Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 361
September 23, 2017
kata-chthonia:
Who would you fancast as Persephone in Receiver...
Who would you fancast as Persephone in Receiver of Many?
Let me know on Tumblr, and let my Executive Producer Summer Helene know on Twitter!
kata-chthonia:
“I don’t care what power or wealth they had in...
“I don’t care what power or wealth they had in life. They can’t take it with them, though many think they can. They think it will sway me, somehow. Mortals and immortals alike say many things about me in the world above. But my reputation for being inexorable is well earned,” Hades said.
Persephone smiled wryly. Draped down the front of her clothes were more jewels than the oldest, richest dynasty could hope to acquire in all its generations, much less a single mortal in a short lifetime. Any one of the rubies in her hair could ransom a princess.
— from Destroyer of Light (sequel to Receiver of Many)
September 22, 2017
Hello =) Just wanna ask when would The Good Counselor be published? I'm very excited about it! Thanks :*
Well, I’m in the process of writing that and writing the show bible for a tv series based on my books, so it may be a little while.
***HOWEVER***
I will be giving away a spoiler for The Good Counselor on next week’s episode of Behind the Scenes, so tune in next Friday, September 29 at 4:00 pm for that!
September 21, 2017
You should nab Lucas Steele now that he is done with Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812! He's really good at playing the princely bad boy
Not a bad suggestion. Tweet that to my EP, Summer Helene!
You should nab Lucas Steele now that he is done with Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812! He's really good at playing the princely bad boy
Not a bad suggestion. Tweet that to my EP, Summer Helene!
Hi! Re: the Persephone choosing to go to the underworld thing, you're right in that there are no surviving pre-Hellenic myths that say that, but there is evidence to suggest that that was a thing and that other elements were introduced to the myth as time
I have some sources here if you’re interested. The post itself is a bit one-sided but some of the sources are very interesting. annachibi.tumblr.com/post/73585426166/sources-for-prepatriarchal-persephone
So this ask is perfect because I’ve been having Regrets about not expanding on some stuff in my original post, but it’d been reblogged a few times and I didn’t want to edit, nah mean.
other elements were introduced to the myth as time went on
You’re totally right: myths and beliefs evolved constantly. Bronze Age beliefs were different than Archaic beliefs were different than Classical beliefs. Plus every time, say, some small Greek tribe bumped up against some small near Eastern tribe, they interacted and were influenced and you had all these little mystery cults popping up all over the place. I wrote Greek religion’s “complicated” in my original post to awkwardly paper over that, but you were totally right to smack the piñata. There’s no one unified Greek “canon” mythology, just some versions of stories that stuck around and were more popular than others, which is something we all gotta keep in mind.
For the second part: I mean, I wanna disclaim by saying that this really is more yelling into the void than anything else. In the grand scheme of things to be yellin into the void about, there are totally more important things. I’m not hitting speed dial for Barack. But everyone has stuff they’re passionate about and seriously, I hear the Kill Bill sirens every time I see that post on my dash.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: the post on “pre-patriarchal Persephone” is not based in widespread academic consensus in Classics, and its sources are not legitimate. Acceptable sources are peer-reviewed and written by Classics PhDs. The sources for this post are literally a book on trends in 19th century mythography by an English PhD (which looks super interesting, by the way, but was clearly not at all intended to support this kind of thing); a book written by an author with an MA in English and American Literature which a reviewer describes as an “illustrated retelling … that will be enjoyed whenever women come together for ritual”; a book which is encouraging me to “Ask yourself the following seasonal question: ‘What wisdom am I bringing with me from the dark of winter?’”; and some internet person named Jan with an unsourced “case text” and her own unsupported analysis. And motherearthpages.com.
These sources aren’t convincing to me. The whole post seems to be an attempt to mold incomplete ancient data to suit modern social justice sensibilities. It’s one thing to use ancient deities to inform your spiritual beliefs or to empower modern feminism—not my thing, but if it’s anyone else’s, more power to you. It’s entirely another to present your findings as something historically plausible, something that deserves cachet like it’s actual academic research.
Like, it’s not just the misinformation. It’s the authoritative, almost dismissive tone of the post. It’s not just that it’s likely wrong—it’s that it’s so tailor-made for the tastes of the Tumblr community, so attractively wrong, that over 5,000 people have been duped and are innocently spreading its wrongness. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the source for original anon ask was informed by this post. It’s the first thing I thought of and I felt mad on anon’s behalf, that they were sent on a wild academic goose chase for something that has no basis in actual scholarship. There’s a lot of interesting stuff being said about Persephone and her origins, but the people we should trust to say it have PhDs in Classics. And maybe more importantly, other classicists who agree with their findings too.
Anyways, I hope I didn’t totally blow my lid here, that pressure cooker’s been rattling on the table for a while now. (I’m not actually Mad in any meaningful way, obviously, haha. This is the internet and I love everyone who’s into classics. Just, you know. Let me explain my passions.) And if I’ve said something wrong, or if any of my classics bros do have good sources for that stuff, please let me know and I’ll post ASAP.
All that aside, there’s so much cool and interesting women’s studies stuff in antiquity that is legit. Like check out the Thesmorphoria. There’s jealously guarded secrets and sacred feminine spaces and reaffirmation of the mother-daughter bond and tossin pigs into pits and beating men for intruding and all this other stuff we barely know about because that’s how well-guarded the secrets were. The mystery cults are full of this kind of stuff for the Fix—we don’t need to rewrite history to find ancient women doing awesome stuff, even in the swampy patriarchal marsh that was classical antiquity.
my-little-box-life:
kata-chthonia:
Who would you cast as...
Who would you cast as Thanatos?Tell my executive producer, Summer Helene ON TWITTER by hashtagging #Thanatos and tagging her in on her account “@summerhelene” We have a chance to let her know who we want to play Thanatos, so let’s.
And if you absolutely cannot cannot do Twitter, I’d love to know who you want here, too. I’ll reblog your suggestions.
Make your voice heard!
I tweeted Summer Helene, but wanted to reblog this too! Personally I think Aneurin Barnard would be a pretty good Thanatos - he really works deathly face haha I think it’s the eye shape
himynameishelen:
realta1300:
kata-chthonia:
Who would you...
:
Who would you fancast as Hades in Receiver of Many?
Let me know on Tumblr, and let my Executive Producer Summer Helene know on Twitter!
Ugh. Too many choices! Richard Armitage, maybe?
Eoin Macken!
with this kind of look:
or this:
cannot have short hair. nope.
I think I like the barely-there beard but not sure
