Conversations: What Makes a Dragon Slayer?, Medea w/ Jasmine Elmer

Today Liv is joined by Jasmine Elmer https://www.instagram.com/jas_elmer/?hl=en all about Medea in her new book Slay https://www.jasmineelmer.co.uk/books! We are always down to talk that wonderful goddess/woman/general badass Medea and there was much fun had talking about how she could be considered a dragon slayer and what exactly that means! AVAILABLE NOW! 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  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 myths baby.com slash group trip.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad and the holidays are around the corner, which means I'm officially entering my Hostess Hannah era with Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. You guys know I love cats and fostering, but when I'm hosting, I do not want my house smelling like cats. I want people focusing on my hosting skills. That's why I love Arm & Hammer Hardball Cat Litter. It delivers long-lasting odor control and forms compact clumps that make cleanup easy. So that's one less thing I need to worry about when people come over. Be guest-ready with Arm & Hammer Cat Litter. Find it now at Walmart or Amazon.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready-to-cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome back to Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. It's Michaela Panglish, back from her long excursion abroad, here to introduce you guys to today's episode. I'm doing great. I don't seem insane at all and out of practice. I'm out of practice. Whatever, it's fine. Today Liv spoke with Jasmine Elmer on her new book about women being dragon slayers, which is incredibly exciting. And I was so jazzed to listen to this conversation. I think you guys all will be as well. There was lots of just quintessential myths baby stuff happening in this episode, including long rants on the patriarchy, which were absolutely beautiful.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  There was random needing to research things immediately, grabbing books, scoring the internet, etc. It was just all around a delightful time. And you know how much we love talking Medea. I mean, she is the queen that we all love and deserve. And this whole episode made me think, I really need to catch up on House of the Dragon as well, which I don't know, I'll get to eventually, maybe, who knows. Anyways, hope you all enjoy it and I will hear from you guys or see ya next week.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Conversations: What Makes a Dragon Slayer? Medea with Jasmine Elmer.

• 4:00Liv Albert?

  So funny, actually, because you, you reached out and I was like, well, I will always talk about Medea, obviously. And then we planned this for like a little ways in the future for your book and everything, right? And, um, and then in that time, somebody else reached out and to talk about Medea in like a totally different context. And I was like, this is so perfect. We get like so many different sides of her. Um, and this is a character who I will literally talk about forever, because you can talk about her forever.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so multifaceted.

• 4:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So why don't you tell me like a bit about how you're coming at, I mean, is it, is it just Medea as a dragon slaying generally? Is it kind of dragon slaying revolving around the queen of dragon slaying herself? Like, what's the deal?

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, the deal is with Medea, I have always just known her in the way that we've known her, right? You know, like this classical scholar way of looking at her, like, oh, look at this bitch that does that horrendous thing. And that's kind of, oh, she's a bit witchy. And isn't she interesting to, I mean, a bit more than that, but you get the point. You get the gist. And so when I was like, I'm gonna write about female dragon slayers. And the first person that popped into my head, because with my classics background popped into my head, I was like, well, hang on a minute, let's have a little look at Medea and the Colchis dragon, because

• 5:18Speaker 03

  that's iconic in her story. And what that opened up in me is like, fuck, there are these elements to Medea that we haven't seen. And kind of, you know, as you, as you do so well on this pod, and with perhaps another guest, it's like, there are all these layers to peel back. And more and more people are doing that, of course, like for over the last, you know, 10, 10 years or so.

• 5:41Liv Albert?

  And everyone gets to a different layer, right?

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's a different layer.

• 5:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  And I think with my expertise in dragons, I came to this and I just went, duh, like, there's a whole narrative here.

• 5:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Where I don't focus on her heinous acts.

• 5:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, this was so perfect, just to like clarify, too, the other guest was more talking about her in the Euripides specifically, and in Athens, or in Corinth, but you know, the Athenian version. And so that's why it was so perfect with yours. So, yeah, like, it's, it is such a different side of Medea coming at it from this dragon element, which is so like, pre, you know, chronologically in the myth, predating Euripides, right? You're coming at this from, yeah, sorry, interrupted because I wanted to clarify how different it was, but like, also, please.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, but perfect. You've summed it up right. To me, it was like her origin story, because we all know the punchline. A lot of us know the punchline, right? I'm assuming that your listeners will know the punchline.

• 6:39Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. But I mean, reshare whatever you need.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  The whole killing of the children.

• 6:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. We, I mean, I almost said, we love it.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Fleeing on the chariot, you know?

• 6:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah, the dragon chariot.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, the cool dragon chariot. So we know, we know that she did something unmentionable. And we know that in Greek myth, it is pretty up there with horrific stories that we hear about women. But when we go and look at the dragon and this whole, what we're really looking at her origin story.

• 7:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  So that's where it just like, all the sparks started flying. Cause I thought, hey, let's just like, not ignore that bit. Cause it, you know, what follows is connected to this, but let's just really get into the origin story.

• 7:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, you're looking at this, this origin story of Medea with the dragon.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So the whole point of this origin is like, everything bad that happens, all these horrific things, is downstream of this event.

• 7:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  So why not let's look at the event properly? And with my, I wasn't on dragon eyes, but with with my background as like an expert in dragons, I wanted to look at this and think, hey, let's look at this from this, this place of where she's just this princess. Right? In Colchis knocking around. And there's this, this story develops from that place.

• 8:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Um, and I really wanted to focus in on questions like, can we call her a dragon slayer?

• 8:07Liv Albert?

  Because, yeah, because it's a bit debatable, right? Whether she does it, or, I mean, obviously, like Jason couldn't have done it without her, but the like, physical act is usually Jason?

• 8:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 8:18Liv Albert?

  No.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  And that's what's also really interesting.

• 8:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  I mean, mainly not Jason.

• 8:22Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  At all.

• 8:23Liv Albert?

  Okay. Also, actually, before we get too deep into this, because I'm just so curious, sourcing wise, I don't, I don't remember the last time I've looked that deep into her, but like, is there much that predates? It's so weird, right? Obviously, because like Euripides, you know, is 5th century, but then the primary surviving story is Apollonius, who's then 4th or 3rd century? So are you working on, like, are there sources?

• 8:54Liv Albert?

  That are of her dragon story, but which predate Euripides? Or what are you, yeah, what are you working with?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, you've picked up that you're right, that given the popularity of the story, you'd expect more source material, right? But there actually isn't. So, yeah, Pindar mentions this earlier, but not by, not by much.

• 9:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I know, I never know, I never have the Pindar to recall because he's always writing about them in relation to athletes and so I never care enough.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  I mean, I mean, it's not really even worth mentioning because it's almost like a sort of like, hey, and this thing happened and then moving on. So, you know, the first account that we get really properly that Medea is taking the credit for killing the dragon is actually Euripides' Medea.

• 9:32Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  And then obviously Apollonius' Argonautica is the main text for which I did it. So in my book, I do retelling and then I do kind of like more symbolism of dragons in general. And also the whole point of it is called slay, right? So it's all about reclaiming female dragon slayers because we just don't know they exist, right? We do, bloody do across the world. So, but back to Medea, it's like this idea that in all of the accounts, she drugs the dragon with her herbs, in different ways, there can be different ways that she does this. But she drugs that dragon, puts it to sleep and then Jason takes the golden fleece that it's guarding.

• 10:15Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  So, I mean, your question about is that slaying? I mean, how I would, if I'm going to just, we know what slay means, right? It means to kill something violently, but to play around with that a little bit, to overpower, overcome the beast, to me, that is slaying.

• 10:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  So she overpowers this beast all on her own. And in fact, there are, I've taken a few little snippets from the text where I think, I can't remember exactly which source now, top of my head. But one of the later sources very much paints Jason as a scared figure, like cowering away.

• 10:52Liv Albert?

  Great.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  And so I've, I put that in my retelling.

• 10:55Liv Albert?

  Well, sure.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  That one in the retelling. So it's this idea that like Jason sort of hides a bit and then Medea comes up, uses her herbs to, and her magic, her pharmacia, our favorite term, to like, you know, get the dragon to come, go to sleep.

• 11:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  So that's really interesting to me because Medea does that.

• 11:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  And as we know, her story before that, she helps Jason with the balls.

• 11:20Liv Albert?

  I mean, yeah, she basically does everything for him, which has always been my obsession is that like, Jason is, is, I mean, you know, I, I could talk forever about, you know, which is worse, Jason or Theseus? And they, they both have their worst qualities for different reasons, but with Jason's, it's that he is literally useless.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, he is so useless.

• 11:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like Theseus is just plain old asshole and I could, you know, provide examples why he is ultimately the worst, but Jason is, is terrible in his own way because he is useless. Because the entire, even the Argonautica itself, like the actual like quest, he's pretty useless, you know? And so it's just, yeah, it's fascinating.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  No, he is, I, I, he's just so pathetic, isn't he?

• 12:05Liv Albert?

  He doesn't do anything, like even the guys who are with him on the ship do more, like he's just there.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Not to diss, like diss him too much, but like, if we made, if we made him like a modern person, like I'm trying to think of what kind of really wet and pathetic kind of name that he would have.

