Saw one or two people complaining about how the scene with Hera raping one of Zeus’s lovers (as in, having sex with them disguised as Zeus) was presented as a “girlboss” moment, and… was it?
Like obviously I don’t know how it was intended, but I always saw it as a kind of dark joke contrasting the human’s completely understandable reaction of horror and panic with Zeus and Hera’s unfazed ones, showing how little the gods care for human life. Like when Poseidon casually drowns someone or Zeus starts shooting the ballboys; the show goes out of its way to show the mortals’ terror, because this show is in part a comedy and the gods’ cruelty is one of the main plot points.
Also, immediately after this part, Hera tells Zeus to kill a baby and turns the woman into a bee. The bee thing is very much not presented as a girlboss thing in Dionysus’s plotline, so I KNOW I’m not misreading that bit
In "KAOS" nothing is anything, and everything is wrong
Two disclaimers: I am no stranger to modern art, and I have no issue with queerness in shows, or in my own mythology (I'm Greek). I am also aware that KAOS is a comedy. It's in the gutter of British comedy, but still part of the genre. At least I laughed every time they said "Oh God!". I don't believe this is the same person who wrote the great and amusing "End of the F**king World"! The premise of "The gods in our modern world" appeals to me a lot, so that wasn't my problem either. My general issue with KAOS is its horrible delivery, bad writing, and piss-poor Greek representation.
This is gonna be long and full of stupid gifs, so sit comfortably, grab a coffee or some popcorn and... pame!
The "ILoveGreekMythology" Kid
Art without context is just a pretty thing to look at. Most of the time, this context can be found within the art piece itself, as the artist has taken care to weave it in. KAOS refuses to connect itself to any context besides the names and a few vague powers. It aims to exist outside of those "boring old stories of the Greek myth" and be entirely "fresh and modern". Something impossible when the entire show and the meanings are based on ancient recorded material. In other words, KAOS is so meta that it ends up being nothing. KAOS cannot stand on its own because you need more than the viewers being familiar with the Greek myth basics to pull such a show off.
KAOS tells us "See? I know all the names of the gods, and what they did, and I know all the locations, so I am qualified to tackle this". More or less like any Western kid who takes all their knowledge from PJO and Marvel and proceeds to unironically hate ancient deities and make a girlboss out of Medusa.
Here's a Greek word for you guys, ημιμάθεια, meaning "half-knowledge". Α Greek saying very well declares "Half-knowledge is worse than no knowledge". The confidence of thinking you know enough often leads you to grave mistakes whereas the humility of not knowing prevents you from touching shit that you shouldn't. When you have no idea what the original myth is trying to say and spit on its meaning, knowing a few names and locations is just smoke and mirrors. I don't believe the audience fell for that.
And don't get me started on the "subversions". A good subversion is intriguing and thought-provoking. In KAOS, every twist was hollow - Greek myth related or otherwise.
"What if Euridice doesn't love Orpheus?" I don't know, babe. What if??? What was the point of that? What did you show us? That women's stories are dominated by men and men don't listen to women, perhaps? And you chose to twist... the love story of Orpheus and Euridice to show this?? One of the best and most tragic love stories Greek mythology has to offer?? You just mocked the myth, you didn't make anything profound out of it.
The Greek Stuff (Nothing salvageable)
I was surprised to see they had a Consulting Producer (Georgia Christou) and an Assistant Script Editor (Isabella Yianni) who happen to be Greek. And I stress that because those people probably weren't hired or utilized for being Greek. We are not sure they were involved in cultural decisions because we have no evidence and because shows with no Greek elements can have more Greeks than that on their staff.
Okay, perhaps they took 5 seconds to ask Isabella about a greeting - which they proceeded to say in a wrong intonation 🙄🤌It's where Poseidon says "ya sás" in the Fates, by the way. How he said it sounds more like "for you (pl.)" than "health to you (pl.)".
