Greek myth - prophecies

Some thoughts about the three different prophecies that tell of potential downfall of a divine father by his son(s), and the effects of these. What we have to keep in mind first, of course (because patriarchy), is that any daughters aren’t in the running for the cosmic throne. They can help their brothers, and thus be real threats, but they can’t take the crown themselves. This is just what we have to work with and accept for these prophecies to make sense from what the characters choose to do in response to them.

( Troublesome offspring and the prophecies that touch on them. )

Greek myth - Cheating, demigods and Ancient Greece

Perhaps some day people will remember that the reason there are so many demigods around in Greek myth is not just for ~fun and exciting adventures and hapless hubris stupidity, and because who cares about cheating lol, it’s because the people of Ancient Greece were “related” to said demigods through fictional genealogies, and thus related to their gods.

That is important! It’s pretty imperative for the most prominent families in ancient Greece!

They considered themselves related to their gods, and to be so, said gods, if they’re of a certain apparent age and thus married, because that’s what a man at a certain apparent age IS in this point in time, will have to cheat to create these offspring the real live humans are “related” to. It has nothing to do with the morality of cheating, but even if it did, in ancient Greece a married man could cheat without it being considered "bad" or him being considered a bad husband, as long as he didn't acknowledge any kids that came from it (and went to prostitutes, slaves, or mistresses).

The gods, on top of that, generally have sex with unmarried girls, outside of their father's home, which, again, makes the thing into much less of an issue. Alcmene, for example, isn't actually married yet when Zeus comes to her disguised as her (future) husband. In fact, Amphitryon is explicitly away to fulfil the task Alcmene has demanded be done before they marry, which he has succeeded at when he comes back right after Zeus leaves.

Then there is of course the divine wives' reactions (or non-reactions), to all this infidelity.

In Hera’s case she actually gets to express dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, which isn’t what a “proper” ancient greek wife was supposed to do. They're supposed to just accept it quietly, unless the husband tries to bring in illegitimate children into the house (... Like Zeus does, but that is never what Hera specifically acts against). Amphitrite, getting no real myths to herself, is presumably just a nice good wife who doesn’t express any undue dislike of her husband’s (far greater than Zeus’) escapades.

And Zeus also has the responsibility for populating the new order he’s at the head of, hence he needs to have divine children by various goddesses and nymphs. I honestly don’t think he would be the head of the pantheon if this didn’t happen. Either of the brothers would have been made the father of all these gods if it was one of the other two.

But hey, there’s two options here! Say Zeus is ace (which was where this is all coming from, seeing someone posting about "what if Zeus was asexual") and still gets to keep his throne.

Now there’s a whole lot of gods who don’t exist, and the one generation that does has to take on a lot more positions. Hera is undoubtedly pissed to fuck her husband isn’t doing what a good and proper husband should and having sex and children with her.
Hephaistos probably gets to exist still. Hera's motivation is now just “a child, any child, but I will of course still not either divorce or sully my vows”. Good luck for the rest. If we go with a version where Zeus alone is the source for Athena, she could exist as well, but that would undoubtedly make Hera all the angrier, but is also a further spur for her to have Hephaistos (I would probably go with both Hephaistos and Typhoeus as Hera's alone, here, like the Homeric Hymn to Apollo has her be.)

Presumably every demigod that isn't a child of Zeus is now sons and daughters of Poseidon, or they don’t exist at all and Greek myth only has the stories that don't involve children of Zeus and leave far less of a mark, because there’s a lot less there, now.
Or at least a number of them might still happen, especially the ones that come from Poseidon, so Theseus is presumably the one to assist in the Gigantomachy, for example.

Another number of them might still happen, but without any demigods involved (there’s a version, after all, where Danae’s uncle is the one who gets it on with her despite precautions, if I remember right, for example), so humans are still dumbfuck stupid all over the place and the Trojan war happens because the population needs to be culled, still. Achilles probably exists as-is, it's just that Zeus and Themis stop Poseidon from having sex with Thetis because of the prophecy and marries her to Peleus for that.
(The problem is Helen, who either doesn't exist, in which case you'd need another instigation for the war, or she's a daughter of Poseidon.)

Or! Zeus is not king of the gods since he can’t fulfil some of his positions and functions (both in-universe and meta-wise when it comes to what the point is of all the demigods) if he doesn’t actually fuck at all. He's instead presumably the god of rain and lightning, ruler of the sky without being king of the gods (since the nominal tri-partite rulership of the realm would still be possible).
Poseidon is now the king of the gods, Amphitrite, or more probably Hera, since Hera would undoubtedly still be the best choice to marry for someone who's the king of the gods, still getting cheated on left right and center, and a bit euclidean too, because this is Poseidon we’re talking about and he's a monsterfucker.
Absolutely no difference to the myths! Except the king of the gods really now has a truly staggering amount of children, because Poseidon in regular myth has more than Zeus does and now he’s carrying Zeus’ share of them as well. So now everyone really is related to Poseidon, and to whatever the Poseidon-fathered versions of Apollo, Hermes, Ares, etc would be like since they now exist to go on to do as usual.

