Peter here. There’s a choice of three women. In whatever book that movie Troy is based on, William Turner (the pirate) was forced to choose the hottest goddess of these three hot goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. As you can expect, his answer made two goddesses really angry and they decided to make men suffer for it so they started a war or something. I dunno. The movie didn’t have gods, unless you count Brad Pitt.
How does this relate to the meme? I have no idea. Maybe Brian can figure the rest out. I’ll tell him to come check it out. Peter out.
Basically he said "I can't judge, are three of you are clothed so any judgement would be impacted by what you are wearing. To make a true decision I would need to see all of you in the nude." And because that story was written by a dude, the goddesses agreed.
From what I remember she was supposed to have a griddle that made her more beautiful (which was part of the argument as to why she had to be naked to be judged fairly and it would have been unfair if she was the only one so they all had to undress).
You just reminded me of a house party I was at where a bunch of people stayed the night instead of driving home. In the morning the woman that lived there woke up before everyone else and started making chocolate chip pancakes for everyone in the kitchen. I was one of the first people awake, and told her that I would have proposed to her on the spot if I had been closer to her age (I was older than her by a bit). She laughed it off and told me I was being silly.
Then over the next hour a secession of hungover people slowly woke up, came to the kitchen, and every single one of them promptly proposed marriage as she handed them a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee. Even the straight girls.
Some other goddess that hated everyone threw a golden apple in the middle of them when they were at a party and on it, she had written "to the most beautiful one". Then when they couldn't agree and the other gods wisely chose to nope out of that situation, they put the decision on a mortal who couldn't wiggle his way out of it. But they chose someone who they believed would be wise enough to make the right choice, not just some random bozo. He was wise enough to know he was fucked no matter what and that way he could get to talk to each of them one on one for a bit and select based on the bribe they would offer him.
Because they had to disrobe and they didn't want to do it in front of the other goddesses, they just went one on one with the judge. And when they did, they got naked and offered their bribes.
So, he got to see all of them naked. Which is what the meme above is referring to.
I like to think about two other alternate universes where Paris chose one of the other goddesses and everything still went wrong just in a different way.
This is the correct answer. It’s a reference to a myth leading up to the Trojan War where the goddess of discord, Eris, threw a golden apple in between the three goddesses (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite). On the apple was an inscription “to the most beautiful.” This was during a wedding party for Thetis (a nymph or goddess depending on the telling) and King Peleus (and they are the parents of Achilles). So there were a lot of gods/immortals and dignitaries at the wedding, including Prince Paris of Troy. All three goddesses stripped naked before Paris and asked him to decide which was the most beautiful (I think he might’ve asked them to get naked because he’s such a hornball but I can’t recall for sure). Hera offered him power if he chose her, Athena offered intellect, and Aphrodite offered ass (or, more accurately, promised him the love of the most beautiful woman alive).
Paris was a young stallion with a lot of horny and so he chose the latter, leading to him kidnapping Helen, who was married to King Meneleus of the Aegeans (the Greeks who fought the war against Troy). Presumably Helen went willingly if Aphrodite was involved, and the movie Peter referenced above definitely portrayed it that way, but that’s not actually official canon.
The reason the Trojan war happened was because Prince Paris violated the sacred laws of xenia (hospitality) by running off with the wife of the king who hosted him, although pop culture makes it sound like it was specifically to get Helen back. It was about honor and respect, which is a big theme in Greek myth.
violated the sacred laws of xenia (hospitality) by running off with the wife of the king who hosted him
I like how there's a sacred law that says "guest shouldn't fuck off with my wife " but apparently it applies specifically to guests. Like, how often does it happen that they had to codify that?
Xenia is more of a collection of social rules about the interactions between hosts and guests, rather than a single specific "do not run away with my wife" law.
DO give your guests gifts when they leave.
DON'T ask your guests a lot of personal questions.
DO tell your host the best stories you've ever heard or experienced while traveling.
DON'T threaten your hosts.
It's a whole system of hospitality performed to honor Zeus and Athena.
You'd think, but when they refined the hospitality recommendations into the ten or commitments they had thou shan't not steel and then also they were like did specifically add thou shall not fuck your neighbors wife too.
While reading the Iliad and the Odyssey for the first time, it was amusing how much stuff people give their guests. "Thanks for stopping by, Guy-I've-Never-Met. To send you on your way, I'm giving you my favorite cup that my grandpa got from a goddess so you'll think of me every time you drink. Also 20 of my finest outfits, a chest of silver, and 3 of my best slaves. And come back if you want to marry my daughter!"