• 12:20Liv Albert?

  The problem is.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  Like a Kevin or something or someone like, just something.

• 12:25Liv Albert?

  But the thing is, is that I think the problem, that it is Jason and that is why the name Jason has become so funny. I mean, there are so many memes out there, so I won't pretend that I've invented this idea, but like the, the fact that the name Jason is as Greek as the name Theseus is hilarious. And like, I think it does suit him so well because like even you using the word Kevin, like Kevin and Jason are such similar like loser white guy names.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking of.

• 12:53Liv Albert?

  Right? And so it is just Jason and it's like that really the character of Jason then went on to make the name Jason, the most like boring of white man names to like go alongside.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  It's a fair point. I hadn't really thought about kind of like the legacy of the name Jason.

• 13:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's, it, it is, I mean, it's like the, one of the only Greek names that exists almost i- in like, it's in like direct form, like obviously not the J, but like, you know, Dionysus is Dennis, that doesn't really sound like Dionysus, but Jason is just Jason.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And I mean, and this is the thing with him, like, so like the whole, but we, we just gloss over this dragon slaying and I find that there's loads of cool things in this as well because, so obviously as we know that Medea is a witch.

• 13:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  So she has all this skill and I put a lot of like preamble in my retelling of her like going out foraging for, um, for plants and.

• 13:54Liv Albert?

  One of the best parts of the Ovid story.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  I wanted that, I mean, obviously my retellings aren't long because I have like four in a book, right? But I wanted to get that sense of like who she was, like this woman that was connected to the land, who understood nature, who was connected to magic, that was kind of like one of those like green witches, a natural witch, like just with knowledge and how like, how kind of good that was. Like it was a good thing.

• 14:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah, well, I mean.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  And obviously her ancestry, she's, she's, she's Cersei's niece.

• 14:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, she's got major divine lineage, but then on top of that, like just to put it so plainly, because so much of this is, is like patriarchal bias too, right? Because like, what is the line between a witch and a medicine woman? Like.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, that, that line is, is complete bullshit.

• 14:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's misogyny, the line is misogyny.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  The line comes really from the Chris, the Christian era, you know, anything we've got later.

• 14:53Liv Albert?

  I mean, yes and no though, because the Greeks were still like, I mean, and even the Romans, they wouldn't call, like, they wouldn't call women who did medical practices, medica. Like they would call them, whatever the word would be for witch, but like, I, I, you know, I've, I've broke, I've had conversations with this one, this kind of mind is, um, I talked to Christie Vogler. I don't know if you know her, she does Movies We Dig podcast, but an archaeologist about, um, she's done a lot of work in, in archaeology around women's, uh, health and medicine and the history of medicine. And like the way that they would bend over backwards to not call a woman by the same name as a male doctor, despite having like doing a, essentially the same thing.

• 15:36Liv Albert?

  Like it is, I mean, I think Medea and Cersei are such beautiful examples of how like, even in the ancient Greek world, but certainly in the Romans, and then definitely like solidified, canonized under Christianity. But is this idea that if women are curing, and it does tend to be with more natural means, and that is because they're not like typically allowed to learn whatever the men decide is like the more scientific means, right? Then they get called a witch because they're using this kind of like oral tradition, knowledge that's been passed down to them rather than being schooled like the men.

• 16:17Liv Albert?

  And so they get, they are witches rather than, rather than doctors or even medicine women, right?

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I hear, I hear exactly what you're saying, but I think there, there's a blurring here because obviously.

• 16:27Liv Albert?

  No, absolutely.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  In the world of myth in, in Greece, if you think about in the world of myth, witches are divine. You should have some divine ancestry or some connection somewhat to the, to the divine world. And I think that they exist in a plane of like, you know, liminality between the mortal and the immortal. And therefore they're subject to slightly different rules and, and I know they explore, we're exploring aspects of femininity within that, but I mean, that's slightly different to the everyday witch, the person that's like in, in real life.

• 17:02Liv Albert?

  For sure, yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  And of course, of course, within, in, in a highly patriarchal society like Greece, you're right about the kind of like, you know, marginalizing of all of that and the kind of like denigrating of that and the disrespect of that kind of often female led knowledge of nature and herbs, et cetera. And that continues. So I totally get that, I totally get that. And I think with Medea though, what they do, I think the Greeks particularly is they love to put, when they, when they put these women in these liminal spaces, they're, they're no longer quite women and they're no longer quite gods.

• 17:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  And so we can, I think when we examine them, I just think we need to like have an element of caution about bringing the other stuff to it because I think that, I think that the Greeks saw that with an element of division too. I don't know if you agree, but I just think there is, there is a.

• 17:50Liv Albert?

  I mean, I think the Greek men did.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  The witches, you know, then, then we carry it forward into the Roman period. I mean, Christianity gets, well, absolutely.

• 17:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  I think the limit, the limit, the liminality becomes real. And I think that's the difference in the medieval period because what you get then is you get that the witch existing in this liminal space of kind of like, you know, storytelling and.

• 18:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  And, and it becomes this thing that is in your village, it's around you. It's a concrete thing and that, that's what Christianity does. It, it draws it down from the area of love, like kind of like loftiness and it makes it everyday. It makes it like, you know, you've got, you've got cats, you've got black cats, you're this. So I think that there's just, there's an interesting story there with witches.

• 18:30Liv Albert?

  There is.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Witches, so I think that I find that fascinating.

• 18:33Liv Albert?

  I know, and I don't want to go too far off topic, but I'm just generally fascinated by this because I agree with you, but at the same time, I often, like just in my own research lately, I have been more and more drawn to questioning the expectation of.

• 18:51Liv Albert?

  Like putting so these female characters specifically into a box that separates them from reality and mortal women. And the reason I am just more hesitant to do that is because like, I just, I can't help but wonder these days about like, what the average woman would have thought about these women. And there was still this very, and I, I, I mean this, like, I don't, I'm just so deep into the misogyny that now I just have trouble even separating anything from it. So apologies, but like, I also think nothing-

• 19:31Speaker 03

  I think we need a new podcast. It's called misogyny and we can just go through it.

• 19:34Liv Albert?

  Truly. It's called like Lives Becoming a Miscentrist, every, more and more with every passing day, and with good evidence. But no, I, because the thing is, is that, like, these women are so removed from reality, but simultaneously, in the Greeks, so specifically, we don't have a sense of like, real women that served even a remotely similar role in terms of like, surviving sources, right? Like, we don't really have real women in that realm. We only have these mythical women. And so to me, I've just been more and more hesitant to like, separate them into this sort of divine realm, even if purely because I think, I'm just so curious about like, what the average woman would have thought

• 20:19Liv Albert?

  about these women, I guess, you know, whereas everything we have is coming from the men. And so it's just, I don't know, I guess I'm talking in circles, but I just, I just, I, there's so much that is baked in, that is this like, leftover misogyny and oppression and just this patriarchal expansion that, I don't know. Anyway, that's all right. I'm not trying to like, push back on anything. I'm just like, so-

• 20:42Speaker 03

  No, I love the debate. And I think, I think it's really funny, because I think that there are two, there were two things here happening, I think, that are like, connected, but not, in my view, anyway. So, when I was saying what I was saying, I was thinking about what I believe the Greek view to have mainly been.

• 20:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Of course, we can't speak to the everyday woman and how she would have heard the story of Medea and had a relationship with that. And what might that relationship have been? We don't know. I mean, obviously, unless we really go into the archaeology of things.

• 21:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  But really, you can't, we haven't, you're right. We don't have the source material. We don't know what these everyday women are doing. We don't know what women who were using magic or herbs. We don't know, because a lot of that stuff is, is quiet, it's hidden, and/or banned, banished by the patriarchy of grief. So I think that, there's that point. And I think that, that then, you and I coming from the same place. Okay, so here we are. Let's zoom here. It's 2026.

• 21:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, we're just, we're coming from a different like, angle of the same issue.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  It's the same. We both agree 100%. So then here I am now, in 2026, dealing with that, like, as a historian with a background, I understand the source material, I understand the difficulty in that connection and the barriers and whether, whether or not, honestly, I don't know whether we can consider them, where they exist in this divine-

• 22:03Liv Albert?

  I know.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  So, but I'm thinking, do you know what? Sod that. Because what my work is all about, and I feel like your work as well, is like, okay, I'm a woman here today, I'm allowed to respond to these stories, I'm allowed to have a reaction to them, and I'm allowed to reclaim them, I'm allowed to reconsider them, I can repackage them. And that, that is my way of, of, of middle finger in the patriarchy.

• 22:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I think my way is like, breaking apart how everything they did is like, influenced into all of the women's things. So now I don't even know how to look at like, the women's stories, without seeing the fact that everything about them was formed by the men. And anyway, I'm just in deep-

• 22:42Speaker 03

  But no, but do you know what's really funny? Is you're, you're channeling Medea now with your rage, because she would have been seriously pissed off about this.

• 22:48Liv Albert?

  Oh, she and I are on such similar pages.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 22:50Liv Albert?

  It's why I don't have kids. God knows what I could end up doing.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Probably a good thing, if you're very much-

• 22:56Liv Albert?

