Netflix’s ‘Kaos’: A fundamental information to the Greek myths and figures within the sequence

For those who’ve truly learn The Iliad, Metamorphoses, The Aeneid, or The Odyssey; devour myth-inspired fiction like Circe; performed each minute of Murderer’s Creed: Odyssey and Hades; and recurrently quote Disney’s Hercules, you will watch Netflix’s Kaos with severe information (and doubtless alone, like me). However when you’ve been elsewhere doing different issues, don’t be concerned. As ill-fated narrator Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) says initially of the present, “Some of you may have heard of me. Don’t worry if you haven’t.” 

In Charlie Covell’s Greek mythology-based sequence, Prometheus provides you a one-liner introduction to every determine and placement, however the present’s not Greek Mythology 101 by any means — there’s narrative development afoot and whatnot. So if you would like somewhat extra context to get probably the most out of Kaos, this is a fundamental (and I imply it) information, from the mighty gods to the Earthly human heroes. 

For the file, my sources listed below are Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, Barry B. Powell’s Classical Fantasy, Stephen Fry’s Mythos, Mary Beard’s Girls and Energy, Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s The Iliad, Charlotte Higgins’ Greek Myths, Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths, Liv Albert’s Greek Mythology, and David Raeburn’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Yeah, I dug out my uni textbooks for this. 

Reader beware, there are SPOILERS in right here for Kaos.

The gods and legendary beings

Zeus (Jeff Goldblum)

The king of the gods and massive cheese of the climate. The sequence consistently incorporates Zeus’ signature weapon, the lightning bolt. It is sewn into his clothes and linens, and you will spy an enormous bolt below glass in one of many palace rooms on Olympus. Kaos additionally makes various references to Zeus’ infidelity and fixed impregnating of human girls, notably leaving out the fixed assault factor for the present (similar goes for Poseidon and Hades).

Hera (Janet McTeer)

The queen of the gods; goddess of girls’s sexuality, fertility, and marriage; and Zeus’ spouse (and sister, as Kaos reminds us). Hera holds a grudge and can usually search brutal vengeance in opposition to Zeus’ lovers, however she accommodates multitudes. As Fry writes in Mythos, “It is easy to dismiss Hera as a tyrant and a bore — jealous and suspicious, storming and ranting like the very picture of a scorned harridan wife (one imagines her hurling china ornaments at feckless minions)…” Fortunately, McTeer provides Hera extra to do than throw decorations at employees.

However what’s with the bees? Fry additionally writes of the Greek fantasy about how the bee obtained its sting: At Zeus and Hera’s marriage ceremony, a contest for “the best and most original wedding dish” noticed a small, buzzing, winged attendee, Melissa, current them with honey. For her efforts, Zeus bestowed her with a merciless sting that will kill her if used. Beautiful marriage ceremony.

Poseidon (Cliff Curtis)

God of the ocean and earthquakes, Zeus’ brother, additionally Hera’s brother. Guidelines the oceans, usually depicted in artwork with a trident. In Kaos, Hera and Poseidon are lovers, however I imagine this can be a inventive addition to their tales separate from the myths; in fantasy, he is married to sea nymph Amphitrite. Maybe she’ll flip up in Season 2.

Hades and Persephone (David Thewlis and Rakie Ayola)

The king and queen of the Underworld. Zeus’ brother Hades was assigned to run Hell after the Olympians gained a serious battle over the Titans (Zeus obtained the sky, Poseidon the ocean, Hades the Underworld). In Classical Fantasy, Powell writes of Hades: “He commanded legions of demons. A pitiless master, he never willingly allowed any who came to him to return to the land of the living.” Persephone, in fantasy, was kidnapped by Hades and tricked into being trapped there with a tempting supply of six pomegranate seeds — so she should spend six months of the 12 months within the Underworld, six months on Earth. In Kaos, Covell rewrites this example as a story of precise love between Hades and Persephone, and the parable as one in every of dangerous PR unfold by Hera. “Every kid on Earth, when they learn about the Underworld, they think I’m there against my will,” Ayola’s Persephone says in Kaos, explaining she’s additionally allergic to pomegranates.

Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan)

The occasion fiend of Olympus, Dionysus is the god of wine, hedonism, pleasure, and insanity. The title “Dennis” apparently derives from what you name a follower of Dionysus, and it is notably the title of the kitten the god adopts in Kaos.

As Prometheus mentions within the sequence, Dionysus’ mom was mortal, a Theban princess named Semele whose destiny was fairly terrible in Greek fantasy. Powell writes that she slept with Zeus showing “in all his glory, burning Semele to a crisp, Hermes saved the fetus and carried it to Zeus, who sewed it into his thigh. Three months later he removed the stitches, and Dionysus was born again.” (Stick with me?) In Kaos, Semele was changed into a bee offscreen by Hera (the destiny of all Zeus’ human mistresses within the present,) however Semele is certainly burned by an offended Zeus within the Season 1 finale.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus can be the husband of Ariadne — and within the closing episode of Kaos, it turns into clear Dionysus has noticed his future mortal love. We go away him standing outdoors the palace at Knossos. So, possibly Season 2? 