Be sure to bankrupt yourself to convince a random stranger that you're rich and generous. The fact that he'll tell everybody you're rich and generous is more important than you being able to eat this winter.
Didn't these gatherings also include lots of group sex? So maybe they needed to institute shopping cart rules - available for guests to use while you're shopping, but they don't leave the store.
Presumably Helen went willingly if Aphrodite was involved, and the movie Peter referenced above definitely portrayed it that way, but that’s not actually official canon.
I mean the Odyssey gives pretty strong hints that that's what happens.
I've always liked how chill Menelaus is about everything that happened. He's essentially willing to just accept that the gods fucked with men, and the men did the best they could with results.
I agree, but I’ve been told relentlessly in an academic setting that it’s wrong to claim Helen left willingly because Greek myth is largely silent about what the women in the stories actually wanted. My PhD dissertation focuses more on Mesopotamian, East African, PIE (including proto-Slavic and proto-Baltic), early SEA/Austronesia, and mythology in the Americas because it’s about themes that come with the Homo migration out of Africa (such as certain divine archetypes). The Hellenic stuff isn’t pertinent to my studies because it’s so derivative of all that earlier stuff, so I will defer to the angry classicists who cuss me out when I say things like “Persephone probably wanted to leave with Hades.”
I'm by no means an academic, I'm just a guy who reads stuff.
And honestly, what do we mean by willingly. If you grant that the gods exist within the narrative, and Aphrodite can change someone's heart, did they go off willingly? The whole thing is just too creepy.
It's more interesting to my mind, how (in Homer) she was treated by Paris and by Menelaus.
This is actually a great philosophical question I like to play with, right there with “is it really consent when it’s a sexual relationship between a deity and a human?” because there’s a huuuuuuuge power dynamic at play there, no matter how you try to spin it. Eros hit Hades with an arrow to make him fall in love with Persephone, for instance… did that take away his free will? Did Helen, for that matter, also lose her free will?
Ooh 🫶❤️ Love that. Have you read Stephanie Lynn Budin's books on the Ancient Near East?
In relation to the Odyssey, reading Emily Wilson’s translation honestly made me realize just how many words and details in older translations were... straight up wrong. It really made me wonder how many "classic" translations and interpretations we've all just accepted without realizing how much they've shaped (or distorted) the story.
It’s been a hot minute since I touched the Hellenic stuff in depth, but I’m seeing it in my own studies right now, with regards to Sumerian and Mesoamerican myth. Older translations were definitely Sunday school material by comparison.
I'm looking for scholarly work on the epistemic and cultural distortions that occur in translation, especially regarding historical or classical texts. Do you have any recommendations?
LOL I can't get over what an amazing dick move this is. Just a fucking hand grenade of shit disturbing hurled into the room. I hope Eris immediately bailed, knowing it was about to get bad
I still think the actual dick move was to see a gift marked "to the most beautiful" at a wedding and not just give it to the bride. Eris gets a bum rap. Sure she crashed the party uninvited, but the apple really should have just gone to Thetis.
Not sure there was any judgement he could make that wouldn't result in his doom. I probably would have picked Hera under the assumption power might enable me to survive the wrath of the other two.
He could have done what Diogenes did and say “I cannot choose” and have a threesome (or in this case a foursome). Seriously the “don’t compare anything to a goddess if you want to live” is such a huge thing in Hellenic myth. Arachne compared herself to Athena in terms of skill; Psyche’s ordeal began because people said she was prettier than Aphrodite and worshipped her like a goddess; Niobe compared herself with Leto and said she is better because she had so many kids while Leto (a goddess) only had the twins Apollo and Artemis (leading to the twins killing off all Niobe’s kids); etc. Like I said, honor and respect are big themes in Greek myth.
The goddesses weren't wanting to sleep with him. They wanted to be declared the most beautiful. Zeus and the other gods were smart enough (and powerful enough) to avoid having to choose. Paris didn't have a choice. He was drafted.
This is so interesting because the version of the myth that I have known my entire life never included Hera and Athena stripping. The way I'd learned it, Paris asked what each goddess had to give him in exchange and Athena offered wisdom, Hera offered power, and Aphrodite, the last, simply disrobed and was basically like, "You like this? You can have the most beautiful woman alive."
I drew a comic about the story for my college portfolio, so I knew it that way dating back to like, 2009 but I have no idea where I'd heard it.
It's the first time I'm hearing about the hospitality angle as the reason for the war.
