Degan Walters

“So avoid lions at all costs, Venus tells Adonis. Actually, avoid all creatures that like a fight. Don’t let your bravery destroy us both. This is obviously a perfectly reasonable moral to draw from the tale, although I have tended to prioritize the more subtextual moral (don’t pretend to be less than you are to make a mediocre man feel better, as you will both regret it when you have tails).”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might - Goddesses in Greek Myth

“We like to be able to separate heroes, villains, and victims. It’s convenient for a simple narrative, but it isn’t always reflective of the truth.”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might - Goddesses in Greek Myth

“The more time you spend examining these stories of Hera’s bad behaviour, the more reasons you tend to be able to find for why she might be behaving unreasonably, or why someone else is the guilty party but blaming Hera is so convenient. It is a misogynist narrative as old as time itself, and never out of fashion:”
― Natalie Haynes, Divine Might - Goddesses in Greek Myth

“But the question remains: is the trouble something she does, by opening a jar? Or is it something she is? Pandora is the first woman; thanks to her (according to Hesiod), the carefree age of men comes to an end. But you’ll forgive me for suggesting that an all-male age with no women (and no fire) sounds incredibly boring.”
― Natalie Haynes, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths