her
divine parent – it is not that Athena does not care about her children; it’s
that she doesn’t do that emotionally. Moreover, I do not think that she would
have children without Zeus’ permission – he is not exactly grandfather material,
he is always suspecting that there is a rival within his family and so he keeps
his thunderbolt ready and primed. If he suspected that Athena was not loyal to
him, he would smite her too – as he did with Apollo, most likely. Therefore,
Athena can prance before Ares and proclaim that she is better than he is at war
and his domains, but in reality? It is a superiority of a computer/robot over a
human being (in a matter of speaking), and we all know how it goes does in a
sci-fi movie (or a TV series) – the human eventually triumphs…
It would have been an interesting twist, if in PJO
Riordan did not make Ares the villain in the ‘Lightning Thief’ book, but rather
Athena: she could have started as this flawless, perfect being, and then
gradually the titular hero and his friends realized that this perfection is
hollow and that Athena is manipulating everyone without caring about anyone. Chronus,
of course, would still be the puppeteer; Athena would be free from his control
and would spend at least a couple of books putting her life back together after
this disaster. (Instead of Trials of Apollo, we could have Trials of Athena –
that would be interesting too). However, no – Ares is a stereotypical villain,
Percy defeats him, and Ares recovers his standing by the third book of PJO, the
end. Clichéd and boring – no wonder that Riordan’s world is slowly fading into
overall oblivion, Disney+ series or not. Meanwhile, Ms. Haynes?
The same thing. Her fiction books, feel like they
have been written by an A.I. (or Athena) – smooth, flawless, easily
forgettable. Her non-fiction books… Ms. Haynes tries to be politically
progressive, but sometimes she sounds like a neophyte who arrived at
progressive politics late in her life and who tries to compensate for this fact
with extra zeal – and sometimes she sounds more like an opportunist, who doesn’t
care about the progressive politics but wants to use them to get ahead… isn’t
that Disney? It sure is – no wonder Ms. Haynes is trying to hit all the right
notes and be notices – after all, if Disney worked for Riordan, and made him
successful and rich, why not for her?
…Because Riordan actually has passion in his writing
and emotion. Some of his novels – especially the second pentalogy, where Percy
and friends meet the Romans and have to ally with them to defeat the giants –
are quite good. Ms. Haynes’ novels are not so much. (In addition, authors are
publishing fictive books based on Greek myths quite regularly in the last few years,
so Ms. Haynes is also getting lost in the crowd). However, hey, Athena would be
proud!
…Athena is not the goddess of creativity or
literature – that is the role of the Muses and Apollo. Riordan invested into
the latter a lot – five entire books, a whole series. Maybe Ms. Haynes should
try to do something similar rather than sticking with ‘girl power’ – something that
Athena does not have much in common with anyhow. (Seriously, Athena does not
care all that much for mortal women, unlike the other Olympian gods and
goddesses). However, hey, it is her call. (The real life sucks, again – unlike the
sirens of PJO who are not even good or bad – just bizarre, and looking like
some animatronics gone wrong – but that is a rant for another time).
For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment