i wonder

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

is it just me and the effect of too many essays for english, or does mrs. turner mention the moon a lot?
like, enough to make it a motif or a symbol of something? phresine tells that story to gen in king of attolia, and the whole thing that got me thinking about this is attolia's little bit when she's trying to sleep in queen and the narrator says she looked at the moon or something.
i think there are more examples of this, but i haven't got the books with me right now, so i can't cite any.
maybe i'm just overthinking this. maybe there're really not that many examples and i'm seeing what i want to see.
still, though, despite my turning this over in my head a few times, i can't figure out what the moon is supposed to symbolise, if it's a symbol of anything. inconstancy? ("o, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon/that monthly changes in her circled orb/lest that they love prove likewise variable.") that could make sense, given that gen is a thief --the thief--and eddis does make that comment about him lying to everyone, including himself (and is not lying an example of inconstancy? the list of synonyms given by dictionary.com is: "moody, capricious, vacillating, wavering; undependable, unstable, unsettled, uncertain; mutable, mercurial, volatile." gen is most of these things, and mercurial was used in the dancing scene in king to describe him.)

just some (half-incoherent) thoughts and some shakespeare love. (-:
what do you guys think?

also, sorry about the all-lowercase thing. i have an issues with capital letters on the computer, so the only time i really use them is when i'm writing fiction.

edit: guess what i found on an art-prompt generator? (don't ask.)

"Theme: thief. It should contain the moon or body modifications, and use primarily neutral colors."
i kinda want to draw this now. 

Comments

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Oh no, we've frequently discussed the numerous references to moon goddesses and moon promises that appear in the series. If you're a lunatic, then so are we! Yes, I actually think that's funny.

As far as solid cannon goes, the moon doesn't seem to have a concrete religious meaning or motif function in any of the cultures. The moon often represents unfaithfulness, because of how it changes its face. In ancient Greek culture, the moon also held associates with wildness and unpredictability. It was after all the symbol of the unconventional huntress, Artemis - patron goddess of the hunt and unmarried women.

If Megan's frequent references to the moon mean anything, it's probably just as you said, a reference to Gen, his wild ways, and his moon promises. And Shakespeare = awesome. That is a great line from R&J. It's reminded me often of QT.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

haha, well, lunacy (metaphorically, not like, actual lunacy) is a good thing! crazy people do tend towards interesting more than non-crazies. :)

i don't know about the wildness and unpredictability -- except where men (actaeon, anyone?) are concerned, artemis seems pretty tame, gentle even, despite her status as huntress. she's also the goddess of girls and childhood and thus by an extension innocent (the one that is bliss and the one that is virginity), and she seems to me protector than anything else.
hecate, though...

and yeah, i suppose you're right. xD i'm looking for shadows where there are none. (in a book where layers' layers have layers, am i to blame? ;D) and he DID say something to the effect of "better trust the moon's promises" than his own. :)

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

also, YES on the shakespeare. :D

and have you ever listened to "after the rain has fallen" by sting? it's not exactly their relationship, but it reminds me of gen and irene so much.

Crazy is the new black.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Normality is vastly overrated.

Really? The lectures on Classical Mythology I listened to by Elizabeth Vandiver spoke of her as an uncontrollable deity. Plus...

She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.

- Wikipeida

Yes, she is a protector of young/unmarried women and women bearing children. Considering the Greeks views on women in general, especially unmarried women not yet quite under control, essentially she protects women who are in a position of independence/power (sorta). There's a certain unpredictability associated with that, especially if you include the wild animal factor. Or at least... that is how it was explained to me by Elizabeth Vandiver. Artemis is also sometimes associated with bears, which I find funny. Dancing bears, anyone?

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

i don't know, in all the mythology i've read, she's never seemed particularly wild, at least not in her earthern form. free, certainly, but not like, dangerous wild. certainly she could be cruel, but then, it's hard being a woman in a man's world (attolia!), especially if she's fulfilling a role tradition deems for men (attolia! ;D). she was a huntress, certainly, but she was also protector of the wild, and she was said (according to wikipedia; as much as i love mythology, my memory in that area does not extend to names and myths i can't relate to -- i called oedipus orpheus once) to have tamed a bear and sent it to the athenians, until one day someone killed it, and she sorta kinda overreacted.

and i don't know if that's wildness, precisely (well, it is, but she's easily one of the tamest gods), because hera's been known to do some pretty mean things to the girls her husband slept with and even girls he didn't -- echo, for one.

