Conversations: Giving a Voice to a Lost Daughter of Sparta with Felicia Day

Liv and Michaela sit down to speak with Felicia Day all about her new graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta! We had lots of fun talking fragments, women now and then, society, and what it looks like giving a voice to a figure that there isn't much known about. Find Felicia's newest books anywhere one could purchase books and the audio book anywhere you find audio books! Pre-order Liv's Odyssey adaptation (!!!), The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook 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. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! 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

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

• 1:06Speaker 01

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• 1:12Speaker 02

  That's go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 1:47Liv Albert?

  Hey y'all, and welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. It's Michaela Panglish, the Hermes to all your Olympians, here to introduce this week's conversation episode. And I'll be so honest, I was losing my mind at this one a little bit, because this week we talked with Felicia Day about her newest graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  I was so nervous and you can, I think you can definitely hear it in the episode. So I apologize for my random ramblingness then and now as always. But it was such a lovely conversation and Felicia Day is delightful and it was so great to have her on the show. And it was also just so interesting to talk about a character that honestly I had never heard about and I live hadn't really heard about and to hear about Felicia's process with it and what she wanted to get out of this and what her motivations were. So I hope you all enjoy the episode and I'll see you all later. Bye.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Conversations, giving a voice to a lost daughter of Sparta with Felicia Day.

• 3:25Liv Albert?

  To take things, I mean, why don't you first introduce yourself because also I'll admit I wasn't familiar with your work, but Michaela was and was very excited to see your name.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  I love it. I love it when people are like, don't know.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  It's okay. There's, it's a world of vast interests, vast people, and I am lucky if one person knows my stuff, so I'm happy to introduce myself.

• 3:49Liv Albert?

  It was a good push for, for Michaela. She was very excited and I was like, well, great. Now I know that we want to talk to this person. So, yeah. Yeah. So tell us about how you got into this side of myth.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  My name is Felicia Day and I'm an actor, a writer, a producer. I'm really well known as kind of one of the first, I don't know, celebrities on the internet. Somebody called me a nerd liberty once and I hated it, but I guess it's accurate even though I hate it. I was the queen of the internet for like five minutes and then I was like, please don't call me that either. So I, I'm most well known for making web stuff. I was one of the first people to write a web series for a new platform called YouTube. Yes, that old.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  And it was called The Guild and it got very, uh, very prominent. Uh, we did it for six years. I then parlayed that into a, uh, company called Geek It Sundry that was kind of a pioneer in tabletop and D and D streaming and things like that. I was, you know, we did that. And then I, uh, I'm an actress on top of that. So people recognize me from Supernatural, from Buffy, from Eureka, all sort of geeky sci-fi or fantasy shows. So I'm very much my own person in that I love nerd and geek stuff and that happens to be really popular right now, but I was there, I was a hipster nerd.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  So I was there before.

• 5:07Liv Albert?

  I say that myself in Greek myth. Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 5:11Liv Albert?

  I was, I was early to that game.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  You were early to that game. Exactly. Yeah, that's great. So I love that. You, well, I mean, that would be 3,000 years ago if you were super.

• 5:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it wasn't that early, you know, just before the current surge.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  You look like you could be a vampire.

• 5:26Liv Albert?

  Well, well, perfect.

• 5:29Speaker 04

  In a good way.

• 5:30Liv Albert?

  I'm, I'll, I'll take it. Absolutely. You know, I'm, you know, I'm older than a lot of my listeners. So I get to say, I actually just recently got a message from a listener who said, I think, I really think that, that she said she'd been listening since she was seven and it kind of broke my brain a little bit. Cause I was like.

• 5:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. I've been getting that a lot. And you know, it's okay. I grew up with your work is also one of the most flattering and also gutting phrases I've ever heard.

• 5:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah. It's so nice. And it's also like, wow, when did I get old? How is that physically possible?

• 6:02Speaker 04

  It just happens. Believe me. You can't do anything about it. It just happens. So, well, anyway, I decided.

• 6:10Liv Albert?

  Dive into myth.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Yes, I did. Okay. So I wrote, uh, my graphic novel called The Lost Daughter of Sparta. It just recently came out. It's a graphic novel about and set in ancient Greece. And, uh, the main character is the youngest sister of Helen of Troy. And my attraction to mythology started way, way, way back when I was a little kid. I had the Delairs Greek myths and I remember being scarred by many of the pictures in that book because I read them too early, like Cronos Of his babies and

• 6:41Liv Albert?

  Oh, my favorite.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's great. And Persephone being like taken away from her mother, you know, that's, that's one of like my favorite pictures in that it, it shakes me with horror every time I see it, which is always good. Um, so I, I've always loved mythology. I've always loved folklore in general. And I tried to top my way into many a folklore class in the University of Texas at Austin, where I went to school and that was a major only thing. And the guy would not have it. So I just would love to send him a copy of this saying, hey, should have let me in, buddy.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  But I got attracted to this subject matter because I started out of insomnia, diving into ancient Greek literature and myths because I was just out of my mind from sleep deprivation because of my daughter. And that's really how everything started.

• 7:29Liv Albert?

  So I, okay, I mean, I want, I mostly, Michaela's gonna have the questions before I then let her take it away, though, I realize.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:35Liv Albert?

  Cause I'm so curious about you, you picked like a very unknown character, you know, one of these many characters, we know them so well on the show where, you know, there's a couple fragmentary references, but they're not a character that, you know, exists throughout, you know, not a Helen, not a Clytemnestra sister.

• 7:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:55Liv Albert?

  So like we, I, I saw there's a reference to Hesiod's, Hesiod's Catalog of Women, which is my pet obsession. So yeah, I'm just curious, like where, how did you stumble upon that? I mean, I'm just obsessed with it because it is utterly fragmentary and, and also like purports to be a catalog of women. But of course in Greek myth, women are just their relation to men.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:22Liv Albert?

  And so, you know,

• 8:22Speaker 04

  In Greek society too, really.

• 8:24Liv Albert?

  Yes, exactly. Um, and so, yeah, but you know, most of the, most of the fragments are just, she's the mother of this person and the daughter of this person.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 8:33Liv Albert?

  And so, yeah, but I'm fascinated by the idea of a catalog of women, I guess.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, one of the, one of the aspects in the book itself is about women just standing for their symbols and being that perfect symbol or function to other people. Is something that I, I kinda did get outraged out. About um the the reason why I picked this one fragment I got there was I think through Kindle reading. So I I read the Greek myth and Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy and Roman myth as well. Um, because I just couldn't sleep. My daughter wouldn't sleep for two years of her life. My brain was broken at that point, still couldn't sleep. I would just be so reactive to everything I read. I had to get the most soothing sort of non-complicate, not non-complicated, but non-adrenaline pushing book. So I couldn't have any cliffhangers at all. And for some reason,

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Greek writing, Greek myth, it's just really intrigued me enough. But also it was kind of a research project, too. So whenever I'd read, you know, the Odyssey, uh, translation by Emily Watson or whatever, um, I would be like, every single name, I would go and I would Wikipedia, and then I would go down the Wikipedia and be like, oh, I haven't heard of that person. I would go down. So it turned like this nerdy ancestry.com dive. And I just came across, and I was actually looking a lot about Helen, because, you know, just reading about her, she's taught, she's spoken about so much, but she's never a person, ever. She's not a person. And even right now, I couldn't tell you what kind of person this was, who she was. And you could, you could tell that more about

• 10:04Speaker 04

  some characters, you know, Medea, you like, there's some who have personality, even in the ancient texts. And what I'm, I'm no, by no means an expert either. I am just a tourist in this. So you guys know much better than me. But she's just not a person at all. There was some fan fiction, I guess, written about her that she went to Egypt, you know, and some versions of it in the Roman. It's a whole play. It's a whole play. It's an incredible play by Euripides.

• 10:28Liv Albert?

  It is wild. Helen actually leads the whole thing. She saves the day. Menelaus is a washed up loser wearing a fishnet. I need to read the original of this. I have not read it. And now I need to because it's delightful. A person to me. But we have a few podcast episodes on it if you if you

• 10:46Speaker 04

  I am going to dive in 100%. So like, I was kind of like, oh, some, you know, I had read all the Circe and Natalie Haines I'm obsessed with, and all these authors who are doing feminist retellings of characters. And I was like, why has it done, somebody done anything on Helen? I wasn't like, I'm gonna do this. But I was just kind of curious about diving in. And that's how I found my way to the Curse of Tindaris, which led me to the fragment in Catalogue of Women. And so that's when I read this line. I I I don't know if it it does kind of spoil it to read the line, but the line has to do with Philenoae, the youngest sister, and Artemis, and Artemis is my favorite goddess. And it was so evocative. I was like, wait, what?

• 11:30Speaker 04

  And when I searched more, there was nothing else on this character, like literally nothing. It's just that fragment. I think it's, uh, she was mentioned also in Pausanias. I'm sorry if I'm going to miss.

• 11:38Liv Albert?

  Pausanias.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Pausanias. That's it. Great. I don't know how to pronounce anything.

• 11:43Liv Albert?

  All good. That's why we're here.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Exactly. Thank you. Um, so he, but I think he was just repeating that fragment, but I'm not sure.

• 11:49Liv Albert?

  Usually that's what it, well, Pausanias is like eight hundred or so years after.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  After. Yeah. So he was just quoting.

• 11:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  He was quoting in the catalog.

• 11:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, well, and that's the fun of Greek myth, right? Is when you find like all of those little connections where it's like, because I think I found, I I was looking into one of the sort of densest sources I have, which is, um, the Timothy Gantz books. He he's someone who went through and, um, basically cataloged like each character's appearance throughout the surviving sources.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. I gotta read it.

