So, today I'm talking about a straight-up character from Greek myths: Deidameia of Scyros. (Often transliterated as Deidamia.) The eldest and most beautiful of the daughters of King Lycomedes, Deidameia is the mother of Neoptolemos by Achilles, who of course abandoned her to sail off to the war in Troy.
And, surprisingly, there's not a huge amount about her in the original material that's constant beyond that.
But there are some potentially triggering matters discussed in this post--because they're part of some tellings of the original myth--so I'm going to end the main page preview of this post after this paragraph. I don't go into any details, but do briefly mention sensitive subjects, so if you have any concerns, maybe don't click on the "read more" link.
There are three main versions of how Achilles came to be on Scyros in the first place: 1) he conquered it on his way home from the failed first sailing to Troy (or in between the sailings for one reason or another), 2) he was shipwrecked (or just landed there while lost at sea) on the way back from the failed first sailing to Troy, 3) his mother disguised him as a girl and hid him among Lycomedes' daughters before the first sailing to Troy. Among the Romans, #3 was the most popular by far, but the Greeks preferred explanation #1, though there were still Greek materials that used explanation #3, including that I believe I read that there's a fragment from a Euripides which has been interpreted to be from a play depicting Achilles in disguise as a girl. (Or was that one of the known lost plays...? Urgh, I should check on that before I post this.) In version #1, Achilles typically marries Deidameia, to cement his hold on the island. In version #2, Achilles sometimes marries her in a guest-friendship thing, and sometimes just gets her knocked up and sails off without a care in the world. In version #3, there are so many variations! Sometimes Lycomedes knows he's a boy and is encouraging a romance between the pair in the hopes that a pregnancy will force Achilles to marry her, sometimes it's a standard secret romance (aside from the fact that the boy is disguised as a girl), and in the work of the Roman poet Statius Achilles forced himself on her and then was promptly like "why are you crying?" (It was horrible. So, so horrible.) But I think most authors, ancient and modern alike, preferred the standard secret romance when they deal with explanation #3.
Anyway, although I generally prefer to go with the older versions of myths when possible, I still always prefer the "hidden among the daughters of Lycomedes" explanation of where Neoptolemos came from, mostly for its defiance of gender norms. Well, also its potential for comedy and general non-straightness. And the fact that it's humiliating for Achilles, and despite my great love for Patroclos, I actually don't like Achilles much. (Which you would probably not guess from my writing about the Trojan War... 😅)
Anyway! I wanted to talk about three very different takes on the character of Deidameia in my writing, two from works that are actually out there and one from a visual novel that crashed and burned. 😰 (Like, to the point that I never even finished writing it.) The three versions are a play called "Pyrrha," the presentation of Deidameia as Queen of Scyros in The Golden God of Aiolia (second of the Atalanta and Ariadne books), and the incomplete, untitled visual novel I tried to write for Yandere Jam. I'm going to start with the play, then move on to the game, and end with the novel.
"Pyrrha" is an oddity among my works, because it was written directly both in contrary reaction to and adaptation of another work. Specifically, at the time I wrote it I was working on my MA in History, and I was working on a paper about the changing portrayals of the Trojan War over the centuries, and how that reflected certain values of the societies creating those portrayals. (Sounds much more intellectual than it turned out to be, sadly. It was actually a pretty awful paper; I think the prof gave it a good grade in order to get out of actually slogging through it, since it was like 25-30 pages long.) Anyway, in the process of working on that paper, I found out about an 18th century opera originally just called "Achilles" and later called "Achilles in Petticoats." Obviously, that latter title caught my eye immediately, and after some research, I was able to special order a pdf of the libretto through the school's library.
I have a lot to say about the original operetta, but since I've already said it all in the first chapter of posting the play on AO3 (it's both explanation and warning, and so long that I felt it warranted an entire chapter), I'm just going to hit the highlights here. The original play was written in 1733 by John Gay, though the pdf I have is the full libretto (script) from the 1774 performance, which had the same words but different music from the original, and was when the "in Petticoats" part was added to the title. The work was everything you would expect from an 18th century play about a boy in disguise as a girl: excessively heteronormative, possessed of a disgusting attitude towards women and gender, and featuring a particularly pat and anti-climactic ending (in which Achilles apparently not only forgave but also forgot that his new father-in-law tried to rape him while thinking he was a girl). Now, obviously, I had expected the heteronormativity, the misogyny, and the treatment of 18th century gender roles as if they were the only "natural" way for people to be. What I had not expected was the anti-climactic ending and the fact that it actually worked so hard to not be funny. I mean, this was a situation ripe for comedy gold. Imagine what Shakespeare could have done with this scenario! It could have been a gender-reversed Twelfth Night, and it absolutely was not. It was basically nothing at all, and would be utterly and justly forgotten if it hadn't starred Achilles.
Anyway, in my disgust at how absolutely nothing that play was, I decided to write my own. I borrowed a few incidents and motifs--largely Lycomedes having formed a passion for the beautiful "Pyrrha" and a subplot about Lycomedes' wife wanting to marry off "Pyrrha" to her nephew (which I subverted by replacing the nephew invented in the 18th century with Patroclos, since we know nothing of the identity of his mother in the original myths)--while trying to make it a little more fitting to the period and the myths, and also throwing in a subplot wherein Lycomedes has a Telltale Heart-style paranoia that someone will come from the mainland to kill him in vengeance for the way he murdered Theseus. (This was partially because one of the excuses for Achilles to invade Scyros in the actual ancient versions involved his father sending him to avenge Theseus. Despite that Achilles and his father had sod-all to do with Theseus. (It is highly ironic that as I am writing this post I am listening to the soundtrack to the game Hades, in which Theseus is one of those characters where you're like "who wouldn't want to murder that guy?"))
As to the version of Deidameia in "Pyrrha," she's definitely the most traditional version of Deidameia I'll be presenting to you. She's a pure and proper lady of her time, and in love with Achilles, while also put-out by the way he's treating her.
Pyrrha: (to herself) I can’t stay here forever.
Deidameia: What?! You can’t be thinking of leaving me! Not after all we’ve meant to each other!
She grabs Pyrrha’s arm plaintively.
Pyrrha: (to herself) I have to find some way to salvage my honor.
Deidameia: What about my honor?! Pyrrha!
Pyrrha shakes off Deidameia’s grip, turning to glare at her.
Pyrrha: If you have any love for me at all, then let me have some peace! I need to think!
Deidameia: Is it asking so much for you to speak to me when I’m standing right here in front of you?
Pyrrha: That’s what the night is for. Right now, I need to concentrate. My problems are serious.
Deidameia: They cannot be as serious as mine!
Pyrrha: You must be joking. Yours are—
(Achilles couldn't finish his thought because the queen entered the garden and he had to stop suddenly.) Anyway, this Deidameia was at least able to get a little snippish with her beloved, as this following scene (shortly after a conversation between Pyrrha and Patroclos) shows:
Deidameia: It seems you’ve acquired a suitor.
Pyrrha: What? Don’t be stupid. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.
Deidameia: I don’t see anything else he could have meant.
Pyrrha: He just wanted to tell me more about Phthia.
Deidameia: Because he hopes to take you back there as his wife!
Pyrrha laughs.
Pyrrha: He’ll be disappointed if he thinks that’s going to happen!
Deidameia: The way you were fawning over him, it’s no surprise he thinks you’re interested in him.
Pyrrha: I wasn’t fawning! Wait, are you jealous? Of a man?
Deidameia gets to her feet.
Deidameia: Of course I’m not jealous!
Pyrrha laughs at her. Deidameia storms out of the garden.
...but that's about it, really. She remains an "appropriate" princess of her period. More or less.
So, as I said, that version of Deidameia is pretty much standard to any version of the story that's focused on Achilles' situation rather than Deidameia's own. (I'm sure there are plenty of versions out there focused on her anguish and so on.)
