choose a side: would u fight 4 the titans or the olympians?

well zeus made a lot of people or how the call it ages, like the bronze age etc, Promethesus made the age in which were from i belive it was nothing but men and then the gods made the first woman pandora.....well after the great flood in greece only Promethesus"s son and his wife survived and then zeus took pity and told them to pick up rocks and toss them over your sholulder and they did and now here we are today!!!
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
I would have to go with the Titans because, even though Cronus was a dink who ate his own children to preserve his power, he was the only unlikeable Titan. The rest of them were perfectly acceptable they way they were, certainly Prometheus and Atlas.

DLegend, even though Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and his wife were the ones who threw the rocks over their shoulders to recreate the humans at Zeus's command, Prometheus was the one who created the first humans out of clay. As for being bound to the rock where he has the eagle eating at his liver everyday, that was for daring to give his human creation fire.

We could still exist without the Olympians, and possibly without the fear, hate, anger, and other negative emotions that were brought down on us because the Olympians weren't satisfied enough with Prometheus being bound to that rock and had to create Pandora and her box as well.
 

Caelus

Member
I think Cronus had to go, he was not a good leader, he killed his father with trickery and he treated Rheia's children terribly, though not his offspring with Philyra. Now don't forget, Prometheus and Epimetheus betrayed the Titans by helping the Olympians during the Titanmachy. Hyperion would have made a good king, lord of light and all.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
I think Cronus had to go, he was not a good leader, he killed his father with trickery and he treated Rheia's children terribly, though not his offspring with Philyra. Now don't forget, Prometheus and Epimetheus betrayed the Titans by helping the Olympians during the Titanmachy. Hyperion would have made a good king, lord of light and all.
I believe that is because Prometheus had foresight, and he knew what would happen, and Epimetheus just went where his brother went, as he did not know how to look ahead (he could only think in hindsight). Prometheus simply chose the side which he knew would triumph.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
Well I would probably side with the Titans on this one with the likes of Prometheus and Epimetheus and even Atlas. It seems that they have more of an affinity towards humans than the god counterparts *cough Apollo...*cough Artemis.... I think that even though the Titans lost in the end, some of them fought for better causes
Among Iapetos' four sons, Atlas, Menoitios, Prometheus and Epimetheus, the first two fought on the side of their father for their uncle Kronos while the last two defected from Kronos' side to support their cousin Zeus.


There is great irony in the dichotomy of Titans versus gods, since, in point of fact, most of the Titans actually fought on Zeus' side against their own parents and grandparents, and were rewarded by becoming gods in their own right in Zeus' régime. I think that the ancient mythographers knew what they were doing when they named this conflict Titanomakhia, the "Titans' War," which I believe means a war among the Titans rather than a war between Titans and "gods." Technically the only gods who held any positions of power at the time were the Titans themselves, their mother Gaia, and Gaia's fellow Protogenoi (primordial deities, like Pontos [the Sea] and Nyx [the Night]). Zeus, his siblings and most of the Titans who sided with him became gods only after divesting their own fathers of this status. Moreover, in most versions of the mythology, there was no one to worship deities at that time anyway, since humans did not yet exist: they were created later on, together with animals and most of the world's plants, at Zeus' command. And two of the Titans, none other than Prometheus and Epimetheus, were Zeus' foremen in the factory which was manufacturing the body-model prototypes of the world's creatures (humans included on the list). Not even Hephaistos and Athena, who were their assistants, were as important as the two brothers in this task!

Consider that not more than eleven Titans, all of them male, were ever cast into Tartaros for their participation in the conflict between Kronos and Zeus. All the rest (including the losers' wives) became Olympians in Zeus' government! In fact I'm of the opinion that the only reason Zeus was able to conquer his old man is that he had the support of most of the Titans, and of course the backing of his own uncles, Kronos' very powerful six younger brothers: the three Cyclopes (who created Zeus' devastating weapon Keraunos, the "Thunderbolt") and the three Hekatonkheires (the largest giants in the universe).

Not to mention that four of the strongest Titans, namely Nike, Zelos, Kratos and Bia (all of whom had wings, which I imagine are generally handy to have available) became Zeus' personal bodyguards at the beginning of the war!

