Lore

“At the end of each Agon, the gods, new and old, regained their immortality, but they remained in the mortal world, unable to return to whatever home they’d once known. The new gods, brimming with power, manifested physical forms and lived lavishly, manipulating the workings of the world to fill the vaults of their mortal bloodlines. But the old gods, with their power ever-waning, usually chose to remain incorporeal. It made them untraceable as they set about the world, trying to plan for contingencies for the next hunt or seeking retribution against those who had tried to kill them. The threat of that vengeance was the reason hunters always wore masks.” 

These lines draw upon the differences between new and old gods. The original gods (Athena, Artemis, and others) have survived the hunt for centuries and are most focused on surviving future Agons. In contrast to the new gods, they have no mortals to support. The new gods also prepare for future Agons, but their preparation comes in the form of building up their mortal bloodline’s support. Longevity of godly power influences what is important.

“Her own many times great-grandfather had been a cautionary tale, having foolishly bound his fate to the original Dionysus. The old god had needed protection from the descendants of Kadmos. Though he himself had been born into that bloodline through his mortal mother, Dionysus had cursed his kin—and Kadmos himself—when they refused to believe he had been fathered by Zeus. The instant the old god died, cornered and slaughtered like a boar, Lore’s ancestor’s heart had stopped dead in his chest.

The strongest of his generation, gone in the time it took to blink, remembered forever by his kin as a blade traitor—and, as her own father believed, the true cause of the centuries-old animosity between the Houses of Perseus and Kadmos.” 

These lines come while Lore contemplates forming a bond with Athena. While the bond offers a level of protection in terms of each party ensuring the other survives, it also involves great risk. If Lore’s father is right, Lore choosing to form the bond in order to see Wrath dead is irony because the same type of bond initiated the rivalry between Perseides and Kadmides.

“The way the hunters told it, they had attempted to force their worshippers back into submission by stoking chaos at the fall of Rome, by having Apollo create deadly plagues, including the Plague of Justinian, which alone killed tens of millions of people. All in the hope that mortals would beg them for protection and refuge. ‘And, when Zeus commanded them to stop,’ Lore finished, ‘the nine, led by Athena, tried and failed to overthrow him in order to continue their work.’” 

This is part of Lore’s explanation of the Agon and ancient Greek world to Miles. Here, she details the ruthlessness of the gods and how their actions invoked Zeus’s anger. These lines also call to the nature of gods wanting followers. Rather than accept their fate, the Olympians tried and failed to force mortals to worship them, which follows the book’s major theme that choices cannot be forced.

“Lore had already explained to Miles how a new god might benefit their family financially by meddling in world events, to further their own interests. The current new Aphrodite, for instance, had led the House of Odysseus into vastly successful Hollywood projects. A new Ares, including Aristos Kadmou, could inflame international conflicts to support their bloodline’s investments in weapons manufacturing, and a new Dionysus could start a megachurch or a doomsday cult. The opportunities were vast and limited only by the new god’s creativity.” 

Though hunters are taught from a young age to keep the workings of the Agon’s world a secret, the Agon has an impact on how the rest of the mortal world operates. Here, Lore details how gods have influence over elements of humanity that fall within their original power scheme. Even as immortal beings, however, that influence is limited. For example, Ares’s power allows Wrath to inflame emotions and feuds to increase conflict, but the god cannot just start a war. He also cannot work in areas outside Ares’s specialty, meaning he has no influence over anything unrelated to war.

“But...maybe not. Her mother was dead, and while grudges could feed themselves over centuries, memories faded at the pace of years. There was no one here who cared to remember Helena Perseous.” 

These lines call to the difference between memories and grudges. The Agon, at its core, is one long grudge held by Zeus, and it has gone on for centuries. By contrast, Lore’s mother was murdered seven years ago, and Lore is the only person who really remembers her. If Zeus relinquished his grudge, the Agon would likely end and be forgotten quickly.