Now, as to that failed visual novel. Okay, so, firstly, as I said, it was going to be for Yandere Jam. Both words of which may need some explaining, now that I think about it. A game jam is a challenge (usually without any kind of entry fee or reward, but not always) in which participants have a certain amount of time in which to make a game. For jams that lean towards visual novels, the amount of time is usually between one to three months. Yandere Jam was a one month jam, as I recall, but you could start work before that. As to what "yandere" means...ah...hmm, what's the best way to put it? Actually, rather than try to define it myself, let me just quote someone else's definition:
Yandere (JP) is a Japanese archetype used to define a character whose love, admiration, and devotion is so strong that it is expressed as an excessive obsession and possessiveness. They are often seen as characters that are crazily in love with someone.
(from The Dere Types Wikia page on Yandere)
So. Yeah. My decision to do a game about Achilles' time on Scyros for Yandere Jam was an interesting™ one.
But I did some stuff for it that really opened up the story for me. In it, I decided the player would play as Patroclos, the one sane character in the game, and that when Thetis came to take her son away and hide him on Scyros, Patroclos' job in the Prologue is to convince her to allow him to accompany Achilles to Scyros. If successful, then you move from the Prologue to Chapter One, wherein Patroclos is disguised as a bodyguard to 'Pyrrha' and allowed to join the guards in Lycomedes' palace. In each chapter, the idea was to have the game focus on a different yandere character, and Patroclos is trying either to keep them from killing him or to keep them from killing other people.
In the Prologue, that yandere was Thetis, and the one she loved obsessively was of course Achilles, so it was maternal love there. In Chapter One, the yandere is Achilles himself, and Patroclos has to keep Achilles from killing one of the other guards, who has latched onto Patroclos as his new best friend. (And in some paths it turns out that Achilles was actually right that the other guard had romantic/sexual designs on Patroclos.) In Chapter Two, the yandere is Deidameia, who has cottoned on to Achilles' feelings for Patroclos and is trying to eliminate him as a rival. It was, unfortunately, after Chapter Two I burned out and had to stop writing. (In the later chapters, one of the yandere characters was going to be Lycomedes, also fanatically in love with 'Pyrrha,' and in that case I think the challenge was going to be to keep Achilles from killing him in disgust. Then there was actually going to be a new yandere character who was a bit more of a traditional yandere, a girl from Patroclos' past. I kinda wish I hadn't tried to put in the Deidameia stuff, because the girl from Patroclos' past would have been pretty interesting.)
Anyway, it occurs to me that not everyone necessarily knows what a visual novel is, either. They're a kind of video game, but they're text-based, supported by visuals. (Actually, there are exceptions to almost all of that statement, but that's the basic idea.) Sometimes they have a lot of choices that can modify the story dramatically, and other times they have no choices at all. (And the entire spectrum between those, of course.) If you happen to be a former '80s kid like myself, you may recall the Choose Your Own Adventure novels. Visual novels are a lot like that, only in video game format, and with lots of pictures. Most visual novels, not every choice leads to an entire different branch like in an actual Choose Your Own Adventure novel...but in the case of this Scyros game, I had decided to take the Choose Your Own Adventure approach, and every single choice within a chapter led to a different branch and they never overlapped, though all non-game over paths eventually led to the same next chapter. (This is one of the reasons I burned out on it. That and because the stuff in Chapter Two was basically just Deidameia trying over and over again to kill Patroclos and it got repetitive and frustrating to write.)
In any case, allow me to present a few snippets of the text I wrote for the game. The stuff in parentheses is my notes to myself as to what the screen should show at any given time, things that are just in quotes are Patroclos' first-person narration, and dialog is, well, done about like in a play, so that part's pretty obvious. When I'm writing for a visual novel I write about half in Ren'py code and half just in notes to myself, but for this I've gone in and changed the Ren'py code indicating things like italics to just actual italics. 😅 Oh, but first I should show you what it was going to look like! I did actually code a bit of the Prologue and Chapter One. All the sprites and backgrounds were created by me, tracing over pictures of Mycenaean and Minoan frescoes. (In fact, the fresco I used to create Achilles' face is the same one I used to represent Atalanta and Ariadne in the game of Scions of Troy.) I wanted the game to look entirely like it was a fresco, but given how bad I am even at tracing art, it does not really live up to that ideal. (Someday, though, I would love to work with an actual artist who could accomplish that. Maybe if I ever expand Are You a Better General Than Agamemnon? I could do it then...) This image is from the first appearance of Deidameia:
The standing redhead is Achilles, of course, and that's Patroclos standing beside him. Deidameia is the one standing on the far side of the screen...and actually she ended up with a fancier sprite than Thetis did. 😅 The two seated women are some of Deidameia's sisters.