Surprise! The only Greek actor present (Peter Polycarpou) has less than 5 minutes of screen time and plays the caricature of an immigrant with a thick (and inaccurate Greek) accent. He has a canteen, selling falafel which is not Greek, and Dionysus buys from him an unidentified tortilla wrap (which... is also not Greek, if you haven't caught up).
For the show they brought in actors of Maori, Nigerian and Sierra Leonean, Pakistani, Black American, Latvian-Jewish, Iranian, Egyptian, Indo-Fijian and Malay descent and you tell me it was impossible for them to seek and find an English-speaking, skilled actor of Greek descent in a show regarding Greek heritage. Sometimes I wonder, do y'all hate us so much?
They considered Greeks only to give us a simple (and wrong) greeting and a stereotype. Crumbs, we are supposed to be happy with. By the way, there are over 70.000 Greek immigrants just in the UK, usually in the urban centers, many of them students or fairly young employees in the corporate workforce. Not the largest minority but not hard to spot either.
Another plague of Anglophone shows: Almost everyone's Greek name is shortened. Yes, we know their full names but we are told that we will use the short ones. Greeks and their "long and difficult" names am I right fellas? Because saying "Ariadne" apparently requires 5 years of Greek language training, and no English word ever has more than two syllables.
Coincidentally, short names are cool in Anglophone imaginary universes and the "long" names are not. it's so strange Anglophones never make universes where it's cool for Greek names to be spoken in full hmmm... They don't even want to practice saying a whole Greek name for just 2 minutes in preparation for a show full of Greek names. And don't give me that "Greek is hard" shit when we only talk about a few syllables. If Greek kids can learn English since first grade and people here can sing English songs and spell English names, you have no excuse.
They also said the name "Fotis" means light, which is close enough but... ugh.. It's like saying Sebastian means "respect". I am not sure if they asked anyone or what their research was here. If I had the writers in front of me, I'd be like:
(This character from an all-time favorite Greek show is called Fotis)
They also made the flag of "Krete" an alteration of the Greek flag and the local Cretan flag. Which is the stupidest move, because they had to remove the religious symbol of the cross to make the flag fit the universe. These are flags created based on 1) Christianity 2) the Greek Revolution of 1821.
National Greek flag to the left, local Cretan flag to the right:
Flag of the KAOS' "Krete":
The only time they seriously took into account anything Greek, was the time when they decided to remove the religious symbol of our ethnoreligion AND (from what I could observe) keep the nine stripes?? The nine stripes of our national flag represent the syllables in "Freedom or Death". The colors are from the white foustanela of the mainland attire and the dark blue vraka of the island attire, the clothing of the Revolution fighters. (That's more of a meta explanation but the characteristics of the flag were decided during and nearly after the Revolution.)
I think I don't have to explain it more but it's not a homage to put the nine stripes in an ancient era where they have no meaning, and to replace a cross??? Let's... not replace religious symbols on national flags, okay? Thank you.
Another cultural element they changed was making everyone have a dedicated coin to pay Charon. Orpheus has Euridice's coin, "her coin", and he's meant to put it on her before she got buried. In Greek culture, any coin would do. Sorry that our culture restricts your script, dear writers. I guess you had to bend this too, in order to create a cohesive plot with a semblance of a twist.
Finally, the many "Kerberus" dogs were cute and I can understand the creative decision behind that. However, in a show full of inaccuracies, this made me roll my eyes a little. I think the showrunners know that Kerveros is not a breed of dog, and there can only be one of him because he doesn't have any other "Kerveros" to breed with. On the other hand, as demonstrated from art/writing on the internet, quite a lot of Westerners are not exactly aware of how our monsters work, so forgive my uncertainty 😅
Nothing is Anything
Every element KAOS played with ended up meaningless. In the words of a Lifo article:
“Zeus is a paranoid authoritarian dictator in mid-life crisis who fears losing his power and murders his aides to vent. Hera is a promiscuous goddess who repeatedly betrays Zeus and has mutilated mute priestesses for protection. Dionysos is a spoiled and immature zoomer who, apart from pranks, indulges in orgies with all genders. Poseidon a sadistic god of the sea, who tortures the crew on his ship for fun. Prometheus is gay and killed his lover so he could overthrow Zeus. Orpheus is a famous pop singer and Eurydice does not love him. Theseus is black and gay. The Erinyes are tough-as-nails mechs that look like they stepped out of ‘Sons of Anarchy’. The Fates resemble a three-member jury in a talent show. The Trojans are a terrorist group that acts against the gods. Crete is more reminiscent of California than the Mediterranean.”
