broke: the Nemean Lion was a beast and it’s good that Heracles killed it bc it kept randomly terrorizing Nemea
woke: the Nemean Lion was a child of Zeus and Selene, and was raised by Hera. The lion didn’t randomly terrorize, but instead brought women back to wherever the lion lived and then would kill men who tried to take the women away. Knowing Hera and understanding the way Medusa was similarly cast as a “monster” despite being a protector and literal guardian of brutalized women, in this essay I will
Keep going.
essentially I propose that the myth of the Nemean Lion, much like the myth of Medusa, has been seen through the lens of the patriarchal “heroes” for thousands of years.
A male lion, once he finds his pride, is a fairly chill dude. He only becomes violent when his pride is threatened, most often by other males. Most versions of the myth have the lion “kidnapping” the women of Nemea, as opposed to killing them.
Why wouldn’t the women leave when the lion goes out again? Answer: living with the lion is better than living with the men in Nemea.
So, like Medusa, the lion becomes an enemy who is “stealing women,” when in actuality the lion is protecting them. Additional support for this comes from his mother being Selene, of the moon, and being raised by Hera, both are amazing goddesses who are full of the Female Spirit. One of the symbols of Hera is this lion, in fact, and once he died he became the constellation Leo. Tell me, why would Hera immortalize the lion in this way if he was just some violent beast, as opposed to a brave, valiant son she raised who died protecting women who needed it?
In conclusion, the lion did nothing wrong and was cast as a villain because men don’t like when they don’t have control over women.
I am no one; I am nothing. I am a blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you.
As cat owners we like to joke about how the cat is the one who’s really in charge, but let’s be honest here: my cats think they’re in charge, but they’re also fucking dumbasses. It’s sort of an incompetent-king-and-long-suffering-advisor arrangement, if the king were prone to getting their head stuck in Kleenex boxes.
when welcome to night vale said: “Sleep heavily and know that I am here with you. The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first, and settles in as the gentle present. This now, this us, we can cope with that. We can do this together you and I.”