(patroclos is back on duty in the garden, along with another guard)
"It's been nearly a fortnight since Achilles first admitted that he had slept with the princess."
"I've barely spoken to him since then."
"His nocturnal visits to me have become intensely passionate to a degree I had never dared dream of, but..."
"...they've also become distressingly rare. Two, three, even four nights I must pass lonely between them."
"Lonely and jealous, knowing that he's spending those nights in her bed."
"I suppose now I understand how Hera feels."
"Ugh, what a terrible thing to think!"
"I need something to happen to distract me from feeling sorry for myself because my boyfriend has gotten involved with someone else."
(deidameia enters)
"No...no, that is not what I had in mind..."
(deidameia walks up to him)
Guard3 "May I help you, your highness?"
"She ignores him, and remains focused exclusively on me."
Deidameia "You're the man who arrived here with Pyrrha, are you not?"
Patroclos "Yes, your highness."
"She smirks, even as she looks me over head-to-toe, clearly finding me wanting."
Deidameia "You are not worthy of the words of praise she speaks of you."
"Neither are you."
Patroclos "I'm sure I'm not, your highness."
"My words make her laugh, haughty and self-satisfied."
(she turns and starts leaving)
"Then she leaves, just like that."
(exit deidameia)
And shortly after that, he's sent to recapture an escaped lion (a lion in a cage was presented to Lycomedes as a gift at the start of Chapter Two), only it didn't actually escape: it was taken into a forest and chained up without food (to increase the chances it would eat him if he managed to reach it) and surrounded by deadly traps. After the player makes it all the way through the five "choose the correct option or game over" moments, they get this scene, which gives a little more insight into what that version of Deidameia is like:
Achilles "Where were you today!?"
"Hastily, I explain about the mission to recapture the lion."
Achilles "Weird. Who'd leave traps like that out in the forest?"
"I can't bring myself to tell him that I suspect the princess who's been occupying his bed on all those nights he's been neglecting me."
Patroclos "I don't know."
"Achilles shrugs, then moves closer to me."
Achilles "Let's not waste time talking."
Achilles "I have to get back before Deidameia wakes up."
"Even as he presses his lips against mine, I can't help being dismayed at the casual way he just said that."
"As if it was natural that he be so intimate with her that his relationship with me can only be accomplished by sneaking around behind her back, or while she sleeps."
"If it were the reverse, if I was the one with a mistress, he would never stand for it."
"If I were the one sleeping with a girl, Achilles would kill her, or me, or both of us, without a moment's hesitation."
"But he makes me simply tolerate this intolerable situation, endlessly...."
(fade out)
"...and I let him."
But then a few short while later, this happens...
(achilles' head appears in the window, and patroclos rushes over, so he's already at the window by the time achilles enters the room)
Patroclos "Achilles! You--"
(achilles shuts the window, then presses up close against patroclos)
Achilles "You've got to do something about her!"
Patroclos "What? What--who? What happened?"
Achilles "Deidameia! She won't let me come see you! She keeps tangling herself up in me so I can't sneak out of the women's wing!"
Patroclos "Achilles..."
...and from there you can actually get a game over scenario in which Achilles brutally murders Deidameia. Really, really brutally. To be honest, I'd forgotten I'd written that. Of course, even if you convince Achilles not to kill her, he still has this to say:
Patroclos "You can't kill people just because they're doing something you don't like. Didn't we have this conversation once already?"
