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Mythology Explained
By Mythology ExplainedHistory
Mythology Explained episodes
- Hercules: 12 Labors RANKED by Difficulty, Safe to Suicidal - Greek Mythology Explained
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video we're going to be discussing Hercules: more specifically, his 12 labors, ranking them from least to most dangerous. Before we jump into the list, though, we're going to quickly touch on why it was that Hercules had to complete 12 nigh-impossible, death-defying labors.
Hera could be vicious and vindictive. She had good reason, to be sure: Zeus was a lecher and a serial-offender in the adultery department. That said, perhaps the victims of Hera's wrath were unfairly chosen, for are the children begot from infidelity not blameless?
Of all Zeus' bastards, none was more doggedly targeted by Hera than Hercules. Hera attempted to thwart, ruin, and kill Hercules at every turn, but her most malicious attack was when she cursed Hercules with a spell of madness. In this state - his mind not his own - Hercules murdered his three sons and even his wife, Megara, who tried in vain to protect her children from her crazed husband. Hercules, seeking to atone for the atrocities he had committed, looking to cleanse himself of the sins of his past, traveled to Delphi where he consulted the resident oracle, who told Hercules that he needed purification, that a great penance was needed. Hercules was instructed to seek his cousin Eurystheus, King of Myceanae, and to submit himself to whatever was tasked of him.
Eurystheus was cunning and opportunistic, and he was very concerned about not being supplanted by Hercules, who would have been the rightful king had it not been for a contrivance from Hera that had Eurystheus born prematurely so to be older than Hercules. The labors devised by Eurystheus - encouraged by Hera - were diabolical in the degree of difficulty and danger entailed in them. His motivations for subjecting Hercules to such labors were two fold: to fully exploit and profit from having the strongest man on earth compelled to satisfy his every whim, and to eliminate a potential rival for his throne.
With that covered, let's dive into our list.
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21 min - 5 GODS so Powerful Even Other GODS Feared Them - Greek Mythology Explained
5 Gods so Powerful Even the Other Gods Feared Them
Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss five of the most powerful gods in Greek mythology, gods so powerful that their powers often dwarved those of the other deities in the Greek mythos.
And just a quick comment before we get started: this list isn't ranked and is by no means comprehensive, so let us know in the comments who else you think deserved to be included. Certainly Hades could have been added, but we kept it to five.
Let's get into it.
Starting off our list is Atlas.
Atlas' case for making this list is explained through the punishment he was saddled with when the Titans were finally defeated by the gods after 10 years of war. Unlike the other titans that fought in the war, Atlas wasn't banished to Tartarus, the great, cavernous abyss that existed beneath the earth; No, he was singled out and perpetually subjected to his own personal hell, which was to forever be the pillar that held up the heavens, stabilising creation itself by keeping earth and sky separate. This, of course, begs the question: why was Atlas given special treatment? Well, the reason for this was that Atlas was an implacable force for the Titans. His leadership and battle prowess greatly bolstered the overall strength of his side. His presence, both as counselor and as warrior, was a core reason that the war between the gods and the titans extended into the protracted 10 year conflict that it was. When the gods finally won, their greatest adversary was condemned to suffer the greatest punishment.
Atlas came to be defined by his unending plight. In this way, his constant, crushing burden associated him with endurance and resilience. But he wasn't all brawn. He was known as a wise man, and the art of astronomy, the tracking of the myriad of stars embedded in the firmament he pressed upwards, was said to come from him.
At number 2 we have Cronus.
Cronus was the youngest of the 12 first generation titans. His mother, Gaia, the personification of the earth, was kept in constant agony by having her older children, the cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, trapped inside of her by her consort, Uranus, the personification of the sky, who was repulsed by his earlier children, thinking them abominations that needed to be hidden away, which he did by pressing them back inside Gaia. This unbearable predicament was the catalyst that forced Gaia to turn to her children for help, beseeching them to rise up against their father. Only Cronus had the potency of character, a combination of audacity and ambition, to answer his mother's call. He lay in wait, stone sickle in hand, then ambushed his father, castrating him, casting the severed genitals into the sea. And so, Cronus deposed his own father, superseding him to become the new king of the cosmos, ushering in the era of titan rule. Later, Cronus would swallow his children, one at a time as they were born, a preemptive effort to prevent his own usurpation at the hands of one of his children as he himself had done. But his efforts would be to no avail, and the drums of war would soon sound as the gods and titans laid waste to the surface of the earth as they fought for supremacy, a conflict that would end badly for the Titans, the belligerents of their number heaved into Tartarus, sentenced to banishment, forever.
