S9E4 - A Multiverse of Helens

The stories featured in Greaking Out are original adaptations of classic Greek myths.

This week's story features some stories you already know: beach wrestling, cloud women, another water entity that changes shape, and lots of confusion.

Greaking Out, the greatest stories in history were told in Greek mythology.

Greaking out gods and heroes, amazing feats.

Listen, and you'll see it's Greaking

Out.

And this is a very special episode because we originally performed this script live in the land of big battles, crazy communities, and marvelous monsters.

That's right.

We did this episode live at a comic book convention.

Yes, and we're going to bring it back for you today.

We have a mixed up multiverse tale for you that we are calling the multiverse of Helens.

The thing you have to remember about ancient Greece and Greek mythology is how much these people love stories.

Everything is a story.

There are stories within stories and stories about stories.

In fact, one of the most famous stories of all time is Homer's Odyssey, which is what I'm going to talk to you about today.

That's right.

I am here telling you a story about that storyteller who wrote down the story that was told to him in which a famous hero tells a story about his really long ride home from Troy.

Oh, and a couple of times during that story, within a story, we meet characters who, wait for it, tell us stories.

It's like the plot of a Spider-Man movie or something.

There are around a dozen Spider-Man movies.

There are thousands of myths from every corner of the world.

Some even include people who are also spiders.

Okay, cool.

Now, one of the most important figures in Greek mythology is Helen of...

Toby Maguire is the best one.

Excuse me?

Toby McGuire was the first actor to portray Spider-Man in a trilogy of movies in 2002.

Nicholas Hammond portrayed Spider-Man in a series of TV specials dating back to 1977.

But they were not theatrical film releases.

Interesting.

You know, I've always leaned more towards Tom Holland myself because he played the young Spider-Man.

And I, you know, wait, actually, stop, stop you are getting me distracted oracle I got a lot of stories within stories to tell here uh now where was I um one of the most important figures in Greek mythology right

okay yes one of the most important figures in Greek mythology that honor belongs to Helen of Troy formerly Sparta the whole reason there was even a Trojan war in the first place Homer wrote down a story called the Iliad, which tells the tale of the Trojan War and is basically the prequel for the more famous follow-up story, The Odyssey.

You probably know at least a little bit of this story.

The ridiculously beautiful Helen is stolen away from her husband, the Greek king Menelaus, and taken to live in the city of Troy with the handsome young prince named Paris.

Now, this story is important to the Greeks because they unite in opposition.

This is when they stopped thinking of themselves as separate, unrelated little kingdoms and started thinking of themselves as the Greeks.

It's a shared history that later Greek people could point to.

But let's get to the story here.

You probably know some of the details, but I bet you don't know the whole story.

We're going to call it the secret history of the Trojan War.

And it all started over an apple and a wedding.

Yeah, a lot of crazy things happen at weddings, right?

So in this one, there was this famous king named Peleus, and he was marrying a beautiful goddess named Thetis.

This was a pretty big deal, even up on Olympus.

So all of the gods were present for this wedding.

Peleus and Thetis were kind of like a power couple, and they went on to have a son who was pretty famous in his own right.

Their son was Achilles, one of the greatest warriors of all time.

Exactly, but first they had to have a wedding, and it was a big festivity, a great party where all of the gods and goddesses were invited, except one.

You are referring to Eris, the goddess of discord, who was in charge of disagreements and arguments of all sorts.

Right, and I don't blame Aris for being upset that she was left off the guest list, but I also understand why somebody wouldn't want to invite the goddess of arguments to a party, especially a wedding.

I mean, there's usually enough awkwardness as it is, especially if you have to sit at a table with your weird cousin or something, you know?

Anyway, to get back at being snubbed, Eris picked one of the legendary golden apples from the garden of Hesperides and carved the words, to the most beautiful on the front.

She popped into the wedding and just to be messy, messy, she tossed the golden apple into the middle of the dance floor where all of the goddesses had gathered.

Immediately, Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena all reached for the apple at the same time.

They each thought that they were the fairest or the most beautiful and that the apple was meant for them.

A giant argument ensued, even though Eris was nowhere to be found, and the three goddesses turned to Zeus to settle the thing.

But Zeus was not gonna fall for that trap.

