Conversations: Giving a Voice to a Lost Daughter of Sparta with Felicia Day

Hey nerds, quick bit of enormous news. I am so excited to say that I have a new book coming out in June of this year, and not only is it just a new book, but it is a fully illustrated retelling of the Odyssey. It's aimed at children 9-12, but don't let that fool you. It's a shortened retelling, but I kept it true to the original in every way that matters. Check out the link in the episode's description for where to pre-order or just ask your local independent bookstore. [Music] Hey all, welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk About Myths Baby. It's Michaela Pangeuiche, the Hermes to All Your Olympians here to introduce this week's conversation episode. And I'll be so honest, I was losing my mind at this one a little bit, because this week we talked with Felicia Day about her newest graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta. I was so nervous, and you can definitely write in the episode, so I apologize for my random ramblingness then and now, as always. But it was such a lovely conversation, and Felicia Day is delightful, and it was so great to have her on the show. And it was also just so interesting to talk about a character that, honestly, I had never heard about, and I live had I really heard about, and to hear about Felicia's process with it, and what she wanted to get out of this and what her motivations were. So I hope you all enjoy the episode, and I'll see you all later. Bye. [Music] [Music] To take things, I mean, why don't you first introduce yourself, because also I'll admit, I wasn't familiar with your work, but Michaela was and was very excited to see your name. I love this. I love it when people are like, "It's okay, it's a world of vast interest, vast people, and I am lucky if one person knows my stuff." So, I'm glad it was a good push for Michaela. She was very excited. I was like, "Well, great. Now I know that we want to talk to this person." So, yeah. So, tell us how you got into this side of me. My name is Felicia Day, and I'm an actor, a writer, a producer. I'm really well known as one of the first celebrities on the internet. Somebody called me a nerd-leberly once, and I hated it, but I guess it's accurate, even though I hate it. I was the queen of the internet for like five minutes, and I was like, "Please don't call me that either." So, I'm most well known for making web stuff. I was one of the first people to write a web series for a new platform called YouTube. Yes, that old. It was called The Guild, and it got very prominent. We did it for six years. I then parlayed that into a company called Geekit Sundry that was kind of a pioneer in tabletop and dnd streaming and things like that. I was, you know, we did that. And then I, I'm an actress on top of that, so people recognize me from Supernatural, from Buffy, from Yorika, all sort of geeky sci-fi or fantasy shows. So I'm very much my own person in that I love nerd and geek stuff, and that happens to be really popular right now. I was there, I was a hipster nerd. So I was there by the way. My self and geek myth. Yes, exactly. I was, I was early to that game. You were early to that game, exactly. Yeah, that's great. So, I love that. You, well, I mean, that would be three thousand years ago if you were super. Yeah, I wasn't that early, you know, just before the current surge. You looked like you could hold me in there. What, well, perfect. I was just, I'm, I'll take it. Absolutely. You know, I'm, you know, I'm older than a lot of my listeners, so I got to say I actually just recently got a message from a listener who said, I think I really think that that she said she'd been listening since she was seven. Oh my god. And it kind of broke my brain a little bit because I was like, yeah, I've been getting that a lot. And you know, it's okay. I grew up with your work is also one of the most flattering and also gutting phrases I've ever heard. Yeah, it's so nice. And it's also like, wow, when did I get old? How was that physically possible? It just happens. Believe me, you can't do anything about it. It just happens. So, well, anyway, I decided to dive into it. Yes, I did. Okay, so I wrote my graphic novel called The Lost Daughter of Sparta. It just recently came out. It's a graphic novel about and set in ancient Greece. And the main character is the youngest sister of Helen of Troy. And my attraction of mythology started way, way, way back when I was a little kid. I had the Delayers Greek myths. And I remember being scarred by many of the pictures in that book because I read them too early, like, Chrono's eating one of his babies. Oh, my favorite. Yeah, that's great. And Persephone being like, taken away from her mother, you know, that's one of my favorite pictures in that it shakes me with horror every time I see it, which is always good. So I, I've always loved mythology. I've always loved folklore in general. And I tried to top my way into many of folklore class in the University of Texas at Austin where I went to school. And that was a major only thing. And the guy would not have it. So I just would love to send him a copy of this saying, "Hey, shoulda let me in, buddy." But I got attracted to this subject matter because I started out of insomnia, diving into ancient Greek literature and myths because I was just out of my mind from sleep deprivation because of my daughter. And that's really how everything started. So I pay, I mean, I want, I mostly, Michele's gonna have the questions before I then let her take it away, though I realize. Okay, because I'm so curious about you, you picked like a very unknown character, you know, one of these many characters we know them so well in the show where, you know, there's a couple fragmentary references, but they're not a character that, you know, exists throughout, you know, not a Helen, not a Clyde of Nestra sister. So like, we, I saw there's a reference to Hisiod's catalog of women, which is my pet obsession. So yeah, I'm just curious like where, how do you suffer upon that? I mean, I'm just obsessed with it because it is utterly fragmentary and also like, purports to be a catalog of women, but of course in Greek myth, women are just their relation to men. And so, you know, most society too, really? Yes, exactly. And so yeah, but you know, most of the, most of the fragments are just, she's the mother of this person and the daughter of this person. Yes. And so yeah, but I'm fascinated by the idea of a catalog of women, I guess. Yeah, no, I mean, one of the, one of the aspects in the book itself is about women just standing for their symbols and being that perfect symbol or function to other people is something that I, I kind of did get outraged out about. So the reason why I picked this one fragment I got there was I think through Kindle reading. So I read the Greek myth and Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy and Roman myth as well. Because I just couldn't sleep. My daughter wouldn't sleep for two years of her life. My brain was broken at that point. Still couldn't sleep. I would just be so reactive to everything I read. I had to get the most soothing sort of non-complicated, not non-complicated, but non adrenaline pushing book. So I couldn't have any cliffhangers at all. And for some reason, Greek writing, Greek myth, it just really intrigued me enough, but also it was kind of a research project too. So whenever I'd read, you know, the Odyssey translation by Emily Watson or whatever, I would be like every single name I would go and I would Wikipedia and that I would go down the Wikipedia and be like, oh, I haven't heard of that person. I would go down. So it turned like this nerdy ancestry.com dive. And I just came across, and I was actually looking a lot about Helen because, you know, just reading about her. She's talked, she's spoken about so much, but she's never a person. Ever. She's not a person. And even right now, I couldn't tell you what kind of person this was, who she was. And you can tell that more about some characters, you know, Medea. Yeah, like there's some who have personality even in the ancient text and what I'm, I'm not by no means an expert either. I am just a tourist in this. So you guys know much better than me. She's just not a person at all. There was some fan fiction, I guess, written about her that she went to Egypt, you know, in some versions of it in the Roman territory. It's a whole play. It's a whole play. It's an incredible play by Erypides. It is wild. Helen actually leads the whole thing. She saves the day. Menelias is a washed up loser wearing a fishnet. I need to read the original of this. I have not read it. And now I need to because it's still like we'll fall. a person to me. But anyway, so a few podcast episodes on it, if you want to dive in 100%. So I was kind of like, oh, I had read all the Circe and Natalie Haynes and I'm obsessed with and all these authors who are doing feminist retellings of characters. And I was like, why has somebody done anything on Helen? I wasn't like, I'm going to do this, but I was just kind of curious about diving in. And that's how I found my way to the Curse of Tindaris, which led me to the fragment in catalog equipment. And so that's what I read this line. I don't know if it does kind of spoil it to read the line, but the line has to do with Fila Noe, the youngest sister and Artemis. And Artemis is my favorite goddess. And it was so evocative. I was like, wait, what? And when I searched more, there was nothing else on this character, like literally nothing. It's just that fragment. I think it's, she was mentioned also in Pazianis. I'm sorry if I'm going to miss Pazianis. Pazianis, that's it. Great. I don't know how to pronounce anything. I'll go, that's why we're here. Exactly. Thank you. So he, but I think he was just repeating that fragment, but I'm not sure. Usually that's what it, well, Pazianis is like 800 or so years after. After? Yes. So he was just quoting. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. I mean, well, and that's the fun of Greek myth, right? And that's when you find all of those little connections where it's like, because I think I found, I was looking into one of the sort of densest sources I have, which is Timothy Gantz books. He's someone who went through and basically cataloged like each character's appearance throughout the surviving sources. Oh, wow. And so I'm going to read it. Yeah, yeah, it's very, I mean, it's very dense. It's very much like our research, like a reference book. And McKill and I were chatting actually because you named up to her as well. We were chatting after speaking with Emily Wilson, the translator of the Odyssey. We have a room for coming out on Friday. Yeah. And I'm so tired. