this is a really long essay and i apologize but there’s a lot that happened working up to this and pentheus’s death was his breaking point and arguably the first time he intensionally killed someone and I have a lot of feelings about it.
Before Dionysus came to Thebes, he had never actually killed anyone ( intensionally ) yet. He was first met with resistance when he came across pirates while looking to get from Asia to Greece, but he didn’t kill them for kidnapping him and refusing to believe that he was a god; He turned himself into a lion to drive them insane, yeah, but when they leapt out of the ship, he turned them into dolphins and spared the one pirate who was smart enough to warn the others that they should show respect which isn’t so bad when you think about it. He punished them for their hubris, but he still showed mercy and humanity and it was probably the last time in a long time that he was that kind to those who wronged him. ( x )
After that mess, he arrived at his very first city in Greece, Thrace. The people of Thrace were willing to accept Dionysus, but he was met with resistance from King Lycurgus who refused to allow his worship, so he scared Dionysus away with his army. Dion literally fled to the sea crying and he took shelter with Thetis, and his followers in Thrace were taken captive. It kinda seems wimpy for a god to do that when you think about it, but Dionysus was a newly appointed god. He wasn’t really born into the title or shown how to behave like one because most of his childhood he was kept hidden and the rest he spent among foreigners, not the Greeks. He had no idea he’d be met with this much hate in his own home country because in Asia he managed to gain popularity pretty easily, so this is when the other Olympians stepped in to help a brothah out and show Dionysus how hubris was dealt with by the Olympian Squad, but I imagine they saw him running away as a sign of weakness and he lost some of their respect because of it.
According to Homer, Zeus struck Lycurgus with a lightening bolt and caused him to go blind and Apollo set a famine upon Thrace, sending a prophecy out to the Thracians that their crops would grow again only if they exiled Lycurgus up to the mountains where he’d finally meet his end. So right there, Dionysus learned a lesson from the other gods. He learned that words weren’t going to be enough to gain respect. He needed to be cruel whenever he was met with resistance and he needed to use fear and collective punishment to ensure that no one else would dare disrespect him or refuse to believe that he wasn’t an Olympian god ever again, but this was still something he wasn’t entirely comfortable with doing. He was a god with a human conscience and it was starting to become a major problem for him
So now he’s in Thebes, he’s hoping the last two incidences of resistance were just anomalies and that things were going to be different from here on out, but then he finds out all the shit-talking that’s been going on in Thebes and how Pentheus is refusing to believe that Dionysus is a god. He tells himself that he’s not going to run away like he did in Thrace nor let the other gods come and help him, and he’s not going to let his followers get captured like he did last time either:
DIONYSUS: If Thebans in this city, in their anger, try to make those Bacchic women leave, to drive them from the mountains forcibly, then I, commander of these Maenads, will fight them. – The Bacchae, Eurpides
But Dion also told himself that he won’t punish these people for their hubris right away; he’s going to try to reason with Pentheus first and if that backfires, then he’ll do what gods usually do and seek retribution through blood and misfortune. So he didn’t waltz into Thebes with the intention of destroying his family and that’s what makes the turnout so tragic for both him and Pentheus because there was hope that things could have ended better, but neither of them were willing to let go of their ideals to make that happen. He tried to reason with Pentheus so many times, and everytime Pentheus refused to back down, and Dion’s patience could only go so far. All this resistance from all these Greeks really did frustrate him and it made him feel inferior as a god because no one took him as seriously or believed in him the way they did with the other Olympians and that’s why he told himself that if he wanted to be respected the way the other Olympians were respected, he needed to be twice as cruel here in Thebes to set an example and show everyone else that he wasn’t fucking around ( i mean he was, but figuratively speaking he wasn’t ).
There’s no doubt that Dion went way too far in his punishment with his family, and he knew that. When Cadmus told him he was being too harsh, Dion tried defending his reasoning by saying that they insulted him by not believing that he was born a god, and Cadmus tells him that angry gods shouldn’t act as humans; he was supposed to be the bigger man here and have mercy– to Cadmus, being merciful is what it meant to be a god, but to Dionysus, the examples he had to follow said cruelty was the way to go, so he was torn and ultimately stuck with the examples he was given. And think about it. There was a reason Dionysus didn’t bother coming to Greece for all those years. As soon as Hera found him there was no reason for him to hide anymore, but what kept him in Aisa was the fear of rejection, the fear of the unknown. When we was made a god he really had no choice but to face that fear, and then to walk into the city that should have been his home and meet the people who should’ve been his family only to find that all but one of them had rejected him was heartbreaking, so a lot of dion’s judgment that day was coming from an impulsive source not a logical one. He was being controlled by his emotions and not thinking clearly which is part of the reason why he was so cruel to his family.
