Eris
If Eris is not the patron goddess of Improbable Island, she should be.
In Classical Greek mythology, Eris was the goddess of strife and chaos. She was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, so she tossed an apple marked 'For The Fairest'1)2) in the middle of the party.3) This, needless to say, caused the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Artemis4) to all claim it and through that start the Trojan War which killed a whole bunch of people.5)
On Improbable Island, Eris appears to be a middle-aged, attractive frosted blonde with glasses and a red turtleneck who follows people around, taking notes in a stenographer's notebook and giggling a lot.6)
Zog The Disturbed is the High Priest Of The First Improbable Island Church Of Eris Esoteric. He is also a Knight of the Legion of Dynamic Discord, a Sacred Questor Of The Mendicant Order of La Mancha, and a guaranteed Discordian Pope 7)
1)
Actually, what it said was 'ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ,' because Ancient Greeks couldn't spell. Historians, however, assure us that what she meant was 'For The Fairest.'
2)
Some will try to convince you that it said τῇ καλλίστῃ, but this is quite dubious in light of the chronological difficulties this would pose. The marking of pitch accents is generally credited to Aristophanes of Byzantium, head of the Library of Alexandria (yes, that Library of Alexandria), sometime in the 2nd century BCE, and the development of iota subscript as an alternative to iota adscript is dated even later, to the 12th century CE, since by that time Byzantine philologists both did not pronounce the original long diphthong but also cared deeply about maintaining fidelity to the original text. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), both of these innovations in orthography are dated far later than the presumed wedding date of Peleus and Thetis.
3)
In Discordianism, this is known as the Original Snub.
4)
And if that's not an irrational bunch, I don't know what is.
5)
Technical term.
6)
Despite appearances, Eris and The Watcher are not the same person. They may, however, be sisters. Or lovers. Or dire enemies. Or all of the above.
7)
Of course, anyone with a decent printer and a sense of the ridiculous can be any of these.
meta/beings/eris.txt · Last modified: 2023/12/04 21:27 by kuhsodas