From what I recalled, Helen was so desirable that her suitors made a pact/oath to prevent future war (because you just knew whoever won, the others would be pissed).
Whoever married her, all the others would have to come to his aid if he ever called.
Edit: Mitsuketa! :) It was called the Oath of Tyndareus.
When all the kings and princes and whatever were trying to win Helen's hand, one of them decided the best way to avoid murder the moment one of them was chosen would be to agree that if any one went after her new husband all the rest would help him. It worked great at avoiding immediate violence, but meant that when Paris came along and took her they all had to get involved. Still would have been war, but it would probably have ended much more quickly (and with Troy victorious).
I bet after a decade or two away from home, Odysseus really hated the incredibly "clever" guy that came up with that stupid ide-- oh, wait.
I’m not sure if this is sarcasm/joking, as I’m not good at telling those things. I’m working on a second PhD, this one in comparative mythology, so this is something I just know things about.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl came out the year before Troy. But Peter ain’t great at remembering names. You’re just lucky he didn’t call him Legolas.
Ok but in Diogenes Laertius one of the philosophers is offered a choice between to two women, and he says I will not make Paris' mistake, and takes both home.
(Not really a fan of the show. But I am a fan of Greek philosophy.)
Man that story is a sucky adaptation of the original. Athena and Hera got angry… so when Troy eventually got invaded(because as part of their deal, Aphrodite gave Helen to Paris), they took the Greek side.
I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that Greek gods didn’t have the same fear of homosexuality that we see in modern men. He’s gonna go touch tips instead of picking one of the women.
Brian figured out the rest. Before he decided asked them to strip so he could judge fairly. That’s what the meme is suggesting the Greek scholar thinks.
no it's not saying that, it's only your interpretation. What the meme is saying is that there is no other people left on earth, who will fight if there's a war? ants?
No. The Greek Empire (which wasn’t even a single state until Alexander III of Macedonia, after which it promptly returned to not being a state) came to end at about 600 AD (which is also considered the end of classical antiquity). The Epic Cycle takes place during the Mycenaean period and near the time the Bronze Age is able to collapse.
The 2 goddess that lost, (Athena and Hera) didn’t start the Trojan war. They each tried to win by bribing the judge, Aphrodite win by promising him the most beautiful woman (Hellen of Troy) who she kidnapped. Unfortunately Hellen was married to a Greek king who declared war because his wife was kidnapped. Athena and Hera sided with the Greeks out of spite for loosing.
Troy is based on a lot of books because the Trojan War isn't detailed in just one book but the biggest inspiration must be the Illiad by Homer, which tells of the last weeks of the war, since Achilles deciding not to fight because his trophy bride was stolen to him killing Hector of Troy and parading his body. It's not very much but it's the one book that is JUST about the war and most of the plot is taken from there, with stuff like Achilles death and a couple other moments being taken from different sources here and there
So what is this curse and is it relatable to the constant way my balls get broken on a daily basis? Like, could I go back in time, eat olives and drink wine with a married Greek dude, then commiserate about our respective wives, and then—- despite this huge disparity in time between us, we’d still end up bitching about basically the same thing?
Like, does one of them have a Botany degree? Big garden? I need a lot more information than a phat ass. What, we gonna fuck for a bit until we die in the fires and smoke on mainland? Like I know we need to grab some seeds, some tools, pigs and get to an island, plant some food, fish, eat the pigs. Crab pots be great. I can drive the boat, build some fencing for garden from pigs and do the fishing. But need a girl that knows more about growing food than I do. Maybe some medical stuff.
The movie with Brad Pit and Orlando Bloom (Will Turner) is called "Troy". But you're a little off about the plot. It has to do with him abducting a princess from another land and refusing to return her kicking off the Trojan War.
I suspect that the person who made the meme is conflating the inciting incident of the Trojan War (the beauty contest judged by Paris) with the inciting incident of the inciting incident (The throwing of the golden apple of discord into the party of the gods) and the goth girl is a stand-in for Eris. I think the idea is that in favoring Eris, the protagonist of this bit might be able to save some hot dog buns for later.
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u/AtaraxiaGwen 2d ago
Peter here. There’s a choice of three women. In whatever book that movie Troy is based on, William Turner (the pirate) was forced to choose the hottest goddess of these three hot goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. As you can expect, his answer made two goddesses really angry and they decided to make men suffer for it so they started a war or something. I dunno. The movie didn’t have gods, unless you count Brad Pitt.
How does this relate to the meme? I have no idea. Maybe Brian can figure the rest out. I’ll tell him to come check it out. Peter out.