He was the king of the gods for a reason, and he wasn't about to be forced to choose between three different goddesses, especially when his daughter and his wife were among them.

So instead, Zeus picked a mortal at random who would be forced to make that choice.

As luck would have it, this human was Paris, a prince of Troy.

Who me?

But Paris didn't know he was a prince of Troy.

At that moment, he was just a shepherd in a field tending to his flock.

Okay, quick story within a story here.

When he was a baby, Paris's parents received a prophecy about him that scared them so much that they didn't want to have anything to do with the baby.

Basically, the prophecy said that he was going to cause the fall of the city of Troy.

So they literally just told someone to take the baby and leave him on a hillside somewhere.

Luckily, a shepherd took pity on this little baby boy and raised him as his own son.

Unluckily, Zeus picked this dude at random to decide which goddess should get the golden apple and be dubbed the most beautiful.

Well, almost immediately the three goddesses resorted to bribery.

Athena promised Paris wisdom.

Hera promised him power.

But it was Aphrodite's promise of love, that Paris could have the most beautiful woman in the world if he wanted, that really tipped the scales.

Paris decided that Aphrodite was, in fact, the most beautiful.

And after that, everything kind of went sideways.

this was a rookie mistake he should have picked athena athena really i always thought you were team aphrodite after consideration i've changed my allegiance while aphrodite is the logical choice as the official goddess of beauty athena offered victory in future battles in exchange for winning the beauty contest.

Paris would have been wise to take it.

Also, she is like the wonder woman of Greek mythology.

Well, she is pretty cool, but Athena has a incidentally.

I am a huge fan of Gal Godot.

Me too.

Although, I have always been partial to Linda Carter because I used to watch that show when I was.

Anyway, Paris chooses Aphrodite who offers him the most beautiful woman in the world to marry.

Once he makes this choice, however, she disappears.

They all disappear.

All the other goddesses are gone, and Paris doesn't hear from her again.

So, you know, life goes on.

Paris gets really busy with discovering that he's actually the Prince of Troy and forgets all about this whole thing until he's on a business trip to Sparta where he meets King Menelaus and his jaw-droppingly beautiful wife, Helen.

At that moment, Paris realizes that Helen is the woman he was promised by Aphrodite and he would commit any crime to have her.

On this podcast, we don't endorse attempting to own people.

But unfortunately, it happened a lot in ancient Greece.

Right, and we also don't endorse calling on goddesses to make people fall in love with you, but that's what Paris did here.

Aphrodite bespelled Helen so that she fell madly in love with the young prince.

The two escaped Sparta with a bunch of treasure and set sail for Troy, hoping to live the rest of their days in happy wedded bliss.

Well, you can probably guess what happens next if you don't already know it.

The Greeks chase after them and sail their ships to Troy to demand Helen's return.

The Trojans say, no, thank you.

We're all quite comfortable here inside of our impenetrable fortress, and the Greeks spend the next 10 years trying to figure out how to get inside the city's giant walls.

But,

and this is a really big but,

what if Helen wasn't there

in the story that most of us know, Helen is hunkered down in Troy with Paris and the rest of the citizens.

But this isn't the only version of Helen's story that's out there.

There are multiple Helens.

Yeah, it's kind of like an ancient Greek multiverse.

Now, in Homer's version of this story, let's call this the Homer verse, Helen and Paris sail to Troy.

But in an alternate version of the story from the historian Herodotus, the Herodotus, the Herodotus verse, the Herodotus,

whatever, anyway, in that version, Helen never arrives in Troy.

In fact, there are quite a few different versions of Helen's story, but most of these alternate versions all have Helen winding up in the same place.

Egypt.

Herodotus has been called the father of history.

He remains the leading source of original historical information, not only for ancient Greece, but also for Egypt and Western Asia.

He is frequently referenced as the very first historian ever.

Right, Herodotus actually went to Egypt and visited a temple where they worshipped Helen to back up his version of the story about her.

So, let's rewind back to that dark night when Helen and Paris left Sparta.

While the kingdom is sleeping, the love-struck queen is furiously packing.

The beautiful Helen, wife to Menelaus, has fallen in love with a handsome prince of Troy, and she and her new boyfriend are ready to split town fast.

Paris rallies his servants quietly.