• 12:21Liv Albert?

  And so when we, yeah, yeah, it's it's a very, I mean, it's very dense. It's very much like a research or like a reference book. And Michaela and I were chatting, actually, because you named dropped her as well. We were chatting after, um, speaking with Emily Wilson, uh, the translator of The Odyssey. We have an episode with her coming out on Friday. Yeah. And, uh,

• 12:40Speaker 04

  I'm so tired, you guys. I'm sorry.

• 12:42Liv Albert?

  No, no, not at all. Not at all.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  I've been on book tour for a week.

• 12:45Liv Albert?

  I didn't even point it out. Don't worry.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  I mean, Emily Watson is an excellent actress as well.

• 12:50Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  I just tell you, she's great.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  That's why.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Names are very confusing. I'm like, I study history, but my brain can't hold names or dates. And I'm like, that's what notes are for.

• 13:05Speaker 04

  We're all fine, guys. Screw it up, but just own it.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 13:10Liv Albert?

  No, we were, we were looking up Philo Noe's name because of your, the email came in about your book. As we were looking into it, because I was curious as well. I hadn't heard of her. And it seemed like, yeah, so much was coming just from that little fragment. And then you can kind of see people picking it up afterwards, but nothing more than this little fragment. And like, that's so true. So many characters and I'm always obsessed with them. So I'm thrilled to hear when other people pick up on one of those and then, you know, turn it into a whole, a whole work of its own. That's, that's, I think, that's my favorite type of Greek myth reception, like fiction based on it now is the, those little characters where you can kind of invent a lot, you know, of, on your own.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, I mean, it just was, it was fun and it was kind of permission to play in a world that I

• 13:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  was kind of obsessed with for a while. And also, uh, I had some really important things I wanted to say. And also when I read all the myths to my daughter, I just wanted to kind of give her a story where she could see herself in it versus like, it's all Theseus and Perseus and Heracles and all these things, you know?

• 14:16Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. We know all of that way too well.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I also read this really great book, uh, Goddesses, Whores and Wives by

• 14:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, Sarah B. Palmeroy.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Sarah B. Yeah. And that was also very informative because I saw her like referenced in some, something. Um, and I read that book and it's very, it's a little dry, but it's like super fascinating. And I just, I couldn't help but want to be outraged on behalf of Greek women, but also women now.

• 14:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 04

  Because we're not, it's not that much different. Like, you know, if you see

• 14:48Liv Albert?

  Truly. That's the entirety of this podcast. The 98% of it is how the oppression of women in myth basically just mirrors today.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  Mirrors today. Exactly. I mean, I, I totally, yes, I'm a very, I mean, there's a lot of anger in this book, but also, um, you know, I wanted to be entertaining. So I couch the story.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Well, I think that's, there's, there's something, the theme I really picked up on and loved so much was just autonomy over and over and over again of, you know, what does it look like for a person to make their own choices and decisions? And It was really, it was, it was beautiful to, I like, I also don't want to spoil things, but you know,

• 15:30Speaker 04

  I know, it's really hard.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  It's really hard, yeah. The, you know, the reveal of the curse where it's like, you know, it's also goes to the question of like, how, how are these things defined? How is curses slash booms defined? Because if it's under the patriarchy, oh, well, then this was actually a curse. But if it's under sort of thinking of, um, and women being autonomous, people being autonomous generally, it's like, well, this is just, this is a boon and this is a blessing. This is giving the power back to the person. And I think that was very fun. Go for it.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  No, I really, I mean, there, she also has a port wine stain on her face, you know? And I kind of felt like all of us sort of have port wine stains on our face in that the way that we look, our gender is a big part of that. But everything about our appearance is automatically judged. And, uh, in the people, in the eyes of the people in power, which could be your family, could be society, could be just rich people in general, which we are all sort of oppressed under, uh, in different ways sometimes, um, we are sort of cursed. You know, they look at us and our outsides and they think, well, what can we do with that person? How is that person useful for me? And part of this was a reaction against Hollywood, you know? I've always been sort of peripherally on the outside of Hollywood. The people who've embraced me in Hollywood have definitely been just the creator side, not the business.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  You know, I just don't have the ideas or the looks that generally gel with what they buy and invest in. And, you know, after a lot of time, I, I was able to make peace with that and just do my own thing. And I think that journey of liberation of self and creator voice from an institution that I've tried to please for so long, um, has, is part of the journey as well.

• 17:13Liv Albert?

  That's really, I mean, I, yeah, I, that's so interesting. I, I often don't know what else to say about that because I'm just like taking everything in. Um, and also everything is that that's just so interesting. Because I, I mean, I've not, thankfully, I'm so far outside of that. But I, I connect with that in my own way of just having existed on the periphery and then made this podcast into a thing because I couldn't, you know, fit in with wanting or how I wanted to use, you know, my own knowledge or whatever, you know, career. So I understand that and putting it into a work like this graphic novel too, is like sort of its own way of dealing with it. That's.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  No, it's like a beautiful time in this to be alive right now as a creator or a person with a voice, right? Because I don't know, even 20 years ago, where would you, where would you take your expertise? How would you reach people? And I think, you know, I had, I grew, I started with web series when it was just first starting, right? And the transformation in media, the way that people consume content, they make it, they want to be a part of it. It's a different relationship. And, you know, part of me is like, a little gratified in that, you know, people's voices can crumble the institutions from, you know, the very bottom level. You know, it's not one person that will take it all down, but it's like a revolution, you know, as long as everybody's gnawing at, at the, you know, at the foundation, then something will

• 18:34Speaker 04

  fall one day. And I think we see that a lot nowadays, good and bad. But as far as gender goes, especially, I mean, like, listen, we are in a time where there's people who are literally some of the most powerful people in the, in the, in the country. They go to a church that tells women that they should be able to vote, you know, like, this is not some kind of fantasy world. It is literally reality. And if you go to the front page of Twitch, where I stream a couple of times a week, video games, you see men with 70,000 plus people watching, and they are people preaching against women's rights and very prejudiced against women, misogynistic, you know, and creating this attitude of, of war, where it was just a push for people to have some

• 19:17Speaker 04

  equality the last 10 years. And now, it's a total war to get people like, back on the margins. Their voices are, are wanting to be wiped out. And it's really, really makes me angry, because all we wanted to do was be part of the group.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  The conversation.

• 19:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 19:33Liv Albert?

  We got within, like, we didn't even get there before they blew it all up.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I'm sorry. We made guys uncomfortable, and they didn't quite know how to deal with women at parties.

• 19:45Liv Albert?

  They're so lonely. They're so lonely. Because they don't know how to make friends, apparently.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:51Liv Albert?

  I don't know. I've never had a, a man or a relationship in my life, and I'm perfectly happy because I have friends. I have friends. Because I am an adult human who can have gratifying

• 20:05Liv Albert?

  That are not with men. Uh, no, I, it, hearing the way, hearing everything you just said, the way you described it, like, I feel like you, you put into different words, everything I said into the microphone before today's episode, I recorded it yesterday and it was literally just an episode, me breaking down like this question of like, somebody in very, in very kind terms and very well intentioned, but asked this, you know, a similar question that people that women are getting asked so often, it's just like, how can we help with X problem to do with men today? And this episode was essentially me using Greek myth to explain why they have made it so that we cannot be the ones to solve this problem. They have to.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Oh, my God, I would need to listen to it. Last night I was in Santa Fe doing a talk and things kind of steered into this uh, territory with George R. Martin, who is a wonderful person. And at the end, when I was signing books, a guy came up to me with his son and he's like, I'm a steel worker. And I just want you to know that whoever's working by me, doesn't matter their gender, I see them as an equal. And I started crying because I'm like, we need you, we need you, dude.

• 21:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  To speak up because they're gonna listen. Maybe if dudes speak up.

• 21:20Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  It really may be, oh.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's like the, the over, the thing you see over and over and over again. And with like the new documentary that, um, Louis Rowe put out that, so now I'm seeing men everywhere being like, wow, look at that. And I'm like, you?

• 21:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  We have.

• 21:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah, women have been talking about this actually for quite some time.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  And it's, it's the, it's the issue of sort of, um, it, they don't, they don't, still don't take us seriously enough to listen. And hear what we say as like valid, I say they, the collective they, the boil they, yeah, the broad.

• 21:56Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, listen, I mean, not to get too political, but there are certain files that you can read now. And the, the attitude, it explains, well, here's the thing, I have a daughter, a daughter character who goes and is being given over to a man. She's a princess being married to a prince. That should be like, and when I read these fairy tales to my daughter, I just became a rape because I'm like, this is just. Conditioning my daughter that she is. She is a commodity.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  And I got so angry, but it's no different now. These powerful men, whatever their party, whatever their politics, they're emailing each other. The most thing that made me so mad was their professors. I just, I want to be a college student forever, but I can't because I need to, you know, do whatever this is I'm doing for a career. But I, uh, these professors are like, oh yeah, she's cute. Or I've never met a girl who's that smart. And it breaks my heart because nobody going into that room has a fair chance because of their gender, because of this guy. And so if you say that, you know, well, you have a chance. No, you don't have a chance. Because even if you're exceptional, you're not, you're, there's no way that you're going to break their perception of you. And I've had this every single time in my life.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  You know, and I just, I don't want my daughter to have to go through that, but she's going to have to because it might be an inevitability of society.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. And like, this is like my experience within academia as well, where it's like, not only woman, but I'm also like First Nations woman. And so it's like all these hurdles. Well, you know, my, my favorite is a guy who ran a dig I was on, told me that I'm lucky I don't look like an Indian because I wouldn't have to find work in academia. And I was like, thanks.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Great to hear.