  I don't want them.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. Probably don't do it then, if you're so, so akin to Medea.

• 23:01Liv Albert?

  Thankfully, my body's giving up on it.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  That just made me laugh too much.

• 23:08Liv Albert?

  I'm ready for her to be useless.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, just sort of like, the, the tagline of every menopausal woman out there.

• 23:15Liv Albert?

  Truly.

• 23:29Liv Albert?

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• 24:11Liv Albert?

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• 25:21Liv Albert?

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• 26:37Speaker 03

  But yeah, I feel like, like, the, the two things can happen at once. And I think it is the, any, any woman today that has any kind of moral background, and is an expert in the ancient world, is kind of facing this clash of, hey, I've got the devil on one shoulder, as the historian, go, let's interrogate the sources and what I, all the knowledge I have about the ancient world. But on the other side, I'm like, as a woman today, one that's very interested in dismantling the patriarchy as much as I can, like, I want to honor both sides. And I know that's what you do as well. So, like, it can all be true. Like, it can be like, we don't really know the answer, whether Medea, you know, looking

• 27:20Speaker 03

  at the kind of like, you know, where does she sit in things, the average woman, and women who were magical back then, or, or medical women, sorry, medicine women, that sort of thing. But we can, let's just, we can also have the second bit, which is like, hey, let's just have our reaction to it now.

• 27:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  And I think she's amazing. And I think that's why, with her story with the dragon slaying, I was like, I wanted to re-instate her power. Because so much has been done by the patriarchy to count her as this villainous, I mean, utterly horrific, the worst thing you can do, I say this as a mother, is kill your own kid. I mean, even today, if you're looking in the newspaper, and that story comes up, you know, you, you know, that is one of the worst things you could possibly imagine. And it's like, that's what we remember her for. That's what we, what, what, what artists later wanted to depict. It's what people are focused on. I'm not saying you have, but many people have focused on. And it's like, you know what? That she's this witch that kills her kids. And it's like,

• 28:20Speaker 03

  yeah. And also, that she's batshit and mentally-

• 28:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah. That is what fascinated me most, because I feel like that is what I took as a, took in as a child, like, learning words just by, you know, like, osmosis. And I feel like what I came away with is this idea that, that there's this, that, that, like, the term Medea meant to go crazy. Like, pulling a Medea. Like, I don't remember now where I got that, but that's always what I thought. And then, yeah, remember, I remember, like, first reading the actual things and being like, oh, she's not crazy. She's actually the opposite of crazy.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 28:57Liv Albert?

  But like, the men have to make her crazy in order to conceptualize, like, a woman who they find to be, and this is my newest thing, is like, noticing the way men, and by men, I mean in terms of like, the sources. The way men interpret women they would like to have sex with, even if they're scary, and women they would not like to have sex with, even if they're scary. And to me, Medea is such an example of like, men trying to navigate a woman who was hot enough to get Jason, but would still kill her children. And it's their, like, attempt to rationalize that, and you have to make her crazy.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I understand. And the way I see it is that, I, my view of it is not, not, not that dissimilar, but I feel like when I look at her, I actually look at power. I see power.

• 29:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah. It's fear of power, right?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's fear of female power, but not just fear of female power, fear of independent female power. She needs no man to do anything. And I think that, I think that most of this is around that anxiety-

• 30:08Speaker 03

  But interestingly, what happens to Medea as she, that's why I like this story of the Colchis dragon as an original, like the, the origin story.

• 30:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Because before this, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing in the, in the texts about her before, but you know, like, presumably she's just having a nice life, right?

• 30:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  And then up comes Jason and, you know, depending on which sources you look at, she falls in love with him independently or the gods made it happen. Who knows, right? And it's, it's like the love drives her mad. We all know that very well, well trodden trope of this is a story.

• 30:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah, a woman goes crazy because of a man.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  A woman is obsessed with love. She can go completely mad. I know that's like the superficial level of the story. Okay, great.

• 30:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  I love how cynical you go. We both are like, yeah, okay.

• 30:57Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that, I mean, it's literally, the reading is that, like, he chose someone else, so she went crazy.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 31:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And but never, never before that, though, it's before that, because the madness begins immediately.

• 31:11Liv Albert?

  That's true.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Because, you know, like, it's, it's like,

• 31:13Liv Albert?

  They're her brother.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  I'm gonna chop up my brother and chuck him all in the sea just to delay my father and so I was like,

• 31:18Liv Albert?

  Poor old absurdus.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  So, yeah, exactly, I know.

• 31:20Liv Albert?

  One of my favorite names, though.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great name, isn't it?

• 31:22Liv Albert?

  Absurdus.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know if it should come back, though. It's not.

• 31:26Liv Albert?

  It's not the most, like, modernly.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  You wouldn't really wanna call your kid it, given the fate he had.

• 31:30Liv Albert?

  You call him like Appy?

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Isn't that what they call an appendectomy when you have your?

• 31:35Liv Albert?

  Oh, I was thinking appetizer. I think both are funny for different reasons.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Oh, I love, I love these absolutely amazing tangents that happen on this podcast. It's the best ever. Uh, they are the best ever. They are the best ever. Yeah, you really have. Award-winning side chats.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  So, yeah, basically, I've also thought what I'm saying, but essentially that, like, the madness begins immediately. So it's like, we're in that moment where she begins to betray her father. And we've got to remember that the Colchis dragon is kind of the turning point, because although she has already helped him,

• 32:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  he's come for the fleece. This is the thing that she's gonna do, that is gonna really betray her family.

• 32:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  So in order, so doing what she does and then betraying her family, it's like, to me, my, you were, you were wondering earlier on, there was a question at the beginning about like, what my take is. And I've got this take that in some way she internalizes the monstrosity of the dragon inside of her.

• 32:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, love it.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Through this act, because, um, she overpowers or slays, as I will have it, the dragon, but I just think that she embodies its monstrosity, because that's often what dragons uh, represent in the ancient world in ancient Greece. They represent chaos often.

• 32:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  So it's like she, she almost absorbs its chaos. And in absorbing the chaos, we can trace it almost to that exact moment, the madness begins.

• 32:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  And I don't know that you can say it's driven by the love at that point. Again, on the superficial level, sure, okay.

• 33:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Here we go. But I wonder if, for me, there is an element of this internalizing of, of the kind of monstrosity.

• 33:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Um, and that's kind of all the darkness, all the what have you of the dragon.

• 33:15Liv Albert?

  One thing I've always been interested in, it kind of fits into this moment so well, is this idea of like, whether love, specifically whether her love for Jason is like independent or divine. And I know, like, I've always just been generally interested with that concept, because I think, like, at the core most Greek mythology can be read as like, or that features those moments, can be read as like, I think all love was understood to be divinely inspired. And so it kind of, almost doesn't matter whether a god did it. It's more like whether the god

• 33:56Liv Albert?

  like, made it excessive, which to me, if I recall, I haven't read a Colonnus in a while, but if I am remembering correctly, there is like a very visceral moment when Aphrodite has her falling in love, right? And it almost is like, I, I feel like I remember it being this like very, um, forceful experience for Medea in this way that I just remember being surprised and thinking like, oh, this feels very like,

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Like an infection, almost, an infection of blah, rather than, yeah, that, that makes sense, yeah.

• 34:29Liv Albert?

  And so it makes sense to me that then, and I love this idea of like, her absorbing the chaos of the dragon, that does so beautifully suit the whole situation. But I also think that then adding the level of like, whether Aphrodite or love was also pulling strings.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:45Liv Albert?

  I think that fits even with that as well, almost as like, the, the infection of love is what made her absorb this dragon, because there's also so much in Greek myth about the violence of love. And I'm not talking just like assault, but like the actual, the, the emotion itself and how like turbulent and, yeah. And so it's just interesting to kind of see how that can also be pulled in with this, this, like, the, the divine love is also, you know, leading to her to absorb this chaos and become this

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:18Liv Albert?

  dragon slaying queen.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Because she, you know, like, there's a question of like, so in my book, I've got, I've got four dragon slayers. I won't go into them now because they're not, they're to work Medea, but they're from other cultures a- around the world. And so with Medea, what's really interesting is she is um, the only one of all of the slayers that doesn't literally kill the dragon. And I wonder, that's fascinating to me, because when, when you don't slay it, literally, I mean, in a very technical sense of killing it, it just sleeps. It's almost like, there's almost like, that's why I think she's unique in my four, because I'm thinking, what happens then to the power of this dragon?

• 36:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Um, she's overpowered it. So that's why I feel like there is this absorption. And that chaos perhaps is coming out through all of those actions that we consider this mad, batshit woman, that actually could be the, could be the transference of the chaos of the dragon coming out.

• 36:16Liv Albert?

  Well.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, obviously it's a theme. It can't be, I think, the sole reason, because that would be too neat.

• 36:21Liv Albert?

  Of course, yeah.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  It can't be too neat, but I think it's an element. I think it's a massively overlooked element.

• 36:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  And obviously, my, my little bit here that I have to say now, because it fits on properly, is that's why I got in such a rage when I was looking at female dragon slayers, because we are denying women this immensely powerful moment in our folklore and, and mythology.

