The Gods Are Immortal Toddlers: You Can’t Change My Mind
I think
that one of the most interesting themes in The Odyssey is the contrast between
the Olympians’ and the mortals’ behaviors. One of the core principles of Greek
society is xenia. People are expected to treat everyone as if they are from
Zeus, meaning that they must be hospitable and courteous even to complete
strangers. There are many examples of the proper use of xenia displayed by many
of the people Telemachus and Odysseus encounter on their travels such as the
Nestor and Menelaus who assist Telemachus in finding news of his father, and
the Phaeacians who help Odysseus return home. These acts of kindness exemplify that
the Greek citizens are pretty morally good and respectable (with the exception
of the suitors, abusers of xenia). The mortals also seem to believe that the
gods will treat them well if they make all the correct sacrifices and are
respectable.
However, it appears that the gods do not reflect this culture of hospitality and kindness as much as the mortals. The Olympians seem to do whatever they want throughout the book. Some of them are helpful like Athena, but others just seem to be whimsical and easily angered. In fact, it seems like the only consistent thing that the gods do is react with severe and rash punishments to anything that slightly irritates them. You eat a sacrificial cow because you’re starving, but promise to make a correct sacrifice ritual as soon as you arrive home? Unacceptable, you all die. The Phaeacians were almost perfect examples of xenia and favored by Poseidon, but even they got punished because they helped Odysseus. Poseidon didn’t even stop them while they were taking Odysseus back to Ithaca, he punished them afterwards. Zeus made the whole punishment thing even worse by suggesting that the sailors should all die in front of everyone else and that Poseidon should turn the ship to stone as a reminder in addition to rendering their whole town basically useless by putting a mountain in front of the harbor.
Zeus himself seems to be one of the most volatile gods. Athena is clearly for helping Odysseus return home and Zeus agrees with her. Later with the Phaeacians Zeus agrees that Poseidon should punish them severely and even adds his own twist to the plan. It is not clear whose side he’s on and it seems that he is just making his decisions based on how entertaining the consequences will be for him. I think this probably stems from the gods being immortal and bored. I mean, if you have that much power and time, what isn’t more fun than ruining people’s lives?
I definitely agree with the suggestion that "entertainment" seems to be more Zeus's motivation than anything else. The gods *do* seem to care about xenia, sometimes--Athena is very pleased to see that Telemachus is conversant in these discourses, for example, and the mortals are generally persuaded that any stranger might be a "test" from the gods to ensure that they are hospitable. But it's true that it doesn't seem to be as immutable and foundational a value as they'd like to believe, perhaps--the Phaeacians xenia is presented as a direct affront to and defiance of Poseidon, and, interestingly, he seems most worried that other mortals will take advantage of this disrespect. He has to smite the Phaeacians essentially to save face. It's a terrifying cosmology to try to imagine from a mortal's perspective--they spend so much time trying to placate these gods, but is seems that ultimately it might not matter at all.
ReplyDeleteThey are so petty! Yes, there are examples of kindness, but small acts of good are usually forgotten when swallowed by a literal mountain. The gods are the prime example of "do as I say, not as I do," and humans just accept this. It may be because of their immortality, but also, I wonder how much divine hierarchy affects minor gods. Mortals must obey xenia because at any given time, Zeus could smite them. As such, can the gods ignore xenia because of their inability to be smited? If this is the case, why do other immortal characters such as Circe or Calypso seem to follow some diluted form of xenia? Great post!
ReplyDeleteThe Olympian gods very much seem to lack any sort of moral compass. Unlike the mortals, who usually try to do the right thing and honor/appease the gods (with the exception of the suitors -- except that the suitors have been abusing xenia for ~10 years now without punishment).
ReplyDeleteThe Olympians, however, mostly seem to operate on things happening in the moment, without empathy or thought of consequences. They also don't seem to have a sense of proportionate response, when it comes to humans. (for example, the Phaeacians: help one guy out, like they should -> death and destruction of their livelihood, including people who weren't even tangentially involved.)