• 23:39Liv Albert?

  That face is, is, is accurate.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just laughed.

• 23:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  I literally just laughed. I, one day I will name him, but he's also blown up his career enough by, he doesn't need my help.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:49Liv Albert?

  He said shit like that in front of a group of people.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he said in front of everyone there and it was like, cool.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  I've done the same thing. I, I did a panel with some other authors and there's a guy, a very older man who somehow writes a middle grade series, uh, directed toward, um, middle aged girls, middle, middle.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Scary.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  And so I literally said in passing, wasn't even talking to him, his daughter, who was a delight, but very quiet, was standing there. I was talking to somebody else and I was like, well, yeah, I have a math degree. And he looks at me and he's like, looks me up and down. He's like, prove it.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Prove it.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  I have never been more flabbergasted in my life. And he writes books.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  That's.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  For middle grade girls. But he was also kind of a jerk on the panel too. So I'm just like, I don't know what to say.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  I think he's got this himself. He can ruin his own life. Yeah. Although I will say, my, my partner has like two masters in math as well. And I'm constantly being like, do this math for me. And he's like, no, I don't wanna. And it's simple things like, how much is 15% on this?

• 24:55Liv Albert?

  And he would never be asked to prove that he has a degree. There he goes, even though he doesn't want to do it.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  I do it to him. I do it to him. It's been like five years. And I'm like, explain your thesis. And he's like, uh-uh. Do it. Show me that was worth it.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  So just flip the script. But yeah, I guess we could get back.

• 25:29Liv Albert?

  This episode is brought to you by Quince. You know, the drill. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and premium stretch denim. I have been speaking into a microphone about Quince for a while now, and I have no complaints. I have a bunch of their stuff. I've got a couple cute sweaters that, I mean, it's, it's nearing sweater season. So those will be back in the rotation anytime now. And I have this leather bag that I absolutely love. It's like this braided leather and I use it like

• 26:09Liv Albert?

  basically every day. Because that's the thing. They have really great basics. Like they have really great things that you can wear with so many other things. Just the options are endless. And as the weather gets colder, like all the sweaters in my closet, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. And of course, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And I'm We haven't learned anything in the last 10 years, isn't it? Just getting rid of the middlemen, you know?

• 26:53Liv Albert?

  Making things more affordable. So find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was me. Let's talk about myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

• 27:21Speaker 03

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• 27:29Speaker 05

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• 27:38Speaker 03

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• 28:06Speaker 03

  I really, I loved your presentation of All the Daughters too.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  I specifically loved, and I guess this is more to the, um, uh, the, the artist too. I love that they did not have, um, like blonde or fair hair. I love that they had dark hair. Cause that's, you know, it is, that's a whole other sphere of things.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's more accurate, but.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Well, exactly. It's like, go see Mediterranean's today. They're, not a lot of them are blonde. But yeah, I, I really, what was, so what was it with, um, Helen? Like what, cause she never speaks in your novel.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  No.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  I noticed that. So where did that, like, where did your, I guess your, your conceptualization of Helen start?

• 28:54Speaker 04

  I mean, again, it just kind of came to me as, I mean, one of the, one of my favorite lines in that is when Philinoe is talking to Artemis and she says, oh, uh, I, there's an analogy that she makes with her, she's as trapped as her, her appearance as I am as of mine. And so that means that when you see Philinoe with her port weinstein, and I know other people will, I know, I'm not going to ask you how you pronounce it, Liv, because I know it's going to be different from me, but I'm just like, I gotta go with one. I'm so sorry.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  It's okay.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, um, when she says that, because she has this port weinstein on her face, so everyone thinks she's cursed by the gods, she's, you know, somehow poisoned. And, and Helen is the most flawless face ever, but they're both in the same, you know, basket. They're all judged instantly based on their faces. And I think that's something that I take, you know, to heart as all of us, you know, the minute we, I read somewhere, there's a part of your brain that is devoted exactly to evaluating people within three seconds, based on what you know, based on what society has told you about other people's skin color, their height, their clothing. And that way you evaluate and categorize this person immediately. And it's really uphill battle to change anybody's mind about that. So if you've been taught by society that people

• 30:12Speaker 04

  with darker skin are dangerous, if you've been taught by society that women who don't dress nicely are not attractive, you know, like all these redheads are feisty, like every single cliche in the book, whatever you've been taught is, goes into play immediately when somebody sees you. And so you're already trying to overcome something so much. And in fact, I think a lot of the times we let ourselves be defined by our outsides, because that's what society does in general. So, um, I was trying to, you know, I felt kind of sorry for Helen. And I know a lot of very, very pretty people. Clearly, I'm in Hollywood. And the ones that have been pretty since birth are just so lovely, but hollow in a way, because they haven't had to really work for anything beyond that. And in fact, and in fact, you're

• 30:55Speaker 04

  so pretty is probably the only thing they've ever heard since birth. So their whole worth is their prettiness. And that's probably what happened to Helen. So, deep down, I kind of feel sorry for her, because she is a prisoner in a way to her looks.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. And she's a really interesting character too, within like the ancient texts as well, within the Odyssey and the Iliad. So I'm just getting comfortable in my seat. More hypermobile sitting is fun. Cause within, and Liv can speak on this too, but like, one of the things for me, when I, when I look at Homer is that my theory of Homer is not a real person. Homer is a collective of people. It's a tradition. Um, but is the, the conceptualization of Helen in the Iliad and then in the Odyssey are so vastly different. And I'm like, is this the same woman, you know, and the Odyssey, she is this, you know, she is this regal queen who has magic.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  At, she can use magic to, to not subjugate. Oh, words.

• 31:57Liv Albert?

  Mesmerize, seduce.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Mesmerize, subdue.

• 32:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah, she uses the magic to make everyone stop crying and not feel any of their emotions. The men, she needs the men to stop crying.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  She needs them to calm down. Um, and then in the, and then in the Iliad, she, she speaks up, she speaks up to a god. She looks Aphrodite in the face and she's, she's straight up, it's like, you did this to me. Like I didn't have any choice. And so that's one of, one of the reasons I also love that autonomy was just so much on, um, just everywhere in this book. It was great because like I, that, that rings to me, that one, um, part in the Iliad with Helen talking to Aphrodite where it's like, I literally have no choice in this. You didn't give me a choice. The gods have decided this. So what can I, I can't fight back. You know, and Aphrodite smacks her down is like, you know, can't say this, but, but there's that, that one moment where it's like, oh, look at that.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  The, you know, a woman is standing up to probably one of the most powerful gods in their pantheon. And that's what I think I find really that gets kind of pushed to the side about women in Greek myth is especially in.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Homer, I find they're a lot more powerful than people give them credit for.

• 33:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's probably, that's why it's so interesting. Like, that's why he lasts, right?

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Or that writing lasts.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a, there's a panel, there's a panel in the book where I have Helen and Paris running away together.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  And I found this intriguing thing that was a theory of somebody's that Helen really took their treasury. So in fact, it was her stealing the money.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:35Speaker 04

  So I don't know if that, I just remember reading it on offhand. I was like, hey, in this panel, have her holding a chest of gold because I kind of love that little wink. Like she was smart enough to grab all she could. It was a fire sale. She was out of there.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  And she is so like, I, I think that rings to your, you know, like they get told that they're pretty and that's all they have and or they hear that so much. It's at the forefront. And, you know, they're also, I've known incredibly gorgeous women who, you know, heard the same thing, but then, you know, you get to know them and they are some of the smartest, most like.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  A hundred percent.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Genuine people and it's, they don't get to show that at the forefront. And so like that kind of like I, you know, that rang to me for your Helen as well, where she's always so like blank faced and she's not saying anything. And she's kind of, she's not given the chance to.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  No.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Actually show herself and be herself.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  Well, she was kidnapped at 12. When I read that, I was so traumatized by her being kidnapped and probably assaulted. Which.

• 34:32Liv Albert?

  Theseus is a lovely guy, wasn't he? Like just to be like.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  God, I hate him so much.

• 34:37Liv Albert?

  I've dedicated my career to convincing the world about the horrors of Theseus.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  Why is he ever, I mean, Jason is just a schmuck, but Theseus.

• 34:48Liv Albert?

  Do you know why though? It's because Theseus is propaganda in ways that the other heroes are not.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  Cause he's the founder of Athens. Yeah.

• 34:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah, because he, from a like histori- historiography perspective, probably. Yeah, he served, like he didn't really exist prior to Athens. It like having him as their founding hero. Yeah. And so he's like, he's not really like a founding mythos in the way that Perseus, Jason, Heracles, Odysseus are. He was kind of added later as Athenian propaganda. And I just think it's hilarious because it, he really is such a loser.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  But why would they, if they were gonna invent an origin story to make themselves look so cool?

• 35:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Why make him such a tool?

• 35:36Liv Albert?

  Because that is their version of cool. Oh, no. They really, it's the difficult thing. Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's the difficult thing with too with um when you look at ancient Greece, because I think one of the things we struggle with now, well, there's two things, especially when it comes to heroes, is our modern conception of heroes is that they're like good people doing good things for the greater good. Um, and ancient Greek heroes are not that at all.

• 36:00Liv Albert?

