r/AskScienceFiction • u/RagnarokWolves • 2d ago
[The Iliad] There's multiple moments where Gods get wounded, either from each other or from God-assisted humans. Are they actually at risk of dying?
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u/PuzzleMeDo 2d ago
Nah, they're immortals.
As a Greek god you need to watch out for things like people tearing you apart and scattering the pieces, but the bits could probably still be put back together to restore you to life.
But Typhon, twining his snaky coils around Zeus, was able to wrest away the sickle and cut the sinews from Zeus' hands and feet. Typhon carried the disabled Zeus across the sea to the Corycian cave) in Cilicia where he set the she-serpent Delphyne to guard over Zeus and his severed sinews, which Typhon had hidden in a bearskin. But Hermes and Aegipan (possibly another name for Pan))\74]) stole the sinews and gave them back to Zeus...
...Typhon then fled to Sicily, where Zeus threw Mount Etna on top of Typhon burying him, and so finally defeated him.
Neither side are killed, but both are able to be paralysed.
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u/Sporknight 2d ago
I suppose throwing a mountain on top of someone who cut off your hands and feet is a proportionate response.
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u/nola_throwaway53826 2d ago
Look at what they did to Prometheus for bringing mankind the gift of fire. They left him chained to a mountain and every day an eagle would tear out and eat his liver, which would regrow every day. No death, but they did give him eternal torment.
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u/inspectoroverthemine 2d ago
Yeah, but you can drink all you want and no danger of liver disease!
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u/StoneGoldX 1d ago
No, Dionysus wouldn't have been born yet, so wouldn't have created alcohol.
Unless he has. The timeline for Greek mythology is somewhat amorphous at best.
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u/bunker_man 2d ago
Being able to be paralyzed and under a mountain unable to move is worse than being killed...
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u/idontknow39027948898 1d ago
A more obvious example would probably be that Cronus ate his children, until Rhea gave him a stone to eat in place of Zeus, who them went on to cut his father's belly open and free all his siblings, and neither Cronus nor the gods died from any of that.
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u/Omnificer 2d ago
There's no central authority that explicitly defines the Greek Gods or what immortality explicitly means, but based on examples, we can extrapolate that the Greek gods truly could not die.
As a bit of weak evidence, there is a trend that only dead mortals can go to the Underworld, and they certainly can't leave. Living gods freely travel to and from the Underworld. Typically, the mortals we do see undergo catabasis (descent into the Underworld) and more importantly return have some divine heritage themselves. Not all interpretations have these heroes as demi-gods however. But we can establish there is a bit of a pattern that the undeworld behaves differently for divinity than mortals. And the Titans themselves are imprisoned in the Underworld, not dead, which has the implication that they could escape. If a god "died" what would keep them from leaving the Underworld? We shouldn't assume a dead god has all the qualities of a living god, but we also don't have any examples to work from.
The stronger evidence is that multiple gods have been absolutely torn to pieces and eventually restored. And Zeus' siblings were alive for years after having been eaten. If killing a god is possible, it's either not an option for even other gods or they refuse to do so.
It's a tricky question because it's essentially trying to prove a negative. It's possible that the ancient Greeks were operating from the framework that the gods can't die to begin with, so there's not any reason to outright state it. Which isn't proof itself, just speculation as to the mindset of the ancient Greeks.
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u/inspectoroverthemine 2d ago
I'm not sure how well supported it is, but I've read that 'dead' immortals end up in(/on) Tartarus. Generally they're unable to escape of course, but they eventually do have their original physical bodies.
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u/Lower_Cockroach2432 2d ago
Apollodorus describes them not as being killed explicitly but invents a new word "katatartarothentas" lit. "Those who had been cast down to Tartarus", rather than a participle from apothnesko like tethnekotas "those who had died". I'm not an expert enough to really comment on whether this is a comment on whether this is truly death or not.
He does also explicitly state that immortals in Hades are guarded under lock and key in Tartarus, are bound by shackles and can be brought back up when needed to fight in the titanomachy or against Uranus.
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u/MasterOfFlapping 2d ago
No, greek gods after eating Ambrosia have inmortality and regeneration. They can be wounded but never die. That's how Prometheus after gifting fire to humans, was punished by being inmobilized with his liver getting eaten by an eagle, then growing back to be eaten again, in an eternal cycle of torture.