• 36:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Because no one has written about female dragon slayers yet. At all, like, it just doesn't exist. There are people, academics that are drawing together bits and pieces, but no one's actually focusing on this.

• 36:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  And also, if you read about dragons and dragon slayers, you still get all the bullshit male stories, they gorge on the dragon.

• 37:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  All these things. And we're missing, we're missing, like, when women slay dragons, they do it for different reasons as well.

• 37:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  And here for Medea, it's love. It's nearly always love, love of, of men or family. I'm not saying it's like a good thing in this.

• 37:13Liv Albert?

  No, no, yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  But it is her love of Jason that makes her do it, even if it's a kind of crazed love, as we said.

• 37:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I think this really, this adds another element that I think is really interesting to think about too, because where do the dragon teeth come in when the dragon is not fully dead? Because, because like, obviously, like, I, I'm not remembering sourcing well enough, so I've also just pointed out, but like, because there obviously is this element where the dragon's teeth are planted, right?

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:47Liv Albert?

  And then soldiers.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Of Ares, so that's a different dragon.

• 37:51Liv Albert?

  No, but it's supposed to be the same dragon's teeth get.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 37:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah, because like, the dragon teeth also get sewn, or it's this dragon's teeth that are sewn in Thebes? There's a connection between these two dragons.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Okay, so you, you, sorry, um, I'm thinking about Jason and the sewing of the teeth. Is that what you're talking about?

• 38:15Liv Albert?

  Yes, but they are connected to Cadmus and the sewing the teeth. The dragons are, at least in some sourcing, connected. So I'm clearly not remembering it well enough too, so don't worry if.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  No, I don't, I don't know about it. I don't know enough.

• 38:28Liv Albert?

  There are sourcing where those,

• 38:29Speaker 03

  I believe you.

• 38:30Liv Albert?

  same teeth, which is, I think that adds a lot to your theory about her absorbing the dragon, right? Because if that's the case, because this is why, um, it's mostly made me more obsessed with your idea. Because this first dragon, which is the, supposed to be the first dragon's teeth that are sewn, and then eventually the other ones will be sewn in Thebes. But this is the only, or first, only to have it be followed by the second, but I believe there's that connection to the dragon. Is that the, this makes a dragon have babies in a way that no other dragon in Greek myth has babies, let alone human babies.

• 39:13Liv Albert?

  And so now I'm getting into fun thinking about how if Medea is coming to embody that dragon, that would also imply why its teeth are able to give birth or to create life. I just think that's really interesting that it's one of the only Greek dragons with a connection to a woman. And also,

• 39:40Liv Albert?

  like, yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  No, what you're saying makes, makes a lot of sense. I was just trying to look at the sources, actually. I know, I know you'll just tidy this bit up for the pod.

• 39:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, no, and I might.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Take it out, or if you don't get anywhere, or just, but, um.

• 39:53Liv Albert?

  I want to remember what I'm thinking of too.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  I'm looking, I'm looking at like, the Colchis dragon afterwards, because obviously Medea leaves it, it's not, it's alive when she leaves it, even if it's asleep. Um, but, um.

• 40:05Liv Albert?

  My main version, oh, man.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  I love this. This is just what happens when two geeks get together.

• 40:10Liv Albert?

  I know. And now I'm annoyed because my, my gants.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  So Diomedes, Diomedes comes to, uh, finds the Colchis dragon, um, and kills it.

• 40:24Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Um, I'm just reading, just trying to read through it quickly.

• 40:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Liv Albert?

  While you're doing that, I'm literally just gonna run it-

• 40:34Speaker 03

  That's basically all you're told in the last text. But I would love to, I can't, I, I mean, I don't have all the sources here, so I don't know-

• 40:40Liv Albert?

  Hold on, I have one set of books that I just want to check quickly, but they're in another room. I'm gonna, one second.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, go for it, go for it. No, it's fine, because we now-

• 40:46Liv Albert?

  We'll edit this out.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, because we could do it again. We could talk about it like we actually know about it.

• 40:51Liv Albert?

  This is what I needed, is my early Greek myths books.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, show me, uh, what's that, um, G. S. Kirk?

• 40:57Liv Albert?

  Uh, it's the, the Timothy Gantz, it's a John Hopkins book, but it's two volume that like saves my life.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Have a little look.

• 41:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Um, because I don't have that on me. I've only got, uh, I've only got my Daniel book on me.

• 41:14Liv Albert?

  Why don't they just have a spot on the colch-?

• 41:15Speaker 03

  I would love, you just left all this in and they're just, everyone's sitting there going, what the fuck happened to these two?

• 41:19Liv Albert?

  Everyone's just like, what's happening? These people are crazy.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's, um, so you know, there's a lot, what you were saying around, um, dragons being able to procreate is one of the scariest aspects of dragon myth, especially female dragons. That's why they're usually more terrifying, like Echidna, mother of dragons.

• 41:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Original mother of dragons.

• 41:43Liv Albert?

  Uh, yeah, well, in-

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Have you found it? Was it in there or not?

• 41:46Liv Albert?

  I, I, I think, I just have to find the right section. It was in the other book.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. That's fine. So I thought you'd given up on the other book and that was it?

• 41:52Liv Albert?

  No, no, it was just that I, the index in one told me to look at the other.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 41:58Liv Albert?

  There we go, Jason and the Argo. This guy, I don't know if you're familiar, are you familiar with this book generally?

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got one somewhere. They said all my books are in storage still, so I've got like two books for the moment.

• 42:08Liv Albert?

  No, no, so far I was more just like, if you weren't, because it's the greatest thing I've ever had, um.

• 42:15Liv Albert?

  But now, it's also very hard. Okay, Medea, yeah, where's the dragon?

• 42:20Speaker 03

  Okay, so is it that, um,

• 42:24Speaker 03

  um, Athena gave the teeth of the dragon of Ares to both Cadmus and Aetes?

• 42:29Liv Albert?

  Oh, so it's the opposite?

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Is it that? Is it that? I mean, I'm not-

• 42:33Liv Albert?

  That would, that would make sense.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  This is just on the internet, so I'm not gonna, I'm just not gonna-

• 42:36Liv Albert?

  Okay, yeah, well, I can't find it anywhere either.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna tell you this bullshit.

• 42:39Liv Albert?

  No, but I mean, that, that makes, that makes some sense.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  So the teeth of the Theban dragon ended up in Colchis?

• 42:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so it's the opposite of what I was thinking.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:49Liv Albert?

  So they're still connected.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I knew that it was the dragon of Ares's teeth, so, yeah.

• 42:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, interesting, okay.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  But I mean, yeah, yeah.

• 42:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah, no, I mean, it's more, it's generally just, I love, uh, the, the sewing teeth to having these like soldiers born from the earth is, is generally one of my favorite. I mean, I love the various ways that the, that the Greeks try to explain, um, like, there were a tothene, but also like indigeneity, right? It's so interesting to me, like, but anyway, sorry, yeah, the, the teeth-

• 43:21Speaker 03

  It was a really good thought, it was a good thought, but-

• 43:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and it-

• 43:23Speaker 03

  It's quite neatly linked, does it?

• 43:24Liv Albert?

  No, not as well as I wanted it to, but still, it's, I mean, the fact that, okay, this, this also did lead me to, because we're thinking so much about this dragon, and this is only a silly anecdote, but we do have to just very briefly talk about that, is it a Kylax? Um, that pottery where Jason is being thrown up by the dragon?

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, because that's just the best image ever, isn't it?

• 43:47Liv Albert?

  It's really one of the most delightful things around.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  It's the, um, Duras cup, isn't it? It's a Duras cup. Um, so it's, um, the image, you need to Google it, so just, if you guys are listening and you want to-

• 43:59Liv Albert?

  I will try to post it if I think of it, but like, yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  The Duras cup, so it's like from like the fifth century or something, BC. And it's this like, the dragon is presumably so big that it could, you can only feature its head.

• 44:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  And it's like, Jason's just like being sicked up from it.

• 44:15Liv Albert?

  It's like, the top half of his body is just hanging out of this, like giant snake dragon's mouth.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  I mean, therefore it dates to a similar time as Pindar's, uh, little, little mention. So it's hard to know quite what myth was circulating at the time, because as you know, the, the canonical one that we, that really comes from our Colonia, so we don't, we don't really-

• 44:38Liv Albert?

  It's very late.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Everything's downstream of that, so-

• 44:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but we know that the stories existed in such depth and detail before the ones that survive, like, ugh.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  And in that one, he's getting sicked up. I mean, that is strange, and also there's a figure next to him, and it's, um, it's a woman-

• 44:56Liv Albert?

  Athena, right?

• 44:56Speaker 03

  But it's Athena, exactly. So the whole thing we were talking about, about the role of the gods and everything, that is very typical, as you know, like to have a god or goddess-

• 45:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah, of course.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  Flanked somewhere as a-

• 45:04Liv Albert?

