A Touch of Malice (Hades & Persephone #3)(132)
Theseus and Helen
Maybe some of you are surprised by Helen’s trajectory, so I’ll explain here. There is a myth where Theseus and Pirithous abduct daughters of Zeus. Theseus chooses Helen of Troy, while, as we know, Pirithous chooses Persephone. The other famous myth is the one where Paris falls in love with Helen and he takes her from Sparta to Troy beginning a war.
Depending on readings and interpretations of the myth, I just felt like Helen might be someone who looks for the best way to the top. After all, she is a Spartan woman. She is strong and capable and intelligent. She knows how to use her beauty as a tool and her mind as a weapon. Given my impression of her, you can understand her trajectory in Malice.
The Monsters
There are a lot of monsters mentioned in this book aside from the Minotaur: the hydra, Lamia, Ceto, and Arachne. I just wanted to take a moment to give a short overview of each.
The hydra resided in Lerna Lake, which you will recognize as one of the entrances to the Underworld.
I chose to have this monster in the Underworld because it’s very venomous—additionally, the monster was eventually killed by Heracles as part of his labors.
Lamia was the Queen of Libya. As I stated in the book, she had an affair with Zeus which resulted in her being cursed by Hera to lose all her children. The myths vary on if they were killed or if they were kidnapped, as well as how she eventually came to begin to devour children. Whatever the case, she did go insane and began to kidnap and eat children. Zeus gave her the power to remove her eyes —apparently to help alleviate her sleepless (Hera also cursed her with insomnia). He also gifted her with prophecy, which, I suppose is a gift all child-eating monsters deserve?
Ceto is a primordial goddess and is Queen of Sea Monsters. She also gave birth to a lot of monsters including the Gorgons and the Graeae who you might recall are the three sisters who share an eye and a tooth between them.
Last, I mention Arachne. She features in Ovid’s Metamorphoses which I quote at the beginning of this book. She was a woman who challenge Athena to a weaving contest. The reason I wanted to mention her is that Arachne chooses to weave scenes that illustrate the misdeeds of the gods, much as I choose to do in these books. Anyway, the rest of the story goes that Arachne’s weaving is flawless and this enrages Athena. The versions of how Arachne became a spider vary, but she is transformed none-the-less. In the book, I mention Arachne’s pit, which I like to think of as a punishment in Tartarus.
Miscellaneous
Okeanos and his twin Sandros are made up ‘modern demi-gods’ but they were based off another set of twin sons of Zeus, Amphion and Zethus. I did not use Amphion and Zethus as modern demi-gods because I already reference a myth that is sort of connected to them that happened in antiquity and that is the death Amphion and Niobe’s children by the hand of Apollo and Artemis.
Apeliotes is an actual god—the God of the Southeast Wind. It’s kinda of hilarious because he was thought to bring refreshing rain. I made up the two children, Thales and Callista, in the book, though.
I briefly mention Hecuba who was the wife of King Priam. There are a couple myths about her that all end with her becoming a dog, which is one of Hecate’s symbols. At the point of this book, Hecuba is ready to rest as a soul in the Underworld, and so Hecate finds Nefeli, who she describes as a woman who begged for the goddess to take her pain away after she lost a loved one. This is a direct reference to one of the Hecuba myths in which she watches her son die and goes mad. After which, she was transformed into a dog.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scarlett St. Clair lives in Oklahoma. She has a Master’s degree in Library Science and Information Studies. She is obsessed with Greek Mythology, murder mysteries, love, and the afterlife.
If you are obsessed with these things, then you’ll like her books.
For information on books, tour dates, and content, please visit www.ScarlettStClair.com