The day after the events in Thebes, he tried convincing himself that what he had done was what any of the gods would have done too and that what he did to his family was a necessity; it was easier to find reasons to justify himself than to live with that sort of guilt or admit that he was wrong. Even though he didn’t look to go back on his decrees, I think the day after all of this happened was when he really let the weight of what he’d done sink in and when he started to forget what his original plans for Greece and for his godlihood were. When he was just a demi-god, his intentions were pure. Being worshipped wasn’t what mattered to him, what mattered was that he’d be able to bring people happiness and an escape and a place where all would be welcomed without discrimination, but then once he became an Olympian god, it became less about spreading that practice and more about how to get everyone to worship and respect him, and killing Pentheus was the first time he showed just how far he’d go to do that. From that moment on he started to lose touch with his human-half and his mercy and it’s also when he began to give in to the more destructive aspects of himself and his madness.
He continued to travel Greece, and he continued to meet resistance and rejection, but when he did he wasn’t nice about it anymore. He went into battle, he killed people, he did all sorts of terrible things, but it was nothing that he felt wasn’t justified, so went on like that for a long while, but the day after he killed Pentheus was when two different pathes were presented to him and he chose to stick with the one the other gods followed instead of the one he originally intended for himself.
dionysus and the first time he saw the statue of semele
alright im gonna try to do these metas in chronological order to help myself so here we go and this is gonna be super meta bc i gotta put in bacchae quotes man. i gotta.
After Zeus “gave birth” to Dionysus, he was sent to Mount Nysa where he was raised. ( No one knows 100% where Mt. Nysa was but in pretty much all the myths it’s somewhere in Asia, Phrygia to be more exact which is in Persia, so that’s what I’m going with ). Long story short, eventually, when he learned the art of winemaking and found his purpose as a god, he went on to spread his worship first in Asia before coming back to Greece, but by the time he reached Greece people already heard about him and his cult, and most kings were punkass bitches who weren’t down to roll with it. dion set that shit straight later on in person though, but that’s another story.
The first time Dionysus saw the statue of Semele in Thebes was shortly after he first stepped foot in Greece and when he went to visit her tomb:
“I have come here, to the stream of Dirce and the waters of Ismenus.Here, by the palace, I see the tomb of my mother [ … ] Cadmus, however, I praise, for he has declared this place sacred as hisdaughter’s shrine. I myself have covered it over with the green clusters of avine.” – The Bacchae, Euripides
To have the image of his mother’s statue displayed in the city where he was first born struck something in him. Not necessarily nostalgia, but he found himself missing that which he never had. Dionysus, never really missed his mother before because he had no memory of her, nothing to remember her by, and no one to tell him stories about her, so he couldn’t miss someone he never knew, but when he visted her tomb and saw her statue he found himself wishing he could put flesh and color to the figure in front of him, wishing he could listen to her welcoming him back home, and wishing he could have actually known what she was like. That was the first time he really grieved for her and the life that was stolen from him the day she died.
He was born in Greece, and born from a Greek mother and Greek god, so even though he spent all his life in a foreign land, he wanted to consider Greece his home and have them welcome him in the same way. Growing up surrounded by different cultures and visiting different countries was great, but seeing her statue made him wonder how things might have been like if Semele would have lived. Thebes could have very well been the place where he would have been raised, but instead the place that should’ve been his home was now completely foreign to him, and that which was foreign to everyone else was all that he knew. He didn’t know what to expect in Thebes, but he hoped for the best. He figured that if they had a statue there in Semele’s memory, that she must have held their respects, and he expected that he would be respected too, but we can’t have nice things.
Everything seemed very promising and Dion wanted nothing more than to present himself to these people, the people who could have been his family and the people that he still hoped could be his family, so when he started hearing the things the Thebans whispered while he was on his way to the palace, it both broke his heart and enraged him to know what the King and his aunts were saying about Semele and his parentage. He knew grandpa Cadmus was responsible for the statue so he was cool on Dion’s book, but clearly if his cousin Pentheus and his aunts believed that Semele’s claims of being Zeus’s lover were false then she wasn’t getting nearly the amount of respect from the Thebans that Dionysus thought she deserved, so adding that on top of the fact that his blood relatives refused to recognize him as a God and recognize him as a true son of Zeus really pissed him off.
