Why Do So Many Important Gods Have so Few Stories... And So Much More (Q&A Pt 3)

Liv answers even more listener questions because they're just so good! Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/grouptrip.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 1:12Liv Albert?

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• 2:09Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby. And as always, I am your host, Liv. And today, because last week was so much fun and we had so many incredible questions coming in from all of you listeners, I'm doing another Q and A episode. I have a bunch that I wasn't able to get to, along with some others that have come in since I asked for more. And so here we are. That and it's 3:45 and I have to have an episode come out tomorrow and I've been working on The Odyssey since 8:00 a.m. this morning, which is basically what I'm doing every day. So here we are with you guys giving me ready-made content. Thank you.

• 3:03Liv Albert?

  Why do such important gods have so few stories? And why are the men always crying to their mothers? Another anniversary Q and A.

• 3:29Liv Albert?

  All right, today, we are starting off with something fun. This is from Todd, who starts off with "much love from the UK." Thanks, Todd. Sending it right up back from Canada. "Why do you think some gods, Zeus, Athena, etc., are the focus of so many stories while other gods, Hades, Hestia, etc., are mainly only featured in other stories and rarely have any myths centered around them? Do you think it was the ancient Greeks projecting themselves into these stories? Athena was a strong woman who was respected by most men, so maybe a lot of women project themselves onto Athena so they could feel the respect they never got from Greek men? You're the expert, not me, so I'd love to hear your opinion." And also, as at the bottom, wishing you all the very best, plenty of wine and cats.

• 4:13Liv Albert?

  We can never have enough wine and cats, that's a fact of life. Okay. This is a really interesting question and just a nice light, light place to start. I'm gonna try not to dive too deep into my, it's just that everything's on fire and so the feminism is, whoa, it's blinding right now. But this is just a really interesting question that I think, I think the answer says more about just the concerns and culture of the ancient people than anything else. And I love that. Okay. So why do some of these gods and characters have so many more detailed stories associated with them? The simplest answer, but the least interesting is just the very nature that like,

• 4:58Liv Albert?

  we have so many stories that are lost. We know that there were so many stories that we don't have, things like that. So it very well could be that some of these characters had more stories associated with them than we know. But the longer, more interesting answer is that the stories were not the entirety of the culture or the religions surrounding these gods, right? The stories that we have, while they seem like the biggest and more, most important things when it comes to mythology and these gods, they are this really, really small part of life in ancient Greece.

• 5:40Liv Albert?

  The stories are peripheral almost, like some of them say the theogony, you know, it serves to explain the world, the, the divine gods they worshipped at that time, a kind of mythical backstory for how that happened, what might have come before, all of these things. Or obviously the Homeric epics, you know, these are stories that are telling something very specific, whether it was about a real war that was turned into the Trojan War, or whether it was just this story based on the wide Mediterranean and all of these interactions among all of these different people, right?

• 6:23Liv Albert?

  There's so many things that are going on into the development of stories like that. And certain gods appear because certain gods fit into the story. Or, you know, when it comes to Zeus being included in so many stories, that's a really simple explanation of like Zeus.

• 6:44Liv Albert?

  Cavorting, I don't know why that's the word I want to use, Zeus cavorting with all of those women. That's, that's me putting it really nicely because I'm trying not to get screaming angry feminist yet. But Zeus's association with all of these women, you know, whether it was consensual or not, it's not even actually relevant to this explanation. But those stories served to

• 7:07Liv Albert?

  basically explain the creation of other gods, other characters, other things, or just explain a kind of divine relationship with certain regions, certain families, certain women, all of that, right? And so regardless of where or of sort of the details of those stories, they're serving that purpose. And that's where these other characters come in. Characters like Hades and Hestia don't tend to appear in stories because they weren't part of the narratives. They weren't necessary in stories. They were the kind of gods who were important beyond the storytelling itself, because again, remember

• 7:49Liv Albert?

  the stories as we have them, and I say that very specifically because it's as we have them, right? Because the sources that survive survive in these really specific ways, whether they're plays or they are these really early sources like the Homeric epics or like Hesiod's Theogony. But the majority of myths survives from later later things like pseudo Apollodorus is such a good example because he is where we find so many of the like shorter, smaller, lesser detailed myths. But he is writing in like the first century CE, which is the same time that Ovid is writing. And of course, there's so much to say about Ovid being Roman and writing Greek stories, but into a Roman thing that may or may not be propaganda.

• 8:31Liv Albert?