The "River Styx" is a sea, the "River Lethe" is a lake, the gods are nothing more than spoiled humans, the Moirai are drag queens, the Cave is a club where you have to take a quiz to enter the underworld, and generally everything is modern, flat, mundane and anticlimactic. The producers aimed to achieve a work so meta that a "river" is now a concept, a metaphor, whatever you have in your heart. And those who want to see a river when we speak of a river are probably uncultured swines and don't understand postmodernism. Never mind that rivers are rivers in Greek mythology for a reason. That's not culturally interesting enough to explore compared to the new, cool approach of not assigning meaning to anything. That totally shows love for the original rich and meaningful material...
And the reason behind all this subversion? Probably the shock factor. They brought the characters to a point where they said "We have to save the world from Zeus" - Zeus! The father of gods, heroes and humans! - just because they could. It gives off a certain type of smugness that I personally don't like. I mean, I would like the smugness and cheekiness of KAOS if it wasn't a vapid and practically meaningless show. As nothing symbolizes anything anymore, we are just led from hollow plot point to hollow plot point.
If you cut it out of any cultural influence and see it as a story then it's... okay, I guess. But when you consider that it's meant to derive from certain material and it fails spectacularly, it's not a good story. It forgets its bases and doesn't play with the ancient elements at all. Disney's Hercules did it better, FFS!
Bad Writing (pt.1)
KAOS is not without recognizable themes but their demonstration is so juvenile and heavy-handed that it fails to influence a viewer of average intelligence. For instance, "Riddy" says to her religious mother "You dedicated your whole life to Hera, what about me?" Okay, KAOS, we get it. At the same time, this theme nulls itself because it turns out that Ridy's mother was right to do what she did, as she had a greater goal in mind. (And this, kiddos, is called Bad Writing, because your themes and scenes contradict each other)
The biggest theme I spotted was a criticism of religion and religious people who say "Do as I say, not as I do" and create exceptions for themselves. Only, it's not a criticism of anything real, in this case. It's a fact that some people in the clergy tend to preach peace and love and then they do harm, but we don't know, for example, that The Goddess of Marriage is a cheater and yet she pressures everyone into strict marriages. By focusing their wrath on divine beings who are not known for their hypocrisy, the creators missed the mark.
I can give KAOS props for how it handled Trojans to reflect real issues regarding how immigrants and war refugees are mistreated and blamed. I'd argue it was the only (nearly) well-done theme in the whole show because it had the least on-the-nose delivery and some genuine/serious scenes. But that's it.
More Bad Writing!
Jeff Goldblum's Zeus is shit. He'd crap his pants in an argument with a stern Greek dad/uncle his age. Is this character supposed to be intimidating? (Laughs in Mediterranean) That's not to say that Goldblum is not a good actor, but this role wasn't for him. The same can be said for the other actors, too. They are competent but they only give off the air of "The Greek gods if they lived in London, from the minds of people who think beards and body hair are an affliction". In addition to being misplaced, the actors cannot show their talent when following a script that resembles a children's book.
Why does THE GOD Dionysus have the maturity of a 15-year-old? I repeat, The God Dionysus. He's a freaking deity, and a very old one at that. He is not a teenager neither in appearance nor in experience. In our culture, he is mystical, mighty, wise. Why did they downgrade him so? Just for the plot? This is not Dionysus just because you named him so.
