As a child and princess to the mighty Xonian empire, Sylvia, daughter of Zeus and Leda would listen to the tales of her father fighting against Cronus and the mighty titans. Sylvia was inspired by these stories and wanted to lead her people to fight against the oppressors of Blightvale that had been terrorizing her nation for centuries. The people of Xonia would often describe her as a natural born leader, revolutionist, and an extremely intelligent and independent woman. Sylvia spent her days fighting for the weak, and giving to the poor. However, her adoptive father and King of Xonia was a weak minded individual who wanted nothing more than to marry Sylvia off for political reasons. Masses of suitors would flood into the Xonian empire each day in an attempt for Sylvia’s hand in marriage.
The First Prince of Blightvale was the most prominent suitor that would pressure Sylvia’s father with Blightvale’s military might to hand Sylvia to him. Sylvia despised her father’s intentions and wanted to live a free life with a person that she believed to be worthy of her. Thus, she devised a plan to get rid of the suitors by capitalizing on their reliance towards public image. She used her bold and cunning ability that matches the likes of Penelope as she used her close connections with the bakery, and messengers as a tool to spread false information about the suitors. She accomplished this by telling the owners of all the bakery and all messengers to provide a small note to every man, woman and child that came to buy and receive food rations within her city. This small note would act as a daily newspaper to inform people of the current affairs of the empire and the most updated information. On every note she would include false information regarding the suitors that were heavily pressuring the Xonian empire for her hand in marriage. One by one as the citizens are eating their bread and food, they read about the rumours and fake information that Sylvia had crafted. She used her affinity with eagles, who were natural born predators to spy, and spread around these notes to the public that were made of complete false information. The First Prince of Blightvale became embarrassed and was forcefully removed from his position as the falsified information of his mass murdering of peasants and torturing of women surfaced. Sylvia laughs to herself as she states “The more powerful they are, the harder they fall”. Suitor after suitor came and these rumours would spread like wildfire leaving these powerful men hurrying back to their respective territories.
Until one day a young man by the name of Aslox who had no political power or wealth like the others showed up. He was a man who was the epitome of honesty and virtue. Sylvia was bewildered and as time passed, began to develop feelings for Aslox. Eventually, Sylvia married Aslox and they lived by the countryside away from all the royal responsibilities that had plagued Sylvia’s mind since she was young. However all was not well, as Hera was displeased with Zeus' other children being happily married and decided to separate the two at all costs. Each and everyday at the very first peak of sunrise, Hera would whisper omens and false rumours regarding Sylvia’s affairs and scandals, Hera was manipulating Aslox’s every action. Slowly Aslox’s became paranoid and crazy to the point where he no longer was the man he once was. Both Sylvia and Aslox decided to cancel the marriage and go their own paths.
Analysis:
In this myth, I seek to provide the origins and aetiology of the spread of news, or much rather the first instance of a newspaper. I use the myth to describe this phenomena of whoever has control of the newspaper, press and media outlets get to control the flow of information and what information is being put out to the public. These information networks are very common in modernity as they take on the form of social medias, websites, and advertisements. The vast amount of data and technologies being used to track, monitor, and study human behaviour using the data taken from these media platforms show the importance of information and the dangers of disinformation. In antiquity, these information networks were much simpler and took on the form of newspapers, slips, rumours passed around by word of mouth and etc. Furthermore, food is essential and Sylvia used human’s basic need of buying food, and the peasant’s inability to provide food for themselves to force people into taking the food and reading about the false information. As described in Aeschines’ work Against Timarchus, he mentioned “the man who earns his daily bread by working at a trade” (Aeschines Against Timarchus, 1.27). This goes on to further describe the conditions and reliance on bread and foods from an ancient Greek perspective.
In contemporary times we witness the rise of both misinformation and disinformation that has expanded through multiple different media outlets. The spread of information has been greatly hastened through the development of technology, ease of obtaining information and exponential increase in population. The rise of search engines such as Google, or social media applications that provide a platform to connect the world together such as Twitter or Facebook, has created a society that has easy access to information and updated data instantly. What separates misinformation and disinformation is intent, disinformation contains the intent to which one is actively wanting to spread false information while misinformation is often unintentional. In a society where misinformation and disinformation is more common than ever, I wanted to encapsulate this through the creation of a modern twist of a princess attempting to find true love and freedom from her responsibilities while being chased by suitors who want nothing but her beauty and political power that is commonly told in antiquity.
