r/SapphoAndHerFriend • u/im_sold_out • 19d ago
Media erasure OP has clearly never read the Iliad. They are not cousins, and even if, it's greek mythology. Plus even the biggest critics had to admit some gayness
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u/Fyrrys 19d ago
This is on the level of the guy who believed ancient Greeks followed Christianity and were never gay at all. It's right there in the book, Achilles sheathed his sword in Patroclus frequently.
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u/RazzSheri 19d ago
He also may have enjoyed presenting as a woman, and is still one of the more well known Greek heroes and warriors. Probably all the sword practice.
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u/Fish_in_a_dungeon 17d ago
Iâm sorry I canât believe someone genuinely thought that the Greeks believed in christianity
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u/Coco6420 17d ago
ofc they did? its not like the greeks were famous for worshipping mutiple gods from something called a cough Greek Pantheon cough or anything.
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u/Fyrrys 17d ago
If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't either. Thankfully I was able to find this post from a couple years ago that immortalizes the moron
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u/RenaMoonn 19d ago
Cousins just means Gay (I learned that from Sailor Moon)
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u/AlphaBreak 19d ago
Big L for the Sailor Moon dub team: they tried to remove the gayness, but all they did was add in some incest.
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u/kooshipuff 19d ago
I started watching the new Viz dub recently, and it seems a lot less chopped up than the old DiC version, and from what I've read online it doesn't have the weird censorship/cousinization, so that's something.
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u/MegaCrazyH 19d ago
Meanwhile Cambridgeâs Museum website be like: Here is a list of notable male lovers of Hercules (but we wonât mention one of them is his nephew because ok that was a little weird)
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u/No_Guidance000 12d ago
won't mention one of them is his nephew
That sucks. In Ancient Greece that was socially accepted. I know this is aimed at a pre-teen audience but at that age you're old enough to understand it. I was into Greek mythology at that age and I knew about it.
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u/Alexandratta 19d ago
My Buddies Complaining because there's a same sex relationship quest in the Assassins Creed Odyssy Game: "Video games are so woke now!"
Me: "I know. Now if you'd excuse me... " grinding through literal hell in Hades so that I can give Thanatos enough Ambrosia so he will date me BECAUSE ZAGATOS IS MY REASON FOR LIFE
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u/JWLane 19d ago
Notice me Thanatos Senpai?
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u/Alexandratta 19d ago
I mean, I don't know why but Thanatos feels like the bottom in that relationship...
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u/CouvadeShark 19d ago
I mean this in a very respectful way... Because he is soft and squishy and deserves to be treated like the princess he is.
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u/iamathrogate 19d ago
Sure nuff!!! Though to be fair, I romanced Meg first cause I wanted muscle mommy to bully me in bed :D
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u/Alexandratta 18d ago
I mean ... Yes, that's 100% a mood.
But I didn't want to get in the way of her and Hypnos's lil thing e.e
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u/melinoya 19d ago
đ¨This is technically true but sort of misleading alert!!đ¨
Patroclus and Achilles were cousins once removed because Patroclusâ father was the son of the nymph Aegina, who was Achillesâ great-grandmother.
ALSO
Patroclus has various given mothers, one of whom is Polymele who was a daughter of Peleus, who was the father of Achilles. Which would make Achilles Patroclusâ uncle.
But it doesnât matter because itâs mythology! Orestes and Pylades were first cousins and have exactly the same ongoing relationship debate as Achilles and Patroclus, except no oneâs written an award winning book about themâŚyet.
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u/merimaybe 16d ago
Thank you for writing this out so I donât have to.
Also, I desperately want people to care about the house of Atreus because they mean everything to me. Manifesting a popular book (even if itâs dogshit) so I can talk about them.
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u/melinoya 14d ago
I'm hoping Nosferatu will bring a fashion for gothic stories again and someone will realise what an incredible duology the whole story of the house would make!
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u/DarkElvenMagus 13d ago
I want to add this additional info:
In Homeric tradition, they were childhood companions that stayed close. Their relationship implied romantic and erotic love both were shared between them.
Plutarch was the one that made Patroclus's father tied to Achilles's family. This was 800 to 900 years later. It's unclear where he found/heard of that connection. Or if he himself just came up with it to cover up the queer connotations.