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no. I've been on the floor for a week. I didn't need nine days. Don't worry. I mean, Emily Watson is an excellent actress as well. Yes. I just tell you. Oh, yeah. That's why. I'm like, I studied history, but my brain can't hold names or dates. And I'm like, that's what notes are for. I'm going to be fine. We're all fine, guys. Screw it up, but just own it. Exactly. No, we were looking up Follonoy's name because of your, the email came in about your book. As we were looking into it, because I was curious as well, I hadn't heard of her. And it seemed like, yeah, so much was coming just from that little fragment. And then you can kind of see people picking it up afterwards, but nothing more than this little fragment. And like, that's so true. So many characters. And I'm always obsessed with them. So I'm thrilled to hear one other people pick up on one of those and then, you know, turn it into a whole, a whole work of its own. That's, I think that's my favorite type of Greek myth reception, like fiction based on it now is the, those little characters where you can kind of invent a lot, you know, on your own. Yeah. It just was, it was fun and it was kind of permission to play in a world that I was kind of obsessed with for a while. And also, I had some really important things I wanted to say. And also when I read all the myths to my daughter, I just wanted to kind of give her a story where she can see herself in it versus like, it's all these years in Perseus and Herically is all these things, you know. We know all of that way too well. Yeah. And I remember this really great book, Goddesses Hors and Wives by Sarah B. Pomaroi. Yeah. And that was also very informative because I saw her like referenced in some, something, and I read that book and it's very, it's a little dry, but it's like super fascinating. And I just, I couldn't help but want to be outraged on behalf of Greek women, but also women now because we're not, it's not that much different like, you know, you see, that the entirety of this podcast. The 98% of it is how the oppression of women and myth basically just mirrors today. Maris today, exactly. I mean, I totally, yes, I'm a very, I mean, there's a lot of anger in this book, but also, you know, I wanted to be entertaining. So I can't tell you the story. Well, I think that's, there's, there's something, the theme I really picked up on and loved so much was just autonomy over and over and over again of, you know, what does it look like for a person to make their own choices and decisions? And it was really, it was, it was beautiful. The, I like, I also don't want to spoil things, but, you know, the reveal of the curse where it's like, you know, it also goes into the question of like, how, how are these things defined? How is curses slash films defined? Because if it's under the patriarchy, well, then this was actually a curse, but if it's under sort of thinking of, and women being autonomous, people being autonomous, generally, it's like, well, this is just, this is a boon, then this is a blessing. This is giving the power back to the person. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was very fun. Go for it. No, I really, I mean, there, she also has a Port Wine State on her face, you know, and I kind of felt like all of us sort of have Port Wine State on our face in that the way that we look, our gender is a big part of that, but everything about our appearance is them automatically judged and in the people, in the eyes of the people in power, which could be your family, could be society, could be just rich people in general, which we are all sort of oppressed under in different ways sometimes. We are sort of cursed, you know, they look at us and our outsides and they think, well, what can we do with that person? How is that person useful for me? And part of this was a reaction against Hollywood, you know, I've always been sort of a rifferily on the outside of Hollywood. The people who have embraced me in Hollywood have definitely been just the creator side, not the business. You know, I just don't have the ideas or the looks that generally gel with what they buy and invest in. And, you know, after a lot of time, I was able to make peace with that and just do my own thing. And I think that journey of liberation of self and creator voice from an institution that I've tried to please for so long has is part of the journey as well. That's really, I mean, I, yeah, I, that's so interesting. I often don't know what else to say about that because I'm just like taking everything in. And also everything is that that's just so interesting because I, I mean, I've not, I'm thankfully, I'm so far outside of that. But I, I connect with that in my own way of just having existed on the periphery and then made this podcast into a thing because I couldn't, you know, fit in with wanting or how I wanted to use, you know, my own knowledge or whatever, you know, yeah. So I understand that and putting it into a work like this graphic novel too is sort of its own way of dealing with it. That's. No, it's like a beautiful time in this to be alive right now as a, as a creator or a person with a voice, right? Because I don't know, even 20 years ago, where would you, where would you take your expertise? How would you reach people? And I think, you know, I, I grew, I started with web series when it was just first starting, right? And the transformation and media, the way that people consume content, they make it, they want to be a part of it. It's a different relationship and, you know, part of me is like a little gratified in that, you know, people's voices can crumble the institutions from, you know, the very bottom level. You know, it's not one person that will take it all down, but it's like a revolution, you know, as long as everybody's knowing it at the, you know, at the foundation than something will fall one day. And I think we see that a lot nowadays, good and bad. But as far as gender goes, especially, I mean, like, listen, we're in a time where there's people who are literally, some of those powerful people in the, in the, in the country, they go to a church that tells women that they should be able to vote, you know, like this is not some kind of fantasy world. It is literally reality. And if you go to the front page of Twitch, where I stream a couple times a week video games, you see men with 70,000 plus people watching, and they are people preaching against women's rights and very prejudiced against women, misogynistic, you know, and creating this attitude of war, where it was just a push for people to have some equality the last 10 years. And now it's a total war to get people like back in the margins, their voices are, are wanting to be wiped out. And it's really, really makes me angry because all we wanted to do was be part of the group, the conversation. Yeah. Exactly. And we got it back in the night. We got within like, we didn't even get there before they blew it all up. Well, you know, I'm sorry. We were trying to do it. We made guys uncomfortable and they didn't quite know how to deal with women in the party. They're so lonely. They're so lonely. Why don't know how to make friends apparently? No. I don't know. I've never had a man or a relationship in my life and I'm perfectly happy because I have friends. I have friends. I have friends because I am an adult human who can have gratifying relationships that are not with men. No, I, hearing the way, hearing everything you do, is the way you described it. Like, I feel like you, you put into different words everything I said into the microphone before today's episode. I recorded it yesterday and it's literally just an episode me breaking down like this question of like somebody in very, in very kind terms and very well intentioned, but ask this, you know, a similar question that people that women are getting asked so often, it's just like how can we help with X problem to do with men today? And this episode was essentially me using. Greek myth to explain why they have made it so that we cannot be the ones to solve this problem they have to. Oh my god, I would need to listen to it. Last night was Santa Fe doing a talk and things kind of steered into this territory with George R. Martin who is a wonderful person and at the end when I was signing books a guy came up to me with his son and he's like I'm a steel worker and I just want you to know that whoever's working by me doesn't matter their gender I see them as an equal and I started crying because I'm like We need you we need you dude. Yeah, because they're gonna listen. Maybe it's good speaker. Oh, yeah Yeah, that's like the over the thing you see over and over and over again and with like the new documentary that Lure's wrote put out that sound now I'm seeing men if we're being like wow look at that I'm like you We yeah women have been talking about this actually for some time and it's the it's the issue of sort of It they don't they don't still don't take us seriously enough to listen Well, we say as like valid. I say they the collective day to boil. They yeah, well, I mean listen I mean not to get too political, but there are certain files that you Yeah, and the attitude It explains well here's the thing. I have a daughter a daughter character who goes and is being given over to a man She's a princess being very to a prince that should be like and when I read these fairy tales to my daughter I just became a rate because I'm like this is just Conditioning my daughter that she is mm-hmm. She is a commodity Yeah, and I got so angry, but it's no different now these powerful men whatever their party whatever their politics They're emailing each other the most thing that made me so mad was their professors Yeah, I just I want to be a college student forever, but I can't because I need to you know do whatever this is I'm doing for a career, but I These these professors are like oh, yeah, she's cute or I've never met a girl Yeah, smart and it breaks my heart because nobody going into that room has a fair chance because they're genuine because of this guy Yeah, and so if you say that you know Well, you have a chance. No, you don't have a chance