We see in many cases where women are trapped under the guise of traditional roles and stereotypes that are expected of women. Greek mythology provides some exceptions including Penelope and Clytemnestra that we have discussed in lecture. These women showed great intelligence and craftiness that is not commonly found in mythology or traditional literature, to get what they want. Sylvia in this case, was a fantasy character that I came up with and took inspiration from Penelope. Penelope’s story was extremely similar and useful as she showed her cleverness through her weaving scheme (Homer, Odyssey 23). Penelope promised the suitors she would choose a husband once her shroud is finished but would unravel all of her work at night (Homer, Odyssey 23). Similarly, Sylvia also had a very crafty response in eliminating possible suitors through the use of disinformation. She was quick and intelligent to realize the weaknesses of her suitors being that they were extremely reliant on a positive public image to retain their power and political positions. However with a shattered reputation and a negative public opinion on certain political figures, they would have no choice but to leave the empire and give up on occupying a political position. This is especially prevalent in the suitors as they were all wealthy and powerful individuals who relied on this sense of political power. Thus disinformation was a powerful tool in her arsenal as she would spread false information to give a negative public portrayal of her suitors. Furthermore her inheritance was the power of Zeus and natural affinity towards one of Zeus’ animals being the eagle. The eagle was a natural predator and could fly at extremely fast speeds. Her use of the eagle is what allowed the falsified information to spread much faster. With her reputation as an extremely benevolent princess, many are likely to believe these rumours. A major reason as to why I did not choose Hermes as her parents was because although Hermes is known to be a messenger, being the daughter of Zeus and Leda made her siblings with Helen. Helen of Troy was often regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world and this added to the appeal of many suitors wanting to take her hand in marriage and lusting over her (Homer, Iliad 2).
The major plot twist of this myth comes with the introduction of Hera and the aetiology of divorce. Hera being the goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus did not like how happily married Sylvia was. Many mythological literature in antiquity describe Hera’s jealousy and Zeus’ indifference in having affairs (Madeleine, What was Zeus and Hera’s Relationship Like). This is one of the many cases where Hera sets out for her revenge against Sylvia for being happily married and decides to target her husband Aslox through a common tactic that she uses. Hera often likes to get inside a person’s head and make them act abnormally. The most famous example of this is the story of Hercules and his twelve labours (Hesiod, Theogony 327). Hercules was the child of Zeus and Alcmene and ever since he was born Hera had set up multiple obstacles and attempted to get rid of him (Staff, The Life and Times of Hercules). She started with sending two snakes to strangle him as a baby and then later on decided to make Hercules kill his wife and child that had caused him to perform the twelve labours as a method of redemption (Seneca, Hercules Furens 942). I took inspiration from the story of Hercules and in particular Hera’s obsession in making the livelihood of Zeus’ other children miserable (Staff, The Life and Times of Hercules). I wanted to incorporate her classic method of getting into the object’s head and making them perform terrible crimes. Furthermore I wanted Hera's influence to reflect the theme of disinformation and what better revenge than beating them using their own tricks. Sylvia who was especially clever with her utility in spreading falsified information would end up helpless when her own husband fell for Hera’s whispering rumours of Sylvia’s infidelity. This would ultimately create a rift between the couple and end the relationship altogether. Overall this represents a recurring theme of how it does not matter how clever and intelligent you are, the Gods and Goddesses will always come out on top. This is especially true as Hera is known for her jealousy and was reluctant to let go of a grudge when it has something to do with her husband Zeus (Madeleine, What was Zeus and Hera’s Relationship Like).
Bibliography
Aeschin, Against Timarchus 1.27
Homer, Odyssey 23
Hesoid, Theogony 327
Homer, Illiad 2
Seneca, Hercules Furens 942
Staff, Perseus Project. The Life and Times of Hercules, 2008.
Madeleine, Theoi. What was Zeus and Hera’s Relationship Like, 2019.
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