Ares and Athena
It really bothers me how often Ares is treated badly but Athena is blindly hoisted up on a golden pedestal and treated like she's the Goddess who does no wrong "She's a God of war, but she is the SmArT GoD oF wAr So ShE's BeTtEr ThAn ArEs WhO's jUsT a BrUtE" I was watching a playthrough of Hades last night and one of the let's players was crying about how terrible Ares is, but simping for Athena like she could do no wrong.m
Athena is just as bad as the other Olympian but with a superiority complex cause she's the patron of the self proclaimed "Greatest City-State in Greece" Athens. Athens was also horrible to Women and that was reflected in their myths. In one Myth explaining the Athenian Legal system, Queen Clytemnestra's ghosts sics the Furies on her Son for Murdering her, and her son runs to Athena for protection. Athena arranges a proper trial and agrees with Apollo's Argument acting as the defence attorney that "Women don't actually have any rights to their children as a parent. Fathers are exclusively the TRUE Parent." Athena was also responsible for the punishments of Medusa and Arachne. Some people claim that Athena turning Medusa into a Gorgon was actually a cool feminist thing, giving her the power to never be hurt by a man again, but that entire argument falls apart completley when Athena helps aid Perseus in killing Medusa while she was pregnant with Twins! Poseidon Raped Medusa and then got punished for being raped by being turned into a monster by her goddess and hunted. Arachne made the mistake of disrespecting and calling out the gods on their bullshit as a character in Greek mythology, but for sake of argument all of her points are 100% right! She claims her skill in weaving is better than Athena and in a Weaving Contest with the Goddess of Weaving herself the two are pretty evenly matched, and in her weaving she depicts various moments in mythology where Zeus and Poseidon like the animals they are, constantly rape women in the form of Animals! I think this paints a clear picture that in a lot of depictions of Athena, she disproportionately punishes Women and sees herself as above them. Meanwhile even in Greek mythology Ares gets shat on constantly. Zeus doesn't particularly like Ares, nobody cared that much the time he got kidnapped by a pair of Giants and stuffed in a jar, and in the Trojan War he gets humiliated. The guy can't catch a break, and to an extent it makes sense, people don't like War. Ares embodies War and all of the terrible things that come from it, but if humans want to have a war, you gotta accept that Ares will be there, War is his Job and there Will be loses and death. Ares is not perfect, but he's not pretending to be perfect. He is what he is. In contrast with Athena, Ares had respect for Women. He had multiple lovers like most Greek gods including his affair with Aphrodite behind his Brother's back, but as the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite was the one who was entirely in control in their relationship. Ares is also the Father and Patron of the Amazons, who loves his Badass Warrior Daughters. In one myth Ares killed a demigod son of Poseidon for trying to rape one of his daughter and was put on trial for Murder. Zeus was all in favor for punishing Ares but several of the Goddesses came to Ares' defense and he was ultimately acquitted