because even if you're exceptional You're not you're there's no way that you're gonna break their perception of you And I've had this every single time in my life. Yeah, you know, and I just I don't want my daughter to have to go through that But she's going to have to it might be an inevitability of society. Yeah, yeah This is true. I'm like this is like my experience within academia as well where it's like not only woman But I'm also like first nations woman And so it's like all these hurdles well, you know my my favorite is a guy who Van a dig I was on told me that I'm lucky I don't look like an Indian because I would never find work in academia and I was like Thanks Great to you that faces is is accurate. Yeah, I just left. Yeah, I literally just left I one day I will name him but he's also blown up his career enough by he doesn't need my help Like that in front of a group of people Yeah, he's in front of everyone there and it was like cool I didn't think I did a panel with some other authors and there's a guy a very older man who somehow writes a middle grade series Directed toward a little middle-aged girls middle middle scary and so I literally said in passing wasn't even talking to him His daughter who was a delight but very quiet was standing there. I was talking to somebody else and I was like well Yeah, I have a math degree and he looks at me and he's like looks me up and down He's like prove it. Oh Prove it. Wow. I've never been more flabbergasted in my life and he writes books That's from middle grade girls But he was also kind of a jerk on the panel too, so I'm just like I don't know what to say I think he's he's got this Timself he can ruin its own life. Yeah, although I will say my partner has like two masters in math as well And I'm constantly being like do this math for me and he's like oh Simple things like how much is a yeah, and he would never be asked to prove that he has a degree I don't want to do it. I do it to him. I do it to him It's been like five years and I'm like explain your thesis and he's like Do it show me that was worth it So just flip the script, but yeah, I guess we could get back! I really I loved your presentation of all the daughters too I specifically loved and I guess this is more to the The the artist too. I love that they did not have Like blonde hair hair. I love that they had dark hair because that's you know, just that's a whole other sphere of things Yeah, it's not accurate, but well exactly. It's like go see Mediterranean today. They're not a lot of them abroad but yeah, I really What was so what was it with Helen like what was she? She never speaks in your know, I know that that Where did that like where did your I guess your your conceptualization of Helen start? I mean again, it just kind of came to me as I mean one of the one of my favorite lines in that is When feeling no way is talking to Artemis and she says oh I there's an analogy that she makes with her. She's as trapped as her her appearance as I am Of mine and so that means that when you see Philinoe with her port wine scene and I know I'm other people will I know I'm not gonna ask you how you pronounce it live because I know it's gonna be different Maybe but I'm just like I gotta go with one. I'm so sorry. It's okay. Yeah, so When she says that because she has this port wine state on her face So everyone thinks she's cursed by the gods. She's you know somehow poison and And Helen is the most flawless face ever but they're both in the same you know basket They're all judged instantly based on their faces and I think that's something that I take you know to heart As all of us, you know the minute we I read somewhere. There's a part of your brain that is devoted Exactly to evaluating people within three seconds Based on what you know based what was society has told you about other people's skin color They're high. They're clothing and that way you evaluate and categorizes person immediately And it's really uphill battle to change anybody's mind about that So if you've been taught by society that people with darker skin are dangerous If you've been taught by society that women who don't dress nicely are Not attractive, you know like all these you redheads are feisty like every single cliche in the book Whatever you've been taught is goes into play The immediately when somebody sees you and so you're already Trying to overcome something so much and in fact I think a lot of the times we let ourselves be defined by our outsides because that's what society doesn't just general so I was trying to you know, I felt kind of sorry for Helen I know a lot of very very pretty people Clearly, I'm in Hollywood and the ones that have been pretty since birth are Just so lovely but hollow in a way because they haven't had to really work for anything beyond that And in fact, you're so pretty is probably the only thing they've ever heard since birth So and their whole worth is their prettiness and that's probably what happened to Helen so Deep down I kind of feel sorry for her because she isn't prisoner in a way to her looks Mm-hmm. She's really interesting character too within like the ancient text as well within the um Odyssey and the Iliad so I'm just gonna come to my seat more hypermobile sitting is fun because With and and live can speak on this too, but like One of the things for me when I when I look at Homer is that my theory of Homer is not a real person Homer is a collective of people It's tradition but Is the the conceptualization of Helen in the Iliad and then in the Odyssey are so vastly different? Yeah, I'm like is this the same woman, you know, and the Odyssey she is this You know she is this regal queen who has magic at she can use magic to to Not subjugate. Oh words mesmerise seduce. Yes, well, it's a do or yeah, she uses the magic to make everyone stop Calling and not yeah, any of their emotions the men she needs the men to stop crying She's to calm down Um, and then in the and then in the Iliad she she speaks up she speaks up to a god She looks half a didey in the face and she's she straight up is like you did this to me like I didn't have any choice And so I just wanted one of the reasons I also love that autonomy was just so much on Just everywhere in this book. It was great because like I that that rings to me that one Part in the Iliad with Helen talking to Aphrodite where it's like I literally have no choice in this You didn't give me a choice the gods have decided this so what can I I can't fight back You know and Aphrodite smacks her down is like, you know, say this but but there's that that one moment where it's like oh look at that The you know a woman is standing up to Probably one of the most powerful Gods in their pantheon Yeah, and that's what I think I find really That gets kind of pushed to the side of a women in Greek myth is especially in Homer I find they're a lot more powerful than people give them credit for. Yeah, and that's probably, that's why it's so interesting. Like that's why he lasts, right? Yes. Or that? Writing lasts. Yeah, there's a panel. There's a panel in the book where I have Helen and Paris running away together. Yeah. And I found this intriguing thing that was a theory of somebody's that Helen really took their treasury. So in fact, it was her stealing the money. Yep. So I don't know if that, I just remember reading it on a offhand. I was like, hey, in this panel, have her holding a chest of gold because I kind of love that little wink. Like she was smart enough to grab all she could. It was a fire sale. She was out of there. And she is. So like, I think that rings to your, you know, like they get told that they're pretty and that's all the, and, or they hear that so much. It's at the forefront. And, you know, there also, I've known incredibly gorgeous women who, you know, heard the same thing. But then, you know, you get to know them. And there are some of the smartest, most like a hundred percent genuine people. And it's they don't get to show that at the forefront. And so like that kind of like, I, you know, that rang to me for your Helen as well, where she is always so like blank face. And she's not saying anything. She's kind of, she's not given the chance to actually show herself and be herself in whatever. She was kidnapped at 12. When I read that, I was so traumatized by her being kidnapped and probably assaulted. Which, that's really lovely guy. Wasn't he? Like, just like first. True. I hate him so much. I've dedicated my career to convincing the world about the horrors of theses on his. And, you know, why is he ever a, I mean, Jason is just a schmuck. But, but, but, but, do you know why though? Why? Theses is propaganda in a way that the other heroes are not. Because he is a powder of Athens. Yeah. Yeah. Because he, from a, like, history of, historiography perspective probably. Yeah. He served, like, he didn't really exist prior to Athens. Yeah. It, like, having him as far as founding the Cereux. Yeah. And so he's, like, he's not really like a founding mythos in the way that Perseus, Jason Heracles, Odysseus are. He was kind of added later as a theme propaganda. And I just think it's hilarious because he really is such a loser. But, why would they, if they were going to invent an origin story to make themselves look so cool? Yeah. Why make him such a cool? Because that is their version of cool. Oh, please. They really, it's the really suit their needs. Yeah. It's the difficult thing with too with, when you look at ancient Greece, because I think one of the things we struggle with now, or the two things, especially when it comes to heroes is, our modern conception of heroes is that they're like, good people, doing good things for the greater good. And ancient Greek heroes are not that at all. They are in the main character. Yeah. Ancient Greek heroes are doing astounding things for their reputation, for their clays to be known forever more. God don't need to be good people in that, to be doing that thing. Yeah. And then the other thing is that I think we tend to think of antiquity or ancient Greece as like a monolith, as you know, what we see of it is, that is what it was all around. But the problem is most of our sources, most of the information we have, comes from Athens. And ancient Greece was never unified in the way Rome and the Roman Empire was and the way our modern countries are. It was all, they were all individual little city states. That were united in, oh gosh, let me see if I can remember this. United in