Achilles "But this is much worse than that! She's actively trying to destroy our love!"
Patroclos "I'm sure she isn't--wait, you didn't tell her that we were in love, did you?"
As you've probably noticed by now, a lot of what's in that game about Deidameia is more her as a concept than as an on-screen presence. This is in part because I dislike having to write characters of that sort at all, and especially dislike having to write women into that sort of role. Which is another of the reasons I burned out on writing that game, I think. 🤣
Anyway, best for last, let me tell you about how I handled the character of Deidameia in The Golden God of Aiolia. That being set about eighteen years after the end of the Trojan War, Deidameia is now the Queen of Scyros, a bereaved mother still mourning her son many years after his death. Her first appearance in the text is early in the first chapter of the novel:
As she stalked through the halls of her palace, Deidameia’s mind replayed the events at Delphi for the thousandth time. She had been leaving her customary offerings at her son’s grave when one of the priests arrived to summon her into the Pythia’s presence. Thinking that they were finally willing to agree to her request and allow her son’s remains to be given a proper hero’s burial on Scyros, where they belonged, she had gone to see the prophetess without any concerns. It was hard to see in the Pythia’s darkened chambers, but Deidameia had been able to see enough: the priestess was a very common-looking young woman, breathing in foul-smelling fumes that rose from a crack in the earth. No one who should be allowed to pass judgment on kingly remains.
“Abandon your quest,” the Pythia had said, her sing-song voice echoing in the nearly empty chamber. “The grave desecrated cannot be moved.”
“Desecrated?!”
“Your sister’s seed still walks the mortal realm,” the common thing had gone on, ignoring Deidameia entirely. “There will be a clash of blood over arms. Interfere not, or be rejected in death as you were ignored in life.”
With that, the Pythia turned to an attendant priest and began spouting even more nonsense, and Deidameia had been ushered out of the chamber as if she was the commoner and that mad priestess was the queen. She had left Delphi in a rage, planning to go to Delos to demand that Apollo’s priests there voyage to Delphi and teach its allegedly prophetic priestess some manners. Before her ship could set sail, though, the news reached her ears that her son’s grave had been violated, and his armor stolen. It hadn’t taken her long to track down the thief, standing out as he did by wearing that fabulous armor.
Despite the urging of her troops, Deidameia had confronted the thief personally, demanding the return of the armor, only to have the man claim to be the armor’s original owner, risen from the dead. The claim set hate boiling in Deidameia’s blood, a fury that still had not ceased. “You may bear some passing resemblance to my late son,” she had informed the villain, “but you are not he. That armor belonged to my son, Pyrrhos, and to his father before him. You will return it to me this instant!”
The thief had only laughed at her and called her a crazy old woman. Then—the sheer, insubordinate, murderous gall of it!—he had thrown his spear at her! If one of her soldiers hadn’t pushed her aside, taking the blow in her place, she really would have ended up dead, as the rude Pythia had said. The other part of the prophecy, of course, could never have come true: she knew that things would be different now. With so many years to reflect on it, with so many tragedies endured, of course Achilles would have come to realize just how much better life had been as Pyrrha. Deidameia had no doubts that whenever she finally did lose her mortal life, she would find her sweet, precious Pyrrha waiting for her in the house of Hades.
And she arrives back in her throne room, regarding the man on her throne as a mere "tool." But in the process of ordering him to prepare to retrieve her son's armor, that "tool" makes a comment that he is her husband...
While the rest of the court cowered, she walked calmly over to him and slapped him as hard as she could. “How dare you address your queen by name so casually?!?” she shouted. “You are no husband of mine! Only Achilles has the right to call himself my husband! My father would not permit me to inherit the throne directly, so you are merely the empty vessel for my rule. Do not forget yourself again. This was your second mistake. At your third error, you will find out first-hand how my father dealt with unwanted ‘kings’ on his island.” The cold threat in her voice set the rest of the men in the court paling in fear. They all knew what her father had done to that kidnapper Theseus. And they knew she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to this tool.
