It's a non-nasuverse way to put it~Originally Posted by Bishamon
It's a non-nasuverse way to put it~
If you still want to think in a darker fashion, remember this is being told by and to the sons of those same gods, so there's a chance they might have been changed to portray the Olympians more sympathetically.
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blackblack
That's more the fact that there are just so many versions of every Greek Myth. Sometimes she was raped, sometimes she was seduced, etc. Not that this makes Poseidon (and/or Zeus) not a philandering asshole rapist; he has way more myths about that then Medusa. It also doesn't make Athena less of a bitch (fun fact; Ares' has less myths of dickishness by an order of magnitude...though a lot were lost with Sparta, because they were verbally passed on).I raised an eyebrow at the whole Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend and they were caught doing it by Athena in one of her temples....that's....a really nice way to put it I guess.
But yeah, she was a fling is about as supported as the other way. It also means that, yes, Pegasus is Percy's older brother.
His family tree's weirdness doesn't stop there; he has a flying boar, several Cyclopse, a few fishmen, and Charybdis in there.
(Also, it's a children's book originally written for his dyslexic son and his students. Not using the 'It's Rapin' Time' versions is kind of to be expected.)
Al just learned something~
Hooray~
Did not know this, but makes so much sense in hindsight.....
Spoiler:
In ancient greek the word for rape and seduction is the same so it is all about interpretation, that said even if one choice of interpretation is the more benevolant one the greek gods dimostrated their dickery in various other ways.
Have some citation for that claim? I've taken Ancient Greek, but didn't learn the word, since it didn't come up in our reading material(s).
F/GO SUPPORT
Zeus still came off as a total douchebag, when I read the series. Most of my hate is directed at the 1st book though.
For starters, his Master Lightning Bolt is stolen, and in a leap of logic/politics that I still don't comprehend, he blames Percy for it.
So percy has... was it days, or weeks? to recover the Lightning Bolt.
And at the end of the story, when Percy retrieves the Master Lightning Bolt and hands it over? What does Zeus do? He says "Congrats. As a reward, I'll let you live---so long as you get out of here before I see you again."
Percy was forced to risk his life on this quest, and at the end Zeus decides his reward is "being left alive. So long as, y'know, he gets out from underfoot right kick. Seriously, no promises if I see you again in a bad mood."
Oh, and Percy can't travel through the air (no airplanes for him) because Zeus would likely strike him down due to the offense. This does not change.
Ares' reaction to Percy was also a fun part. He's such a poor sport about being stabbed in the foot, that he decides to curse Percy with misfortune in battle "at the worst possible time", and to basically turn the Ares Cabin in Halfblood Camp against Percy.
Reading the series, it always seemed to me that Percy wasn't super-compassionate so much as he was brain-damaged.
Zeus' brief appearances in the first book of the series, really pissed me off. How the hell can he pull such bullshit? Keep in mind that when he "awarded" Percy with his life "for now", Poseidon was right there.
And the whole problem behind the theft of the Master Lightning Bolt, was that Zeus suspected that Poseidon was going to wage war against him, and that was why he suspected Percy, despite Percy being nowhere near Olympus when the Lightning Bolt was stolen...
tl;dr The gods are still incredibly petty.
The telescope at one end of his beat
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Spoiler:
Which is utterly in-character, like it or not. The Olympians were largely petty, self-absorbed, and very much prone to inflicting their whims on hapless mortals. Even the more well-meaning ones caused disaster - Eos the dawn goddess eventually turned her wizened lover into a cricket because he'd grown old (the perils of asking for eternal life without eternal youth), and Selene put Prince Endymion to sleep forever to avoid that same fate. And yes, Athena is guilty of this, too - the degree of her guilt depends on the version of the myth you read. That said, she was preferred over Ares - so despite the lack of surviving myths to back it up, he must have been worse.
The only deity I can name who did no harm to anyone is Hestia, the goddess of hearth and home.
All that said, though, the Olympians did have civilising qualities which put them above their predecessors - anybody tried looking at the Persian or Sumerian myths before?
“Love will be cruel to who it entices — love will have its sacrifices.”
— Carmilla Theme
"Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference."
―Jim Butcher, Vignette
Ask Seika....
The PJ fangirl in my soul is pulling me here. I'm definitely following this fic. Plus, I could learn more on Greek mythology...
Artist's block. Bigger bitch than karma, I swear.
Spoiler:Spoiler:
They are pretty dickish. Some of them have tried to kill Percy several times and even after he saved the world (for the second time), they had a vote to decide whether they should kill him. After saving the World a third time, Hera stole his memories, kidnapped him, and put him in a magical sleep for like six months. Even the relatively nice gods get pretty dickish, with the exception of Hestia.In ancient greek the word for rape and seduction is the same so it is all about interpretation, that said even if one choice of interpretation is the more benevolant one the greek gods dimostrated their dickery in various other ways.