culture, language, and yeah, shared history, language, and religion. And that's in broad strokes because I, you know, like I do ancient Greek, I started with Homeric and then they put me into attic and I went what is happening and then lived trying to translate something that's like from the ocean and I was like, oh no, that's what's happening. I looked up, it's a verb, but I'm like, what do you mean that's a verb? That's what a verb looks like. So it's interesting because we get so much today in modernity, we get so much information about what life was like in Athens, that I think that gets swashed over about what it was like in the rest of Greece. Then I think Athens is a particularly bad, is well, I think Athens is just particularly loud. And very just aggressive and because they produce so many like cultural works with the plays and whatnot, later people within history kind of connect with them and kind of kept their stuff alive. And also they like to write. They just, you know, the guy who's, yeah, the people who put their pen to whatever, the people who get the narrative. And I, you know, I did a lot of research. I mean, again, no scholar and I, I cringe when I know that I did have a class to read this, but of course we're not going to catch everything. And it's just like, it makes me cringe, but at the same time, it makes me excited to hear what I could have done in a different way. But there are, it's Barda, I did research a lot about their very different world, but of course that was written by Athenians talking about spars. And of course, I guess the time of the Odyssey they were talking about was not even contemporaneous to win actual spars. It was mycenae, right? Like it was a different society they were talking about, right? So like any, mycenae's a different place, but yeah, it was pre-Sbarda. Not like the Barda didn't really exist. Yeah, yeah, that time when that existed was the time when the Odyssey and the Iliad took place. So anything I read about sparda, you know, I took a couple things, but I'm like, well, it actually wouldn't have been correct because it's completely different society. It's like a thousand years later, whatever. So it's really, when I was doing my research, I was like, the thing that really struck me the most is that Roman people would go on vacation, look at the ruins in Glee Sparta. And that just was like, okay, everything's scientific. Yeah, yeah. And sparta became like a little like amusement park for them, and they would do like old Spartan rituals, you know, like they get old guys doing the way she's stealing cheese, and it was like, that's what the spardans did. And it's like, did they? I'm not sure about that. Like it's so interesting. And sparta specifically also is a really difficult place to fully understand, because they were also very, very good at propaganda. And we did a whole series on this about how like sparta itself is what we know about it, how much can we trust, because they were very good at making the wrong. Yes, the spartan barrage, this idea of what sparta was versus what it actually was, you know? Yeah, maybe they didn't set their seven year olds out and were like, okay, survive in the wild, seven year old, because my child would not survive. I have a nine year old, she would not make it man. That's so fair. That's so fair. I get that I was probably the same one as younger. I might be able to find fresh water, but other than that, I'd accept death so fast. I do tell her, hey, guess what, you know, when she turned seven or eight or nine, I was like, this is a prime time that I would send you off to be a blacksmith apprentice in the middle ages. So like, you better shore it up. You don't want to be set off to prepare, be a apprentice. Truly, like you are lucky. My mom, my mom would always do, there were starving children in the world, and I'd be like, I don't want to eat the vegetables. I'm sorry. Send them my chicken liver, Mama. Yes, truly. I don't know if anyone still says that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that many moms these days. That was because of those commercials, those commercials with all the starving chat, the Salish brothers. I remember those. That was it. It was the zeitgeist. Yeah, serving children in Africa. I don't know. I'm not that bad. And I say that as a quote, not. I just remember house hippos. And that's very Canadian. That's very Canadian. We had house hippos. And the house hippos are back. I don't know if you know. It was a beware of everything. Beware of what you see on the internet kind of commercial. That's everything, man. Yeah, they're back with the same thing. Apparently someone is stealing the house hippos identity. But yes, so yeah, I don't know. I was I guess we, somebody say, how do you guys feel? How do you guys feel about people who take Greek character, like Laura Limpus, like there's all these, there's obviously the classical people like Madeline Middle, who are obviously so in Natalie Haines, just experts on the field. But how do you feel about people playing with these characters in a way that may be not as in depth or like, well researched or like as deep knowledge wise, do you, are you irritated by it? Are you, do you like it? Like, I mean, you're not going to say you're irritated by it because I'm seeing you. No, but I have, I have like, honestly, I have such a, I want to say prepared, but I mean, that like sincerely, like response to this because it comes up so often, right? Especially now, there are, there are so many retellings coming out all the time. And for me, and I think this is a bit different for Michaela because she's only, I mean, she's been with the podcast for years, but it has always been more on the history side. Whereas I'm the one who's like, you know, even we, you know, when we were looking up the character of I'm sorry, I'm not pronouncing it differently intentionally. No, no, I want to say it one way. I just feel, I feel lonely, but it's not a name that I'm super confident. I'm actually having so written in Greek. So I would, I would love to hear you because I did as much research as I could and I just, you know, in the, the fragment, it's a why there, but I figured if I use the why, then people would go, "Fy," and I was like, well, I know that I don't want to encourage people to say that, you know what I'm saying? So I did take the liberty because in the later translation he had changed it to an eye so I was like I'm going to take the liberty. Oh, translation. Yeah, though that that has to happen so often because Greek characters are just so different but yeah, and it's it's a Yoda so oh yeah, the the the first actually both of the O's are um Omicron so they're both so oh so full of the low filanoi filanoi oh that's how I say it you know it you got it you guys I'm pitting and also honestly the moderators at every single event were like I don't know how to say your name and we even talked about it we we the the title of the book was supposed to be feeling nice they were like we can't do this no one will know they'll all be afraid about this book the the afraid of the book because they don't know how to pronounce the name so it's all good anyway so you were going to say something awesome no no but also I mean I think pronunciation is its own interesting whole discussion but but no I I think about this all the time because I do I love that there are so many retellings yeah I mean that sounds like something I have to say but it is true no I'm really honest with it it's just I take in too much myth all day every day to then also read it as fiction and I mean for on like for my in my spare time from a perspective of like you know my career in this field I find that I don't read them I don't like to read them only because I will overthink what the author has done and I don't think that that's helpful for anyone in this way where I'm like so so to answer like the other part of your question I think you know I don't want to speak there's a whole other side of it for you know the Greek people today and the way their culture is used like I don't want to pretend like I have any kind of authority there they you know but but in terms of the mythos like I you know I I find it interesting to know what the ancient sources were and to understand the context and to understand like you know conceptually what the ancient Greeks might have thought but that doesn't mean you know that that authors can't or shouldn't be playing with the stories in whatever ways they want the only things that ever get to me is when and this is not the author's fault this is readers fault and also probably the people that teach them when readers or consumers of media assume that the fiction they've read is the accurate story and then take it out on me which happens a lot and that annoys me but again that's its own separate problem no no I hear you I hear you because it's like me when I watch a television show with somebody I know in it or even even a television show I'm just like dude you're faking it why is it not why is there not coffee in your cup oh well oh my god that yeah like I know how to make film in TV and I'm doing it like more than half my life and I'm like I can see the seams where people never would and I'll be analyzing a scene I'm like oh that's interesting the way they wrote that so you're taking it in on a completely different level than someone is saving it to another thing yeah yeah totally hear you yeah no you put it into perfect words that's exactly it where it's just like it's a completely different thing for me and I don't think that that is necessarily fair to the author either like it's also why you know there's really specific circumstances where I will we will have a fiction author on the show and that's because like I also don't want to be in a position where I inadvertently seem like I'm trying to like trip up an author on their knowledge and that has happened to me in the past where it's like oh I would love to know like where you heard this this in this detail and then they don't remember or something and then they feel bad and I'm like it's that's fine all of this stuff I'm basically a walking myth it's like Lupita now yeah it's not normal and it doesn't really serve me in many ways like my brain is a disaster but it knows all and so like you know that that's never my intention to like make somebody feel like they don't know enough it's like no you you you wrote this as your version I don't come at it like that I know what the ancient