Prometheus (Stephen Dillane)

Our humble narrator, a bearded Titan suspended in shackles from a cliff face, is Prometheus (performed by Stephen Dillane). He and Zeus made people out of clay, then he pissed off his stormy pal by giving them fireplace, so he is doomed to have his liver pecked out by an eagle day-after-day. Although it is a legendary transfer by Covell, Prometheus’ love for Charon is barely within the present.

Medusa (Debi Mazar)

Regardless of appearances, Medusa has a tragic story in Greek fantasy. Often known as a Gorgon with snake hair, her story is greatest advised by Beard in Girls and Energy: “There are many ancient variations in Medusa’s story. One famous version has her as a beautiful woman raped by Poseidon in a temple of Athena, who promptly transformed her, as punishment for the sacrilege (punishment to her, note), into a monstrous creature with a deadly capacity to turn to stone anyone who looked at her face. It later became the task of the hero Perseus to kill this woman, and he cut her head off using his shiny shield so as to avoid having to look directly at her.”

In Kaos, she’s center administration within the Underworld. Justice for Medusa. 

Charon (Ramon Tikaram) 

Charon is the ferryman to the Underworld, bringing the spirits of the lifeless throughout the River Styx (named for “Hate”) and Acheron (or “Woe). Fry writes, “There the grim and silent Charon held out his hand to obtain his cost for ferrying the souls throughout the Styx. If the lifeless had no cost to supply they must wait on the financial institution 100 years earlier than the disobliging Charon consented to take them.” Folks like Eurydice and Caeneus in Kaos haven’t money to pay Charon (their loved ones stole the coins they were buried with), so they’re sent to the Centre for the Unresolved.

Charon’s crew in Kaos has regular-sized sniffer dog versions of the great three-headed dog of the Underworld, Cerberus. Plus, Charon speaks of the Scylla in the series, a sea creature that chomps on Orpheus’ fellow Underworld adventurer. In myth, the Scylla is a beast who was once a sea deity — but pissed off the sorceress Circe in some renditions of the tale. Also, Charon’s parents are Erebus (personification of darkness) and Nyx (goddess of night), so his emo tendencies are hereditary. 

Mashable High Tales

The Furies (Natalie Klamar, Cathy Tyson, and Donna Banya)

The trio often called The Furies (additionally known as The Erinyes) exist to punish evildoers. Referred to as Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, they cruise round in Kaos exacting justice, although it won’t seem that manner. In Mythology, Hamilton writes, “The Greek poets thought of them chiefly as pursuing sinners on the Earth. They were inexorable, but just.” Kaos fortunately leaves out The Furies origin story: They’re mentioned to have sprung from the blood on the ground after the primordial god of the sky Ouranos was castrated by his personal son Cronos. Yikes.

The Fates (Sam Buttery, Suzy Eddie Izzard, and Ché)

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the three prophecy-makers of Kaos, are identified collectively as The Fates. They seem to be a key trio in Greek mythology, writing prophecies and declaring that “knowing is our whole thing.” As Graves writes in The Greek Myths, Clotho is the “spinner,” Lachesis (or Lachy in Kaos) is the “measurer,” and Atropos is one “who cannot be turned or avoided” — yeah, they wield the badass scissors of destiny. As we see in Kaos, Zeus’ relationship with The Fates is tempestuous. Graves writes, “Zeus, who weighs the lives of men and informs the Fates can, it is said, change his mind and intervene to save whom he pleases, when the thread of life, spun on Clotho’s spindle, and measured by the rod of Lachesis, is about to be snipped by Atropos’s shears.” However he additionally writes that “Zeus himself is subject to the Fates.”

Polyphemus (Joe McGann)

The cyclops Polyphemus comes within the type of an eye-patched bar proprietor known as Poly in Kaos. Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon and the Oceanid Thoosa, and his massive position is available in The Odyssey, when he captures Odysseus’ crew in his Sicilian cave once they discover it stuffed with sheep. In Metamorphoses, Ovid describes him as an “inhuman host, who made his bloody feasts / On mangl’d members of his butcher’d guests.” Yeah, he eats a few of them, then falls asleep (however not earlier than blocking the exit with a boulder). Odysseus outwits Polyphemus by getting him pissed and blinding him, and the crew tie themselves to the bellies of the sheep within the cave, who then stroll on outta there. None of this occurs in Kaos, which is an actual disgrace.