It came up in Book Four. When asked by Calypso (who'd sided with her father Atlas in the first war, because he was her father) why he fought on the side of the Gods, Percy eventually had to admit he only really did it because he loved his father too. He doesn't like most of the Gods, but he does like his father, who would die if Kronos won (as would his friends).Zeus still came off as a total douchebag, when I read the series. Most of my hate is directed at the 1st book though.
For starters, his Master Lightning Bolt is stolen, and in a leap of logic/politics that I still don't comprehend, he blames Percy for it.
So percy has... was it days, or weeks? to recover the Lightning Bolt.
And at the end of the story, when Percy retrieves the Master Lightning Bolt and hands it over? What does Zeus do? He says "Congrats. As a reward, I'll let you live---so long as you get out of here before I see you again."
Percy was forced to risk his life on this quest, and at the end Zeus decides his reward is "being left alive. So long as, y'know, he gets out from underfoot right kick. Seriously, no promises if I see you again in a bad mood."
Oh, and Percy can't travel through the air (no airplanes for him) because Zeus would likely strike him down due to the offense. This does not change.
Ares' reaction to Percy was also a fun part. He's such a poor sport about being stabbed in the foot, that he decides to curse Percy with misfortune in battle "at the worst possible time", and to basically turn the Ares Cabin in Halfblood Camp against Percy.
Reading the series, it always seemed to me that Percy wasn't super-compassionate so much as he was brain-damaged.
Zeus' brief appearances in the first book of the series, really pissed me off. How the hell can he pull such bullshit? Keep in mind that when he "awarded" Percy with his life "for now", Poseidon was right there.
And the whole problem behind the theft of the Master Lightning Bolt, was that Zeus suspected that Poseidon was going to wage war against him, and that was why he suspected Percy, despite Percy being nowhere near Olympus when the Lightning Bolt was stolen...
tl;dr The gods are still incredibly petty.
He's not doing it cause he likes Zeus (he really, really doesn't). He's doing it because of the people that he likes who would die.
As for the plot things:
Zeus suspected Percy because he was Poseidon's son. The Greek Gods are dicks to everyone, including each other. Poseidon has tried to overthrow Zeus before and once captured him in a golden net and forced him to agree to his terms. He's also turned the other Gods against Zeus before. As such, when someone dicked over Zeus, he was the first suspect. A lot of people stupidly suspected Hades, but Zeus didn't, probably because Hades has never tried to betray him and is the most moral of the three brothers.
And he hates Percy after that due to the Prophecy. He debates killing Percy later, just to make things easier.
As for Percy, again, he doesn't like or support most of the Gods. He doesn't even think they're good. But the few Gods he likes and his friends would die if he doesn't, so he tolerates them.
That didn't stop him from attacking or insulting Ares and Hera, when they were being especially bitchy, though.
Technically, about Eight Months. Hera/Juno basically replies "So what, I've been asleep for Eight hundred years during the Byzantine Empire, 8 months is no big deal".
No argument from me against Greek gods being dickish though. Roman ones arguably isn't much better either, even if Mars isn't as much of a jerk as Ares. Juno's still as manipulative as Hera.
'Fae is Foul' - My SAO/ZnT Crossover fanfic (SB Thread) (FFN Link)
Quick heads up, given I've seen someone expecting it: I'm not likely to visit the thread. I've not read the Percy Jackson series, and nor am I intending to. One gets ... uncomfortable watching people re-interpret one's area of study in the ways I've heard mentioned. So I think it would be silly for me to check in: I'll get confused by things that aren't in the myths and end up raging at some of it. Not very constructive. So if you really need me for spine-crushing (don't lie, this is BL: there will be a power-level argument and someone will ask to look up the original source material), VM me or something.
That said, just this once (because it's monumentally silly) ...
Yep, like Lyco said, please give a freaking citation for that.
And take enough time to have your sentences be syntactically correct, with proper spelling. ('dimostrated'? Seriously?)
There are words in Ancient Greek that can have the force of either meaning, certainly.* But those words tend to be vastly more general than you're implying with your binary definition. Unless you do believe that smiths regularly 'seduced' or 'raped' the iron that they were working with? That animal-tamers 'seduced' their beasts into submission? That Agamemnon commanded of Achilles "Let him be raped"? No, didn't think so. (And, for the sake of citation, that was the word 'δαμάζω').
*I would also urge you to consider how the shitty attitudes of ancient Greeks towards women, marriage, etc. might have caused them to lack a good word for 'sexy, loving, extra-marital affair'.
