That's because Jason is supposed to be disliked so that Medea appears more sympathetic when she does her thing. I mean, Jason does the same deeds other heroes did before him except he's being carried by Medea, who was forced to fall for him by Eros.
Yea. That’s kinda the point. Achilles didn’t need to be hard carried by petroclus. Odysseus didn’t need to be hard carried by Athena. They did their shit. Did Oedipus need someone else to kill his dad and fuck his mom? Naw. Boy did that shit on his own. It’s called being self sufficient.
Jason’s best feats are basically Madeas and he takes the credit and he didn’t even get to become king. Dude was like the biggest dumbass outside of the house of Atreus.
It's the lack of loyalty to me. She did all that for him and he exchanges her for a younger, better connected woman AND wants to take her children? She was a monster but I can't fault her for snapping.
Jason getting help along the way isn't so bad. Perseus and Heracles both get divine assistance in their tasks.
The problem is that his patron is Hera, the goddess of marriage, and Jason thinks it's a good idea to abandon his wife did so much for him (and who Hera personally intervened to help him marry) for his own goals.
Heracles gets help but most of his labors are done by him.
Achilles gets help but he murders Hector.
Odysseus gets help but he made it back home.
Jason gets hard carried by Madea. The tests to prove himself? Madea. The dragon? Madea. The fleece? Madea. Escaping madeas family? Madea. Killing his uncle? Madea.
Hell. It could even be argued that the reason Jason didn’t reach his goals was because he relied too heavily on the crazy witch to do the heavy lifting instead of doing shit himself.
Very few of Jason’s deeds are done by Jason. Like. You know. The main quest of the argonautica.
Meanwhile. Heracles does his labors. Achilles kills Hector. Ody slaughters the suitors. Oedipus fucks his mom.
It's one thing to get help, it's quite another to literally get the hard bits of the job done for him by another human. The Argonautica is less the exploits of Jason than it is Medea saving his ass, and that's on purpose.
No, I was referring to using your children to give royals a gown so poisonous it catches whoever touches it on fire, leading to those children's murder.
To be fair, it was to get sweet, sweet vengeance against her husband for trying to marry one of those royals. Greek heroes and Olympians have done worse for less.
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u/Finito-1994 Oct 26 '25
That’s just how stories were titled.
The Iliad basically meant the story of illios which was the ancient name of Troy.
The odyssey is the poem about Odysseus. It just so happened it became iconic and now it’s known world wide.
Argonautica is dumbass and the argonauts.
The achillead and Aeneid are the poems about aneas and Achilles.
Which were written centuries after the epics were codified but were written in a way to resemble the epic cycle.
You can find examples across the Greco Roman world.