They load their ship full of treasure, Helen and a lot of misguided hope and they set sail for the shores of Troy.

The next morning when the sun rises Menelaus is naturally confused.

He looks all over for Helen and when he can't find her he begins questioning everyone.

It isn't long before he finds out the truth.

His royal guest from Troy snuck out in the middle of the night with a bunch of treasure and his wife.

As you might expect, Menelaus was a little ticked off.

Okay, more than a little ticked off.

Menelaus' big brother was Agamemnon, who was the king of Mycenae and probably the biggest of all the bigwig kings in ancient Greece at that time.

And he was able to rally all of the kings and princes together.

They formed a huge army, boarded a bunch of ships and sailed to what we now call Turkey to bring back Helen and maybe beat up some people while they were at it.

You see, there was this whole thing from years ago where all of the Greek kings had promised Helen's father to defend her if anything ever happened to her.

And now they were all kind of honor bound to go after her.

But on board the ship with Paris and Helen, things were much less tense.

I mean, you have to assume that they were at least a little worried about the repercussions of their actions, but they were young and in love, or young and bespelled by a goddess, and full of hopes and dreams and a boat full of treasure.

But they weren't alone.

Remember, Paris had a whole team of servants and slaves waiting on him and Helen.

Of course, this was kind of standard practice in ancient Greece, so it might be easy to overlook these smaller characters in stories like this, especially when the main characters are so much larger than life.

I mean, sometimes literally, if we're talking about immortal gods, but it's often the little things that you overlook that can be your undoing.

This is why butlers and sidekicks are so important in superhero movies.

That's true.

Gotta have respect for the smaller characters.

Incidentally, Alfred Pennyworth is my favorite butler.

Alfred Pennyworth.

Wait, is that Batman's butler?

I didn't know his last name was Pennyworth.

That is in.

Anyway, okay, sorry, we're getting distracted again.

Anyway, like Alfred Pennyworth, the Greeks were a very hospitable people.

Hospitality is a big deal in ancient Greek culture.

In fact, being a good host and a respectful guest is so important that they have a set of rules for both host and guest to follow called xenia.

If a weary traveler comes to your door, the rules of xenia require that you offer them food, shelter, and protection.

And in return, they respect your home and your rules.

Well, obviously, stealing your host's wife and a boat full of treasure is the direct opposite of xenia.

Even the Trojan sailors aboard the ship knew that.

So, when a huge storm appeared out of nowhere, many of these servants began to wonder if maybe Paris's actions had truly angered the gods a little too much.

Depending upon where you are on the planet, rotating storm systems at sea are either called hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, or medicanes.

The strongest tropical cyclone recorded worldwide was Typhoon Tip in 1979.

Hurricane Patricia attained the strongest winds on record at 215 miles per hour in 2015.

Okay, well, maybe this wasn't in the Patricia or Tip category, but this storm was a doozy.

Wind and rain battered the ship, and it was all the sailors could do to just keep the boat from sinking.

But they managed to hold on.

And when the weather cleared, the leaky, battered boat finally found land.

But they were not in Troy.

They were on the coast of Egypt, which is pretty far off course.

Modern scholars believe the city of Troy was located on the northwest coast of Turkey.

According to my mapping function, the city of Alexandria, Egypt, and the site of the ancient city of Troy are approximately 1,800 miles apart.

Right, so that's pretty far away.

Okay, wow, look at the time.

Where has the episode gone?

We're going to take a short break and we'll be back on the other side with more greaking out.

Hey, parents, if your kids are interested in learning more about the Endangered Species Act, there are more podcasts participating in the podcast party celebrating 50 years of protecting wild animals.

Check out the episode description of our wolves episode for links to all the shows participating, like Wow in the World, Tumble, Smash Boom Best, Earth Rangers, Girl Tales, Moment of Um, and the 10 News.

Okay, back to the story.

More greaking out.

Helen and Paris and their crew were exhausted.

They were wet and tired, and their ship was broken.

Obviously, this wasn't the getaway Paris was expecting, but the next step would seem to be to gather supplies, repair the ship, and get back to sea and keep going.

But again, that was not meant to be.

As the crew explored the region looking for shelter or supplies or both, they came upon a temple.

Now remember, Paris's crew was already a little worried about how he had angered the gods back in Greece.

