Hello guys! This is not a suitor but another “servant” he is a musician, one of “lysandra’s colleagues” let’s put it that way, he’s more of a side character, but if interested you could ask me for more!
Even for Hesy, Tryphosa or the neutral evil maid, it could help me develop more of them faster!
He grew up in a world where he owned nothing:
The only thing nobody could steal was his composure.
That becomes his identity.
He refuses to let anyone see him panic.
“The moment someone knows what you truly feel…
So he almost never reacts honestly.
He laughs when appropriate.
He cries only when alone.
Even pleasure is measured.
His life itself is a performance.
He has an escape into it.
When he was little, around 6 years, His erastes hasn’t entered his life yet, but he heard an old palace musician playing the lyre.
From that day onward, music becomes almost sacred.
Not because he wants fame.
Because music is the only language that never lied to him.
He is frighteningly observant.
He’s the kind of man who notices:
Someone moved a chair three inches.
Someone’s hands are shaking.
A servant avoided eye contact.
A suitor drank less wine tonight.
Not because he’s paranoid.
Because that’s how he survived.
Male mantises approach females knowing they might die.
But they approach anyway.
Nektarios develops the same mentality.
Which makes him strangely calm.
That calmness unnerves people.
Relationship with the Suitors:
Every symposium is research.
He could expose every single one of them.
He simply chooses not to.
Because information is worth more than gold for him.
He repairs lyres; Carves wood;Polishes bronze; Strings instruments himself.
Nektarios quietly observes.
Not because he lacks empathy.
Because he processed emotions years ago.
Sometimes people mistake him for cruel.
He would rather die than belong to someone.
That’s why he never falls deeply in love.
The moment he realizes someone could control him he walks away.
Relationship with Penelope:
Penelope is perhaps the only person who truly unsettles him.
One day she might tell him:
“You play joyful songs beautifully.”
“…but you’ve never once smiled while playing them.”
Nobody has ever noticed that.
He simply tunes his lyre.
But he never signs his work.
Some of Ithaca’s most beautiful melodies…
People think they’re ancient songs.
He wrote them, Then let the world forget his name.
Because he believes music deserves immortality, not musicians.
An aesthetic philosophy (“Life itself should become a work of art.”) is surprisingly compatible with ancient Greece. While Oscar Wilde obviously came much later, the Greeks already had concepts like καλός κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos), the harmony between beauty and excellence, and the Dionysian idea that beauty, wine, music, and ecstasy reveal truths that reason alone cannot.
Nektarios could almost be an anachronistic aesthete.
Not because he thinks beauty is good.
Because he thinks beauty is worth pursuing regardless of morality.
“Life is unbearable unless we make it beautiful.”
War happens; Kings disappear; People betray each other; Children die.
Because someone still plays the lyre.
Someone still pours wine.
Beauty becomes resistance.
“If the gods wished only for survival, they would never have invented music.”
“A beautiful lie is remembered longer than an ugly truth.”
This combination is honestly genius.
* musicians (through the invention of the lyre!)
Hermes is the god who moves between worlds.
People misunderstand Dionysus.
Nektarios literally performs emotions for a living.
He wears emotional masks every day.
He is almost Dionysian by profession.
The Mantis, Historically:
Mantises have been viewed VERY differently across cultures.
The Greek word for praying mantis is μάντις (mantis).
Do you know what mantis literally means?
The insect was named after fortune tellers because of the way it raises its forelegs, almost as if praying or giving an oracle.
Ancient Greeks sometimes believed mantises could:
* indicate the correct road to take
* point travelers in the right direction
Nektarios isn’t prophetic.
He’s so observant that everyone THINKS he’s prophetic.
One suitor sharpening his sword more than usual.
“There will be blood tonight.”
People start connecting coincidences.
“The olives taste bitter this year.”
Eventually people begin avoiding him.
Because his observations keep becoming true.
Even Better for him, since He starts playing with it.
(Very Hermes’s follower type shit)
“Will my journey be successful?”
Weeks later The traveler returns alive because his old sandals would’ve broken.
“History belongs to those who survive long enough to sing about it.”
Warriors preserve kingdoms.
Artists preserve civilizations.
Who will remember the music?