“She could see it now—the way the fingers on his right hand were slightly longer and stiffer than the left. He had movement in them and could cup the hand, but any shift was slower and the range more limited. He, like many of the hunters, had lost a part of his body and had replaced it with an advanced prosthetic. […] While some hunters fought to reenter training to learn new styles of fighting better suited to their changed bodies, and thereby stay in the hunt, most were pushed into a kind of early retirement in a noncombat role, like archivist or healer, by their archon. Lore had always found that practice infuriating; if someone wanted to fight, if they wanted to strive for kleos, they should be allowed to, no matter the circumstances.” 

Here, Lore watches Van, Castor, and Philip converse in Castor’s bedroom. Van’s prosthetic hand represents everything that’s changed in the Agon since she left. For Van, rather than a weakness, the hand is a strength symbolizing his desire to work with technology and his small rebellion against the ways of the Agon. These lines also show more unfairness within the hunt. Only those who are physically strong and without “imperfections” are encouraged to hunt. In addition to strength, the Agon rewards its image of the ideal, and there is little room for change to that ideal.

“Until now, Lore had never thought about how overwhelming it might be to suddenly bear the brunt of your bloodline’s needs, or to lose the person you’d once been. Maybe that explained the heaviness she saw in him now, and the reluctance to accept what he was. But there was something else, too—something she couldn’t put a finger on.” 

This comes while Lore watches Castor in his room after Van and Philip leave. Growing up, Lore fought for her right to participate in the hunt, gain kleos, and ascend, never considering the implications of godhood. Away from the hunt’s conditioning to strive for glory, she sees beyond the benefits of godhood (immortality and restored youth). She sees the stress and responsibility that comes with godly power, things the Agon left out of its mental conditioning.

“‘I may be new to all of this, but I’m not useless,’ Miles said. ‘How about you get to know me for longer than ten seconds?’ ‘I don’t need more than ten seconds,’ Van said. Lore’s hands curled into fists at her side. She’d already struggled with the thought of Miles being drawn into the Agon, but the condescension laced through those words—as if she’d intentionally endangered him, as if Miles were nothing—infuriated her.” 

Here, Van and Miles meet for the first time. The condescension Van immediately offers Miles shows both Van’s superiority complex and the general opinion of hunters that they are better than unbloodeds. Van’s attitude angers Lore, both because she hates how he treats Miles and because it reminds her of how she used to be. Van is a mirror to Lore’s past, and she doesn’t like what she sees.

“Athena tilted her head, deepening her resemblance to a raptor. ‘Would the death be justified?’ ‘In their eyes? Yes,’ Lore said. ‘It’s not like the old way, when you could compensate them or exile yourself.’ ‘Are you not exiled now?’ Athena asked. ‘Is that not enough to satisfy their anger?’ The ancient law had been focused on anger—the anger of the wronged, and the need to answer to it. Anger was like a disease to the soul, and no aspect of it was more contagious than violence. If it could be avoided, it would end a vicious cycle before it began. But this was a vicious society.”

This conversation between Lore and Athena comes while the group discusses seeking out the Odysseides. Before leaving the Odysseides, Lore killed their leader, and here she discusses the problem with returning. Her belief that they would kill her differs from the old ways, showing how the Agon’s world has evolved to become more vicious and violent. This also shows how anger is the root of the Agon—anger from Zeus toward the other gods, anger for the hunters toward the gods, anger between the houses. Such a culture can’t help but be vicious.

“‘You know, some people get so used to looking out at life from the edge of their cage that they stop seeing the bars,’ he said. ‘I’ve never forgotten them, I‘ve just learned how to live inside on my own terms. Don‘t...don‘t let your friend get trapped in here with the rest of us.’ […] ‘You can still get out. It’s never too late.’ ‘I chose to stay in,’ he told her. ‘I‘m not leaving before I get the ones who caged me.’” 

This conversation between Lore and Van comes before Miles goes on his first errand for the group and offers insight into Van’s character. Rather than all elitism, Van has a healthy amount of fear and anger for the Agon. He understands the risks of the Agon’s world and doesn’t want to see Miles dragged into the violence, which shows Van’s initial reaction to Miles may have been born of concern rather than dislike. Van also admits he stays within the Agon’s world by choice, showing how it’s sometimes best to fight from within.

“It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.” 

