Question: What does Zeus think of Hera? There's lots to work with on how to characterize how Hera views their marriage, but what does Zeus think of it? Does he love her but is the king of the gods so he can do whatever, or is it an empty marriage or... what?
Zeus, we assume, is extremely fond of Hera. There are several myths in which his love for his wife, from before he married her on throughout their stormy relationship, is very obvious and potent. It's easy for us to assume that he must not care about her very much since he's in a constant state of cheating on her and upsetting her, but his behavior isn't necessarily a good barometer for his feelings. Even dudes nowadays can tell you that they sometimes make bad choices without that meaning they don't love their significant others, and Zeus is from a time period and culture that wouldn't have thought a male being unfaithful was that big a deal.
Three myths spring immediately to mind as good indicators of Zeus being pretty over the moon for Hera, despite his habit of banging whomever he runs into on his morning stroll. The first is that of his courtship and marriage to her, during the ancient days of the war against the Titans; smitten by her beauty (because, you guys, Hera is seriously one of the most bootylicious ladies of the pantheon), he tried to convince her to marry him, but once she realized that the kisses and hugging were getting out of brotherly territory, she rejected him. Undaunted, he turned himself into a cuckoo and hung out outside her window until she noticed the bird and brought it inside to be her pet. He then resumed his normal form for sexytimes, as Zeus is generally wont to do, and Hera, being a goddess of marriage and feminine propriety, then married him to legitimize their union, which was said to be consummated with a three-hundred-year stretch of passionate lovemaking. Of course, Zeus pulls this kind of thing on a lot of ladies who are otherwise not interested in his constant botherment, but Hera is the only one that he married and brought to rule Olympus with him.
The interlude during the Trojan War in which Hera, seeking to distract Zeus from shenanigans going on down on the field, seduces him is another example of him being obviously all about his wife. She definitely has ulterior motives, but even so all she has to do is show up being her fabulous self and say she's going to go visit her foster mother and Zeus is immediately all, "Okay, yeah, but have you considered having sex before you go, you know, one for the road?" I've quoted his speech from The Iliad here before, but I'm doing it again because I love it and it's my blog:
"Then in answer spake to her Zeus, the cloud-gatherer: 'Hera, thither mayest thou go even hereafter. But for us twain, come, let us take our joy couched together in love; for never yet did desire for goddess or mortal woman so shed itself about me and overmaster the heart within my breast--nay, not when I was seized with love of the wife of Ixion, who bare Peirithous, the peer of the gods in counsel; nor of Danaë of the fair ankles, daughter of Acmsius, who bare Perseus, pre-eminent above all warriors; nor of the daughter of far-famed Phoenix, that bare me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthys; nor of Semele, nor of Alcmene in Thebes, and she brought forth Heracles, her son stout of heart, and Semele bare Dionysus, the joy of mortals; nor of Demeter, the fair-tressed queen; nor of glorious Leto; nay, nor yet of thine own self, as now I love thee, and sweet desire layeth hold of me."
It's not entirely smooth to try to flatter your wife by telling her that you want her even more than all the other people you've ever cheated on her with while listing them all by name, but we can see that he's trying. (And he wonders what she's always so annoyed about.)
The final and probably strongest myth that we usually bring up when discussing Zeus and Hera is the one of their near-divorce, because no other story so strongly illustrates Zeus' attachment to her. Having finally had all she could take of his infidelity, Hera officially left Zeus and moved away to live on her own mountain away from him. Were this an empty marriage that just gets in the way of Zeus' sex life, this would have been a good time for him to go see if he could start up a live episode of Olympus Gone Wild, but instead he was extremely upset over her departure and moped in his misery until finally begging Kithaeron (a mountain-god who is probably an alternative persona of Dionysus) to tell him how to get her back. Following his advice, he staged an elaborate mock wedding to a new bride (who was really just a wooden statue wearing bridal robes), and when Hera appeared, furious over this new insult, he convinced her to come home and founded a festival in honor of their reconciliation.
