Why are the gods in the Iliad so childish?

On the nature of Divine fickleness.

I was once asked this very question by a friend, once I told them that I was into Greek mythology. The moment I heard it, several different thoughts crossed my mind. I told him, “I doubt you chose the best adjective possible, but it’s a start.” I appreciate the need to move aside from the moral policing and instead focus on what I assume is the “maturity” behind their actions. That said, it isn’t appropriate in the least, either.

For one, I can’t fathom why you’d consider something childish to be bad, much less extruded from the essence of the gods. As representations of nature, which is perhaps the most banal reading you can go for, they are meant to be wild and untamed — often acting in ways that cannot be rationalized. And they are justified in doing so, because they are not bound by the prison that we humans deem rationality. What is and isn’t appropriate, thus, is no longer a question to them, since it is unbecoming of their being.

This fickleness is the central element of their behavior, and very likely a common underpinning across mythologies and religions. The Biblical Elohim famously describes himself as a “jealous God,” and try as you might to rationalize that, it is undeniably rather childish of Him. Yet to give Him special treatment and preclude the Greek Gods from it is incoherent.

Zeus, as he appears in Hades II, by Supergiant Games.

I’d argue that the people of the Iliad and those who held it dear to them did a much better job than any monotheist, atheist, or philosopher, since they were able to reconcile themselves with the irrational backdrop of the cosmos. Khaos, I think they called it; y’know, the primordial origin of everything, and its English declension is maybe the best adjective possible for them.

One of my favorite words to use for any god (period) is ineffable, particularly when understood as something inherently beyond comprehension. Wherever you believe you understand that limit, it’s always two light-years away, and you can’t ever hope to encapsulate it. What you can do, however, is let yourself sink and submerge into this madness and flow as one of its currents, into the churning mouth of this cosmic “Charybdis.”

Which is to suggest that this is okay. Whether or not you partake of your God as wine and bread, or if you circumambulate a “squared circle,” or you believe that the Gods of yore descended and ignited bloodshed, you are doing the same thing: you are individualizing their lives — It’s lives — and participating in them as an equal creator. And that might be why you pick up on the childishness of it all; it is very much your inner wonder speaking out, being birthed and slaughtered on the cross at each instance.

So, no. They aren’t childish. At least, not in a bad way, methinks. Fe fi fo fum, they be gods so serve them rum — or something; I can’t think of anything. I recommend you try living with that level of whimsy. Good day.