The people

Eurydice and Orpheus (Aurora Perrineau and Killian Scott)

Preferring “Riddy” within the sequence, Eurydice is the main woman of the artist-beloved Greek fantasy by which she dies on her marriage ceremony day. Because the story goes, minor god Aristaeus tried to assault Eurydice; she ran, stepped on a toxic snake who bit her, and died. It is terrible. Her grieving husband Orpheus (a man with musical superpowers and/or a very good lyre from solar god Apollo) travels to the Underworld to get her again. Graves writes that Orpheus “not only charmed the ferryman Charon, the Dog Cerberus, and the three Judges of the Dead with his plaintive music, but temporarily soothed the tortures of the damned.” This man should be good.

Having gained over Hell together with his tunes, Orpheus makes a cope with Hades (Higgins writes that it was Persephone’s concept) to play her out of there so long as he would not look again. Spoiler: he does. Eurydice is a passive soul misplaced perpetually within the fantasy, not like within the sequence, the place she’s given her personal company within the Underworld and allowed to return to Earth (due to Persephone).

Caeneus (Misia Butler)

In Kaos, Caeneus is a trans man who needed to go away his residence with the feminine warrior group the Amazons, however was then murdered by them, declared a “traitor” to their tribe. It’s an terrible, TERF-driven story of hate. In fantasy, Caeneus is certainly a trans man, however not of the Amazons. Graves writes that Caeneus, a nymph, requested to have his intercourse modified by his lover Poseidon. 

Ariadne and Theseus (Leila Farzad and Daniel Lawrence Taylor)

Two figures inherently interlinked in Greek mythology, Ariadne and Theseus are most famously related to the story of the Minotaur — the identical goes for them in Kaos. The daughter of King (not President) Minos, Ariadne would not have a twin in Greek mythology, however her half-brother is the Minotaur — extra on that beneath. (Kaos names her brother Glaucus, for a sea god.) Theseus, typically known as the son of Poseidon, is recruited to slay the Minotaur within the labyrinth beneath Minos’ palace at Knossos. 

In Kaos, Ariadne has a crush on Theseus, however he is in love with Nax (or Astyanax). In Greek mythology, Theseus abandons Ariadne on an island known as Naxos after she helps him slay the Minotaur (impolite). Within the fantasy, Ariadne ultimately marries Dionysus — which the present signifies within the closing episode is the place subsequent season would possibly head. 

Pasiphaë (Shila Ommi)

Often known as Pas in Kaos, the First Woman of Krete is King Minos’ spouse in fantasy. Pasiphaë is definitely the mom of the Minotaur — one thing Covell cleverly adapts for Kaos. Hamilton describes the Minotaur as “half bull, half human, the offspring of Minos’ wife Pasiphaë and a wonderfully beautiful bull. Poseidon had given this bull to Minos in order that he should sacrifice it to him, but Minos could not bear to slay it and had kept it for himself. To punish him, Poseidon had made Pasiphaë fall madly in love with it.” Bing, bang, increase, you have obtained a Minotaur — and a king set to imprison the beast with the assistance of an inventor…

Daedalus (Mat Fraser)

The nice inventor, designer, and architect, Daedalus is on the beck and name of King Minos. Hamilton writes in regards to the labyrinth he was commissioned to construct to comprise the Minotaur as “a place of confinement for him from which escape was impossible.” Sadly, when Daedalus and his son Icarus had been imprisoned within the labyrinth, Daedalus’ escape plan of constructed wings went awry when Icarus flew too near the solar. That is talked about in Kaos, however within the present, Daedelus says Icarus constructed the wings to flee the palace after realising his father’s position with serving to Minos imprison the Minotaur. Within the fantasy, a gaggle of younger Athenians had been sacrificed to the Minotaur within the maze on the common, so Theseus is named in to kill the Minotaur (Ariadne helps him, with Daedalus’ help). In Kaos, it is Minos who kills the Minotaur, his personal son, in an effort to thwart his personal prophecy.

Hecuba and Andromache (Gilian Cally and Amanda Douge)

The 2 girls summoned to President Minos’ palace in episode 3 are Hecuba and Andromache. They’re probably the most highly effective girls of the Trojans, each enslaved after the Trojan Struggle — in Kaos, they’re residing in the identical abysmal circumstances with out rights as the remainder of the Trojan refugees. Andromache is a Theban princess married to the Trojan prince Hector, who dies by Achilles. Their son, Astyanax, options in Kaos as a Trojan insurgent and Theseus’ lover. In fantasy, he is thrown from the partitions of Troy as a child (in Kaos, although he makes it to maturity, he is executed and hung from the Knossos palace wall). Hecuba is the Queen of Troy, married to King Priam, and Hector’s mom.