versions were no no that's I don't have an ego about it you know like no no I've already have people point two things out that I'm like well we need to change that in the next version but like having books though too right like I yeah it's it's fine and it's also like I'm sharing a love of something and I had the privilege of creating a character who had one line and yes that pays off at the end but and then I collected some of my favorite monsters quote unquote and characters along the way and so I created my own story so I kind of even if I used a little inappropriately I'm making something up so I do have the privilege of not saying this is the definitive version of X character who has a lot behind her I have one line one verb and two people so yeah that came to life in a beautiful way for me hopefully it does for other people and hopefully it makes them little or more about like my nine-year-old said mama you really should have included a glossary because some people might not know if it's quite an extra last I'm like thank you daughter well if she's curious I do have children's edition of the Odyssey for nine to 12 year olds coming out in June I saw that on your history I cannot wait I literally got so excited when I saw that because you know it'll be coming out this summer I think people are gonna be so excited and I literally wrote this as a graphic novel because I didn't see Greek myth and graphic novel for I was like so upset yeah there is not enough and I really hope that other people jump in you know and and just because it's so wonderful to see the universal between us and the distant past because I think it helps us make see where we haven't changed and see what could be different you know my favorite stuff is always when I read her rotted us and he was just complaining about things that are so mundane it's the same thing with Montana I love his essays because he just bitches about traffic like people driving their wagon in the left hand lane slowly and I'm just like I love it if somebody can complain about somebody's bread you know the qualities are bread going down and ancient creed like that just makes me so happy in a weird way yeah yeah because I normally see it's the past there's like the um what's oh live what's the uh the moment for it in in UK in Dylonda oh vindalanda yeah yeah they found a uh because that that ford is wonderful because it's uh in more like wetlands so things actually preserve better for manticore and one of the things they found was a face cream um that they actually have the person's fingerprints with the swipe of it and that like that made me cry the first time I saw it because I was like oh yes perfect or like you'll see roof tiles that'll have like cat paw prints on it yes yes there's a oh there's a grave stelae so the grave markers for dogs and yeah like the bite on it the the ledgers they threw down the well like it's true you know screw this woman for stealing my husband and all these things I'm like oh these were just it's just us they just didn't have it's just human it's just humanity yeah it's nice to see that it was like real or the um the graffiti and like impompay where it was like on this day I made bread and I'm like great thank you so much I'm so happy we have that my favorite thing I've ever seen I went to Pompeii and I saw that little cafeteria thing they have and it just looked like a buffet bar that I get at yeah down at the local Chipotle I'm just like listen they were just getting lunch they would and they had like they had frescoes they are that would have like we have a lot of like food frescoes from Pompeii from those places and people like oh my god it's it's them advertised yeah it's like yeah poster that you put up in a shot yeah we have chicken yeah come by the chicken it's like and I think that's what what happens with antiquity a lot of the times is that it it seems cold and distant to the viewer and to people who are who when there's not enough media in it and I know it's like as a classicist we want it to be as quote unquote accurate as possible this is why I think I'm a little more like with myth because I also like I come from the myth culture and I'm like myth is there's no what it what the hell is myth how do you even define myth like yeah excuse you these are not questions you should be asking as a co-host of this show I'm gonna need you to see it I'm the you know watch yourself I'm the history person you get to shit talk myth it's in the title I love me but I also you said it I grew up at the foot of elders telling me stories and each of them were telling you have different links you have culture too your French Canadian that is very deep culture truly but like I think that that's why I think I'm more forgiving when I'm not forgiving but more flexible when it comes to myth because I'm like there's no such thing as canon in myth there's no such thing as this is the true story there's always elements of stories and you know when I was looking through the sources I'm flinty and I was you know going through the the way you had the citation to it and I was going through that article I love that you listed your sources generally in a book I know I was delightful I just wanted to show everybody why I was like yes I made it up but there was something interesting that is actually legitimate truly okay yeah well that's you know I love it's the nerdy mess where so I went in you know I was looking at all these sources and reading them in the languages because you know I'm lucky enough to be able to show that no because I torture myself with reading through cities in the original Greek it's horrible no it's horrible he does things will be simple the sentences will be simple and then you'll be given a paragraph that you're just like what's happening where's what's - That's like a superpower to me. I am very annoying of you. - Thank you. But, they was interesting because one of the last fragments, they talked about was one by Athena Goris of Athens, and I had never heard of this guy, and I was like, okay, why? And it's because he's an early Christian writer, so he's in late antiquity, and anything after like 100, 200 BCE is modern for me. - So interesting. - So I'm like, I don't know about this guy, so I'm not fair though. That's not fair. (laughing) I guess those of us who really prefer classical period. - Yeah. - You're way too old, or you're way too young for me. - Yeah. - Well, that's what-- - Oh, it's after Jesus? Oh, I'm bored. - Get it. - Yeah. - Well, that's the thing that I was like, is this, like that's what really I could not shake, because first of all, a catalog of women, and we had that holding with binders full of women thing. You know, it's just like so condescending. But at the same time, it's like, did this character have a story? Like, he couldn't have made it up. He was being, he had to have been drawing for something so somewhere in history. There is an explanation of this, and it just doesn't suggest this. - It just didn't last. It just didn't, people didn't write it down, or you know, choose to. And because I was really interesting when I was weeding the Athena Goris translation. I went and I found it in the original language. I went to the original. - I found the original manual. - Again, she's bragging. (laughing) No, I'm like, this is just how my brain works. - I get it, you're bragging. - I was beginning it, right? Oh, I could go on about the verb. The sabai, that verb is very interesting. There is no one translation for it. Like, it doesn't come into English well. And I'm, anyways, whatever. But, so they were talking about Flinwy, Tindario Thugotera, E. Tenele, Dolden. It's like, most of the translations, this is what I do, I'm sorry. (laughing) Most of the translation is-- - I'm waving myself. You can't see it, but I'm waving myself. - It's so cool. - All the translations I found lent out to the Teno, Teno the end. And I was like, why? Why is this being left out of all the translations? Because what it means is like Tenedian, which is an island off Turkey, right by Chlory. And so it's like, it's Teno-Dos. - Teno-Dos. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, Teno-Dos. So it's like, she's saying like, the lack of diamonians, they have this, like, you know, they have this like, religious respect for Zuseg of Memnon. But then Anne Flynn-Wee, daughter of Tenderius, but like the Tenedian. And so like, a couple things about this fragment, what this tells me is, A, this is a 200 CE, it's 200 CE, I can get my dates. So 200 CE fragments, that's 800 years after the HEC at fragment. So it's still existing. - That is interesting. - And, yeah. And on top of that, she's having some sort of like, a geographical connection to a place that's Neutrory, as well. So it's like, is she, is there, was there, can we go to Teno-Dos? Now is there stuff we can, archeological work that's been done there that could give us maybe more information? But, - Wow. - So that wasn't in the older, that wasn't in the older fragment. - No. - So this was just added. So then why, so that had to be other, that's why I included both fragments, 'cause I was like, it seems like they might have, had something to do with each other, but it wasn't exactly the same. And I was like, I clearly cannot do what you do. But I'm just like, if there are two sources that are slightly different, then were they, they were they, drawing upon something that we don't know about, that got lost between the two? - Well, I think it likely, is a reflection too of, this is a tradition that just exists within the cultural like mindset. People will know about this, but people will talk about this. Like, he could say, that's all a kind of thing, and people will go, yeah, we know what this is. And it's sort of like, you know, what if nobody ever, nobody, no resources on horses ever got passed down. And like, 4,000 years from now, you know, people are trying to recreate our society. And, you know, the come across a mention of horse, but there's no like, discussion of it. You know, so we say something like a horse girl. And, and everybody will understand what a horse girl is. But yeah, 5,000 years from now, they're like, what does this mean? (laughing) You know? I was just fascinating book, and I cannot remember the name of it. It was a professor at Yale, who had taught the Odyssey for like 40 years. And she has this wonderful book of like, drawing from her lectures. And there's one whole fragment, it was in my goodreads, but I didn't, I didn't tag it, right? Okay, so I'm so sorry about that. It's fine. But it was so fascinating book, and it actually maybe go reread the Odyssey, and the Iliad because of her insight was so fascinating. And one of the whole thing was that she was like, everybody's talking about the Red Wine Sea. Like, and there were all these theories about like, do they even see blue? Like, why? Are they calling it Red Wine? Like, we know what Red Wine looks like. What was their wine like? And so that whole discourse was so fascinating to me. Because I'm like, yeah, we have no idea. We have no idea. But it is something that you just wanna think about a lot, because like, are they really close to us? Are they so different? It's like one time it's here. Yeah. One time it's there. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Well, and I think it's one thing that it's really hard to conceptualize is just how much we don't know, right? Because we do know so much that it's like, you kind of forget how little we know. Like, even just to bring it back as an example to, you know, when you said that there's the fan fiction about Helen going to Egypt, right? Yeah. Like, that is like a very apt way of describing it. Like, that's valid. And at the same time, it actually might have been a much more well-known tradition. Oh, wow. The, yeah. So it sounds like fan fiction. And it's not wrong to say it is. And like, the storyline, it sounds completely like fan fiction, right? It's like, oh, what if instead of going to Troy, Helen was plucked out by a god dropped in Egypt and a ghost Helen was put in Troy instead? And of course, that, yeah, it's amazing. And the play itself is honestly, it's honestly a bit more like a tragic comedy. Like, it's one of these ones where Euripides is really playing. And he's, he presents powerful women and Helen is one of them in this really bizarre and interesting way. But, you know, his play is the primary source for that version, but at the same time, which would have been fifth century. And then at the same time, we know that I think it's, it's either simonides or ferricides, might be ferricides, who is like a fragmentary author whose work we don't have, but we know he was writing in the, I think, seventh or sixth century. So long, like at least a hundred or 200 years before Euripides, and we have like a reference that somebody else talked about the fact that he had talked about a version where Helen goes to Egypt and a ghost is sent in her place. Oh wow. So like that's all we have, but all we know is that he knew of something that sounds basically like what Euripides did. And so it's like, yeah, it seems to exist as fanfiction, but simultaneously could have existed as something much bigger. And like, there's also so much to say about regionality too. And like this tenedos reference, like, you know, that makes me wonder if there are these regional differences and you know, what is coming into play there because so much went into that. I mean, that again is, you know, we talked about Thesis being propaganda. The, you know, the reason why I think, and I think it's pretty safe, like understanding of it. The reason why he kidnaps Helen, which seems so horrifying to us, right? Kidnaps Helen at 12 years old is that like Athens wanted that propaganda, but specifically they needed the timeline of the Trojan War. They wanted, they needed their hero to be after Heracles because they wanted to be related to Heracles because in order to be important, you have to be related to Heracles. So they had to have him Heracles's cousin, so he'd be younger than Heracles, which means he also simultaneously has to generally tie in with the Trojan War because we know that Heracles came the generation before. And so then you get like Athens clearly trying to get their Thesian hooks into the Trojan War story because that is the Greek culture in a story. So they're hooking on to the only thing. And so it's just like, there's an amazing book called Storyland. And I forget who it wrote it, but it's about the fake origins of Britain. And they're all these, oh, you might love this because-- And I also found the Odyssey book, but this is called Storyland. I don't know the authors. There's actually a key version and an adult version. Yes. So basically, they're all these legends connecting the native Britons to the Odyssey and the Hilliards. Yeah. And so this book is sort of the fake history of Britain in a fascinating way. And it's all tied back, like you said. They're like, OK, we obviously have to be related to the people in the Trojan War. Also, the other book that I read, "Homeric Moments, Clues to Delight and Reading the Odyssey and the Iliant by Eva Braun." That's it. So 50 years, she taught the Odyssey and the Iliant-- Unfortunate name. But that sounds beautiful. It's really wonderful. It's a really good book. And it's very readable. I guess taught at St. John's College in Annapolis. But it's a very lovely book. And it's-- It just made me delighted to go back and read again, because her insight was so, I mean, obviously things I would never know unless I took a class or read her book. - Yeah, that's so fun. And I realized to you, Michaela, you said, was there a reference that you picked up on something from Cententei Antiqui website for your book? Do you remember that, Ophan? - Oh, me? - Michaela, did you find that? - Yes, I did. Yes, I think. - Yeah, that was the place where I saw that they did, was that the, that was the blog where they, they were like, what's up with these, what's up with this daughter? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - We don't know anything about this daughter. So that's one of the reasons why I was like, wait a minute, you don't know anything about her? - I love that you, I love that because I, I mean, one, I've come across that website, like almost every day when I'm in researching, but also the guy behind it is Joel Christensen, who's been on the show a ton of times, and he is like one of the most delightful guys in this field. So I'm always thrilled to hear when other people also like pick up on random things he's shared there because that is such a fun resource that site. - Oh yeah, I wanna, when you see him next, tell him thank you because it was, you know, just that intrigue, just his blog into real alone. I was like, wait, you're saying what I'm thinking. - Oh yeah, no, I've been working on fiction for like five years, who knows, if it'll ever finish, but like the number of times I've found stuff on his blog. And I'm like, thank you Joel, once again, she's coming through for me and you don't even know it. (laughs) Oh man. - Well, okay, I do, I mean, I know we probably could talk forever 'cause it's just fun, but you meant set a magic word earlier and now I would love to hear a little bit more about, you know, you picked up some of your favorite monsters, you said right, because you got to play with this storyline. - Yes. - And I know there are Gorgons. - There are Gorgons in here. - Yes. - Hope not, but I, Gorgons are my beloved creatures of obsession. And so I just loved, I guess, hear your thoughts. Why did you wanna include them? How much do you love them? Don't tell me anything to the contrary. (laughs) I absolutely love them. And I kind of used them like the witches in Macbeth a little bit because-- - That's because they fit that perfectly. - Yeah, exactly, it's probably where I got them. I wanted to play with the idea of, in that first encounter, she encounters three monsters and those are my three most favorite characters that I've been intrigued about. And so the Gorgons, you know, but Dusa, I always felt sorry for. It's just a horrible story and so many different variations on it and the way that she was treated and her life ended and all this stuff. But there is this idea of the, the, the, the, the, the crown, the unknown crown out, you know, out in the middle of nowhere being scary, you know? I mean, I, a lot of this was maybe done out of my love of myth but also my frustration with fairy tales because it can, like fairy tales, if you go back to the original, you know, fairy tales that I like to read my daughter censored a little bit because Blue Bear, my god, would a horror show. But a lot of the, these are, these are stories told to children to teach them how the world works, right? And so women become a transactional, especially rich women become a transactional object and older women are always an enemy. Stepmothers, Crohn's, all these, you know, they, they, they have strange magics and in reality, these were the only people who knew how to heal you. And I think, subliminally, when men keep women apart and do not allow generational knowledge to be passed down, then you're controlling the women more, right? Mm-hmm. And I think it's just really sad because if women had more resources and were encouraged to look at older women as people who could help them out versus enemies or arrivals, I think that that, you know, be a better world, a lot of better world things going on. And so, you know, the Crohn's kind of represent that, the, the, the Tuma, the Gorgans, they represent that for me. But they also represent a, sort of a celebration of being a part and being able to be whoever they want, right? Everybody's seen that old lady. It's like she does not care what you think with her outfit right now. And so, I wanted to celebrate that as a contrast to Filanoa, who wants more than anything to belong. Like, that's how she starts out. She wants to be loved. She wants to belong. And so, the first thing I needed to shatter about that was the fact that, you know, a, you know, kind of call that out in her, in her as a person. Like, you just want to be pretty, to be accepted, you know, do you even exist inside and have that sort of kind of break her a little bit? But also, you know, the idea that you have to be a part to be happy if you're different, which I get very resentful about. And it's kind of a theme of the book, like, being a, I shouldn't have to be a part to be different. I should, you should not be able to hold the world and I have to be on the periphery. And so, that's like one of the things that's a lot in the themes of my work, but also in this particular thing. And the organs, they kind of set all that up. So, I would love to hear and see any fiction that you write about the Gorgans, because I think, again, it's all about Medusa, but what are those two, what are her sisters like? I know that people have written some books on it, but I don't