  They're like a main character.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, ancient Greek heroes are doing astounding things for their reputation, for their kleos to be known forevermore. They don't need to be good people in that, to be doing that thing. Um, and then the other thing is that, uh, I think we tend to think of antiquity or ancient Greece as like a monolith, as you know, what we see of it is, that is what it was all around. But the problem is, most of our sources, uh, most of the information we have comes from Athens, and ancient Greece was never unified in the way, um, Rome and the Roman Empire was, and the way our modern countries are. It was all, they were all individual little city-states that were united

• 36:43Speaker 03

  in, oh gosh, let me see if I can remember this, united in culture, language, and yeah, shared history, language, and religion. Um, and that's in broad strokes, cuz I, you're like, I do ancient Greek, I started with Homeric, and then they put me into Attic, and I went, what is happening? And then Liv tried to get me to translate something that's like from the ocean, and I was like, that's a, that's what's sad. I looked it up, it's a verb, and I'm like, what do you mean? That's a verb? That's not what a verb looks like. Um, so it's, it's, it's interesting because we get so much today in modernity, we get so much information about what life was like in Athens, that I think that gets swashed over, like what it was like in the rest of Greece. Then-

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I think Athens is a particularly bad is well, I think Athens is just particularly loud.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  And very just aggressive and because they produce so many like cultural works with the plays and whatnot. Later, uh, people within history kind of connect with them and kind of kept their stuff alive. And also they like to write. They just, you know, other places.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  I mean, the guy who's, yeah, the, the, the people who put their pen to whatever are the people who get the narrative. And I, you know, I did a lot of research. I mean, again, no scholar and I, I cringe when I know that a, I did have a classicist read this, but of course we're not going to catch everything. And it's just like, it, it makes me cringe, but at the same time, it, I, it makes me excited to hear what I could have done in a different way. But, um, there, there are, uh, in Sparta, I did research a lot about their very different world. But of course that was written by Athenians talking about Spartans, right? And of course, I guess the time of the Odyssey they were talking about was not even contemporaneous to when actual Sparta, it was Mycenae, right? Like it was a different society they were talking about, right?

• 38:36Liv Albert?

  So like any. Mycenae is a different place, but yeah, it was pre Sparta. Not like Sparta didn't really exist. Yeah.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, that, that time when that existed was the time when the Odyssey and the Iliad took place and Sparta was. So anything I read about Sparta, you know, I took a couple of things, but I'm like, well, it actually wouldn't have been correct. Because it's a completely different society. It's like a thousand years later or whatever. So it's really, when I was doing my research, I was like, the thing that really struck me the most is that Roman people would go on vacation. Yeah. Look at the ruins in Greece. And that just was like, okay, everything's static.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. And Sparta became like a little like amusement park for them and they would do like old Spartan rituals. You know, like they'd get old guys to whip boys who were stealing cheese. And it was like, that's what the Spartans did. And it's like, did they? I'm not sure about that. Like it, it's so interesting. And in Sparta specifically also is a really difficult place to, um.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Understand because they were also very, very good at propaganda. Um, we did, we did a whole series on this about how like Sparta itself is what we know about it. How much can we trust? Um, cause they were very good at making this thing. Yes, the Spartan barrage, this idea of what Sparta was versus what it actually was, you know?

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe they didn't set their seven year olds out and like, okay, survive in the wild seven year old. Cause my child would not survive. I have a nine year old. She would not make it, man. Without a snack cabinet.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  That's so fair. I get that. I was probably the same when I was younger. I might be able to find fresh water. But other than that, I'd, I'd accept death so fast.

• 40:15Speaker 04

  I do tell her, hey, guess what? You know, when she turned seven or eight or nine, I was like, this is a prime time that I would send you off to be a blacksmith apprentice in the middle ages. So like, you better shore it up. If you don't want to be sent off to be apprentice.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Truly, like you are lucky.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  My mom, my mom would always do, there were starving children in the world. And I'd be like, I don't want to eat the vegetables. I'm sorry.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Send them my chicken liver, mama.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Yes, truly.

• 40:42Liv Albert?

  It's most nineties mom thing to say. I don't know if anyone still says.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know that many moms these days.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  That was because of those commercials, those commercials with all the starving chat, the Sally Struthers. I remember those.

• 40:56Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  That was it. It was the zeitgeist.

• 40:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Starving children in Africa.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 41:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so bad. And I say that as a quote, not.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  I just remember house hippos and that's very Canadian.

• 41:09Liv Albert?

  That's very Canadian.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  We had house hippos and the house hippos are back. I don't know if you know.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  It was a beware of everything, beware of what you see on the internet kind of commercial.

• 41:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's everything, man.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're back with the same thing. Apparently someone is stealing the Hesepo's identity. And I was very upset about it. Um, but yes, so yeah, I don't know. I was, I guess we, somebody said.

• 41:36Speaker 04

  How do you guys feel? How do you guys feel about people who take Greek character like Lore Olympus? Like there's all these.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  There's, there's obviously the classical people like Madeline Middle, who are obviously so, and Natalie Haynes are just experts on the field, in the field. But you know, how do you feel about people playing with these characters in a way that may be not as in-depth or like well researched or like as deep knowledge wise? Do you, are you irritated by it? Are you, do you like it? Like, I mean, you're not going to say you're irritated by it because I'm sitting here, but.

• 42:08Liv Albert?

  I, I have a, I have like, honestly, I have such a, I want to say prepared, but I mean that like sincerely like response to this because it comes up so often, right? Especially now there are, there are so many retellings coming out all of the time. And for me, and I think this is a bit different for Michaela because she's only, um, I mean, she's been with the podcast for years, but it has always been more on the history side. Whereas I'm the one who's like, you know, even we, you know, when we were looking up, uh, the character of I, I'm sorry, I'm not pronouncing it differently intentionally.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  No, no, I want to hear it.

• 42:42Liv Albert?

  How to say it one way. I just say Philonoi, but it's not a name that I'm super confident in.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Haven't seen it written in Greek, so.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  Philonoi, I would, I would love to hear you because I did as much research as I could. And I just, you know, in the, uh, the fragment, it's a Y there, but I figured if I use the Y, then people would go Phi. And I was like, well, I know that I don't want to encourage people to say that, you know what I'm saying? So I did take the liberty because in the later translation, he had changed it to an I. So I was like, I'm going to take the liberty of doing it.

• 43:12Liv Albert?

  Transliteration, yeah, though that, that has to happen so often because Greek characters are just so different, but.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's, it's a Yoda, so, oh, and the, the, the first, actually both of the Os are, um, Omicrons. So they're both short O's, so.

• 43:27Liv Albert?

  Philo? Philonoi?

• 43:29Speaker 03

  Philonoi?

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Oh, that's how I say it.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got it. You got it.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  You guys, I'm pitting, I'm pitting. And also honestly, the moderators at every single event were like, I don't know how to say her name. And we even talked about it. We, we, the, the, the, the title of the book was supposed to be Philonoi. And they were like, we can't do this. No one will know. They'll all be afraid about this book, the, the afraid of the book because they don't know how to pronounce the name, so. It's all good. Anyway, so you were gonna say something awesome.

• 43:56Liv Albert?

  No, that's, no, but also, I mean, I think pronunciation is its own interesting whole discussion, but, but no, I, I think about this all the time because I do, I love that there are so many retellings. Yeah. I, I mean, that sounds like something I have to say, but it is true. No, I'm really honest with it. It's just, I take in too much myth all day, every day to then also read it as fiction. And I mean, for, on like, for my, in my spare time, from a perspective of like, you know, my career in this field, I find that I don't read them, I don't like to read them only because I will overthink what the author has done. And I don't think that that's helpful for anyone

• 44:42Liv Albert?

  in this way where I'm like, so, so to answer like the other part of your question, I think, you know, I, I don't want to speak, there's a whole other side of it for, you know, the Greek people today and the way their culture is used. Like, I don't want to pretend like I have any kind of authority there. They, you know, but, but in terms of the, the mythos, like, I, you know, I, I find it interesting to know what the ancient sources were and to understand the context and to understand like, you know, conceptually what the ancient Greeks might have thought. But that doesn't mean, you know, that, that authors can't or shouldn't be playing with the stories in whatever ways they want.

• 45:21Liv Albert?

  The only things that ever get to me is when, and this is not the author's fault, this is readers' fault and also probably the people that teach them. When readers or consumers of media assume that the fiction they've read is the accurate story and then take it out on me, which happens a lot. And that annoys me. But again, that's its own separate problem.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  No, no, I hear you. I hear you because it's like me when I watch a television show with somebody I know in it. Or even, even a television show. I'm just like, dude, you're faking it. Why is there not, why is there not coffee in your cup? Oh, wow.

• 45:58Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God, that, yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Like, I know how to make film and TV and I'm doing it. More than half my life and I'm like, I could see the scenes where people never would. And I'll be analyzing a scene. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. The way they wrote that. So you're, you're taking it in on a completely different level than someone escaping into another thing. Yeah, I hear you. I totally hear you.

• 46:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, you put it in perfect words. That's exactly it where it's just like, it's, it's a completely different thing for me and I don't think that that is necessarily fair to the author either. Like, it's also why, you know, there's really specific circumstances where I will, we will have a fiction author on the show. And that's because like, I also don't want to be in a position where I inadvertently seem like I'm trying to like, trip up an author on their knowledge. And that has happened to me in the past where it's like, oh, I would love to know like where you heard this, this and this detail. And then they don't remember or something and then they feel bad. And I'm like, it's, that's fine. All of this stuff, I'm basically a walking myth encyclopedia now.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:54Liv Albert?

  It's not normal and it doesn't really serve me in many ways. Like, my brain is a disaster, but it knows all. And so like, you know, that, that's never my intention to like, make somebody feel like they don't know enough. It's like, no, you, you, you wrote this as your version. I don't come at it like that. I know what the ancient versions were.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  No, no, that's, I, I don't have an ego about it, you know, like,

• 47:16Liv Albert?

  No, no.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  I've already, I've already had people point two things out that I'm like, well, we need to change that, um, in the next version.

• 47:23Liv Albert?

