Reading Andromeda by E.S. McLeod bc I’m a hater
So it’s no secret that I am very autistic about Andromeda hence why I’m upset with this book bc I think it’s an insult to Andromeda and her mythology, I’ve ranted about how bad the premise is for months and I’ve ranted about bits and pieces of the plot that I found out through reviews, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much.
Also the author insists that haters should read her book before they judge it so… that’s what I’m doing! So I don’t wanna hear anyone say ‘don’t like don’t read”. Also, also I won’t mind other ppl hate reading this too so we can make fun of it together lol
Some ground rules and the like:
1. We Stan a black Andromeda in this house (just don’t ship her with anyone other than her man) so no racism allowed.
2. We can have harsh criticism in this blog but no harassing the author.
3. “It’s just an interpretation” no it isn’t. Interpretations are supposed to be based on the text, so please: point to me exactly where it says or implies that Andromeda and Ceto were lovers. You can’t? Well I can name several sources that tell us that Andromeda loved Perseus so shipping her with the monster that wanted to eat her is an ass pull. At BEST.
4. Read the book yourself. Make your own opinions… also I don’t wanna suffer through this by myself lol so pls tell me what you think of the book as well.
5. Yes I am gatekeeping Andromeda, unironically. I’m sick of these retelling authors ruining stories they don’t understand.
6. I will be repeating myself, a lot. I’ve been complaining about this book for months and I’ll repeat those criticisms here bc I kinda have to.
7. This book also tackles Egyptian mythology, which I’m not knowledgeable about so if you are pls comment on whether or not the book does the Egyptian gods justice… it probably won’t lol
The Prologue: Aphrodite and Athena
Aphrodite and Athena show up to baby Andromeda like fairy god mothers to give her gifts, now there is a connection between Aphrodite and Cassiopeia in archaeological evidence (which the book seems to acknowledge by making her Aphrodite’s priestess) and there’s even Conon’s narrations that suggests Andromeda is a priestess of Aphrodite too bc she regularly visits a shrine of Aphrodite. So Aphrodite being present and gifting Andromeda her beauty? Makes perfect sense.
Now…
Why Athena the bus driver? Her only connection to Andromeda is through Perseus, otherwise there’s nothing going on between them. I’ve been pondering over why she’d be added when Aphrodite is more than enough for the story, if she was written right of course, unfortunately she’s written like this:
Oh my god why are they writing off Aphrodite as shallow? This is just really weird. The line that implies that Aphrodite only ever gifts ppl beauty is just factually wrong, she gifted Andromache a veil on her wedding day (Iliad) and there are other myths where she gifts ppl all sorts of things. Guess this book is gonna give us the ditsy bimbo Aphrodite that so many other insufferable retellings gave us. Fuck me for hoping that Aphrodite will be treated with respect and not get reduced to nothing more than the goddess of beauty.
There’s also the fact that Cassiopeia is so nonchalant through all this which… huh? Even if she is a priestess she’d still be frightened at the presence of gods BC THEYRE GODS!
Anyway, Athena’s gift is Andromeda’s name and a prophecy. I guess the prophecy is basically that she’ll get a cool husband or something? And that’s why Cassiopeia was so comfortable boasting about her daughter’s beauty bc she expected Poseidon will be her husband from the prophecy? Bc again the only way Athena got involved with Andromeda is through her relationship with Perseus. Or is it just… vaguely something about Andromeda becoming the ruler of men? Kinda dumb if that’s the case bc Andromeda is a princess and it’s a given that she’ll be a queen when she’s older.
Personally I prefer to think that Cassiopeia named Andromeda that name bc she struggled to have children (specifically male heirs) that’s more interesting than giving Athena that credit. Or pull an Odysseus and have one of Andromeda’s grandparents give her that name.
Chapter 1
Andromeda is six years old and fishing with her grandmother Achiroe, daughter of the Nile. It’s a cute scene, I like the concept of Andromeda being like a Disney princess that even animals are drawn to her I think it makes sense with that one story in Manilius Astronomica where the Halcyons shield Andromeda’s body when she was chained up for sacrifice. Tho the prose are wordy and could’ve used a bit of sanding around the edges idk.
