I've been thinking about Cassandra.

[conuly]

It's said that her curse was not that she could see the future but that she would never be believed about her prophecies.

But what would belief have done? I'm not an expert on Greek mythology, but I can't think of a single time somebody had a prophecy, and then used the information they got wisely and thus prevented the prophecy from coming to fruition. Indeed, most of the time the mere act of getting a prophecy seems to be the key ingredient in forcing the prophecy to come true!

It's hard to know the future before it happens, but how much harder would it have been for her to know that it was through her actions to prevent the future that her visions were made real?

I'm thinking that maybe the curse, the truly bad part, was not that she saw the future, or even that nobody believed her, but that she felt compelled to tell everyone what she saw. When I was little, I used to wonder why she didn't just lie. Tell everyone the pretty lie, they disbelieve you, and then the future is averted. Instead, she had to tell them the truth and deal with their scorn, even as she was proven right time after time. She couldn't accept that they would never believe her, so she had to keep trying to change the course that was already set out. If she had been able to just not talk about it, maybe... things would have gone the same, but maybe it would have been easier for her.

It just seems like it would have been, that's all.

Comments

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

In the context of the story, she could have kept them from bringing *in* the Trojan horse, of course. But you're right that the point of prophecy in mythology is pretty much that no one will ever listen. No one listened to Teiresias either, and he wasn't explicitly cursed.

Or rather, no one listened to Teiresias in any of the stories we *remember*. I guess that's the subtle difference.

I used to wonder why she didn't lie too, but then I realised the point of mythology isn't character motivation. You can keep asking "why" a person does something, and that's not really the point. The point is the events. You kind of have to reverse-engineer yourself from English classes.

[conuly]

If they'd listened to fortune tellers, it'd make for some very boring stories.

Teiresias: Don't do this! You'll regret it if you do!
King Whoever: Huh, you think? Well, this is why we keep you around! *doesn't do it*
Audience: Um... what just happened?

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Precisely why we don't remember them. ;-)