He never felt a real connection or kinship to his mother before that day, but by then he found himself wanting to fight not only for his own respect, but hers too. It wasn’t enough to just have a shrine of her if it wasn’t being worshiped the right way. Both their names needed to be cleared and revered, so the first thing he did was send his aunts into a mad frenzy:
“For my mother’s sisters, the last people who should havedone so, declared that Dionysus was not the son of Zeus. They said thatSemele had slept with a mortal man, and then, on Cadmus’ cleversuggestion, blamed Zeus for her sexual shame; and for that reason, theygloated, Zeus killed her, because she had lied about a marriage with him.This is why I have stung them into a frenzy, making them leave their homesto live on the mountain, out of their minds.” – The Bacchae, Euripides
Then he influenced the rest of the Theban women to leave their houses and join him in his bacchic festivals up in the mountains too just to prove his power and the power of his cult to Pentheus, and to see him get his panties in a twist over it.
Alice’s first day as a knight started off pretty boring if I may be frank. She had been training for years for this day and was excited about all the action she would be seeing. However, she was met with going on rounds. Rounds of all things! She was tried and bored. And upon going around the castle for hours just making sure the royal family was safe, she was called to have an audience with King Arthur.
She was knighted by him right after he was sworn in as King. His first day he knighted a few new people to his circle, Alice included. She was excited about this moment and thought that her first day would be just as eventful. So she was curious as to what he needed after hours of doing nothing.
The first thought on her mind was that she was in trouble. Did she do rounds the wrong way? Maybe he decided to take back her knighthood. The horror in this happening placed a sense of momentary dread in her. She could not bring shame to her family once more. She was already a bastard….did he know she was a bastard and didn’t want her to be around anymore? The many thoughts that flew through her mind made her even more nervous than before, but she kept her composure as she made her way to his private study.
Walking into the room, Arthur greeted her with a welcome and told her to sit down. He then started to tell her about why she was really here, getting straight to the point. He wanted her to do certain jobs for him that would be kept under wraps. With his brother suddenly missing/dead, he needed someone he could trust to help him make sure the kingdom was in control. He liked how honest she was. Her opinions were very wise and just.
The trust he put in her gave her the chance to see that there was more to her job than just looking over the castle. If the king had a private meeting with her on her future, then she would prove to him her worth. So by the end of the day, her first day as a Knight wasn’t really bad. It mad her excited on working with Arthur in the future and helping him to become a great ruler. It was an honor that he took the time to talk to her. It made her respect him even more than before.
Pamela was very close to both of her parents when she was younger, but because her father was the one who went out to sea the most, she followed him around more than her mother. She was always interested in what he was doing and would ask him questions about the fish, fishing, and the sea every day as she helped him carry baskets of fish back to their home. She started helping him at a young age. Once she was old enough, she began to beg him to take her out to sea with him to fish. To this day, all of her fishing knowledge and her great respect for the ocean have been inherited from her father.
She remembers him fondly almost idyllically, but that goes for both her parents and has more to do with the way she lost them. She can still remember him vividly though in the way she looked up to him when she was a young girl. She remembers his gentle smile, his work worn hands, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, the faint smell of fish that was always on him. This is how she chooses to remember him rather than the nightmares her mind makes up about his death. She wants to remember only the good and none of the bad.
The first time Elizabeth held a sword, she had no idea that she would learn to wield one in the future. It was just a pretty thing of a bit scary. The idea of holding one and holding someone’s life in the balance was a strange feeling. She felt like she’d been responsible for people’s lives before even though she’d never held a weapon in her life before, and she never planned to.
The only reason she found herself learning how to polish them and make them look pretty was because of the merchant she found herself staying with. She’d been put in charge of maintaining the products and making them look their best. She was taught how to sell the weapon by talking up it’s make, the metal it was made from, the balance, even the artistry of it all depending on the kind of person who was looking to buy it. She believed her only encounter with the weapon would be in her selling it. Now her skills with the sword have come so much farther than she ever expected them to and the weapon makes her feel powerful. It makes her feel in control and safe while the first time she picked one up she felt uneasy and helpless.
Pamela’s first official day as first mate was exciting for her, though rather tame. Because so much of Tristan’s crew left when his father died, the first day was a lot of planning between the two of them. They had to figure out where to pick up more reliable crew members and where to travel once they did. It was an exciting prospect for Pamela who had never before left her little village. She could hardly wait to leave and see the seas. She wanted to know how far they went, what they were like away from the shore, and if the adventure would be what she expected.