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10 min - Did Anyone - GOD, TITAN, HERO, or MONSTER - Ever Escape from Tartarus? - Greek Mythology ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to see if anyone ever managed to escape from Tartarus.
Let's get into it.
Tartarus was one of the first-generation primordial deities, the five primeval gods to first emerge from Chaos, the great void that existed before all else. These primordial deities were Gaia, the personification of the earth, Tartarus, the personification of the abyss beneath the earth, Eros, the personification of love and desire, Erebus, the personification of darkness, and Nyx, the personification of night.
Tartarus was the vast cavernous plane that existed deep within the earth. It was said that an anvil took nine days and nine nights to plummet from the heavens to the earth; at which point, it would take yet another nine days and nine nights to plunge through the earth to the pit of Tartarus. This way, creation, as conceptualized by the ancient Greeks, existed as a cosmic oval, the flat earth sandwiched between the dome of the heavens and the inverted dome of Tartarus.
While Tartarus was characterized by the duality common to all primordial deities, existing as both place and person, he was barely anthropomorphized, almost exclusively existing as the deep dark that functioned as the antithesis of the celestial vault that made up the heavens. Aside from coupling with Gaia on one occasion and siring the monster Typhon, Tartarus, really only featured in Greek mythology as prison, the ultimate prison.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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7 min - A GOD of Ultimate EVIL Bent on Destroying the WORLD - Wheel of Time ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the Dark One, a cosmic manifestation of evil and the main antagonist from the Wheel of Time series.
And just a quick disclaimer before we get going: there may be spoilers for those reading the series or watching the first season, so if that will be a problem for you, this may not be the best video to watch.
Let's get into it.
The Dark One's true name was Shai'tan, but to name him so was to invoke him and thus draw his eye to you. Those who fought him avoided using his true name to avoid notice. And so, every race and culture used their own alternatives, yielding an array of substitute titles, including: father of lies, sightblinder, heartsbane, soulsbane, father of storms, lighteater, soulbinder - the list goes on; you could say that he had as many titles as there were ways for someone to have their life snuffed out and put in the grave. Those who swore their souls to the Dark One also avoid using his true name, but for a very different reason. To them, saying the true name was to blaspheme, so instead, they favour titles that extolled the Dark One, as opposed to the pejorative variety used by those who lived in the light. The most favoured title used by those who forsook their immortal souls was Great Lord of the Dark.
There's a duality to the dark one, much as there's a duality to the primordial deities in Greek mythology, simultaneously existing as gods and as the fundamental manifestations of creation as they pertain to life and the material world. On the one hand, the Dark One was a force of supreme malevolence that sought to remake the world - creation itself, even - in his own twisted image. However, his true nature was more profound and complicated than being an unfathomably powerful force with wicked world-dominating goals. He was the manifestation of evil, the wellspring from which all evil came. To have removed him from creation would have been to remove the capacity to perform evil, which is insidiously awful, for the elimination of the capacity to perpetrate evil, by extension, precludes people from rising above evil to bring true good into the world. Binaries are defined by their opposites, so evil cannot exist in a world devoid of the capacity for good anymore than good can exist in a world devoid of the capacity for evil. Because of this dynamic, it becomes apparent that forever imprisoning the Dark One, not killing him, is the best course of action, because killing him obliterates evil, which, in turn, sanitizes creation in a way that would leave it in a perpetual state of grey, utterly lacking in black or white. And perhaps worst of all, this grey world would ultimately rob people of their agency, destroying free will, which, we can all agree, isn't an eventuality we'd like for ourselves.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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13 min - The WAR That Ended the World and Killed the GODS - Ragnarok - Norse Mythology ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to another installment of Mythology Explained.
