Is there a way to integrate the clay-brought-to-life & Zeus origins?

[Vanguard-01]

She slept with Heracles?

Nope. New 52 Heracles was a good guy, apparently. Diana referred to him as "My noble brother." Awfully complimentary of her if Heracles was a misogynist monster.

Meanwhile? Zeus is the guy who BUILT the patriarchal system under which the Ancient Greeks were ruled. Ancient Greek men abused and mistreated women because their supreme god abused and mistreated women. Greek kings believed they were members of Zeus' exclusive club.

Joking aside, Hippolyta falling in love and getting into bed with Zeus and damning the consequences of doing so... well thats just your classical love story really.
Not to mention you could argue it wasn't exactly suicidal to do so, even in myth Hera could not take vengeance openly on the women Zeus had been with out of fear of him. Also it could speak of Hippolyta's confidence in it remaining a secret for long enough that Hera wouldn't blow a fuse.

There was no love shown between Hippolyta and Zeus. They fought. They got hot for each other. They had sex. Hippolyta got pregnant. Hippolyta got herself and all her people punished by Hera while Zeus got away scot free. If Azz wanted us to believe it was a love story, he did an extraordinarily poor job of establishing that.

Hippolyta knows all the myths. She KNOWS Hera has a knack for uncovering Zeus' infidelities. She KNOWS she wreaks horrible retribution at the slightest provocation. She knows both of these things and she still jumps into bed with him. I don't care how "confident" she was. History is not on her side on this one.

Aww yiss, Outside gets it. And I have no idea how to make it clear to those of you whose sexual philosophies are binary, transactional, and hierarchical. Hippolyta's gender is female. Her sexuality is power bottom. Her TYPE is chauvanist pig, and her GAME is anything you can do, I can do better. Herc and his dad are exactly the kind of guys whose myth perpetuates the patriarchy and view of women as commodity and beauty as their only metric. Hippolyta goes after that shit and CHANGES it, subjugating those mythic men to her bomb p*ssy and glorious defiance. It's ridiculous to consider the sex act to be "debasing" --when done properly it can be affirming, exhilarating, and life-altering. That she risks hubris with the Goddess of Women by being the greatest woman alive is a risk, but I've already said people take risks with their sex lives.

It didn't become a threat to the Amazons until Hippolyta got pregnant, and started a lie that set them up as protectors of their Princess in opposition to their god(desse)s.

YMMV, but like I say, I love the concept of a Hubristic Hippolyta.

We're veering off-topic here and it's okay for us to disagree. Thank you for at least explaining your reasoning behind your views on Hippolyta. I don't agree with your views, but at least I understand where you're coming from.

[CRaymond]

I'm glad I didn't auto respond before checking the thread again for updates. Thank you for acknowledging our difference of opinion and perspective. It just seems like you're looking at the conception from Zeus' perspective and not from Hippolyta's, and not allowing her to make mistakes or choose risks.

As for the topic, and integrating the clay statue with conception-by-god(maybe a writer will make her Apollo's or Poseidon's or Hades')...

Let's say Hippolyta was pregnant but needed to avoid childbirth - either because she feared the Goddess of Childbirth or the baby was breach or dying or maybe neither mother nor child would survive the labor. Maybe it was ALL of those things. Maybe the ghost of Margaret Sanger is speaking through my fingers right now. Let's say she used Amazonian ritual magic to move(teleport) the baby out of her body.

Hippolyta waddles out to the stormy beach, cuts her hand, bloodies the mud and clay, and mutters incantations and prayers while shaping a child. A flash of lightning, a mother's scream, and a crash of water washes away the clay to reveal the flesh and blood baby underneath. It's her child, she shaped a baby out of clay, and it was divine magic that assisted in the birth.

Presto! Do we give out No-Prizes?

[RedWhiteAndBlueSupes]

To the OP, yes.she was born from clay, was under the effect of the new 52 universe briefly and became the God of War, then remembered her true clay origin and moved on

[RealWonderman]

To the OP, yes.she was born from clay, was under the effect of the new 52 universe briefly and became the God of War, then remembered her true clay origin and moved on

Perfect. Settled.