  But the point is that these things that survive for us today come from typically that really late period. With the exception of some of those earlier stories that are serving that very specific purpose. And so we, we have this kind of like disconnect between the culture and the stories. And that's kind of what's happening with Hades and Hestia, which are the best examples. And I'm just going to talk about them because it's a wider thing that you can definitely expand well beyond those characters, but they are really good because they are both incredibly important culturally and not at all important in the realm of storytelling. Hades appears in basically no myths outside of the Homeric hymn to Demeter and the story

• 9:15Liv Albert?

  of him marrying Persephone and, and taking her on as the queen of the underworld. Right? That story exists, but otherwise Hades as a character basically doesn't exist. Even when the underworld is accessed by other characters throughout, sometimes he's there, but he rarely has anything to say. Like in the Odyssey, he's not there, right? It's all about Persephone. And then even in the stories of Heracles going down there and fucking with things, which again, the stories that survive about those moments are from considerably later. The stories themselves, the concept of the stories is really, really ancient for sure. We know that stories of Heracles existed in the very, very most ancient of times,

• 10:00Liv Albert?

  but the versions that survive for us survive from much later. And that's where it becomes interesting and confusing and fascinating. Um, and so Hades, like sometimes he's there, but mostly if he appears in a story, it's just because like someone's in the underworld and there's a king sitting in a throne, but like almost nothing else happens. And that's because he, very much like Hestia, but I will get into her, serves a purpose so far beyond the stories that he just doesn't figure into them. Because remember they didn't write stories. They didn't even, you know, compose stories like we think of them today. No one was sitting down and being like, this needs a beginning, middle and an end. It needs to be exciting. It needs to have all of these things, you know, this is what's going to sell or whatever.

• 10:44Liv Albert?

  Like none of that was involved. The stories served a purpose. And when it comes to the underworld, there's really not any reason to focus on the king of the underworld. And even when I say king, you know, it makes it seem like, oh, well, but he's a character in that realm. Like surely he's important, but king is like a really relative term in this way. Like he really is just, he's running things down there, right? Like it is his realm. Not only that, like the, the word of the underworld is like a very, very English word, right? In, in ancient Greece, it was, you know, known as like kind of the, this chthonic realm,

• 11:26Liv Albert?

  like, which means under earth or like within the earth. Um, but it wasn't like quote unquote underworld, right? And even, you know, there, there are other names for that realm and it often is just Hades's name. Like it's the name of the place and the name of the man. And that's because like he just sort of, he wasn't the place, but in a way he was like, he was just kind of there running things. And so the idea was that like Hades is around, you don't need to feature him in stories because he is just this very immediate presence of the, the caretaker, for lack of a better word, of the dead, of the realm of the dead and of

• 12:08Liv Albert?

  the dead themselves. So he was just involved in that kind of thing and therefore like very important, but just doesn't end up in the stories. And that really applies to Hestia too, where she is not in stories. Like she is basically excluded from all stories, save for like a couple of things in Ovid, which really don't count at all. If we're talking about Greek myth. And yet she is one of the most fundamentally vital goddesses of ancient Greece as a whole. And that's because Hestia represents, Hestia supports, Hestia like is the hearth. And that is the hearth in every sense of the word. So.

• 12:52Liv Albert?

  Just like, okay, like a hearth in a temple, though like hearths were really, really vital to this ancient realm, you know, not only because of like kind of ritualistic things about, you know, having this fire blazing, this purification, whatever, but also fundamentally it cooked food. The hearth is what kept a household going. It's what kept a family alive. It was also, surprise, surprise, like extremely tied with women. So I really believe that women, real women, were probably more devoted to Hestia than anyone, certainly more devoted to Hestia than Athena. Athena ends up in the stories, not because, and not to say that like

• 13:36Liv Albert?

  individual women, women couldn't have kind of seen themselves, projected themselves onto Athena, like the question suggested, but more so that Athena, I don't think represented them. Athena was the man's goddess and the stories as they survive again, like specifically the ones that survive, were not the women's stories. They almost certainly had all of their own. And so my view on it is that Hestia was somebody who was probably so important in the daily life, particularly of women, that almost that is why she's not into the, in the stories, and not just because of patriarchal bullshit, but also because she was fundamentally in their

• 14:19Liv Albert?

  day to day lives. She was the most immediate and important goddess on a day to day basis. And that means that she was simply beyond the stories. She was bigger than the stories, more important than the stories. She's not in the stories because she was in your house, you know? And so it's this, the best way of understanding it is to just, you really have to separate yourself from our modern understanding of storytelling and of these stories broadly. Like, you have to think of them as these like cultural touchpoints, these like references to that realm and It helps to make it all make sense, but generally, I mean, I love talking about Hestia in