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Don't worry; I'm a big fan of Greek Mythology, so I'll try to do it as much justice as I can (within the bounds of Nasuverse history). For his part, Rick Riordan was a Professor of Greek Mythology (and English and History) and as far as I've been able to tell, everything he's written has been legit, though a few parts were glossed over for obvious reasons.Quick heads up, given I've seen someone expecting it: I'm not likely to visit the thread. I've not read the Percy Jackson series, and nor am I intending to. One gets ... uncomfortable watching people re-interpret one's area of study in the ways I've heard mentioned. So I think it would be silly for me to check in: I'll get confused by things that aren't in the myths and end up raging at some of it. Not very constructive. So if you really need me for spine-crushing (don't lie, this is BL: there will be a power-level argument and someone will ask to look up the original source material
Holding Back the SeaBerserker literally ghosted through the house, making no sound and leaving no trace.A Hero and a House of Corpses
He quickly prioritized his objectives: The girl first, the old man second. That in mind, he covered the house quickly and efficiently.
But neither were in the house. He checked every room and found neither the girl nor the old man—just a man that looked like Kariya and a boy young enough that he was probably his son. He briefly contemplated the possibility that the old man had left, taking the girl with him. He wondered what he would do if that were the case.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
There was no need to consider that possibility yet.
Not when there was water in the basement. Moving through pipes, spread across some surface…there was even water that was moving and changing position in ways that meant they were probably in contact with something animate and probably living.
Still intangible, he simply let himself fall through the floor.
When he opened his eyes, what he saw disgusted him.
Indeed, the old man and the girl were in the basement. As were a number of other things.
They looked like worms, but they were all far too thick and big to be normal ones. They swarmed all across the basement, squirming and writhing in sickening fashions, creating a disgusting and dizzying display.
And there, on the floor, being swarmed and covered in the disgusting creatures, was a young girl with plum eyes and hair. She didn’t scream or cry, which worried him almost as much as the bugs. If she was ‘okay,’ she’d be screaming, he thought; any girl would.
But instead, she just stared blankly into space, with eyes that didn’t really see anything.
And looking down upon her from above, the old man—Zouken—just watched. Looking at him, he thought it would have been bad enough if the old man had just felt sick pleasure at the act, because it might have caused this situation to at least be understandable, but it wasn’t. A little girl was lying there, broken, covered with horrible things, and had been for a year; if Zouken was a sick enough man to take some form of amusement, Berserker could have just hated him and killed him.
But the old man didn’t feel anything. He looked down at the girl and the worms with a calm, observing gaze, as if they were nothing but an experiment, and Berserker had a feeling he would have looked the same way if he had dissected the girl and looked inside.
And it didn’t anger Berserker.
It nearly sent him spiraling into a rage he didn’t understand. Because he didn’t understand the old man, either.
He didn’t understand how this man didn’t feel anything about what he was doing. He didn’t think it was right—he probably knew it was wrong—but he didn’t care at all. And the Servant couldn’t understand how someone could do that to a girl they’d taken as a part of their family, or to a nephew who was willing to risk his life to save a girl, and not feel anything.
There should have been a hint of shame or disgust at the sight of the worms, at least.
But there wasn’t.
Berserker briefly entertained thoughts of how to punish the man—not even fully out of anger, but also out of a desire to at least see if pain could make the man feel regret that sickened him as soon as he’d felt it. But still he couldn’t stop himself from thinking: Maybe if he threw him in that pit, it’d be less interesting?
But just because he couldn’t stop the thought didn’t mean he had to pay it any heed. He was better than that—he’d been taught better then that.
He didn’t do things like that, even to those he hated.
But more than that, saving people was more important than empty sadism or revenge. The girl was more important than the man.
But, he thought, saving the girl would probably be easier if the man was dead.
Most of the beings that he’d fought were monsters and he’d opposed them and he’d killed them, but he’d always known they couldn’t be anything but what they already were. They were primal concepts given form and purpose. He almost liked them and how black and white they made everything seem—Good and Evil, Heroes and Monsters—even though he was well acquainted with shades of grey.
But even though he hated them, he’d never hurt them or made them suffer. The faster they died, the less people got hurt, and he didn’t hold a nature that could not be changed against them, even if he hated that nature. He wouldn’t torture animals, even if they bit him, and he wouldn’t torture monsters.
He did hold Zouken’s nature against him, but it didn’t matter—the same rule applied. The sooner he was dead, the safer the girl would be and the less she’d have to suffer.
His decision made, he acted with the quick efficiency that had been trained into him. He had the advantage as an unseen spirit and he used it completely to his advantage. He didn’t waste it on witty phrases or words, because even he knew when it was time to be silent—and he had nothing to say to a man like Zouken, with the possible exception of ‘die.’
And his blade could say that as well as he could.
Materializing behind the old man, he held his sword in his hand and swung it in a wide, deadly, and inhumanly fast arc, ending his life in a single, anticlimactic stroke.
