nobody asked because the post was only made yesterday and only went in like two directions with readers, which is par for the course so whatever, but like fuck it, i care and want to explain what anyone who read through it might've been like ??? if the attempted subtlety didn't go right over their head (and if it did no problem, sometimes I miss my own subtlety until like six years later and I'm thinking when did this become an allegory), but anyway
yah so in that Hades and his bitching pomegranate tree piece, the part where he and menoetes are talking is supposed to reference this theory that menoetes is actually the son iapetus. there is little information about my beloved cattleman who I have had rolling around in my head for over a decade, being sweet on the chickens and getting pegged by zagreus every day
so yeah meno as the cattleman is pretty barebones. Like the herder of Hades, son of ceuthonymos, that guy that wrestled Hercules/herakles - that's pretty much it. I think he only ever shows up in that passage. So the concept is that the Titan Menoetes (or Menoetius) who Zeus blasted into Tartarus during the war is actually the cattleman, and his dad Ceuthonymos is just an epithet for Iapetus, especially since all that is understood about Ceuthonymos is that he is a daimon who lives in the underworld and his name means Hidden Name (which. alright 🤷♂️ why not) and that's literally all that anyone knows because the only reference I could find was "menoetes, son of ceuthonymos" - which, in hindsight, is hilarious
anyway what this all means is my thoughts with the concept was that Menoetes, who as a Titan was of rage and rash actions and was really arrogant and hubristic or smth (the little kiddies of Iapetus - titan of mortality - were supposed to represent humanity's flaws), was just a kid when he "died" and long after the Titan war but following so many others, Hades decided it was unfair that a child had been drafted and harmed. So he took meno, cleaned his soul in the Lethe and made him a little baby mortal and sent him off to go live with some nice people
Iapetus was thought to be the Titan of mortality and mortality is so entwined with death and being dead, and I thought it would be cool if Menoetes was just called towards the underworld because deep in the back of his mind, he knew that it had been his home - where he and his brothers had been born and raised, and where he had "died". so at point he leaves and manages to get into the place that once knew him as its prince, but Hades is ruler now and Menoetes is just a mortal boy, so it doesn't bow to him.
But Hades is the god and Hades is the underworld and Menoetes eats the fruit because he wants to be connected to home again, even if it means binding his soul to Hades the god forever
And that's what that whole convo was about 👍