[SiegePerilous02]

The plan is simple, everyone knows the Gods are not All-Knowing. The gods themselves know that other gods do things without them knowing and that often it will not concern them.

The hints we are given is that Hera may be the patron goddess of the Amazons. She refers to herself as a goddess of women, Hippolyta refers to her as "MY Goddess," and Finch took it further in New 52 canon by establishing that Hera gave that stupid immortality crystal to Hippolyta's mother. Based on what we are given, it seems that if Hera was the one whom Hippolyta prayed to in order to bring her clay baby to life. The prayers went unanswered, but the legend of the clay baby grew and Hera learned about it. I find it hard to believe that she never wondered about it at all until Strife dropped the bombshell.

Not to mention you could argue it wasn't exactly suicidal to do so, even in myth Hera could not take vengeance openly on the women Zeus had been with out of fear of him. Also it could speak of Hippolyta's confidence in it remaining a secret for long enough that Hera wouldn't blow a fuse.

Openly or not, she's still infamous for taking vengeance upon Zeus's mistresses in myths, to the point where it's common knowledge to US, let alone the people who lived in the times of their worship. Leto, Semele, Lamia, Io...Hippolyta hadn't heard of ANY of them when she saw Zeus's abs and decided "screw it, it's totally worth the risk"? We also see her kill Siracca's mother and learn she killed two of Diana's other modern day siblings in this run.

I think sleeping with a seemingly heroic Heracles, especially when she was younger and naive, makes more sense than the Hippolyta who had already been made jaded by Man's World sleeping with the patriarchal God who put the system in place to begin with and who was known to be a man whore with a homicidal jealous wife. But that would require Hippolyta to be an actual character with motivations instead of just "Mother," "Mistress" and "Statue."

[CRaymond]

But that would require Hippolyta to be an actual character with motivations instead of just "Mother," "Mistress" and "Statue."

High five, comrade.

[BrianWilly]

It really goes to show how patriarchal and slanted the ancient myth-tellers were that they would look at the goddess of women -- the goddess who was specifically established in their society to protect women and their children -- and all the stories they could think to make up was all about how cruel and vindictive she was and how much she liked to hurt women and children.

I much prefer a more...dignified, noble interpretation of the queen of the gods. I think there's room for depictions of Hera, goddess of women, as someone who actually stands with women and for women. I understand that "authentic" mythology is often very abhorrent from modern perspectives, and to discard those abhorrent elements just kinda means misrepresenting mythology...but in this specific instance? I believe there's a case to be made that the original, archaic function of Hera in ancient society was in fact "besmirched" by those old storytellers who turned her into, well, something of a horrible figure. In that light, I might argue that reimagining Hera as a more humane, feminist goddess isn't so much about sanitizing mythology as it is about reclaiming mythology from very slanted, biased distortions told by very slanted, biased narrators. At the very least, it would put much-needed focus on some very important aspects of Hera's original role that's kinda been diminished and omitted through the centuries.

(In a similar vein, I'd argue the same for Zeus as well. All the stories anyone ever remembers about him are all about his lecherous, rapey ways, and people don't really focus anymore on his function in ancient religion as a protector of the helpless and punisher of the guilty.)

Well, that was a long-winded non-sequitur . Mostly I just wanted to say that I like it when the Amazons are allied with their goddesses, and Hera is no exception.

[Troian]

It really goes to show how patriarchal and slanted the ancient myth-tellers were that they would look at the goddess of women -- the goddess who was specifically established in their society to protect women and their children -- and all the stories they could think to make up was all about how cruel and vindictive she was and how much she liked to hurt women and children.

I much prefer a more...dignified, noble interpretation of the queen of the gods. I think there's room for depictions of Hera, goddess of women, as someone who actually stands with women and for women. I understand that "authentic" mythology is often very abhorrent from modern perspectives, and to discard those abhorrent elements just kinda means misrepresenting mythology...but in this specific instance? I believe there's a case to be made that the original, archaic function of Hera in ancient society was in fact "besmirched" by those old storytellers who turned her into, well, something of a horrible figure. In that light, I might argue that reimagining Hera as a more humane, feminist goddess isn't so much about sanitizing mythology as it is about reclaiming mythology from very slanted, biased distortions told by very slanted, biased narrators. At the very least, it would put much-needed focus on some very important aspects of Hera's original role that's kinda been diminished and omitted through the centuries.