• 15:01Liv Albert?

  that way because there aren't stories about her. I can't really do an episode on Hestia, but I love answering questions about her like this because I do think it's impossible to fully, fully like express just how important she was on a day-to-day basis and just how beloved and worshipped she likely was probably by the real women of ancient Greece and show she was just like above it all. She was better than all of that divine nonsense that's happening in the stories. And this is a great time to also mention, so I'm not quite sure when it's going to come out yet, but it has been recorded. I spoke with Peta Greenfield, who is one of

• 15:46Liv Albert?

  the better known as Dr. G, one of the partial historians, you know, they are those two incredible Australian women who are going through like all of Roman history year by year and also just are a delight and part of the memory collective. And Peta, in her real life as a professor of all of this stuff and an academic and a very smart lady, is an expert in the Vestal Virgins. And now, the Vestal Virgins are associated with Vesta, who is the Roman goddess of the hearth. And more and more these days, I do try to really remind you all and emphasize the fact that this idea that the Romans like quote-unquote copied the Greek gods is super not true, right?

• 16:29Liv Albert?

  There were some inspirations, but primarily because these two cultures were like so tied and like Rome was kind of coming to its height, like after Greece was kind of falling from its height and they're just so interconnected. And so there's a lot of crossover, there's a lot of overlap, but there's nothing to do with like copying. With all of that said, Hestia and Vesta are two goddesses who basically have to be the same goddess. Like, and again, not about this idea of copying, but more about her as a concept being bigger than a culture, being bigger than just Greece or bigger than just Rome. And so I say that because Vesta is like

• 17:10Liv Albert?

  identical to Hestia in Roman tradition, except that the Romans were like way more organized in both their religion and their overall horrors. And so they had this

• 17:25Liv Albert?

  Whole world revolving around these, these, they were young girls, quote unquote, virgins, but you'll understand more when that episode airs. Um, but who are associated with Vesta. And so through that, we get like, not honestly, not more on the goddess, which was part of the really interesting thing for me is like having Peta talk about Hestia. I was reminded of just how much like she and, and, or sorry, having Peta talk about Vesta. I was reminded about just how much she and Hestia are like really the same in this really fascinating way. Um, but the Romans like kind of took her and, and did some different things. Anyway, now I'm just rambling about Hestia, but you can look forward to that episode soon. It was really fun. And on to the next question.

• 18:07Liv Albert?

  All right. This next one is from Summer who says, I hope this makes sense, but I'm currently reading the Odyssey and many of the kings and heroes are comparing Odysseus to the gods. Strength wise, wisdom wise, et cetera. Isn't that a bad thing? Aren't the gods not huge fans of those kinds of comparison? Usually the gods challenge these people on the spot for this kind of behavior, leading to an unfortunate, unfortunate punishment. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And also like this question lined up so well with the one I just answered because a lot like this, what's happening in here, because you're so right, but what's happening in here is that we need to again, remember why these stories were told. And because of that, like

• 18:47Liv Albert?

  the background on the Greek myths generally are the explanation for all of these kinds of moments where you're like, wait, I thought X. Like this happened in this story. Why doesn't it happen here? The answer is at its very simplest because these stories weren't meant to be cohesive. They weren't meant to be part of some kind of canon. There was no, there was no expectation of like how these things would actually go that like, if you compared yourself to a god, you would a hundred percent get punished. Obviously there are loads of stories of that happening, but it's not like this hard and fast rule because storytelling was not, you know, made jointly in that way. And there was no kind of organization to the religion, the culture, the storytelling, any of it.

• 19:31Liv Albert?

  It was all very disparate, spread across this huge swath of land and all of these different cultures that just happened to share like language and overall certain gods. That, by that I mean like Greece, but that's what it was back then, right? It was really, really disconnected. Totally dependent on where you were and what was going on. But with the Homeric epics, they span that they. Consume all of it because they were this like world defining thing that then got written down. But because of that, and because they're the earliest myths, they are the earliest surviving sources for anything in Greek literature, right? Like, that's it, number one. And because of that, they, they more than anything do not line up with some of the later ideas where you think like, because of this, this should happen.

• 20:13Liv Albert?

  They kind of exist in their own little realm because of how old they are, because of the stories themselves and all of that. All of that said, there is also like this way of kind of differentiating what's happening in the Odyssey versus elsewhere. Like, I don't think, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty deep in the Odyssey myself, and this also could be translational, right? But I don't think that there are instances where somebody says that he is better than the gods. That's the key. They do say he's godlike. They do say he's got these like connections to the gods, but I don't think anyone would ever say he's better than. Like, even there's this moment where, I mean, there's a moment where Calypso is like trying to get him to stay, and she's like, "If you really think you want to return to your wife over me, like, okay.

