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Reblogged
hi hello i’ve seen far too many people find out about the telegony and be devastated that the odyssey’s happy ending does not remain happy for long.
so.
the telegony is not canon. it was not written by homer. some wannabe called eugammon of cyrene wrote it. telegonus was a character from one of hesiod’s works (not homer’s) and he’s never mentioned in the odyssey. eugammon just decided to make him odysseus’s son with circe because why not.
the telegony directly contradicts the ending of the odyssey in which odysseus and penelope grow old and die together. ALSO. odysseus’s bloodline cannot have more than one than one male heir per generation. some ancestor of his was cursed by a god. so that makes telegonus’s existence impossible. if odysseus ever had a kid with circe (which he didn’t in canon) it would have had to be a girl.
homer was long dead when eugammon was like. telegonus is gonna kill his dad and bring his step family to his mom’s island, marry his stepmother while is half-brother marries his mother. never happened. this is ancient fanfiction.
TL;DR : feel free to entirely ignore the existence of the telegony; it’s what i’ve always done anyway.
This is misinformation.
Firstly, greek mythology doesn’t have a “canon”. Some myths were more well known than others- but this isn’t Marvel comics, you can’t delegitimize works that you don’t like.
The Telegony is not some random bullshit that “some wannabe called eugammon of cyrene” made up. The first mention that we have of this myth is from The Returns, a poem written by Agias of Troezen in the 7th century B.C, less than a century after Homer.
This myth has been a part of the epic cycle since C7th B.C and it was still relevant and known in C3rd A.D, that’s almost 1000 years of history that you are discarding. Sophoclos wrote a play based on this story that was performed in Athens, is he also “some wannabe”?
And to piss you off even more, some ancient greeks also believed that Penelope was the mother of the god Pan by Hermes (1,2). Were these people’s religious beliefs “not canon”?
I wish people could discuss these ancient stories like grown adults and not like deluded fangirls. This is someone else’s culture and you are insulting it for online fandom points.
im sorry, since when is it misinformation to inform people who are not well versed in classics that the telegony was not one of homer’s works and should not be counted as such?
as for your efforts to try and piss me off, surely you’ve got better things to do. might as well inform you that you’ve failed, because i simply cannot be arsed, my friend.
here’s a point form list of why i don’t give a shit about your opinion:
- the point of this post was not to disregard the intricacies of the of centuries of literature that classicists spend their entire careers debating over. the average person who was introduced to greek mythology through modern adaptations isn’t concerned with that. the average person probably doesn’t know who eugammon is, much less that he was the author of the telegony.
- due to certain works such as madeline miller’s novel Circe and contradicting misinformation being spread about on the internet by fandom wikis, there is a widespread misconception that the telegony is the sequel to the odyssey. which it is not. if you look in the comments and reblogs, you’ll find plenty of people who were very glad to have been told that this is not the case. but of course, according to you, i’m the one spreading misinformation.
- you’re getting so worked up about me using the word ‘canon’ when discussing mythos as if there aren’t versions of every single myth out there that are viewed as the most ‘acceaute’ or the most ‘original’. the most widely accepted version of a myth, the most popular epics form the basis of greek mythology. ergo, they’re basically ‘canon’. you’re just a pompous ass who’s looking to get offended at something.
- telling people who disliked the telegony because it expositions with the death of odysseus that they may disregard the telegony as far as odysseus’s story is concerned is not me ‘delegitimising’ the telegony. there’s this concept called free will which allows you yo express your dislike of a literary work. just because it’s thousands of years old does not mean it’s a faultless masterpiece.
- last i checked, ancient graecian religious practices don’t exist anymore. the ancient greeks haven’t exactly been around for a few centuries. critiquing ancient religion is intellectual speculation, not a crime against humanity.
- every last poet, philosopher and scholar in ancient greek was stealing each others works and plagiarising left and right, that is what causes the massive overlap and confusion when studying greek mythos. it also means that ancient fanfiction was in fact very real.
- do you really think that classicists and historians are so much better than people who belong to comic book fandoms because their specific area of interest is more ‘sophisticated’? get over yourself. when it all boils down, ancient myths are not immune to being modernised and anything that is on the internet manifests a fandom. you’re tagging your reblog of my post with the tagammenon tag as if it’s not the greek mythos fandom tag on tumblr. you’re also part of a fandom, wether you like it or not.
you’re ridiculing someone for posting an oversimplified version of a small part of greek mythology that’s meant to clear up some common misconceptions. how very big of you. i don’t claim to be an ancient greek historian. i never adresses ancient greek historians in my post.
if you think simplifying greek myths in order to make them easier to understand for the general public is an act of deluded fandom mania, then i fear your perception of things is extremely warped. not to mention your behaviour reeks very suspiciously of gatekeeping. ‘discussing ancient stories like grown adults’ - sorry i didn’t realise that talking about myths without the jargon effectively made it toddler-speak. how fucking pretentious can you be?
if you bothered to look in the comments and reblogs you’d find people whom this post was actually intended for, and by association the reason why the post was necessary.