Nax (Daniel Monks)

In addition to Hecuba and Andromache, there’s a whole lot of Trojans in Kaos, reeling from the occasions of the Trojan Struggle. They’re branded by the road on their nostril within the sequence and viciously persecuted by the Kretians. Astyanax, a Trojan prince and son of Andromache and Hector, is named Nax within the sequence, compelled to stay with the Trojans within the crumbling refugee suburb of Krete known as “Troytown,” with no residents rights. He is Theseus’ lover in Kaos and chargeable for the literal shit pile on the gods’ statue. He is the chief of the Trojan Seven, as they’re known as within the sequence, a vigilante group demonstrating in opposition to oppression by the Kretians — they usually’re publicly executed by the president. It is a callback to the kids thrown from the partitions of Troy by the Greek military through the sacking of town.

Cassandra (Billie Piper)

A prophet and princess of Troy, Cassandra was given the reward of prophecy by a thirsty Apollo — together with visions of the entire Trojan Struggle and horse deal (Billie Piper’s character mentions this in episode 1). Cassandra would not go on a date with the god or one thing (ugh, entitled males), so Apollo made certain nobody would imagine her premonitions. “She shrieked and shouted out through all the city,” Homer writes in The Iliad of Cassandra warning the Trojans in regards to the coming violence. Seems the Historic Greeks already knew the agony of girls not being believed.

Hippolyta and Crixus (Selina Jones and Slavko Sobin)

In Kaos, Ariadne and Theseus attend the Munis, a Mad Max-style cage struggle to the dying. The fighters are named Carl Crixus of Sparta (named for the gladiator from Gaul) and Hippolyta (named for the Queen of the feminine warriors often called the Amazons, and daughter of Ares’ god of battle, who’s related to the story of the 12 Labors of Heracles). In Kaos, Hippolyta’s additionally the one who murdered Caeneus.

The places

Mount Olympus

Dwelling of the gods. That is all you want.

The Underworld

There is a lot of geography lined in Kaos in relation to the Underworld. When Eurydice first arrives, she’s placed on the massive ferry throughout the River Styx (see above on Charon for extra about that). Then, the Asphodel port in Kaos is called for the Asphodel Fields, meadows of ghostly flowers within the first space of the Underworld, as Graves describes, “the place souls of heroes keep with out goal among the many throngs of much less distinguished lifeless that twitter like bats.” 

Then there’s the River Lethe, which also appears in Kaos as the body of water people swim across to get to The Frame. In myth, the Lethe (named for “forgetfulness”) is a river in the Underworld in which people can quite literally wipe their memories. Hades and Persephone’s palace is another region of the Underworld, and in Kaos, it’s a mid-century modern testament to middle management. 

One thing Kaos doesn’t mention is that the Underworld has a Good Place and a Bad Place: Elysium and Tartarus. Maybe Season 2?

Krete and the Palace of Minos at Knossos

In fantasy, King Minos’ nice palace at Knossos on Krete was residence to a subterranean labyrinth the place a Minotaur roamed — and it is the place a lot of the motion in Kaos is about. See above for the story of Ariadne and Theseus.

Villa Thrace

Eurydice and Orpheus’ residence in Krete in Kaos is called for Thrace, a area north of historic Greece related to Orpheus.

Panopeus

The nightclub we meet Dionysus in, seen in episode 1, is called Panopeus. In accordance with Fry, Panopeus may have been the place the place Zeus and Prometheus determined to supply the clay to construct people: “History does not agree on exactly where Prometheus and Zeus went to find the best clay for realising the plan. Early sources, like the traveller Pausanias in the second century AD, claimed that Panopeus in Phonics was the place.”

The Cave

Although it is mentioned that the doorway to the Underworld was, in truth, a cave, in Kaos, the most important correlation between Greek mythology and this dive bar venue is its proprietor. Test the Polyphemus part above for the story of Odysseus and Poly.

Tyndareus Gasoline

In Kaos, you will see a petroleum station known as Tyndareus Gasoline. It is named for the king of Lacedaemon who married Aetolian princess Leda, who was impregnated by Zeus within the type of a swan, leading to Helen of Troy (artists love Leda). Tyndareus and Leda additionally had Clytemnestra, who married King Agamemnon, the massive Greek commander within the Trojan Struggle. A number of Trojan connections right here. 

Notable point out: The cereal aisle

Shout-out to the set designers of Kaos, who’ve stocked a complete cereal aisle stuffed with Greek mythology references:

• Gaea’s Granola: a wholegrain cereal named after the goddess of Earth.

• Achilles’ Heels: foot-shaped cereal for the Greek hero whose mom missed a spot when she dipped him in immortality.

• Spartan Crunch: Made with 10-percent Olympus honey, a cereal named for the traditional enemy of Athens.

watch: Kaos is now streaming on Netflix.