And it goes without saying that Zeus' response to other dudes with an interest in Hera is usually violent in the extreme. Ixion ended up lashed to a wheel for the rest of eternity for trying to hit on Hera, and when one of the Gigantes attempted to rape her, Zeus thunderbolted his skull in twain with no trial or appeal.
All this doesn't mean they don't have problems, of course; Zeus' philandering is a constant source of fighting and heartbreak, and both of them have occasionally turned their formidable tempers on one another, Zeus hanging Hera from the ceiling for defying him or Hera helping the other Olympians briefly imprison him for his misbehavior. Because they're both the highest authority in the pantheon and both Justice gods to boot, they're the only controls who can really affect and check one another.
But despite all their monumental disagreements and obvious issues, they also complement one another perfectly and clearly care about each other as husband and wife, not just gods who occupy neighboring space. Zeus is pretty much all about Hera (during the moments when she isn't mad at him, anyway), who is the only woman of equal power, majesty and beauty able to handle him.
I've always found it interesting that Zeus only ever saw fit to give two of his lovers official positions on Olympus: Hera as his Queen, and Ganymede as his cupbearer (and made the second one immortal to boot).
ReplyDeleteThere's tonnes of discussion on what Hera thinks of Zeus' female lovers, but I've always wondered what she thinks of him. I'm unaware as to whether married men were allowed to engage in pederasty in ancient Greece, but if the former then does Hera look at marriage and pederasty as separate relationships that are mutually non-exclusive, in which case Zeus would be in the clear, at least by ancient Greek standards? Or does she hate him on principle? Or is it the latter case, in which case she's entirely justified in hating him.
You know, for the most part a relationship between an adult male and an eromenos would actually not be considered "competition" for a wife at all. Greek society accepted that men had wives - who were for having families with and maintaining households - and eromenoi, who were viewed as sexual relationships geared toward teaching a young boy and preparing him for adulthood. Ganymede might be one of the only lovers of Zeus ever that Hera doesn't care about; he's no competition to her as Zeus' wife, and the relationship can't result in illegitimate offspring to challenge her own children, so for her it's pretty much a non-issue.
DeleteThat's politically and sociologically, of course. It's still entirely possible that she might be upset if Zeus sleeping with someone else, no matter who they are, is emotionally painful for her, but if she follows the pattern of most ancient Greek wives, it probably doesn't matter too much.
(Of course, relationships like that are supposed to end when the boy becomes a man and it's no longer kosher... but Zeus oh-so-craftily made sure Ganymede was granted eternal youth and immortality, so that'll never happen.)
Thanks for the explanation. Ganymede is a character I find very interesting, but who really doesn't get much press.
DeleteIIRC, Poseidon did something similar with Amphitrite as his wife and Nerites as his charioteer, didn't he? Only Hades seemms to suffer from a strong case of single-target sexuality.
Oh, Poseidon is a serial philanderer, too - he just gets slightly less press than Zeus does. I think Hades' relative faithfulness is probably a result of his status as the death god; not only is there a general impression that people (and thus ladies) don't like him very much, but since he represents death and infertility, he's unlikely to do much horndogging around having children, which is the province of those who create life.
DeleteYep, Nerites is totally Poseidon's version of Ganymede.
Oh hey, so I'm re-reading the Aeneid, and I saw something that made me think of this question. When Juno is giving her villain rant about all the things those Trojans have done to her, she points out Jupiter making Ganymede his lover as one of the many things she hates about them.
DeleteSo yes, Juno hates Ganymede. Whether that flies for Scion (due to the Romans having different values than the Greeks, so Juno's view and Hera in a game's view might be different) is up to everyone I guess.
Also! King Aeolus...do you play him as a minor God, or would he be a Titan Avatar of Sky? The description of him in the Aeneid screams Titan Avatar, but the Titans in Greek Mythology are actually called that...and I forget if Aeolus is legit a Titan or not. That, and Juno points out like ten times that Aeolus is only allowed to do the Windy Thing because Jupiter let's him. So either he's a lame NPC Legend 9 God with Sky only, or a super awesome Titan Avatar bound by Zeus to control the ravaging winds.
Hmm, that's a great point! I wonder if the fact that the Aeneid was written by Romans has anything to do with the change in perspective, or if maybe there was more stigma to it than I was aware of?
DeleteIIRC, there's more than one Aeolus in Greek myth, leading to some confusion over exactly what each is supposed to be about as they got syncretized and confused over time, but the lord of the winds strikes me as possible a Titan Avatar like Nike or Hecate - one that is still Titanic, but serves the gods at their command. He could definitely be played a bunch of different ways, though.
While Hera is not about to excuse his actions, there is also the possibility of fatebonds that are influencing the behavior of Zeus.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Zeus is associated with virility in a very serious way for the ancient greeks. Their belief in his virility could literally force him to try to have sex with beautiful women. Or put him in compromising positions where his will is weakened. There might be very little he can do to stop his transgressions, even when he knows it may one day lead to his downfall through the 'prophecy'.
How he feels about this personally could be a matter of much interest. He might despise being a slave to fate in this way, and feel genuinely apologetic to his wife. He might might enjoy it and sheepishly blame fate, while happily going along with his compelled antics. He might be incapable of realizing that his compulsions are not his own.
Or he might just be a total horn dog with nobody to blame but himself. Every game will vary! :)
It depends on how you run Fatebonds. In our games, they only add bonuses and negatives to your actions, so no Fatebond can make Zeus do anything; it can give him bonuses to Charisma or Presence that make seducing easier, but won't actually change his personality or motivations. We prefer our Fatebonds to not obviate free will (because PCs are not big fans of that, you know). It's likely that Zeus is famous for horniness because he's horny, not because someone was confused about it and hijacked him into it against his will.
DeleteIf you're running a Fatebond system where gods are bound to specific roles or behaviors, however, that could very well be something that's going on behind the scenes. :)
When you compare them to the other Olympians, Zeus and Hera honestly have one of the best marriages. Poseidon just keeps Amphitrite down in his sea palace and wonders off with other women, Aphrodite doesn't even want to be married to Hephaestus and the fact that they never had children together seems to indicate there romantic life isn't that great and Persephone might have learned to love Hades but its not like she ever had a choice in the matter. I guess you have stories like those of Dionysus and Ariadne or Eros and Psyche, but for the most part, none of the relationships of the Greek gods are great by our 21st century standards.
ReplyDeleteWasn't this already talked about?
DeleteAs in, Persephone gets to go from being the daughter of a very controlling mother, into a Queen that can speak on an equal level to Hera.
And, unlike Zeus, Hades certainly would never cheat on her.
He tried, once, but she put a stop to that shit. With magic.
DeleteAnd yeah, we've definitely talking about the Hades and Persphone marriage in a few different posts before. There are as many theories about them as there are raindrops during April, ranging from Hades kidnapping and raping her and her being stuck with him unhappily forever to it being a happily arranged marriage with Zeus' blessing that had to be carried out unorthodoxically to prevent Demeter from sabotaging it.
DeletePersephone stopped him from cheating on her with magic...?
DeleteOr am I getting that wrong?
Not the Magic purview, just magic in general. The one story in which he tries to sleep with a nymph, Persephone turned her into the mint plant and that was the end of that.
DeleteSounds like the Fertility purview...which she has.
DeleteOn the subject of Persephone, I was wondering if it would be logical for her to have the Frost purview? Not associated, necessarily, but perhaps at high God levels?
Definitely not - as goddess of springtime, Frost is like Persephone's most opposite number. Winter happens when she leaves because Demeter causes it, because she's grieving for her daughter's absence, and I would assume that's an example of Fertility's Endless Season.
DeleteI'm just a believer that Persephone developed Stockholm syndrome :) And yeah Hades went after the nymph Minthe and Persephone responded by turning her into a mint plant.
ReplyDeleteWoops, I think I posted at the same time you did and answered the same thing, my bad.
ReplyDeleteNo worries!
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