Keeping up with the Olympians: The most dysfunctional marriage of the cosmos

Let’s begin with a quick stroll up in Ancient Greece again. No, no, don’t be scared, the man in the poncho is long gone and now has been replaced by several people in half as stylish clothes called ‘poets’. These poets are very fond of writing ballads, not about life, or nature, or about their beloved, but about gods. Yes, god(s) - as in, multiple divine entities controlling their own thing. Before people began blaming Jesus for everything, they had multiple options to sort of distribute the blame. You know, rejected by a girl way over your league? Blame Aphrodite, (or Eros if you’re naughty.) Crops didn’t yield well, better develop a new farming technique! No? Blame Demeter and burn a cow in her favour? O-kay. Remember that all of these stories will sound almost fearfully outdated to you because they are. They began to take shape among the first few civilisations on the planet, in Crete, and thus, as society developed, these stories were left behind, rendering us a beautiful country, great yoghurt (whaaaaaat? Cross blog referencing?) and absolutely amazing architecture. Let’s try and figure out who exactly you can blame for your current issues, create a new mytho-addiction and give a crusty old buzzfeed quiz some new excited viewers (yes, I will link some for you)

Okay, let’s pick up where we left off last time. That statue, with the thunderbolt, our dear patricidal maniac, Zeus. It is only fitting for the king of the gods to take the throne in our roast session, ahem, I mean informational blog first, for he is the reason Olympus (the mythical place, not your favourite webtoon) exists. So, your favourite disney movie, your favourite novel series, your favourite video games were all made thanks to this glorious golden-blooded man. Let’s start with a brief biodata first - Zeus, the god of youngest child anxiety! Wait.That can’t be right. Uh-huh, okay, Zeus -  the King of the Gods and the god of the sky, weather, law and order, destiny and fate, and kingship. He was depicted as a regal, mature man with a sturdy figure and dark beard. His usual attributes were a lightning bolt, a royal sceptre and an eagle. (this eagle will come back - Marvel style). The king of the gods was known for a lot, his strength in particular, but he was also known for being an avid enjoyer of the reproductive practices, siring not one, but several children, and not with his wife, Hera (she will be introduced later) but with several beautiful mortal women who caught his fancy. It was a sort of divine man’s version of Hinge, but only if consent was feigned. Considering the fact that entire books were written in the divine god’s name, and we have only a few hundred words left (blame the word limits. And the writer of the Egyptian mythology blogs) let’s move on to his dear wife!

Hera, the goddess of divine retribution on unsuspecting and unaware mortals! Or, as you would know her, Hera, the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. She is known as the goddess the average joe, or, joe-opulus prayed to have a happy and successful marriage, as she had the most famous and totally functional marriage in all of Olympus - the one with Zeus, ofcourse. She is also known as the only olympian who understood, preached and was violent in favour of the concept of loyalty - don’t touch my husband, I won’t touch yours, yada yada yada. She is also known to have set the twelve labours of Heracles. Hera-cles. Not Hercules, Romans, HERACLES. I assumed we would have a lot more room to explain everything about the twelve olympians, but clearly, the most dysfunctional couple in the cosmos deserved their own blog, and their own shoutout.

Hera and Zeus’ relationship was strained from the beginning. Their marriage was very unhappy, which makes me very concerned for the poet that came up with this one. Did your wife not give you enough attention, my guy? Eh. anyway, the bond between the two of them was as strong as a twig under three pure white Poseidon brand bulls, but Hera was still staunch on the point of loyalty and wanted Zeus to follow the same. He, however, had a problem - mortals were gorgeous, and so easily fooled, would you blame him? So, for the rest of Greek Mythology (ie, eternity), Zeus sired children with mortals, and Hera took revenge from them and their poor mothers. Does that make sense? No. Does it have to? No. Is it fun, though? Absolutely. So, if you ever feel like your life feels like a divine retribution, you might want to sacrifice a bull or two (don’t. It is illegal. Seriously, don’t)

(don’t).