The dialogue rarely takes itself seriously to the point it has you wondering at times "Do people talk and behave like that?". In a comedy where everything is meant to be already extreme and parodied. Even in comedies, something must occasionally be serious so there is a healthy fluctuation in tone and the funny moments can hit you. In KAOS very few scenes treated their impactful dialogue as it should be treated.
The queerness and diversity (good elements, in general) were worse off for being in KAOS. Like, I want these elements to be there. I'm just sad about the whole situation. It's not enough that the show is shit, now you also give an additional reason for conservatives to shit on diverse and queer characters because they are part of a stupid narrative.
I'm the type of person who doesn't mind the queerness of Astyanax and Theseus being lovers in the context of this specific show but they're still the oddest pairing to me because they're from the most irrelevant myths and eras. Also, Astyanax in my mind is a baby who died tragically, for little reason if we are honest, so to bring him back and make him a love interest is... ekh.
In addition, isn't Astyanax supposed to be crippled after a fall from the city walls when he was a baby? Sorry to change subjects but the show is so convoluted and with so many issues that it's extremely difficult to stay on track with what's wrong.
To the person who thought this show was a good idea:
there‘s something so sinisterly funny about hera‘s constant joking about how everything persephone does being dictated by hades to the point where all she‘s allowed to wear is black, but when hera and persephone actually meet to discuss something important, it‘s hera who has summoned persephone on behalf of zeus and while persephone wears a bright, fun pink and has a lunchbox matching her dress and glasses, hera is in all black… something about hera making persephone into the prisoner she is herself… something about this feeling of entrapment being so violent she has to impose it on every woman she knows to create a sense of painful subservience to your husband being the norm because not doing that means admitting there‘s something horribly wrong with the goddess of marriage‘s marriage…
Where are the kaos tumblr posts. Every now and then some of them just pass me by and I am delighted to rb but like. I have so much to Say. Where are u all
Aka "Is it so hard to have 10 seconds of Googling?"
Dislaimer: I'm not a follower of the Greek pantheon nor am I the most avid "fan" of Greek myth (putting that in quotes bcs there are still worshippers today), but oh my God. Is it so difficult to keep the most basic of information correct? I'm not gonna nitpick on how they twist certain myths (e.g. how Orpheus gets to and gets Eurydice out of the underworld) bcs it's fine, it serves the plot they're telling so it's not like they're doing it for no reason. But the names of gods? Their titles? The fact that Hera is probably the only goddess who has remained faithful to her spouse? Is it too much to ask?
EDIT: just realised just how negative this all sounds, but I did genuinely enjoy the show and its plot. It was interesting enough to captivate me for 8 whole eps, the character dynamics were intriguing, and the portrayal of the gods was cruel and I loved it since it hammers in the disconnect/lack of empathy that they feel for mortals
Anyway, here's a list of nitpicks [SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT] feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
Heracles, not Hercules
Why do people keep getting this wrong? The name of a literal Greek Goddess (Hera) is part of his name. How are you gonna make Zeus praise him, but still get his name wrong
Hestia
Why is Hestia reduced to being a fucking dog????????? Not just any dog either, she's Zeus's dog that already died, absolutely no chance of an appearance of his fifth sibling unless you wanna make it that Zeus was such a dick that he named his dog after his sister. It's not like she has a "useless" domain. She's one of the three most well-known virgin goddesses. She's the goddess of the home and hearth and of the sacrificial fire. She's the one who receives the first offering at a (domestic) sacrifice so why is she just a dog??
Hera
If I had a nickel for every time I read a retelling where she cheats on Zeus with his brother, I'd have two nickels (the first was Lore Olympus, if you're curious). Hera is supposed to represent the ideal wife, the literal goddess of lawful marriage so how the fuck can you make her be unfaithful?????????
