For Thought...On Greek Mythological Characters....

Let's face it - Zeus has it pretty good. He's the king of the Greek gods, he can shoot lightning and control thunder, and can have pretty much whatever he wants. But from a literary perspective, is he a good character? I don't mean "good" in the sense of moral good, which Zeus often wasn't. But was Zeus what you would call a well-rounded character? A big push in literature classes, and a challenge for the authors of famous novel series is to create characters that feel real and have depth, even if those characters aren't real or live in fantastical environments. Some might say then that Zeus could qualify for one of these characters. Sure, anyone would get bored if Zeus purely ruled from Olympus and all his stories entirely revolved around his amazing power that never did wrong or failed. This isn't the case though for him. Zeus had plenty of human flaws for a god. He was notoriously unfaithful to his wife, Hera, who often found out about the affairs (he wasn't crafty enough to even hide half of them) and ended up responding with severe backlashses sometimes. And Zeus wasn't only cheating on the high goddess Hera for another mighty and respectable goddess. His affairs reached even regular, plain mortal women. In fact, this is how Hercules came to be, and he was considered one of the greatest heroes of all time. Everyone knows Hercules has unmatched strength amongst mortals and most divine creatures and beings, and his bravery knew no bounds. But Hercules was also shown in stories to be arrogant, a loose-cannon, and a person who didn't always think things through. With his flaws, Hercules eventually ended up killing his own wife and children - which causes him to be overcome with grief and thoughts of suicide.

I want you to do a little research. Pick one particular character from the realm of Greek mythology - a god/goddess, hero/heroine, or any other character/creature that you can think of. In 250-300 words, write out an arguement about that character after you learn enough about them. I want you to argue for or against that character, stating whether you think that character is or is not a well-rounded, three-dimensional character. Then, you need to back up your words with evidence (summarize some stories, events in their lives that illustrate your points). Add in your own personal thoughts about why or why you do not like/connect to that character.

The concept of the character is an important issue for writers to look at and understand. In order to write the next hit novel, writers need to understand what makes certain characters so compelling and others less.