• 20:58Liv Albert?

  She won't be as pretty as me, though. I'm a goddess." And he's like, "No, she is not as pretty as you. You are a goddess, but I still love her and I want to go home." And so we have those moments, right? Where there is like, there's a kind of push, like a goddess is kind of asking him to compare Penelope to her, and he's like, "No, no, no, you're a goddess." And then there's other points where even, um, oh yeah, there's, this is, there was something that was sticking in my brain. There's a moment where Telemachus and, um, I'm gonna forget, um, his son's name, but anyway, he, Telemachus is traveling with Nestor's son, right? He, after they go to Pylos, Nestor's son travels with him, is it Pisistratus? Maybe. Anyway, travels with him to Sparta, where they're gonna talk to Menelaus and Helen, right?

• 21:43Liv Albert?

  And like, Telemachus is in awe of this palace of Sparta. Menelaus has been stuck in Egypt for a while, and he comes back with like fuck tons of gold. So much gold, it's like the richest place ever. And Telemachus is like, surely even Olympus is not as rich as this. And Menelaus is like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your role. Nothing is as magnificent and rich as Olympus." And so you have these moments. So there are definitely times when Odysseus is described as like, almost on par with the gods, but not better than. And so you can kind of understand it through that framework. But more than anything, it's this matter of very specifically the Iliad and the Odyssey predating everything else.

• 22:28Liv Albert?

  And so they predate some of those rules, be they purely in storytelling or even culturally. Like those texts are so old that it very well could be that the people culturally didn't see the same danger as they will later with that type of thing. It's just a matter of like, how many hundreds of years are going into these varied stories? How many generations of people and like, what is happening in that meantime, right? Like, all of this stuff contributes to why there's a lot of confusing anachronisms and like weird disconnects between other stories because they were never meant to connect.

• 23:23Speaker 02

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• 25:12Liv Albert?

  Okay, apparently we are on a great run of goddess questions, or just generally like divine, specific questions. So Andy asks, or they said, "I'm super interested in why you think the Greeks worshipped a fair few goddesses who were virginal and stayed that way by choice. What purpose did this serve in these predominantly sexist patriarchal myths, where women had little to no agency, usually?" Another great question. Okay, so a lot of things are at play here. The biggest one is, again, this lack of connectivity across the time periods and locations of Greece, and the stories themselves, and all of that, right? But of course, this is where we're talking about

• 25:55Liv Albert?

  specific worship more than stories, which is great, because we can kind of leave that little bit behind. Now, there's a couple of things happening here. Firstly, this definition of quote-unquote "virginal." So, when it comes to these goddesses really specifically, the point behind calling them virginal is to have them, I mean, like, on the surface, basically, it's that they're not married, right? It's not really about whether they've had sex, but like, obviously, there's also a lot of weirdness going on there. I won't really get into it, but like, the point in this case is that they are unmarried. And by being unmarried, and therefore childless,

• 26:39Liv Albert?

  they have kind of, they're sort of allowed to stay in this more juvenile state, like...

• 26:49Liv Albert?

  Being unmarried is the like earlier form of life. It's like that the earlier place in your life in this realm, because when you are young, you are unmarried. And then when you reach the age, you like become an adult, whatever, and you get married. Like, those are the things that happen. And so Artemis and Athena and less so Hestia. Hestia is sometimes called virginal, but in her case, really specifically, it's just a matter of her not being married and her being this like, kind of, single, living her best life woman. But with Athena and Artemis, we do have more of those like overt connotations of like virginity and also just like them being this like, they are these like more youthful goddesses, and that is being connected with that virginity. Like, it really is implying

• 27:31Liv Albert?

  a kind of youth. Now, in the case of Artemis, it's really important because Artemis is the goddess of young women. And by nature of that, like, young women are unmarried. And so she is the goddess of young women. She is unmarried. You know, Apollo is the god of men, or young men, excuse me. He's not just the god of dudes, though he might as well be. No, Apollo is the god of young men, the protector of young men, in the same way that Artemis is a protector of young women. And so because of that, he is also unmarried. But we don't talk about Apollo being unmarried, and therefore like, quote unquote, virginal, not least because he has lots of stories of fucking, but like, there's

• 28:12Liv Albert?