Poseidon
Not so much a nitpick than a question, said question being "why are we acting like Poseidon doesn't have a wife, the nereid Amphitrite, queen of the seas" did they get divorced? Is that why he's lusting after Hera
Hades
He's the god of THE DEAD. Thanatos is the god of death ffs; he's the literal personification of death. Thanatos takes mortal souls, and Hades presides over said dead souls. It would've taken only a few seconds to change Hades's title card and for Persephone to call him "god of the dead" instead of the "god of death". Nothing about Hades's position even hints to him presiding over death itself. We only ever see him running the underworld (Y'know, where all the dead are?). They literally had to change nothing but his title card and what Persephone calls him
Persephone
This isn't really a nitpick on her character, but.... if she's in the underworld, shouldn't it be winter? It doesn't matter that she truly loves Hades or that she went willingly, Part of what fueled Demeter's winter is her grief over losing/being away from her daughter so why is it so damn sunny when we cut to the mortal world
Orpheus
Again, not a nitpick but a definite downplay of his musical abilities considering the fact that the song he sung to convince Hades and Persephone had literally stopped the underworld in its tracks
Prometheus
Not an egregious change, but I'll say it anyway: Wasn't he freed by Heracles during his 12 labours? It's not like he needs to be chained up, pretty sure the resentment that comes from centuries or millenia of having your liver pecked out and eaten would sustain his hatred for an equal amount of time
Minos
Their decision to make him a president instead of a king is not only unnecessary, but it makes him look like the Greek ver of Putin. I mean, they really didn't need to add in the part where Ariadne(?) says something along the lines of "you should let the people vote, they'd choose you anyway". Just... the implication that he simply declared himself president is dumb as hell. Despite Athens being the birthplace of democracy, I don't think they even had presidents in Ancient Greece. You could literally just call Minos a king and virtually nothing about the plot would even change so why bother. Is this really just their attempt at "modernising" their world/setting? It's not like we don't have kings in this day and age
Minotaur
It's true that Glaucus is a sibling of Ariadne, but the Minotaur is a whole separate sibling. The Minotaur even has his own name: Asterion/Asterius. Just another case of "why did they have to change this?" Literally just swap out the name "Glaucus" for "Asterion" and not only will (yet again) virtually nothing about the plot change, but it would be more mythologically accurate and less confusing for people who do know the myths. In fact, it could've been a fun hint for people who know the myths to clock what really happened to "Glaucus" early on, but still have them questioning "how did he become the Minotaur in this version?"
Pasiphae/Pas
Ngl I'm kinda sad that Pas seems to be just a normal mortal woman bcs, in Greek myth, she was a sorceress-goddess, the daughter of Helios. Plus, although I think it's kinda fucked up that she was forced to fuck/be fucked by the Cretan bull (bcs being "made to fall in love" is not the same as "falling in love"), I think it would've been interesting to explore not only her grief over losing a child, but the grief that comes from realising that he never was and never could be accepted by either Gods or mortals. Also, it would've made her obsession over him look slightly less selfish (and lowkey creepy) if we found out that part of the reason was that she knew her son could never live among humans as half-man, half-bull so she resorted to making wax figures that would've at least let her imagine what it would've been like if he wasn't the result of divine punishment
Theseus
Was literally just an Easter egg. Downgraded from a prince of Athens to a Cretan bodyguard. Didn't even do his most notable act (killing the Minotaur) or even get sent to the Labyrinth in the first place. Makes him feel very much like a character that the writers added just to say, "Look! Look, we know Greek myth!" Especially since Theseus disappeared into thin air after the Trojan 7 were arrested. I don't think they even showed him in the crowd with Andromache, mourning Astyanax
Non-character Nitpicks (yeah, I got more)
Bees
Not really bothered by this, but I'm pretty sure that bees aren't even one of Hera's sacred animals. They could've made it peacocks, make the birds wander the grounds and when the reveal drops, the symbol of opulence turns into an unabashed display of cruelty
