by Serena

“In Greek mythology, Dionysus was murdered as an infant and ripped to pieces. The Titans ate every part of him except his heart. His father, Zeus, took the heart and planted it in a woman, Semele. A new Dionysus grew from the heart and was reborn, or “twice born.”
~ an excerpt from the Arcana

A couple weeks ago, it was discussed here and elsewhere the significance of Maryann’s rituals, specifically the rite of Dionysius, the “Hunter Souffle.” From this can be gleamed the following; the eating of the shifter’s heart represented the rebirth of the ‘mad god’ of Maryann, or Dionysus, who is the antithesis of Apollo. And from that we can gleam that the True Blood writers were assigning mythological roles to the characters of Bon Temps. Tara is to Semele, as Daphne is to Daphne, where Sam is to Apollo.

Renée then posited the question about Sam, if his Moon Queen, (whether it be his sister Artemis, the moon goddess Selene, or any of her incantations) had yet appeared. Well, so far as I can tell, she has not, but his Cassandra has appeared. Tara is doubling as Semele and Cassandra, and in this way she too is ‘twice born.’ Or maybe she is ‘twice annihilated’ as in twice cursed.

Apollon, Apollon,
Guard of the ways, my destroyer!
For thou hast quite, this second time, destroyed me.
~Cassandra in ‘Agamemnon’ by Aeschylus, line 1076.

Cassandra of Legend: Who is this Hookah?

She is the prophetic daughter of the King of Troy, Priam, and his wife Hecuba, (Hecuba it must be noted went mad after the loss of two of her other children and she was turned into a dog, which will be interesting to see how Lettie Mae handles the ‘loss’ of her daughter, if Tara cuts her out of her life. Maybe this is the ‘bad news’ Tara receives at the hospital).

Cassandra has 11 sisters and 50 brothers, most notably Paris, Hector, Polyxena, and her twin brother Helenus (This might represent Lafayette, her brother by another mother, who has the gift but not the curse). Tara also has a large family supposedly, but the rest of siblings have skipped town, though I have to say it can’t be that huge.

There are two different versions of the story of how Cassandra acquired her gift of prophecy. The first one, she fell asleep in Apollo’s temple, who fell into lust with her and made a bargain of granting her the gift in return for sexual favors, she backed out on the deal and he spat in her mouth so no one would ever believe her. (Like with Sam, Tara rejected him, even if they did consummate but I’m ignoring that. I’m also ignoring the fact that Cassandra was only granted her gift by a male god, that’s utter bull-crap, total ancient Greek sexist censoring of a powerful woman. But moving on)…

The second version for our purposes is more interesting. As a child Cassandra fell asleep in the temple of Apollo along with her twin Helenus, while her drunken parents left them behind and returned home. (Lettie Mae!) Apollo’s serpents licked the children’s ears giving them both the gift of prophecy, and when the parents returned the snakes slithered away into Apollo’s laurel grove (Daphne, snake, -sin! ). In this version, its not clear how Cassandra became to be cursed but it is clear her twin brother was not.Regardless, Cassandra became a priestess and entered the employ of Apollo, Sam Merlotte.

Cassandra is best known for her visions of DOOM, the fall of Troy and the Trojan horse. Could Dimitri, the meat tree be a Trojan horse? He was made of wood, and oversized, but he was only a symbolic uterus for Maryann’s ritual. He didn’t contain any spies. Hmm… a Trojan horse probably better applies to Bill Compton. Tara has repeatedly warned Sookie about him and his big bad yet to no avail. But anyway, as we like to say, Cassandra Tara called that shit, and no one believed in her. Alas. So, along came the big bad Greeks vampire, and the fall of Troy Bon Temps was complete. (Well, it was pretty much trashed by the end of season 2 anyway.)

