> Greek mythology became very popular because there was a spotlight on mainland Greece, the Peloponnese, and the islands around it. The Greeks had felt a reason to change for the better. Many traders would bring new innovations like the alphabet and a simple notion of wanting to be better off than their parents before them. They believed in progress. Many ideas of thought and telling stories brought that progress.
This is an 'interesting' analysis, by which I absolutely do not mean anything close to 'correct'.
There's a lot that's strange here, I'll just pick out one example.
> wanting to be better off than their parents before them
Can you explain how this is a particular Greek thing and how it's missing from neighboring contemporary cultures? And how do you square this with, say, 'Works and Days' and the various Ages within?
It’s a prominent example of well known myth that has stood the test of time. It’s a main theme in almost every major titan, god, and hero story. If it sounds like a strange analysis, then so be it. I happen to enjoy the comparison to modern myth because it remains largely the same.
> It’s a main theme in almost every major titan, god, and hero story
I'm assuming 'it' refers to:
> wanting to be better off than their parents before them
and I'm pretty much coming up blank in terms of examples. If you're thinking of the Uranus->Chronus->Zeus sequence, that's hardly the same thing.
Cronus and Zeus were both motivated by revenge:
> But great Cronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother: “Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.”
and
> But when she was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents, Earth and starry Heaven, to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child might be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty Cronos for his own father and also for the children whom he had swallowed down.
And in fact Zeus took steps to ensure the cycle did not continue:
> Now Zeus, king of the gods, made Metis his wife first, and she was wisest among gods and mortal men. But when she was about to bring forth the goddess bright-eyed Athene, Zeus
craftily deceived her with cunning words and put her in his own belly, as Earth and starry Heaven advised. For they advised him so, to the end that no other should hold royal sway over the eternal gods in place of Zeus; for very wise children were destined to be born of her, first the maiden bright-eyed Tritogeneia, equal to her father in strength and in wise understanding; but afterwards she was to bear a son of overbearing spirit, king of gods and men. But Zeus put her into his own belly first, that the goddess might devise for him both good and evil.
(all from Theogony, https://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodTheogony.html)
Now for heroes, which ones do you mean? Not Cadmus, not Orestes, not Odysseus, not Achilles, not Bellerophon, not Hercules. Oedipus killed his father and Perseus killed his grandfather, but neither was intentional.
I think you're taking the comment too literally. It was quite an allegory in the first place, just like the myths we're talking about right now. Up to your individual interpretation.
I still believe many of the stories you list here remain relevant to my original comment (especially Uranus->Chronus->Zeus) and I'd even add a few like Prometheus, Apollo, and Jason who had motives of improving the next generation/humans/children/etc.
This is an 'interesting' analysis, by which I absolutely do not mean anything close to 'correct'.
There's a lot that's strange here, I'll just pick out one example. > wanting to be better off than their parents before them
Can you explain how this is a particular Greek thing and how it's missing from neighboring contemporary cultures? And how do you square this with, say, 'Works and Days' and the various Ages within?