know, you know, I don't know that lore and I would love to dive into it. - And I find Gorgans, really, I have a love for Gorgans, too. I have actually a Gorgane on. So, that's just like the name for the faces that they made that they put on architecture. - Oh yeah, I have so many pictures of them. I went through every museum, I was like, you know, I have like a rule, I take photos of Gorgans. - Yes. But I got one tattooed on my knee, because the whole, the image is right at Atro, Apotropéic. - Atro. - Oh my God, I can't. - Apotropé, thank you. Apotropéic. So, you know, keeps evil away. And I remember we were in Naxos once, live in I at the Olive Oil Museum. There's that lovely lady there, and I told her that I was like, you know, Apotropéic, and she just went, and then she like just like threw her knee up, like she was meeing someone, I went, yes, exactly. (laughing) She was just like, she got it, I was like, I love it. So, like, I like them, too, is like these creatures that have, you'll see them everywhere. And they exist so much within the cultural sphere, and they're understood so well, that it's like, they, these stories are-- - But what did they represent to them? Like, it was just good luck, but I was, I don't know. - I don't know. I could talk for 47 hours about this, to be honest. I actually, whatever episode you did. - Oh God, I've done so many on Medusa in the Gorgans. No, I actually, a couple years ago, I wrote a ridiculously lengthy introduction to this book of short stories about Medusa, and basically traced sort of the history of her that survives like tech sources and visuals and everything and tried to sort of piece that together. And, excuse me, I was obsessed before and it only like fueled that. And I mean, I have so many theories about like, what they represented, and, you know, I think it all, really, if I wanna put a really fine point on it, just boils down to the fact that men had to tell stories about women that they couldn't have sex with or that did not wanna have sex with them and they had to turn them into monsters. And that's basically it. And then I, yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's one of those stories, and my biggest issue is the ways that it has, the her story has been manipulated since and like turned into something very weird. So, I mean, I agree. - Yeah. There's also interesting, like when you think about, I mean, you have Sappho, you have all these, like, and there are some queer elements in my story, which I didn't even notice. Like, it's not my, I mean, there is a love story in it, but the book is not about love at all. But, you know, I mean, if you think about, and when somebody pulled it, pointed this out, I was like, I guess, but I was just kind of representing the world, you know? Like, yes, I mentioned Apollo is, you know, Artiface's brother and he's mentioning the Festival of Highest Cynthia, right? Which celebrated his male lovers demise through some Frisbee accident of Frisbee tragedy, as I was talking about. - It was a Frisbee tragedy, exactly. But like, that was just part of, that was their culture. I'm not like, make it stuff up. I'm not trying to shove anybody's face in it. I just, it's just what it is. - No, but people love to straight wash ancient Greece and tell you that that's crazy. Just by them being the gays to the gays, honestly. - I've been told, stop trying to put my agenda on antiquity and I was like, yeah. - That's just what they did. - The men were fucking, it's not my fault. (laughing) It's not my item for them to do it. - If I was trying to force my agenda, there would be a lot more sapphic stories, man. They would be a lot more-- - Honestly, that's the thing. There are none because they did not conceptualize women as being capable of fucking each other. It's a whole other issue. - Oh. (laughing) - Well, I played with that. (laughing) - Hell yeah. Hell yeah. It was newsflash to the Greeks. - What are they gonna do about it? - They're all-- - That's one of my long-term theories too, is just that the women had to have been having a great time with their friends because the men just locked all the women in a room for all day, every day. - Yeah. - And then did not understand anything except penetration to be sex. - Mm-hmm. - And so I just, I like-- - Yeah. (laughing) - So I just like to think that the ladies were having a ball and the men were like, "Landada, oh, what are wives? "Are so happy, they-- "Look at that friendship. "Look at the-- "They're precious-- - They're precious. - Gell Pell's. - They're having a great time. - Girl sleep, I'll be there. - Yeah, that's my little dream at least. And that's why there are absolutely no stories of gay women because they just were like, "No, no, that's not a thing." - So how did they deal with Sappho? Like how did they deal back then with that? Like they were just like-- - I mean, no, she's just a girl who likes other girls. Like, was it at the time? just like get away or I don't think we have a lot of evidence of them talking about her sexuality because even like whether there's been you know up until this day there are ex quote-unquote experts who will tell you that no she was paid to write love poems by men for women and like that's why she has and you're like that's crazy. How many like did you break your back when you bent it over that hard to get to that argument like what do you mean? I think and it because she she was she was a performer like she she was yeah in that position that luckily enough that she was an upper class woman and she was able to choose this job that being said you read all the poetry there are some that are very obviously like okay this was for performance and then there are some that are so personal unlike so like heart-wrenching that you're like no no yeah yeah she's heartbroken over a lady yeah breaking it like that's the fact yeah there's like even one fragment that talks about some lovely student of hers who left to go work with this other woman and I'm like and the amount of like betrayal had heard in there I'm like yeah I see what was happening yeah and it's when though when they you know when these people try to tell say like oh there's nothing romantic in these poems I'm like hey I feel bad for any of your romantic partners truly and it's like and be like I have met actual experts who are like yes and like that language as well like the the language um the dialect that Safa writes in and I can't remember its name by now aole yeah and that's the one that you you want me to translate very difficult it's it's so difficult dialect I like truly I'm looking at and I'm like oh but the thing is there's so little experts on it today that like I had this one guy tell me he was like oh yeah I'm translating myself I'm teaching myself how to translate me and I'm like oh good for you and he's like I'm translating Safo I've wetted in the original language I'm afraid it there's no way there's only a handful of experts yeah like itself because it's so weird and so difficult um respect but you're also sitting here and telling me that Safa wasn't gay and that's how I know that no you're not like man like and I think it's just yeah anyways turns out there's a lot of misogyny and queer phobia and homophobia and you know just generally terrible dudes yeah well I mean in the book you know I mean Artemis and feeling no way are two characters that I wanted to kind of because I've already I put I mean Artemis happens to be in the fragment fragment that I took picked out but it also she's a character that I felt sad for for some reason and I wanted to kind of that was kind of the secondary fun the fun the first film was sending feeling away on this classic heroes journey but also subverte everything that all the regular heroes journey people did but also reinventing this character that I always felt was my favorite but also might be a little you know sad underneath and so it was fun to be able to just construct that and I knew along the way I'm like well you're really not being faithful but you know what whatever they just enjoy the ride and then go over the original faith to be able to yeah exactly yeah no there is no faithful to myth honestly and there is no original even like I mean it's an easy thing to fray like you think of it like that but I mean you're not wrong because none of them are like original unless you can go back in time and talk to somebody from back then nothing that we have is actually yeah you know original which I think is it that leaves so much more open and that's so much more fun and like that's why you know art and fiction are great is because we can explore these yeah yeah and I think that's like the whole thing with myth is that it's not supposed to be a hundred percent true it's supposed to be finite it's it is what does how does it touch each individual how do you how does each individual what what do they see from it which is why it's like it's actually amazing that we now have so many people who have access to all these different myths and who can pull so many things from it because you know like who's to say like you know like it's also well yeah but it's also wonderful that we have these original because you know what do we own as a society right the stories that we consume are now they're their sole purpose is to make money office right yeah and not to say that I'm not sure that somebody wasn't making money off of reciting the Odyssey at some point in time but like there's an ownership over these stories that maybe goes back to be more truthful than the ones that were fed now to not only monetize but also are derived from the originals and so like for me part of our society part of my problem in everything is that we don't have an inner truth to ourselves anymore we're like seven it's like a bean dip and we're on the top layer right and we don't really understand where we came from we don't really understand what we believe but somebody on layer seven told us to believe this so that's who I am now that's the kind of politics like whatever I to I see somebody who I'm like I don't want to talk about politics but like what do you actually believe like if there were a society that was being built with three people what is your ideal as a person not because it's what it is or what you've seen on TV or what so appended is telling you or one party is telling you like what do you actually believe and I think in this world you know we're consuming so much that there's not a lot of pause to think like what