Lore’s father tells her this on their way to meet with Aristos Kadmou. Rather than support the Agon and what it stands for, he suggests that the Agon has lost its meaning. Over the centuries, the hunt has changed. It is no longer about hunting the gods. Instead, it is about achieving kleos and being remembered, whether or not a hunter ascends. It sounds here as if Lore’s father had stopped believing in the hunt long ago, and this may be the seed that planted doubt in Lore’s mind.

“Gil wasn’t from her world, and he was alone in his. What Lore proposed was purely business: she would travel back to New York City with him and work as a caretaker until he no longer needed a wheelchair. He’d mulled it over with enough obvious reluctance that Lore had steeled herself for disappointment. As they waited for him to be discharged, Lore asked him why he’d changed his mind. Sometimes, he’d said, the braver thing is to accept help when you’ve been made to believe you shouldn’t need it.”

This passage comes before Lore learns the truth about Gil. Here, we see how Hermes snuck into Lore’s life by disguising himself as someone Lore would help. As with Lore’s choice to bond with Athena, Hermes didn’t force any decisions on Lore. He made the choice seem like a good one to make, but Lore had to make the final decision to propose the arrangement. Hermes’s remembered words represent the kind of advice he gave Lore over the years—things opposite to what the Agon taught her. Though Hermes was of the Agon’s world, he saw its flaws and strove to do better.

“‘You may deny the Fates, but they will not deny you,’ Athena said. ‘Fighting them will not save you from what is ahead. It will merely quicken the course of things.’ ‘So you say,’ Lore said. ‘But that would mean you think you were always destined to fall from favor and be hunted. The Ages of Man have all come to an end in one way or another, with the exception of this one. Why can’t we see the end of the Age of Gods?’ ‘The Age of Gods is eternal.’ Athena gripped her dory, and Lore wondered if she would ever become used to the goddess’s eyes, the way they seemed to raze her defenses. ‘I may have been meant to fall, but it is so I might prove my worth to my father once more.’” 

Here, Athena and Lore debate whether or not the Fates truly have control over the destinies of both god and mortal. In Greek myth, the Fates were three old women who wove the predestined threads of life for all gods and mortals. Lore believes in choice and that the Fates cannot influence what happens to her. By contrast, Athena argues the Fates see what will be, but that gods and mortals have control over how they respond to what the Fates predict. Athena also believes everything, even negative things, happen for a reason. The passage as a whole speaks to the different ways beings may exert control over their existence.

“‘What made you so angry that you’d do this after everything you told me earlier? This isn’t who you are!’ ‘Maybe it is,’ she shot back. ‘No,’ Castor said. ‘You are a good person, Melora Perseous. You’re not what they tried to make you, or even what you tried to be for them. Neither of us is.’ ‘We are exactly what they made us,’ Lore said, not caring that her voice had cracked, that the words were trembling with long-held pain. ‘We’re monsters, Cas, not saints. And, no, killing Wrath won’t change what happened, but it’s the only thing I know how to do. It’s the only thing any of us were taught to do.’”

Several things happen in this conversation between Castor and Lore that comes after Lore cuts off Belen’s thumbs and lets him escape. Lore backtracks here. Faced with the death and destruction of the Agon once more, she devolves into the mentality she learned in training. Though it would have made more sense to kill Belen or take him captive, she chooses to wound him in terms of what would make it most difficult for him to achieve kleos (removing his thumbs will make wielding weapons difficult). She also temporarily stops believing in the power of choice, reverting to the idea that the Agon made her, and she cannot change.

“‘That was a good speech,’ Van said, a smile in his voice. ‘Thank you,’ Miles said, sipping his tea. ‘I thought you might like it. Everything is life and death and epic stakes with you people. I need to get on your level.’ ‘It would be a far better world,’ Van said, ‘if we all got on yours.’” 

This conversation between Van and Miles comes after the explosion Belen sets off. Here, Van and Miles finally act civilly toward one another, showing a shift in their relationship. Van understands the struggles of the Agon and how much they weigh on him, and he believes the Agon’s world would benefit from more compassion and caring. Van also sees the good in the world outside the Agon, which Miles personifies.

