(SHITPOST EDITION #1)
believe me, i myself have no idea why i started my very first post with this dude. probably because deep down i lacked ideas to write on this platform and just want to fill it with something; anything. for aesthetic purposes.
well. early warning: the writing that comes next will be nothing too serious or even informing like the rest of the posts around here since this one involves around my random thoughts. but if you think my rambling is amusing, feel free to continue reading and i hope you fellas enjoy it.
first of all, if we’re having this conversation about greek mythology’s gods and goddesses, especially a few years back then, i would never pick that wine dude as my favorite god — so would the majority, in this case i’m pretty confident of it. because, you see, compared to the other olympians — even some of the minor deities— dionysus is pretty much uninteresting, like he just pales and fades to the background. he is not as mighty as the big three. he doesn’t have cool symbolic weapon or meaningful contribution to any events of the story. he’s the wine god, all he does is partying and get drunk with two hangovers, probably. it seems he’s just there for… decoration? to make up for the numbers? whoa, i feel bad to write that one but it’s true. at least that’s what i thought about him when i first got into this mythology thing.
before any possible dionysus fan beats me to a bloody pulp, i will confess: yes, my first knowledge of him comes from percy jackson and the olympians by yours truly, uncle rick. perhaps the way he’s portrayed in the books did create (personal) conflicted feelings about him — he’s annoying, unsympathetic… but still not enough to hate, more like that one character who appears occasionally just to add up for some kind of comedic element — yet i do understand why he’s the way that he is; if you’re familiar with the theseus and ariadne story you’ll get what i mean and agreed that we can’t really blame him for acting like that toward the protagonists. and i don’t think dionysus has any significance or appeal when he appears later on the series. i wasn’t interested to read more about him anyway.
but then i got my hands on percy jackson’s greek gods, and there is this one chapter telling his life story. so, aside from his mother getting killed while he’s still in the womb and zeus carried him in his thigh before he’s ready to be born blah blah blah, apparently to avoid hera’s wrath zeus gives him away to a family who raised him as a girl — if i didn’t remember it wrong; sometimes a girl, sometimes a boy — and that resulted in him having gender identity issue for quite a while and the first thing that came to my mind was: omg a genderqueer god? what a way to pique my curiosity. then i found out dionysus is dubbed as the patron god of “trans, intersex and non-binary people” AND I WENT DAMN, BUDDY, DAMN… never thought i’d heard that kind of thing from mythology-related stuff. and clearly not from some god like dionysus.
(someone from twitter tweeted “dionysus will call you with the wrong name but never the wrong pronoun” and i think that’s beautiful.)
as if being a genderqueer god is not dope enough, what’s more to him is being the god of insanity. yes, you read that right, as in he could mess with your mind within the snap of a finger (or maybe he won’t need to snap a finger to do that, thanos who?). i am aware other gods do have the very same ability to some extent but with dionysus particularly placed in this area… he might possess… greater brain-wrecker power, right? breaking minds is a pretty damn serious issue and it IS terrifying. not to mention he has this all-female cult followers called the maenads who follow him around from time to time. that one god turns out to be a whole lot of something else…
oh, and in case you haven’t read the tower of nero (also from riordanverse), i’m warning you that i will write a light spoiler.
there is a specific part from the book that changed my perspective of dionysus forever. you see, there is a major character who has been suffering from ptsd for some time and unexpectedly… dionysus is the one who helped them going through it. this is me being completely honest — i did not see it coming. why dionysus, of all people? that jerk who gives zero fucks about everything? furthermore, he is a god, he isn’t supposed to bat an eye regarding non-immortals’ well-being.
but then it makes sense: after all, who is better to deal with someone who has mental illness than the god of madness? he can fix you as easily as he can destroy you.
moreover, it opened my eyes to the hints given throughout the series that dionysus possibly cares. not shown blatantly, but they are there if you pay close attention, and at the same time he IS still bitter about demigods. you can dislike people yet still have it in your heart to be concerned about their well-being, especially if you’ve been around them for long enough.
i really, really appreciate the writing of dionysus’ character for that verse. second best to apollo, i’ll say, maybe even better. i know not everyone will agree with me but that’s it. he’s a very complicated figure. perhaps still not one of the favorites but he certainly has elevated his worth in my eyes. i have greater respect for him more than any other mythology deities i’ve ever read.
dionysus is not just some random, useless wine god or a late-comer olympian god. he is just as dangerous as the rest of them.
before closing this rambling, i’d like to admit that i wanted to see more of him in any other adaptions… maybe i’ll start hunting fanfictions.
oh, a kind reminder to not misgender anyone or dionysus will melt your brain.
adios for now.
