I’ve been wondering about that; people consider incest to be incest when people share enough of their DNA to be closely related, and the God of Olympus have no DNA so they can’t technically commit incest; this is why none of their children have any defects in any regard.
But the MC and Aeson don’t share DNA, they share a soul. How many people on Olympus would consider that to be weird if they were into each other?
Yeah, but we are talking about Hades, Zeus and Poseidon. I don’t think any of them really wins the dad of the year award?
Zeus has expections over expectations (and an army of demigod children he got in the weirdest ways), and if what Saint can say about him is any indication is not the most caring father (I know I know, he just wants to avoid favoritism or something along the line)
Hades juggles rather succesful between Aeson and MC, but at the most I would imagine him to take it with humor? It would say much about his abilities as father (and nothing good) when he would worry about MC because of an Aeson-shaped cake. Honestly I would be more concernde how Aeson takes it, in his position?
And Poseidon seems to try as hard as possible considering the circumstances but like we all noticed, he is rather awkward. And you still could argue that it’s a little bit late with him trying. (And if you are mean you could interpret him not expecting anything from MC as a precautious move, because he doesn’t want to get his own ups up too much? So more self protection instead of caring for MC’s situation…But that indeed would be the very mean way to interpret it.)
@Sherlock221B All of the gods also got a small part of the Essence even if it’s only a splinter of what the Titans used to posses, and even less in comparison to the Essence. So I doubt they really would consider a relationship between Aeson and MC as incest. Interestingly Aeson and MC’s situation has a great similarity to the concept of twin flame souls that’s part of some esoteric believes.
Probably wouldn’t be all that good. Someone comes in out of nowhere and takes your friends, takes people’s attention, takes ultimate power from you and then finally takes your father? Of course we wouldn’t ‘take’ take Hades, but that’s certainly how Aeson would see it.
For the majority of the story, unless we make gigantic ground with Aeson, he’ll be intensely jealous of the MC for a multitude of reasons. He might act like he isn’t, but he’ll be incredibly envious of the Bearer possibly even more than he fears the Gods.
In regards to the Essence it’s almost completely different; yes, the Gods have some of the Essence, but with all of the Essence in them all combined, it’s so infinitesimally small that you’d need an electron microscope to see it. The Bearer and Aeson are the pure, unadulterated embodiments of the Essence, each make up 100% of it. And the Gods themselves are the least likely to find anything particularly weird; the populace of Olympus might have an objection or two even if the Gods don’t.
A cake of Aeson’s face? Why not give B&B a puppy each? Give them twin Welsh Corgis and have them run all over the Institute, following them to classes and whatnot (okay, maybe not Forging 101). I know that’ll make my Lavei’s birthday pretty freaking special 
If my Bearer Evander managed to get a husky-golden retriever mix for his birthday, he would proceed to claim his life is almost complete and then run off with it to adopt a bunny while he’s at it. 
But probably influenced in it’s manifestation by how MC themself will act… By now MC still is more of an outsider of the group and some weeks of building up friendship are nothing in comparison to years to strenghten them and learning to indeed for a change trusting people.
How Aeson takes MC becoming part of the group depends on how MC will act and how mature he himself is. A more hostile MC probably would get him easier enraged as a MC that tries to bound with him…but I also wonder how much good of a friend MC could become to the rest of the group if they are indeed rather mean/gruff to Aeson? So no reason to get jealous? The only person who’s position is unclear is Hades. What, okay, could be really bitter.
But should Aeson really get that jealous I also have to say that this is not really mainly MC’s problem to be honest. Someone who would get jealous over MC has to be really immature, more as trust issues alone would be sufficient to explain. That sounds like doubts he would have to figure out himself mostly, even when his friends can be supportive.
I would guess him to be rather worried about his own security on Olympus, depending on MCs agenda and probably irritated about the loss of his powers, but on the other side he sounds rather …snarky outside his hero persona when talking about his position on Olympus? So honestly I can’t see him being as jealous as you paint it.
Irritated, and insecure about his future maybe, probably revolted should MC try to degrade him to their adjunct, but much of this seems to depend on the way MC will act.
The populace of Olympus had put up with all the weird shit Zeus did. I doubt there exists anything that weirds this people out…
I disagree. It doesn’t really matter how mature or immature Aeson is, the Bearer is essentially stealing all that he is. Even though Thora (my Bearer) is an extremely patient person who’s way more idealistic than cynical, she’s essentially the finished product to Aeson’s prototype. Think about it like this; Aeson has spent his entire life in the persona that he is the greatest warrior in Olympus, that he is imbued with the Essence that makes him into a hero worthy of being the people’s champion. He’s so invested in that persona that he has trouble getting out of it and acting how he wants to act. And then once he hits 18…all of that is gone. He’s no longer the greatest warrior in Olympus, he’s no longer worthy of being the people’s champion. Because now they have Thora. He doesn’t even have the Essence anymore, which was essentially his one claim to being an individual. Thora now possesses the full Essence and is the greatest power in the universe. He’s been revered ever since he was born, but once he hits 18 he’ll be discarded by literally everybody because now Thora has arrived. Even if that’s not what ends up happening, nobody with a mindset like Aeson’s would be rational enough to think otherwise than a burning jealousy.