  no, there's no concept of Apollo being unique because he's unmarried. But that's not because he was married. It's just because they didn't focus on that, those aspects of men. For men, their lives were not defined by whether or not they were married. Wild and wacky, I know. But because women's lives were defined by whether or not they were unmarried, Artemis, as this protectress of young women, is unmarried, and therefore, quote unquote, virginal. Because again, that association is unmarried and childless, so virgin. And Artemis is explicitly unmarried and childless because she has all these associations. She represents those things. She represents a kind of freedom of youth that was lost when one was married and had children and was expected to like, stay in the house all day and care for them

• 28:57Liv Albert?

  and do all of that. And so Artemis being virginal to me is really more about that youthfulness, those associations with young unmarried women and everything in between. And with Athena, I mean, I think there's a lot more happening here. I think with her, the unmarried is a way to retain the strength that she was given. Like Athena is the man's goddess, as I've said before, and I'll say it again, but Athena is an agent of the patriarchy. She is, she is like a really unique female figure and their quote unquote virginity of Athena, I think, is tied to

• 29:42Liv Albert?

  all of those things about her. Like if here, here's where it will get a little darkly feminist, but like Athena could not be a warrior goddess. Athena could not be the hero's helper goddess if she was married, because if she was married, she would have to take on certain aspects of that lifestyle, those roles for women that would then make her kind of antithetical to the warrior that she is, to the hero's helper that she is, because with all those things that I was mentioning earlier about like the roles of women and stuff,

• 30:21Liv Albert?

  like if Athena was falling under those strictures, she would not be able to do the other things because she would be a wife. She wouldn't be a woman, she would be a wife. And so with Athena, it's also connecting to some of that youthfulness in that way with Artemis, but primarily in order for her to function as the goddess that she is, she must remain unmarried. And because she is Zeus's daughter and a goddess generally, like this isn't an issue, so it just became part of her. And the word virgin, like there's so many levels of that. In ancient Greek, it's Parthenos and it really just implied, like it did imply purity, but like not in the way that the like

• 31:07Liv Albert?

  Judeo-Christian values of the West would define it. It, it really was just like a kind of, particularly when it comes to the goddesses, because there really is a lot, I'm sure, that could be said about mortals. I don't know enough and that's for the best, but like.

• 31:24Liv Albert?

  It was really just about, you know, that kind of independence and that role. And yeah, I feel like my brain kind of did a little blip and I may or may not have fully finished that thought, but here we are. I really like that question because I think there's, there's just so much going on there. And it's so, it is so like affected by modern Western everything, right? Like it's really, really hard to fully comprehend what kind of cultural mindset was going on back then because we are, we are so defined by the West and by the like Christian

• 32:05Liv Albert?

  bullshit of the West that it's like, I mean, and I say that after having called it Christian bullshit and being as deep as I am. And I still find it really hard to separate myself from those Western ideals that make it difficult to understand kind of what's going on. But all to say, I hope that made sense. All right. And we actually have two more voice recordings, but they're by the same person, but they were submitted separately and I want to answer them both. So I'm going to play them both. Um, we have two more since I last recorded. Thank you. If any of you would like to send in voice recording, questions, comments, whatever, please do mythsbaby.com/questions. And then there should be a link to the voice recording thing. Um, please don't send me

• 32:50Liv Albert?

  ones where you're just mad at me for not viewing a piece of reception in the exact same way that you want, um, it to be viewed because that's why I try not to talk about reception too much. Just saying, um, and that was an outburst, but actually it leads, it leads into the first voicemail question really well. So let's go there.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  Hello. I was wondering, as you are developing the Namasane project and getting away from late-stage capitalism, um, who else influences what you say? Like, are there financial supporters who feel like they have a right to tell you what to say or not say? Do you get, I know you get mean comments online. I'm sorry. I would kick them all in the shins for you if I could. Um. Who else tries to control or has a voice in what you say on the show? Or what projects you do? Thanks.

• 33:49Liv Albert?

  See, do you see why it led really well? Um, into that question. Okay, so, so I love, I love this question. It's really interesting and um, like, okay, it's, I'm glad, I'm interested that, that people have wondered something like this before. So, yeah, like with the, with the Memory Collective, with Nemocine, I'm trying, oh, actually, first I should say that um, this person who's asked the question was another of the wonderful listeners on the group trip this year. Amanda Utter, we had, we had great chats and we also, well, we had a story together on a bus. Jeez Louie, what a time, what a time. Anyway, Amanda's lovely, it's lovely to, to have those connections to people I've like actually met in person.

• 34:31Liv Albert?