“‘Do you know why female hunters aren’t supposed to claim a god’s power—how the elders of the bloodlines have always justified it?’ Lore asked, letting years of quiet anger fill her chest like steam. ‘They point to the origin poem, but they also look to you. To the fact that you only ever chose to mentor male heroes on journeys. You only helped them attain battle-born kleos—the only kleos that matters to the elders. To them, you have always been an extension of Zeus’s will.’ ‘I was born from my father’s mind. I am an extension of his will.’ […] ‘You know, what almost makes it worse is that you actually see yourself as the myth men created for you. Just now you claimed you were born from your father’s mind—but you had a mother, didn’t you? Metis. Wisdom herself. That was her gift, not Zeus’s, and he devoured you both to save himself, and claimed it. Denying her is denying who you are. It’s denying what men are capable of.’” 

Here, Lore lectures Athena on the evils of men and how men twist the origin poem to their advantage, using it to exclude women from the hunt. The passage is full of irony, both regarding the world of the Agon and the plot of the book. The men of the Agon claimed women couldn’t hunt based on the actions of a female god. Even if Athena only ever mentored male heroes, the fact that she’s a woman should have qualified women to hunt. Lore implies such control and deception is exclusive to men, but Athena practices similar twisting of thoughts throughout the book, showing that women can be just as evil as men.

“‘I gave her fury power,’ Athena said quietly. Lore turned to her, confused. ‘I transformed Medusa,’ Athena continued, ‘so that she would have protection against all those who would try to harm her.’ ‘That’s bullshit. You didn’t give her a choice, did you?’ Lore bit back. ‘And now history remembers her as a villain who deserved to die.’ ‘No. That is what men have portrayed her as, through art, through tales,’ Athena said. ‘They imagined her hideous because they feared to meet the true gaze of a woman, to witness the powerful storm that lives inside, waiting. She was not defeated by my uncle’s assault. She was merely reborn as a being who could gaze back at the world, unafraid. Is that not what your own line did for centuries, staring out from behind her mask?’” 

Here, Lore questions the commonly known tale of Medusa. In Greek mythology, Athena turned Medusa into a Gorgon after she was seduced by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, saying the seduction slighted Athena. Bracken’s Athena argues she didn’t transform Medusa out of anger, but rather to give her power in a world ruled by men. Lore refuses to believe or see the similarities to herself. Her refusal has two possible explanations. Either the Agon’s teachings are so engrained that she can’t accept it, or she understands Athena speaks the truth but doesn’t want to admit that she hasn’t used similar strength to overcome the male-dominated world of the Agon. Lore hides behind her fury at Medusa’s situation, so she doesn’t have to face the anger of her own inaction.

“‘You love this city,’ Athena said. ‘It is your pride.’ The goddess all but glowed in the midday sun. The brief respite had given them both the opportunity to dry their shoes and clothes, though it was pointless, given they’d be returning to the floodwaters soon enough. Lore lifted a shoulder in a shrug. ‘I might have to share it with eight million other people, but it’s always been my least complicated relationship.’ ‘Hm.’ Athena’s presence was oppressive in more ways than one, but as the last few hours had passed, something had shifted. She was brimming with eagerness, or maybe just the simple anxiety of knowing that it was Wednesday morning, and they had less than half a week left to finish this. ‘Hold on to what you feel for your home,’ Athena told her. ‘It will never abandon you if you serve it well. It is not so fickle as mortals.’

These lines following Tidebringer’s flood show a few things about Lore and Athena. Lore refers to her relationship with New York as uncomplicated, which reinforces the idea that the city is a character in the story and Lore’s friend of sorts. It also shows she has a much easier time of interacting with a place than she has with people. Athena makes a hidden reference to her bitterness with mortals. While the people have largely forgotten her, the ruins of her temple remain in Greece. The city has not completely given her up. To Athena, cities are also living creatures with personalities and histories.

“Athena had worked a slow, methodical manipulation. Each suggestion was designed to separate her from the others, who might have been able to recognize what was happening, and deepen Lore’s belief in her and her alone. […] The goddess wasn’t mortal, and she didn’t have a human’s understanding of the world. Emotions were nuisances to a purely rational mind, but even Athena had recognized the threat the others posed simply by being near. A person alone could be controlled, but a person loved by others would always be under their protection.” 

