Blog Entry 4.3 Final Project

There has been many versions of "Clash of the titan", movies, books, and even cartoons but it first began as a novel written by Alan Dean Foster in 1981. It portrays the heroic tale of the protagonist Perseus in his pursuit to avenge his family untimely death from the evil Greek mythological god Hades. This story embarks you to embrace your mind in the world where demons and gods rule humanity, where creatures of the sea strike fear in the heart of man and winged horses soar over the heavenly clouds.I will be focusing on analyzing the latest film of Clash of the Titans that came out in the year 2010, where Perseus starts off with  an orphan archetype and then transforms himself into a warrior. The film starts off when the titans is overruled by their sons Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Zeus becomes the ruler of the heavens, Poseidon became king of the seas, and Hades was left to rule the dreadful underworld. 

Zeus whom created mankind was questioned by mortals on their abilities and their rights to rule over them, so to teach the rebellious King Acrisius a lesson Zeus impersonated Acrisius and slept with his wife, Danae. This is the result of the birth of Zeus' mortal son, Perceus. As Perseus is born, Acrisius condemns the execution of Danae and her newborn child into the sea. This causes Zeus to zap thunder on Acrisius, leaving him hideous for life. Thunder is the symbol of power and anger from Zeus.

Perseus' life starts when he is founded and adopted by a fisherman named Spyros. He is known to be born so that he can defeat the Kraken. Perseus’ hero quest starts when his family and he were floating by Argos. As they are floating by Argos, they start to envy the statue of the Greek god Zeus. However, as they are envying the statue, soldiers of Argos are also declaring war against the gods, by destroying the statue of Zeus. This causes the underworld god to rise up to land in form of black pixies called Harpies to eliminate the Argos soldiers. When Hades finishes killing off the soldiers, he stares into Perseus’s face with a fierce look, Hades then turns into a fireball and strikes the boat which leads to the death of Perseus’ family.

Perseus is rescued by the remaining soldiers in Argos, whom are celebrating their act upon revolt. Hades returns once again in the shape of a smoky fog like hurricane. The wind in the hurricane symbolizes violence because wind is very active and can do rapid damage to mother earth. The smoky color that Hades gives off is the symbol of evil, unhappiness, sadness and fear. The reason behind this is because when the gods overthrown the titans, Zeus tricked Hades into becoming the underworld god. The Underworld god is an outcast to Olympus because he is to watch over the underworld and does not belong in the heavens with others. Hades comes just when Queen Cassiopeia finishes her speech on how her daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodite. Hades makes the people of Argos fearful of him by killing off the soldiers around Perseus and aging Queen Cassiopeia to death. Hades warns Argos if princess Andromeda is not sacrificed the Kraken will rise up in ten days when the sun is eclipsed. Hades leaves by facing Perseus with the finishing quote, “this is the will of Zeus, the will of your father.” Another symbolism for Hades is when he appears in front of Perseus there is sparks around his aura which symbolizes chaos and war. This causes the villagers to plead for Perseus’ help in defeating the Kraken. Perseus refuses to help the villagers and the princess because he does not believe he is a demigod since his father is a fisherman. Perseus is locked up in a dungeon where a magician archetype, Io finally introduces herself. Io who also is a demigoddess (part women and part goddess) reveals Perseus’s true identity about his mother and father. During Io’s image of the story of Zeus and Danae, Zeus appears in a shape of an eagle, while he is seducing Danae, it is thundering and raining outside. The eagle signifies inspiration, ruler, power, authority, community, masculinity, and guardianship. Io continues to meantion that Perseus was destined to defeat the Kraken. Perseus’ state of mind sets only to seek revenge for his family. Io helps determine Perseus' decision on his adventure for vengeance. Io is a big impact on Perseus' hero's quest because she is his mentor throughout his journey