The myths happen, no change. Amazing.

Greek myth - Hera and Zeus IV

Something I've been vaguely thinking about for a while, and which I vaguely incorporated into my Femslash February fic that's a Rule 63!AU for Ganymede and Zeus, is Zeus and Hera's relationship dynamic, and how it would honestly be worse if you Rule 63 them.

Now, regular Zeus and Hera are a product of the culture and time they come from, of cultural attitudes and sexual mores, which is reflected in not just their relationship, but their personalities. If you flip them completely, you just get the regular situation between them, nothing new there.

If you flip them while allowing them to keep what we do have of their personalities, even when these are at least partially coloured by gendered societal expectations and sexual mores, you get something more interesting.

Now you have a male Hera who, contrary to all cultural expectation, is monogamous but still in possession of all of female Hera's (righteous) anger over being cheated on. You also have a male Hera with far more licence to do whatever the fuck he wants in retaliation for his wife's cheating, and here is where it gets depressing.
Even if you put aside any threats of domestic violence (Zeus, for example, threatens violence both to Hera and others, but never goes through with it), Hera's favourite methods of retaliation are madness, transformations, and death, and some of these because the women need to survive to at least give birth to the children. There's no need for any such meta-textual consideration to be paid when Zeus is the one pregnant. Hera can instantly punish any mortal man or god Zeus has slept with (see, for example, Zeus killing Iasion for sleeping with Demeter, this is basically what has a high likelihood of repeatedly happening). I figure Zeus is often going to be handing babies over to their grandparents or uncles instead of their fathers.
Or, if Hera doesn't lash out any more times in this version of mythic reality than she does in regular mythic reality (which isn't actually a lot, only, like, 9-11 times), I figure Zeus herself would bear the brunt more often - probably Zeus would get repeatedly locked up? As a way to try and contain her.

As for female Zeus, again, contrary to all cultural expectation, she has a libido and wants to sleep with anyone she wishes to. In that, she would be much like Demeter. They'd probably have a lot in common, here! The problem is just that female Zeus is a woman, she is married, and as a woman, and a married woman, she has no similar freedoms as when she is male. An ancient Greek married woman was supposed, contrary to the man, to be faithful and chaste, which Zeus very clearly is not.
Why marry at all, then, you say? If we let Zeus still be the youngest/oldest, and the one who gets hidden away, she's grown up with a sense of freedom and responsibility, and she would probably want to keep as much power for herself as she can... and if that means marrying the king of the gods (because it's not like Zeus was in the running for one third of the realm or the overall kingship, as a woman), then by Heaven and Earth she will. She just probably feels she should be able to do what she wants, when the married men can do so. You don't need to keep this order of things, Hera could well now be the youngest son and hidden away on Crete, because Zeus can still be much like Demeter, but personally I like the idea better of keeping the general flow of the early myths/Zeus' birth and the general birth order.

Thinking of the children from Zeus, either Metis is now a river god instead of an Oceanid, or she's still female and we go with the version where Zeus alone engenders Athena - just with no head chopping in this version, unless that's kept for the extra wtf when Zeus as a woman very much can give birth to Athena the normal way, but perhaps, because she was created from Zeus alone, she still comes from her head? Which would still piss Hera off and off he goes to have Hephaistos, things proceed as normal there.
I'd honestly only switch Hera and Zeus in terms of gender/sex here, so Persephone will get the distinction of being a magical f/f preg baby, because by god, why not? Demeter is Zeus' only experience with a woman until Ganymede (because I'd keep this a same-sex relationship, even outside of the specific context of my femslash february fic). Persephone can of course not be given away by Zeus in this version, so Hera is her closest male relative - Hades undoubtedly goes to Hera, and since I don't see why Hera can't keep her "deity of marriage" title (because Zeus is considered one of the deities of marriage in regular Ancient Greek religion), he has double the "reason" and "rights" to give Persephone away. Only difference is that you probably get two pissed off mothers. Maybe Zeus refuses to let shit rain on top of Demeter's famine/refusing to let things grow. (Honestly though, Zeus would probably not be upset at Hades specifically as the groom, just, like Demeter, that she wasn't informed.)

Among the mortal women who would now be men that Zeus sleeps with, the only one who really presents a problem is Semele, because of the necessity of Dionysos' double-birth. You could borrow the "getting ripped apart after being born" method, and Zeus sticking whatever surviving piece back inside and baking a new baby Dionysos from that, which would work nicely and easily allow Semele to be male. If we keep closer to the basics and ignore Orphic variations, Dionysos could always be our second miracle f/f preg baby (I mean, why not), and you still get the saving of infant Dionysos from Semele's burning corpse after Hera tricks Semele into asking Zeus to come to her as she does while having sex with her husband.