Putting up with something doesn’t necessarily mean accepting it. They may put up with what Zeus does, but that’s probably because it’s Zeus and they’ve gotten used to it.
If a coworker takes the apple in your lunch everyday, however mad you see eventually you’ll become accustomed to it. But if somebody else starts doing it out of the blue, I’d bet you’d be less than willing to accept them doing it as well.
If we’re talking breeds, and mixes in particular, my Altair would want nothing more than to have his personal mini-wolf, aka a husky-corgi mix:
Can you just imagine that little derp running all over the MC’s AP Greek History class? Goodness gracious
I’m sometimes appalled at how much we’ve messed with wolves and their evolution. This is not one of them times.
Judging from how hard Aeson works to maintain his hero reputation I think he might have some issues with his sense of security. A bearer who rocks the boat might be more frightening for him then someone who will take his power. After all he’s had 17 years to get used to that idea.
As far as his friends go I agree that his response would most likely very depending on the bearer.
To Aeson, a Bearer who rocks the boat and a Bearer who takes his power will probably be one and the same. Who’s going to look at a regular guy to be a hero when there’s somebody with literally infinite power at their disposal?
And 17 years doesn’t really matter if something like this happens; you can know something is going to happen for years in advance and still dread the day it comes every step of the way. With someone like Aeson and something as big as the Essence, I’d say that trepidation is pretty much a given.
Either that or he’ll just curl up in a ball and cry in a corner at the back of the room since he doesn’t really know how to take the MC’s affection for him.
Because the Bearer will always so easy win over the hearts of the people? That certainly will depend on the way the MC acts so this is not guaranted. Especially considering that the gods anyway treat them like the same person during the trial, what may be something to suffer from, if the MC wouldn’t have to suffer exactly the same and wouldn’t Aeson already have the support of the crowd. But also:
If Aeson really should think about it this way then I’m sorry to say this but yes, then he is immature. And I don’t really recall him putting all of his individuality on being the Bestower?
Why should during all the years he could get used to the thought that the Bearer is the one with the Essence build his sense of identity on this one thing that was anyway never really his?
Ever heard of a Byronic hero? Once the Bearer has the Essence, they don’t need to win the hearts of the people, only for them to acknowledge their power. Even if the MC is the biggest arsehole in the history of the universe…they still have ultimate power,so they’ll be the one who gets called on to save everyone because of their power. And in the trials, the Bearer doesn’t have the ultimate power yet, so there’s no discernible bias. It’s like House; nobody likes him, but everyone still goes to him anyway when they can’t do something because even though they know he’s insufferable, they also know that he’s clever enough to do what they can’t. If everybody went to Wilson instead simply because he’s nicer, they’d have a lot more bodies on their hands because although he’s nicer, he doesn’t have the same abilities as House.
I actually brought up this point about 1,000 or so posts back, but Rohie essentially told me to wait until his character is actually seen rather than his persona, so I can’t really answer this one as of now.
To be honest, I don’t know why people seem to believe that Aeson cares so much about the whole Hero whorship he is getting.
The way I understood it is that, yes, he does enjoy doing the right thing and helping people : he is taking the highroad! But I firmly believe that he cares far less about the accolades and the praises than one might think. The glory he gets from his public persona only serves to protect him, to prevent the gods from killing him without second thoughts! He made himself a Hero, a public figure, so that his death would be impossible to be quietly burried. And also to win himself some of the gods’s good opinion. Survival at all cost!
So I don’t think he would be jealous of giving away his half of the Essence, since he had his entire life to get used to the prospect.
And it’s not like he doesn’t understand how precarious the situation is for both the Bearer and himself. Until they have earned their immortality/eternal youth, they are sitting between two chairs. That kind of fosters more solidarity than jealousy.
Edit: Well, unless the Bearer is an ass. Then he might feel like they don’t deserve all that power, or rather he might feel it would be better if he had it, since it would be far less dangerous.
That all works under the assumption that the Bearer is willing to be the hero and doesn’t just nopes out to Cronus side and that it is so important for Aeson to be the hero an I already said: considering his lowkey snark about the whole fuss I doubt that.
And it still doesn’t change that if your right it indeed would be mostly a maturity problem of Aeson. A problem of him with his own self-image and trust-issues, both problems that are indeed not problems that need the Bearer to exist but are easy to project on them.
If he loses his sense of self because he clings on a mask/something unpersonal as being the owner of the Essence than he has to grow up and define himself seperated from those and on a stronger foundation.
When he gets jealous of the Bearer for being friends with his friends then he has to deal with his own trust issues or what else could bring him to belief that.
