Damn the Gods! (Titans '10)

[Tripe]

Describe by whom?

Like I said the depictions and descriptions of Medusa vary. She's a fictional character and thus can be shown however people want to show her, Caravaggio certainly didn't show her as facially hideous for example.

The face is contorted but it wasn't monstrous prior to the beheading.

Nor is she hideous in this mosaic


Nor is she in this sculpture


And like I said, making her pretty and still turning men to stone with her glance makes the curse more mean-spirited on the part of Athena, which would be fitting for the tag line of the movie when you think about it.

[Cosmic Muse]

I don't know... all inaccurate artists renditions aside the Greek and Roman Mythology clearly states that Medusa was a very attractive woman turned into a hideous creature by a jealous Olympian Goddess.

In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," priestess in Athena's temple, but when she was raped, or seduced, by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the enraged virgin goddess transformed her beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn a man to stone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa

[Tripe]

Which author? You do realize that "mythology" doesn't have a signgle source right?

[Cosmic Muse]

Which author? You do realize that "mythology" doesn't have a signgle source right?

See Edit. I'd trust Ovid over romanticized artist renditions of Medusa. This is, according to Ovid's description,  what Medusa should look like.



Medusa is a monster, a Gorgon, not a vaguely attractive snake woman. The Medusa in this movie is just fan service.

[Tripe]

Oh good, Wikipedia, where you will also find:

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as beings born of monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envisage her as a being both beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".

Right before the bit you quoted.

So you trust Ovid but not Pindar? The marble is a copy of a sculpture that predates Ovid by about 500 years.

Oh and I think you need to reread the account you quoted; the reason wasn't jealousy there but retribution for desecration. And what does  "a late version of the myth" mean to you?

The point is, to talk of "inaccurate" is asinine, there is no consensus to be "accurate" or "inaccurate" about.

Medusa didn't exist, the only constants in her depiction is the ossifying glance and the serpentine tresses. Everything else differs from account to account, even her parentage and number of siblings. She's closer to a trope than a fully defined character.

Like I say, personally I'm hoping she's gorgeous, it'll make the curse much more devastating.

[Tripe]

Yes exactly. I loved the talk of "Romanticized versions" and then quoting Ovid, somebody who cornered the market in prose of the deepest purple*.


*well poetry but you get the idea

[Sharktopus]

Before we turn Ovid into the James Patterson of ancient Rome, let's remember that he's a big reason why we're even familiar with these myths in the first place. If Ovid's easy reading Metamorphoses hadn't proven so popular over the millennia, many of these myths might've been lost to time.

[Tripe]

Be that as it may his depiction is no more "accurate" than any other and as we can see, people managed to depict Medusa as attractive before and after him.

Also, who's James Patterson?

[Sharktopus]

Also, who's James Patterson?

Sadly, the most famous person ever to escape my hometown.

[Sharktopus]

Before we turn Ovid into the James Patterson of ancient Rome, let's remember that he's a big reason why we're even familiar with these myths in the first place. If Ovid's easy reading Metamorphoses hadn't proven so popular over the millennia, many of these myths might've been lost to time.

There aren't -that- many which only Ovid preserves.  He steals liberally from his betters.

Sure, but would they have survived if Ovid's writings hadn't been so popular? To make a weak modern example, how many readers did Joseph Campbell pick up thanks to Star Wars?

[Tripe]

Also, who's James Patterson?

Sadly, the most famous person ever to escape my hometown.

And does he write electrifyingly, as the cover suggest?

To make a weak modern example, how many readers did Joseph Campbell pick up thanks to Star Wars?

Incidentally, if IV-VI were based on Campbells work, what the hell were I-III based on?

[Sharktopus]

And does he write electrifyingly, as the cover suggest?

I suppose that depends on your definition of electrifying:

[Tripe]

Oooh, is it a naughty, erotic, diary?

[mrbasehart]

The movies Along Came a Spider (bad) and Kiss the Girls (not bad) are based on his books, I believe.  Morgan Freeman plays the same lead character in both.

[Sharktopus]

The movies Along Came a Spider (bad) and Kiss the Girls (not bad) are based on his books, I believe.  Morgan Freeman plays the same lead character in both.

Yeah, he's written a series of novels featuring Morgan Freeman's character Alex Cross. I should say that I've never read any of his books, and could be completely wrong about their quality, but I doubt it. I dislike them on general principle.