Greek Myths and Children of Icarus

Caighlan Smith

Oh, where to begin? I do so love my Greek mythology. I have a few favourite myths, starting with the one where the goddess Demeter put the mortal kid she was babysitting in a fire, and expected his parents to be cool with this because “duh, it will make him immortal”. I also like the myth where Ariadne, after being ditched by her supposed boyfriend Theseus (Greek heroes for you) ends up getting to marry Dionysus, who is basically the god of partying. I think there’s a great moral in that one, somewhere. Also, the myth about the deaths of Castor and Pollux. Despite being twins, they have different fathers—because myth logic—so Pollux is a demi-god and Castor just has a very cool name. In one version of the myth, when they’re “killed” Pollux is set to go off to Mount Olympus, Castor to the underworld, but Pollux won’t abandon his twin so he convinces his dad Zeus to let him share his immortality with his brother. They then become the constellation Gemini (which is my sign!).

As for favourite Greek heroes, that would be a toss-up between Ajax the Greater and one of the only female heroes, Atalanta. Ajax was just an all-around entertaining guy. When (spoiler alert) Achilles is killed during the Trojan War, Ajax and Odysseus compete for the magic god armour of Achilles. Ajax is strong, but Odysseus is wily and ultimately convinces the Greek army to give him the armour. As one would expect, Ajax takes this incredibly well; he decides to murder his commanders. Thanks to some godly intervention, Ajax murders a flock of innocent sheep instead but, believing he’s killed his friends, immediately regrets what he’s done and falls on his own sword. It’s poetic and awful, yet somehow I cannot take this myth seriously. Is it because all of this happens over a suit of armour? Is it because Odysseus is such a little trickster yet always ends up winning? Is it because of the sheep? It’s probably because of the sheep. But the reason I love Ajax has nothing (not much) to do with the sheep, but what happens next; many years later, Odysseus takes a trip to the Underworld, because why not? There he encounters his buddy Ajax, along with a host of other very chatty dead Greeks. But Ajax does not say a word. It’s his first chance to talk to a living person in forever, find out what’s happening in the world, maybe explain his crazy sheep slaughter, and what does he do? He says nothing. No matter how much the widely loved Odysseus attempts to let bygones be bygones, Ajax cold-shoulders him to the end. I can’t help but respect this guy’s capacity to hold a grudge. If it were me, and I were a spirit stuck in Ancient Greek purgatory, I probably would not have that resolve.

So then there’s Atalanta. Her father was not a cool guy, as he left her outside to die as a baby. Luckily, she was saved by a bear and grew up, supposedly, to have bear-like tendencies, which is probably something towards which more of us should aspire. She was also a huntress, sworn to the very awesome goddess of the hunt, Artemis, who also loved bears. So many bears! Proving to be even less of a cool guy than he already was, Atalanta’s father reappeared after she’d done some adventuring and decided she had to get married. Oh, ancient mythology, treating us women so well. The thing was, Atalanta didn’t want to get married, so she set up a competition for her suitors: if they could beat her in a footrace, they could marry her, but if they lost they were killed. Sounds fair to me! Unfortunately, Atalanta was eventually beaten by this guy who got godly assistance (which I’m pretty sure qualifies as cheating). On the plus side, their marriage eventually ends with them being turned into lions. Kind of disappointed it wasn’t bears, but I guess there are already too many myths about those. There’s another myth about Atalanta, in which she tried to join the crew of the Argo, but Jason wouldn’t let her because she was a she. Speaking of Jason and favourite heroes, he is one of my least favourite heroes, if not the very least. He’s hardly a real hero—he needed a crew full of other, actual heroes (Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, and literally dozens of others) in order to get a wad of fleece. Sure, it was magical, Golden Fleece, but basically every inanimate and animate object in mythology is magical. One of Ajax’s sheep victims was probably magical. Jason could have just asked Ajax for some fleece.

On the topic of magical fleece and creatures that may have produced it, you know one creature that definitely didn’t produce fleece but was still super magical? Cerberus, my favourite Greek monster. Any three-headed demon dog that guards the gates of hell yet can be placated with honey cakes is perfect in my book.

Speaking of my book, Children of Icarus draws a lot of inspiration from Greek mythology, given my adoration of it. It takes place in a labyrinth, for starters, and any Greek mythology geek worth their ambrosia will now be thinking of Daedalus, the inventor of said labyrinth. Of course, referencing Icarus probably also brings Daedalus to mind, given the former is the latter’s son. But the references don’t stop there; I actually based several of the characters off of Greek heroes, though I won’t yet say who and which. There are also monsters, because what book inspired by Greek mythology wouldn’t have monsters? While there may not be any three-headed mutant dogs (yet??) there are many creatures reminiscent of those found in Greek myths. So all of this is to say that if you’re a mythology geek like me, you’ll probably recognize a lot of stuff. BUT if you couldn’t care less about Ancient Greece, worry not! The allusions are a bonus. There’s plenty of survival fun to go around. The protagonist ends up trapped in the aforementioned labyrinth, which should have led her to Alyssia—paradise. Instead, she and a group of youths must struggle to survive against the monstrosities and horrors plaguing the labyrinth. Even if there were honey cakes to be had, they would do no good.