(In a similar vein, I'd argue the same for Zeus as well. All the stories anyone ever remembers about him are all about his lecherous, rapey ways, and people don't really focus anymore on his function in ancient religion as a protector of the helpless and punisher of the guilty.)

Well, that was a long-winded non-sequitur . Mostly I just wanted to say that I like it when the Amazons are allied with their goddesses, and Hera is no exception.

Despite the fact that she was a goddess of mothers and women, she was not perfect. None of the Olympians ever were and that's what I loved about them. They got angry, they let their emotions control them, they let their pride get the better of them sometimes. Would you not get mad when you find out that your spouse was horny while you kept it in your pants?

Zeus is suppose to be the male, the Alpha male, the hotshot but even he has felt scared and helpless. But despite that, both can show many aspects of them. Like humans, both are multi-dimensional and can show both anger, pride and their duty and honor.

I would love the interpretations where they show both as both caring, noble and knowledgeable, but also strong forces to be reckoned with when you mess with them. All while having traits like a motherly instinct or the Alpha male stigma so people know whose in charge.. until his true superiors come and look down at him.

[AmiMizuno]

This is where I think it does make sense for the Amazons to be matriarchal also when it comes to the goddesses. I mean when you think about its birth, war, health, civilization and many things are more on the female side than the male side.

[Outside_85]

Nope. New 52 Heracles was a good guy, apparently. Diana referred to him as "My noble brother." Awfully complimentary of her if Heracles was a misogynist monster.

Meanwhile? Zeus is the guy who BUILT the patriarchal system under which the Ancient Greeks were ruled. Ancient Greek men abused and mistreated women because their supreme god abused and mistreated women. Greek kings believed they were members of Zeus' exclusive club.

Or Diana jsut doesnt know any better... like 99% of people didn't know Heracles was utter scum in the pre-Flashpoint world.

Mm, no, Zeus took over from Chronus who had taken over from Uranus.

There was no love shown between Hippolyta and Zeus. They fought. They got hot for each other. They had sex. Hippolyta got pregnant. Hippolyta got herself and all her people punished by Hera while Zeus got away scot free. If Azz wanted us to believe it was a love story, he did an extraordinarily poor job of establishing that.

Hippolyta knows all the myths. She KNOWS Hera has a knack for uncovering Zeus' infidelities. She KNOWS she wreaks horrible retribution at the slightest provocation. She knows both of these things and she still jumps into bed with him. I don't care how "confident" she was. History is not on her side on this one.

If you want to, you can dry out everything, even the hottest romance, you've certainly done it here because Hippolyta was describing a process of her falling in love with the guy but knowing she couldn't be with him.

Neither is standing in the front line of any unit thats going to war, and Hippolyta is still standing despite having been in most of them. If all you want is statistics then the Amazons should be dead ten times over with all the trouble they've seen.
Also there are the other statistic... that Hera is pretty poor at stamping out Zeus linage thats not with her, since more than half of Olympus is made up of Zeus' kids. And the few Hera actually has with Zeus happens to be legendarily ugly (Hephaestus) or hateful to the sight of his parents (Ares).

The hints we are given is that Hera may be the patron goddess of the Amazons. She refers to herself as a goddess of women, Hippolyta refers to her as "MY Goddess," and Finch took it further in New 52 canon by establishing that Hera gave that stupid immortality crystal to Hippolyta's mother. Based on what we are given, it seems that if Hera was the one whom Hippolyta prayed to in order to bring her clay baby to life. The prayers went unanswered, but the legend of the clay baby grew and Hera learned about it. I find it hard to believe that she never wondered about it at all until Strife dropped the bombshell.

Save that none of the Amazons are showing Hera anything but fear, not adoration... strange patron is it not?