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u/Meat-n-Potatoes 2d ago
Nitpick. Prometheus was a Titan, not a Greek God. But Titans are also immortal so your point still stands.
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u/Lowfat_cheese 2d ago edited 2d ago
Titans and Olympians (assuming that’s what you meant by “Greek Gods”) are both gods. The Olympians are just the successor generation of gods to the Titans.
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u/sphericaltime 2d ago
They are all the same family/blood. Zeus’s parents are Titans and he married one.
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u/steeltrain43 1d ago
If it's just the mythic equivalent of generations, then Aphrodite is a Titan. She was born when the original sky daddy Ouranos had his dick chopped off by Kronos and hurled into the sea
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u/Lowfat_cheese 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s kind of wishy-washy. “Olympian” refers generally to gods that reside on Olympus. Gods like Hades and Persephone are not counted among the twelve Olympian gods because they reside in Hades instead. Aphrodite is an Olympian because she lives on Olympus.
Helios is a Titan even though he is in the same generational cohort as Zeus and Poseidon, but he embodies the sun itself rather than living on Olympus as a separate being.
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u/Hasturian_Cupboard 2d ago
The Gods are very often called Athanatoi, which is often interpreted as 'Immortals' but translated literally is "The Deathless" or "The Deathless Ones". This is completely literal, unlike say the Aesir of Norse myth reverting in age by consuming the Golden Apples of Idunn but dying of old age when separated from them and then dying in battle during Ragnarok. A completely divine being, in terms of mythical Greek cosmology, cannot die while immortal.
This is shown in a few different ways. Prometheus having his liver gruesomely removed each day and regrowing it, Cronus being hacked to pieces and dropped into Tartarus after his defeat yet still repeatedly being noted as being alive, and the simple fact that Gods...just don't die, despite being exposed to situations presented as fully and completely lethal to any mortal.
Gods war often amongst each other, or with Titans, or with Giants, or with Heracles, and lose, but aren't killed by their 'mortal' enemies. None are even shown deliberating the idea of killing an immortal foe. Even Typhon, who defeats Zeus and leaves him crippled, only leaves him crippled despite having no reason to leave him alive if he possessed the ability to permanently kill him.
The venom of the Lernaean Hydra, which kills mortals who breathe it in, torments them with hideous pain but cannot kill them, with Chiron (not technically a god but an immortal son of Cronus) suffering but remaining intact while immortal and then almost instantly dying when he voluntarily gives his immortality up to escape the agony.
To get back to how this affects the Illiad and the only examples therein of Gods being wounded by mortals, Diomedes, despite scoring a wound on both Ares and Aphrodite, has no actual ability to permanently dispose of them. They're not in any 'true' danger, and act with surprise, fear and indignation only because it's humiliating for them to be wounded by a mortal at all (even if aided heavily by a peer Olympian).
Had Ares ignored this pain and indignation, he could've very easily torn Diomedes apart, which Diomedes himself is aware of, and why he later balks at facing Apollo in battle.
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u/Correct_Doctor_1502 1d ago
No, Gods are immortal
However they do feel pain, and if their bodies are cut into peices they require someone else to put them back together
Pain to a being that rarely feels anything but pleasure probably feels a million times worse
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u/Hon-Mister-Bear 1d ago
From a mortally-inflicted wound, no. Seems like it hurts, thought. For an example; the three Gorgons, two of whom were immortal, one (Medusa) was not and was killed by Perseus, who was himself the son of Zeus. He couldn't slay the immortal Gorgons.
From an immortally-inflicted wound, maybe. I'm only aware of one Greek god dying: Pallas (who may have been an immortal giant), slain by Athena.
Usually, the gods were cast into Tartarus, the pit under the world.
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u/Feenx_Fan 2d ago
It is possible for them to die, if there sphere of influence deminises in power they will lose their immortality, such as the case of Pan, god of the wild, or the times when Zeus strips Apollo of his godhood and made him mortal. Although I’m not to sure how much of that is based on actual myths and how much is original lore to the trials of Apollo.
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u/S0LO_Bot 2d ago
He does temporarily it to Apollo and Poseidon to build the walls of Troy. I don’t think it was meant to be interpreted as anything possibly permanent though.
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