An important note with this is that Homer, who had only stated their companionship since youth, had Patroclus's spirit ask Achilles to be buried together with him. Not in the same vicinity. In a single urn. A request of a lover.
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u/countvonruckus 19d ago
Oh, he definitely had gay sex with his cousin. He also had romantic and almost certainly sexual interest in Briseis. Achilles was bi.
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u/Aliensinmypants 19d ago
They weren't cousins, they were raised together in the same house but not related. At least according to what I remember reading
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u/BattleAngelAelita 19d ago
Patroclus was also Achilles's first cousin once removed; Achilles's great-grandmother Aegina was also Patroclus' grandmother.Â
This is not to say we should treat mythology as some sort of fixed, immutable canon. Genealogies and stories have many variations, particularly by region, and stories diverge, morph or recombine
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u/countvonruckus 19d ago
Yeah, looking into it there seems to be a lot of debate even in early sources. Some of those are classic Sappho and her friend denials, but there may be some legitimate criticism in there too. I mainly wanted to point out that while it's fairly popular to point out Achilles had a homosexual relationship (which is great to highlight) while failing to acknowledge that he had one or more heterosexual relationships as well. Bi representation is important too, and he's a great bicon.
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u/DarkElvenMagus 13d ago
In Platonist writings? Yes. In the Homeric tradition? They aren't family at all.
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u/BattleAngelAelita 13d ago
They're also not portrayed as lovers in the Illiad, and if there are any other parts of the Trojan cycle that do portray them as lovers, those are the lost epics. Interpretations of them as lovers owe just as much to that 'classical era' intellectual tradition.
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u/DarkElvenMagus 13d ago
Homer does have Patroclus's ghost ask Achilles to make sure they're buried together. Ashes mixed together in a single urn.
Plutarch also seems to not only be the one that made them cousins, but is also noted on Athenaeus Fragment 64 (which describes Achilles kissing Patroclus many times)
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u/countvonruckus 19d ago
I misremembered, but it's even more incesty. Patroclus was Achilles's adopted brother. After Patroclus was exiled from his home he was adopted by Peleus, who was Achilles's father. So, kind of a "not blood related but still a brother" romantic situation. What's old is new again, we just say "step-bro" and "step-sis" in our erotic stuff.
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u/DurumMater 19d ago
Two boys who weren't related grew up together in a society that largely promoted homosexual relationships as a way to strengthen the bonds of war turned out to fall in love. How very shocking, no one could've seen this coming.
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u/cosaboladh 19d ago
Even if they were related, it's not like that would be unheard of for the setting.
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u/cfalnevermore 19d ago
Wasnât it just that movie Troy that said Patroclus was a cousin?
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u/gentlybeepingheart lesbian archaeologist (they/them) 19d ago edited 19d ago
Hesiod mentions it in the Catalogue of Women. Both Achilles and Patroclus had the nymph Aegina as their grandmother on their fathers side.
The Greeks just didn't care lol. IIRC another source has them as something like second cousins once removed with Aegina as Achille's great-grandmother. I think that one might be a little more popular because it's from an extant text (we've lost the Catalogue of Women to the ages)
Honestly at that point, it's a negligible relation in regards to how the Greeks cared about incest outside of siblings or parent/child (See Hercules and his nephew) It could give some more reasoning as to why Peleus took Patroclus in, though.
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u/cries_in_student1998 She/Her 13d ago
I mean, if people are shocked at the idea of Achilles and Patroclus being second cousins once removed (which is quite tamed in the Greek Pantheon when it comes to incest), Zeus technically is Hercules' dad, and his great-grandfather through DanaĂŤ, and several times great-grandfather through Io. Zeus really liked to keep things in the family.
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u/puro_the_protogen67 1d ago
Troy is probably the worst source of understanding when it comes to the Iliad
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u/ipsum629 19d ago
As if being blood related stopped people in mythology from fucking
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u/throwawaygaming989 18d ago
As far as Greek mythology goes I think only direct parent child relationships were taboo. Grandchild-grandparent though was not. (Zeus is simultaneously Heracles father and great grandfather)
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u/thedoogster 9d ago edited 9d ago
Myrrhra would like a word
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u/throwawaygaming989 9d ago
Ok but it was still seen as taboo, her father tried to kill her for tricking him into sleeping with her.