Then she doesn't show up again until near the end of the novel, though she's discussed before that, and we're told that she's every bit as terrifying as her father in terms of disposing of her enemies, even the ones who came to her island as guests. (Though her own POV had already told us that, lol!) But that aside from that we're told she's actually a much better ruler than her father was. In any case, when she finally meets Atalanta, we're in Eurysake's point of view, and this happens...
They were not alone long. Soon an older woman came in. Not quite as old as Eurysakes’ uncle. But close. It was plain she had been beautiful in her youth. She was still beautiful for her age. She wore a diadem and a flounced skirt woven through with gold. They both bowed to her. Queen Deidameia was scowling at them. Until Atalanta straightened up. Then she gasped. Covered her mouth with her hand. Looked like she might cry.
Atalanta looked nervous. Turned to look at Eurysakes.
The queen rushed over to her. “Pyrrha, you’ve come back to me at last!” she exclaimed. Pulled a befuddled Atalanta into a tight hug. Then pulled back a little. Placed a hand on Atalanta’s chest. “Breasts?” She almost sounded pleased.
“Um…please stop that…” Atalanta’s face was bright red. Redder than her hair.
“You’re a girl…”
“Of course I am! What else would I be?!”
The queen released her. Stepped away. Her own face was red now. “Forgive me. You look—I thought—” She sighed. Shook her head. “For a moment, I forgot myself entirely. I have never seen such a perfect resemblance. I thought surely my husband’s divine mother had finally managed to bring him back to life—”
Then, during the epilogue, we're given Ariadne's take on a few things that happen regarding Deidameia that really sheds some light on matters...
For the first few days after the Scyran queen’s arrival, Ariadne didn’t get to see much of Atalanta, because Queen Deidameia was completely monopolizing her. She hadn’t been satisfied with the entire tale of their lives—both in slavery and since escaping—and also insisted on hearing every story that Atalanta had ever heard about Achilles, and which were her favorites…and then she had felt the need to tell Atalanta every single thing that had happened while Achilles was trapped in disguise on Scyros, in excruciating detail. Atalanta seemed to be trying very hard not to listen to the queen’s tales, but Ariadne had been listening very carefully, and she had picked up on several things that the queen hadn’t meant to share, and possibly some that she hadn’t been aware of herself. The queen had such a tendency to refer to Achilles as Pyrrha that Ariadne quickly came to the conclusion that her love had been more for the false persona than for the boy beneath it. She made no mention of any marriage ceremony, so she had plainly taken to calling Achilles her husband purely to protect her reputation—though since marriage was sometimes nebulous, as far as Ariadne could tell, that perhaps their having had a baby together actually counted as a marriage in the most important respects, especially considering their political positions—or at least to deflect the worst criticisms of her improper behavior with him. The queen also mentioned how often Achilles would disappear for hours at a time, right from the very first day of his arrival, leading Ariadne to suspect that he may have only agreed to the disguise if Patroclos accompanied him in a disguise of his own, presumably not as another girl, but likely as a guard stationed at the court. The story of Odysseus tricking the apparently rather gullible teenage Achilles into revealing himself (literally!) in the middle of the court also suggested to Ariadne that Lycomedes had known full well that Achilles was a boy the entire time, and had willingly allowed the boy such intimate access to his daughters in the hopes that he would seduce his eldest daughter, the female disguise being the only way past her distaste for men. A very vile ploy on her Lycomedes’ part, if Ariadne’s suspicions were true!
I decided, when I was writing the new draft of The Golden God of Aiolia, to fold in some of the details from the failed visual novel--specifically, that Patroclos accompanied Achilles to Scyros in disguise as a guard--and also added the wrinkle that this version of Deidameia was actually only interested in women, and had only put up with Achilles being male because he made such a pretty girl!
I'm sure I'm not the first person to make Deidameia a lesbian, and won't be the last either, but I felt like it was a great detail to fit into this particular version of the Greek mythic world. 😄
Oh, yes, links! "Pyrrha" can be found on AO3, while The Golden God of Aiolia can be found on itch.io and AO3.
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