  Well, Athena's always helping the heroes.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly, any, any hero, as we keep saying about Jason, you know, he technically is one. Um, but yeah, it's a weird, it's a weird, there's a, so, as you probably know, there's no written source that explains that image.

• 45:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Like, what the hell's actually going on? Like, I don't know.

• 45:24Liv Albert?

  No, and I'm always-

• 45:24Speaker 03

  But I do like that he looks pathetic.

• 45:25Liv Albert?

  He does. No, it is a delightful image, it really is, and I think it's a good, it, it brings up something that's always kind of bothered me, and it's nice to hear of like ways that the stories, other ways the stories are being told, because that is an example of something where there's so many, like, pop culture-y books, usually written by old white men, and they are classicists, but usually, you know, they've written a pop mythology book alongside all of their higher brow, whatever. And most of those books that are like the ones that you pick up at a bookstore, I'm thinking primarily of the one written by Rob- Robin Waterfield, and it's just called The Greek Myths, and it's like literally everywhere.

• 46:07Liv Albert?

  And there are so many instances in that book, but also in just so many of these like pop myth books, where the, the author will like retell the story featuring, like, say, the fact that Jason got eaten by this dragon, and he had to like kill it from the inside or something, and so often a story will like tell those details that they've interpreted from this one piece of pottery, but which doesn't exist in, in surviving text sources, but because this is like a pop mythology book, they'll never explain that. You'll just get this like, and they always talk about a myth as if there is this one singular version, and like half the time, I mean, in this Robin Waterfield one, which I love to shit all over, because it's horrific representation of Greek myths.

• 46:49Liv Albert?

  But the, I mean, there, specifically in his telling of the Medusa story, he features not only Ovid's like very specific version, but also like, he honestly, like, this is not me talking about this book, that's not the whole point, but it is like he took the most misogynist version of like every story that I found in there. Anyway, that, it's, it's not really related to Medea in this case, but it's just reminds me, but I think when Medea is a good example of another person who's often wronged by those stories in various other ways, because again, this is going to be a story where a man retells it, he's gonna exclusively use Euripides,

• 47:30Liv Albert?

  with no mention that this was a tragedy and not a myth, right? And that like, it's very likely that Euripides invented a lot of details, potentially even her killing her children, you know, all these things, and like, we're always told these myths as if there's like one canon version, and that canon version tends to include like a thousand, two thousand years worth of interpretation by men. And it's just, I don't know, that, again, like, I'm just-

• 47:55Speaker 03

  No, good rant, I love it.

• 47:56Liv Albert?

  I could rant about anything in this episode, but like, for Medea, I think it's so nice to have versions of her story, which are looking at these other elements and are not focusing on Jason being the primary character, or all of these different things, right? Because especially with these women who are so wrapped up in these heroes, like, their stories are often so fucked with, not even just in the ancient sources, but also in these men, like, men like Robin Waterfield, who come in here later and like rewrite these stories through this like unhinged level of misogynist lens, and yeah, I don't know, I guess I'm just, yeah, always glad to have more of like-

• 48:35Speaker 03

  No, exactly, me too, that was just my whole mission, all my, every single one of my, like, or everything I do now is female myth, that is it. Like, I won't, if it's got a man, not if it's got a man in it, I won't, but it's, uh, but the, the thing that you're mentioning is that there are a lot of people that do mythical retellings, right? There, I mean, there are plenty of authors out there that do that, they do it beautifully, I'm not gonna shit on that.

• 48:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah, you mean fictional in this case?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  I mean fictional, yeah, but, but you know, so you can name all the books and all the authors you like, but that's great. But what has always bothered me is I want to, I, as somebody that knows the source material-

• 49:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  I want it to be source-informed.

• 49:15Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  But at the same time, like, source-adapted.

• 49:20Liv Albert?

  Yes, aware of the limitations of the sources, right?

• 49:24Speaker 03

  So that's why everything I do, it's why I blend myth and history in everything I do. It's why, as much as I'd love to just go off and retell, there's an urge in me and a desire in me, I can't-

• 49:34Liv Albert?

  You're describing me.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Because I need to literally tell you what the source is-

• 49:37Liv Albert?

  We are on the, oh, I love this, yeah.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  What the patriarchy did, as well as the retelling.

• 49:42Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  And I'm calling this mystery.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Because I thought you'd love that. It's myth and history together because I just think, oh my God, what do you get like in this conversation? I know you do the exact same thing with your work, right? In this conversation, how much more value, interest, just everything do you get from the fact that you can do both?

• 50:06Liv Albert?

  Yep.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  So here we are reclaiming this story. I'm telling you, I've rewritten it. I've used the source material. I'm, I'm bringing forth a new concept of her as a dragon slayer. I want to look at her in a different way. I want to put across her multifaceted nature. I want to get away from this villainous concept that has been hijacked by patriarchy for millennia. And at the same time, I want to tell you exactly what I've done. I want to be honest about my sources and I want you to feel like you can sit there and have an opinion. And I think in the world of fake news and bullshit that goes on, the more transparent we are with readers, with listeners, whatever, about this is what I'm saying, this is the source material, the more powerful it is, and I think to me, there's a bit of me, I know these people aren't real, but when you live it, and I know

• 50:50Speaker 03

  you're insane, they do feel they've got places in my heart. Like I care about them and I want to give them the chance to shine in different ways. And I will do this till I die. Like I will just do this till I die on my own hill with you, Liv, because you're doing this.

• 51:05Liv Albert?

  Truly, like everything you said, I'm like.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  I know, I know. You've been doing it for a long time.

• 51:09Liv Albert?

  Are we doing literally the same thing in different ways? And I love that for both of us.

• 51:13Speaker 03

  Exactly. And this is the thing. I think there's a group of us women that are doing this. Not many that could just go on a little hill and we could just die on that hill together if we want to, but we will die on the hill because I won't stop talking until the last breath about this stuff. And there's so many characters and figures that need this reclamation. It's just ridiculous. And I'll be completely honest that I think modern women are desperate for it, crying out. They need heroines. They need to remind themselves of what they really are.

• 51:44Liv Albert?

  They've got two different book proposals that I'm actively working on that fit into everything you're describing right now. The second, right before I, the reason actually I was like a minute or two late onto our call is because I got caught up in another side of the research that I was doing all morning.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  Okay, I can't wait to hear about this.

• 51:59Liv Albert?

  I've been up since 7:00 AM researching these ladies because I'm a crazy person.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  This is the benefit of having my job because I can get an inside of it of gossip afterwards.

• 52:07Liv Albert?

  No, truly, yeah, well, I'll share more.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Well, I will be buying that book or those books. Okay, that's, that's, you can at least picture it that way. So I've already sold a copy.

• 52:15Liv Albert?

  Great.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  So, you know.

• 52:16Liv Albert?

  No, but there is such a desire for this. And especially now with like, I mean, in the West specifically, they're pulling back our rights as easily as they gave them to us. Um, and yeah, I think more than ever, right? We want to be not just like looking at women's stories. I think there's, there's an enormous place for that. There's still a hole in the market. Like I'm so, I, like you, I'm, I'm so glad that there are so many retellings. I love that for them. I love that for the authors. And at the same time though, I think the one thing that has not been tapped, particularly in the popular history space, less academic,

• 52:58Liv Albert?

  more, you know, um, traditional publisher history space, is that we, we haven't talked about the, the, the mytho historic aspect, the stuff that you and I are looking at, the, the ways that these women interact with the history and the culture and there, it, there is such a place for retellings and I'm so glad to have them. But one thing I haven't found yet is one that accurate, that like does what I personally want, which is interact with the sources and the stuff that we know for sure and, and play with that rather than, like I, what I want, and I keep trying to write it, but I don't know that I'm a fiction

• 53:42Liv Albert?

  author. We'll see. But like, I want, I want a, a retelling that doesn't ignore the patriarchal aspects and the violence of, against women of Greek mythology. Like I understand why so many retellings just kind of make the women equal in a way. And that's kind of the vibe instead. But I want one that navigates the, the actual patriarchal structure and turns it on its head in that way rather than, I just find, I think most of them just kind of ignore it. And I understand that too. Not everyone wants to like write an enormously

• 54:22Liv Albert?

  political treatise, which I again have like, I have the background of like a, a Greek myth world built that is exactly that. But I don't know if I'll ever have like a fictional story that exists in that realm. But you know, like it's, it's just, yeah, I think there's, there's so much space for these women. And the thing that I want to see more of is not just like making them into fully fledged characters, but also looking at how the characters that we do have were shaped by men and, and what that did to those women and to us now.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:01Liv Albert?

  You know, like I think there is such a, yeah, there's such a place for that. And, and specifically in mythology too, like when it comes to, yeah, I mean, starting with dragon slayers, hell yeah. You know, and like for me, it's like every other woman in myth and I want to talk about them all. And yeah, there's just, I don't know, there, there's, I think the biggest hole that I have personally found, and I know it, it's in part because I am not an academic and I don't want to be, and I want to exist in between. But like, I don't, I just don't see enough people talking about the overall impact that the patriarchal structure has had. The way that like, to this day, you can pick out like one, you know, I mean, probably five in 10 general books on Greek history will have max one chapter on like women and slaves.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:46Liv Albert?