Her first day at sea with a full crew was less exciting and more frustrating than anything. She hadn’t realized the treatment she’d get for being second in command as a woman. She had helped pick out the sailors that would join their crew, but it was still hard for them to take her seriously. They wouldn’t outright disobey her, but there would be little ways they’d undermine her and try to fight against her authority. She heard talk that some believed she only got her position because she was sleeping with Tristan. It was early that first afternoon that she decided she wouldn’t let them get away with or get in the habit of disrespecting her. That first afternoon, she showed them her frightening rage and that she was more than capable of not only keeping up with them, but besting them. She knew if they were going to respect her, she needed to earn it and earn it fast, so she did. Within the first week, all of the crew had learned to see her as a first mate before they saw her as a woman. Some even had some bruises and cuts from having to learn the hard way, but they’d learned and she was satisfied with how they fell in line.
“You should shine with all of your light all the time.” ― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain
@solorieturx
Rhodes’ and Phaeton’s relationship is one that individuals will not fully grasp unless they themselves have been mothers. I am not making a statement about Helios’ intelligence nor that of any other man’s or father’s, but there is this bond formed between a mother and her child when in the womb that men cannot comprehend fully because men were not made to carry a child. Phaeton is Rhodes’ first child; not just with Helios. Many of the gods and goddesses, as we have seen, have had multiple children with multiple individuals. Rhodes, on the other hand, only had children with Helios.
It was a new experience for her, one she embraced fully and loved every minute of. Her son was and will always be the sun. The son of her sun. He was the light of Rhodes’ life because he was the ray of his father (yes, i am making sun puns. what are you going to do about it?) Phaeton was in many ways like his father that it made Rhodes’ heart expand with all of these feelings. Helios was gone everyday in order to bring the mortals, the world, and the gods light. Helios brought light to others through his duties, but it was their son that brought Rhodes the light. (Helios too because he is her sun and stars, but also because without him she would not have Phaeton).
Phaeton had so much energy and was inquisitive. That trait he got from Rhodes and he wanted to know so much about the world since he was small. He was her piccolo sole. He’d grasp onto her hand when she would show him the island. He would wrap his arms around her neck whenever she would take him into the water until he learned that the water would keep him safe like she would. There is a bond that grew out of showing her son what the island had and teaching him how it came to be. The quote I chose from The Art of Racing in the Rain, is how I see Rhodes with Phaeton. She spoke similar words to him and always encouraged him to be who he was and to never let another take his light away from him.
In my head, just like his dad, Phateon was hesitant to go into the water, but he warmed up quickly to it once Rhodes held him in her arms and the creatures that lived in the depths of the ocean came to see the son of the one who took care of them.
Phaeton was a good balance of the two of them, but there was no denying that he was the son of the sun. Even when Rhodes had more children, the bond she had with her first never stopped. It only grew more because now Rhodes was showing him how to be a big brother and he was taking what he learned from his mother and teaching his younger siblings. When first jumped into the water, he knew Rhodes would be there to catch him. Now that he had siblings, he was beside his mother each time one of them jumped. He saw what she did and that gave him more appreciation for what his mother did.
While Phaeton loved the island and the water, he still always reached for the sky. His father was someone he looked up to (literally though. Helios was always up there). Each time Rhodes pointed towards where the sun rose and where it set, he knew his father was there. He’d wait up as long as he could with his mother to see his father. While Rhodes and Phaeton had a strong bond, he wanted to be like his father. He wanted to one day control the sun like his father did. Rhodes taught him what she knew about the sun and what Helios did. She taught him about not being afraid to pursue what he wished out of life and that there was no this side or that. He came from a Titan and an Olympian. In that way he was a copy of his mother, born of the two things always at odds with one another, but his parents love was the exception to that rule.
Rhodes was not just a mother to her son, but also a teacher. She taught him about the world and kept his curious/inquisitive nature burning. In the myth, we know that Phaeton took his father’s chariot and burned Africa. Due to this action, Zeus murdered him. (Murdered a child who knew not what he did.) Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun. But, the sun was his father and he only wished to do as his father did.
I know that Paula has mentioned that Helios feels responsible for his son’s death because he left his chariot unattended, but it has always been Rhodes to me that has more of the blame. What I mean, is that Rhodes feels responsible for her son’s death. He has his father’s recklessness, but he has his mother’s inquisitive mind, seeking answers, making things for himself rather than accepting that because a-b-c is in place it means that d-e-f has to happen. For that, she blames herself for his death. She told him to reach for what he wanted and to never let his dreams go away. Everyday she spoke of his father with such love and respect that her son grew to want that. He grew to want what his mother and father had, a partner that saw everything and accepted it. He wanted to be the one to help create light because his father did it and he saw through his mother what the light really meant. It did not just wipe away the night that was created by his aunt, but it allowed individuals to have reassurance that there would always be a new day, a new start, a new beginning.
