On September 26, Rick Riordan – in what I can only guess was perhaps a desperate attempt to write a backup book in case The Sun and the Star did poorly (which it did) – released a new book called Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods. This book centers around an 18-year-old Percy Jackson and friends running errands for the gods to get recommendation letters from three gods so that he can get into New Rome University and as the title suggests, he has to retrieve the chalice of the gods, which the god, Ganymede, lost. While this is fun idea for a Percy Jackson book (even though it is a total cash grab on the part of Disney and Riordan), from reading some of the “Spolight on…” posts on readriordan.com about the new characters for that book, I have to say that Rick Riordan did not do Ganymede justice.
#1: Who is Ganymede?
Ganymede was the son of Tros (the dude who supposedly founded Troy) who was said to have been “the loveliest born of the race of mortals,” (Homer, The Illiad Book XX). Because of his stunning beauty, Zeus kidnapped him and made him immortal to be the cupbearer of the gods, taking over the job that the goddesses Hebe and Iris had had. In some myths, it is said that he was also turned into the constellation Aquarius by Zeus, which would kind-of make sense since that constellation is very close to Aquila the Eagle and it was an eagle that abducted him.
#2: Why is Ganymede so Tragic?
In the readriordan.com blog post (https://www.readriordan.com/2023/09/20/percy-jackson-and-the-chalice-of-the-gods-spotlight-on-ganymede/), it talks about how Ganymede “seems a bit haunted by his experience with the gods,” but attributes it to the fact that his job is to serve drinks for eternity, which is a boring job to have when it’s the same thing everyday. They completely cut out the truth of Ganymede’s history either for the purpose of it’s not exactly child friendly or because Disney is full of pedophiles who don’t want to be called out.
While the texts around the myth of Ganymede aren’t super specific on what age he was, but most scholars speculate that he was supposed to be between 4-6 at the youngest and 11-13 at the oldest. In the story, Ganymede was tending sheep near Mount Ida when Zeus saw him and sent an eagle to abduct him and fly him up to Olympus.
This is where things start getting very R-rated and creepy.
The reason why Zeus abducted this poor child was because Ganymede was very handsome and Zeus (being a disgusting pervert) would sleep with basically any pretty thing that breathed. I’ll spare the details, but long story short, Ganymede was given the gift (or in this case; the curse) of immortality to serve as the gods’ cupbearer and Zeus’s child lover for all of eternity.
Feel free to barf now and break out the torches and pitchforks. Maybe a shotgun or two, as well.
#3: Why was the Myth of Ganymede so Popular?
According to some speculation from Plato, the myth of Ganymede could be attributed to Crete, which was famous for it’s amount of sexual immorality, including (but not limited to) pederasty, a common practice where it was publicly acknowledged that an older male was sleeping with another male who was usually teenaged, though sometimes younger, making Ganymede Zeus’s catamite. All of this is very disturbing and fitting for a very disgusting, disturbed society. Moreover, in Greek culture, homosexuality was not just seen as okay, but was often celebrated in temples (sounds a lot like today) and thus since Ganymede was also representative of homosexual desire, that also made him very popular.
Maybe that’s the true reason why he’s in Rick Riordan’s new book….
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
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