They knew what he had done was wrong, so when they discovered a temple where they knew they would be welcomed and protected, these servants quickly decided to say so long to the newest Prince of Troy and his terrible ideas.

They told the priests of the temple everything that had happened, and they didn't leave out any details.

They told the story of the trip to Sparta, the romance, sneaking away in the middle of the night, the shipwrecked, etc., etc., etc.

Paris wasn't there to stop them, so they just went for it.

All of this information was taken to the king for judgment.

This king's name was Proteus.

Now let's talk a little bit about this king.

This is another story within a story.

Yes, it is.

This king's name was Proteus.

Now, depending upon who you ask, Proteus was either a king, a soldier, or a shape-shifting water god.

But I say, for our version, why not all of the above?

Homer describes Proteus as a demigod who lived on an island off the coast of Egypt.

Herodotus says Proteus was the king of Egypt, so they're kind of close, right?

Many kings in ancient times claimed supernatural parentage.

So that is actually pretty accurate.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

You're agreeing with me.

Are you feeling okay?

This comic book convention air is having an effect on my circuits.

Well, I'll take it anyway.

So, Proteus was angry about Paris's violation of Xenia and also, you know, his theft of a whole person.

So, he decided he'd make it right himself.

And this is where there are really different versions.

We're going to go with the version where Proteus kidnaps Helen back in the middle of the night, expecting Paris to notice in the morning morning and then go confront him.

But Hera and Athena who were the beauty contest losers remember decided to intervene and make an eidolon of Helen.

An idolon is the replica or ghost version of a person either living or dead.

Right, and Hera and Athena made the Helen Eidolon out of clouds, replacing the original so that Paris was none the wiser.

So off Paris goes to Troy Troy with his cloud girlfriend and bisspelled Helen stays in Egypt where she was safe and actually became quite popular among the Egyptians.

Listeners of the podcast will know that ancient Egypt and ancient Greece like to borrow myths and legends from each other all the time.

Indeed, so as the Trojan War commenced and ran on for years and years, Cloud Helen walked the battlements of Troy, talked to Paris's family, and generally haunted the Trojan palace while real Helen was back in Egypt sipping hibiscus juice and eating dates.

While the story of the Trojan War is an important story to the Greeks, there is no scholarly agreement on whether or not the Trojan War actually happened.

Therefore, there isn't only one way to tell the story.

Right.

We are pretty sure there was a city of Troy, but the rest of the information is just

kind of unverifiable.

Anyway, if you want to know the details of the Trojan War, go check out our sixth season here at Greaking Out.

But the quick version is this.

To end the war, Odysseus, often referred to as the cleverest of the Greeks, came up with the ultimate fake out.

He made it seem like the Greeks were giving up and going home.

They packed all of their stuff onto their ships and sailed away, but only just out of sight of Troy.

They also built a giant wooden horse and just left it on the beach.

The Trojans thought this was a peace offering and a way to honor the gods, so they dragged the horse inside the gates of the walled city and had a huge celebration.

Of course, if you know the story, you know that the horse was actually hollow and full of Greek soldiers.

As soon as the party was over, Odysseus and his men snuck out and opened the gates for the Greek army that had sailed back to the shore during the night.

It was a pretty easy victory for the Greeks, except there was one important thing missing.

Helen.

But the Greeks didn't know that at first.

Menelaus ran off with his cloud wife and got all the way onto open water before he started getting the idea that something was up.

Now, Menelaus was a lot quicker on the uptake than Paris, sure, but he really got the hint when cloud Helen drifted away into a fog bank.

So this left Menelaus with a big problem.

He won the war, but he still had to find his wife.

There had been a rumor.

about her being in Egypt under the care of King Proteus, but Menelaus had long ago dismissed that as just a fabrication.

At this point, however, he had nowhere else to look, so while the rest of the Greek army headed home, Menelaus set course for Egypt to ask King Proteus for the return of his wife.

Menelaus made the long journey and eventually found his way to the island of Pharos, where he was hoping he would find Proteus and hopefully Helen.

But strangely, the whole island seemed kind of empty.

He was expecting a castle, a palace, or I don't know, maybe some nice nice beach chairs at least, but instead, Menelaus discovered a deserted island.

So

he waited.

As we mentioned before, there were a lot of rumors about King Proteus, and Menelaus had heard them all.

