BEST OF FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
UNTOLD TALE OF LIGHT
"Hello there, my dear patrons. You're probably human, so you haven't lived long enough to have lived through the last great Titan War, and to tell you the truth, neither have I, so let me share my wisdom with you and we can experience the journey we never took together right here and now. You probably know that I am an Olympian Goddess. We are the current ruling family of gods of the world, you know, but I don't know for how much longer. It is natural for the younger gods to overthrow the older gods once they've overstayed their welcome. And ironically, that's exactly what happened to the older generation of gods, the Titans. They became too complacent in their rule and that was their downfall.
My father is Zeus, the king of gods. Like many of us gods, he didn't exactly have a normal upbringing. Even as a new-born, he was in mortal danger. His father Cronus had swallowed all of his elder siblings (sound familiar?), and if wasn't for my grandmother, and his mother, Rhea, he would have met the same fate (well, depending on which version of the story you think is canon. I'm a goddess, but can you really believe me? I suppose you got no choice when I'm supposed to be the Goddess of Light!) Well anyway, all of us gods are direct descendants of the primordial Earth Goddess, Gaea, the living embodiment of the Earth. Gaea was Cronus's mother, you see, and she prophesised that his offspring would one day depose him, so that's why he did the horrid things he did to his own children. But Rhea had tricked Cronus and he believed that he had swallowed Zeus too, but Zeus escaped.
Zeus returned and freed his siblings from the imprisonment of Cronus's belly. Don't worry, us gods are lot more hardy than you guys, so we can be a little difficult to digest. How he managed to free his devoured brothers and sisters from his father's stomach of steel is a little bit disgusting, so I'll spare the details in order to avoid nauseating you and causing you to stop reading. What, you're saying most of you would have probably left before making it this far? Okay, but you should know the only thing that was important was that he saved his siblings, and they were all fully grown gods and goddesses when Cronus... Errrr… I'll leave the rest to your imagination!
Anyway, as you can imagine, they weren't happy with the way their father treated them, so naturally they wanted to overthrow him. Ironically, in his efforts to avert the uprising of his offspring, Cronus had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Together, led by Zeus, the sibling gods Hestia, Demeter, Hades, Hera and Poseidon led a revolt against their father and the rest of the Titans. Many other gods joined in the struggle, being promised their fair share of the empire of the Titans when it was carved up. After a devastating conflict which tore the Earth to pieces, after much death and sacrifice, the Olympians defeated Cronus and the Titans and imprisoned them in Tartarus for their crimes. Tartarus a hellish place beneath the Underworld where you definitely do not want to go when you pass away, so be on best behaviour you lot! Now where was I? Oh yes, now that the Titans were gone, the three brothers partitioned the spoils of their victory amongst themselves. Zeus took over his father's former realm of Mount Olympus and the heavens, the middle brother Poseidon ruled over the waves of the ocean and Hades, the eldest of the three, inherited the Underworld. Perhaps receiving the thin end of the stick despite being the oldest was why he abused the souls of the dead, who knows? Is it even possible to psychoanalyze someone like Hades?
The way I was born was a little strange… to say the least. I had to be cut out of my father's head by my brothers and sisters. Sounds weird? You've heard nothing yet! You're probably wondering how that's even possible. Well, let's start from the beginning and let's see if you can wrap it around your tiny heads… Not to be condescending or anything! As you know, I've already talked about my father a lot, but what about my mother, you ask? Let's just say him and my mother had something a bit more than a love-hate relationship. My father had eaten Metis, my mother, because he feared the power of any children he might father with her, according to prophecy given to him by Gaea. Like father like son, huh? But we'll get to that later. When my father swallowed my mother, it was already too late: I had already been conceived and my mother gave birth to me inside my father's… innards. So I had been an unborn goddess growing inside my mother who was living inside my father. Gah, this isn't being explained well at all! But you already know how the story ends.
But anyway, despite trying to kill me before I even existed, I developed a very close relationship with my father. He appointed me as the ruler Skyworld, a realm suspended in the heavens inhabited by the angels. Remember that one time when I said that humans are the closest beings to the gods? Well yeah, that's… not quite true… well, it is but… well let me explain! The humans were spawned by Gaea, Mother Earth, as mortal beings that were most in likeness to the gods. But the angels were spawned as an intermediate level between humans and gods, but unlike humans they were immortal. And they could fly, except for a certain one… Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent! Whenever I do that, just kick me or something, okay? Wait! Maybe that's not such a good idea. Maybe just a little nudge? But not too hard, or Pit will have you.
When Mount Olympus appointed me as the patroness of both angels and humanity, and it was my responsibility to look after the wellbeing of both angel-kind and humankind. And you all know that we gods are given some element or concept to look after, some part of the world that we personify. It was my job to administer light and wisdom across the globe, to bless humanity and banish the darkness. To this end, I became revered by both the humans and angels. Who am I, you ask? Have you all been living under a rock? Well, I have lots of names. Some call me Pallas Athena, others call me Minerva. But I'm probably best known to you as… Palutena! The Goddess of Light!"