His head came off and rolled away, an expression of surprise still on it. A moment later, the rest of his body fell as well.
He looked at the corpse, unsatisfied, but knowing he’d done the right thing.
Then he looked at the girl. She hadn’t even reacted.
But the worms had. They’d started moving faster, furiously, as if in response to the man’s death.
Or maybe they just realized that they were next.
He narrowed his eyes as he reached out with his will, and with a violent rending sound, every pipe in the house was torn apart from the inside, as water gushed forth in streams—and at his command, all of them curved unnaturally towards the basement. Not satisfied with just the house, he reached out further, beyond where the pipes enter the building and quickened the influx. For a moment, he held it back, gathering more and more just beyond the door to the basement, the water hardened as its hydrogen bonds were strengthened, and then flooded forward as he released it, crashing into the heavy door and knocking it out of its frame.
No longer held back in the slightest, it was like someone had poured a river into the basement.
The waters fell upon the girl first, moving with tightly controlled force, washing off all the worms but not harming her in the slighted, and then curling around her in a protective embrace. At the feeling of the water, the girl was snapped out of her stupor, and though her eyes were dull, there was now some awareness in them.
The sight bolstered his confidence, and at his gesture, the Water lifted her completely above the worms and then bulldozed over them, carrying her to him before collapsing. Scooping her up into his arms, her skin dried at his touch, the remaining drops of water quickly rejoining with the rest of the flood.
“Do not worry,” He said. “I’ve come to save you.”
And with that, he began to quickly and efficiently flood the basement. For the girl’s sake, he turned the water away from them, and not even a drop touched them in the torrential downpour. Some of the worms tried to crawl up the steps to safety, but sprays and waves of water rose to smack them into water. Without any remorse, he made sure every one of them died with their master.
It was hard to tell how the girl in his arms felt about that. Was she happy that they died? Was she scared of the man who’d appeared like a ghost and killed the man and creatures that had been tormenting her? Did she even consider this all real or did she just think she was dreaming?
Percy didn’t know, but before he could figure it out, he had work to do.
But first of all, considering the way she was shivering, he should probably get the poor girl some clothes.
XxXXxX
As Berserker left the basement, he came face to face with the man who looked so much like Kariya. He had panic in his eyes, likely from how the pipes had exploded, but it shifted to a complete fear when he saw Berserker.
Swallowing, he opened his mouth to speak, but the Servant silenced him with a wolf-like glare—that he’d learnt from actual wolves—before he could even speak.
“Before you say anything, you should know…everything that was down there except this girl? It’s dead. Because I killed it. And now, I’m taking this girl, getting her some clothes, and leaving. If you try to stop me…” He let the threat hang in the air.
With that, he breezed past the suddenly shaken man, looking for Sakura’s room.
He paused for a second, though, realizing something.
“Oh, by the way…there’s probably a lot of water and property damage now. You should probably take that boy and leave.”
With that said, he walked toward the room he’d seen a small girl’s clothes in when he’d moved through the house.
“Get dressed and get anything you don’t want to leave behind.” He said, leaning against the doorframe and closing his eyes.
XxXXxX
“Hang on,” He said to the girl in his arms not even five minutes later. “I’m taking you away from here.”
The man and the boy, whatever their names were, were gone by the time Sakura was finished dressing. They’d taken a few things from around the house—valuables, he assumed.
He’d killed the old man and the worms and had saved the girl. Now he just had to take her back to Kariya; a piece of cake.
But Sakura had a question.
“…Who are you?” The girl asked, having not woken up from a dream and slowly daring to hope she never would.
For a moment, he thought about using telling her he was the Servant Berserker…but that probably wouldn’t mean anything to her. And further, was there any real reason to hide his identity anymore? He’d already granted his master’s wish—in less than an hour without the sacrifice of multiple Servants; take that, Holy Grail—and he didn’t even know if he would be fighting any more with that having been done.
And, to be honest, maybe he just didn’t want to be remembered as ‘the Servant Berserker.’
So instead, he told her the truth.
“I’m Percy,” He said. “Percy Jackson.”
Sakura blinked at him once.
“Jack-san?”
“…Close enough.”
Ah, yes, pronouncement.
The bane of many a child.
And now with the War superfluous, they shift to a different objective: survive.
“Love will be cruel to who it entices — love will have its sacrifices.”
— Carmilla Theme
"Evil isn't the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive as Evil, maybe more so, and it's a hell of a lot more common. What we really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference."
―Jim Butcher, Vignette
Well, I dunno about that. Sakura might be safe, but she's still worm-infested and she doesn't have a family....
It's a nice chapter, though. Percy's attitude towards Zouken probably makes sense, even if I'd like to have seen him suffer for what he's done.
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