Mark Gagnon

And we're not talking about, like, armies or politics.

We're talking about a party and a golden apple.

We're going into the mythos, the founding sort of stories that the Greeks tell themselves.

Now, according to the myth, there was this big wedding for the sea goddess Thetis, and there was a mortal king named Peleus.

And basically every god and goddess on Mount Olympus was invited to pull up.

Every god was accepted except for one, and that's Eris.

Eris is the goddess of discord.

Yes, she's a gaming mod, and she just lives in a basement.

No, not that discord.

She is the goddess of basically chaos, of sowing dissent, and was left off the guest list for obvious reasons, right?

If I'm having a wedding, I'm not inviting Eris.

I have a few Erises in my life, and I didn't invite them.

But you don't want that kind of thing showing up at the party.

But what does Eris do?

Classic goddess of discord shows up uninvited and tossed a golden apple into the crowd.

And in it, or on it rather, was inscribed a single phrase, for the fairest.

Literally, like, yo, the baddest bee in here, you guys get the apple.

So then three goddesses immediately claimed it, right?

Hera, queen of the gods, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, and Aphrodite, goddess of love.

Zeus wisely refused to judge the contest himself.