In today's video, we're going to be covering the circus of mayhem that is Ragnarok. Here's a quick preview of some of the things this video will touch on: a giant ship fashioned by unclipped toenails, someone riding an eight-legged horse to Hel, someone being Chinese-water-tortured with snake venom, two wolves eating the sun and moon, an enormous serpent who floods the earth and spits venom on everything, a man who uses an ancient, indestructible leather shoe to rip apart a giant wolf's head, and, of course, an enormous being of fire who engulfs all of creation in flame.
Let's get into it.
By the contrivances of Loki, Balder, Odin's son, he who is loved by all and a shining beacon amongst the gods, is pierced and killed by a mistletoe dart. This is a moment of great portent, for it was prophesied that Balder's death meant Ragnarok was nigh.
Following Balder's death, Hermod, another of Odin's sons, rides Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, to travel down the roots of the world tree, to Hel, which is ruled by the goddess Hel, who shares the same name. Hermod beseeches Hel to let Balder return to the land of the living. Hel agrees to do this, but only if everything in the world weeps for him. At the Gods' behest, everything and everyone weeps. That is, except for one giantess who is generally accepted to be Loki in disguise.
So Balder stays dead and Loki goes on the run because, by this time, he's known to have Both orchestrated Balder's death and prevented Balder's resurrection. Eventually, Loki is caught and bound to three stones by the entrails of his son, and a serpent set above continuously drips its venom upon him, and in this perpetual torment Loki remains until his fetters are broken during the events of Ragnarok.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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11 min - Was ZEUS More Powerful than All of the Other GODS Combined? - Greek Mythology ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's episode, we're going to explore whether Zeus, lord of the black cloud, wielder of the smoking bolt, he who sits highest in Olympus, ruler of the cosmos, the raging storm incarnate is, in fact, more powerful than all of the other Olympians combined, as he so proclaims to the other gods in the Iliad, trumpeting the terror of his own tempest.
Let's get into it.
In the Iliad, Zeus harangues the other gods, ordering them not to interfere in the Trojan war so that the war can be brought to a close more quickly. He demands their obedience, a demand delivered emphatically by Zeus expressing the extent of his true strength, which he claims is more than that of all the other Olympians combined.
Here's the passage:
"Hear me, all you gods and all goddesses too, as I proclaim what the heart inside me urges. Let no lovely goddess - and no god either - try to fight against my strict decree. . .then he will know how far my power tops all other gods'.Come, try me, immortals, so all of you can learn. Hang a great golden cable down from the heavens, lay hold of it, all you gods, all goddesses too: you can never drag me down from sky to earth, not Zeus, highest, mightiest king of kings, not even if you worked yourselves to death. But whenever I'd set my mind to drag you up, in deadly earnest, you and the sea, all together, then loop that golden cable round a horn of Olympus, bind it fast and leave the whole world dangling in mid-air - that is how far I tower over the gods, I tower over men"
It's impossible to gauge for certain the depth of Zeus' conviction in these words. He could very well have been exaggerating or, alternatively, inflating inadvertently through overestimation. Was he speaking bombastically, just a blustering king trying to keep his subjects in line, or was there some substance to this threat?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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7 min - Was HERCULES Stronger than the GODS? - Greek Mythology ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video we're going to explore an interesting question, which is whether Hercules was stronger than the gods or, at the very least, possessed the strength of a god. Of course, Hercules did ascend to godhood at the end of his life. His accomplishments were so awe-inspiring and his suffering so profound that the gods granted him this honor. But we're not concerned with the version of Hercules that achieved immortality; our focus is Hercules as he was when he roamed the earth performing all manner of heroics while the frailty of mortality still permeated his flesh.
We're going to unpack this question by looking at 5 times Hercules found himself at odds with gods or beings with god-like strength. You can expect a wrestling match against Thanatos, the god of death, a stint of holding the heavens aloft on one's shoulders, a scuffle with Apollo, a serious wound suffered by Hades, the lord of the underworld, and a war against the giants, a monstrous race boasting god-like power.
