Them: Clytemnestra did nothing wrong! Ever! Me: You mean...apart from cheating, murder, coup and child abuse? Them: Shut up misogynist! She was a grieving mother and any mother would do that for her child and men cheat too and Agamemnon is a piece of trash and had it coming! Me: And Cassandra too, I presume...and her other children Them: You do not understand! She was traumatized and she has been through a lot! She was forced to marry Agamemnon even if he killed her husband and child so of course she would turn like this! They made her do that! Me: So...if trauma excuses any horrible behavior shouldn't that also apply for the Atreides too? Them: Fuck no! They are men! They can never have it as hard as Clytemnestra! Meanwhile the Atreides: Their mother was sold to a relative by her own father to drown because she was having a fling with a slave and then she was married to Atreus whom she proceeded on cheating on him with his brother Thyestes. Thyestes being a man wishing to do anything for power even to cheat on his own brother thus using his lover to collaborate with him. Atreus arguably being one of the scariest figures of myth takes revenge for adultery to the sickest level by killing his nephews and feeding them to their own father and taunting him for it. Thyestes raping his own daughter so he can have his revenge. Atreus raising Aegisthus under his own roof. They becoming exiles when their father got killed and Aegisthus did the full coup after arguably facing the most traumatic childhood a child of myth could go through and had to claw themselves back to their original place... Me: ... Me: Yeah they had "La Vie en Rose" playing at the background of their childhood alright. Trauma definitely doesn't apply to them...

Just to be clear I am NOT saying that Clytemnestra had it easy or that her emotions are not valid but if one always uses the trauma as an excuse rather than an explanation for someone's bad deeds in myth then I have to say that the Atreides had all the reasons to become villains and they chose not to and I believe we do not appreciate that enough

some early character design work for my sci-fi graphic novel, Malicious Compliance: The Feast of Thyestes! i fucked around for a long while trying to figure out exactly what story i wanted to tell re: the iliad and the house of atreus, so not all of these designs will appear in the book, but i wanted to show em anyway.

unfortunately you ARE all doomed to see more of this askeladd-looking, L. ron hubbard-sounding motherfucker. what a tool 🙄

Their father Atreus punished their uncle Thyestes for seducing his wife by killing his sons and feeding them to him. And then Thyestes answered by raping his own daughter to sire Aegisthus, who kills Atreus and exiles the Atrides to Sparta.

This is the inheritance Agamemnon and Menelaus grew up with.

They couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow themselves to become like that.

Menelaus could have wanted reconciliation because he knew what happens when brothers don't fix things.

Sure, Agamemnon didn't seduce Helen, but they should close the wedge between them before it grows.

Before more blood is spilled within the family.

But there is no later.

Their family still remain broken when old ghosts like Aegisthus returns and plots with a revengeful Clytemnestra and they kill Agamemnon.

Menelaus' hands remain clean, but he's left with the knowledge that he didn't fix things between them.

Atreus and Thyestes feud for Mycenae’s throne after betrayal, adultery, and divine signs from Zeus. In revenge, Atreus serves Thyestes his own sons in a gruesome feast, driving him into exile. Seeking vengeance, Thyestes is told by an oracle that only a child born of his own daughter can destroy Atreus.

The full, final image is coming on Friday and will be posted to Lockettopia.com!

It's not wealth that makes a king Or the purple of his Tyrian clothes, Not the crown on his royal brow, Not roofbeams that gleam with gold: A king is he who's set aside fear And the evils of an ill-starred breast, Who is not moved by unchecked ambition Or the favor, never stable, shown By the mob that speeds headlong.

regem non faciunt opes, non vestis Tyriae color, non frontis nota regiae, non auro nitidae trabes: rex est qui posuit metus et diri mala pectoris, quem non ambitio inpotens et numquam stabilis favor vulgi praecipitis movet...