  But like, That's having books though too, right? Like I, yeah, it's.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  It's fine. And it's also like, I'm sharing a love of something and I had the privilege of creating a, a character who had one line. And yes, that pays off at the end. But I, and then I collected some of my favorite monsters, quote unquote, and characters along the way. And so I created my own story. So I kind of, even if I used it a little inappropriately, I'm making something up. So I do have the privilege of not saying, this is the definitive version of X character who has a lot behind her. I have one line, one verb and two people. So that came to life in a beautiful way for me. Hopefully it does for other people and hopefully it makes them want to learn more about, like my nine year old said, mama, you really should have included a glossary because some people might not know who Clyde Duster was. I'm like, thank you, daughter.

• 48:10Liv Albert?

  Well, if if she's curious, I do have a children's edition of The Odyssey for nine to 12 year olds coming out in June.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  I saw that on your. I cannot wait. I literally got so excited when I saw that, because you know, with the movie coming out this summer, I think people are going to be so excited. And I literally wrote this as a graphic novel, because I didn't see Greek myth in graphic novel for. I was like, so upset.

• 48:34Liv Albert?

  There's not enough.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  There is not enough. And I really hope that other people jump in, you know, and and just because it's so wonderful to see the universal between us and the distant past, because I think it helps us make, see where we haven't changed, and see what could be different. You know, my favorite stuff is always when I read Herodotus, and he was just complaining about things that are so mundane. It's the same thing with Montaigne. I love his essays, because he just bitches about traffic, like people driving their wagon in the left-hand lane, slowly. And I'm just like, I love it. If somebody can complain about somebody's bread, you know, the quality of their bread going down in ancient Crete, like, that just makes me so happy, in a weird, weird way. Yeah.

• 49:20Liv Albert?

  It's the connection.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  It's the best.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  There's like, the, what's, oh, Liv, what's the the Roman fort in in UK, Vindolanda?

• 49:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, Vindolanda, yeah.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  Vindolanda, yeah, they they found a, because that that fort is wonderful, because it's in more like wetlands, so things actually preserve better from antiquity.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  Oh, cool.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  And one of the things they found was a face cream, that they actually have the person's fingerprints with a swipe through it. And that, like, that made me cry the first time I saw it, because I was like, oh, yes, perfect. Or like, you'll see roof tiles that'll have like cat paw prints on it.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  There's a, oh, there's a grave stelae, so the grave markers for dogs, and like, the writing on it.

• 50:07Speaker 04

  I love the curses, the the lead curses they threw down the well, like, screw, you know, screw this woman for stealing my husband, and all these things. I'm like, oh, these were just, it's just us. They just didn't have.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  It's just human.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  It's just humanity.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's nice to see that it was like real, or that the. The graffiti in like in Pompeii where it was like, on this day I made bread. And I'm like, great. Thank you so much. Like, I'm so happy we have that.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  My favorite thing I've ever seen, I went to Pompeii and I saw that little cafeteria thing they have. And it just looked like a buffet bar that I get at

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  Down at the local Chipotle. I'm just like, listen, they were just getting lunch.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  They were ju- and they had like, uh, they had frescoes there that would have like, we have a lot of like food frescoes from Pompeii from those places. And people like, oh my God, it's, it's them advertising.

• 50:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's a poster that you put up in a shop.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're like, look, we have chicken. Come buy the chicken. And it's like, and I think that's what, what happens with antiquity. A lot of the times is that it, it seems cold and distant to the viewer. And to people who aren't, who, when there's not enough media in it. And I know it's like, as a classicist, we want it to be as quote unquote, accurate as possible. This is why I think I'm a little more like eh with myth, because I also like, I come from a myth culture and I'm like, myth is, there's no, what it, what the hell is myth? How do you even define myth? Like?

• 51:29Liv Albert?

  Excuse you. These are not questions you should be asking as a co-host of this show. I'm gonna need you to zip it.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  I'm the history person. I'm the history person.

• 51:38Liv Albert?

  Doesn't mean you get to shit talk myth. It's in the title.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  I love myth.

• 51:42Liv Albert?

  But I'm also, you said it.

• 51:44Speaker 03

  I grew up at the foot of elders telling me stories and each of them would tell it differently. You have culture too. You're French Canadian.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  That is very deep culture.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  Truly. Uh, but like, I think that that's why I think I'm more forgiving when it, um, not forgiving, but more flexible when it comes to myth. Because I'm like, there's no such thing as canon in myth. There's no such thing as this is the true story. There's always elements of stories. And, you know, when I was looking, um, through the sources on Philomenae, um, and I was, you know, going through the, the, where you had the citation to it. And I was going through that article.

• 52:22Liv Albert?

  I thought that you listed your sources generally in a book. They

• 52:25Speaker 03

  I know. I was just like, ah, sources.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  I just wanted to show everybody why I was like, yes, I made it up, but there was something interesting that is actually legitimate.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Truly.

• 52:34Liv Albert?

  Isn't that so fun?

• 52:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, I love it's the nerdiness where so I went in and you know, I was looking at all these sources and reading them in the languages because you know, I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. No, it's because I torture myself with reading Thucydides in the original Greek. It's horrible.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  That's hot.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  No, it's horrible. He doesn't, things will be simple, the sentences will be simple and then you'll be given a paragraph that you're just like, what's happening? Where's, what's, uh, anyway.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  That's like a superpower to me. I am very admiring of you.

• 53:10Speaker 03

  Thank you. But it was interesting because one of the last fragments they talked about was one by Athenagoras of Athens and I had never heard of this guy and I was like, okay, why? And it's because he's an early Christian writer, so he's in late antiquity and anything after like 100, 200 BCE is modern for me.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I'm like, I don't know about this guy.

• 53:33Liv Albert?

  Same, it's not fair though. That's not a fair.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  I can't.

• 53:37Liv Albert?

  Those of us who really prefer classical period.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's like, you're way too old or you're way too young for me.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  Truly.

• 53:44Liv Albert?

  Well, that's. Oh, it's after Jesus? Oh, I'm bored.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Forget it.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 04

  That's the thing that I was like, is this cat, like, that's what really I could not shake because first of all, a catalog of women, I mean, we had that whole thing with binders full of women thing, you know, it's just like so condescending. But at the same time, it's like, did this character have a story? Like, he couldn't have made it up. He was being, he had to have been drawing from something. So somewhere in history, there is an explanation of this and it just doesn't exist.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  It just didn't last. It just didn't, people didn't write it down or, you know, choose to. And because that was really interesting, when I was reading the Athenagoras translation, I went and I found it in the original language, uh, the original, I found the original manuscript.

• 54:27Liv Albert?

  Again, she's bragging.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  No, I'm like, this is just how my brain works.

• 54:31Liv Albert?

  I get it, you're bragging.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  But I was reading it, right? Oh, I could go on about the verb. The, the sabai, that verb is very interesting. There is no one translation for it, like, it doesn't come into English well and I'm, anyways, whatever. But they were talking about, um, Uh, uh, Flynnui, Tin, Tindario, Thugatera, and Tanelidoden. It, it's like, most of the translations, this is what I do, I'm sorry.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  Most of the

• 54:59Speaker 04

  I'm waving myself, you can't see it, but I'm waving myself, it's so cool.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  All the translations I found lent out to the Tenno, um, Tenenodian. And I was like, why, why is this being left out of all the translations? Because what it means is like, Tenneidian, which is an island off Turkey, right by Troy. And so it's, it's like, you know, it's saying like,

• 55:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, Tenidos. So it's like, she's saying like, the Lacodemonians, they have this like, uh, you know, they have this like, religious respect um, for Zeus Agamemnon, but then Anne Flynnui, daughter of Tindarius, but like, the Tenneidian? And so like, a couple of things about this fragment, what this tells me is, um, A, this is a 200 B.C. It's 200 C.E., I can get my dates right, 200 C.E. fragments, that's 800 years after the Hesiod fragment. So it's still existing.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Um, That is interesting.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and on top of that, she's having some sort of like, geographical connection to a place that's near Troy as well. So it's like, is she, is there, was there, can we go to Tenidos now? Is there stuff we can, uh, archaeological work that's been done there that could give us maybe more information? But

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Wow, so wait, so that wasn't in the older, that wasn't in the older fragment? So this was just added, so then why, so that had to be other, that's what, that's why I included both fragments? Cause I was like, it seems like they might have had something to do with each other, but it wasn't exactly the same. And I was like, I clearly cannot do what you do. But I'm just like, if there are two sources that are slightly different, then were they dra, were they drawing upon something that we don't know about? That got lost between the two?

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Well, I think it likely is a reflection too of, this is a tradition that just exists. Within the cultural like mindset, people will know about this, but people will talk about this. Like he could say this offhanded thing and people will go, yeah, we know what this is.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And it's sort of like, you know, what if, what if nobody ever, um, nobody, no, um, resources on horses ever got passed down? And like 4,000 years from now, you know, people are trying to recreate our society and, you know, they'll come across a mention of horse, but there's no like discussion of it. You know, someone will say something like a horse girl and, and everybody will understand what a horse girl is. But 4,000 years from now, they're like, what does this mean?

• 57:26Speaker 04

  You know? Yeah, I read this fascinating book and I cannot remember the name of it. It was a professor at Yale who had taught the Odyssey for like 40 years and she has this wonderful book of like drawing from her lectures. And there's one whole fragment, it was in my good reads, but I didn't, I didn't tag it right. Okay. So I'm so sorry about that.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 57:45Speaker 04

  Um, but it was a fascinating book and it actually made me go reread the Odyssey and the Iliad because of her insight was so fascinating. And one of the whole thing was that she was like, everybody's talking about the red wine sea, like, and there were all these theories about like, do they even see blue? Like, why are they calling it red wine? Like, we know what red wine looks like. What was their wine like? And so that whole discourse was so fascinating to me because I'm like, yeah, we have no idea. We have no idea. But it is something that you just want to think about a lot because like, are they really close to us? Are they so different? It's like one time it's here and one time it's there.

