The Let's Play Archive

God of War

by kalonZombie

Part 22: resurgam40 follows it up.

Night10194 posted:

I remember there being one myth where a king tries to sacrifice his most valued possession to the Gods when they come over for dinner, so he kills his son and feeds him to them without informing them. When they find out, King Tantalis (I believe that was the name, I'm sure the more knowledgeable will correct me) is sent straight to the mercy of the Furies and he's the guy who can never reach the fruit above his head or the water at his waist forever, while the Gods immediately returned his son to life and gave him gifts for his trouble. I don't think the Greeks were generally keen on human sacrifice, though I'm sure it's come up in a couple myths.

Yeah... I can't remember off the top of my head if human sacrifice ever comes up (when it comes to killing mortals, gods prefer to do that themselves), but killing kinfolk- your parents or children- is always, always, ALWAYS a no-no. It goes back to hospitality and the importance of a place of safety in ancient times; even back then, the early civilizations knew that you have to have the place where you'll come to no harm and people who'll never stick a knife in your back, so any breach of that idea of home was considered profane. That's what the furies are for, after all: punishing those that destroy the hearth.

e: What the hell am I talking about? Iphigenia! The friggin' Trojan War! Agamemmnon is told by the gods that he has to sacrifice Ipheginia to the gods to get the winds blowing to sail to Troy and after much handwringing by all those involved, she sacrifices herself. Euripides even made a play about it! Sorry, folks, early morning...