This scene is quickly ruined by the presence of Phineus:
Who was actually there the whole time and hanging out with them. We’re also told he’s only 10 years older than Andromeda and while we don’t get his age in mythology it’s kinda absurd that anyone would imagine his age as anything other than middle aged man slightly younger than his brother, I can’t think of a reason for the author to write Phineus as younger for any other reason than to make stupid ppl view the eventual grooming as slightly less bad bc hey look Andromeda and Phineus grew up together! Nevermind that when Andromeda is 15 he’ll be 25! And that’s fucking weird!
If you’re new here you’d be thinking “surely this is to show that groomers and abusers are usually family members and ppl the victim loved and trusted and there’s going to be a tragic reveal towards the end where Andromeda sees Phineus for who he truly is and what he wants from her” well congratulations, you’re smarter than the author but that’s not what happens, the author herself says she won’t make Phineus a villain, in fact she even calls him husband material in a podcast 🤢 . Which is ironic bc the rest of the chapter is dedicated to how Andromeda is objectified by everyone around her, yet not by her groomer for some reason.
We’re told that sometimes Achiroe steals away Andromeda so they can play together which is cute but then ruined by this:
So, we’re using the “beautiful women can’t have friends bc men lust after them and women feel threatened or are jealous of them” bullshit, mind you, in Euripides Andromeda, she did have friends, an entire chorus of them in fact and they stayed by her side as she was chained to be sacrificed so you know they were ride or die for her. So making her lonely is just needlessly cruel. We’ll see many more needlessly cruel writing choices throughout this book.
It also does the really stupid thing of implying that it’s mainly beautiful women who are harmed by the violence of men, I thought it was feminism 101 that rape and abuse doesn’t happen to the victim bc they’re beautiful but bc the abuser wants to exert power of them, rape is about power not attraction.
Achiroe then tells Andromeda about the REAL story of Medusa that THEY won’t tell her about idk Achiroe maybe it’s bc that version is asinine and not real and this is where I realize Achiroe won’t bc a real character, but rather a mouthpiece for the nonsense the author is trying to push.
Ok there’s so much wrong going on here so I’ll break it up into points:
1. ‘So brightly came an idea’ I cannot retrieve what has been taken but I can assure you that no man will ever so take again.’ Must go so hard if you’re stupid lmao If Athena was actually helping Medusa why did she help Perseus kill her? Athena is straight up lying to Medusa here yet it’s supposed to be a girlboss moment? She’s actually being a wise and just protector? Is Athena’s support for Perseus gonna be erased in this book? This reminds me of a video discussing smart characters written by ppl who are clearly not smart, I mean there’s so much emphasis on Athena being wise and just to Medusa so then why does she help Perseus kill her years later? Bc whatever explanation you might give will make Athena look stupid, weak, incompetent or indecisive.
2. Who benefits from turning the story into a punishment rather than a gift? How would the “bearded Bards” benefit? How would patriarchy benefit? Why didn’t they erase the “truth of what happened” with Nyctaea or Cassandra? Why is it specifically Medusa when what happened to her isn’t unique?
3. This characterization of Athena directly contradicts what we are told about her in the prologue. In the prologue we’re told she always benefits men even if indirectly “Athena serves them in her turn. Her gifts are always for them - they are always the beneficiaries even if they are not the receivers.”, how does this correlate with her girlboss depiction here? Where she’s supposed to be justice? Is this contradiction intentional? Will it be addressed? Is Athena actually forced to serve men? Or her actions always unintentionally help men? Perhaps in some sort of mental gymnastics to justify both characterizations at once? Or will it not be addressed at all? Going back to point 1 again, is this line: ‘And by then you’ll have such sweet retribution that you shall dies fully satisfied’ supposed to mean that even when Athena “helps women” she’s still benefiting men in the long run? That she would still use Medusa to bring Perseus glory? If that’s the case then why is Athena framed as the good guy by Achiroe? Is Achiroe supposed to be wrong here?
4. Where the fuck are Stheno and Euryale? Where are they supposed to fit in all this? Where is Ceto (Medusa’s mom not the nereid) supposed to fit in this?
5. Why is Achiroe talking about Medusa? They have nothing to do with her. It would make more sense to teach Andromeda about Io, who is not only a priestess wronged by the gods, but she’s also Andromeda’s ancestor. The one and only reason they’re talking about Medusa is for fan service, it’s to jingle keys on the readers who don’t know better.