While resting in the forest one of the Argos soliders tries to bring out the “god” out of Perseus by training him in using a sword. After Perseus’ training, Perseus encounters a series of items such as a shiny sword that only he can use and a flying black horse named Pegasus. Minutes later Perseus hears two of his Argos comrades yelling out for help. Calibos also known as Acrisius appears to exterminate Perseus and the others. Calibos the demon like human being kills off most of the Argos soldiers and takes a bite out of Perseus’ flesh. Just then, Draco one of the praetorian guards, finds an opportunity to cut off Calibos’ hand, causing his blood to form giant scorpions. The scorpions in this film symbolize death, control, isolation, protection, and defense. Calibos is hung up on the fact that he is still defeated by Zeus because he murdered his wife for nothing. Being that Perseus is still alive, destroys his pride on what he fought for in the past. Calibos decides to flee because he is outnumbered with only one hand and six men. Perseus soon meets the guardian of the desert known as a Djinn. Perseus wants to thank the Djinn but cannot take another step due to the posion from Calibos. One of the Argos solider tells him to pray to his father. However Perseus does not believe he needs any of the help or gifts from the gods. He still thinks that he is a mere mortal man who can take on this adventure by himself. The Djinn helps heal Perseus’ venomous wound and controls the rest of the scorpions. The Djinn believes that the gods should be overthrown and in order to stand up to them they should all work together.

Perseus and eight others are off to the wicked old witches. When they arrive to the witches’ lair, this scene becomes very intense and imaged very well around this archetype. The witches are in a dark deserted place. There are three witches who symbolize past, present, and future. These witches do not have eyes on their heads but they do have one eye that they share among themselves so that they can see. Perseus and the others ask one too many questions, so the witches demand that one of their men is to be sacrificed in order to receive another answer. Therefore Perseus steals their eye so that the witches would tell him how the Kraken can be defeated. He returns the eye as soon as they tell him that Medusa can turn anything into stone with her gaze. After leaving the witches lair, Perseus runs into Zeus whom asks him to return to Olympus where he rightfully belongs. Perseus refuses because he does not believe that he is part god. Due to Perseus’ refusal Zeus gives Perseus a golden Medusa coin as a token to the underworld.

The two villagers Ozal and Kucuk decide that they can no longer travel any longer with Perseus on his journey. As a gift they craft a shield made from the scorpions they have defeated together. Io tells the men that Medusa was not a beast at one point. Medusa was so beautiful, Poseidon could not help but become tempted in her enduring looks. Medusa goes to Athena’s temple for protection, but Athena did not show any grief towards her. Instead Athena cursed Medusa with a look of stone. Meaning any men that gazes into her eyes will turn into stone, women on the other hand cannot be harmed by her curse. Medusa symbolizes many things in literature. For example Medusa, in the form of a Greek word metis represents feminine wile. When the gods created women they portrayed the women image into Medusa. Medusa also means ruler, queen, or guardian. In this century women are very mysterious and can lure men into a lot of trouble. Her physical features also resemble a rattle snake which symbolizes rebirth, cycle, fertility, balance, protection, transformation, and both gender. The snake on her heads have these different meaning because in the old movie Clash of the Titans, when Medusa’s head was chopped off, her children arose from her blood. The blood that gave birth to her children symbolizes rebirth from the menstruation system of females. When Medusa’s head gets chopped off the snake symbolizes the balance in life because when one dies others will be born to replace her. Five of Perseus’ men get eliminated by Medusa, and Perseus finally beheads her with the help of a mirror shield. The reflection of the mirror symbolizes self knowledge,and revelation. The mirroring shield foreshadows the relation of a true demigod within him. As Perseus leaves Medusa’s lair he watches Io get stabbed by Calibos. Enraged, Perseus stabs Calibos with a regular sword he picked up from the Argos village. He soon realizes in order to save Io and the others, he may need the help of the gods because he is the only one who made it out of Medusa's lair alive. If no mortal or demigoddess can withstand Calibos, who else can? Perseus picks up the sword he received from the gods and stabs Calibos with it. Calibos turns into his human form with the last words” Perseus, don’t become one of them.” Io returns to Olympus while Perseus sets off on Pegasus to Argos.

As the eclipse nears, Zeus orders the Kraken to awaken from the underworld to make the villagers fearful of Hades and to accept Zeus once again. The Kraken who is created by Hades is the one who controls and leeches off the fear of humans. The more fearful the citizens are, the weaker Zeus becomes, and the more power Hades will have. Perseus shows Medusa’s head to the Kraken and saves Andromeda. Perseus banishes Hades back into the underworld with the help of his father’s lightning bolted sword. Andromeda asks Perseus to become king of Argos but he refuses to become a king. Zeus comes back to land and proposes to have him return to Olympus. Perseus now a warrior archetype accepts his power of a demigod and decides to stay on land to protect those from Hades who may rise again.

Work Cited
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