Let's get into it.
Starting us off is the time Hercules wounded Hades.
This exchange doesn't quite illuminate Hercules' strength to the same degree as the subsequent entries do, but nonetheless, he does wound Hades, one of the most powerful gods in Greek mythology, even if it is at range with bow and arrow. In the Iliad, there's a passage that described Hades and Hercules pitted against each other because they supported opposing sides when the city of Pylos was besieged. Here's the passage: "the son of thunder-shielded Zeus. . .shot. . .[Hades] in Pylos - there with the troops of battle dead - and surrendered death to pain. But Hades made his way to craggy Olympus, climbed to the house of Zeus, stabbed with agony, grief-struck to the heart, the shaft driven into his massive shoulder grinding down his spirit ... But the healer applied his pain-killing drugs and sealed Hades' wound - he was not born to die.
Following this, we have Hercules' involvement in the Gigantomachy, which was the war between the gods and the giants, a formidable race - though technically not immortal - possessing god-like power.
Hercules was instrumental to the Gods defeating the giants. You see, none of the giants could die unless they suffered damage from a mortal, so each fight between one of the giants and one of the gods was punctuated by Hercules shooting a couple of arrows at them, much like you would pump a couple of extra silver bullets into a vampire or werewolf after they were brought down . Each fallen giant bristled with at least a couple of Hercules' arrow shafts. But beyond serving as a sort of Kryptonite used to deliver killing blows, Hercules also joined the fray, fighting in the thick of it, using his prodigious strength. Alcyoneus, one of the two most powerful giants, was even more resilient than the rest of his ilk. Not only did his death require grievous harm inflicted by a mortal, but he also could not die while his feet touched ground in his homeland. Hercules pincushioned him with arrows, but when the giant fell to earth, he was reinvigorated by the land of his birth; so Hercules used his incredible strength to manhandle the giant beyond the boundaries of Pallene, where death finally took him.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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10 min - Were the TITANS More Powerful than ZEUS and the GODS? - Greek Mythology ExplainedHey Everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video we're going to explore whether, despite losing the war, it was the titans who were actually more powerful than the gods.
Let's get into it.
The Greek creation myth was one defined by great conflicts. The primordial deities were succeeded by the Titans, and subsequently, the Titans were then superseded by the gods, who went on to trounce the giants in the Gigantomachy and to defeat Typhon, unequivocally the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology.
Yes, the titans were defeated by the gods, and yes, all of the belligerent titans - with the exception of Atlas - were forever imprisoned in the great abyss beneath the earth, forever banished in the infernal depths of Tartarus. At the same time, though, it must be conceded that the strength of the gods was augmented by weapons and reinforcements brought into the mix by way of outside forces.
Sometime after Zeus made his existence known and rescued his five brothers and sisters trapped within Cronus, they took a trip down to Tartarus, slayed the dragon Campe, the jailor, and freed the three Cyclopes and the three Hecatonchires. Both of these trios sided with the gods and joined the war effort, but contributed in very different ways. The cyclopes were great craftsmen, and so, they made three awesome weapons for the gods: Zeus received the lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon in all of Greek mythology; Poseidon received the trident, which could shake and sunder the earth; and Hades received the helm of darkness, which granted the wearer perfect invisibility. These weapons outclassed any the Titans had enhancing their forces.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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8 min - The Seven GODS of Chaos - Even One Look Breaks the Mind - Hellboy ExplainedHey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. Today we're going to take a quick pause from Greek mythology to spend this episode discussing one of the most interesting villains from pop culture mythology, the Ogdru Jahad, known as the Dragons of Revelation, a group of monsters so powerful that they're destined to bring about Ragnarok in the Hellboy universe.
Let's get into it.
