A Touch of Malice
Page 41
More on Demeter
The rape of Demeter is something I touched upon in this book. Poseidon actually rapes Demeter while she is searching for Persephone, but I felt that if this had happened before Persephone were born, it would give Demeter a reason to retract from the world and want to protect her daughter from the three.
Hermes and Pan
I just wanted to make a quick note that I did reference Pan, the God of the Wild, as Hermes’s son, which, as parentage goes in all mythology, may or may not have been his actual father. Still, I’d like to take a moment to say that of the Greek gods, Pan is the only one known to die. His death is not detailed—in fact, no one knows how he died. It was basically just a game of telephone that eventually reached the masses. The idea is, however, that with the birth of Christ, Pan had to die.
Don’t ask me. I just read the myths.
Apollo and Ajax and Hector
I do not know what made me ship Apollo with Ajax, but I did know that Ajax and Hector duel in mythology during the Trojan War, so I thought that would be an interesting dynamic. In myth, Hector is also favored by Apollo because Apollo is in support of the Trojans, while Ajax fights for the Greeks.
I also decided that Ajax, described as colossal and strong, should be deaf because I wanted to show that deafness does not mean incapable. That being said, I didn’t want Ajax to have any kind of superhero-like powers other than what he was given in myth—his strength, his size, and his reflexes. I didn’t think his deafness should change that he had trained like the hearing warriors around him.
Aphrodite and Harmonia
In myth, Harmonia is said to be the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite—OR Zeus and Electra. Since I don’t ship Ares and Aphrodite, I went with the second option and made her Aphrodite’s sister. Harmonia was also married off to Cadmus, who I believe she really loved, because when he was turned into a serpent, she kind of went insane and was also turned into a serpent. I don’t know that I will touch on this particular myth in any of my books, but I thought it important to mention here.
In my retelling, I really felt like Harmonia was pansexual. I also felt like while Sybil had never considered falling in love with a woman before, when she met Harmonia, she just couldn’t help herself, and it’s really, really cute.
The Palace of Knossos and the Minotaur
First, here is a great article about the history of the Palace of Knossos and why it was originally through to be the “labyrinth”: livescience.com/27955-knossos-palace-of-the-minoans.html. I’m adding this here because it was originally thought that the labyrinth was just a maze-like palace built by Daedalus. I brought in the story of the Minotaur because we also have Theseus, who, as we know, was sent to kill the Minotaur. He succeeded with the help of Ariadne, who gave him a reel of string to help him escape the labyrinth once he defeated the monster.
Theseus and Helen
Maybe some of you are surprised by Helen’s trajectory, so I’ll explain here. There is a myth where Theseus and Pirithous abduct daughters of Zeus. Theseus chooses Helen of Troy, while, as we know, Pirithous chooses Persephone. The other famous myth is the one where Paris falls in love with Helen and he takes her from Sparta to Troy, beginning a war.
Depending on readings and interpretations of the myth, I just felt like Helen might be someone who looks for the best way to the top. After all, she is a Spartan woman. She is strong and capable and intelligent. She knows how to use her beauty as a tool and her mind as a weapon. Given my impression of her, you can understand her trajectory in Malice.
The Monsters
There are a lot of monsters mentioned in this book aside from the Minotaur: the Hydra, Lamia, Ceto, and Arachne. I just wanted to take a moment to give a short overview of each.
The Hydra resided in Lerna Lake, which you will recognize as one of the entrances to the Underworld. I chose to have this monster in the Underworld because it’s very venomous. Additionally, the monster was eventually killed by Heracles as part of his labors.
Lamia was the queen of Libya. As I stated in the book, she had an affair with Zeus that resulted in her being cursed by Hera to lose all her children. The myths vary on if they were killed or if they were kidnapped as well as how she eventually came to begin to devour children. Whatever the case, she did go insane and began to kidnap and eat children. Zeus gave her the power to remove her eyes—apparently to help alleviate her sleeplessness (Hera also cursed her with insomnia). He also gifted her with prophecy, which, I suppose is a gift all child-eating monsters deserve?
Ceto is a primordial goddess and is Queen of Sea Monsters. She also gave birth to a lot of monsters including the Gorgons and the Graeae who you might recall are the three sisters who share an eye and a tooth between them.
Last, I mention Arachne. She features in Ovid’s Metamorphoses which I quote at the beginning of this book. She was a woman who challenged Athena to a weaving contest. The reason I wanted to mention her is that Arachne chose to weave scenes that illustrated the misdeeds of the gods, much as I choose to do in these books. Anyway, the rest of the story goes that Arachne’s weaving was flawless, and this enraged Athena. The versions of how Arachne became a spider vary, but she is transformed nonetheless. In the book, I mention Arachne’s Pit, which I like to think of as a punishment in Tartarus.
Miscellaneous
Okeanos and his twin Sandros are made up modern demigods, but they were based off another set of twin sons of Zeus, Amphion and Zethus. I did not use Amphion and Zethus as modern demigods because I already reference a myth that is sort of connected to them that happened in antiquity and that is the death of Amphion and Niobe’s children by the hands of Apollo and Artemis.
Apeliotes is an actual god—the God of the Southeast Wind. It’s kind of hilarious because he was thought to bring refreshing rain. I made up the two children, Thales and Callista, in the book, though.
I briefly mention Hecuba, who was the wife of King Priam. There are a couple of myths about her that all end with her becoming a dog, which is one of Hecate’s symbols. At the point of this book, Hecuba is ready to rest as a soul in the Underworld, and so Hecate finds Nefeli, who she describes as a woman who begged for the goddess to take her pain away after she lost a loved one. This is a direct reference to one of the Hecuba myths in which she watches her son die and goes mad, after which she was transformed into a dog.
About the Author
Scarlett St. Clair lives in Oklahoma with her husband. She has a master’s degree in library science and information studies. She is obsessed with Greek mythology, murder mysteries, love, and the afterlife. For information on books, tour dates, and content, please visit scarlettstclair.com.
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