Tales of Woe
Feb. 1st, 2005 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowOr more, tales of Whoa! The genius I live with, in a fit of overenthusiasm, picked me up when I walked in the door last night. Then due to poor balance, cheap brandy and the fact that I am not a delicate little flower, spilled us both onto our very hard wooden floors. Cheek, floor, floor, cheek and now I have a shiner the size of Detroit.
He was within his rights to be happy, his favorite sister just had a healthy baby boy. He, however, is just such a dumb ass sometimes. He wanted me to stay up and play with him, so I did, putting in my (hee) Starburst edition DVD of DNA Mad Scientist. I tried to listen to the commentary, but M. was far too troublesome, talking through it and bugging me, so I had to turn it off and just watch. Hardly a hardship, but I was annoyed. And now I'm tired and headachey and look like I've been decked.
On a much more important note, Happy Birthday to the lovely and talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iamsab, who has changed her moniker but not her lovely self:)
Still on the Classics bent, andqueenofthorns mentioned that there are 12 Cylon models, as well as 12 gods in the classical Greek Pantheon, and that it's possible that the models represent the gods.
So, for those who didn't follow along in elementary school, we have Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hephaestus, Demeter, Poseidon, Hermes, Dionysus (We could also include Hades, Persephone, Eros, Hestia, and Hebe. But we won't, because that's more than 12).
I have some theories on certain representations, but I think I'll just save 'em for now. Yes, Six could be Aphrodite, and Sharon, well I think Sharon is Persephone, which leaves open a host of other possibilities because she is not in the traditional Pantheon. She could be Artemis, goddess of the hunt as well.
However, I also said I'd talk about how the Farscape characters were archetypes, drawn from the characteristics of the Pantheon, which is in turn a representation of the good and bad of humanity.
The goddesses represent the scope and breadth of femininity - Aphrodite is love and sex, beauty and manipulation. Hera is the Queen, power and machinations, control. Demeter is fertility and the harvest, Artemis is purity and the hunt, the moon, and Athena is wisdom and war. They are the extremes of feminine existence, all of the roles that women can and do play, the hearts and fears and mysteries of women and most cultures have versions of them, mothers and virgins, lovers and watchers, those driven by thought and reason and those guided purely by emotion.
It's easy to see Aeryn representing Athena, even easier if you buy into my Farscape as Odyssey theory, even though lots of parallel lines get slashed through. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and war, grey-eyed and severe. She represents blood and power, choice and thought. Athena is the justification for war, violence as one answer, thought as another. She sprang fully formed from Zeus, a pure product of her sire (much as Aeryn is a pure product of her upbringing, born and raised within the PK life, then corrupted by outside influences). She wears the Aegis around her neck (Medusa's head) as a representation of her power and her will. Aeryn has a gun and a ship. Athena protects Odysseus from the wrath of Poseidon, wooed by his wiles, his words, but sees him clear-eyed as well. Aeryn protects John, and expects him to learn to protect himself. She gives him the gift of her knowledge and training, much as Athena dispenses her gifts to Odysseus and to Perseus, and Aeryn keeps John from his own demons, until she can't anymore. (She plays a dual role in the Odyssey theory - both Athena and Penelope, but that's a ramble for a later date:)
Athena is judgment and condemnation. She is not about the middle ground, nor the easy answer. She has a speck of vanity, participated in the ridiculousness of Paris and the Golden Apple, but she isn't petty. Aeryn is not above a little competition, a little jealousy (see LATP, see her fractious relationship with Chiana, whom she clearly doesn't see as a threat, but who nonetheless pushes her buttons). She makes a decision to betray her lover for advancement, but her perceptions change over time. Her ability to change is representative of the wisdom she gains, the change from hand of war to thinking person.
Athena represents what is loved and feared about women, their dichotomies and strengths, and it's important that she is not the one swayed by love, nor consumed with the petty jealousies and power plays that Hera and Aphrodite engage in. She isn't pure, tied to the moon, like Artemis, although she is sometimes referred to as a virgin goddess. She is not swayed by emotion and her expectations are harsh. This is Aeryn, sexual but not sexualized, beautiful in her strength and severity instead of her softness. Not swayed by emotion, a tool of violence and unforgiving in her judgment, pure in her compassion.