do we think and now if we go back to the origins where people had less layers being dip layers then maybe there was a little bit more truth for us to kind of be in touch with who we are more yeah and I just I love the way you can pull different people pull different things out of the story and I think to say on like the monsters think like the whole of kidn a thing just it hit me so hard and like my special interest in antiquity is looking at the construction of the family so I really think about like you know how do mothers relate to their children fathers relate to their son and everything like that and so I think like you know that was a part of you know a kid in a story that it's like no one has pulled that out and played with it that much and it's like oh yeah there it is it's right there and it was getting me and it was making me a little emotional I was just like I definitely cried when I wrote that because it's a bomb yeah once it's like call my mom and just be like hey I love you but I know she would have been like what do you want so I'd be like okay what you know I love you Nancy Jesus but like you know like that's you know you're taking a story of a monster but you're saying let's put that monster aside and let's see what's something else it's a mother who's had all her children like torn over what makes a monster that's the thing out I you know that that I think is the most important question and who defines what a monster especially with these ones that have no evidence of actually harming like the Gorgon star harming anyone what what makes a monster yeah exactly I wanted to turn that on a set because if you do a traditional hero's journey like some of you go kill all them yeah yeah yeah but like these are all lessons that need to be learned and they happen to be all women or have identified as a woman at one point in their life yeah um these three most greek monsters are yeah exactly yeah but it was it's yeah and I think that's the wonderful thing now though about oh so classical reception is seeing people who maybe didn't have access or didn't have the same access to before is sort of like you know the the behind the ivory doors of academia pulling things from it and being like hey look at this you know hey look at Kena was a Kena was a mother and all her children had to be killed by heroes what does that say you know um the the Gorgons you know people are going to them this is something we we've said we've talked about a lot we've been like the Gorgons are minding their own business people are going to that like yeah with A the monsters um you know and even the Kena's the the Kena's Kena's Kena's Kena's story where you know that was so like oh dude because it was just sort of like I'm happy I'm full I've lived life and it's seen like oh what does that look like and what does that mean and we're pulling things from the stories that you know I haven't been the focus before because certain they've existed in a certain people's group of people's hands and not others and that's what I think one of the biggest things from reception that is actually really good and also challenges academia is forced to be like look at this from a different perspective and so yeah imagine that if you have a small group of people who interpret something one way then you know it's always the outsider that's going to come at something that's going to make you think differently it's always and that's the strength of being an outsider but also the curse in a way the fun of fiction though too right that's the fun of fiction and especially women telling stories and just you know I mean non-men telling stories of other non-men we need more of it and specifically about these cultures that were so tied up in the evolution of our modern patriarchy because I think like that you know that's that's where those things go really under the radar because people want to believe like oh that's just that's how it was so we don't need to you know question it and yeah that's bullshit that's you know I've dedicated the last nine years of my life to that being bullshit and we'll continue to do so and it's it's important and it's fun and it's interesting and like yeah especially when you can pick out these fragments I love that now it's wonderful and it's just encouraged me to just still love it and just dive in and it's in its story like you're right the democratization of knowledge is is overwhelming and it's created chaos the internet but it's also created a lot of beautiful access that nobody would have had and hopefully that that adds to everybody's lives so that's the rosy part of the internet I'd like to dwell on I still think it's a net win it's real close yay it's real close but like I'm as somebody who also like every success I've built is because I have access to the internet and can't people can listen so yeah I for all its ills happy with it. You just got to, you got to create good boundaries. Like I keep my phone on side. And upside down, I'm like, I do better. I do it. They have my email opening during the day and I'm like, if people need to get a hold of me, they email me. My mother never asked just the phone out of anyways. So I don't care. She's lucky. Hey, after I had to have like an emergency surgery and she, she, yeah, she woke up in the morning to meeting like, did you get my voice mails? I called you a bunch and she was like, what, what, what is going on? I haven't checked my phone. I'm like, Oh, I'm in the hospital. I just had surgery last night. The, you would have seen her. She was there so fast. She was like, how do I change my phone so that you can get through? Like if you're calling after 10 p.m. the phone call comes to him. Like, I don't know mom, but I'm calling. I'm recovering mom. Please get texts support later. But she's like, go, go find out what food you want to the store. I'm like, can you do it? But yeah, so technology. No, we love it. We love it. Okay. I, yeah, I feel like we could keep going forever, but I won't take up more of your, I want to say evening, but I realize you guys are, I'm in the later time zone and that never happens. It's so weird. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been so entertaining and it really is so nice to speak with, you know, fiction authors, but specifically somebody like you who, who's gone in and done the, the diving and because like that, that to me is all it takes. Like, yeah, whatever choices you make are your own, but I like that, you know, yeah, that you've, you've gone through and read some of that stuff clearly. You've picked up some really interesting stuff and made a really compelling story out of it. So, and I just like more women and myth being written about all the time. So, I think we're going to get a lot of it this summer and I cannot wait for you. My daughter is going to absolutely love it. Oh, I mean, there's not enough girl content because it's still the Odyssey. I mean, it's good. The stories are great and they inspire her and that's all that counts. And there, I mean, as far as Greek myths go, the Odyssey does have more powerful women than most. So, we give it that. Yeah. That's why, listen, if I can only worship a female god, I might go to church. Oh, my absolutely. Yes. Here. Well, is there, I mean, anything else you want to share with our listeners? You want to remind us all of the title because we know it can't be Thalino 8. It's not villainous. It's the lost daughter of Sparta and you can get it anywhere you get books. It's very beautiful. Thank you, publisher, for putting so much effort into the cover. I feel very fancy. So, I hope you enjoy. That's so exciting. That's so exciting. Did you, anything you want to share in terms of people following you or websites, anything like that? You can follow me anywhere at Felicia Day and there is actually an audiobook version of this graphic novel, which is a whole other podcast talking about adapting a graphic novel up purely visual form to an audio form, but it's a two-hour audio extravaganza. So, if you would like to hear me do like a one woman play with all the voices and adapted it, you find that wherever you get audiobooks. Wow, that's delightful. That's so fun. Also, recording audiobooks is really fun. Did you have fun? I did. I had a lot of fun. It is kind of like a marathon and a sprint at the same time, but mine was only with a shorter version than a full-length novel, so it wasn't quite as onerous, but yeah, I always sweat. I've only done shorter. Yeah, the shorter one. I did like a tone this big and I was like, "Oh my god, we got a week. We got shorter pages a day. Let's go!" So, for all my books have been like under 40,000 words. Oh yeah, you're good. The audiobooks are way easier. We have a way. I was like, "We have a voice." So, thank you. I'm. anyway, other people like it, so I don't deny it anymore. But no, thank you so much for coming on. It was really nice and yeah, just so lovely to hear about this story and just more more like unknown women and myth. Thank you. I hope you enjoy feeling my story. Yeah, thank you. Let's talk about Mix Baby is written and produced by Liv Albert. Michaela Pangouish is the Hermes to all your Olympians. The producer wants more coffee, Cantran Caffeiniette. Let's not talk about it. Select Music by Luke Chaos. Thank you, Luke. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network, a collection of creators that all strive to bring you accurate and reliable information on the ancient world. These include the wonderful friends and movies we take, the partial historian, sweetbitter, and so much more. Get AdFree episodes and other things by subscription to the Oracle edition on Patreon at patreon.com/midsbaby or via the link in the episode's subscription. Are you a scholar or academic or an expert in something from antiquity from Greece to Rome to Egypt to anywhere in the near east? We would love to have you on the show as a conversation guest. Go to midsbaby.com/contact and fill out our podcast guest form. We want to hear from you, so please reach out. Talk to you all next week. Bye bye. [Music] Hey nerds, I'm just here with a quick bit of news. So if you've ever thought of splurging on a trip to a couple of Greek islands and Athens and you want to do it with me in October of this year, check the link in this episode's description or go to midsbaby.com/grouptrip for more information. It's happening. Highlights include following in Ariadne's footsteps as she flees the dreaded Thesias, mithspaby.com/grouptrip.