Fasten your seatbelts kiddos, here is where it gets a little weird. Cassandra was ‘raped’ by Ajax the Lesser at Athena’s temple. However, I’ve read that the word rape isn’t particularly used, its more like ‘enslaved’ or ‘claimed’ or ‘violated.’ This is implied within not just ancient texts but there are a few images from pottery that depict sexual domination, but never complete forced penetration… which is pretty much what Franklin Mott is doing to Tara at Sookie’s house. (So does this relate Sookie to Athena?) Mott doesn’t seem to be forcing himself on Tara but he is glamouring her at times, and it does seem like he absconds with her to Russell’s mansion. After the sexual misconduct on Sookie’s stairs, I mean Athena’s stairs, Cassandra is given to King Agamnemnon of the Greeks as a war prize, much like Franklin Mott does in the books; he passes Tara on to Mickey. It remains to be scene what happens at the end of this season. Cassandra eventually gives birth and delivers two boys, twins, that are thought to be Agamemnon’s. (I’ve already said elsewhere I think Tara is pregnant from the Hunter Souffle business, now I’m upping the bet to twins.)

Tara and Cassandra share a lot in common, some wefts of plot are eerily the same. Notice how Cassandra when fleeing from Ajax the Lesser did not run and seek refuge in Apollo’s temple, even though she had become his priestess. She fled to Athena’s instead? Tara did not run to her Apollo, Sam Merlotte, either. She decided to bunk with Sookie. Now you could say that Jason is her real Apollo figure. He fits much better into the sun god role, but Cassandra never idolized Apollo the way Tara does Jason. I think Jason is represented in the hero Aeneas, but that is just a stab in the dark.

Now this brings us to Cassandra in literature. The Oresteia was originally a series of four plays, but only three remain intact. (Interestingly, these plays were originally performed during the Dionysia festival.) Agamemnon, the story of the House of Atreus and Agamemnon’s return home from his victory over Troy is one of them. In the play, Cassandra and her twin boys enter the house only to be slaughtered by Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, who has a case of the Debbie Pelts, but worse.

Before Cassandra enters the house, she has a soliloquy in which it appears she goes mad but is in actuality either being possessed by Apollo or a mixture of madness and Apollo. To the audience and the Chorus she seems to be spitting out pure nonsense, but she is seeing the full history of the family of Atrues: their betrayals, sacrifices and cannibalism (heart eating) that has gone on within it. Professor Wikipedia had this to say about her soliloquy, “She evokes the same awe, horror and pity as do schizophrenics,” … “who often combine deep, true insight with utter helplessness, and who retreat into madness,” like Ruby Jean Reynolds.

Psychology is not my forte, but this does fit in with Carl Jung and archetypes, a topic pretty popular in these them parts. Apparently there is a psychological term named after the prophetess, which is referred to as either the Cassandra complex or Cassandra metaphor.

On the checklist for this condition are:

1) Dysfunctional relationships with the Apollo archetype
The Apollo archetype probably deserves its own entry, but wikipedia summarizes it as, “Individuals who resemble Apollo have difficulties that are related to emotional distance, such as communication problems, and the inability to be intimate.” (Sam barks in his sleep, and if he isn’t a loner, I don’t know who is.)

2) Suffering emotionally and physically as well as with bouts of hysteria
(Eggs beat her up; Maryann made her hysterical.)

3) Being perceived as disbelieved.
(‘E-egggz is dead,’ ‘But we’re in the same boat, Bill is missing’ comes to mind, as well as “The Comptons have always had money.”)

Also related to this complex is what is known as the Martha Mitchell effect, which is, according to Wikipedia again, “the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly.” This is exactly what Tara fears upon entering the mental health facility and in Lafayette’s car. Once she brings up Eggs and Maryann, no one will believe her and she’ll be toast.

Whether Tara actually possesses the true gift of prophecy or just the bold voice to tell it as she sees it, she shares many aspects in Cassandra’s fictional life as well as in the archetype of the angry woman with a history of true hysteria, you know all that black-eyed crap with MaryAnn.

{If you haven’t read the post on Ovid’s Metamorphoses it’s worth a gander, as well as the one on Maryann’s Rituals.}

* ‘Agamemnon’ by Aeschylus as translated by Robert Browning

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