Why wouldn’t any child wish to be the one that does that? His mother told him to seek answers and to reach for the sky so he did just that. He may have been the eldest, but he was still a child learning the ways of the world. He wanted to prove to himself, his father, and his mother that he would achieve great things, whether they were small or large. In my head, Phaeton wanted to see the world like his father did. He did. Phaeton saw the world like his father did, but he did not pay attention, did not remember his mother’s teachings that he lost sight of what was right in front of him.
It is a parallel to how Rose speaks about things. Phaeton’s mistake is taken on by Rose in this life. She carries the pain and the weight of her son’s passing and his mistakes onto her. How I internalizing everything she says to Hadrian and how she has made a comment to him that he does not see what is right in front of him. He looks for what is ahead. That is carried over from her last life. Rhodes does not want Rose to lose her sun/suns again so in every life she finds a way to slip that in. Not just as a reminder to them, but to herself of a time when she lost everything. & this would transition into her being afraid of fire, but I would go way off topic if I discussed that.
Back to Rhodes, it is because of all of this that she is responsible for her son passing. He fell and she could not catch him. He began life jumping into her arms, but when he needed her most she was not there. He fell to the water, the other ‘arms’ he knew would protect him because they were his mother’s even if she was not there. He was born in water and his passing onto the next life is done through one last embrace by the water.
The responsibility is on her shoulders that when Helios left she once again lost her sun. Helios never knew of the guilt that she had. He once again was looking at the bigger picture. I have been told that one does not know what unconditional love means until he or she has a child of his or her own. Especially if you are the one carrying the child for nine months. Those words that have been spoken to me I apply to Rhodes. Until she had Phaeton, she did not know of this other love that was out there. Of taking on another’s pain, sorrow, happiness, etc and having it be her own. Rhodes loved her son more than words found in all the languages. Rhodes and Phaeton were everything that one looks for in a mother/son because they understood one another, came from same beginnings, and both learned to love the sun.
“He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.” ― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain
rose and her thoughts on the new world, did she ever wish to go
send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on
Due to me way of going slightly off topic, I placed the answer under read more.
When she learned that there was another land that had not been discovered till the 15th century, she found the entire thing to be fascinating. She wanted to know why that land had only just been found. Did individuals live on it? What was it like there? Warm like Spain, Italy, and Greece? Did it have expansive spices like the East Indies? How were the sands? Pure white and untouched? A deep brown? Red? Black? Grey? Had man left it as it is? Destroyed it? Blocked it off? She has always been an inquisitive individual and that can be seen when she finds out about new places, especially an entire country. (yes, I am using the modern term and calling it a country but I hope individuals understand what I mean)
Before her parents set off for the new world (the americas) she had wondered what it would have been like to be one of the men who were on board the ship that found the new land. To travel like them or like her father has always been something she has wanted to do. In that respect, Rose did wish to go tot the new world so she could see with her own eyes what it is rather than through another’s. As we all know, unless she was a man (highborn), Rose would not be afforded the same luxuries like asking your father if you could travel to another country, help him with his trade so you know what you will be inheriting, or even just taking time to see the world before you had to be married (which for a man, depending on how old his father was, how many other brothers, his own age, education, so on and so forth, could happen when you are in your 30s-40s for a first marriage if you had enough influence.)
Her father decided to set sail for it and establish himself there and her mother did not wish to stay in Valencia while her husband got to see the world. She was never going to be that woman that waited around, so she has traveled with her husband no matter where he has gone. This is where you will you see a strong parallel between Rose and her mother. Both women do not wish to just wait around. They want to have a control over their lives and both wish to see the world.
Now, the new world seems like another restriction. It is because of her parents that she sees it in this manner. They would send word when it was time for her to come and live with them. Send word; time; come; live with them. Those are very important words/phrases that I pull out of that because these are making a clear, defined statement that Rose is not her own person. She will have no say there like she does now with her godfather. Like a piece of furniture, Rose can be picked up and carried off whenever the owner wishes for it.
That young outlook on the new world was squashed the moment her parents left her life in the complete control of her godfather. The action told Rose that she would never see that world on her own terms, but rather on the terms of another. This branches off into another topic, but I have always believed that this was a defining moment for Rose. It solidified her stance on marriage, on how the world is run, on men, and the high born society. Just because she is born with a title (duchess) it does not mean that title gives her the freedom she believed that she would have. As a highborn, she does have more freedom than the commoners, that is 100% true, but her life is still not her own and to me, that shows how warped the society that every individual resides in is. Men are the ones with all the power. There is a clear defined hierarchy from high born to common, but women were never seen as a part of it. Women had their own category like live stock, crops, vineyards, etc.