  You know, and, and that is so pathetic. And it's just, yeah, the fact that like all of what we learn as a society is based on like 10% of the people, like the Athenian men or whoever it may be. But anyway, yeah, another long-winded, just like rant because there's just, I just think that women have been done so dirty across mythology and the sources and the interpretations.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  And listen, you know, like my work is all about this. Every book I write is about this. Everything I do is about this. So I obviously agree with you one billion percent. And then I'm taking it one step further because I'm also now trying to re, all my work is also from figures from diverse cultures.

• 56:27Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  So I'm, I'm, I'm really being a drum alone because we don't, we already don't have it like you, like you say, in any real significant and respectful sense in the Western world, looking at our own heritage, the classical world. It's already scant. And as you say, no one really wants to really get into the nitty gritty of the patriarchy. I do that in my books, but you know, like I take it by theme. Um, but also I just go, that's not enough to do. I'm going to add in to make me even more marginal. I'm also going to make sure that I reclaim women of color across the world. Um, and that's partly informed by the fact that I'm mixed race myself. And that's part of my, that's how I feel about

• 57:12Speaker 03

  the world. But so, and I, again, I will die on that hill too. And I think that, do you know what? Um, I actually think that I know that the world isn't great and people are feeling really disillusioned. And I'm not underplaying that because it is tough times to live. But I do really believe in the power of story and the power of history to help people, uh, explore themselves and understand themselves differently. Because one of the things we're trying to do is break this shackles of patriarchy that we're all under. We're, we're all waking up to it going, what the fuck? Why am I supposed to be like that? What is that about? Why am I only reading about this? And, um, yeah, I think it's great that like, I just, I do feel grateful that we live in a time that we can do this. There

• 57:55Speaker 03

  you are with your podcast and all your wonderful listeners. And I'm writing books and all this stuff. And thank God we can do that. And we'll keep doing it and it will change. Um, and you know, your listeners are already doing the right thing by supporting your podcast, supporting your books, supporting people like me and our books and just following people and stuff like that. It's the best thing you can do. Um, to make people like publishers and what have you, want to commission work like this. And you know, it's not about personal ego or financial gain really. To me, it's a movement.

• 58:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  We're part of a movement. And I would say it's in early-ish stages. Like, I mean, I don't know where you put it, but it's been going around for a few years, maybe five years or something. I think that maybe something around there that, that there is a, there are multiple people working in, in this public historian, um, bridging between academic, there's a few of us working in that space that are trying to build this thing. And we need other people to come in and support it as much as possible. So obviously I know you want to thank all your listeners. I always thank everyone that I listen all the time. Anyone who's bought my book, supported my stuff because it makes a difference.

• 59:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 59:19Speaker 04

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• 1:01:04Liv Albert?

  I also like to remind my listeners, I mean, I thank them all for listening to me, especially when I get on my crazy person rants.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  I think that's why they're here, Liv. I think you're okay.

• 1:01:12Liv Albert?

  Hell, yeah, it is. But I also want, I've been doing this like a little bit more, and I don't want to give men any more credit than they deserve, but I do have to call out like, the men who listen to me, especially at this place that I have personally reached at the nonstop hearing about all of the different ways that millions of men are trying to rape women all the time. I just, you know, I have been less and less empathetic to men as of late, and I, I don't intend to change that. Let's not go crazy, but there are so many men who listen to me and I'm so proud of them and I like to really call that out. Like, I'm really proud that there are men who not only listen to me, but really hear it.

• 1:01:52Liv Albert?

  And, and, and are willing to use that to help because one of the things that I have come to specifically, I mean, more and more, but over the last six months, like it's come to a real head, but like, women can't break this patriarchal hold by ourselves. We cannot. They have made it so that we can't. That is a function of the patriarchy. Only men can do it. And, and that means you have to step up if you actually give a shit about people who aren't men. And so, yeah, to the guys who are listening to me and agree with that and, and want to be part of that, please, thank you. Because literally the patriarchy has made it so that we cannot do it ourselves. We are trying, but we can't. We actually have to have men helping us.

• 1:02:38Liv Albert?

  I want to share this anecdote about a friend of mine who said something fucking stupid. So that I can share it with my listeners so that they don't feel this way. But I was talking to a friend of mine who I've known for like 20 years and, you know, we, one of those friends, we catch up every few years. So we're not like super in-depth with, into each other's lives now, but we were talking and, and he had had like a bit of a feminist awakening, we'll say, but, and, and that turned into him, it was very entertaining for me, honestly, as somebody who is like very awakened. Having him, he was just like telling me all this stuff he's learned about like the hold the patriarchy has and like men. And I was like, yeah, welcome, welcome.

• 1:03:22Liv Albert?

  But one thing, and he was doing really well in sharing all this knowledge and had clearly taught himself a lot. But the thing that kept coming back is that he was telling me about how he was sharing all of this like patriarchal awakening with his female friends. And the critique was that like, oh, you didn't know how bad it is. And he just kept kind of telling this to me as if like he was, he was using his knowledge not to, to press other men, but to inform women about their own oppression. And I kept trying to talk to him about this and be like, but no, you, men have to be the actually, you, you need to be talking about men about this. And he's like, oh, I can't. They, that's, that's like, it's impossible. And I was like, that's the problem, you dickwad.

• 1:04:04Liv Albert?

  He doesn't listen, so it's fine, but he is a fucking dickwad for saying that. And I didn't stand up enough. I was like telling him off, but it was a whole thing. Anyway. But like, that it's, you, you, you actually, as a man, if you, if you, as a man, have this feminist awakening and suddenly you understand the breadth of the patriarchy and how it spoilers has oppressed you too, as men. You absolutely cannot turn that knowledge on women. That is not your fucking job. Men are not, it is not your job as an awakened man to awaken a woman. Go fuck yourself and awaken another man. Like, I just, and I think that's important to say though, like for real, like, don't go telling women about their own oppression.

• 1:04:48Liv Albert?

  And imagining that you can't, because men are so convinced, like, are you kidding? That's the fucking problem. Anyway. I just wanted to say that because it really like, we're, this is all about the patriarchy now at this point. And like, I think that is such an example of these men who think that they are an ally. And then when confronted with this of like, but as a man, you actually, your role is to change the minds of other men, not women. And the pushback I had even on somebody who's known me as long as they have, it's just like, it was shocking. And so, oh my God, this episode is all rants. This is what you get for also like 9:30 in the morning, Liv. And like peak perimenopause.

• 1:05:29Liv Albert?

  But I really like, oh, actually, this is terrible. That was terrible ADHD. I wanted to ask you earlier. And I hope that this is not a put on the spot if the answer is like, no, but I'm so curious if you were able to find any like Georgian connections to Medea, because I know that they do, like in the country of Georgia, like there, I think there's like a statue to her at least. With this, with this like acknowledgement that she is like a cultural, even if it's Greek myth, but like culturally linked to Georgia.

• 1:05:59Speaker 03

  I didn't look into that because I was writing a retelling really of her from

• 1:06:03Liv Albert?

  Like classical.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. But I would love to know more about that.

• 1:06:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah. No, me too. Which is why I'm like, I want someone else to come explain it to me because I don't know how to look into like Georgian story culture.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Maybe it's something I'm so gonna look into after this episode.

• 1:06:16Liv Albert?

  No, please don't.

• 1:06:17Speaker 03

  I would love to know about that too. I, I mean, it would make some sense.

• 1:06:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I know that there, there is something where they have, they have taken her as a cultural icon in some, I've heard a reference at least. I know that there's not like a total disconnect. Well, actually I also, I was once, I bought a bottle of wine purely because it's Georgian wine and it's literally meant to look like an ancient amphora with like a depiction of Medea and the and I was like, this is adorable. I'll never drink this wine, but it's fucking beautiful.

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Need to put it on the side and look.

• 1:06:48Liv Albert?

  Truly.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Liv Albert?

  But no, it's, yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  No, I don't know about that, but that's really, that's really interesting.

• 1:06:54Liv Albert?

  It's because I think the fact that she's a barbarian is such a huge part of it too, right?

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  That yet, but she is a foreigner.

• 1:07:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  And so, I mean, I mean, in some ways, that's often what happens when we look at anything monstrous.

• 1:07:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  It lives on the periphery of society, of civilization. Yes, the east, the east is dodgy, of course, in many Greek.

• 1:07:21Liv Albert?

  But it's also where the sun comes up, which it took me years before I realized that that's why I E T is in Medea and everyone lives out there.

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  But you know, it's just like pretty common really for it to be out there. Dragons often exist in these sort of again, liminal spaces, edges of society. So kind of all, all kind of fits really with the bear, so.

• 1:07:46Liv Albert?

  Speaking of dragons, because you're also just dragon lady and I was like,

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  Dragon lady, that's my official term.

• 1:07:51Liv Albert?

  I'm so glad. It's a great name. But I like, so one thing that's always generally interested me, but I've never really looked. I mean, the Greek dragon is really just like big snake.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Liv Albert?