These lines come after Lore realizes Athena tricked her. They also call to the greatest protection there is—love. The Agon celebrates being able to physically defend oneself and working alone to attain kleos. It shuns working together or forming compassionate relationships. Such things are weak, and Athena played on this lingering trait in Lore to shake Lore’s self-confidence.

“Lore had been angry for so long—at the world, at the Agon, but most of all at herself. It wasn’t that anger was inherently good or bad. It could lend power and drive and focus, but the longer it lived inside you unchecked, the more poisonous it became.” 

This passage of Lore’s thoughts also comes after she realizes Athena’s deception. Here, Lore finally releases the anger and bitterness she holds toward the Agon. She understands now that the anger is a throwback to the loss of her family and the injustice she felt as a child. The emotion has never done her good, but she held on to it because she didn’t know how to get rid of it. She felt it offered protection when all it did was make her lash out and push people away. Lore’s understanding reflects how much of a person’s discontent with the world comes from within. We get angry at our own failings and lack of action, but rather than admit the fault lies with us, we direct our anger outward because it is less painful or difficult than examining ourselves.

“She had asked her father once if inheriting a god’s power meant absorbing their beliefs, their personalities, and their looks. Power does not transform you, he’d said. It only reveals you. From what she had seen, immortality turned back the clock on the older hunters who claimed it, returning them to their physical prime and imbuing them with more power, more beauty, and more strength. But it couldn’t fix what was broken or missing inside them.” 

Following Athena’s betrayal, Lore begins to understand the truths about the Agon and hunters. Before the betrayal, she knew the Agon’s world was flawed, but she didn’t quite grasp the effect of being raised in the Agon’s society. Hunters who give themselves fully to the hunt sacrifice a piece of their humanity to be ruthless killers. Gods, like mortals, are flawed beings. There is no mantle of perfection to overtake a flawed hunter who ascends. Immortality only changes how long someone survives, not who they are.

“She was not Theseus in the Labyrinth, or Perseus in the gorgon’s lair. She was not Herakles, laboring in his tasks. She was not Bellerophon, who rode across the sky, Meleager on his hunt, or Kadmos fighting the serpent. She was not even Jason, triumphant at the edge of the world with the Golden Fleece in hand. There was nothing fated. Lore had not been chosen for this; she had chosen to come here herself. Every step she’d made, every mistake, had led her here. She was here because her father had taught her to hold a blade, because her mother had raised her strong and proud, because her sisters were forever unfinished people. She was here for the city that had raised her, and she came with the pride of her ancestors and the strength of her heart, and neither would fail her.” 

These lines come as Lore approaches the final conflict with Wrath and Athena. She releases the Agon’s teachings here by no longer comparing herself to the great Greek heroes. Those men achieved their kleos hundreds of years ago and have no bearing on Lore’s current world. Instead, she calls upon the quiet heroes in her life—her parents and friends—for their imperfections and love. Those are stronger and more help to her than any ancient Greek quest.

“‘You’re right, I am a fool,’ Lore told her. ‘And you were right before, too, to mock me for believing you. The truth is, I didn’t just believe you—I believed in you. When you kept those people safe from the explosion and the debris. When you told me about Pallas, about your city, about the role you were born to, and the one you wanted for yourself.’ A flinch, almost imperceptible, moved through Athena. ‘Your temples fell. Men no longer feared you. Your legend, once sung, became a whisper,’ Lore continued. ‘But I still believed in you.’ Athena’s nostrils flared, her hands strangling the staff of her spear.

‘This isn’t a test, it’s a lesson,’ Lore said. ‘Why would Zeus ever want you to kill innocent people—worshippers of other gods—when that was one of the reasons you were punished in the first place? Even after everything he’s done to you and the others, I never heard you speak about him in anger or resentment. In your eyes, he has no equal. He would never give the world to the victor of the Agon.’” 

Lore delivers these lines to Athena after she learns Athena has sided with Wrath. Though Athena is a god and has a different mental makeup than mortals, there are some basic similarities between mortals and immortals. Athena wants to be believed in, and Lore gives her that. Lore’s belief opens Athena’s eyes to how Wrath’s plan is doomed to fail and allows the goddess to find the self she lost over the centuries.