Openly or not, she's still infamous for taking vengeance upon Zeus's mistresses in myths, to the point where it's common knowledge to US, let alone the people who lived in the times of their worship. Leto, Semele, Lamia, Io...Hippolyta hadn't heard of ANY of them when she saw Zeus's abs and decided "screw it, it's totally worth the risk"? We also see her kill Siracca's mother and learn she killed two of Diana's other modern day siblings in this run.

I think sleeping with a seemingly heroic Heracles, especially when she was younger and naive, makes more sense than the Hippolyta who had already been made jaded by Man's World sleeping with the patriarchal God who put the system in place to begin with and who was known to be a man whore with a homicidal jealous wife. But that would require Hippolyta to be an actual character with motivations instead of just "Mother," "Mistress" and "Statue."

It is possible she didn't because she lives on a secret and secluded island and may have withdrawn from the world before any of the others were even born.

That may make sense. But you may also remember that Hermes describing Zeus' almost hypnotic power he had over women he fancied. This isn't just about what Hippolyta did or wanted, it's as much what Zeus wanted... also, have we come to the point where we are blaming Hippolyta for her choices when Zeus is the guy who's actually married?

[Vanguard-01]

Or Diana jsut doesnt know any better... like 99% of people didn't know Heracles was utter scum in the pre-Flashpoint world.

Mm, no, Zeus took over from Chronus who had taken over from Uranus.

We'll never know now as far as New 52 Heracles is concerned. All we know is there is evidence that Heracles was good and none that he was bad.

And if Zeus didn't believe in Patriarchy and the abuse of women, he had all the time in the world to try to change things. He didn't. He went right on abusing women and encouraging their abuse.

If you want to, you can dry out everything, even the hottest romance, you've certainly done it here because Hippolyta was describing a process of her falling in love with the guy but knowing she couldn't be with him.

The word "love" didn't appear once. They fought. They screwed. Zeus abandoned her to Hera's retribution. That's what happened.

Neither is standing in the front line of any unit thats going to war, and Hippolyta is still standing despite having been in most of them. If all you want is statistics then the Amazons should be dead ten times over with all the trouble they've seen.
Also there are the other statistic... that Hera is pretty poor at stamping out Zeus linage thats not with her, since more than half of Olympus is made up of Zeus' kids. And the few Hera actually has with Zeus happens to be legendarily ugly (Hephaestus) or hateful to the sight of his parents (Ares).

Zeus has rules about gods killing other gods. Once Artemis, Apollo, Dionysus, etc. became Olympians, Hera no longer had the option of killing them in retribution. She certainly tried to kill them before they fully ascended to godhood.

Save that none of the Amazons are showing Hera anything but fear, not adoration... strange patron is it not?

The only time they saw her was when she came storming onto Paradise Island in an obvious rage. That was hardly the time for adoration. When a pissed off god shows up, you respond with fear. Not adoration.

It is possible she didn't because she lives on a secret and secluded island and may have withdrawn from the world before any of the others were even born.

That may make sense. But you may also remember that Hermes describing Zeus' almost hypnotic power he had over women he fancied. This isn't just about what Hippolyta did or wanted, it's as much what Zeus wanted... also, have we come to the point where we are blaming Hippolyta for her choices when Zeus is the guy who's actually married?

Hippolyta still had her own choices to make. She knew who Zeus was. She knew what happens to women who get involved with him.

Yes, Zeus is also in the wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that Hippolyta chose to get in bed with him, fully aware of the likely consequences.

[AmiMizuno]

Hippolyta knew Zeus was married. So it's her fault for sleeping for Zeus in new 52. She shouldn't have done that because she knew what would happen.

[TimothyLaskey]

This is my favorite version of Hippolyta, and I don't think the new 52 version comes anywhere close to being as badass and defiant as her:

WW1.jpg
WW1.55.jpg
WW2.jpg

Hippolyta didn't create this utopia for women just so some male chauvinist deity, drunk with power, could swoop down and despoil them any time -- this queen was willing to put her immortal soul on the line for her people, and if he threatened her daughter? She wasted no time whatsoever.

