The Morally Ambiguous Greek Divine Lore
In ancient Greek lore, gods are often a vindictive lot who do horrible things to mortals and to each other, with little sense of proportionality. The gods were seen in anthropomorphic terms, and depicted as similar to humans in many aspects. They had human appetites and desires, and human emotions such as joy, sadness, lust, anger, jealousy, and wrath that often led to vengeance visited upon those who displeased them. Since the Greek gods were, well, gods, they were terrors to behold whenever they got mad. Both because of their divine powers, and because they were often unrestrained by morality and the social norms that apply to humans.
Greek gods were not infallible and always out to do good, but flawed super beings who were quite fallible. Humans simply had to endure their divine decisions, whether just or unjust – and the gods often acted unjustly. Greek deities were often depicted as sadistic bullies eager for an excuse to inflict punishment. Olympian gods – so named because they were believed to live atop Mount Olympus – might fly into a divine wrath at the slightest provocation and wreck some unfortunate. Their vengeance often took extreme forms, to let everybody know just who is boss.