It’s not the MC but Aeson. And I don’t say that couldn’t be the case because that would be some great starting point for character development, but by now he seems more mature as that. He may feel jealous or insecure but the way you word it sounds as if his possebilities to deal with it are the ones of a rather immature person.
I’m not suggesting that he craves the persona, that he resents the Bearer for taking all that he loves away from him.
I’m suggesting that if you do the same thing and wear the same mask your entire life, as happy as you may be to take it off in the end that doesn’t make you any better at adapting to life without it. Aeson may live for the day that he can finally act himself, but if all he’s done is act the hero then how does he go from that to normality after spending his entire life as that?
I’m simply suggesting that Aeson may be jealous of the Bearer because the Bearer doesn’t have to change; that the jealousy is through the innate desire to keep everything the same not because he wants it to be the same, but because he’s been doing it for so long that he’s scared he doesn’t know what he’ll do without it.
And he may strive for the Gods good graces, but they’d never kill him; to kill him would be to kill the Bearer, and that would render the entire process redundant. They may make his life hell, but they wouldn’t kill him.
But I don’t know that he loves his persona so much.
After all, we have known him for like one day, and we already saw his mask fall at least twice. At the Hospital, where he was very swift in returning to his true self one he knew you were alone, and later when we can see how irritated he is because of all the people grabbing and oggling him.
Yes they would. Now that the Bearer is on Olympus, they totally would. The council already threatened us, saying they would kill us if we don’t perform to their expectations.
From the moment we arrived on Olympus, Aeson’s reputation became a safety net for the both of us. He is a Hero, and thus, they will think twice about using him to kill you because he is so universally loved. Obviously, he has put quite a lot of thoughts into that. More than us anyway.
Just because the MC defects to Cronus’ side doesn’t automatically make Aeson a hero. He’d the the next in line, of course, but I wonder how many people would consider him a hero as opposed to a delusional imbecile who’s going to get crushed into oblivion within a split second. That’s what I’d think of anyone who went up against ultimate power.
That’s much easier said than done. It’s easy to theoretically state that someone needs to grow up, but it’d be much harder to actually do it. I’m not doubting that he’d need to grow up and realise who he is outside of the persona, but again it’s much easier to theorise about something than to actually do it.
I think I mentioned about how he possibly despises the mask, but he would still cling to it because it’s all he knows.
And how do you know the mask dropped? His word? Just because he appears to have dropped the mask doesn’t mean he has; there’s always the potential for another mask. I find it singularly hard to believe that a mask he’s spent so long cultivating would just be dropped in an instant the second we showed up. He doesn’t even know that he can trust the Bearer yet, we’ve just met him. If someone is that naive, then I doubt they’d last very long in a political environment; they certainly wouldn’t last as long as Aeson has. [quote=“Nyxerie, post:5225, topic:15482”]
Yes they would. Now that the Bearer is on Olympus, they totally would. The council already threatened us, saying they would kill us if we don’t perform to their expectations.
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It’s called bluffing. Hera said that she’d kill us…and then was immediately slammed for saying that by multiple Gods, including the Trinity. The fact of the matter is, they can’t defeat Cronus without the power of the Essence; that’s the whole reason they brought it into existence again when a lot of them clearly didn’t want to. They recognised that they needed it.
The Gods would never actually kill us, the entire thing is a power play. To make us think that they’d kill us so we won’t step out of line against them. To kill us, they would have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Hera’s simply trying to showcase her power early, so that we’ll be too scared to rebel against what the Gods want us to do.
In some zoos, they tie a rope around a baby elephants leg and tie it to a post so they can’t break away. The baby elephant isn’t strong enough to break it, so they accept they’ll stay there forever. An adult elephant however is more than strong enough to break it ten times over, but they don’t try to because they accepted as children that they aren’t strong enough.
It’s a similar strategy; the entire move is a power play by Hera. It’s quite clever actually, not a lot of people would pick up on it due to her scaring the entire populace of Olympus shitless.
I’m an extremely cynical person, so maybe I’m being too harsh. It’s just better for security to, when you don’t know if you’re being told the truth, to believe somebody is lying rather than to believe they’re telling the truth. I’d probably be amazing in Game of Thrones.
I never said that it’s easy. from the beginning I just stated that the problems you attribute to Aeson are problems he has to deal with by becoming more mature and that the MC even when they could be the aim of his jealousy is only a trigger for his problems but certainly not the reason by “stealing all that he is.”
And honestly the position that Aeson holds is more as just the hero, because people like him. He won’t lose the better public image just because MC will become Olympus hero. I’m with @Nyxerie Aeson seems to be rather focused on securing his future. Remeber the room to which Saint made a remarke that this is how it looks in Aeson’s mind? That guy is planning, long time. I doubt that he would be that concerned with some shortlived lie like being a hero. Or being liked. Even when he got used to his persona, around Saint, Adonis and Calypso he certainly seems more at ease to let that mask down and to include them in his plans, where his mind by the way seems to be much more as it’s by his hero persona.