Also, if the biological child of a human and a god is a 'demigod', then I'll take a mortal imbued with the powers of six gods over that any day. In case you hadn't guessed, the Perez/Wein Wonder Woman is my preferred version, having been a fan since the Pre-Crisis 1980's. While I do somewhat like including Zeus, since people instantly recognize him more than other gods, and I'm hearing out the fans of that concept and giving it a chance, I do still think Post-Crisis hit it out of the park.

[enish]

Hippolyta knew Zeus was married. So it's her fault for sleeping for Zeus in new 52. She shouldn't have done that because she knew what would happen.

Like it's all Hippolyta's fault. It takes two to do those kind of things you know!

[Outside_85]

We'll never know now as far as New 52 Heracles is concerned. All we know is there is evidence that Heracles was good and none that he was bad.

And if Zeus didn't believe in Patriarchy and the abuse of women, he had all the time in the world to try to change things. He didn't. He went right on abusing women and encouraging their abuse.

Or to put it as it is, we know Heracles kills monsters, we dont know what else he was doing. But we also know that the King of Atlantis evidently didn't think it was a huge loss if Heracles was lost with the Giantborn... that ofcourse may be more of a sign of Atlantean notions of supremacy over air-breathers, but it's also possible they knew Heracles wasn't worth keeping outside of monster fighting.

I would ask which women he has abused as such firstly? Because as far as I can see, he doesn't beat Hera or the others, he is simply negligent about them after he's gotten what he wanted. Does that count as abuse?
Also we may have to consider that back then when Zeus took power, it wasn't thought of as a wrong or bad thing that Zeus was in charge, it was just the way things were and everyone was happy with it. And lets not forget that Zeus is the reason the Olympians didn't all end up as Chronus' lunch.

The word "love" didn't appear once. They fought. They screwed. Zeus abandoned her to Hera's retribution. That's what happened.

It didn't have to mention the word love, the description and depiction is all thats needed to show that it was what happened from Hippolyta's perspective.

Zeus has rules about gods killing other gods. Once Artemis, Apollo, Dionysus, etc. became Olympians, Hera no longer had the option of killing them in retribution. She certainly tried to kill them before they fully ascended to godhood.

Hera did not have the option of killing the others because they had simply become too powerful for her to overcome in anything but a prolonged engagement, something Zeus would stop her from completing. And thats the other thing, Hera attacks them when they are young and when they are weak, she doesn't confront them when they can actually fight back. Likewise, I don't see why she would relent in the cases like Milan, Cassandra or Lennox had she found them at another time.

The only time they saw her was when she came storming onto Paradise Island in an obvious rage. That was hardly the time for adoration. When a pissed off god shows up, you respond with fear. Not adoration.

You mean aside from the time right before they had to fight off the First Born and his army. They didn't show adoration for her there either.

Hippolyta still had her own choices to make. She knew who Zeus was. She knew what happens to women who get involved with him.

To some women. She knew well enough that if it remained secret, then nothing would happen. And from her end of the scales, nothing leaked... what did leak was Zeus getting drunk and telling Strife.

Yes, Zeus is also in the wrong. But that doesn't change the fact that Hippolyta chose to get in bed with him, fully aware of the likely consequences.

Zeus is more in the wrong than Hippolyta is. Zeus is the one who has actually married another woman, it is up to him to honour the pledge he gave Hera, not thats not Hippolyta's responsibility. The crunch in the Zeus/Hera relationship is between them, not Zeus' mistress'.
Also, what is it thats supposed to stop Hippolyta from going to bed with a man who fancies her if she chooses to do so despite the danger? She isn't married to anyone, there aren't Amazon laws that forbids it... what should stop her?
And how about Hera doing something about Zeus instead of killing his mistress'... right before she stoned Hippolyta we even got to hear that Hera doesn't know why she is not enough for him.

Hippolyta knew Zeus was married. So it's her fault for sleeping for Zeus in new 52. She shouldn't have done that because she knew what would happen.

Zeus also knows he's married... why doesn't he stop? Why is it Hippolyta's problem he doesn't know which bed he belongs in?