He knew he was dealing with a different kind of king, so he was prepared to act carefully.

But he wasn't prepared to wait.

20 days went by, and Menelaus waited on the beach, staring at the stars, counting grains of sand, and walking around the island like Tom Hanks and Castaway.

Maybe less of a beard and no volleyball, but.

Castaway was a very popular film in 2001 and was nominated for several Oscars.

Unfortunately, it lost to Gladiator for best picture.

Right.

Anyway, during this time, Menelaus began to realize that he had obviously offended the gods somehow.

He had come up empty after a 10-year war and he wanted nothing more than to go home.

It seemed seemed right and just that he should be able to do that, but clearly it wasn't happening.

Menelaus was in the I must have made somebody up there really mad at me state of mind when he finally got a little assist.

On day 21, Menelaus saw a figure walking along the beach off in the distance.

He stood up to his full height, checked his armor, prepared to present himself to this king, but as the figure got closer, he could see it was a woman, and it wasn't Helen.

As she got closer, this mysterious woman seemed to materialize right out of the sea, and Menelaus could tell right away she was an immortal.

I am Idothea, daughter of Proteus, she said.

You are King Menelaus.

What do you seek?

Idothea was a sea nymph, beautiful maidens that were considered female spirits of the sea.

I have come to ask for the return of my wife Helen, who is taken from me, the king replied.

But I know that I have offended the gods in some way.

I am being punished, trapped here on this island, but I do not know who I have offended or how to make amends.

Only Proteus himself can answer your questions, Idothea replied.

But in order to speak with him, you must catch him.

And my father is not easy to catch.

Idothea went on to explain how Proteus was a shapeshifter.

Some said he was actually able to see into the future, but would only provide prophecies for those who could catch him, and no one ever did.

Especially not here, she added.

This island is his sanctuary, where he can escape the pressures of everyday life with his mortal subjects.

But Idothea was able to give Menelaus an important tip.

She took him to the other side of the island and showed him a small cove where Proteus liked to relax.

He sometimes swam out of the sea in the form of a seal and laid down beside them in the sun.

If Menelaus could capture Proteus and not let him go, the shapeshifting king would be forced to tell him everything he knew about Helen, the gods, maybe even the future.

Shape-shifting is fairly common among gods in Greek mythology.

But Proteus was the expert.

He put the other gods shape-shifting to shame.

So Menelaus hid by the cove and waited.

It was almost a full day before he saw the seals swim up to the shore and relax in the morning sun.

After a moment, one particularly large seal swam out of the water, laid down on the beach, and slowly began to transform into a human.

Menelaus pounced immediately.

He was not going to miss his chance.

He flipped the king over, pinned him on his stomach, and demanded that Proteus yield.

But you know it's not going to be that easy, right?

Proteus was a shapeshifter.

In seconds, Menelaus was no longer holding onto a human, but a pig.

When the Greek king gripped harder, the pig became a snake, then a tiger with teeth and claws, but still King Menelaus held fast.

Proteus tried everything.

He changed to water, a bird, a fish, but Menelaus refused to let go.

And eventually, exhausted, Proteus finally surrendered.

You know, I have to wonder why Proteus didn't just return Helen right away.

Part of me thinks he was making sure that Menelaus was worthy of Helen.

I mean, Helen had been kidnapped under his watch.

Maybe King Proteus wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

And also,

well, Helen was clearly popular among the Egyptians, so maybe Proteus didn't really want to let her go.

But either way, Proteus eventually told Menelaus everything he needed to know and then some.

Menelaus found out the sad fate of his brother Agamemnon.

Agamemnon was killed by his own wife.

Right, and he also found out about his friend Ajax the lesser.

Ajax the lesser died in a shipwreck after claiming he could survive the wrath of the gods.

Okay, thanks.

And even that Odysseus, the cleverest of the Greeks, was trapped on an island and being held prisoner by the sorceress Calypso, which is an important plot point in the story of the Odyssey, but that, as we say, is another story for another day.

Eventually, King Menelaus was reunited with his wife Helen after 10 years.

The enchantment on Helen had worn off by then, and she was happy to go home to her family.

The husband and wife left Egypt, boarded a ship, and returned home to Sparta.

And shockingly, there were no storms.

