selenak: (Richard III. by Vexana_Sky)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote 2020-08-23 01:53 pm (UTC)

Re: Thersites, this reminds me how flabbergasted I was when first reading the Iliad and Ovid's Metamorphoses, because like most Germans of my generation and older, I'd become aquainted with Greek myths as a child in the Gustav Schwab version. (Gustav Swab's "Myths of the Greeks and Romans" has been the standard gift for book loving kids since the late 19th century.) Good old Schwab, it turned out, bowlderized the myths so that, for example, Arachne loses the competition against Athena and kills herself in shame over ever having dared to challenge the goddess, and Odysseus hits Thersites only once after Thersistes "pours scorn over the entire army", not just Agamemnon. Yep, that's a Wilhelmian who doesn't want school children get challenging authority like ideas.

I'm glad you liked the Ricardian Hunger Games AU! I still maintain someone should write a Frederician one. ;)

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