6. Medusa is not a fucking priestess, Ovid said no such thing, no Greek or Roman author said such thing, I could this scream from the rooftops and the author would say “how loud the wolves are tonight!”.
7. The whole “she was raped for being beautiful so Athena made her ugly to protect her” bullshit. First of all equating beauty with being assaulted is wrong, rape isn’t about beauty it’s about power, ‘ugly’ women are just as likely to be raped as ‘beautiful’ woman, I thought this was common knowledge.
8. If Athena was so concerned with protecting Medusa, why didn’t she turn her into an owl? Why a gorgon?
9. “Athena is justice” read the fucking Iliad and see how she talks about female slaves and how she ignores her Trojan worshippers then get back to me. And don’t pull the ‘it was written by men’ excuse out of your ass bc Medusa’s story would not exist if Ovid didn’t write it down only for it to be misinterpreted.
We aren’t even done with chapter one and I already have so much to say lmao Ceto hasn’t even been introduced yet.
Andromeda says she wished she was ugly like Medusa, Achiroe says it’s dumb to ask for Medusa’s fate (for obvious reasons) and they swim in the Nile till they reach the ocean, which freaks out Andromeda and we get this line: “Those of salt are freshwater’s foe” I really hope this isn’t forcing a fake ethnic/cultural divide between Ocean and River deities bc they’re literally supposed to be siblings and cousins.
We also get this eye-rolling ‘parallel’ between Andromeda and Medusa:
Again need I remind y’all MEDUSA WASN’T A PRIESTESS!!
Also remember a while back when I posted about this scene and I said that Andromeda was 9? I was mistaken she was actually ten. Which would make Phineus twenty years old. I fucking hate this bitchass groomer and this stupidass plotline, if you’re gonna retell a story through a feminist lens then do it with a feminist lens! Don’t whitewash the groomer of all his faults and make his relationship with his victim a cute little unrequited romance. Andromeda throws a tantrum to her parents in front of Cepheus’s friends and advisors and they all laugh so Andromeda runs off, Cassiopeia finds her and tells her this:
So ig Cassiopeia had that stupid little “scheme” to get her daughter a better marriage in the back of her mind for years now.
We also learn that Achiroe is also a groomer! Yayyyyy it especially rubs me the wrong way considering that Achiroe tells of the modern misinterpretation of Medusa, so you’d think she’d have modern views on other things but no, she’s perfectly fine with her son grooming and eventually raping her granddaughter as long as he “takes care of her”. Again, if you thought this was actually commentary on how children are more often groomed and abused by family rather than strangers, I promise you that’s not what the book is going for. In fact Achiroe is supposed to be Andromeda’s ‘safe space’. Plus this exchange between Phineus and Andromeda makes me so damn uncomfortable.
There’s also this… Yeah the grooming is taking affect 🤢🤮
Andromeda then goes to a banquet thingy and gets grouped by Cepheus’s friends. Sighhh remember how the author said that she doesn’t want to portray black men as predatory so that’s why she portrayed Phineus as a good guy? Yeah it’s all bullshit and she’s a fucking liar, bc all those men who attacked Andromeda were Ethiopian men so she traded portraying one black man as predator to portraying multiple black men as predators, but I guess it’s fine bc they’re unnamed characters!
Such asinine and pathetic carelessness, all in one chapter no less. Then Phineus swoops in and saves the day!
Don’t you see guys! He’s so handsome and protective over Andromeda! He’s so smart and non violent too! Pls ignore that he’s ten years older than her! Pls ignore all the grooming! Achiroe avenging Andromeda is also very laughable bc if it was Phineus abusing Andromeda I know for a fact she wouldn’t do anything. God this is so fucking disgusting and the fact the author doesn’t realize it makes it worse.
And the “western gods” bs omg the divide between east and west as we know it today did not exist in antiquity so this feels awfully out of place. And has the author ever heard of religious syncretism? Ancient ppl merged the Egyptian and Greek gods together, they weren’t actually seen as separate beings.
Ok I think I’ll stop here, I have a bad headache but I will be coming back with more chapters.