• 58:35Speaker 01

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• 58:54Speaker 02

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• 58:58Speaker 01

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• 59:05Speaker 02

  That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 59:24Liv Albert?

  Well, and the, I think it's, one thing that it's really hard to conceptualize is just how much we don't know, right? Because we do know so much that it's like, you kind of forget how little we know. Like, even just to bring it back as an example to, you know, when you said that there's the fanfiction about Helen going to Egypt, right?

• 59:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:44Liv Albert?

  Like, that is like a very apt way of describing it. Like, that, that's valid. And at the same time, it actually might have been a much more well-known tradition. So-

• 59:58Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 59:58Liv Albert?

  The, yeah. So it sounds like fanfiction, and it's not wrong to say it is. And like, the storyline, it sounds completely like fanfiction, right? It's like, oh, what if, instead of going to Troy, Helen was plucked up by a god, dropped in Egypt, and a ghost Helen was put in Troy instead? And of course, the, yeah, it's, it's amazing. And the, the, the, the play itself is honestly, it's honestly a bit more like a tragicomedy. Like, it's one of these ones where Euripides is really playing, and he's, he presents powerful women, and Helen is one of them, in this really bizarre and interesting way. But, you know, his play is the primary source for that version, but at the same time, which would have been the 5th

• 1:00:37Liv Albert?

  century. And then, at the same time, we know that, I think it's, it's either Simonides or Farakites, might be Farakites, who's like a fragmentary author, whose work we don't have, but we know he was writing in the, I think, 7th or 6th century. So, long, like, at least 100 or 200 years before Euripides. And we have like, a reference that somebody else talked about the fact that he had talked about a version where Helen goes to Egypt and a ghost descends in her place.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:10Liv Albert?

  So like, that's all we have. But all we know is that he knew of something that sounds basically like what Euripides did. And so it's like, yeah, it, it seems to exist as fanfiction, but simultaneously could have existed as something much bigger. And, and like, there's also so much to say about regionality, too. And like, this Tanidos reference, like, you know, that makes me wonder if there are these regional differences, and, you know, what is coming into play there? Because so much went into that. I mean, that again is- You know, we were, we talked about Theseus being propaganda, that, you know, the reason why I, I think, and I think it's a pretty safe, like, understanding of it, the reason

• 1:01:53Liv Albert?

  why he kidnaps Helen, which seems so horrifying to us, right? Kidnaps Helen at 12 years old, is that, like, Athens wanted that propaganda, but specifically, they needed the timeline of the Trojan War. They wanted, they needed their hero to be after Heracles, because they wanted him related to Heracles, because in order to be important, you have to be related to Heracles. So they had to have him Heracles's cousin, so he'd be younger than Heracles, which means he also simultaneously has to generally tie in with the Trojan War, because we know that Heracles came the generation before. And so then you get, like, Athens clearly trying to get their Thesean hooks into the Trojan War story, because that is

• 1:02:35Liv Albert?

  the Greek culture in a story. So they're hooking on to the only thing. And so it's just like, you know, you-

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  There's an amazing book called Storyland, and I forget who had wrote it, but it's about the, the fake origins of Britain. And there are all these, oh, you might love this, because, and I also found the Odyssey book, but this is, it's called Storyland. I don't know the author. There's actually a kid version and an adult version. Yes. So basically, there are all these legends connecting the native Britons to the Odyssey and the Iliad.

• 1:03:07Liv Albert?

  Oh, yes. Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  And so this book is the, sort of the fake history of Britain in a fascinating way. And it's all tied back, like you said, they're like, okay, we all, we obviously have to be related to the people in the, in the Trojan War. The, also, the other book that I read, Homeric Moments, Clues to Delight and Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad by Eva Braun. That's it. So 50 years she taught the Odyssey and the Iliad.

• 1:03:31Liv Albert?

  Unfortunate name, but that sounds beautiful.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  It's really wonderful. It's a really good book, and it's very readable. She, I guess, taught at St. John's College in Annapolis, but it's a very lovely book, and it's, it just made me delighted to go back and read again, because her insight was so, I mean, obviously, things I would never know unless I took a class or read her book.

• 1:03:53Liv Albert?

  No, that's so fun. And I realized too, Michaela, you said, was there a reference that you you picked up on something from um Sententi I antiqua website uh for your book? Do you remember that offhand?

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  Oh, me?

• 1:04:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  Yes, I did. Yes.

• 1:04:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was the the.

• 1:04:10Speaker 04

  That was the place where I saw that they did. Was that the that was the blog where they they were like, what's what's up with this? What's up with this daughter?

• 1:04:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  We don't know anything about this daughter. So that's one of the reasons why I was like, wait a minute, you don't know anything about her?

• 1:04:24Liv Albert?

  I I love that you I love that because I I mean, one, I've come across that website like almost every day when I'm in researching, but also uh the the guy behind it is Joel Christensen, who's been on the show a ton of times, and he is like one of the most delightful guys in this field. So I'm always thrilled to hear when other people also like pick up on random things he's shared there because that is such a fun resource, that site.

• 1:04:46Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. I I want to when you see him next, tell him thank you because it was, you know, just that in intrigue, just his blog entry alone. I was like, wait, you're you're saying what I'm thinking.

• 1:04:56Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. No, I've been working on fiction for like five years. Who knows what it'll ever if it'll ever finish, but like the number of times I've found stuff on his blog. And I'm like, thank you, Joel, once again, coming through for me and you don't even know it.

• 1:05:09Liv Albert?

  Oh, man. Well, OK, I do. I mean, I know we probably could uh talk forever because it's it's just fun. But you you said a magic word earlier, and now I would love to hear a little bit more about, you know, you you picked up some of your favorite monsters, you said, right? Because you got to play with this storyline.

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:05:24Liv Albert?

  And I know there are gorgons.

• 1:05:26Speaker 04

  There are gorgons in here.

• 1:05:27Liv Albert?

  Um, I hope not. But I gorgons are my beloved creatures of obsession. And so I just loved, I guess, hear your thoughts. Why did you want to include them? How much do you love them? Don't tell me anything to the contrary.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  Um, I absolutely love them. And I kind of use them like the witches in Macbeth a little bit because.

• 1:05:45Liv Albert?

  Because they fit that perfectly.

• 1:05:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. That's probably where I got them. Um, I wanted to play with the idea of in that first encounter, she encounters three monsters and three. Those are my three uh most favorite characters that I've been intrigued about. Um, and so the gorgons, you know, Medusa. Always felt sorry for. It's just a horrible story and so many different variations on it. And the way that she was treated and and her life ended and all this stuff. But there is this idea of the the the crone, the unknown crone out, you know, out in the middle of nowhere being scary, you know, I mean, I, a lot of this was maybe done out of my love of myth, but also my frustration with fairy tales, because it can, like fairy tales.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  If you go back to the original, you know, fairy tales that I like to read my daughter, censored a little bit because Bluebeard, my god, what a horror show.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  But a lot of the, these are, these are stories told to children to teach them how the world works, right? And so women become a transactional, especially rich women, become a transactional object. And older women are always an enemy. Stepmothers, crones, all these, you know, they, they, they have strange magics. And in reality, these were the only people who knew how to heal you. And I think subliminally, when men keep women apart and do not allow generational knowledge to be passed down, then you're controlling the women more, right? And I think it's just really sad, because if women had more resources and were encouraged to look at older women as people who could help them out versus enemies or rivals.

• 1:07:23Speaker 04

  I, I think that that, you know, be a better world, a lot of better world things going on. And so, you know, the crones kind of represent that, the, the, the tumid, the gorgons. They represent that for me, but they also represent a, a sort of a celebration of being a part and being able to be whoever they want, right? Everybody's seen that old lady, it's like she does not care what you think with her outfit right now. And so I wanted to celebrate that as a contrast to Philanoia, who wants more than anything to belong. Like, that's how she starts out. She wants to be loved, she wants to belong. And so the first thing I needed to shatter about that was the fact that, you know, A,

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  you know, kind of call that out in her, in her as a person, like you just want to be pretty, to be accepted, you know? Do you even exist inside? And have that sort of kind of break her a little bit. But also, you know, the idea that you have to be a part to be happy if you're different, which I get very resentful about, and it's kind of a theme of the book, like. Being a, I shouldn't have to be a part to be different. Um, I should, you should not be able to hold the world and I have to be on the periphery. And so that's like, one of the things that's a lot in the themes of my work, but also in this particular thing. And the Gorgons, they kind of set all that up. So I, I would love to hear and see any fiction that you write about the Gorgons, because I think, again, it's all about Medusa, but what are those two, what are her sisters like? I know that people have written some books on it, but I, I don't know, you know,

• 1:08:47Speaker 04

  I don't know that lore and I would love to dive into it.

• 1:08:50Speaker 03

  And I think Gorgons, really, I, I have a love for Gorgons too. I have actually a Gorgonae on, um, so that's just like the name for their, the faces that they made that they put on architecture.

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, they're, I have so many pictures of them. I just, I went through every museum. I was like, you know.

• 1:09:07Liv Albert?

  I have like a rule, I take photos of Gorgons.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  Yes. Um, but I got one, I got one, um, tattooed on my knee, uh, because the whole, the image is right at, atro, um, apotropaic, atro, oh my God, I can't.

• 1:09:20Liv Albert?

  Apotropaic.