Ichor
Admittedly, the colour of ichor in Ancient Greek texts has always been ambiguous. But I feel like it would've been an interesting visual for their blood to be a non-red colour; maybe the popular gold, for example. Bcs it would've A) drawn a clear line between Gods and mortals and further "validated" the Gods' hubris by serving as visual proof that there's an undeniable difference between them and the mortals; and B) would've really caused Zeus to panic when he saw that his blood was red instead of gold, make him think that he's becoming mortal, vulnerable, weak
Styx
Minor nitpick, but isn't the sentence for not being able to pay the toll only 100 years, not 200? Why the extra 100 years? Why even change this? If they really wanted to make it feel like a long sentence, then they should've gone for 500 or 1000 years. Living even just 100 years of doing the same thing with no variation or even the choice to opt out, or even being able to taste anything, would start feeling hellish sooner than you might think
Couples
This might just be the aromantic in me, but why is there so much romance???? And it's between couples that never existed in the OG myths
1. Hera/Poseidon - why??? I've already talked about how it goes against Hera's character, but if they really wanted them to have a "deep" relationship, they're literally siblings?? They could just bond over having to be the ones that keep Zeus in line or being the only ones responsible for actually ruling their realms (bcs Amphitrite is nowhere to be found). They didn't need to insult Hera's character like that
2. Theseus/Astyanax - I'd have less problem with this if it didn't seem like Theseus wanted Ari to only save Nax instead of all 7 Trojans. It makes it feel like they're fueling the idea that a person would only be desperate to save the person they love romantically. E.g., a husband saving his wife, but not someone saving their best friend
3. Prometheus/Charon - same problem as the Theseus/Nax ship, especially with the added line that Prometheus needs to rely on "someone who will do anything for you" (or sumn like that). Like,,,, you can do that for your friend too, y'know. It's not out of the realm of possibility to miss your friend or love them so deeply that you'd do anything for them. It's literally a well-known joke(?) that there are friends who'd help you hide the body. It'd just be a more intense ver of that between Charon and Prometheus. They didn't need to be romantic to showcase Charon's trust in and dedication to helping Prometheus
4. Caeneus/Eurydice - I'm so tired of people falling in love in less than a week (I don't think this relationship even reached a full three days). Iirc y'all had a grand total of 6 conversations - first at the Frame, second meeting when Riddy introduces herself as a diver, third at the party, fourth when they're sitting on the bench, fifth when they have their short escapade to the Nothing, sixth in Caeneus's bedroom.
I mean,,,,, I get that they shared meaningful conversations, but I swear none of said conversations even lasted more than 5 minutes so where on Earth is this "love" coming from?? Y'all have barely scratched the surface of what you know of each other but you think you're connected??? Get real
Ending on a positive note
I actually love the Furies and the Fates. The Furies more for their looks and their vibe and especially the Fates for their (literal) know-it-all nonchalant attitude. I hope they come back next season.
The set design and colouring is also top tier, from the underworld filtered in black and white and looking industrial and office-like to the vibrant colours and festivity of Earth to the opulence of Olympus
Some actual trans and disability rep! I've been burned before with the trans rep since the Netflix adaptation of "Alice in Borderlands" has a cis woman playing a transfem, but Misia Butler is an actual transmasc! [Nobody argue that AIB couldn't have an actual transfem bcs of Japan's transphobia bcs I can tell you what's not helping trans rights: having cis women play transfem roles, thinking it makes no difference anyway. Good rep can pave the way for acceptance]
The disability rep in actors is so fucking bad that I genuinely thought most people with disabilities just didn't become actors. I only knew that the daughter in "A Quiet Place" was actually deaf bcs I went to look it up. Anyway, hope Mat Fraser (Daedalus aka only decent father figure) comes back bcs no way he actually got eaten, right? Right????
HELP I LOVE HOW SASSY HERA IS TO DIONYSUS?? Hera just absolutely shitting on Zeus' children from affairs gotta be my favourite part of any and all Greek mythology inspired media