And that is the story of Helen in the multiverse.

But while we were at this comic book convention, we took some questions from the audience, so we thought we'd answer some of the most popular ones right here, right now.

The first question was, how long did it take you to write the book?

Yes, if you don't know, we have a book, Greaking Out, Epic Retellings of Classic Greek Myths.

And it didn't take as long as the Trojan War, but it was a long process.

We took some of the podcast scripts and turned them into stories for the book.

But when you write a book, you get a lot of help from a lot of different people.

And at Nat Geo Kids, they have a whole publishing team and they have an amazing illustrator javier espila who did the illustrations for the book is amazing so the whole process took about six months to a year the next question oracle on a scale of one to ten how much do you love snakes the answer is 11

unscientific and yet true next question why does the oracle like snakes but not any other animals I also like wolves.

Did you know?

You know, Oracle, we actually got to wrap this up.

So let's just move on to the next question, which was how long does it take to make an episode, including the researching?

Writing the scripts usually takes a couple of weeks, including the researching, but we have an amazing producer named Emily Everhart, and she reads the scripts, and she's like, okay, that's not funny, or that is funny.

We're going to change this.

We're going to add this.

And she also writes a lot of the material with us and some of the scripts.

So we put all those scripts together and we record them.

And then our audio engineer, his name is Scotty Beam, puts all of the sounds together, the music, the sound effects, he edits it, he makes it sound good.

I would say the process takes about a month to do an episode.

Okay, another question.

If you could pick one character in the Odyssey to meet, who would it be?

Cersei is the best.

She turns men into pigs.

I don't know if I can top that.

I do love Odysseus.

I think he's great, but I always sort of felt bad for the Cyclops.

I mean, he just kind of got totally tricked.

Of course, he was trying to eat people, so there's that.

Next question.

How do you decide to pick the episodes?

We have a meeting.

Yeah, that's right.

It's a meeting.

Yeah, we talk about it.

We have a meeting, and producer Emily has a lot of input on that, especially when we pick myths that come from different parts of the world that aren't from ancient Greece.

What is your favorite Greek myth?

I think the story of Asclepius.

He's the son of Apollo, and he's a healer.

In fact, he gets so good at it that he actually brings people back from the dead, which is kind of a no-no.

But yeah, he's a different kind kind of warrior.

You've probably heard about him already.

I like the story of Atalanta beating everyone in the hunt.

Next question.

What podcast episodes do you want to do in the future, huh?

Well, we're learning so much about folktales and myths from around the world.

We want to do more of that.

And also Norse and Persian and Mesopotamian and Celtic stuff.

There's so much stuff out there.

Who gave you the idea to make Greeking out?

That's the question.

Okay, well, there was a book book series called Zeus the Mighty by a great author named Crispin Boyer.

So it was a book from Nat Geo Kids, and it was about these animals that live in a pet store.

And the owner of the pet store listens to a podcast called Greaking Out.

And the animals in the pet shop actually think they are the Greek gods because they listen to that podcast.

And then we thought, you know, we should make that podcast because then we can promote the book by making the podcast.

So they used the podcast to promote the book, but then the podcast got so popular that now the podcast has its own book.

What is your favorite food?

Kenny likes coffee.

He drinks massive amounts of coffee.

Okay, it's not that much.

I don't drink that much coffee.

So much.

Okay, well, it is a lot.

Yeah.

What is your favorite creature?

I love the hydra, giant creature with all the heads.

The more you hurt it, the worse it gets.

And I don't think you really need the oracle to answer that because...

Snakes.

Yeah, snakes.

We know snakes.

Creaking out.

Out.

Thank you for listening to Greaking Out.

Next week, we're on a field trip to somewhere we've never been before.

Greaking Out, Gods and Heroes, amazing feats.

Listen and you'll see it.

Greaking

Out.

National Geographic Kids Greaking Out is written by Jillian Hughes and Kenny Curtis and hosted by Kenny Curtis, with Tori Kerr as the Oracle of Wi-Fi, audio production and sound design by Scotty Beam, and our theme song was composed by Perry Gripp.

Dr.

Adria Haluska is our subject matter expert.

Emily Burkette, Laurie Boda, and Juliana Schiavo are our producers, and Emily Everhart is our senior producer.