  It's so fun. Um, and also I think it makes it more interesting that that kind of thing is thought about because like I think about this a lot. Like, I think a lot about how I say a lot, I say a lot of wild shit. Um, like wild anti-capitalist shit and wa- just, you know, I do, um, I don't have a filter. I am like 95% sure that I'm autistic because I don't feel like I can have a filter. And I don't, um, anyway, I think about this all the time. Nobody tells me what to say. And I think it shows. No, I, like, I, I constantly wonder if and when

• 35:15Liv Albert?

  I, I will have any kind of like real pushback. Um, obviously I have to have ads in the show. That's the only way we make money right now outside of trying to grow the Patreon, which is amazing and I love you all doesn't pay the bills. So, working on that. And so like I have to exist within this capitalist realm and and yet I do just say all the stuff that comes to my head sometimes in a way where then I put it out into the world and I think, oh God, my life is going to be over. I'm going to, like, the amount of catastrophizing that I do over.

• 35:54Liv Albert?

  Potential nonexistent, but it could be real pushback or feedback as well. Anyway, but no, I, there is no, there is no, there, there is no one that, that has any control over what I say. I do try to keep myself, you know, in check to a degree because your girl has thoughts and feelings and no filter. Um, but yeah, no, it's thankfully, no, I mean, obviously when I'm writing books, there, there is, there is more going on, but that's because there's like a whole other company involved. Um, but no, thankfully I've always been able to maintain, and that's always been really, really important to me.

• 36:36Liv Albert?

  But I've always been able to maintain, um, my independence and you know, even when I am or was part of like what could be called a podcast network, I was never really part of anything, you know, like everything from recording to scripting to producing to everything else has always fallen on me. And of course, Michaela, um, and I mean, sometimes, I mean, not really, I can't actually think of an example, but like, I would try to like, I worry, you know, if Michaela had a problem with some shit I was saying, I would stop like, you know, and I mean, also I've never gotten other than shitty feedback from people on the internet, but like for the most part, it is what it is. Like most of it doesn't bother me anymore.

• 37:18Liv Albert?

  I do get very frustrated and I think this is where the almost certain autism is coming in. I do get very frustrated when people seemingly intentionally misunderstand what I'm trying to say and get mad at me for something I didn't say. And that happens a lot and it drives me fucking nuts, but otherwise we're pretty good. Um, but no, yeah, working on books and things, um, is obviously like a totally different scenario. But at the same time, I do try to make really clear from jump that like, I am a person who has opinions and not, you're kind of if signing on to, to work with that, you know, in wanting me to write a book, giving me a deal to write a book, whatever it is like. I am me and I have absolutely no ability to be anything other than a vaguely masked

• 38:02Liv Albert?

  version of me, which is really just a more social person who physically can communicate. Um, but yeah, like it's, it's an interesting thing. I think about this all the time. The anxiety sometimes does have like a, a firm grip on my heart that one of these days I'm gonna have everything pulled out from under me because of some angry feminist or angry anti-capitalist should have said, but today is not that day. And thankfully, Amanda, okay. So like I said, Amanda, who added another question and this one is also interesting. So wait here while I play it.

• 38:37Speaker 05

  This is Amanda. Hi Liv. And I am curious about how you are adapting The Odyssey for Children. That seems like a really difficult task and I'm super excited to read it. So I would love to hear especially the spicy bits, how you are adapting that. Thanks.

• 38:58Liv Albert?

  So you can see why I wanted to play this question too. Not least because this is like basically consuming my life right now. Um, cause the thing about, I mean, I generally will talk about adapting The Odyssey for Children, but just from like a book perspective, generally, one of the most challenging things about being a podcaster who is also writing books, which is like my life goal. So it's great and amazing, but because of how podcasting works and particularly how, because of how I have to keep in line with late-stage capitalism in order to buy groceries, um, I am always writing a book on top of doing the podcast. There's never really like a, uh, just like one or the other kind of scenario, which

• 39:41Liv Albert?

  is why I'm also trying to find creative ways of, um, bringing, bringing you guys new content, new repurposed content, whatever, so that I can write this book because we are on quite a deadline. Um, but to the actual adapting going on, I mean, it's interesting. Like it's been a really interesting process. I, I do think like other than, there are obviously moments in The Odyssey that, you know, can't easily be adapted for children. But one of the things that I'm noticing is like, Other than having to like really shorten things, I haven't had to do much changing or sanitizing. And again, though, this was really important to me right from the moment I started having conversations

• 40:24Liv Albert?

