THE COMPARATIVE INITATIVE
How does the Depiction of Gods and Monsters in Wrath of the Titans compare to the descriptions of Zeus, Ares and Kronos? During the film, the viewer is shown depictions of what the gods and titans look like. In different part of mythology, the gods are seen as just object to worship, or the titans take the form of a natural disaster related to their attribute. I also want to cover the description of mythological accounts of the gods such as their attitude or personality, and how modern representation of them is also depicted within the film. This is significant, because where the directors for the movie got information about Greek mythology can greatly impact the realism of what they were trying to portray. Since the gods have so many different views of them, there is no right answer to how they truly behaved and acted, so establishing which depiction of gods and titans are shown in modern film will help accurately establish where key differences are in different ancient texts and how the films could take on different genres.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
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After analyzing the film, I found that the creators could have taken the depiction of the Olympians and the Titans based on Hesiod’s Theogony. The figures that I was focusing on were Zeus, Ares and Cronus. Throughout the movie though, I found attributes in the representation of both Olympians and Titan that were from other Greek myths as well. For example, Cronus in Hesiod’s Theogony, is the youngest child of the primordial Gaia and Uranus, has a human form and in other stories that are mentioned, there is mention that the Titan is a massive walking elemental/humanoid form that just causes nothing but destruction. During the movie Cronus was depicted as this giant volcanic monster of destruction with seemingly no intelligence but was seeking out his son Zeus to enact his revenge for being banished to the depths of Tartarus. Although this Titans looked hardly human at all, Zeus looked like an old human man with a white beard, lightning bolts and shining bright armor. To any mortal, the Olympians take a closer resemblance to the creatures the Titans created. So there was a blend of mythology to try and capture all the different forms of Zeus that are worshipped, different accounts of Mythology, primordial beings and descriptions of them from various sources. Hesiod, Theogony 126 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) "She [Gaia, Earth] lay with Ouranos (Uranus, Sky)and bare deep-swirling Okeanos (Oceanus), Koios (Coeus) and Krios (Crius) and Hyperion and Iapetos (Iapetus), Theia and Rheia, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoibe (Phoebe) and lovely Tethys. After them was born Kronos (Cronus), the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire."
When it came to the Olympians, there was the close resemblance to a human form, as I mentioned about Zeus earlier. Ares in fact seems true to his nature, where he is clad in armor, with greaves, breastplate, and a hateful attitude/personality. He resembled the worst emotions and nature that a Greek soldier could show on the battlefield, but as a God, he was a force of nature when fighting opponents and fighting the other Gods. Ares seems to be vengeful to Zeus and his descendants because Ares is not generally liked among the Olympians. I believe that the directors chose to portray to Gods as human figures to allow the viewers and people that were the citizens in the movie that the Gods were more like them than the dangerous monsters, they had to fight during the Titanomachy, or even during the movie when Cronus is causing destruction everywhere he goes.
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