Monday, February 24, 2014

Clash of the Titans—Is it Incest?

I watched the last 5 minutes of the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. The ending is still stupid. According to the Greek myth, after Perseus saves Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea monster, they marry. The movie has him taking up with some nymph named Io.



Trouble is, Io and Perseus are distantly related (see details below). Io is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Perseus. The moviemakers should have known better than plucking a name from Greek mythology without checking.

I know, eventually everyone is related to everyone. But it would seem more natural for Perseus to get interested in some second or third cousin, not a direct forebear. This just seems weird to get interested in a multiple-great-grandmother.

Does this count as incest? It’s an intergenerational relationship along a direct line of mother to distant son, rather than broadly separated cousins. Another way of looking at it is Perseus is the illegitimate son of Zeus. But Zeus also had a son by way of Io. So Perseus is getting interested in his illegitimate father’s girlfriend. I know Greek mythology can have weird relationships, but this movie made it worse.


Perseus, son of Danae, daughter of Acrisius, son of Abas, son of Lynceus, son of Aegyptus, son of Belus, son of Libya, son of Epaphus, son of Io. 

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