The Greek God’s were, for lack of a better word, dysfunctional. I would say everything stems from Daddy Kronos and his odd desire to eat his own children, but he also came from a less than ideal background.
Simon Says: Castrate Your Father?
Simon in this case is actually Kronos’s Mother. Yes, she told him to castrate his own father! As the youngest Titan, he really took on that stereotypical, evil, youngest son persona. Mind you, what led him to this was some class A child abuse. Uranus, the father of Kronos and the other eleven titans, decided to hide his twelve children under the earth. Gaia, the mother, thankfully wanted to put a stop to this and helped Kronos bring his own father down. She was actually the one to create the weapon that Kronos uses to best his father and is what he is seen holding in visual depictions of him. She made a sharp sickle, which has been misinterpreted as a sword. The myth says that the castration of his father led to the separation of heaven and earth and led to Kronos becoming the King of the Titans.
Rhea Betrays Kronos
Now, Kronos was obviously evil. Serious bad guy. So, when he finds out that one of his kids was going to usurp him, his natural response was to get rid of any kid he had. How he went about it though…was definitely creative to say the least. He chose eating them as the best way to stop them from ever taking his place as King. Birth control would have really made the entire situation null and void but alas, that didn’t exist.
Rhea, in an act of pre-determined destiny, saved Zeus from being eaten by tricking Kronos into eating a stone rather than little baby Zeus. Zeus then grew to be powerful enough to defeat his father and saved all of his siblings from the depths of his stomach. I could only imagine how many baths were needed to get the stench of Titan stomach acid out of their hair.
Kronos was a Titan and therefore undefeatable, so in order to stop him from reigning terror upon his now regurgitated kids, he was banished to Tartarus. Although, there are some stories that say he went on to be of King of Elysium instead and others claim Zeus let him out to take on this role after centuries of exile, but I personally prefer the story of this great Titan being stuck alone somewhere to essentially rot for the rest of time.
Resources
If you would like to read more about Kronos and not only how he was defeated but also how he came to be King of the Titans in the first place, you can visit the links below. They all provide a more in-depth run down of the stories surrounding Kronos and his children.
https://www.worldhistory.org/Cronus/
ShylynnWrites 
Leave a comment