I've had this thought in the back of my head since season 1 of The Pitt and those fucking parallel rooftop scenes between Robby and Jack.
The overall parallelism between the two of them is enough to make me want to scream, and if we were talking about any sort of ancient tragedy, they would 100% be coded as character mirrors. Now, obviously The Pitt is a modern medical drama and not something written for a bunch of Greeks to perform in front of an audience. HOWEVER, Robby and Jack are 100% exactly that.
We all know that Euripides is like… the OG "but what if they were lovers" fanfic author. I mean, the man took one look at the Oresteia and said "yeah, OK, but Orestes and Pylades were definitively banging when they weren't being emotionally tortured". BUT, I'm not trying to say that Jack and Robby are Orestes and Pylades.
because they are clearly Heracles and Theseus.
Euripides re-imagined the myth of Heracles in a wild way that I'm not going to analyze too much here, but it is important to note that he switches the order of events. Rather than Heracles undertaking the 12 Labors in order to atone for the sin of having killed his wife and children, Euripides writes it so that those Labors are what keep Heracles from taking his rightful place as the ruler of Thebes, allowing Lycus to take control of the city.
The last of Heracles' 12 Labors is to descend into the Underworld and bring back Cerberus. While he's there, he encounters Theseus and Pirithous held prisoner. Heracles bargains for Theseus' freedom (but can't secure Pirithous'), and Theseus is able to return to the world of the living. This is very important to this ramble.
Now, when Heracles returns home to Thebes, he discovers that Lycus is about to kill his family, and Heracles instead comes up with a plan to kill Lycus, which he does. Unfortunately, that ultimately marks the official end of his 12 Labors, which were the only thing keeping Hera from seeking revenge for Zeus having fucked his mom (Hera is the WORST, guys. Like, take out your anger on the guy who did the fucking, not the kid!). She sends Iris and Madness down and they curse Heracles. Heracles kills his own family as a result of this.
NOW, while Heracles is a hot mess (rightfully so, having just slaughtered his wife and sons), he decides the only thing he can do from there is to kill himself, too. ENTER THESEUS.
Theseus rolls up to Thebes from Athens while Heracles is so deep in mourning that he's covering his face and refusing to let anybody look at him for fear of that action alone bringing shame and spreading the stain of having murdered his family on whoever sees him. Theseus is having none of that and orders Heracles to remove his covering. Then, when Heracles confesses his plan to kill himself, Theseus rebuts him by basically saying "nonsense and poppycock; just come live in Athens with me instead" and Heracles is all "but you'll also be stained with the sin of what I have committed here" and Theseus responds with what boils down to "who the fuck cares? I've had awful days, too, and you were there for me during them, so now I'm going to be here for you during your lowest point".
So this is why I think Robby and Jack are Heracles and Theseus coded. Now, it would be easy to think that Jack is Heracles in this scenario because he's the big strong warrior of the two of them, but we also have to acknowledge that Theseus is a warrior in his own right, AND is arguably the cockier of the two (I mean, he's fucking smart and he knows it AND he can fight). Jack is 100% Theseus and Robby is Heracles (emotionally stunted, completely tortured, completes impossible tasks on the daily for people who just want to watch him break).
Jack is up on the roof at the start of episode 1, and it's pretty neatly laid out that it isn't the first time Robby has found him up there, meaning Robby's probably talked him back off the ledge a few times. We also know that Jack is a widower, and given the closeness of their friendship (coughrelationshipcough), it's highly likely that Robby was there for him during that part of his life. It's not even out of the realm of possibility that Robby knew Jack before and after losing the leg, and helped support him through that, too. This is Jack's metaphoric moment (moments) of being a living soul trapped in the land of the dead. He's surrounded by it, can't escape it, and loses one of his closest friends (his spouse takes the place of Pirithous), but Robby gets him through it in the end.
Now Robby, having done this, returns "home" to the ED, having walked Jack back from the brink. He proceeds to have the shittiest day, which parallels the Madness/Iris curse so well because Robby is definitely not 100% present for the day. There are definitely moments where he is completely tuned out from what it is he's actually doing and just goes through the motions. And then he loses Langdon (Robby's protégé/stand-in son). He loses Jake (not literally, but emotionally), a child that Robby helped raise. He loses a third child when Collins tells him in a roundabout way that she was pregnant with his kid, but had an abortion instead. And then he loses Collins, who fills the role of Megara here, when he sends her home. Heracles had three sons and one wife and was responsible for losing all of them, just like Robby feels responsible (even though he isn't, but that's a different matter).
And so at the end of the season, Robby ends up on the roof. His stethoscope is hung over the railing, which to me is him "hanging it up", and he's clearly in emotional distress and probably suicidal when Jack finds him on the roof.
So what does Jack do when he comes upon his friend who had saved him before? He talks Robby back off the ledge, says screw everything else, you did everything you could and none of this is directly your fault. Even when Robby is adamant that he fucked up, Jack denies him. Then, he walks with Robby, literally stands/sits by his side and sends that clear message to everyone that no matter what they think they heard or saw about Robby's state, Jack is still there, and fuck everybody else if they don't like it.
and don't even get me started on the sun/moon gold/silver thing they have going on, christ.
