kestrels:

kestrels:

no greek god is inherently and wholly “good” or “bad” because they were all flawed and imperfect in some way with different facets of personality and character to serve as a reflection of society and human nature itself  

oh except for zeus he was a straight up absolute bastard

“That the conception of gods in itself need not lead to the degradation of the imagination that we had to consider briefly [i.e., Christian guilt], that there are nobler uses for the invention of gods than for the self-crucifixion and self-violation of man in which Europe over the past millennia achieved its distinctive mastery—that is fortunately revealed even by a mere glance at the Greek gods, those reflections of noble and autocratic men, in whom the animal in man felt deified and did not lacerate itself, did not rage against itself! For the longest time these Greeks used their gods precisely so as to ward off the ‘bad conscience,’ so as to be able to rejoice in their freedom of soul—the very opposite of the use to which Christianity put its God. They went very far in this direction, these splendid and lionhearted children; and no less an authority than the Homeric Zeus himself occasionally gives them to understand that they are making things too easy for themselves. ‘Strange!’ he says once—the case is that of Aegisthus, a very bad case—

“Strange how these mortals so loudly complain of the gods!
We alone produce evil, they say; yet themselves
Make themselves wretched through folly, even counter to fate.

“Yet one can see and hear how even this Olympian spectator and judge is far from holding a grudge against them or thinking ill of them on that account: ‘how foolish they are!’ he thinks when he observes the misdeeds of mortals—and ‘foolishness,’ ‘folly,’ a little ‘disturbance in the head,’ this much even the Greeks of the strongest, bravest age conceded of themselves as the reason for much that was bad and calamitous—foolishness, not sin! do you grasp that?

“Even this disturbance in the head, however, presented a problem: ‘how is it possible? how could it actually have happened to heads such as we have, we men of aristocratic descent, of the best society, happy, well-constituted, noble, and virtuous?’—thus noble Greeks asked themselves for centuries in the face of every incomprehensible atrocity or wantonness with which one of their kind had polluted himself. ‘He must have been deluded by a god,’ they concluded finally, shaking their heads. This expedient is typical of the Greeks. In this way the gods served in those days to justify man to a certain extent even in his wickedness, they served as the originators of evil—in those days they took upon themselves, not the punishment but, what is nobler, the guilt.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, Essay II, section 23, translated by Walter Kaufmann.

fictions-stranger:

trickerydickerydock:

Thinking on it, Loki should really have just dropped the whole Asgard thing and moved to Greece to hang with the Olympians

Like, Loki’s worst bits of mischief, up to and including murder, is just Zeus’ casual Tuesday. Plus everyone is always busy either fucking with someone if not actually fucking them. There’s a god of drinking and theatre (professional artful lying, holy shit). Also a god of chilling in the woods and banging nymphs and/or lonely shepherds (ideal). Two love/beauty/lust deities (doubly ideal, good on Mama Aphrodite and Son Eros, great family tradition). No prophesy of an apocalyptic showdown to look forward to–or any kind of narrative to bind the gods, period (Fuck Yes). The local mortals are all nerds in togas or oiled up muscle men (c:). Balmy weather, access to spices (C:).

Honestly, it’d just be

Zeus: What convinces you, god from the north, that you have a place here among my family? Among the gods of sky and sea and earth, the gods who are all the power and inspiration of the world? What right have you, foreign trickster, to the gates of Olympus?

Loki: Oh, is this the job interview? Damn, and here I am without my power suit. Let me change real quick

Loki, naked: So my work history is,

Zeus, naked: Hera, have someone clear out the guest room

@liukka