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  Thank you, apotropaic. So, you know, it keeps evil away. And I remember we were in Naxos once, Liv and I, uh, at a, the, the, the, the Olive Oil Museum. There was that lovely lady there and I told her there, I was like, you know, apotropaic. And I, she just went, and then she like, just like threw her knee up, like she was kneeing someone. I went, yes, exactly.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  She was just like, she got it. I was like, I love it. So like, I, I like them too, as like, these creatures that have, you'll see them everywhere. And they exist so much within the cultural sphere and they're understood so well, that it's like, they.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  But what do they represent to them? Like, it was just good luck? But I, it was, I, I don't know.

• 1:10:04Liv Albert?

  I could talk for forty seven hours.

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 1:10:06Liv Albert?

  About this, to be honest. Um.

• 1:10:09Speaker 04

  I'll have to listen to every episode you did.

• 1:10:13Liv Albert?

  Oh God, I've done so many on Medusa and the Gorgons. No, I actually, a couple of years ago, I wrote a ridiculously lengthy introduction to this book of of short stories about Medusa. And basically traced sort of the the history of her that survives like text sources and visuals and everything and tried to sort of piece that together. And, excuse me, I was obsessed before, and it only like fueled that. And I mean, I have, I have so many theories about like, what they represented. And, and you know, I think it all really, if I want to put a really fine point on it, just boils down to the fact that men had to tell stories to about women that they couldn't have sex with, or that did not want to have sex with them, and they had to turn

• 1:10:57Liv Albert?

  them into monsters. And, and that's basically it. And then I, yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's one of those stories. And my biggest issue is the ways that it has, that her story has been manipulated since, and like, turned into something very weird. So, I mean, yeah.

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

  I mean, there, there's also interesting, like, when you think about, I mean, you have Sappho, you have all these, like, there are some queer elements in my story, which I didn't even notice, like, it's not my, I mean, there is, there is a love story in it, but it does, the book is not about love at all. But, you know, I mean, if you think about, and when somebody pulled it, pointed this out, I was like, I guess, but I was just kind of representing the world, you know, like, yes, I represent, I mentioned Apollo is, you know, Artemis's brother, and he's mentioning, um, the festival of Hagia Cynthia, right, which celebrated his male lover's demise through some frisbee accident.

• 1:11:55Liv Albert?

  Frisbee tragedy, as I like to call it.

• 1:11:56Speaker 04

  It was a frisbee tragedy, exactly. But like, that was just part of, that was their culture. I'm not like making stuff up. I'm not to shove it, I'm not trying to shove anybody's face in it. I just, it's just what it is.

• 1:12:07Liv Albert?

  No, but people love to straightwash ancient Greece and tell you that that's crazy, despite them being the gayest of the gays, honestly.

• 1:12:14Speaker 03

  I've been told, um, stop trying to put my agenda on antiquity. And I was like, that's just what they did.

• 1:12:19Liv Albert?

  The men were fucking, it's not my fault. Okay. It's not my, I didn't force them to do it.

• 1:12:26Speaker 03

  If I was trying to force my agenda, there would be a lot more Sapphic stories, man.

• 1:12:29Liv Albert?

  Honestly, that's a thing. There are none, because they did not conceptualize women as being capable of fucking each other. It's a whole other issue.

• 1:12:39Speaker 04

  Well, I played with that.

• 1:12:42Liv Albert?

  Hell yeah. Hell yeah. It was news flash to the Greeks.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  What are they gonna do about it?

• 1:12:47Liv Albert?

  I mean, that's, that's one of my long-term theories too, is just that the women had to have been having a great time with their friends because the men just locked all the women in a room for all day, every day.

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Liv Albert?

  And then did not understand anything except penetration to be sex. And so I just, I like, yeah. So I just like to think that the ladies were having a ball and the men were like, la da da, oh, our wives are so happy. They, look at that friendship. Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  Look at them. They're best friends.

• 1:13:20Liv Albert?

  Gal pals. They're having a great time.

• 1:13:23Speaker 04

  Girl sleepover.

• 1:13:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's my little dream at least. And that's why there are absolutely no stories of gay women because they just were like, no, no, that's not, that's not a thing. It's not a nation to be concerned about.

• 1:13:37Speaker 04

  Like, how did they deal back then with that? Like, they were just like, no, she's just a girl who likes other girl. Like, was it at the time, just like, get away or?

• 1:13:46Liv Albert?

  I don't think we have a lot of evidence of them talking about her sexuality because even like, whether, there's been, you know, up until this day, there are ex quote unquote, experts who will tell you that, no, she was paid to write love poems by men for women. And like, that's why she has, and you're like, that's crazy.

• 1:14:06Liv Albert?

  How many, like, did you break your back when you bent it over that far to get to that argument? What do you mean?

• 1:14:12Speaker 03

  And I think, I think it's, and it, cause she, she was, she was a performer. Like, she, she was in that position that luckily enough that she was an upper-class woman and she was able to choose this job. That being said, you read all the poetry. There are some that are very obviously like, okay, this was for performance. And then there are some that are so personal and like, so like, heart wrenching that you're like,

• 1:14:34Liv Albert?

  No, no. Yeah.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Liv Albert?

  She's heartbroken over a lady.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Liv Albert?

  Like, that's the facts.

• 1:14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's like even one fragment that talks about some lovely student of hers who left to go work with this other woman. And I'm like, and the amount of like betrayal and hurt in there, I'm like, oh.

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  I see what was happening.

• 1:14:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 03

  And it's when the, when they, you know, when these people try to tell, say like, oh, there's nothing romantic in these poems. I'm like, A, I feel bad for any of your romantic partners.

• 1:15:00Speaker 03

  Truly. And it's like, and B, like, I have met actual experts who are like, yes. And like that language as well, like the, the language, um, the dialect that Sappho writes in, and I can't remember its name right now. Aeollic.

• 1:15:13Liv Albert?

  Aeollic.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's the one that you, you, you want me to translate.

• 1:15:17Liv Albert?

  It's very difficult.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  It's, it's so.

• 1:15:19Liv Albert?

  Very difficult dialect.

• 1:15:20Speaker 03

  I like, truly, I look at it and I'm like, oh. But the thing is, there's so little experts on it today that like, I had this one guy tell me, he was like, oh yeah, I'm translating myself. I'm teaching myself how to translate Greek. And I'm like, oh, good for you. And he's like, I'm translating Sappho. I've read it in the original language. And I went, no you didn't.

• 1:15:38Speaker 03

  There's no way. There's only a handful of experts.

• 1:15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  In Aeollic itself, because it's so weird and so difficult.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  Respect, but you're also sitting here and telling me that Sappho wasn't gay. And that's how I know that, no, you're not.

• 1:15:53Speaker 03

  Like, and I think it's just. Yeah. Anyways.

• 1:15:58Liv Albert?

  Turns out, there's a lot of misogyny and queer phobia and homophobia and, you know, just generally terrible dudes.

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I mean, in the book, you know, I mean, Artemis and Philinoe are two characters that I wanted to kind of, because I've already, I, I, I put, I mean, Artemis happens to be in the fragment that I took, picked out, but also she's a character that I felt sad for, for some reason. And, um, I, I wanted to kind of, that was kind of the, the secondary fun. The fun, the first fun was sending Philinoe on this classic hero's journey, but also subverting everything that all the regular hero's journey people did, but also reinventing this character that I always felt was my favorite, but also might be a little low, you know, sad underneath. And so it, it was fun to be able to disconstruct that. And I knew along the way, I'm like, well.

• 1:16:48Speaker 04

  You're really not being faithful, but you know what? Whatever. Just enjoy the ride and then go read the originals to be able to. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:16:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, there is no faithful to myth, honestly, and there is no original even like, I mean, it's an easy thing to like, you think of it like that, but. I mean, you're not wrong because none of them are like original unless you can go back in time and talk to somebody from back then. Nothing that we have is actually.

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Liv Albert?

  You know, original, which I think is that leaves so much more open and that's so much more fun. And like, that's why. You know, art and fiction are great is because we can explore these things.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And I, and I think that's like the whole thing with myth is that it's not supposed to be.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  A hundred percent true. It's not supposed to be finite. It's, it's, it is, what does, how does it touch each individual? How do you, how does each individual, what, what do they see from it? Which is why it's like, it's actually amazing that we now have so many people who have access to all these different myths and who can pull so many things from it. Because you know, like, who's to say, like, you know? It like, what am I trying to get at this?

• 1:17:51Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, but it's also wonderful that we have these original, because you know, what do we own as a society, right? The stories that we consume are now, their, their sole purpose is to make money off us, right? And not to say that I'm not sure that somebody wasn't making money off of reciting the Odyssey at some point in, in time, but like. There's an ownership over these stories that maybe goes back to be more truthful than the ones that were fed now to. Not only monetize, but also are derived from the originals. And so like, for me, part of our society. Part of my problem in everything is that we don't have an inner truth to ourselves anymore. We're like seven, it's like a bean dip and we're on the top layer, right?

• 1:18:32Speaker 04

  And we don't really understand where we came from. We don't really understand what we believe, but somebody on layer seven told us to believe this. So that's who I am now. That's the kind of politics like. Whenever I I I see somebody who I'm like, I don't want to talk about politics, but like, what do you actually believe? Like, if there were a society that was being built with three people, what is your ideal as a person? Not because it's what it is, or what you've seen on TV, or what a pundit is telling you, or one party is telling you. Like, what do you actually believe in? I think in this world, you know, we're consuming so much that there's not a lot of pause to think like, what do we think? And now, if if we go back to the origins where people had less layers, bean dip layers, then maybe there was a little bit more truth for us to kind of be in touch with who we are more.