Reblogged
hi hello i’ve seen far too many people find out about the telegony and be devastated that the odyssey’s happy ending does not remain happy for long.
so.
the telegony is not canon. it was not written by homer. some wannabe called eugammon of cyrene wrote it. telegonus was a character from one of hesiod’s works (not homer’s) and he’s never mentioned in the odyssey. eugammon just decided to make him odysseus’s son with circe because why not.
the telegony directly contradicts the ending of the odyssey in which odysseus and penelope grow old and die together. ALSO. odysseus’s bloodline cannot have more than one than one male heir per generation. some ancestor of his was cursed by a god. so that makes telegonus’s existence impossible. if odysseus ever had a kid with circe (which he didn’t in canon) it would have had to be a girl.
homer was long dead when eugammon was like. telegonus is gonna kill his dad and bring his step family to his mom’s island, marry his stepmother while is half-brother marries his mother. never happened. this is ancient fanfiction.
TL;DR : feel free to entirely ignore the existence of the telegony; it’s what i’ve always done anyway.
This is misinformation.
Firstly, greek mythology doesn’t have a “canon”. Some myths were more well known than others- but this isn’t Marvel comics, you can’t delegitimize works that you don’t like.
The Telegony is not some random bullshit that “some wannabe called eugammon of cyrene” made up. The first mention that we have of this myth is from The Returns, a poem written by Agias of Troezen in the 7th century B.C, less than a century after Homer.
This myth has been a part of the epic cycle since C7th B.C and it was still relevant and known in C3rd A.D, that’s almost 1000 years of history that you are discarding. Sophoclos wrote a play based on this story that was performed in Athens, is he also “some wannabe”?
And to piss you off even more, some ancient greeks also believed that Penelope was the mother of the god Pan by Hermes (1,2). Were these people’s religious beliefs “not canon”?
I wish people could discuss these ancient stories like grown adults and not like deluded fangirls. This is someone else’s culture and you are insulting it for online fandom points.
im sorry, since when is it misinformation to inform people who are not well versed in classics that the telegony was not one of homer’s works and should not be counted as such?
as for your efforts to try and piss me off, surely you’ve got better things to do. might as well inform you that you’ve failed, because i simply cannot be arsed, my friend.
here’s a point form list of why i don’t give a shit about your opinion:
- the point of this post was not to disregard the intricacies of the of centuries of literature that classicists spend their entire careers debating over. the average person who was introduced to greek mythology through modern adaptations isn’t concerned with that. the average person probably doesn’t know who eugammon is, much less that he was the author of the telegony.
- due to certain works such as madeline miller’s novel Circe and contradicting misinformation being spread about on the internet by fandom wikis, there is a widespread misconception that the telegony is the sequel to the odyssey. which it is not. if you look in the comments and reblogs, you’ll find plenty of people who were very glad to have been told that this is not the case. but of course, according to you, i’m the one spreading misinformation.
- you’re getting so worked up about me using the word ‘canon’ when discussing mythos as if there aren’t versions of every single myth out there that are viewed as the most ‘acceaute’ or the most ‘original’. the most widely accepted version of a myth, the most popular epics form the basis of greek mythology. ergo, they’re basically ‘canon’. you’re just a pompous ass who’s looking to get offended at something.
- telling people who disliked the telegony because it expositions with the death of odysseus that they may disregard the telegony as far as odysseus’s story is concerned is not me ‘delegitimising’ the telegony. there’s this concept called free will which allows you yo express your dislike of a literary work. just because it’s thousands of years old does not mean it’s a faultless masterpiece.
- last i checked, ancient graecian religious practices don’t exist anymore. the ancient greeks haven’t exactly been around for a few centuries. critiquing ancient religion is intellectual speculation, not a crime against humanity.
- every last poet, philosopher and scholar in ancient greek was stealing each others works and plagiarising left and right, that is what causes the massive overlap and confusion when studying greek mythos. it also means that ancient fanfiction was in fact very real.
- do you really think that classicists and historians are so much better than people who belong to comic book fandoms because their specific area of interest is more ‘sophisticated’? get over yourself. when it all boils down, ancient myths are not immune to being modernised and anything that is on the internet manifests a fandom. you’re tagging your reblog of my post with the tagammenon tag as if it’s not the greek mythos fandom tag on tumblr. you’re also part of a fandom, wether you like it or not.
you’re ridiculing someone for posting an oversimplified version of a small part of greek mythology that’s meant to clear up some common misconceptions. how very big of you. i don’t claim to be an ancient greek historian. i never adresses ancient greek historians in my post.
if you think simplifying greek myths in order to make them easier to understand for the general public is an act of deluded fandom mania, then i fear your perception of things is extremely warped. not to mention your behaviour reeks very suspiciously of gatekeeping. ‘discussing ancient stories like grown adults’ - sorry i didn’t realise that talking about myths without the jargon effectively made it toddler-speak. how fucking pretentious can you be?