The Ogdru Jahad were a group of seven dragons. Their appearance was an amalgam of crustacean and serpentine inspirations, only on a colossal scale. They were behemoths. Incarnations of chaos, mercilessness, and cruelty, once, they were the overlords of earth, and the mere sight of them was said to be so horrific that even the briefest glance could drive a person mad. Confident in their overwhelming power, they seem to be indifferent to humanity, much as we are indifferent to ants frantically labouring about, and they claim to harbor no particular hatred for humanity, which suggests a loathing and deep disdain for all life.
At the dawn of creation, God created a hierarchy of greater spirits, and many of these were tasked with overseeing earth, posted as its guardians. One of these spirits, Anum was the grand-architect responsible for the genesis of the Ogdru Jahad. He wrought them of fire and mud, but life would not quicken within them, even after other of the great spirits joined in, imbuing them with spells and infusing them with fire a second time. But then night fell and in the darkness the Ogdru Jahad awoke, immediately filled with terrible purpose, which was to spread its will, initially through propagation, birthing the Ogdru Hem, 369 children, all of them abominations, all of them immensely powerful. The greater spirits waged war against this foul brood, and the Ogdru Hem were eventually crushed, not killed though, but imprisoned, much as the Titans were imprisoned in Greek mythology. The Ogdru Jahad, while immeasurably more powerful than their progeny, were also dealt with, imprisoned, sealed away in crystal and banished in the heart of the abyss. Following this, the greater spirits no longer trusted Anum, whom they blamed for the catastrophe that just transpired. Through a concerted attack, they struck him down, going so far as to destroy the individual pieces of his broken body; only his right hand, the hand of Anum, later called the right hand of doom, survived.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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7 min - Was ZEUS Actually the Most Evil GOD in Greek Mythology? -- Greek Mythology ExplainedHey Everyone, welcome to Mythology explained. In today's video, we're going to explore whether Zeus was, in fact, the most evil god in all of Greek mythology.
We're going to take a look at the many confrontations between Zeus and Prometheus; we're going to look at how Zeus tried to prevent humanity from enjoying meat and at how Zeus stole fire; we'll dive into how Zeus committed genocide, nearly eradicating every last human; and lastly, we're going to examine Zeus' conduct towards women
Let's get into it.
Zeus didn't have a conventionally nurturing upbringing in a stable household. His dad, instead of loving him unconditionally, saw him as a future rival, so he tried to swallow him, thereby imprisoning Zeus inside himself so as to stay king forever.
Following this, neither of Zeus' parents were in the picture, and the location of his upbringing - not the splendid palatial abode one would expect for the son of the king of the cosmos - was a secluded cave.
In the beginning, it looked like Zeus, despite his early years, which were harrowing and fraught with mortal danger - became a good guy, a strong leader of men driven by a desire to do good and rule justly. Perhaps more accurately, though, would be to say that the darkness within him had yet to bubble to the surface, like the once-trapped noxious gas that dislodges from the muck at the bottom of some ancient, fetid swamp.
Zeus grew up, freed his siblings, waged a successful war against the titans, slaughtered the giants, and finally, defeated Typhon, and with this last great conflict won, ushered in a perennial era of peace and prosperity - at least, that's what could have happened - but sadly, for humanity, this was far from the case.
Instead, what we got was a series of altercations with Prometheus, all of which culminated into unearthing and revealing the dark nature that lay - for a time - hidden beneath the surface.
First was the matter of sacrifice. Zeus decided, when it came to sacrifice, it was the meat that needed to be offered up, leaving only the bones for humanity, which makes a lot of sense because, as we all know, our bodies are at their healthiest and function optimally when restricted to a bone-only diet. Thankfully, Prometheus successfully executed a ruse that tricked Zeus into choosing the less favourable of the two sacrificial piles, duping the king of the gods into choosing the bones, which were dressed up in glistening fat to seem more appealing, rather than the meat, which was made unappetizing by having organs draped over it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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10 min
About Mythology Explained
From the publisher's feed
On Mythology Explained we will be diving deep in to all kinds of Mythology: Greek, Roman, Norse, Chinese, Egyptian - you name it. If you've always been curious about the beginnings of Hercules or how…
Zeus came to be- then this is the podcast for you.
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