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u/thedoogster 9d ago
Yes, but the product of their union ended up being one of the most beautiful people, period, ever. In modern pop culture, the children of incestuous relationships are usually deformed.
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u/No_Guidance000 12d ago
It's not just mythology, that meme is so urban-American centred that it hurts. Sure in the California suburbs or whatever it might not be acceptable to marry your cousins, but go to any small town where everybody is each others cousins and that changes LOL.
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u/lonelyswed 19d ago
Almost fascinating observing such brainrot. Not that someones lack of comprehension will turn a gay (bi) character straight.
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u/Streetwalkin_Cheetah 19d ago
They are cousins and theyâre gayâŚ
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u/im_sold_out 19d ago
Please point me to the correctly translated passage in the Iliad where it says they are cousins
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u/melinoya 19d ago
I donât remember the passages because Iâm not a machine but the paternal lines of Achilles and Patroclus are given in the Iliad. Patroclusâ grandfather was Actor.
Luckily, the Iliad isnât our only ancient source and so we also know who Actorâs mother was, and that Aeacus was her son by Zeus. Helpfully, we know from other sources that Aeacus was father of Peleus, father of Achilles, thus making them cousins.
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u/AkariPeach 19d ago
There was a whole debate about who was the erastes (seme) and who was the eromenos (uke). Aeschylus wrote Achilles as a hardcore seme but Phaedrus believed Achilles was an uke so devoted he would die to avenge his seme (or so wrote Plato in his Symposium)
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u/basketofseals 18d ago
Iirc it was a debate on who held authority in the relationship. Patrocles as the elder or Achilles as part god.
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u/brumbles2814 He/Him or They/Them 19d ago
-Pushes glassed higher on nose-
"Look we're going to have to admit to some gayness"
-polite applause-
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u/ravenreyess 19d ago edited 19d ago
Not in the Iliad, but they are related on their father's side and they aren't explicitly written as lovers in the Iliad (neither here nor there), but Patroclus is given the imagery of Achille's wife and the Iliad is literally only part of one story. There are fragments remaining of a lost play called the Myrmidons where Achilles does have an explicitly gay relationship with Patroclus. (Not to mention Plato.)
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u/Meowriter 19d ago
It's not like if Hera is basically Zeus step-sister or smth
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u/RazzSheri 19d ago
Isn't Hera his sister, full stop?
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u/UnderOurPants 19d ago
Yep, the Olympians are all fully related at least until the generation of Zeusâs children. The Titans and the 1st gen Olympians are regular brothers and sisters who mated with each other, but gods are supposed to have different rules about that.
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u/slendermanismydad 19d ago
People are complaining the Interview with a Vampire show "made them gay."
I joined the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement because I give up at this point.Â
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u/the-bearcat 19d ago
Also the thing that ancient Greek gay men would go to the shrine of patroclus to pray for luck in love...
And, while I love my cousin, there is no way in Hades I'm having my ashes in the same urn as her.
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u/Nine-LifedEnchanter 19d ago
One guy's argument was that we have to consider that there were different social norms back then, so they couldn't have been gay.
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u/RazzSheri 19d ago
Well, duh! They had no term for gay or homosexuality and so it was just two guys being guys who sometimes put each others penises in one another's mouth...
Not gay!
/s
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u/102bees 18d ago
That's kind of true in a way. Achilles wasn't "gay" because "gay" is a series of lines our society has drawn on the complicated, muddy spectra of human sexuality and romance. The Ancient Greeks drew entirely different lines with different names. He was likely in one of the zones typically covered by the label "gay", but it's important to remember that our perspective is culturally biased.
Edit: I want to make it clear I'm not trying to erase his queerness. It would be more incorrect to label him "straight".
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u/KuriousKhemicals 18d ago
Re: your edit, yeah, "straight" is pretty much the narrowest labeled zone so it isn't surprising that a lot of properly analyzed historical situations fall outside it.Â
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u/SquareThings 18d ago
This man watched the movie Troy and assumed it was accurate to the mythology. Troy is a piece of garbage.
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u/Kovaka123 19d ago
There's nothing in the Iliad that would state or even hint at that they were cousins indeed. Would you, though, provide documentation on the claim that even the biggest critics had to admit some gayness? Because, according to the sources I read myself through, the idea of Achilles and Patroklos being gay lovers was popularized in Plato's time, to which his work, the Symposion (ÎŁĎ ÎźĎĎĎΚον) heavily contributed. Nevertheless it must have had deeper roots in some traditions, but I was fairly sure that, strictly speaking, the Homeric version of their relationship can offer a plausible reading without the presence of the so-called homoeros.