  Right? And so, but then simultaneously like snakes are so sacred and connected to the underworld and stuff. And so do you have, do you have any thoughts on that kind of, I mean, I'm sure it's not like a full blown like juxtaposition, like there's not really, it's not like an opposite situation. But it's just interesting to me that there is like snakes are sacred, very tied, chthonic, all of these things, but then dragons are obviously.

• 1:08:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you have, you have, you have serpents and things connected to Asclepius and

• 1:08:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, exactly. Right. They're healing.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Healing as well. And you know, but this is the point like there's a multifaceted nature to the serpent.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  And I think there's a distinction between a snake, which is a different word in Greek.

• 1:08:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  To a dragon.

• 1:08:49Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  Which is another, so although they appear very similar, visually, they're very similar. And you are right, that they're just giant snakes, essentially. That's what they look like. Often, but Typhon, for example, had wings.

• 1:09:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah, Typhon, well, and there's like a bazillion different descriptions of him and sometimes he's incredible.

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, sometimes it's kind of completely batshit.

• 1:09:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  What's happened there?

• 1:09:11Liv Albert?

  You're like describing and you're like, I can't even picture that if I wanted to.

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  He's really fascinating. He just doesn't want to, he's like a shapeshifter. There's like no, but you know, like

• 1:09:19Liv Albert?

  Well, there's like a myth too, where, where he like removes the sinews from Zeus's body. And Zeus is like a skin sack and Cadmus has to come save him. I think that's in the Dionysia cut though. So it's like very late, but still.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it is. There are, you know, there's so, yeah, they're snakes. Yes, they're connected, but there is a bit of a difference.

• 1:09:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  But even in this story of the cultist dragon, the dragon is guarding.

• 1:09:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  Guarding a treasure.

• 1:09:48Liv Albert?

  Well, and same with the dragon berries.

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:09:50Liv Albert?

  Actually, they're always guarding, or usually.

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  They're not, they're not always guarding, but they often are.

• 1:09:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, because even Python, I was thinking too, Python is too.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, they can be, they can be guarding something, something like, like a treasure or something sacred or important.

• 1:10:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  But not necessarily always. I think that, you know, if you think about like the Kitos, the sea dragons.

• 1:10:10Liv Albert?

  I guess if we want to call them dragons.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, well, I would.

• 1:10:13Liv Albert?

  They constitute as dragons?

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  I would call them dragons, like a subset of dragons, because they behave in a very similar way.

• 1:10:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and they're like.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Are connected.

• 1:10:21Liv Albert?

  Fantastical.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, there's like, no, there's aspects that connect for sure.

• 1:10:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  But anyway, the, the, the idea that they, you know, they are snakes.

• 1:10:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Um, but they are big ones. And it's not obvious until later that we get the dragon that we see, that we imagine.

• 1:10:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah, Greeks didn't have like dragon, dragon.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  You know, that guy. Um.

• 1:10:39Liv Albert?

  But it's always interesting to me because the word dragon is Greek.

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Liv Albert?

  Like it's coming from Dracon.

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's why it comes from Dracon, yeah.

• 1:10:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so it's just interesting to me that like, we think of dragons as this thing that, like, the Greeks did not think of dragons, like, we think of dragons, but the word dragon is coming from the Greek dragon.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  I mean, I think the connection is, like, there are loads, I mean, you could, I could do like a four hour podcast.

• 1:10:58Liv Albert?

  I bet.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  Basically, the, the, the bottom line for everybody who's had enough of listening now, um, like, is that a lot of it is, is not just necessarily appearances, behavior. And it's kind of embodiment of characteristics and it's kind of role within wider myth.

• 1:11:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 03

  That would determine the dragon, the dragon itself. Uh, because sometimes, you're like, so like, for example, like the chimera is considered potentially a composite dragon.

• 1:11:23Liv Albert?

  Right, okay.

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  And, and it's only got a tinsy bit of snake on it.

• 1:11:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah. But, but the snake it does have.

• 1:11:29Speaker 03

  It does have a great snake.

• 1:11:31Liv Albert?

  I think you and I talked about the chimera, right? Because it's my favorite. Yeah, yeah, that was our last episode.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was, right, so like, go back.

• 1:11:37Liv Albert?

  The chimera.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  Maybe two years or even three years.

• 1:11:39Liv Albert?

  I think, I know, I was, it was a while. Time flies in a terrifying way when you get older.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  It does, it does, it does. So, yeah, so, so like, there's like, you know, like Medusa.

• 1:11:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, not a dragon.

• 1:11:50Speaker 03

  She's not a dragon, no, but there's an aspect, like.

• 1:11:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  So it's what I mean about the embodiment, think of it like a embodiment, a characteristic that can be absorbed. Um, and morphed into other things.

• 1:12:03Liv Albert?

  Have you looked at Lamia at all? I don't know if she counts, yeah.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, she counts as, as, I would say as a.

• 1:12:08Liv Albert?

  Well, when you were talking earlier, and I realize that, because again, ADHD, I never even got this out, but Lamia's always interested me. Because it feels very, uh, immediate, like, you know how you were saying that they kind of, that the witches and everyone, they exist in that liminal space and like, there's, there's sort of a lack of that. Like a real people having a fear, right? Like, real people didn't fear.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Media coming and killing your kids.

• 1:12:30Liv Albert?

  But they did fear like a Lamia or, um, Gorgo or like, you know, there, there was this like kind of boogie woman.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  That's where it sort of becomes amazing, where you take a story of Greek myth, but it becomes almost like urban legend.

• 1:12:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  Original urban legend.

• 1:12:46Liv Albert?

  Well, and I think that's where, you know, the definition of what is myth and like, the word is so fluid and I think you and I would, you know, we could talk for hours about, because you know, like.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  That's for the next episode.

• 1:12:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah, because like Lamia, I wouldn't necessarily always say, like, she is mythical, but like, there aren't really myths, so it's like, it is much more like an urban legend, much more like, but in the same way that lots of myth can be and.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's got mythical origins.

• 1:13:10Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  Definitely is myth, but it's.

• 1:13:12Liv Albert?

  But it was, it was more of like that immediate, yeah, it was urban legend myth, not like, because it was, the idea was just like, oh, Lamia would come kill your children, but it wasn't like Odyssey type story, you know, it's just interesting.

• 1:13:23Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah, no, I think that all these, like, why something like that happens in that way is like, an annoying question that we'll never get the answer to, but it's. It is really interesting, but also I think that that's because, um, what the Lamia represents or the fear that she kind of represents in her story.

• 1:13:41Liv Albert?

  Is very Medea.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Loss and, and, and, you know, the fear of mortality of infants and things like that. It's so very visceral and real to everyone, given the high mortality rates of.

• 1:13:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  Of, of, of babies and young children, that it almost makes it real. It is, it's something you're experiencing, you know. It's happening around you, like, you're either as a woman, as a woman, you've probably experienced it physically, or indeed the women around you have, so.

• 1:14:10Liv Albert?

  But then you think about it the way, because like, that is such a kind and empathetic reading, and I agree with you completely. But then I think of the way that Lamia is used, because she is used as a threat against women. She is used as a threat that a woman could kill her children. And so you should fear a woman because of that, or like, you know, that like, in the night, a woman could come steal your baby. Like, it's just so interesting to me that you're quite right, that this is like a very real and human. Fear, but that that gets turned into a misogynist ideal.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Well, I think that's all myth. I think everything has its, it's, this maybe, maybe this is because, uh, maybe because I'm an optimist in general, right? That I think that all these myths at their heart, at their very core, have something incredibly human, something quite raw about the.

• 1:14:58Liv Albert?

  And then the misogyny laid over.

• 1:14:59Speaker 03

  And then there are layers, and exactly, it's like misogyny layers, like an onion, right? It's just like, on goes the layers, and that's, and unfortunately, we've had so many years of patriarchy and misogyny, the layers are thick as fuck now. They're just really thick.

• 1:15:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Speaker 03

  And I think that, you know, like, it's easy to get lost in those layers, and I think we, we need to acknowledge them, and they need to be dealt with absolutely, they need to be called out, peeled back.

• 1:15:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with them.

• 1:15:26Speaker 03

  It's, I know you are, and that's cool, that's good, that's good. But I think I take to like, when you did, we talked about the patriarchy and all, and you were talking about men and everything, I take a different view because I, I, um. I really, really, I mean, obviously the patriarchy affects every single human on this planet. It serves absolutely no one unless you're.

• 1:15:45Liv Albert?

  Except the super duper billionaire rich.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  That we won't even say his name, that scumbag, right? Any scumbags. It, it, they, you know, they, they will be, um, uh, they will benefit from it, but really, no one benefits from it. And so I tend to take a view of like, you know, I, I have a lot of, I, I have a lot of good men in my life who are doing really good things. I, I sort of come away from the gender question slightly. Although of course I acknowledge the really true reality about awfulies for women and how disproportionate it is for women. It's not about glossing over that, that really needs to be valued and respected and acknowledged, and that does need to be a focus, but also I think that.

• 1:16:26Speaker 03

  Until we come back to our core humanity and we unify ourselves, we won't really get anywhere.

• 1:16:33Liv Albert?

  That's so true. I also.