Not to mention that the eldest Titan, Zeus' uncle Okeanos, had at least three thousand daughters (one source says four thousand), the Okeanides, many of whom became wives or lovers of Zeus and must doubtless have supported him during the war, like we know Metis (his first wife) did. Okeanos also had three thousand sons, the rivers of the world, only one of whom is reported to have supported Kronos. Okeanos himself remained neutral but perhaps he might have tipped the balance in Kronos' favour if he decided to join his younger brother in this craziness.

Not to mention that Zeus most likely had at his disposal all the Astra (the Stars of the Sky, there's plenty of those to go around) and the Anemoi (the directional Winds, at least nine of them), who were the sons of the Titans Astraios and Eos.

Here's a little breakdown of the two warring factions and how each member of the family in the first, second and third generation of the Titans figured into it.

TEAM KRONOS
  1. Kronos – Basileus (King)
  2. Kreios – Megamedes (Great Lord)
  3. Atlas – Strategos (General)
  4. Menoitios
  5. Iapetos
  6. Hyperion
  7. Koios
  8. Pallas (possibly survived the war to later be killed by Athena)
  9. Perses
  10. Astraios (appears later in Nonnos' Dionysiaka having a friendly conversation with Demeter: therefore a survivor of the war?)
  11. Arke – Kerykissa (Herald; not a Titan, but her mother the Oceanid Elektra was a Titan)
  12. Ithax – Courier (same personage as Arke?)
TEAM ZEUS
1-6. Zeus Chief Rebel, & his 5 siblings Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Haides and Hestia. (None of them was a Titan even though both their parents were. Go figure. Everyone below, however, was very much a Titan.)
7. Rhea – wife of Titan Basileus & mother of the Six Rebels
8. Themis – wife of Iapetos & mother of Titan Strategos; defected from enemy camp to become Chief Rebel's 2nd wife, to whom she bore 9 daughters: the 3 Moirai, the 3 Horai and the 3 Thriai.
9 & 10. Prometheus & Epimetheus – defectors from enemy camp, & brothers of Titan Strategos
11. Mnemosyne – 4th wife of the Chief Rebel & mother of the 9 Mousai [Muses]
12. Theia – wife of Hyperion
13. Phoibe – wife of Koios
14. Styx – eldest daughter of Okeanos & wife of Pallas. (She was both a river and a Titan.)
15-18. Nike, Zelos, Kratos & Bia – children of Pallas & Styx, they were the Winged Bodyguard of the Chief Rebel
19. Astraia – daughter of Astraios and Eos
20-23. Helios, Titan, Eos and Selene – children of Hyperion and Theia
24. Leto – daughter of Koios and Phoibe, 5th wife of the Chief Rebel, & mother of Apollon & Artemis
25. Asteria – daughter of Koios and Phoibe, wife of Perses, & mother of Hekate
Then there were the three or four thousand daughters of Okeanos and Tethys, all of whom were Titans as well.


NEUTRAL
  • Okeanos and Tethys – parents of the Okeanides (× 3000 or 4000) and of the world's rivers (× 3000)
  • Hekate – daughter of Perses and Asteria. Still a child during the time of the War. Later greatly respected by Zeus in her capacity as granddaughter of Kreios, who was the Megamedes [Great Lord] of the entire family estate. Rumour has it that Zeus' partiality to her is because he suspects that she might be his own daughter, on account of an indiscretion he once shared with Hekate's mother Asteria.
  • Eurybia – Allegiance Unknown? Daughter of Pontos and Gaia: not a Titan. Wife of Kreios, mother of Pallas, Perses and Astraios, & grandmother of Hekate, Arke, Nike, Zelos, Kratos, Bia, Astraia, the Astra and the Anemoi.
I've come to understand the story of the transfer of power from Kronos to Zeus as a sort of mafia tale about one head of a crime family being deposed by a new and younger head, who becomes worse than the guy he's replacing. Notice how when Zeus takes over he convinces his cousins and their kids, the younger Titans, to side with him because he's gonna give 'em power, position and prestige, which they are apparently denied by their uncle Kronos. And then he convinces his aunties, the firstborn female Titans, that he won't take their own positions and powers away from them if they support him. He keeps all these promises. But the drama which follows, and the curse which still looms in the air, about son overthrowing father, cause Zeus to do things just as terrible or worse yet than Kronos in order to hang on to his seat at the head of the table. (His first marriage ended with him swallowing his wife Metis whole... Same tactic his dad used against his five older siblings!)