• 1:19:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  And I just, I love the way you can pull, um, different people pull different things out of the story. And I I think to stay on like the monsters thing, like, um, the whole echidna thing, just it hit me so hard. Um, and like my special interest in antiquity is looking at the construction of the family. So I really think about like, you know, how do mothers relate to their children, fathers relate to their son, and everything like that. And so I think, like, you know, that was a part of, um, you know, a kid in a story that it's like, no one has pulled that out and played with it that much. And it's like, oh, yeah, there it is. It's right there. And it was getting me and it was making me a little emotional.

• 1:19:50Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. I definitely cried when I wrote that because as a mom, yeah.

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to like call my mom and just be like, hey, I love you, but I know she would have been like, what do you want? So I'd be like, okay. I want you to know I love you, Nancy. Jesus.

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

  But like, you know, like, that's, you know, you you're taking a story of a monster, but you're saying, hmm, let's put that monster aside and let's see with something else. This is a mother who's had all the children like torn from her.

• 1:20:16Liv Albert?

  What makes a monster? That's the thing I I, you know, that that I think is the most important question. And who defines what a monster is?

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:23Liv Albert?

  Especially with these ones that have no evidence of actually harming, like the Gorgons don't harm anyone. What what makes a monster?

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:30Speaker 04

  That's exactly why I wanted to turn that on its head. Because if you do a traditional hero's journey, like, somebody's gonna go kill all them.

• 1:20:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Speaker 04

  But like, these are all lessons that need to be learned, and they happen to be all women or have identified as a woman at one point in their life.

• 1:20:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Speaker 04

  Um, these three.

• 1:20:47Liv Albert?

  Most Greek monsters are.

• 1:20:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:20:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it was, it's, and I think that's the wonderful thing now, though, about also classical reception is. Seeing people who maybe didn't have access or didn't have the same access to it before is sort of like, you know, the, the behind the ivory doors of academia. Um, pulling things from it and being like, hey, look at this, you know, hey, look, Akidna was a, Akidna was a mother and all her children had to be killed by heroes. What does that say? You know, um, the, the Gorgons, you know, people are going to them. This is something we've, we've said, we've talked about a lot with being like, the Gorgons are minding their own business. People are going to them. Like, how are they the monsters? Um, you know, and even the keenest, the, the, the kind, keenest, kind of story where, you know, that was

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  so like, oh, too, because it was just sort of like, I'm happy, I'm full, I've lived life. And it seemed like, oh, what does that look like? And what does that mean? We're pulling things from the stories that

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  you know, haven't been the focus before because certain, they've existed in a certain people's group of people's hands and not others. And that's what I think one of the biggest things from reception that is actually really good. And also challenges academia is forces them to be like, look at this from a different perspective. And so.

• 1:22:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I can imagine that if you have a small group of people who interpret something one way, then, you know, it's always the outsider that's going to come at something that's going to make you think differently. It's always. And that's the strength of being an outsider, but also the curse in a way.

• 1:22:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Liv Albert?

  The fun of fiction though, too, right? That's the fun of fiction and especially women telling stories and just, you know, I mean, non-men telling stories of other non-men. We need more of it. And specifically about these cultures that were so tied up in the evolution of our modern patriarchy, because I think like the, you know, that's, that's where those things go really under the radar because people want to believe like, oh, that's just, that's how it was. So we don't need to, you know, question it. And yeah, that's bullshit. That's you know, I'll, I've dedicated the last nine years of my life to that being bullshit and will continue to do so. And it's it's important and it's fun and it's interesting and like, yeah, especially when you can pick out these fragments. I love that.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  No, it's wonderful. And it's just encouraged me to just still love it and dive in. And it's, it's stories, like, you're right. The democratization of knowledge is, is overwhelming and it's created chaos, the internet. But it's also created a lot of beautiful access that nobody would have had. And hopefully that that adds to everybody's lives. So that's the rosy part of the internet I'd like to dwell on.

• 1:23:27Liv Albert?

  I still think it's a net win. It's real close.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  Yay.

• 1:23:30Liv Albert?

  It's real close, but like as somebody who also like every success I've built is because I have access to the internet and

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:23:39Liv Albert?

  Kent, people can listen. So yeah, I, for all its ills, happy with it.

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  You just gotta, you gotta create good boundaries. Like I keep my phone on silent. And upside down. I'm like, I don't

• 1:23:51Liv Albert?

  You're better.

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

  Very smart. Very smart.

• 1:23:53Speaker 03

  I have my email open during the day and I'm like, if people need to get ahold of me, they email me. And my mother never answers the phone anyways, so I don't care.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  Lucky.

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  Hey, after I had to have like an emergency surgery and she, she, yeah, she woke up in the morning to me being like, did you get my voicemails? I called you a bunch and she was like, what, what, what is going on? I haven't checked my phone. I'm like, oh, I'm in the hospital. I just had surgery last night. The you could have seen her. She was there so fast. She was like, how do I change my phone so that you can get through? Like if you're calling after 10:00 PM, the phone call comes through. I'm like, I don't know, mom, but I'm fine.

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  I'm recovery mom. Please get tech support later.

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  And she's like, go, go find out what food you want to the store. I'm like, can you do it?

• 1:24:45Speaker 03

  But yeah, so technology.

• 1:24:49Liv Albert?

  No, we love it. We love it. Um, okay. I, yeah, I feel like we could keep going forever, but I won't, uh, take up more of your, I want to say evening, but I realized you guys are, I'm in the later time zone and that never happens. It's so weird.

• 1:25:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

• 1:25:04Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:25:04Liv Albert?

  Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been so entertaining and it really is so nice to speak with, you know, fiction authors, but specifically somebody like you who, who's gone in and done the, the diving. Cause like that, that to me is all it takes. Like, yeah, whatever choices you make are your own, but I like that, you know, yeah, that you've, you've gone through and read some of that stuff. Clearly you've picked up some really interesting stuff and made a really compelling story out of it. So and I just like more women in myth being written about all the time. So

• 1:25:33Speaker 04

  I think we're going to get a lot of it this summer and I cannot wait for your book. My daughter is going to absolutely love it.

• 1:25:38Liv Albert?

  Oh, I mean, there's not enough girl content because it's still The Odyssey.

• 1:25:42Speaker 04

  I mean, it's fine. The stories are great and they inspire her and that's all that counts.

• 1:25:47Liv Albert?

  And there, I mean, as far as Greek myths go, The Odyssey does have more powerful women than most.

• 1:25:51Speaker 04

  It does. It does.

• 1:25:52Liv Albert?

  We give it that. Yeah.

• 1:25:54Speaker 04

  That's why, listen, if I could only worship a female god, I might go to church.

• 1:25:59Liv Albert?

  Oh, my, absolutely. Yes.

• 1:26:01Speaker 04

  Here, here.

• 1:26:03Liv Albert?

  Well, is there, I mean, anything else you want to share with our listeners? You wanted to remind us all of the title because we know it can't be Philonoid.

• 1:26:09Speaker 04

  It's not Philonoid. It's The Lost Daughter of Sparta, and you can get it anywhere you get books. It's very beautiful. Thank you, publisher, for putting so much effort into the cover. I feel very fancy, so I hope you enjoy.

• 1:26:20Liv Albert?

  That's so exciting. That's so exciting. Did you, anything you want to share in terms of people following you or websites, anything like that?

• 1:26:27Speaker 04

  You can follow me anywhere at Felicia Day, and there is actually an audiobook version of this graphic novel, which was a whole nother podcast talking about adapting a graphic novel, a purely visual form, to an audio form, but it's a two-hour audio extravaganza. So if you would like to hear me do like a one, a one-woman play with all the voices and I adapted it, you find that wherever you get audiobooks.

• 1:26:50Liv Albert?

  Wow, that's delightful. That's so fun. Also, recording audiobooks is really fun. Did you have fun?

• 1:26:55Speaker 04

  I did. I had a lot of fun. It is kind of like a marathon and a sprint at the same time, but mine was only, was a shorter version than a full-length novel, so it wasn't quite as onerous. But yeah, I always sweat when I'm doing them, but I love it. Yeah, the shorter ones, doing, I did like a tome this big and I was like, okay, we got a week. We got 200 pages a day. Let's go.

• 1:27:16Liv Albert?

  No, so far all my books have been like under 40,000 words.

• 1:27:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, you're good.

• 1:27:20Liv Albert?

  The audiobooks are way easier, thankfully.

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  We have a great voice, so.

• 1:27:24Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I, anyway, other people like it, so I don't deny it anymore.

• 1:27:31Liv Albert?

  But no, thank you so much for coming on. It was really nice and yeah, just so lovely to hear about this story and just more, more like unknown women in myth.

• 1:27:39Speaker 04

  Thank you. I hope you enjoyed Philonoid's story. Yeah, thank you.

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  Let's talk about Myths Baby is written and produced by Liv Albert. Michaela Panglish is the Hermes to all your Olympians, the producer, wants more coffee, can't drink caffeine yet, let's not talk about it. Select music by Luke Chaos, thank you Luke. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, a collection of creators that all strive to bring you accurate and reliable information on the ancient world. These include the wonderful friends at Movies We Dig, the partial historian Sweetbitter, and so much more. Get ad-free episodes and other things by subscription to the Oracle Edition on Patreon at patreon.com/MythsBaby or via the link in the episode's description. Are you a scholar or academic or an expert in something from antiquity, from Greece to Rome to Egypt to anywhere in the Near East?

• 1:28:38Speaker 03

  We would love to have you on the show as a conversation guest. Go to mythsbaby.com/contact and fill out our podcast guest form. We want to hear from you, so please reach out. Talk to you all next week. Bye-bye.

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