I think "immortal toddlers" is a very apt description, especially because it takes time for people to develop empathy and grow up.
Nice post! The gods definitely seem more concerned with how the actions of mortals affect them and in controlling the actions of mortals to protect themselves than in administering justice. That's probably not what you're looking for in ideal gods but it's less worrying than what Zeus does in the scene you discuss. He basically hurts mortals more for the fun of it. Maybe Zeus was trying to help Poseidon to appease him after Zeus sort of went behind his back to free Odysseus but Poseidon didn't actually seem very angry at Zeus or in need of appeasement in that scene anyway.
ReplyDeleteThere was a bit of discussion in 7th hour about what it would be like to live in ancient Greece, and somebody brought up the fact that travel was extremely dangerous back then and that xenia was there to help improve the odds of success. Belief systems have often been developed to provide explanations for otherwise unexplainable occurrences, and lots of things can go wrong when traveling, explaining why xenia is so important to mortals. The gods are a reflection of how things are random, sometimes going randomly well, oftentimes going randomly critically wrong. It makes sense that the gods would act like destructive toddlers a lot of the time.
ReplyDeleteI think while true that the Olympian gods seem to be very hypocritical at times, I think a small sadder reason may lie underneath. If you think about it, the life of humans like Odysseus are minuscule compared to that of a god. A god is, of course, immortal.
ReplyDeleteIf that's true than a few things come of that:
First, a god, as sad as it is, is used to his favorites being destroyed by the flow of time. Which means that a gripe for someone he holds will always hold stronger than his favorites, since while new favorites will always arise in their place, for a mere mortal to escape your wrath is eternal humiliation which cannot be avenged once they die.
Second, gods will favor their immortal relationships over mortal ones. I mean, come on, its not like you are going to favor your relationship with some random stranger you met in Denmark over your friends back at home.
The double standard for humans and gods is suuupppeer prevalent. It also seems as though there are so many gods that you basically get backed into a corner, one god will be mad at you for doing something while the other gods will be mad at you for not doing it. I think that's part of why it's such a reasonable cosmology, stuff happens and there's no real reason for it, so why not make up a cosmology with gods that pay attention to what you do and are punishing you on some whim. The world is so unfair so having powers that do unfair things is a way of reconciling it. As well, that's why I always feel like the narrative of Odysseus as the unluckiest man is such bs. He's so lucky compared to so many other people! The only way he's unlucky is that he has to live with the weight of everyone else's unluckiness.
ReplyDeleteTrue. And when you combine a very flawed, human perspective with immortal power and zero consequences, you get a pretty scary life for the mortals underneath. When you think about it, the gods must truly not even think about humans as real entities, since they have so much more power. Humans are like little dolls to them, with incredible short, meaningless lives.
ReplyDeleteThis is creepy. That's pretty much how Kronos thought about humans and Prometheus the Olympian Age were supposed to stop that.
It does seem that the gods are like toddlers, crying when anything bad happens to them and hitting anyone that makes them mad (though of course in a more dignified manner and hitting with death rather than their hand). I do also agree, though, that this is mainly because they are bored, based on the last book where Athena tries to get the Ithicans from fighting by wiping the memories of the parents of the suitors, because they don't want things to get too out of hand. They had their fun with them, they were not bored, but now it has to stop.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. The gods just do things that they think will cause the most drama. Humans are their TV show, and anything that messes up their lives more is a plus for the gods. Like you said, the best example is the Phaeacians, but there's plenty of other times where the gods just completely screw over some humans just for the heck of it. As such, immortal toddlers is an excellent description for these gods. I would hate living in ancient Greece -- I feel like everyone would be in constant fear that no matter what I did, someone would get mad at me and punish me for it. Or perhaps we'd all come to terms with a collective apathy of "I'm going to get punished anyway, might as well just do it."
ReplyDelete