Thread: An interesting take on Pandora's box

When I'm doing something I usually have something to listen to in the background.
Be it a music, be it a stream.

During one of sir Yetus'es streams (i don't remember which one), his cohost - Grey Ghost
made some interesting points.

He said that for a man the greatest trial is his wife.
On the other hand, the greatest trial for a woman is herself.
He then drew the paralel to the Pandora myth.

Pandora had everything besides the contents of a peculiar box. She was explicitly told not to open it.
She opened it anyways and released death from its confinement.

Women often double down on bad behaviour, expecting different results but worsening the situation instead.
Pandora was no exception. Even after all of those terrible things happened she still gave the box another try.


Many people don't realize that pandora actually have released not one but two curses - death and hope.
Because hope is the most insidious curse one can imagine.
This curse makes you act stupid. It makes you value possibility over probability.
It empowers you to get hit with the same hammer a millionth time in hopes of getting a different result.


I think that's an interesting take.
The idea of unicorn cannot exist without hope.
We've rejected this idea because we see women as hopeless.

Beacuse anything else is just a wishful thinking.

Pandora was built by the gods, because Zeus wanted to punish the humans, because Prometheus helped the humans against the will of Zeus. Prometheus (the one who thinks in advance) was chained and much later was liberated by Hercules. So his brother Epimetheus had to serve as his proxy to protect mankind.

Pandora was sent as a gift, like the Trojan horse. Epimetheus (the one who thinks afterwards) accepted the gift in the name of mankind and opened the box, which caused the eternal mixture of good and evil. From this day on every good came with an evil. And the goddess Elpis (hope) is the perfect example for this.

This story isn't about the sexes, but about authority and fate (Zeus) and rebellion and free will (Prometheus). It is the same dynamic like between God and Lucifer (his name means "light bringer" by the way).

Originally Posted by Smoking Wizard

It is the same dynamic like between God and Lucifer.

This is a common take - that's why I found the other one so interesting.

Because most people (including me) view hope as something good. And they interpret it the exact way you described - mixture of good and evil.
But what if hope really is a curse? You hope that college debt will be cancelled.
You hope that eviction moratorium will last a tad bit longer.
You haven't prepared at all for the finals, because you hope they won't be that difficult.

Some people say that hope saves us in the darkest of times from making stupid decisions (like minecrafting oneself).
Isn't that determination's doing though? You can have no hope yet fight to the end.

Many battles have been won by pure determination. Many had been lost, granting enemy a pyrrhic victory.
Iwo Jima, Verdun, Stalingrad; germans and russians fighting room to room.
All thanks to the determination in face of hopelesness.

Death is a curse indeed. Because not only people but also anything they create has an expiration date.
We will never know whose depictions those beheaded roman figures were.
Neither the contents of Alexandrian library.
We can only imagine how many ancient buildings looked like.
Paintings and pages rot and even Mona Lisa can't evade death forever.

There are blessings in disguise and the gifts that keep on giving.
There are wolves in sheeps clothing and there are also curses disguised as blessings.

"May all your dreams come true" is a famous arabic curse.
On the surface it seems like a blessing but the evil always lurks within.

Is Elpis a demon playing as a goddess? Is hope truly a blessing or insidious curse?

Because it can not only be a curse. Hope does good things too, or not? And nothing lasts forever you said, so all the grief, anger and pain is also finite.

A demon (another Greek word) could be good or evil or both. Hope is a God. Sometimes she helps you, sometimes she acts against you. But demons were not Gods. The Gods created the demons.

But Greek Gods were not perfect, they had mood swings and did what they wanted to do.

There was no one God who loves everyone and absolves everyone. Nope. If you sacrifice them, maybe they would help you, or not.

That's exactly how the curses work.
They give you something that on the short term is good.

"May all your dreams come true" seems like immense good for the first few months.
That's why there are so many tales about animals/entities that grant you 3 wishes.

Then after those few months you realize that no longer do you have a purpose in life.
There is nothing to live for because you've already achieved all of your goals.

Then you create new goals so they keep you going.
You make a desperate attempt in order to regain the most precious thing everyone has.
But like Midas you fail each time.
You watch in dismay as your newly formulated goals, instanly come to fruition.

The same goes for hope. Is it really there any good in it that isn't superficial?
They say that madness is repeating the same thing in hopes of getting the different result.
Because hope is a curse indeed - the curse of madness.

Hope makes you keep on going. The hope for a better life, for a better you. It points to an ideal, which serves as a goal. If you will reach your goal is another thing. Probably not in full, but the important part is to try it.

So we are at a point where "life is suffering" and "live in the moment" come up, which tells me that all religions once were a single one. They may have different stories, but the message is the same.

Do the best you can with your time.