Poseidon: The Greek God In Homer's Odyssey

In Greek mythology there are many gods. The three big gods are Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Poseidon is the god of the sea and earthquakes. Similar to Zeus, Poseidon has many, many children. Like many of the other gods, Poseidon can be good or bad at different times. In the Odyssey, Poseidon is bad, or a villain. There are quite a few things that he does in the Odyssey that would make someone see him as a villain. But, overall Poseidon is a very mean and violent god. Poseidon is a villain because he was very cruel in the trojan war. In fact, in the Odyssey, Poseidon torments Odysseus. The Ohio State University writes that, “In myth he is famous as the persecutor of Odysseus”. What they are referring to is when Odysseus killed one of Poseidon’s

Just like Zeus, Poseidon constantly turns into animals so that he can rape and seduce mortal women. He has a countless number of children and is even known for having created a horse offspring with his sister, Demeter(Zimmerman). This is just disgusting, no sane or good person would do a thing like this. Some people would expect that a being with the title of “god” wouldn’t be so cruel and evil. As one of the ten olympians, Poseidon is known to be very powerful and very violent(The Columbia Encyclopedia). When he was in a contest with Athena for the ownership of a new territory, Poseidon is given the challenge of creating a gift for the people of the new territory. Poseidon decides to make his gift the horse. He proposes that it would help the people be stronger and faster in war. It is typical of a villain to think of war immediately when given a task like this. Being less evil than Poseidon, Athena gave the people an olive tree. She figured that the people would appreciate peace, fertile soil, and the wealth that came with olives(William Smith). Poseidon was such a cruel and evil go that I would even go as far to say that he could be considered a