The War of the Titans is actually a much more complex story, complete with treachery and political intrigues, greed and corruption (via the acquisition of absolute power), than is usually portrayed in modern retellings of the tale (especially in Hollywood movies!).
 
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Myrddin

Well-Known Member
Wa-ah-ow! That's a lot of information to take in. I think I'll need some time to absorb it all.
I think I see how Zeus managed to win the war. Well he had no less than 3, 025 players, Kronos had a measley 12. Wait a minute! How did Zeus win again?!? :D
The War of the Titans is actually a much more complex story, complete with treachery and political intrigues, greed and corruption (via the acquisition of absolute power), than is usually portrayed in modern retellings of the tale (especially in Hollywood movies!).
Referring to Clash of the Titans there?:)
 

Alejandro

Active Member
3025 (minus the first 6 players in Team Zeus) is just the Titans who fought on Zeus' side. We haven't counted the 3000 rivers of the world (minus the 1 who supported the Titans); the hundreds of Stars; the 9 directional Winds; the 9 daughters of Zeus and Themis; the 9 daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne; the 3 children of Zeus and Hera; the 2 children of Zeus and Leto; the goddesses Aphrodite and Iris, and several others who were born before things went completely crazy between Kronos and Zeus.

And nope: in fact there's not a single Titan who actually appears in either rendition of Clash of the Titans; plenty of monsters (including a very non-Greek one called the Kraken) but no Titans. I don't think there's ever been a cinematic version of the story about how Zeus and his siblings became gods, which sure is loaded with enough narrative material and action-packed scenes to make a very entertaining flick. I've only ever seen a short comic-book series (whose name I forget) on the subject online but it didn't go in-depth at all.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
I did say no less than 3, 025 players. Ergo, I was not discluding the non-Titans. I just did not have the numbers for the non-Titans, so could not fit them into the equation.
And nope: in fact there's not a single Titan who actually appears in either rendition of Clash of the Titans; plenty of monsters (including a very non-Greek one called the Kraken) but no Titans. I don't think there's ever been a cinematic version of the story about how Zeus and his siblings became gods, which sure is loaded with enough narrative material and action-packed scenes to make a very entertaining flick. I've only ever seen a short comic-book series (whose name I forget) on the subject online but it didn't go in-depth at all.

Well, that's just misleading, then. Why call it Clash of the Titans if there are no Titans? Makes absolutely no sense. Not even Prometheus or Epimetheus or Atlas appear? Ugh!
 

Alejandro

Active Member
I did say no less than 3, 025 players. Ergo, I was not discluding the non-Titans. I just did not have the numbers for the non-Titans, so could not fit them into the equation.
I know, I know :) I'z juss making an emphasis :cool:
Well, that's just misleading, then. Why call it Clash of the Titans if there are no Titans? Makes absolutely no sense. Not even Prometheus or Epimetheus or Atlas appear? Ugh!
I believe the makers of the first movie meant "Titans" to be understood in the more modern English sense of the term, which is basically anything or anyone of enormous size, strength, power or intellect: pretty much the same way in which the ship Titanic was so named just to mean Man, this boat is huge! (so it may just as well have been called the Gigantic), as opposed to any particular reference to the original Greek characters. Same reason, I imagine, it was okay to use a Scandinavian sea-monster in a movie about a Greek hero saving a Palestinian/Ethiopian princess (who is neither Palestinian or Ethiopian in either version of the movie) from an African sea-monster, since the Greek myth just calls the Ethiopian sea-monster to whom Andromeda was to be sacrificed "a sea-monster," without much more specificity than that, even by way of describing the creature. (Though in ancient vase paintings the ketea [sea-monsters] look kinda like whales, and, in modern Greek, that word means whales.) From my understanding, the Kraken is the main "Titan" in the movie.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
I disagree. Because the movie is based on Greek mythology, the characters, title, and setting(s) should all be Greek mythology based. Make sense? And anyone who is familiar with Greek mythology will have a certain expectation with such a movie, and would likely feel thoroughly misled with a title like Clash of the Titans in which there are no actual Titans as per the Greek myth definition. It also makes the viewer feel a little insulted, like the makers seem to think that we would not notice.
 