but i love artemis, whatever her character. of all the gods and goddesses, i feel like she's the only one that's considered really an equal of the males. hera's considered a bitter, jealous, whiny -- for a lack of a better word -- bitch, athena's like, miles above everyone, aphrodite sleeps with everyone and is generally feared because even zeus cannot resist the power of love, hestia is barely mentioned, and when she is she's always the epitome of what a married woman should be like, and demeter -- well, i haven't read much about her, but she's sidelined, too. but artemis is like, fierce without having to sacrifice her femininity -- because even though she's not aphrodite, she is shown to be able to fall in love -- orion, in some versions, and endymion (though selene is to artemis as helios is to apollo -- in some accounts they're the same, in others, the former are titans and the latter are gods, so), and she may be ruthless (bouphagos), but rarely unjustly so (actaeon? seriously? not like he could help it that he stumbled upon you and you were bathing).

and with the whole unmarried woman thing -- i don't think they had particular freedoms outside of sparta. basically they had to learn how to keep house with their mothers and listen to their fathers. no education, little rights...as forward as the greeks were with most things, that's the one thing that is quite disappointing, i admit. the only difference after they were married was that they now had to listen to their husbands rather than their fathers, wasn't it?

and unfortunately, crazy is not the new black in my school. :C we were reading catcher in the rye, and i was talking about how the naming of phoebe could be a reference to artemis (who was sometimes called phoebe to apollo's phoebus), and the whole childhood/innocence thing and holden's desire to protect that, etc.
and my class looked at me like i belonged in an asylum.
it's a good thing my teacher loves me! ;D

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[katecoombs.livejournal.com]

It's hard to be the smart kid, isn't it?

Also, is it just me, or does Hermione Granger remind you a tiny bit of Athena?

Whereas Attolia reminds me of Hera, but the person Hera would be if her husband wasn't a cheating scum.

That whole wild/moon thing seems to lead to werewolves. At any rate, the feminine as embodied by Artemis does have its wild side in the sense of being untamed and mysterious.

Random thoughts, I know!

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

i dunno, hera doesn't really envoke attolia. (maybe it's because i love irene and have no real regard for hera, haha.) hera's really quite vindictive, and she doesn't seem to know how to rule -- she is, after all, queen of heaven, but she never really demonstrates her power, and when she does, it's for these really petty reasons, while attolia only does what she does to keep her kingdom.

i don't know, attolia always reminded me more of artemis, because they're both pretty fierce, but they're also reasonable and don't need men to complete them. sure, gen brings out the best in her and yes, he does save her, in essence, from herself, but even if she had not married him, she probably would have held onto her kingdom, at the cost of her own happiness, but she certainly doesn't NEED a man, as demonstrated by her handling of nahuseresh, whose name bugs me and whose beard has me convulsing with giggles. :)

i don't know about werewolves, though. wolves are never mentioned as one of artemis' animals, and to be honest, until you mentioned it, i hadn't even connected werewolves to the moon to artemis (blame all this bad teen literature where werewolves are the same as shapeshifters, haha). and yes, artemis does have her wild side, but it's pretty contained and she never (unless, of course, when men see her naked) really lets it explode, whereas hera's temper...well, it's legendary. *lame pun*

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[katecoombs.livejournal.com]

Good points, esp. about Nahuseresh's beard! Like I said, random. The moon theme just got me thinking about related mythology, e.g., werewolves and wildness in general. "Legendary"--heehee!

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

i just realised i use "i don't know" and variations thereof too much. hum. ;D
the moon is fun to talk about. i like the moon. the moon is much prettier than the sun, imo. it's luminous, whereas the sun's just...bright. (and it so figures that my preferred type of beauty would correlate to the moon as opposed to the sun -- dark hair, pale skin...oh wait that's attolia. xD)

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

But, on the other hand, Hera provides the single most hilarious moment in The Odyssey, when she grabs Artemis' bow and starts smacking her with it. I found that exquisitely funny!

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

hera...just makes me laugh a lot. :)

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

also!
i don't know, i've never really thought of hermione being like athena, because athena's like wise whereas hermione admits that she's only smart. certainly they're both very levelheaded, though (except where hermione encounters her bogart, haha).

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[icastlecaptured.livejournal.com]

They may not have had much difference in freedom between childhood and marriage, but the greeks didn't think of it that way. To them an unmarried girl was like a ticking bomb - very very dangerous. that's why they got their daughters married so young (around 12 to a man around 30), because a post puberty girl who isn't married is, well, wild and untamed. Women were the sex crazy ones for the greeks, and the men were constantly paranoid about what they could be doing behind their backs. Artemis represented all this unharnessed potential and was actually considered pretty dangerous ...

Sorry, I took some Greek and Roman classes last semester and needed somewhere to spew all that I guess? I hope I didn't get anything too wrong ... (ps as evidenced by the above - I love greek myth too!)