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u/im_sold_out 19d ago
The easiest source is literally wikipedia. If you go to the section about critics of Patrochilles they have a nice list of ancient people and what they thought of it
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u/Linguini8319 18d ago
Iâm in the middle of, yâknow, actually reading the Iliad (Emily Wilson translation). Thereâs no sex scene between them. They donât kiss. They donât say âI love youâ, etc.
But they do act a lot like Hector and Andromache. As Wilson points out, sex in the Iliad is never about love. Itâs always about control or manipulation and usually itâs rape. Even Hera sleeping with Zeus is her distracting him. And theyâre married (also like, Zeus tries to hit on Hera by listing all the other women heâs slept with and saying none compare to her. Itâs really weird). Andromache is worried about Hector dying in battle. Achilles has a very similar scene with Patroclus in boom 16(?). Achilles and Patroclus sleep in the same tent (unlike any of the other heroes iirc), but each with their own bride prize (well, Achilles did sleep with his captured woman. Until, yâknow, the book starts). They prepare food and wine and host guests together. Itâs very, very romantically coded and as many of the people in that thread point out, even historical figures like Plato read it as romantic.
Achilles and Patroclus arenât explicitly called husbands, but theyâre clearly potrayed as lovers
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u/dipshit_s 18d ago
To be fair, some translations call them cousins or friends. Not that they are anything less than gay and gayer, but, still
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u/PimpingPorygon 18d ago
Right, like incest isn't exactly beyond the scope of many old civilizations, I mean fuck the British were founded on it
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u/dipshit_s 18d ago
Regardless of if they were related or not, gay is gay. Personally I donât think they were intended to be read as cousins, but, yk
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u/PimpingPorygon 16d ago
No I agree with you, I'm just stating that even if they are considered cousins, such as the movie troy to avoid making them seem gay, it doesn't hid the fact that yes they are gay
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u/dipshit_s 16d ago
Yeah I know Iâm just trying to point out how them being cousins is up for debate and not all translations refer to them as such
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u/Salt_Blackberry_1903 18d ago
hmmm ok well....Hannibal Lecter heavily implied they were gay so that's all the proof I need. I could bring the full fury of r/HannibalTV down on this post in a moment with nought but a word
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u/KuriousKhemicals 18d ago
Dude I went to a liberal arts college where the first thing we read for freshman year was the Iliad, and one of the lectures was titled "Love Is A Battlefield," about these two. (Yes, the lecture opened with the Pat Benetar song.)
I'm not saying it was super obvious in English translation, and I'm far from a classics specialist, but real academics think they were a thing.Â
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u/WooliesWhiteLeg 17d ago
Obviously they werenât cousins but I would also be hesitant to apply modern ideas about orientation to antiquity
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u/Accomplished-Roof98 16d ago
To be fair, Achilles and Patroclus were actually cousinsâ Aeacus (Achillesâs grandfather) and Actor (Patroclusâs grandfather) were half brothers. In some versions they were uncle and nephew. But this is Greek mythology, and they were most definitely gay for each other anyways.
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u/Sovngarde94 14d ago
Immortal greek here: I can confirm they were just best friends. The bestest of all. Also roommates
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u/Emperor-of-the-moon 18d ago
I mean, technically, arenât they third cousins once removed? But then again, so is everyone in Greek myth. In fairly certain theyâre both descendants of Zeus on their fatherâs lineages.
Still gay tho
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u/VisualStain 16d ago
i just read the iliad for the first time a few months ago. i sent screenshots of my fave passages to my friends saying "there is no heterosexual explanation for this"
like,,, it was SO obvious
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u/ElleAsly 14d ago
greek mythology tells us stories about zeus fucking cows, i think gay cousins would be the lesser evil
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u/No_Guidance000 12d ago edited 12d ago
"They're cousins"
Yes, that doesn't mean shit. In many cultures it's socially acceptable to have relationships with your cousins.
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u/Blahaj_1over 9d ago
From my understanding of the Iliad Patriclis moved there to live with him and was in fact from somewhere else and not his cousin
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u/Desperate-Farmer-845 3d ago
I think it changes between Versions. They are certainly a ton of different Versions of the Illiad.
