Greeks Myff’ed: Tantalus

[Richter]

Anthony Hopkins is a new Elvis of sorts.  He's a twisted Elvis though, and down through the years people will remember his image, dress up as him, be married by him in Vegas chapels, and do cooking shows invoking as much Hannibal Lechter or Titus Andronicus as possible.  It's a darkly appealing image; a man of poise, manner, principle, and skill, whose merits are offset by the tendency to eat the flesh of his own species. 

Not all cannibals are as well mannered or poised.  If people ONLY attended the Hannibal Lechter School of preparing long pork, it might not even be a crime, since it would be all about cleverly offing and preparing those who have offended you.  It would be more like punning.

Remember how humanity hasn't written anything new since ancient Greece?  This is no exception.  They needed to cast things in a more negative light though.  They didn't have the people surplus that we do right now, and cunning plans to eat annoying people would have wiped out the Athenian senate in a week.  Their example cannibal was a dude named Tantalus.

Tantalus was the king of Lydia, a small, but very swanky city state.  His dad Broteas had spent his whole life making the Lydia into a really nice place, throwing some righteous parties, and got in real buddy buddy with the gods.  (His name was originally Steve, but after Zeus called him "Bro" enough, everyone else started doing the same.)  Tantalus inherited the kingdom, and married Clytemnestra (Who had some horrible condition nobody ever talked about.)  The city was never quite what it was under his dad's rule though.  Tantalus just didn't have that knack for making it a central gathering place or party spot.  He'd call up the gods, and whining that he missed them all, but they never showed up. 

One day, he started a Facebook event that kept spamming everyone with notices, and that finally annoyed everyone enough that they said they'd attend.  Not that the city was a bad place at all, the gods got there and started having a good time like they used too.  Tantalus got mostly ignored, despite running around fawning and saying how great it was to see everyone.  This kind of miffed Tantalus so he figured he'd do something really different and outlandish to impress them.

He could have shoved feathers up his butt and done a chicken dance, and it would have been OK.
He could have played ukulele or juggled (he was good at both, oddly enough), and it would have been OK.

Instead though, he thought he'd impress the gods with his cooking.  He was out of food though, so he used his own son, Pelops, figuring it would be like a dinner / sacrifice.  (Pelops was a good kid, and all the gods liked him despite his dad.  He was playing Grand Theft Chariot on Xbox with Ares when his dad called him for "help" with dinner.)
SO yeah, the gods sit down to dinner.  Ares was a bit pissed because Pelops had missed him jacking a trireme and jumping it over the Colossus of Rhodes.  Demeter was sort of out of it, due to Persephone being away, but was keeping it together.  Tantalus serves everyone up a portion...  and all hell broke loose.  (They were gods, they knew what they'd been served.  Even if Pelops' face HADN'T bobbed to the top of the pot, all Temple of Doom style.)

Zeus, for once was at a loss for words.  Hera barfed.  Ares was livid that his gaming buddy was now dinner.  Athena was quoting at high volume every legal code in existence that he had violated, and Hephaestus, more practically, was getting up to lodge his club foot in Tantalus' ass. 

Eventually Zeus got it together, and got everyone's attention (BOOM.)  He stood up real tall, and with lightning in his eyes was about to rip Tantalus a new one, when he heard the munching.  Everyone slowly turned down the table, and saw Demeter absently chowing down on a shoulder. 

"I love pork shoulder.", was all she could be heard to say between bites.

She hardly ate when Persephone was away, and really was not in a right frame of mind, nobody blamed her.  Hera barfed again.

Tantalus got killed for this and sent to the underworld with a note that said: "Hey Hades, be CREATIVE.  –your bro, Zeus." Pinned to his ass.

Zeus had words with the Fates, (meaning he bribed them with a few bags of Lindt chocolates), to get Pelops put back together.  Demeter commissioned him a new shoulder from Hephaestus to replace the one she ate, and Poseidon felt so bad about it that he gave him a team of horses to race.  Pelops went on to become a famous horse racer, and banged groupies until one of them turned out to be a princess, which led to his next career as a king. 

Tantalus had a sucky eternity.  The details are on Wikipedia.

[Luna]

Awesome.

(meaning he bribed them with a few bags of Lindt chocolates)

Shit, THAT'S all it takes?  No wonder, I've been trying Hershey's Special Dark all these years...

[LMNO]

Hot damn.  You've got a good thing going.

[Richter]

Trying to keep it interesting, and expand on the ideas of hubris, aberrant divinity behavior, and divine punishment, not just make it "Myths re-told with scatalogical bookends"

[Jasper]

Very cool series. 

And agreed.  It would be like punning.

[The Wizard]

Loving this series. Keep em coming as long as you can.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I love this series, I need to get my ass back on my take off....  dammit!!