At last we come to the end of our cheery trilogy,the Eumenides end our tale. The main action of the Eumenides is of course the trail. At the end of which Orestes is declared innocent by Athena, since the jury was unable to decide.
The Furies seem to get the raw end of this deal, and they know it. But somehow, in the course of a few short pages, Athena talks them into joining her and letting go of their fury. The play ends with the Furies, 2.0, frolicking merrily around Athena and promising to reign blessings instead of punishments down upon the world.
Okay....what the HECK!?!?! Somehow, we managed to get from "I loose my poison on the soil...cursing the land to burn it sterile" to orgies for life in the space of a few pages. What happened to the FURY in the Furies? The kinder, gentler, Furies 2.0 don't seem to be the same Furies at all, merely a shadow of the creatures claiming and assured of their own greatness, who even Athena admitted "the years have taught you more, much more than I can know." In place of the old ones, full of power, we are presented with creatures now under the power of Athena, creatures that seem incredibly different than the ones mere moments before.
The question I pose to you is this: Was this a good ending for the Furies? Are the Furies 2.0 really the way to go, or did the world of tragedy lose something valuable when the Furies allowed Athena to change their nature. I would argue yes, but in the end that is up to the reader to decide.
I posted on Athena for a Day
What I want to know is where Athene got the power to do that in the first place. They were higher gods, created before her or even Zeus. WHere did she get the right to assert any kind of authority over them?
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