And now, I'm starving, so I'll come back to this later.
He was within his rights to be happy, his favorite sister just had a healthy baby boy. He, however, is just such a dumb ass sometimes. He wanted me to stay up and play with him, so I did, putting in my (hee) Starburst edition DVD of DNA Mad Scientist. I tried to listen to the commentary, but M. was far too troublesome, talking through it and bugging me, so I had to turn it off and just watch. Hardly a hardship, but I was annoyed. And now I'm tired and headachey and look like I've been decked.
On a much more important note, Happy Birthday to the lovely and talented
iamsab, who has changed her moniker but not her lovely self:)Still on the Classics bent, and
queenofthorns mentioned that there are 12 Cylon models, as well as 12 gods in the classical Greek Pantheon, and that it's possible that the models represent the gods. So, for those who didn't follow along in elementary school, we have Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hephaestus, Demeter, Poseidon, Hermes, Dionysus (We could also include Hades, Persephone, Eros, Hestia, and Hebe. But we won't, because that's more than 12).
I have some theories on certain representations, but I think I'll just save 'em for now. Yes, Six could be Aphrodite, and Sharon, well I think Sharon is Persephone, which leaves open a host of other possibilities because she is not in the traditional Pantheon. She could be Artemis, goddess of the hunt as well.
However, I also said I'd talk about how the Farscape characters were archetypes, drawn from the characteristics of the Pantheon, which is in turn a representation of the good and bad of humanity.
The goddesses represent the scope and breadth of femininity - Aphrodite is love and sex, beauty and manipulation. Hera is the Queen, power and machinations, control. Demeter is fertility and the harvest, Artemis is purity and the hunt, the moon, and Athena is wisdom and war. They are the extremes of feminine existence, all of the roles that women can and do play, the hearts and fears and mysteries of women and most cultures have versions of them, mothers and virgins, lovers and watchers, those driven by thought and reason and those guided purely by emotion.
It's easy to see Aeryn representing Athena, even easier if you buy into my Farscape as Odyssey theory, even though lots of parallel lines get slashed through. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and war, grey-eyed and severe. She represents blood and power, choice and thought. Athena is the justification for war, violence as one answer, thought as another. She sprang fully formed from Zeus, a pure product of her sire (much as Aeryn is a pure product of her upbringing, born and raised within the PK life, then corrupted by outside influences). She wears the Aegis around her neck (Medusa's head) as a representation of her power and her will. Aeryn has a gun and a ship. Athena protects Odysseus from the wrath of Poseidon, wooed by his wiles, his words, but sees him clear-eyed as well. Aeryn protects John, and expects him to learn to protect himself. She gives him the gift of her knowledge and training, much as Athena dispenses her gifts to Odysseus and to Perseus, and Aeryn keeps John from his own demons, until she can't anymore. (She plays a dual role in the Odyssey theory - both Athena and Penelope, but that's a ramble for a later date:)
Athena is judgment and condemnation. She is not about the middle ground, nor the easy answer. She has a speck of vanity, participated in the ridiculousness of Paris and the Golden Apple, but she isn't petty. Aeryn is not above a little competition, a little jealousy (see LATP, see her fractious relationship with Chiana, whom she clearly doesn't see as a threat, but who nonetheless pushes her buttons). She makes a decision to betray her lover for advancement, but her perceptions change over time. Her ability to change is representative of the wisdom she gains, the change from hand of war to thinking person.
Athena represents what is loved and feared about women, their dichotomies and strengths, and it's important that she is not the one swayed by love, nor consumed with the petty jealousies and power plays that Hera and Aphrodite engage in. She isn't pure, tied to the moon, like Artemis, although she is sometimes referred to as a virgin goddess. She is not swayed by emotion and her expectations are harsh. This is Aeryn, sexual but not sexualized, beautiful in her strength and severity instead of her softness. Not swayed by emotion, a tool of violence and unforgiving in her judgment, pure in her compassion.
And now, I'm starving, so I'll come back to this later.
