I Have So Many Thoughts About Hera's Characterisation In KAOS, And At First I Was Really Icked Out And

I have so many thoughts about Hera's characterisation in KAOS, and at first I was really icked out and disappointed by it but now I'm seeing the brilliance of it.

Dumping some first unstructured thoughts here because I really have A LOT but not enough time to get it all down now.

SPOILERS FOR KAOS BELOW

First off, Hera is the goddess of marriage, women, family and protection of women in childbirth. First episode we are confronted with an unhappy marriage: Riddy and Orpheus. She is his muse, he loves her but doesn't truly know her - it's not a union of mutual love anymore. People fall out of love all the time, and marriage isn't always meant to last. Riddy's mother abandoned her at a young age to serve Hera as a tacita, and her tongue was cut out (in an abstract way this can be seen as NOT protecting women even though it is not in childbirth but it is after childbirth and was also witnessed by Riddy as a child).

Riddy's story in the first episode undermines everything Hera stands for, AND her prophecy is the same as Zeus' (!!!).

ALSO in her marriage to Orpheus she is his muse, she is commodified to bolster his career (not dissing Orpheus here, he's a good guy but he has a job and he is using her as inspiration despite her expressing her discomfort, he really really loves her but the more I think on it he loves her as a muse and doesn't see her soul).

To pivot back to Hera's characterisation: she is not the goddess of love, but marriage and family, which speak of COMMITMENT. Specifically of commitment to the societal structures that preserve ORDER. Zeus is losing it and is now a threat to that order. Why would she have an affair with Poseidon? He has a cooler head and his devotion to her allows her to leverage him as an ally in her purpose to preserve the current order: the reign of the gods above humans.

"You're the king, but I am the queen."

"Power is delegation."

Then there is the royal family: Ari's commitment to her family never breaks, but in contrast to Hera's commitment founded on order and preservation, it is a commitment founded on LOVE (this also helps explain Dionysus' attraction to her because he loves love). She loves her father Minos until she learns of what he did to Glaucus, and why did he do it? To serve the gods, aligned to Hera's purpose and interests. Ari's actions (killing Minos) are guided by love which then amends her lifelong emotional estrangement and hostile relationship with her mother Pas, who immediately recognises the validity of Ari's killing of Minos. To them both, in this scene the value and sanctity of family is not in its function as a unit providing order and structure to the hierarchies of society, but as a place of love. Granted Pas wasn't a loving mother to Ari, but (not excusing her just analysing) she was never over her grief and blamed Ari, irrationally blamed her for the death of Glaucus and for anyone familiar with Jungian archetypes and shadows, what is the inverse of love and forgiveness? Hate and resentment. Pas as a flawed human never did the psychological/internal/soul work she should have done to be a good mother for Ari, but Ari's perseverance and actions in alignment to her own values based on truth and love not only helped her own progression in her journey toward her prophecy but also helped Pas' own healing toward love and forgiveness (this is making me so emotional rn omfg).

And Caeneus, who for 10 years in the Underworld waited to see his mum come through to confront her about his murder. Their family is also based on love, but divine destiny ruptured it. Then at the very end it his love for her despite his long struggle trying to understand her betrayal, his obsession with obtaining closure from her, in the Nothing his love is so great he unlocked a power not even Hades could do - bringing a soul back.

I feel this show was very intentional in its warping of Hera's characterisation because it is a commentary on what she stands for in society today. Marriage and family in capitalism are tools for the preservation of power, the protection of private property, to maintain the social order necessary for capitalism to continue. Do I think the show was trying to go for an anti-capitalist critique? No, at least not overtly or consciously, but so far in my reflections I see that is what is happening and as a commie that makes me a big fan.

he is too pure for this world

like honestly just give your non binary characters traditionally "gendered" features. just do it. it's not like being androgynous ever stopped non binary characters from being misgendered.

frisk undertale and kris deltarune were androgynous and are only ever referred to by "they/them" and ppl are still arguing over how the "main character is not the player but their own person" message didn't apply to their genders bc they refuse to wrap their head around different pronouns. raine owlhouse was paraded around as "disney's first ever nb representation" by everyone and their mother but bc they have short hair other countries dub them as male. this also happens to most anime nb characters bc of how japanese pronouns work. halara raincode literally has the color scheme of the non binary flag AND their in-game profile says that they, and i quote "have no specified gender" AND several characters remark on it in the actual game but bc theyre voiced by a female voice actor ppl still call them a woman.

like literally at this point just give your nb characters huge tits and a massive beard. if ppl refuse to accept the existence of non binary characters in media, then there is no way to make a character non binary "enough" to convince them otherwise. no matter how much you hammer in their androgyny in an attempt to detach them from "male" and "female," there will be people determined to assign gender roles to any trait you give your character.

creators being hesitant to give their non binary characters traits that could be associated with a binary gender is why every goddamn genderqueer character that the creator wants you to take seriously in popular media has shoulder length hair and a board-flat figure and a perfectly neutrally pitched voice. like. just do what you want at this point. the character is non binary because your story said so and people who misgender them would have done that no matter how androgynous they look.

For those of you wondering if you should watch Rebuild the Galaxy, here's my summary. It gets to the heart of Lego, that the world around you is full of limitless potential for creation, storytelling, and rebuilding. It gets to the heart of Star Wars, which is that, hey, the world is broken, and you might not always be able to fix what was broken— but if you have hope, you can make a difference in the world that you live in now.

It also gets to the heart of Lego Star Wars, which is to make fun of Star Wars as much as possible.

zeus is a psychopath. orpheus is a singer. eurydice dies in the first episode. no one listens to cassandra. caeneus is trans. everyone is gay. this show is perfection.

Any of yall seen lego star wars rebuild the galaxy yet? Anyway theyre besties now