• 1:16:34Speaker 03

  This is my, my very philosophy-ish.

• 1:16:37Liv Albert?

  See, and me, there's the.

• 1:16:38Speaker 03

  Way of looking at this.

• 1:16:39Liv Albert?

  And then there's, here's my counter, which is that I agree with you completely.

• 1:16:43Speaker 03

  Counter.

• 1:16:43Liv Albert?

  Well, and I agree with you completely. And. I don't see men looking to do that.

• 1:16:53Liv Albert?

  It, as they currently are, and thus we need to focus on men being the problem.

• 1:16:56Speaker 03

  I, but that's interesting, because I do see men doing that in my life.

• 1:16:59Liv Albert?

  Oh, good.

• 1:17:00Speaker 03

  So I, so maybe that's what it is as well. It's about the sort of personal experience of life and who we're around. I definitely think it's seriously fucked out there and there are some.

• 1:17:10Liv Albert?

  I know a lot of decent men, but unfortunately, over the past few years, I've had more. Men who I used to think were decent reveal themselves as being horrific pieces of human garbage.

• 1:17:19Speaker 03

  And I think that's, I think that's fair, because that's your, that's, that's very, that's valid, that's your life and that's your experience and.

• 1:17:25Liv Albert?

  But I would love to hear of more good men in the world.

• 1:17:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are plenty, there are plenty.

• 1:17:29Liv Albert?

  That's great. I think they should be louder.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  You can just trust me on that.

• 1:17:32Liv Albert?

  No, but they need to be louder, that's the thing. We need to know that they're there, because if there are good men, but they're not loud, then they're not doing any good. They're just being good for like, two women in their lives and that's nice.

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  I want to counter that by also saying that there, the women, there are some women that need to speak up, there are.

• 1:17:47Liv Albert?

  Absolutely, and there's a lot of women who need to shut the fuck up.

• 1:17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that's why I come away.

• 1:17:51Liv Albert?

  A lot of white privileged women who need to shut the fuck up. There's a lot of J K Rowling that need to shut the fuck up.

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  This is probably why I come away from like the gender, like, naming male and women, because it's across the board, and that is not to suggest that they're, like I told you. I don't want to, I'm, I'm making sure I'm really clear that I'm not trying to downplay what is really happening to women out there, because it is really happening and it needs to be addressed. But I do think that when we're looking at solutions, or we're looking at how, how the fuck is this gonna get better, I think it has to be about. A unification of that and how that happens to us and all the nuanced ways.

• 1:18:27Liv Albert?

  It's funny, because I think we're talking about the same thing.

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, we are talking about it.

• 1:18:29Liv Albert?

  I want a unification, I just want men, I don't want us to have to force the men into it. I want the men to be interested in doing it themselves.

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Liv Albert?

  Because they, we tend to have to do everything for them. Over that.

• 1:18:46Speaker 03

  I love it. I'm just like, I

• 1:18:48Liv Albert?

  I know. I'm sorry. I've made this into like,

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  I think you should call this episode Medea, Medea, Dragon Slayer, and the patriarchy. It's like, it's all good. Or split it up into two episodes.

• 1:19:00Liv Albert?

  No, this is, Medea is the, I mean, her, even just like the way her story has been told is such like a little, like, um, uh, what is the word I want? Like a little, you know, it's like a little piece. Or, but her story embodies the patriarchal message, I think is what I mean. It's like the way that her story has been told, not her as a concept, but like the sourcing, the versions, the, the villainy, the, you know?

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  Do you know what? I think she gets me more pissed off when I read her story than I do Medusa.

• 1:19:35Liv Albert?

  Really? I was literally just gonna say the only one who makes me more angry is Medusa.

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  It's funny, but I think, no, I think Medea does it more for me.

• 1:19:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but I think that's because you've done this book, right? And I've only felt this way since I wrote my like thirty thousand words breaking down the history of Medusa. Now I'm like, well, it's over. I can't see anything else, you know? And so, yeah, it's so interesting.

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  For me, no, yeah, I get it. It's Medea. There's a few, there's a few reasons. I think it's because I love, I love witchcraft. I love witches. And I think that that, that extra layer of disregard and the kind of, you know, the, the history that kind of surrounds that makes me really livid. To the point where the next thing I'm gonna write is about witches, because I'm like, I've got obsessed with it. Like, you've had your obsessions recently. This is my obsession. It's witches. This is where I'm going next. I'm writing that next.

• 1:20:21Liv Albert?

  Anecdotally, I can't wait because my little tiny pet obsession that I don't actually wanna research, I just like, it lives in my head, is the juxtaposition between Greek and Roman witches. Because I think it conveys like just how much the patriarchy evolved between Greece and Rome. And just like, the fact that we have like Circe and Medea, and then you have like, those like hags who are trying to like trick men into sleeping with them. Like, it's so wild in Rome. The witches are like just this misogynist like caricature of an old lady. Like, it's wild.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's wild. It is completely wild and very, very Roman, isn't it?

• 1:20:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I once tried to have a conversation with that, about that, with like a very big, we should.

• 1:21:02Speaker 03

  Fifty thousand episodes on witches got us the next thing. But I think, I think that there are like, that's why Medea to me, she was like, it was really, it really spoke to me.

• 1:21:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  But every time I write something, I'm channeling something personal. Like, if you read my work, it's very like emotive. Like, I, I, like, every time I write it, it's like, I embody the story as if it's my own and, um, I channel what's happened to me as a woman into it. And I think that I just found her story like, I was seriously pissed off at how, um,

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  how there's just so much lack of respect, basically. Just, just that she's so powerful and she has so much more to her than what we traditionally know.

• 1:21:48Liv Albert?

  A thousand percent.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  And it just made me more livid than, than anything else, really. So, yeah.

• 1:21:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:54Speaker 03

  Uh, that's why she's my first retelling in the, in the book as well.

• 1:21:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  I was like, let's lead with her, because she's got.

• 1:22:02Liv Albert?

  I mean, she's a fucking queen. She's a fucking queen. Well, I mean, no, no. And I mean, to the listeners, if this cuts weird, it's because we just did a whole little calendar chat about when this episode is coming out in coordination with when the book is coming out. Um, but no, so when, can you tell us a little bit about where and when they can get your book? Now that we know when this episode is coming out generally?

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  Brilliant. The behind the scenes of the reality of podcasts producing. So the book is called Slay: Ancient Legends of Female Slayers and the Hidden Mythology of Dragons. So you're gonna get both in the book. So female dragon slayers, including Medea. And you're gonna get, um, a whole whistle stop tour of kind of what do dragons symbolize in wider mythology across the world, though. It's just gonna be a global story, because it's a me book.

• 1:22:48Liv Albert?

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  Uh, you can get it in most major retailers in the UK. If you're not in the UK, a lot of them deliver internationally. So if you fancy it.

• 1:22:58Liv Albert?

  It's, is it not available out elsewhere as well? Or is, I mean, I know, okay. Well, I know Blackwell's, Blackwell's does ship internationally. I've been, we've had good luck with that with other past authors, so.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it'll be there. And I know Waterstones does that, and I don't know who else does it. But they're, they definitely ship internationally. So, and if you wanna support me and my book, I would love you forever.

• 1:23:17Liv Albert?

  Hell, yes.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  And obviously, um, you can catch me on the old Instagram, um, which is underscore, no, it isn't. It's at Jasmine underscore Elmer. If you wanna catch me there. I'm sure Liv will put it in the notes, because she's usually very good like that.

• 1:23:30Liv Albert?

  I sure will. I can also put a link to either your website or the book's website, whatever you want.

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  Sure. Just pull the links up.

• 1:23:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Speaker 03

  And everyone come see me. And I'd love to come back and talk to you another time about the next, the next thing that I do.

• 1:23:44Liv Albert?

  Please. Yeah, no, we'll definitely, we'll definitely do that. I mean, certainly witches, but at any point.

• 1:23:50Speaker 03

  Every week for patriarchy, patriarchy Tuesdays. I'll just turn up and we'll just rant about the patriarchy.

• 1:23:56Liv Albert?

  Honestly, I mean, this applies to all the guests of my show, but I, one of my favorite things is to get an email from somebody being like, hey, we've got another episode, maybe. Do you want to? And I'm always like, hell, yes. Hell, yes. So, no, thank you so much. This has been so, so fun. And also very, thank you for putting up with my, uh, next level, uh, rants.

• 1:24:15Speaker 03

  No, I love the rants. Keep, keep being you and keep getting that message out there. Now, thanks for having me on. I've loved it.

• 1:24:20Liv Albert?

  Thank you.

• 1:24:34Speaker 00

  Let's Talk About Myths, Baby is written and produced by the one and only Liv Albert. Michaela Pangawish is the Hermes to all your Olympians, the producer, mother of crows. And I also do other things, like apply to grad school sometimes. Anyway, 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 and all its goings on. 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/mithsbaby or via the link in the episode's description.

• 1:25:17Speaker 00

  Are you a scholar or some sort of expert on antiquity across the world? We want to hear from you. Please go to mythsbaby.com/contact and fill out the form there. Love you all and see you next week. Bye, bye.

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