  about doing this is that I was going to do it my way, you know, within reason, like we're making it child friendly. Like I understand some of those necessities and there are also necessities that come with just like being with publishers. They have their rules. They have their, you know, stuff like that. But I was really, you know, I was really made very clear that I was not going to be like sanitizing the details. We can adjust, we can rephrase, you know, we can, there are certain moments where they just won't be included or maybe alluded to whatever. But for the most part, like I'm doing this how it is. And the thing that I am most, I want to say most proud of, but it also feels to me like, why am I the one doing this when it seems like it, I have yet

• 41:06Liv Albert?

  to find a reference of it being done before. But like, I am sticking to the original structure of the Odyssey. Just the narrative structure, like because it, you know, begins, it's in medias res. Everything in Homer begins in medias res in the middle of things, right? Like in it. Um, it's why the Iliad starts off with Achilles throwing a tantrum and it's why the Odyssey starts off with like, Odysseus has been gone for nine years. His son is trying to find him. He's stuck on this island. And then you slowly, the story of how he got there and everything else trickles out. And every kid's book I have found on this, which I have a handful because conveniently enough, I'm the type of nerd who has been collecting every single possibly interesting, even maybe

• 41:50Liv Albert?

  not interesting version of the Odyssey I've ever come across in a used bookstore. It's coming in handy. Um, and no kids versions tell the story with that same narrative structure. Like they all go chronologically. So they're like, Odysseus left Troy and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened. But I think what the most interesting part of the Odyssey is, is that structure, but also the way that that structure leaves you with more questions than it answers. Like, Odysseus begins his story about like how he got like ba- basically the story that's going to jump off with all of the monsters and witches and all of that like he begins that story by saying I'm really good at lying now here's the story of when I blinded a cyclops

• 42:31Liv Albert?

  and I escaped from the clutches of the most dangerous sea creatures on the planet or when I turned a witch goddess down when she wanted me to stay there and be her sex friend forever like he's like I'm really good at lying here are a bunch of outlandish things that happened to me and I think it's so interesting to be like so are you lying now like when are you lying and when are you not and anyway that's one thing I'm sticking to in a way that I think is gonna be really interesting and like so far has been really fun and rewarding like so far the only thing I've had to like fully remove which is like honestly fine even though it's disappointing is that in the Odyssey is where we get the story of Aphrodite and

• 43:14Liv Albert?

  Ares getting caught having an affair by Hephaestus and he catches them in the net and it's a whole wild ride that had to be cut but honestly it was like more than anything it was cut for for space like honestly the hardest part about this for me is not writing it for kids it's it's shortening the Odyssey into the length that we need for this particular kids book that the publisher wants so it that's been interesting it's more about like making it shorter while I don't want to lose the really important parts and you know there are gonna be moments that'll come up where it's like a little bit iffy but we're not reading it's not for like young young kids and you know we're really able to play around

• 43:55Liv Albert?

  with a lot of things and you know I also think that this is a good example for whatever I can get away with in terms of like kids are capable of hearing complex Topics like I am going to address the enslavement of a large number of characters and how that impacts their character and what they do or don't do, particularly in Ithaca. Like, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about what I see as the the issues surrounding Odysseus' interaction with Polyphemus the Cyclops. Because that bit actually opens, like, when they land on the Cyclops Island, it's really interesting.

• 44:33Liv Albert?

  Like, Odysseus goes on this whole tirade about how the Cyclops are like this lawless people with no customs, who don't farm. And they don't like, you know, they they just kind of do whatever they want. Like, he's essentially, he is essentially suggesting that they don't deserve the same rights to life and property as the Greeks who have customs and laws and they have organized quote unquote civilizations. And like, because the Cyclops don't have that, Odysseus is fine to just like go in and steal all their food and like blind the guy for no reason. Like, it's really interesting.

• 45:15Liv Albert?

  And then he is still like the victim, even though he literally goes into somebody's house, kills his sheep that were presumably not there for food because he made a lot of cheese. Kills his sheep, eats the cheese, like, falls asleep in this house that they have like completely just like invaded with absolutely no care for Xenia, for the laws of like guests and hosts and all of that. And then he makes himself the victim for when the guy comes back and like is mad and defends his space. It's so interesting to me, the way that it's phrased, even in the Odyssey, because like, it's just screaming, it's screaming Western supremacy to me.

• 45:53Liv Albert?

  It's it's it's screaming the way that the West feels, the way we have the right to inflict our customs onto other people who don't necessarily want them, just because we have decided like what is quote unquote civilized. And anyway, that this is me rambling about that moment because there's only so much I can put into a kid's book, but I have to talk about it too, because it's it's really fascinating. And maybe I'll do an episode on polyphemus. And anyway, that was a very rambly way of answering that, like, you know, it's an ongoing thing. The so far, I've really just been doing just major simplification of what's going on, but still trying to convey these important cultural touchstones.