Re: Crazy is the new black.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

it's cool, i could talk about them for aggggggges.

but as for the women being sex-crazy, well, i highly doubt that. in most traditional depictions of greek women, they are either the epitome of womanhood (see penelope -- she stayed true to odysseus despite him being possibly dead and despite not seeing him in 20 years), or they were capricious and unfaithful (aphrodite. aphrodite. aphrodite. i have a great amount of derision for this ladyface. she's married, but she has no trouble cheating on hephastus, which sounds much more attractive than vulcan, in my opinion. ;D vulcan = vulture = that scene in the lion king = shudder).

but for artemis, it isn't so much that she's unmarried that is a key component to her character as she is a virgin, which is supposed to be all pure and untainted. and stuff. and if not being married after puberty is dangerous, then why aren't hestia and athena considered dangerous? (well, athena when she gets mad is not very nice *ahemarachne*, but hestia...she's goddess of hearth and home, not much potential for danger there).

i dunno, i'm rambling.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

There are many instances of the moon representing inconstancy in art, but I thought of one where it means the opposite. From the Indigo Girls:

'Cause if you're ever believing
I'm thinking of leaving
Look to the moon, 'cause it's a fact --
She may go wandering about, but she always comes shining back.

I like that, because the moon only appears inconstant -- it changes its position and appearance every night, but follows a pattern and always comes around again.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

i like that idea. :)

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I love that idea. The moon appears inconsistent, but actually isn't. It makes for a very multi-layered symbol.

[amolegere.livejournal.com]

Klimon and Gerosthenes is my FAVORITE story in the series so far!!! It makes for some amusing moments when I want to cite it in class then remember that it isn't ACTUALLY an ancient Greek myth. It's just so perfect!

[inkasrain.livejournal.com]

I've had a pet theory for a while that it is the moon goddess featured in the story of Klimun and Gerosthenes who speaks to Gen at the end of "Queen of Attolia". My primary evidence for this is the fact that Gen mentions that he visited Kathodicia with his grandfather when he was a child, and that they made a sacrifice there. I don't know if other references to the moon affect my theory in either direction, but I'd love it if they help corroborate it!

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

i subscribe to that pet theory. :)
and that is a deliciously adorable icon.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd never thought of that before! I always thought of the Kathodican goddess as a bit flighty and selfish, compared with the unknown goddess, who seemed kinder. Though now that I think about it, the unknown goddess basically tells Eugenides to suck it up, so maybe they are the same. Interesting theory.

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I've wondered if it was her, too! Though I didn't remember that they sacrificed when they were in Kathodicia.
I think it was either the moon goddess or the goddess of that tiny temple they pass in the Thief (the one where the Magus tells Sophos "It's your first heathen temple"). Doesn't Gen sacrifice like a few olives there, or something? I might be making that up. And even if it doesn't say he did, he could have.

I must say, if the moon goddess is really interceding on Gen's behalf and watching over him, then that certainly adds another layer to all the moon references throughout the books.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's also interesting that the moon is completely obscured by clouds the moment when Eugenides confesses his love to Attolia.

If he known for making "moon promises", there's no moon in the moment he tells the truth - it's completely dark out. Maybe it's poetic imagery to show that when he tells the truth, it's still hard to believe.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

that's quite sad, actually. :(
poor eugenides.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Oh, good catch.

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Hard to believe, but only because of the dark, not because of the shifting light of the moon. Moonlight can trick you...
What an interesting thing to make note of! :)

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

Oh, Gen


That's a nice chat though!

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

*catch

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think Moongan moontions the moon all that moonch. I moon, sure, occasionally, but it probably doesn't moon anything. Moonby it is you and all those English lunarature papers you've had to write - you see the moon even when there isn't one there.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

har har :)

[(Anonymous)]

Re-reading The Queen of Attolia, but one of my favourite scenes involves Eugenides stealing the magus - and there's moonlight awashing the magus's room as Eugenides twists the knife of his revenge into Sounis.

He's telling the truth behind his lies, and for the magus, those probably the harshest words to hear right at that moment. For the magus, there's also the feeling of "all the discontinuity of a dream."

The moonlight might expose the stuff in the dark, but it's also not the best light to see things clearly - something that Eugenides seems like taking advantage of as a thief who may not be lying, but makes it seem that way more often than not.

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm going to have to pay more attention to when the moon itself is out or not.

[(Anonymous)]

If you really want to take just a little too far... Eugenides is trying to read his watch by moonlight when he and Xenophon are discussing the logistics of stealing Attolia at Ephrata. =)

(And I only remember that because Gen and Xenophon small talk about the watch - "Your brother's?" "Yes. He made it for me." - and I liked that little detail about Gen's brother Stenides managing to carrying over from The Thief. That, and the only other mention to other members his family aside from his father being Attolia remarking that title of Thief "could go to a child of one of his sisters".)

I want to retreive all my mailfs from 2001?

[(Anonymous)]

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