Caburus

Active Member
Very few movies follow historical accuracy, let alone mythic ones. They're fictional entertainment to make money, not academic studies. Titles are chosen to attract an audience.
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But 'Clash of the Titans' not only has no Titans in it, but even if you say titan = giant/monster, then no two of them actually clash with each other. I'm talking about the 1981 film - I've not seen the newer one. The plot line is about God/desses taking umbrage at what mortals do, and then one mortal fighting various monsters. The nearest to two 'titans' meeting is the head of Medusa opposing the Kraken, but Medusa is dead at that point.
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And as to mythstakes; although its been a while since I saw the film, I can still remember quite a few invented characters, motives and events. The biggest one for me was that it was Bellerophon who should have rode Pegasus, not Perseus. Pegasus wasn't born until after Medusa's head was struck off.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
Very few movies follow historical accuracy, let alone mythic ones. They're fictional entertainment to make money, not academic studies. Titles are chosen to attract an audience.
Of course a title is chosen to attract an audience, but it is possible to attract an audience and keep the title in the realm of the plot. There is no need to mislead.
Yes, movies are fictional entertainment, but that does not mean that a film-maker can just whip something together without doing their research; as it seems they do sometimes. My point is that no one likes inaccuracies, and the kind of people who are drawn to Greek myth based movies are generally into Greek myth; archeological movies draw in archeology fans. Ergo, assuming the film-makers want these people to see their movie, then they need to do their research and should try to avoid inaccuracies as much as possible. Because viewers do feel insulted when something isn't right, and it seems like the director, or writer, or whoever, thinks you just won't notice. Or they couldn't be bothered to get their own facts straight, which is just lazy. I'm not saying it's like an academic study, just that facts are always important, whether in fiction or non-fiction. In retrospect they do seem to be getting better ... a bit.:)
And as to mythstakes; although its been a while since I saw the film, I can still remember quite a few invented characters, motives and events.
I'm perfectly fine with new characters; there's nothing wrong with that. It is still the realm of fiction, after all. Love the "mythstakes".:D Excellent!
 

Alejandro

Active Member
But 'Clash of the Titans' not only has no Titans in it, but even if you say titan = giant/monster, then no two of them actually clash with each other. I'm talking about the 1981 film - I've not seen the newer one. The plot line is about God/desses taking umbrage at what mortals do, and then one mortal fighting various monsters. The nearest to two 'titans' meeting is the head of Medusa opposing the Kraken, but Medusa is dead at that point. ... And as to mythstakes; although its been a while since I saw the film, I can still remember quite a few invented characters, motives and events. The biggest one for me was that it was Bellerophon who should have rode Pegasus, not Perseus. Pegasus wasn't born until after Medusa's head was struck off.
Haha! "Mythstakes" is brilliant! That deserves at least 10 gold stars :). The 2010 rendition of Clash of the Titans has pretty much the same overarching plot, with brand-new characters, a couple of subtle references to the 1981 movie, and a whole truckload of new mythstakes, the one which I found most glaring being the fact that Perseus' (sort-of) girlfriend, named Io, is, like him, a monster-slaying warrior. At the end of it all, even after rescuing Andromeda from the Scandinavian [sic] monster called the Kraken, he flies off alone on his Pegasus into the sunset lonely-cowboy-in-a-spaghetti-Western-style, leaving both Io and Andromeda behind. I haven't seen the recently-released sequel Wrath of the Titans to know what became of this but how all this comes at odds with the myths is that:

1. Pegasos was one horse, not a whole breed of winged horses, although in the chronology of the mythology he does become, after a few hundred years, the father of such a breed of part dragon, part horse creatures. Also, Pegasos was born from his mother Medusa's blood some time after Perseus killed the Gorgon, so there's no way Perseus was riding Pegasos in his mission to slay Medusa. And as Caburus has pointed out, it was a different hero, Bellerophon, who used Pegasos in a completely different enterprise: the slaying of another monster called the Khimaira [Chimaera], which according to some versions was a great-great-grandchild of Medusa. A similar mythstake occurs in Disney's Hercules, which movie has Hercules riding his pet winged horse Pegasus, which was created for him from a cloud, by his father Zeus, at his birth. In the original mythology Herakles [= Hercules] did actually have a winged horse, named Arion, which could talk too, and was the son of Poseidon and Demeter, and therefore a half-brother of Pegasos.
2. Perseus married the princess Andromeda in the original mythology, and it is by her that he became the father of the rulers of Argolis, and most notably a great-grandfather of Herakles.
3. It's really weird that they chose to give the name Io to this girlfriend/sidekick of Perseus since, in the myths, Io is actually Perseus' ancestor, removed from him by eight generations!
Well, I could go on, but those're just examples.
My point is that no one likes inaccuracies, and the kind of people who are drawn to Greek myth based movies are generally into Greek myth; archeological movies draw in archeology fans. Ergo, assuming the film-makers want these people to see their movie, then they need to do their research and should try to avoid inaccuracies as much as possible.
I do get Caburus' point, though. Hollywood movies especially play fast and loose when it comes to staying true to the original story-forms, so much so that they inadvertently end up inventing their own modern mythologies, such as the fact that many people think that Medusa was a beautiful half-woman half-snake creature who wielded a bow and arrows (why would she need these!?), and turned you to stone only when her eyes glowed red, all of which elements are entirely an invention of the creature-designers on both versions of Clash of the Titans. Similarly, when Frank Miller drew & wrote his graphic novel 300, he borrowed a lot of the negative exaggerations which the ancient Greeks reported about their Persian enemies and put them into comic-book format, which ended up in a largely historically inaccurate movie with really gorgeous imagery and a lot of gung-ho dialogue about slavery and freedom (never mind the fact that the Spartans and other Greeks actually held pretty much the same views on slavery as the Persians did). I don't think that the story was all that amazing but, hey, it's entertaining, right? Same with the movie Gladiator: there was most likely no such person as the movie's main character attested to in the historical documents about the death of Emperor Commodus, who was apparently assassinated under the auspices the Roman Senate. Then again: entertainment. When it comes to mythology, though,
especially Greek mythology, I must say, I've never seen why they would need to chop and change & invent new plot-lines or characters when there are already hundreds upon hundreds of them, most of whom have such dense back-stories that a filmmaker would never ever ever run out of story material even if every year they made like 5 different TV series based on these and stuck strictly to the source narratives.

Having said all that, as a case in point, feeding back into my mention of how complex the story of the Titans' War is, I neglected to indicate that there were several (maybe a few hundred) Gigantes who fought on Kronos' side against Zeus, which is the reason that some ancient writers, most notoriously the Roman Hyginus, confuse Titanomakhia with Gigantomakhia, the latter of which occurred thousands of years after the former. Years before Titanomakhia there were also a few other Gigantes whose half-sister Rhea hired to be her bodyguards when she was pregnant with her lastborn Zeus. When they tried to prevent Kronos from attacking Rhea at the time of the child's birth, Kronos killed them all. Among the ones who might have sided with Kronos years later, in his conflict against his son, was a certain Olympos [Olympus]. One obscure myth says that Olympos raised Zeus on the island of Crete but was later killed by his foster son for having incited his brothers, other Gigantes or Titans or both, against him. It is supposedly from this giant Olympos that the Thessalian mountain where the gods set up shop derived its name, as well Zeus' title of Olympios, "Olympian," in this case meaning "Son of [the Gigantos] Olympos."
 

kingkronos

New Member
I would with the Titans, just because I want to live. The Titans were actually more powerful than the Olympians except for Zeus. And Gods weren't the kinda type that were carry and friendly,etc..... And neither were the titans.
 

Link8705

New Member
I agree that Kronus was not the best of guys. But then his worse trait, eating his children, was brought around by the fear of losing his power. If I had to pick one of the original Titanes to rule instead I would prefer to have either Koios or Oceanus. I have had an affinity with Koios as "The Inquirer" since he reflects my personality. But then, Oceanus was the only smart one during the Castration when he pretty much said, "I ain't getting in on this ****." lol.

If I had to pick I would want to choose the Titans. They had the ability to be better rulers if the oldest brother had not been selected to have the high chair. The Olympians had personalities that were too human. I mean they started the Trojan war because the goddesses were overly vain and fought over who was the most beautiful. Granted Eris started it but still.
 

Rebirth_Myth

New Member
Olympians; for even after the glory of teaming along side Zeus and by Olympus the Godz such a revered and honor a hero could ask for in a manner of speaking, not only because as a mortal man one seeks not to die but as a hero in order too live. The Olympians fight for man and for Zeus, man is the root of all evil spiritually so few of us should branch off and appease the Godz for even Zeus after winning this battle with all of Olympus at Zeus' side would restore the power unto the Titans and not claim all for himself, the titans where given the power for reasons and Zeus opposes them for a omnipotent reason even the mighty titans are blinded from.
 
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