• 46:32Liv Albert?

  We're talking about Xenia, we're talking about the ancient enslavement and and how that impacts those people. We're talking about the, the, you know, violent acts that Odysseus commits that we're supposed to just be okay with despite them being really murderous in a lot of cases and and stuff like that. Um, and so, yeah, it's just sort of, I don't know, I'm trying to do my best with that. And it's going to be really interesting. It's been really fun so far and I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

• 47:08Liv Albert?

  Okay, that's all I've got in me today. Honestly, I've still got, I think, a couple of questions. Um, if you guys have more in this time, maybe I'll answer one or two before the next episode. I don't totally know what I'm planning. It might be a reading, it might be a conversation if we manage to get one edited in time for Friday. But if you have more questions or this kind of, you know, idea that you want me to talk about, I really, really love, I really love these episodes, not only because they make it easier for me to keep working all day, every day on the Odyssey, but also because they really do allow me to explore these ideas that I can't do in a traditional episode because they are not narrative.

• 47:53Liv Albert?

  And because there, there's so much kind of going on to like pick apart or because I'm just theorizing. Like, there's just so much going on and having this kind of insight and just like what you guys are interested in, what what you're thinking about, like, it really helps me. Form some really interesting stuff and I hope and I think provide you guys with some really interesting like deep diving into this type of thing. Um, I would also love to hear what, um, if you had guys have plays that you would like me to cover. I have a bunch in mind. So we've certainly got lots to go on when I have the time to script some episodes, but I would love to hear more of what you'd like, or is there an episode that I did earlier in the show or a

• 48:38Liv Albert?

  story I covered at some point that you would like that me to redo? You know, even in the case of some of those ones that are really brief, I tend to these days be able to find a ton more and be able to go a lot deeper into kind of what's going on with these stories. So if you have suggestions for that, I would love to hear them too. I really just want any and everything. Um, one of the things that that stood out to me most, I think, over the last like year is just the way that this type of media, while I love it and it works best for me because of my social skills and my various needs to just be a hermit who rarely if ever interacts with people.

• 49:17Liv Albert?

  But like, you know, it's great for that, but it also creates this kind of disconnect between what I'm doing and its impact. And particularly right now, and particularly with the world as it is, like, I would really love to hear more about my impact, to hear more about what you like about this show, about how the show has helped you, or, you know, given you a new idea or a new project, or I don't know, like anything, I would honestly love to hear any and all of that. Um, you know, things are wild. I've been going at this for eight years and I, I love it so much,

• 49:58Liv Albert?

  but you know, sometimes you just need to be reminded of the people that are listening and these Q and A's helps me with that. But I also would love to hear any and everything you guys have to say. So whether it's in the Spotify comments, which I read religiously because I love them so much, or via email or on the website, I would love to hear from you at any time. Thank you.

• 50:20Speaker 05

  Hi, this is me again.

• 50:23Liv Albert?

  Without the functioning brain, just here to say that I just realized after the fact that I didn't actually address one of the stories that I used in the title or one of the questions, and I really wanted to. So I'll, I'll, I'll be answering more questions soon. One of them's about Achilles crying to his mom. Let's talk about myths, baby. Is written and produced by me, Liv. Albert Michaela Panga Wish is the Hermes to my Olympians. She is doing great work. We're gonna hopefully do a Q and A sometime soon, maybe just for the Patreon, unless we get a lot of questions, maybe one of each, who's to say? And speaking of the Patreon, if you want to listen to ad-free episodes and get access to Hermes Historia episodes and a ton of past other

• 51:08Liv Albert?

  bonus episodes and past Q and As and all of this good stuff and some little bonus thank you items, depending on the tier, consider subscribing to the Patreon. It's going to help, help the show keep existing and just help give us some kind of surety that it's gonna keep existing. So if you can and you want to, patreon.com/MythsBaby, but the link is in this episode's description. We also have ad-free available via Apple subscriptions. That's just the basic ad-free because it's what I can do. So that's available too. Or just keep listening with ads. That's great. I love that too. Thank you so damn much. You will hear more from us very soon.

• 51:55Liv Albert?

  It's that ADHD thing where you just wake up every morning and you think about all the things you have to do and then you work for like nine hours straight and you really focus and you really, really, you even get the medication working and you really focus and then you finish that day and you've worked so many hours and there are just as many, if not more, things to do the next day. Anyway, one day you'll get a newsletter from me.

• 52:17Liv Albert?

  I am Liv and I love this shit. I just wish I had more brain power, but that's a me problem.

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