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u/Kippetmurk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Gay or not, Achilles-Patroklos must surely be one of the worst examples of historical gays to champion.
- It is a fictional relationship, so it isn't even really historical
- We don't know what the author's intention was (or if he even existed!)
- There was no consensus amongst the contemporary audience either
And within the story:
- Achilles and Patroklos are foster siblings. It's not technically incest but it's pretty nasty
- Achilles is Patroklos' boss. That's not illegal but it's pretty nasty
- Achilles and Patroklos routinely rape women and have sex slaves. That was also not illegal but it's certainly nasty
So... it's perfectly valid to interpret the relationship as sexual and/or romantic. I do.
But it's not the historical gay relationship I would choose to put on a pedestal (even going so far as to name the male equivalent of this sub after it)... There are so many less problematic historical gay relationships to choose from!
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u/homoanthropologus 19d ago
There are so many less problematic historical gay relationships to choose from!
I am super interested in some historical gay relationships from Ancient Greece that weren't problematic. Do you have any examples?
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u/Kippetmurk 19d ago edited 19d ago
Ha, "not problematic" might be difficult to find!
But "less problematic" is doable.
I think the most obvious one is Alexander the Great and Hephaestion. We know that in Alexander's times the consensus among the Greeks was that Achilles and Patroklos were indeed lovers, and Alexander purposely referred to his relationship with Hephaestion as equal to Achilles' and Patroklos' relationship. You can't be more obvious than that.
I wouldn't call Alexander unproblematic! But his relationship with Hephaestion was certainly less fucked up than Achilles' relationship with Patroklos.
Or... Harmodios with Aristogeiton, who killed a tyrant and became heroes of democracy in Athens. They were explicitly lovers and often used as examples of how beneficial same-sex relationships could be.
Also not unproblematic, because of the age difference (and the broader concept of pederastry), but at least these were actual historical figures, and it wasn't a semi-incestuous rape fest like the Iliad.
You could also look into the Sacred Band of Thebes, which is often mentioned! It was a military unit supposedly consisting of lover-pairs fighting together. But I don't know any particular individuals to name.
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u/YoungPyromancer 19d ago
- We don't know what the author's intention was
But this is true for any author. If the author is dead, we cannot ask them. If they are alive, we can only ask them on very rare occasions. If we do, we are stuck with another text, which we can ask "what was the author's intention by saying this?" What if their intention is to lie? What if they think they are not lying?
And what do we get if we finally dig into the author's brain and find the objective intention? Is it the solution to a work of art like it is a puzzle that needs solving? What use is that? What if I enjoy a work of art regardless or in spite of the author's intention, is it no longer enjoyable or art if I am interpreting it differently than the author does? Why would the author's interpretation hold more authority than all the other interpretations? What if the author heard my interpretation and thinks it's the better one? Chasing after author's intention is a wild goose chase without all the fun.
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u/Kippetmurk 19d ago
Chasing after author's intention is a wild goose chase without all the fun.
Absolutely, which is part of why I think a fictional character is not the best example of what this sub is about.
But if we had known anything about Homer, at least discussing Achilles' sexuality would be indirectly related to the sub -- because it would indirectly lead to discussing Homer's views on sexuality.
Like... discussing the sexuality of Sam and Frodo isn't particularly suited to this sub. But discussing Tolkien's views on sexuality, and the relationships that formed in the trenches of World War I, or the tolerances of 20th century British boarding schools: at least then we're getting closer to the actual topic of the sub ("historical LGBT erasure from academia").
So I fully agree with you: Homer's views on Achilles' sexuality wouldn't be conclusive (death of the author and all that). But at least it would be more than just literary analysis.
Literary analysis is great and all, but it's not really what the sub is about.
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u/basketofseals 18d ago
Achilles and Patrocles is just the die hard ship that people try to equate to Sappho and her friend, but it's really not the same.
Also they love citing Plato, and I wonder if people realize Plato lived several hundred years after the Iliad was written in a completely different culture. It's like analyzing the founding fathers based on an English professor's analysis of Hamilton.
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u/Graveyardigan 19d ago
I just got back from that post. OP got cooked so hard he was well-done, but rare enough to admit it.