Gorgons

I personally love myths, as do we all. Most of the creatures you’re going to see in something like this are existing ones from myth, and the majority of both them and original ones are a combination of real lifeforms in a mish mash, or giants in physical size, or possess unique abilities few if any in real life have.

I have always been fascinated with gorgons. A gorgon is one being that originally had no exact origin story nor hard design, only that they were so utterly horrible you couldn’t possibly imagine them, which leaves the listener or reader to fill in the blanks. Their stories were told orally or in written from without visual context to keep an element of mystery to them. Each consumer would paint their own picture in their mind. Whatever they were, the gorgons were all so horrible to behold that doing so would immediately kill any living creature by petrification.

Later when they were more than on shot monsters to be slain and barely have a presence, they were given an official design which would then be depicted in sculptures and paintings, and described as I am doing right now: All of them are humanoid; all of them in some manner look like a cadaver, some being blue and purple, others being extremely pale and white as white can get, in some cases they visibly shed skin in large clusters with bits still hanging off, some look like mummies with seemingly dry and preserved tissue, cracked, wrinkled, shriveled up like a prune, some will even have holes in their cheeks like maggots were eating them or have an emaciated look with a visible jaw; in each case they will emit body heat and breathe and circulate like any living being in spite of externally looking like something dead; they all have long sharp nails; they all have fangs in their mouths; they all have live, venomous snakes mounted upon their scalps; most of them do not possess a single strand of hair; their eyes are outright lethal to any creature that comes in direct contact with them, petrifying them without fail; art will usually show these eyes being very piercing and sharp like a telescope or raptor’s eyes staring in the distance or going clean through whatever’s close or dull and blank seemingly not seeing anything. This latter detail is the most important one to keep in mind for obvious reasons. Their eyes can only harm those that meet with them directly. Indirect contact or none at all are harmless. Things like looking through a mirror or in modern settings a camera lens.

I personally find it a disappointment these corpse like designs are almost never included when depicted in movies or television, and they always get a normal looking woman and put a bunch of serpents on her head. They don’t even CG or make a puppet with an asymmetrical face or other anatomy. Perfectly symmetrical, left and right looking the same and being aligned like normal.

The gorgons were regular humans to start out with in this latter rendition rather than vague monsters that are briefly encountered then killed or escaped from. And they all had a good lifestyle, a stable home, and prestigious position along with others who wouldn’t have the misfortune they are all about to have.

A deity became infatuated with one of them one day and made small talk. The two of them became acquaintances, hesitant to say friends. He came back and tried to woo her and get her to sleep with him. She denied him. Pissed at this, he said he wasn’t taking no for an answer, scaring the daylights out of her. She tried to make a run for it into the blessed structure she and others called her home and occupation. There in temple she was raped, and several others close to her witnessed it.

When the deity who lived there caught onto what was happening, being less powerful than the violating god, she couldn’t do anything to stop it nor punish him for his crimes, so he got off scot free. What happened then will leave a bitter flavour in your mouths: goddess turned the victim and a couple of witnesses who were powerless to help who were near to her into gorgons with such an unpleasant and even gross appearance no one would find them desirable and mortals would die if they attempted to come near them, especially if they met directly with their eyes.

They were sent away to someplace remote where they wouldn’t do any harm, and no risk of direct eye contact was possible unless one was looking for this place or had extraordinary bad luck. They lived in peace and solitude there, solitary as they can be as a small group without access to the outside world. Strangely heavy statues with great anatomical correctness to the point breaking one would reveal perfect organs inside littered their new home for centuries as no animal could possibly encounter them and live to tell about them. This wasn’t as bad as it could be. She wasn’t going to get raped again, and the others would not suffer her misfortune with mortals perishing at their glance, and deities finding them too unpleasant looking to be attractive. A mixed bag.

It was inevitable the trick would be discovered and someone was going to carry a polished reflective surface to avoid having to look at them straight. When this happened, the man in question found the lot of them sleeping and swung his blade at our main gorgon with his eyes closed shortly after memorising her exact location in the mirror. By the time the others woke up and found her headless body laying there, he had already made a clean getaway. “You r ale ee”, as her name is pronounced, was the most loyal and fiercely protective of the lot, yet the least violent and evil gorgon from the lot, and mourned the hardest for her fallen comrade.

This here happens to be one of my all time favourite stories, as there’s not many like them these days. And I wouldn’t want there to be. I prefer for them to be classics. I like for there to be justice in general, but have enough fictional works to have enough unavenged crimes to remind us all does not turn out well. I don’t think stories like this teach young men they can be a dick and a crook and get away with them.

I personally think there should be a movie or television series that follows this exact series of events, and refrains from making gorgons snake maned ladies in a toga. Ones that follow the exact cadaver like design or gargoyle look I pointed out. Seldom are they portrayed as good or benevolent, and even less often, never to my knowledge are they shown to be protagonists, the focal point. If they ever make this movie, I will pay the full price to see it in the cinema. And if they do the other thing, I will make sure to tune in. I try to limit my exposure to tellies, not overindulge, but this is something I would not miss.